Boys will be boys. White boys will be white boys. Racist white boys will be racist white boys. Racist white boys from all-boy Catholic high schools will be racist shits, apparently.

Covington Catholic High School faced backlash on social media Saturday morning after video was posted and widely shared showing a tense incident involving indigenous marchers and a group of young men in Washington, D.C.

The video shows a young man wearing a “Make America Great Again” cap standing near and staring at a man who is drumming as other young men surrounding them cheer and chant. Some of the onlookers appear to wear clothing bearing insignia from Covington Catholic High School in Park Hills.

Covington Catholic High School … Read the rest

Pence is Offended. Deeply Offended. Profoundly Offended.

It’s about this Christian Skool where his wife has taken a job.

“My wife and I have been in the public eye for quite a while. We’re used to the criticism,” Pence said in an interview with Eternal Word Television Network. “But I have to tell you, to see major news organizations attacking Christian education, is deeply offensive to us.

“We have a rich tradition in America of Christian education and, frankly, religious education broadly defined. We celebrate it. The freedom of religion is enshrined in the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution prohibits a religious test for holding a public office and so we’ll let the other critics roll

Paul Farhi at the Post:

The fact that the normally buttoned-up special counsel’s office felt compelled to issue a statement suggests that the story’s conclusions were too baldly stated and too consequential to stay unchallenged. In effect, Mueller’s office seemed to be saying that BuzzFeed went too far and got some things wrong, though it did not say how or what.

In fact, what it didn’t say was important, too. It didn’t say Mueller had no evidence that Trump had sought to influence Cohen — just that BuzzFeed’s description of such statements was inaccurate. Nor did it spell out which reported statements were inaccurate and in what way. Further, it offered no details about how BuzzFeed had mischaracterized any

They never talk. They talked.

The special counsel rarely speaks. Whoa. https://t.co/nglu6h4Ney

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) January 19, 2019

We cannot underestimate the statement disputing Buzzfeed’s story from the special counsel. I’m sure it pained them to do this. I’m sure this went through many levels at the DOJ and FBI. They don’t talk. This is massive.

— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) January 19, 2019

https://twitter.com/AdamSerwer/status/1086424301765574661

Shorter Special Counsel statement: ‘Your report may not be precise … but, more importantly WE don’t leak.’ #CarryOn https://t.co/SGBrOD4m3j

— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) January 19, 2019

In other words they’re saying they didn’t leak anything?… Read the rest

Oh  now what?

Mueller’s team almost never comments on anything, but BuzzFeed reports that it is calling BuzzFeed’s Cohen story “not accurate.” https://t.co/0w2Y13gpgz

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 19, 2019

In other words: the Mueller team’s wording leaves open the possibility that some of the story might be accurate. But the fact that they called substantial elements of the story inaccurate should be taken seriously.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 19, 2019

https://twitter.com/Susan_Hennessey/status/1086424956672622592… Read the rest

The state of this.

https://twitter.com/alan_maguire/status/1086249796367724546

Graham Linehan was not cautioned. The police came by for a chat because a couple of the usual Robespierres told them to.

This kind helpful fella even offers the aspiring Robespierres a model email they can send to the police about a guy having opinions on the internet.

https://twitter.com/alan_maguire/status/1086260846420996096

Just imagine calling it “mutilation” to cut off healthy breasts or penises. “Gender confirmation surgery” is the correct ScienTific term and not at all loaded or political or shaped by a particular ideological fantasy. Similarly it is “height confirmation surgery” to have one’s healthy head or legs cut off.

And that nonsense is his only substantive point, the rest of it is all “inappropriate” and [unspecified] … Read the rest

Golf balls. Didn’t think of that, didja.

Two years ago, a 16-year old diver named Alex Weber was swimming off Pebble Beach along the Pacific near Carmel, Calif. “My dad raised me underwater,” says Weber, and she means it. She’s a free diver: no scuba tanks; she just holds her breath. She was diving in a small cove and looked down and saw something weird. “You couldn’t see the sand,” she recalls, still sounding incredulous. “It was completely white.”

White with golf balls.

Pebble Beach isn’t near Carmel, it’s in Carmel – or, if you prefer, immediately adjacent to it, but both are small places. Of course Carmel is a town while Pebble Beach is a resort, but anyway, … Read the rest

The security breach aspect is getting attention.

A point just made by @KatyTurNBC and @AliVelshi on @MSNBC, by releasing this "tit for tat" letter, the Trump administration also outed a foreign trip by the person second in line to the presidency. These trips are held close to the vest for reasons of operational security. https://t.co/ajuu9tRbWv

— Nope. (@JoyAnnReid) January 17, 2019

The details of Pelosi's planned travel to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan — particularly those destinations — had not been previously announced. Earlier today her aides asked news organizations not to report that the trip would take place, citing national security.

— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) January 17, 2019

Point of fact: for security reasons, trips to active war-zones are

I had jury duty Monday and Tuesday so I missed some headlines. I missed the very public murder of the mayor of Gdańsk.

The mayor of the northern Polish city of Gdańsk, Paweł Adamowicz, was stabbed on Sunday evening in an apparent assassination attempt in front of thousands of people during a charity concert.

Adamowicz, who has served as mayor of Gdańsk since 1998, was resuscitated at the scene and rushed to a nearby hospital where he underwent five hours of surgery. Doctors described his condition as “critical” and “serious”.

And he didn’t make it.

Adamowicz is a powerful liberal voice in a country that has been governed by the rightwing Law and Justice party since 2015. He is

Grim.

Over two days in November, record-breaking heat in Australia’s north wiped out almost one-third of the nation’s spectacled flying foxes, according to researchers.

The animals, also known as spectacled fruit bats, were unable to survive in temperatures which exceeded 42C.

They plummeted out of trees by the thousand.

Last week, researchers from Western Sydney University finalised their conclusion that about 23,000 spectacled flying foxes died in the event on 26 and 27 November.

That tally was reached through counting by wildlife volunteers who visited seven flying fox camps following the heatwave.

There were only about 75,000 going in.

Flying foxes are no more sensitive to extreme heat than some other species, experts say.

But because they often gather

Thieves fall out department. Cohen helped Trump rig polls, Cohen stiffed the people doing the rigging, Cohen kept some of the money Trump gave him to pay the poll-riggers…it’s grifters all the way down.

In early 2015, a man who runs a small technology company showed up at Trump Tower to collect $50,000 for having helped Michael Cohen, then Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, try to rig online polls in his boss’s favor before the presidential campaign.

In his Trump Organization office, Mr. Cohen surprised the man, John Gauger, by giving him a blue Walmart bag containing between $12,000 and $13,000 in cash and, randomly, a boxing glove that Mr. Cohen said had been worn by a Brazilian mixed-martial arts

Why do so many women keep buying into this line?

"We can argue all day, but trans people are dying, and I don't want to be part of a feminism that allows that to happen…"

Important, empathetic talk from @MillyAbraham on why feminism should be allied with trans rights #LwithTheT #ComeOutForTransEquality https://t.co/pnHCyz7K0q

— Stonewall (@stonewalluk) January 16, 2019

We can argue all day, but trans people are dying, and I don’t want to be part of a feminism that allows that to happen.

I haven’t watched the TED talk and don’t intend to, I’m just addressing that one sentence that Stonewall UK thinks is so convincing.

Why in hell does Milly Abraham single out feminism as somehow allowing trans people … Read the rest

Aw no.

It says women’s march in the url, but…

THE MARCH – January 19

We kick off a the anniversary of the first Womxn’s March on Seattle with a RALLY. Hear from the region’s most powerful progressive womxn leaders as they speak about the greatest threats and most inspiring triumphs our communities have experienced in the past year. Af­­ter the rally, we will MARCH to Seattle Center, where we continue our day of service and learning. At Seattle Center, attend one of several “Activism 101” WORKSHOPS designed to energize, illuminate, and activate our marchers for the work to come in 2019 and beyond. See the most recent updates about the march on our website.

But it wasn’t… Read the rest