News from the Barr hearing.

In William Barr’s first day of confirmation hearings to be attorney general, one of the key topics was special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. He’s been pressed on whether he’ll make the final report public, whether he’d consider recusing himself, and whether he’d fire Mueller, and he’s fielded questions on his independence. Here are some of the takeaways from the first day so far:

• Barr suggested he is inclined to think a sitting president cannot be indicted. “For 40 years the position of the executive branch is that you can’t indict a sitting president,” Barr said, adding that he hasn’t read those opinions in a long time, but

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Gaby Hinsliff suggests that Piers Morgan is actually part of the advertising campaign.

What would the advertising industry do without Piers Morgan?

Whenever they need a grumpy middle-aged man to be triggered, there he is, reliable as clockwork. He did it with Greggs’ vegan sausage roll, helping catapult their January marketing wheeze onto the front pages by complaining that it was a monstrosity. And he’s done it again with the new Gillette ad targeting toxic masculinity, which twists its familiar “the best a man can get” tagline to suggest that men can do a lot better than Harvey Weinstein and fighting in the street.

It’s true! We’re all pitching in to help sell this shaving cream.… Read the rest

The Guardian reports the deep outrage at the wild claim that men shouldn’t bully or sexually harass.

Gillette is under fire from men’s rights activists and rightwing publications for a new advertisement that engages with the #MeToo movement and plays on its 30-year tagline “The Best A Man Can Get”, asking instead: “Is this the best a man can get?”

The advertisement features news clips of reporting on the #MeToo movement, as well as images showing sexism in films, in boardrooms, and of violence between boys, with a voice over saying: “Bullying, the MeToo movement against sexual harassment, toxic masculinity, is this the best a man can get?”

The film has generated heated debate and plenty of criticism.

Far-right

This is startling.

I've used @Gillette razors my entire adult life but this absurd virtue-signalling PC guff may drive me away to a company less eager to fuel the current pathetic global assault on masculinity.
Let boys be damn boys.
Let men be damn men. https://t.co/Hm66OD5lA4

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) January 14, 2019

The ad is just saying don’t be a bully and don’t be a sexual harasser…and Piers Morgan is saying YES, DO be a bully and a sexual harasser. And he’s calling it “virtue-signalling PC guff” to say don’t be a bully and don’t be a sexual harasser?

He’s also saying, whether he realizes it or not, that being male requires being a bully and a sexual harasser … Read the rest

Aw isn’t that sweet – Trump had a winning sports team over for a fancy dinner to celebrate.

President Trump is serving McDonald’s and Wendy’s at the White House on Monday night — but it’s far from the first time the president’s enjoyment of fast food has been apparent.

On Monday, Trump announced plans to serve the Clemson football team fast food during their visit to the White House, following the team’s national-championship win. The decision was in part because most of the White House staff is furloughed during the government shutdown, which is now in its 24th day, White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley told CNN.

Still in the fancy styrofoam boxes and everything!

https://twitter.com/taylomason/status/1084947929293643776

Isn’t … Read the rest

Yes I’m sure women who’ve just given birth will REALLY appreciate that question.

https://twitter.com/binarythis/status/1082503987331457024… Read the rest

Oh here we go – is Rahaf al-Qunun just another tool of the Global Conspiracy of Islamophobia?

Now, as al-Qunun begins a new life in a new country, questions are being raised about the reasons for Canada’s speedy decision to grant her asylum, the message it sends and its implications for the future of the country’s already-frosty relationship with Saudi Arabia, where an estimated 17,000 Canadians currently live.

“Canada and Saudi Arabia are in a political battle currently, so because this woman is Saudi, my sense is that there was some political motive in promoting the ‘rescuing’ of a Saudi girl,” said Ryerson University professor Mehrunnisa Ali.

“Of course, the rescuing of oppressed people is a Western narrative in many

Julie Bindel on “honor” crimes against women such as Rahaf al-Qunun:

It is just the latest example of the fear and abuse many women experience in communities in which ‘honour-based violence’ is the norm. This is nothing short of a disgrace – and the fact that so many police and prosecutors take a ‘softly, softly approach’ shows us the level or cowardice and incompetence in dealing with this issue.

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Honour-based violence is the most extreme end of an ideology that says female sexuality should be totally controlled by men. In England and Wales, there were 137,000 women and girls affected by female genital mutilation (FGM) in 2015, and last year the UK’s Forced Marriage Unit provided support in

Carl Bernstein says Mueller’s report is going to say Trump helped Putin break the US.

The Post reported that Trump has gone to “extraordinary lengths” to conceal direct conversations he has had with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Times article revealed that the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into Trump after he fired former bureau director James Comey in 2017, suspecting the president could be working on behalf of Russia. Trump has angrily denied allegations that he worked with Russia and has regularly attacked the media for reporting on the investigation. But Bernstein slammed Trump’s dismissal of the probe.

“This is about the most serious counterintelligence people we have in the U.S. government saying, ‘Oh, my God, the president’s

Le tout Twitter is talking about David De Gea’s 11 saves in one half. He’s pretty amazing.

https://twitter.com/DeGeaFacts/status/1084535808491692032… Read the rest

The Post has a transcript of a meeting of some House Republicans in 2016.

They’re talking about Ukraine. Rodgers asks how things are going there.

Ryan: He basically…He has this really interesting riff about… people have said that they have Ukraine fatigue, and it’s really Russian fatigue because what Russia is doing is doing to us, financing our populists, financing people in our governments to undo our governments, you know, messing with our oil and gas energy, all the things Russia does to basically blow up our country, they’re just going to roll right through us and go to the Baltics and everyone else.

Rodgers: Yes!

Ryan: So we should not have Ukraine fatigue, we should have Russian fatigue.

CBC reports:

A Saudi teen who was granted asylum in Canada after fleeing from her allegedly abusive family has arrived in Canada.

Her flight from Seoul, South Korea, landed in Toronto a day after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his government would accept 18-year-old Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun as a refugee.

Al-Qunun, wearing a hoodie emblazoned with the word Canada, waved to reporters as she walked through Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, but did not comment on her arrival in Canada.

She was accompanied by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, who said al-Qunun will be going to her unspecified “new home.”

Yes, don’t specify it; we don’t want her father knowing where she is.

Chris Young/Canadian Press

Note UNHCR cap … Read the rest