Category: Notes and Comment Blog

  • Viewpoint discrimination

    Unconstitutional.

    A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that President Trump’s executive order barring the federal funding of NPR and PBS violated the First Amendment.

    Randolph Moss, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said in his ruling that Mr. Trump’s order, signed last May, was unlawful because it instructed federal agencies to refrain from funding NPR and PBS because the president believed their news coverage had a liberal viewpoint.

    “The message is clear: NPR and PBS need not apply for any federal benefit because the president disapproves of their ‘left-wing’ coverage of the news,” Judge Moss wrote. But the First Amendment, he said, “does not tolerate viewpoint discrimination and retaliation of this type.”

    Sadly, the ruling doesn’t mean funding will be restored.

    Two months after the executive order, Congress voted to claw back roughly $500 million in annual funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the organization that distributes federal money to NPR and PBS. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has since shut down, and public radio and TV stations across the country have sought alternate forms of revenue.

    But the ruling could have implications for any future money Congress decides to allocate to public media, removing a hurdle that could have prevented lawmakers from restoring funding for NPR and PBS.

    Assuming there still is a Congress in that hazy future. Trump is still hell-bent on destroying everything before his time is up.

  • Azza

    There are lots of things that children age 10 can’t understand. That’s why they can’t legally vote or drive or join the military or practice medicine.

    Trans girl guide, 10, ‘can’t understand why she is being kicked out of beloved group’

    That one seems pretty easy to explain, even to a child age 10. Girl guides are girl guides; trans girls are boys.

    A trans girl guide, 10, has told her mum she cannot understand why she is being excluded from the group that made her feel accepted.

    Sophie’s* mother Angela told Metro that Girlguiding’s decision that trans members must leave the charity by September feels like a ‘betrayal’.

    The group said they were taking action following a Supreme Court ruling that women are defined by biological sex.

    What else should women be defined by? Their souls? Whether or not they wear lipstick?

    Sophie was just six when she began living life as a girl.

    In other words Sophie was just six when adults told him he could “live life as a girl.” Six is hella young to tell a little boy he can change sex with the power of thought.

    She joined Girlguiding two years ago and two years after her cis-gendered sister became a member.

    Are journalists ever going to stop using this ridiculous reality-denying jargon? There is only one kind of girl: the kind that is actually a girl.

  • People with certain characteristics

    Hopeful but vague. Really really vague.

    The UK government is to change when police forces in England and Wales record non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs), in a bid to end the policing of “everyday arguments”.

    New Home Office guidance will say that forces should only log incidents that are potentially “relevant to policing”.

    A tad circular, don’t you think? Once the police take a look at it it becomes relevant to policing, right?

    It comes after a review by police chiefs found the system, developed in the mid-2000s, had increasingly seen officers drawn into policing debates on social media.

    However the Conservatives say the move from Labour ministers does not go far enough, calling it “simply a rebrand”.

    Well, I’m not a Conservative (or a conservative) but that’s what it looks like to me. Plod can just say “This is relevant to policing” and we’re back at square one.

    NCHIs are recorded when police receive a report perceived by the caller to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards people with certain characteristics, such as race or gender, but which does not meet the bar for prosecution under hate crime laws.

    Erm…”gender” meaning what? Sex? Or magic sacred fungible soul? It’s still ok to bully women while still not ok to say men can’t be women?

    I’m not placing any bets.

  • First amenny bro

    Well whaddya know. Judge tells Trump he can’t do that.

    A federal judge has knocked down the core of President Trump’s executive order barring federal funding for NPR and PBS, saying it violated the broadcasters’ First Amendment rights on its face.

    A District Court judge has found that a Trump White House executive order to defund NPR and PBS violated the First Amendment and is therefore “unlawful and unenforceable.” It wasn’t immediately clear what the decision, which could be appealed by the administration, would mean for the future of federal funding of public broadcasting.

    In his ruling, Judge Randolph D. Moss of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said “the First Amendment draws a line, which the government may not cross, at efforts to use government power – including the power of the purse – ‘to punish or suppress disfavored expression’ by others.”

    Which a US president of course ought to know before he even thinks of running for public office.

    White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement: “This is a ridiculous ruling by an activist judge attempting to undermine the law. NPR and PBS have no right to receive taxpayer funds, and Congress already voted to defund them. The Trump Administration looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue.”

    Of course she did.

  • Could we paint it red white & blue?

    Not so fast, Mango Mussolini. Put the crayons down.

    U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon ruled Tuesday that construction on President Trump’s White House ballroom “must stop until Congress authorizes its completion.”

    Using a notable number of exclamation points, Leon said the plaintiff, the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States, is likely to succeed in their lawsuit and therefore he is granting a preliminary injunction to halt construction.

    “The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!” Leon wrote.

    He’s delaying enforcement for two weeks though. Sigh.

    A long-time dream project for President Trump, the ballroom is designed to seat 1,000 guests and will cost at least $300 million, according to estimates by the president. It has generated massive controversy and public pushback, but recently got approval from the Commission of Fine Arts, an architectural review panel now packed with Trump allies. 

    If only he could pack the whole country with Trump allies. He’s working on it, but it’s going way too slowly.

    Trump responded to the ruling in a social media post complaining that the National Trust for Historic Preservation doesn’t appreciate his efforts at “sprucing up” Washington’s buildings from the White House to the Kennedy Center.

    Historic preservation isn’t about “sprucing up”. Trump would “spruce up” Stonehenge and the Colosseum and the Parthenon if he could, but that wouldn’t be historic prez. Rather the opposite.

  • Girl, 10

    Hmm.

    I disputed something trans activist mushy crouton said the other day.

    I didn’t bother to say we don’t “celebrate” the kid’s unhappiness, because of course we don’t; that’s just typical hyperbole plus assumption. I simply underlined for the billionth time that things for girls are for girls. A 10-year-old who identifies as a transgender girl is a boy. (I wonder if that subhead is even accurate. Does the boy really idennify as a transgender girl as opposed to as a girl? Or did the Mirror just put it that way in an attempt to clarify the usual murk?)

    Mushy responded with the usual fairness and restraint.

    Oh no!!! What have I done?!?

    Pause for laughter.

    Is the child going to know about it? No. If the child did know about it, would the child react to it the way mushy did? No. Does the child understand this whole thing the way mushy does? No. Do children understand any of this the way adults do? No. Is mushy on the side of the angels in flattering and encouraging the transing of children? No times a million.

  • Taken that country’s wealth and used it

    Hmm. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wonders why they don’t what now?

    And I would just say this – and I said this yesterday; I’ll say it again now. Iran is – not the Iranian people. The Iranian people are phenomenal people. They deserve way better than what they have, which is a radical, Shia clerical regime that has basically taken that country’s wealth and used it not to build roads and bridges, not to build health care systems or universities, not to build a better, more prosperous country. They’ve used the wealth of that country to sponsor terrorism, build rockets, build drones, build missiles, build sea mines.

    Interesting. I wonder if we can think of any other countries that spend a whole lot of money on weapons (and vanity projects the boss wants) rather than health care systems or universities.

    It’s a real puzzler.

  • Imagine wanting to protect fairness

    Dan Roan, a BBC Sports editor, pretends not to know that men have physical advantages over women.

    “This is a question where there is no one-size-fits-all solution. It differs from sport to sport.”

    The words of former International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach in July 2021, when claiming that sex eligibility criteria should be left to each individual sport to determine.

    …

    Yet just five years on, Bach’s successor Kirsty Coventry has announced a blanket ban on transgender women, as well as athletes with differences in sex development (DSD) who have gone through male puberty from female events, “to protect fairness, safety and integrity”.

    Oh dear, a blanket ban, how very crude and sweeping and not what the cool kids do.

    From the 2028 LA Games, eligibility for women’s competition at all IOC events will be limited to biological females, and determined on the basis of a one time SRY gene screening, which detects the presence of a Y chromosome and male sex development.

    Can you believe it? From 2028 men won’t be allowed to insert themselves into women’s competition – it’s outrageous!

  • Jolyon continues campaign to silence women

    Ofcom investigates!

    OFCOM has launched an investigation into a Talk TV programme for “broadcasting anti-trans hate”.

    The regulator confirmed that the right-wing channel is facing a probe after the Good Law Project (GLP) lodged several complaints over its output in recent months.

    Oh well then. If it’s the Pretentious Maugham Project then it must be right.

    More than 21,000 people complained to Ofcom to take action over Talk TV’s repeated “attacks on trans people”, GLP said.

    Because Maugham urged them to, yeah?

    Ofcom confirmed that one programme presented by host Ian Collins will be investigated over its anti-trans content, while episodes hosted by Collins, Alex Phillips and Jeremy Kyle will face a probe over how they covered climate change and net zero.

    But what counts as “anti-trans”?

    I ask because so often it’s not saying mean things to trans people but simply stating obvious truths like “men are not women”. We have the right to say there is no God and we have the right to say men are not women.

    The first Collins programme, on June 23, 2025, featured a discussion on gender-neutral language in the court system. Collins suggested during the programme that “non-binary is just an invented thing”, while guest Helen Joyce, of Sex Matters, said that it is an “actual fact” that “one hundred per cent of everyone who’s ever been pregnant is a woman, whether they like it or not”

    Yes, and?

    GLP said that in one of those programmes, broadcast on June 21, 2025, host Phillips suggested that trans rights groups know “giving children puberty blockers was evil”.

    In another segment that was complained about to Ofcom, presenter Kevin O’Sullivan accused a trans woman of wanting to “pretend that he’s female”.

    The first one is similar to the issue with saying people are lying (which can risk a libel suit in the UK), because we can’t know for sure what other people are thinking…or we can most of the time but we can’t prove that we can so best not risk it.

    I suppose the second one has the same issue, because we can’t know what people want…or we can but etc see above.

    Matthew Gill, a lawyer at GLP, said Ofcom are “basically giving right-wing channels a free pass”.

    “The far right can only spread their toxic lies because of platforms backed by billionaires,” he said. “So we need a regulator that takes it seriously when channels break their duty to provide balance. It’s time for Ofcom to stop right-wing media barons broadcasting hate.”

    Hmm. Broadcasting hate is it. Has he seen the way people like “India” Willoughby talk about radical feminists who know a man when we see one?

  • Guy says what?

    Peter Tatchell in the Women Don’t Matter pulpit yet again.

    “Individual assessment. No blanket ban” is the full last line.

    He’s so full of shit. Of course “hormone treatment” doesn’t wipe out 100% of male advantage. It doesn’t shrink the skeleton.

    I’m so tired of these men blithely giving away women’s rights while pretending to be on Team Righteous.

  • Considered

    Trump takes time out of his frantically busy schedule to show reporters pretty pictures of his future BallRooM.

  • No safety for you, bitches

    Jaw-dropping.

    Cross-party councillors rejected a plea for single-sex spaces across council buildings and services.

    The motion, tabled by Conservative and Reform councillors, called on Darlington Borough Council to protect women’s “privacy, dignity and safety”, but was slammed by campaigners for being “anti-trans and discriminatory”.

    They’re going with that? Protecting women’s privacy dignity and safety is anti-trans? They don’t realize that the implication is pro-trans [ideology]=attacking women’s privacy dignity and safety? They want to be seen and understood as against women’s privacy dignity and safety?

    Councillors were told [that], if approved, the opposition plea would place members of the transgender community at “increased risk of harm”.

    So they put women at increased risk of harm.

    Why is that the obvious choice? Why is that the default?

    Labour and Green Party members vowed to protect the area’s LGBTQ+ community by refusing the motion on Thursday.

    Labour and Green Party members vowed to do away with safety and privacy for women.

    Labour councillor Libby McCollom, cabinet member for stronger communities, said: “The cruel and harmful narrative pedalled by councillors Dulston and Walker in this motion frames transgender and non-binary people as a danger to women.

    Liar. The issue is that making toilets and changing rooms single-sex is a danger to women. The issue is that some males are a danger to women. Whether they are trans or not is not the issue.

  • Full transparency

    Aw. Ewan Weddell lost another one.

  • Genuinely unusual cognitive disarray

    A guy who has experience of trying to deal with Trump tells us what that’s like.

    When [I was] meeting with Donald Trump in 2018 about a life-or-death homeland security issue in the Oval Office – an impending Category 5 hurricane, the strongest there is – he did something jarring. He started talking about helicopters. Specifically, he wanted to share with us his frustration that helicopters are always breaking down because, in his words, “there are too many parts!” Mid-briefing. We were asking him to issue an urgent warning to Americans to evacuate the affected area, and he went off on a tangent about helicopters. And then another about the election. We finally got him back on track, but the clock was ticking.

    I filed it away as a data point. But I now think it was an eye-opening preview.

    Of someone who can’t even find the track in broad daylight.

    I watched Trump operate at close range from a perch inside the Department of Homeland Security. He spent more time with our department than any other. What I observed was a man of genuinely unusual cognitive disarray. He was disorganised in ways that were structurally alarming for a commander-in-chief. For instance, he appeared to think in sudden associations, not sequences, and he absorbed information through flattery and visual repetition rather than briefings. We were literally told to stop sending him documents to read that were longer than a page in length, and, where possible, to provide information in pictures instead of words.

    Yeah. That’s an extremely startling and alarming thing to be told about a person in that particular job. That’s being told he’s mentally about 6 years old.

    The machinery of government was largely adapted to these peculiarities. Fifty-page background papers were reduced to one-pager descriptions using Trump’s “winners-and-losers” lexicon to try to help him understand complex topics and to coach him through difficult decisions.

    And that was then. It’s much worse now, and will continue to get worse until 1. he blows up the whole planet or 2. he is removed.

    I believe Trump’s cognitive decline is self-evident. He rambles more. The tangents have grown longer and stranger: see recent riffs about Hannibal Lecter, the inexplicable detours into shark-related hypotheticals, or the moments where sentences simply stop. Speech pathologists and neurologists have noted the deterioration publicly and while I’m not qualified to diagnose it, what I can tell you is that the contrast with even five years ago is striking. The man I observed in the first term was erratic but the man I observe now is erratic without a safety net.

    It’s going to be 1. isn’t it.

  • test…

  • A broader interpretation

    Classic.

    At 50 seconds a hulking male complains that “a cisgender woman had spoken over me” – adding “and – I understand – her rights are important too, this pertains to her too, but, but, I dunno, I hope that in the future the federal NDP will also have a broader interpretation of the equity cards.” In other words he hopes the federal NDP will give him more rights than that cis bitch who got to speak before he did.

  • Greetings comrades

    Sorry for the radio silence – something went awry with the mechanics and I didn’t want to pester the very kind webmaster during the week.

    Looks elegant now, doesn’t it!

    Ok so Trump. He has clearly gone from creeping dementia to very much speeded up dementia, i.e. he’s fallen off a cliff. He can’t talk clearly, and he can’t make sense when he talks. I’m now thinking he’ll make haste to drop all the nukes out of spite, because if he’s going to crash out so is everyone else.

    I’ll catch up tomorrow.

  • Get the guy to do it

    The Times reports:

    A female novelist has criticised the appointment of a trans woman to represent an endometriosis charity, comparing it to a white person claiming to speak for black people.

    Incomplete. It’s more comparable to a white person representing a sickle cell anemia charity, only more so, because men can never have endometriosis.

    Amanda Craig, who has published nine novels and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2021, spoke out after Steph Richards was named as the parliamentary engagement officer for Endometriosis South Coast.

    Endometriosis is a chronic and painful gynaecological condition in which cells similar to those in the lining of the uterus grow in other parts of the body. It affects one in ten women in the UK.

    And no men in the UK, because they don’t have the uterus to have a lining that can grow in other parts of the body.

    Rosie Duffield, a gender-critical independent MP, said she felt “uncomfortable” when invited to an event in parliament by Richards and described the appointment as “inappropriate”.

    She said: “I am really uncomfortable that of all of the tens of thousands of women affected, someone who is biologically male is coming to speak about this in parliament who can have no possible lived experience of this condition.

    “There are lots of women that would need this kind of support out there who would be able to talk about the lived experience in a much better way than someone who’s never menstruated in their life.

    “This is a senior spokesperson’s role, so it’s somebody speaking on behalf of an awful lot of sufferers and you can’t, in my opinion, do that if you can have no possible awareness of what women’s bodies go through.”

    And it makes no sense because there are plenty of women who could do that senior spokesperson’s role so why go out of your way to give the role to a man? What is even the point? Other than taunting women?

    Richards, who has a background in medical research, has previously characterised criticism of her job leading Endometriosis South Coast as “transphobic”.

    Fuck him. A decent man would be horrified to be asked and turn it down flat.

    In response to the fresh criticism of her position, Endometriosis South Coast insisted that it was “scientifically inaccurate” to suggest endometriosis was a condition that only affected women.

    A spokesperson for the charity said: “It affects people of all genders, including trans men, non-binary, and intersex individuals.”

    Oh come on. The issue is sex, not fantasy genders. It affects women, including women who claim to be trans men or non-binary.

    The spokesperson added: “She was appointed on the basis of her skills and commitment to advancing awareness of endometriosis at a policy level.

    “The ability to advocate meaningfully for a condition does not require personally having that condition; this standard is applied consistently across healthcare, policy, and the voluntary sector, and we apply it here, too.”

    It may not require it, but surely the calculated insult is too obvious to ignore.

  • Visit

    Solidarity.

    JD Vance will visit Hungary in early April ahead of what could be right-wing ​Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s toughest election since taking power ‌in a 2010 landslide, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Friday.

    Two sources familiar with the planning told Reuters on Wednesday that Vance was planning ​to visit Hungary in a show of support for ​Orban, who trails his centre-right challenger Peter Magyar ahead ⁠of an April 12 election based on most surveys.

    Gotta line up with all those right-wing tough guys.

    Orban, one of U.S. President Donald Trump’s closest allies ​in Europe, has ​long been ⁠at loggerheads with the EU over a range of issues, including Ukraine. Defying Brussels, he has ​maintained cordial ties with Moscow, refuses to ​send weapons ⁠to Ukraine, and says Kyiv can never join the European Union.

    Nice chap. How dare Ukraine be attacked by Moscow, and then even resist the attack. It’s outrageous. Invaders of the world unite.

  • Spree

    The Daily Beast on Trump’s casual declaration of war on half the country:

    President Donald Trump went on an unhinged early morning posting spree, declaring Democrats as enemies of the state and fantasizing about serving an illegal third term.

    The 79-year-old president posted and reshared 13 times on Sunday morning on his social media platform, Truth Social, 13 times from his Mar-a-Lago base. He implied that his next target after Iran was the Democratic Party in one post.

    “Now with the death of Iran, the greatest enemy America has is the Radical Left, Highly Incompetent, Democrat Party!” he wrote.

    He’s branded half the population enemies of the state.

    The commander-in-chief also reshared a post from a MAGA fan account suggesting he should serve a third term and amplifying stolen election conspiracies. Trump, 79, has repeatedly threatened to circumvent the 22nd Amendment, which sets presidential term limits to two terms.

    He’s not allowed to do that. He’s advertising his determination to be a lawless dictator. Not surprising, but necessary to underscore.

    H/t Dave Ricks