Janice Turner in the Times:

In 2005, when WH Smith sold Playboy-branded pencil cases, parents argued that little girls were being groomed into porn culture; in 2011, when the Playboy club reopened in Mayfair, it was picketed by feminists who, like Gloria Steinem, saw it as a “gendered version of a minstrel show”; in 2017, Hugh Hefner’s obituaries catalogued the misogyny of his porn empire and sordid mansion. But in 2019, posing for Playboy is “empowering” and qualifies you to be hired as a role model for Britain’s most vulnerable children.

What did I miss? Despite PR spin by Hefner’s son Cooper, men still don’t read it for the articles.

When I saw that Munroe Bergdorf, whose day job

Kenan Malik thinks maybe it shouldn’t be a crime to help people in emergency situations.

In Arizona on 11 June, a jury was unable to reach a verdict on Scott Daniel Warren, a college lecturer accused of conspiracy to transport and harbour migrants after providing them with food and shelter. He faced up to 20 years in jail. He may still do if there’s a retrial.

Meanwhile, in Sicily, Pia Klemp, the German captain of the boat Sea-Watch 3, was charged with assisting in illegal immigration after rescuing migrants in distress in the Mediterranean. She, too, faces up to 20 years in prison.

Warren and Klemp are the latest victims of a disturbing trend that has gone

Sarah Sanders was a terrible press secretary but Arwa Mahdawi suggests that wasn’t her real job.

Sanders was never really hired to be a press secretary. Her real job, I’d venture, was to be a Very Visible Woman. Her real job was to be the female face of a deeply misogynistic administration; to play the role of the empowered working mother and make the Trump administration’s crass patriarchy more palatable.

Mind you, it cuts into the Very Visible bit if you stop holding press briefings.

There’s no better example of how effective Sanders was at using her sex as a shield than the speed with which a number of high-profile female journalists jumped to Sanders’ defense when Michelle Wolf

Robert Reich itemizes the corruption:

When he was in Congress, the current White House acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, pocketed tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from payday lenders, then proposed loosening regulations on them. Mulvaney was also acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, of all things.

Let’s have a refresher on what payday lenders are.

According to a 2015 study by the Pew Charitable Trusts, 12 million Americans take out payday loans each year and spend $7 billion on loan fees. Though the interest rates commonly are disguised as fees, they effectively range from 300%-500% annual percentage rate (APR).

Compare that the 15%-30% APR on credit cards or 10%-25% rate for a

Yay progressive Vermont?

Vermont health insurance regulators are planning to tweak Medicaid rules so transgender youth no longer have to wait until age 21 to seek gender-affirming surgery.

The changes are aimed at removing barriers for people seeking a suite of surgeries in order to alleviate gender dysphoria, a conflict between a person’s gender identity and physical gender, said Nissa James, policy director for the Department of Vermont Health Access.

Well, see, that’s one of those things that can swing either way, depending on how you look at it. It’s “removing barriers” or it’s “removing protections” – depending on how terrific you think it is that kids under 18 can get their breasts or penises cut off because they … Read the rest

The Justice Department agrees with Trump that he doesn’t have to show anyone his tax returns if he doesn’t want to, so there.

The Justice Department released Friday its legal opinion supporting the Treasury secretary’s refusal to hand over President Donald Trump’s tax returns.

Last month, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal issued a subpoena to Treasury and the IRS after the agencies rebuffed the Democrat’s request for six years of the President’s personal and business tax returns. Neal is invoking a little-known provision of the tax code which states the Treasury Secretary “shall furnish” the committee with the return information.

Legal experts are not impressed.

https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1139645474347134977

This is a pretty aggressive argument from DOJ, basically saying

The Guardian two days ago:

The NSPCC has offered the trans activist Munroe Bergdorf a “full, frank and unreserved apology” for abruptly cutting ties with her in the face of social media criticism of her appointment.

The child protection charity announced last week it would have “no ongoing relationship” with Bergdorf, 48 hours after she told her Twitter followers how proud she was to have become the first LGBT+ campaigner for its counselling service Childline.

Bergdorf, a model, said she had not been contacted by the charity before it issued its statement abruptly ending their relationship with her and, in a letter seen by the Guardian, nearly 150 NSPCC employees spoke of their “embarrassment and shame” at their

The birthday boy.

This exchange demonstrates why Trump’s lawyers didn’t let him testify under oath. Trump contradicts former White House Counsel Don McGahn, who is corroborated by other evidence, and claims McGahn made it up because he wanted to look like a good lawyer. pic.twitter.com/s9OQ8MaRjc

— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) June 14, 2019

… Read the rest

Like a toddler with a flamethrower.

Nearly two years ago, FBI Director Chris Wray set up an office tasked solely with stopping the type of Russian interference efforts that infected the 2016 campaign.

On Wednesday night, President Donald Trump undercut the whole operation in a matter of seconds.

Which, if you think about it, makes total sense – the Russians want Trump, so naturally he wants them to interfere. He doesn’t want the FBI to stop them; he wants the FBI to open the door for them and ask if they’d like a sandwich.

In an ABC News interview, the president first proclaimed he would have no problem accepting dirt on his opponents from a foreign power, then said

No no no, cry the Republicans, we must not have laws requiring candidates to alert the FBI if a foreign government – say, Saudi Arabia? North Korea? Turkey? – offered help. That would be…erm…umm…inconvenient! That’s it! It would be too much trouble, so no.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) blocked an effort by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) to pass a bill via unanimous consent requiring campaigns to report any offers of foreign assistance to the FBI.

“We are all for free and fair and honest elections. … These reporting requirements are overbroad. Presidential campaigns would have to worry about disclosure at a variety of levels. So many different levels. Consider this: vendors that work for a campaign, people that are

Sarah Sanders is leaving. Someone even worse will replace her, but at least we won’t have to look at that furious scowl any more.

Sarah Sanders should leave the White House confident that she left no lie untold, no bond of trust unbroken, no American value untwisted, no obligation to the people not subordinated to her loyalty to her boss, no hypocrisy unexplored. As a failure, she was complete.

— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) June 13, 2019

I won’t believe Sarah Sanders has quit until I hear her personally deny it.

— Damien Owens (@OwensDamien) June 13, 2019

BREAKING: Sarah Huckabee Sanders is leaving the White House at the end of June.

Sanders has notoriously lied to the press and the

A conversation from 30-some years ago:

https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1138813927754743808

Via Paste Magazine for greater ease of reading:

Pat Buchanan: Who are your favorite authors?

Donald Trump: Well, I have a number of favorite authors. I think Tom Wolfe is excellent.

Pat Buchanan: Did you read Vanity of the the Bonfires?

Donald Trump: I did not.

Pat Buchanan: Bonfire of the Vanities, excuse me.

Tom Braden: What book are you reading now? [Crosstalk]

Donald Trump: I reading my own book again because I think it’s so fantastic Tom.

Pat Buchanan: What’s the best book you’ve read beside Art of the Deal?

Donald Trump: I really like Tom Wolfe last book. And I think he’s a great author. He’s done a beautiful job —

Business Insider reports that Saudi Arabia uses a tracking number on the packaging of phones to track down women who leave the country.

Women who flee Saudi Arabia expect to be chased.

They expect their friends to be interviewed, their social media to be scoured, their passports to be frozen.

They mostly do not expect Saudi government agents to hunt down the old box for their iPhone.

But why do they expect to be chased, though? I realize Saudi Arabia doesn’t allow women to travel without a male “guardian” but I don’t see why it feels the need to continue that beyond its own borders.

The fact that such techniques are being employed shows how seriously Saudi Arabia takes 

What is he, six?

….call the FBI about these calls and meetings? How ridiculous! I would never be trusted again. With that being said, my full answer is rarely played by the Fake News Media. They purposely leave out the part that matters.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 13, 2019

“You leave stuff on the floor too! You leave the chairs on the floor, and the table, and the rug – you should get all your stuff off the floor too! Waaaaaaaah!”

Yes, Don, we know you talk to foreign governments. (By the way the royals are not that. You can talk to all the Romanovs you like.) The issue wasn’t talking tout court, and we’re not so … Read the rest