Took them long enough.

Scott Pruitt, President Trump’s administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, resigned after facing months of allegations over legal and ethical violations.

Mr. Trump announced the resignation in a tweet on Thursday in which he thanked Mr. Pruitt for an “outstanding job” and said the agency’s deputy, Andrew Wheeler, would take over as the acting administrator on Monday.

An outstanding job, eh. What would a terrible job look like then?

Trump likes them dirty, because it gives him a hold over them.

Earlier on Thursday, The New York Times reported on new questions about whether aides to Mr. Pruitt had deleted sensitive information about his meetings from his public schedule, potentially in violation of the law.

Ok but MSNBC was reporting that on Monday. Three days ago Monday.

White House advisers for months have implored Mr. Trump to get rid of Mr. Pruitt, including his chief of staff, John F. Kelly. Ultimately, the president grew disillusioned with Mr. Pruitt after a cascade of accusations of impropriety and ethical missteps overshadowed Mr. Pruitt’s policy achievements.

In recent days, people who have spoken with Mr. Trump said he sounds exasperated with his EPA administrator’s negative headlines. “It’s one thing after another with this guy,” one person close to Mr. Trump quoted the president as saying.

Same with Trump. Ever noticed that? It’s one thing after another with him.

It remains unclear how well some aspects of Mr. Pruitt’s regulatory rollback agenda, and his effort to undo the environmental work of his predecessors, will stand the test of time. In his haste to cripple government regulation and publicize his success, Mr. Pruitt and his officials have failed to follow important procedures, and courts have already struck down at least six of his rollback efforts.

But, hilariously enough, he had ambitions.

His removal will deal a blow to his political aspirations. People close to Mr. Pruitt have said that he had been using his prominence in the Trump administration to position himself for a run for state office in Oklahoma. His sights, some said, were set on a possible presidential run in 2024.

Instead, Mr. Pruitt is now the latest in Mr. Trump’s purge of top administration officials.

He might have trouble getting a job serving at Chick-fil-A now.

Sarah Ditum takes a look at the peculiar asymmetry of the move to make language more “inclusive” by not using the word “women.”

In June Cancer Research UK, a charity, tweeted: “Cervical screening (or the smear test) is relevant for everyone aged 25-64 with a cervix.” The odd phrasing—“everyone with a cervix” rather than “women”—was not accidental. The charity explained that it had deliberately chosen to use what it described as “inclusive language”. Similarly, the campaign Bloody Good Period, which donates tampons and sanitary towels to asylum-seekers, uses the word “menstruators” rather than “women”. And Green Party Women, an internal campaign group of the British Green Party, confirmed last year that its preferred designation for the constituency it represented was not, in fact, “women” but “non-men”.

…

Trans people face substantial injustices, most significantly violence (perpetrated, like all violence, largely by men) and discrimination. The process of applying for a gender-recognition certificate is intrusive and burdensome for many, and there are frustrating waiting lists for medical transition, which are compounded when doctors appear unsympathetic or obstructive. Yet rather than confront male violence or lobby the medical system, the focus of trans activism has overwhelmingly been the feminist movement, spaces and services designed for women, and the meaning of the word “woman”.

It is notable that Cancer Research UK did not test its “inclusive” approach with a male-specific cancer. Its campaign messages about prostate and testicular cancer address “men”, rather than “everyone with a prostate” or “everyone with testicles”. (Addressing “people with a cervix” is, of course, only inclusive of people who know they have a cervix. Many women do not have that detailed knowledge of their internal anatomy. And those who speak English as a second language may well not know the word.) While organisations in the women’s sector have revised their language to avoid the word “women”, male-specific charities such as CALM (the Campaign against Living Miserably, a movement against male suicide) continue to refer uncomplicatedly to “men”. Women’s groups are aggressively picketed for being exclusionary; men’s clubs are left unmolested.

Strange, isn’t it. The explanation that leaps to mind first is the fact that men hit harder. Sarah points out in that parenthesis that most violence is perpetrated by men – so who ya gonna go after if you have a choice? Not men, because they might cut up rough.

But also, let’s face it, because women are inferior. Women are the subordinate sex, so if there is bullying aka “activism” to be done, it’s obviously women it should be done to.

Or, in other words, we’ve always told women what to do so why stop now?

Also, to be perfectly honest, women are the sex trained to be agreeable – or is it innate? Nature or nurture? Some of both with a dash of lemon juice? Either way, they are, so let’s push them around, not those stubborn autonomy-protecting men. Let’s keep right on treating women as the servant half of humanity.

As Sarah sums it up,

There is a word for a situation where women talking about female bodies is considered impermissibly antisocial, where describing the consequences of sexism for women is systematically impeded, where resources for women are redistributed to male users while resources for men are left in male hands, and where “male” and “female” are rigidly associated with masculinity and femininity. That word is not “progressive”, “liberal” or any of the other terms usually associated with trans activism. The word is misogyny. Trans rights should not come at the cost of women’s fragile gains.

Wouldn’t you think?

The “charity” founded by Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu aka “Mother” Teresa has been caught selling babies.

A woman working at Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand has been arrested for allegedly selling a 14-day-old baby.

Two other women employees from the centre have been detained and are being questioned about other possible cases.

Police took action after the state’s Child Welfare Committee (CWC) registered a complaint.

The charity has not responded to BBC requests for comment.

“We have found out that some other babies have also been illegally sold from the centre,” a police official told BBC Hindi’s Niraj Sinha. “We have obtained the names of the mothers of these babies and are further investigating.”

Police also recovered 140,000 rupees ($2,150; £1,625) from the centre, which is located in Jharkhand’s capital, Ranchi.

Ending a pregnancy is terrible, unthinkable, a dreadful sin, but selling babies is ok…especially if the money goes to the church.

Uh oh, another pesky woman tears up the memo.

There’s an African proverb that states: “If you don’t know where you come from, how do you know where you are going?” Some of the most powerful black people known for their political analysis, social commentary, activism and legacy during the civil-rights, gay-rights and feminist movements were black lesbians. Oops! Did I just say “lesbian”, that dirty seven-letter word that has the GBTQI community scrambling to apologise for or afraid to associate itself with? Lesbianism is as ancient as the cosmos, yet it is a threat to patriarchy because it does not centre males, nor does it seek male wisdom, power or validation. Instead of finding solace within our community against the threat of misogyny and homophobia, lesbian identity is being written out.

…

Whether it be in feminist studies, gender studies or the history of gay pride, black lesbians often go without their names or sexual orientation being mentioned. The trend towards claiming that “all sexuality is fluid” and to brand everyone and everything queer and transgender, means black lesbians are rendered invisible. A queer identity embraces sexual and intimate relationships with males, females, and intersex people who identify as transgender, gender-queer, trans masculine or gay, just to name a few. My, we are a diverse crowd.

In this current wave of “free to me” gender politics, any man with a penis can claim to be a female and expect entrance into female-segregated spaces, such as locker rooms, sports teams or colleges, without question. But don’t twist it; the generosity does not flow in both directions. Just ask the women who crashed the party at the male lido in Hampstead Heath in London in May: they were promptly escorted out by the police. Lesbian identity is now being dubbed as exclusionary or transphobic. You’re damn right it’s exclusive: lesbians have a right to say no to the phallus, no matter how it’s concealed or revealed. Imagine if white folks ran around claiming they were black or demanded access to our affinity spaces. They would be called deluded racist fools!

But when men do it to women? It’s the latest best most woke thing.

Come on, people, it’s time to have a “Come to Jesus” moment, where we tell the truth and shame the devil. If you aren’t hip to the historical racism, sexism and homophobia that the black American lesbian has faced and continues to battle, try picking up a book like “This Bridge Called My Back”, “Sister Outsider” or “Toward a Black Feminist Criticism” and you’ll get the picture. Patriarchy and sex-based oppression are real, and they remain the driving force behind the invisibility of black lesbians. The gender-identity movement’s attempt to rebrand the lesbian as queer, and the pronouncement that “anyone can be a lesbian”, are nothing short of erasure.

Oh well, it’s only women.

Trump not welcome in Sheffield.

Sheffield’s Lord Mayor has “banned” US President Donald Trump from visiting the city.

Magid Magid made the announcement while chairing a Sheffield City Council meeting and donning a sombrero “in solidarity” with Mexico.

Hmm. I think wearing a sombrero “in solidarity” with Mexico is kind of like a man wearing Manolos “in solidarity” with women. Sombreros are not some kind of Mexican national garment just as stilettos are not required footware for women.

The council said Mr Magid does not have the power to ban anyone from the city, but that full council “may through a collective, democratic debate and process, agree to condemn the views of an individual or organisation”.

The mayor tweeted: “I Magid Magid, Lord Mayor & first citizen of this city hereby declare that not only is Donald J Trump a WASTEMAN, but he is also henceforth banned from the great city of Sheffield!

“I further declare July 13th to be Mexico Solidarity Day!”

Mr Trump is due to come to the UK for his state visit on 13 July but Mr Magid admitted he is unlikely to visit Sheffield.

I suppose Mr Magid didn’t want to tweet “The great city of Sheffield thinks Donald Trump is a big poopyhead!”

pic.twitter.com/BUER3qHRRt

— Emskware (@emskware2015) July 4, 2018

Oh honestly.

(1/2) I’m reveling not whining. I’m proud of taking an unpopular, principled position that gets me shunned by partisan zealots. It’s not about me. I couldn’t care less about being shunned by such people. It’s about their unwillingness to engage in dialogue.

— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) July 3, 2018

No. The fact that it’s an “unpopular” position doesn’t make it something to be proud of. Support for Donald Trump is “unpopular” for compelling reasons. Sometimes the minority is just wrong. Sometimes preening yourself on taking an “unpopular” position is just fatuous vanity.

(2/2) It’s bad enough when college students demand trigger warnings and safe spaces to avoid hearing views with which they disagree. But it’s worse when it comes from professors and media people. It’s a dangerous sign of the times.

— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) July 3, 2018

Funny how the Republicans decided late afternoon of the day before a mid-summer holiday would be the ideal time to release their report on the Russian interference with the 2016 election.

The report comes five days after Trump seemed to endorse Russian President Vladimir Putin’s denial, in the face of US intelligence agencies’ conclusions, that Russian interfered in the 2016 election: “Russia continues to say they had nothing to do with Meddling in our Election!” Trump tweeted on Thursday.

We know! Of course they do! People lie sometimes! Russia has been known to lie! The fact that Russia says it doesn’t make it true! Is this the way you did business, taking everyone’s word for everything?!

While Republicans in the House have openlyaimed to discredit the Justice Department’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s Russian ties, Tuesday’s seven-page report saw the Senate committee’s Republicans siding with US intelligence and law enforcement, including the FBI.

However reluctantly and 3 p.m. on the 3d of Julyly.

The report endorses the January 6, 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, or ICA, finding Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 with the goals of undermining Americans’ faith in the democratic process and denigrating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The assessment also concludes that Russia “developed a clear preference for” Trump.

“The ICA is a sound intelligence product,” the committee says, noting it was produced after “reasonable, transparent and open” debate. The committee said intelligence analysts they interviewed reported “no politically motivated pressure to reach any conclusions,” and noted that the CIA and FBI had “high confidence” that Russia favored Trump, while the National Security Agency had “moderate confidence.”

Senators are there for a minimum of six years; that probably makes them a little less flaky than Representatives.

Your tax dollars at work:

The Trump White House is abusing a federal, taxpayer-funded Twitter account to launch false attacks against women senators who oppose Trump’s inhumane treatment of immigrants.

On Monday afternoon, the official White House Twitter account targeted Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris in a series of defamatory tweets accusing them of supporting criminals and gangs.

While Trump frequently uses his own Twitter feed to go after dissenters, this is the first time the White House account has been weaponized for such false and personal attacks.

In the first tweet, the White House targeted Warren, accusing her of “supporting criminals moving weapons, drugs, and victims across our nation’s borders.” The tweet also included a link to the website of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency that Warren has said she would like to see replaced “with something that reflects our values.”

A short time later, the government account was used to launch a false smear against Harris, who recently called to “reexamine ICE and its role.”

“@SenKamalaHarris, why are you supporting the animals of MS-13? You must not know what ICE really does. Here is a link to help you out,” the White House tweeted along with a link to a press release describing two deportations earlier this month, including the removal from the U.S. of a Salvadoran with alleged ties to MS-13.

The use of official government social media accounts to attack political opponents is a strategy widely used by authoritarian regimes in countries like Russia, but not in democracies.

As documented in a 2017 report on state-sponsored social media manipulation, singling out political dissidents and opponents in this way is often done with the intent of promoting harassment against the targeted individual(s). The purpose is to silence those particular individuals, and also to send a warning to others who may be thinking of speaking out.

That’s always the purpose of Twitter call-outs. You’d think whoever is behind the official White House account would be above that, but no. It’s probably Stephen Miller.

That’s not normal.

https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1013887684861804544

Individual US Senators of the wrong party.

The stories about Pruitt keep piling up.

Two of Scott Pruitt’s top aides provided fresh details to congressional investigators in recent days about some of his most controversial spending and management decisions, including his push to find a six-figure job for his wife at a politically connected group, enlist staffers in performing personal tasks[,] and seek high-end travel despite aides’ objections.

The Trump administration appointees described an administrator who sought a salary that topped $200,000 for his wife and accepted help from a subordinate in the job search, requested aid from senior EPA officials in a dispute with a Washington landlord[,] and disregarded concerns about his first-class travel.

The reason he’s still getting away with it is the fact that his supervisor is Trump.

Don Fox, former acting director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, said in an interview Sunday that the fact that the administrator asked federal employees to perform multiple tasks unrelated to their official work raises serious questions about whether the EPA administrator has violated federal rules of official conduct.

…

Fox said that because most of the behavior Pruitt has been accused of involves violations that fall under federal Standards of Ethical Conduct for executive branch employees, it is up to either the president or his chief of staff to respond.

“If we were talking about any other federal employee it would be that person’s supervisor to take disciplinary action, which could be anything from counseling to dismissal from public service,” he said. “This falls squarely on the shoulders of the president, and he seems to do nothing but go out of his way to praise Scott Pruitt.”

So Pruitt can take bribes from oil companies on national tv and still not be stopped.

I’m sure this is some kind of purple government ethics and it’s only weirdo coastal ayleeets who look at it squinty-eyed.

A senior editor at the Catholic magazine First Things tells us that we just don’t understand about Trump’s “family values.” Why don’t we? Because we’re the Koastul AyLeeet.

People I knew from college or had met in New York expressed distaste for Mr. Trump’s behavior. If they were religiously conservative, they stressed his infidelity while also objecting to his insults of women. If they were liberal, they objected to his treatment of women and viewed his infidelity as a sign that his religious supporters were hypocrites. Not a single peer of mine in New York — no matter how conservative or religious — publicly supported Mr. Trump.

In contrast, almost all of the people I know in my hometown in Nebraska proudly supported him. They glossed over his infidelities and stressed that he seemed to be a good father. They were impressed by his “respectful” sons and admired the success of his daughters.

But he doesn’t seem to be a good father. He bragged of spending no time doing things like playing with them in the park when they were little, let alone changing diapers. He punched Don Junior to the floor in front of his friends for not wearing a suit for a baseball game. He agreed with Howard Stern on live radio that his daughter is a piece of ass. He’s not a good father, he’s a rich father. He’s made them rich so they stick around.

The people I know in Nebraska have the same moral views as my religious acquaintances in New York, yet they had a totally different view of Mr. Trump as a standard-bearer for family values. What made the difference? In a word, class.

And geography, don’t forget geography. New York versus Nebraska. Subtle enough for you?

In their book “Red Families v. Blue Families,” Naomi Cahn and June Carbone popularized the idea of “blue” and “red” family models. Blue families prize equality and companionship between spouses while putting a low value on childbearing. Red families tend to be inegalitarian or complementarian, viewing the man as the primary breadwinner and the mother as the primary caregiver. Early marriage and multiple children are typical.

Red families tend toward conservatism, and blue tend toward progressivism, but the models share an upper-class stress on respectability and a strong taboo against out-of-wedlock birth.

A third model can be found among working-class whites, blacks and Hispanics — let’s call it purple. In these families, bonds between mothers and children are prized above those between couples. Unstable relationships are the norm, and fathers quickly end up out of the picture.

…

Baffling as it may be to elites, Mr. Trump embodies a real if imperfect model of family values.

Sure, and by the same token he follows a real if imperfect model of ethics.