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,”

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,

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

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

Originally a comment by YNnB on Soz.

How would “trans people” not feel safe sitting near her? For that matter how would they know they were sitting near her? How would they have the faintest idea they were sitting near her? Or who she was or what she had said?

It’s not as if she was infected with a disease, or radioactive. The fact that trans people claim that being in an online meeting with alleged TERFS and transphobes makes them feel “unsafe”, means it can’t be simple physical proximity that concerns them. Online meetings and fora are not, as far as I know, covered by the inverse square law. What is being policed is not “safety” but disbelief… Read the rest

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

Donald Trump has been under constant political persecution since the beginning of his first term.

Donald Trump has been under criminal prosecution since before his first term. He’s a fraud, a charlatan, a sexual predator, and violated the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution he swore to protect. Going after him for these offences is not “persecution”; it is the normal course of justice. Being a celebrity, or rich, or President of the United States, doesn’t (or shouldn’t) put you beyond the reach of the law when you have broken it. Also, people pointing out that you are a raging narcissist, bully, autocrat, and all-’round asshole is not “persecution.”… Read the rest

They’re floundering. They’re backtracking. They’re seeking any port in a storm. They’re resorting to deepities. They’re contradicting themselves.

When we say “trans women are women”, we’re not saying that they’re the same as cís women.
No two women or men are the same. Concepts of womanhood & manhood evolve across times, place & culture. What we mean is that trans women are valid & deserving of recognition as women. https://t.co/f6x4FO6r2h

— Thomas Willett (@ThomasWillett9) March 1, 2025

First of all, when they say “trans women are women” yes they damn well are saying they’re the same as women (what they call “cis” women). That’s the whole entire point and always has been. Rejecting it has been and is the basis … Read the rest

They have better manners across the pond.

Rattled European leaders gathered in London on Sunday, scrambling to salvage any U.S. backing for Ukraine — and to map a way through disintegrating transatlantic security relations — after the televised Oval Office blowup between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

European heads of state continued to rally around Zelensky, who was greeted with cheers outside 10 Downing Street and a warm hug from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer when he arrived Saturday. European Union and NATO leaders met later Sunday in London, where Ukraine was at the forefront of discussions, and Zelensky attended. Starmer, in brief remarks before the leaders walked in for talks, said recent events had brought

Police admit they probably maybe should not have terrorized a woman for saying men are not women.

Police have apologised over an investigation they mounted into a Newcastle United fan banned by the football club after expressing gender-critical views on social media.

Northumbria Police have told Linzi Smith that crucial elements of their investigation into claims she had committed a hate crime were not acceptable.

Yeah, “crucial elements” like the fact that what she said is simple obvious truth that everyone over the age of 3 is well aware of.

Ms Smith, 34, was accused of being transphobic by a complainant who told Newcastle United that trans people would not feel safe sitting near her.

Because what, she would pull … Read the rest

Originally a comment by maddog1129 on Differences.

What’s this “cis women” business? There’s no reason for “cis” to describe what we used to call “women” until very recently. Your forced labeling of women as “cis” women doesn’t even apply to many women you are trying to shove into that category. To the extent gender ideologists have provided a definition, “cis” as a descriptor of women is a “gender identity,” not a sex. Some women (sex) “identify with” or, more incoherently, “identify as,” or are comfortable with the bundle of gender stereotypes arbitrarily ascribed to women in some culture. News flash: since at least the 1970s, many feminist women have been pointing out that the social constructs of gender roles … Read the rest

Interesting. A Guardian writer, Edward Helmore, thinks Trump’s disgusting bullying yesterday is Zelenskyy’s fault.

One television star turned president visits another far more powerful one on a stage set and attempts to introduce a plot twist of sorts. What could go wrong?

The high-stakes White House showdown that unfolded on Friday after the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, demanded US security guarantees was deemed a damaging setback to Donald Trump’s goal of forging a peace deal – and a win for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin – by some US political commentators.

Zelenskyy didn’t “demand” security guarantees out of the blue; he sought them in exchange for the highly valuable mineral rights Trump was demanding.

The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent,

One of the NOAA people Trump abruptly fired yesterday:

Until Thursday afternoon, Hanna Miller focused on protecting whales from oil spills, ship strikes, and fishing gear.

Miller was a natural resource specialist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the science-heavy federal agency that forecasts weather, tsunamis, and hurricanes, regulates fisheries, studies the climate, and protects salmon, orcas, and other endangered species that swim.

In 2022, she helped a multiagency team make sure endangered orcas didn’t swim into the diesel fuel belching out of the sunken Aleutian Isle fishing boat off Washington’s San Juan Island. “I was on call for 42 days, tracking them every second that I was awake to make sure that they didn’t go through [the oil

Deep thoughts.

When we say “trans women are women”, we’re not saying that they’re the same as cís women.
No two women or men are the same. Concepts of womanhood & manhood evolve across times, place & culture. What we mean is that trans women are valid & deserving of recognition as women. https://t.co/f6x4FO6r2h

— Thomas Willett (@ThomasWillett9) March 1, 2025

Actually some two women or men are the same: identical twins.

Other than that, of course they’re not “the same”; what they are however is the same sex. The word “sex” doesn’t mean your temperament or personality or likes and dislikes; it just means your sex. No two humans are the same, either, but they’re still both … Read the rest

You can’t fix stupid, and the result is that stupid can kill you.

In her hometown of Lubbock, Texas, Leah, a pregnant mother, has been avoiding stores and other public spaces for the last two weeks.

On Wednesday, the city saw a six-year-old child who was not vaccinated against the virus die – the first US death from the measles in nearly a decade.

With a baby on the way, Leah could be putting her foetus at risk of health complications if she contracted the virus, despite her own vaccination. Her paediatrician also advised her to move up her older son’s second shot of the vaccine – the full course for the immunisation – as the risk to his

Dude we can see where your makeup ends. We can always see where your makeup ends. You have a shoepolish-brown face and pink ears: we can see that: we do see that every day. You look ridiculous.

Here was where the first insult came.

“Oh look, he’s all dressed up today!”

Premeditated and a pre planned attack. pic.twitter.com/WjOzW2bkQN

— Shaun Pinner (@olddog100ua) March 1, 2025

… Read the rest

Tom Nichols on the horror of today:

The president of the United States ambushed a loyal ally, presumably so that he can soon make a deal with the dictator of Russia to sell out a European nation fighting for its very existence.

Trump’s advisers have already declared the meeting a win for “putting America first,” and his apologists will likely spin and rationalize this shameful moment as just a heated conversation—the kind of thing that in Washington-speak used to be called a “frank and candid exchange.” But this meeting reeked of a planned attack, with Trump unloading Russian talking points on Zelensky (such as blaming Ukraine for risking global war), all of it designed to humiliate the Ukrainian leader

The reviews roll in.

Reagan: Tear down this wall

JFK: Ask not what your country can do for you…

Trump/Vance: HE DIDN’T SAY THANK YOU !! https://t.co/uyGbNfl6f6

— Jonathan Kay (@jonkay) February 28, 2025

https://twitter.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1895579654662316158

Updating to add

Generations of American patriots, from our revolution onward, have fought for the principles Zelenskyy is risking his life to defend. But today, Donald Trump and JD Vance attacked Zelenskyy and pressured him to surrender the freedom of his people to the KGB war criminal who… https://t.co/oMoWZ7FmBL

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) February 28, 2025

… Read the rest

And even more bullying and insulting of Zelenskyy for having the nerve to resist invasion by a dictator.

Brian Glenn: Why don’t you wear a suit?!? Do you own a suit? pic.twitter.com/p1gdffSPkJ

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 28, 2025

Here is a picture of Sir Winston Churchill visiting the White House during the Second World War. I wonder if @brianglenntv would have dared to criticise him? pic.twitter.com/brb24KmdKq

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) February 28, 2025

47 more months of this. … Read the rest