Category: Notes and Comment Blog

  • The worker who was born a man

    The underwear question.

    A ruling that an NHS manager discriminated against a transgender employee by asking if they took off their underwear in a women’s changing room has “deeply worrying” implications, an MP has said.

    The worker, who was born a man, successfully sued Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for gender reassignment discrimination in July. Employment judges heard that a manager had questioned the employee after concerns were raised that they had been naked from the waist down in the women’s changing room.

    HE! That HE had been naked from the waist down. Don’t pander to this shit in the very act of reporting on it.

    Sarah-Jane Davies, the tribunal judge, said in the ruling: “This was a communal changing room with a shower cubicle. [It did not seem] likely that there would have been a concern about a cisgender woman in a state of undress while changing in such a changing room.” The ruling means the trans woman will be entitled to damages, which will be allocated later.

    God almighty are people simply melting their brains down with blowtorches? Of course women have “a concern” about men getting naked in such a changing room while not having the same concern about women doing so.

    Miriam Cates, the Conservative MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, wrote to Kirsten Major, the chief executive of the hospitals trust, pointing out that she had a “narrow window” of time to appeal against the ruling. The trust chose not to appeal, however, and Cates told The Times that “the implications of this judgment, and the failure to challenge it, are deeply worrying”.

    In her letter to hospital bosses, Cates said it had emerged during the hearing that the trust had “instructed” biological women employees that they had “to deny reality in order to be inclusive and keep their jobs”. She asked: “Why are women being re-educated to suppress their natural and understandable discomfort about being forced to share intimate facilities with a man?”

    Because trans ideology.

    The Equality and Human Rights Commission said it was aware of concern about the tribunal judgment. “We are interested in clarifying the law where rights between different protected characteristics overlap,” the commission said.

    “Trans” shouldn’t be a protected characteristic. It just shouldn’t. If it is, it obliterates women’s rights, and that’s not a good outcome. When trans rights=men get to be in women’s spaces and get naked whether the women like it or not, that’s not a good outcome.

  • Face

    Big Brudda has arrived.

    A large banner featuring Donald Trump’s face was hung on the exterior of Justice Department headquarters on Thursday in a physical display of the Republican president’s efforts to exert power over the law enforcement agency that once investigated him.

    While Trump banners have been hung outside other agencies across Washington, the decision to place one on the storied Justice Department building amounted to a striking symbol of the erosion of the department’s tradition of independence from White House control.

    It’s not erosion, it’s seizure.

    Trump officials have rejected accusations that they have weaponized the Justice Department for political purposes, saying the Biden administration was the one that politicized law enforcement with two federal criminal cases against Trump that were abandoned after he won the 2024 election.

    So what were they supposed to do, ignore the crimes? Wouldn’t that have been for political purposes? And also bad?

  • How sharper than a serpent’s tooth

    Huh. Denmark airlifted a US sailor from a US submarine because he needed medical care, and Trump responded with the usual.

    It is not on the way. Trump knows it’s not on the way.

  • Netflix should

    This is all very completely normal.

    Yes certainly, we always have presidents who tell media companies which people to fire because said people annoy him. That’s definitely part of his job and not in any way a violation of norms and laws and boundaries.

    The Financial Times gives us some background:

    Trump has called on Netflix to sack former Democratic national security official Susan Rice from its board or “pay the consequences”, as the streamer battles to buy Warner Bros Discovery.

    The US president weighed in on the issue at the urging of Maga influencer Laura Loomer. “Netflix should fire racist, Trump Deranged Susan Rice, IMMEDIATELY, or pay the consequences. She’s got no talent or skills — Purely a political hack!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, reposting an X post by Loomer urging him to “kill the Netflix-Warner Bros. merger now”.

    Rice was national security adviser and US ambassador to the UN under former president Barack Obama. She was also on former president Joe Biden’s domestic policy council. She served on Netflix’s board from 2018 to 2020 and was reappointed in 2023.

    Therefore it’s completely normal and reasonable for Trump to shout at her on social media, right?

  • A different tune

    Trump is pitching a fit.

    At this time last year, President Trump warmly shook hands with Chief Justice John Roberts at the State of the Union address, thanking him for the opinion he authored granting Trump and other presidents in the future expansive immunity from prosecution for their official acts after leaving office. But on Friday, after the Supreme Court invalidated Trump’s tariffs, the president was singing a decidedly different tune.

    At a hastily called press conference, an agitated Trump railed against the conservative Roberts and two of the courts other conservatives, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, both Trump appointees.

    “They’re just being fools and lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats,” Trump said.

    With his usual eloquence and fair-minded reaonability.

    Trump called the three conservatives “disloyal, unpatriotic,” and at one point he launched into a rant about how the court should have invalidated the election results in 2020, which Trump lost to Joe Biden.

    Disloyal, eh? Thus making it embarrassingly clear that he thinks the ones he nominated should rule the way he wants them to rule – that in short they owe him.

    Trump suffered a massive defeat at the Supreme Court. Writing for a hefty 6-to-3 majority, Chief Justice Roberts said that the nation’s founders deliberately and explicitly placed the power to impose taxes, including tariffs, with Congress, not with the president.

    As the Chief Justice put it, “Having just fought a revolution motivated in large part by taxes imposed on them” by the King of England without their consent, the Framers wrote a Constitution that gives Congress the taxing power because the members of the legislature would be more accountable to the people.

    Try telling that to Trump.

  • “I can do anything I want to do to them”

    Trump and the Supreme Court have broken up.

  • To his own Board

    Yebbut he can’t do that.

    Trump vows $10 billion contribution to his own Board of Peace

    But not contribution of his money, contribution of our money. To his plaything. He can’t do that.

    President Donald Trump announced on Thursday a $10 billion U.S. contribution to rebuilding Gaza at the inaugural meeting of his Board of Peace, describing the organization as the premier world body for international peace and harmony.

    See there? U.S. contribution – our money, not his money. He’s not allowed to do that. He’ll do it anyway if he’s not stopped (and if he doesn’t get bored and wander off to do something else), but he’s not allowed to.

    Trump has framed the board as a supplement — or possibly an alternative — to the United Nations, which he has dubbed an ineffectual organization and put at risk of imminent fiscal collapse by withholding the United States’ mandatory dues that make up nearly a quarter of its operating budget as well as other contributions.

    Hmm. Nice little global organization you got here, would be a shame if something happened to it.

    The meeting was held at the U.S. Institute of Peace, the congressionally established independent nonprofit that the administration seized last year and renamed after Trump, a move that is still the subject of litigation.

    So now it’s called the US Institute of Trump?

    The meeting came as Trump has recentlyboasted about military action in Venezuela and as U.S.forces have been surged to the Middle East in advance of a potential conflict with Iran. In remarks opening the event, he described last week’s round of negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program as “good” and said that “maybe we’re going to make a deal. Maybe not. You’re going to be finding out over the next, maybe, 10 days.”

    That is peace. Trump throwing his weight around is peace. I’m reminded of that famous quotable from Tacitus – ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant. Where they make a wilderness and call it peace.

    During his near hour-long speech, Trump mused about the wealth or good looks of some of the people in the room. He gave a shout-out to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has been criticized for anti-democratic actions such as curtailing independent media and is struggling in an upcoming election campaign. “Not everybody in Europe loves that endorsement, but that’s okay,” Trump riffed.

    He delved into familiar politicalgripes and grievances and congratulated members of his own administration. He panned speeches at the Munich Security Conference by political opponents California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York).

    He recounted the various wars he claims to have stoppedand revisited his very public disappointment at not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.

    “Norway has agreed to host an event bringing together the Board of Peace,” Trump said of the country, where a nongovernmental committee awards the prize. “Oh, I thought when I saw this note. … I thought they were going to say that they’re giving me the Nobel Prize. Oh, this is less exciting. … I don’t care about the Nobel Prize. I care about saving lives.”

    Ho yus, he doesn’t care a bit about the Nobel Prize, that’s why he keeps ranting about it.

  • Pretty soon you’re talking about real money

    Dang. Has Canada gone stark raving mad?

    Or maybe it’s just British Columbia.

    The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has ordered former Chilliwack school trustee Barry Neufeld to pay $750,000 for violating the Human Rights Code by publishing hate speech and discriminatory content against 2SLGBTQ+ people.

    “Mr. Neufeld invoked negative and insidious stereotypes about LGBTQ people, especially trans people, which denied their inherent dignity and, in some cases, reflected the hallmarks of hate against them as a group,” the tribunal said in a decision Wednesday.

    I wonder if that’s true. I wonder if they are in fact talking about T people only. We know from a million examples that they love to make it about the L and the G and the B, including when it’s not. It’s dishonest and manipulative, and journalism should avoid it like the plague.

    Neufeld was one of the “loudest critics” against the B.C. government’s move in 2017 directing school boards to update codes of conduct to address bullying based on “SOGI,” or sexual orientation and gender identity, according to the tribunal’s decision.

    Did the BC government by any chance treat skepticism about swappable gender as “bullying based on SOGI”? In other words did it sneak the SO part in there even though it was absent, to provide cover for the outrageous move to force people to agree that men can be women just by saying so? My guess is that they did, because we’ve seen that very thing so many times.

    “For five years, he publicly denigrated LGBTQ people and teachers and associated them with the worst forms of child abuse,” said the tribunal members, adding that the effect was a discriminatory work environment for 2SLGBTQ+ teachers in the district.

    Did he? Or was he talking solely about the T? We can’t tell, because mainstream journalism consistently lies about this.

    The tribunal found six of his publications were likely to expose trans, gay and lesbian people to hatred or contempt based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.

    “These publications demonize and delegitimize trans people (and in one case, lesbian and gay people) and cast them as a powerful menace threatening the security of children and their families.”

    Aha! There it is, finally – the admission. Only once was it also the L and the G.

    One unnamed teacher, who uses she/they pronouns, testified before the tribunal that Neufeld’s comments made the people in their life ask them “to reconsider going into teaching.”

    If the teacher uses she/they pronouns why does the CBC use solely they pronouns in that sentence? Could it be because the their/them is so much more irritating?

    They said they chose not to be out as a queer person professionally because they and their family feared for their safety, which they described as a tough and isolating experience.

    An even worse sentence! Incoherent! Who is the “they” in “they described” – the teacher or “their” family? We’ll never know.

    The teacher said not being out affected their ability “to show up in the classroom as their best self.” The tribunal quoted the teacher: “I think that teachers teach with their heart, and a lot of our personality goes into that, and without being able to be your authentic self, you’re not able to show up wholly.”

    But it’s not your authentic self, it’s your fake, silly, fatuous one. Furthermore, teachers need to teach with their brains. They can’t do that while playing let’s pretend about their “gender”.

  • Disinhibition

    Useful.

    Trump’s Bizarre Behavior Has a Clinical Name: Disinhibition

    Colby Hall, January 20.

    One of the earliest and most underreported warning signs of certain forms of dementia is not memory loss. It is disinhibition — a deterioration of impulse control, judgment, and social restraint that often manifests as reckless behavior, inappropriate speech, and diminished concern for consequences. By the time forgetfulness becomes obvious, the disease process is often well underway.

    That framework matters because it closely tracks what President Donald Trump has been displaying with increasing frequency.

    And increasing revoltingness.

    Grievance has long shaped Trump’s behavior. His fixation on the 2020 election, anger over criminal investigations, and instinct for escalation remain constant. What has changed is the degree to which those impulses now appear untethered from outcome. Actions that weaken alliances, undercut stated objectives, and generate chaos without payoff suggest something beyond anger or strategy at work.

    Disinhibition offers a framework that fits the observable pattern.

    …

    Clinically, disinhibition often appears before memory loss, particularly in frontotemporal dementia. Individuals may seem energetic, confident, even dominant. What erodes first is judgment. Filters weaken. Social norms lose force. Behavior becomes impulsive, inappropriate, and unconcerned with consequence. That framework does not establish a diagnosis. It explains why behavior changes in ways that feel abrupt and destabilizing.

    Trump himself has intensified attention on the issue. In recent weeks, he has repeatedly and unpromptedly defended his cognitive fitness, boasting about mental sharpness and tests no one was publicly challenging. Clinicians recognize this pattern. People respond defensively to doubts that have already begun to surface.

    …

    Trump’s recent behavior presents a coherent and escalating pattern. The loss of restraint is public, persistent, and increasingly disconnected from consequence. Disinhibition is a clinical concept, not a political insult, and it describes how judgment can fail before memory does.

    The danger lies not only in the behavior itself, but in the absence of any visible response to it. Advisers remain quiet. Party leaders defer. Congressional oversight is dormant. The presidency is operating as if impulse carries authority and escalation requires no check.

    It all seems to fit.

  • If Obama had invited Dolezal

    Meet Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender.

    Imagine if Barack Obama had invited Rachel Dolezal, the would-be African American, to discuss the impact of Donald Trump’s policies on black America. Hillary Clinton did the equivalent this week at the Munich Security Conference where she moderated a town hall titled “Girls Just Want to Have Fundamental Rights: Fighting the Global Pushback.” Clinton’s Rachel Dolezal figure was Sarah (né Timothy) McBride, celebrated as the first transgender member of the US Congress.

    Why bring a man in to talk about women and fundamental rights? Why a man instead of a woman?

    The problem is not McBride’s preferred pronouns but rather the lawmaker’s preferred policies, which elevate an ill-defined feeling known as “gender identity” over the immutable reality of biological sex. Ironically, given the title of Clinton’s town hall, these policies have undermined the fundamental rights of women and girls. They compel females to cede hard-won sports opportunities and medals to males. They require girls and women to change in locker rooms in front of boys and men. Horrifically, the priority given to “gender identity” forces female prison inmates to share close quarters with violent male felons. Under the Biden administration, the Centers for Disease Control issued health guidance for “pregnant people” and “lactating individuals,” erasing the very words “women” and “mothers.”

    Erasing those words is a really really really bad thing to do. Erasure is the very thing that feminism exists to do away with. Women are not feeble shadowy afterthoughts who make no contribution and should be ignored. You’d think Hillary Clinton of all people would know that.

    After this overview of the international “pushback,” Clinton teed up “the US Congresswoman from the state of Delaware, a gender rights champion,” to talk about the travails of trans people. McBride shared a tale of fellow members of Congress raising a ruckus when a woman who supposedly looked like McBride tried to enter a ladies room in the Capitol. The Delaware rep concurred with the previous speaker that “we are facing . . . a well-organized, well-funded right-wing regressive movement.” The central target of this movement, according to McBride, are trans people—with consequences for “women of all backgrounds.” McBride continued, “They use trans people as the tip of the spear,” to sanction gender policing—dictating how people should look and act based on “one perception at birth.” This policing, McBride argued disproportionately hurts “non-transgender women.” Women of all backgrounds. Non-transgender women. Did someone advise McBride to avoid the term “cis?” Clinton performed her familiar bobble-head nod as the Congressperson appropriated women’s struggles.

    Why? Why do that? Even if you admire McBride, why get him to talk about women’s rights instead of a woman?

  • Sir sir you misunderstood

    He what now?

    Trump said on Thursday that he had directed his administration to begin releasing files related to aliens, extraterrestrial life and unidentified flying objects, only hours after attacking former President Barack Obama for saying that aliens were real.

    Well then why not release the files related to ghosts and goblins and angels and devils and people who can walk on water?

    “Based on the tremendous interest shown,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media, he had directed officials to “begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters.”

    Derp. Based on the tremendous interest shown, how about Trump begins the process of releasing Trump files related to all the horrible things he’s done over the last 70 years or so.

    Brian Tyler Cohen, a YouTuber and podcast host, asked Mr. Obama in an interview that released on Saturday if aliens were real. The former president replied, “they’re real, but I haven’t seen them and they’re not being kept in Area 51.” He added, jokingly, “unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president.” Mr. Cohen did not ask any follow-up questions about aliens.

    Wut? Has Obama gone doolally?

    Mr. Obama’s remarks pinballed across the internet as commentators speculated about what he had meant. Mr. Obama later clarified on social media that he meant that extraterrestrial life likely exists out in the universe, but that as far as he knew they had not visited Earth.

    He insisted, “I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”

    Oh, that. Never mind.

    When asked about Mr. Obama’s speculative remarks on Air Force One earlier on Thursday, Mr. Trump claimed that Mr. Obama “gave classified information, he’s not supposed to be doing that.” When a reporter asked for clarification, and if aliens were real, Trump said that he didn’t know, but repeated his suggestion that Obama’s remarks had revealed classified information.

    That’s because he’s really really dumb.

  • He’s taking it well

    Tantrum.

    Trump on Friday launched an extraordinary attack on the Supreme Court after it ruled against him on tariffs, describing justices in the majority as a “disgrace to our nation” and “very unpatriotic and disloyal to the Constitution.”

    While praising the three dissenting justices in the 6-3 ruling that invalidated most of his tariffs, Trump suggested the majority was “swayed by foreign interests” and said the three Democratic appointees in the majority are “fools and lapdogs” to moderate Republicans and Democrats.

    “The Supreme Court’s ruling on tariffs is deeply disappointing, and I’m ashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country,” Trump said in remarks at the White House.

    The court has a 6-3 conservative majority that frequently rules in his favor.

    Well sure but majority isn’t good enough. It has to be all. Anything else is treason.

    While presidents often criticize Supreme Court rulings that upend major policies, it is highly unusual for them to use such harsh and personal language.

    Wellll no. It’s not unusual; it’s non-existent.

    Elaborating on his claim of foreign interference, Trump suggested without evidence that foreign interests have “undue influence” on the court.

    “They have a lot of influence over the Supreme Court, whether it’s through fear or respect or friendships, I don’t know,” he added.

    Why doesn’t he know? Because he’s making it up.

    In response to a question from a reporter, Trump later addressed the votes taken by Barrett and Gorsuch.

    “I think their decision was terrible. I think it’s an embarrassment to their families,” he said.

    It’s also an embarrassment to their pets, their colleagues, their neighbors, their fellow members of the Audubon Society.

  • He got lucky

    Ok so we’re wallowing in Andy schadenfreude. I’m fine with that.

    The image of a stunned Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor slumped back in a car after his arrest has been splashed over newspapers and websites worldwide.

    Slumped back, slack-jawed, eyes gleaming sinisterly.

    And the Reuters photographer who took it, Liverpool-born Phil Noble, said capturing the moment was “more luck than judgement”.

    When news broke on Thursday morning that the King’s brother had been detained by police, Noble drove six hours south from his Manchester home to Norfolk where the former prince resides.

    We thank him for his service.

  • Effort to move past

    Maybe royalty just isn’t all that important in the first place?

    Former Prince Andrew’s Arrest Upends Royal Effort to Move Past His Scandal

    King Charles III’s family, long rocked by infighting and grievous losses, is facing what could be the gravest threat to its moral authority in more than a generation.

    But what moral authority?

    What moral authority does the “royal family” have in the first place?

    They’re just a set of people descended from a set of people descended from a set of people etc for many generations. That’s all. The big difference is that their status is inherited as opposed to worked for or chosen by a majority of the people. That’s it! That’s the purported moral authority! It’s not much, is it.

    It may bring with it a sense of duty. That was apparently very much the case with Andrew’s mother, and very much not the case with the notorious Juke of Windsor. In any case a sense of duty by itself is not really a reason to have an inherited monarchy, especially such a rich and expensive one. Just saying.

    For decades, Sandringham Estate has been a place for the House of Windsor to escape from it all. Three hours northeast of London, the palatial country house, its 20,000 sprawling acres and residences are where King Charles III and his family celebrate Christmas, waving to admirers as they parade to church services in their holiday best.

    Well thank god they have a place to “escape from it all” eh wot?

    Early Thursday morning, the idyllic estate was swarmed by unmarked police cars as officers arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the king’s brother, amid allegations that he shared confidential government information with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender. Later in the night, he would return to Sandringham, slinking low in the back seat of a black sport utility vehicle, with news cameras craning to capture his release.

    The scenes of Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor, already stripped of his title and kicked out of his longtime home, could be seen as an unmistakable message about the end of an era. Not since King Charles I was arrested and tried for treason nearly four centuries ago, in January 1649, has a British royal been detained.

    So, that’s kind of fun.

    Mind you, that Windsor fella came pretty close. He was carefully watched all through WWII, because he was pro-Nazi and did some very sketchy things.

    The arrest follows years in which the king, and before him his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, stayed silent on separate accusations that Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor forced Virginia Giuffre to have sex with him after she was trafficked by Mr. Epstein when she was 17 years old. The former prince has denied those allegations and wrongdoing related to Mr. Epstein.

    “The royal family, far from dutifully serving the public in connection with this scandal that has enveloped Andrew, have not been transparent. They have not been forthcoming, secrets have persisted,” said Ed Owens, a historian and expert on Britain’s royal family. “It’s this lack of transparency that is the driving force of the moral problem at the heart of the mess for the monarchy.”

    Because that’s the nature of monarchy, isn’t it. It’s arbitrary; it does what it wants. It’s a set of people who are made Special solely because of which parents they were born to. It’s a form of magic, and magic can’t afford to be transparent.

  • One day a week on inclusivity programmes

    Starmer’s new Cabinet Secretary made staff join non-binary book club

    Seriously?

    Dame Antonia Romeo told a civil servant to join a “gender non-conforming book club” as part of their performance review.

    The new Cabinet Secretary set out plans for the former staff member to spend one day a week on inclusivity programmes when she was head of the Department for International Trade (DIT) from 2017 to 2021.

    These included helping to raise “awareness and visibility of non-binary identities” and attending the book club, according to documents reviewed by The Telegraph.

    The employee was told to spend up to 20 per cent of their time fulfilling inclusivity goals such as encouraging colleagues to display their preferred pronouns and “recruiting non-binary staff”.

    Is she 15? 12?

    It must be significance-envy. The older cohort got to campaign against racism and sexism and classism, so what’s left for the younger crowd? Magic gender. It’s that or nothing, so it has to be that.

    Mind you, it’s not really nothing. It’s continuing to campaign against racism and sexism and classism, because oddly enough those battles haven’t been won yet. But the trouble is, that’s old news. Old news is stale news; Dame Antonia must want something more exciting.

    As part of an annual review, she set the employee a target of joining the department’s “gender non-conforming book club”, where government workers supposedly read Middlesex, a 2002 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Jeffrey Eugenides about an intersex American, as well as books about people transitioning gender, the source said.

    Other activities allegedly assigned directly by Dame Antonia included participating in “discussion of the non-binary corporate network” and “challenging dated and discriminatory societal gender norms of expression, presentation, behaviours, roles or expectations that reinforce the patriarchy”.

    Uh oh uh oh – the patriarchy? That sounds dangerously close to tranzfobeea, What about people who identify as patriarchs? Eh? Go back 20 paces and do not collect $200.

    In pursuit of a high Stonewall ranking, DIT, under Dame Antonia’s watch, had “tranquillity rooms/safe spaces, glitter jars, hugging pillows, and training classes about bisexuality awareness”, the former member of staff claimed.

    In an all-staff email sent in 2020 and seen by The Telegraph, Dame Antonia shared the account of a non-binary member of staff to celebrate non-binary awareness week. The blog post encouraged colleagues to “support non-binary colleagues in the workplace” and included advice on how to be an ally.

    Suggestions included putting preferred pronouns in email signatures and avoiding the phrase “ladies and gentleman” in favour of “more inclusive alternatives such as ‘everyone’”.

    Other recommendations were to avoid gendered words to describe members of your family and instead use “‘parents’, ‘partner’, ‘siblings’”.

    “If I am making notes in a meeting or referring to another person, I will politely say ‘can I just check which pronouns you prefer?’ – it’s as easy as that!” the blog post read.

    Yes but the issue is not whether it’s easy or not, it’s whether it’s batshit crazy or not. It is in fact batshit crazy.

  • Famous last word

    Sigh.

    The problem is not emasculation.

    There is no shortage of masculinity around.

    Congress is no longer an all-male legislative body.

    Fretting about emasculation is a standing insult to women.

    I’m very tired of casual insults to women.

  • North Korea vibes

    Ewwwwwwwwwwwww

  • where they are safest

    Classic of indifference to women and their safety and wellbeing.

    He means the decision to ban men from the spaces where women are safest, but of course he can’t say it that way.

    He’s a women-hating weasel, Thomas Willett is.

  • Strengthen up

    Trump has set up his very own imitation UN, and he’s giving it 10 billion dollars of our money.

    Trump promised that the United States would commit $10 billion to his Board of Peace, the body created for the security and redevelopment of the Gaza Strip, although he did not specify the source of that funding.

    Well it’s not coming out of his wallet.

    Trump described the Board of Peace as an institution that would “strengthen up the United Nations,” perhaps answering those who questioned whether he was trying to set up a competitor to the U.N. But he also described the Board as a group that is “going to almost be looking over the United Nations and making sure it runs properly.”

    The Charter of the United Nations, signed in San Francisco in 1945, does not provide for any oversight organization.

    Nor does it name Trump as just the right fella to set up such an organization.

    Trump just said the United States would pay $10 billion into the Board of Peace, which he created and leads.

    He gave no details on where the money would come from or if the administration had even requested it from Congress, which would have to approve the funds.

    Huh? Wut? Wut mean? He’s the boss, he gets to give the money away and he doesn’t have to explain anything to the New York stinkin’ Times.

    President Trump used his opening remarks at the Board of Peace meeting to reiterate his call for Iran to make a deal with him on his nuclear program, otherwise “bad things will happen.”

    At one point he seemed to tease the possibility of military action: “You’re going to be finding out probably over the next 10 days,” he said. The U.S. military is building up forces in the Middle East for a possible strike.

    Because Board of Peace.

    The puns write themselves.

    Trump has opened the Board of Peace event while top members of his government watch from the stage. This Trump-founded and Trump-led body was set up as a kind of rival to the United Nations. “In terms of power and in terms of prestige there’s never been anything close because these are the greatest leaders,” Trump said in his opening remarks.

    But America’s NATO allies have refused to join, and Trump acknowledged that some nations were absent. “Some are playing a little cute,” he said.

    Nations that have joined include Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Hungary, Indonesia, Pakistan and Qatar.

    Mmmmmm. I think I’ll just play a little cute, thanks.

  • Hiring

    This raises an interesting question, at least for me.

    At first glance “Nobody should lose their job because they have a ‘gender identity’” seems right, but then second glance isn’t quite so sure.

    Having a gender identity=having a very feeble grasp on reality.

    In a card shop that probably wouldn’t matter much, but in a lot of other jobs it would. I don’t think employers in general want to hire people who live a fantasy life that’s not tucked safely away in their minds but conspicuously performed all day every day. It says things about their thinking and about how they’re likely to interact with colleagues and the public, doesn’t it? Is it fair to say that?

    It’s two things, really, or perhaps more. It’s a glitch in thinking, and it’s a predictor of odd behavior on the job. Both of those are important considerations for most jobs.

    Correct me if I’m wrong.