Who gets to define an emergency? Why, Donald Trump, of course. No one understands emergencies the way Donald Trump understands emergencies.

The Trump administration blamed “activist judges” on Thursday for blocking Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs as it looks to overturn a major legal blow to the president’s signature economic policy.

On Wednesday a US trade court ruled Trump’s tariffs regime was illegal, in a dramatic twist that could block the US president’s controversial global trade policy.

The ruling by a three-judge panel at the New York-based court of international trade came after several lawsuits argued Trump had exceeded his authority, leaving US trade policy dependent on the president’s whims and unleashing economic chaos around the world.

Tariffs typically need to be approved by Congress but Trump has so far bypassed that requirement by claiming that the country’s trade deficits amount to a national emergency. This had left the US president able to apply sweeping tariffs to most countries last month, in a shock move that sent markets reeling.

There you go. It’s his job to decide when there’s a national emergency. The rest of us, aka the peasantry, know nothing about it.

The court ruling immediately invalidates all of the tariff orders that were issued through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a law meant to address “unusual and extraordinary” threats during a national emergency. The judges said Trump must issue new orders reflecting the permanent injunction within 10 days.

However, the Trump administration has already appealed against the ruling and asked for a pause because it “jeopardizes ongoing negotiations with dozens of countries”. White House officials have hit out at fumed about the court’s authority. “It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency,” Kush Desai, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement to Reuters.

…

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, hit out at raged about the ruling in a social media post claiming “the judicial coup is out of control”.

Wrong coup, Deputy.

Some men refuse to take no for an answer.

Imane Khelif is preparing to return to competitive women’s boxing in Eindhoven next month, threatening another major international controversy in a sport still reeling from the Algerian’s gold medal at the Paris Olympics.

Promoting this year’s Eindhoven Box Cup, Dutch organisers have released a poster declaring: “Proud that Imane Khelif is there again to defend her title.”

Don’t be. Enabling a man to cheat his way into a women’s match is not something to be proud of. And it’s his title he’s “defending” aka stealing.

While Khelif has made dramatic legal threats against Elon Musk and JK Rowling, accusing them of “cyberbullying” for their comments on the gender row, the welterweight has still not agreed to a cheek swab test that could resolve the issue beyond doubt.

Huh. You’d think he’d jump at the chance to do a cheek swab test. Unless, of course, he knows he would flunk it.

The Telegraph informs us:

Kate Nash has taken an apparent swipe at JK Rowling in a new pro-trans single. Germ, a spoken word track, consists of a repeated declaration that an unnamed “girl” is “exclusionary, regressive, misogynist” for raising concerns about transgender issues.

Nash has said it is transphobic to exclude trans women from female-only lavatories and sports, and declared in the track that she had “never felt threatened by a trans person”.

And as we all know, if one person has never felt threatened by X, that is irrefutable proof that X is safe for everyone on the planet. There’s a bear racing toward you looking hungry, but don’t worry, I don’t feel threatened by that bear, therefore it won’t eat you.

Aw look at Jolyon telling us how to feminist.

A classic from The Boys’ Book of Feminism.

Trump fires all the historians.

An advisory committee of diverse historians helps ensure that the record of America’s history — especially classified and covert actions — remains unbiased, transparent and thorough.

President Donald Trump just fired all of the members of the committee.

These advisers help oversee the exhaustive publication series called the Foreign Relations of the United States — or the FRUS, as insiders call it — and lawmakers rely on it daily. It is available to the public in major libraries and online.

The volume began in 1861, when Congress demanded a full account of Lincoln’s foreign policy during the Civil War. More than 450 volumes have been printed since.

Later accusations that the documentation was partisan or incomplete were addressed with a congressional statute requiring the setup of an advisory committee of diverse historians.

Without proper oversight, “a great many of the important facts of recent history still remain secret long after security requirements have expired,” Sen. Margaret Chase Smith (R-Maine) wrote in a June 1953 editorial in the Rutland Daily Herald, pointing to huge gaps in the historical records from the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration during the early 1930s.

“Instead, the American people have had only the charges and counter-charges of political campaigns on which to base their impressions,” Smith said. She said she was worried that the historical narrative will “rely on the politically-colored partisan accounts of some of the participants.”

Sarah B. Snyder, a history professor at American University who specializes in the Cold War and was one of the historians fired by Trump, says the FRUS is “important for historical scholarship.”

“But it’s also important for the reputation of the United States in the world, to be seen as forthright about our country’s history,” she said after receiving the one-line message the other committee members received in April:

“On behalf of President Donald Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position on the Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” said one of the termination emails obtained by The Washington Post and sent on April 30 by Cate Dillon, the White House liaison to the State Department.

It’s destruction for the sake of destruction.

Golly. I just cast my tiny vote in this and thus got to see the vote count, which is 96% Yes.

VOTE: Should biological male athletes be banned from competing in women’s sports?

See also: lions and tigers should be banned from kindergartens.

When it becomes too obvious that climate change is real, the thing to do is say we can’t do anything about it.

The world is facing a new form of climate denial – not the dismissal of climate science, but a concerted attack on the idea that the economy can be reorganised to fight the crisis, the president of global climate talks has warned.

André Corrêa do Lago, the veteran Brazilian diplomat who will direct this year’s UN summit, Cop30, believes his biggest job will be to counter the attempt from some vested interests to prevent climate policies aimed at shifting the global economy to a low-carbon footing.

Sort of the way you want to prevent firefighters from fighting the fire.

As the climate crisis has gathered pace, temperatures have risen and the effects of extreme weather have become more obvious, scientists have been able to draw ever more clearly the links between greenhouse gas emissions and our impacts on the planet. So the argument has shifted, Corrêa do Lago believes, from undermining or misrepresenting the science to attempts to counter climate policy.

“It is not possible to have [scientific] denialism at this stage, after everything that has happened in recent years. So there is a migration from scientific denial to a denial that economic measures against climate change can be good for the economy and for people.”

The rise of populist politicians around the world has fuelled a backlash against climate policy, most clearly seen in the presidency of Donald Trump in the US, where he has set about cancelling policies intended to boost renewable energy and cut greenhouse gases, and dismantling all forms of government-sponsored climate-related institutions, including scientific research labs.

It’s not his problem, it’s his grandchildren’s problem, so why should he care?

Bad Kennedy informs us that all the scientific journals are “corrupt” and it’s only the fake ones that are any good, so he’ll be the all-fake boss of Medicare and the rest of it.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Tuesday that he may bar government scientists from publishing in the world’s leading medical journals, instead proposing the creation of “in-house” publications by his agency —the latest in the Trump administration’s attacks on scientific institutions.

“We’re probably going to stop publishing in the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and those other journals because they’re all corrupt,” Kennedy said during an appearance on the “Ultimate Human” podcast. He also described the journals as being under the control of pharmaceutical companies.

The three journals he named, all established in the 1800s, publish original, peer-reviewed research and play a central role in disseminating medical findings worldwide. JAMA, published by the American Medical Association, and the Lancet each say they receive more than 30 million annual visits to their sites, while the New England Journal of Medicine says it is read in print and online by more than 1 million people each week.

Well exactly, that why we have to ignore them and instead turn to Bad Kennedy’s chosen quacks.

The podcast episode was released soon after Kennedy bypassed the CDC and declared that his department would stop recommending the coronavirus vaccine for healthy pregnant women and children.

Last week, the administration released what it called a “MAHA report” that challenged mainstream medical consensus on issues such as vaccines. Medical experts said some of the report’s suggestions stretched the limits of science, The Washington Post reported, while several sections of the report offered misleading representations of findings in scientific papers.

Science-based medicine is too elitist, is that it? Good medicine is the medicine endorsed by rich brainless monsters like Kennedy and his bloated puppet-master.

Men in women’s toilets: yes or no?

Murdo Fraser sees lawsuits in the future.

The announcement last week from the author JK Rowling that she has established a women’s fund to support legal cases for women who wish to protect their sex-based rights should be causing sleepless nights for Scottish Government ministers, and for the finance directors of public bodies such as local authorities and NHS boards.

All these organisations are now at risk of litigation which could see extensive payouts of taxpayers’ cash to women whose rights have been denied. Rowling’s generosity is entirely in character with her robust stance in speaking up for women who have suffered discrimination because of their gender-critical views.

This latest initiative will mean that those, like NHS Fife nurse Sandie Peggie, who have lost out simply because they refused to quietly share spaces with biological men, will now be able to access funds to help them stand up to authorities who have endless sums of taxpayers’ money to defend legal cases.

All this just to get back to the normal state of things where men didn’t go into women’s toilets unless they felt like risking arrest.

One body which moved quickly, and appropriately, to ensure that the law was complied with was the Scottish Parliament itself. Earlier this month the Presiding Officer, Alison Johnstone MSP, set out an interim position in response to the court ruling, making it clear that toilets designated as male or female only are to be interpreted as meaning biological sex, whilst ensuring that there will be gender-neutral facilities available to everyone, including members of the trans community.

Why call them “members of the trans community”? Why not just “trans people”? Why do they get that extra bit of cuddling? He didn’t say “members of the male community” or “members of the female community” so why the trans one? Why do people keep on giving them extra hugs of this kind?

This ruling has now been challenged by some 17 MSPs from the SNP, Green, Liberal Democrat and Labour parties (no Scottish Conservatives were daft enough to sign up) in an open letter expressing “deep concern” about the decision, which they claim risks exposing trans and non-binary individuals to humiliation, harassment or worse.

What about the risks of exposing women to humiliation, harassment or worse? Why is that risk totally acceptable while the putative risk to men in skirts is not? Why are there still two sets of laws and norms and concerns, one for those tiresome people known as women and the other for members of the communniny communniny?

The letter has been written on the basis of legal advice from the ironically titled Good Law Project, headed up by the one-time fox-killer Jolyon Maugham KC, currently involved in an online spat with Rowling which might well end up with him being on the wrong end of a writ for defamation.

Far better lawyers than either I or the Good Law Project have been clear that the EHRC’s interim guidance accurately interprets the Supreme Court judgment, and it is disappointing to see this group of MSPs relying upon such poor-quality legal advice.

I would choose a stronger word than “disappointing.”

NPR is suing.

National Public Radio on Tuesday sued President Donald Trump over his executive order to cease all federal funding for the nonprofit broadcaster.

Trump’s May 1 order violates the First Amendment’s protections of speech and the press and steps on Congress’ authority, NPR and three other public radio stations wrote in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C.

The order “also threatens the existence of a public radio system that millions of Americans across the country rely on for vital news and information,” according to the legal complaint against Trump and a handful of top officials and federal agencies.

NPR and three of its member stations — Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and KSUT Public Radio — want Trump’s order permanently blocked and declared unconstitutional.

It “expressly aims to punish and control Plaintiffs’ news coverage and other speech the Administration deems ‘biased,'” attorneys for the news outlets wrote. “It cannot stand.”

Unless the whole system is already so hamstrung by Trump that he can do whatever he wants no matter how unconstitutional it is.

It’s odd to see a human rights lawyer admitting that it didn’t occur to him to think about the trans issue from the point of view of a woman.

I am a human rights lawyer and professor at King’s College London. Until 2018, I supported all the demands of the transgender-rights movement. But since then, I have changed my mind.

Why? Because I finally understood that some demands conflict with the rights of women and are therefore unreasonable.

That’s quite the admission – that it took him a long time to realize that some trans demands conflict with women’s rights. It’s not as if we’re a tiny niche demographic, like Shaker biracial left-handed Indigenous lesbians or something. Women are quite noticeable in the population, and yet still men forget to look at things from our point of view.

I assumed that whatever the transgender community demanded must be reasonable.

They knew what they needed. It did not occur to me, as a man, to put myself in the shoes of a woman, encountering a “legal woman” with male genitals in a women-only space.

That’s so odd. It’s good that he admits it, but it remains very odd. Why are we so invisible? How do even human rights lawyers forget to take our views into account?

All the same bad stuff only much worse this time.

In President Trump’s first term, the Pentagon opposed his desire for a military parade in Washington, wanting to keep the armed forces out of politics.

But in Mr. Trump’s second term, that guardrail has vanished. There will be a parade this year, and on the president’s 79th birthday, no less.

The current plan involves a tremendous scene in the center of Washington: 28 M1A1 Abrams tanks (at 70 tons each for the heaviest in service); 28 Stryker armored personnel carriers; more than 100 other vehicles; a World War II-era B-25 bomber; 6,700 soldiers; 50 helicopters; 34 horses; two mules; and a dog.

Yay! The dictator gets to parade the toys this time! There’s nothing like a Stalinist military display to make us all feel safe.

The Army estimates the cost at $25 million to $45 million. But it could be higher because the Army has promised to fix any city streets that the parade damages, plus the cost of cleanup and police are not yet part of the estimate. While $45 million is a tiny fraction of Mr. Trump’s proposed Pentagon budget of $1.01 trillion for fiscal year 2026, it comes as the administration seeks to slash funding for education, health and public assistance.

Not to mention its shutting down of USAID.

Imagine being an academic and seeing your union shout this:

We know that by “trans rights” they mean not the human rights that everyone has but special invented luxury rights that cancel the rights of other people, especially women. If men who call themselves women have the “right” to go everywhere women can go, then women don’t have some rights we’ve depended on for a long time. If men who call themselves women have the “right” to compete against women in sports then women lose the right to compete against women. If men who call themselves women have the “right” to win prizes for women, then women won’t win prizes any more. And so on. Men can’t idennify themselves into the female category without taking things away from women. Men with a shred of decency wouldn’t want to do that, but trans “activism” attracts men who lack that tiny shred.

Also, academics are supposed to be reasonably clever and thoughtful. Trans ideology is childish nonsense. Make it make sense.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on From the Solfatara crater.

Back in 1980, during my last year of high school, I went on a trip with a number of classmates to the eastern Mediterranean organized and chaperoned by one of our teachers. One of the last stops on the trip was Naples. The original plan was to go to Pompeii, but having arrived on a Monday, the site was closed. Plan B took us to Solfatara, which smelled of rotten eggs and featured many pools of boiling mud. The paths we walked along were roped to keep us from straying off into areas where the thin crust of rock might not have supported our weight, with more boiling mud awaiting the foolish and unwary.

“Super” and “volcano” are not two words you want to see put together. They are a phenomenon best observed from a great distance (like on a planet other than the one you are currently standing on), or from a great time after the fact, (say, a millennium other than the one in which you are currently alive). Here’s why:

The term “supervolcano” implies a volcanic center that has had an eruption of magnitude 8 on the Volcano Explosivity Index (VEI), meaning the measured deposits for that eruption is greater than 1,000 cubic kilometers (240 cubic miles).

SOURCE: US Geological Survey https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/yellowstone/questions-about-supervolcanoes

Here’s a scary graphic: https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/comparison-eruption-sizes-using-volume-magma-erupted

A Google search tells me that the last eruption of the “supervolcano” class was 27,000 years ago, in what is now New Zealand. This is more than 25,000 years before humans arrived in New Zealand, more than 22,000 years before humans wrote, 20,000 years before there were cities to evacuate, and more than 10,00 years before there were crops to fail. Something like this is completely unprecedented in the experience of human civilizations. Our closest parallels are the estimated effects of a “nuclear winter.”

A supervolcano erupting in Solfatara would mean the end of Naples (snd much of Italy along with it), and millions of immediate refugees (or victims, depending on the amount of lead time the eruption deigns to provide). Such an eruption would make the one that buried Pompeii and Herculaneum look like a Christmas cracker. This would be Bad.

It would be ironic if, instead of being laid low by the combined might of the cascading, multiple disasters we’re currently hurtling towards, human civilization were to crippled or snuffed out by something like this, something we could not have possibly caused, or prevented. It wouldn’t be a frog in a pot of water being brought gradually to a boil, but a frog immolated in a pyroclastic cloud. Not karma, or retribution, but plain, dumb luck.

As destructive as this would be to life as a whole, I think it’s possible that this would, in the longish run, be less disruptive biologically than human induced global warming is likely to be. A supervolcano knocking out civilization before it destroys more than it already has (and more than it probably will) might be “better” for the biosphere than letting us continue on our current path. It might just forestall the continuance of the Anthropocene.* Think of it as The Great Reset, 2.0.

*The motion to officially rename our current geological Epoch the Anthropocene was defeated in 2024 at a vote of the International Union of Geological Sciences, but that doesn’t change the scope or degree of human impact on Earth systems. Unless we change our ways, it might not be too long (geologically speaking) before there is no International Union of Anything left to change this decision, assuming the Phlegraean Fields supervolcano doesn’t beat us to the punch.

Why do I find it hilariously/depressingly predictable that the story linked to in the OP contains (at least when I opened it) a further link to the following clickbait:

Woman shares easy IKEA Hack which turns two product into a chic side table

Do I laugh? Cry? Both? Neither? Who knows, this link could end up being vitally important information to future archaeologists as they try to reconstruct livingroom furnishings when, thousands of years from now, they excavate Naples.

The Guardian tells us women just don’t matter at all.

A parliamentary debate last week had a series of backbenchers questioning how the ruling that “woman” in the Equality Act refers only to a biological woman, and the subsequent advice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) that in the light of this, transgender people should not be allowed to use toilets of the gender they live as, squares with the rights of trans constituents.

What rights? There is no such thing as a “right” to use the toilets of the sex you are not. Toilets are divided by sex for reasons of safety. Who is more in need of safety in toilets, men or women? Obviously women; women don’t prey on men in toilets, but some men do prey on women in toilets, especially if doing so is made extremely easy.

(It’s depressing that women don’t but some men do. It’s depressing because of why some men do. It’s because some men are turned on by acts of forcing sex or pseudo-sex on unwilling women. It’s depressing, if you think about it, that some men find that a turn-on. It’s depressing that for some men sex is inextricably tangled up with cruelty and contempt and hatred.)

One senior Labour MP, Meg Hillier, highlighted the plight of a person who has long lived as a woman, uses women’s changing rooms in her job with the ambulance service, and now fears being forced to tell colleagues she is transgender. The supreme court ruling, Hillier argued, “creates a real mess that needs sorting out”.

Why? Why does Meg Hillier do that? Why does this implausible person matter more than women? Why does she think there is such a thing as “living as a woman” and that it is much the same as being a woman and is a reason to let men help themselves to women’s rights? Why does she argue that women’s rights create a real mess?

In private, a number of MPs go further. While they accept the issue is complex, involving the sometimes overlapping and competing rights and needs of trans people and those who require single-sex spaces, they are increasingly frustrated with the way it has been handled.

Wrong. The issue is not complex, or not all that complex. People’s weird fantasies about themselves should not be seen or presented as reasonable rivals of the rights of women. People’s weird fantasies about themselves are their problem, not anyone else’s. Nobody else is obliged to take them seriously, much less destroy women’s rights because of them.

Most cited as a worry is the practical issue of whether transgender people, or even those whose appearance does not conform to gender norms, will now have toilets they can use in many public spaces without being challenged.

Why is that most cited? Why isn’t women’s fear of men in women’s toilets most cited? Why do trans people matter more than women? Why can we not get out of this loop where we keep trampling women’s rights underfoot so that a man who likes to wear dresses feels “validated”?

Roz Savage, the Liberal Democrat MP who organised last week’s debate, has urged ministers to act to prevent what she called “shrinking people’s lives”. She said: “If you don’t have a clear idea how you can go to the toilet without potentially getting into a confrontational situation then you’ll just avoid the situation, which is incredibly limiting.”

Women. Remember women? Women don’t want men in our toilets. That’s incredibly limiting. Why do men who want to be in our toilets matter more than we do? Please explain.

King Choss is dropping in on Canada by way of telling Trump to keep his nasty little hands off.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla will arrive in Canada later, for a two-day visit seen as bringing a message of support for the country in the face of threats and taunts from US President Donald Trump. Prime Minister Mark Carney, who recently won a general election on a wave of anti-Trump sentiment, invited the royal couple and will hold a meeting with them during their stay in Ottawa.

The King will read the “Speech from the Throne” to Canada’s Parliament on Tuesday, the first time a monarch has delivered this for almost 50 years. It is expected to include a defence of Canada’s sovereignty and to reject claims it should be taken over by the US.

But the timing of this week’s visit has been seen as a sign of solidarity with Canada, after calls from Trump for the country to become the 51st US state. The US threat has inflamed public opinion with some businesses in Ottawa, as elsewhere in Canada, putting on displays of national identity such as “Proudly Canadian” posters.

Carney, when he visited Trump at the White House earlier this month, stressed that Canada was “not for sale” and that message is likely to be conveyed in the King’s speech which is written on the advice of Canada’s government.

Former Canadian high commissioner to the UK Jeremy Kinsman said this was a message the King will be pleased to deliver. “It’s going to be very affirmative of Canadian sovereignty. And I can say personally that it’s something that King Charles will celebrate saying. I have no doubt,” said Mr Kinsman, who worked as a diplomat with the King when he was Prince of Wales.

Yes I don’t imagine Choss is all that impressed by Trump. I’m not normally all that impressed by Choss either, but when it comes to putting the Queens barbarian in his place I can’t help looking forward to it. Deploy that embarrassingly toff accent to the hilt, Choss; look down on the rapey crooked real estate tycoon and put him firmly in his place.

Uh oh

The Phlegraean Fields supervolcano near Naples, Italy, has recently sparked serious concern among scientists due to alarming increases in gas emissions. Experts from Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology have documented a significant surge in carbon dioxide release from the Solfatara crater, with daily emissions reaching between 4,000 and 5,000 tons. This troubling development has raised questions about whether magma is rising toward the surface, potentially signaling a catastrophic awakening of this geological giant that could have global consequences.

The Phlegraean Fields’ increasing activity has scientists on high alert as they monitor the dramatic rise in gas emissions. Research led by Gianmarco Buono reveals that up to 80% of the carbon dioxide currently escaping from Solfatara crater originates directly from magma beneath the surface. The remaining emissions result from interactions between hot underground fluids and calcite-rich rocks, creating a complex volcanic system that’s becoming increasingly unstable.

…

What makes the Phlegraean Fields particularly concerning is its classification as a supervolcano—capable of eruptions exponentially more powerful than conventional volcanoes. The region’s violent history includes a devastating eruption approximately 40,000 years ago that released massive ash clouds and gases into the atmosphere, significantly altering global climate patterns.

If a major eruption were to occur today, the consequences would extend far beyond Italy’s borders. Ash clouds could envelope much of Europe, disrupting air travel, agriculture, and power generation. More critically, volcanic gases would likely trigger worldwide climate disruptions, potentially leading to years of cooler temperatures and altered weather patterns affecting food production globally.

Yes but how will this affect the trans communniny?

They just won’t give an inch.

Nearly 50 MSPs and their staff have signed a letter to the governing body of the Scottish parliament expressing “deep concern” about its decision to ban trans people from using the toilets of their lived gender in the building.

Allow me to express my “deep concern” about the nearly 50 MSPs and their staff who are ignoring the obvious implications of allowing trans people to use the toilets of their “lived” (i.e. fake) gender.

Which should we be more “deeply concerned” about – men who want to invade women’s toilets, or women who want men to stay out of women’s toilets?

Nearly 50 MSPs think the answer is that we should ignore the needs of women and focus only on the aggressive demands of men in lipstick.

Alison Johnstone, Holyrood’s presiding officer and chair of the Scottish parliament’s corporate body, set out the interim position earlier this month in response to the supreme court’s ruling on biological sex.

Toilets designated as male- or female-only are now to be interpreted as meaning biological sex, Johnstone said, while the parliament will increase its existing provision of gender-neutral facilities which will be open to anyone, in an effort to ensure “confidence, privacy and dignity” for staff and visitors.

But the letter, based on legal advice from the Good Law Project, argues that Holyrood has misinterpreted the supreme court judgment.

Ah well there’s your problem. The Good Law Project is Jolyon Maugham, and Jolyon Maugham is absolutely determined to obliterate women’s rights in favor of coddling and cuddling men who pretend to be women. He’s also jaw-droppingly narcissistic, which makes him a tad unreliable.

It looks as if Jolyon Maugham actually wants to be sued for libel. Strange thing to want.

So he wants to get sued for libel? And lose?

Why?

And there’s also all the influence of financial interests and mergers and terrorist lawsuits to make everything even worse. Trump punishes journalism for reporting the truth about him, and much of journalism says “Yes sir yes sir” because it doesn’t want to lose that sweet deal it has with _____.

CBS News and Stations CEO Wendy McMahon is leaving the network, the latest casualty as its parent company tries to broker a truce with Donald Trump.

McMahon alluded to the network’s battles with the president in a memo to staff on Monday, less than 24 hours after 60 Minutes aired its season finale, and admitted “the past few months have been challenging.”

Her exit comes as CBS’ parent company Paramount Global negotiates a settlement to Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit against the network over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. Controlling shareholder Shari Redstone is hoping for a quick settlement so as to not provide a roadblock to Paramount’s merger with Skydance.

Lawyers for Trump and Paramount entered into settlement talks last month.

It’s just blatant hijacking. Trump sues and everybody dives for cover.

The news rankled staff on Monday, with some pinning the departure on CBS CEO George Cheeks for letting top leaders leave to appease the parent company. “I think people are very disappointed” in Cheeks, one CBS staffer told the Daily Beast. “He is letting some truly amazing people walk out the door.”

Because Trump. And money.

Trump sued the network, initially for $10 billion last year, after CBS promoted a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris in October that included a clip on Face the Nation that featured one part of an answer on Israel’s war in Gaza. But when the episode aired the next day as part of a special edition of 60 Minutes—one Trump refused to participate in—it featured a different part of the answer.

Trump claimed the network engaged in a form of news distortion, though CBS News said its interview followed standard journalistic practice and defended its interview on First Amendment grounds. Trump upped the lawsuit to $20 billion earlier this year. Incidentally, the Harris interview was subsequently nominated for an Emmy Award in the Best Editing category.

Still, despite legal experts’ opinions that the lawsuit is flawed, Paramount Global entered into settlement talks with Trump’s legal team last month as controlling shareholder Shari Redstone seeks to merge the company with David Ellison’s Skydance, which would net her a $2.4 billion payout for her family’s share.

Redstone’s aggressive pursuit of securing the Trump administration’s blessing included demanding Cheeks notify her about negative Trump stories last month, according to Bloomberg.

It came after Trump rebuked 60 Minutes over an episode that covered his pursuit to take Greenland and featured an interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. 60 Minutes never amended any of its programs, and it aired a story last month that examined Trump’s attacks on law firms.

CBS staffers have chastised Redstone both publicly and privately.

Bill Owens, 60 Minutes’ executive producer, told staff in his exit announcement he lost his ability “to make independent decisions” on the show’s programming after he refused to apologize for the Harris interview.

He praised McMahon for her leadership, and she said in her memo on his departure that it was “an easy decision” to stand by Owens despite company pressures.

So Trump is the boss of 60 Minutes now. Brilliant.