Trump is justifying his defiance of Congress by saying it’s “partisan.”

In an interview with The Washington Post, Trump said that complying with congressional requests was unnecessary after the White House cooperated with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe of Russian interference and the president’s own conduct in office.

“There is no reason to go any further, and especially in Congress where it’s very partisan — obviously very partisan,” Trump said.

Trump’s comments came as the White House made it clear that it plans to broadly defy requests for information from Capitol Hill, moving the two branches of government closer to a constitutional collision.

…

In his interview with The Post, Trump maintained that the White House Counsel’s Office has not “made a final, final decision” about whether it will formally assert executive privilege and try to block congressional testimony. But he said he opposes cooperation with House Democrats, who he claimed are trying to score political points against him.

“I don’t want people testifying to a party, because that is what they’re doing if they do this,” Trump said.

It’s almost funny, to see Trump complaining about “partisanship” and testifying to a party. If it weren’t for partisanship and party-first, Trump would have been dead meat within days of taking office. For that matter he would never have been elected, because most of the Republicans would have campaigned hard against him. It’s only because they’re complete party hacks that they keep defending this execrable shell of a man no matter what he does.

Tennessee is going all out on the open, shameless voter-suppression thing.

After enormous black turnout in the 2018 midterms, Republicans are advancing a bill that would penalize voter registration drives.

Gotta suppress that black turnout so that we can elect more proudly racist white people who will support Trump in all his crimes.

The Tennessee Legislature will soon vote on a bill that is deliberately intended to suppress black turnout, even though Tennessee is among the five states with the lowest voter participation.

The bill in the senate would create some of the most aggressive regulations on large-scale voter registration in the nation — like civil penalties for groups that unintentionally file incomplete voter registration forms. It would impose criminal sanctions on organizers who don’t attend training sessions run by local officials and on groups that fail to mail in voter registration forms in a short 10-day window.

Until the Shelby ruling, federal law – the Voting Rights Act – would have blocked all that. The Shelby ruling kneecapped the VRA, and this shit is the result.

This is a clear attack on the successful efforts to mobilize black voters during the 2018 midterm elections. Close to 90,000 black voters were registered by the Tennessee Black Voter Project, led by the activist Tequila Johnson and the Equity Alliance, which partner with my organization, the Black Voters Matter Fund.

…

[B]lack-led, community-based organizations throughout Tennessee have been registering more voters, turning them out to vote and winning more elections for progressive issues and candidates. The fact that racial progress here has resulted in a white backlash is consistent with Tennessee history. Tennessee’s attack on black-led voter registration is also an escalation of similar strategies seen in Georgia. While he was secretary of state, Brian Kemp aggressively pursued criminal investigations against voter registration groups like the New Georgia Project, founded by Stacey Abrams.

The bill isn’t law yet. Fingers crossed it never will be.

Amnesty International reports Saudi Arabia executed 37 people today.

The execution of 37 people convicted on “terrorism” charges marks an alarming escalation in Saudi Arabia’s use of the death penalty, said Amnesty International today. Among those put to death was a young man who was convicted of a crime that took place while he was under the age of 18.

“Today’s mass execution is a chilling demonstration of the Saudi Arabian authorities callous disregard for human life. It is also yet another gruesome indication of how the death penalty is being used as a political tool to crush dissent from within the country’s Shi’a minority,” said Lynn Maalouf Middle East Research Director at Amnesty International.

The majority of those executed were Shi’a men who were convicted after sham trials that violated international fair trial standards which relied on confessions extracted through torture.

They include 11 men who were convicted of spying for Iran and sentenced to death after a grossly unfair trial. At least 14 others executed were convicted of violent offences related to their participation in anti-government demonstrations in Saudi Arabia’s Shi’a majority Eastern Province between 2011 and 2012. The 14 men were subjected to prolonged pre-trial detention and told the court that they were tortured or otherwise ill-treated during their interrogation in order to have ‘confessions’ extracted from them.

Also among those executed is Abdulkareem al-Hawaj – a young Shi’a man who was arrested at the age of 16 and convicted of offences related to his involvement in anti-government protests. Under international law, the use of the death penalty against people who were under the age of 18 at the time of the crime is strictly prohibited.

Saudi Arabia, like Trump, has nothing but contempt for international law.

The Trumpies Just Say No.

The White House plans to fight a subpoena issued by the House Judiciary Committee for former White House counsel Donald McGahn to testify, according to people familiar with the matter, setting up another showdown in the aftermath of the special counsel report.

The Trump administration also plans to oppose other requests from House committees for the testimony of current and former aides about actions in the White House described in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report, according to two people familiar with internal thinking.

Planning, or plotting. It can’t be called thinking.

McGahn was mentioned more than 150 times in Mueller’s report and provided damaging accounts to investigators about how the president pressured him to oust the special counsel and then pushed him to publicly deny the episode.

But Congress can’t investigate that, because PreZiDent Trump is ABOVE THE LAW.

Public testimony from McGahn could create a spectacle that would parallel the June 1973 testimony of President Richard Nixon’s former White House Counsel John Dean, whose live televised appearance before a Senate committee painted a vivid portrait for the country of the White House coverup of the Watergate burglary.

Wait a second. McGahn is a private citizen now. He doesn’t work for Trump any more. He can just testify voluntarily, can’t he?

Ah well, they answer that in the next paragraphs.

People close to McGahn, who were not authorized to speak publicly, said McGahn is “following the process” and working with the White House on his next steps, despite Trump’s public and private anger about his former White House counsel’s prominence in the Mueller report.

“He’s not eager to testify. He’s not reluctant. He got a subpoena. It compels him to testify. But there are some countervailing legal reasons that might prevent that,” said one person close to McGahn, who requested anonymity to describe private discussions. “He doesn’t want to be in contempt of Congress nor does he want to be in contempt of his ethical obligations and legal obligations as a former White House official.”

How about his moral obligations to the country and the world? Trump is a reckless criminal running amok. I think that outweighs putative “ethical obligations as a former White House official.”

Throwdown.

The House Oversight Committee moved Tuesday to hold a former White House personnel security director in contempt of Congress for failing to appear at a hearing investigating alleged lapses in White House security clearance procedures.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said he would consult with the House counsel and members of the panel about scheduling a vote on contempt for former White House personnel security director Carl Kline. At the instruction of the White House, Kline failed to show up for scheduled testimony on security clearances.

The move marks a dramatic escalation of tensions between Congress and the Trump White House, which is increasingly resisting requests for information from Capitol Hill.

“The White House and Mr. Kline now stand in open defiance of a duly authorized congressional subpoena with no assertion of any privilege of any kind by President Trump,” Cummings said in a statement. “Based on these actions, it appears that the President believes that the Constitution does not apply to his White House, that he may order officials at will to violate their legal obligations, and that he may obstruct attempts by Congress to conduct oversight.”

This is not a monarchy. Let’s hope it’s not a dictatorship.

Even in The Baffler…

Certainly not all academic philosophers are politely liberal defenders of tolerance. Recently, a small but vocal minority of philosophers have taken it upon themselves to defend a view that, it seems, they strongly feel is right—and to hell with anyone who sees things differently.

What? Some people have “taken it upon themselves to defend a view that, it seems, they strongly feel is right”? Well what else are they supposed to do? Is there some social rule against defending views we think are right? Should we be defending views we think are wrong, instead? Or should be be keeping quiet? Or should we be asking for permission first? (But from whom?) I suspect it’s not an accident that most of the people doing this “taking it upon themselves” to defend views are women while the author, Tom Whyman, is not. (The aptness of the surname is no fault of mine.)

Anyway, clearly he has carefully cued us to find these views reprehensible before we even know what they are.

Faced with an alleged PC consensus that proclaims the right of trans women to identify as women, and trans men to identify as men, these scholars have adopted a position they call “gender critical feminism.”

No, that’s not accurate. Getting it wrong in the very first sentence; that’s not auspicious. The issue isn’t people’s right to “identify as” anything they like; the issue is forcing other people to treat the “identifying as” as dispositive. You can identify as the Pillsbury dough boy if you like, but that doesn’t mean you can force anyone else to believe in your identity.

They’ve become known to their detractors as “trans-exclusionary radical feminists” (TERFs). In short: they think that sex is a matter of biology, not a “social construction”; they also believe that the interests of cis and trans women can radically diverge—so much so, indeed, that they contend that giving trans women access to women’s spaces often, if not always, constitutes a physical threat. (Trans men, by contrast, are usually just “misguided” lesbians forced to transition by the woke mainstream.) For obvious reasons, people with gender critical views are often accused of being transphobic.

Note the complete failure to explain how and why giving trans women access to women’s spaces can not possibly ever constitute a physical threat, and even to admit that he’s not explaining – note the breezy, careless, confident skipping right past that point, without pausing to consider for instance how women can know who is a trans woman and who is faking in order to spy on or assault women. Note that and then marvel at the “for obvious reasons” that precedes the “transphobic” smear.

Meanwhile, a guest post on Daily Nous (the other big philosophy blog, alongside Leiter Reports) took umbrage at a piece written by trans woman philosopher Rachel McKinnon in which (during, as it happens, a symposium on Jason Stanley’s How Propaganda Works) she used the TERF acronym—a coinage that gender critical feminists often insist is a “slur.” This is largely because it has been employed—and forcefully so at times—by trans opponents of their views: people who, to be clear, comprise a marginalized group who might understandably feel threatened by the implications of gender critical arguments.

Unlike mere stupid commonplace women, who have no right at all to feel threatened by being called “TERFs” or bullied for saying anything about women’s rights.

One more Guardian piece on Carl “Sargon of Akkad” Benjamin, this one from a month ago:

Ukip is expected to choose a controversial YouTube activist, who has been accused of triggering rape threats against a Labour MP, as a candidate if Britain takes part in the European elections, it has emerged.

A party selection process this weekend is likely to confirm the candidacy of Carl Benjamin, a self-styled free speech activist who has been banned from Twitter and some other platforms because of his views, Ukip sources said.

Carl Benjamin is not a “free speech activist.” That’s just a screen. It’s not “free speech activism” to spew misogynist venom at women and xenophobic venom at pesky foreigners. It’s just spewing venom.

Benjamin, who calls himself Sargon of Akkad after the ruler of a Mesopotamian empire, first became known for his anti-feminist commentary, and has also expressed controversial opinions on immigration, race and other issues.

In 2016 he tweeted “I wouldn’t even rape you” to the Labour MP Jess Phillips, in a message featuring the tag #feminismiscancer. Phillips said she subsequently received 600 rape threats.

Benjamin, who is among a trio of social media-based activists who joined Ukip last year, has previously used racially charged language, accusing alt-right critics during one live web interview of “acting like a bunch of niggers”. He added: “You think white people act like this? White people are meant to be polite and respectful to one another.”

Not free speech activism. Just common or garden shit-talking, bullying, race-baiting, bullying. Not free speech activism and not classical liberalism, either.

Originally a comment by Acolyte of Sagan on A history of oppressing a marginalized group.

Which of the following would most likely have a genuine claim of being oppressed?

a) A male-bodied, female-identifying person being told that, no, you cannot take a role of rape counselor to women and girls at this rape crisis centre. Women and girls tend not to want to share the most intimate details of their abuse with any stranger, but more-so with a male-bodied stranger. They are also understandably likely have a fear of male-bodied people, but fear and trust do not tend to go hand-in-hand, and a counselor must have the trust of the person being counseled in order to be effective.

b) Women and girls being told that, yes, they must accept a male-bodied, female-identifying person as their rape counselor at this rape crisis centre. It doesn’t matter that they’re unwilling to share intimate details of their abuse with a male-bodied stranger, and may not trust a male-bodied counselor sufficiently to be able to recieve effective counseling, because that attitude is just bigotry and genital hang-ups; they are the problem, not the male-bodied person wanting to counsel them when they’re at their most vulnerable.

Same question.

a) A male-bodied, female-identifying person being told that, no, you do not qualify for a place at this refuge for women suffering domestic abuse. There is a strict no men policy in place here because the women we shelter are, in general, scared to be in close proximity to men and this refuge is a safe-space for abused women.

b) Women fleeing domestic abuse being told that they must share this shelter with male-bodied people despite being scared to be in close proximity to men, and if they don’t accept that condition they must go elsewhere.

Karellen, your initial post equated trans people with women and with people of colour, but there is no equivalence between trans people and the latter two groups. Both women and people of colour are biologically and physically women and/or people of colour. Their status as women or people of colour are undeniable, well-defined and provable facts. A persons’ sex or colour is clearly identifiable at birth and is neither reliant on nor changeable by an individual’s sense of self. Transgender is solely a personal, psychological phenomenon, its existence being totally reliant on the individual’s sense of self and liable to change as the individual’s sense of self changes over time.

To conflate transgender people with women and with people of colour is a disingenuous tactic in the same vein as the conflation of transgender and intersex by the use of ‘assigned at birth’. It is only a superficially convincing argument, one that falls apart as soon as one gives it more than superficial thought.

Just as with religion, there’s a very good reason why trans activists do not welcome discussion and debate over their claims, demanding straightforward compliance instead, and that reason is that the claims tend not to stand up to scrutiny.

Last June the Guardian reported that Ukip had welcomed a trio of Twitter trolls, Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad) being one.

Ukip has allowed a trio of social media activists linked to the “alt-right” to join the party.

The arrival of Paul Joseph Watson, Mark Meechan – better known to YouTube viewers as Count Dankula – and Carl Benjamin, who posts videos as Sargon of Akkad, will alarm some senior Ukip members already concerned at the struggling party’s direction under Gerard Batten.

…

All three are vocal on social media, with large followings and often controversial views. Watson, who has 875,000 Twitter followers, is a senior editor at Infowars, the US-based website that deals partly in conspiracy theories, such as arguing that the Sandy Hook primary school shooting was a hoax.

Watson describes himself as a “classical liberal”, but mainly offers posts condemning immigration and Islam, and seeking to bait leftwingers.

“Classical liberal” in the sense of xenophobic and bullying; ok.

A spokesman for the group Hope Not Hate, which monitors far-right groups among others said: “There are attempts afoot to forge an alliance between extreme figures who have made their names online, those involved in electoral politics, and those out on the streets, around an anti-Muslim and pro- ‘free speech’ agenda.

“In following the path he’s chosen, Batten is leading Ukip down a dangerous route, and the acceptance of figures such as Watson is further evidence of this.”

Oh don’t worry, they’re classical liberals.

Twitter troll hits the big time – Carl Benjamin aka Sargon of Akkad is a Ukipper.

A leading Ukip candidate for the European elections argued that feminism was responsible for a rise in the number of men carrying out mass murders, because the killers felt disenfranchised and “out of options”, it has emerged.

Carl Benjamin, a social media activist who previously tweeted “I wouldn’t even rape you” to the Labour MP Jess Phillips, argued in a now-deleted YouTube video that feminism had caused male mental health to deteriorate, prompting more mass killings.

“This is what feminism has wrought – a generation of men who do not know what to do, who are being demonised for what they are,” said Benjamin, who uses the name Sargon of Akkad on social media.

“Before your stupid social justice feminist bullshit, it didn’t happen on this scale. It’s crazy – this is a disease of the modern age,” Benjamin said in the 2014 video, recorded after the murder of six people in California that year by a 22-year-old man who said the killings were a response to women rejecting him sexually.

“You are responsible for perpetuating it, by disenfranchising these poor fucking guys who don’t have any options left,” Benjamin said.

Benjamin is second on Ukip’s regional list for MEP candidates in the south-west of England should next month’s European parliament elections take place in the UK.

He was among two candidates paraded by Ukip’s leader, Gerard Batten, at a fractious press conference last Thursday, at which Benjamin responded angrily to journalists’ questions about the tweet to Phillips, saying he was being accused of “crimes against political correctness”. Phillips has said she received 600 rape threats after Benjamin’s tweet.

Oh yes, it’s just crazy PoLitical CorRectness to think men shouldn’t use social media to bully women.

“The question you and all of your stupid fucking feminist cultists need to be asking is, why are these men becoming misogynists in the first place? What is this feminist-run society doing to them that is causing them to go insane?” he says.

He adds: “When someone takes the option of absolute, insanely last resort, you have to wonder what kind of system is producing them. And I tell you what, Laci, it is a fucking feminist system that’s doing this.”

The Guardian has asked Ukip to comment.

Mob boss Trump and his mob boss “company” are suing Representative Elijah Cummings for daring to investigate the mob boss’s activities.

Lawyers for President Donald Trump and the Trump Organization are suing Rep. Elijah Cummings, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, to block a subpoena for years of financial records from several Trump entities.

The lawyers filed the lawsuit Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, saying the subpoena for records from Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, “lacks any legitimate legislative purpose, is an abuse of power, and is just another example of overreach by the president’s political opponents.”

It doesn’t need a “legitimate legislative purpose,” because the goal is oversight. It’s right there in the name of the committee. If there’s any president who has ever needed oversight it’s Donald Mob Boss Trump.

“We will not allow congressional presidential harassment to go unanswered,” Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s personal lawyers, said in a statement. “Harassment” is a phrase Trump often uses to attack his critics in Congress.

The lawsuit argues that House Democrats have “declared an all-out political war against President Donald J. Trump” and that “subpoenas are the weapon of their choice.” It goes on to say Democrats are “obsessed” with finding something that could “damage the president politically.”

That’s a lawsuit? It sounds like Trump’s Twitter garbage, not a lawsuit. Cummings says the same thing.

Cummings said in a statement Monday afternoon that Trump “has a long history of trying to use baseless lawsuits to attack his adversaries, but there is simply no valid legal basis to interfere with this duly authorized subpoena from Congress.”

“This complaint reads more like political talking points than a reasoned legal brief, and it contains a litany of inaccurate information,” he continued. “The White House is engaged in unprecedented stonewalling on all fronts, and they have refused to produce a single document or witness to the Oversight Committee during this entire year.”

Presidential harassment!

One of the men on Trump’s Bros To Maybe Hire Possibly lists has left a trail of sexist contempt for women. Now there’s a surprise!

One of President Donald Trump’s picks to serve on the Federal Reserve Board has written that women should be banned from refereeing, announcing or beer vending at men’s college basketball games, asking if there was any area in life “where men can take vacation from women.”

Stephen Moore, an economic commentator and former Trump campaign adviser, made those and similar comments in several columns reviewed by CNN’s KFile that were published on the website of the conservative National Review magazine in 2001, twice in 2002 and 2003.

There’s conservative, and then there’s casually misogynist. The two aren’t necessarily the same. Conservatives don’t have to express contempt for women as a condition of membership.

In a 2000 column, Moore complained about his wife voting for Democrats, writing, “Women are sooo malleable! No wonder there’s a gender gap.” In another column in 2000, Moore criticized female athletes advocating for pay equality, writing that they wanted “equal pay for inferior work.”

He says he was joking. Hurr hurr.

The columns are attracting renewed attention as his prior views and statements face scrutiny ahead of what could be a contentious confirmation process to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Trump said in March he intends to nominate Moore to the position, but Moore has not officially been nominated yet.

The resurfaced comments come as Trump’s other pick for a seat on Fed board, Herman Cain, faces scrutiny over allegations of sexual harassment that ended his 2012 presidential campaign.

It’s almost as if Trump prefers sexist men.

Now there’s a compelling argument.

pic.twitter.com/MmTd4JCUsU

— Rebecca Watson (@rebeccawatson) April 22, 2019

Oh dear, I thought that we “cis” people were not at fault for being “cis”; I thought it was just a fact about us, not a condemnation. How many times have I seen “Cis just means identifying with your assigned sex, that’s all it means”? Many. Many many. I’ve seen it a lot because I’ve seen a lot of conversations about the way “cis” is used as a pejorative, like “racist” or “misogynist”; orthodoxy-policers always rush to say no no no no it’s not a pejorative at all, it just means “not trans.”

Maybe there was a memo? Apparently that’s not the orthodoxy any more.

“Cis”, like “white” or “straight”, describes a privileged group with a history of oppressing a marginalized group.

Sometimes the marginalized will use the term in frustration: “White BS” “Cis nonsense”.

If you take it personally & get defensive, you need to ask yourself why.

— Amanda Jette Knox (@MavenOfMayhem) April 20, 2019

So now people who are not trans have a history of oppressing trans people? How? How do we oppress trans people? By not being trans? But we can’t help that, after all. There are probably lots of people in the world – “cis” people – who’ve never so much as heard of trans people, so how do they oppress them?

Needless to say, Amanda Jette Knox doesn’t explain.

If you get upset at “cis” sometimes being used negatively, maybe you don’t understand what’s at stake or what trans people have endured. You don’t know what micro-aggressions feel like or how often they occur.

Or maybe you’re just a bigot and you don’t want to admit it.

— Amanda Jette Knox (@MavenOfMayhem) April 20, 2019

Yeah, not explanatory. I am none the wiser as to how I, for instance, oppress Morgane Oger, for instance, simply by being cis.

Maybe further enlightenment will be forthcoming.

Robert Reich asks how can we make sure Trump doesn’t get re-elected.

Most Americans hold a low opinion of Trump. He’s the only president in Gallup polling history never to have earned the support of majority for single day of his term.

Yet Mueller’s report probably won’t move any of the 40% who have held tight to Trump regardless.

So how to reach the 11% or 12% who may decide the outcome?

Reveal his moral loathsomeness.

Democrats and progressives tend to shy away from morality, given how rightwing evangelicals have used it against abortion, contraceptives and equal marriage rights.

I don’t. Abortion, contraceptives and equal marriage rights have nothing to do with real morality – they’re targets of fake, religious morality, which is all too often profoundly immoral. I don’t shy away from talking about morality, and I’ve harped on the pervasive immorality of Trump to the point of nausea.

Trump is revealed as a chronic liar. He claimed he never asked for loyalty from FBI director James Comey. Mueller finds he did. Trump claimed he never asked Comey to let the “Michael Flynn matter go”. Mueller finds he did. Trump claimed he never pushed the White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller. Mueller finds he did. Trump even lied about inviting Comey to dinner, claiming falsely, in public, that Comey requested it. Trump enlists others to lie. He lies to his staff.

Trump treats his subordinates horribly. He hides things from them. He yells at them. He orders them to carry out illegal acts.

He acts like a thug. He regrets his lawyers are not as good at protecting him as was his early mentor Roy Cohn – a mob lawyer. When reports surface about the now infamous Trump Tower meeting of June 2016, Trump directs the cover-up.

Trump is unprincipled. The few people in the White House and the cabinet who stand up to him, according to Mueller – threatening to resign rather than carry out his illegal orders – are now gone. They resigned or were fired.

This is a portrait of a morally bankrupt man.

And there’s so much more. He’s cruel. He’s mean. He’s a bully. He enriched himself by cheating thousands of people, from workers and contractors to tenants in his father’s and his apartment buildings. He insults people in public. He mocks people in public. He punched his kid to the floor in front of the kid’s friends. He grabs women by the crotch.

The issue of Trump and morality came up in a back and forth between Giuliani and Jake Tapper.

“There’s nothing wrong with taking information from Russians,” Rudy Giuliani tells @jaketapper. #CNNSOTU https://t.co/Fe78m3aDWq pic.twitter.com/wfcU38vTWX

— State of the Union (@CNNSotu) April 21, 2019

Giuliani said there’s nothing wrong with taking information from the Russians, and Tapper pressed him on it. At 2:00 Tapper says “But you say there’s nothing wrong with doing that – ” and Giulian interjects “There’s no crime!” Tapper says “I’m not talking about crime, I’m talking about ethics, morality” while Giuliani talks over him “You’re talking about morality?!” There’s a tiny pause and then Tapper says “Yeah.” As in, “Yeah, of course.” It’s a nice moment. There’s an unspoken “Yeah, of course, and why aren’t you?”

I’ve said it before and I’ll no doubt have occasion to say it again: Trump is morbidly interesting in the thoroughness of his bad. It’s interesting in a sick way that there is nothing redeeming about him. I’ve never known anyone like that in real life (and I don’t have any ambitions to, either). He’s not amusing, he’s not a good talker, he’s not charming, he’s not clever, he’s not informative…nothing. There’s nothing but rot from top to bottom.

The donations are rolling in.

The devastating fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris led to an immediate outpouring of donations and an ambitious pledge by the French president to rebuild within five years. But a continent away, the blaze also spurred more than $1.8 million in donations to rebuild three historically black churches burned in suspected hate crimes in Louisiana.

The fires at the three churches in St. Landry Parish occurred over 10 days beginning at the end of March. Authorities said they were deliberately set and have arrested a suspect.

As of [last] Sunday, a GoFundMe campaign seeking donations for the churches had raised only about $50,000. By Thursday morning, donations had soared to more than $1.8 million. The money is to be distributed equally among the three churches, which were all a century old.

The churches are small and not ornate, so $600 k each should be a real help.

In the wake of pledges to rebuild Notre Dame, the GoFundMe campaign was shared widely on social media by prominent figures like Hillary Clinton, journalists such as CNN’s Jake Tapper and Yashar Ali, and various celebrities who pledged to match donations.

The first of the fires was reported on March 26 at St. Mary Baptist Church, the next on April 2 at Greater Union Baptist Church and the third on April 4 at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church. There were no reported injuries at any of the fires.

Police later arrested Holden Matthews, 21, the son of a deputy sheriff, and he faces hate crime and arson charges.

“Redemption” is not over yet.

Updating to add: the sum now is $2,155,640.

Morgane Oger continues to assert that it’s feminist women’s fault that Jessica (formerly Jonathan) Yaniv predated on young girls.

Amy hamm incites hatred against trans women because of who we are. Maybe she didn't get the memo, so I'll say it more explicitly: She and @FeministCurrent enabled Yaniv, creating social cover by inciting repulsive hatred instead of researching the facts and reporting. #DoYourJob https://t.co/orpUBQrLve

— Morgane Oger M.S.M. (@MorganeOgerBC) April 20, 2019

The reason Yaniv had cover was the methods used by TERFs

— Morgane Oger M.S.M. (@MorganeOgerBC) April 21, 2019

Two Feminist Current authors have been banned from Twitter over their anti-transgender campaigns.

There is no place on social media for supremacists.

— Morgane Oger M.S.M. (@MorganeOgerBC) April 21, 2019