[unable to retrieve full-text content]“Before President Donald Trump started mass layoffs of federal workers, he demonized them, arguing, despite evidence to the contrary, that most never went into the office. “As he moved to cut foreign aid, he and Elon Musk alleged widespread waste and abuse, although they offered little evidence to back up their claims and may simply […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]I’ve been a big fan of airline travel and have flown hundreds of times on commercial flights for business and pleasure over the past five decades. Not anymore: “The Trump administration has begun firing several hundred Federal Aviation Administration employees, upending staff on a busy air travel weekend and just weeks after a January fatal […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]There’s no question that SARS-CoV-2 jumped from bats to humans. Whether that jump was direct or indirect and whether it occurred in a lab or in the Wuhan wet market is unknown. The Chinese government has been less than completely forthcoming about the COVID 19 epidemiology. There’s no question that bird flu can jump from […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]I grew up in the South. While there were no snake handlers in my town, there were fundamentalists in the area who practiced snake handling. I see no significant difference between those snake handlers in East Tennessee and folks in West Texas who refuse to vaccinate their kids for preventable diseases. Both are tempting God, […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]“Trump administration officials fired more than 300 staffers Thursday night at the National Nuclear Security Administration — the agency tasked with managing the nation’s nuclear stockpile — as part of broader Energy Department layoffs, according to four people with knowledge of the matter. “Sources told CNN the officials did not seem to know this agency […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]“Right-to-work” is one of those marketing euphemisms like “pro-life,” which is designed to disguise the actual agenda. In the case of “right-to-work,” the actual agenda is to kill unions and give workers the “right” to work for low wages under oppressive conditions. Much to my surprise, Republicans—who have long been in the vanguard of “right-to-work”—joined […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]New York City has had a long history of problematic mayors, and the corrupt current mayor, Eric Adams, is honoring that tradition. Now, heaping corruption on corruption, the corrupt current President, Donald Trump, is trying to exploit the corrupt Justice Department to do a corrupt deal with Adams: “ . . . President Trump had […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]“Kennedy, an “unfathomable” nominee in the eyes of public health experts, has questioned the link between HIV and AIDS, tied gay and transgender identities to chemical exposure, pushed to remove fluoride from drinking water, suggested COVID-19 was genetically engineered to target certain races, claimed Black people may have different immune systems and suggested anti-depressants are […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]““Contrary to the hysteria, redirecting billions of allocated NIH spending away from administrative bloat means there will be more money and resources available for legitimate scientific research, not less,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said.” Here’s how you know they’re lying. If they were telling the truth, there would be no net reduction to the […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]Suddenly, Trump supporters are no longer fans of district judges: “For those of us who lived through the reigns of Judges Matthew Kacsmaryk and Reed O’Connor (so, like, we who were alive six months ago), this is a surprising turn of events. “The Kacsmaryks and O’Connors thwarted the Biden administration constantly, and on much hackier […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]Apparently, there’s this weird, ahistorical conspiracy theory out there that the CIA is a leftist organization. Not only is there not an atom of evidence for this theory, there’s ample evidence of CIA involvement in destabilizing and overthrowing liberal and leftist governments in favor of right-wing dictatorships: Here’s a short list of CIA interventions in […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]“Johnson said he “wholeheartedly” agrees with Vice President JD Vance that courts shouldn’t try to control the president’s power as DOGE slashes through the federal government. “The courts should take a step back and allow these processes to play out,” Johnson said at the Capitol.” Pretty Boy Floyd. Al Capone. Bonnie and Clyde. All just […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]The smirking faces of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have joined the smirking face of Donald Trump in threatening to burn down government in order to save it. What they’re announcing sure sounds bad to me (eliminate a third of federal spending, including cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid). Over at eatingpolicy.com, Jennifer Pahlka […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]I’m seeing people attacking universities, particularly private universities, for accumulating large endowments while allowing their graduates to accrue education loans that saddle them with debt for years or decades and cannot normally be discharged by bankruptcy. Why aren’t these universities the lenders? Setting aside the question of whether it is in the national interest to […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]Looks like Trump wants to kill the US Postal Service. Postmaster General DeJoy has been bent on killing the USPS in a death by a thousand cuts. The Trump administration will try to kill it outright, and hand over its responsibility to the private sector. Ironic, because the big losers will be rural residents that […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]I grew up at the western edge of the Eastern Time zone. There was enough daylight at 9:30 PM in the summer to finish up mowing the lawn. I’ve never found the switch between Standard Time and DST to be problematic. Jet lag after a flight to Europe is *much* more uncomfortable. I see where […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]It’s bad enough that RFK Jr, the Trump nominee to head HHS, is spreading lies about water fluoridation. He’s also vetting federal health officials based on their willingness to question life-saving vaccines. “Aaron Siri, the lawyer helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pick federal health officials for the incoming Trump administration has petitioned the government to […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]“Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, has repeatedly criticized policies allowing gay people to serve openly in the US military, calling them part of a “Marxist” agenda to prioritize social justice over combat readiness.” LOL! I’m absolutely confident that Hegseth hasn’t read a word of Marx or Marxist economics. I’m equally […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]Recently, Anthem BCBS rescinded its policy of limiting the amount of anesthesia it would pay for during operations. The policy conjured images of patients waking up before the end of their operations, or later being confronted with unexpected bills. But allegedly, that’s not the intent: “Anesthesia services are billed partially on the basis of how […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]I’m old enough to remember Russia as the mother country to the Soviet Union. While the USSR was never a world-class economic power, it did punch above its weight as a military power under Stalin and for a couple decades after. Russia under Putin has been described as a gas station with an Army. Its […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]RFK Jr continues in his crackpot crusade against fluoridated water. There is *zero* evidence that artificial fluoridation of water at or below the approved level (0.7 mg/liter) has any pathological consequences. Why do we fluoridate public water? “Bacteria in the mouth that serve to break down food also create acids that degrade the enamel on […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]Robert Kutner has a paywalled article in The New York Review of Books about the history of free trade and the efforts since Trump’s first term to impose tariffs, particularly on China, beginning with the first Trump Administration. “Free trade ideology once aligned with America’s economic and security interests. After World War II, open markets […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]High fructose corn syrup has been linked to fatty liver disease, high triglycerides, insulin resistance, high blood sugar, cancer and an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. It is added to many foods: candy, condiments, beverages and various snack foods. A recent paper in the journal Nature highlights the mechanistic link between dietary fructose and […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]During his campaign, Donald Trump “promised” not to touch Social Security and to veto and law that modified the program. That “promise” is about to be tested. “Lee’s attack has four basic components. One is to bemoan the fact that Social Security is funded mostly by a tax, which he asserts the government can use […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac are the nicknames for two mortgage giants that back about 70% of U.S. mortgages and have been under government conservatorship since the 2008 financial crisis. “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac don’t issue mortgages directly. They purchase loans from lenders and package them into securities sold to investors. This process ensures […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]The antiregulation bias of the Supreme Court was loudly signaled with the overturn of Chevron deference. Now, the SCOTUS has arrogated to itself the interpretation of technical details for regulation of things they are all incompetent to assess: ““Since Chevron has fallen, agencies are much more cautious in putting forward rules and regulations,” Ramachandran said. […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]Joel C. Eissenberg and Michael D. Eissenberg Institute for Thanksgiving Weekend’s Intriguing Standardized Tests (ITWIST) Evergreen, Colorado 80439 Abstract Ultraviolet (UV) light is a form of ionizing radiation prevalent on earth during daylight hours. UV light exposure in humans is a risk factor for skin cancer and cataracts. Accordingly, there has been considerable interest in […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]Over at jabberwocking.com, Kevin Drum has a systematic take-down of the anti-vaxxer propaganda on COVID19: • The reason the CDC initially recommended against wearing masks was because they thought you could just avoid people who were sick, so it was best to reserve limited supplies for doctors, who couldn’t avoid sick people. When researchers discovered […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]In 1998, I traveled to Moscow for the first time to teach in a summer course at the Russian Academy of Sciences. The week before, we were on vacation in Colorado and I heard on the radio “Today, the ruble lost 100% of its value.” That meant that the ruble was worthless, which seemed unlikely. […]
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]I’ve read where Musk and Ramaswami are proposing a 75% cut in the federal workforce. That’s absurd. • National security-related agencies account for roughly 70% of the civilian workforce. The largest employers were the Department of Veterans Affairs, with 487,000 workers, followed by the armed services, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Justice Department. […]
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