Six weeks ago, Ethan was like most 7-year-olds — spending the weekend riding his new bike or playing Minecraft on his iPad on a rainy day.
“He just learned how to ride, he got the hang of it right away,” Ethan’s dad, Luis, said proudly. “He wanted to go outside because he wanted to jump on his bike…it was an amazing thing for him.”
Ethan’s parents decided not to immunize him against measles as they did with his three brothers. Three out of four of them contracted measles. Still, despite Ethan’s ordeal, his mom stands by their decision. “We’re not blaming God for this,” said 35-year-old Kristina. “Yes, it hurts, of course, it hurts. But God has chosen Ethan for a reason. God is doing something, and we’re gonna glorify his name regardless.
“And we wouldn’t change it any other way,” the mom continued. “If I knew this could be the outcome, I still wouldn’t have given my son the vaccine.”
US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has leaned heavily on treatment with vitamin A, as well as “good results” from the use of the steroid budesonide, the antibiotic clarithromycin and cod liver oil.
That’s what you’re supposed to do when your kid gets encephalitis. There’s no need for all these fancy schmancy vaccines and treatments. Sure, he might die but that’s God’s will.
It’s all based on these brain-rotted anti-vaxxers who have convinced stupid people that they are dangerous even though virtually all kids in the U.S. since the 1960s have had them. They’re just incapable of thinking rationally:
“Our biggest reason why we didn’t do it is just with all the unnecessary stuff they add into it,” Kristina added, referring to her beliefs about the vaccine.
“With my own eyes, I have seen the damage it does to kids who are perfectly normal, and then once they get it, they’re not the same anymore,” she claimed.
NO she hasn’t. She’s either lying or delusional. And if you read the whole story of this sick child’s experience — and the permanent damage it’s caused — it’s a scathing indictment of her judgement. She would still not give the vaccine after seeing her child paralyzed? What kind of a parent is she?
I feel sorry for ALL the poor kids who have parents like this and they number in the millions. And now we have the U.S. Government backing them up with snake oil and misinformation. It’s a travesty.
After a year in which the Trump administration has pressed to limit the ways Americans can identify as transgender in public life, Republicans are pushing the issue at the state level with new zeal. With legislative sessions underway in most states, hundreds of bills restricting transgender rights are under consideration as social conservatives seek to capitalize on Trump administration tailwinds and a shift in public opinion to codify an understanding of sex and gender as binary and fixed.
In Kansas, lawmakers voted on Wednesday to invalidate the driver’s licenses of transgender residents who changed the gender markers on their licenses under a state policy that started allowing such changes almost two decades ago.
Idaho’s House of Representatives this week advanced a bill that would allow people to sue private businesses that allow transgender people to use restrooms consistent with their gender identity. In Utah, legislators are weighing removing transgender people from groups protected by a state law barring discrimination in housing and employment.
The barrage of bills follows a six-year stretch in which 27 state legislatures controlled by Republicans focused restrictions mainly on health care and sports for transgender minors. This year’s proposals are more sweeping: They address trans adults as well as youths, seek to close loopholes in earlier laws and mandate harsher penalties for violations.
They just want to torture and punish transgender people because they don’t like them, period. It has nothing to do with kids or women’s rights or anything else. They just hate the very idea of transgender people and want to make it impossible for them to function in society or even make it criminal. So much for freedom.
This is one of the ugliest episodes we’ve seen in our society in many decades. It’s heartbreaking and enraging to see a very small and vulnerable minority be persecuted by a bunch of ignorant bigots just because they can.
If you haven’t watched this film on Netflix, I highly recommend it. It’s not particularly political, it’s just human.
DOOCY: On Prince Andrew, do you think American associates of Jeffrey Epstein will wind up in handcuffs too?
TRUMP: I'm the expert in a way because I've been totally exonerated. That's very nice. I can actually speak about it very nicely. I think it's a shame. I did nothing. pic.twitter.com/PiGVUfNbzV
Listen to the whole thing. It is INFURIATING. From the inane insistence that he’s been “completely exonerated” which he’s just made up in his head and is now repeating like he’s some kind of a moronic robot to the fact that he feels so terrible for poor Andrew, the man is a fucking monster.
Among the thousands and thousands of mentions of his name in the files, the fact that they clear redacted many more, tips and statements by people who say they knew Trump was involved in the sexcapades and the testimony by the Palm Beach Police chief that Trump had called him to tell him that Epstein was a pedophile and “everyone knew it” he is anything but exonerated.
Bolts reports on another Blue State push back to ICE. It discusses the 287(g) program:
… which deputizes local and state officers to act on ICE’s behalf, including by detaining people in jails past their scheduled release dates, then transferring those people to ICE custody. This program is a crucial force multiplier for ICE, largely because it expands ICE’s access to jails and prisons, where it can intercept people in greater numbers, and with greater ease, than in the field.
The good news is this:
Maryland, Maine, and New Mexico join six other blue states—California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Oregon, and Washington—in adopting laws to ban local and state agencies from partnering with ICE’s 287(g) program. New Jersey has a ban in place through an executive directive, though the state’s outgoing governor vetoed a bill that would have codified it into law in January.
Four states under full Democratic control—Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia—still have local or state agencies that have joined the 287(g) program, though there is currently active legislation in at least three of those states to limit or end these contracts.
These partnerships have been in place for decades but it’s only under Miller that they’ve been truly weaponized.
Sadly, it takes a full trifecta to get a ban. Republicans everywhere are thrilled to see the deportation atrocities so they won’t cooperate. But it’s good to at least see the Democratic states doing the right thing.
The U.S. merchandise trade deficit hit a record $1.2 trillion last year, despite President Donald Trump’s promise to eliminate it by imposing the highest tariffs in eight decades on foreign-made products.
Thursday’s Commerce Department report represents the first full-year assessment of the president’s ambitious reordering of global trade. The persistence of the deficit in the face of steep new taxes on imports from China, the European Union and scores of other nations reflects the limits of Trump’s preferred policy tool, economists said.
The president has described the trade deficit in goods, which the U.S. has run every year since 1975, as a “national emergency” resulting from unfair trade practices on the part of foreign nations.
[…]
Exports of goods and services rose 6.2 percent to a record $3.4 trillion. Imports rose nearly 5 percent to a record $4.3 trillion.
The goods and services deficit for the month of December widened more than Wall Street analysts had expected, reaching $70.3 billion, up from $53 billion in November.
Everyone said that Trump had no understanding of trade and merely thought that he could “make money” for the country by imposing tariffs. He’s an idiot so it’s no shock that he didn’t understand how tariffs work. Now it turns out that even if you believed that the “trade deficit” was a massive emergency, his policy didn’t even succeed on its own terms.
Today, it seems that Trump just sees tariffs as a form of blackmail he can use against foreign countries to do his bidding. There’s really nothing more to it than that. And I suspect that’s losing its salience as time goes on as well. The entire tariff scheme is daft on every level.
The news, when it was reported Wednesday afternoon by the New York Times, was just the latest in a series of blows to America’s public health, but it has the potential to be among the most serious: A so-called “fringe epidemiologist” will soon be serving as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control. As head of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya has done lasting damage by helping to gut millions of dollars in vital biomedical research; he will continue to serve in that role while simultaneously heading the CDC.
The appointment, which is expected to be announced soon by the White House and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., places the CDC in the hands of someone — albeit on a temporary basis, as the post now requires Senate approval — who helped lead the charge against lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic. Bhattacharya argued that the virus should be allowed to spread in healthy young people until herd immunity was reached.
The news capped a year in which Kennedy has wrecked the nation’s public health, along with its premier medical science institutions, by firing or pushing out veteran researchers, scientists and physicians; stacking agencies with hand-picked vaccine skeptics; failing to prevent and treat a rapidly growing measles outbreak; and promoting quack theories about disease prevention.
Kennedy was sworn in as HHS secretary on Feb. 13, 2025, following a 52-48 Senate vote in favor of his confirmation. His hearings were contentious and arduous, with Democrats giving speeches late into the night that urged their GOP colleagues to oppose his nomination. They were unsuccessful. In the end, only one Republican, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a polio survivor, voted against Kennedy. “In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world,” McConnell said. “I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles.”
The former Senate majority leader’s words sounded like common sense to most Americans, who knew the truth about vaccines and were deeply concerned about Kennedy’s nomination to head HHS. It was bad enough that the man wasn’t a doctor, but he was also a known conspiracy theorist and gadfly given the spot in a quid pro quo from Donald Trump, who needed his anti-vaccine credibility for his presidential campaign. (One of Trump’s few weaknesses in the GOP base was his desire to take credit for the only truly positive policy he ever oversaw: the development of the Covid vaccines, which many conservatives — along with some crunchy leftists — had come to see as deadly rather than life-saving.)
Kennedy’s brief run for president, first as a Democrat and then as an Independent, had flamed out, and he was pretty much selling his endorsement to the highest bidder when Trump came calling. The Kamala Harris campaign reportedly passed, refusing to promise such a crank anything in the event of a Democratic win. Kennedy went with Trump, rejecting his family’s legacy, which had become rooted in the very DNA of the Democratic Party. Trump promised Kennedy that he would be allowed to “go wild” on health and medical science, but that energy policy was off limits. (Advocating against fossil fuel production and expansion had previously been the cornerstone of Kennedy’s work.) He was happy to comply.
Both Kennedy and Trump are famous eccentrics who possess a charismatic weirdness that somehow captures people’s imaginations — and inspires them to become devoted followers. In their own ways, each is a cult leader.
In retrospect, it is entirely predictable the two would end up together. Both Kennedy and Trump are famous eccentrics who possess a charismatic weirdness that somehow captures people’s imaginations — and inspires them to become devoted followers. In their own ways, each is a cult leader. Accompanied by that natural impulse and the president’s blessing, Kennedy has indeed gone wild in office.
The first year of his tenure has seen the federal government’s medical science institutions undergo the most radical changes since their inception. Kennedy has essentially turned the CDC, NIH, Food and Drug Administration, and all the other agencies falling under his purview into pseudo-scientific wellness laboratories. With a few more years, they could collectively end up being the world’s most expensive holistic health facility.
Not all of his policies have been bad. Encouraging people to eschew processed food in favor of the real thing and get plenty of exercise is a worthy priority, although it’s the kind of issue usually taken up by first ladies rather than the HHS Secretary. In fact, it was Michelle Obama’s mission, and it earned her widespread outrage and vilification on the right for interfering in America’s god-given right to eat junk food. Still, it would be hard to object to anyone pursuing initiatives to get unnatural additives out of the food supply or trying to ensure that the country is eating well. But that’s the least of what Kennedy is doing.
The centerpiece of the secretary’s Make America Healthy Again agenda is his war on vaccines, something he promised during his confirmation hearings he would not pursue. In a year’s time, Kennedy has replaced medical experts with vaccine skeptics and is withdrawing the CDC and FDA vaccine recommendations for both children and adults. HHS stopped supporting mRNA research, which looked to be a game-changer in public health. The move resulted in Moderna pulling back from stage three trials for vaccines targeting multiple sclerosis and other diseases after the FDA rejected the company’s flu vaccine for dubious reasons. (After significant backlash, the decision was reportedly reversed.)
Such policies will inevitably lead to sickness and deaths. In fact, they already have; the U.S. is experiencing a measles outbreak that will likely result in the nation losing its status as having eradicated the disease.
While people suffer due to his policies, Kennedy has been posting shirtless workout videos — most recently with Kid Rock — and appearing on right-wing podcasts announcing that he isn’t afraid of germs because he used to snort cocaine off toilet seats. (He has long been a germ theory skeptic.) The secretary also recently declared that the ketogenic diet can cure schizophrenia, a fringe idea that has been rejected by every expert in the field.
In response to such policies, many states are stepping up to fill some of the gaps. As Salon’s Nicole Karlis reported, California has launched its own initiative. This includes the Public Health Network Innovation Exchange, which seeks to build a national coalition under the leadership of former CDC officials. Similarly, California, Oregon and Washington state have created the West Coast Health Alliance to combat misinformation coming from the CDC, and seven states in the Northeast have come together to make medically-sound vaccine recommendations. Individual governors and state legislatures are also scrambling to fill the void and create coalitions that can mobilize quickly in case of another public health emergency like the pandemic. Beyond these efforts, we can only wait for the day that funding for medical research will be restored by a Democratic administration.
In the meantime, Europe, Canada and China are moving into realms of medical science the U.S. once commanded. While they pursue cutting-edge advances in medicine and technology, America will likely be running a massive internet conspiracy theory/wellness experiment testing Kennedy’s rejection of germ theory, which will include the use of Ivermectin and cod liver oil for whatever ails you. And don’t be surprised if they decide to bring back blood-letting and leeches. They seem to believe that the medical advances of the 19th and 20th centuries were worthless.
A UN panel that’s examined allegations made in the Epstein files released to date declares “No one is too wealthy or too powerful to be above the law.”
That proposition faces serious stress testing at the moment. For now it is simply folk wisdom and wishful thinking like “all persons are created equal.” We’re a long way from Q.E.D.
A PBS News Hour post from last night and a reply on the hellsite grabbed my full attention:
The criminal activities outlined in the Epstein files may “reasonably meet the legal threshold of crimes against humanity,” according to a new report from experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council.
The report notably contradicts U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation conclusions that that there was little evidence that Jeffrey Epstein led a sex trafficking ring. The report states the files “contain disturbing and credible evidence of systematic and large-scale sexual abuse, trafficking and exploitation of women and girls.”
The UN statement is here, and includes these closing remarks:
“Any suggestion that it is time to move on from the ‘Epstein files’ is unacceptable. It represents a failure of responsibility towards victims,” they said.
“Resignations of implicated individuals alone are not an adequate substitute for criminal accountability,” the experts said. They welcomed steps by some governments to probe current and former officials and private individuals named in the files. They called on other states to do the same.
“Failure by governments to effectively investigate, and prosecute those responsible for these crimes, including by complicity or acquiescence, where jurisdiction exists, risks undermining legal frameworks aimed at preventing and responding to violence against women and girls,” they warned.
“It is imperative that governments act decisively to hold perpetrators accountable,” the experts said. “No one is too wealthy or too powerful to be above the law.”
The disturbing document extracted in the reply above comes from a Nov. 2020 letter from the Marsh Law Firm and an expert in child sexual abuse sent to the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York on the behalf of a client. The 9-page letter released with the Epstein files outlines allegations of brutal abuse of underage women and children. It’s horrific.
That story landed before this headline from the AP: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office over ties to Epstein
Thames Valley Police previously said it was “assessing” reports that Mountbatten-Windsor sent confidential trade reports to Epstein in 2010, when the former prince was Britain’s special envoy for international trade. Those reports stemmed from correspondence between the two men that was among the millions of pages of documents from the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation into Epstein that were released last month.
“Following a thorough assessment, we have now opened an investigation into this allegation of misconduct in public office,’’ Assistant Chief Constable Oliver Wright said in a statement. “We understand the significant public interest in this case, and we will provide updates at the appropriate time.”
This alleged crime is financial. But it may not be Mountbatten-Windsor’s only crime. Another may involve his membership in the Epstein class.
Someone questioned why QAnon has not been taking victory laps over the exposure of an international child sex ring. You know why. They expected lefties and actually got a mixed bag of well-heeled and connected elites.
At this point I’m not even sure we can keep our republic, much less see justice for victims of the Epstein class. At least in this country.
How many times must Trump 2.0 defy court orders before GOP House members discover, “Hey, Dear Leader is violating his oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. That’s bad, right?”
Lawrence O’Donnell opened his MS Now show on Wednesday featuring an op-ed from the New York Daily News. James Speyer, an attorney with Lawyers Defending American Democracy, writes that is it time to admit what is right before our eyes. Once Americans looked with disdain upon countries like Russia or North Korea as mafia-style criminal regimes. In such nations elites loot national wealth for personal gain and violently put down dissent. Now they are us.
Murdered Renee Good and Alex Pretti, slandered them as “domestic terrorists” and “assassins,” and allowed their killers to walk free. Unleashed thousands of minimally trained ICE agents, recruited with explicitly white supremacist messaging, to inflict terror on people of color. Repeatedly violated the constitutional rights of citizens and non-citizens by arresting them for First Amendment-protected speech, raiding their homes without judicial warrants, and imprisoning them without due process.
And killed dozens of civilians on the high seas solely on the unsubstantiated claim that they were drug runners (not that being drug runners would justify their summary executions without due process anyway). Released hundreds of imprisoned felons who brutally beat Capitol police officers on Jan. 6. Converted the once-independent Department of Justice into an instrument of personal retribution via the prosecution of cooked-up lawsuits against the president’s enemies. Threatened to seize the territory of a sovereign nation (a NATO ally no less).
And declared that legislators should be executed for reminding military personnel of their duty to disobey illegal orders. Tried to impose ruinous and unconstitutional sanctions on some of the country’s largest law firms simply because Trump doesn’t like them. Violated court orders on a massive scale. As the chief federal district judge of Minnesota recently wrote, “ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”
And shaken down some of the country’s largest universities by illegally threatening to withhold funding; and engaged in breathtaking corruption: as the conservative writer David Frum stated, “Trump’s scale of stealing and bribe-taking has never been remotely paralleled in any democratic country ever before.”
And that’s just for starters; there are dozens more examples.
JUST IN: Judge Provinzino in Minnesota has held a Justice Department attorney in civil contempt for violations of her order requiring the return of a released ICE detainee’s ID documents. He must pay $500 a day until the documents are returned. pic.twitter.com/xb3cB8C5w8
Judge Rufe says govt has failed to comply with her 2/16 order to restore *forthwith* the slavery exhibits to the [George Washington] President's House in Philadelphia. Orders them restored by 5pm Friday. (Govt has appealed, but has not yet moved for a stay.)… pic.twitter.com/Yq1wv57lAJ
The criminality, Speyer argues, is so flagrant, so ubiquitous, and so unlike anything this country has ever imagined that for many Americans it is simply “exhausting, numbing, and overwhelming.”
But viewing the Trump administration as a massive crime syndicate allows us to be clear-eyed about what is coming down the road, and to plan accordingly. To take the most urgent example, there ought to be no question as to whether Trump will try to steal the midterm elections. Of course he will try to steal them. Criminals gonna crime.
Trump tried to steal the 2020 elections, and the lack of any consequences for that supremely traitorous act only further emboldened him. It is every patriotic American’s duty to oppose the coming effort to nullify the will of the voters.
Stopping that will take massive resistance along the Minneapolis model. It’s coming. Possibly backed by Trump’s praetorian guard from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have no role in state election administration. But that will not prevent this criminal regime from deploying them to intimidate voters ahead of the midterm elections or to disrupt vote counting afterwards. The damage will be done while Trump keeps opponent lawyers tied up in court.
Already, North Carolina Republican election officials are laying the groundwork with a mass mailing I mentioned a week ago. NC Newsline reiterates that “more than 241,000 voters are receiving letters from the N.C. Board of Elections declaring that an identification number in their registration record could not be ‘validated.’” I am reliably told that there is no code in the public file indicating who got the letters and why. It’s a secret list.
In a state where voters have endured years of baseless voter suppression attacks, mass mailings like this do not land as routine paperwork. They land as warnings. They create uncertainty, and uncertainty is one of the most effective forms of voter suppression because it makes eligible voters question whether they should show up at all.
In this case, the state board’s staff sent the poorly worded letter without notifying county election officials of its contents or that it would mostly go to legacy voters – people who registered more than two decades ago and who have voted for years. Those elderly voters were especially confused, scared or angry.
The letter did point out that an “unvalidated” ID number is frequently caused by name changes, formatting mismatches, or clerical errors. But instead of quietly resolving issues – for example, at the polling place check-in desk – the board chose to spend tax dollars on an election-season mailing that predictably caused voter anxiety.
In a similarly heavy-handed way, the Republican-controlled state elections board is demanding access to otherwise private nine-digit Social Security numbers held by the Division of Motor Vehicles. For decades, the last four digits, along with a birthdate, have been enough to maintain voter rolls. But the new Board is pursuing an ambitious plan to screen and possibly purge voters by using a controversial, flawed federal database with SSNs.
The GOP will be fear-mongering this fall about “unvalidated” voters risking jail for casting a ballot. They are even now setting up November vote challenges akin to GOP Judge Jefferson Griffin’s six months of court challenges after he lost the state Supreme Court race to Allison Riggs in Nov. 2024. It’s another GOP twofer. Vote suppression up front, vote challenging on the back side.
Benjamin Franklin famously cautioned upon exiting Independence Hall that the framers had crafted “A Republic, if you can keep it.” Never since the Civil War of the 19th century have Americans been so tested. What are Americans of this century prepared to do to keep it? Or will they sleep while beside them “the most powerful crime syndicate in history” smothers their beloved republic under a pillow?
The Trump administration is closer to a major war in the Middle East than most Americans realize. It could begin very soon. A U.S. military operation in Iran would likely be a massive, weeks-long campaign that would look more like full-fledged war than last month’s pinpoint operation in Venezuela, sources say.
The sources noted it would likely be a joint U.S.-Israeli campaign that’s much broader in scope — and more existential for the regime — than the Israeli-led 12-day war last June, which the U.S. eventually joined to take out Iran’s underground nuclear facilities. Such a war would have a dramatic influence on the entire region and major implications for the remaining three years of the Trump presidency.
With the attention of Congress and the public otherwise occupied, there is little public debate about what could be the most consequential U.S. military intervention in the Middle East in at least a decade.
Trump was ready to go last month but ended up sending in Kush and Witkoff to strong arm the Iranian government into bowing down. Shockingly, that crack team has not had any success:
While both sides said the talks “made progress,” the gaps are wide and U.S. officials aren’t optimistic about closing them. Vice President Vance told Fox News the talks “went well” in some ways, but “in other ways it was very clear that the president has set some red lines that the Iranians are not yet willing to actually acknowledge and work through.”
He ordered another armada to to region over the last few weeks and just in the last 24 hours, he’s sent another 50 fighter jets.
Axios reports:
The standoff with Iran has gone on so long that many Americans are likely numb to it. War could come sooner, and be much bigger, than most recognize, sources say.Trump’s military and rhetorical build-ups make it hard for him to back down without major concessions from Iran on its nuclear program. It’s not in Trump’s nature, and his advisers don’t view the deployment of all that hardware as a bluff.
With Trump, anything can happen. But all signs point to him pulling the trigger if talks fail.
Aaaand,there’s the fact that Israel is agitating for a full-fledged, Iraq style regime change operation. and is planning for it to begin in just days.
And then there’s this creepy observation:
U.S. officials said after Tuesday’s talks that Iran needs to come back with a detailed proposal in two weeks. Last June 19, the White House set a two-week window for Trump to decide between further talks or strikes. Three days later, he launched Operation Midnight Hammer.
It really looks like we’re going in. And I don’t think the American people have a clue.
Do they have to go along with this stupid “Donroe Doctrine” nonsense? I don’t think so.
Apparently, Trump is out of the loop and posting erratically again. The BBC reports that Trump’s post, “comes despite Washington on Tuesday giving its official backing to London’s plan to cede sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory to Mauritius.”
I don’t know the details of the U.K. deal or whether it’s good or bad. But I do know that Trump issuing orders on Truth Social to sovereign countries is not the way things should be done.And signaling that he’s seriously looking at more military action in Iran in this manner is just plain stupid.
But that’s how America rolls now. Buckle up, world.
