The Grand Inquisitor returns:

The Trump administration has ordered State Department employees to report on any instances of coworkers displaying “anti-Christian bias” as part of its effort to implement a sweeping new executive order on supporting employees of Christian faith working in the federal government.

I wonder how they are defining “anti-Christian” and “bias.”

The department, according to a copy of an internal cable obtained by POLITICO, will work with an administration-wide task force to collect information “involving anti-religious bias during the last presidential administration” and will collect examples of anti-Christian bias through anonymous employee report forms.

Well those are two very different things. Religious believers can be extremely hostile to rival religions, far more hostile than the relaxed kind of non-believer who just doesn’t sign up to any of it but doesn’t quarrel with any of it either.

The cable was sent out to embassies around the world under Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s name. The instructions also were released in a department-wide notice.

That’s good. It’s very helpful to have a secretary of state who picks sides in religious brawls.

The cable encourages State Department employees to report on one another through a tip form that can be anonymous. “Reports should be as detailed as possible, including names, dates, locations (e.g. post or domestic office where the incident occurred,” the cable reads.

Some State Department officials reacted to the cable with shock and alarm, saying that even if well-intentioned, it is based on the flawed premise that the department harbors anti-Christian bias to begin with, and warning it could create a culture of fear as the administration pushes employees to report on one another.

Spoiler: it’s not well-intentioned.

It’s about farking time!!!

Judges have been warned against using preferred pronouns for transgender offenders who commit violent or sex crimes.

Inappropriate use of preferred pronouns in such cases raises the risk of appearing “biased” or having “predetermined” the outcome, the Judicial Office warned in an alert to all judges and magistrates.

Well yes but surely it also risks confusing the people who decide the outcome. That’s the whole point of the luxury pronouns – to condition people to think the person with the luxury pronouns really is the Other Gender.

Campaigners have expressed concern that transgender defendants who are biologically male and have committed sex attacks against women are being referred to as “she” in court.

For a slew of reasons. Top reason is because it’s misleading in a way that benefits the guy who committed the sex attack, but another reason is because it’s such a shameless sadistic insult to the victim and to women.

Last September, Lexi Secker, a trans rapist who was sentenced to

Let me stop you right there. Secker is not a “trans rapist”; you must mean he’s a man who claims to be a woman, aka a trans woman.

Last September, Lexi Secker, a trans rapist who was sentenced to more than six years in a male prison, was referred to as “she” by police, a judge and barristers throughout a trial in Swindon.

Can you imagine how torturing that must have been to the victim?

The alert to judges and magistrates said that “typically” it should be unproblematic to refer to those who appear in court however they wish. However, it pointed to updated guidance in the Equal Treatment Bench Book, an official guide to how individuals should be treated in court.

It said: “[This] makes clear that in some cases, however, it may not be appropriate, or may even be extremely inappropriate, for the judge to use a defendant’s preferred pronouns, for example, in cases of violent or sex crimes by a transgender perpetrator.

“In these exceptional, but increasingly common judgments, where one side’s case hinges on the recognition of the biological sex of the trans person as crucial, and the other side on the recognition of their chosen identification, judges need to be careful not to let the choice of gendered pronouns give an appearance of bias, or that there is predetermined conclusion.

“If possible, using the individual’s name instead of a pronoun where these pronouns are contested, or alternatively, the gender-neutral pronoun of ‘they’, may help minimise offence towards or the undermining of an individual’s personal identification, while also not giving it undue weight over the perceptions of others.”

No. To hell with that “they” crap. It’s a courtroom, not a pub. Fuzzy confusing language is not an asset in court.

The alert follows a ruling in Scotland on pronoun use in an employment tribunal in Scotland where Sandie Peggie, a nurse, was suspended after complaining about changing alongside Beth Upton, a male-born transgender doctor. Ms Peggie claimed she had been subject to harassment under the Equality Act.

Judge Sandy Kemp, overseeing the case, ruled last month that Ms Peggie was allowed to refer to Dr Upton as a man throughout the tribunal as long as it was not done “offensively” or “gratuitously”.

Still bad and stupid. Upton is a man; there shouldn’t be any “as long as it was not” about it. The trans lobby has done an amazing job of browbeating people into being terrified of saying that man there is a man.

I see. Research is bad because it tells us about climate change, so the thing to do is get rid of research. Problem solved.

The Trump administration is proposing deep cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to a draft budget proposal viewed by NPR.

The agency’s budget for 2026 would be slashed by more than 25% overall from its current level of roughly $6 billion under the proposal, which would need to be approved by Congress. The draft cuts to NOAA’s research operations and fisheries services are particularly severe.

If enacted, the cuts would “take us back to the 1950s in terms of our scientific footing and the American people,” says Craig McLean, a former director of NOAA’s office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, the agency’s research arm, whose career spanned multiple administrations.

Yes, hooray. People weren’t always moaning about climate change in the 1950s. Good times.

The budget aims to eliminate OAR, cutting the budget by close to 75% from previous levels and slashing all funding for research that focuses on climate and weather. A few groups from the office, like a team that works on tornado science, would be moved to other parts of the organization. The budget would also end funding for the many cooperative research centers scattered across the country that contribute to climate and weather research. The proposed budget comes as the administration has already fired hundreds of NOAA employees.

Isn’t that great? Hundreds of people who will no longer be whining at us about climate change.

Many of the proposed changes echo concepts outlined in Project 2025, the conservative policy blueprint organized by the Washington, DC-based Heritage Foundation think tank, a document the Trump administration has followed closely in recent months.

Project 2025 calls for NOAA to “be broken up and downsized,” keeping the pieces that many Americans are familiar with, like the National Weather Service, and dismantling many of NOAA’s other offices. The proposed moves follow that rubric, such as shifting the Fisheries Service to another agency.

It also called the agency part of “the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry” and laid out ways NOAA’s climate science research could be curtailed, some of which have been proposed in the budget document.

That’s the ticket. Don’t do anything to slow or reverse climate change, just shut up about climate change, which is both easier and cheaper.

Politico reports:

The Education Department launched the process for pulling Maine’s federal K-12 funding citing the state’s refusal to bar [male] transgender students from girls’ sports.

…

In March, the Education Department’s probe found the Maine Department of Education’s sports participation policy violated Title IX. But the proposed agreement given to the state to sign to avoid losing its funding went beyond just addressing sports.

The requirements of the agreement would have forced the state to say the Trump administration’s interpretation of Title IX outweighs Maine’s Human Rights Act, which provides protection for transgender people.

Wait wait wait. Explain what you mean by “protection.” Protection is not letting males play in female sports. Keeping males out of female sports does not endanger those males, and it does keep males from endangering females in female sports. Female people do matter.

The Education Department’s proposed resolution agreement would have also required the state agency to direct all schools to comply with Title IX and specify that the federal law requires schools to “forbid allowing males to participate in any athletic program, or access any locker room or bathroom, designated for females.” The directive must also tell schools there are only two sexes, “woman” and “man.”

Yes, and? There is no third sex that is neither woman nor man, or part woman and part man, or some new sex that’s so special and different we don’t even have a name for it yet. There are only two sexes, and we know their names.

The one and only thing the Trump administration is right about:

Today, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) referred its Title IX investigation into the Maine Department of Education (MDOE) to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for further enforcement action. Simultaneously, ED will initiate an administrative proceeding to adjudicate termination of MDOE’s federal K-12 education funding, including formula and discretionary grants.

These actions are a direct result of MDOE’s continued refusal to comply with Title IX. ED issued a noncompliance finding on March 19, and sent a final warning letter to the state on March 31. 

Title IX – the one that says don’t treat women like shit.

Following a directed investigation of MDOE, ED’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) found that MDOE has practices and policies that violate Title IX, including allowing males to compete in female sports and occupy women-only intimate spaces. MDOE refused to comply with OCR’s proposed Resolution Agreement to resolve its Title IX violations voluntarily. 

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. President Trump’s Executive Order Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports articulates United States policy, consistent with Title IX, to protect female student athletes from having “to compete with or against or to appear unclothed before males.”   

It’s a scalding irony that it’s Trump saying this, and we know he doesn’t actually give a damn about protecting female students, but his EO is right all the same.

Trump and co are blowing off the courts.

The Trump administration on Friday defied a federal judge’s order to provide an explanation for how it intended to bring back to the United States a Maryland man who was unlawfully deported to El Salvador last month.

In an aggressive two-page filing, Justice Department lawyers told the judge, Paula Xinis, that she had not given them enough time to figure out what they planned to do about the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, after the Supreme Court ordered the administration on Thursday to “facilitate” his return to U.S. soil.

“Defendants are unable to provide the information requested by the court on the impracticable deadline set by the court hours after the Supreme Court issued its order,” the department lawyers wrote.

“In light of the insufficient amount of time afforded to review the Supreme Court order,” the lawyers went on, “defendants are not in a position where they ‘can’ share any information requested by the court. That is the reality.”

…

The dispute emerged directly from a Supreme Court ruling issued on Thursday evening in which the justices directed Trump officials to take steps to free Mr. Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran migrant, from a prison in El Salvador where he was sent with scores of other migrants on March 15.

The officials have already acknowledged that they made an “administrative error” when they put Mr. Abrego Garcia on the plane, despite a previous court order that had expressly prohibited sending him back to his homeland.

Ignoring a court order is not an “administrative error.”

In an order of her own, Judge Xinis gave the government until 11:30 a.m. Friday to file a written version of its plans, but refused to change the schedule for the hearing.

Clearly frustrated, she reminded the Justice Department that the administration’s “act of sending Abrego Garcia to El Salvador was wholly illegal from the moment it happened.”

Moreover, she said the department’s request for additional time to study a four-page Supreme Court order “blinks at reality.”

We’re gamboling way too close to the edge of the cliff.

Sigh. We’re still doing this?

HHS will review guidance on the addition of fluoride to drinking water

The Department of Health and Human Services is directing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to make new recommendations on the addition of fluoride to U.S. water sources. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has blamed the fluoridation of water for a number of health problems.

The agency is directing the CDC to reconvene an independent panel of 15 health experts to examine the role fluoride plays in water sources and whether it can be detrimental to public health, Kennedy told The Associated Press earlier this week, and NPR has confirmed.

…

Kennedy has erroneously called fluoride “an industrial waste” and blamed its addition in drinking water on health issues including arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders and thyroid disease. Health experts widely agree that fluoride — a common, naturally occurring mineral — at regulated levels is a major benefit to public health.

It’s General Jack D. Ripper all over again.

Zero gloves worn, zero fucks given.

Hmm. This looks libelous to me.

Gosh, ya think?

Competence questions pose risk to Trump’s political image

Oh that’s what we’re calling it: competence questions. Polite for “complete driveling idiot who can’t find his own ass in the dark.”

2½ months in, agencies such as the Social Security Administration have struggled to provide basic services. Trump’s team issues edicts, then reverses them. A leaked Signal chat suggests top security officials were unfamiliar with the basics of protecting military secrets.

Crucial government workers have been fired, then rehired. A much-ballyhooed immigration detention center at Guantánamo Bay has faced logistical problems. Trump’s team told laid-off workers at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to contact a particular individual if they felt they were being discriminated against; she turned out to be dead.

Yes, all that, but also his stupidity and ignorance are blindingly obvious and have been all along.

The question facing the White House is whether the Trump team’s struggles with some of the basic functions of governing and management are posing a political threat — or whether Americans, at heart, chose Trump for his ability to break things rather than run them and will accept missteps as the price of disruption.

Yes probably.

A deeper issue also lurks beneath the discussion of governing competence.

Central to Trump’s populist appeal, and perhaps the appeal of all populism, is a disdain for expertise and experience and the notion that a good American with common sense can get things done better than a condescending intellectual or pompous bureaucrat. Some stars of Trump’s circle, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have made careers of asserting that so-called experts do more harm than good.

Yebbut what about intellectuals and bureaucrats who are not condescending or pompous? Can they get things done better than a good American with common sense? Also why compare to a good American with common sense when the issue is Trump? Anyway yes, anti-intellectualism is notoriously central to the American Way of Life, but what explains going for an outright sadistic greedy lying monster is another question.

Trump is not alone among presidents in facing the challenge of demonstrating competence, although in his case it may be highlighted by his repeated extravagant claims about his own abilities — such as saying he does things “no one thought possible” and that “I alone can fix it.”

Ya think?

Punish the woman.

The U.S. military announced on Thursday that it had removed the commander of its Pituffik base in Greenland, adding that it would not tolerate any actions that go against President Trump’s agenda.

The decision to remove Col. Susannah Meyers was announced in a statement by the U.S. Space Force that was posted on social media by Sean Parnell, the chief spokesman for the Pentagon.

While the statement didn’t cite a specific reason for her removal, Mr. Parnell said that “actions to undermine the chain of command or to subvert President Trump’s agenda will not be tolerated.”

That’s disturbing. I get that the military is all about the chain of command and unquestioning obedience and all that, but it’s also about rules and laws. Trump’s “agenda” relies heavily on breaking rules and laws. Subordinates must obey superiors but they must not obey unlawful orders. Obviously this means that sometimes they have to choose which rule to break – think My Lai Massacre for example.

Looking at it as a very distant outsider it seems to me the US military stationed in Greenland has every reason to want good relations with the government of Greenland. Vance plopped in to mess that up for them. I think the reasons for the commander to want to let the government of Greenland know that Vance wasn’t speaking for them are pretty easy to surmise. Vance is their Lieutenant Calley, and the commander wanted to distance the soldiers from the bad civilian.

Mr. Parnell’s post contained a link to an article by Military.com, an independent news organization, that said Colonel Meyers had sent an email to base staff distancing herself from Vice President JD Vance’s visit on March 28.

Mr. Vance visited the base as part of Mr. Trump’s push to take over Greenland, an island that is a semiautonomous part of Denmark, for national security reasons.

“Commanders are expected to adhere to the highest standards of conduct, especially as it relates to remaining nonpartisan in the performance of their duties,” the Space Force said in the statement.

Yes but. Highest standards of conduct yes, but what if it’s not possible to do that while being “nonpartisan”? The issue isn’t Democrats v Republicans, the issue is an ignorant lout dropping in to threaten and insult the population the commander has to deal with.

On March 31, Colonel Meyers emailed the staff at Pituffik saying that the concerns of the Trump administration as expressed by Mr. Vance did not reflect the views of the base leadership, according to excerpts published by Military.com.

Colonel Meyers and the soldiers she commands have to live there, and Vance doesn’t. It’s not hard to understand why she wanted to disavow Vance’s bullying and threats.

Trump lost. The Central Park 5 defamation case is going ahead.

Trump has failed to persuade a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit accusing him of making defamatory statements about five Black and Hispanic men who were wrongly convicted and imprisoned for the 1989 rape of a white jogger in New York’s Central Park.

Philadelphia-based U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone ruled on Thursday that the men had presented enough evidence for now to pursue their lawsuit accusing Trump of defaming them in comments he made during the 2024 presidential campaign. The judge narrowed the lawsuit, however, by dismissing a claim by the plaintiffs of intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Can we get him on being too evil and self-regarding to spend one second thinking about emotional distress of other people?

(No, of course not, but we can dream.)

The lawsuit was filed in federal court last October by Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown and Korey Wise, called the Central Park Five. The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified monetary damages for reputational and emotional harms as well as punitive damages.

Shanin Specter, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, in a statement on Thursday welcomed the judge’s ruling and said he and his clients “look forward to discovery, trial and the ultimate vindication of these five fine men.”

…

In seeking dismissal of the lawsuit, Trump’s lawyers said in a court filing in December that his statements about the men were legally protected expressions of opinion under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

I hope he’s beside himself with frustration.

Eyes on the important stuff.

Donald Trump is going to “make America’s showers great again” by easing rules restricting water flow, the White House says.

The US president is ordering the energy secretary to rescind a change introduced by Barack Obama that restricted multi-nozzle showers from discharging over 2.5 gallons of water per minute overall. This served “a radical green agenda that made life worse for Americans”, the White House said, as Trump criticised the “ridiculous” amount of time he says it takes to wet his hair in the shower.

Suuuure it does, because he has such manly thick strong turgid hair it takes 10 times longer to soak it than it takes for average inferior people like the rest of us.

Republicans are excited about disenfranchising women.

Republicans in the House of Representatives blocked an amendment to the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act which would protect married women’s ability to register to vote.

…

The SAVE Act has come under intense scrutiny for how it would require US citizens to register to vote in person with their ID and a birth certificate, passport, or other ID that proves citizenship—something that is difficult for the 69 million married women whose current legal last name does not match their birth certificate.

Republicans have said the SAVE Act is necessary to prevent noncitizen voting. However, recent audits of voter rolls have found instances of noncitizen voting to be “vanishingly rare.”

Vanishingly rare, whatever, let’s disenfranchise women anyway.

When discussing her amendment on married women on the House floor, Rep. Dexter said: “If this amendment fails, we are putting 70 million American women at risk of disenfranchisement. 70 million. That’s one in four voters in this country.”

Rep Dexter added: “I cannot believe, in the year 2025, I have to stand here on the House floor of the United States to defend a woman’s right to vote. But I will.”

She asked her Republican colleagues to “show courage in this moment” to vote on her “common sense amendment.”

But of course they didn’t.

Look at this guy putting it right out there. “You don’t have the power,” he gloats.

You don’t have the power to tell me where I belong; that was the freedom I won for myself.

Pause for gloating smirk.

Rears back while lifting upper lip in the manner of an agitated horse; takes deep breath and blows it out.

I’m not a man, I’m a transgender woman. And uh…I don’t know how to break this to you [pause for smirk] but I’ve got the tits to prove it. [more smirking and face-making] Why don’t you fuck yourself sideways, how’s about that.

Got that? He detests women, and he claims to be a woman so that he can express his hatred and get pats on the head for it.

Ok who knew there was such a thing as “enby feminine”???

I certainly didn’t.

BH is one Blair Hamilton.

WHAT IS ENBY FEMININE?

What possible meaning can that have?

Enby=non-binary=neither female nor male.

Pick a story, bro.

BH who idennifies as enby-feminine has a page at the University of Brighton (not to be confused with the University of Sussex). It is eloquent and excitable.

Introducing Blair Hamilton, a trailblazer in the world of sports research at the University of Brighton’s School of Sport and Health Sciences. Not only are they a dynamic lecturer in Exercise and Health at the School of Applied Sciences, but they’re also a driving force behind the scenes as the lead investigator of the groundbreaking “Sporting Performance of Athletes of the Gender Spectrum” study.

Blair’s curiosity knows no bounds. Their main focus? Unraveling the impact of gender-affirmative endocrine care on the incredible athletic abilities of transgender athletes. In simpler terms, they’re delving into how hormone treatments affect these athletes’ performance, paving the way for a more inclusive and equitable sports environment.

But that’s not all! Blair’s zest for knowledge extends to the realm of bones and exercise. They’re passionately exploring how our bones respond to the magic of movement, especially during exercise. By understanding this intricate dance, Blair envisions a future where exercise becomes a key ingredient in building and maintaining strong, healthy bones.

I hate to rain on the parade but it’s already common knowledge that exercise is crucial for strong bones.

Anyway. Here’s to all the feminine enbies out there in fantasyland.

Is it ok for Trump to manipulate the stock market right out in the open? Oh sure. Where’s the harm?

When Donald Trump offered some financial advice Wednesday morning, stocks were wavering between gains and losses.

But that was about to change.

“THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT,” he wrote on his social media platform Truth Social at 9:37 a.m.

Less than four hours later, Trump announced a 90-day pause on nearly all his tariffs. Stocks soared on the news, closing up 9.5% by the end of trading. The market, measured by the S&P 500, gained back about $4 trillion, or 70%, of the value it had lost over the previous four trading days.

So he did people a little favor; what’s the big deal?

Democratic senators are calling for investigation.

“Did anyone buy or sell stocks, and profit at the public’s expense?,” said Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff in a post on the platform BlueSky. Added Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut on X, “An insider trading scandal is brewing.”

A key question is, Was Trump already contemplating the tariff pause when he made that post?

“Over the last few days, I’ve been thinking about it,” said Trump himself when asked yesterday directly about when he arrived at his decision, but then added to the confusion, stating, “Fairly early this morning.”

…

Kathleen Clark, a government ethics law expert at Washington University School of Law, says Trump’s post in other administrations would have been investigated, but is not likely not to trigger any reaction, save for maybe more Truth Social viewers.

“He’s sending the message that he can effectively and with impunity manipulate the market,” she said, “As in: Watch this space for future stock tips.”

Smart shoppers buy Trump.

When infant-tech goes wrong:

A woman in Australia has unknowingly given birth to a stranger’s baby, after her fertility clinic accidentally implanted another woman’s embryos into her.

Oops! Was her fertility clinic drunk at the time or what?

The mix-up at Monash IVF in Brisbane, Queensland has been blamed on human error, Australian media reports. “On behalf of Monash IVF, I want to say how truly sorry I am for what has happened,” CEO Michael Knaap said, adding that everyone at the fertility clinic was “devastated” at the mistake.

Last year, the same clinic paid a A$56m (£26.8m) settlement to hundreds of patients whose embryos were destroyed despite them being viable.

So you can see why they were devastated – that’s some expensive blundering right there.

According to a spokesperson for Monash IVF, staff became aware of the problem in February when the birth parents asked to transfer their remaining frozen embryos to another clinic. “Instead of finding the expected number of embryos, an additional embryo remained in storage,” the spokesperson was quoted as saying by ABC.

Monash has confirmed that an embryo from another patient had been mistakenly thawed and transferred to the wrong person, resulting in the birth of a child.

To lose one embryo, Monash IVF, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose hundreds looks like carelessness.

Is market manipulation legal? Is it mostly illegal but legal when Trump does it? Asking for a friend psycho.

But also