In addition to being denied his debt ceiling extension, Trump was also repudiated when his daughter-in-law “withdrew” from consideration as Senator from Florida. Trump was pushing Lara Trump to fill the seat that will be vacated when Marco Rubio is approved as Secretary of State. Lara Trump’s appointment was intended as Trump domination: domination of […]
This is just absurd. “As first reported by NPR, the state health department informed its employees that they were not allowed to promote COVID, influenza, or mpox vaccines. The directive, which department officials said they would not put into writing, related to all aspects of public health employees’ jobs: employees could not send out press […]
If current trends and policy continue, the Social Security Trust fund will be exhausted in the early 2030s and payments will drop by about 22%. If Trump has his way and income taxes are lifted on SS payments, the Trust Fund will be exhausted a year or two earlier and payments are projected to drop […]
I have a reflexive skepticism about fads. While AI isn’t exactly a fad, the relentless promotion by the media of an AI future certainly looks faddish to me. That said, there’s no question that AI is making inroads into data analysis. Watson can already read radiological images more accurately than trained radiologists. AI is transforming […]
The US is one of a small handful of countries that has a statutory limit on the federal debt. It used to be routine for Congress to raise the debt ceiling, but recently, House Republicans have been using the debt ceiling to extract political concessions from Democratic Administrations. While raising the debt ceiling wasn’t in […]
Semaglutides are turning out to be transformative for obesity in the way that statins have been transformative for hypercholesterolemia and anti-hypertensives have been transformative for high blood pressure: they’re not only highly effective but have minimal side effects. From a public health standpoint, there’s every reason to allow Medicare and Medicaid coverage for semaglutides. But […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]