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In an effort to extort Greenland from Denmark, Trump has ordered a 10% tariff on goods from EU nations that have opposed the US expropriation effort beginning in February. He has threatened to raise that to 25% if they don’t capitulate. A couple of points: • The tariffs are mostly a nothingburger for EU economies: “ At face value, a 10% tariff rising to 25% would have minimal economic consequences, Capital Economics chief economist Neil Shearing said in a note Sunday, estimating they would reduce GDP in the targeted NATO economies by 0.1-0.3 percentage points and add 0.1-0.2 points to U.S. inflation.” • Europe owns a lot of treasuries, which helps keep America’s debt service low. “European countries own $8 trillion of US bonds and equities, almost twice as much as the rest of the world combined,” Saravelos pointed out. “In an environment where the geoeconomic stability of the western alliance is being disrupted existentially, it is not clear why Europeans would be as willing to play th...

While Elon was out slashing jobs and programs, Trump and his family continued to grift on the taxpayer dime. Trump’s trips to Mar-a-Lago alone have cost millions this year alone. Imagine the government efficiency if he was forced to live in the White House! Then, there are the bills racked up by his family. “The documentation does not specify which hotel the agency has booked, but   taxpayers laid out nearly $28,000   for [Eric Trump’s] Secret Service detail to stay at the Trump-owned property while accompanying him to Doonbeg on a 2017 business trip. When President Trump visited Doonbeg in 2019, his hotel   billed the Secret Service more than $10,000   for agents’ lodging during the two-day trip, and that same year   charged taxpayers over $15,000   to house then-VP Mike Pence’s Secret Service detail for two nights.   “Eric   once claimed   that the family business let the Secret Service stay at their hotels for free or at cost. However, ...

The privileged elitists on Trump’s cabinet can’t help themselves. They broadcast how, like Trump himself, they’re out of touch. “ Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins made waves this week with claims that the Trump administration’s   revamped food pyramid   leaves plenty of room for Americans to maintain a healthy diet for as little as $3 a meal.   “In an interview Wednesday with News Nation, Rollins said her agency came up with plenty of low-cost meals that conform with the new dietary guidelines, which call for Americans to eat more red meat and butter, and less processed food. “Are we asking them to spend more on their diet? And the answer to that is no.”   “She said the agency ran “over 1,000 simulations” and found that “it can cost around $3 a meal for a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, you know, a corn tortilla and one other thing.” How big a “piece.” What is “one other thing?” Here’s a reality check: “ “Is it possible to cook one healthy meal for $3? Yes...

“ President Donald Trump said he intends to sign an executive order that would give an exclusive four-hour broadcast television window to the Army-Navy Game. “Under my Administration, the second Saturday in December belongs to Army-Navy, and ONLY Army-Navy!” he wrote on Truth Social Saturday. “I will soon sign a Historic Executive Order securing an EXCLUSIVE 4 hour Broadcast window, so this National Event stands above Commercial Postseason Games. No other Game or Team can violate this Time Slot!!!” Oh, honestly. Why is the Trump nanny state seizing control of football broadcasting? Look, I’ve never seen an Army-Navy football game, either in person or on tee-vee. But I’m fine with people who enjoy that sort of thing. Why does the POTUS need to commandeer broadcast time to support a form of entertainment? Could he be soliciting bribes from competing sports networks? https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/01/18/business/trump-plans-executive-order-army-navy-game-broadcast/  

Two “deadlines” have come and gone for the SCOTUS to rule on the constitutionality of Trump’s tariffs. Meanwhile, Trump is throwing brush-back pitches. He bleated on social media: “ "If the Supreme Court rules against the United States of America on this National Security bonanza, WE’RE SCREWED!" So the tariffs aren’t to enforce fair trade practices, they’re a “National Security bonanza?” What does that even mean? Since when was national security about bonanzas? “ The court heard arguments in early November. Both conservative- and liberal-leaning justices asked skeptical questions of the method by which the president imposed his most sweeping duties. Trump imposed his tariffs by invoking a 1977 law meant for national emergencies.” A favorable outcome in a national emergency isn’t a bonanza. A bonanza is a windfall profit. Trump is admitting that his intention was money-making, not national security. Look, if the SCOTUS overturns the national emergency justification, it will b...

The Islamist Republic of Iran is in deep doo-doo, much of its own making. It has few allies among the Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East. Recently, internal dissent has led to street protests and a violent state response. Now, Trump proposes to attack Iran to promote regime change. It’s unlikely to work. US attacks will allow the Ayatollahs to rally Iranians to their government. Hermann Goering understood this: “ Naturally the common people don't want war . . . but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or parliament or a communist dictatorship. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.” And not just for Hitler and Nazi Germany. It worked for Stalin to deflect from the failures and violence of Bolshevis...

I just finished reading “Zbig:   The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America's Great Power Prophet” by Edward Luce. Brzezinski was born in Poland between WWI and WWII, but he spent most of his life in North America, first in Canada and then in the US, where he eventually became a citizen. He was very successful as a scholar and academic, but the lure of practicing international politics drew him into government. Much of this book is taken up with the Carter years.  Brzezinski was Carter’s national security advisor, and the two men held a life-long admiration for one another. With the Cold War, the decline of the Soviet Union, the Arab-Israeli conflicts and the Iranian revolution, there was no shortage of challenges.   The first presidential election I voted in was in 1976 when I was in college. While Watergate and the Vietnam war drove my personal interest in American politics, my formal training in world history and government was weak. So, while I was aware Brzenzinski, I ...

Look, here's the thing about money: it isn't real. It's all about belief and trust. I've been invested in equities and money markets for over 40 years. I've ridden the ups and downs. Money means what people say it means, neither more nor less.   Alfred North Whitehead coined the "fallacy of misplaced concreteness." He was referring to the reification of abstract concepts. That fallacy applies to money and property (libertarians notwithstanding).   So, the big reason that Trump's attacks on Powell and the Fed are dangerous is because they will call attention to the fallacy that the Fed and its objects of concern are concrete. They aren't.    The dollar emperor has no clothes. Once the world stops believing in the dollar, it will cease to be the world's reserve currency. The treasury will have to stop minting money with computer key clicks. The borrowing rate for the national debt will increase. International investors will turn to the euro. And ...

The anti-vaxxers and anti-climate change fanatics treat science like it’s a religious orthodoxy. Like they’re the Protestants fighting the Roman Catholic Church. Scientist here. That’s not how it works. Science is based on facts and evidence. Science doesn’t deal in proof; it deals in the weight of evidence. It certainly doesn’t rest on the assertions of long-dead iron age authors. Scientists are eager consumers of new evidence. We thrive on debate. Got data to disprove anthropogenic climate change? Share it. If you’re right, you’ll be in line for a Nobel Prize in Physics. Got evidence that mRNA vaccines kill? Share it. Show us where those hundreds of millions of bodies are buried. The trials would make the Nurenburg trials look like a picnic. In science, you gotta bring the evidence. Just being a podcaster with tens of thousands of subscribers doesn’t confer scientific authority.  Wanna play in the science sandbox? Bring the data. Science isn’t based on how noisy you are, it’s bas...

According to press reports, the Trump Administration is considering military attacks on Iran. This act of war, like all wars, is likely to have unintended consequences. The myth is that such foreign attacks free domestic opposition to topple the regime (see, e.g., the Bay of Pigs). More often, they only serve to rally citizen support for the home government.   Like nearly everything else the Trump regime undertakes, the US appropriation of Venezuelan oil also looks to have unintended consequences. As Iran’s government struggles under the weight of sanctions, high inflation, internal oppression, a weak economy and climate change, it looks like the diversion of Venezuelan oil could help bail out the ayatollahs, at least for the short term. “ Siyi Liu and Florence Tan at Reuters   report that since Trump plans on diverting 2 million barrels a day of Venezuelan petroleum to the United States, the former buyer, China, will need to replace it. Most likely, it will replace it from Ir...

Things were looking grim for federally funded science earlier this year: • Trump proposed an overall cut in science funding from $198 to $154 billion, a reduction of 22% that would have been the largest reduction in federal science spending since World War II: • Trump proposed that the National Science Foundation budget be slashed from $8.8 billion to $3.9 billion, a drop of 56%. Now, it looks like the House and Senate are converging on a far more modest reduction in science spending. “So far, the House’s moves on this year’s science budgeting add up to an estimated total of $185 billion -- close to the Senate figure of $188 billion, and putting the two chambers not far apart for negotiations on a final budget.” Of course, Trump could veto the budget, but that would almost certainly lead to another unpopular government shutdown. It should be mentioned that that the effects of even modest budget cuts are magnified by the effects of inflation. So, two cheers instead of three. St...

I grew up Roman Catholic at the time of Vatican II. I do remember Latin mass with the priest facing the altar, but only a few years later, the mass was being said in English and the priest was facing the congregation. My church held a series of presentations from representatives of other faiths: Protestant (I don’t recall which denominations), Jewish, Muslim and Hindu. Ecumenism and tolerance were in the air. I don’t recall any intolerant words among the Catholics I knew until I attended mass at UT-Knoxville. During mass, someone offered a prayer for the Catholic Church’s ministry to gays, and afterwards, a woman in the music group expressed outrage. I found this odd, since Jesus was silent on the topic of homosexuality. That marked the beginning of my awareness of an intolerant, right-wing strain of Catholicism. It only took another couple of years, early in grad school, when I finally accepted the fact that I didn’t really believe in Church teaching, I only was going to mass out of h...

  A pediatrician’s thoughts on the new vaccine schedule The other day, I was getting my semi-annual cleaning at the dentist office. When the hygienist asked what I did before retirement, I told her I was a medical school professor. That touched off a 15-minute interrogation about childhood vaccination. She has an infant daughter. While she’s gotten all the recommended vaccines, she was plainly distressed by the Trump Administration anti-vax agenda and all the bogus anti-vax propaganda on the internet. I tried to answer her questions and put her at ease about her embrace of modern medicine over conspiracy theory, and she thanked me. Although I know something about infectious disease, immunology and vaccines, I’m not an authority on vaccines and I’ve never practiced medicine. So I’ll hand the microphone to Ken Haller, MD, a friend and former colleague. “Really, how many kids does  #RFKjr  want to kill? It's a valid question considering his reckless death-dealing In the disa...

“In an  interview with The New York Times  published Thursday, Trump was asked whether there were any constraints on what he could do on the world stage, following the U.S. military operation that seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and amid renewed rhetoric from senior Trump administration officials about the United States potentially taking control of Greenland. ““Yeah, there is one thing,” Trump replied. “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”   “I don’t need international law,” he added.” This appears to be a new and unfamiliar use of the word “morality.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-limits-to-his-power_n_6960aa14e4b088e2524e3775?origin=home-latest-news-unit

There’s been a lot of crowing by Trump about how he’s seizing Venezuelan oil to hand it to American oil companies and skim profits for the United States. What oil, and how much? “ According to figures widely cited throughout the media and the oil industry itself, Venezuela is sitting on around 300 billion barrels' worth of "proved" oil, meaning barrels that have, in theory, been confirmed as commercially viable by conclusive testing or actual production.” *snip* “ This is a self-reported figure, however, and is published — but not verified — by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, of which Venezuela is a founding member. Holistic and conclusive evaluations by independent experts have never been conducted. “And up until 2007, Venezuela's self-reported proved reserves sat at around 100 billion barrels, according to data reported by OPEC. By 2013, that figure was updated after a reclassification of fields controlled by the country's state-run P...

I vividly recall a meeting when I was a young assistant professor and all the other male faculty, all MDs, were wearing white coats. The topic of “evidence-based medicine” came up. It was the first time I’d heard the phrase, so I asked the white-coat next to me (sotto voce, of course): “As opposed to what, magic-based medicine?” He replied, with more courtesy than I deserved: “As opposed to tradition-based medicine.” It hadn’t occurred to me before that there would exist any standard for medical practice other than evidence. Now I know better. The MAHA brand has become a mockery under RFK Jr and his minions. On the one hand, they’ve discovered that eating a healthy diet is a good idea, which is like discovering water at the bottom of the ocean. On the other hand, they’re promoting policies that are already making America sicker. Chief among them is the anti-vax agenda, which has led to an explosion in cases of measles and whooping cough, both deadly and preventable childhood diseases. ...

The definition of insanity is making the same mistake over and expecting a different outcome. By that definition, the Trump coup in Venezuela is insane.   Maduro was a corrupt and illegitimate ruler. And the same was true of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Bush deposed Saddam, freeing Iraq from one nightmare but plunging it into another. The excuse in Iraq was phony charges of WMDs. The real reason was access to oil. Trump has deposed Maduro based on phony charges of drug manufacture and gang support. The real reason is access to oil.   Historian Juan Cole summarizes the five mistakes that Bush made in Iraq and that Trump is making in Venezuela:   “1. Violation of the UN Charter and the International laws of war   “The Bush administration attacked Iraq in 2003 without any foundation in international law. Iraq had not attacked the United States in the decade leading up to the American intervention. The UN Security Council, led by France, Russia and China, specifically decline...

I started college at the dawning of the age of cloning. Recombinant DNA technology represented the transition from descriptive molecular biology to genetic engineering. By the time I started teaching medical students, the genes mutated in terrible diseases like cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs, hemophilia and Fragile X were cloned. There was always an obligatory paragraph at the end of the paper to the effect that now the door was open to gene therapy. For decades, the cloning of such genes made the diagnosis in affected individuals much simpler, freed from pedigree analysis. The bottleneck to gene therapy was not cloning the affected gene, it was delivering a therapeutic gene in useful amounts to the appropriate organ or tissue.  Since the turn of the century, genuine progress has been made in gene therapies. Unfortunately, this has presented a new barrier to these technology—cost. Pharma companies have priced gene therapies so high that they are out of the reach of middle class and poo...

“Documents obtained by   the New York Times   found that the third-highest-ranking official in the Interior Department failed to disclose her family’s financial interest in a controversial government-approved lithium mine.   “ Frank Falen, who owns Home Ranch in northern Nevada, sold water to Lithium Nevada Corporation, a subsidiary of Lithium Americas, for $3.5 million in 2018. The mining company was planning a new lithium mine near the ranch called Thacker Pass. Falen is the husband of Karen Budd-Falen, who currently serves as Associate Deputy Secretary of the Interior.   “ At the time of the sale, Budd-Falen was deputy solicitor of the agency, which manages the country’s natural resources and land. Falen’s water contract was dependent on Thacker Pass securing a permit from the Interior Department, according to the New York Times. ” Government official busted for apparently using their post in the Trump administration for personal gain.  In other news, dog bit...

My junior high instrumental music teacher and band director was a spinster who never owned a car. She took taxis to get around our small town. At the time, it seemed odd. Now that I’m 70 years old, it looks like my future.   The promises of robotaxis (I’m looking at you, Elon) have so far outdistanced reality. I’m silently cheering for them, though. I know the day will come when my wife or daughter will demand the car keys, saying I’m no longer fit to drive.  There are several alternatives, of course. An e-bike. Lyft/Uber. Regular taxis. But Elon isn’t the only one making promises about robotaxis:   “Tesla, again on the downswing for its vehicle deliveries, is on the upswing, aiming to overhaul ride-hailing like it did the auto industry. “Uber is wheeling and dealing, touting more than a dozen partnerships, with plans to operate robotaxi services in 10 markets by the end of 2026. “Alphabet's (GOOG, GOOGL) Waymo is seeking new funding at a valuation of at least $100 billio...

I live in Rhode Island. Ca. 90% of electricity in Rhode Island is generated by natural gas. So if you re-charge your EV in Rhode Island, you’re fueling your car with natural gas. Some folks have pointed out that EVs are about twice as efficient as ICE vehicles. That is, they waste about half the energy converting battery electricity to motive force as ICE vehicles do converting gasoline in the tank to motive force.  That’s correct. But what this calculation overlooks is that even in the more advanced combined cycle power plants, only about 60% of the energy stored in natural gas is converted to electricity. So here in Rhode Island, there isn’t much difference between EVs and ICE vehicles for carbon consumption. Now there are plenty of states that generate more electricity from renewables than RI. And for our electrical needs, we’ve contracted with a solar farm, so if we recharged an EV at our house, it would be running on green fuel.  I’m not constitutionally opposed to EVs, b...

I was in the vaccine arm of the Moderna mRNA vaccine phase III trial. I’ve had a total of eight jabs since August 2020 and I’m still fine. Of course, I’m just an anecdote. But by now, hundreds of millions have had the mRNA vaccines worldwide, with few if any proven side effects beyond mild fever and transient headache and muscle ache. Of course, I’m an adult male. What about all those pregnant people and their fetuses being exposed to the vaccine? “A nalysis of data from almost 20,000 pregnancies in Canada has revealed that getting a COVID-19 shot is a great idea for pregnant people – not just for their health, but the baby’s too. As well as being linked to a lower risk of hospitalization and serious illness, vaccination was also found to be associated with a decreased risk of preterm birth.” Yes, you can still get infected even if you’ve had the vaccine. But you’re much less likely to end up in the ED or the morgue, and you’re less likely to get long COVID. And now the benefits extend...

Since Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025, the editorials have been filled with claims that the United States is slipping into authoritarianism. While this possibility is greeted with cheers by right-wing extremists, it is a source of dire concern for liberals and for moderates like me. As Niels Bohr (and Yogi Berra) observed, predictions are hard, especially about the future. That doesn’t seem to discourage many people.   Today’s dire forecast for the new year comes from Emanuel Pastreich:   “ In a healthy society, where citizens actually play a role in politics, the politicians rise to the top because their primary mission is serving the needs of their clients, whether they are bankers, businessmen, generals, or other interest groups in the general population. Politicians can play the central role because they reflect the needs of citizens. As long as politicians can effectively meet the needs of the bankers, the generals, and the citizens, and keep the money f...