Nathan Cortez

“Coverage of this mass sports gambling arrest is brought to you by DraftKings“

Just receieved this today from Florida Blue. This is for a Bronze plan. Our monthly premiums are going from $333 (2025) to $2300 in 2026.

Reporters were seen exiting the Pentagon and vacating their workspaces in the building on Wednesday after most news organizations rejected the Defense Department's new press rules and refused to sign documents acknowledging the policy.

Again, it is a full-blown federal felony crime for anyone in the White House or Executive Office of the President to order tax investigations into anyone.

And it's not just a crime to DO it, it's even a federal crime for an employee not to REPORT such an order to the Treasury Inspector General.

If you think that professors exist as repositories of knowledge that students ask for answers, you’re missing the entire point of a college education.

We’re here to teach students how to do research, how to analyze and argue, how to think for themselves — how to find the answers on their own.

Great reporting by @lizzylawrence.bsky.social.

Great, insightful quotes from @reshmagar.bsky.social, @nathancortez.bsky.social & @rachelsachs.bsky.social.

Not great news, to say the least, for public health, innovation, or any of us.

the guy who caught cal raleigh’s homer was wearing a shirt that said dump 61 here and he immediately took it off and had a shirt that said dump 62 here

New KFF poll: Americans want Congress to extend the expiring, enhanced Obamacare credits by a whopping margin of 78% to 22% — a remarkable political entrenchment for subsidies that were a heavy political lift for Democrats just a few years ago, per Politico.

You could not more perfectly invert the whole point of the power of the purse than this false notion the legislature cutting off appropriations means the executive gets more power.

Hims & Hers Health, Inc. dba Hers - 09/09/2025 Unlawful Sale of Unapproved and Misbranded Drugs to United States Consumers Over the Internet

Really big deal that FDA sent a Warning Letter to Hims & Hers for marketing unapproved new drugs (GLP-1s). Telehealth cos sell compounded versions and generally get away with much more aggressive advertising than drug cos could get away with, all under the idea that they're not drug manufacturers.

I had AI create an image of a federal government shutdown for my Administrative Law course. Not bad.

You can read @nicholasbednar.bsky.social's explainer here. Key thing to remember, shutdowns have never triggered mass layoffs before. Instead, this is a government that likes to fire employees looking for an excuse to do more of it. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/redu...

Six Justices shockingly conclude that it's likely the Impoundment Control precludes an otherwise valid APA claim to require expenditure of obligated funds. This argument, which turns the ICA on its head, is so absurd that the Trump DOJ itself wisely disclaimed it a month ago. Utterly lawless.

Say goodbye to the separation of powers.

Top line: The Supreme Court grabs power from Congress, which decides what to do with money that belongs to all of us, and hands it to Donald Trump. Forever.

(This money will never reach its intended recipients.)

www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...

FDA brings back GSK's leucovorin drug that RFK Jr. touted as autism treatment The Trump administration is touting leucovorin as a treatment for autism.

This is bonkers. FDA is going to change leucovorin's label based on a lit review with data on 40 patients w/ cerebral folate deficiency and comparisons to "known natural history."

www.statnews.com/2025/09/22/f...

Did you know that every single person who confuses correlation and causation ends up dying?! 😵

Correlation vs Causation

#tylenol #acetaminophen

‘Sick to My Stomach’: Trump Distorts Facts on Autism, Tylenol, and Vaccines, Scientists Say - KFF Health News The White House’s autism announcement exaggerates links to Tylenol, misleads on vaccines, and sets back the field by ignoring decades of research, scientists say.

NEWS: Scientists say the president of the United States and his health secretary distorted the facts behind Tylenol and autism, potentially setting back research and causing real harm to mothers and kids.

By @amymaxmen.bsky.social

kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

CDC has removed multiple webpages again.
A list of sites that give a "404" message includes not just LGBTQ-related topics but also, inexplicably, an "Alzheimer's Communication Guide".

#Medsky #Psychsky #Neurosky #familymedicine #internalmedicine #IDsky

Great piece Eric.

In her recommendation, Bagdasarian stated, "Any person over the age of six months without contraindication who has not received a dose of a Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved or-authorized 2025-2026 COVID-19 vaccine may be considered to have an underlying condition that puts them at high risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19 and is thus eligible to receive an age-appropriate dose."

I like this. Since under RFK Jr, Covid shots are now for people with underlying conditions that put them at risk, Michigan’s chief medical executive Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian states that not having the most recent Covid shot constitutes such an underlying condition.

www.michigan.gov/mdhhs/inside...

Significant comments from Republican Sen. Ted Cruz on FCC chair Brendan Carr’s threat to ABC over Jimmy Kimmel. “That’s right out of Goodfellas. That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going ‘Nice bar you have here, it’d be a shame if something happened to it.’”

Cruz does the accent:

There’s competition, I know. But threatening to pull the broadcast licenses of the affiliates of an entire “big-3” television network unless they stop their evening talk show host from criticizing the president has to be one of the biggest First Amendment violations in U.S. history.

Trump Is Shutting Down the War On Cancer

Shutting down the war on cancer.

“New presidential administrations have usually gone out of their way to make transitions at the NIH as seamless as possible so as not to disrupt ongoing research…”

Right. That’s not what is happening now. Must-read article.

🧪

How to submit a written public comment Any member of the public can submit a written public comment to ACIP. The docket, identified by Docket No. CDC-2025-0454 [, will be opened to receive written comments on September 2, 2025. Written comments must be received by September 13, 2025, using the Federal eRulemaking Portal. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. All submissions received must include the agency name and Docket Number. All relevant comments received will be posted without change to https://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information provided. For access to the docket or to read background documents or comments received, go to https://www.regulations.gov C. How to request to make an oral public comment The September 18-19, 2025 ACIP meeting will be a virtual meeting and will include time for oral public comment for members of the public. All individuals interested in making an oral public comment are strongly encouraged to submit a request starting September 2, 2025, to no later than 11:59 p.m., EDT, September 13, 2025, as there will be no opportunity to register for oral public comment later than September 13. If the number of persons requesting to speak is greater than can be reasonably accommodated during the scheduled time, CDC will conduct a lottery to determine the speakers for the scheduled public comment session. CDC staff will notify individuals regarding their request to speak by email by September 16, 2025. To accommodate the significant interest in participation in the oral public comment session of ACIP meetings, each speaker will be limited to 3 minutes, and each speaker may only speak once per meeting. Requests to make an oral public comment are open.

🚨 Today is the LAST DAY you can leave a public comment for the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, which meets Sep 18.

Reports suggest they may falsely link vaccines to child deaths and restrict vaccines to ages 75 and up.

You can submit a written comment here:
www.regulations.gov/document/CDC...

Trump officials to link child deaths to covid shots, alarming career scientists The move to link coronavirus vaccines to 25 child deaths alarms career scientists who say the shots have been extensively studied.

Kudos to the post for beating me to this. Finishing up a story on this today. Have been digging into the legality of situation & its scary that there aren't a lot of protections in place to stop presentation & actions on bad data like this that contradicts CDC info.

This blows up the filibuster for lower-level nominees, who still have extremely important roles in the government.

Breaking Precedent, G.O.P. Changes Rules on Nominees

I know we've been inching towards this a long, long time, but this is still a pretty big deal. The "nuclear option" in the Senate has finally been invoked. And, no surprise, Democrats considered this and balked; Republicans didn't.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/u...

Even legislation by Congress wouldn't cure the potential constitutional defect here; see the Tobacco Control Act, where Congress wanted the FDA to impose graphic warnings on cigarette packages, and the courts struck down the effort on free speech grounds.

Is this a case of Dem administrations being afraid to do the noble thing and go after DTC drug ads? Or is it a case of FDA leaders long acknowledging the legal limits of what they can do? We know Trump and RFK Jr aren't afraid to test (or blow through) legal limitations. Is that worth celebrating?

Drug companies (not to mention ad companies and TV stations selling ad time) will have over 10 billion reasons to challenge the constitutionality of this effort, and under Supreme Court precedents, they have a good chance of succeeding.