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Classy people.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reportedly had a Coast Guard pilot fired because she was missing a blanket – only to realize there was no one else to fly her home.

The former South Dakota governor had been forced to switch planes after a maintenance issue was discovered, but her blanket was not moved to the second plane, those familiar with the incident told the Wall Street Journal. She then reportedly had her special advisor Corey Lewandowski fire the US Coast Guard pilot, who was told to take a commercial flight home once they reached their destination.

But when staffers learned there was nobody else available to fly the plane, the unidentified pilot was

… Read the rest

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By Ophelia Benson, February 13, 2026

Classy people.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reportedly had a Coast Guard pilot fired because she was missing a blanket – only to realize there was no one else to fly her home.

The former South Dakota governor had been forced to switch planes after a maintenance issue was discovered, but her blanket was not moved to the second plane, those familiar with the incident told the Wall Street Journal. She then reportedly had her special advisor Corey Lewandowski fire the US Coast Guard pilot, who was told to take a commercial flight home once they reached their destination.

But when staffers learned there was nobody else available to fly the plane, the unidentified pilot was

… Read the rest

Archives
Bad Moves
Articles
Flashback
In Focus
Latest News
Letters
Notes and Comment Blog

Power 

Classy people.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reportedly had a Coast Guard pilot fired because she was missing a blanket – only to realize there was no one else to fly her home.

The former South Dakota governor had been forced to switch planes after a maintenance issue was discovered, but her blanket was not moved to the second plane, those familiar with the incident told the Wall Street Journal. She then reportedly had her special advisor Corey Lewandowski fire the US Coast Guard pilot, who was told to take a commercial flight home once they reached their destination.

But when staffers learned there was nobody else available to fly the plane, the unidentified pilot was

… Read the rest
Some hideous gurning goon 

This. I have been wondering/fuming about this for YEARS.

…one day soon, drag artists will be about as politically acceptable as the Black and White Minstrels are today. Right now, you cannot turn on your TV without being assailed by some hideous gurning goon in a garish dress and ludicrous make-up lampooning the female sex – the BBC, in particular, seems obsessed with drag queens. They are even invited into our schools to disseminate filth masquerading as sex education to kids.

For some reason, a reason hard to comprehend, the objections made about ‘blacking up’ do not apply to drag artists. They are, of course, two sides of the same coin, or perhaps the same side of the coin.

… Read the rest
Might as well fall faster 

More on those pesky regulations Trump is deleting:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) first took a stance on the impacts of greenhouse gases in 2009, in the first year of Obama’s first term. The agency decided that six key planet-warming greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, were a danger to human health. With a divided Congress unable to agree on legislation to tackle rising global temperatures, the EPA finding became central to federal efforts to rein in emissions in the years that followed.

“The endangerment finding has really served as the lynchpin of US regulation of greenhouse gases,” said Meghan Greenfield, a former EPA and Department of Justice attorney. “So that includes motor vehicles, but it also includes power … Read the rest

Legal challenge dismissed 

High Court rules: EHRC guidance lawful

The High Court has dismissed a legal challenge from the Good Law Project (GLP) and three anonymous claimants against the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)’s interim guidance on single-sex services published last year.

Sex Matters intervened in support of the EHRC.

Mr Justice Swift endorsed the interim update that the EHRC published in April last year as an accurate statement of the law for employers and service providers and ruled that “transsexual persons” under the Equality Act have no right to use opposite-sex toilets or changing rooms.

Somewhere, deep inside the forest, a jolyon is raging.… Read the rest

Erasing the scientific finding 

Trump deletes the science.

Trump on Thursday announced he was erasing the scientific finding that climate change endangers human health and the environment, ending the federal government’s legal authority to control the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet.

The action is a key step in removing limits on carbon dioxide, methane and four other greenhouse gases that scientists say are supercharging heat waves, droughts, wildfires and other extreme weather.

We love heat waves! And droughts, and wildfires!

Led by a president who refers to climate change as a “hoax,” the administration is essentially saying that the vast majority of scientists around the world are wrong and that a hotter planet is not the menace that decades of research

… Read the rest
And stay out 

High court rules:

The High Court has dismissed a legal challenge from the Good Law Project (GLP) and three anonymous claimants against the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)’s interim guidance on single-sex services published last year.

Sex Matters intervened in support of the EHRC.

Mr Justice Swift endorsed the interim update that the EHRC published in April last year as an accurate statement of the law for employers and service providers and ruled that “transsexual persons” under the Equality Act have no right to use opposite-sex toilets or changing rooms.

Women win, Jolyon loses.

GLP was judged not to have standing as it lacked “sufficient interest” in the legal questions. The three anonymous claimants did have standing, and

… Read the rest
That man works for you now 

Yikes.

Bondi’s indifference is a sight to behold.… Read the rest

Tomorrow 

EPA says Never mind.

Trump announced Thursday that the Environmental Protection Agency is rescinding the legal finding that it has relied on for nearly two decades to limit the heat-trapping pollution that spews from vehicle tailpipes, oil refineries and factories.

Oh. Great. We’re just going to pretend it’s not happening and do nothing to slow it and let the current generation of children fix it way down the road when it’s not our problem any more.

The repeal of that landmark determination, known as the endangerment finding, will upend most U.S. policies aimed at curbing climate change.

The finding — which the EPA issued in 2009 — said the global warming caused by greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide

… Read the rest
Does razing count as interfering with? 

Last month a judge told Trump to cool his jets on the Ballroom plans.

In October, the administration bulldozed the East Wing of the White House in order to build a ballroom he wants to put on the site. Although Trump had promised over the summer that the project wouldn’t “interfere with the current building,” workers razed the entire structure, which was constructed in 1902 and expanded in 1942. 

Well that’s what he meant. It won’t interfere with it, it will obliterate it altogether. Totally not deceptive at all.

Trump managed this the same way he has so much in his second term: He simply didn’t ask permission from any of the possible relevant authorities, including Congress, and acted so

… Read the rest
Some international standard 

Róisín Michaux writes on TwitX:

The EU Parliament has voted to recognise “trans women” as women for all purposes, explicitly calling for them to be granted access to women-only domestic violence shelters and refugees.

An EU delegation will present this radical recommendation at the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York next month. It is not binding, but intended to be adopted/followed as an “international standard”. It also demonstrates the ideological makeup of the European Parliament.

Few speakers mentioned the “trans women” part of the recommendation during the debate leading up to the vote. Parties could have asked for a vote on the individual paragraph, but having failed to do so, MEPs were left with a

… Read the rest
The 18-year-old what? 

Oh look – today the BBC is not calling the shooter a woman.

Police identify 18-year-old as suspect in Tumbler Ridge shooting

Not calling him a man either, you’ll notice. They don’t want to get all extreme about this.

“I can say that Jesse was born as a biological male who approximately six years ago began to transition to female,” Dwayne McDonald, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) deputy commissioner, said.

The shooting at the nearby home occurred first, then the suspect went to the school, McDonald said. The victims at the school were a 39-year-old female educator, three female students, all aged 12, and two male students, one aged 12 and the other 13.

Huh. Will you look at … Read the rest

Ethical and unethical journalism 

Journalist Janet Murray writes

There are unethical people in every profession. Journalism is no exception.

But unethical journalism isn’t only about phone hacking, going through bins or taking bribes.

At its core, it’s about knowingly misrepresenting reality.

Yesterday’s case involved one of the worst mass shootings in Canada’s history – the kind of event where the stakes for getting the facts right could not be higher.

You cannot claim to uphold journalistic standards while describing a crime committed by a man as having been committed by a woman.

Nor can you sidestep it by using the word “person” when sex is materially relevant.

Yet several major outlets did exactly that yesterday – including Sky and the BBC.

This isn’t about

… Read the rest
A very serious lie 

SEEN in Journalism makes the point I just made in a comment: that calling the perp a woman in the lede and not telling the truth until many paragraphs down is a grossly obvious violation of journalistic standards.

‘Canadian police have identified the suspect as an 18-year old woman with a history of mental health problems’ This is a very serious lie about a shattering event.

… Read the rest

A right to go into the Capitol and disrupt Congress A right to go into the Capitol and disrupt Congress 

Dude.

Like this?

… Read the rest
How dare she consult the database 

Watching.

Attorney General Pam Bondi at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday seemed to have a printout of Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s history of searches of the Department of Justice’s database of documents related to the notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Photos of a black binder that Bondi had at the hearing showed the words “Jayapal Pramila Search History” and a list of documents whose numbers coincide with the number of Epstein files.

That’s my Rep – not mine personally, but ours in Seattle. Seattle, of course, is not Trump Territory.

Jayapal, a Washington state Democrat who sits on the Judiciary Committee, and other members of Congress have visited the DOJ in recent days to view documents

… Read the rest
The w word 

More on the news media blatantly lying in the headline:

Ten dead, including female suspect, after Canada school shooting – as it happened

Yo. Suspect not female. Suspect male. Repeat, suspect male.

Summary

  • Ten people died in a mass shooting in British Columbia
  • It’s one of the deadliest mass shootings in recent Canadian history
  • Six people were found dead at a high school in the town of Tumbler Ridge
  • The suspected shooter, a woman, was among the dead at the school
  • Two more were found dead elsewhere and another died en route to hospital

Item 4 in that list is a lie. The shooter was not a woman.

It’s nearing midnight in Tumbler Ridge, the town in British Columbia

… Read the rest
Rich vocabulary 

It’s all so dignified.

• Key hearing: Attorney General Pam Bondi is testifying at a heated House Judiciary Committee amid ongoing controversies related to the Jeffrey Epstein files release, investigation into President Donald Trump’s political foes and the handling of the fatal shootings of two US citizens in Minnesota by immigration enforcement officers.

• Clashes with lawmakers: Bondi called Rep. Jamie Raskin – a former constitutional law professor and the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee – a “washed up loser lawyer,” as the clash between her and committee Democrats escalated over her approach to their questions.

Yep. Peak dignity right there.… Read the rest

Not going to put up with it 

Huh. Pam Bondi is going to stop people telling the truth about Trump. That seems a tad authoritarian.

… Read the rest

wearing a brown dress 

Not Our Crimes yet again. Not Our Mass Murders.

https://twitter.com/OkayBiology/status/2021512298087448761… Read the rest
He dinnit really like 

Switzerland doesn’t have a prime minister.

Who knew that tariffs are for punishing people who aren’t deferential enough to Trump?… Read the rest