Also very bad:

The Trump administration has begun firing employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, one of the world’s premier centers for climate science.

The firings are expected to cost more than 800 people their jobs, out of a total of about 13,000 staff members, according to two people familiar with the situation who declined to be identified for fear of retribution. The notifications went out on Thursday afternoon.

Because weather isn’t important. Nobody needs to know about the weather.

“This loss of talent at NOAA is going to set the agency back years and compromise the integrity of missions that directly support human health and safety, economic prosperity and national security,” the analyst said, speaking on

Shame of a nation.

Appalling behaviour and yet these are the bullies the British PM kowtowed to yesterday. Shameful https://t.co/mvuKO5rxAS

— Joanna Cherry KC (@joannaccherry) February 28, 2025

Trump wants 'respect' like a mafia boss. He means sycophancy and submission. Now he's president again, he isn't even hiding the fact that he's a loud-mouthed bully.

Now European leaders need to stand up and support @ZelenskyyUa.

— Joan Smith (@polblonde) February 28, 2025

A shameful day for America https://t.co/7eKsRoZBIA

— Hadley Freeman (@HadleyFreeman) February 28, 2025

… Read the rest

Now Trump, like any furious teenager, has gone to his social media to whine and yell and threaten.

In a Truth Social post following a heated exchange between Trump, Vance and Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, Trump called the meeting “meaningful,” but added, “I have determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace if America is involved.”

“We had a very meaningful meeting in the White House today. Much was learned that could never be understood without conversation under such fire and pressure,” the president wrote in the post. “It’s amazing what comes out through emotion, and I have determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him

Oh my god oh my god oh my god… Read the rest

As you may recall, Trump issued an executive order on February 7 that said

Washington “shall promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation.”

He ordered the Departments of State and Homeland Security “to prioritize humanitarian relief, including admission and resettlement through the United States Refugee Admissions Program, for Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination.”

…

On X this month, South African native Elon Musk, Trump’s top adviser, accused his home country of pushing “openly racist ownership laws.” South Africa rejected a license for his Starlink internet company because it did not meet BEE requirements.

Ebrahim Rasool, the South African ambassador to Washington, said Trump’s order

I thought being a mayor, especially of one of the world’s biggest cities, was a secular kind of job.

Silly me.

London’s stunning Ramadan Lights have returned to the West End!

For the next month, this dazzling display will illuminate the vibrant heart of our city, celebrating the holy month of Ramadan and showcasing London's rich diversity. ☪️✨ pic.twitter.com/wwdV7iJcz3

— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) February 26, 2025

Also, he makes it sound like a party, like the secularized commercialized Xmas we’re so used to, but Ramadan is a month of fasting. The fasting is dawn to dusk, and it’s not just eating it’s also drinking, so it’s unhealthy at best and risky at worst.

It’s not something to pretty up … Read the rest

But it’s a blanket problem.

The president of the International Paralympic Committee says he is opposed to “blanket solutions” for transgender participation policies.

Andrew Parsons was speaking after United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order that prevents transgender women from competing in female categories of sports.

Sigh. I hate that journalistic caution that obscures the journalist’s meaning. The word “after” renders the rest of the sentence empty. Was Parsons disputing Trump’s executive order, or no? Mere chronology is not helpful.

Last week, International Olympic Committee (IOC) presidential candidate Seb Coe backed the move, and has also suggested he would consider introducing a blanket ban if elected next month.

“One thing that is important to us of course

Heather Cox Richardson yesterday:

This morning, Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought and Office of Personnel Management acting director Charles Ezell sent a memo to the heads of departments and agencies. The memo began: “The federal government is costly, inefficient, and deeply in debt. At the same time, it is not producing results for the American public. Instead, tax dollars are being siphoned off to fund unproductive and unnecessary programs that benefit radical interest groups while hurting hardworking American citizens. The American people registered their verdict on the bloated, corrupt federal bureaucracy on November 5, 2024 by voting for President Trump and his promises to sweepingly reform the federal government.”

Vought was a key author of Project

Huh. It turns out Musk and Trump can’t just fire probationary employees just by saying yer fiyered.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Office of Personnel Management to rescind earlier instructions telling federal agencies to “promptly determine whether these employees should be retained at the agency.”

The directions, communicated in a Jan. 20 memo and Feb. 14 internal email, are “illegal” and “should be stopped, rescinded,” Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California said from the bench.

The ruling does not reinstate dismissed employees.

“The Office of Personnel Management does not have any authority whatsoever under any statute in the history of the universe, to hire and fire employees within another agency,” Alsup said Thursday night. “It

The fix is in. The Tate bros are out.

Manoshpere bigot Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan—who still face rape and human trafficking charges in Romania, among others—are on their way to the United States after the Trump administration strong-armed Romania into lifting travel restrictions.

The Tate brothers have been ardent Trump supporters for years, and it seems to have paid off. A Trump official mentioned the Tates in a call with Romania earlier this month, according to the Financial Times. Trump’s special envoy Ric Grenell brought up the brothers again to Romania’s foreign minister on his trip to Munich.

And “brought up” is apparently cravenspeak for “demanded the immediate release of.”

“I have never heard of a

Trying to square the circle.

In interviews with Mother Jones, queer and trans workers who hold wide-ranging roles in the federal government, some with more than a decade of public service, say they have been living and working in fear since Trump regained office—afraid of being targeted or even fired for their gender identity, sexual orientation, or past efforts to support other LGBTQ employees. All eight federal workers interviewed for this story requested anonymity to protect themselves or their colleagues from workplace retaliation. 

Transgender workers, in particular, tell Mother Jones they’re afraid of being fired every day simply for being who they are. 

Hang on. Hang on. It’s not for “being who they are.” It’s the very … Read the rest

Oops! She thought she was writing in her private secret diary…how embarrassing.

Huh, I wonder why some knobhead in The Times gave me a bad review for a book where I criticise their paper's coverage of working class people, their obsession with demonising trans women, the dominance of privately educated people in journalism, the stranglehold rightwing…

— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) February 27, 2025

Huh, I wonder why some knobhead in The Times gave me a bad review for a book where I criticise their paper’s coverage of working class people, their obsession with demonising trans women, the dominance of privately educated people in journalism, the stranglehold rightwing billionaires have on the media, and the cosy relationship between lobby journos and

And then there’s good ol’ Bob.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was slammed Wednesday for downplaying a measles outbreak that has led to the country’s first child death from the disease in decades.

Donald Trump’s health secretary waved off the active Texas outbreak—where pediatricians on the ground have reported children being accepted into care unable to properly breathe—as a normal thing that happens every year.

Scores of physicians have rung alarm bells that the latest outbreak, impacting over 100 people in West Texas and neighboring New Mexico, is a “crisis” that is far from normal—especially for a disease that was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000.

The Texas Department of State Health Services said Wednesday the child who died

But don’t worry. They’re not breaking anything that actually matters. They say so themselves.

“We’re cutting down the size of government. We have to,” Trump said earlier on Wednesday during the first cabinet meeting of his second term. “We’re bloated. We’re sloppy. We have a lot of people that aren’t doing their job.”

The administration already moved to fire thousands of probationary employees who were not yet entitled to civil service protections. The president on Wednesday said that the Environmental Protection Agency plans to cut up to 65% of its employees. Employees at the labor department and the Social Security Administration are also reportedly bracing for dramatic downsizings.

See? Stupid shit. Frivolous. Unnecessary. Who needs an environment? What good … Read the rest

At least they tell us a joke now and then.

Trump’s top aides are struggling to contain disputes at the White House and across the administration following billionaire Elon Musk’s ultimatum to federal workers to list their accomplishments or lose their jobs, said three government officials familiar with the tensions.

Before the weekend, the White House felt confident that coordination had been improving between senior staffers and Musk, two of those people said. In the first weeks of Trump’s new administration , some White House officials had expressed concerns over the tactics of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, as Reuters previously reported.

Chief of staff Susie Wiles had pulled Musk aside to ask him to loop her in on

Yet another bad thing.

A new map and data from The Wilderness Society illustrate the potential reach of executive and secretarial orders issued to fulfill President Trump’s fossil fuel-centric “energy dominance” vision. 

Places at risk include Bears Ears National Monument, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the watershed of Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Trump’s day-one executive orders and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s secretarial orders from two weeks later positioned drilling and mining interests as the favored users of America’s public lands and threatened to scrap existing land protections and conservation measures. Following those orders, assistant secretaries were supposed to have submitted action plans to Secretary Burgum on Feb. 18 with steps to review, revise and rescind protections

Of course he did.

Federal agencies must develop plans to eliminate employee positions, according to a memo distributed Wednesday by President Donald Trump ‘s administration that sets in motion what could become a sweeping realignment of American government.

The memo expands the Republican president’s effort to downsize the federal workforce, which he has described as an impediment to his agenda. Thousands of probationary employees have already been fired, and now his administration is turning its attention to career officials with civil service protection.

…

“The federal government is costly, inefficient, and deeply in debt. At the same time, it is not producing results for the American public,” said the memo from Russell Vought, director of the White House’s

Male First Minister says he’s fine with men invading women’s spaces. It’s always inspiring to see people cheerfully giving away other people’s rights.

Scotland’s First Minister has backed the right of trans people who self-identify as women to use female toilets and changing rooms.

Do note the carefully confusing and euphemistic wording. Asshole has backed “the right” of MEN to use female toilets and changing rooms. Men. Not people, not trans people, not trans people who self-identify; MEN. The word is “men.” MEN.

John Swinney, the leader of the SNP, said he supported Scottish Government guidance for its trans employees, which states they “should choose to use the facilities they feel most comfortable with”.

Except women of course. … Read the rest

A throwaway line from the BBC’s live reporting of the Musk-Trump cabinet meeting:

After a prayer led by former NFL player and US housing secretary Scott Turner, Donald Trump starts addressing the cabinet once more.

Hahaha that’s funny – former football player turned housing secretary – and he “leads a prayer” at a secular meeting of a secular government.

Here, let me lead a prayer. Dear Easter Bunny: please make Musk and Trump disappear, amen.

In another part of the forest:

The Doge congressional subcommittee in the Republican-led House of Representatives is meeting today to discuss the sweeping cuts to the federal government, and to defend them as necessary in order to stop wasting taxpayer money. The hearing is

How did Musk get so rich, anyway?

The Feds lavished money on him.

Over the years, Musk and his businesses have received at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits, often at critical moments, a Washington Post analysis has found, helping seed the growth that has made him the world’s richest person.

The payments stretch back more than 20 years. Shortly after becoming CEO of a cash-strapped Tesla in 2008, Musk fought hard to secure a low-interest loan from the Energy Department, according to two people directly involved with the process,holding daily briefings with company executives about the paperwork and spending hours with a government loan officer.

…

DOGE, which stands for Department of