1)Georgia.”More than 1,700 Georgians illegally cast 2 ballots in the 2020 elections, but their fraudulent votes weren’t canceled out, according to State Election officials. So far, NONE of the cheaters have been prosecuted,” raising concerns about fraud...

Trump on climate: I don't believe it. Trump on Khashoggi: I don't believe it. Trump on Russia: I don't believe it. Idiocy? A canny game? Doesn't really matter as much as the underlying intellectual autocracy. In this administration only one opinion matters.

It's an assault on facts and reason. It's an assault on good governance. It's an assault on the bureaucracies that are being discounted. It's an assault on science and history. But it is also an assault on one of the underpinnings of democracy.

We live in a system that is grounded on the idea of collaborative government. Leaders may have a final word but even then, there are typically checks and balances. Hopefully, in this case, such checks and balances may work. But they also are being tested.

The president's position that he is smarter than all the world's scientists, than the entire intelligence community, than experts who have studied any issue all their lives, is, of course, asinine. But his belief that government turns solely on his opinion, is monarchic.

Louis XIV reportedly said, "L'etat est moi." That he was the state. Trump asserting that he knows better than all, discounts all advice, that his brain is enough to chart the course for America alone, is essentially saying the same thing.

1) Looks like Trump KNEW what the coup plotters were plotting on the 6th, so he arrived an hour late to the stage, and talked longer than he intended, before he asked MAGA to walk peacefully down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol.

He also didn't walk WITH them as he promised.

NEW - on @skynews shortly:
Reliable source tells me Withdrawal Deal text contains

- No unilateral exit from backstop

- Large annexe on level playing field

.... after reporting this on @SkyNews I get a call from a different senior source that this is “spot on” and further that the Attorney General Geoffrey Cox has not pulled his punches in confirming in legal advice there is “no unilateral exit” from backstop ...

... furthermore I’m told (and this chimes with excellent Times splash this morning re Weyand) that the future partnership then takes its starting point as the activated backstop - ie UK-wide customs union-style arrangement and level playing field.

Understand that a ministerial briefing on the draft Withdrawal Agreement meant to drum up support from some trade organisations due tonight has now been postponed

Transition, 'inclusion' etc all have political ramifications. Instead of buying into the remarkably masculinist assumptions of queer theory that the dissolution of boundaries is always good, we should be examining them from the point of group power relations.

Transactivists try to conflate identifying as trans with gay marriage, in attempts to demonstrate the progressiveness of their cause, but the comparators are actually transracialism, trans-abledness, identifying as w/c etc.

The diagram shows the asymmetrical nature of such identifications. Identifying down is colonisation. Identifying up is impossible. The most you can do is improve your individual status relative to your class of origin, which leaves everyone else behind.

It also shows that the classes are occupied. If you identify as disabled, or as a woman, or as black, you are demanding access to spaces and facilities which were set aside for people based on a characteristic which you don't share.

How well tolerated this is gives us a clear insight into which oppressions are tolerated. We're rightly paying a lot more attention to racism, so Rachel Dolezal was fired by the NAACP. Other white women in the US who've tried this have been heavily criticised.

✔️ We have begun. It's Day 4 of the Trump Impeachment Trial 2.0. The defense is putting on their case. The first lawyer is Van Der Veen.

1/

Already this is wackadoodle. Seems like the defense is trying to tell us not to believe what we saw. This lawyer has the audacity to say that the people assembled at Trump's speech were peaceful patriots

2/

This lawyer is claiming that Trump's speech on the ellipse on January 6th was was a policy speech about "turning out strong in the next primaries" and how this was about working on voting law reform.

A mere civics lesson.

3/

The lawyer is lying. The Clinton campaign never "declared that the election was stolen by Russia."

Also, this Trump lawyer is trying to claim that democrats objecting to some of the electoral votes is equivalent to Trump's incitement of violence.

4/

As we expected, Trump's lawyers are not going to address the merits. Instead this is what-about-ism

5/