There Has Never Been an All Powerful Trans Lobby

And anyone claiming there is was lying to you

This Federal Judge is More Powerful than the President

Reed O'Connor is the right's go-to judge when they want to bend the law to their culture war will Think about the many high profile legal cases that have come and gone over the last ten years. There was the battle over the many aspects of

Her Name Was Juniper Blessing

Sick Burns 5/15/2026 - The slain 19 year old trans University of Washington student has been identified in the press It's never easy to write about a trans woman who dies by violence. It's just a fact of life as trans people that there

The Evangelical Trump Worship Just Took an Apocryphal Turn

Everything under Trump is Trump Worship, especially conservative sects of American religion In the Old Testament, Moses spent 40 days on Mt. Sinai, only descending once he had the ten commandments in hand. When he finally climbed off the mountain, he found his people worshipping a literal golden calf statue.

Sick Burns - 5/8/2026

It was a busy week over here at Burns Notice HQ. Here's my recap of the week and a few other cool things exclusively for paid subscribers! Friday Thought: Chief Justice John Roberts, fresh off completing his decades long venture to destroy the Voting Rights Act, took to

Lessons from a Cancellation

When cis people invoke Isabel Fall, they do not understand the complex trans dynamics at play This piece is not about Will Stancil. Though he is what prompted me to write this. To give you a short recap, Will Stancil has been the subject of intense online criticism for years

Richard Dawkins' AI is Neither Conscious Nor a Woman

The exhausting atheist and evolutionary biologist is kind of brainless It's been an ongoing joke on trans BlueSky for awhile now that AI is someday going to get full human rights before trans people do. It's a funny joke, but I don't really think

Sick Burns - 5/1/2026

Maine Governor Janet Mills officially dropped out of the Democratic Primary for Maine Senate and I have thoughts on the possible future Senator Nazi Tattoo Also weekly recap and things of interest Earlier this week, Maine governor Janet Mills dropped out of the Democratic Primary for the US Senate race

The Insidious Reason Blue State Hospitals are Abandoning Trans Kids

And what it means for the future of trans health care. A local group of concerned citizens showed up at the Chestnut St. entrance to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, MA Saturday to protest and draw attention to a recent decision by the hospital system to end its provision of

Sick Burns - 4/24/2026

My subscriber exclusive weekly round up has returned! Everyone help me welcome back my weekly reading round up, which will compile all the things I've produced during the week, along with links to other things I've been reading and thinking about. This piece is exclusively for

PODCAST: Sam Altman and the Lie of OpenAI (ft. Kat Tenbarge)

Tech billionaire Sam Altman positions his company’s artificial intelligence, including ChatGPT, as humanity’s savior. But the human race can’t trust the OpenAI CEO, according to a recent New Yorker Sam Altman profile. From his earliest days in the tech industry, Altman has toggled between exaggerations (at best)

Republicans Brought This Upon Themselves

The GOP started the Gerrymander Wars, Democrats will finish it Gerrymandering has been a thing in American politics for over a century now. The practice of drawing district lines to favor one political party over another is named after former Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry, who signed a bill in 1812

No Newsletter This Week (Pet Emergency)

Those of you who are following me on Bluesky know that my cat has been in the animal hospital since Tuesday and he's barely hanging on. This morning I made the decision to cancel all further work this week, including the piece I had planned for the newsletter.

PODCAST: We Followed JK Rowling's Harry Potter Money — Here's Where It Actually Goes (ft. Jessie Gender)

“Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling’s trans persecution feeds off her vast fortune. Rowling uses her estimated $1.2 billion net worth to directly fund anti-trans causes. As executive producer of the upcoming Harry Potter HBO show, Rowling will make even more money that she can funnel into what

Hasan Piker is the King of the 2nd Screen

Piker's success comes because he gives his viewers access to our paywalled news system – through his own political lens. If you're at all connected with political media like I am these days, you simply can't go more than a few hours without hearing Hasan

I Truly Believe THIS is the Future of Independent Journalism

So many people have told me that paying for all of the good independent journalists is impossible. The new Trustfnd bundle is an important step towards giving the reading public what they want. Much has been written about the current state of journalism. The industry is, generally, in the shitter.

On Yesterday's Post

I get that outrage farming is the easiest way to get clicks these days but please cut me some slack. No, I do not believe we should capitulate on sports. No, I don't think we should cede the sports argument to the right wing. No, I don'

We Lost the Trans Athlete Debate, We Will Win the Next Fight

The right has nearly achieved total victory on the trans athlete policy debate. From here on out, their outrage bait should have significantly diminishing returns. Note from Katelyn: Welcome to all of my new readers coming here from the Indie Media Bundle! I don't believe in paywalling news,

PODCAST: How (Not) to Sell a War (ft. Jen Bendery)

(Editor's note: Burns Notice and Katelyn are now offering an indie media bundle with The Handbasket (Marisa Kabas) and Spitfire News (Kat Tenbarge). For just $8.50, you can sign up to support all three independent journalists for 30 days. See here to sign up) Listen on: Apple|

Kat Abughazaleh Changed What's Possible in Political Campaigning

Ignore the specific issues for a second, and look at how she operated her campaign. She taught us lessons on a new way to run for office. You're not supposed to run for congress in a city you just moved to. You're not supposed to run

PODCAST: The Fragile Masculinity of Pete Hegseth (ft. June Sternbach aka junlper)

Pete Hegseth’s résumé maps the trajectory of a man who failed upward from Fox News host to Donald Trump’s Secretary of Defense. As Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court hearings proved, sexual assault allegations are rarely a roadblock to a powerful job in the Trump administration. In fact, Donald

The US Will Never Civilize

Iranians have a national myth that their culture is so powerful that it civilizes its conquerors. This will not happen to the United States. (Note: "Persia" is the name given to the region and peoples of Iran by those who do not live there but they have always

The Iran War Shows Why Polymarket Should Be Illegal

Betting markets treat the flow of world events as random, but there are people making real decisions and there's nothing stopping them from profiting from those decisions This weekend, an unnamed person with the user name "Magamyman" began placing bets that the US and Israel would

PODCAST: Epstein, Me Too, and the Justice We Never Got (ft. Lyz Lenz)

How deep does the media’s complicity go? In this episode of Cancel Me, Daddy, Katelyn Burns and Christine Grimaldi unpack the disturbing connection between the "Shitty Media Men" list, the MeToo movement, and the recently released Epstein files. While the world focuses on the spectacle, we dig