It’s stuff the genie back in the bottle time in Trumpolandia.

“Chief Gregory Bovino has NOT been relieved of his duties,” the DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said, pointing to earlier comments from the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, praising Bovino as a “key part of the president’s team and a great American”.

Leavitt spent Monday’s press briefing walking back initial claims made by senior administration officials about Pretti. Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff, called the victim “a domestic terrorist who tried to assassinate law enforcement”, and Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, accused him of perpetrating “the definition of domestic terrorism” – characterizations that have been undercut by video footage that showed Pretti getting shot in the back multiple times after being tackled to the ground by a group of US border patrol agents whom he had been filming, and disarmed of his gun.

Or to put it more bluntly, Miller and Noem told the usual blistering lies about the guy their team murdered and this time it didn’t work.

Trump himself on Monday said he had a “a very good call” with Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, who[m] he had previously blamed for Pretti’s death.

Yes oddly enough it just doesn’t look good to murder a dedicated ICU nurse and then tell a pack of lies about him.

Bovino is out.

Gregory Bovino has been removed from his role as Border Patrol “commander at large” and will return to his former job in El Centro, California, where he is expected to retire soon, according to a DHS official and two people with knowledge of the change.

Bovino’s sudden demotion is the clearest sign yet that the Trump administration is reconsidering its most aggressive tactics after the killing Saturday of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents under Bovino’s command.

It turns out murdering a veterans’ hospital nurse is not all that popular.

Earlier today, President Trump appeared to signal in a series of social-media posts a tactical shift in the administration’s mass-deportation campaign. Trump wrote that he spoke with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz—whom the White House has blamed for inciting violence—and the two men are now on “a similar wavelength.” Tom Homan, the former ICE chief whom Trump has designated “border czar,” will head to Minnesota to assume command of the federal mobilization there, Trump said.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her close adviser Corey Lewandowski, who were Bovino’s biggest backers at DHS, are also at risk of losing their jobs, two of the people told me.

Oh please do fire Noem. And then fire yourself. Go play golf.

For the past seven months, Bovino has been the public face of a traveling immigration crackdown on cities governed by Democrats. Noem and other Trump officials gave Bovino the “commander” title and sent him and his masked border agents to Chicago, Charlotte, New Orleans, and then Minneapolis. Bovino became a MAGA social-media star as he traveled the country with his own film crew and used social media to hit back at Democratic politicians and random critics online. Veteran ICE and CBP officials grew more and more uneasy as Bovino worked outside his agency’s chain of command and appeared to relish his role as a political actor.

Eeeeyuch. His own film crew ffs.

One murder too many, it seems.

It turns out the border patrollers don’t like it either.

Morale is “plummeting” among federal law enforcement officers tasked with carrying out the Trump administration’s aggressive anti-immigration operation, as they complained that [of] long hours, ambitious arrest quotas and hatred from the public, according to reports.

While officers at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol, overseen by the Department of Homeland Security, said they supported the administration’s goal of deporting undocumented migrants, many of them have grown “disillusioned” with the tactics being implemented by leadership.

At the behest of the monstrosity in the Oval Office.

“You’re not addressing the problem by throwing a 500-pound gorilla into these inner cities,” Oscar Hagelsieb, a former immigration officer and special agent, told the Times. “They’re causing chaos, and unfortunately it’s costing lives.”

But it makes great tv.

I don’t say that in jest. I think that’s absolutely what Trump wants – a show. A brutal sadistic vengeful angry show, every day and all night.

“It’s completely unfair to the agents who have been put in this position,” he added. “There’s only so much they can handle before bad things start to happen.”

Border patrol agents, who generally operate at Ports of entry, have been assisting ICE with raids and deployed to support amid the protests. Top Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino previously described the agency’s tactics of arresting individuals rapidly before protesters can move in as “turn and burn.”

Bovino oversaw operations in Chicago, where agents deployed tear gas in neighborhoods and hit protesters with pepper balls. These tactics were “far outside standard practices in law enforcement,” Gil Kerlikowske, who led Customs and Border Patrol during the Obama administration, told the Times.

But they made great tv for Trump.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem faced calls to resign after she claimed Pretti “brandished” a weapon before an officer with Border Patrol “fired defensive shots.” The narrative has been undercut in video footage of the incident.

Current and former ICE officials who spoke with the outlet anonymously said they were “unhappy with the sharp rhetoric” coming from top White House and Homeland Security officials. One agent with the department told the Times that he had “always given the benefit of the doubt to the government in these situations,” but that he now no longer believed “any of the statements they put out anymore.”

“We lost all trust,” a current ICE official added. “I’m not sure I can see how we exist three years from now.” Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin also reported “extreme frustration” in the department over “some of the claims & narratives DHS pushed in the aftermath of the shooting.”

“These sources say this messaging from DHS officials has been catastrophic from a PR and morale perspective, as it is eroding trust and credibility,” Melugin reported Sunday.

But it’s all worth it because Trump likes a show.

Oh yes. I had indeed forgotten about them.

People in Minneapolis and the rest of the country may be depressed by casual murders at the hands of ICE but the Trump family is dressing up for a party.

Trump and first lady Melania Trump on Saturday night hosted a private screening of “Melania,” a new documentary about the first lady — drawing criticism from Democrats who questioned the president’s priorities hours after another fatal shooting in Minneapolis upended domestic politics and raised the possibility of a government shutdown.

So there’s a new documentary about Melania Trump.

Why?

What on earth is there to say? She’s a blank space.

The documentary “offers unprecedented access to the 20 days leading up to the 2025 Presidential Inauguration — through the eyes of the First Lady herself,” according to its official description.

Who on earth cares?

Trump also has pinned a post to the top of his Truth Social feed that promotes the film as “an unforgettable, behind-the-scenes, look at one of the most important events of our time.”

Well he would say that, wouldn’t he.

It takes so much lying and concealing and manipulation to keep this ideology going.

Yes we know you’re happy to do this manipulative wording, but your happiness is not the issue here. The issue is that saying “transgender” instead of “a man” carefully and with malice aforethought hides the fact that the man in question is a man. We know you’re happy to drive a 16-wheeler through women’s rights but women are not happy to have 16-wheelers driven through our rights.

We’ve only said this a billion times. The issue is not transgender, the issue is that he’s a man in a women’s competition. That’s the part that matters. That’s the part that’s an attack on the rights of women, as you must know perfectly well or you wouldn’t be so determinedly hiding it.

The New Republic:

Trump is doubling down in Minnesota following the murder of nurse Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents on Saturday by sending his immigration czar to the state. 

In a Truth Social post Monday morning, Trump announced that he is sending Tom Homan to the state “tonight,” calling him “tough but fair” and saying he “will report directly to me.” The president made no mention of Pretti’s death, and instead repeated exaggerated claims of fraud in the state and attacked Representative Ilhan Omar. 

Reporting directly to Trump is not going to make anything better. Trump would love it if ICE simply opened fire on every Somalian it could find.

Trump’s other Truth Social posts from the weekend refused to take responsibility for the shooting, or accept any wrongdoing from federal agents in Minnesota. 

That is, refused to accept any claims of wrongdoing from the feds. He’s happy to accept the wrongdoing itself, unless the reaction gets too hot for his comfort.

He refused to take any responsibility for the escalating violence from federal agents, or the reports of racism and targeting of children in Minneapolis. Meanwhile, officials in Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security are growing frustrated with the lies coming from the Trump administration, and members of the president’s own party are beginning to speak out. Cooler heads aren’t prevailing. Hopefully, no more lives will be lost before things cool down, but there’s no telling when that will be.  

They could have skipped that last sentence.

The bit where they say it and the bit where they take it back.

Etcetera Theatre: Women Writers Festival

Wait for it.

OPEN CALL: WOMEN WRITERS FESTIVAL 2026

We’re now programming Women Writers Festival 2026 — a month-long celebration of new writing by women and female-identifying writers, this March 2026 at The Etcetera Theatre, Camden.

Oh. So not a women writers festival then. “Female-identifying” is the opposite of women, so it’s a people writers festival – which is fine, but you shouldn’t call it a women writers festival.

This is about removing barriers and getting bold new work in front of audiences.

Not really. It’s about putting up new barriers to women. You can’t have it both ways. If you let men in you can’t say it’s for women.

Updating to add:

Not a man in the bunch. You’d never know it was for women and men who pretend to be women, would you.

Also notice the bright cheery colorful hijab – as if religious laws that force women to muffle themselves so that men won’t be tempted to rape them were bright and cheery and colorful.

Respect law enforcement.

Bovino warns the media that there’s consequences if they say bad things about ICE. This is what happened in Germany. Don’t let it happen again in America.

Law enforcement is sacred. ICE is sacred. Nobody must ever criticize anything ICE does.

Trump tries to row it back.

After drawing a wave of backlash in Britain by saying U.K. forces stayed “off the front lines” in Afghanistan, President Donald Trump abruptly reversed course this weekend, praising British soldiers who fought in the U.S.-led war.

Oops. He forgot he likes to schmooze with the royals? Or he thought they would be fine with his lies and insults?

The retreat, according to a British newspaper, followed a low-key intervention by King Charles III, whose son Prince Harry served on the front lines as a helicopter pilot and lost friends in the fighting. The United Kingdom was second only to the United States in total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

Low key as in what? “Hallo Donald, King here, we don’t hugely appreciate your insults so if you want to join us for beans on toast again you’d best admit you’re a wanker and take it all back”?

Trump hailed U.K. forces Saturday as “among the greatest of all warriors,” a marked shift from his belittling dismissal of the role of NATO allies in Afghanistan, when he told an interviewer on Fox Business Network: “They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that, and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.”

Posting on social media on Saturday evening, Trump wrote: “The GREAT and very BRAVE soldiers of the United Kingdom will always be with the United States of America!”

Of course he did, the sniveling lying toadying sack of wind.

Very crap news.

Professor Deborah Cameron (1958-2026)

Worcester College is deeply saddened to learn of the death of Fellow Emerita Professor Deborah Cameron.

Professor Cameron held the post of Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language & Communication at Worcester from 2004-23.

Debbie’s research and ideas were foundational in the fields of sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, feminist theory and discourse studies. As her work examined the politics of speech, media and the construction of gender, her books captured the public’s interest throughout her career. These included, among many others, The Myth of Mars and Venus, Verbal Hygiene, The Feminist Critique of Language, and most recently The Rise of Dogwhistle Politics – published in November 2025.

At Worcester, Debbie will be remembered for her deep commitment to her students and her research. Alongside this, her active engagement with the wider public – through broadcast, print and social media – made invaluable contributions to British public understanding.

A major loss.

When universities lose their tiny little minds.

A Scottish university has issued guidance stating that it is “not just women” who menstruate and experience the menopause.

Oh has it now. Any other jokes? It is not just men who experience testicular cancer?

The advice from the University of Strathclyde states that “trans men and women” may have “actual or pseudo menopause symptoms”. It adds that non-binary and intersex people can also be affected. It reiterates this guidance for menstruation, stating again that it is “not only women” who have periods.

So an actual university doesn’t know the difference between people claiming something and the reality of that something. An actual university thinks that saying=absolute unquestionable truth – at least, it does when the special people are the ones doing the saying. Those people are never women of course.

How did they get there? How did they manage to convince themselves that it’s a good idea to nod along when a pack of loonies decide that everything we know about human sex is wrong?

Documents obtained from the university, which is in Glasgow, state that the guidance is “part of a series which outlines support for students at the University of Strathclyde, with a particular focus on promoting equality of opportunity and preventing discrimination irrespective of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, care experience or socio-economic background”.

And yet the “guidance” itself is a punch in the face to women, so the university is not preventing discrimination irrespective of sex. The university is in fact engaging in discrimination against one of the two sexes there are.

Sad. Even the Telegraph can’t get it right.

The Green Party is being sued by a former member who was suspended for mocking “fairy” pronouns.

Emma Bateman, who was co-chairman of Green Party Women, was found to have breached diversity rules by making “clearly antagonistic” comments about “fae/faer” pronouns used by people who believe they are mythical beings.

…

In March 2022, Ms Bateman was suspended for three months over a speech she made to gender-critical activists in Speaker’s Corner, Hyde Park, in which she mocked those who believe “that every time someone says men are not women a person with fairy pronouns literally dies”.

She also challenged fellow members on how far they were willing to go to “prostrate” themselves to the “pronoun police”…

Fairy pronouns are a type of modern or “neo” pronoun which can be used by people of any gender identity, including those who literally identify as mythical beings.

They are used as a substitute for traditional pronouns, meaning those using them would be referred to as fae/faer instead of she/her or he/him.

No no no no no. That’s entirely wrong.

People who demand that everyone use customized pronouns to refer to them are not “using” those pronouns, they’re trying to make other people use them. As so often, it sounds like a nitpick but it is in fact the heart of the matter.

It’s a miniature version of the whole conflict. We don’t object to their thinking of themselves as [insert any noun here], we object to their aggressive efforts to force us to agree that they are umbrellas or shipping containers or planets.

Updates on the latest ICE murder:

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that federal officers were conducting an operation as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

She said officers fired “defensive shots” after a man with a handgun approached them and “violently resisted” when officers tried to disarm him. O’Hara said police believe the man was a “lawful gun owner with a permit to carry.”

Are Trump and allies going to go all anti-guns now?

An angry crowd gathered after the shooting and screamed profanities at federal officers, calling them “cowards” and telling them to go home.

One officer responded mockingly as he walked away, telling them: “Boo hoo.”

So we should be happy when random people are murdered by the cops? We’re crybabies if we object? They’re going with that?

Via Mosnae in comments:

White House posts digitally altered image of woman arrested after ICE protest

I’m sure the fact that the woman is Black has nothing to do with this whimsical bit of forgery from the Trump goons.

The captions are wrong: the one on the left is the fake, obviously.

Pretty unabashedly racist, if you ask me. In the real image she looks calm and resolved; in the fake one created and posted by the government she looks a mess.

They get worse every day.

Another kill.

A Minneapolis man was shot and killed by federal agents today, according to city officials. The man is believed to be a US citizen, police said.

DHS says agents defended themselves: The Department of Homeland Security said the man had a handgun and approached Border Patrol officers during a targeted operation. He “violently resisted” when officers tried to disarm him, and an agent shot him in self-defense, according to DHS.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said videos show masked agents “pummeling one of our constituents and shooting him to death,” and he denounced the “impunity” of federal agents operating in the city. Gov. Tim Walz called on President Donald Trump to pull ICE out of Minneapolis and allow Minnesota to lead an investigation into the shooting.

Horst Wessel.

God damn them all to hell.

The National Park Service has taken down an exhibit on slavery at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, the Interior Department said on Thursday, following President Trump’s directive to remove materials that promote “corrosive ideology.”

What corrosive ideology would that be? The one that doesn’t try to deny the fact that the US was a slaveholding nation for its first three centuries? Is it really more corrosive to admit it than it is to lie about it? No, it damn well is not.

The outdoor exhibit, called “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation,” memorialized nine people enslaved by George Washington at the President’s House Site, where the first president once lived. The exhibit “examines the paradox between slavery and freedom in the founding of the nation,” according to a description on the Park Service website.

See the famous Samuel Johnson remark: “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”

The move follows an executive order issued by Mr. Trump in March 2025 instructing the Park Service, a part of the Interior Department, to review materials at national sites to ensure they “focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people” and do not “inappropriately disparage Americans.”

Accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative eh wot?

Bad idea. Terrible idea. Very Trumpian idea. Boast loudly at all times and never admit mistakes or cruelties or harms. Terrible idea because if you don’t admit the flaws you won’t fix them. That certainly is how Trump operates, and look at the result.

The removal of the exhibit comes amid a broader effort by the Trump administration to de-emphasize Black history. The National Park Service has removed merchandise related to diversity, equity and inclusion from its gift shops, and cut Martin Luther King’s Birthday and Juneteenth, two holidays honoring Black history, from its list of free entrance days this year.

Ugh. Those horrible spiteful fucks.

The bullying continues.

Trump on Saturday threatened to slap 100% tariffs on Canadian imports if America’s second-biggest trading partner makes a trade deal with China.

…

Trump mockingly referred to Carney as “governor,” a term he has also used for former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, playing off his call for Canada to become the 51st US state.

“Playing off” nothing. They always have to sugar-coat it. Don’t sugar-coat it.

“It sounds like Trump is lashing out at Carney for stealing the limelight at Davos. (Trump) didn’t get his tariffs over Greenland, so now he’s searching for another target to threaten,” said Inu Manak, senior fellow for international trade at the Council on Foreign Relations.

That’s more like it. Trump is acting like an angry toddler, but with real bullets. It’s neither normal nor amusing.

Not just women

A Scottish university has issued guidance stating that it is “not just women” who menstruate and experience the menopause.

The advice from the University of Strathclyde states that “trans men and women” may have “actual or pseudo menopause symptoms”. It adds that non-binary and intersex people can also be affected. It reiterates this guidance for menstruation, stating again that it is “not only women” who have periods.

Silly party trick. “If you use different words to label women then it’s “not just women” who do things only women can do. Very impressive; even adorable; now stop talking and finish up your vegetables.

For Women Scotland (FWS) described the guidance as “misleading, deeply stupid and, quite frankly, offensive”.

Yes but offensive only to people who think women count as human, so, you know – no big deal.

Documents obtained from the university, which is in Glasgow, state that the guidance is “part of a series which outlines support for students at the University of Strathclyde, with a particular focus on promoting equality of opportunity and preventing discrimination irrespective of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, care experience or socio-economic background”.

Oh come on, that’s only 14 items, surely you can pile up more than that. Dance experience, political orientation, board games background, ability to read a map, age at birth, height, zither playing, biceps – keep going.

Its Student Menopause Guidance states: “It is not only women who go through menopause and related symptoms. Some trans men and women, who may experience actual or pseudo-menopause systems due to treatment or treatment interruptions, as well as non-binary people and intersex people can also be affected.”

In other words if you rename everything then you rename everything, so ha. Cute trick.

The independent MSP Ash Regan, who quit as an SNP minister in 2022 over its plans to make it easier for people to change their legally recognised gender, said: “The promotion of ideological claims that men can somehow experience menopause or menstruation has reduced serious health provision to a nonsense, including, shamefully, within academic institutions like the University of Strathclyde, where critical thought is assumed to be foundational.

“As we have increasingly come to expect, women and girls are being treated as secondary subsets of their own sex. Only women menstruate and experience systems of menopause. It is not only wildly inaccurate to suggest that men go through some sort of ‘pseudo menopause’ but deeply insulting to the hundreds of thousands of women, in Scotland, who experience debilitating menopause systems annually.

Ah well you see that is the point. Being deeply insulting to women is the hot new way to be More Progressive Than Thou.

The University of Strathclyde said: “The university is a socially progressive, people-oriented organisation, which values the diversity of its student and staff populations and seeks to create a culture where everyone is welcome and thrives within the institution.”

Everyone except women, that is. Of course. Why would women be included?

Fairy pronouns a step too far?

The Green Party is being sued by a former member who was suspended for mocking “fairy” pronouns.

Emma Bateman, who was co-chair of Green Party Women, was found to have breached diversity rules by making “clearly antagonistic” comments about “fae/faer” pronouns, a type of “neopronoun” inspired by the mythical world.

So there are “diversity rules” that require solemn respect for bullshit like “neopronouns” “inspired by” “the mythical world”? Have we reached peak stupid yet?

Ms Bateman, 58, is suing the party for discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 after being repeatedly suspended and eventually expelled for her gender-critical views.

Speaking to The Telegraph, she claimed to have been labelled an “anti-Semitic, eugenicist, fascist, far-Right bigot” and warned the party’s “dogmatic” support for trans rights threatened to ruin its reputation for “following the science” on climate change.

Which the party’s even more dogmatic support for the fae/faer citizens of the neopronoun world will hammer even more firmly into the ground.

Ms Bateman’s legal battle with the party stretches back years. She says she was first put on a “no-fault” suspension in 2021 after asking whether Kathryn Bristow, then the co-chairman of Green Party Women, was biologically female.

At the time, Bristow identified as a transgender woman and claimed to be female. They now go by “any” pronouns.

In other words he’s a man who makes a point of forcing other people to pay special attention to him.

Ms Bateman also warned that the party’s position on trans rights “makes a mockery” of its claims that it is following the science on climate change.

“The Green Party prides itself on being a party of science, and we want people to believe us on climate change, and that’s one of the first things that I got into this over because I thought no one is going to believe us on science if we can’t tell them what a man and a woman is, because it’s ridiculous,” she said.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous to say we can’t tell you whether someone is male or female, but we’re a science-based party. I mean, it makes a mockery of it, so that’s why I was really vehement about it.”

See also: Pharyngula, and Freethought Blogs in general. We all about science! And freethought! And if you refuse to say men can be women you are OF THE DEVIL.