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sitting through a meeting with jd couch on easter killed the fucking pope

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Hello UK folks,

Trans people and allies outnumber transphobes by a long, long way. Please express your support for trans people to your MP.

WriteToThem.com makes it very easy. You just put your postcode in, and then it tells you who your MP is and gives you a form to send them an email.

Write from the heart, tell them you think trans people should be recognised socially and legally as the sex and gender that they are, not the one they were born as. It doesn't have to be long or eloquent. If you're cisgender, say so.

Make them count us all.

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Like, my go to thing about the crank coalition in modern times is Clay Clark's ReAwaken America tour. Which has featured both members of Trump's family and administration, AND multiple old school holocaust deniers and anti-semites, the kind of people who will say with a straight face that Hitler was simply trying to protect the German people and in return the international Jewish conspiracy destroyed him, and that Israel is behind everything bad in America.

And Clay Clark looks at both those positions and goes, "Yep I'm on the same side as both of these people."

And the thing is, this isn't because these people don't hold their positions strongly; the Trump administration is not just rhetorically willing to use accusations of anti-Semitism as a weapon against their enemies, but are actually pretty damn staunch allies of Israel. Meanwhile just being a holocaust deniers in public has tremendous social costs, to the point where if it wasn't a big deal you might expect people to hide it or simply abandon the position.

And it's not a sort of ecumenical "I don't hate anybody" big tent ideology; everyone involved is livid about their enemies and is willing to make radical moves against them.

So like, what is the shared world-view that these people have that makes it seem not only possible, but almost obvious that these differences should be papered over and that everyone involved gains from the alliance?

Pretend you're explaining it to a Star Trek alien who doesn't have or understand our cultural biases, it's actually really hard to articulate in ordinary political terms.

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Everybody is shocked that US journalist was invited to a top secret chat discussing military strikes and then just left (honestly that's the funniest thing) while refusing to reveal sensitive information but that's about what I expected. You can read on his article, he doesn't care about the fact that the US military is striking one of the poorest countries in the world. In fact, he probably even supports it.

What he is outraged about is how dare Trump be so incompetent, how dare him compromise the effectiveness of the US military, which is doing its job to 'protect this country'. You will see this in media from other countries, there's little to no mention about WHERE the airstrikes were directed to, WHY and WHO they killed. It's all "oh Trump let a random journalist on his chat, how embarrassing!" If it had been Obama or Biden or whoever, the journalist probably wouldn't even had published anything, because after all I imagine (ha!) that they talk about bombing third world countries with propriety and decorum, not unlike these guys who are so, so cringe.

this is why I tell you that the US has a level of military worship seldom seen and completely naturalized

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I said something like this in the final stages of our last Conservative government. The cabinet started to be deliberately filled with those who had no right to be there, because then they owed their entire loyalty to the PM for being the only one who would give them a chance. Not just complete incompetents, but second chances for people who had previously been fired from government due to scandal etc. A cabinet of yes-people who knew their career was entirely dependent on that fact.

John Gruber

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it really is insane how little you hear about "america has the world's highest prison population by such a significant margin that it would be seen as excessively over-the-top if it was used in fiction"

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14 March 2025

A New Hampshire man with a green card was detained by immigration officers at Logan Airport and is being held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Donald W. Wyatt detention facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island.

Fabian Schmidt’s family said they are unsure of why he is being held. They said he has a recently renewed green card, and no active issues in court.

Schmidt had been visiting Luxembourg and flew back to the U.S. on Friday. His partner had gone to pick him up at Logan Airport, and waited four hours before calling authorities.

“It was just said that his green card was flagged,” said Astrid Senior, his mother. She said she didn’t hear from her son directly until Tuesday, when she learned he’d been hospitalized.

Senior described Schmidt being “violently interrogated” at Logan Airport for hours, and being stripped naked, put in a cold shower by two officials, and being put back onto a chair.

She said Schmidt told her immigration agents pressured him to give up his green card. She said he was placed on a mat in a bright room with other people at the airport, with little food or water, suffered sleep deprivation, and was denied access to his medication for anxiety and depression.

“He hardly got anything to drink. And then he wasn’t feeling very well and he collapsed,” said Senior.

He was transported by ambulance to Mass General Hospital. He didn’t know it at the time, but he also had influenza.

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i gotta be real i read a lot of folklore and i don't think i've ever seen a source over like 15 years old call fairies "the fae"

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The celebrations seem to start earlier every year!

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It's certainly remarkable that people in rural England, a nation bordering and with much similarity to Wales but with a much larger area and population, never got around to developing their own folklore and had to wait until Peter Pan could show them what a fairy was.

Ah well, I suppose I'll accept that assumption without a second thought.

i gotta be real i read a lot of folklore and i don't think i've ever seen a source over like 15 years old call fairies "the fae"

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Donald Trump Is Not Joking About Annexing Canada: A Fucking Timeline

December 3, 2024: Trump's quip about Canada becoming 51st state was a joke, says minister who was there (CBC News 🇨🇦) <- This is when it could have feasibly been a joke

January 7, 2025: Donald Trump is quoted in a press conference directly stating his intentions to annex Canada (New York Times, timestamp 0:45 🇺🇸) <- This is where Americans should have stopped telling Canadians it's just a joke

REPORTER 1: Are you also considering military force to annex and acquire Canada? DONALD TRUMP: No. Economic force.

February 7, 2025: Trudeau says Trump threat to annex Canada 'is a real thing' (BBC 🇬🇧) <- This is where the Commonwealth starts to take it seriously

Trudeau suggested Trump has floated the idea of taking over Canada and making it the "51st state" because he wants to access the country's critical minerals. "Mr Trump has it in mind that the easiest way to do it is absorbing our country and it is a real thing," the prime minister said.

February 9, 2025: "Trump's national security adviser: 'I don't think there's any plans to invade Canada'" (NBC News 🇺🇸) <- CANADIANS NOTICE THAT THIS IS NOT A VERY STRONG DENIAL OF POSSIBLE MILITARY FORCE

February 10, 2025: Trump Confirms He’s Serious About Wanting Canada As 51st State (Forbes 🇺🇸)

Fox News host Bret Baier asked Trump whether Trudeau was right in telling business leaders the U.S. president’s threat to absorb Canada is a “real thing,” to which Trump agreed with Trudeau and responded, “Yes it is.”

February 12, 2025: ‘Trump effect’: How US tariffs, ’51st state’ threats are shaking up Canada (Al Jazeera 🇶🇦) <- This is where the rest of the fucking world outside America starts to take it seriously

February 18 2025: CBC releases podcast episode: "What if the U.S. invaded Canada?" (CBC's Front Burner 🇨🇦)

March 4, 2025: Canada Eyeing NATO Ally's Nukes To Deter Trump 'Threat': Candidate (Newsweek 🇺🇸), British nuclear weapons can protect Canada against Trump, says Trudeau party candidate (The Telegraph 🇬🇧)

“I would be working urgently with [European Nato allies] to build a closer security relationship… in a time when the United States can be a threat,” said [Canada's] ex-foreign minister and finance minister at the final Liberal leadership debate last week.

March 4, 2025: Prime Minister Trudeau: "What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us” (CTV News 🇨🇦)

March 7, 2025: BC Premier David Eby: “We know the president in back rooms with Canadian officials has said he wants to redraw the border" (Global News 🇨🇦)

Eby: "If this president wants to annex Canada, he should save his breath to cool his soup, it is never going to happen.”

March 7, 2025: How Trump’s ‘51st State’ Canada Talk Came to Be Seen as Deadly Serious (New York Times 🇺🇸) <- This is where American news media starts to treat this as maybe possibly not a joke

March 9, 2025: U.S. Congress bill aims to prevent funding of invasion of Canada (CTV News 🇨🇦) <- This is where you should understand that military force is ON THE TABLE

March 11, 2025: Canadian opinion of U.S. falls sharply; 63% take Trump's threats 'very seriously' (National Post 🇨🇦)

March 13, 2025 (TODAY): Trump threatens to acquire Canada, Greenland while next to NATO chief (Global News 🇨🇦)

“To be honest with you, Canada only works as a state...This would be the most incredible country visually,” [Trump] said. “If you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through it, between Canada and the U.S., just a straight artificial line. Somebody did it a long time ago, many many decades ago, and it makes no sense.” -Donald Trump

And hey, just for fun, let's contrast that with another quote:

First of all, I would like to emphasize that the wall that has emerged in recent years between Russia and Ukraine, between the parts of what is essentially the same historical and spiritual space, to my mind is our great common misfortune and tragedy...I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia. -Vladimir Fucking Putin, the year before launching an attack on Ukraine, which everyone also said he was joking about and definitely wouldn't do (2021 essay, Kremlin official website 🇷🇺)

I know you're overwhelmed, Americans, but please stop saying this is a joke. Canadians are anticipating an invasion, possibly within the year. This is not a fucking drill.

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I have been thinking a lot about what a cancer diagnosis used to mean. How in the ‘80s and ‘90s, when someone was diagnosed, my parents would gently prepare me for their death. That chemo and radiation and surgery just bought time, and over the age of fifty people would sometimes just. Skip it. For cost reasons, and for quality of life reasons. My grandmother was diagnosed in her early seventies and went directly into hospice for just under a year — palliative care only. And often, after diagnosis people and their families would go away — they’d cash out retirement or sell the house and go live on a beach for six months. Or they’d pay a charlatan all their savings to buy hope. People would get diagnosed, get very sick, leave, and then we’d hear that they died.

And then, at some point, the people who left started coming back.

It was the children first. The March of Dimes and Saint Jude set up programs and my town would do spaghetti fundraisers and raffles and meal trains to support the family and send the child and one parent to a hospital in the city — and the children came home. Their hair grew back. They went back to school. We were all trained to think of them as the angelic lost and they were turning into asshole teens right in front of our eyes. What a miracle, what a gift, how lucky we are that the odds for several children are in our favor!

Adults started leaving for a specific program to treat their specific cancer at a specific hospital or a specific research group. They’d stay in that city for 6-12 months and then they’d come home. We fully expected that they were still dying — or they’d gotten one of the good cancers. What a gift this year is for them, we’d think. How lucky they are to be strong enough to ski and swim and run. And then they didn’t stop — two decades later they haven’t stopped. Not all of them, but most of them.

We bought those extra hours and months and years. We paid for time with our taxes. Scientists found ways for treatment to be less terrible, less poisonous, and a thousand times more effective.

And now, when a friend was diagnosed, the five year survival odds were 95%. My friend is alive, nearly five years later. Those kids who miraculously survived are alive. The adults who beat the odds are still alive. I grew up in a place small enough that you can see the losses. And now, the hospital in my tiny hometown can effectively treat many cancers. Most people don’t have to go away for treatment. They said we could never cure cancer, as it were, but we can cure a lot of cancers. We can diagnose a lot of cancers early enough to treat them with minor interventions. We can prevent a lot of cancers.

We could keep doing that. We could continue to fund research into other heartbreaks — into Long Covid and MCAS and psych meds with fewer side effects and dementia treatments. We could buy months and years, alleviate the suffering of our neighbors. That is what funding health research buys: time and ease.

Anyway, I’m preaching to the choir here. But it is a quiet miracle what’s happened in my lifetime.

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Okay a couple weeks ago I started this post trying to keep track of all the stuff going on in order to help remind us of everything that’s happened when the next election comes around. Well, because there’s just so much going on, I’ve realized trying to cram it all into one post isn’t going to work. So I’m going to do a new post every month and include links to the previous ones.

So here goes…

January 2025

February 2025

Donald Trump has enforced his tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China. [x]

Donald Trump has put Mexico tariffs on hold for one month. [x]

Donald Trump allowed Elon Musk to begin dismantling USAID. [x]

Congress is voluntarily giving up its power and allowing Trump to make unilateral decisions. [x]

Darren Beattie has been made Under Secretary of State. [x]

Everything that Donald Trump has done so far lines up with Project 2025 [x]

The White House is drafting an executive order to eliminate the Department of Education [x]

Elon Musk, who nobody voted for or elected, has, essentially, hacked the government. [x]

El Salvador has agreed to take US deportees of any nationality. [x]

US Representative Andy Biggs is proposing a bill to abolish OSHA. [x]

Pam Bondi has been confirmed as Attorney General [x]

Donald Trump doesn’t think Palestinians should return to Gaza. [x]

Donald Trump says he’ll use US troops to “take over” the Gaza Strip. [x]

A federal judge has blocked Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship. [x]

Donald Trump has banned trans women from women’s sports [x]

Donald Trump sanctions the International Criminsl Court. [x]

A judge has paused the federal “buyouts” [x]

DOGE: Member of DOGE resigns [x]

DOGE has been given access to the Department of Energy. [x]

Miscellaneous news about Elon Musk [x]

DOGE is using AI to infiltrate the Department of Education [x]

Russell Vought, author of Project 2025, has been confirmed as Director of OMB [x]

Democrats in Congress have introduced the Taxpayer Data Protection Act [x]

Donald Trump has flagged the words “women” “diverse” and “historically” from studies done by the National Science Foundation. [x]

New Mexico Representative Melanie Stansbury has introduced the Nobody Elected Elon Musk Act [x]

Democratic Congressional leaders have introduced the Stop the Steal Act [x]

Donald Trump has called for a review of funding for the United Nations [x]

Federal agencies are barred from celebrating Black History Month [x]

Donald Trump has frozen aid to South Africa and accused the South African government of racism against white South Africans [x]

Donald Trump wants to use Leavenworth Prison as a migrant detention facility and have it run by a for-profit company known for its numerous human rights violations. [x] [x]

Trump has told the Treasury to stop making pennies. [x]

Representative Mark Pocan (D-WI) proposes the E.L.O.N. M.U.S.K. Act (which stands for Eliminate Looting of Our Nation by Mitigating Unethical State Kleptocracy) [x]

Employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were told to stop all work and are now being told to stay home. [x]

Trump will impose 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum. [x]

Trump says Palestinians won’t be allowed back in Gaza if the US takes it over [x]

Tulsi Gabbard has been confirmed as director of national intelligence. [x]

Representative Buddy Carter (R-GA) has proposed a bill to change the name of Greenland to Red, White & Blue Land [x]

The DOJ has dropped the corruption charges against New York City mayor Eric Adams. [x]

An AP News reporter has been banned from the White House for using Gulf of Mexico instead of Gulf of America in its reporting. [x][x]

Senators Deb Fischer (R-NE) and Angus King (I-ME) are pushing for a tax credit that would encourage businesses to offer paid family leave. [x]

Representative Sara Jacobs (D-CA) has introduced the Protect US National Security Act [x]

The State Department (taxpayers) is paying Elon Musk $400 million for cybertrucks. [x]

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been confirmed as HHS Secretary. [x]

Trump is conducting a mass firing of the federal workforce. [x]

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) is creating a list of all the ‘woke’ science he wants to get rid of. [x]

References to transgender have been removed from the Stonewall National Monument. [x]

A 71 year old refugee living in Thailand has died because of the USAID freeze. [x][x]

Trump’s proposed tax cuts will add trillions to US debt. [x]

Trump is defying the court order to reopen USAID. [x]

Trump has stopped the CDC’s flu vaccine campaign. [x]

Trump is suing Brazil’s Supreme Court because of Brazil’s battles with Elon Musk over Twitter/X. [x]

Kash Patel has been confirmed as FBI director. [x]

Trump orders FEMA to stop their work with making homes better at withstanding natural disasters. [x]

Kash Patel will be named chief of the ATF [x]

Trump has tried to make independent agencies no longer independent [x]

$200 million of taxpayer money was used on a pro-Trump anti-migrant ad [x]

The House of Representstives passed a bill that gives more than $4 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy and cuts the budget for Medicaid by 80% [x]

Here’s a summary of Trump’s executive orders so far [x]

The Trump administration has issued travel bans for trans athletes [x]

Trump administration is telling federal agencies to prepare for more mass layoffs [x]

Elon Musk joined Trump’s first cabinet meeting. [x]

Trump is offering “gold cards” to wealthy foreigners [x]

Kash Patel names Dan Bongino as Deputy Director of the FBI. [x]

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) has proposed legislation for the US to leave the United Nations [x]

Judge rules mass firings of federal workers is unlawful [x]

The Pentagon orders all transgender people to be removed from the military [x]

Representative Victoria Spartz (R-IN) was going to vote against the budget bill that would cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid; then she got a phone call from Trump who apparently screamed at and threatened her; she then voted yes on the bill [x]

Trump administration has cancelled boot camps for women training to become Wildland firefighters [x]

Here’s a link to the Project 2025 Policy Agenda that Donald Trump claimed he didn’t know anything about.*

*He only claimed he didn’t know anything about it after it proved to be deeply unpopular with the general public.

I’m also including directories for both the House of Representatives and the Senate. That way, if you’re so inclined, you can also track the individual actions of every Senator and Representative.

Miscellaneous News

Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) repeatedly uses a transphobic slur on the Congressional floor. [x]

Clarence Thomas is…being Clarence Thomas *sigh* [x]

Donald Trump fired the Chair of the Kennedy Center and named himself as the new Chair [x]

Trump said that no group of people in the history of America has been treated worse than the way the January 6th insurrectionists have been treated. [x]

Some people are impersonating ICE agents and harassing & assaulting people of color [x][x]

Trump’s mass deportation is hitting a wall [x]

The Trump administration’s incompetence is coming back to bite them. [x]

Target has been facing backlash for rolling back its DEI initiatives. [x]

Donald Trump Has Already Spent $10.7 Million Of Taxpayer Money Playing Golf [x]

The Kennedy Center cancelled a performance of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington DC [x]

21 DOGE employees have resigned [x]

Musk’s new conflict of interest [x]

Trump posted an AI-created video about his plans for Gaza [x]

Here’s a Washington Post story about the migrants sent to Guantanamo Bay and the conditions they’re facing [x]

Trump supporters are calling for “processing camps” and private militias to go after migrants. [x]

Representative Cory Mills (R-FL) has been accused of assault and the Department of Justice is refusing to investigate [x]

A child has died in the measles outbreak in Texas [x]

China and Russia are trying to recruit disgruntled federal employees [x]

Elon Musk is trying to force the FAA to get rid of their contract with Verizon in favor of a contract with his company, Starlink [x]

Elon Musk makes $38 billion in government contracts [x]

Trump thinks that Andrew Tate is a totally okay guy [x]

The director of the Defense Health Agency abruptly retired [x]

March 2025

Once again, please feel free to let me know about anything I’ve missed. With this era of constant news we live in, it can be easy to forget so let’s give our future selves a little help!