It gets more terrifying with every headline. There are no guardrails.

Trump fires inspectors general from more than a dozen federal agencies

In theory he’s not allowed to do that – the whole point is that they’re independent. In reality, he does whatever he wants. There are no guardrails.

During Trump’s first term, he gutted his administration of independent government watchdogs he saw as disloyal. An IG conducts investigations and audits into any potential malfeasance, fraud, waste or abuse by a government agency or its personnel, and issues reports and recommendations on its findings. An IG office is intended to operate independently.

Which it can’t do if the presider can just bounce up and fire them all.

Partly in reaction

… Read the rest

So the BBC just outright lies now. I thought there were rules against outright lies in journalism – professional code of conduct, that kind of thing. But there’s this story from last month headlined Former police worker charged with firearm offences that simply lies from beginning to end, from

Zoe Watts, who had worked as a police community support officer for more than eight years, was arrested after armed police were called to her home in Lincoln on Wednesday

to

The 38-year-old, of St Helen’s Avenue, did not enter any pleas when she appeared at Lincoln Magistrates’ Court on Friday and has been remanded into custody until 13 January when she is due to appear at Lincoln Crown Court.

without … Read the rest

This is such terrible reporting.

NHS Fife nurse allowed to call trans doctor a man during employment tribunal

Trans doctor? So this is someone with no medical training who idennifies as a doctor?

Subhead: Kirkcaldy nurse Sandie Peggie was suspended by the health board when she complained about sharing a changing room with Dr Beth Upton.

Let me guess – this “trans doctor” is a man pretending to be a woman and his name hasn’t always been “Beth” – am I right?

Note to journalists: it’s malpractice to tell all these lies. Stop doing it.

A nurse suing NHS Fife will be allowed to refer to the transgender doctor at the centre of the row as a man during an

… Read the rest

New head of state shuts down the branch of government that works to protect public health. Good plan.

Health officials and experts said this week they are reeling after the new Trump administration on Tuesday abruptly halted external communication at the Department of Health and Human Services and its agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. The pause extends through Feb. 1, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post. The Trump administration also issued a second order indefinitely halting the travel of HHS personnel, according to a second memo obtained by The Post.

Sure because who needs health? Or disease control? Or disease prevention? Those are just liberal frivolities. What … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? at Miscellany Room.

Ontario’s Conservatives have called an early election, more than a year sooner than would be expected of a party with a majority in the legislature. The reason? Trump’s tariffs, which will have a serious impact on the Canadian economy as a whole, along with Ontario. Here’s Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli talking about the reasoning behind the call, and the importance of Canadian trade for the US economy:

At one point in this clip, Fideli recounts a meeting he had with Newt Gingrich, who explained that what one has to do when dealing with Trump is to find out what he really wants, and give him something that … Read the rest

Dana Milbank at the Post assures us that it’s much worse than we think.

The crush of vindictive, cruel, unconstitutional and just plain bonkers orders and actions coming from the restored Trump administration in its first week makes even the worst-case predictions look conservative.

…

NBC News’s Peter Alexander asked Trump about why he had just pardoned D.J. Rodriguez, who shocked a police officer with a stun gun at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and later boasted that he “tazzzzed the f— out of the blue.” The judge who sentenced Rodriguez to more than 12 years called him a “one-man army of hate, attacking police.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Trump replied. “Was it a pardon?”

Alexander reiterated

… Read the rest

Trump has a great new plan: let’s just get rid of disaster relief altogether! Real Ummairikkns don’t need any help with anything, so just let them get on with it while we eat peanuts and watch.

President Donald Trump, on a tour of two states reeling in recent months from hurricanes and wildfires, pledged on Friday to upend how the country has responded for decades to natural disasters, saying that he wants to eliminate FEMA and threatening to withhold federal assistance to California unless it passes a new voter ID law.

Also: new rule: if you get sick, you can’t have medical attention. Incentive to make you stay healthy, see? Also saves $$, which will go into Trump’s … Read the rest

Cathy Young on Trump and DEI:

Trump’s DEI and affirmative action ban has received at least partially positive reviews not only from the MAGA right and the anti-woke commentariat but from liberal centrists like Matt Yglesias and Noah Smith (“an idea whose time has probably come”) and even some leftists who regard DEI as feelgood corporate flimflam.

These reactions reflect the fact that diversity programs in the workplace and on campus have come under intensive criticism in recent years, both for enforcing progressive groupthink and for substituting pseudo-progressive verbiage for meaningful change.

That’s an interesting point. Verbiage is such a convenient alternative to actually doing something. It’s also a necessary first step, but still – there is a lot … Read the rest

Oh really?

"We don't have a mechanism to really capture and value the damage of male violence and of misogyny."

Trade union leader Jo Grady believes an 'epidemic of misogyny' is partly to blame for the Southport attack and should be addressed in the public inquiry. #Newsnight pic.twitter.com/JJpgDoFwuk

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) January 23, 2025

Trade union leader Jo Grady is also a ferocious defender of trans ideology, so how does that work exactly? How can anyone burble about the damage of male violence and misogyny while also demonizing and punishing women who refuse to agree that men are women if they say they are?

Anyone can’t. It isn’t possible.

https://twitter.com/AjaTheEmpress/status/1882824417367171163… Read the rest

Trump is going to California to turn the water on.

It will be Trump’s first presidential trip since his return to office, and it will be to a state with Democratic leaders he has repeatedly blamed for persistent blazes, arguing that wildlife protections have impeded access to water.

Speaking to reporters before departing the White House on Friday, Trump said the fires “could have been put out,” but “they still haven’t for whatever reason.”

“It would be fine if they turned the water on,” Trump said. 

Those California hippies are so silly, not turning the water on. Maybe they’re too stoned to find the tap.

Trump spent much of an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Wednesday railing

… Read the rest

At the university just a few miles from me the other evening:

Over 200 counter-protesters gathered Jan. 21 on King Lane Northeast outside Thomson Hall to rally against Turning Point USA (TPUSA) guest speaker Olivia Krolczyk.

TPUSA cancelled the scheduled event after unknown individuals pulled Thomson Hall’s fire alarm and threw noisemakers into the building’s entryway. After the building was evacuated and reentered, unknown organizers broke a window in the lecture hall and threw noisemakers into the lecture hall via the broken window. 

The police shut the whole thing down. This has been another evening of Protest Theater, please remember to take all your belongings with you as you leave the scene.

“The University of Washington is committed to

… Read the rest

Trump says Zelenskyy should have submitted.

President Donald Trump suggested in an interview that aired Thursday night that Ukraine should not have fought when Russia invaded it.

No he didn’t. He didn’t “suggest” it; he said it, entirely bluntly. Why does journalism do this? Why does it euphemize everything? Especially Trump? A big part of what makes Trump so loathsome is his pea-brained assertiveness. It’s not the job of reporters to dress that up as making “suggestions.”

“Zelenskyy was fighting a much bigger entity, much bigger, much more powerful,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “He shouldn’t have done that, because we could have made a deal.”

Yeah. Same with Britain in 1940, am I right? It shouldn’t have … Read the rest

The quoted assertion is from the trial of Axel Rudakubana.

"This does not meet the definition of an act of terrorism within the meaning of the legislation, as there is no evidence the purpose was to advance a particular political or ideological cause.'

Extreme misogyny is an ideology. Its purpose is to terrorise women.

— Joan Smith (@polblonde) January 23, 2025

And what’s the purpose of terrorizing women? Dominance.… Read the rest

Not so fast, Big Guy.

A federal judge said Thursday that President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship was “blatantly unconstitutional” and issued a temporary restraining order to block it.

Judge John Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee who sits in Seattle, granted the request by Washington Attorney General Nick Brown and three other Democratic-led states for the emergency order halting implementation of the policy for the next 14 days while there are more briefings in the legal challenge.

“I have been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case whether the question presented was as clear,” Coughenour said.

“Where were the lawyers” when the decision to sign the executive order was made, the

… Read the rest

They’re going ahead with it.

Karla Sofía Gascón made Oscar history on Thursday, becoming the first openly trans actress to be nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as the title character in “Emilia Pérez.”

Awww isn’t that nice. He made history by stealing a best actress nomination from a woman. Women notoriously struggle to get any parts at all in movies, because most movies are 80 or 90 or 110% peopled by men, and now here’s this sweet guy taking a woman’s part and a woman’s nomination from an actual woman. He made part of the history of Misogyny in Hollywood; congratulations.

In the Netflix musical directed by Jacques Audiard, Gascón plays a cartel boss who

… Read the rest

Disinformation experts blast Trump’s executive order on government censorship

One of President Donald Trump’s first actions as he returned to the Oval Office on Monday was signing an executive order aimed at “restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship” of US citizens.

The order bans federal officials from any conduct that “would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen” and instructs the attorney general to investigate if the Biden administration engaged in efforts to censor Americans.

“Under the guise of combatting ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and ‘malinformation,’ the Federal Government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate,”

… Read the rest

Oh no we saw him with her and them today.

Ed Sheeran has hit back at [disputed] a report that claimed he attended a New Year’s Eve party at J.K. Rowling’s Scottish residence.

Denying a claim about oneself is not hitting, back or forward or any direction.

This isn’t just random, you know, this constant resort to claims of “hitting out at” and “hitting back at” and “gouging out the eyeballs of” in reference to people saying things. It’s of a piece with the frenzied rhetoric about putting trans people at risk by not endorsing every word any trans person says. Nobody is punching anybody; we are disputing claims. The two are not the same.

The “Shape Of You”

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Maximize the disruption.

Trump’s return to the White House is already having a big impact at the $47.4 billion U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), with the new administration imposing a wide range of restrictions, including the abrupt cancellation of meetings including grant review panels. Officials have also ordered a communications pause, a freeze on hiring, and an indefinite ban on travel.

The moves have generated extensive confusion and uncertainty at the nation’s largest research agency, which has become a target for Trump’s political allies. “The impact of the collective executive orders and directives appears devastating,” one senior NIH employee says.

Well, it’s only health. This would be bad if it were about something important, but health doesn’t matter.… Read the rest

This is interesting.

https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1882413503304302989 Not being an expert in the law, I’m not sure I understand the distinction between legally authorized and constitutionally unpardonable. (I do assume he means the ordinary sense of unpardonable as opposed to the legal one.) It’s legal but it ignores/flouts a crucial part of the Constitution?

Anyway. Only three days in. Bad moon rising.… Read the rest

Unbelievable.

“Some of those people with the police, true, but they were very minor incidents.”

—Amid some pushback from Sean Hannity, President Trump defends pardoning and commuting sentences for January 6th defendants. pic.twitter.com/Dsl49cYVQm

— The Recount (@therecount) January 23, 2025

Hannity: …people that were violent with police – why did they get a pardon?

Trump: Number of reasons, number one they were in there for three and a half years, a long time

Oh yes? And Trump pardons everyone who’s been in prison for 3.5 years? He has a rule that 3.5 years is a long time and definitely enough punishment? Trump doesn’t want to lock up people he dislikes and throw away the key?

On the contrary, Trump has … Read the rest