Category: Notes and Comment Blog

  • What is history made of?

    Uh oh, somebody doesn’t understand what “history” is.

    A new report from the White House accuses the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History of “extreme political activism” and blames museum leaders for erasing America’s heritage.

    The report, titled “Saving America’s Story” and published Saturday, is the result of an executive order President Donald Trump signed in March 2025 demanding “improper ideology” be eliminated from Smithsonian’s museums.

    The report’s “central finding” is that “museum leadership has explicitly adopted an ideological framework that no longer treats the American story as a shared national inheritance to be taught or celebrated, but as a political instrument to divide, dispirit, and discourage our citizens.”

    The buried assumption there is that history can be free of ideology. Fun fact: it can’t. There is no ideology-free delivery device that sweeps up all the bits and pieces that make up “history” and dumps them into a book or museum or statue. Deciding which bits to include and which bits to skip depends on the starting assumptions: bam, there’s your ideology.

    “To the extent that there is a story told at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, it is not one of ‘the victory of freedom and genius of our country’ but one of regret, tragedy, and shame,” the report adds.

    See? That’s ideology right there, talking about more ideologies. It’s ideology all the way down.

    A Smithsonian spokesperson said in a statement Sunday: “For more than 180 years, the Smithsonian has served the American public with nonpartisan and independent scholarship, and we remain committed to doing so.”

    Trump don’t want no stinkin’ nonpartisan independent scholarship, Trump wants trumpy dependent propaganda.

    The National Museum of American History has long been among the most scrutinized of the Smithsonian’s 21 museums.

    In July 2025, it removed references to Trump’s impeachments from an exhibit display, as part of a content review that the Smithsonian agreed to undertake following pressure from the White House, The Washington Post reported at the time. The references were restored a week later.

    Propaganda much?

    The White House has launched reviews of the content of several Smithsonian museums, criticized specific exhibits and wall texts and threatened to withhold funds already approved to the institution if it fell short. The Smithsonian has sent over files in return.

    But the new report marks yet another escalation. It accuses current Smithsonian leadership of imposing a “radical, activist ideology” on the museums and refusing to tell “the noble, honest story of the great country we know and love.”

    Noble, eh? Is the story noble all the way through, in every particular, without spot or blemish? Are you sure?

  • Doing his stupid dance

    The mockening.

    The Graun:

    Belgium’s prime minister, Bart De Wever, has yet to comment on the national team’s triumph, but the official Instagram account of his cat offered a sardonic, albeit indirect sign of satisfaction. Maximus, De Wever’s beloved cat, was shown lying on a rug holding a soft toy in the image of the US president. “I slept really well last night. And you?” reads the speech bubble in Dutch.

    …

    Amid celebrations, the national team’s social media post after the emphatic 4-1 victory saying “Overturn this” went viral. Also gaining vast numbers of likes and clicks were clips of the teams on-pitch celebrations mocking Donald Trump’s dancing. After Romelu Lukaku scored the final goal for Belgium, the team celebrated by imitating Trump’s stiff arm-shuffling moves to YMCA.

    The stiff shuffling arms that end in the tiny clenched fists suspended from the enormous torso.

  • Trump did it

    And it’s your fault, DumbDon. Your fault.

    Belgium ends the USA’s World Cup dream with a dominant 4-1 win in the Round of 16.

    • Belgium ends the USA’s dream: The summer of soccer love is over for the USA’s World Cup squad after losing 4-1 to Belgium, and many US players were in tears after the final whistle. Two early goals from Charles De Ketelaere and some awful US defending allowed a third from Hans Vanaken. Romelu Lukaku added the final goal in the last seconds.

    • Agonizing defeat: Added to the embarrassment was the fact that much of the world will take joy in the US’ humiliation after the controversy over FIFA’s decision to suspend Folarin Balogun’s one-game ban following a red card in the Round of 32.

    • Trump’s role: President Donald Trump said he had asked FIFA president Gianni Infantino to review Balogun’s red card, sparking accusations of the US president interfering in the tournament.

    Trump’s interference in the tournament sparked accusations that he interfered in the tournament. Gosh, ya think? Could that be because he did interfere in the tournament? Duuuhhh.

    H/t Artymorty

  • Only a man would say

    Twisting twisting.

    But wait, it gets better.

    Funny how he’s not being submissive to JKR. So much for the hallmark!

    Anyway, is this progressive or what – women are submissive and men get to claim to be women and then lecture us on how submissiveness is the hallmark of being us.

    What does submissive mean? Inferior. Subordinate. Lesser, weaker, smaller, stupider. It’s an intense insult, and 100 times more so coming from a man who playacts being a woman.

  • Thank him for being honest

    Hey come on now. Give this guy a break. So he used to say men could be women, so what, he’s stopped saying it now, so be a nice person and just ignore all the damage he did for the last ten years or whatever. It’s only women after all.

    Reward the people who pushed trans ideology for years but have now stopped. Don’t, of course, reward the people who fought the trans ideology for years. They don’t matter. It’s only the very late converts who matter.

  • Guest post: Just another example

    Originally a comment by What a Maroon at Miscellany Room.

    I realize this is relatively minor compared to everything else that is going on, but the whole mess with the men’s team at the World Cup is just another example of how sleazy people in power suck up to Trump like mob bosses kissing the Godfather’s ring. To recap, for those who haven’t been following:

    The US striker (and leading goal scorer) Folarin Balogun* got a red card in the match against Bosnia last week. It was a questionable decision, based on a VAR review apparently looking at the action in slow motion (which they’re not supposed to do), but it comes with an automatic suspension for the next match, and there’s no appeal. Balogun wasn’t happy with the decision, but he accepted it.

    Or at least there’s not supposed to be an appeal, as the US Soccer Federation admitted. But in Trump’s world, everything is transactional. So Trump called Gianni Infantino, the President of FIFA, and asked him to do something. And Infantino, being the corrupt suck-up that he is, decided to put Balogun essentially on probation for a year, so that he can play against Belgium tonight.

    Now Belgium is pissed, understandably, and is appealing the appeal. And UEFA is pissed at FIFA, and soccer fans outside of the US are pissed at the US, and whatever happens tonight it’s a whole fucking mess, and so typical of the way that Trump slimes everything he touches.

    *Balogun, incidentally, is a birthright citizen. His parents are Nigerians who were living in London; his mother had been visiting relatives in Brooklyn, but British Airways wouldn’t allow her to board a plane home while she was in her seventh month, so Balogun was born in the US.

  • Call the Federal Bureau of Cringeanguish

    Cringe. Cringe cringe cringe.

    “I said ‘Oh, William the Conqueror – was he a nice man?’”

    Cringe cringe cringe cringe cringe cringe cringe cringe cringe

    “Charles said ‘No no he was extremely strong – very tough.’”

    Cringe cringe cringe cringe cringe cringe cringe cringe cringe

    “I said ‘We have to come up with a good name for you Charles, maybe Charles the Conqueror’ – ‘No no no please’”

    Cringe cringe cringe cringe cringe cringe cringe cringe cringe

    And in conclusion: “William the Conqueror built a great building.”

    Here endeth the lesson.

  • A haul once unimaginable

    It’s a twofer – destroy everything and pocket billions.

    This week, new financial disclosures suggested that Mr. Trump has broken [the Berlusconi] mold by making at least $2.2 billion in his first year back in the White House, including about $1.4 billion from his family’s cryptocurrency businesses.

    Mr. Trump’s profits are a haul once unimaginable for any leader of a liberal democracy, particularly a sitting American president.

    …

    The Trump family’s earnings, experts said, have moved him into an echelon of enrichment more associated with strongmen in Russia and Turkey.

    His gains were all the more striking because the United States has long positioned itself as a standard-bearer for financial regulation, anti-graft measures and the rule of law.

    And now Trump has positioned the US as a rancid swamp of corruption plus brutality. What a time to be alive.

  • Remarkable intervention

    What business do heads of state have meddling with sports contests?

    Trump said Monday that he personally asked FIFA chief Gianni Infantino to review the decision to give a red card and one-game ban to Team USA star striker Folarin Balogun — a remarkable intervention that sparked a torrent of controversy at the World Cup.

    FIFA on Sunday announced that Balogun would be eligible to play in the Round of 16 against Belgium Monday night, igniting questions around the integrity of the tournament.

    “All I did was ask for a review. I didn’t say, ‘You have to do this,’” Trump said from the Oval Office, adding that he “didn’t think it was a foul.” He referred to the incident as “two guys running full speed that happened to crash into each other.”

    All he did was ask for a review? How is that in any way normal? Or permissible? How is it not a power move in a situation that’s not supposed to be about state power?

    A US official told CNN earlier Monday that Trump was simply seeking to “better understand the reason why a red card was given and why there was a suspension.”

    No he wasn’t. Trump is never simply seeking to better understand anything. Trump doesn’t give two shits about understanding anything.

  • The most sacred right

    More guns! More and more and more guns! We can never have enough guns!

    The Trump administration is scrapping more than three dozen firearms regulations, abandoning a crackdown on illegal sales, restoring gun rights to some people with mental illness and loosening oversight of private weapons transactions.

    Because why not, right? Why wouldn’t you? Where’s the harm in guns for cryin out loud?

    In the view of critics and even some A.T.F. veterans, the agency, in closely mirroring the demands made by gun owners and manufacturers to lighten their regulatory burden, is enacting changes at the expense of public safety. 

    Gosh, ya think? More guns will mean more shootings? Who could possibly have figured that out?

    Proponents of the changes point out that some of the reversals would return regulations to what they were only a few years ago, before President Joseph R. Biden took office. After a series of deadly mass shootings, Mr. Biden signed into law gun control measures, ending nearly three decades of gridlock over whether and how to regulate firearms.

    How silly can you get? What’s wrong with deadly mass shootings? What’s wrong with having a lot of deadly mass shootings? You sweep your attic now and then, right? Well then.

    A White House official said the administration’s policies reflected Mr. Trump’s commitment to ensuring that Americans could exercise their Second Amendment rights, accusing the Biden administration of bypassing Congress and using the regulatory process to restrict gun rights.

    The right to shoot people is the most sacred right of all.

    The administration is now targeting gun regulations that Democrats have passed at the state and local levels. It has challenged bans on semiautomatic rifles in Colorado, the District of Columbia and Virginia. On Wednesday, it sued California for its restrictions on the sale of Glock and Glock-style handguns, and Virginia for limits on the sale of semiautomatic rifles, hours after both laws went into effect.

    More guns! More and more and more guns! Now!

  • Underwear and boots

    When only the Daily Mail will tell the truth.

    Dancing on stage in knee-high boots, PVC underwear and posing provocatively with a riding crop, Paula Southin, a transgender activist, performs an erotic routine using the stage name Violette Hue in a lewd online video.

    The Mail on Sunday can reveal that Southin, who was born a man, is also a former Girl Guide leader and member of a key committee tasked with helping shape the future of the 116-year-old movement. 

    A future of performing erotic routines in underwear and riding boots. What other kind of future could any girl want? What else are female people for?

    Astonishingly, the 58-year-old amateur burlesque performer was one of at least four trans activists who were asked by Girlguiding – previously The Girl Guides Association – to explore opportunities for trans girls and trans women to be ‘supported’ by the organisation.

    No doubt they can put on shows in underwear and riding boots – all those nice Girl Guides will be just delighted, right?

    Girlguiding was plunged into turmoil by the landmark legal ruling that the terms ‘man’ and ‘woman’ relate to biological sex and that women-only spaces should be protected.

    In response, the Guides announced in December that membership would be ‘restricted to girls and young women’, which it described as a ‘difficult decision’. All remaining trans people must leave the organisation by September.

    Insiders say the move has split the organisation, with powerful voices expressing pro-trans views behind the scenes and activists campaigning to overturn the ban. Girlguiding itself launched a consultation last year involving around 500 people to explore how it can help trans girls and trans women, while insisting it was not attempting to reverse the ban.

    The consultation was overseen by a panel of 16, including burlesque performer Southin, which met seven times between January and March. It discussed ideas for connecting with trans people, including ‘how possible, lawful, and inclusive these ideas would be’.

    But it’s not Trans Guides, it’s Girl Guides. Why can’t it just stay Girl Guides? Trans people can set up a Trans Guides, and girls can continue to have Girl Guides. Why does it have to be that Girl Guides is turned into Girl plus Trans Guides?

    But bizarre performances plus lewd pictures, comments and videos posted online has raised questions over whether Southin is appropriate for the role – although there is no suggestion the activist is guilty of any wrongdoing.

    One post featured an image of two children’s teddy bears in bondage gear, while others showed Southin in a red basque and suspenders, a pink PVC dress and making jokes about male genitals. In one video posted on Instagram in 2024, Southin – a self-described ‘steam punk’ performer – provocatively licks a riding crop and twirls it to the rhythm of Soft Cell’s Tainted Love.

    Is Girl Guides morphing into Sex Worker of Tomorrow Guides? Couldn’t they let Girl Guides stay Girl Guides and set up their own Sex Worker Guides?

    Helen Joyce, of sex-based rights charity Sex Matters, said: ‘Any honest consideration of whether Paula Southin is fit to be in a position of authority within Girlguiding, given these provocative materials, has to start from the fact Southin is male, not female.

    Those responsible for girls’ safety must not be hampered by political correctness: they need to be clear-eyed about male sexuality, including male paraphilias such as erotic cross-dressing.’

    In other words “Paula” isn’t there for quite the same reasons your boring old female Girl Guides adults.

    Details of Southin’s role on the panel come as whistleblowers describe an atmosphere of intimidation from pro-trans colleagues at Girlguiding’s London headquarters, which is just round the corner from Buckingham Palace.

    One ex-employee, who asked to remain anonymous, said she realised shortly after joining that ‘gender-critical’ views – the belief that there are two biological sexes and that sex cannot be changed – were ‘simply not welcome’. She said Girlguiding’s ‘head of girl experience’, Gemma Benton, believed that boys and men who identify as female should remain within the organisation, despite the Supreme Court ruling.

    …

    The whistleblower said she felt unable to express her views at work. ‘I just didn’t feel psychologically safe in that environment,’ she said. ‘I had never experienced any organisation like it before.’

    She recalls a junior manager effectively telling staff unhappy with the organisation’s approach to trans inclusion: ‘You’ve all got to get on board or get out.’

    ‘No one challenged it,’ the former employee said. A second whistleblower, who still works for Girlguiding said: ‘It is essentially taken as a given within Girlguiding that trans women are women, so any discussion of biological reality is avoided. You simply wouldn’t test the water, as there would be no coming back from it.’

    And yet, if biological reality didn’t matter, there would be no need for feminism or for girls’ organizations. If boys didn’t see girls as lesser, inferior, subordinate, weak, then there would just be Guides. But that’s not the world we live in.

  • Everything inside out

    The always tedious “Dr Rachel Saunders” says Gender critical slut shaming is rank misogyny. He’s an enormous man and his favorite hobby is taunting women. Of course he attaches a photo of someone in kinky pink underwear and a pink ski mask.

    In 2025 I was on the receiving end of gender critical attempts to slut shame me for artistic nude photographs I posted fifteen years prior, with them seeking to shut me down because I took pride in my body. 

    Says gigantic scary man.

    It is a common tactic used to tear down any woman who seeks to empower herself through nudes, burlesque or any other expression of her sexuality through taking ownership of her body.

    But that’s irrelevant because he is not a woman.

    July 2026 saw another attempt against another trans woman, this time in the Daily Mail, where a trans woman was nationally shamed simply for expressing her womanhood in a sexy way. 

    But men can’t “express their womanhood” – because they are men. If they try to do so – especially “in a sexy way” – they are being creepy and/or misogynistic. Creepy “Rachel” Saunders is yer man for that.

    These tactics have long been used to shame any woman who falls out of line, and it is telling that gender critics resort to the same tactics used to slut shame feminists and women’s rights activists from centuries past as if they have learnt the worst lessons from patriarchal abuse of women.

    Says a man who is trying to bully women into pretending that he is a woman.

    He pretends to be all feminist and stuff.

    If a woman is to have agency, which is the entire point of feminism, then she has the bodily autonomy to dress and present herself as she wishes without fear of castigation by others.

    Says the giant man who enjoys forcing himself on women in women’s spaces.

  • The noble cause

    Fighting to help men take what belongs to women.

    The secretive Scottish Government [has] finally admitted that it was John Swinney who green lit the doomed court case demanding that men be allowed to be housed in female prisons. SNP Ministers lost in court once again to For Women Scotland, costing the taxpayers tens of thousands.

    Yes costing money but also throwing women overboard. It’s important to focus on the contempt for women at the heart of all this.

    It tried to defy the law which states that single-sex spaces, such as jails, toilets and changing rooms, can only be legally single-sex if they are restricted to those born that sex.

    Can you say “tautology”? Of course something is legally single-sex only if it is restricted to people of the single sex.

    [The law] has resulted in a ban on transwomen using female facilities and vice versa – but the Scottish Prison Service refused to kick out biological males from the women estate.

    Because the only people who would be harmed were women. You do the math.

    The lengthy and embarrassing court action by the SNP Government resulted in yet another defeat, with the true cost of this to the public purse yet to be revealed. John Swinney spent months defending the fact he wants to lock up vulnerable men with women despite claiming to always abide by the rule of law.

    Trans ideology is a powerful drug. I have no idea why, but it is.

  • The winding paths of narcissism

    Speaking of Euan Weddell complaining about people knowing where he is while telling people where he is…

    She did this last year, too, if I remember correctly. Tiny flaw. If you’re so asexual why dress so sexual?

    She’s not dressed for comfort, so why is she dressed that way? Is it possible to think of another plausible reason that’s not sexual? I can’t come up with one. The weather is warm, but so then why wear fishnets? Why not get all that hot heavy hair out of the way? Why not lighter, looser shorts?

    She’s dressed for “give me sexual attention” so what’s asexual about that?

    Also where does “equality” come into it?

    Still a mystery.

  • Always put You first

    Well…yes.

    During his inaugural speech on Jan. 1, Mayor Zohran Mamdani declared, “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”

    It certainly feels warm these days.

    As temperatures climbed during the heat wave that blanketed much of the eastern United States, the mayor took to social media with a familiar message from the government. “New York: it’s hot out there, and the power grid is working overtime to keep us cool,” he tweeted. “Set your AC to 78 degrees, turn off lights/electronics you’re not using, and unplug what you can.”

    This is the real face of the political left: Individual comfort and convenience should be subordinated to collective priorities, with government officials deciding how much energy ordinary people ought to consume.

    Well…yes.

    Of course it damn well should. If there’s enough food for 12 people, one person shouldn’t take half of it. If there’s a famine, one person shouldn’t hoard food. If there’s a drought, one person shouldn’t use up all the water. You see where I’m going with this? One selfish pig shouldn’t be hoarding necessities while others go without. We’re taught that at about 3 years old.

    Over the pond in Europe, we are seeing the effects of that warm glow of collectivism in full force. Decades of climate policy, energy restrictions and cultural hostility toward air conditioning have left millions of Europeans sweltering without one of the greatest public health innovations of the modern age.

    As if climate policy and energy restrictions were just some kind of eccentric fad. The reality is that some of us think we shouldn’t be blithely letting the planet cook simply because we won’t be the ones suffering the worst of it.

    Shouting “Why aren’t you crazy people being more selfish?!!” is not a great look.

    The lesson is that wealthy societies survive climate extremes by adapting to them. Americans adapted to hot summers with widespread air conditioning, modern electrical grids, affordable energy and buildings designed to keep people alive when temperatures soar.

    But widespread air conditioning has to be fueled by something. Could it possibly be that the something has contributed to global warming?

  • Stormy who?

    Ahhh Trump.

    It seems he thinks the only danger from a thunderstorm is getting wet.

    Dude. It’s not the rain (unless there are floods); it’s the lightning and the winds. It’s not about rain, even heavy rain, it’s about getting zapped.

  • Gillard’s declaration of whoops

    A barn-burner from Sall Grover:

    We’ve all had a few days to sit with @JuliaGillard’s declaration of whoops and as the minutes go by, the angrier I get. Not just at the admission that, basically, it was a “regret” to open up the legal category of women to men, but at the reluctance to admit it was wrong.

    And the fact that it’s only now, after amazing UK women & men are putting on pressure by turning up to her events to remind of her of the whooosy, that she dares to say anything.

    Not when @jk_rowling was getting countless rape & death threat from the very men these kind of laws were changed to include. Not when a man in his 50s took a pregnant woman

    🙋‍♀️

    to federal court, using that very specific Australian law change & institutional capture to his advantage.

    Not when @ActiveLesbians were told by the Australian Human Rights Commission that heterosexual men who claim to be lesbians must be included in lesbian events.

    Not when @martina came under attack for defending women’s sport, years after already battling for LGB rights.

    Not when @KirralieS was dragged through courts for bringing attention to MEN who claim to be women in womens sport.

    Not when that very league told the women in that sport if they so much as walk off the field because men are on it they will be punished.

    Not when media started reporting on school girls not drinking WATER at school because boys were in the only unisex bathroom available to them & no adults would help them.

    Not when women prisoners finally got word to the outside that they were in cells with MALE SEX OFFENDERS, locked up with them only because the Gillard amendments to the sex discrimination act (arguably) allowed it.

    Not when Jasmine Sussex’s life was turned upside down for stating the fact that men cannot breastfeed infants, and because men can be women in law suddenly she’s the bad guy.

    Not when the sex discrimination commissioner told senate estimates that men who claim to be women can have pregnancy protections in law but women can’t have single sex spaces, thereby interpreting the Gillard amendments to give men protections they don’t need while taking away women’s protections we do need.

    Not when countless women in Australia and around the world were and are being punished for saying NO to this absolute bullsh-t that men can be women in law.

    She said nothing until it started to interrupt her day in the mildest of ways. It’s pathetic.

    Pathetic with a thousand “very”s in front of it.

  • Oh no, dangerous safeguarding concerns

    Uh…great. If you express concerns about the safety of trying to halt children’s puberties, you get fired. Hello yes hello but what if the concerns are real? What if the concerns are not a joke or a tease or a cunning plan to upset everyone, but actual concerns about actual risks of harm to actual children on the verge of puberty? What then?

    The Health Secretary stripped responsibility for a puberty blocker trial from a junior minister who had raised safeguarding concerns, The Telegraph understands.

    James Murray stopped Preet Kaur Gill, the minister for health innovation and safety, from taking a leading role on the controversial Pathways trial, according to people familiar with the matter.

    Because she raised safeguarding concerns. Our children must not be hobbled by safeguarding concerns! They must take every possible risk no matter how likely they are to regret it a few months later.

    The trial will involve 226 children who believe they are transgender being offered puberty-suppressing drugs, with girls as young as 11 and boys as young as 12 eligible.

    Ms Kaur Gill, a former social worker and MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, has in the past voiced alarm that “credible safeguarding warnings” about puberty blockers were being ignored.

    It’s amazing that it doesn’t slow the zealots down that they are offering drastic interventions to children who believe they are transgender. Why do they believe something so unreal? Because it’s been so heavily advertised and promoted and flattered over the last ten-plus years. Without all that children would just make the best of what can’t be avoided, as they always have.

    Another source accused the Health Secretary of ignoring concerns not only from Ms Kaur Gill, but also from two other female health ministers said to have reservations about medicalising gender-questioning children.

    “It shows women’s voices are still not being listened to on this issue, and that one man [Mr Murray] – who’s only been there for two seconds – is trying to push it through regardless,” they said.

    Well you see it’s trans. Trans is sacred. Trans is special. Trans is family. Trans is Our Siblings. Trans is untouchable. Trans may not be questioned.

    Ms Kaur Gill is not the first senior figure whose role on the trial appears to have been curtailed.

    In March, the MHRA announced that its chief medical and scientific officer Prof Jacob George, whose safety concerns had led to Pathways being paused, would no longer be involved.

    The agency insisted his recusal was voluntary, and said the decision was taken as a “precaution” after social media posts emerged in which he praised JK Rowling and criticised the denial of “basic biological fact”.

    Yeah, we remember.

  • Costume party

    Not good.

    Now in a way they just look like pathetic jerks playing dress-up, but then so did the Nazis. Your basic genocidal coup has to start somewhere, and this could be where they’re starting.

  • Elizabeth Eckford

    Remind us of anything?

    I’ll give you a hint.