All entries by this author
Apr 12th, 2025 10:38 am |
By Ophelia Benson
The Grand Inquisitor returns:
The Trump administration has ordered State Department employees to report on any instances of coworkers displaying “anti-Christian bias” as part of its effort to implement a sweeping new executive order on supporting employees of Christian faith working in the federal government.
I wonder how they are defining “anti-Christian” and “bias.”
The department, according to a copy of an internal cable obtained by POLITICO, will work with an administration-wide task force to collect information “involving anti-religious bias during the last presidential administration” and will collect examples of anti-Christian bias through anonymous employee report forms.
Well those are two very different things. Religious believers can be extremely hostile to rival religions, far more hostile than the relaxed … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
15 comments
Apr 12th, 2025 9:28 am |
By Ophelia Benson
It’s about farking time!!!
Judges have been warned against using preferred pronouns for transgender offenders who commit violent or sex crimes.
Inappropriate use of preferred pronouns in such cases raises the risk of appearing “biased” or having “predetermined” the outcome, the Judicial Office warned in an alert to all judges and magistrates.
Well yes but surely it also risks confusing the people who decide the outcome. That’s the whole point of the luxury pronouns – to condition people to think the person with the luxury pronouns really is the Other Gender.
Campaigners have expressed concern that transgender defendants who are biologically male and have committed sex attacks against women are being referred to as “she” in court.
For a slew … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
3 comments
Apr 12th, 2025 5:41 am |
By Ophelia Benson
I see. Research is bad because it tells us about climate change, so the thing to do is get rid of research. Problem solved.
The Trump administration is proposing deep cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to a draft budget proposal viewed by NPR.
The agency’s budget for 2026 would be slashed by more than 25% overall from its current level of roughly $6 billion under the proposal, which would need to be approved by Congress. The draft cuts to NOAA’s research operations and fisheries services are particularly severe.
If enacted, the cuts would “take us back to the 1950s in terms of our scientific footing and the American people,” says Craig McLean, a former director
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
4 comments
Apr 11th, 2025 6:02 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Politico reports:
The Education Department launched the process for pulling Maine’s federal K-12 funding citing the state’s refusal to bar [male] transgender students from girls’ sports.
…
In March, the Education Department’s probe found the Maine Department of Education’s sports participation policy violated Title IX. But the proposed agreement given to the state to sign to avoid losing its funding went beyond just addressing sports.
The requirements of the agreement would have forced the state to say the Trump administration’s interpretation of Title IX outweighs Maine’s Human Rights Act, which provides protection for transgender people.
Wait wait wait. Explain what you mean by “protection.” Protection is not letting males play in female sports. Keeping males out of female sports does not … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
5 comments
Apr 11th, 2025 5:31 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The one and only thing the Trump administration is right about:
Today, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) referred its Title IX investigation into the Maine Department of Education (MDOE) to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for further enforcement action. Simultaneously, ED will initiate an administrative proceeding to adjudicate termination of MDOE’s federal K-12 education funding, including formula and discretionary grants.
These actions are a direct result of MDOE’s continued refusal to comply with Title IX. ED issued a noncompliance finding on March 19, and sent a final warning letter to the state on March 31.
Title IX – the one that says don’t treat women like shit.
Following a directed investigation of MDOE, ED’s Office for Civil
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments
Apr 11th, 2025 11:36 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Trump and co are blowing off the courts.
The Trump administration on Friday defied a federal judge’s order to provide an explanation for how it intended to bring back to the United States a Maryland man who was unlawfully deported to El Salvador last month.
In an aggressive two-page filing, Justice Department lawyers told the judge, Paula Xinis, that she had not given them enough time to figure out what they planned to do about the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, after the Supreme Court ordered the administration on Thursday to “facilitate” his return to U.S. soil.
“Defendants are unable to provide the information requested by the court on the impracticable deadline set by the court hours after
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
1 Comment »
Apr 11th, 2025 6:55 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Punish the woman.
The U.S. military announced on Thursday that it had removed the commander of its Pituffik base in Greenland, adding that it would not tolerate any actions that go against President Trump’s agenda.
The decision to remove Col. Susannah Meyers was announced in a statement by the U.S. Space Force that was posted on social media by Sean Parnell, the chief spokesman for the Pentagon.
While the statement didn’t cite a specific reason for her removal, Mr. Parnell said that “actions to undermine the chain of command or to subvert President Trump’s agenda will not be tolerated.”
That’s disturbing. I get that the military is all about the chain of command and unquestioning obedience and all that, … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
4 comments
Apr 10th, 2025 5:44 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Trump lost. The Central Park 5 defamation case is going ahead.
Trump has failed to persuade a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit accusing him of making defamatory statements about five Black and Hispanic men who were wrongly convicted and imprisoned for the 1989 rape of a white jogger in New York’s Central Park.
Philadelphia-based U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone ruled on Thursday that the men had presented enough evidence for now to pursue their lawsuit accusing Trump of defaming them in comments he made during the 2024 presidential campaign. The judge narrowed the lawsuit, however, by dismissing a claim by the plaintiffs of intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Can we get him on being too evil and self-regarding … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
3 comments
Apr 10th, 2025 2:49 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Eyes on the important stuff.
Donald Trump is going to “make America’s showers great again” by easing rules restricting water flow, the White House says.
The US president is ordering the energy secretary to rescind a change introduced by Barack Obama that restricted multi-nozzle showers from discharging over 2.5 gallons of water per minute overall. This served “a radical green agenda that made life worse for Americans”, the White House said, as Trump criticised the “ridiculous” amount of time he says it takes to wet his hair in the shower.
Suuuure it does, because he has such manly thick strong turgid hair it takes 10 times longer to soak it than it takes for average inferior people like the … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
10 comments
Apr 10th, 2025 11:29 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Look at this guy putting it right out there. “You don’t have the power,” he gloats.
You don’t have the power to tell me where I belong; that was the freedom I won for myself.
Pause for gloating smirk.
Rears back while lifting upper lip in the manner of an agitated horse; takes deep breath and blows it out.
I’m not a man, I’m a transgender woman. And uh…I don’t know how to break this to you [pause for smirk] but I’ve got the tits to prove it. [more smirking and face-making] Why don’t you fuck yourself sideways, how’s
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
6 comments
Apr 10th, 2025 10:25 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Ok who knew there was such a thing as “enby feminine”???
I certainly didn’t.
BH is one Blair Hamilton.
WHAT IS ENBY FEMININE?
What possible meaning can that have?
Enby=non-binary=neither female nor male.
Pick a story, bro.
BH who idennifies as enby-feminine has a page at the University of Brighton (not to be confused with the University of Sussex). It is eloquent and excitable.
Introducing Blair
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
4 comments
Apr 10th, 2025 9:35 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Is it ok for Trump to manipulate the stock market right out in the open? Oh sure. Where’s the harm?
When Donald Trump offered some financial advice Wednesday morning, stocks were wavering between gains and losses.
But that was about to change.
“THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT,” he wrote on his social media platform Truth Social at 9:37 a.m.
Less than four hours later, Trump announced a 90-day pause on nearly all his tariffs. Stocks soared on the news, closing up 9.5% by the end of trading. The market, measured by the S&P 500, gained back about $4 trillion, or 70%, of the value it had lost over the previous four trading days.
So he did people … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
1 Comment »
Apr 10th, 2025 7:36 am |
By Ophelia Benson
When infant-tech goes wrong:
A woman in Australia has unknowingly given birth to a stranger’s baby, after her fertility clinic accidentally implanted another woman’s embryos into her.
Oops! Was her fertility clinic drunk at the time or what?
The mix-up at Monash IVF in Brisbane, Queensland has been blamed on human error, Australian media reports. “On behalf of Monash IVF, I want to say how truly sorry I am for what has happened,” CEO Michael Knaap said, adding that everyone at the fertility clinic was “devastated” at the mistake.
Last year, the same clinic paid a A$56m (£26.8m) settlement to hundreds of patients whose embryos were destroyed despite them being viable.
So you can see why they were devastated … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments