Maximize the disruption.

Trump’s return to the White House is already having a big impact at the $47.4 billion U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), with the new administration imposing a wide range of restrictions, including the abrupt cancellation of meetings including grant review panels. Officials have also ordered a communications pause, a freeze on hiring, and an indefinite ban on travel.

The moves have generated extensive confusion and uncertainty at the nation’s largest research agency, which has become a target for Trump’s political allies. “The impact of the collective executive orders and directives appears devastating,” one senior NIH employee says.

Well, it’s only health. This would be bad if it were about something important, but health doesn’t matter.… Read the rest

This is interesting.

https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1882413503304302989 Not being an expert in the law, I’m not sure I understand the distinction between legally authorized and constitutionally unpardonable. (I do assume he means the ordinary sense of unpardonable as opposed to the legal one.) It’s legal but it ignores/flouts a crucial part of the Constitution?

Anyway. Only three days in. Bad moon rising.… Read the rest

Unbelievable.

“Some of those people with the police, true, but they were very minor incidents.”

—Amid some pushback from Sean Hannity, President Trump defends pardoning and commuting sentences for January 6th defendants. pic.twitter.com/Dsl49cYVQm

— The Recount (@therecount) January 23, 2025

Hannity: …people that were violent with police – why did they get a pardon?

Trump: Number of reasons, number one they were in there for three and a half years, a long time

Oh yes? And Trump pardons everyone who’s been in prison for 3.5 years? He has a rule that 3.5 years is a long time and definitely enough punishment? Trump doesn’t want to lock up people he dislikes and throw away the key?

On the contrary, Trump has … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on Vacations for all.

The thing I think a lot of people miss, is if you look at Project 2025, the whole plan is for a crony government.

Sure we can argue about the social justice aspect of all of this, but we aren’t arguing between a merit based system and a DEI one.

We’re talking about Donald “Put his idiot son-in-law in charge of handling a pandemic” Trump here. Donald “Wants a drunken misogynist to run the military” Trump. Donald “Putting an antivax brain worm infested roadkill bear eater in change of health” Trump.

The only merit Trump appears to care about is loyalty to Trump.

What Trump is doing is eliminating … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Rev David Brindley on Buzzing nonstop.

iknklast is partially right about “victims being losers”, but there is a bigger issue in play here.

These people were not losers, they were winners. Winners because they stood firm against a Trump inspired attempted coup. Winners because they put themselves on the line to protect Senators and staff from a violent insurrection.

And that, in Trump’s eyes, makes them traitors who must be punished, and as the law doesn’t currently allow him to punish them, he will let loose his dogs of war.

When America is no longer “The shining light on the hill” (if it ever was), don’t blame Trump and the GOP or those like ikinklast’s … Read the rest

Trump doing the end DEI thing.

President Donald Trump has ordered that all US government staff working on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) schemes be put on immediate paid administrative leave.

The White House confirmed that all federal DEI workers had to be put on leave by 17:00 EST (22:00 GMT) on Wednesday, before the offices and programmes in question were shut down.

The executive order requires federal hiring, promotions and performance reviews [to] “reward individual initiative” rather than “DEI-related factors”.

It revokes a 1965 executive order signed by former President Lyndon B Johnson that makes it illegal for federal contractors to discriminate on the basis of “race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin” in

… Read the rest

Ow, this is painful to read.

When inmates are released from federal prison, the Justice Department places a call to their victims, notifying them that the defendant who attacked them is now free. On Tuesday, the phones of U.S. Capitol Police and D.C. police officers were buzzing nonstop.

For Aquilino A. Gonell, a former Capitol Police sergeant, the automated calls began on Monday evening and continued into Tuesday morning after President Trump issued a sweeping legal reprieve to all of the nearly 1,600 defendants, including those convicted of violent crimes, in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Between 7:03 a.m. and 9:37 a.m., Mr. Gonell received nine calls from the Justice Department about the release of

… Read the rest

Hmm. I find the huge man with the bullhorn not all that persuasive.

I also don’t understand why no one escorts him out of the room and either out of the building or to the jail.

FULL VIDEO:

Today I sat exposed as a 450 pound criminal repeatedly approached me within two feet and screamed in my face with a bullhorn.

At any moment, it could have turned violent and there would have been little I could have done to avoid harm.

Democrats? Silent. pic.twitter.com/IL5mY2ZXQu

— Walter Hudson (@WalterHudson) January 22, 2025

… Read the rest

Trump people are surprised to learn that he’s reckless and impulsive.

President Trump‘s sweeping pardons for 1,500 Jan. 6 criminals and defendants were a last-minute, rip-the-bandage-off decision to try to move past the issue quickly, White House advisers familiar with the Trump team’s discussions tell Axios.

Always a good plan. If you’re going to do something evil and outrageous, do the worst possible version of it so as to get it over with quickly. What could go wrong?

Eight days before the inauguration, Vice President-to-be JD Vance — channeling what he believed to be Trump’s thinking — said on “Fox News Sunday” that Jan. 6 convicts who assaulted police ought not get clemency: “If you committed violence that

… Read the rest

Trump orders all maps to name everything America.

President Trump signed an executive order on Monday requiring the federal government to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” on official maps – a change that could take months to enact and may or may not be immediately reflected on the digital maps Americans use daily.

“The Gulf of America – which has a beautiful ring,” Trump said at a news conference at Mar-a-Lago on January 7. “The Gulf of America, what a beautiful name and it’s appropriate.”

Unless, of course, you want to know where you are.

We could rename the Atlantic the America, and do the same to the Pacific, … Read the rest

Aren’t the Republicans supposed to be the Law n Order party?

Republican senators struggled to defend Donald Trump’s decision to commute and pardon hundreds of January 6 protesters, including those who were charged and convicted of crimes against police officers, just hours after the president entered office Monday.

Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, who has warned before about giving a blanket pardon to the rioters, said, “I just can’t agree” with Trump’s decision to commute the sentences or pardon a vast swath of January 6 insurrection participants.

…

Trump pardoned more than 1,000 people who were charged in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He also commuted the sentences of 14 people in the

… Read the rest

Behold the huge whiney droning man complaining about women thinking they have rights too.

https://twitter.com/Jonnywsbell/status/1881831490352541788

It’s similar to the way “women” was spelt with a y a few years ago; it’s an effort to stop men being part of the phrase

Hold it right there, bro. One, a word is not a phrase; two, and much more important, men don’t get to be “part of” the word “women.” It’s not a ticket to the movies, it’s not a birthday party, it’s not girls’ night out, it’s not a club, it’s not school, it’s not public transportation, it’s not prizes – it’s not any kind of rank or status or club that one can join or aspire to or make great … Read the rest

Come on, it’s a better name.

In a flurry of first-day-in-office activity, Donald Trump has signed an order to rename the 617,800 sq mile Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s 20,000ft mountain Denali.

The Gulf of Mexico will be renamed the Gulf of America, and Denali, the highest peak in North America, will revert to Mount McKinley – the name it was called before Barack Obama changed it in 2015.

The renaming of the two natural features is to honor “American greatness”, according to a preview of the orders obtained by the New York Post.

Pffff – what’s so great about McKinley?

And anyway Denali is American. Alaska is an American state, thus Alaskans are Americans, thus their name for … Read the rest

Ah, here is the author.

The executive order restoring women's rights was written by @MayMailman, former Director of Independent Women's Law Center, now Deputy Assistant to the President. pic.twitter.com/K1vw9VnXgm

— Genevieve Gluck (@WomenReadWomen) January 21, 2025

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Dave Ricks on The one silver lining.

The Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) takes credit for being the architect of model legislation used in Executive Order 14166 that Trump signed yesterday about the definition of ‘sex’ in the Federal government:

Independent Women — the Original Champion of Legislation to Define ‘Woman’ — Applauds President Trump’s Day One Executive Order to Restore Biological Reality

Independent Women is the architect of model legislation to define sex-based terms in law and code in order to stop bureaucrats and elitists on the federal and state level from redefining language to fit a false narrative and erase women. Gender ideologues have sacrificed women’s rights to single-sex spaces, opportunities, and privacy on

… Read the rest

Female people are basically just their genitals. They’re useful holes for men, and (sadly) they’re the only way to make children. Other than that they’re garbage.

Iraq votes to legalize the rape of 9-year-old girls.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq’s parliament passed three divisive [bad] laws Tuesday, including amendments to the country’s personal status law that opponents say would in effect legalize child marriage.

The amendments give Islamic courts increased authority over family matters, including marriage, divorce and inheritance. Activists argue that this undermines Iraq’s 1959 Personal Status Law, which unified family law and established safeguards for women.

Iraqi law currently sets 18 as the minimum age of marriage in most cases. The changes passed Tuesday would let clerics rule

… Read the rest

That one Executive Order:

Section 1.  Purpose.  Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers.  This is wrong.  Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being.  The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system.  Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in

… Read the rest

Where’s the joined-up argument?

Zuckerberg's 'masculine energy' got its first win with Trump declaring there are only two genders. This agenda will see laws passed to force gays back into the closet and women back into the kitchen. Our trans siblings are in the front line of this fight, so now more than ever pic.twitter.com/4elMDntCcU

— Billy Bragg (@billybragg) January 21, 2025

In what way does feminism (aka women escaping the kitchen) depend on the belief that there are more than two “genders”?

In no way. It’s a stupid leap Bragg is making, and it’s devoid of sense.

Women have been escaping the kitchen for decades, without any help at all from trans ideology or trans activists.… Read the rest

Across the pond

Europe’s left-wingers on Tuesday raced to condemn Elon Musk after the world’s richest man performed a stiff-armed salute at an event to celebrate new United States President Donald Trump.

…

The salute immediately generated a viral and divided response, with online critics attacking Musk for the gesture and supporters minimizing its significance.

“I will start by talking about the response, or perhaps the lack of responses of the EU to Trump’s inauguration. It represents a threat to the whole of the European Union,” said French member of the European Parliament Manon Aubry, co-chair of The Left group, at a press conference Tuesday morning. “Let’s start by keeping things simple, I am sure everyone saw the Nazi

… Read the rest

A break for humor.

Ever since he left Britain, Prince Harry has valiantly endeavoured to carve out a new role in life. Unfortunately, however, not all his ideas have been successful – as a remarkable story in the new issue of Vanity Fair makes clear.

Shortly after moving to the US, a source claims, Harry told Spotify that he wished to present a “sociopath podcast”. In each episode, he would interview powerful world figures (for example, “Mark Zuckerberg, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump”) – and ask them how their life experiences had “made them into sociopaths”.

A startling enough suggestion. But there’s more. Because the podcast would also seek to find out why Harry, unlike his honoured guests, was

… Read the rest