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We do, Lindsey 

Even Republicans.

Trump’s most unbridled critics at this weekend’s Munich Security Conference have not been Europeans but Americans – and not just Democrats.

A few Republicans, out of earshot of the US president’s favoured Fox News, have had the courage to challenge Trump’s diet of tariffs and unpredictability.

If only that were all. There’s also the diet of stupidity and egomania and brutality and greed and the list goes on.

Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, accused Trump of “doubling down on stupid”. He said: “Never in the history of the US has there been a more destructive president than the current occupant of the White House in Washington. He is trying to recreate the 19th century. He

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Even as a pope 

Peter Baker on Trump’s personality cult:

After a year back in the White House, Mr. Trump’s efforts to promote himself as the singularly dominant figure in the world have become so commonplace that they no longer seem surprising. He regularly depicts himself in a heroic, almost godly fashion, as a monarch, as a Superman, as a Jedi knight, as a military hero, even as a pope in a white cassock.

One thing that’s interesting about that is the focus on quantity as opposed to quality. Trump is going for the Too Dumb to Notice crowd as opposed to the Not That Dumb one. The more he leans into the vulgar boasting the more he disgusts … Read the rest

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No laws on the books 

Let the cars run free!

The momentous end to the federal government’s legal authority to fight climate change makes it official.

The United States will essentially have no laws on the books that enforce how efficient America’s passenger cars and trucks should be.

That’s the practical result of the Trump administration’s yearlong parade of regulatory rollbacks, capped on Thursday by its killing of the “endangerment finding,” the scientific determination that required the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases because of the threat to human health.

Oh who cares about human health. What a silly thing to protect! The important health is the health of cars! They need to run free every day.

“The U.S. no longer has emission standards

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Ho yus the retroactive hysterical frenzy 

Hoooooooooly cow – he didn’t – did he?

He did.

… Read the rest

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An unusual dream 

Back in July 2019 the NY Times gave us Jeffrey Epstein Hoped to Seed Human Race With His DNA.

Jeffrey E. Epstein, the wealthy financier who is accused of sex trafficking, had an unusual dream: He hoped to seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating women at his vast New Mexico ranch.

Mr. Epstein over the years confided to scientists and others about his scheme, according to four people familiar with his thinking, although there is no evidence that it ever came to fruition.

That is unusual! Also revolting.

Mr. Epstein, who was charged in July with the sexual trafficking of girls as young as 14, was a serial illusionist: He lied about the identities

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by a wrestler 

Gee, I wonder what that could be about.

Investigations underway after alleged sexual assault during wrestling match

The U.S. Department of Education is investigating the Puyallup School District after a high school athlete accused a transgender athlete of sexually assaulting her during a wrestling match in December 2025. 

What kind of transgender athlete? Of course they don’t say. Nor do they say a male athlete is accused of sexually assaulting her. They never do.

A wrestler from Rogers High School claims she was sexually assaulted during a wrestling match in December by a wrestler from Emerald Ridge High School.

“The Puyallup School District contacted our school resource officer at Rogers High School on January 30 and had stated there was

… Read the rest

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Most likely to get beaten up 

Well…apart from women, that is. But no matter, women are obviously such a tiny insignificant group that it’s pointless to pay attention to them.

‘The most vulnerable people in our society are trans people. The ones who are most likely to get beaten up are trans people….’ – Labour’s Emily Thornberry. pic.twitter.com/upHOKEw0RF

— Jill Foster (@JournalistJill) February 15, 2026

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Onslow 

I’ve realized who[m] he reminds me of which.

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10,000 miles 

So after all that, Theo Upton just quits and moves to the far side of the planet.

Ms Peggie, 56, blew the whistle after being forced to share a changing room with male-to-female doctor Beth Upton, who undressed in front of her.

And news that Dr Upton, 30, has quit the NHS will be “a relief to female patients”, a campaigner has claimed.

The blast came as sources revealed Dr Beth Upton may have flitted 10,000 miles to Australia in the wake of the high-profile court battle.

Couldn’t he have just done that in the first place instead of pissing away all that money and time and effort, all in aid of his game of Pretending to Be a Laydee?… Read the rest

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Gross misconduct mark 2 

Brilliant news!

Finally! This is the guy who got me arrested at the airport, finding out. https://t.co/McgjjAGHgB

— Graham Linehan (@Glinner) February 14, 2026

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Toxic and traditionalist 

First of all what a dopy title.

‘Carnage of concern and upset’: Women’s Institute groups close after transgender ban

What the hell is a carnage of concern?

You’d think a Guardian subeditor would have a better vocabulary than that. The root word – the “carn” bit – is the same as the one in carnivore. Meat. Carnage is bloody slaughter, it’s not distressing disagreement.

Anyway.

At least 12 Women’s Institute (WI) groups are closing or considering closure after the organisation barred transgender women from membership.

Members say more groups are likely to close, and that the federation’s decision has opened up a toxic, traditionalist culture that will deter younger women from joining.

Ahhhhhhh toxic and traditionalist is it. It’s traditionalist … Read the rest

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Its own cloak of glamour 

Fintan O’Toole is on fire:

Epstein’s cult demanded human sacrifice, preferably that of young virgins. (“He likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” Donald Trump smirked in 2002.) The scale of the demand was vast: the US department of justice estimated that Epstein sexually abused more than a thousand girls.

Those girls were, in this system, fungible assets, their value interchangeable with that of the dollar. They functioned as currency in an elite gift economy, passed around as tokens of status – to be granted the right to use their bodies was to be in with an ultimate in-crowd, a charmed circle of mutual enrichment and reciprocal advancement.

Sexual

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Nobody 

Golly. I know it seems silly to be surprised by anything about Trump at this point, but still, this caused me to manage it.

I can’t imagine saying this ONCE, let alone so many times it goes on for two minutes and ten seconds. His fans would say it’s just theatrics, just being The Donald, yadda yadda – but there’s no space between just being himself and this grotesque string of claims to be omniscient. Any possible space has been obliterated as we’ve watched him performing Man Who Thinks He’s Best At Everything And Knows More About Everything Than Anyone.

Also, it occurs to me, it’s sort of explanatory. This is why nothing gets through to him, ever. He really … Read the rest

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How it plays out 

A must-read:

This is How a Child Dies of Measles… Read the rest

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Guest post: Now and then the yachts have to come into port 

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Might as well fall faster.

Pessimistic grouchiness? Alright then.

(Rolls up sleeves, cracks knuckles, begins to type.)

What these idiots throw out with their dismissal of science is the understanding of the nuance and complexity of what is happening. One might normally expect “nuance and and complexity” to be about subtle, unlikely edge effects, or rare cases, but the complications of climate change (and the destruction of Earth’s biodiversity) are likely to be sudden, extreme, and mutually reinforcing. Our entire planet has become an edge effect.

We have pushed the Earth system beyond the envelope of conditions that allowed the origin and evolution of human civilization itself. These are the … Read the rest

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The law is clear 

The Telegraph on that ruling that has Jolyon in a snit:

Employers can legally ban transgender women from using female toilets and changing rooms, the High Court has ruled.

Employers can legally ban men from using women’s toilets. Remember when it was just taken for granted that men were banned from using women’s toilets? Remember when men could be arrested for perving on women that way? I do.

Activists had challenged interim guidance from the equalities watchdog that said public bodies and organisations should segregate toilets, changing rooms and sports teams by biological sex rather than self-declared identity.

But on Friday a judge dismissed their claims that the guidance was unlawful because it conflicted with previous human rights and equalities

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Power 

Classy people.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reportedly had a Coast Guard pilot fired because she was missing a blanket – only to realize there was no one else to fly her home.

The former South Dakota governor had been forced to switch planes after a maintenance issue was discovered, but her blanket was not moved to the second plane, those familiar with the incident told the Wall Street Journal. She then reportedly had her special advisor Corey Lewandowski fire the US Coast Guard pilot, who was told to take a commercial flight home once they reached their destination.

But when staffers learned there was nobody else available to fly the plane, the unidentified pilot was

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Some hideous gurning goon 

This. I have been wondering/fuming about this for YEARS.

…one day soon, drag artists will be about as politically acceptable as the Black and White Minstrels are today. Right now, you cannot turn on your TV without being assailed by some hideous gurning goon in a garish dress and ludicrous make-up lampooning the female sex – the BBC, in particular, seems obsessed with drag queens. They are even invited into our schools to disseminate filth masquerading as sex education to kids.

For some reason, a reason hard to comprehend, the objections made about ‘blacking up’ do not apply to drag artists. They are, of course, two sides of the same coin, or perhaps the same side of the coin.

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Might as well fall faster 

More on those pesky regulations Trump is deleting:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) first took a stance on the impacts of greenhouse gases in 2009, in the first year of Obama’s first term. The agency decided that six key planet-warming greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, were a danger to human health. With a divided Congress unable to agree on legislation to tackle rising global temperatures, the EPA finding became central to federal efforts to rein in emissions in the years that followed.

“The endangerment finding has really served as the lynchpin of US regulation of greenhouse gases,” said Meghan Greenfield, a former EPA and Department of Justice attorney. “So that includes motor vehicles, but it also includes power

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Legal challenge dismissed 

High Court rules: EHRC guidance lawful

The High Court has dismissed a legal challenge from the Good Law Project (GLP) and three anonymous claimants against the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)’s interim guidance on single-sex services published last year.

Sex Matters intervened in support of the EHRC.

Mr Justice Swift endorsed the interim update that the EHRC published in April last year as an accurate statement of the law for employers and service providers and ruled that “transsexual persons” under the Equality Act have no right to use opposite-sex toilets or changing rooms.

Somewhere, deep inside the forest, a jolyon is raging.… Read the rest

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