Switzerland doesn’t have a prime minister.

Trump: "So I put on a 30% tariff, which is very low. I got an emergency call from I believe the prime minister of Switzerland. She was very aggressive … I didn't really like the way she talked to us, so instead of giving her a reduction, I raised it to 39%." pic.twitter.com/covIESz4u2

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 10, 2026

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

Slow down. Take a step back.

The National Prayer Breakfast was founded in 1953, when President Dwight Eisenhower accepted an invitation to join members of Congress to break bread together. Every president since has participated, regardless of party or religious persuasion. It offers an opportunity, according to its organizers, for political leaders to gather and pray collectively for our nation “in the spirit of love and reconciliation as Jesus of Nazareth taught 2,000 years ago.”

And that’s a bad thing, because it’s a gross violation of religious freedom, aka the separation of church and state. It’s not really an “opportunity” for “political leaders” aka the government to gather and pray collectively, is it, it’s a conspicuous push to do … Read the rest

More news from nursery school:

The National Governors Association (NGA) has canceled its annual White House meeting after President Trump only invited Republican governors to the gathering. 

The yearly meeting is traditionally bipartisan and offers a chance for state leaders to convene with one another and the president. 

Sigh. It’s a meeting of governors, not a meeting of Republican governors. It’s not for him to change that.

“Because NGA’s mission is to represent all 55 governors, the Association is no longer serving as the facilitator for that event, and it is no longer included in our official program,” Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) wrote in a Monday letter announcing plans to forgo the meeting, according to The Associated

Jolyon Maugham pretends not to know the difference between post hoc and propter hoc. (Maugham or someone else at “Good Law” Project, but I doubt the someone elses are allowed to deviate from the party Jolyon line.)

A freedom of information request by Good Law Project has found that deaths by suicide of trans young people under 18 surged following the withdrawal of gender-affirming healthcare

For years, successive governments have denied an increase in suicides among trans youth following the withdrawal, and criminalisation, of gender affirming healthcare. And, when Good Law Project raised the alarm about rising deaths, health secretary Wes Streeting responded with a review that criticised our figures and attacked our reporting as “dangerous”.

Those of us

Guest post by Dr. Phage.

We  are all aware of the special alignments of particular academic disciplines.  In “Gender Studies” departments, for example, the listed requirements for majoring in the subject never include any Biology coursework; this is because scholars in this subject do not believe that “gender” has anything to do with Biology.  Similarly, none of the various “This or That Studies” departments require any education in Statistics, because scholars of these disciplines typically define “knowledges” (plural, and including indigenous folk-traditions) in a sense that is independent of what elsewhere is called “data”.  

   Departments are free to define their own subject matter, but I submit that US universities committed a category error when they assigned these … Read the rest

Fascinating. The man who calls himself a woman who is the Greens candidate who wants to use the women’s toilets is this very reasonable and non-threatening fella here:

An explanatory photo of the male Scottish Green candidate would have helped too. I mean, this is how all professional women dress for work. pic.twitter.com/1mK50mAIki

— Bookish_observer_of_life (@LauraBe36550188) February 10, 2026

… Read the rest

Always push the lie.

Greens candidate in bid to lift Holyrood’s trans toilet ban

Wait, what? Trans toilet ban? You mean Holyrood has banned trans people from all the toilets?

I bet that’s not what they mean.

A Scottish Greens for the Holyrood election has pledged to work to persuade the Scottish Parliament to lift its ban on trans people using toilets in their lived gender in the building if she is elected in May.

Ah, there it is. After the obfuscatory bilge has misled the reader. Nobody is banning trans people from toilets; the ban is on using toilets for the other sex. No men in women’s toilets, capeesh?

Iris Duane, who is the party’s candidate for the

Trump throwing his toys out of the crib again.

President Donald Trump says he will not allow the Gordie Howe International Bridge between Detroit and Windsor to open unless Canada makes significant concessions to the U.S.

Trump said in a Feb. 9 post on Truth Social that the U.S. will open negotiations with Canada, which has footed the entire bill for the $5.7-billion bridge construction project, but believes the U.S. should probably take ownership of at least half of it.

In fact, the bridge is jointly owned by Canada and the U.S., with Canada intending to recoup its upfront construction costs over time, through bridge tolls.

While the US enjoys a free ride, but Trump is pissed off anyway.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Reassigned and replaced by a man.

“While the American people had always rejected the radical-feminist so-called ‘Equal Rights Amendment,’ Team Obama could fast-track their social engineering through the military’s top-down chain of command.”

And replacing women from these positions is not social engineering? All and only men is a neutral, apolitical, unprejudiced position? And each of these women has more experience, talent, and skill than a hundred thousand Hegseths and Trumps.

As Nora Bensahel, a scholar of civil-military relations at Johns Hopkins University, told me, the firing of Davids and other women “is deliberately sending a chilling message to the women who are already serving in uniform….”

I wonder how … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on Take notes.

As much as I dislike the wokeism that got our hostess bullied off FTB, I take issue with the frequently repeated trope about how it killed the atheist and skeptics movements. The Men’s Rights Activists who flooded Watson, McCreight, Ophelia, and so many others with personal attacks, cyberbullying, harassment, and threats had dealt these movements their mortal blow long before that. If anything, wokeism just put them out of their misery.

Since the #MeToo movement (remember that?) was briefly mentioned, I was positively surprised to see the #MeToo hashtag gain the traction it did after seeing so many comparable campaigns fizzle out. I was not surprised to see the backlash … Read the rest

Is the shift starting to happen?

Oh dear Sparkles has been told by The Times that calling him a bloke is a biological fact.
He didn't seem to bothered with the word lunatic pic.twitter.com/MsCtBhCk0A

— cavakaggyreborn (@cavakaggyreborn) February 9, 2026

… Read the rest

Vote for the bomb guy.

A man who was convicted of a terrorist offence has defended standing in local elections this year, saying he understands “people’s speculation and concern”.

Shahid Butt was found guilty of a plot to blow up the British consulate in Yemen in 1999, but said the charges were fabricated and that he was tortured into making a confession. Both Labour and Conservative politicians raised concerns about his suitability when he announced his plan to stand as an independent candidate, in the Sparkhill ward on the Birmingham City Council.

…

Speaking to BBC Politics Midlands this week, Butt said: “I’ve always maintained from day one, that these were false, fabricated charges that were put against

Trump explains all.

Trump admitted on Friday night that he did direct aides to post a racist video on his social media account that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, but claimed that he did not see that part of the video, which was near the end of a 62-second clip that otherwise repeated conspiracy theories about his 2020 election loss.

Although the White House initially defended the video in a statement from the press secretary, the clip was later deleted and reporters were told that it had been posted, without the president’s knowledge, by an aide.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump undercut those efforts by his aides to explain away his own behavior, telling

More from Jeffrey and co:

The Epstein files reveal a patriarchy in action. This is a world where the men are rich and powerful, and the women are not. The emails showcase the private behaviour of a male ruling class, as they network, joke and trade information. Women exist at the periphery, tolerated because they organise the diaries of the busy men, they arrange food, they grace a table, they provide sex.

A typical email from Epstein to a man in his network will say: “Head of the Nobel Peace Prize committee Thorbjorn Jagland will be staying in ny with me. You might find him interesting.” Epstein is writing to Richard Branson in characteristic style, combining some casual showing

Pete Hegseth has kicked all the women out of top jobs in the military. Yes all of them.

The Naval Academy was founded in 1845, but didn’t admit its first class of women until 1976. The head of the school is known as the superintendent, and Annapolis would not get its first female admiral in that position until 2024. Now the first woman to serve as the “supe” has been reassigned and replaced by a man, and for the first time in the academy’s history, the role went to a Marine. Last week, the Navy removed Vice Admiral Yvette Davids from her post and replaced her with Lieutenant General Michael Borgschulte.

…

Trump and Hegseth have been on a

I’m seeing a lot of discussion of Rebecca Watson’s video about Epstein and Lawrence Krauss and Dawkins and the string of women Dawkins has burned through and CFI and That Conference and and and.

It’s worth a watch.… Read the rest

Wait.

First six seconds of this:

'He's got a… quirky sense of humour.'
'Let's play the clip.'
@Lewis_Goodall confronts Trump ally with racist video portraying the Obamas as apes. pic.twitter.com/QkQMYRk9gn

— LBC (@LBC) February 8, 2026

“But as he said, it wasn’t him, he’s got a big group that’s posting”

Stop right there.

WHY?

Why has he got a big group that’s posting on his social media?

Why has he got a big group that’s posting on his social media?

He doesn’t have to post anything on social media. It’s not part of the job. It’s not a requirement. And if he’s going to do social media he sure as hell should not be farming out the job to random … Read the rest

Hadley Freeman writes

Last week Fox Varian, a 22-year-old woman, was awarded $2 million by a New York court in a medical malpractice lawsuit against doctors who gave her a double mastectomy when she was 16 — not because it was medically necessary but because Varian was then identifying as a boy.

Varian’s mother, Claire Deacon, did not want her then teenage daughter to lose her breasts. She had seen her autistic daughter through a host of other problems, including anxiety and anorexia. Varian had cycled through name changes — Isabella to Gabriel to Rowan and finally to Fox — as if she were trying to find herself. Then she announced she was transgender. Instead of seeing this as yet

Oh hell no.

Growing up in India, I learned that thank yous are only for distant strangers, and that close friends and family get offended if you thank them. I would say thank you to a speaker delivering a formal talk but never to a friend helping during a crisis or a family member making me dinner. But living in the UK for two decades has forced me to adopt our incessant “thank you” culture. I now find myself saying thank you at least 10 times a day and sometimes many more. Nevertheless, there are some British “thank yous” that I would ban completely, if I could.

…

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that we

Imane Khelif’s latest propaganda campaign should fool nobody

That’s Oliver Brown in The Telegraph.

Protests against the athlete’s gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics were never about the transgender issue in the first place, but about a disqualification from the previous year’s world championships over sex test results indicating the presence of male chromosomes. Khelif has still not furnished any evidence to the contrary.

Instead, there has been only a cynical PR campaign, soft-soaping the Paris travesty by portraying Khelif – rather than the women smashed in the face by an opponent they could not even be sure was biologically female – as the victim. Worse, credulous news giants are still falling for it. Take this Mills &