Helen Rumbelow on what it’s like to read the Epstein files:

As the hours of my time on the site turned into days I started to see these files themselves as a Rosetta Stone through which women might understand male power.

Powerful men often have their identities, in the email and messages chains, redacted. Powerless girls have their faces, in photos, blacked out. Yes, there are the publicised emails, such as Epstein’s draft alleging that Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, acquired an STD from “having sex with Russian girls”, or Richard Branson advising Epstein on how to recover from his little sex-offending public relations problem. Branson requests Epstein visit his Caribbean island again “as long as you bring your

The mountain begins to stir?

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons has issued a broad recommendation against gender transition surgeries for youths, becoming the first major medical association in the United States to narrow its guidance on pediatric gender care amid a crackdown by the Trump administration.

Yessssss!

Never mind the Trump admin. It’s the only thing they’re right about.

A statement sent Tuesday to the group’s 11,000 members and obtained by The Washington Post recommends surgeons delay gender-related chest, genital and facial surgery until a patient is at least 19 years old. Fewer than 1,000 minors in the United States receive such surgeries every year, according to research published in JAMA, the American Medical Association’s journal, and the vast

I dropped into PCC Market this afternoon to get a loaf of bread and saw they had some sort of motto board in the little cafe area. I was curious to see what the current deepity was so I looked. It goes like this:

The future is coming this way.

Let us go out to meet it.

And then the author’s name, which I didn’t write down and don’t remember.

But: what??? That’s such wisdom it’s worth finding the alphabet blocks and pinning them on the board?

The future is the future; you don’t say!

Let’s go out to meet it??? I don’t want to be harsh but there’s no need to summon or advise us to meet it, because … Read the rest

There it is – there’s that giveaway. He tells Kaitlan Collins to go ahead then interrupts himself to shout insults at her.

“You are the worst reporter – no wonder CN – CNN has no ratings because of people like you – [looks to his left] you know she’s a young woman – [looks to his right] I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile, I’ve known you for [grimaces] ten years, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a smile on your face.” [Collins tries to speak, he shouts over her.] You know why yerr not smiling? Coz ya know yer not tellin the trueth.”

He can launch the nukes.

KAITLAN COLLINS: What would say to Epstein survivo—

TRUMP: You

I somehow missed this at the time, but Trump got very busy erasing women from all the things too. I knew about the big picture “get rid of all DEI blah blah blah” but I’m not sure I knew women were included in the purge.

As President Donald Trump’s anti-DEI agenda comes to bear on NASA, we’re getting a revealing look at what his administration considers to be too woke: women.

In a directive sent out just days after Trump’s inauguration, NASA personnel were commanded to excise all mentions of anything “specifically targeting” women on the space agency’s public websites, 404 Media reports.

And by “targeting” they don’t mean harassing or mocking, they mean mentioning.

“Per NASA HQ

Take down that information!

A week after taking down signs at Independence National Historical Park referencing George Washington’s ownership of slaves, the National Park Service has been ordered to remove signs and displays pertaining to climate change and Native Americans at a handful of national parks in the West.

“The moves are the latest actions by the Trump administration to whitewash and sanitize history at National Park Service sites by removing or changing signage about slavery, climate change, Native Americans, transgender rights, and other issues,” the Sierra Club said Tuesday in a statement.

[How did “transgender rights” get in there? What can such undefined rights have to do with national parks?]

“The Trump administration continues to politicize our national parks

In Rush Toward Dictatorship news, Trump is pushing the Steal All the Elections effort as hard as he can.

Trump called in a new interview for the Republican Party to “nationalize” voting in the United States, an aggressive rhetorical step that was likely to raise new worries about his administration’s efforts to involve itself in election matters.

During an extended monologue about immigration on a podcast released on Monday by Dan Bongino, his former deputy F.B.I. director, Mr. Trump called for Republican officials to “take over” voting procedures in 15 states, though he did not name them.

“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over,’” he said. “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many

She does say that.

She helps herself to take that passionate stand by not saying what she means by “the rights of trans people.” Her passionate stand sounds generous and righteous if you have no idea what purported “rights of trans people” actually are.

If she spelled them out, it would be obvious what a joke it is for her to claim to be a feminist. Trans activists claim the right to be in women’s spaces, steal women’s prizes, compete in women’s sports, take women’s jobs, demolish real feminism.

She sounds as if she’s talking about human rights for trans people, but she’s not, she’s talking about special new creative “rights” to take everything women have and punish women … Read the rest

Imagine voting for obsessive illiterate rants about media celebrities. People are weird.

I love the part where he says how bad Trevor Noah is immediately after claiming to have no idea who Trevor Noah is. That is truly joined-up thinking right there.

There are only crumbs of his brain left.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by iknklast on How do we know?

I think to make a moral, rational decision, the ‘is’ column would need to include a few things about what difference this makes to other groups; in short, a risk assessment. We know that men are larger than women (on average). We know that men have held most of the power through the ages, and only recently deigned to share with women (and only after women put in a lot of time, money, and pan to get that). We know that there have been abuses by TiMs in women’s spaces. We know that TiMs on women’s sports teams create a huge advantage for one side over the other. We know … Read the rest

Trump intends to take over the elections.

Trump urged Republicans to seize control of elections and place voting under national authority Monday — one of his most explicit signals yet that he plans to interfere with the workings of democracy. 

In a radio interview on The Dan Bongino Show, Trump framed voting itself as corrupt, claimed elections were stolen from him and argued that Republicans should take over how ballots are cast and counted.

…

Trump went on to reassert his long-standing false claim that he won the 2020 election, attacking states by name.

“We have states that I won that show I didn’t win,” he said. “Now, you’re going to see something in Georgia where they were

Yes but let’s be clear about this.

The Kennedy Center isn’t closing for “renovations.”

It’s closing because audiences fled, artists pulled out, and the institution’s reputation collapsed under the weight of the choices forced upon it.

A cultural landmark doesn’t lose this much public trust by accident.

It…

— Andrew Weinstein (@Weinsteinlaw) February 2, 2026

It’s not that “the Kennedy Center is (or isn’t) closing.” It’s that Trump is closing the Kennedy Center. It’s not a thing the Kennedy Center is doing, it’s a thing that Trump is doing to the Kennedy Center, and to all of us.

It’s really important never to lose track of the direction of causality here.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Artymorty on How do we know.

Sometimes I like to imagine the moral-philosophical questions surrounding transgender as a debate between Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk.

We’d ask each of them to break all the variables down into that great moral philosopher David Hume’s two columns: what “is” and what “ought”. Everything in the “is” column is a morally neutral statement of fact, or what’s close enough to fact based on the evidence. Everything in the “ought” column is a prescription for behaviour that rests on value premises and moral sentiments.

The primary difference between the gender criticals and the gender zealots is the order in which the table gets filled in. Do you start by … Read the rest

Oof. Watch this.

Of course Donald Trump is now closing down the Kennedy Center. With ticket sales plummeting and top artists staying far away ever since he branded his name on the building, he's getting his revenge. He's been like this his whole life. Check out this interview below from 1992. pic.twitter.com/QZvjK5W0j0

— Russell Drew (@RussOnPolitics) February 2, 2026

He’s so different it’s startling. Not better, of course, but very different. Fast, sharp, New Yawk energy type different. He doesn’t come across as stupid. Evil, yes, but stupid, no.… Read the rest

So anyway. This business of grabbing the Kennedy Center only to shut it down.

What about that, eh? What next? Is he going to grab the Metropolitan Museum of Art so that he can shut it down? The Art Institute of Chicago? The National Gallery of Art right there in DC?

It was revolting and vomit-inducing enough when he slapped his name on the Kennedy Center, but now that he’s admitted (aka bragged) that he did it in order to demolish it, we have to wonder how many items of this kind will be turned to rubble over the next three years.

Litigators also wonder.

COCOUNSEL STATEMENT ON TRUMP ATTEMPT TO CLOSE KENNEDY CENTER FOLLOWING LOSS OF ARTISTS AND AUDIENCES

Sounds like a fun evening.

In a frenetic presidency that has been marked by jarring contrasts, he added another Saturday night: suiting up in black-tie regalia and telling jokes about invading Greenland and bombing Iran even as demonstrators assembled across the nation to rebuke his aggressive roundups of noncitizens in Minneapolis.

In one sense, Trump’s appearance put him inside one of official Washington’s longtime traditions: the annual dinner of the Alfalfa Club, an exclusive organization of CEOs, politicians, and other Washington luminaries. But it was done in characteristic Trumpian fashion, at once unapologetic and awkward, with barbs aimed at political adversaries, grievances over perceived slights and punch lines that at times fell flat before a bipartisan audience.

Ah yes, … Read the rest

Oh gawd.

Trump: "I have determined that the fastest way to bring The Trump Kennedy Center to the highest level of Success, Beauty, and Grandeur, is to cease Entertainment Operations for an approximately two year period of time, with a scheduled Grand Reopening that will rival and surpass… pic.twitter.com/ypPJyT1php

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 1, 2026

The writing. It gets worse every day.

“many Highly Respected Experts”

Just go back to kindergarten. Go. They will give you milk and cookies.… Read the rest

A question asked in a gender critical Facebook group:

How do we know we are on the right side?

I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve become extreme and captured…Are we on the right side? How do we know?

I think about that often. I’m sure all gender-skeptical types do.

One of the first things I think when I ask myself that question is the fact that I couldn’t believe in it if I tried. Even if I decided kindness or compassion or basic decency required me to, I couldn’t. The best I could do is fake it. Am I wrong not to fake it? Am I on the wrong side because I can’t fake it?

There are at least two … Read the rest