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  I'm firmly opposed to the death penalty. It's one of a few things I do agree with the Roman Catholic Church about. My opposition derives from my belief that killing an unarmed person is never justified. Even a person who rhetorically advocates for the killing of innocents, like Charlie Kirk, doesn't deserve to die for his pernicious beliefs. I've been a life-long member of the ACLU, and will defend the right of fascists like Charlie Kirk to express their heinous beliefs. I apologize to no one for that. There is nothing incongruous between those beliefs and my observation that he himself validated his death by his own words.

In the early years of the USSR, Soviet genetics was internationally recognized. Then along came Trofim Lysenko, an agronomist who convinced Stalin that he could bypass the laborious genetics of plant breeding to develop strains of wheat through the transmission of acquired traits. This fit well with the Soviet philosophy that humanity could be transformed by politics. Soviet scientists who refused to renounce genetics lost their jobs*. Lysenkoism contributed to famines that killed millions of people in the USSR and the Peoples Republic of China. For decades, the US has led the world in the development of vaccines. Smallpox has been eliminated because of vaccines, and polio was well on the way to being eliminated when RFK Jr, a decades-long anti-vaxxer, convinced Trump that he could bypass the laborious process of vaccination against preventable diseases and replace it with diet. This fit well with the GOP philosophy that science could be transformed by right-wing mythology. American sc...

It’s been fashionable to beat up on blue states for their high taxes. But if taxes were the only reason people and companies decided where to locate, why are Boston, San Francisco and New York City not just deserts? I didn’t realize until we moved here that Rhode Island has been the long-time home of Hasbro, makers of Monopoly and other games and toys. But Hasbro has decided to move to Boston MA: “Commercial real estate prices and taxes are much higher in Boston than in Rhode Island, and Hasbro executives had been concerned about the impact of   President Trump’s tariffs .” And Hasbro isn’t unique. “Hasbro and Foundation are among a larger cohort of companies that have relocated their central offices to Boston’s buzzy Seaport District from outside the market, including Alexion Pharmaceuticals, PTC, and Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Hasbro will also join another toymaker in town. Lego Group opened its  bright and colorful  157,000-square-foot headquarters at the end of Back Bay’...

About 475 workers, mostly South Korean nationals, were arrested at a Hyundai Motor   car battery facility under construction in Georgia. The workers were shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles. The return of ca. 300 to South Korea has been negotiated. At a time when Trump is demanded the foreign companies invest more in the US, this is bound to throttle such investments. “LG Energy (373220.KS) has tentatively decided to postpone the start of its EV battery plant with Hyundai in Georgia, the Korea Economic Daily reported Monday, without saying where it got the information. Hyundai has banned all US trips by its staff, the newspaper said. “LG Energy had initially planned to begin production later this year, with the goal of churning out batteries totaling 30 GWh annually, but decided to push that back to the first half of next year, the publication said, saying it would likely affect production plans for Hyundai and its affiliate Kia Corp. “An LG Energy spokesperson said Monday the...

You’d think a guy who led four casinos into bankruptcy would understand the business of entertainment, right? “ Ticket sales at the Kennedy Center have continued to plummet following   Donald Trump ’s takeover of   Washington DC ’s premier performing arts venue, with the prestigious Stuttgart Ballet expected to dance next month to houses less than 20% full.” There’s your problems. The Kennedy Center books pooftah woke foreign ballet when it needs to book red-blooded boot-scootin’ American ho-down dance. “ The Washingtonian report paints a damning portrait of the health of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the months since its takeover by Trump, who last month announced he had  decided “reluctantly”  to personally host its annual arts awards signature show in December. “Subscription revenue is down by about 50%, the magazine’s report said, and it quoted a spokesperson for the German embassy who said they did not know if the Stuttgart Ballet would st...

Trump fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer after the July jobs report signaled a slowing jobs market, and larger-than-normal revisions for May and June suggested a more significant economic downturn could be anticipated. Trump’s reasoning appears to be that the BLS commissioner’s reports can create jobs, just like the rooster crows to create the dawn. Realty begs to differ: “. . .    the economy is cooling, the unemployment rate is going up, and the number of job openings isn’t keeping pace.   “The U.S. economy added just 22,000 jobs in August, less than economists had   expected .” Wonder who Trump will fire next. Maybe if he fires enough people, we’ll reach full employment? https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/new-jobs-report-shows-trump-cant-control-data-by-firing-people-he-doesnt-like    

RFK Jr is testifying today at a Senate panel on HHS policies. Sen. Wyden   said the secretary “stacked the deck” of a vaccines committee, replacing scientists with “vaccine skeptics and conspiracy theorists.” Kennedy said his actions “got rid of the conflicts of interests” he said had pervaded such panels. So according to RFK Jr, scientific expertise is a conflict of interest on a vaccine committee? Who knew. RFK Jr also claimed he had support from scientists and doctors “all over the country.” Of course, far more scientists and physicians oppose RFK Jr’s policies and decisions, including the American Medical Association, American Public Health Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Look, all authoritarian governments sow distrust in institutions. That’s what Trump is doing with the Fed, with the BLS, with NATO, with elections, with immigration law and with the US dollar. RFK Jr is instrumentalizing this distrust at the CDC and NIH. A request to make RFK Jr testify und...

Florida is set to drop all state vaccine mandates. Look for Florida EDs to fill up with children suffering from preventable diseases. Of course, the civilized states can maintain theirs, but there’s no way to prevent Florida children and their families from traveling to other states.  Other civilized countries are another matter. Look for some civilized nations to require vaccination certification at their ports of entry. And foreign travelers from civilized countries will be even more reluctant to spend their tourist dollars here. Well played, Ron DeSantis and RFK Jr! America is well on its way to becoming a shithole country. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article311956239.html  

The right of Trump to impose tariffs at will and without Congressional approval is headed to the SCOTUS. What’s the odds that the tariffs will be overturned?   Turns out there’s a market in tariff refunds if the SCOTUS rules against Trump: “ In July the US government brought in $29.6 billion in tariff revenue compared to $8.7 billion in July 2024. So that’s more than $20 billion in probably illegal tariffs before many of them had even kicked in. The current market for these refund rights is already in the tens of billions and could hit the hundreds of billions by years end. According to Wired, Cantor said in July that it had “the capacity to buy the rights to hundreds of millions of dollars” of tariff refunds. So the amounts we’re talking about, both at risk and in potential windfalls, is very, very big.” And Trump’s treasury secretary stands to gain from insider trading. “Lutnick can’t be certain what’s in a judge’s mind any more than Trump can. But he’ll have lots of visibility i...

“ The 2026 COLA is likely to be 2.7%, according to a recent projection by The Senior Citizens League. That’s a notch above this year’s COLA of 2.5%, which bumped up the average monthly benefit by roughly $50 for retired workers, and applies to more than 70 million retired senior citizens and disabled workers.” But does this capture the lived experience of retirees living with Trump tariffs? “ The Nationwide data found that 3 in 10 retirees are already relying more heavily on their savings or retirement accounts, and nearly 1 in 5 say it has become more difficult to access or manage their benefits this year. “You could make the case that tariffs are likely to drive up inflation more than Social Security COLA actually rises or can cover,” said Mary Johnson, a Social Security expert. “Food costs are likely to continue to climb due to several issues other than tariffs, too, including weather, geopolitical disasters, and lack of farm workers,” she added. “And there is a wild card: There are...

1. A recent study showed that even people with mild COVID infections have a loss of blood vessel elasticity comparable to someone five years older. 2. A recent study showed that fragments of Sars-CoV-2 viral proteins—particularly the RNA replicase protein—can be found in circulating vesicles months after a COVID infection and could contribute to the symptoms of “long COVID.” Beyond that, fewer vaccinated people means more virus in circulation, which increases the risk of infections. It also enlarges the pool of virus, making the evolution of more infectious strains more likely. For your sake and for the sake of your fellow Americans, get the jab, peeps.

RFK Jr isn’t exactly wrong about how Americans need to improve their diets. But vilifying ultraprocessed foods and food dyes won’t do it. The actual problem is that most Americans get too many of their calories from fat, sugar and red meat, when they should get most of their calories from fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts and fish. This isn’t just about obesity and type 2 diabetes. 15-25% Americans carry the  APOE4  haplotype, which confers an elevated risk for Alzheimer’s disease and atherosclerosis. “Adherence to the Mediterranean diet more effectively modulated dementia-related metabolites in  APOE4  homozygotes than in people with lower genetic risk, wrote Dong Wang, MD, ScD, of Mass General Brigham in Boston, and colleagues in  Nature Medicine . I’m not a fan of medicalizing food, but the role of diet in health is well-established. While people with the  APOE4  haplotype can reduce their risk of dementia and atherosclerosis with statins, diet is an...