A boyish prank?

An MSP has been accused of placing a secret camera in a toilet at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. Colin Smyth was suspended by Labour earlier this month on a separate charge of possessing indecent images of children.

Holyrood’s corporate body told staff in an email that Smyth’s building access had been revoked during an “ongoing criminal investigation”.

Maybe he can save himself by doing a lightning-fast “transition” to being a woman.

Ahead of Holyrood returning from recess next week, Holyrood chief executive David McGill contacted MSPs to say Smyth would be denied access to the building.

He wrote: “We recognise the nature of the criminal charges and the ongoing investigation may be upsetting for colleagues and cause distress. We would therefore like to remind everyone who works at Holyrood or in constituency offices of the confidential support services that are available.”

Taking a wild guess I suspect it’s more “upsetting” to female colleagues. As far as I know it’s generally women who get upskirted and stealth-filmed in toilets. It’s mostly women men like to degrade that way.

The BBC stalwart as ever.

If you Google the question you get a long string of titles about explaining why women rarely (read: never) commit mass shootings. But hey, that’s no reason not to lie about it!

Tom Bateman and Max Matza reported yesterday:

The attacker, who died at the scene of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, left a note, officials said, but they added that a definitive motive may never be known. “I won’t dignify the attacker’s words by repeating them, they are horrific and vile,” said Mr Thompson.

Westman’s name was legally changed from Robert to Robin in 2020, with the judge writing: “Minor child identifies as a female”. However, some federal officials and police have referred to Westman as a man when discussing the attack.

Chief O’Hara told reporters that news outlets should stop using the killer’s name, because “the purpose of the shooter’s actions was to obtain notoriety”.

He added that she, “like so many other mass shooters that we have seen in this country too often and around the world, had some deranged fascination with previous mass shootings”.

Subtle stuff. Some federal officials and police have referred to Westman as a man, but you’ll never catch the loyal BBC doing that! Oh hell no! A judge in 2020 said the guy “identifies as female” so female he is, by golly, and the BBC will do all it can to distort the news coverage and the statistics. Yes women do too so commit mass murders!! It’s sexist to say they don’t!

Chief O’Hara told reporters that news outlets should stop using the killer’s name, because “the purpose of the shooter’s actions was to obtain notoriety”. He added that she, “like so many other mass shooters that we have seen in this country too often and around the world, had some deranged fascination with previous mass shootings”.

Interesting that that “she” is outside the quotation marks. That could mean that the BBC is outright lying – that the chief did not say “she” but the BBC did.

In their news conference, officials confirmed that the attacker had previously attended the school. Her mother, Mary Grace Westman, previously worked at the school, and has so far not responded to law enforcement’s attempts to contact her.

…

Officials added that the guns used in the attack were all legally purchased, that the killer did not appear on any government watchlist, and that police are not aware of any mental health diagnoses or treatments that she was receiving.

Don’t you dare call that mass murderer “he”.

Well that’s ugly.

Trump has terminated former Vice President Kamala Harris’s Secret Service protection, according to a letter obtained by The New York Times. Mr. Trump signed a memorandum on Thursday that will end Ms. Harris’s protection as of Monday.

The Secret Service usually protects a former vice president for six months after they leave office, but President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had signed an order extending Ms. Harris’s protection for a year beyond that, according to two people familiar with the arrangement.

Ms. Harris’s aides had asked Mr. Biden’s team for the extended protection because of security concerns. Without the order from Mr. Biden, Ms. Harris’s protection would have ended in July.

The White House memorandum, signed by Mr. Trump, directed Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, “to discontinue any security-related procedures previously authorized by Executive Memorandum, beyond those required by law,” for Ms. Harris.

Psychopaths gonna psychopath.

Ms. Harris, as the first woman and the first Black person to serve as vice president, faced an elevated threat profile throughout her time in office, according to the people familiar with her security arrangement. 

Because, you know, lots of people hate women and lots of people hate Black people. Also, lots of Republicans love guns. Also also lots of people love Trump. Put them all together and –

So while the Good Law Project is helping Sophie Molly’s effort to bully Sarah Phillimore it’s good to be reminded of his finest hour.

He knows that’s not how our children are sposed to look.

I saw want to ask this question straight to his face, or at least to his social face via social media, but he seems to have had the wits to make that not easy to do.

“Disabled people’s spaces are designed for them. I don’t think it’s right, and nobody asked their permission to take their space.”

Yes. True. Spot-on. Nail on the head. Exactly right. And you know what other set of people that applies to?

WOMEN you absolute raving buffoon. Women’s spaces are designed for us. Nobody asked our permission to take our space. We don’t think it’s right.

DO YOU SEE IT NOW?

I genuinely cannot understand how he can say that and not see what it is he’s admitting. He’s a judge after all; they have to pay attention to the words and what they mean and what follows from them.

The chaotic dismantling continues.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dissolved into further turmoil on Thursday when guards escorted three top officials [out of] the agency’s Atlanta headquarters during the continuing standoff with the Trump administration over whether the C.D.C. director would keep her job.

The White House said late Wednesday that Dr. Monarez, an infectious disease researcher who was sworn in less than a month ago, had been dismissed. But her lawyers, who said she had chosen “protecting the public over serving a political agenda,” insisted that she remained C.D.C. director until President Trump fired her personally.

The dispute now appears to be in the hands of Mr. Trump, who has not weighed in publicly. A spokesman for the White House did not respond to an inquiry about whether the president would fire Dr. Monarez.

So he’s a cat playing with a mouse. Cute.

The three officials who were ushered out the door by security on Thursday had resigned en masse. C.D.C. employees had planned to gather at agency headquarters in Atlanta at 2:45 p.m. for a “clap-out” send-off to honor them, but they were rushed out before it could happen.

The officials had decades of government experience and all influenced vaccine policy. Dr. Debra Houry, the C.D.C.’s chief medical officer, coordinated the various arms of the agency. Dr. Demetre Daskalakis ran the center that oversees respiratory illnesses and issues vaccine recommendations. Dr. Daniel Jernigan supervised the center that oversees emerging diseases and vaccine safety.

A fourth official, Dr. Jennifer Layden, who resigned a day earlier, led the office of public health data.

So it’s only respiratory illnesses and vaccine recommendations and emerging diseases and vaccine safety and public health data. So that’s fine. We don’t need any of that stuff.

Jumping to the end –

Two experts in vaccine policy left the agency in June, saying they feared for the lives of Americans if Mr. Kennedy were to continue unchecked.

Dr. Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos oversaw the Covid vaccine working group before she resigned in June. “It’s heartbreaking to witness such important, nuanced work being led by someone who has shown publicly at the A.C.I.P. meeting that he not only doesn’t understand the data, but is also dedicated to baseless conspiracy theories,” she said about Dr. Levi on Thursday.

He doesn’t understand the data because he has zero education or qualification in the field. None. He’s a random opinionated ignoramus who should not have any job that requires medical expertise, let alone this one.

The suspense continues.

Apparently to refer to Mr XX’s inverted penis as a ‘wound’ is sufficiently morally culpable to mean I have no article 10 protection.

I repeat: inverting your penis to line a surgically created cavity is not a ‘vagina’. It is a wound that will require persistent dilation so it does not close up. This is a fact. It is not harassment nor morally culpable to acknowledge this fact.

I will now forward this complaint to @SpeechUnion and await the BSB decision. Anything other than a dismissal will be challenged by me.

82 paragraphs is a lot of paragraphs.

The war is on.

The White House on Wednesday fired Susan Monarez as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after she refused to resign amid pressure to change vaccine policy, which sparked the resignation of other senior CDC officials and a showdown over whether she could be removed.

Hours after the Department of Health and Human Services announced early Wednesday evening that Monarez was no longer the director, her lawyers responded with a fiery statement saying she had not resigned or been fired. They accused HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of “weaponizing public health for political gain” and “putting millions of American lives at risk” by purging health officials from government.

Junior Robert Kennedy is evil.

“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda,” the lawyers, Mark S. Zaid and Abbe Lowell, wrote in a statement. “For that reason, she has been targeted.”

Soon after their statement, the White House formally fired Monarez.

Because Trump wants cranks and lunatics and ass-kissers in charge of public health instead of people who have expertise in public health.

Since taking office, Kennedy has upended the government’s approach to vaccination, including firing every member of an advisory committee that recommends vaccines, terminating research funding for mRNA vaccines and reviving a task force to scrutinize the childhood immunization schedule.

Because epidemics are so much more fun than no epidemics.

The Telegraph:

The BBC has defended its use of female pronouns to describe a transgender killer who stabbed their [HIS] partner to death with a samurai sword.

Way to undermine what you just said, Telegraph! Y U afraid to say “his”???

Joanna Rowland-Stuart, who was born male and was known as John Stuart, attacked Andrew Rowland-Stuart at their Brighton home in 2024, in what a jury found was an unlawful killing.

The couple had married in a civil partnership but reporting on the court hearing earlier this year, BBC News headlined one story “Wife killed husband with samurai sword” and began: “A woman killed her husband…”.

The BBC used the pronouns “she” and “her” throughout its coverage.

There were complaints; the Beeb brushed them off.

In a written response, the broadcaster’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) said: “The BBC recognises the debate around sex and gender identity involves deeply held and sometimes conflicting views. The BBC’s approach, therefore, is to use terminology which is clear and appropriate to the context.”

EXCUSE me???

What the hell is “clear” about calling a violent murderous man “she”?

And how is it appropriate?

Some complainants said that the BBC’s choice of language was evidence of its “clear deference to gender identity ideology”. However, it said: “Respecting an individual’s chosen gender identity does not mean the BBC is endorsing or supporting any side of the debate around transgender rights.”

Yes it does. It can’t help doing that. What sex we are is not something we can choose, so to burble about chosen gender idenniny is meaningless.

What both the BBC and the Telegraph overlook here is the fact that pretending women commit these crimes is bad for women and therefore unfair to women. This isn’t some idle nitpick, it’s reporting about violent murder being committed by women when that is a lie.

I’m wearing out the italics this morning. Sorry. This stuff makes me angry.

Bad Ignorant Kennedy continues to sabotage US health care.

Susan Monarez, the newly installed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was ousted Wednesday, weeks after she was confirmed to lead the public health agency, according to multiple administration officials familiar with the matter.

Monarez was pressed for days by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., administration lawyers and other officials over whether she would support rescinding certain approvals for coronavirus vaccines, according to two people with knowledge of those conversations. Kennedy and other officials questioned Monarez Monday on whether she was aligned with the administration’s efforts to change vaccine policy, the people said.

Efforts to sabotage vaccine policy.

Monarez, who was a longtime federal government scientist before President Donald Trump nominated her to lead the CDC, declined to commit to support changing coronavirus vaccine policy without consulting her advisers, two people said. That prompted Kennedy to urge her to resign for “not supporting President Trump’s agenda,” one of the people said.

Monarez declined to immediately resign and enlisted Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), chairman of the Senate’s health committee who cast a pivotal vote for Kennedy’s confirmation after securing commitments to protect vaccines, said three people with knowledge of those conversations. Cassidy privately pushed back on Kennedy’s demands, the people said, further angering Kennedy, who lambasted Monarez for involving the senator.

Hey, Junior, allow me to lambaste you for having the arrogance and conceit to think you know more about medical issues than people with actual education in the subject. You are neither a scientist nor a doctor so why do you think you know better?

Public health advocates had hoped Monarez, a longtime federal government scientist, would be a check on Kennedy, the founder of an anti-vaccine organization who they feared would limit access to vaccines in his post as the nation’s top health official. 

It’s great that we have to seek out people who might be a check on the bozo officially in charge of public health. It’s great that he was appointed despite being a complete amateur and an obstinate ignorant fool.

A new player arrives on the scene.

Note: XXX and XX are the same person; the XXX was a typo.

The first thing that strikes me about this remarkable overture is the casual rudeness of “Hi Sarah” as if they were old buddies instead of complete strangers and as if the overture were a friendly one. “Hi Sarah, we’ve sent a bunch of sinister lies about you to the bar standards board, I have some questions, many thanks, Alice” – SERIOUSLY? What kind of bazoo sends a rude hostile sinister message of that kind and starts with “Hi Sarah” and ends with “Many thanks, Alice”???? It’s as stupid as it is offensive and vice versa.

The content of the message is of course grotesque and disgusting.

Trump says he has power without limit.

In a televised cabinet meeting that lasted more than three hours, Mr. Trump attacked Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat who has pushed back against a threat by the president to deploy troops in Chicago in an expansion of the crackdown on crime he is conducting in Washington.

“You have a guy in Illinois, the governor of Illinois, saying that crime has been much better in Chicago recently and Trump is a dictator,” Mr. Trump said. “Most people are saying, ‘If you call him a dictator, if he stops crime, he can be whatever he wants’ — I am not a dictator, by the way.”

Most people are not saying that. He is himself a criminal, by the way.

About half an hour later, Mr. Trump said that he “would have much more respect for Pritzker” if the governor approved a National Guard deployment in his state.

“Not that I don’t have — I would — the right to do anything I want to do,” Mr. Trump said. “I’m the president of the United States. If I think our country is in danger — and it is in danger in these cities — I can do it.”

He probably can in the sense of getting away with it, but he can’t do it in the sense of legally or constitutionally. He is not officially a dictator. He may be de facto a dictator, but legally he’s not. Yet.

It is unclear whether Mr. Trump will send the Guard into Chicago, where he may have limited ability to deploy the show of force as he did in Washington, a federal district where the president controls the local National Guard. In Los Angeles, when he deployed the Guard in June to quell protests against his immigration crackdown, he invoked an obscure statute letting presidents call the Guard into federal service during a rebellion against the authority of the federal government.

But in recent days he has spoken of deploying the Guard in other cities led by Democrats, including Chicago, Baltimore, San Francisco and New York. And his remark on Tuesday is his latest assertion of his maximalist view of presidential power. During his re-election campaign last year, Mr. Trump said that he wouldn’t be a dictator “except for Day 1.”

Because on Day 1 he would issue a secret order that says nothing he does is illegal so he can do whatever he wants without being a dictator.

Trump still shit-stirring in Greenland.

Denmark’s foreign minister had the top U.S. diplomat in the country summoned for talks after the main national broadcaster reported Wednesday that at least three people with connections to President Donald Trump have been carrying out covert influence operations in Greenland.

Trump has repeatedly said he seeks U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, a vast, semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. He has not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island.

You can’t just “seek jurisdiction” over other countries as if it were normal.

Denmark, a NATO ally of the U.S., and Greenland have said the island is not for sale and condemned reports of the U.S. gathering intelligence there.

Danish public broadcaster DR reported Wednesday that government and security sources which it didn’t name, as well as unidentified sources in Greenland and the U.S., believe that at least three Americans with connections to Trump have been carrying out covert influence operations in the territory.

One of those people allegedly compiled a list of U.S.-friendly Greenlanders, collected names of people opposed to Trump and got locals to point out cases that could be used to cast Denmark in a bad light in American media. Two others have tried to nurture contacts with politicians, businesspeople and locals, according to the report.

Well the good news is these are Trump people, so their efforts are probably inept. The bad news is that Trump’s ineptitude hasn’t hindered his war on all of us for a single second.

“We are aware that foreign actors continue to show an interest in Greenland and its position in the Kingdom of Denmark,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said in a statement emailed by his ministry. “It is therefore not surprising if we experience outside attempts to influence the future of the Kingdom in the time ahead.”

“Any attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of the Kingdom will of course be unacceptable,” Løkke Rasmussen said. “In that light, I have asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to summon the U.S. chargé d’affaires for a meeting at the Ministry.”

Cooperation between the governments of Denmark and Greenland “is close and based on mutual trust,” he added.

Between the governments of Denmark and the United States, not so much.

Originally a comment by Artymorty on Who actually.

Trans activists learned early on that if you call yourself something enough times, people will start to believe it. “Fake it ’til you make it” has become the central tenet of the movement.

Fake that they’re women enough, people will eventually capitulate.

Fake being a legal clinic long enough, lazy journalists will start treating it like an authoritative source.

Fake academics have spun a citation-laundering ring, endlessly citing one another in a closed loop. “Gender identity” is the Ivies’ yellowcake uranium: a complete fiction, yet deadly enough to justify their attacks.

Even the grand, pompously titled “World Professional Association for Transgender Health” is just a rebranding of a once-puny little outfit formerly called something like the Harry Benjamin Association — a successful rebranding, given that journalists now revere it like it’s the Trans W.H.O.

They’re building a parallel world out of make-believe.

It’s the journalists I’m mad at, though. And really, the editors above them. Trans la-la land exists entirely — entirely — on the media’s approval. Its authority survives only because it’s propped up by those we trust to separate fact from fiction.

The three people on Earth most responsible for the trans mania are David Remnick, Kath Viner, and Dean Baquet — Editor of the New Yorker, Editor-In-Chief of The Guardian, and former Executive Editor of the New York Times, respectively.

Oh come on, Beeb.

The BBC has defended its use of female pronouns to describe a transgender killer who stabbed their partner to death with a samurai sword.

Joanna Rowland-Stuart, who was born male and was known as John Stuart, attacked Andrew Rowland-Stuart at their Brighton home in 2024, in what a jury found was an unlawful killing. The couple had married in a civil partnership but reporting on the court hearing earlier this year, BBC News headlined one story “Wife killed husband with samurai sword” and began: “A woman killed her husband…”.

The BBC used the pronouns “she” and “her” throughout its coverage.

A number of people contacted the BBC to complain. One wrote: “Using female pronouns to refer to a man is not accurate.”

And that’s all the more true when the female pronouns are in reporting on a very violent, physical murder of a kind a woman would be extremely unlikely to undertake.

In a written response, the broadcaster’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) said: “The BBC recognises the debate around sex and gender identity involves deeply held and sometimes conflicting views. The BBC’s approach, therefore, is to use terminology which is clear and appropriate to the context.”

HOW IS THE TERMINOLOGY CLEAR????

Calling a man a woman is not clear; calling a man who chops up his spouse with a sword a woman is not clear; calling a man who chops up his spouse with a sword a woman is in no way APPROPRIATE TO THE CONTEXT.

Uh oh, trouble in paradise. Magaworld is seriously pissed off at Trump.

President Donald Trump seemingly caught his loyal conservative base off-guard and sparked backlash by saying he would allow 600,000 Chinese students into American universities.

That would be a departure for the Trump administration after it added new vetting for student visas, moved to block foreign enrollment at Harvard and expanded the grounds for terminating international students’ ability to study in the United States.

That is, after Trump pitched fit after fit after fit about immigration and foreigners and communists and our precious bodily fluids.

Trump’s announcement Monday adds to the confusion about the administration’s restrictive visa policies and its approach to China as the superpowers tussle over trade and intensifying tech competition. It also marks another divide with figures in Trump’s “Make America Great Again” base, who tout an “America First” agenda and had contested the U.S. inserting itself in the recent Israel-Iran war.

It will turn out to be a simple mistake. He meant to say Texan students and somehow it came out Chinese. Or somebody else did it. Somebody falsified the record.

During a meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump was asked by reporters if he would meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“President Xi would like me to come to China. It’s a very important relationship. As you know, we are taking a lot of money in from China because of the tariffs and different things,” he said. “I hear so many stories about ‘We are not going to allow their students,’ but we are going to allow their students to come in. We are going to allow it. It’s very important — 600,000 students.”

Trump doubled down at a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, sitting next to Rubio, where he said he was “honored” to have Chinese students in the U.S. and said they help colleges stay afloat.

“I told this to President Xi that we’re honored to have their students here,” Trump said. “Now, with that, we check and we’re careful, we see who is there.”

The Chinese Foreign Ministry also said that Trump told Xi in a June phone call that “the U.S. loves to have Chinese students coming to study in America.”

It was a shift after the State Department announced in late May that it would “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections with the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.”

Why yes, that is a shift, which is to say it’s the opposite of what he’s been saying for the past six months.

After decades of growth, the number of Chinese students in the U.S. peaked at 372,532 in the 2019-2020 academic year, just as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. The number slipped to 289,526 in 2022 and further dipped to 277,398 in 2023.

In the past year, several U.S. universities, including the University of Michigan, have ended their joint partnerships with Chinese universities after Republicans raised concerns that U.S. dollars have contributed to China’s tech advancement and military modernization.

And now he goes and pulls the rug out from under them. He is such a prankster.

For some reason the name Ponzi keeps drifting through my brain. Like when re-reading the Guardian piece from yesterday about Victoria McCloud.

McCloud, who is supported by Trans Legal Clinic and W-Legal, said the application was brought under articles 6, 8 and 14 of the European convention on human rights, “essentially the rights to respect for who I am, my family, my human existence, my right to a fair trial in matters determining my own freedoms and obligations without discrimination.”

See, the reason that rings the Ponzi bell is because I’ve just been reading about how “Trans Legal Clinic” is…an empty shell. It’s another “Lemkin Institute”. When people are citing empty title pages as backup you want to take a close look at their claimed expertise.

I take it that the thing about the incline on which they work getting more steep and the thing about not having the resources indicates that they don’t actually do anything, aka they are just a name. I could be wrong! But that “Oh gosh we just don’t have the _______ to do this thing we say we do right now, so sorry, we’ll get back to you as soon as um er enough of you have sent us enough donations” does rather look like [whispers] Ponziness.

Judge to Trump: No.

A federal judge on Tuesday threw out an aggressive, unusual lawsuit the Trump administration brought earlier this year against all 15 federal judges in Maryland, rejecting a bid by the Justice Department to limit court power in fast-moving immigration cases.

The opinion on Tuesday framed the lawsuit as a major constitutional standoff, with Judge Thomas Cullen writing the Justice Department couldn’t pursue a “constitutional free-for-all.”

The ruling from Cullen, who was appointed to the bench by President Donald Trump during his first term and brought in from another district to handle the case in Maryland, said the government lacked the legal right — known as standing — to bring the challenge and that the judges are immune from such suits brought by the executive branch.

“Any fair reading of the legal authorities cited by Defendants leads to the ineluctable conclusion that this court has no alternative but to dismiss. To hold otherwise would run counter to overwhelming precedent, depart from longstanding constitutional tradition, and offend the rule of law,” Cullen wrote in the 39-page decision.

Of course all those are exactly what Trump wants to do.

“Dismissal of the Executive’s suit is appropriate because it has not pointed to a cause of action that permits this court to entertain a lawsuit between two coordinate branches of government, and this court will not be the first to create one,” he wrote.

…

In finishing his opinion, Cullen underscored the unusual nature of the lawsuit, which came as the Trump administration faced a slew of immigration-related cases amid its effort to deport an unprecedented number of undocumented immigrants from Maryland and elsewhere.

“Much as the Executive fights the characterization, a lawsuit by the executive branch of government against the judicial branch for the exercise of judicial power is not ordinary,” he wrote. “Whatever the merits of its grievance with the judges of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, the Executive must find a proper way to raise those concerns.”

Judicial rulings can be very enjoyable to read.

Yosemite is not thriving.

Home to more than 400 species of animals, 1,500 species of plants, and roughly 4 million annual visitors, the park has stood, since President Abraham Lincoln first preserved it, as a radical idea: that some landscapes are too magnificent to belong to private individuals, and instead should be given to the nation.

Today, this legacy is at risk. Over the past six months, permanent staff at the National Park Service (NPS)—which is the agency that governs the park—have been cut by 24 percent. It’s the result of layoffs, buyouts, and a hiring freeze from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). This year, of the 8,000 seasonal positions allotted by President Donald Trump’s budget, barely 4,500 were filled by July. At the same time, the government has moved aggressively to open more public land to mining, logging, and energy extraction.

…

Speak to workers, and the prognosis is alarming. In Yosemite, there is growing unease that a diminished ranger corps will struggle to manage not just the impact on wildlife, but on people. The park averages around 200 search and rescue operations per year, and many warn these lifesaving missions will soon be dangerously understaffed, and therefore slower and less effective. While emergency medical workers are technically exempt from the Trump administration’s funding cuts, staff from other divisions are generally brought in to support large emergencies—so falling head counts elsewhere will have spillover effects.

Meanwhile, Doug Burgum, the Trump-appointed Secretary of the Interior who oversees the National Park Service, seems determined to bury his head in the sand. Earlier this year, Yosemite chose not to open its campground for early reservations; with too few staff, park management decided to wait and see how many people it could welcome. Secretary Burgum had other ideas. He issued a directive requiring parks to remain fully open, placing enormous strain on a skeletal workforce.

While many rangers voice concerns about basic safety, Burgum seems focused on their cultural heritage. In May, he issued a directive requiring all 433 NPS-managed sites to post signs encouraging visitors to report any park information that tells a “negative story about the site or its history.” The impact has already been felt. At Muir Woods, in northern California, signs explaining the conservation history of the park’s redwoods—and the role played by Native Americans—were recently taken down.

Interesting. So conservation is negative? So I guess it follows that destruction is positive? And positive means good? So ideally developers should be building expensive condos all over the national parks?