Category: Notes and Comment Blog

Giuliani is telling reporters Don was just thinking aloud, obviously.

President Trump called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday to end the special counsel investigation, an extraordinary appeal to the nation’s top law enforcement official to halt an inquiry directly into the president.

..This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further. Bob Mueller is totally conflicted, and his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to USA!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1, 2018

We can never admire that tweet enough.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers quickly moved to contain the fallout, saying it was not an order to a member of his cabinet, but merely an opinion. An hour and a half after the tweet was posted, Mr. Trump’s lawyers contacted a reporter for The New York Times. In a subsequent telephone conversation, one of his lawyers, Rudolph W. Giuliani, dismissed the obstruction of justice concerns, calling it a “bizarre and novel theory of obstruction by tweet,” adding that it was “idiotic.”

Oh really. On what grounds? When Trump has done all kinds of things by tweet, including announce hirings and firings? When Trump’s tweets are by law part of the official archive of his presidency? When everyone knows Trump is a reckless lunatic and is perfectly capable of ordering Sessions to fire Mueller in a tweet? Of course it’s novel, since Twitter is relatively new and normal sane presidents who have presidented since the invention of Twitter don’t fire people in tweets, but Trump is not one of those normal sane presidents, so that’s beside the point.

Presidents typically do not weigh in on active Justice Department investigations, but Mr. Trump has been outspoken about his anger and frustration with the Russia inquiry.

Let’s nudge that sentence a little in the direction of truth.

Presidents typically do not weigh in on active Justice Department investigations, but Mr. Trump is a reckless moron who has never hesitated to barf out his rage at the inquiry into his criminal dealings with Russia.

Back to the actual Times.

The president’s lawyers, Jay A. Sekulow and Mr. Giuliani, said in a telephone interview that Mr. Trump was not ordering the inquiry closed but simply expressing his opinion.

“It’s not a call to action,” Mr. Giuliani said, adding that it was a sentiment that Mr. Trump and his lawyers had previously expressed publicly and that it was a statement protected by the president’s constitutional right to free speech.

“He doesn’t feel that he has to intervene in the process, nor is he intervening,” Mr. Sekulow said.

The president wanted the legal process to play out, his lawyers said. “He’s expressing his opinion, but he’s not talking of his special powers he has” as president, Mr. Giuliani said.

He wants the legal process to play out, yet he said Sessions should stop it. Does not compute.

Looking back on history, who was treated worse, Alfonse Capone, legendary mob boss, killer and “Public Enemy Number One,” or Paul Manafort, political operative & Reagan/Dole darling, now serving solitary confinement – although convicted of nothing? Where is the Russian Collusion?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1, 2018

Alfonse Capone? What is wrong with this guy? He refers to Lincoln as “Honest Abe Lincoln” like an idiot but Al Capone is Alfonse?

Also, what?

I guess Trump has been holding up that lamp in the boat too long, the fumes have gotten to him.

Urging Mr. Sessions to end the inquiry was unprecedented and amounted to Mr. Trump asking Mr. Sessions to “subvert the law,” said Matthew S. Axelrod, a longtime prosecutor who served in top roles in the Obama Justice Department.

“What he’s saying here is that there’s no one who ought to be able to investigate his actions and, if necessary, hold him accountable for those actions,” Mr. Axelrod said.

Mr. Axelrod said this request of Mr. Sessions was part of a larger pattern — one in which Mr. Trump attacked the integrity of the special counsel, attacked the press and attacked the courts, “all institutions designed to provide checks on executive authority and executive overreach,” he said.

Nah, it’s fine, he was just saying what he thought.

Step right up and read about the Existential Crisis of a Femme-Presenting Trans Man. You think I’m making it up but I’m not.

Since the day I came out as a trans man, people have assumed that I would drop my femininity like a bad habit.

I didn’t change my pronouns, but folks started referring to me as “him.” They started calling me “bro” and “dude,” when they hadn’t used those words to identify me before. While part of me felt validated by these things, since my masculinity had been erased and ignored for most of my life, another part of me felt pressured not to stay true to myself in favor of fulfilling the expectations of others.

Oh. Oops. But isn’t that what we’re told to do? With threats and menaces if we’re slow to comply? Also, what remedy is there for this ambivalence? Would coming out as non-binary solve the problem? Or would that just lead to a different kind of feeling pressured?

I retired my impressive makeup collection for a good stretch of time, with pain and the belief that I needed to perform one specific idea of manhood now. I looked in the mirror at myself in a skirt and grimaced with internalized transmisogyny. All I could see was a “man in a skirt,” as if that’s a bad thing.

My therapist told me the feelings I’m experiencing are natural, that it’s expected for me to be questioning what my relationship to femininity would be going forward on my path to transition. At first, I feared starting hormone therapy would mean giving up all things feminine. Was I to abandon my strong female role models, like The Halliwell Sisters, Malala and Lady Gaga, growing up? Was I going to stop binge-watching Sex and the City and painting my nails? And what was I going to do with all the lipstick I’ve acquired over the course of my beauty writing career??

A large part of me feels like saying yes, perfect, go on this way, because it is the logic of the whole thing and it will eventually end up with everyone giving up the latest social contagion and pretending it never happened.

But another part sighs heavily because it wants to point out that this is what we evil TERFs keep saying: just do the stuff you like to do, wear what you like, watch what tv you like, wear lipstick or don’t according to your preference, none of it changes what sex you are and nothing about what sex you are requires you to wear lipstick or not wear lipstick.

Also, thinking about something other than your Self would go a long long way to rescuing you from these quandaries, and, bonus, it would make you a less tedious and more useful person.

Good news for Muslim women in the UK:

A high court judge has decided that a couple’s Islamic marriage falls within the scope of English matrimonial law, in a ruling that could have implications for thousands of Muslims in the UK.

Nasreen Akhter wanted to divorce Mohammed Shabaz Khan, her husband of 20 years, but he blocked it, arguing that the couple were not married under English law.

Akhter and Khan underwent a religious marriage ceremony, known as a nikah, conducted by an imam in 1998.

This year Akhter, a solicitor, petitioned for divorce, saying the nikah constituted a valid marriage. Khan, a businessman, wanted to prevent Akhtar from bringing a case for a divorce settlement to court, and said they were married only under sharia or Islamic law.

In a written ruling, Mr Justice Williams, who heard the case in the family division of the high court in London, concluded that the marriage fell within the scope of the 1973 Matrimonial Causes Act.

He said the marriage was void under section 11 of the act because it was “entered into in disregard of certain requirements as to the formation of marriage. It is therefore a void marriage and the wife is entitled to a decree of nullity.”

There’s a difference between void and never a marriage in the first place, it seems.

Previous cases involving nikah marriages have concluded that they were legally non-existent, meaning spouses had no redress to the courts for a division of matrimonial assets such as the family home and spouse’s pension if a marriage broke down.

Hazel Wright, a family law specialist at Hunters Solicitors, said the ruling had “given heart to many who otherwise suffer discrimination”. She said it was vital for Akhter that the “English divorce court rule in her favour, that the marriage should be recognised as void and not a non-marriage. Otherwise she would not have any rights to make any financial claims for herself.”

And it’s now a precedent, and that’s good because there are a lot of Muslim women in the UK who have had only a nikah.

A survey last November found that nearly all married Muslim women in the UK had had a nikah and almost two-thirds had not had a separate civil ceremony.

Aina Khan, a specialist in Islamic law, said last year: “My experience of 25 years as a lawyer specialising in Islamic marriage and divorce is that this is not only a major problem but a growing problem. My anecdotal evidence suggests that in the last five years the proportion of people under 40 having nikah-only marriages is as high as 80%.”

One law for all.

Originally a comment by Freemage on Stop the woman who is speaking.

Axxyaan

August 1, 2018 at 12:56 am

@Freemage

As you explain the Nordic Model, my understanding of it, goes a bit as follows. The prostitute is allowed to accept money, and is allowed to let that influence her in being seduced by the person who tries to win her favors. However there isn’t any contract (not even a verbal one) involved, so he can’t buy her favors. She is never under any kind of legal obligation to perform any sexual service.

Also the handing over money to the prostitute is not illegal. It just doesn’t buy anything. (except maybe some good will)

Is this more or less correct?

Not quite. Under the Nordic model, classic prostitution still occurs. Clients (virtually all men) still give prostitutes (the vast majority of them women) money in exchange for sex. However, under the Nordic model, the prostitute has committed no crime–the procurer, and the pimp, if any, have. Now, as a practical matter, the prostitute usually makes no waves–the economic need to satisfy the customer still exists, as she most typically wishes to retain his custom in the future. But, if some cause arises that she does not wish to perform, then he has no legal claim against her, and indeed, cannot pursue her legally, since the initial transaction was not a legally binding contract. Furthermore, if he attempts to use force or other illegal means of coercion against her, she can go to the cops, say plainly what has occurred, and get the man arrested. She also has the right of self-defense.

Compare this to the effects of such a change of course under either prohibition or decriminalization:

Prohibition: While the man is just as confined in his response to her refusal (she cannot be taken to court for the money), he can escalate the encounter with threats of violence, without fear that she will alert the authorities, because to do so, she must first admit her own crime. Furthermore, since he is likely to be a first-time offender, while many prostitutes are arrested multiple times, it may very well be that she is sentenced under repeat-offender statutes, and end up facing a higher penalty than her attacker.

Decriminalization: Here, the prostitute is arguably unrestricted from seeking relief from the police if her attacker turns violent–but the customer’s ability to bring the force of the legal system against her is enshrined in standard contract law. In short, he can force her into court under suit for fraud, breach of contract, etc. In some cases, he might even be able to justify use-of-force in attempting to regain his money, on the grounds that the breach of contract is tantamount to theft. (As a point of reference, de facto decriminalization is the norm in many American cities–the cops only use laws against prostitution in cases where they are looking for an excuse to bust someone. In at least one case, the scenario I describe above led to the acquittal of the man who shot the escort in the back as she left with his money, because it was considered ‘robbery’, and thus self-defense. Weirdly, the defense centered around the fact that the incident occurred at night–under Texas law, that meant that her attempt to leave with his money constituted robbery, a crime that is considered justification of lethal force.)

Trump’s attacks on the media are of course having their effect.

At the president’s Tampa rally Tuesday, Trump supporters surrounded CNN Senior White House Correspondent Jim Acosta while he was doing a live bit to boo, shout profanity and gesture toward him to show their level of disgust with him specifically and the media more generally.

Just a sample of the sad scene we faced at the Trump rally in Tampa. I’m very worried that the hostility whipped up by Trump and some in conservative media will result in somebody getting hurt. We should not treat our fellow Americans this way. The press is not the enemy. pic.twitter.com/IhSRw5Ui3R

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) August 1, 2018

While the degree of the vitriol might be surprising — one person held up a baby in a onesie wearing a “CNN sucks” button — those who tune into Trump’s tweets know that no media outlet has received more of the president’s ire than CNN.

…

For some, this may be one big reality show, but the idea that all involved share that state of mind is risky. With journalists being killed at work, attacked at rallies and harassed regularly on social media, safety is a real concern for those seeking to hold the president accountable for his words and actions. The dangerous outcomes many fear this rhetoric and behavior will lead to, like those New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger says he tried to convey in his meeting with Trump, would not at all reflect a great America.

None of this reflects a great America. None of it.

Uhhhhyeah…

For the first time ever, Barbie is wearing a hijab. The new doll is modeled after Olympic fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad and is part of broader effort by Mattel to diversify the Barbie line https://t.co/dqN1ufACf5 pic.twitter.com/oVHgd0qUiG

— CNN (@CNN) August 1, 2018

That’s kind of like a stripper in a hijab, but whatever.

Unofficial presidential “artist” John McNaughton has perpetrated another “painting” illustrating how brave and heroic and self-sacrificing Trump and his gang are.

My new painting – “Crossing the Swamp”
“Never give up. Never lower your light.
Never stop till the swamp is dry.” – Jon McNaughton
For a list of figures in the boat: https://t.co/ZIPdkBgcFU pic.twitter.com/CTPndvK5LM

— Jon McNaughton Art (@McNaughtonArt) July 31, 2018

Isn’t that a beautiful thing now? I especially love the naïve faith that Donald and Ivanka and Melania and Sarah would get into those ugly shapeless clothes and into a crowded little boat and poke the alligators with sticks.

Commentary from BloomJoy Collective:

McNaughton explained his painting in a video:

Over 240 years ago George Washington crossed Valley Forge to bring an astonishing victory to the Continental Army. This led to what many thought was impossible – to defeat a despot King and his formidable army.

Today, Trump endeavors to cross the “swamp” of Washington DC as he carries the light of truth, hope, and prosperity. The murky water of the deep state is laced with dangerous vermin, perfectly willing to destroy American prosperity for their personal ideologies and financial gain. The establishment Democrats, Never-Trumper-Republicans, Deep State, and Fake News Media will do all they can to stop the majority of the American people from succeeding.

As an artist, I paint what I feel needs to be said about the current state of our country. I hope Trump is remembered as the President that restored America’s greatness. I want to be on that boat for freedom!

I would also like Jon McNaughton to be on a boat brimming with assholes in the middle of a swamp, but that’s not up to me. Moving on.

First of all, Washington didn’t “cross” Valley Forge, he crossed the Delaware River on his way to Valley Forge. These guys are all “we love the Founders” but can’t even name any of their greatest hits!

It’s only swampy elitist intellectuals who know the difference between the Delaware and Valley Forge! Real Americans don’t care about the difference between a town and a river, and neither should you.

Secondly, notice how “the swamp” has morphed from big business lobbyists to “establishment Democrats, Never-Trumper-Republicans, Deep State, and Fake News Media.” Some people insist that’s always what Trump meant by “the swamp,” but it’s definitely not what he said. In his speech where he debuted his “drain the swamp” line, then-candidate Trump listed a raft of measures designed to curtail the power of lobbyists. Of course, once he was in power, he actually weakened ethics rules and has presided over one of the most corrupt administrations in U.S. history.

Even as I write this, Trump’s billionaire Treasury Secretary (and former Goldman-Sachs exec) Steven Mnuchin is considering unprecedented unilateral action to bypass Congress and give the wealthiest 1% another tax cut.

And yet this “conservative” painter has to re-imagine them as down to earth boat people to screen himself and his fans from the obvious truth: these people are rich greedy mobsters who stamp on the faces of The People, and there is nothing “conservative” about them. They’re Al Capone, they’re Bernie Madoff, they’re the bankers who trashed the world economy and walked away laughing – yet this moron somehow convinces himself they’re salt of the earth patriots who love The People.

The Freemasons are now going to allow women!

Their secretive society has been male-only for centuries. Now the Freemasons are to allow women members — but only if they were men when they joined.

The United Grand Lodge of England, founded in 1717, has issued guidance to its 200,000 members that “a Freemason who after initiation ceases to be a man does not cease to be a Freemason”.

Its “gender reassignment policy” says that anyone wishing to join must be male but once admitted can remain a member as a woman. Anyone who has become a man can also apply.

Daaaaaaaaaaamn is that enlightened or what? Open to all at last!

Well, except women. But other than that…

I’ve been putting this off all day because I’m lachrymose enough already, but here it is: my much (and widely) loved friend Maureen Brian died this morning. She’s been a regular (though not terribly frequent) commenter here since forever, so you may know of her that way.

I met her in person at QED (in Manchester) in 2012. It was between talks and I was cruising around and this woman came up and started a conversation with me, and we drifted into the next talk together and sat down – and then I saw her badge and exclaimed “Oh, you’re Maureen! I know you!” I knew her via Pharyngula rather than here, but I knew her as fierce in a good way.

After that we were friends, and a very wonderful friend she was, and god damn it I’m going to miss her.

PZ remembers her.

Updating to add: here’s a guest post she wrote in April.

Is access to the bodies of women a right, or is it not? Can access to women’s bodies be treated as a right without making women into commodities?

Cherry Smiley at Feminist Current tells us about a change in views and policies at a Vancouver rape crisis center:

In 2008, Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW), a rape crisis centre in Vancouver BC, published a position paper documenting a two-year collaborative process between their staff, board, volunteers, and practicum students exploring the issue of prostitution. It states:

“The argument of supporting individual women’s choices pales when one considers the way in which prostitution plays out in the global arena. As a global phenomenon, it must be analyzed in its capacity to enhance women’s lives and in its capacity to end violence against women. Viewed in the broad social context, and not in the context of individual choice and unique experiences, prostitution operates as a function of capitalism, colonization, and slavery. It destroys cultures, communities and women through objectification, sexual violence and exploitation.”

Ten years later, on July 18, 2018, WAVAW published a new statement, explaining that their previous position — which criticized the actions of men as sex buyers, pimps, and profiteers of the sex industry — had harmed sex workers, that they take accountability for causing that harm, and that they now support “sex work.” The organization also apologized for articulating their (previously) critical position through written text, as they claimed publishing and sharing this position had caused harm to “the sex worker community and their allies.”

So has it now become the case that viewed in the broad social context, and not in the context of individual choice and unique experiences, prostitution does not operate as a function of capitalism, colonization, and slavery? Is it now a function of glorious freedom, opportunity, and profit?

As feminists, we should all be concerned with the depoliticization of what was once called the “women’s liberation movement.” Today, we are more likely to hear about “gender-based violence” than “male violence against women,” which wouldn’t be such an issue if “gender-based violence” weren’t replacing “male violence against women” as a central component of the feminist movement. As feminist women, our ability to unapologetically voice our realities, name the problem, and set boundaries is being undermined.

What happens when women and our interests are pushed out of the core of our own liberation movement? One consequence is the transformation of rape crisis centres from expressly politicized organizations — where women who have been assaulted by men can receive support from other women and where women come together to develop feminist theory and take action — into apolitical “service-providers” that are open to all.

The feminist movement — like other political movements — is expressly political, and has focused political goals. This means that the feminist movement, like other political movements, is inherently exclusive. For example, a group of hotel workers who are organizing for better working conditions would not include hotel management or the hotel owners in their political movement. Yet, women’s rape crisis centres are pressured to include services for everyone.

What does that sound like? It sounds like the way feminism is pressured – aka bullied, threatened, ostracized, ejected, disinvited – to include everyone. Isn’t it interesting that it’s women who are under constant relentless bullying pressure now to move over and “include” everyone else in their feminism? Isn’t it interesting the way that expectation and that bullying neatly aligns with the way women have always been expected to move over and shut up?

There is an unresolvable contradiction when a rape crisis centre supports “sex work.” One might assume that a rape crisis centre would challenge male entitlement to the bodies of women and girls — whether that entitlement takes the form of sexual harassment on the street; fathers who molest their daughters; or men who beat, rape, and kill the women they claim to love. Male entitlement to sexual access to women and girls is a pillar of misogyny and patriarchy — what has now been termed “rape culture.” Without male entitlement to the bodies of women and girls, prostitution would not exist.

While rape crisis centres that support the system of prostitution may believe the message they are sending is progressive and inclusive, the message actually being sent is: male entitlement to sexually access the bodies of women and girls is not ok unless you pay for it.

Supporting “sex work” as an occupation means supporting and affirming male entitlement. Supporting “sex work” means supporting the ideologies and corresponding behaviours of men who buy sex, pimp, and profit off of women.

In a different, perfect world that wouldn’t be the case, but then that world wouldn’t need feminism.

I guess despite decades of flat wages for workers, despite the fact that the richest 1 percent in the United States now own more $$$ than the bottom 90 percent, despite the massive burden of debt on the non-rich, despite skyrocketing housing and health care costs and aforementioned flat wages – despite all that Trump and the Republicans want to make rich people even richer, because why have 4 yachts when you could have 10?

The Trump administration is considering bypassing Congress to grant a $100 billion tax cut mainly to the wealthy, a legally tenuous maneuver that would cut capital gains taxation and fulfill a long-held ambition of many investors and conservatives.

Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, said in an interview on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit meeting in Argentina this month that his department was studying whether it could use its regulatory powers to allow Americans to account for inflation in determining capital gains tax liabilities. The Treasury Department could change the definition of “cost” for calculating capital gains, allowing taxpayers to adjust the initial value of an asset, such as a home or a share of stock, for inflation when it sells.

…

Currently, capital gains taxes are determined by subtracting the original price of an asset from the price at which it was sold and taxing the difference, usually at 20 percent. If a high earner spent $100,000 on stock in 1980, then sold it for $1 million today, she would owe taxes on $900,000. But if her original purchase price was adjusted for inflation, it would be about $300,000, reducing her taxable “gain” to $700,000. That would save the investor $40,000.

And it would cost the government that 40k, which would have to be made up by someone else, and who would that be? The rest of us, of course, the 99 or 90 percent who don’t own most of the wealth.

“At a time when the deficit is out of control, wages are flat and the wealthiest are doing better than ever, to give the top 1 percent another advantage is an outrage and shows the Republicans’ true colors,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader.

But her emails.

But Appalachia.

But Starbucks.

Capital gains taxes are overwhelmingly paid by high earners, and they were untouched in the $1.5 trillion tax law that Mr. Trump signed last year. Independent analyses suggest that more than 97 percent of the benefits of indexing capital gains for inflation would go to the top 10 percent of income earners in America. Nearly two-thirds of the benefits would go to the super wealthy — the top 0.1 percent of American income earners.

Yes but they will use it to buy more yachts and houses in the Dordogne and cars made in Germany, so it’s all for the best. See?

According to the budget model used by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, indexing capital gains to inflation would reduce government revenues by $102 billion over a decade, with 86 percent of the benefits going to the top 1 percent. A July report from the Congressional Research Service said that the additional debt incurred by indexing capital gains to inflation would most likely offset any stimulus that the smaller tax burden provided to the economy.

But it would be nice for very rich people and nasty for everyone else, so that’s fine then.

Well this is sleazy:

President Trump has become personally involved in plotting a new FBI headquarters in downtown D.C., an interest that for now has left the project in limbo and the agency stranded in a building that no longer suits its needs, according to officials and people familiar with the administration’s deliberations.

For years, FBI officials have raised alarms that the decrepit conditions at its current headquarters, the J. Edgar Hoover Building, constitute serious security concerns. A year ago, federal officials had finally decided on three finalist locations in Maryland and Virginia and Congress appropriated $913 million toward the more than $3 billion project.

Six months after Trump entered the White House, his administration abandoned the plan and proposed in February that the government build a smaller headquarters to replace Hoover in downtown D.C. and move 2,300 other FBI staff out of the Washington area altogether, to Alabama, Idaho and West Virginia. At the time, the decision baffled real estate experts and some members of Congress.

Be baffled no more.

Those decisions, by the General Services Administration and the FBI, were made after Trump took a personal interest in the project, according to two people, who spoke Monday on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were meant to be private. One of them said that Trump has frequently raised the issue of the FBI building with appropriators, and his desire for it to be torn down. The website Axios reported Sunday that Trump was obsessed with the project and was “dead opposed” to plans to move it out of D.C.

The GSA is the FBI’s landlord, and who else’s? Oh yes, Trump – it owns his hotel.

The GSA issued a statement Monday saying the decision to stay downtown was made by the FBI, which did not respond to requests for comment. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said it should not be surprising that the president, a former real estate developer, would take a role in such a project.

The issue isn’t whether or not it’s surprising, it’s whether or not it’s corrupt. Is this just more of Trump’s focus on his own bank accounts.

News of Trump’s involvement prompted alarm among Democrats on Capitol Hill, with some suggesting the president’s business — which owns his hotel and from which he still benefits financially — may have motivated his interest. At a February hearing, senators sharply asked administration officials whether they were aware of any involvement from the president.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) issued a statement Monday saying, “there is no question that the President stands to gain financially by keeping the FBI in its existing building and blocking any competition for the Trump Hotel from being developed there.”

“One has to wonder if the Trump administration’s decision to cancel the previous procurement process has anything to do with the proximity of the current FBI headquarters building to the Trump hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue,” said Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), in a statement Monday.

I just consulted Google maps. The Old Post Office aka Trump Hotel is diagonally opposite the FBI building. A posh new hotel there would definitely compete with Trump Dump.

https://twitter.com/NormEisen/status/1024047795794321408

The elves are busy.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Monday that the Department of Justice is creating a “religious liberty task force.”

Sessions said the task force, co-chaired by Associate Attorney General Jesse Panuccio and the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, Beth Williams, will help the department fully implement the religious liberty guidance it issued last year.

The guidance was a byproduct of President Trump’s executive order directing agencies to respect and protect religious liberty and political speech.

Huh. That’s a little surprising, given the way Trump explicitly banned people from selected “Muslim countries” from traveling to the US.

I’m just kidding. Of course he doesn’t mean those other people. He means fanatical conservative theocratic Christians.

The announcement came during the department’s religious liberty summit.

Sessions said the cultural climate in this country —and in the West more generally — has become less hospitable to people of faith in recent years, and as a result many Americans have felt their freedom to practice their faith has been under attack.

By “practice their faith” he of course means pester or punish other people in the name of a narrow coercive brand of Christianity.

“We’ve seen nuns ordered to buy contraceptives.”

Oh no we haven’t you lying dog. We’ve seen Catholic institutions told they have to treat their employees equally and provide health insurance coverage for contraception as other employers are required to do. It’s not “religious freedom” to refuse to provide health insurance coverage for contraception because you have the delusion that your god doesn’t like it. It’s an intrusion on the freedom of other people to refuse such coverage.

“We’ve seen U.S. senators ask judicial and executive branch nominees about dogma — even though the Constitution explicitly forbids a religious test for public office. We’ve all seen the ordeal faced so bravely by Jack Phillips,” he said, referring to the Colorado baker who took his case to the Supreme Court after he was found to have violated the state’s anti-discrimination laws for refusing to make a cake for a same-sex wedding.

So brave, refusing to make a cake.

Sessions said the guidance he issued in October lays out 20 fundamental principles for the executive branch to follow, including the principles that free exercise means a right to act — or to abstain from action — and that government shouldn’t impugn people’s motives or beliefs.

“In short, we have not only the freedom to worship — but the right to exercise our faith. The Constitution’s protections don’t end at the parish parking lot nor can our freedoms be confined to our basements,” he said, according to his prepared remarks.

In other words we can harass, pester, interfere with, reject, refuse, proselytize and otherwise mess with other people as much as we want to as long as it’s in a goddy cause.

Liberty for them, but not for us.

A couple of weeks ago:

University of Virginia professors, alumni and others are up in arms over the school’s plan to hire President Donald Trump’s former legislative affairs director, calling it “unconscionable” as the one-year anniversary of the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, approaches.

Marc Short, a frequent Trump spokesman on television, is leaving the White House Friday and is slated to serve as a senior fellow at the Miller Center, a wing of the university focused on presidential history and public policy. Short received an MBA from the university’s business school.

A business degree, and a job working for Trump. That seems like a very odd CV for a wing of a genuine university focused on presidential history and public policy. Granted Short probably has insider knowledge of the Trump presidency, but surely senior fellow is more of an academic position than a source material position.

Short said he sympathized but on the other hand Trump did put out a strong statement condemning racism (a statement written by others that he promptly undercut with the “on both sides, on both sides” remark, but Short didn’t say that).

Short also said he and his family “feel a particular bond and closeness to the community” of Charlottesville. He said he’s been visiting the town and the campus since he was a kid attending sporting events there.

“I think that there is, as well, a cherished tradition at Thomas Jefferson’s university, hopefully, of welcoming diversity of opinion,” Short said. “I hope that the message isn’t that anyone who worked in the administration can’t work at a university.”

Well, if it’s not, it should be. The administration is intensely hostile to any kind of intellectual work or inquiry or background. Trump attacks the press daily, and he is no fan of diversity of opinion when it comes to himself and his doings. Diversity of opinion is a good, but “opinion” isn’t the issue.

On Thursday night, a spokesman for the Miller Center said it is committed to nonpartisan and bipartisan study of the presidency and employs former officials from both Republican and Democratic administrations.

“We understand and respect those UVA faculty members and other critics — even some from within the Miller Center — who disagree with the decision to name Marc Short a senior fellow. One of our core values is fostering robust, but civil, debate across our nation’s bitter partisan divide,” said Howard Witt, director of communications and managing editor at the Miller Center, in an email.

Yes but again, it’s not a matter of partisan or non-partisan. It’s a matter of truth telling, of rights respecting, of bullying avoidance. Trump and his people aren’t partisan, they’re Trumpan.

Today two historians resigned from the Miller Center in protest.

William I. Hitchcock and Melvyn P. Leffler announced Monday they are resigning from the Miller Center, a wing of the university focused on presidential history and public policy, over its hiring of Short, Trump’s former legislative affairs director. They remain tenured faculty in the university’s history department.

In their resignation letter, the historians blasted Short for not distancing himself from Trump’s response to the August 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., which resulted in the death of a 32-year-old woman and in which Trump famously blamed “both sides.”

“By not speaking out at the time, by not emphasizing the threats to human decency posed by the public display of Nazi symbols and racist diatribes in our own neighborhood, Mr. Short was complicit in the erosion of our civic discourse and showed an appalling indifference to the civility of our own city and university,” they wrote.

It’s the latest fallout over the center’s decision to appoint Short to a one-year fellowship. Professors, alumni and others have strongly objected, calling it “unconscionable” as the one-year anniversary of the violent rally in Charlottesville approaches. An online petition with thousands of signatures blasts the school for hiring Short, saying “the university should not serve as a waystation for high-level members of an administration that has directly harmed our community.”

Leffler is a former dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at UVa. Hitchcock is a New York Times bestselling historian and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Hitchcock posted their letter on Facebook so we can read the whole thing.

The appointment of Mr. Short runs counter to the Center’s fundamental values of non-partisanship, transparency, openness, a passion for truth and objectivity, and civility.

Mr. Short has been a partisan activist during his entire professional career. He has associated himself with people and institutions who disregard, circumvent, and even violate the norms and laws that are fundamental to civil discourse and democratic politics. He began his career working for the Senate campaign of Oliver North, a man who had been engaged in illegal covert actions and who directly and knowingly contravened congressional legislation. Mr. Short worked for years for the Koch Brothers Freedom Partners fund, an organization that prides itself on the surreptitious funneling of big donor money into the political arena, thereby violating the transparency on which a democratic polity must rest.

In his recent work in the White House Mr. Short has associated himself with ongoing attacks on a free media. He has associated himself with rhetoric and policies that have empowered and emboldened white supremacists and that have led to spectacular increases in racist and misogynistic talk and behavior. He has been a visible and active spokesman for an administration that has attacked our law enforcement agencies, that has tried to disenfranchise millions of voters, and that has separated immigrant asylum-seeking mothers from their children. By associating himself with an administration that shows no respect for truth, he has contributed to the erosion of civil discourse and democratic norms that are essential to democratic governance and that are central to the mission of the Miller Center.

That even understates it – the administration doesn’t just fail to show respect for truth, it actively undermines and attacks it. The administration is hostile to truth.

We firmly believe that Mr. Short has a right and should be given an opportunity to present his views at the Miller Center. The Miller Center has welcomed, and should always welcome, people of diverse political views. We ourselves have brought many Republican and Democratic policymakers as well as many distinguished conservative and liberal scholars to the events we have coordinated at the Miller Center. But it violates the practices of the Miller Center to hire such a notoriously partisan political appointee as a paid distinguished fellow, and to do so without any open discussion – prior to his appointment – with the faculty and staff. This seems all the more true because Mr. Short will be joining the powerful Washington lobbying firm, Guidepost Strategies, an explicitly partisan organization.

Democracy in the United States today is in peril. As teachers, we have often told our students that the defense of democracy and its basic ideals – respect for truth, inquiry, reason, decency, civility, and humanity – requires constant vigilance and active engagement. We must not normalize or rationalize hateful, cruel and demeaning behavior. We should not reward and honor those who defend such behavior. When we see things we believe to be wrong, we must speak out and take a stand. We do so now by tendering our resignations from the Miller Center.

Sincerely,

William I. Hitchcock Melvyn P. Leffler