That’s the way to do it: smash everything in sight and then pause to decide to take a more nuanced approach.

President Donald Trump convened his Cabinet in person on Thursday to deliver a message: You’re in charge of your departments, not Elon Musk.

According to two administration officials, Trump told top members of his administration that Musk was empowered to make recommendations to the departments but not to issue unilateral decisions on staffing and policy. Musk was also in the room.

…

The president’s message represents the first significant move to narrow Musk’s mandate. According to Trump’s new guidance, DOGE and its staff should play an advisory role — but Cabinet secretaries should make final decisions on personnel,

Trump’s side hustle of trying to annex Canada:

When U.S. President Donald Trump last spoke with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump pointed to a 1908 treaty as apparent ammunition to support his threats of a tariff war and his envisioned takeover of Canada.

Trump’s reference to the 116-year-old treaty regarding the Canada-U.S. border reportedly took Trudeau and his office by surprise, sending staff searching for the pact online as the leaders spoke on the phone. That’s not a surprise. The treaty is somewhat obscure in terms of the historical relationship between the former British colonies that became Canada and the United States of America.

Spoiler: it nowhere says the US gets to swallow Canada.… Read the rest

The Telegraph on antisemitic abuse in the NHS:

The file includes a Jewish doctor being given a hijab as a secret santa present and a patient having pro-Palestine stickers plastered across his room as he lay fighting for his life.

Meanwhile, a group of therapists who complained about a colleague posting messages supporting Hamas online were subject to a countercomplaint for “micro-aggressions”. A patient waiting to be discharged from hospital was told: “Get your Jewish ambulance to come and get you.”

The Community Security Trust found that the number of complaints of antisemitism in the NHS had tripled from 29 to 86 in the 17 months before and after October 7, 2023.

It’s so interesting that antisemitism increased after the … Read the rest

Oliver Brown in The Telegraph:

… when I described Blair Hamilton, a transgender goalkeeper signed for Sutton United Women by a transgender manager, as a biological male in these pages last September, the player complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) that the label constituted a “transphobic dog whistle”. According to this argument, the description disregarded Hamilton’s “lived experience and affirmed gender identity”, not to mention “personal journey as a transgender woman”.

Six months on, the press watchdog has rejected this complaint, instead determining that The Telegraph’s use of the term was “genuinely relevant” to the issues raised by a biologically male goalkeeper competing for a female football team. “The committee did not consider that

When Trump is lost at sea without a life jacket or a paddle.

Governor @realDonaldTrump is a convicted felon, rapist, and Epstein’s old golf buddy, but somehow, his biggest crime might be how unbelievably stupid he is.

A reporter asks about TPS (Temporary Protected Status)—a major immigration policy affecting thousands of people. And this…

— Frank C (@FrankC164) March 6, 2025

A reporter asks about TPS (Temporary Protected Status)—a major immigration policy affecting thousands of people. And this mush-brained idiot thinks they said GPS. GPS. This man has been in politics for years and still doesn’t understand basic policies that his own administration has to enforce. It’s actually incredible—every single neuron in his head is on permanent vacation. And yet,

Wait a second I forgot my shoes. Hang on, I have to eat lunch first. Sorry, I’ll be right with you, as soon as I find my wallet. Sit down for a minute, enjoy yourself, I have to do my taxes before we go.

US President Donald Trump has said Mexico will not be required to pay tariffs on goods that come under the trade pact between the two countries and Canada until 2 April.

Trump has not confirmed if the suspension also applies to Canada, but its northern neighbour is expecting an exemption of the “same nature”, a Canadian government source told the BBC.

The latest move is the second climbdown in two days from Trump on his tariffs.

Or to put it another way…oops.

The CDC is inviting about 180 employees back to work, about two weeks after laying them off. https://t.co/vbK66lsCrD

— The Associated Press (@AP) March 5, 2025

Oh gee you mean the CDC actually does vital work? Who could possibly have known that? What does “disease control” even mean? … Read the rest

A bit of good news for a change.

New: An important victory for the Telegraph in how the transgender debate can be reported in sport. On the back of our reporting, this IPSO ruling today establishes that the term ‘biological male’ is ‘genuinely relevant’ to a discussion of these issues https://t.co/rOHw77mXWH

— Oliver Brown (@oliverbrown_tel) March 6, 2025

I’d like to read/quote the ruling but it won’t open; maybe later. Meanwhile Jon Pike enlightens:

There's a particular feature of this that I want to bring out. Blair Hamilton is an academic sports scientist who publishers in this area: Hamilton researches, in particular, the effects of T-reduction and cross sex hormones on performance. This research project has an enormous… https://t.co/CwWwFZ4tqE pic.twitter.com/r2ipL1ASAD

The NY Times muddies the waters in the approved fashion.

The headline is muddy:

Democrats Block Bill to Bar Transgender Girls From Female Sports Teams

“Transgender girls” are not girls. No doubt most NYT readers know that, but all the same, the word “girls” does its work. When we see the word “girls” we don’t correct it to “boys” automatically; it takes extra time and attention to remember that the subject here is boys in girls’ sports. Mostly we don’t read that slowly. Referring to boys as transgender girls is conditioning, and journalism really ought to stop doing it.

Democrats on Monday blocked a Republican-written bill aimed at barring transgender women and girls from school sports teams designated for female

Anne Applebaum on The Rise of the Brutal American:

Quite apart from their politics, Trump and Vance are rude. They are cruel. They berated and mistreated a guest on camera, and then boasted about it afterward, as if their ugly behavior achieved some kind of macho “win.”

That’s putting it mildly. Even “rude” and “cruel” and “ugly” fall short of describing the grotesque nightmare of that performance.

Europeans can also see that this alternative reality is directly and profoundly shaped by Russian propaganda. I don’t know whether the American president absorbs Russian narratives online, from proxies, or from Putin himself. Either way, he has thoroughly adopted the Russian view of the world, as has Vance. This is not new.

Still melting.

Global sea ice fell to a record low in February, scientists have said, a symptom of an atmosphere fouled by planet-heating pollutants.

The combined area of ice around the north and south poles hit a new daily minimum in early February and stayed below the previous record for the rest of the month, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Thursday.

The fun thing about this is that it’s both a symptom and the thing itself. It’s a sign of warming and it is warming. A twofer.

Scientists had already observed an extreme heat anomaly in the north pole at the start of February, which caused temperatures to soar more than 20C above average and

A guy called Pips is “honored and excited” to have been given a role that should have gone to a woman, because of course he is.

Pip Bunce to be exact. We’ve heard of him before.

Honoured and excited to have been chosen as a delegate for this years United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69) Previous years events attended have been incredible and I know that this years will be as good, if not even better!! Spending time with all the amazing delegates is always a pleasure, as too is working with like-minded individuals working to progress inclusion, equality and equity. Our shared ethos being that together we can make a change and equality and equity for

Trump has halted intelligence sharing with Ukraine.

The Trump administration has paused intelligence sharing with Ukraine alongside a military aid freeze, officials said on Wednesday, part of a pressure campaign to force its government to cooperate with the White House’s plans to end the country’s war with Russia.

A U.S. official said that military targeting information was no longer being shared with Ukraine.

…

Some U.S. officials said the hope was that any pause in intelligence sharing would be very short, with little practical impact. A senior Trump administration official said the initial plan was to pause military and intelligence sharing for a week or two as part of the campaign to pressure Mr. Zelensky.

Oh that’s fine. Just … Read the rest

What this ideology does to wannabe progressives. Noisily laughing at a high school girl receiving a brain injury.

Hahahahahahahahaha https://t.co/D1tZ3IOw8Z

— Emma Vigeland (@EmmaVigeland) March 5, 2025

… Read the rest

Ah yes, that infuriating tic.

It’s safe to say U.S. President Donald Trump isn’t exactly endearing himself to many foreign leaders these days.

In the last few days alone, he’s clashed with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and paused its U.S. military aid, launched a trade war with Canada, Mexico and China, and mocked Lesotho in his first speech to Congress, claiming “nobody has ever heard of” the country.

That last one – that toddler cognition that tells him what he is unaware of, everyone is unaware of. He lacks that mechanism that adults have, that reminds them of the variety of what different people know. Trump is pig-ignorant therefore everyone is exactly as pig-ignorant as he is. He’s ignorant in himself and … Read the rest

Now Trump is playing “Let’s negotiate.” Howzabout I skip the tariff on cars, ok? Yeah sure bro, howzabout I torch 90% of your house instead of all of it?

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to speak to his U.S. counterpart Wednesday after the Americans launched a trade war yesterday with devastating tariffs on all Canadian goods.

A senior government official told CBC News that the call is expected sometime around midday. It’s the first time Trudeau has spoken to U.S. President Donald Trump since his administration torpedoed free trade between the two countries by imposing steep levies on imports.

The call comes as the federal government grapples with the usual chaotic situation out of Trump’s Washington with the president’s advisers suggesting at

David Frum in the Atlantic:

The Trump administration’s elimination of PEPFAR, the American program to combat HIV infection in Africa, symbolizes the path ahead. President George W. Bush created the program because it would do immense good at low cost, and thereby demonstrate to the world the moral basis of American power. His successors continued it, and Congresses of both parties funded it, because they saw that the program advanced both U.S. values and U.S. interests. Trump and Vance don’t want the United States to be that kind of country anymore.

The thing about this demonstrating the moral basis of one’s power is that you can’t do it without actually having the moral basis. The ulterior motive is there, … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Prank.

Will nobody tell Trump how tariffs work? He’s under the impression (or giving the impression) that the countries he’s targeting with these tariffs are going to pay him for the privilege of selling in the US. Canada isn’t going to pay a dime; it’s US customers of Canadian goods who are going to be stuck with the bill, or needing to scramble to find alternate sources for the products we can sell more profitably elsewhere. Trump seems to think that, like some hoity- toity credit card with exorbitant annual fees, we’ll pay through the nose in order to be permitted to bow and scrape our way back into his … Read the rest

It’s the science, stupid.

Fellows of the Royal Society met yesterday to discuss, as they put it, “Fellows’ behaviour”. In light of the resignation of two fellows and an open letter signed by nearly 3,500 scientists, many, including me, expected the discussion to be focused on the behaviour of one particular fellow: Elon Musk.

The Royal Society, as one of the world’s most esteemed scientific institutions, bears the responsibility of maintaining standards among its fellows. Musk, admitted as a fellow in 2018 for his technological innovations, has recently engaged in behaviour that contravenes the society’s code of conduct.

I did not know Musk is an FRS.

In particular, many scientists have taken issue with his assault on

Trump being activisty again.

You cannot repeal the first amendment by tweet. I know this because I watched Schoolhouse Rock. pic.twitter.com/i4VpnCKK5M

— Sean Casten (@SeanCasten) March 4, 2025

… Read the rest