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

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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

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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

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Wheels falling off already.

A leading spokesperson in the Department of Health and Human Services announced his resignation Monday after stark disagreements with Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over how to manage the growing measles outbreak.

Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Thomas Corry resigned effective immediately on Friday only two weeks after starting the job, he posted on LinkedIn, wishing his colleagues in the department “the best and great success.” Corry reportedly butted heads with Kennedy and Kennedy’s principal deputy chief of staff, Stefanie Spear, over how to manage the department, according to Politico.

Let me guess – he thought it should be managed in the direction of shutting down outbreaks of dangerous disease?

Specifically, Corry was not

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Goddam Democrats voted unanimously to let men invade women’s sports.

Help is on the way.

A useful graphic for all the DEMOCRATIC SENATORS!!!!! pic.twitter.com/fyLfY4FbrO

— Martina Navratilova (@Martina) March 4, 2025

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No, it’s really not.

Women’s history is women’s history. That’s all. We have zero obligation to share it with other categories of people, because it’s women’s. Words have meaning.… Read the rest

Trump is doing his tariff thing.

Donald Trump just took the biggest gamble of his young second presidency.

His hammer-blow 25% tariffs against Canada and Mexico that hit at midnight dealt a fresh shock to an economy showing alarming signs of slowing growth and rising inflation – a perilous mix for any president.

Trump also doubled an additional tariff on all Chinese imports to 20%, in a trio of decisions that sent stocks – a cherished metric of his own performance – tumbling. 

Not to worry. All part of the plan. These guys know what they’re doing. This is three dimensional chess.

“It’s going to be very costly for people to take advantage of this country. They can’t come

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Trump has stopped military aid to Ukraine.

We’re restarting our live coverage as the White House announces that the US will pause military aid for Ukraine.

“The President has been clear that he is focused on peace. We need our partners to be committed to that goal as well. We are pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution,” a White House official has told the BBC’s US partner, CBS News.

…

According to officials this pause is said to be temporary until President Trump determines that Ukraine can demonstrate a “commitment to peace negotiations” with Russia.

The Trump administration basically wants President Zelensky to sign the minerals deal and “make peace” with

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The dogma is solemnly recited.

I’m not rebranding, @jk_rowling.
It’s unfortunate that rather engaging critically with my tweet, you try to turn me into some sort of caricature.
I’m less concerned with my “personal clout” than I am in challenging your bigotry.
Trans women are women. https://t.co/70wOKzWaRe https://t.co/Al3WliwhUC

— Thomas Willett (@ThomasWillett9) March 2, 2025

JKR replies:

The fringe idea that we all have a ‘gender identity’ that may or may not match our biological sex is the whole point of this discussion. Trans activists act as though the existence of ‘gender identity’ is a settled, self-evident point, when to the vast majority of the world it’s unevidenced, quasi-religious, pseudoscientific nonsense, which has been imposed top down on

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Letter to Dim Don:

https://twitter.com/rshereme/status/1896628953600995407 https://twitter.com/rshereme/status/1896628959917568466

https://twitter.com/rshereme/status/1896628969174335519 https://twitter.com/rshereme/status/1896628987180523908 https://twitter.com/rshereme/status/1896628992343683458

Signed, Lech Wałęsa, former political prisoner, Solidarity leader, President of Poland

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National Organization for Women:

ACTION ALERT: Urge your Senators to vote against the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act

Yes hello we are the national organization for women and we are telling you to vote against keeping men and boys out of women’s and girls’ sports. We are telling you to campaign not to exclude men and boys from sports for women and girls. We are, in short, telling you to ruin sports for women and girls. Are we progressive or what.

This bill prohibits school athletic programs from allowing trans women, or individuals not assigned female at birth, to participate in school athletic programs. This endangers all players on women and girls’ sports teams no matter

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“All the land,” he exclaims in dramatic shock-horror. Yes all the land that Putin invaded – what’s the shock-horror about? If somebody breaks into your house do you feel obliged to give up the living room and kitchen before calling the cops?

It’s terrifying how captured these people are.

Lutnick on Zelenskyy: "You gotta say, 'We love America, We appreciate America' … Instead he said, 'I want $300b in reparations from Russia. I want them off my land. I want all the land.' Really! All the land … it's just way too far. That's not a peacemaker. That's a… pic.twitter.com/J4kfC2XFr4

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 3, 2025

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The Guardian puts it more strongly.

The Trump administration announced it will take control of the White House press pool, stripping the independent White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) of its longstanding role in deciding which journalists have access to the president in intimate settings. The move has immediately triggered an impassioned response from members of the media – including a Fox News correspondent who called it a “short-sighted decision”.

The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, made the announcement during Tuesday’s press briefing, framing the move as democratizing access to the president.

“A group of DC-based journalists, the White House Correspondents’ Association, has long dictated which journalists get to ask questions of the president of the United States,”

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Now the dictator is deciding who can report on his dictatorship.

On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced the White House would determine which media outlets would cover the president in smaller spaces such as the Oval Office.

The White House Correspondents’ Association has traditionally coordinated the rotation of the presidential press pool. Reuters, an international wire service, has participated in the pool for decades.

This is all wrong. Administrations should not be deciding who can cover them, for reasons that are blindingly obvious.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that while traditional media organizations would still be permitted to cover Trump on a day-to-day basis, the administration plans to change who participates in smaller spaces. The pool system,

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National Organization for Men spits on women yet again.

To laugh or cry at this?
National Organisation for Women
2024 pic.twitter.com/sw2LLL93lh

— Gay Not Queer (@Gaynotqueer1) March 3, 2025

They order us to vote AGAINST defending women’s sports. Against it, I tell you.

From their website: pic.twitter.com/7ImVys1SXs

— Bucking Fitches (@buckingfitch50) March 3, 2025

Woohoo! Vote for men taking over women’s sports! Progress! … Read the rest

I can’t read the cartoonist’s name (on the back of Zelenskyy’s chair) and can’t find it otherwise but I like the cartoon.

ZEZVOZ?

H/t tigger_the_wing… Read the rest

Please, insult us some more.

An Australian ‘Woman of the Year’ award has become the subject of furious backlash because the winner was not born female.

No, that’s not accurate. The fury is because the winner is male and thus cannot be any kind of “woman of the year.” The fury is because it’s wildly insulting to give an award for women to a man. The fury is because of the contempt for women behind calling a man “woman of the year.”

Transgender woman Brianna Skinner was named the 2025 Sydney Local Woman of the Year this week.

A NSW government initiative, the annual awards give MPs the opportunity to celebrate the contribution of women in their electorate.

By

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Because there’s not enough bad news yet – How Trump is Crushing US Climate Policy:

In a few short weeks, President Trump has severely damaged the government’s ability to fight climate change, upending American environmental policy with moves that could have lasting implications for the country, and the planet.

With a flurry of actions that have stretched the limits of presidential power, Mr. Trump has gutted federal climate efforts, rolled back regulations aimed at limiting pollution and given a major boost to the fossil fuel industry.

…

To achieve such a wholesale overhaul of the country’s climate policies in such a short time, the Trump administration has reneged on federal grants, fired workers en masse and attacked longstanding environmental

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