None of this is by the book.

Federal employees are receiving additional communications that appear designed to entice them to accept the Trump administration’s “Fork in the Road” resignation offer, despite mounting questions about whether the offer is legal.

While the initial offer to federal employees to resign by Feb. 6 and retain their pay and benefits through Sept. 30 came directly from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), some of the latest guidance is coming from agency leaders, further sowing confusion over what’s to be believed.

Employment attorneys and union representatives emphasize that OPM, which handles many human resource matters for federal workers, lacks the authority to promise paid leave for government employees other than

The subhead gets at the essence of the matter.

President Trump at moments of national tragedy has always been more comfortable finding fault than providing comfort or expressing empathy.

In fact you can omit the “at moments of national tragedy” part. Trump just in general has always loved to attack and sneer and jeer rather than doing the other thing. He’s the guy who jeered at the very idea that he would take his own kids to the park.

In the wake of this week’s midair collision near Washington, Mr. Trump was more than happy to jump to conclusions and pull the country apart rather than together. After declaring it to be an “hour of anguish for our nation,” Mr.

George Mason University shouts Breaking Barriers for Menstruators:

Menstrual equity has been a prevalent topic that is kept behind closed doors for centuries, even though it requires more attention and recognition in our society.

Wut?

Wtf is a “prevalent topic”? How do you keep any kind of topic “behind closed doors”? What centuries are we talking about? Was there a time before all those centuries when “menstrual equity” was front and center?

Menstrual equity can be referred to as the idea that 

Wait wait wait – you mean “defined as.” Not “referred to” but “defined as.”

Why is a barely literate adolescent allowed to write rules and regulations for a university?

Period poverty is a kind of poverty that

So what’s he supposed to do? Where, exactly, does he put the speculum?

Reduxx reports:

A French gynecologist has been sanctioned by medical authorities after a trans activist group reported him to the Minister of Equality for comments which they deemed to be “transphobic.” Dr. Victor Acharian, who operates in the Pau region, has been prohibited from practicing medicine for five months, with an additional one-month probationary period.

In August 2023, a trans-identified male and his partner visited Dr. Acharian’s office in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. After a few minutes of waiting, the secretary told the man that the doctor had refused to see him.

“I told her that I’m not competent, but I can guide you. I can refer you

TIME magazine:

The Trump Administration is facing its first major test after a passenger jet and Army helicopter collided mid-air in the Washington, D.C. area on Wednesday night, in what officials are calling the most fatal aviation disaster on U.S. soil in more than two decades.

The collision quickly raised concerns about the state of air traffic control and oversight and sparked questions about recent leadership changes within the federal agencies charged with regulating air travel.

Just days before the crash, President Donald Trump enacted a sweeping shake-up of the federal agencies responsible for aviation oversight, removing the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), David Pekoske, and eliminating all the members of a key aviation security advisory group.

Um.

Trump’s 1st week:
– 1/20: FAA director fired
– 1/21: Air Traffic Controller hiring
freeze
– 1/22: Aviation Safety Advisory
Committee disbanded
– 1/28: Buyout/retirement demand
sent to employees
– 1/29: First American mid-air collision
in 16 years

Trump: “It’s… pic.twitter.com/qLTANKcU6T

— ThisWillHold (@ThisWillHold) January 30, 2025

Now that he mentions it I remember flinching at that ATC hiring freeze. Really we’re gonna economize on that? Penny wise and pound foolish at all?… Read the rest

Trump says it’s all the fault of the women and other worthless kinds of human.

President Trump blamed diversity requirements at the Federal Aviation Administration and his two Democratic predecessors for the midair collision over the Potomac River on Wednesday night, saying that standards for air traffic controllers had been too lax. Mr. Trump cited no evidence, and even admitted when pressed that the investigation had only just begun.

Moments later, he blamed the pilots of the Army helicopter that appeared to fly into a passenger jet that was on final approach to Reagan National Airport, across the river from the capital.

Mr. Trump went back and forth between blaming diversity goals that he said were created by President Barack

Oh well, he’s exceptionally gifted, so that’s ok then.

A teenage boy who used his phone to film young girls undressed in a changing area at the National Aquatic Centre in Dublin has been spared a custodial sentence and a criminal record.

The 17-year-old “exceptionally gifted student”, who cannot be named because he is a minor, had pleaded guilty to two offences under the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act for knowingly possessing two videos on his mobile phone at the centre in Blanchardstown on a date in 2022. He was aged 14 at the time.

Garda James Grogan had said the teen used his phone, which was placed on a kiosk floor, to film girls aged five and nine

What it was like on the inside:

Security agents escorted the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Agriculture out of her office on Monday after she refused to comply with her firing by the Trump administration, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Phyllis Fong, a 22-year veteran of the department, had earlier told colleagues that she intended to stay after the White House terminated her Friday, saying that she didn’t believe the administration had followed proper protocols, the sources said.

In an email to colleagues on Saturday, reviewed by Reuters, she said the independent Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency “has taken the position that these termination notices do not comply with

So there are some checks on Trump and his loonies. Good to know.

The White House budget office rescinded a memo ordering a broad freeze on federal grants and loans after Republican senators “hit the ceiling” over the order, which caught them completely by surprise and created confusion in their home states.

…

“Republicans were starting to hit the ceiling because the state governments, people in our states were coming to us saying, ‘Wait, wait, wait, wait. What does this mean? Does it mean we’re going to lose funding for X, Y, Z?’” said one Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss the uproar behind closed doors caused by the memo. “As drafted the initial memo sounded so broad,

Amnesty does its favorite fingers-in-ears childish repetition thing yet again.

Transgender rights are human rights.
Transgender rights are human rights.
Transgender rights are human rights.
Transgender rights are human rights.
Transgender rights are human rights.

— Amnesty International USA (@amnestyusa) January 28, 2025

As always: of course trans people have human rights. That doesn’t mean there are special new rights just for trans people, and Amnesty conspicuously fails to say what it means by “transgender rights.” Is there a “transgender right” for men to plant themselves in women’s toilets and changing rooms and organizations? No, but we can be pretty sure Amnesty thinks there is. It’s interesting that it’s careful not to spell that out though.… Read the rest

Ah. We’re at concentration camps already.

President Donald Trump signed a memo Wednesday that sets in motion preparations for a facility to house thousands of migrants at the U.S. military camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which he said was an effort to “halt the border invasion.”

“I hereby direct the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security to take all appropriate actions to expand the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to full capacity to provide additional detention space for high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States,” the memo to the Department of Homeland Security and the Defense Department says.

Trump previewed the directive at a signing ceremony for the Laken Riley Act,

Originally a comment by Rev David Brindley on Ok ok we take it back.

An interesting article from Salon, “MAGA’s true believers don’t understand capitalism — Trump will teach them a hard lesson.”

The highlights

America is a nation at war with its mythologies.

For all the electoral postmortems about the desire for economic change, what’s unsurprisingly absent is what seems, to me, an obvious omission: an all-enveloping misunderstanding of American capitalism.

(…)

With due respect to the many Americans who voted for Donald Trump, their overwhelming sense of entitlement dwarfs that of the hard-working immigrants who cut their grass, scrub pots and pans in the restaurants they frequent, and care for their kids and elderly loved ones. Too

One rule for me, another for thee.

A story in 3 parts

So a women’s centre decided to have a community pop-up.
Crafts, advice, self-defence etc
Sounds good
1/3 pic.twitter.com/jN59S42wRi

— Caro Betts (@BettsCaro) January 29, 2025

So it’s been cancelled
Because heaven forfend women should have any space at all
But no conflict of interests. Right?
3/3@SexMattersOrg @MForstater @HJoyceGender @jk_rowling pic.twitter.com/sammoD5HLR

— Caro Betts (@BettsCaro) January 29, 2025

All women’s centres pop-ups have been paused from the 30th January onwards.

Mind you…the event itself sounds like all my worst nightmares in one place. Quiet/prayer space? Crafts and more crafts and more crafts?? Blrrrghh. But that’s not the point. The point is all this stupid relentless bullying.… Read the rest

Don’t mention the man.

A second teenage footballer has been handed a six-match ban for asking whether adult transgender opponents she was playing were men.

An 18-year-old who, Telegraph Sport has been told, has both ADHD and learning difficulties, was sanctioned by a National Serious Case Panel in a case with parallels to that for which a 17-year-old girl with suspected autism was handed a similar suspension.

The second teen was charged by her county FA over comments she made to a referee during a match in September, the same month she turned 18. It was alleged she said: “Ref, have you checked if all of their players are eligible to play? Look at their ’keeper and for example

Oh honestly, is this how it’s going to be? They throw a bomb, the shouting is too loud, they haul the bomb back? Government by toddlers?

The White House budget office on Wednesday rescinded an order freezing federal grants, according to a copy of a new memo obtained by The Washington Post, after the administration’s move to halt spending earlier this week provoked a backlash.

In a memo dated Wednesday and distributed to federal agencies, Matthew J. Vaeth, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, states that OMB memorandum M-25-13 “is rescinded.” That order, issued Monday, instructed federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligations or disbursement of all federal financial assistance.”

In other … Read the rest

Trump is setting fire to the entire federal government.

The Trump administration has offered buyouts to almost all of the roughly 3 million people who work for the US government if they leave their jobs by 6 February, as the White House attempts to gut the civil service.

The US office of personnel management (OPM), the government’s human resources agency, sent an email to the entire federal workforce on Tuesday evening with four directives that it says Trump is mandating. They included a full-time return to the office for most employees.

The email said that the federal workforce would be subjected to “enhanced standards of suitability and conduct”, aiming to retain only employees who were “reliable, loyal, trustworthy”. It

So even the Holocaust has to be inclooosive now. I did not see that on the horizon.

Holocaust Memorial Day is about the holocaust of Jews under the Nazi regime. End of story. It’s not a grab bag. It’s not about Everyone.

Updating to add: Ok I overstated it – see Naif’s comment @ 2. It’s about the holocaust of Jews and others in the Nazi death camps. It’s not about post-Nazi genocides.

The truth is there should be a new Memorial Day, or rather a God damn it stop DOING THIS day, to recognize AND DISCOURAGE all these post-1945 genocides that keep happening. Have one of those days every month, or every day, since we can’t seem to … Read the rest

Rape Crisis Scotland still determined to taunt and bully women who have been raped.

A rape crisis charity embroiled in a transgender row has dropped a pledge to issue a definition of women, The Telegraph can reveal.

Rape Crisis Scotland (RCS) admitted it was no longer planning to publish a definition, despite previously promising to do so, following the recommendations of independent expert review.

Of course we shouldn’t need a definition, since we already know, and have all along, but because RCS is so determined to play silly buggers, here we are.

Vicky Ling was commissioned to investigate Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC) after a damning tribunal ruling found it was operating an “extreme” version of gender identity theory under

Anne Applebaum in the Atlantic:

Until recently, Russia was the most important state seeking to undermine European institutions. Vladimir Putin has long disliked the EU because it restricts Russian companies’ ability to intimidate and bribe European political leaders and companies, and because the EU is larger and more powerful than Russia, whereas European countries on their own are not. Now a group of American oligarchs also want to undermine European institutions, because they don’t want to be regulated—and they may have the American president on their side. Quite soon, the European Union, along with Great Britain and other democracies around the world, might find that they have to choose between their alliance with the United States and their ability