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“ As of March 27, 2025, a total of 483 confirmed* measles cases were reported by 20 jurisdictions: Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York City, New York State, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Washington. ” Meanwhile, l eaders at the CDC ordered staff this week not to release their experts’ assessment that found the risk of catching measles is high in areas near outbreaks where vaccination rates are lagging. And RFK Jr.  announced that the federal government was delivering vitamin A—an unproven treatment that Kennedy promotes as an alternative to vaccines—to measles-stricken communities in West Texas. But a Texas official reports that no doses of vitamin A have arrived at the state health department—not because RFK Jr. broke his promise, but because Texas doctors didn’t ask for them.  Not only does vitamin A not prevent measles and is only useful as therapy during i...

Trump has said trade wars are “good and easy to win.” History begs to differ. The Smoot-Hawley Act and ensuing trade wars were  not  good for the country and  not  good for President Hoover.  “ The 1930 Tariff Act started with the narrow aim of helping distressed farmers but then mushroomed into a wholesale rewriting of the US tariff code, provoking anger and outrage from trade partners around the world. “ America’s major trade partners responded to those aggressive tariffs with their own targeted tariffs, quotas, and boycotts on American goods.   “ ▪ Trade partners like Italy, Switzerland, Uruguay, and Argentina called for patriotic boycotts on key exports, such as American cars, sewing machines, and motion pictures. “ ▪ European countries’ reprisals targeted highly visible US-branded goods (for example, France changed its tariffs on autos from value- to weight-based, effectively closing off its market to medium-priced — but far heavier — American-made car...

Trump and Vance insist that Denmark and Greenlanders must cede control of Greenland to the United States. Trump has made not-so-veiled threats to seize Greenland by force. A US invasion and military occupation of Greenland would ostensibly be justified on national security grounds, to protect the region from Russia. A similar justification has been voiced for annexing Canada as the 51 st state. None of this makes any sense. First of all, the US and Russia are currently allied in Russia’s war of choice in Ukraine. And if Trump were worried about Russian threats to Greenland, he could beef up the existing US military base in Greenland, which currently has a skeleton staff.  Now, JD Vance has visited that base (after he and his wife were rebuffed for civilian photo-ops) and proclaimed that Greenland has been neglected by Denmark and should embrace American overlords. But how does Denmark stack up against the US? “ So consider. The US is is 24th in the world in the happiness rankings. ...

I get that Trump is too stupid to understand that his tariffs (a) will be paid by American consumers, (b) will drive inflation and (c) will prevent future Fed rate cuts.  But there are other negative consequences: “While  Wall Street frets about potential volatility from President Trump's April 2 “Liberation Day”   plans, another part of America is also bracing for more possible chaos: US ports. “If the president next week imposes sweeping new duties on America’s top trading partners, that could place a significant new burden on ports of entry from coast to coast, which act as conduits for a wide variety of goods critical to the global economy.” The 1% doesn’t care about “Liberation Day,” but they’ll care about recession caused by predictably stupid Trump policies.  https://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-the-rollout-of-trumps-reciprocal-tariffs-could-become-an-absolute-nightmare-at-us-ports-080042120.html

When I was a graduate student, it wasn’t unusual to do a postdoc in the UK or in Europe. If you wanted a permanent position in the US, though, this meant you’d have to do a second postdoc back in the US. I know of several people who took this path.   Now, thanks to the Trump administration. Many scientists are looking to move their talent abroad, where scientific excellence is still appreciated: “ The massive changes in US research brought about by the new administration of President Donald Trump are causing many scientists in the country to rethink their lives and careers. More than 1,200 scientists who responded to a  Nature  poll — three-quarters of the total respondents — are considering leaving the United States following the disruptions prompted by Trump. Europe and Canada were among the top choices for relocation.   “The trend was particularly pronounced among early-career researchers. Of the 690 postgraduate researchers who responded, 548 were considering lea...

The Trump Administration cuts $1 billion from food banks in order to fund tax cuts for the 1% and corporations. “Food banks across New England are scrambling after the Trump administration this month cut some $1 billion from programs that help them obtain food for distribution, increasing concerns about meeting demand when hunger is already soaring.   “For many of the region’s pantries, food given out with the support of federal assistance amounts to 10 to 30 percent of their total distributions. The unexpected cuts are likely to disrupt food availability for communities nationwide, local leaders said.” Shame.   https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/03/27/metro/trump-food-bank-hunger-food-insecurity/

Face it: Pete Hegseth was a DEI hire. GOP affirmative action to insure that incompetent alcoholics aren’t discriminated against. Here’s Mike Brock (paywalled, so no link) on the colossal blunder that is Pete Hegseth: “The core argument against DEI initiatives has always been straightforward: institutions should hire based on merit alone, without regard for demographic considerations. That positions should be filled by the most qualified candidates, period. That excellence must never be sacrificed on the altar of representation. Whatever one thinks of these arguments—and reasonable people can disagree about them—they at least claim to be rooted in a principle: that qualifications should be the primary determinant in hiring decisions.   “Yet here we are, watching that principle abandoned entirely when it became politically inconvenient. “Pete Hegseth, our Secretary of Defense, was a Fox News host and former reserve officer who never served in a high-level Pentagon position, never man...

"Trump and his legal team have carefully studied how democracies die. And they have learned the key lesson: democratic backsliding occurs when elected leaders claim a mandate to erode the pillars of democracy—free and fair elections, fundamental rights, and checks and balances—to enlarge executive power. "The “autocratic legal playbook” is the strategic roadmap to this consolidation. The targets are well-established: capture the courts; erase internal pockets of independence within the public bureaucracy; silent sources of free thought and expression in universities, civil society, and the media; replace independent public prosecutors and government lawyers with loyalists; and disable legal resistance by coopting law firms and the professional bar."   https://verfassungsblog.de/stopping-autocratic-legalism-in-america-before-it-is-too-late/

As part of its program to “Make America Healthy Again,” HHS  announced the firing of 10,000 full-time employees, downsizing from 82,000 to 62,000 when buyouts and other previous staff reductions are factored in. Next up: Trump announces the elimination of HHS to make America healthier than anyone has ever seen. https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/hhs-restructuring-doge.html#top

If I were Matt Taibbi’s prof, I’d give him a C for his article. He did some research on endowments, but he gives no useful context. Whatever Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post paid him, it was too much. The Trump Administration wants to use taxes on endowments to subsidize tax cuts to the 1% who are the real hoarders, not to help kids pay for college. I realize Matt didn’t write the headline, but it is phony right-wing projection.  What matters isn’t the endowment size, it’s the spend on the endowment. Typically, it’s 4-5% of the endowment. Except in times of financial exigency, universities don’t touch the corpus of the endowment. Taibbi makes sport of the Harvard endowment, which is the largest in the US by a wide margin. Years ago, I saw some wag comment that Harvard is really a hedge fund that does education on the side. Taibbi’s clickbait isn’t new or original. Of course, the whole endowment-tuition thing isn’t very informative for a place like Harvard, which has a relatively smal...

“Waltz denied knowing Goldberg, the editor in chief of   The Atlantic , saying that he “wouldn’t know him if I bumped into him or saw him in a police lineup.” He then spent a greater chunk of the interview listing off his criticisms of   The Atlantic ’s coverage, accusing the publication – without evidence – of lying about Gold Star military families and the Russia “hoax.”   “I can tell you 100 percent I don’t know this guy,” Waltz said. Then, deploying a tactic long used by Trump and his allies of attacking the media, he called him “the bottom scum of journalists.”   A page out of the Nazi playbook. The word he’s looking for is “ Lügenpresse.” We’ve been here before. It didn’t end well.   https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/25/mike-waltz-signal-fox-interview-00249896

Yes, you have the right to ignore personal hygiene. Don’t bathe? Don’t brush your teeth? As long as you don’t stand near me, not my problem. Don’t exercise? Don’t use sunscreen? Don’t use protection from venereal disease? You live (or die) with the consequences of your bad choices. Obese? Smoke? Eat too much red meat and preserved meat and few fruits and vegetables? Not my problem, as long as you don’t drive up my insurance rates. Refuse to be vaccinated for COVID? As long as you self-quarantine, it’s not my problem (just stay out of the ED).   But if you carry an infectious disease (COVID, measles) and chose not to be vaccinated, you have no right to expose me or anyone else to your potentially lethal decision You need to go to the end of the line at the ED. You should be denied health insurance coverage because of a pre-existing condition (refusal of immunization). Your rights end at my nose.

Earlier, it was a dramatic cut in indirect costs on all federal grants and outright cancellation of some grants. Now, congressional Republicans are mulling a steep tax on university endowments. “Republicans are considering increases to the university endowment tax to help reduce the national deficit and as a potential lever to force universities to comply with the Trump administration’s priorities. The nation’s wealthiest private colleges and universities currently pay an excise tax of 1.4 percent on endowment investment returns, a levy established during President Trump’s first term despite heavy pushback from universities.” *snip* “College endowment proceeds are usually restricted at the request of donors and intended to last in perpetuity to support the institution for years to come. Schools are not allowed to spend the principal, only investment gains.   “There is a mistaken perception that an endowment is essentially like a massive savings account,” Kluttz said. “In reality, t...

Trump says "tariff" is a beautiful word. Maybe for him, but not for American companies and consumers. "Walmart thought it could use its immense power as America’s biggest retailer to make Chinese suppliers eat the cost of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. But Walmart got a response it’s not accustomed to hearing: No. "Trump has slapped 20% tariffs — or taxes on imported goods — on all products coming from China. That’s put the squeeze on retailers like Walmart, which imports a lot of merchandise from China and sells those goods at the lowest price possible to American consumers. Walmart, in turn, has tried to pressure its Chinese suppliers to lower prices. But the Chinese government is having none of it. "The strong reaction from the Chinese government reveals how American companies are caught in the middle of an escalating trade war between the United States and China. While customers in the United States want low prices, that could be hard for Walmart to achi...

I got my genome sequenced several years ago by Veritas. They were running a special for whole genome sequencing at 30-50x coverage for $200, and for an extra $100, I got my variant call file. Now, anytime I see a variant reported as linked to disease risk, I can check whether I have that variant. So far, I seem to have won the genetics lotto. Veritas Genetics suspended its U.S. operations in December 2019 due to funding issues. In March 2022, Veritas was acquired by at-home health testing company LetsGetChecked. 23andMe is not genome sequencing, it uses microarrays to spot known variants. Mostly, people used to for ancestry (Veritas also included ancestry in my report). I see where the market for 23andMe genome services has shrunk to unsustainability, and they've filed for bankruptcy. I'm a big fan of direct-to-consumer genomics, but I've never understood the business model. Looks like some CEOs didn't, either. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6143574/

Fascist Europe experienced a brain drain in the run-up to WWII. Among the European refugees who worked on the Manhattan project were Hans Bethe, Rose Bethe, Felix Bloch, S.H. Bohine, Niels Bohr, Hans Courant, Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard and Edward Teller. Prizing ideology over intellect ended up being a loss for fascism and a gain for America. Now, the script is flipped. As the United States slides into fascism and American universities are under assault by the Trump Administration, Europe is welcoming the export of American human resources. “ For example, on 7 March, the University of Aix-Marseille announced Safe Place for Science, a three-year, €15m programme to bring 15 American scientists working in climate, health and astrophysics to its campus. According to a university spokesperson, more than 60 applications have been received, 30 of them coming within the first 24 hours. The university indicated that it has been in contact with other universities and the French g...

I was not raised Jewish. I don’t consider myself Jewish. I take a back seat to no one in my abhorrence of antisemitism.  As a card-carrying ACLU member for over 45 years, I’m pretty much a First Amendment absolutist. Accordingly, I also find the attacks by Trump on university free speech to be abhorrent. Make no mistake. Trump doesn’t care about America’s Jews or about antisemitism: “ Trump is now using the Jewish community as a wedge to dilute free speech protections, control university curricula, and override immigration law. For some in the Jewish community, the short-term gains of shutting down anti-Israel protests may seem like a worthy tradeoff. But in the long term, the weakening of democracy will make Jews and others less safe. Once a government establishes the power to shut down discourse, it tends to use it to silence any critics or opponents.     “If Trump were actually interested in protecting Jewish students, he would not be slashing the Department of Educati...

Looks like DOGE is proving quite efficient at destroying government revenue sources. From Josh Marshall over at TPM: The Post  reports  today that the IRS’s internal projections estimate that the DOGE-driven disruptions to the IRS since the inauguration are on track to have reduced tax receipts by more than $500 billion by April 15th. This, to be clear, is not a final tally. It’s not April 15th yet. It’s a projection based on historical data, the number of people who’ve filed, paid owed amounts of tax etc. It’s worth taking a moment to put this number into some context in case half a trillion dollars doesn’t do it for you. Non-defense discretionary spending is the cost to fund the US government once you take out mandatory spending (mostly Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) and the cost of the US military. For  2023 that number was $917 billion . So that’s most of the stuff we think of as the government, apart from those payment programs and the military. In other wor...

In addition to driving down the stock market and driving up inflation, Trump tariffs will drive historical trading partners to shop with China.   “ While ASEAN and the GCC are unlikely to embrace Beijing to the extent that the Chinese government would like, they will be more receptive to Chinese overtures as they aim to offset the negative impact of Trump’s tariffs on their economies. Moreover, the economic destabilization caused by the US-China trade war will also weigh on the outlook to the global economy, incentivizing regional blocs like the GCC and ASEAN to rely more on one another for growth and trade, rather than just replace the US with China. Much as Trump’s attacks on traditional US allies in Europe and the Americas have done there, a more hostile US government trade policy will push Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian governments to bandwagon with their local neighbors as well as new trading linkages. The result is likely to be a world of stronger regional blocs with deep...

From the time I started college at 18 until the time I retired at 69, I have been continuously in academia. Most of that time, I was a faculty member at a private university. For ten of those years, I was also Associate Dean for Research at my medical school. Once you’re on the inside, you understand that universities are only nominally run by faculty. Money is what makes universities run, and for private universities it comes from (a) tuition, (b) philanthropy and (c) grants.* Accordingly, the university board of trustees** cares most about tuition-paying students, pleasing big donors and getting and maintaining federal subsidies. No surprise that university presidents, when forced to choose between academic freedom and funding, choose to follow the money. The only surprise for me in reading this letter from Columbia University faculty responding to Trump Administration extortion is its quaint expectation that Columbia’s president will defy the Trump blackmail and stand up for the fac...

One problem confronting the Trump agenda is that they treat the US like a closed system. That’s a problem for tariffs, since there are plenty of other markets for foreign goods besides the US.  And it’s a problem for the recruitment and retention of the world’s finest minds. Until now, US universities were a magnet for the world’s best students and faculty, but the Trump Administrations politically motivated efforts to dismantle biomedical research and defund leading research universities is simply an invitation for an American brain drain: “ Foreign governments are trying to lure US scientists to move abroad as the Trump administration roils the research world   with funding cuts and blacklists of some fields.   “Higher education leaders said scientists in Massachusetts   are already receiving overtures, prompting Governor Maura Healey to raise the alarm about a potential brain drain from research institutions   that form the backbone of the state’s economy. ...

RFK Jr is touting the health benefits of beef tallow. Many people believe French fries cooked in beef tallow taste better, but healthier? Where did this idea come from? “ Kennedy’s belief that using tallow could help “Make America Healthy Again” echoes a claim that has spread on social media about seed oils. Many believe because seed oils are often found in processed foods, like chips and packaged desserts, animal fats like tallow and butter are healthier.” But as we know, correlation ≠ causation. “People are blaming the seed oils when that’s not what’s toxic,” she said. “It’s the sugar and salt in the junk food that they’re using.” “Compared to tallow, seed oils are thought to be “better fats,” according to Young, because they are unsaturated. Saturated fats, by contrast, generally come from animal products and have been shown to raise cholesterol, which in turn can increase the risk of heart disease. “Tallow is “probably healthier than ultraprocessed foods high in starch, sugar and s...

Several years ago, I flew to Oklahoma city to serve on a panel reviewing state-funding research grant proposals. On the way in from the airport, a tornado touched down blocks from the hotel where I stayed and the meeting was held. When the meeting concluded a couple days later, I elected to stay an additional night at the hotel. My colleagues who tried to fly out that evening were trapped overnight at the airport by additional tornadoes. The Trump/Musk Administration hates NOAA because it collects and publishes data that falsifies the right-wing GOPs anti-climate change lies. But NOAA also provides real-time weather and forecasting to help all Americans anticipate and protect themselves from life-threatening meteorological events. Oklahoma is tornado alley. Tornadoes are also frequent in Texas and there were several in the St. Louis area during the 40 years I lived there. Hurricanes are a bid threat to Florida, Louisiana and Texas. All of these are deep red states. Killing NOAA, as the...

    I’m certainly not paranoid and I’m no fan of conspiracy theories. But scheerpost.com makes a compelling case for the fear that the Trump Administration is opening the door to a private equity takeover of Social Security. They’ve certainly recruited the team to do it. “ Again, per  Bloomberg , private equity has just gained a “beachhead” in the SSA. An infiltrating “team of veterans” — for now, limited to Antonio Gracias, founder of Valor Equity Partners; Scott Coulter, formerly of Lone Pine Capital; and Michael Russo, formerly of Shift4 — will execute their mission. Russo has stepped right up into the role of agency chief information officer. According to Altman, Russo is operating on the direct orders of Bisignano. Apart from that, it’s not yet clear what the trio’s full roles will entail — but it’s certainly worth noting that Gracias was an early investor and close collaborator in Tesla and SpaceX, as well as a private equity resource whom Musk has called upon:...

Explain this. Take all the time you need. “ After a recent change by the Trump administration, the federal government no longer explicitly prohibits contractors from having segregated restaurants, waiting rooms and drinking fountains.   “The segregation clause is one of several identified in a public memo issued by the General Services Administration last month, affecting all civil federal agencies. The memo explains that it is making changes prompted by President Trump's executive order on diversity, equity and inclusion, which repealed an executive order  signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965  regarding federal contractors and nondiscrimination. ”   https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/03/18/nx-s1-5326118/segregation-federal-contracts-far-regulation-trump

“The mRNA technology faces growing doubts among Republicans, including people around President Donald Trump.   “Legislation aimed to ban or limit mRNA vaccines was introduced this year by GOP lawmakers in at least seven states. In some cases, the measures would hit doctors who give the injections with criminal penalties, fines, and possible revocation of their licenses.” This isn’t about safety. There is zero doubt about the safety of mRNA vaccines. Their safety has been proven in hundreds of millions of people. In some cases, it may be about superstition. But mostly, it’s about sowing doubt in authority. The GOP is attacking Universities as independent centers of authority. The GOP is attacking biomedical research as independent centers of authority. The GOP is attacking the EPA, the CDC and the FDA as centers of authority. This is what Stalin did. This is what Mao did. We know how that ends, peeps. Don’t let it happen here. https://www.medpagetoday.com/washington-watch/washington...

Lots of the food on your grocery shelves is imported. It has to be inspected, both for safety and to prevent the importation of agricultural pests that could destroy domestically grown crops. Fire the inspectors and you put everyone’s food future at risk. “ “It’s causing problems left and right,” says one current USDA worker, who like other federal employees in this story asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “It’s basically a skeleton crew working now,” says another current USDA staffer, who noted that both they and most of their colleagues held advanced degrees and had many years of training to protect US food and agriculture supply chains from invasive pests. “It’s not something that is easily replaced by artificial intelligence.”   “These aren’t your average people,” says Mike Lahar, the regulatory affairs manager at US customs broker behemoth Deringer. “These were highly trained individuals—inspectors, entomologists, taxonomists.”   “Lahar and other supply ch...

  “The Trump administration denied on Sunday that it had violated a court order by deporting hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants to a prison in El Salvador over the weekend, saying that the president had broad powers to quickly expel them under an 18th-century law meant for wartime. “The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, also asserted in a statement that the federal courts “have no jurisdiction” over the president’s conduct of foreign affairs or his power to expel foreign enemies.”* Finally, Trump has exposed the fiction that is at the foundation of our government—that we are a nation of laws and not of men. Trump has announced that we are his nation now, and he is our law. Even if the SCOTUS objects, it won’t matter now. This is what totalitarianism looks like. Read your history. This won’t end well, peeps. *Quotes are from a paywalled NYT article  

“ We’re in the midst of an authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government. It’s been coming and coming, and not everybody is prepared to read it that way. The characters regarded as people to emulate, like Orban and Putin and so on, all indicate that the strategy is to create an illiberal democracy or an authoritarian democracy or a strongman democracy. That’s what we’re experiencing. Our problem in part is a failure of imagination. We cannot get ourselves to see how this is going to unfold in its most frightening versions. You neutralize the branches of government; you neutralize the media; you neutralize universities, and you’re on your way. “We’re beginning to see the effects on universities. It’s very, very frightening.” ~Lee Bolinger The Senate Democrats don’t get it. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/observe-orient-decide-and-act-notes-on-preserving-the-american-republic  

From an article in the NY Review of Books: “ . . . the 94 percent marginal tax rate [Reagan] was theoretically subject to on income above $200,000, though in reality Reagan, like other actors, was able to pay a 25 percent capital gains rate by receiving his earnings form “temporary corporations” set up for each movie.” Raise your hands if you only paid capital gains taxes on your paycheck.

President Musk recently called Social Security a “Ponzi Scheme.” He’s hardly the first to repeat this lie, but he and his mini-me’s in DOGE have painted a target on Social Security. I’m sorry it’s necessary to explain this again, but we are being lied to. Here are the facts about Social Security. • No, it’s not a Ponzi scheme. Anyone who believes that SS is a Ponzi scheme either doesn’t know what a Ponzi scheme is or doesn’t understand how SS works. If you need an explainer, here’s a good one: https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/why-social-security-is-not-a-ponzi-scheme * No, SS isn’t going bankrupt. As long as there are humans working for paychecks in the United States, it is fiscally impossible for SS to be bankrupt.  * No, the federal government isn’t stealing your SS money. By law, any money collected beyond what is paid to current beneficiaries goes into the Trust Fund. By law, the Trust Fund is invested in special treasury bonds that cannot be traded on the open market. These...

  My favorite blogger, Kevin Drum, died recently from multiple myeloma. I started following Kevin when he blogged as “calpundit,” and through all his various iterations. I found his comments thoughtful, often provocative and grounded in data and evidence. One of the most remarkable stories that Kevin blogged about was the connection between leaded gasoline and crime. He eventually summarized his findings in a Mother Jones article (link at the end): “ The biggest source of lead in the postwar era, it turns out, wasn’t paint. It was leaded gasoline. And if you chart the rise and fall of atmospheric lead caused by the rise and fall of leaded gasoline consumption, you get a pretty simple upside-down U: Lead emissions from tailpipes rose steadily from the early ’40s through the early ’70s, nearly quadrupling over that period. Then, as unleaded gasoline began to replace leaded gasoline, emissions plummeted. “Intriguingly, violent crime rates followed the same upside-down U pattern. The o...

  Oops! Poor RFK Jr. He’s had to tiptoe back his attacks on childhood vaccines in the face of a measles outbreak in Texas. What’s a poor anti-vaxxer to do. Well, since vaccine denialists can never be wrong, they can only be wronged, Kennedy blames the victims: “ In later comments, Kennedy suggested that severe symptoms mainly affected people who were unhealthy before contracting measles.   “It’s very, very difficult for measles to kill a healthy person,” he said, adding later that “we see a correlation between people who get hurt by measles and people who don’t have good nutrition or who don’t have a good exercise regimen.”   “West Texas is “kind of a food desert,” he added. Malnutrition “may have been an issue” for the child who died of measles in Gaines County.”   RFK Jr. is lying.   “ Texas health officials said the child had “no known underlying conditions.”   “Dr. Wendell Parkey, a physician in Gaines County with many Mennonite patients, said the idea ...