Installment seven billion something of the same old circular circle.

It’s actually not a clear message from Nicola at all. It’s the same old run-around.

There must be no transphobia!!!

But what are you defining as transphobia?

Trans people must have rights!!!

But nobody disagrees with that so what are you –

There must be no transphobia!!!

Yes, we have differences of opinion on gender recognition reform. We should debate them openly and respectfully. But no debate can be a cover for transphobia.

Yes but what is transphobia? Where are you drawing the border between openly debating the meaning of gender recognition and its reform, and transphobia? Please spell it out.

Trans people have as much right as any of us to be safe, secure, and valued for who they are. Transphobia is wrong and

Wait wait wait! Stop right there! You’re implying that we think trans people do not have as much right as any of us to be safe and secure! That’s an outrageous accusation. We’re not a bunch of Marjorie Taylor Greenes, we’re lefties and feminists, as you must know. We’re not advocating for anyone to be unsafe and insecure.

The issue is this “valued for who they are” bit, and you need to explain that rather than dashing on to tell us yet again that transphobiaiswrong.

It’s not actually true that there’s a core human right to be “valued for who [you, we, they] are.” There’s not even a core human right to be “valued.” That’s asking too much, which statements about human rights need to avoid, lest the whole idea become a joke.

And then there’s the “for who they are” bit, which is confused and confusing, because the whole meaning of “trans” negates the “who they are” aspect. We’re supposed to “value” trans people for who they are not, and there are situations and circumstances that can make that impossible and/or undesirable.

The unstated dogma underlying that silly formula is that we’re required to agree that trans people are, in every sense, who they say they are. The reason we can’t agree to that mandate is that sometimes it makes a difference. It makes a difference if a trans woman or girl gets an award or a scholarship or a job or an athletic prize that was meant for a woman or girl – an actual, literal, physical women or girl, as opposed to an actual literal physical man or boy who identifies as a woman or girl.

That’s it, that’s the issue. It has nothing to do with valuing or with phobia, it has everything to do with protecting the rights of women and girls.

It would be nice if women like Nicola Sturgeon and Jo Grady could take this on board.

Rinse, repeat.

Teach the future to do what it’s told.

Politico reports:

A video of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) confronting David Hogg, a gun control activist and Parkland shooting survivor, years ago surfaced online Wednesday, fueling a new wave of outrage over the Georgia Republican’s history of questioning a dark chapter in Florida that left 17 dead.

Greene, in the video, which was apparently filmed just weeks after the 2018 Parkland shooting, calls Hogg a “coward” because he walks away from her, and complains Hogg was able to meet with senators. “He had 30 appointments where he went around and got to talk to senators. I got to talk to none,” Greene said, adding “Guess what? I’m a gun owner. I’m an American citizen. And I have nothing. But this guy with his George Soros funding and his major liberal funding has got everything.”

And now she does get to talk to senators, because she is a representative, with a history of enthusiasm for talk about “executing” Democrats.

Guttenberg has been confronting the freshman lawmaker online for the past week, after social media posts surfaced from two years ago show Greene siding with conspiracy theories that the Parkland shooting was staged. He has vowed to eventually to meet Greene face-to-face so he can show her proof that his 14-year-old daughter Jaime was gunned down. The congresswoman has already become a political lightning rod for embracing the QAnon conspiracy theory and for a long string of racist comments before she was elected in a conservative district in November.

…

The unearthing of Greene’s past comments has already caused a firestorm for Republicans from Democrats and their allies. A super PAC targeting Sen. Marco Rubio — “Retire Rubio” — questioned why the senator wasn’t condemning Greene’s “harassment” of Hogg.

She’s really appalling. She should be out of there.

Because she won’t do her damn job, because she’s there to trash everything.

Back to Politico:

When asked for comment about Greene’s video, her office pointed to a statement the Georgia representative put out last week on Twitter where she called “gun-free zones” a failure and blamed the Parkland shooting on school resource officer Scot Peterson. While the shooting was going on, Peterson took cover and retreated, according to the state commission set up in the aftermath to investigate the event.

Yes, every school should have at least ten cops present at all times ready to join a shoot-out. That’s how this should work.

Jennifer Barnett tells us what it’s like to be a woman in journalism working for a terrible man, so terrible that she ended up having to quit. She says it’s a common situation and the men stay on and on, because that’s how this works.

I had the plum job. The top of the masthead of one of the most prestigious and respected publications with more than a 150-year-old history. I left because I blew the whistle on my boss for doing something unethical then abusing the staff and undermining the editorial process during which time I was assured he would be fired but instead he was promoted and after threatening me privately in his office, he marginalized me to the point of being completely invisible. In addition to being my boss at this prestigious publication, he was also the president of the principal organization in the United States for the editorial leaders of magazines and websites. Literally every editor of every publication was beholden to him.

She never names him, but she gives a lot of very specific clues, so there’s already a Mediaite piece on her piece pointing out how easy it is. I Googled “what editor had a brother running for president” (very specific clue, see) and it’s James Bennet, of the Atlantic when she worked for him and then of the New York Times editorial page – he’s the guy who decided to publish that horrendous piece by Tom Cotton, which made such a stink he had to resign, but yaboosucks now he’s at The Economist.

Not long after I quit, he also left but he went on to be next in line to run the paper of record, and I was volunteering to write the newsletter for the parent organization at my kid’s school. He’s since been fired, or rather resigned, for another major public failing but just last week I was told he’s working with the new editor in chief of the publication I left to write for them. He’s going to land on his feet. At the top.

Why does it matter? Because the same men who continually fuck up are still in charge of the media. They shape the world. If you don’t think that’s true, take a look at the coverage of Hillary Clinton during my former boss’s tenure at the paper of record leading up to the 2016 election. Despite even major public failings, they keep coming back because they work behind the scenes to protect themselves and each other to stay in power and preserve the status quo.

And it’s happening at the expense of women. Time after time.

Which means that women leave, which means that journalism and opinionating remain in the hands of men, so there’s yet more “But her emails” and “why are women so imperfect?”

There were a handful of editors, all men, who had carte blanche to walk into my boss’s office at any time, even with the most trivial of matters. But when I needed to see him for business crucial to the magazine, he’d yell at me. Loudly, and with rage. It wasn’t that I was doing anything differently than the men who wanted to see him, it’s just that he was comfortable yelling at me. I noticed he did the same thing to another woman who was on the digital side. Every time he yelled I’d shrug it off, smile feebly to anyone who was in earshot and carry on. I’d make a joke. Brush it off. It’s no big deal, I’d say, all the while working extra hard behind the scenes to adapt and find ways to get what I needed out of my boss without tripping his rage wire. I performed a tightrope walk every day to do my job and keep the respect of the staff I managed despite being publicly yelled at or shut out of meetings by our boss.

I’m sure it’s pure coincidence that it’s only women he does this to and that men are welcome to bounce into his office whenever they feel like it.

One thing I observed while I worked at [The Atlantic] is that in times when we were called into question, my boss felt that we were beyond reproach — so prestigious, we were to be held to a different standard. After all, nobody did journalism better than we did.

Still, one of the contributing editors who has made a name for himself for being a Never-Trump Republican, Tweeted, (then published a lengthy defense) criticizing Hillary Clinton’s smile.

I Googled that one too: it’s David Frum.

He really did write that lengthy defense. In the Atlantic.

Seth Abramson tells us:

Well after dark on January 5, 2021—just 15 hours before an insurrection against the United States government incited by the President of the United States—Nebraska Republican Charles W. Herbster, at the time the National Chairman of the Agriculture and Rural Advisory Committee for the Trump administration, attended a private meeting of Trump family members, Trump administration officials, Trump campaign advisers, January 6 organizers, and at least one member of the United States Senate at Trump International Hotel in Washington.

Abramson says Herbster says those present were Don Junior, Eric, Michael Flynn, Peter Navarro, Corey Lewandowski, David Bossie, Adam Piper, executive director of the Republican Attorneys General Association, and Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville. Your basic nightmare evening, in short.

According to research by political strategist and regular CNN, MSNBC, The Hill, CBS, and Fox News contributor Cheri Jacobus, Txtwire CEO Daniel Beck claims he was at the January 5 meeting also, and that additional attendees at the gathering included the following three people:

Giuliani, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and the My Pillow guy. There’s a photo of some jerks in maga hats in front of the hotel.

There’s also a screenshot of Herbster’s Facebook post bragging about their plans.

“Faithful servants of freedom” – Eric and Junior Trump, Michael Flynn, Rudy Giuliani. Right.

So were they there to plot the insurrection? I don’t know. I hope the DoJ is looking carefully.

H/t YNnB

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on But the jobs.

Things conservatives say you shouldn’t lose your job for:

1. Being in an industry that causes environmental problems

2. Being a racist, sexist, and/or insurrectionist idiot online

3. Competition from foreign imports during a Democratic administration

4. Not wanting to provide women with birth control.

Things conservatives say you can lose your job for:

1. Having any non-conservative views your employer doesn’t like

2. Trying to organize a union

3. Your employer’s desire to offshore or outsource your job

4. Bain Capital deciding to acquire and “restructure” your employer

5. Using birth control or having an abortion

6. Cheering for the wrong sports team… actually pretty much everything not included in the first list.

So what’s the thinking here, that job-existence overrules all other considerations? That if people have jobs setting fire to California forests they must continue to have those jobs because otherwise it’s ayleetizm?

Of course if The Market closes down jobs that’s a whole other story, nobody cares about those workers, but if it’s a matter of shifting to less destructive forms of energy, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS RUN WILD.

Remember four years ago watching that guy’s executive orders in horror?

Biden yesterday:

President Joe Biden on Tuesday ordered the Department of Justice to end its reliance on private prisons and acknowledge the central role government has played in implementing discriminatory housing policies.

In remarks before signing the orders, Biden said the U.S. government needs to change “its whole approach” on the issue of racial equity. He added that the nation is less prosperous and secure because of the scourge of systemic racism.

But it’s also less…all of those things it likes to see itself as. Decent, fair, one of the good ones. Rights-based, egalitarian, justice-seeking.

Biden directed the Department of Housing and Urban Development in a memorandum to take steps to promote equitable housing policy. The memorandum calls for HUD to examine the effects of Trump regulatory actions that may have undermined fair housing policies and laws.

Months before the November election, the Trump administration rolled back an Obama-era rule that required communities that wanted to receive HUD funding to document and report patterns of racial bias.

While Trump himself ranted about “your beautiful suburbs” and how he was going to “protect” them from…youknowwhat.

GEO Group, a private company that operates federal prisons, called the Biden order “a solution in search of a problem.”

“Given the steps the BOP had already announced, today’s Executive Order merely represents a political statement, which could carry serious negative unintended consequences, including the loss of hundreds of jobs and negative economic impact for the communities where our facilities are located, which are already struggling economically due to the COVID pandemic,” a GEO Group spokesperson said in a statement.

A spokes representing the for-profit scheme Biden is ending said words about why the for-profit scheme should not end. Duly noted.

Problem.

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene repeatedly indicated support for executing prominent Democratic politicians in 2018 and 2019 before being elected to Congress, a CNN KFile review of hundreds of posts and comments from Greene’s Facebook page shows.

Greene, who represents Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, frequently posted far-right extremist and debunked conspiracy theories on her page, including the baseless QAnon conspiracy which casts former President Donald Trump in an imagined battle against a sinister cabal of Democrats and celebrities who abuse children.

In one post, from January 2019, Greene liked a comment that said “a bullet to the head would be quicker” to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In other posts, Greene liked comments about executing FBI agents who, in her eyes, were part of the “deep state” working against Trump.

Liking remarks on Facebook or Twitter doesn’t necessarily indicate a literal desire to see the executions happen, but on the other hand in someone who actually went on to get elected to Congress it’s not reassuring.

Though her tenure in Congress has only lasted a few weeks, Greene is already facing calls to leave the House for her role in fanning the flames of the Capitol insurrection earlier this month after she objected to the election certification process and falsely insisted that Trump would remain president.

After Democratic Rep. Jimmy Gomez called on Greene to be expelled from the House for her role in the insurrection, Greene condemned the violence at the Capitol and falsely accused “Antifa/BLM terrorism” and Democratic politicians of stoking the insurrection.

“I fully condemn ALL violence. The Antifa/BLM terrorism funded on ActBlue rests with Democrat accomplices like @CoriBush @Ilhan @KamalaHarris @AOC @timkaine & many more… Those who stoke insurrection & spread conspiracies have blood on their hands. They must be expelled,” she tweeted.

…

Before she ran for Congress in 2020, Greene created a White House petition in January 2019 to impeach the House speaker for “crimes of treason,” citing Pelosi’s support of so-called sanctuary policies that “are serving illegals and not United States citizens” and because Pelosi did not support Trump’s border wall.

In one speech, promoting the petition, Greene suggested Pelosi could be executed for treason.

“She’s a traitor to our country, she’s guilty of treason,” Greene says in the video, which she posted on Facebook at the time. “She took an oath to protect American citizens and uphold our laws. And she gives aid and comfort to our enemies who illegally invade our land. That’s what treason is. And by our law representatives and senators can be kicked out and no longer serve in our government. And it’s, uh, it’s a crime punishable by death is what treason is. Nancy Pelosi is guilty of treason.”

Not good.

Let’s protest against…frontline healthcare workers?

Lives are being put at risk and the care of patients disrupted by a spate of hospital incursions from Covid-19 deniers whose online activity is channelling hatred against NHS staff, say healthcare and police chiefs.

In the latest example of a growing trend, a group of people were ejected by security from a Covid-19 ward last week as one of them filmed staff, claimed that the virus was a hoax, and demanded that a seriously ill patient be sent home.

“He will die if he is taken from from here,” a consultant tells the man on footage, which was later shared on social media. Following contact by the Guardian, Facebook took down footage and other shocking posts in which conspiracy theorists described NHS staff as “ventilator killers”.

One guy went to East Surrey hospital with a camera and told a consultant to send that patient there home.

In the footage, a man behind the camera remonstrates with a consultant, who tells him that a patient will die if his oxygen tube is removed. When asked about what treatment is being given, the consultant explains that the patient has coronavirus pneumonia affecting both of lungs and is being treated with steroids and antibiotics.

The man behind the camera says that patient should be brought home and the treatment replaced with vitamin C, vitamin D and zinc, but is told by the consultant: “None of those are proven treatments for coronavirus.”

Also who the fuck are you, what is your medical training, why are you here, why are you telling me what to do, shut up and get out and never come back.

Since New Year’s Eve, when hundreds turned up outside St Thomas’ hospital in London, conspiracy theorists have stalked the wards of as many as a dozen hospitals to gather footage, which has been shared on social media.

Couldn’t someone get them interested in UFOs or alien abductions instead?

The Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK), a union representing frontline medics, said it was unacceptable that staff working themselves into the ground to keep patients safe were having to worry about a new threat from Covid deniers and anti-maskers. It said Twitter and Facebook had a responsibility to ensure those breaking into hospitals to film footage were not given a platform.

…

The incident at East Surrey hospital, where police issued fines and warnings and continue to investigate what they described as an “escalation” on social media, comes after the arrests earlier this month of four men allegedly filming inside hospitals in the West Midlands and Worcestershire, and of a woman in Gloucestershire.

…

Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents trusts in England, said the incursion was risky both to patients and staff. “Trust leaders are concerned about the recent activities of Covid deniers ranging filming empty areas at night-time and protesting outside hospitals,” he said.

“Entering a Covid ward, putting patient and staff lives at risk and then posting a video online afterwards plumbs new lows. It’s not only dangerous, it’s also deeply disrespectful of the extraordinary efforts by frontline NHS staff who, day in, day out are working flat out to save the lives of seriously ill patients.

I listened to a Radio 4 thing last night on the Covid anniversary, that had frontline staff saying what it was like, and it was utterly heart-wrenching.

Putin sends the cops to tear apart Navalny’s apartment and headquarters:

Police have raided Alexei Navalny’s apartment and the headquarters of his Anti-Corruption Foundation in Moscow after investigators opened a new inquiry into alleged breaches of coronavirus restrictions during last week’s mass protests.

On Wednesday evening police banged at the door of Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, who yelled back that her lawyer was on the way. At the same time, a close Navalny ally, Lyubov Sobol, demanded that police identify themselves as they prised open the door to a studio that broadcasts Navalny Live.

Investigators searched the offices of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, the team that put out a recent investigation into a £1bn palace allegedly built for Putin’s personal use. Police also raided the homes of Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s press secretary, and other aides.

They’re looking for some excuse, no matter how flimsy, to throw him in prison for a few decades.

It’s an anniversary.

Enlightenment.

Why would anyone have any reservations about this form of activism?

Republicans are all like “It’s not such a big deal.”

Regardless of the explanations and justifications, the procedural vote is just the latest, clearest sign of fading Republican support for finding Trump responsible for the Capitol riot three weeks ago.

You can see their point. It was almost three weeks ago. Generations have been born and died since then. Memories have faded. It’s in the past now. Nobody gets hot under the collar about the War of 1812 and it’s the same with this.

Shortly after the incident, Lindsey Graham – one of the president’s closest allies in the Senate – said the president’s actions “were the problem” and that his legacy was “tarnished”.

Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly was “pleased” with the House’s impeachment efforts and said just last week that the mob that attacked the capital was “fed lies” and “provoked” by president.

That was then, this is now. It’s old old old news. In the interests of national somethingsomething we have to move on while pretending it never happened.

The Republican Party’s evolving views on the president’s culpability are probably best captured by the shifting comments of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

During the impeachment debate in the House of Representatives two weeks ago, McCarthy said Trump “bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack by mob rioters” and recommended that he be formally censured by the chamber.

Last week, he said he didn’t believe Trump “provoked” the rally and then, a few days later, that “everybody across this country has some responsibility” for creating the political environment that led to the insurrection.

Mostly, to be fair, the Democrats. All that refusing to agree that the election was stolen just because there’s zero reason to think it was – so petty, so selfish, so ungenerous.

Meanwhile, those who spoke out against the former president and haven’t walked back their comments are facing growing calls for political retribution from within their own party.

As is only right. How dare she rebuke this wise and saintly man?

The Republicans are so shameless.

All but five Senate Republicans voted in favor of an effort to dismiss Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment trial on Tuesday, making clear a conviction of the former president for “incitement of insurrection” after the deadly Capitol siege on Jan. 6 is unlikely.

Just utterly shameless. Trump is a horror, and what he did before during and after the election was horrifying, including in terms that Republicans would normally sign up to (precedent, law, rule-following, respect, civility, tradition, truth-telling, Constitutionality), yet they’re still defending him.

What seemed for some Democrats like an open-and-shut case that played out for the world on live television is running into a Republican Party that feels very different. Not only do senators say they have legal concerns, but they are wary of crossing the former president and his legions of followers.

Meaning they’re afraid of him? If that’s the case he still has power, and that’s a very bad thing.

Democrats rejected the argument that the trial is illegitimate or unconstitutional because Trump is no longer in office, pointing to an 1876 impeachment of a secretary of war who had already resigned and to the opinions of many legal scholars.

Democrats also say that a reckoning of the first invasion of the Capitol since the War of 1812, perpetrated by rioters egged on by a president as Electoral College votes were being tallied, is necessary.

“It makes no sense whatsoever that a president, or any official, could commit a heinous crime against our country and then defeat Congress’ impeachment powers — and avoid a vote on disqualification — by simply resigning, or by waiting to commit that offense until their last few weeks in office,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

You’d think.

Another point about that evasive non-response from Essex –

“a person can experience unknown genders”

What can that possibly mean? The whole point about these oh so important “genders” is that the people who claim to have them and experience them say they know they have them, and what they are, and what we have to do in relation to the fact – the cold hard fact – that they have and experience and know them. They don’t say it’s just some vague state of mind or mood, much less that they don’t know they have it, they insist, with menaces, that it’s real and they experience it and that experience is knowledge that it’s real. The reality is what they beat us over the head with. We are not to say it’s just something they think, we are to say it’s really real, just as real as sex or even realer, and it’s the sure and certain knowledge of eternal GenderSoul.

And in any case I don’t see how anyone can experience something while not knowing it. Experiencing it entails being aware of it. You can’t describe your experience of being under anesthesia because your brain was rendered incapable of experiencing it. If you don’t know about it, it ain’t your experience.

Ah yes the infinitude of genders again. You just can’t have too many genders.

Very cunning, very very cunning, but the problem remains – if we don’t know what they are how can the guidance guide us into the correct behavior and mode of address and belief?

We derived some wholesome amusement from the infinite genders doctrine way back in February 2017:

This is hilarious. It’s incoherent nonsense, but it’s also hilarious.

The modest title is:

What Does Multigender Mean? 10 Questions You May Be Afraid to Ask – Answered

Questions answered! Hooray! It’s always good to have an expert around.

There is an infinite diversity of genders in the world.

Each person has a totally unique interpretation and relationship with any gender they inhabit, and there are at least as many genders as there have been humans who have lived.

At least.

Gee, if only we could do that.

Ever since President Joe Biden emerged as the winner of the United States’ presidential election, Fr John Zuhlsdorf has been carrying out exorcisms about what he describes as “fraud” and “lying” during the vote-counting process. 

The prominent priest-blogger and President Trump supporter, also claimed that his Bishop, Donald Hying of Madison, granted him the authority to carry out the exorcism rite.  

His Bishop says oh no he didn’t.

The priest-blogger did an exorcism the day before the insurrection.

“I have the permission of the bishop to say this, which increases the authority of the praying of the prayer,” he said ahead of his 5 January exorcism which he carried out in Latin. “As exorcists will confirm, the demons are very good with electronic equipment.”

And MAGA types are very good with Latin.

The priest-blogger explained his reasons before he did the exorcising.

“I think it’s amply clear, there’s enough evidence to demonstrate that there was fraud in some places, and people had to commit that fraud, it didn’t happen by itself. It seems to have been well-organised. I am deeply concerned that anyone involved in this has put their soul in terrible mortal peril,” he said. 

“We have to be concerned about the people involved in this who might have lied, or who might have committed fraud, concerning this election. This is not cheating to steal the election to 5th grade class president. This is something on a whole different scale, it’s quantitatively so vastly larger, that it’s qualitatively a different kind of a situation and sin. This isn’t like going over and stealing a newspaper off your neighbour’s porch.”

What about priests who spread lies about a legitimate election? What kind of situation and sin is that?

Fr Zuhsldorf runs one of the world’s best-read Christian blogs, which offers a combination of liturgical, political and culinary commentary. With tens of millions of visitors since 2006, Fr Zuhlsdorf is a relentless critic of liberal culture and supportive of elements of Trump’s political agenda. Unsurprisingly, he is not a fan of Pope Francis, and at one point told his supporters it was not a sin to pray for the death or resignation of the Roman Pontiff.

He sounds nice.

They were blocked.

The commander of the D.C. National Guard said the Pentagon restricted his authority ahead of the riot at the U.S. Capitol, requiring higher level sign-off to respond that cost time as the events that day spiraled out of control.

Is it because BLM protesters are scary while angry white guys who want to kill all the Democrats are just a little energetic?

Local commanders typically have the power to take military action on their own to save lives or prevent significant property damage in an urgent situation when there isn’t enough time to obtain approval from headquarters.

They can give the orders in an emergency.

But Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, the commanding general of the District of Columbia National Guard, said the Pentagon essentially took that power and other authorities away from him ahead of a pro-Trump protest on Jan. 6. That meant he couldn’t immediately roll out troops when he received a panicked phone call from the Capitol Police chief warning that rioters were about to enter the U.S. Capitol.

“All military commanders normally have immediate response authority to protect property, life, and in my case, federal functions — federal property and life,” Walker said in an interview. “But in this instance I did not have that authority.”

It also had to do with the disaster last summer.

The Pentagon required the highest-level approval for any moves beyond that narrow mission, in part because its leaders had been lambasted for actions the D.C. Guard took during last year’s racial justice protests, including helicopters that flew low over demonstrators in D.C. Top officials concluded those maneuvers resulted from “fragmentary orders” that hadn’t received high-level approval and were looking to prevent a repeat of that situation.

So, great. They wildly overreacted to a legitimate protest, and the blowback from that caused them to twiddle their thumbs as a fascist insurrection battered its way into the Capitol. This is all fine.

In the days before the protest, all the living former defense secretaries warned the Pentagon not to get involved in the peaceful transition of power, after reports that former national security adviser Michael Flynn had raised the possibility with President Donald Trump of declaring martial law to “rerun” the election.

The day before the Jan. 6 event, a senior U.S. official told The Post the military had “learned its lesson” after being rebuked over Trump’s heavy-handed response to racial justice protests last year. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the details of the preparations, said the military would be “absolutely nowhere near the Capitol building” because “we don’t want to send the wrong message.”

Always fighting the last war instead of the current one.

Fauci agrees that it’s nice not having Trump ruining everything.

“One of the things that we’re going to do is to be completely transparent, open and honest,” Fauci told reporters [last week]. “If things go wrong, not point fingers, but to correct them. And to make everything we do be based on science and evidence.

“That was literally a conversation I had 15 minutes ago with the president, and he has said that multiple times.”

Asked if he would like to amend or clarify anything he said during the Trump presidency, Fauci insisted he had always been candid, noting wryly, “That’s why I got in trouble sometimes.”

…

At Thursday’s briefing, Fauci was asked how it feels to no longer have Trump looming over him. “Obviously, I don’t want to be going back over history but it’s very clear that there were things that were said – be it regarding things like hydroxychloroquine [pushed as a treatment by Trump] and things like that – that really was uncomfortable because they were not based on scientific fact.

“I can tell you, I take no pleasure at all in being in a situation of contradicting the president, so it was really something that you didn’t feel that you could actually say something and there wouldn’t be any repercussions about it. The idea that you can get up here and talk about what you know, what the evidence, what the science is and know that’s it, let the science speak, it is something of a liberating feeling.”

Something of an understatement.