Why is no one stopping him?

The billionaire tech magnate has never been elected to office or been confirmed by the Senate for a high-level government job, but in the span of a few days, Musk has still gained access to sensitive federal data through his position as head of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency project, or DOGE, to push a far-reaching agenda and potentially spark a constitutional crisis. 

Musk has embraced Silicon Valley’s most notorious instincts to “move fast and break things” in a lightning battle to muscle into the computer systems and power structures of federal agencies. 

But the government of a large powerful country isn’t Silicon Valley. We don’t actually want things broken.

With a cadre of engineers as young as 19 years old, and with the encouragement of Trump, Musk has demanded and been given access to sensitive government databases and the Treasury Department’s payment system with an unprecedented series of bureaucratic maneuvers. 

There are deep concerns among many Democrats and some Republicans that Musk — and his staff members who are not government workers and are not bound by the same ethics and rules that apply to federal workers — are acting in secret, without accountability and potentially against the law in the Trump administration’s effort to shrink the federal government.

Cool about the deep concern, but how about doing something?

Many Democrats — and even some Republicans — say the attempted unilateral remake of the federal government is unlawful, as Trump and Musk have shoved aside not only career civil servants but also the authority of Congress itself. 

“It’s a potential constitutional crisis,” said Brian Riedl, a former Senate Republican staff member who is now a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute. In a phone interview, he said he was concerned that Musk’s power is going unchecked. 

“Someone with as much power as Elon Musk has should be Senate-confirmed,” he said. “There needs to be some accountability to Congress and the voters.” 

So do something.

Musk has been using as his primary example of suspected government waste a dubious claim that $50 million of taxpayer money went to pay for condoms sent to the Gaza Strip. The Associated Press reported last week that there was no evidence for the claim. 

And he has acted largely in secret, withholding not only the names of newly hired government officials who are helping him make decisions, but also the details of the decisions themselves and the supposed legal authority under which he is operating. On Monday, after people began posting the names of DOGE employees online, Musk accused them of breaking the law. 

Classic reverse victim and offender.

Michael Tomasky on our new overlord:

It literally sounds like the plot of a dystopian science fiction movie: The richest man in the world befriends—and helps finance—another rich man who becomes president of the United States, who then gives his plutocratic benefactor carte blanche access to the operations of the federal government. The bedlamite billionaire instantly zeroes in on the obscure little office that oversees the writing of all the government’s checks, thus ensuring that he has the power to bring down the U.S. and global economy and even, if he so wishes, topple said president.

Oh, and—he’s also a right-wing extremist who recently spoke to the far-right German political party whose leaders say things like “Hitler and the Nazis are just a speck of bird poop in more than 1,000 years of successful German history.” He told them—with a wink-wink-nudge-nudge—that Germans placed “too much focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that.” And then there’s the matter of that salute, which of course, he denies was what many people—even or especially among those who delighted in it—thought it was.

Well, yes, but clearly Tomasky is suffering from Musk derangement syndrome.

Musk wrote on X over the weekend, according to CNN, that his team had “discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups. They literally never denied a payment in their entire career. Not even once.”

He was trying to make this sound scandalous. It’s not. Not remotely! The opposite would be scandalous. The bureau spends the money Congress has approved. If fraudulence or terrorism is to be identified anywhere, that’s Congress’s job. Never denying a payment is the bureau’s job.

So that’s how it’s unprecedented. It’s antidemocratic because some of these people don’t even appear to have real positions in the government. Yes, Donald Trump was elected. But Elon Musk was not. And press accounts of these goings-on, you might notice, don’t identify a number of the people working on this effort by their official titles, presumably because they don’t even have them. They’re just called “Musk associates.” One, a man named Baris Akis, heads a venture capital firm. His presence at transition-period meetings, CNN reports, “raised alarms among some of the Treasury officials present for those early meetings, since he was not an official member of the incoming Trump administration and didn’t have a security clearance at the time.”

…

Over the weekend, Mike Flynn tweeted out the federal dollars that go to Lutheran services for immigrants and refugees. They are vast amounts, to be sure, but they were approved by Congress. Musk replied to Flynn that “The @DOGE team is rapidly shutting down these illegal payments.”

Congress is illegal, and Musk is the cop and the prosecutor and the jury who will shut it down. Good times.

And the lawless interloper finds the time to advertise his lawless interloping on his soshul media toy.

Newest at top.

The BBC has been live reporting on Musk’s coup:

Democratic lawmakers have gathered outside USAID headquarters in Washington DC.

They are now speaking about how they believe shutting down USAID is a “clear and present danger” to US national security.

Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, says that closing this agency will only aid US adversaries and cites Russian President Vladimir Putin’s celebration of its closure.

The legislators also point out that it’s plain illegal.

Democrat[ic] lawmaker Gerry Connolly says “no-one elected Elon Musk to dismantle” USAID.

“Congress created this agency,” he says. “If you want to change it, you’ve got to change that law. It’s a matter for Congress to deal with, not an unelected billionaire oligarch named Elon Musk.”

Jamie Raskin, a frequent political foe of Donald Trump, is taking the fight directly to Elon Musk, who is leading efforts to dismantle USAID.

Musk leads the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) – which is not a government department, but a team within the Trump administration.

“Elon Musk, you didn’t create USAID, the United States Congress did for the American people. And just like Elon Musk did not create USAID, he doesn’t have the power to destroy it,” he says. “We don’t have a fourth branch of government called ‘Elon Musk,'” he also says.

He then notes that Musk’s SpaceX company has contracts with the defence department and says he “became the richest man in the world off our money”.

The richest and the evilest.

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who came to the US as a refugee from Somalia and now represents parts of the state of Minnesota, shares firsthand perspective about USAID’s role.

Omar shares that she once lived in a refugee camp and that USAID assistance “kept my family fed and safe”. She said aid programmes “creates goodwill for the American people” because it reinforces the US’s soft power in the world.

Omar claims that the Trump administration’s moves made against USAID are “what the beginning of a dictatorship looks like”.

She’s not wrong.

Then Trump stepped up to let us know he has no clue what USAID does or doesn’t do.

He briefly touched upon the controversy regarding Elon Musk and DOGE, as well as on the future of USAID – which he described as fraudulent and claimed it is run by “lunatics”.

“They went totally crazy,” he said. “They were giving [money] to people that shouldn’t getting it, and to agencies and others that shouldn’t be getting it. They’re a tremendous fraud, but we’ll be doing a report.”

He did say, however, that he “loves” the concept of USAID. “The concept of it is good, but it’s all about the people,” he added.

He doesn’t know. If he knew, he would blab it. He doesn’t know: that’s why it’s all generalities. He does that a lot.

Crime scene:

Staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development were instructed to stay out of the agency’s Washington headquarters, and yellow police tape and officers blocked the agency’s lobby on Monday, after billionaire Elon Musk announced President Donald Trump had agreed with him to shut the agency.

USAID staffers also said more than 600 additional employees had reported being locked out of the aid agency’s computer systems overnight. Those still in the system received emails saying that “at the direction of Agency leadership” the headquarters building “will be closed to Agency personnel on Monday, Feb. 3.” The agency’s website vanished Saturday without explanation.

I don’t think any of that is normal process. It looks more like a hijacking than a change in leadership.

The upheaval follows Trump ordering a freeze on foreign assistance, with widespread effects around the world. The moves by the U.S., the world’s largest provider of humanitarian aid, have upended decades of policy that put humanitarian, development and security assistance in the center of efforts to build alliances and counter adversaries including China and Russia.

As I mentioned, the countering adversaries bit may well be the main reason the agency exists but the fact remains that humanitarian assistance is a good thing. A bribe to say no to Russia still puts food on the table and kids in school and medicine in hospitals.

Democratic lawmakers have protested the moves, saying Trump lacks constitutional authority to shut down USAID without congressional approval and decrying Musk’s accessing sensitive government-held information through his Trump-sanctioned inspections of federal government agencies and programs.

“This is a corrupt abuse of power that is going on,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said at a rally with agency supporters and other Democratic lawmakers in front of the USAID building. “As my colleague said, it’s not only a gift to our adversaries, but trying to shut down the Agency for International Development by executive order is plain illegal.”

Musk, who’s leading an extraordinary civilian review of the federal government with Trump’s agreement, said early Monday that he had spoken with Trump about the six-decade U.S. aid and development agency and “he agreed we should shut it down.”

“It became apparent that it’s not an apple with a worm it in,” Musk said in a live session on X Spaces early Monday. “What we have is just a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair.”

“We’re shutting it down,” he said.

One arrogant guy elected to nothing can do all this. It’s authoritarianism on stilts.

USAID, meanwhile, has been one of the federal agencies most targeted by the Trump administration in an escalating crackdown on the federal government and many of its programs.

“It’s been run by a bunch of radical lunatics. And we’re getting them out,” Trump said to reporters about USAID on Sunday night.

The Trump administration freeze on foreign assistance has shut down much of USAID’s aid programs worldwide, including an HIV-AIDS program started by Republican President George W. Bush credited with saving more than 20 million lives in Africa and elsewhere. Aid contractors spoke of millions of dollars in medication and other goods now stuck in port that they were forbidden to deliver.

Other programs that would shut down provided education to schoolgirls in Afghanistan under Taliban rule and monitored an Ebola outbreak spreading in Uganda. A USAID-supported crisis monitoring program, which was credited for helping prevent repeats of the 1980s famine in Uganda that killed up to 1.2 million people, has gone offline.

Bitterness and gall.

This is just one small part of it but it’s intensely creepy.

USAID logos and photos showing the humanitarian work the agency does around the globe were removed from its offices last week, multiple sources familiar with the situation told CNN.

“All of the visuals have been taken down. These are like large-scale photos of our work in developing countries that are in our lobbies, in our galleys, in communal kitchens, hallways,” a USAID employee said. “An order also came down to individual bureaus and offices to remove all USAID artwork and signage.”

It’s so ugly. So brutal. So mean. It says “Fuck all this humanitarian shit about feeding people, vaccinating people, rescuing people, protecting people.”

I get that humanitarian aid can be viewed as just a big bribe to get people on Our Team, but it’s still humanitarian aid. It still does actually aid. Stripping away all evidence of that is a hideous portent.

More on Musk’s determination to smash everything that helps anyone other than Elon Musk:

Elon Musk, who is heading Donald Trump’s efforts to shrink the federal government, has said they are working to shut down the foreign aid agency USAid, in a social media discussion on X early on Monday.

The conversation, which included former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Republican senator Joni Ernst and Mike Lee, began with Musk saying they were working to shut down the United States Agency for International Development (USAid).

“It’s beyond repair,” Musk said, adding that Trump agreed it should be shut down.

Who is he to say that? How does he get to decide that? Why are there no barriers?

USAid is the world’s largest single donor. In fiscal year 2023, the US disbursed $72bn of assistance worldwide on everything from women’s health in conflict zones to access to clean water, HIV/Aids treatments, energy security and anti-corruption work. It provided 42% of all humanitarian aid tracked by the United Nations in 2024.

I suppose the thinking is that that $72 billion should belong to Trump and Musk rather than all those filthy little people all over the planet who are too lazy to be billionaires.

Musk has Trump’s support. Asked if Musk was doing a good job on Sunday, Trump agreed. “He’s a big cost-cutter. Sometimes we won’t agree with it and we’ll not go where he wants to go. But I think he’s doing a great job. He’s a smart guy. Very smart. And he’s very much into cutting the budget of our federal budget.“

Without any concern for the consequences. Yes, we know.

More gleeful tormenting of women who don’t believe men are women.

A Kirkcaldy nurse told an employment tribunal today she was “shocked” the first time she saw a transgender doctor in the female changing room.

What kind of “transgender doctor” you flaming idiots? It is your job not to obscure crucial facts.

A&E worker Sandie Peggie is suing NHS Fife after she was rapped following a confrontation with Dr Beth Upton – who identifies as a woman – in December 2023.

Rapped? Is that some Scottish idiom? Does it mean rebuked? Punished? It doesn’t seem to be a typo for raped.

She recounted her experience on the first day of the hearing in Dundee, where she was also grilled by the health board’s lawyer over claims she treated Dr Upton “differently”.

Ms Peggie, who works at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, told the tribunal she felt “embarrassed and intimidated” when Dr Upton started to undress in front of her on Christmas Eve. The nurse had previously stayed out of the women’s changing room on two occasions when the transgender [male!!] doctor was there and raised concerns with her manager.

…

Jane Russell, representing NHS Fife, claimed Ms Peggie refused to address Dr Upton directly while working because the medic is transgender. In notes taken on her [his] iPhone a week before the changing room row, Dr Upton wrote that Ms Peggie “won’t make eye contact” and “won’t acknowledge my presence”.

Oh tough shit, dude. Your presence is both a threat and an intense insult. Do something about your narcissism and sense of entitlement.

The Wall Street Journal on Musk’s war on the US government:

Elon Musk’s allies are moving swiftly to exert control over vast swaths of the U.S. government, as they demand access to sensitive information at federal agencies and lay out plans to block spending they deem excessive.

Musk, the billionaire adviser to President Trump who runs the Department of Government Efficiency, oversaw a successful effort by his representatives to get direct access to a payment system that distributes trillions of dollars to Americans each year. And individuals working for DOGE accessed the U.S. Agency for International Development following a clash with security officials. 

The moves marked the start of a far-reaching campaign by Musk to upend the federal government agency by agency, according to his allies. The effort prompted outrage from Democrats, and some Republicans, who said Musk doesn’t have the authority to overturn programs and spending priorities decided by Congress. They also raised concerns about the nature of Musk’s operation, which is run by individuals with ties to the tech sector who haven’t been confirmed by the Senate and could benefit financially from the actions DOGE takes.

This is bad. Really bad. There are no barriers.

The episode unfolded as Musk worked to disassemble the 10,000-person, $40 billion agency and rein in its autonomy. Musk posted on X over the weekend that USAID was a corrupt organization filled with Marxist staffers, providing no evidence for his broadsides. “USAID is a criminal organization,” he wrote in one post. “Time for it to die.” Trump planned to release an executive order folding the USAID into the State Department.

No barriers. No guard rails. Nothing.

Well, this doesn’t sound good.

Musk Says Trump Wants to Shut Down U.S. Foreign Aid Agency

I still don’t get how Musk is the boss of us.

Elon Musk said early Monday that President Trump believes the U.S. Agency for International Development should be shut down, adding to the questions over the administration’s plans for the U.S. government’s lead agency for humanitarian aid and development assistance.

Mr. Trump has stopped short of saying the agency should be dissolved. Mr. Musk said during an event broadcast on X, his social media platform, that he had discussed U.S.A.I.D. in detail with the president who agreed “that we should shut it down.”

“I want to be clear,” Mr. Musk added. “I actually checked with him a few times. I said, ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Yes.’ So we’re shutting it down.”

Oh, how scrupulous. He pushed Trump to “shut it down” and then “checked with him” – but what’s he doing there in the first place? Bad enough that Trump is there but what is Elon Musk????

The Trump administration’s moves to slash international aid programs that operate with grant money from U.S. agencies have thrown humanitarian groups around the world into crisis. U.S.A.I.D. spent about $38.1 billion on health services, disaster relief, anti-poverty efforts and other programs in fiscal year 2023. That was less than 1 percent of the federal budget.

Yes but it’s less than 1 percent squandered on horrible disgusting poor people instead of staying in the pockets of real estate hucksters and people who move fast and break things.

Mr. Musk is not a neutral player on the subject of U.S.A.I.D. He is a harsh critic who has posted a series of messages in recent days that promoted conspiracy theories about it. He labeled it “a criminal organization” in a post on Sunday, without offering evidence, and added: “Time for it to die.”

Time for Musk to return to South Africa.

Crappy deceptive sloppy manipulative writing steps up to assist wild claims yet again.

Headline:

Trump claims there are only ‘2 genders.’ Historians say that’s never been true

That is, the reporter, Alexandra Mae Jones, was able to find more than one historian willing to say that’s never been true – but it comes across as historians in general, historians as a group, say that’s never been true. Guess what: they don’t. (There’s also the usual manipulation of talking about “genders” instead of sexes. If you mean eccentric hair, sure, kid, lots of historians will agree that eccentric hair is nothing new.)

Subhead:

History is filled with examples of people changing genders or living between genders, historians say

Blah blah. Again, depends on what you mean by “genders” and depends on how many historians you asked. 2? 3? An honest reporter would be clear on whether she means historians as a group or two historians who answered her email.

Historian Mo Moulton watched with dismay last week as U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that the U.S. will only recognize two sexes, male and female, and that they cannot be changed. 

“There’s been so much energy expended trying to police people into fitting into just two boxes,” Moulton, a history professor at the University of Birmingham, England, told CBC News. 

Ah. We have our answer. The curious reporter sought out a historian who would say what the reporter wanted her to say. Wikipedia:

Mo Moulton is an American author and historian of 20th century Britain and Ireland, interested in gender, sexuality, and colonialism/postcolonialism. They are a senior lecturer in the history of race and empire at the University of Birmingham.

Of course they are, all one of them.

There’s a difference between “historians in general” and “two historians who have bought into the current gender ideology.” It’s very misleading and manipulative to pretend you mean the first when in fact you mean the second. A decent editor would know that and rewrite the headline and lede accordingly.

Here’s something I didn’t know. Sidhbh Gallagher, the “yeet the teets” butcher, fled Indiana after a young girl died of an embolism after some “yeeting.” The girl’s parents filed a lawsuit that names Gallagher, who is happily yeeting away in Florida.

Check out the glam photo of her on her self-promotion.

Dr. Gallagher is dedicated to bringing cutting-edge care combined with a patient centered approach to Miami. She specializes in body contouring including breast augmentation, lift and reduction as well as drain-free tummy tucks and liposuction.

In addition, Dr. Gallagher offers labiaplasty and mommy makeovers. She also has a special interest in non-surgical facial rejuvenation and lip enhancement with injectables. Dr. Gallagher’s practice combines her academic background and artistic skill to deliver safe & exceptional results to her patients.

“Tummy tucks” and “mommy makeovers” – I want to vomit. Cutesy infantilizing language for women, and the occasional embolism in the wake of “top surgery.” What a horror.

Wholly owned subsidiary.

Therefore, Trump gets to grab it.

Peak sound reasoning.

So lovely dude Karla Sofía Gascón turns out to be also an abusive insulting bully. What a surprise.

Right, knowing a man is a man is the same as being a plantation boss.

Revisiting the “asexuality” activist who does such a sterling job of demonstrating indifference to sexuality.

Her pinned post on twitX:

In other words you don’t dress like that for no reason, or because it’s merely decorative. You dress like that to show off how sexy you are. Being sexy is not the same as being sexual, but if you’re not sexual, why bother to show off how sexy you are?

Maybe to be what’s vulgarly known as a prick-tease? If so, when did that become part of Pride?

Answers on a postcard.

Well thank god there’s so little going on in the world that the BBC has time and space to report on a guy who couldn’t find trans underpants. Sadly it doesn’t have time to explain why it’s telling us this. The lede:

A trans man said he locked himself away every month when he menstruated because he could not access trans-friendly underwear.

What does the BBC mean “said”? Said when, where, to whom? What a bizarre amateurish way to begin a news story – “somebody said something.”

It goes on in the same dopy amateurish way, with a series of “said”s minus any context.

Jay-Harley Rees, 28, from Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, said there were not enough spaces where trans and non-binary people felt safe in small towns and rural areas.

He said he had to put on a “fake deeper voice and pretend to be a lad just to go to the shop”.

Rhi Kemp-Davies, a non-binary therapist, said changing your appearance as a trans person to “pass” was often done to avoid violence.

What do you mean “said”??? Is this an interview, or something overheard on a bus, or what?

It’s a very long piece by BBC standards, full of glurge about packing and binders and living authentic lives.

I said that.

One can see Elon Musk in every word.

The email, sent from President Trump’s Office of Personnel Management to employees across the sprawling federal government, arrived just before 8:30 p.m. Thursday — almost exactly 24 hours after an air crash in Washington that killed 67 people. The message reiterated an offer earlier this week from the administration encouraging federal employees to seek new jobs in the private sector — and did so in terms that appeared to denigrate their contributions, if not cast them as lazy.

“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,” stated the email, which was reviewed by The New York Times.

Like that. “Productivity” isn’t always the relevant criterion, to put it mildly. Human needs and making a profit don’t always seamlessly mesh. Making widgets isn’t all there is.

“There are so many public servants working in government because they want to serve the public — that is what motivates them,” said Max Stier, the president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group that promotes best practices in government. “This series of hammer blows that federal employees have experienced has created fear and disorientation and distraction, and shows the administration has not read the room at all.”

Well you see serving the public isn’t “productive” enough.

Mr. Trump’s repeated degradations of federal workers also may not have the intended effect. Some workers said on Friday that they were increasingly motivated to keep their jobs to ensure government services would be delivered to citizens.

Uh oh – citizens? That’s subversive. It’s consumers you’re supposed to be delivering to.

A new depth plumbed by Newsweek.

Nearly 18 years after killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two young daughters during a home invasion in Connecticut, the murderer formerly known as Steven Joseph Hayes says she’s now at peace — though still haunted by the killings she regrets.

Well he shouldn’t be at peace. Killing three people for giggles is not something anyone should be at peace with.

Hayes — now Linda Mai Lee after finalizing a name change this month — and accomplice Joshua Komisarjevsky, now 44, were sentenced to death for the attack, which included sexual assaults of Hawke-Petit and her 11-year-old daughter. The pair, who previously met at a halfway house, doused the family’s home with gasoline and set it ablaze. Hayley Petit, 17, and her younger sister, Michaela, died of smoke inhalation, while Hawke-Petit was strangled by Lee after they returned from a bank where she was forced to withdrawal $15,000.

Not killing alone; killing by torture plus sexual assault. Peace should be way out of reach.

In exclusive comments to Newsweek, Lee, 61, said her former anger had been fueled by the question of her gender identity. Now, she said she finally felt comfortable living as a woman in the Oregon State Penitentiary, where she is serving six life sentences for the killings of Hawke-Petit, 48, Hayley Petit, 17, and 11-year-old Michaela Rose Petit in Cheshire on July 23, 2007.

“For the first time in my life I am happy to be alive and do not want to die,” Lee told Newsweek via email on Jan. 15, adding she intends to resume hormone replacement therapy shortly.

Why is Newsweek shoving this putrid pile of excrement in our faces?

It’s a man who wrote it – one Joshua Rhett Miller, “chief investigative reporter.” This isn’t investigation, it’s ass-kissing – and the ass belongs to a man who murdered three female people. Newsweek thinks this is good stuff? It doesn’t notice anything insulting to women about it?

The vast majority of inmates in Oregon State Penitentiary are men, but Lee said she is able to wear makeup, eye shadow, foundation, eyeliner and even lipstick on occasion. She also cherishes her jewelry, including rings and necklaces, as well as bras, panties and what she called a “slightly feminized” uniform. 

Panties??? Wtf? Is this whole disgusting story a pretext for some dude to drivel about bras and “panties”? Insult women and infantilize them in the same breath – while rejoicing that their murderer feels happy now.

Had Lee accepted herself earlier, Hawke-Petit and her daughters may still be alive, she said.

“I think about them every day and regret my part in what happened and all the pain I caused,” Lee said.

Jesus christ. His part? In what happened? Murderer says “excuse me” for “his part” in murdering three people while rejoicing at how happy he now is playacting being a woman.

There’s a whole lot more of this garbage. I hope Joshua Rhett Miller is very sorry he wrote it.

Nyah nyah, you don’t get the nice corner office any more.

The Trump administration’s program to shake up media representation at official briefings and press calls in Washington is set to affect the Pentagon, with credentialed media being rotated out of assigned workspaces for media newcomers.

The conservative-leaning One America News Network is set to replace NBC News, Breitbart will be given space held by National Public Radio, the New York Post has been offered the New York Times’ workspace and HuffPost will replace Politico.

The changes are set to take place on 14 February in what the Pentagon calls a new “annual media rotation program”, according to an internal memo seen by CNN.

The moves are largely symbolic as outlets are not losing access to Pentagon briefings, but are in keeping with the Trump administration’s plans to mix the access of traditional news outlets with a cohort of non-traditional news outlets, including podcasters, bloggers and TikTokers.

Well you can call it “non-traditional” if you like but it’s a euphemism. What these outlets are is amateur. It’s not a crime to be an amateur, I’m an amateur, but I sure as hell don’t think I should be up front at Pentagon press briefings.

A spokesperson for the New York Times said the move to expel the paper and other independent news outlets from the Pentagon’s press spaces was “a concerning development”.

“The Department of Defense has the largest discretionary budget in the government, millions of Americans in uniform under its direction and control of a vast arsenal funded by taxpayers. The Times is committed to covering the Pentagon fully and fairly. Steps designed to impede access are clearly not in the public interest,” the paper added in an email statement.

…

Kevin Baron, a former vice-president of the Pentagon Press Association, called the changes “the erasure of journalism at the Pentagon” in a series of posts on X.

Baron said the existing outlets were being “replaced with fake news partisans like Breitbart, OANN, and NY Post. And HuffPo (they still exist?) for fake balance. Trump/MAGA’s fascist takeover of media coverage of the regime continues.”

And this is only week two. 206 left to go.

King’s College London has a page for Yasmin Benoit, but doesn’t really explain what her research will be or why KCL thought she would be a good visiting researcher.

Yasmin Benoit is a British model, multi-award-winning asexual activist, writer, speaker, media consultant and researcher.

What’s an asexual activist? How do you activist a negative? How do you activist being asexual?

Starting her career as a model and advocate for diversity in the fashion industry, Yasmin was described as the “unlikely face of asexuality” by Cosmopolitan Magazine after publicly coming out as asexual in 2017. She started the #ThisIsWhatAsexualLooksLike movement for diverse representation and visibility, co-founded International Asexuality Day (April 6), and is a board member of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network.

This is all…nothing. It’s just stuff you can do by typing for a few minutes. It doesn’t mean anything. How can an academic institution be this gullible?

In 2022, she launched Stonewall x Yasmin Benoit Ace Project – the UK’s first asexual rights initiative with Stonewall – and won ‘Campaigner/Influencer of the Year’ at the Rainbow Honours. The following year, they released the ‘Ace in the UK’ report into asexual experiences and discrimination, which is being used to inform workplace, healthcare and public policy. Yasmin was the first asexual person to open NYC Pride and to lead Pride in London in 2023 and 2024 respectively. She has also taken her activism to Serbia, Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Germany, Belgium and the Czech Republic.

Taken her activism there and done what with it?