When Trump left the White House, the Brennan dossier disappeared

Today CNN reporters dropped a bit of a bombshell.

A binder containing highly classified information related to Russian election interference went missing at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, raising alarms among intelligence officials that some of the most closely guarded national security secrets from the US and its allies could be exposed, sources familiar with the matter told CNN...

The binder contained raw intelligence the US and its NATO allies collected on Russians and Russian agents, including sources and methods that informed the US government’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to help Trump win the 2016 election, sources tell CNN...

The Russian intelligence was just a small part of the collection of documents in the binder, described as being 10 inches thick and containing reams of information about the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

I want to focus on the part of the binder that contained "Russian intelligence" because I'm pretty sure that I know the source of that material. In the past, I've referred to it as the "Brennan dossier." Here's what Greg Miller wrote in his book The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy (emphasis mine). 

In the months leading up to the 2016 election, senior [CIA] officials held a series of meetings...seeking to make sense of disconcerting reports that Moscow had mounted a covert operation to upend the U.S. presidential race.

By early August, the sense of alarm had become so acute that CIA Director John Brennan called White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough. “I need to get in to see the president,” Brennan said, with unusual urgency in his voice.

Brennan had just spent two days sequestered in his office reviewing a small mountain of material on Russia…There were piles of finished assessments, but Brennan had also ordered up what agency veterans call the “raw stuff” — unprocessed material from informants, listening devices, computer implants and other sources. Clearing his schedule, Brennan pored over all of it...

Brennan’s...call to the White House was driven by...extraordinary intelligence that had surfaced in late July and reached deep inside the Kremlin, showing that Putin was himself directing an “active measures” operation aimed not only at disrupting the U.S. presidential race but electing Trump.

Some of the material Brennan reviewed probably came from our allies, as The Guardian reported back in 2017.

GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious “interactions” between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence said. This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information, they added.

Over the next six months, until summer 2016, a number of western agencies shared further information on contacts between Trump’s inner circle and Russians, sources said...

The alleged conversations were picked up by chance as part of routine surveillance of Russian intelligence assets. Over several months, different agencies targeting the same people began to see a pattern of connections that were flagged to intelligence officials in the US.

Miller and his colleagues at the Washington Post documented what happened next.

Early last August, an envelope with extraordinary handling restrictions arrived at the White House. Sent by courier from the CIA, it carried “eyes only” instructions that its contents be shown to just four people: President Barack Obama and three senior aides.

Inside was an intelligence bombshell, a report drawn from sourcing deep inside the Russian government that detailed Russian President Vladi­mir Putin’s direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the U.S. presidential race.

But it went further. The intelligence captured Putin’s specific instructions on the operation’s audacious objectives — defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her opponent, Donald Trump.

As the latest CNN report noted, this was the intelligence that informed the "government’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to help Trump win the 2016 election." 

When former Attorney General Bill Barr initiated the Durham investigation, an attempt was made to blame the so-called "Russian hoax" on Brennan. As an example, here's what Margot Cleveland wrote about that at The Federalist:

The evidence suggests that the CIA and intelligence community—including potentially the intelligence communities of the UK, Italy, and Australia—created the contacts and interactions [between Russian agents and the Trump campaign] that they then reported to the FBI as suspicious…

These are the questions Barr and Durham should be asking themselves to arrive at the bottom line: Were the Russia connections contrived by the CIA, and was Brennan the plotter-in-chief hoping to prevent a President Trump—or to destroy him later?

In the end, Durham came up with nothing on Brennan - so he simply smeared Hillary Clinton in a not-so-veiled attempt to blame her for the whole thing. 

Today we learned that when Trump left the White House, the Brennan dossier - with all of its raw intelligence data - disappeared. Nine months later, the CIA was reporting that a concerning number of U.S. informants were being captured and executed. We can only hope that the two events are not connected.

For his part, Brennan - who served under three different presidents - made his views about Trump's relationship with Putin perfectly clear back in 2018.

Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of “high crimes & misdemeanors.” It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???

— John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan) July 16, 2018

J.D. Vance is the one who has advocated for "open rebellion" against the United States

As a recovering therapist, my brain is still hard-wired to wonder about the motivations behind the absurd behavior of MAGA politicians. So when Sen. J.D. Vance all of the sudden is garnering headlines for doing things like raging against diversity initiatives or smearing Ukrainian President Zelinsky, I think that perhaps he's gotten jealous of all the attention the Republican chaos agents in the House have garnered lately. A sure-fire way to rouse the MAGA troops is to push the boundaries of extremism. So Vance is basically saying "Look at me! I can be a chaos agent too!"

But one of the other actions Vance took lately caught my eye. He wrote a letter to AG Garland and Sec of State Blinken demanding answers regarding a recent Washington Post op-ed that he said suggested "open rebellion" against the United States.

The article in question was written by NeverTrump Republican Robert Kagan, an opinion columnist at the Washington Post. The rather lengthy piece was focused on documenting the fact that the odds of an American dictatorship in the next few years are pretty good - given the possible election of Donald Trump. Near the end, Kagan devotes two paragraphs to a couple of options he thinks we'll have as citizens if he's right - both of which he dismisses as unlikely or ineffective. Here's the one Vance focused on:

Resistance could come from the governors of predominantly Democratic states such as California and New York through a form of nullification. States with Democratic governors and statehouses could refuse to recognize the authority of a tyrannical federal government. That is always an option in our federal system. (Should Biden win, some Republican states might engage in nullification.) But not even the bluest states are monolithic, and Democratic governors are likely to find themselves under siege on their home turf if they try to become bastions of resistance to Trump’s tyranny.

Personally, I didn't think that Kagan's article was based on solid reasoning - including that paragraph. But what I could have done is write a response documenting my own thoughts. That is what civil discourse in this country ought to look like.

That's not what Vance did. In his letter he accused Kagan of advocating for "secession, treason, and (likely) political violence," demanding that DOJ open an investigation.

Beyond the fact that such an investigation would take direct aim at free speech, I would remind Senator Vance that his MAGA colleagues in the House have openly called for secession.

But the real reason all of this caught my eye was the blatant hypocrisy. As a reminder, here's what Vance said during an interview with Jack Murphy, head of the Liminal Order men’s group.

“I tend to think that we should seize the institutions of the left,” he said. “And turn them against the left. We need like a de-Baathification program, a de-woke-ification program.”...

“And when the courts stop you,” he went on, “stand before the country, and say—” he quoted Andrew Jackson, giving a challenge to the entire constitutional order—“the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.”

Vance wants Republicans to "seize the institutions of the left," and implement a "de-woke-ification program." If the courts get in the way, he'd basically tell them to f*ck off. 

I know that it has become rather banal these days to point to Republican hypocrisy. But as long as I still have a voice, I'm determined to call out J.D. Vance for the fascist he's proven himself to be. He has no business lecturing anyone about "open rebellion" against the United States! 

Trump wants us all to remember that he bragged about committing sexual assault

I am glad that so many people (and some journalists) are beginning to call Donald Trump out for the fascist dictator he's promising to be if re-elected. But I don't feel the need to do that myself. That's because, like many of you, it's not news to me.

I've known it since: 

• he called for the execution of five innocent young Black men in 1989 before they even stepped foot inside a courtroom. 
• he peddled the racist birther lie about Barack Obama - this country's first African American president.
• he launched his presidential bid in 2016 by calling Mexicans rapists and criminals.
• he bragged about being able to sexually assault women. 

All of that happened BEFORE he was elected in 2016!

Last night,  Trump indicated that he doesn't want us to forget that last one. 

The former president bizarrely tried to put a profound new spin on his infamous 2016 “grab ’em by the pussy” scandal at a gala for the New York Young Republican Club in New York City on Saturday evening, suggesting that his handling of the fallout (so he’d been told) transcends even the courage of war heroes...

“We had a meeting when it was looking bad,” he said, describing the scandal as one of many “inescapable situations,” and recalling how he’d been urged to drop out of the race just weeks before the election.

“But you know, the next day, or very shortly thereafter, we had the debate… I went onto that stage just a few days later, and a general, who’s a fantastic general, actually said to me, ‘Sir, I’ve been on the battlefield, men have gone down on my left and on my right, I stood on hills where soldiers were killed, but I believe the bravest thing I’ve ever seen was the night you went onto that stage with Hillary Clinton after what happened, and then that woman asked you the first question about it, and [you] said ‘locker room talk.’”

Frankly, I don't have the words to describe how much of a low-life you have to be to say that. The man doesn't just want us to remember that he was BRAGGING about committing sexual assault. He wants us to think that he has the courage of a war hero for calling it "locker room talk."

The person who did have the words for this vile man was Michelle Obama - who gave this speech in New Hampshire a few days after the Access Hollywood tape was released. I share it here in case there's anyone out there who needs a reminder.

I was literally moved to tears by that speech. She talked about how all of this was affecting us as women.

This was a powerful individual speaking freely and openly about sexually predatory behavior, and actually bragging about kissing and groping women, using language so obscene that many of us were worried about our children hearing it when we turn on the TV...

It is cruel. It's frightening. And the truth is, it hurts. It hurts...

And all of us are doing what women have always done: We're trying to keep our heads above water, just trying to get through it, trying to pretend like this doesn't really bother us maybe because we think that admitting how much it hurts makes us as women look weak.

Maybe we're afraid to be that vulnerable. Maybe we've grown accustomed to swallowing these emotions and staying quiet, because we've seen that people often won't take our word over his. Or maybe we don't want to believe that there are still people out there who think so little of us as women. Too many are treating this as just another day's headline, as if our outrage is overblown or unwarranted, as if this is normal, just politics as usual.

But, New Hampshire, be clear: This is not normal. This is not politics as usual. This is disgraceful. It is intolerable. And it doesn't matter what party you belong to — Democrat, Republican, independent — no woman deserves to be treated this way. None of us deserves this kind of abuse.

I don't know about you, but I needed to hear that in 2016 - and I needed to hear it again today.

But Michelle didn't stop there. She also had some words for the men in our lives (emphasis mine).

I can tell you that the men in my life do not talk about women like this. And I know that my family is not unusual. And to dismiss this as everyday locker-room talk is an insult to decent men everywhere.

The men that you and I know don't treat women this way. They are loving fathers who are sickened by the thought of their daughters being exposed to this kind of vicious language about women. They are husbands and brothers and sons who don't tolerate women being treated and demeaned and disrespected.

Michelle tried to warn us all back then. Too many people didn't listen. Now the man who bragged about committing sexual assault wants us to remember just how cruel and disrespectful he can be. He thinks that makes him some kind of courageous hero. It actually makes him a vile human being worthy of nothing but contempt.

Conservative white men are allowed to call America sinful. Black preachers...not so much.

At about the same time that Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson was talking publicly about obstructing justice, he sent out a fundraising email.

It's fine with me if an individual thinks that America needs more God. But Johnson is attempting to raise money for Republicans as Speaker of the House - not for a church or ministry. In that context, WTH does me mean when he talks about "returning America to God's good graces?"

Beyond that question, I'd like to highlight a few lines from this email.

I fear that America may be beyond redemption...

I fear God may allow our nation to enter into a time of judgement for our collective sins...

America needs to recognize that we have much to repent for if we want to avoid the judgement we so clearly deserve...

That's pretty standard fare for Christian nationalists (aka, MAGA Republicans) these days. And as Tim Miller noted, it's also pretty standard fare for Johnson, who said this not too long ago:

We are at a civilizational moment. The only question is: Is God going to allow our nation to enter a time of judgment for our collective sins which his mercy and grace have held back for some time or is he gonna give us one more chance to restore the foundation, to return to Him?

In an absolutely brilliant move, Miller compared that sentiment to something Rev. Jeremiah Wright said that came close to toppling Barack Obama's candidacy in 2008.

The government gives [citizens of African descent] the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing “God Bless America.” No, no, no. Not “God Bless America”; God Damn America! That’s in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God Damn America for treating her citizens as less than human. 

What's striking is that both men believe that America is sinful and deserves God's judgment. In the end, both men also believe that through God, we can be redeemed. Here's what Wright went on to say:

But I’m fixing to help you one last time. Let me tell you something. Where governments fail, God never fails. When God says it, it’s done. God never fails. 

I'm old enough to remember that the entire county practically lost it's mind when they heard about Rev. Wright's sermon. Things got so bad that Obama had to give an entire speech reminding us that the story of America is all about "perfecting our union."

And yet, other than not using a four letter word, we hear the same sentiment from folks like Johnson on a daily basis.  It's almost as if conservative white men are allowed to say that America is sinful and call forth God's judgement. But Black preachers aren't. Imagine that!
 

Can Republicans "moderate" their position on abortion?

One of the most important stories coming out of recent elections is that, whenever voters have a chance to weigh in about abortion, they have chosen to support a woman's right to chose. That has supposedly made Republicans think twice about promoting their extremist views. 

But as Kavitha Surana reports at ProPublica, anti-choice activists are successfully lobbying red states with abortion bans to oppose adding exceptions for rape, incest, and health risks. 

[I]n the most conservative states, Republicans ultimately fell in line with highly organized Christian groups. Those activists fought to keep the most restrictive abortion bans in place by threatening to pull funding and support primary challenges to lawmakers that didn’t stand strong.

Their fervor to protect the laws reflects a bedrock philosophy within the American anti-abortion movement: that all abortion exceptions — even those that protect the pregnant person’s life or health — should be considered the same as sanctioning murder.

 This tells you all you need to know about how far these folks are willing to go:

The Catholic Church and the anti-abortion movement also have a history of celebrating the stories of women who were willing to sacrifice their lives to continue their pregnancies.

One of the most well-known stories is about Chiara Corbella Petrillo, a young Italian woman who refused chemotherapy in 2011 for cancer on her tongue because she was pregnant. As the cancer progressed, it became difficult for her to speak and see. A year after giving birth to a healthy baby boy, she died.

Live Action, a major anti-abortion advocacy group, included Petrillo on a list of “7 Brave Mothers Who Risked Their Lives to Save Their Preborn Babies.”...

In anti-abortion circles, Petrillo has been described as a “heroine for the 21st century” and a “modern day saint.”

On the Protestant side, the movement Speaker Mike Johnson is most closely aligned with - Christian reconstructionism - includes this in their statement on "The Christian Worldview of the Family:"

We affirm that every human being begins life from the moment of conception; that the zygote, embryo, and fetus should therefore be entitled to full protection of law (Psalm 139:14,15; Jeremiah 1:5; Exodus 21:22-25); that killing the zygote, embryo, or fetus through abortion or any other form of violence is murder; that removal of the zygote, embryo, or fetus from the womb is justified only when leaving the child inside the mother would cause death for both mother and child; that the Church should encourage research to improve the chances of survival for a baby so removed; and that no baby should be deprived of nourishment or necessary medical care after birth for any reason (Deuteronomy 5:17).

We deny that either the mother, the father, the civil government, or any other person or institution has a moral right to decree the death by abortion of any child for any reason, be it social, economic, psychological, etc.

For these folks, any abortion from the moment of conception is murder - unless continuing the pregnancy would cause the death of BOTH the mother and fetus. That's as extreme as it gets. 

When Republicans attempt to moderate their position on abortion, these are the folks that are determined to stop them. 

What you need to know about Speaker Mike Johnson: He's a Christian Reconstructionist

Now that the media has had some time to dig into Speaker Mike Johnson's past, most of the coverage has focused on his involvement with the so-called "culture wars," like his position on abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and what Christian nationalists refer to as "religious freedom" (ie, freedom for me, but not for thee).

While those are important, it is wrong to suggest that the Speaker's extremist views are limited to those issues.  In order to fully understand Johnson, we must recognize the theological tradition with which he is most closely aligned: Christian Reconstructionism.

It developed primarily under the direction of Rousas Rushdoony, Greg Bahnsen and Gary North and has had an important influence on the Christian right in the United States. Its central theme is that society should be reconstructed under the lordship of Jesus in all aspects of life. 

Way back in 1987, Bill Moyers introduced us to the Christian reconstructionist movement in a series titled "On Earth as it is in Heaven."

Christian Reconstruction and God's Law from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

When Johnson says that we can read the Bible to understand his position on ANY issue, he's aligning his politics with Christian reconstructionism. That shouldn't come as a surprise since the organization he worked for prior to his political career - the Alliance Defending Freedom - has always maintained ties to Christian Reconstructionism.

As Moyers pointed out, the founder of this movement was Rousas Rushdoony. John Sugg summarized his views succinctly.

Rushdoony, who died in 2001, articulated a doctrine called “presuppositionalism.” All issues are religious in nature, he posited, and people don’t have the right or the ability to define for themselves what’s true; for that they must turn to a literal reading of the Bible...

At the heart of Rushdoony’s argument were two biblical passages. Genesis 1:28 commands men to have “dominion” over “every living thing.” And in Matthew 28:18-20, the “Great Commission,” Jesus commands his followers to proselytize to the world. Thus was born dominion theology...Adam and Eve broke their covenant with God, and Satan seized dominion. Christian Reconstruction claims it has a reconstituted covenant with God and the right to a new dominion in his name.

In this worldview, the mandate for Christians is not just to live right or to help their neighbors: They are called upon to take over or eliminate the [Satanic] institutions of secular government.

That is why, for reconstructionists, "there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government." All institutions are either "biblically based" or satantic. 

Katherine Stewart wrote that "Rushdoony drew on two traditions that would prove essential in understanding the genesis of today’s Christian nationalist movement. The first was the proslavery theology of America’s antebellum preachers. The second was the economic libertarianism that took root in reaction to the New Deal."

Rushdooney was particularly influenced by the pro-slavery theology of Robert Lewis Dabny who argued that opposing slavery was “tantamount to rejecting Christianity.” After the Civil War, Dabney, who referred to democracy as “mobocracy,” took up the cause of his “oppressed white brethren of Virginia and neighboring states to the south.”

Their oppression consisted in, among other things, having to pay taxes to support a “pretended education to the brats of black paupers.” These unjustly persecuted white people, as Dabney saw it, were also forced to contend with “the atheistic and infidel theories of physical science.”

Christian reconstructionists like Johnson have never embraced democracy and have traditionally rejected the idea of paying taxes to support the education of "those people."

Any of that sounding familiar?

Julie Ingersoll's book, "Building God's Kingdom," is an account of the history and goals of the Christian reconstructionist movement. She provides an important key to understanding them:

Christian Reconstructionists argue that the Bible must govern every aspect of life. In their framework, known as “jurisdictional authority” or “sphere sovereignty,” God delegates biblical authority to three distinct, and severely limited, spheres of “government.” There is family government, ecclesiastical (church) government, and civil government, each with its own authority and sphere of legitimate influence.

So, for example, in this view, education is entirely within the purview of the family government, not civil government. Reconstructionists believe public education and even regulation of private education by the civil government violates biblical law.

Similarly, because Reconstructionists believe that economic activity is a function of the family’s call to dominion, economic regulation by the government is considered unbiblical—a fundamental tenet of what is known as biblical economics.

We've seen how those views are being embraced by the movement to defund pubic education - primarily in red states. But reconstructionists also have very detailed views about taxes and government spending. Here is what Gary North - Rushdooney's son-in-law - wrote about that.

There is no discussion in the Bible of the proper limits of taxation. Taxation should therefore be discussed in terms of achieving other biblical goals and enforcing other biblical principles.

The supreme biblical goal of taxation is to finance a civil government that is incapable of doing more than the Bible says it should...The state should be limited in a way analogous to the limits placed on the king in Deuteronomy 17. So, the biblical goal of modern politics is to shrink the state -- all branches -- to levels consistent with the biblical concept of civil government: negative sanctions only. The welfare state must be de-funded.

Taxation therefore should be discussed, above all, in terms of limiting the expansion of the state, especially the central government.

With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that one of the first things Johnson did as Speaker was to tie Israeli military aid to defunding the ability of the IRS to go after wealthy tax cheats. We haven't even begun to see how bullish he's going to be on defunding the entire social safety net.

There is no area of modern life that isn't covered by the "biblical worldview" of Christian reconstructionists. At the Coalition on Revival, they have documented the "Christian worldview" on government, law, family, economics, education, charity, social action, business, art, science, medicine, and psychology. If you want to know what kind of policies we're likely to see from the Republican Speaker of the House, feel free to skip the Bible and go directly to the source.

"Toxic masculinity isn't shielding us from danger. It's the reason we're not safe."

Amidst all the news coming out of the war in Israel/Gaza, the story of Vivian Silver is the one that caught my attention. 

Silver moved from Winnipeg to Israel in 1974 and was a longtime member of Women Wage Peace and other organizations campaigning for peace in the region.

She was dedicated to denouncing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians; she had fought against the blockade of Gaza, in place since 2007, and would pick up Gazan children at the border to drive them to Israeli hospitals.

Vivian was killed by Hamas during the October 7 attack. I suspect that the people who murdered her didn't know who she was, but I'm also not convinced they would have cared. That's because nothing we've seen from Hamas (or Netanyahu) indicates they share Vivian's goal of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. As a matter of fact, a case can be made that women like her pose the greatest threat to the aims of both Hamas and Netanyahu. 

Nearly 50 years of studying terrorism has taught me that the terrorists' worst enemies are always moderates & those who work for peace--sadly just like Ms. Silver. May her memory be a blessing. https://t.co/4X7B8f6b1f

— Bruce Hoffman (@hoffman_bruce) November 15, 2023

The organization Vivian was involved with, Women Wage Peace, is the largest grassroots peace movement in Israel, including over 45,000 members. Here's their mission statement:

Women Wage Peace is a broad, politically unaffiliated movement, which is acting to prevent the next war and to promote a non-violent, respectful, and mutually accepted solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with the active participation of women through all stages of negotiations.

Recently Women Wage Peace began a collaboration with Women of the Sun, their sister organization for Palestinian women.  Just last year, Haaretz interviewed its directors, Reem Hjajara, Maram Zoual, and Layla Sheikh. About the collaboration, Hjajara says:

[I]f we can talk about our experiences, we can discuss the most difficult questions. We want the Israeli women to know what our lives are like under the occupation. I want them to know that the army uses Deheisheh [a Palestinian refugee camp] as a training camp, and that there are always soldiers there. We’re always afraid.”

She starts to cry and takes out her phone, showing me a shocking photograph of the bloody body of a young man lying on the street. “My son’s best friend in Deheisheh [Fadi Mohammad Ghattas] was recently killed by the army. He had been in our house only a few days before; he was a son to me,” Hjajara says.

“I want Israeli women to understand what it means when they send their children to the army,” adds Sheikh. “I know you love and want to serve your country, and that you believe you are protecting yourselves. But I want you to know what it means to us when you put guns in the hands of your children.”

As if in anticipation of the next question, Hjajara addresses Palestinian terror and extremism. “Settlers and soldiers attack Palestinians and some people break,” she says. “Our children do not feel they have a future and they’re depressed. Many commit suicide, and some of them hate so much that they attack Israelis – which is a form of suicide...

Hjajara concludes that she is excited about the [collaborative events with Women Wage Peace], but worries about her son. “He did believe in peace, but now, since he lost his friend, I don’t know what he thinks. He stays in the house and cries, and doesn’t eat or sleep. There is too much anger and sadness inside of him.

“Like most Palestinians, he wonders when his turn to be killed will come. That is why we must talk to each other and make peace, so mothers – both Palestinian and Israeli – won’t mourn their children anymore.”

Women from the two groups came together last year to issue a "Mothers' Call." Here's the opening statement:

We, Palestinian and Israeli women from all walks of life, are united in the human desire for a future of peace, freedom, equality, rights, and security for our children and the next generations.

All of that happened before the Hamas attack on October 7th and the Israeli assault on Gaza. Now Vivian is dead and God only knows the fate of Reem, Maram, and Layla. Why? 

As Amanda Marcotte wrote, it all boils down to the lie that toxic masculinity will keep us safe (emphasis mine).

Feminists have long detailed how it's wrong to equate masculinity, especially toxic masculinity, with safety. For instance, the myth of chivalry is constructed around the idea that men need power over women in order to protect us. But, as feminists point out, what we're being "protected" from is male violence that only exists because men have so much power over women...Toxic masculinity isn't shielding us from danger. It's the reason we're not safe.

If the last few weeks have taught us anything, it's that Netanyahu can't keep Israel safe and Hamas can't keep Palestinians safe. If we want peace, it's time to listen to the mothers.