Jaime Bastidas

As another man who once worked with me declares himself saddened by my beliefs on gender and sex, I thought it might be useful to compile a list for handy reference. Which of the following do you imagine makes actors and directors who aren’t involved with the HBO reboot of Harry Potter so miserable? Is it my belief that women and girls should have their own public changing rooms and bathrooms? That women should retain female-only rape crisis centres? That men don’t belong in women’s sport? That female prisoners shouldn’t be incarcerated with violent men and male sex offenders? That women should remain a protected class in law, because they have sex-specific needs and issues? That language should reflect reality rather than ideological jargon, especially in a medical context? That women shouldn’t be harassed, persecuted or fired for refusing to pretend humans can change sex? That women should not be threatened with violence and rape when they assert their rights? That freedom of speech and belief are essential to a pluralistic democratic society? That troubled minors, especially those who are gay, autistic and trauma-experienced, should be given mental health support instead of irreversible surgeries and drug treatments on non-existent evidence of benefit? That gay people shouldn’t be pressured to include the opposite sex in their dating pools, nor should they be smeared as ‘genital fetishists’ when they don’t? That cross-dressing heterosexual male fetishists aren’t actually oppressed, but having the time of their lives piggybacking off gender identity ideology? That said ideology, and the privileged, blinkered fools pushing it because they suffer zero consequences themselves, have done more damage to the political left’s credibility than Trump and Farage could have achieved in a century? Let me have your thoughts.

Trump wins the prize for repugnance. Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed "wartime president" and master of distraction, has reached a new low in moral depravity with his latest attack on Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the "P.T. Barnum of Ukraine." This repugnant rhetoric is nothing more than a desperate attempt to mask his own catastrophic incompetence in every area—from foreign policy to military leadership to basic humanity. By shifting the blame for his own failures onto Zelenskyy and Ukraine, which has suffered four years of brutal Russian aggression, Trump exposes himself for what he truly is: a weak, evil, and utterly repugnant individual incapable of taking responsibility. Trump has unleashed a war against Iran—without congressional approval, based on flimsy justifications that were already refuted by his own Pentagon briefings on the second day. US soldiers dead, the Gulf region ablaze, Dubai a battlefield—and who's to blame? Not the man who pulled the trigger, but Biden and Zelenskyy, who supposedly "gave away" ammunition. This isn't just ridiculous, it's pathological. Trump, who boasts of having "rebuilt" the military, is implicitly admitting that his armed forces aren't even equipped for a "four- to five-week" conflict. And instead of acknowledging his failures—such as underfunding ammunition production or chaotic planning—he shifts the blame to a nation fighting a genocide-prone aggressor. Ukraine has received billions in aid since 2022 to defend itself, not to "cheat." Trump is twisting this to justify his own waste in "Epic Fury"—a war that's swallowing billions while he dismisses Ukraine as a "show." The comparison to P.T. Barnum is particularly toxic and dehumanizing. Barnum, the charlatan who turned suffering into entertainment—that's Trump's code for: The Ukraine war is fake, the massacres in Bucha, the destroyed cities, the traumatized children? All a staged event to fleece "suckers" like Biden and thus America. This isn't just a lie; it's an insult to every victim of Russian terror. Trump is dehumanizing an entire people who are heroically resisting in order to sell his own "strength." He, the man who eliminates Khamenei's successor without a plan for the consequences, poses as a "winner" while sending thousands to their deaths. That's not strength; that's madness disguised as machismo. People like Trump—incompetent, flawed, and cowardly—are the real charlatans. They build empires on lies, shift the blame onto the weak, and destroy everything they touch. Zelenskyy is fighting for freedom; Trump is fighting only for his ego. This rhetoric is not only repugnant, it's dangerous: it undermines alliances, emboldens aggressors like Putin, and betrays American values. Trump doesn't deserve a platform; he deserves contempt. History will expose him as the ultimate "sucker"—the one who leads a country to ruin just to save himself. Thanks, Regina @Sunnymica , for the tip and the template!

Astonishing. Four years into defending themselves from Putin’s brutal invasion, outmanned, outgunned, after suffering enormous losses and being abandoned by the US, Ukraine is still pushing back, now with a tactical counter offensive. In an age of growing nihilism, the Ukrainian people are showing the world the meaning of the ancient virtues: fortitude, patriotism, valour. Slava Ukraini!

Kaja Kallas: The greatest threat Russia presents right now is that it gains more at the negotiation table than it has achieved on the battlefield. Russia is no superpower. After more than a decade of conflict, including four years of full-scale war in Ukraine, Russia has barely advanced beyond the 2014 lines. And the cost? 1.2 million casualties. Today, Russia is broken. Its economy is in shreds. It is disconnecting from the European energy markets, and its own citizens are fleeing.

The greatest threat Russia presents right now is that it gains more at the negotiation table than it has achieved on the battlefield. Russia’s maximalist demands cannot be met with a minimalist response. Extract of my speech at @MunSecConf ↓

“Please remember the moment when Russia began to take diplomacy most seriously in these 4 years. It was when our deep strikes against Russian oil refineries began to work – and when everyone started talking about Tomahawks…The stronger we are, the more realistic peace becomes.” president.gov.ua/en/news/vistup…

PM Tusk: Some say that Ukraine should be grateful for everything. The truth is exactly the opposite. The rest of us should be grateful to Ukraine.

Sport shouldn’t mean amnesia, and the Olympic movement should help stop wars, not play into the hands of aggressors. Unfortunately, the decision of the International Olympic Committee to disqualify Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych says otherwise. This is certainly not about the principles of Olympism, which are founded on fairness and the support of peace. I thank our athlete for his clear stance. His helmet, bearing the portraits of fallen Ukrainian athletes, is about honour and remembrance. It is a reminder to the whole world of what Russian aggression is and the cost of fighting for independence. And in this, no rule has been broken. It is Russia that constantly violates Olympic principles, using the period of the Olympic Games to wage war. In 2008, it was the war against Georgia; in 2014 – the occupation of Crimea; in 2022 – the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And now, in 2026, despite repeated calls for a ceasefire during the Winter Olympics, Russia shows complete disregard, increasing missile and drone strikes on our energy infrastructure and our people. 660 Ukrainian athletes and coaches have been killed by Russia since the full-scale invasion began. Hundreds of our athletes will never again be able to take part in the Olympic Games or any other international competitions. And yet, 13 Russians are currently in Italy competing at the Olympics. They compete under “neutral” flags at the Games, while in real life publicly supporting Russian aggression against Ukraine and the occupation of our territories. And they are the ones who deserve disqualification. We are proud of Vladyslav and of what he did. Having courage is worth more than any medal.

The IOC betrayed itself with its black armband proposal. Their armband would have been equally political as @heraskevych's helmet. The only difference would be to erase the faces of Ukrainian victims. Ukrainians have shown they're too brave to back down. The IOC is a disgrace.

The IOC’s decision to disqualify Heraskevych for wearing his Helmet of Remembrance is disgusting. The purpose of the Olympics is to promote peace, not to play the aggressor’s games by pushing their narrative while they continue to kill us! Shame!!!

✍️ 'This is not politics. This is pure evil,' writes @simonrbriggs. 'And while Ukraine continues to shake under daily bombardment from Russian drones, Heraskevych should have the right to salute the fallen.' Read the column ⬇️ telegraph.co.uk/winter-olympic…

Disgusting decision. Shame on the Winter Olympic chiefs.

No one spoke about the deaths of more than 36,500 people in Iran at the Grammys. That silence shouldn’t surprise anyone. Iran doesn’t lend itself to easy virtue signaling. Much of modern celebrity “human rights” discourse is not actually about victims. It’s about narrative compliance. Suffering must fit a rigid, racialized template: brown people as passive victims, power as Western, evil as adjacent to whiteness. Within this framework, it’s all about aesthetic politics—who looks oppressed, who can be blamed without social cost, and which cause flatters the speaker’s ideological tribe. Iran blows up that template. The oppressor in Iran is not Western. Not white. Not Jewish. Not capitalist. Not colonial. It is a non-Western Islamist theocracy that has spent decades slaughtering its own people—executing teenagers, torturing dissidents, imprisoning artists, and murdering women for defying religious law. When oppression looks like that, the woke celebrity moral framework short circuits. That is why Iran is radioactive in celebrity spaces. Condemning the Islamic Republic would require admitting several deeply inconvenient truths: that Islamist regimes can be primary agents of oppression; that women can be brutalized by religious law; that non-Western actors are fully capable of mass atrocity; and that Middle Eastern crimes do not actually revolves around Israel. Worst of all, it would risk the ultimate social transgression—being labeled “Islamophobic” for opposing the Islamic regime that executes people for dancing, singing, or showing their hair. The result is a grotesque inversion of reality. The Iranian people—who are risking their lives chanting “death to the dictator,” who are being gunned down in the streets and dragged from hospitals—are erased. Meanwhile, the ayatollah and his enforcers are quietly absorbed into the category of the “oppressed global South,” protected by the very activists who claim to speak for human rights. When the atrocity doesn’t flatter the ideology, it is ignored. And when the victims refuse to play their assigned role, they are abandoned.

Don’t be silent, world, please. It’s −20°C outside. After russian attacks, thousands of homes are once again left without electricity and heat.

🎯 Any one of these Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians would be front-page news around the world requiring immediate action were they committed by terrorists in Berlin or Paris or London or New York. Normalizing the intentional slaughter of innocents is horrific.

Sittin’ here on this porch thinking about the Supreme Court arguments. It still amazes me how much of life comes down to one simple trade: we’re a syngamous species—meaning life starts when egg and sperm fuse—and we do it with anisogamous gametes: one big, nutrient-rich, stay-put egg and a whole swarm of tiny, motile sperm. Truth is, those two gametes are so lopsided in size and job description that biology gives their job a special name: oogamy. And once you see that, a lot of the rest starts to make sense—because when the “starter parts” are that specialized, the bodies and even the minds built to carry them end up specialized too. Different investments, different risks, different pressures… and over the long haul, that shapes the traits, tendencies, and bonding habits that help our children survive and our line continue. Nature may not talk in poetry, but it sure does write with purpose—one generation at a time.

Russians have just bombed a maternity hospital in Ukraine's south eastern city of Zaporizhzhia. With rescue efforts underway, there are at least 6 people injured. This is the nature of Russia's war.

@FIFAUTeam It seems to be though as of you had used then in an EVO, they are nor getting an upgrade? Was there a restriction about that? Take a look at my Simeone

🚨 The last Primetime Upgrades are LIVE! 👇 UEFA Primetime Tracker fifauteam.com/fc-26-primetim…

@FIFAUTeam It seems to be though as of you had used then in an EVO, they are nor getting an upgrade? Was there a restriction about that? Take a look at my Zirkzee

🚨 The last FC Pro upgrades are LIVE! #FC26 👇 FC Pro Tracker fifauteam.com/fc-pro-live-tr… We will continue to fight to ensure justice is done and EA gives a +1 OVR to everyone who qualified for the knockout round.

A drone strike hit a Ukrainian passenger train in the Kharkiv region on January 27, killing at least five people, according to authorities. Some 200 people were on board during the attack, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced as "terrorism."