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Nullified

Now there’s a piece of good news.

A federal judge on Tuesday nullified nearly all actions that the Trump administration took to shutter Voice of America, a federally funded news organization that broadcast to countries with limited press protections, including Iran, China and Russia.

Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered more than 1,000 full-time journalists and support staff at the news group to return to work by March 23 and to resume broadcasting operations. The judge’s decision excludes contracted employees.

Judge Lamberth wrote that Congress passed clear laws funding V.O.A. and directing the administration to maintain news operations “in each significant region of the world” that present “a variety of

… Read the rest

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Nullified
By Ophelia Benson, March 18, 2026

Now there’s a piece of good news.

A federal judge on Tuesday nullified nearly all actions that the Trump administration took to shutter Voice of America, a federally funded news organization that broadcast to countries with limited press protections, including Iran, China and Russia.

Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered more than 1,000 full-time journalists and support staff at the news group to return to work by March 23 and to resume broadcasting operations. The judge’s decision excludes contracted employees.

Judge Lamberth wrote that Congress passed clear laws funding V.O.A. and directing the administration to maintain news operations “in each significant region of the world” that present “a variety of

… Read the rest

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

Nullified 

Now there’s a piece of good news.

A federal judge on Tuesday nullified nearly all actions that the Trump administration took to shutter Voice of America, a federally funded news organization that broadcast to countries with limited press protections, including Iran, China and Russia.

Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered more than 1,000 full-time journalists and support staff at the news group to return to work by March 23 and to resume broadcasting operations. The judge’s decision excludes contracted employees.

Judge Lamberth wrote that Congress passed clear laws funding V.O.A. and directing the administration to maintain news operations “in each significant region of the world” that present “a variety of

… Read the rest
Guest post: Everyone loves a good rags-to-sequins-and-glitter story 

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Try shutting up.

… trying to force the unachievable on the unwilling….

That’s as good a summary of the whole outrage as I have ever heard.

There’s something about that logic which bothers me. Why the baked in assumptions that the third space must be trans only, rather than inclusive, willing and knowingly participating? It could have been packed with trans women, genderqueers, inclusive feminists and all the so called allies.

Because they wanted to be seen as women, period. Not going into women’s spaces breaks that narrative, and rubs their noses in the mad impossibility of their quest. In their minds, being women “by choice” or “through effort” makes … Read the rest

Neighborhood news Neighborhood news 

What a crappy thing to do.

A 40-year-old man is behind bars after causing catastrophic damage to a famed Seattle glass museum located on the grounds of Seattle Center.

On Monday night, just after 11 p.m., the man was arrested for assault and causing over $240,000 worth of damage to the Chihuly Garden and Glass.

Why we can’t have nice things.… Read the rest

Well, son, when you see what I’ve seen 

Bro has been watching too much tv.

Markwayne Mullin, the Oklahoma senator chosen by Donald Trump to lead the Department of Homeland Security who will be considered by the Senate on Wednesday, has never served in the US military, but he routinely speaks as if he did in interviews.

Two days after the US attacked Iran, for instance, Mullin told Fox News: “War is ugly. It smells bad. And if anybody has ever been there and been able to smell the war that’s happening around you and taste it, and feel it in your nostrils, and hear it, it’s something you’ll never forget. And it’s ugly.”

He knows this from the movies. No I know he can’t actually … Read the rest

Guest post: The ugly tribal reaction 

Originally a comment by Artymorty on It is not what it is.

Professors are being hounded for acknowledging biological sex. Carole Hooven is an EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGIST who taught AT FUCKING HARVARD no less, and she was hounded out of her job over her plain, simple assertion of the FACT that sex is binary.

I’ll have no fucking truck with this coy playacting that phrasing like “people with wombs” isn’t directly connected to the ugly tribal reaction against the facts of biology that has taken hold among young people.

The primary purpose of such language as “people with wombs” is to appease the ravenous kids who’ve been conditioned to go feral and become outraged at any acknowledgement of biological sex. That’s … Read the rest

It is not what it is It is not what it is 

A vox pop moment.

From a public post on Facebook:

Wut? Terms like ‘people with wombs’ are being sometimes used in medical literature in conversations that are specifically about data connected to people with wombs and that’s how we know the term is not being used as a placeholder for “women”?

This ideology is not good for people’s thinking processes.… Read the rest

Try shutting up 

Well…

It’s not exactly a slur, true, but it is nevertheless highly objectionable, and not just to the person being called it. It assumes matters not in evidence – it assumes that there are “cis” people and “trans people” when in fact there are only people. Cis would not mean anything without the existence of the word “trans” but the word “trans” names something that doesn’t exist. We don’t need the word “cis” because it’s just the equivalent of real or actual or non-fake. Trans women are real, actual, non-fake men. Trans men are real, actual, non-fake women. It’s simpler to just ignore the fakes and … Read the rest

Let’s ask this fella 

Here is the Woman’s Hour segment in case you’re interested. I could only manage a couple of minutes because the guy has nothing to say and he says it excruciatingly slowly and mumblingly in a silly Minny Mouse voice. A car-crash on all criteria.

“Women’s voices” it says there. Well, women’s voices interspersed with some men’s. Women can’t have things all to themselves, obviously. … Read the rest

In today’s misogyny segment In today’s misogyny segment 

Why do they do this?

I suppose I shouldn’t even ask. I suppose they do it for the obvious reason: to insult and harm women. But then why not call it some other kind of hour? Misogynist Hour would fit.

The usual stupid mistake in the title – not Trans Sociologist but Trans Woman aka Man.

Moving on – why do they do this?

They should just admit: because it makes you bitches furious and that makes us laugh. See you tomorrow.… Read the rest

There is only one man 

Of course he said that.

That’s Trump in a nutshell. You don’t need to talk to other people, you’re the boss, you decide everything all by yourself, you don’t need a team, you don’t need information, you don’t need advice, you don’t need understanding, you don’t need a range of views, you don’t need to think … Read the rest

Block those cuts 

A bump in the road for Bad Kennedy:

A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked federal health officials from cutting the number of vaccines recommended for every child, and said U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. likely violated federal procedures in revamping a key vaccine advisory committee.

The decision halted an order by Kennedy — announced in January — to end broad recommendations for all children to be vaccinated against flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis and RSV.

On the one hand you have your medically trained people and on the other hand you have a stupid conceited hack who thinks he knows better than everyone despite having zero medical training or education. … Read the rest

Join now Join now Join now Join now 

Sale ends at midnight! Don’t delay! Offer comes with bag of popcorn!

… Read the rest
They responded coolly 

Nyah nyah I didn’t want to ride your rusty old bike anyway.

Trump on Monday disparaged American allies who have responded coolly to, or outright rebuffed, his call to send warships to escort merchant vessels in and out of the Persian Gulf, complaining that the United States had been defending other countries for decades.

“You mean for 40 years we’re protecting you, and you don’t want to get involved in something that’s very minor?” Mr. Trump said, speaking about the war at a White House event with the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

He went on to say, “We don’t need anybody; we’re the strongest nation in the world,” adding that his request

… Read the rest
Ranty McRantface 

Unhinged rant time.

Trump says reporters who cover his war on Iran in a negative manner should face charges of “TREASON”—a crime punishable by death.

The 79-year-old president posted a nearly 400-word Truth Social rant on Sunday slamming Iran for “feeding” the “very appreciative Fake News Media” in the U.S. and even resorting to AI to spread “false information.”

Nobody can compete with Trump in the false information department.

The president also took swings at a reporter from ABC, calling them “one of the most corrupt news organizations on the planet” before refusing to take any more questions from the outlet. When a female reporter asked Trump why the U.S. is sending 5,000 marines and sailors, the president shot

… Read the rest
Yet it led to bitter recriminations 

George Chesterton at the Telegraph talks to Rachel Rooney about the Trans Board of Censorship.

“This is the book that ended my career,” says Rachel Rooney, holding a copy of My Body is Me, a picture book for three to six-year-olds published in 2019. You could not find a more innocuous, inclusive and warm-hearted children’s paperback if you tried, yet it led to bitter recriminations for its award-winning creator, a torrent of abuse and ultimately her cancellation by the publishing world.

Her “crime” was to be a gender-critical feminist voice in an industry that was, and largely remains, adherent to a rigid gender ideology.

Rigid, yes, but more to the point, batshit crazy. I think the batshit … Read the rest

Women float free of their sex 

Is that true?

https://twitter.com/Berlinnaeus/status/2032228422798204951

It’s true that Ireland is very…shall we say delayed, on this matter. That’s why it’s been known to let women die rather than terminate a premature birth. But is it so very delayed that women have no rights specific to women at all? Is rape legalized then?… Read the rest

Guest post: A cosmic calamity for which nobody was responsible 

Originally a comment by Tim Harris on Bureaucracies love euphemism.

[“Kinetic”] could certainly be an abbreviation of “fucking hectic”, but what interests me about the word (in the way it’s used by Hegseth & others) is its scientific aura, its suggestion that what is happening is both violent and an index of overwhelming, god-like power, but also that it is mindless (which of course it is in a sense other than the sense I am trying to establish) and mechanical and has nothing to do with human intentions, decisions or responsibility (“kinetic energy” is, according to the OED, “energy which a body possesses by virtue of being in motion”), and so cannot be understood at all in human terms. … Read the rest

To keep it open and safe 

The Facebook commentator I Fucking Love Australia is not unduly impressed by Trump’s efforts to summon help with the Strait of Hormuz thing.

BREAKING: President Trump says the US in conjunction with “many countries” is sending war ships to the Strait of Hormuz to keep it “open and safe.”

Trump also calls on China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others to send war ships to Hormuz.

Oh. Oh this is beautiful. This is the geopolitical equivalent of the guy who starts a bar fight, gets his head put through the pool table, and then looks up at the bouncer with blood pouring out of his nose going “Are you gonna DO something about these guys?!”

Let me get

… Read the rest
Guest post: Bureaucracies love euphemism 

Originally a comment by Artymorty on An unusually crass opinion.

I’m of the mind that crass language and blunt, confrontational talk is a great tool for smashing bullshit. Too often, people use politeness and euphemism as a shield to hide behind, as deflection to avoid responsibility. When confronted with blunt reality it’s often a lot harder for people to avoid facing their complicity in bad things. I see it in office culture all the time, and I can’t stand it. Bureaucracies love euphemism and they hate bluntness. Especially bureaucracies that are propping up bad things.

In the 2000s, for example, it was euphemism and politeness that enabled unscrupulous financiers to repackage and sell junk mortgage debt: they danced around … Read the rest

A snip at $220 million 

Why did Trump fire Kristi Noem?

Her tenure was marked by high-profile immigration enforcement operations that were often publicised on social media, with Noem at times accompanying federal agents during arrests.

During this sweeping immigration crackdown across the US, two US citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, were fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis earlier this year.

Not fatally shot in self-defense or to defend others, but fatally shot for no detectable reason other than panic and/or bad temper.

The announcement came following controversy over a $220m border security advertising campaign featuring Noem on horseback. After Noem told Congress that Trump had approved the campaign, Trump denied involvement.

In a phone interview with the Reuters news agency, he

… Read the rest