The splitting off of the LGB Alliance from Stonewall is shining a light on the difficulty a lot of people have with figuring out who is part of The Community and who is not. Like for instance in replies to a tweet in which they invited comrades to join the effort:

We had our pre-launch meeting last night. The amount of positive energy and expertise in the room was truly inspiring! Please DM us if you want to join in our efforts. We have a mountain to climb but we will succeed!

A confused reply:

We are stronger when united. When you choose to create factions within our community we are all diminished. You do the work of those that wish us the most harm. If you want me to choose, I won’t choose bigotry.

Wait. Who is “we”? What is “our community”? Who are “you”? Who are “those”?

What people make up the we who are stronger when united? Not the whole population, obviously, because somebody has to make up the group “those that wish us the most harm,” but so then who? Who are the people who make up “our community” and who are the people who don’t?

This is the whole point. The reply (which is echoed by many others) is assuming that trans people are (obviously and necessarily) part of The Community along with lesbians and gays, and also assuming that that assumption is self-evidently correct. But it’s not. The two are not the same thing. Yes, both deviate from a certain version of “normal,” but it’s not the same version that they both deviate from. The two can look similarish at a casual glance, but that doesn’t mean they are the same, and the tensions that roil the supposed “community” make that plain.

Abstractions, how do they work.

Mieke Eoyang, who is an expert in the field, explains why the whole barging into a SCIF stunt is not cute.

A few words on why Gaetz stunt to storm the SCIF to disrupt Laura Cooper’s deposition is a VERY serious national security problem.

Note, I worked in that SCIF for HPSCI and handled cybersecurity issues while there.

Aside from disrupting the testimony of a DoD official shedding light on the President’s attempts to extort a sham investigation into the child of his most feared political rival by withholding military aid that Congress gave to resist a Russian invasion…Storming the SCIF without respecting the security protocols that require people to leave their electronic devices *outside* the space, is actually compromising our national security.

First, the SCIF itself is a secure facility designed to prevent electronic eavesdropping so members of Congress can receive highly classified information about how the nation collects information on its adversaries, and on *very* sensitive intelligence operations.

Foreign adversaries are constantly trying to figure out what goes on inside those rooms to figure out what the US knows about them, to out US high-level sources in their governments, to know what the US government knows and use it against us.

The facilities are carefully designed and controlled to ensure that electronic signals, surveillance methods, or other listening devices do not compromise the information discussed in these rooms. I will not, for obvious reasons, go into details.

Bringing electronic devices into a SCIF, and this SCIF in particular is *very* problematic, especially when done by members of Congress.

Because Members of Congress (and their electronic devices) are high-value targets for compromise by foreign intelligence services.

Members of Congress have access to a wide range of sensitive information, including, in the case of these members, conversations with the President of the United States. They travel internationally, receive emails from the public, and meet with foreign dignitaries.

As politicians, they’re also highly sensitive to revelations of derogatory information, which means that foreign adversaries are very interested in collecting same.

They also tend to be lax in their security protocols. This means they may not know they have been compromised. For example, their phones can be turned into listening devices without their knowledge.

This is why outside HPSCI there is a security guard and a series of cabinets for people to leave (and lock) their electronic devices while they are inside the room.

Failure to follow this protocol can violate the security of the entire SCIF.
After an incident like this happens, countermeasures have to be taken to ensure the SCIF is not compromised. It is a time-consuming, technical process, which again, I will not discuss.
But in “storming the SCIF” without observing the security protocols, Rep. Gaetz et al, endangered our national security & demonstrated they care more about a political stunt than protecting intelligence information.

I cannot emphasize enough how serious this is.

To ensure that the information was secure, the members should give over their electronic devices for scanning to ensure no malware was on them, and that they have not compromised the SCIF.

If they don’t want to give them up, they should have checked them before entering.
So, to recap:

To disrupt testimony from a DOD official on how the President endangered national security for both the US and Ukraine by withholding military aid, the President’s allies further endangered national security by storming the SCIF with their electronic devices.

Good to know.

Disconcerting.

H/t What a Maroon and Screechy Monkey

In more hopeful news – The Telegraph reports Stonewall have split over the trans-mania issue.

Europe’s biggest LGBT rights organisation has split after being accused of promoting a ‘trans agenda’ at the expense of gay and lesbian rights.

Stonewall is known for campaigning for the equality of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people across Britain. The charity’s mission statement says that it aims ‘to create inclusive and accepting cultures’.

However, following a meeting on Tuesday night – and amid an ongoing row about trans inclusion – the charity has divided and forged a splinter group.

Announcing themselves as the LGB Alliance, the group, formed of ‘influential lesbians, gay men and bisexuals’ met in central London last night and forged the new organisation in a bid to ‘counteract the confusion between sex and gender which is now widespread in the public sector and elsewhere’.

Simon Fanshawe, who co-founded Stonewall in 1989, was among those speaking at the event last night in central London.

In a press release announcing the new group, which will be formally launched in January, the LGB Alliance said that its participants included former employees and supporters of the lobby group Stonewall, as well as doctors, psychiatrists, academics and lawyers with expertise in child safeguarding.

It added that all members had agreed a foundation statement which prioritised biological sex over gender theories which they regard as ‘pseudo-scientific and dangerous’.

Yesssss.

Bev Jackson, a co-founder of the Gay Liberation Front, said: ‘LGB people like us have been writing to Stonewall for over a year – trying to set up a dialogue with them. It’s about the fact that they have chosen to prioritise trans people and have almost abandoned their original mission: protecting people who are same-sex attracted.

‘Sadly, we do still need protection. Young lesbians in particular are suffering; experiencing huge social pressure to transition to male if they do not conform to traditional gender stereotypes.’

They organized a petition asking for a dialogue, signed by nearly 1o thousand people, but Stonewall looked fixedly in the other direction.

The members of the new Alliance agreed, as part of a 20-point position statement, that:homosexuality is same-sex (not same-gender) attraction; lesbians are biological women who are attracted to other biological women; sex is not ‘assigned’ at birth but observed and it is not transphobic for lesbians to have their own spaces and institutions which exclude male-bodied people.

Just as it’s not transphobic for women to have their own spaces and institutions which exclude male-bodied people.

Paul Twocock, Chief Executive, Stonewall said: ‘There is no truth to reports of Stonewall ‘splitting’, so please ignore the alarmist headlines. These stories don’t refer to any current Stonewall staff or trustees. There is no equality for lesbian, gay and bi people without equality for trans people. We’re all united in our mission to achieving acceptance without exception for all LGBT people.’

Sad about the name, but leaving that aside (stop sniggering you there in the back) – why is there no equality for lesbian, gay and bi people without equality for trans people? Equality meaning what, exactly? If it means “acceptance” then what does that mean?

We know what it means with respect to LGB people: that love and attraction to people of one’s own sex is not oooky or sinister and not a reason to persecute or shun people. But in the case of trans people it’s no longer enough to say not oooky or sinister and not a reason to persecute or shun, now the imperative is to say everyone is required to believe trans people’s claims to be the other sex, in all cases, no matter what, no matter how obviously opportunistic and cynical. That’s a different kind of thing. It’s more intrusive, more demanding, more inquisitorial, much more apt to get up in your face and start demanding what you really believe. It’s different. It’s different, and worse.

And that’s not “equality.” Equality doesn’t mean accepting all of people’s claims about themselves. If it did, people could for instance just claim to be not misogynist or racist, and that would be the end of it. Would that lead to equality for women and people of color? Like hell it would.

Whoopsie, it seems the brave rebels who stormed their own Congress have realized they’re getting themselves in trouble. Caroline Orr @RVAWonk:

They’re all realizing that live-tweeting from inside SCIF is a huge security breach and now they’re trying to tweet their way out of it.

It’s staff tweeting! We’re not tweeting!

Oh look, another one:

I’m not quite sure it becomes not a security breach if they send it to staff who then send it to the world. I kind of think it’s the whole sending it thing that’s the breach. Could be wrong.

Meanwhile Trump is busy winning hearts and minds by calling critics in the Republican party “human scum.”

The Never Trumper Republicans, though on respirators with not many left, are in certain ways worse and more dangerous for our Country than the Do Nothing Democrats. Watch out for them, they are human scum!

Naturally I learned this because “human scum” is trending on Twitter. Of course it is.

Also – he pinned the tweet!

He’s frantically RTing Ever Trumpers staging their coup.

Like Rep. Jody Hice (Georgia):

Stepping out of Schiff’s dungeon for a quick update. Members and the thousands of constituents they represent have a right to know what’s going on in this “impeachment inquiry.” Schiff’s efforts to hide this process from the American people will not stand. #StopTheSchiffShow

But her emails.

God, these people.

Representative Mark Walker (North Carolina):

UPDATE: We are in the SCIF and every GOP Member is quietly listening. Meanwhile, Adam Schiff, clearly peeved that he will no longer be able to hide his impeachment sham, is threatening Ethics punishment for all of us. His fake intimidation can’t hide his lies–Open the process!

His profile:

US Congressman. @housegop Vice Chair. Ranking Member on Subcommittee for Intelligence and Counterterrorism. Former Pastor

Rep. Matt Gaetz (Florida) advertising his upcoming show this morning:

COMING UP: Rep. Matt Gaetz will lead a delegation of Republican members of Congress to the House Intelligence Committee deposition, where they will demand increased transparency and inclusion in the impeachment process from House Democrats. WATCH LIVE: https://facebook.com/CongressmanMattGaetz

And his show in progress:

I’m gathered here with dozens of my congressional colleagues underground in the basement of the Capitol. If behind those doors they intend to overturn the results of an American presidential election, we want to know what’s going on. #StopTheSchiffShow

“Stop the Schiff Show” is cute because you know you’re meant to think Shit Show haha so funny just like Trump calling him Adam Shit haha that’s where we are now.

Again, this is Republicans, the lawnorder party, breaking every rule in the book to try to protect the criminal treacherous lying president from lawful investigation by colleagues in Congress. That’s what this is.

Soraya Chemaly has the best comment on the whole thing.

Keeper for the American Patriarchy Photo Collection

Matt Gaetz says he’s about to lead this phalanx of House Republicans into the SCIF to check out what’s going on with the whole impeachment thing

Republicans: Law and order! National security! America First!

Also Republicans: Storm the classified hearing, cell phones in hand!

House Republicans took their impeachment grievances to a more confrontational level on Wednesday, barging in to a secure facility during a closed-door witness deposition and refusing to leave until Democrats held open hearings.

The gambit—cooked up by the pro-Trump brawler Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and endorsed by House GOP leadership—derailed the closed-door deposition of Laura Cooper, a Pentagon official with jurisdiction over Ukraine policy, before it even started. And it left Democrats indignant that their colleagues had violated long standing rules about interviewing witnesses in classified settings.

Long standing rules long standing shmules, this is a fight. You don’t bring rules to a fight.

Cell phones, for example, are not allowed in Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (also known as SCIFs). But the Republican members who barged into those facilities had taken their phones with them inside the room. Lawmakers and aides said that, as of noon on Wednesday, the SCIF was being swept for electronic surveillance devices because the Republicans brought in their phones, delaying the start of Cooper’s deposition. Democrats were also contemplating whether to bring in the U.S. Capitol Police in order to drag out the protesting members.

Welp, if you elect hoodlums to Congress, this is what you end up with. Never mind Mister Deeds Smith Goes to Washington, it’s Matt the Knife and Devin the Killer Go to Washington.

In a scheme that drew parallels to the infamous Brooks Brother riots that upended the 2000 Florida recount, Gaetz led about 25 House Republican lawmakers into the secure basement SCIF, where bipartisan members of the three committees leading the impeachment inquiry—and only members of those three committees—are allowed to go during the impeachment investigation.

According to Democratic lawmakers in the room, the Republicans blew past police officers to enter the room and began shouting once they got there, loudly denouncing the process and impeachment in general.

Which is to say they staged a coup. No biggy, just another Wednesday.

Close to two hours after they first went in, a core group of Republicans remained there, according to a tweet from Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ). The number two House Republican, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), was with them. Three hours into the standoff, the Republican crew remained—and they had ordered pizza from We The Pizza, a Capital Hill joint.

What do they want? Poor people are already poor; do they want to make them even poorer? Enslaved maybe? Do they want even more people of color in prison? To take away all health insurance from people who aren’t millionaires? Women forcibly impregnated throughout their childbearing years? Women literally chained to the stove? Fox News on every channel? Nuclear war? Global warming to happen even faster? What? 

House Republicans have held—and even supported—the use of closed door hearings for past congressional investigations, including the select committee that they spearheaded to investigate the 2011 consulate attack in Benghazi. That larger inconsistency and the timing on Wednesday’s gambit struck some Democrats as telling about the direction that the impeachment proceeding is heading.

“When you don’t have the law or the facts you attack and disrupt the process,” said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA). “And you may wonder why is it happening now? Because Bill Taylor gave a devastating opening statement yesterday. They’re freaked out. They’re trying to stop this investigation.”

So what they want is to protect the most flagrant criminal who has ever befouled the presidency and the country.

What a glorious cause.

Word is that Taylor’s statement and testimony are very damaging to Dirty Donnie. The Guardian has some summaries:

In the 15-page statement, the acting US ambassador to Ukraine and longtime civil servant describes how he became “increasingly concerned” that the US-Ukraine relationship was being “fundamentally undermined” by withholding military aid for “domestic political reasons.”

Taylor added that he stood by his Sept. 9 text message to Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker, in which he said it would be “crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”

He also said he was worried about taking the job as acting ambassador to Ukraine because Giuliani was gumming up the works.

The longtime diplomat said: “I worried about what I had heard concerning the role of Rudolph Giuliani, who made several high-profile statements about Ukraine and U.S. policy toward the country.

“So during my meeting with Secretary [Mike] Pompeo on May 28, I made clear to him and the others present that if U.S. policy toward Ukraine changed, he would not want me posted there and I could not stay.”

After accepting the role, Taylor said he realized that Giuliani – along with Kurt Volker, Gordon Sondland and Rick Perry – controlled “an irregular, informal channel of U.S. policy-making with respect to Ukraine.”

Taylor said: “Although this irregular channel was well-connected in Washington, it operated mostly outside of official State Department channels.”

Which is a polite way of saying they had no business doing what they were doing.

He also said

he was told by an official at the National Security Council that Trump had insisted the Ukrainian president himself publicly announce a probe into Joe Biden and his son.

The acting US ambassador to Ukraine said: “President Trump did insist that President Zelensky go to a microphone and say he is opening investigations of Biden and 2016 election interference, and that President Zelensky should want to do this himself.”

However, Taylor said that Trump had told Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the EU, he was not seeking a “quid pro quo,” even as military aid to Ukraine hung in the balance.

At the risk of stating the obvious: if Trump demanded that the Ukrainian president make public announcements of investigations into Democrats before he would authorize the release of military aid, then his actions were the very definition of a quid pro quo.

Well. Trump is like a toddler: he thinks he can just say “No I didn’t” and it will all go away. He’s a liar and he’s stupid and he consults only his own wants.

Taylor also said:

“Ambassador Sondland also told me that he now recognized that he had made a mistake by earlier telling the Ukrainian officials to whom he spoke that a White House meeting with President Zelenskyy was dependent on a public announcement of investigations – in fact, Ambassador Sondland said, ‘everything’ was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance.

“He said that President Trump wanted President Zelenskyy ‘in a public box’ by making a public statement about ordering such investigations.”

Meaning…Trump wanted to force Zelensky to make this public statement so that he would be trapped and have to do the dirty things Trump wanted him to do. It doesn’t get much more gangster than that.

A tweet from Teacher2Teacher, an account where teachers apparently share ideas and advice and the like:

⛄️ Using this “gender snowperson,” Ss learn about identity and language! (📸 via educator
@LexingtonDEI) #EdEquity #ChampForKids #SchoolCulture

From the graphic style it appears to be aimed at very young children. Is it really teaching?

Do very young children really need to be taught about “gender expression”? I’m not sure I think anyone does, but the older the children the more able they are to question what they’re told by teachers. Do they need to be taught about “gender identity”? Are they taught what “identity” is first, and then how that can be made to fit with “gender”? I don’t think it can, myself, but very young children tend to believe what adults in authority tell them.

Should very young children be taught that they can be girl, boy, both, or neither?

Should very young children be taught any of this crap?

I don’t think so.

I guess the star represents the genitals? Or is it meant to be a yellow star? And is that a skirt or a random rectangle? Is it supposed to balance the sideways baseball cap? “Look, you can be both – cap and skirt! Heart and yellow star! It’s all so exciting!”

In better news:

BREAKING: Jessica Yaniv has just been ordered to pay legal costs to the business owners Yaniv harassed at the Human Rights Tribunal. The estheticians do not have to handle Yaniv’s male genitalia now or ever again. Finally. Some good news.

This is HUGE: via @JCCFCanada

I wish he had to give money to all of them, and a larger sum of it (to pay for their wasted time, just for one thing), but still.

Dirty Donnie retweeted one Jessica Ditto linking to a National Review piece a couple of hours ago:

“Empowering half the world’s population to flourish in the market economy is the best way to boost growth.”

What the hell is that creepy photo and what possessed them to use it? Why is Princess Ivanka rising from a sea of lesser women, bathed in golden light? Why does she tower over them with a serene madonna smile? Why do they all look roughly similar to her? Why are they all young or youngish? Why are they all white or near-white? Why are they all coiffed and heavily made up? Where are the farmers, workers, cops, teachers? Where are the immigrants, African-Americans, peasants, intellectuals? Why are we being nudged into thinking the Ivanka-type woman is the only woman? Why is it all so Stepford Wives? And why why why are we being treated to this deification of rich thieving crook Ivanka Trump??