Maybe once Ebola arrives on our shores and makes Covid look like the common cold, people will realize what has happened. Of course, we’ll all be dead — rich & poor!
I believe US lifespan is already behind that of other Western peer nations. Think what it will be with no vaccines, no research funding at NIH etc and gutting the EPA. Oh wait, I failed to mention funds to Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare will probably be cut. Those programs keep us alive, too. Susan Glasser’s new article in the New Yorker is titled “Why Aren’t We in the Streets?” Why aren’t we? I like your addition of “rich & poor!” That is correct.
Can someone tell me, is there something wrong with Peggy Noonan? I read her column sometimes to see what she says. I have an R friend who seems to like her. Her writing usually just makes me feel nauseated. It’s hard for me to fathom that she was a speech writer. Here’s a quote from her about Musk: “It is heartening to see DOGE attempt reform—exciting, actually. Mr. Musk comes in and zaps bad programs here and silly spending there and suddenly the good parts of the previously more-or-less unaccountable U.S. Agency for International Development are being blended into the State Department, and the bad parts are being shuttered. This allows citizens to feel they can direct their government. Which cheers them. They didn’t know it was possible.” What Musk is doing is not reform. He showed us what he’s doing with that chainsaw.
Here she is on USAID: “Of all the agencies being batted about the one we will remember first when we recall this period in history is the U.S. Agency for International Development, so much of whose line-item spending was devoted to cultural imperialism. You have seen the lists. USAID produced a DEI musical in Ireland, funded LGBT activism in Guatemala. It spent $426,000 to help Indonesian coffee companies become more climate- and gender-friendly, $447,000 to promote the expansion of atheism in Nepal, and on and on.
When you look at what they were pushing on the world you think: They’re not fighting anti-American feeling, they are causing anti-American feeling.
Who is defending these USAID programs? Nobody. Obviously not Republicans, but not Democrats either. Everyone knows the agency went too far.”
She makes tepid criticisms of Trump but I think she is MAGA at heart.
She was mostly talking about government going too far and that was specifically on banning trans women from women’s sports. She was blaming the dems. She swept up USAID in with her opinion on trans people. And I did not see her mention any suffering coming with the cuts to USAID. If you feel like looking at it, I’ll post the link. This is the piece about trans rights and USAID not the DOGE piece. https://peggynoonan.com/government-keeps-going-too-far/
It is sickening that the richest man in the world is bent on taking food and health care from the poorest people. I am wondering if George W. will speak up? We need leaders who speak up against this injustice.
I have to wonder if some of the states can take up some of the things being cut at the federal level, like the advisory board meeting for making a determination on next year's flu vaccine. Obviously the states can't pick up all the pieces, but maybe some of them.
Roberts as usual is protecting the felon in chief and allowing him and elmo muck to kill off millions around the world and in our own nation. That's what cuts to Medicaid will mean. 60% of those funds pay nursing homes to care for elderly people, folks living with disabilities. This is the Fascist ideology that only the "strong" deserve to live. One day these people will be adjudicated as having committed crimes against humanity. The rights of all of us are under attack by a crowd who want nothing but to profit off the lives of others.
You can always count on John to dig Donald out of a sticky ditch. Funny how they got this thing up to his court like speeded up lightening. But couldn't manage to process Jack Smith's case for months and months and months. Ain't The Law strange?
Regarding the assaults on our healthcare system, Ruth Ben-Ghiat said something sort of jarring on Bluesky. Her take on why all of this is happening, "The reason: a diseased population is easier to control. The goal is to destroy America for the benefit of the autocracies these people are allied with." I assume she means that cartel of autocrats Trump so wants to join. Charter members: Xi, Putin, Orban, etc.
Her comment is pretty harsh, poss a little hysterical-adjacent. But it does seem in sync with the general theme of unhinged, but very deliberate destruction of our government, underway since Jan 20th. Slash the hugely bloated, fiscally irresponsible monster to something small enough to be drowned in a bathtub. Why should our sinfully over active health agencies get a pass? RFK Jr. fires up his own chainsaw. 🪚
Apparently Trump and Musk want to cut all programs that help the citizens of the United States and certainly the citizens of any other country. Our only government support should go to business, the military industrial complex and billionaires. You can bet your life that none of that is being eliminated.
Have your passports up to date. You may be able to travel to another country to get your flu shot (as well as any other vaccines you may need).
And get any other vaccines you're not up to date on (such as the new RSV vaccine, and Shingrex) NOW, while they are still available! You can get them at a pharmacy, and you don't need a prescription!
I can only tell you about Italy. Vaccines are dispensed to Italians who are covered by their national heath plan. They are not available to random people who simply arrive in the country and ask for a vaccination. If you have a private doctor, as we did in Italy, then you have a better chance. You pay for the doctor and the vaccine. But if the particular vaccine is in short supply, forget about it. We could not access the Covid vaccine in Italy, for example.
Availability is clearly going to vary from one country to the next. But if a person doesn't have a valid passport, it's clear they aren't going to be able to get ANY vaccine that isn't available here in the US, whether or not that vaccine would be available to foreigners somewhere else, hence my advice.
And a wonderful cherry to top of this health care massacre sundae: Measles cases have now been reported in New Jersey and Kentucky, in addition to the ongoing spread in Texas and New Mexico.
This would be a very good time to get up to date on your vaccines (including boosters for MMR, TDaP, and polio if it's been a few decades since your immune system last saw those those). Get those vaccines while you still can!
The guillotines of 18th-century France did not drop in a vacuum. They were not an arbitrary burst of bloodlust, nor were they the spontaneous rage of a misguided mob. They were the culmination of decades of unchecked wealth hoarding, exploitation, and an elite class that believed itself untouchable-until it wasn’t.
Exactly! Remember that "Bugs Life" movie? At some point the ants DO realize that they don't have to take the grasshopper's abuse.
Fun fact, the New Deal actually saved the rich capitalists. Communism was spreading world-wide. The plutocrats literally kept their heads because of the New Deal. The current crop of wealth hoarders aren't smart enough to understand!
There's a moment in Ken Burns' documentary The Roosevelts that I find haunting. Someone tells FDR at the start of his first term that if he fails, he'll go down in history as the worst US president. FDR's response was "No. I won't be the worst President. I will be the LAST President."
He knew what was at stake if the Great Depression continued on the same course.
That's what I still don't understand. Politically, we're at the exact same point. However, we're not in the midst of the Great Depression. We're coming off 4 years of a strong economy. The two high school trans athletes in MI really upset folks.
Apparently half the country doesn't believe our economy is strong. They live in an alternate reality, but they are going to get one HELL of a wakeup when Trump crashes the economy for real. This has the potential to make 2008 look like a garden party.
SO MUCH INSANITY IN TODAY’S NEWSLETTER. I’d love to hear what possible good there is in decimating our defenses against infectious disease! Are billionaires and MAGAts immune to the flu and whatever other horrors could come our way? This is just beyond senseless in a world full of senseless-ness!
Also,Hatch Act dork here. 34 year civil servant. Absolutely wearing that stupid hat is a violation. I never even wore a small political button on my purse to work. One employee was obsessed with the Bush/Gore fiasco and talked about it too much— was fired. There were all kinds of hatch act violations in shit show 1.0, nothing ever enforced so why would it be now.
Maybe once Ebola arrives on our shores and makes Covid look like the common cold, people will realize what has happened. Of course, we’ll all be dead — rich & poor!
I believe US lifespan is already behind that of other Western peer nations. Think what it will be with no vaccines, no research funding at NIH etc and gutting the EPA. Oh wait, I failed to mention funds to Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare will probably be cut. Those programs keep us alive, too. Susan Glasser’s new article in the New Yorker is titled “Why Aren’t We in the Streets?” Why aren’t we? I like your addition of “rich & poor!” That is correct.
My anger wishes a plague of Biblical proportions, even up to the Angel of Death, upon these heedless and simply evil creatures.
We have a bunch of imbeciles and crooks running the country
Can someone tell me, is there something wrong with Peggy Noonan? I read her column sometimes to see what she says. I have an R friend who seems to like her. Her writing usually just makes me feel nauseated. It’s hard for me to fathom that she was a speech writer. Here’s a quote from her about Musk: “It is heartening to see DOGE attempt reform—exciting, actually. Mr. Musk comes in and zaps bad programs here and silly spending there and suddenly the good parts of the previously more-or-less unaccountable U.S. Agency for International Development are being blended into the State Department, and the bad parts are being shuttered. This allows citizens to feel they can direct their government. Which cheers them. They didn’t know it was possible.” What Musk is doing is not reform. He showed us what he’s doing with that chainsaw.
Here she is on USAID: “Of all the agencies being batted about the one we will remember first when we recall this period in history is the U.S. Agency for International Development, so much of whose line-item spending was devoted to cultural imperialism. You have seen the lists. USAID produced a DEI musical in Ireland, funded LGBT activism in Guatemala. It spent $426,000 to help Indonesian coffee companies become more climate- and gender-friendly, $447,000 to promote the expansion of atheism in Nepal, and on and on.
When you look at what they were pushing on the world you think: They’re not fighting anti-American feeling, they are causing anti-American feeling.
Who is defending these USAID programs? Nobody. Obviously not Republicans, but not Democrats either. Everyone knows the agency went too far.”
She makes tepid criticisms of Trump but I think she is MAGA at heart.
Did she have nothing to say about the axing of programs that delivered medicine and fed starving children? Were those also bad parts?
She was mostly talking about government going too far and that was specifically on banning trans women from women’s sports. She was blaming the dems. She swept up USAID in with her opinion on trans people. And I did not see her mention any suffering coming with the cuts to USAID. If you feel like looking at it, I’ll post the link. This is the piece about trans rights and USAID not the DOGE piece. https://peggynoonan.com/government-keeps-going-too-far/
It is sickening that the richest man in the world is bent on taking food and health care from the poorest people. I am wondering if George W. will speak up? We need leaders who speak up against this injustice.
I have to wonder if some of the states can take up some of the things being cut at the federal level, like the advisory board meeting for making a determination on next year's flu vaccine. Obviously the states can't pick up all the pieces, but maybe some of them.
Roberts as usual is protecting the felon in chief and allowing him and elmo muck to kill off millions around the world and in our own nation. That's what cuts to Medicaid will mean. 60% of those funds pay nursing homes to care for elderly people, folks living with disabilities. This is the Fascist ideology that only the "strong" deserve to live. One day these people will be adjudicated as having committed crimes against humanity. The rights of all of us are under attack by a crowd who want nothing but to profit off the lives of others.
You can always count on John to dig Donald out of a sticky ditch. Funny how they got this thing up to his court like speeded up lightening. But couldn't manage to process Jack Smith's case for months and months and months. Ain't The Law strange?
Regarding the assaults on our healthcare system, Ruth Ben-Ghiat said something sort of jarring on Bluesky. Her take on why all of this is happening, "The reason: a diseased population is easier to control. The goal is to destroy America for the benefit of the autocracies these people are allied with." I assume she means that cartel of autocrats Trump so wants to join. Charter members: Xi, Putin, Orban, etc.
Her comment is pretty harsh, poss a little hysterical-adjacent. But it does seem in sync with the general theme of unhinged, but very deliberate destruction of our government, underway since Jan 20th. Slash the hugely bloated, fiscally irresponsible monster to something small enough to be drowned in a bathtub. Why should our sinfully over active health agencies get a pass? RFK Jr. fires up his own chainsaw. 🪚
Apparently Trump and Musk want to cut all programs that help the citizens of the United States and certainly the citizens of any other country. Our only government support should go to business, the military industrial complex and billionaires. You can bet your life that none of that is being eliminated.
Jesus, why are they so "afraid of reprisal?" If they believe in the mission it's time to start the goddamn reprisals ourselves.
It was a tiny margin so NO the real great and good Americans did not vote for this. We didn't fall for the con.
I am worried about the flu vaccine. We are elderly and flu could kill us.
Have your passports up to date. You may be able to travel to another country to get your flu shot (as well as any other vaccines you may need).
And get any other vaccines you're not up to date on (such as the new RSV vaccine, and Shingrex) NOW, while they are still available! You can get them at a pharmacy, and you don't need a prescription!
I can only tell you about Italy. Vaccines are dispensed to Italians who are covered by their national heath plan. They are not available to random people who simply arrive in the country and ask for a vaccination. If you have a private doctor, as we did in Italy, then you have a better chance. You pay for the doctor and the vaccine. But if the particular vaccine is in short supply, forget about it. We could not access the Covid vaccine in Italy, for example.
Availability is clearly going to vary from one country to the next. But if a person doesn't have a valid passport, it's clear they aren't going to be able to get ANY vaccine that isn't available here in the US, whether or not that vaccine would be available to foreigners somewhere else, hence my advice.
And a wonderful cherry to top of this health care massacre sundae: Measles cases have now been reported in New Jersey and Kentucky, in addition to the ongoing spread in Texas and New Mexico.
This would be a very good time to get up to date on your vaccines (including boosters for MMR, TDaP, and polio if it's been a few decades since your immune system last saw those those). Get those vaccines while you still can!
These people are hideous. Ghouls, even.
The guillotines of 18th-century France did not drop in a vacuum. They were not an arbitrary burst of bloodlust, nor were they the spontaneous rage of a misguided mob. They were the culmination of decades of unchecked wealth hoarding, exploitation, and an elite class that believed itself untouchable-until it wasn’t.
Exactly! Remember that "Bugs Life" movie? At some point the ants DO realize that they don't have to take the grasshopper's abuse.
Fun fact, the New Deal actually saved the rich capitalists. Communism was spreading world-wide. The plutocrats literally kept their heads because of the New Deal. The current crop of wealth hoarders aren't smart enough to understand!
There's a moment in Ken Burns' documentary The Roosevelts that I find haunting. Someone tells FDR at the start of his first term that if he fails, he'll go down in history as the worst US president. FDR's response was "No. I won't be the worst President. I will be the LAST President."
He knew what was at stake if the Great Depression continued on the same course.
That's what I still don't understand. Politically, we're at the exact same point. However, we're not in the midst of the Great Depression. We're coming off 4 years of a strong economy. The two high school trans athletes in MI really upset folks.
Apparently half the country doesn't believe our economy is strong. They live in an alternate reality, but they are going to get one HELL of a wakeup when Trump crashes the economy for real. This has the potential to make 2008 look like a garden party.
Not intending to spam, but this was from earlier in the week: https://twvme.substack.com/p/the-manufactured-malaise-why-americans
Nice article, not spam at all!
If everyone I know is working full time, the economy is fine.
If I am working full time, but you are unemployed, it's a recession.
If I am unemployed, it's CLEARLY a full-blown depression!!! :D
SO MUCH INSANITY IN TODAY’S NEWSLETTER. I’d love to hear what possible good there is in decimating our defenses against infectious disease! Are billionaires and MAGAts immune to the flu and whatever other horrors could come our way? This is just beyond senseless in a world full of senseless-ness!
Also,Hatch Act dork here. 34 year civil servant. Absolutely wearing that stupid hat is a violation. I never even wore a small political button on my purse to work. One employee was obsessed with the Bush/Gore fiasco and talked about it too much— was fired. There were all kinds of hatch act violations in shit show 1.0, nothing ever enforced so why would it be now.