I feel that my life thus far has not been sufficiently devoted to paying attention to Mark Meadows. I hope to do better.

Kashana Cauley wrote about his dramatic tantrum at the Cohen hearing in the Times:

“You and I,” he said to Representative Elijah Cummings, the Oversight Committee chairman, who is black, “have a personal relationship that isn’t based on color.” He insisted that he couldn’t be racist because he had nieces and nephews of color.

It was a performance that he’s clearly hoping will win him one of next year’s Oscars. He defended his record on race, so we should cast aside that time in 2012 when he embraced the racist birtherism theory to his supporters by saying

What bullshit is this?!

From Massachusetts to Utah, small community theater productions of To Kill a Mockingbird are being shut down under threat of a lawsuit by the producer of the new Broadway production.

It doesn’t matter that the new version, penned by Aaron Sorkin, is completely different from the Christopher Sergel play that’s been performed by high school students and community theater actors for decades. Nor does it matter that the community theaters paid a licensing fee of at least $100 per performance to the Dramatic Publishing Company, which owns the rights to the earlier version of the play.

What matters, lawyers for Broadway producer Scott Rudin say, is that according to the contract between Dramatic and

I saw this the other day but didn’t get around to it.

A revised statement from Little, Brown and Company. pic.twitter.com/zSQp1Q132C

— Little, Brown and Co (@littlebrown) February 26, 2019

We will work with E. J. Levy to publish her novel with sensitivity to the issues that have been raised, including the use of the proper pronouns to describe Dr. Barry’s embodiment.

The “proper pronouns” forsooth – they might as well be obeying a demand for submission from the god-emperor. Use the proper pronouns or it’s ten years in the slammer for lèse-majesté.

It’s interesting to think about how many novels there have been in which women are portrayed as evil schemers, bloodsucking sex fiends, stupid empty dependents, silly vain … Read the rest

Okay…

Transgender cyclist wins Dutch professional women’s cycling event. At the age of 44. The average age of her 8 team mates is 24. This is all fine, though. Totally fine. https://t.co/rAwq7szGhn

— Ben (@BenWlv) March 1, 2019

Googles

Yes, that’s a male body in the middle.… Read the rest

Paul Krugman gives himself a break from thinking about Trump to think about the Trump Princess.

You see, recently she said something that would have been remarkable coming from any Republican, but was truly awesome coming from the Daughter in Chief.

The subject under discussion was the proposal, part of the Green New Deal, that the government offer a jobs guarantee. Ms. Trump trashed the notion, claiming that Americans “want to work for what they get,” that they want to live in a country “where there is the potential for upward mobility.”

O.K., this was world-class lack of self-awareness: It doesn’t get much better than being lectured on self-reliance by an heiress whose business strategy involves trading on

News out of Missouri:

The Missouri House of Representatives voted 117-39 Wednesday to approve a bill that would effectively ban abortions in Missouri except for medical emergencies.

The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Nick Schroer, R-O’Fallon, would ban abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which is usually around six weeks of pregnancy.

The legislation, sponsored by someone who will never, under any circumstance, be forced to undergo 9 months of increasing physical strain and then hours of trauma, to force people of the sex he is not to undergo 9 months of increasing physical strain and then hours of trauma. A man sponsored legislation that would (if passed) force women to suffer pregnancy and then childbirth against their wills. … Read the rest

Via Acolyte of Sagan, a hideous crime in Argentina:

An 11-year old girl who became pregnant after being raped was forced to give birth after Argentine authorities refused to allow her the abortion to which she was entitled.

11. She’s 11. ELEVEN.

The authorities ignored repeated requests for an abortion from the child, called “Lucía” to protect her identity, as well as her mother and a number of Argentine women’s right activists. After 23 weeks of pregnancy, she had to undergo a caesarean section on Tuesday. The baby is unlikely to survive.

They wouldn’t let her end the pregnancy that was criminally forced on her, then they ripped her open. In other words the rapist raped her and then … Read the rest

No surprise, but still horrifying. The (non-)mystery of Prince Jared’s security clearance is solved:

President Trump ordered his chief of staff to grant his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, a top-secret security clearance last year, overruling concerns flagged by intelligence officials and the White House’s top lawyer, four people briefed on the matter said.

Sure, that’s fine – that scummy little weasel of a real estate hustler can’t possibly do any harm with access to top-secret intelligence, any more than his wife’s father can do any harm with access to top-secret intelligence and nuclear weapons.

Mr. Trump’s decision in May so troubled senior administration officials that at least one, the White House chief of staff at the time,

Another clash between people who oppose the buying and selling of women and people who favor it:

A London sex-work researcher is adding her voice to the growing dismay over the police decision to begin releasing the names of men accused of buying sex, as a petition demanding police reverse the policy is launched.

Chief John Pare announced the new policy at last week’s police board meeting, touting the move as another tool in the fight against human trafficking.

The change was championed by the London Abused Women’s Centre and others advocating for an end to prostitution, but it drew a swift backlash from organizations representing sex workers and their allies advocating for the continuation of prostitution.

“I

Hmm.

President Trump called @mattgaetz last night from Hanoi to talk the Cohen testimony and the threats (since rescinded) Gaetz made about Cohen.
"I was happy to do it for you. You just keep killing it," Gaetz was heard telling him.
(Gaetz told me he doesn't discuss calls w/POTUS)

— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) February 28, 2019

Interesting, but full of holes. “Gaetz was heard” by whom? Where was this? Would Gaetz really exchange criminal chitchat with Trump in the presence of witnesses? How does Dovere know it was Trump? How does whoever heard what Gaetz said know it was Trump?

Unsubstantiated.… Read the rest

Michael Cohen kept me from other things yesterday, so now: Cardinal Pell found guilty.

Of what?

Raping children.

Cardinal George Pell, once the third most powerful man in the Vatican and Australia’s most senior Catholic, has been found guilty of child sexual abuse after a trial in Melbourne.

…

Pell, who is on leave from his role in Rome as Vatican treasurer, was found guilty of sexually penetrating a child under the age of 16 as well as four charges of an indecent act with a child under the age of 16. The offences occurred in December 1996 and early 1997 at St Patrick’s Cathedral, months after Pell was inaugurated as archbishop of Melbourne.

…

Pope Francis, who

Rod Liddle congratulates the men winning women’s competitions:

Already a Democratic party representative, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, is insisting that the US powerlifting tournaments allow transgender women to compete, so that people who look very much like Geoff Capes, and have the same chromosomes as Geoff Capes, and the same bone structure and musculature, can compete against women. Meanwhile, the fastest female college sprinter in the US is CeCe Telfer, who, once again, is not what you or I or science would call a lady, and one of the world champions in women’s cycling is a chap called Rachel McKinnon, whom I have mentioned here before.

…

Those who support the rights of transgender women to compete in

Charles Pierce is blistering about the Republicans’ performance in that hearing yesterday.

Not one Republican asked a question about the specific offenses that Cohen had illuminated in his opening statement.

Why is that? I suppose because they don’t doubt any of it? But then why do they continue to support him? Because it’s worth it to them to stick it to women, stick it to the poor, stick it to brown immigrants, stick it to people of color generally.

And everybody kept yielding time to the egregious ranking Republican member, Jim Jordan of Ohio, or to Jordan’s fellow Freedom Caucasian, Mark Meadows of North Carolina, and those two jamokes couldn’t get out of their own way.

Jordan insisted that

A theme emerges.

https://twitter.com/sarahditum/status/1101147666938056704

https://twitter.com/suzanne_moore/status/1101145818730500098

https://twitter.com/HadleyFreeman/status/1101147269099859968

When people say "what has Julie Bindel ever done for women in prison" – her tireless and fearless campaigning for women is humbling. https://t.co/etz11iLvn0

— sianushka (@sianushka) February 28, 2019

… Read the rest