Chase Strangio is distraught over the Tavistock ruling.

It’s interesting and typical and a big part of the problem that CS resorts to hyperbolic emotional language at the outset. How “terrifying and sad and scary” – as if puberty blockers were ventilators and trans young people were being forcibly deprived of them.

I don’t think “people with large platforms” have much effect on courts of law. That aside, is it really true that “this care” i.e. puberty blockers has been deemed medically necessary, safe and effective by every major medical association? What does “medically necessary” even mean in this context? I could understand “psychologically necessary” (without necessarily agreeing with it) but medically? That doesn’t make sense. I suspect Strangio is padding out the claims here.

Strangio is simply ignoring the fact that there are people who took puberty blockers and now wish they hadn’t. It’s silly to forget that, because that’s what the case was about. Strangio is very sure that puberty blockers are good for all who take them, but Keira Bell brought the suit because they were not good for her and she thinks she was too young to decide to take them.

I find Chase Strangio pretty scary, to tell the truth.

Philip Bump at the Post:

Over the length of a 46-minute video posted to social media Wednesday, President Trump read and riffed on a prepared script lambasting those who had the audacity to suggest that receiving fewer votes than his opponent meant he shouldn’t serve a second consecutive term in office. It was the functional equivalent of one of his beloved campaign rallies, both in the sense that it offered the same meandering range and, quite obviously, the same relief for his frustrations. It was also clearly no small undertaking; the numerous cuts in the final product suggested that what was offered to the country was a subset of what Trump had to say to the camera.

In other words the craziest bits got sliced out, so the crazy rant that remains is the less crazy part. With Trump there is always worse.

It was, almost literally, a distillation of the past four weeks of rants, allegations and accusations, including countless examples of claims which have already been soundly debunked. That sudden surge of votes seen in Wisconsin, something so compelling in Trump’s eyes that he brought a visual aid to demonstrate it? We dispatched that on Nov. 11: It was just the county of Milwaukee reporting its results. Whether it’s more worrisome if Trump knew it had been debunked or if he didn’t is up to you to determine.

Well, see, it’s like this. Milwaukee is a city, an industrial city, a northern industrial city. What do we know about northern industrial cities? Ohhhh right, they have a lot of [whispers] those people in them. Those people don’t vote for Trump. How dare Milwaukee county report its results?! See also: Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta. Don’t tell me Atlanta isn’t a northern city, it is, geography be damned.

Again, there wasn’t anything new to it. It was a pastiche of so much that we’ve heard so often. It presented no coherent case for the existence of fraud, instead substituting a volume of accusations for an abundance of proof. Having hundreds of people make unfounded allegations isn’t proof of wrongdoing, as any review of those sheaves of affidavits collected by Trump’s campaign from various supporters makes clear.

Yes but unfortunately that’s not the only issue. As we keep being reminded: endless repetition of a lie = many people believe it. Hitler knew that, and so does Dirty Don.

“This election was rigged. Everybody knows it,” he said. “I don’t mind if I lose an election, but I want to lose an election fair and square. What I don’t want to do is have it stolen from the American people. That’s what we’re fighting for, and we have no choice to be doing that.”

Yes, definitely, he doesn’t mind a bit if he loses fair and square. He’s demonstrated that his whole life. If I repeat that a million times will anyone believe it?

The Military Times is not impressed.

The idea that the U.S. military would oversee a new nationwide presidential election — ordered under martial law by President Donald Trump — is “insane in a year that we didn’t think could get anymore insane,” a defense official tells Military Times.

Yet retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn promoted that exact idea Tuesday evening when he tweeted a press release from an Ohio-based conservative political organization.

Actually let’s just skip the vote entirely and let the military make Trump Dictator for Life. Why not?

Stand With Mueller writes:

A week after receiving his pardon from “President” Donald Trump, former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn promoted a call for the “president” to “temporarily suspend the Constitution” and put the country under martial law.

On Tuesday, weeks after the election Trump lost, Flynn shared a press release from the right-wing We the People Convention imploring Trump to implement martial law. The statement drew a connection to what Abraham Lincoln did with his presidential authority during the Civil War.

“Then, as now, a President with courage and determination was needed to preserve the Union,” the statement says. “Today, the current threat to our United States by the international and domestic socialist/communist left is much more serious than anything Lincoln or our nation has faced in its history – including the civil war.”

The statement goes on to rail against Antifa, Black Lives Matter, “socialists,” the “corrupt media,” and Big Tech, blaming them all for an “attempted stealing” of the election.

There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud that would prove a stolen election, and much of the evidence collected by Trump’s legal team has been thrown out of court.

The statement culminates in a call for Trump to engage in “a limited form of martial law” before the country supposedly plunges into corruption and a new civil war.

“When the legislators, courts and/or Congress fail to do their duty under the 12th Amendment, you must be ready Mr. President to immediately declare a limited form of Martial Law, and temporarily suspend the Constitution and civilian control of these federal elections, for the sole purpose of having the military oversee a national re-vote….You must also act, like Lincoln did, to silence the destructive media’s one-sided propaganda designed and proven to influence the election outcome, and end the unlawful censorship of Big Tech, to restore the confidence of the American People in our electoral process or we cannot continue as a nation. Failure to do so could result in massive violence and destruction on a level not seen since the Civil War. Limited Martial Law is clearly a better option than Civil War!”

Flynn’s tweet comes shortly after Sidney Powell, the former Flynn and Trump campaign lawyer, amplified a call for Trump to “suspend” the election and “set up military tribunals” to launch an investigation into it.

Powell was a member of Trump’s legal team disputing the 2020 election results, but after days of spouting unsubstantiated voter fraud claims and conspiracy theories, she was cut.

By Ken Meyer

Via Gnu Atheism

Oh INteresting.

DC attorney general, so Trump can’t pardon her ass out of there.

Scannell reports for CNN:

Ivanka Trump, the President’s daughter and adviser, sat for a deposition Tuesday with investigators from the Washington, DC, attorney general’s office as part of its lawsuit alleging the misuse of inaugural funds, according to a court filing.

In January, the DC attorney general’s office sued the Trump Organization and Presidential Inaugural Committee alleging they abused more than $1 million raised by the nonprofit by “grossly overpaying” for use of event space at the Trump hotel in Washington for the 2017 inauguration.

Depositions of witnesses as part of the lawsuit have been underway over the past several weeks.

Grossly overpaying, eh? Now why would they do that? Oh riiiiiiiiight, because the hotel belongs to the guy who was inaugurated. Nothing filthy about that at all, oh hell no.

The attorney general’s office has also subpoenaed records from Barrack, Ivanka Trump, first lady Melania Trump, and Rick Gates, the former inaugural committee deputy chairman, the filing said.

Rick Gates knew.

In December 2016, Gates wrote to Ivanka Trump that he was “a bit worried about the optics of PIC [Presidential Inaugural Committee] paying Trump Hotel a high fee and the media making a big story out of it,” according to the lawsuit.

Ah yes the optics, and making a big story out of it. What he meant was he was worried they might get busted for rank corruption.

According to the lawsuit, Gates agreed with the hotel’s managing director and Trump family members to pay $175,000 per day for the committee to reserve space for four days.

The committee’s own event planner — Stephanie Winston Wolkoff — advised against the transaction, telling the committee and the Trump family that the charges were at least twice the market rate, the lawsuit states.

Sir, pardon me sir, this would be you siphoning money from your inaugural committee into your own pocket sir, it wouldn’t look good and it could even be a crime, sir.

Wolkoff “noted unease with the offer during an in-person meeting with President-elect Trump and Ivanka Trump,” said DC Attorney General Karl Racine. She also sent a follow-up email to both Ivanka Trump and Gates to “express [her] concern,” according to the attorney general.

“The Inaugural Committee accepted the contract anyway,” the lawsuit alleges.

Because that’s how greedy and entitled and psychopathic Trump is.

Seattle has a celebrity visitor, all the way from the Arctic.

This snowy owl has been wowing residents and birders in Queen Anne.* It is rare for the owls to be seen in this region, and the owls always create a stir in Seattle, where with their striking appearance they can hardly be missed. Their color evokes their usual home in the Arctic. Snowies are the largest of owls, with a wingspan that can reach nearly 5 feet. They also are among the heaviest, weighing in at about 5 pounds. 

I went to see her today. Google actually had the address – apparently she really likes that particular chimney so that’s where she spends the day – which made it easy. No joy on the street side, but I’d seen photos of people watching her in an alley so I went around to the alley and sure enough there were people with their professional cameras…and then there was the owl. Snuggled up to the chimney just as in the photo.

I knew a pair at the zoo long ago, but I’ve never seen a wild one before. Not too shabby.

*Updating to add – I forgot to mention that Queen Anne is my neighborhood (named after the style of architecture, not the monarch). Owl is 5 blocks north and 6 east, in an area I walk around all the time. Talk about lucky.

To the surprise of no one –

From Moore’s “Why I had to leave the Guardian” piece last week:

By 2018, the atmosphere was poisonous. A fellow columnist at The Guardian replied to a message I sent about being civil at the Christmas do with: “You’ve prompted the most sickening transphobia, for which you have never apologised, you called islamophobia a myth and you publicly abuse leftwingers.” This person went on to say that I felt insecure “because a new generation of younger leftists have caught the public mood”. I didn’t even understand the accusation of Islamophobia. More broadly, I understood that the possibility of a left-wing government was exciting, but unlike half the paper, I didn’t believe that Corbyn had actually won in 2017. I also didn’t like the macho, bullying culture around him propped up by writers at my place of work.

I complained to my editor about this person at the time but was told that as neither of us were on staff, nothing official could be done. Really?

So there we have it. Here comes the “new generation”: the new Left, same as the old Left. Full of misogyny, utter pricks and those with the emotional intelligence of whelks. Misogyny in the name of socialism. Again.

That’s the Owen Jones we know and despise all right.

Whatever.

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) has been telling colleagues and allies that he plans to challenge the Electoral College votes when Congress officially certifies Joe Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, as long as a Senate Republican joins him in the long-shot effort, sources tell your Huddle host.

Sure, and I plan to be a billionaire with the power of flight by next Tuesday.

Brooks confirmed his plans in a phone interview, adding that he is still considering objecting to the vote-counting process even if no one joins him — though he acknowledged that would be more of a symbolic protest. Brooks, echoing President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud without providing evidence, argued that the election was “badly flawed” and that most mail-in voting is “unconstitutional.”

And your refrigerator is beaming your thoughts to a spaceship hiding behind Mars, and the Pope has a side gig driving the D bus to Ballard.

“In my judgment, if only lawful votes by eligible American citizens were cast, Donald Trump won the Electoral College by a significant margin, and Congress’s certification should reflect that,” Brooks said. “This election was stolen by the socialists engaging in extraordinary voter fraud and election theft measures.”

The socialists? Not the Freemasons? The Jews? The Reds? The Yellow Peril? The atheists? The fluoride conspirators?

Glosswitch pointed out one perverse aspect of the trans juggernaut.

We know that being trans is highly fashionable, and also energetically encouraged from many directions. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t also attract hostility and persecution, but we do know there are plenty of cheerleaders around. I hadn’t quite noticed the paradox that those cheerleaders also insist that being trans (or at least being dysphoric) is agony, but of course they do and of course it is a paradox. Maybe a lot of the putative agony is manufactured, precisely by the biggest cheerleaders for the trans juggernaut. “You’re awesome and stunning and brave and also very likely to kill yourself – welcome aboard!”

I’ve been assuming the shouts about agony and suicide were meant for the gender skeptics, and hadn’t really thought about how it might affect people who think of themselves as trans. Now that Victoria has mentioned it, it seems both likely and horrifying.

Also self-perpetuating, because more and more people are saying “Wait, slow down, take a deep breath, don’t do anything drastic – puberty is no picnic for anyone, and no one is overjoyed with every single aspect of their sex. The social rules about which sex can do what are stupid, so ignore or reform those, but don’t try to swap your genitalia for the other set.” Because more people are saying that, cheerleaders for the ideology have to push back harder and harder, by amping up the claims that we are The Road to Suicide.

Humans do get themselves into such messes.

Of course they did.

Sweeping data released by the Small Business Administration on who benefited from pandemic relief programs raises questions about the equitability and distribution of loans intended for small businesses, an initial analysis by NBC News shows.

The analysis found that properties owned by the Trump Organization as well as the Kushner Companies, owned by the family of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, profited from the program.

Does that sound corrupt? Just a little.

After months of litigation, the SBA released the dataset Tuesday night on every small business that received a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) or Economic Injury Disaster (EIDL) loan.

…

Over 25 PPP loans worth more than $3.65 million were given to businesses with addresses at Trump and Kushner real estate properties, paying rent to those owners. Fifteen of the properties self-reported that they only kept one job, zero jobs or did not report a number at all.

So more than half of the properties didn’t use the PPP loans to protect any paychecks (or only one paycheck) but did keep paying rent to TrumpKushner. That’s nice. No corruption there at all.

The loans to Trump and Kushner properties included a $2,164,543 loan to the Triomphe Restaurant Corp., at the Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York City. The company reported the money didn’t go to keeping any jobs. It later closed.

After Trump took his cut.

“Many months and broken promises later, the court-ordered release of this crucial data while the Trump administration is one foot out the door is a shameful dereliction of duty and flagrant mismanagement of a program that millions of workers and small businesses needed to get through this pandemic,” Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, an accountability watchdog, said in a statement.

Make Murka Great by funneling more $$$ to Trump and his anemic son-in-law.

The PPP programs’ original stated intent by officials was to help with payroll for small businesses struggling under the effects of coronavirus lockdown measures. The loans aimed to provide a bridge through the summer for what was hoped to be an improved economic and health climate in the fall.

I suspect that by struggling small businesses they didn’t mean fancy restaurants in Trump Tower.

Businesses owned by people of color without strong banking relationships found themselves with limited access and forced them to find other routes for funding. There was also the persistent question of what defined a “small business,” after lobbying by the hotel and restaurant industry ballooned the maximum number of employees allowable to 500, even though over 98 percent of the small businesses in America have fewer than 100 employees.

Whatever. Trump got his cut.

The Guardian has more on that furious plea to stop the lies:

One of Georgia’s top election officials has made an impassioned plea to Donald Trump to tone down his rhetoric disputing the election results, saying the president is “inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence”.

He wants to though. He would love to see violence erupt because of his lies. I’m completely serious: he does, he would, that’s what he is.

Gabriel Sterling, a Republican who oversaw the implementation of the state’s new voting system, also issued the stark warning that if Trump does not rein in his supporters then “someone is going to get hurt”.

…

Sterling, the voting systems manager for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, said last week that he had police protection around his home because of threats he received after election results were announced. Trump lost Georgia to Biden by around 13,000 votes.

Sterling also said that the wife of Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, had received “sexualized threats”.

Raffensperger has been the target of constant attacks from the president over his defeat in Georgia, and he recently told the Guardian he had received death threats. Last week, Trump had called Raffensperger an “enemy of the people”, Sterling noted, adding: “That helped open the floodgates to this kind of crap.”

And Trump wants them open and he won’t do one thing to close them. No chance.

He really mad.

He’s the voting implementation manager in Georgia.

Trump is getting a lot of money from this country-destroying grift of his.

President Trump’s political operation has raised more than $150 million since Election Day, using a blizzard of misleading appeals about the election to shatter fundraising records set during the campaign, according to people with knowledge of the contributions.

As we know, 60% of that money is for him, to pay off campaign debts, not for the purpose it says on the label.

Much of the money raised since the election is likely to go into an account for the president to use on political activities after he leaves office, while some of the contributions will go toward what’s left of the legal fight.

Oh and for future political activities – of course. Tell destructive lies about the rival government so that you can get more bales of cash to promote your destructive lying “political activities.” Fabulous.

The surge of donations is largely from small-dollar donors, campaign officials say, tapping into the president’s base of loyal and fervent donors who tend to contribute the most when they feel the president is under siege or facing unfair political attacks. The campaign has sent about 500 post-election fundraising pitches to donors, often with hyperbolic language about voter fraud and the like.

500?!! So it’s what, 17 or 18 a day? That’s…a lot.

“Our democracy and freedom is at risk like never before, which is why I’m reaching out to you now with an URGENT request,” reads an email to donors from Vice President Pence. “President Trump and I need our STRONGEST supporters, like YOU, to join the Election Defense Task Force. This group will be responsible for DEFENDING the Election from voter fraud, and we really need you to step up to the front lines of this battle.”

Pence the “Christian.” What a guy. Conning money out of people who don’t have much of it, by telling outrageous lies about the election, to help out the rapist bullying lying thieving corrupt incontinent obscene Donald Trump.

The donations are purportedly being solicited for the Official Election Defense Fund, which is blazed in all red across the Trump campaign’s website, with an ominous picture of the president outside the White House.

There is no such account, however. The fundraising requests are being made by the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, a joint fundraising committee that raises money for the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee. As of Nov. 18, that committee also shares its funds with Save America, a new leadership PAC that Trump set up in early November and which he can use to fund his post-presidency activities.

Which is outright fraud. It’s outright and it’s also right out there in the open, where anyone can see it.

The money raised since Nov. 3 is a massive haul for such a short period, especially after the election, when losing campaigns typically ramp down their fundraising operation. By comparison, the Trump Make America Great Again Committee raised $125 million in the second quarter of 2020, according to federal records. The campaign account’s best single month was September, when it raised $81 million, according to available data.

But now they’ve pulled in $150 million in less than a month. Via fraud.

Suzanne Moore asks a crucial question in a post on the Tavistock ruling.

Again, we must ask what is causing this misery for girls and why suicide rates are rising. Why are female bodies such an uncomfortable place to be?

That question needs to be thrown back to society and not always located in the psyche of the individual. This is why I find parts of trans activist discourse so totally conservative. There is no analysis of how gender operates, of how bodies and definitions do not exist in isolation, how the notion of a true self may itself be false.

Very likely is false, from what I’ve read of psychology and philosophy. The self isn’t a thing, and it ebbs and flows and mutates constantly, so preaching about a “true” or “authentic” self just doesn’t mean very much.

So much thinking that underpins the trans ideology of selfhood, is that selfhood is sovereign rather than social. It has much more in common with right wing thinking than it does with left wing thinking. That so much of the left has rushed to embrace it is a sign of the times.

Yessssssssss. That’s the quote of the day.

Giuliani is curled up on Trump’s lap begging for a pre-emptive pardon.

Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph Giulani, discussed with the president as recently as last week the possibility of being granted a “pre-emptive pardon,” according to the New York Times, which cited two anonymous sources.

Pardon for what? Not known, but best guess is that whole Ukraine thing. The Times wrote:

Such a broad pardon pre-empting any charge or conviction is highly unusual but does have precedent. George Washington pardoned plotters of the Whiskey Rebellion, shielding them from treason prosecutions. In the most famous example, Gerald R Ford pardoned Richard M Nixon for all of his actions as president. Jimmy Carter pardoned thousands of American men who illegally avoided the draft for the Vietnam War.

So Rudy wants to be coupled with Nixon. Ok.

And yesterday, conservative commentator Sean Hannity said on his radio show that Trump “needs to pardon his whole family and himself.”

So Hannity admitted they’re all criminals. Seems fair.

The Tavistock ruling part 2.

The Tavistock deals with cases referred to it from across England and Wales. Until 2011, puberty blockers were only available at GIDS for those aged 16 or older.

In the year 2019-20, of 161 children referred to GIDS, three were aged 10 or 11 and 95 under the age of 16.

95 out of 161. Eeeeesh.

Diagnosis of gender dysphoria involves children demonstrating at least six of a series of behavioural traits as well as an “associated significant distress or impairment in function, lasting at least six months”.

Ah yes behavioral traits, like wearing the “other” clothes for example. The patterns include:

• A strong desire to be of the other gender or an insistence that one is the other gender.

• A strong preference for wearing clothes typical of the other gender.

• A strong preference for cross-gender roles in make-believe play or fantasy play.

• A strong preference for toys, games or activities stereotypically used or engaged in by the other gender.

• A strong preference for playmates of the other gender.

• A strong rejection of toys, games and activities typical of one’s assigned gender.

• A strong dislike of one’s sexual anatomy.

• A strong desire for the physical sex characteristics that match one’s experienced gender.

The whole thing rests on the social rules about “gender.” The language in almost every item makes that plain. “Clothes typical of the other gender,” “cross-gender roles,” “stereotypically,” “the other gender,” “assigned gender,” “experienced gender.” The only purely physical one is the “strong dislike of one’s sexual anatomy.”

Lots of people dislike the social rules about gender, and rightly so, because they’re stupid. Get rid of the damn rules! And in the meantime, defy them. It’s a win-win: it’s easier than drastically altering your body, and it avoids all the drawbacks to drastically altering your body.

In short, dislike of social conventions isn’t something that requires chemical sex reversal. Social conventions are social, not physical, so trying to medicate them away is futile as well as harmful.

Speaking outside the Royal Courts of Justice after the ruling, Keira Bell said she was “delighted” with the ruling: “This judgment is not political, it’s about protecting vulnerable children … I’m delighted to see that common sense has prevailed.”

Paul Conrathe, the solicitor who represented both claimants, said the ruling was “an historic judgment that protects children who suffer from gender dysphoria … This may have led to hundreds of children receiving this experimental treatment without their properly informed consent.”

And who speaks for the other side?

Lui Asquith, from the trans children’s charity Mermaids, said: “It’s frankly a potential catastrophe for trans young people across the country and it cannot be exaggerated the impact that this might have, not only on the population of trans young people that require hormone blockers, but it may potentially open the floodgates towards other questions around bodily autonomy and who has the right to govern their own body.”

Or maybe it’s a rescue for “trans young people” who wake up from their delusion a few years down the road.

There’s a ruling in Bell v Tavistock:

Children under the age of 16 considering gender reassignment are unlikely to be mature enough to give informed consent to be prescribed puberty-blocking drugs, the high court has ruled.

Even in cases involving teenagers under 18 doctors may need to consult the courts for authorisation for medical intervention, three senior judges have ruled in an action brought against the Tavistock and Portman NHS trust, which runs the UK’s main gender identity development service for children.

An NHS spokesperson welcomed the “clarity” the decision had brought, adding: “The Tavistock have immediately suspended new referrals for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for the under 16s, which in future will only be permitted where a court specifically authorises it. Dr Hilary Cass is conducting a wider review on the future of gender identity services.”

The 19-page judgment in effect introduces guidelines for the way in which the London clinic handles young patients who experience gender dysphoria – the condition where they are distressed because of a “mismatch between their perceived identity and … their sex at birth”.

But is that in fact a “condition”? Or is it just a feeling, an idea, a desire, a longing, a persistent mood? Is it a medical “condition” or an existential one? Have the people in charge been a tiny bit hasty in agreeing that it is a medical “condition” that can be treated by opposite-sex hormones?

What does it even mean to talk about a mismatch between one’s “perceived identity” and…pretty much anything? What is “perceived identity”? What is a perceived identity that doesn’t match the facts about the person who claims to have it?

The whole idea is vague enough and questionable enough and recently imposed enough that it seems incredibly reckless to stuff children with cross-sex hormones to “fix” it.

In their decision, Dame Victoria Sharp, president of the Queen’s bench division, Lord Justice Lewis and Mrs Justice Lieven, said a child under the age of 16 may only consent to the use of medication intended to suppress puberty “where he or she is competent to understand the nature of the treatment”.

Such an understanding must include “the immediate and long-term consequences of the treatment, the limited evidence available as to its efficacy or purpose, the fact that the vast majority of patients proceed to the use of cross-sex hormones, and its potential life changing consequences for a child”.

Which is more than most adults seem to have, so how children could have it is anyone’s guess.

He mad.

Why is the governor certifying Biden’s win? I’m gonna take a wild guess and say it’s because Biden won.

Ducey betrayed the people of Arizona by not helping Trump steal the election. Hmm.

Don retweeted a bunch of people saying how bad and awful it is that the Governor signed off on an election instead of helping Trump steal it.

Psycho liar continues to lie.

I’ll tell you what’s sad for our country.

More threats from the losers:

On Monday President Trump’s campaign lawyer and former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova said that fired Trump cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs should be executed for saying that the election was the “most secure in United States history.”

DiGenova, appearing on the Howie Carr show, which simulcasts on Newsmax, took aim at Krebs as an aside during a wheels-off segment full of false claims about how the United States election had been rigged.

“Anybody who thinks the election went well, like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of cybersecurity [for Trump]. That guy is a class A moron. He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot,” diGenova said.

This is not just a random Parler troll trying to get attention. This is an attorney speaking on behalf of the President of the United States’ re-election campaign. And while it may read like a macabre joke, the direct nature of diGenova’s comments make it impossible to interpret as anything other than a real wish/threat against a public servant for offering truthful testimony.

Not normal, not okay.

Originally a comment by Papito on The unbridled pursuit of personal appetites.

Barr is, of course, historically ignorant. Our country was explicitly founded without a state religion, and declared by our founding fathers not to be a Christian nation. God was literally voted out of the Constitution.

Several of our founding fathers, for example Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin,Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, John Adams, and George Washington, were more philosophical Deists, or outright atheists, than Christians.

Let’s see what Washington had to say on the matter:

The blessed Religion revealed in the word of will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institutions may be abused by human depravity; and that they may even, in some instances, be made subservient to the vilest of purposes.

and

There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.

Washington never wrote about God, or Christ, only about such things as “the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men,” and “the benign parent of the human race.”

Not good enough? How about John Adams? “The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” Adams was a materialist:

When once we quit the basis of sensation, all is in the wind. To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart.

or

As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims] … it is declared … that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever product an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries…. The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation.

Thomas Paine, of course, wrote an entire book on the subject, The Age of Reason.

What Barr is trying to do in his historical revisionism is to lay the groundwork, or establish a justification for, removing the franchise from non-Christians, or making non-Christians second-class citizens. He, like many of his ilk, want to remake America as a Dominionist nation. In this, he goes directly contrary to the intentions of the Founding Fathers. America was founded as a nation by people fleeing from religious oppression, not people seeking to create new religious oppression. But, as you said, to hear such a scoundrel as Barr talk about morality beggars belief.