None of this is by the book.

Federal employees are receiving additional communications that appear designed to entice them to accept the Trump administration’s “Fork in the Road” resignation offer, despite mounting questions about whether the offer is legal.

While the initial offer to federal employees to resign by Feb. 6 and retain their pay and benefits through Sept. 30 came directly from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), some of the latest guidance is coming from agency leaders, further sowing confusion over what’s to be believed.

Employment attorneys and union representatives emphasize that OPM, which handles many human resource matters for federal workers, lacks the authority to promise paid leave for government employees other than its own.

Oh. Interesting. So they’re promising money they can’t deliver. How con artist-like – how trumpish.

Moreover, agency budgets are controlled by Congress, not OPM, and many agencies will run out of money on March 14 if Congress doesn’t approve a new budget or pass another continuing resolution.

What?? You mean Congress has actual powers? Powers that Trump doesn’t have? How is that even possible? The president is supposed to be an absolute monarch, isn’t he? (Never she, obvs.)

In a blog post, Robert Reich, former secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton, urged federal workers to reject the resignation offer, tying it directly to billionaire Elon Musk, who is seen as the architect of the “Fork in the Road” deal.

“Don’t accept Elon’s offer,” he wrote. “Congress could declare the entire offer illegal — which it is. Then where would you be?”

In the cold.

Meanwhile Trump hires who are running these agencies are telling their people the opposite, because of course they are.

Additionally, the emails from agency leaders tell employees that except in rare cases, those who resign can take a second, nongovernment job “during the deferred resignation period,” a claim also made in the FAQ posted to OPM’s website and shared with employees by multiple agencies.

“We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so,” the FAQ reads. “The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.”

Elon? Is that you? It is, isn’t it.

The subhead gets at the essence of the matter.

President Trump at moments of national tragedy has always been more comfortable finding fault than providing comfort or expressing empathy.

In fact you can omit the “at moments of national tragedy” part. Trump just in general has always loved to attack and sneer and jeer rather than doing the other thing. He’s the guy who jeered at the very idea that he would take his own kids to the park.

In the wake of this week’s midair collision near Washington, Mr. Trump was more than happy to jump to conclusions and pull the country apart rather than together. After declaring it to be an “hour of anguish for our nation,” Mr. Trump just five minutes later let anguish give way to aggression as he blamed diversity policies promoted by Mr. Obama and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. for the crash, which killed 67 people.

…

His decision to use the bully pulpit of the White House on Thursday to assign responsibility for the crash to his political rivals by name without offering a shred of evidence was, even for Mr. Trump, a striking performance. And it was no off-the-cuff comment. He followed up by signing an order directing a review of “problematic and likely illegal decisions” by Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden.

…

It was not the first time Mr. Trump has exhibited what even his own former aides have called an “empathy gap.” Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, with thousands of Americans dying every day at its peak, Mr. Trump rarely paused long enough to dwell on the human toll and never sponsored any memorial to the fallen. Instead, he focused his public messages on finding others to fault, whether it be China, Mr. Obama, Democratic governors, the World Health Organization, federal regulators or his own scientific advisers.

He has responded similarly to natural disasters by going on the attack. Just this month, Mr. Trump reacted to the devastating wildfires in greater Los Angeles by blasting Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, calling him “Newscum.”

After Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, he engaged in a war of words with San Juan’s mayor and, when he finally visited the island, memorably tossed paper towels to people who had been left without food, water or power. Angry at criticism of his handling of the calamity, he later suggested to aides that the United States sell or trade away Puerto Rico.

In short he’s a bad mean hostile person, who provides a horrible role model for his many deluded fans. It’s depressing living in his world.

George Mason University shouts Breaking Barriers for Menstruators:

Menstrual equity has been a prevalent topic that is kept behind closed doors for centuries, even though it requires more attention and recognition in our society.

Wut?

Wtf is a “prevalent topic”? How do you keep any kind of topic “behind closed doors”? What centuries are we talking about? Was there a time before all those centuries when “menstrual equity” was front and center?

Menstrual equity can be referred to as the idea that 

Wait wait wait – you mean “defined as.” Not “referred to” but “defined as.”

Why is a barely literate adolescent allowed to write rules and regulations for a university?

Period poverty is a kind of poverty that is least talked about, but it is also the kind of poverty that affects menstruators all around the world. It may seem like I am heavily trying to focus on the term “menstruator”, because this is a neutral and impartial term that we all must try to use.

Why did George Mason University see fit to include this execrably written drivel on its official website?

Menstruation should not be associated with certain genders only as this biological phenomenon is experienced by individuals belonging to diverse gender identities.

Wrong. Exactly wrong. The thing you claim is the opposite of the truth.

An individual does not have to be a menstruator in order to empower menstrual equity around us. I come from a developing country, Bangladesh, where only 15% of the menstruating population has the privilege to afford proper period products- and this is the reality of many other regions around the world as well. 

Ok well that explains the clumsy wording, so I withdraw the part about the barely literate adolescent. (I comment as I read, rather than reading the whole thing before commenting. Risky, but I want to pin down first reactions.) But what a tragedy that someone from Bangladesh of all places has been befuddled by this trendy luxury ideology that’s bad for women.

So what’s he supposed to do? Where, exactly, does he put the speculum?

Reduxx reports:

A French gynecologist has been sanctioned by medical authorities after a trans activist group reported him to the Minister of Equality for comments which they deemed to be “transphobic.” Dr. Victor Acharian, who operates in the Pau region, has been prohibited from practicing medicine for five months, with an additional one-month probationary period.

In August 2023, a trans-identified male and his partner visited Dr. Acharian’s office in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. After a few minutes of waiting, the secretary told the man that the doctor had refused to see him.

“I told her that I’m not competent, but I can guide you. I can refer you to services that can take better care of you. But after I said that, things went south,” gynaecologist Victor Acharian told Euronews, while referring to the trans-identified male with feminine pronouns.

Result: lots of free publicity for the enterprising tranz laydee, lots of pestering and nagging and suspension from work for the naughty gynecologist.

The question remains unanswered; just exactly what did the tranz laydee expect the gynecologist to do?

TIME magazine:

The Trump Administration is facing its first major test after a passenger jet and Army helicopter collided mid-air in the Washington, D.C. area on Wednesday night, in what officials are calling the most fatal aviation disaster on U.S. soil in more than two decades.

The collision quickly raised concerns about the state of air traffic control and oversight and sparked questions about recent leadership changes within the federal agencies charged with regulating air travel.

Just days before the crash, President Donald Trump enacted a sweeping shake-up of the federal agencies responsible for aviation oversight, removing the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), David Pekoske, and eliminating all the members of a key aviation security advisory group. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which regulates airlines and aircraft manufacturers and manages the nation’s airspace, was also without permanent leadership at the time of the crash, as its top official, Michael Whitaker, stepped down ahead of the new administration’s transition after clashing with Trump ally Elon Musk.

Ok but still. It seems like a huge stretch to think that any of that actually caused the helicopter pilots to crash into the plane. It seems like a huge stretch to think that there were already fewer controllers at that extremely busy and crucial airport and that that’s why the helicopter failed to avoid the plane. Things aren’t that simple, even when they’re Trump things.

Um.

Now that he mentions it I remember flinching at that ATC hiring freeze. Really we’re gonna economize on that? Penny wise and pound foolish at all?

Trump says it’s all the fault of the women and other worthless kinds of human.

President Trump blamed diversity requirements at the Federal Aviation Administration and his two Democratic predecessors for the midair collision over the Potomac River on Wednesday night, saying that standards for air traffic controllers had been too lax. Mr. Trump cited no evidence, and even admitted when pressed that the investigation had only just begun.

Moments later, he blamed the pilots of the Army helicopter that appeared to fly into a passenger jet that was on final approach to Reagan National Airport, across the river from the capital.

Mr. Trump went back and forth between blaming diversity goals that he said were created by President Barack Obama and President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and then saying that an investigation was necessary.

Aka he made a display of his own stupidity. Well, he can’t do anything else, can he. If he could fake being not stupid, he would.

His instant focus on diversity reflected his instinct to immediately frame major events through his political or ideological lens, whether the facts fit or not.

It is something he has done before: After a terrorist attack in New Orleans a month ago, he blamed illegal immigration, even though the attacker was a U.S. citizen born in Texas.

When asked how he could say that diversity hiring was to blame for the crash even though basic facts about the midair collision were still being sought by investigators, he said, “Because I have common sense.”

“For some jobs, we need the highest level of genius,” he said.

Right. Will you be leaving today, or first thing tomorrow?

Mr. Trump appeared in the White House briefing room with Vice President JD Vance; the newly sworn-in transportation secretary, Sean Duffy; and the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth. All three men began their comments by praising Mr. Trump’s leadership and repeating that they would eliminate diversity requirements and focus on competence.

Do they know competence when they see it?

Oh well, he’s exceptionally gifted, so that’s ok then.

A teenage boy who used his phone to film young girls undressed in a changing area at the National Aquatic Centre in Dublin has been spared a custodial sentence and a criminal record.

The 17-year-old “exceptionally gifted student”, who cannot be named because he is a minor, had pleaded guilty to two offences under the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act for knowingly possessing two videos on his mobile phone at the centre in Blanchardstown on a date in 2022. He was aged 14 at the time.

Garda James Grogan had said the teen used his phone, which was placed on a kiosk floor, to film girls aged five and nine as they were undressed, and breast and vagina areas were visible. One of them was not identified.

He pleaded guilty to possession of the photos but not to making them? Possession is bad enough but jeezus h christ putting his phone on the floor so that little girls age five and nine would stand over it and he would get photos of their genitals is horrific.

If this nasty piece of work is really all that “gifted” he should be able to figure that out for himself.

Judge Kelly highlighted how the teenager had engaged fully with the Probation Service, which confirmed that he excelled academically.

He has been barred from swimming due to the offence, and the judge expressed hope that would give some comfort to the victim.

Oh yes, I’m sure that’s hugely comforting. Anyway he’s not “barred from swimming”; he’s barred from swimming at the centre in Blanchardstown and maybe centres in other places, but a judge can’t bar him from swimming in local rivers and ponds and similar.

In a mitigation plea, defence counsel Doireann McDonagh told the court her client, who had moved to Ireland a few years before the incident, had experienced bullying and separation from one of his parents due to Covid.

Therefore, he had to sneak photos of little girls’ crotches. He was bullied, so his recourse was to harm and shame little girls.

What it was like on the inside:

Security agents escorted the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Agriculture out of her office on Monday after she refused to comply with her firing by the Trump administration, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Phyllis Fong, a 22-year veteran of the department, had earlier told colleagues that she intended to stay after the White House terminated her Friday, saying that she didn’t believe the administration had followed proper protocols, the sources said.

In an email to colleagues on Saturday, reviewed by Reuters, she said the independent Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency “has taken the position that these termination notices do not comply with the requirements set out in law and therefore are not effective at this time.”

Which means Trump is doing what dictators do, which means Trump is a dictator.

The White House defended the firing of Fong and the other inspectors general, saying “these rogue, partisan bureaucrats… have been relieved of their duties in order to make room for qualified individuals who will uphold the rule of law and protect Democracy.”

Which is what a dictator would say.

The USDA inspector general has a broad mandate, pursuing consumer food safety, audits and investigations of the Agriculture Department as well as violations of animal welfare laws. The USDA has been at the heart of concerns about bird flu, which has spread among cattle and chickens and killed a person in Louisiana.

In 2022, the inspector general’s office launched an investigation of Elon Musk’s brain implant startup Neuralink, which remains ongoing, sources said.

Brain implant startup????

The dismissals, handed out less than a week after Trump took office for his second term, appeared to violate federal law, the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency said in a letter to the White House on Friday.

Dictators do that.

So there are some checks on Trump and his loonies. Good to know.

The White House budget office rescinded a memo ordering a broad freeze on federal grants and loans after Republican senators “hit the ceiling” over the order, which caught them completely by surprise and created confusion in their home states.

…

“Republicans were starting to hit the ceiling because the state governments, people in our states were coming to us saying, ‘Wait, wait, wait, wait. What does this mean? Does it mean we’re going to lose funding for X, Y, Z?’” said one Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss the uproar behind closed doors caused by the memo. “As drafted the initial memo sounded so broad, and it sounded like a new order. It sounded like it was a new freeze, which was super confusing,” the senator added.

A second Republican senator who requested anonymity said the memo the White House budget office dropped on Monday was “shocking” and caused a lot of confusion throughout the Senate Republican conference. “We were all hyperventilating because of the pause on federal funds and programs,” the lawmaker said.

So even Republican senators don’t actually think there should be zero money spent on anything non-military. Good to know.

Republican senators led by Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told the White House directly that the OMB directive was written far too broadly.

Does it please me that the leaders were both women? Yes, yes it does.

“I made clear that I thought it was too sweeping, that it was causing a lot of confusion and consternation in my state, particularly for non-profit organizations, and I’m glad that it’s apparently been rescinded,” Collins said Wednesday afternoon.

Republicans standing up for funding non-profits. Whaddya know.

Amnesty does its favorite fingers-in-ears childish repetition thing yet again.

As always: of course trans people have human rights. That doesn’t mean there are special new rights just for trans people, and Amnesty conspicuously fails to say what it means by “transgender rights.” Is there a “transgender right” for men to plant themselves in women’s toilets and changing rooms and organizations? No, but we can be pretty sure Amnesty thinks there is. It’s interesting that it’s careful not to spell that out though.

Ah. We’re at concentration camps already.

President Donald Trump signed a memo Wednesday that sets in motion preparations for a facility to house thousands of migrants at the U.S. military camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which he said was an effort to “halt the border invasion.”

“I hereby direct the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security to take all appropriate actions to expand the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to full capacity to provide additional detention space for high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States,” the memo to the Department of Homeland Security and the Defense Department says.

Trump previewed the directive at a signing ceremony for the Laken Riley Act, an immigration detention measure, saying he would “instruct the departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantánamo Bay.”

“Most people don’t even know about it. We have 30,000 beds in Guantánamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people. Some of them are so bad we don’t even trust the countries to hold them, because we don’t want them coming back,” he added.

It begins with “holding.” It doesn’t always end there.

Originally a comment by Rev David Brindley on Ok ok we take it back.

An interesting article from Salon, “MAGA’s true believers don’t understand capitalism — Trump will teach them a hard lesson.”

The highlights

America is a nation at war with its mythologies.

For all the electoral postmortems about the desire for economic change, what’s unsurprisingly absent is what seems, to me, an obvious omission: an all-enveloping misunderstanding of American capitalism.

(…)

With due respect to the many Americans who voted for Donald Trump, their overwhelming sense of entitlement dwarfs that of the hard-working immigrants who cut their grass, scrub pots and pans in the restaurants they frequent, and care for their kids and elderly loved ones. Too many Americans have come to believe they are owed financial comfort and material abundance, not to mention eggs and gasoline at predictable prices.

Dare I say it, but this strikes me as the “… the pursuit of Happiness.” from the Declaration of Independence writ large. But rewritten for today’s world meaning less the pursuit and more the entitlement.

Jeremiads about grocery prices are now an acceptable element of political discourse and, per GOP logic, we have a right to complain about them. Feeding the hungry, though? That edges too close to pinko communism. But the point our fellow countrymen and women should grasp is that presidents, whoever they are, have very little control over inflation.

You know what my wife and I did when household costs became too onerous last year? We reduced our expenses, and adjusted our quality of life.

That’s, you know, fiscal conservatism: Tightening the belts, practicing austerity, living within our means, limiting debt. We didn’t literally pull ourselves up by the bootstraps or walk to school through the snow without shoes. But isn’t that the American mythos?

Looks an awful lot like our local politics, too. People demanding governments do something about things over which governments no longer have control. On this day in 1953 an Adelaide butcher was fined for selling mutton at a price higher than the maximum mandated under The Prices Act. When I moved to South Australia in the 1970s the state government mandated maximum prices for a schooner of beer, a meat pie, and a pair of jeans. Could anyone contemplate a return to those days?

So I’ll pose almost the same question nearly a decade later: What do Trump voters, and especially true believers in the MAGA community, of which I was once a full member, think capitalism is?

We legislate against some of the baser traits of our nature: incitement, theft, violence. Our laws aren’t entirely devoid of protections against avarice (such as antitrust regulations), but Americans, collectively and historically, have a high tolerance for greed.

There’s the mythology of capitalist meritocracy at work, which is still championed by many people who’ve been failed by both major political parties. Their concerns have been exploited and manipulated by Republicans who have traumatized them into believing that liberalism, rather than capitalism, is the source of their ills; that because of the evil policies of liberals, they keep working harder and harder but never seem to break even, much less get ahead.

This is the great lie that so many people, like those of iknklast’s family, and people we all know, have fallen for and wholeheartedly believe. If you want to get ahead, you just have to work harder. Isn’t that why there are so many billionaire cleaners?

The author, Rich Logis, is a former MAGAhat who has seen the naked emperor.

One rule for me, another for thee.

All women’s centres pop-ups have been paused from the 30th January onwards.

Mind you…the event itself sounds like all my worst nightmares in one place. Quiet/prayer space? Crafts and more crafts and more crafts?? Blrrrghh. But that’s not the point. The point is all this stupid relentless bullying.

Don’t mention the man.

A second teenage footballer has been handed a six-match ban for asking whether adult transgender opponents she was playing were men.

An 18-year-old who, Telegraph Sport has been told, has both ADHD and learning difficulties, was sanctioned by a National Serious Case Panel in a case with parallels to that for which a 17-year-old girl with suspected autism was handed a similar suspension.

The second teen was charged by her county FA over comments she made to a referee during a match in September, the same month she turned 18. It was alleged she said: “Ref, have you checked if all of their players are eligible to play? Look at their ’keeper and for example their number 10 is obviously a man,” or something similar.

Stupidly, the reporter forgot to spell out that this is a girls’ or women’s team he’s talking about. The “teen’s” question implies it, but the reporter should have said it up front.

She was banned for six matches, two of which were suspended, after accepting the charge brought under national Football Association rules that allow those born male to play in women’s matches.

Finally the mention of women’s matches. It’s always stunning, no matter how many times you’ve seen it, to see “national Football Association rules that allow those born male to play in women’s matches.” If men are allowed to play then they’re not women’s matches, are they?!

The disciplinary proceedings were triggered by a complaint made by the opposition club, which included the claim that she had said to their non-trans players: “This is a man.” She has admitted trying to ask those players if their team-mates were biologically male after failing to get clarity from the ref, who, she wrote in her statement, had threatened to send her off if she continued to quiz him on the matter.

Speaking to Telegraph Sport on condition of anonymity, the teenager said of her ban: “It kind of made me hate football.”

Right there with you, kid. It’s a god damn insult.

Fiona McAnena, director of campaigns at Sex Matters, said: “It’s disgraceful that another teenage girl has been suspended for daring to challenge the presence of a male player in a women’s game. The FA has punished her for asking a question that matters for her own safety, and for fairness for all girls. Sending her for mandatory ‘re-education’ won’t solve this.

“How many other cases are there like this? How long can the FA continue to claim that there is no problem? How can the FA say it supports the women’s game when girls are being suspended for pointing out there is a man on the pitch?”

In fact how can the FA say it supports the women’s game when it lets men play on the women’s teams?

It can’t.

Oh honestly, is this how it’s going to be? They throw a bomb, the shouting is too loud, they haul the bomb back? Government by toddlers?

The White House budget office on Wednesday rescinded an order freezing federal grants, according to a copy of a new memo obtained by The Washington Post, after the administration’s move to halt spending earlier this week provoked a backlash.

In a memo dated Wednesday and distributed to federal agencies, Matthew J. Vaeth, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, states that OMB memorandum M-25-13 “is rescinded.” That order, issued Monday, instructed federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligations or disbursement of all federal financial assistance.”

In other words they’re messing with us along with doing as much as they can get away with. Win-win for them.

The original White House order freezing federal grants, which became public on Monday, caused mass chaos and confusion across Washington, appearing to imperil government programs that fund schools, provide housing and ensure low-income Americans have access to health care. States reported issues accessing funds under Medicaid, and even as of Wednesday, public housing authorities reported being locked out of their funding portal. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that assistance for individuals would not be affected.

In other words she lied.

Trump is setting fire to the entire federal government.

The Trump administration has offered buyouts to almost all of the roughly 3 million people who work for the US government if they leave their jobs by 6 February, as the White House attempts to gut the civil service.

The US office of personnel management (OPM), the government’s human resources agency, sent an email to the entire federal workforce on Tuesday evening with four directives that it says Trump is mandating. They included a full-time return to the office for most employees.

The email said that the federal workforce would be subjected to “enhanced standards of suitability and conduct”, aiming to retain only employees who were “reliable, loyal, trustworthy”. It warned that most agencies would be downsized.

Of course “loyal, trustworthy” means loyal to Trump and trustworthy according to Trump.

“If you choose not to continue in your current role in the federal workforce, we thank you for your service to your country and you will be provided with a dignified, fair departure from the federal government utilizing a deferred resignation program,” the email reads. It offered workers more than seven months’ salary, and asked them to reply with the word “Resign”.

The email had the same subject line – “Fork in the road” – as one sent by Elon Musk to employees at Twitter in 2022 when he bought the social media platform.

So that’s just great. The federal government and civil service are now a branch of Twitter, and run accordingly.

The mass departure of federal workers – from frontline healthcare workers in the veterans affairs department to the officials charged with processing loans for homebuyers or small businesses – could have sweeping consequences for Americans.

The New York Times reported that it could seriously disrupt American life on a vast scale, including most benefits traditionally termed “welfare” – including Medicare, social security and food stamps – as well as travel, tax returns, the normal function of national parks and national museums, passport renewals, medical research, other forms of science, the inspectors and regulators who make sure that food, water and pharmaceutical drugs are safe to consume, and even the accurate functioning of the National Weather Service.

We’re doomed.

So even the Holocaust has to be inclooosive now. I did not see that on the horizon.

Holocaust Memorial Day is about the holocaust of Jews under the Nazi regime. End of story. It’s not a grab bag. It’s not about Everyone.

Updating to add: Ok I overstated it – see Naif’s comment @ 2. It’s about the holocaust of Jews and others in the Nazi death camps. It’s not about post-Nazi genocides.

The truth is there should be a new Memorial Day, or rather a God damn it stop DOING THIS day, to recognize AND DISCOURAGE all these post-1945 genocides that keep happening. Have one of those days every month, or every day, since we can’t seem to learn.

Rape Crisis Scotland still determined to taunt and bully women who have been raped.

A rape crisis charity embroiled in a transgender row has dropped a pledge to issue a definition of women, The Telegraph can reveal.

Rape Crisis Scotland (RCS) admitted it was no longer planning to publish a definition, despite previously promising to do so, following the recommendations of independent expert review.

Of course we shouldn’t need a definition, since we already know, and have all along, but because RCS is so determined to play silly buggers, here we are.

Vicky Ling was commissioned to investigate Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC) after a damning tribunal ruling found it was operating an “extreme” version of gender identity theory under the leadership of Mridul Wadhwa, a biological male who identifies as female.

She found it was doing a crap job and had to do better.

Ms Ling called on RCS to devise and publish a “shared definition of woman/female” to be adopted across its network.

Which just…I mean…they…how have they been running a rape crisis anything all this time if they don’t know what a woman is and can’t even manage to find out?

The charity, which receives more than £3 million in annual funding from the SNP government, had previously accepted Ms Ling’s recommendations in full. Sandy Brindley, its chief executive, claimed last September that work on a definition had been going on for nearly a year.

A year??? A fucking year???

Come on. They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this.

e Sunday Post reported at the weekend that in an internal consultation document about new rules, RCS stated that a woman can be “anyone who self-identifies as a woman”.

An RCS spokesman said it was in discussions with survivors to ensure “any terminology used to describe different spaces within rape crisis services is accessible and easily understandable”.

What do they mean “discussions”? This isn’t physics. This isn’t even the manual you study before taking a driving test. This is not complicated or tricky or difficult. It’s being made difficult, artificially, by obstinate stupid believers in the Holy Male Women Theory, to the inconvenience and annoyance of 99.9 percent of people, especially the female kind.

They added: “The independent review of ERCC published last September identified that although the national service standards for rape crisis centres require centres to provide women-only spaces, they do not define what this means.

“The Supreme Court is currently considering the legal definition of women, and we don’t feel it would be helpful or appropriate to pre-empt this by issuing a definition of women.”

But you know what women are. This is all just theater – theater of stupid. Knock it off.

Anne Applebaum in the Atlantic:

Until recently, Russia was the most important state seeking to undermine European institutions. Vladimir Putin has long disliked the EU because it restricts Russian companies’ ability to intimidate and bribe European political leaders and companies, and because the EU is larger and more powerful than Russia, whereas European countries on their own are not. Now a group of American oligarchs also want to undermine European institutions, because they don’t want to be regulated—and they may have the American president on their side. Quite soon, the European Union, along with Great Britain and other democracies around the world, might find that they have to choose between their alliance with the United States and their ability to run their own elections and select their own leaders without the pressure of aggressive outside manipulation…

A crunch point is imminent, when the European Commission finally concludes a year-long investigation into X. Tellingly, two people who have advised the commission on this investigation would talk with me only off the record, because the potential for reprisals against them and their organizations—­whether it be online trolling and harassment or lawsuits—­is too great. Still, both advisers said that the commission has the power to protect Europe’s sovereignty, and to force the platforms to be more transparent. “The commission should look at the raft of laws and rules it has available and see how they can be applied,” one of them told me, “always remembering that this is not about taking action against a person’s voice. This is the commission saying that everyone’s voice should be equal.”

At least in theory, no country is obligated to become an electoral Las Vegas, as America has. Global democracies could demand greater transparency around the use of algorithms, both on social media and in the online-advertising market more broadly. They could offer consumers more control over what they see, and more information about what they don’t see. They could enforce their own campaign-funding laws. These changes could make the internet more open and fair, and therefore a better, safer place for the exercise of free speech. If the chances of success seem narrow, it’s not because of the lack of a viable legal framework—­rather it’s because, at the moment, cowardice is as viral as one of Musk’s tweets.

And Musk is only going to get more dangerous, not less.

H/t Tim Harris