An equalities watchdog has stepped in on the BBC-Carrie Gracie confrontation.

The Equalities and Human Rights Commission has written to the BBC to seek answers about allegations of pay discrimination following the resignation of Carrie Gracie as its China editor over its “secretive and illegal” pay culture.

The BBC is also facing the prospect of lawsuits from female employees who believe they have been paid less than men for doing the same jobs.

It’s all very disappointing, not to say infuriating.

The journalist, who has worked for the BBC for 30 years, said the corporation had offered to increased her pay from £135,000 a year to £180,000 but she refused because it did not guarantee her equality with its other

Carrie Gracie, the BBC’s China editor, wrote an open letter:

Dear BBC audience

My name is Carrie Gracie and I have been a BBC journalist for three decades. With great regret, I have left my post as China editor to speak out publicly on a crisis of trust at the BBC.

The BBC belongs to you, the licence fee payer. I believe you have a right to know that it is breaking equality law and resisting pressure for a fair and transparent pay structure.

In thirty years at the BBC, I have never sought to make myself the story and never publicly criticised the organisation I love. I am not asking for more money. I believe I am very

Holy shit. The case against the Bundys for that time they drew guns on the Feds has been thrown out.

A federal judge in Las Vegas dismissed charges against Cliven Bundy and his sons, Ammon and Ryan, on Monday.

Judge Gloria M. Navarro of Federal District Court, in a ruling from the bench, said that the government’s missteps in withholding evidence against the three Bundy family members and a supporter, Ryan W. Payne, were so grave that the indictment against them would be dismissed.

…

The 2014 standoff, the focus of Monday’s hearing, was set off when the Bureau of Land Management seized cattle from Cliven Bundy’s ranch in Bunkerville, Nev., in an attempt to force him to pay

Ari Berman covers the voting rights beat. Today he explains the National Voter Registration Act. In 1988 barely half of eligible voters voted in the presidential election, which was the lowest rate since the 1920s – decades before the Civil Rights movement and the Voting Rights Act.

In an effort to increase participation, Democrats in Congress—backed by a few Republicans— drafted the National Voter Registration Act, a bill that would require states to allow voters to register at Department of Motor Vehicle offices and other public agencies.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, led the opposition to the legislation. “This bill wants to turn every agency, bureau, and office of state government into a vast voter registration machine,” 

Dana Goodyear at the New Yorker takes a look at “the purge” so far.

I’m calling it the Purge,” a friend who works in Hollywood told me, a few days into the post-Weinstein era. Off the top of his head, he listed half a dozen men in the entertainment business whose behavior, he hoped, would no longer be condoned. In the weeks to come, they started toppling, joined by others, in a seemingly never-ending cascade, the world’s longest domino trick. The morning-news anchor, the worldly talk-show host, the animation genius with the awful shirts, “feminist” men, liberals, tortured artists, moguls, icons, “bad boys,” funny guys, even the folksy curmudgeon from public radio: they are being fired; stepping down; awkwardly

Uh oh – emergency emergency – a woman appears to have ambition. DANGER.

In recent months, New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand seems to have begun positioning herself for a presidential run in 2020. She’s been a vocal supporter of the #MeToo movement, pushed for Al Franken’s resignation, and endured a gross Twitter feud with the president. But despite her rising celebrity, a new op-ed in the Daily Beast suggests Gillibrand is too “too transparently opportunistic to be a viable candidate.”

Yeah. She’s supposed to be flirtatious about it, not just walk right up and say she wants it. Directness is great in a man but in a woman it’s gross and scary and emasculating.

In an

If tweets can get tenured academics bullied out of their jobs then why can’t they get presidents scolded out of theirs?

The last 12 months have seen one controversy after another over the tweets of George Ciccariello-Maher, an associate professor of politics and global studies at Drexel University. In a series of incidents, he has made statements that led to calls for his dismissal. In several instances, the university has criticized him. Ciccariello-Maher and his supporters have said that his comments have been distorted and that his academic freedom has been attacked.

On Thursday, he announced on Twitter that he was leaving his tenured job at Drexel. “After nearly a year of harassment by right-wing, white supremacist media outlets and

Jennifer Rubin at the Post says it’s a stunt.

The move by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) marks a major escalation in conservatives’ challenges to the FBI’s credibility as the agency investigates whether any Trump associates committed crimes. Another Republican, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), joined in the letter to the Justice Department.

Their letter makes what is called a criminal referral to the Justice Department, suggesting it investigate the dossier author, former British spy Christopher Steele, for possibly lying to the FBI. It is a crime to lie to FBI agents about a material fact relevant to an ongoing investigation.

This is an outrageous political stunt, one with no legal ramifications and obviously designed to take the heat

In case we still haven’t had enough farcical distraction yet, here’s another installment:

More than a year after Republican leaders promised to investigate Russian interference in the presidential election, two influential Republicans on Friday made the first known congressional criminal referral in connection with the meddling — against one of the people who sought to expose it.

Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a senior committee member, told the Justice Department they had reason to believe that a former British spy, Christopher Steele, lied to federal authorities about his contacts with reporters regarding information in the dossier, and they urged the department to investigate. The committee is

Don’s attempts to make that Wolff guy go away aren’t working out for him.

The author of a scathing new book about President Trump said on Friday that the president’s attempt to block its publication would not only help with sales but would also confirm the book’s key finding: Mr. Trump is unfit for office.

Speaking on the “Today” show, Michael Wolff, the author of “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” called the administration’s attempt to block the book “extraordinary” and dismissed the president’s criticisms of him out of hand.

“My credibility is being questioned by a man who has less credibility than, perhaps, anyone who has ever walked on earth at this point,” Mr. Wolff said.

Or … Read the rest

Walter Shaub, former Director of the Office of Government Ethics, on Twitter this morning:

https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/949260106314772480

https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/949260595857158144

https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/949260905174401024

https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/949261034392641536

Then he went on CNN to talk about it.

"I don't have words I can use on TV this morning to describe how angry I am to learn this," says ex-Office of Gov't Ethics director Walter Shaub of reports Trump ordered WH lawyer to stop Sessions from recusing himself from Russia investigation https://t.co/hNuTwtVQBl

— CNN This Morning with Kasie Hunt (@CNNThisMorning) January 5, 2018

… Read the rest