Prasad overruled FDA staff to reject Moderna's flu vaccine application The rejection is the latest instance of Vinay Prasad overruling career FDA scientists to place vaccines under harsher scrutiny.

The flu and pneumonia kill over 45,000 people a year. Moderna developed a new mRNA flu vaccine for people 50 and older--who are most at risk. Prasad, unilaterally, against the recommendation of experts within the agency, denied Moderna's appplication. www.statnews.com/2026/02/11/m...

There is no world in which such agreement is legal. Pretty much anyone in the IRS who was involved with it when they first did it either resigned, or was fired for refusing to cooperate.

No mercy for anyone that was “just following orders” when this admin ends

This is the Republican party in a nutshell—they don’t give a damn about children who were raped by wealthy pedophiles. All they care about is helping their Epstein class donors (many of whom are in the Epstein Files themselves) get richer.

A very real dilemma: you really can’t a lot of stuff this administration puts out BUT reducing trust in government in general is very bad for progressive causes and ultimately great for the populist right

Rape culture includes allowing rapists to be supported, like by supporting them. They are supported & held in place by many other people. It's not just the problem of individuals with a predatory nature, which rapists are, but a society who bows before them & keeps their secrets.

This is a great example of what Marx called "the vampire thirst for the living blood of labour."

There's a prominent Republican congressman who met his current wife when she was in high school and he was in his 40s, and it's just treated like no big deal by his caucus.

Worth remembering when they dismiss the Epstein Files stuff as no big deal.

“You know, almost every time I've ever written about Richard Branson over the years, he or one of his lackeys has written in to the Guardian to whine about it, and often got the letter printed. This time, I'm actively begging him to get in touch. Come on, Richard - write in and tell us why you didn't bother Googling why your friend with the best lawyers out there still got an 18-month prison sentence, and had, at the time of that email, settled many widely reported civil lawsuits brought against him by victims? I'll save you a space on the letters page.”

I mean

Well said. It is astonishing, or should be, that so little attention is given to the actual victims of these crimes. The women are mainly ignored & certainly disbelieved in what's a perfect illustration of how women that have been raped are almost always treated by the police & UK & US establishment

It’s the Epstein files deja vu: how many more powerful men knew about his crimes, and helped him out anyway? | Marina Hyde I’m sorry, but this is not just a political scandal. Time to refocus on the horrific mistreatment of women and girls, and the role of these ghouls, says Guardian columnist Marina Hyde

It’s the Epstein files deja vu: how many more powerful men knew about his crimes, and helped him out anyway? | Marina Hyde

Anita Hill told us who he was years ago. She was dismissed as “nutty and slutty”. She was right about this porn-obsessed misogynist.

Omg.

An apt comparison

It was the dumbest of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of liars, it was the age of cruelty, it was the epoch of subservience, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of hatred, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hopelessness, it was the winter of despair.

Anti ICE protesters in downtown Minneapolis

It’s so cold but there are tens of thousands of people out here

Scotland sends New York mayor Zohran Mamdani a baby box The Scottish National Party hopes its gift will help the new mayor develop a similar policy as he tries to make life more affordable for young families

The Scottish National Party hopes its gift will help the new mayor develop a similar policy as he tries to make life more affordable for young families

I am furious at the gaslighting. Republicans caused healthcare premiums to skyrocket and now say it's unfixable. A three-year ACA extension proves that a lie. It is fixable. They just lack the will. #RepublicanHealthcareDisaster

🤡🤡🤡

She was absolutely right. And she would have been an amazing President.

From Senator Chris McDaniel: “Lately, some folks have taken to calling ICE “the Gestapo.” It sounds fierce. It feels righteous. But it isn’t true, and it isn’t harmless. The Gestapo was a secret police force. No warrants. No courts. No lawyers. And no appeals. People vanished in the night, not because they broke the law, but because the law no longer meant anything. The knock on the door was the sentence. ICE isn’t that. Not even close. ICE is a public agency enforcing laws passed by elected officials. Its agents file reports. They seek warrants. They lose cases. Judges stop them. Lawyers challenge them. Some detainees go home. That’s not tyranny. That’s bureaucracy, for better and worse. You can hate immigration policy. You can argue enforcement is too harsh, too sloppy, or too broad. You can work to have the law changed if you wish. That’s a republic doing what it’s supposed to do. But when you call ordinary law enforcement “the Gestapo,” you cheapen real evil. You turn history into a slogan and suffering into a metaphor. And once every badge is tyranny, no tyranny is left to recognize. In Mississippi, I was raised to believe words should earn their weight. This one hasn't yet. It throws around the language of dictatorship while living under a system where courts still rule, lawyers still argue, and the government still loses. That difference matters. Because the day enforcement becomes secret, unchecked, and answerable to no one, we won’t need to borrow names from history. We’ll know exactly what we’re dealing with. And we’ll wish we’d kept our words honest.”

“ICE isn’t the Gestapo. The Gestapo was…” (proceeds to describe qualities that apply to what ICE is currently doing)

When off-duty cops start to get hassled by 🧊…

A core conservative belief is that the cops can gun down anyone they want to on the street, based on vibes.

Meanwhile, they call socialists "authoritarian".

lefty white men over 35 are now required to grow a beard. So say we all

Meanwhile average people are like "yeah I hate this and you muzzle flagging me with that gun isn't going to change that, in fact it's gonna make me louder"

I saw this take on TikTok a few days ago and wanted to share it here. I had to truncate it because it's a bit longer than 3 minutes. Her central argument is the US govt has a problem in that decades of stochastic terrorism from gun culture has made us less scared of guns.

Fear factor: Intimidation becomes a calling card as Twin Cities ICE surge widens Six weeks into the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota, observers say there are signs that federal agents are employing violence more frequently and with little apparent restraint against citiz...

Six weeks into the immigration enforcement surge in the Twin Cities, observers say federal agents are employing violence more frequently and with little apparent restraint against citizens and noncitizens alike. (1) www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

You may not agree with everything you read in our paper. But we trust you to read it and decide for yourselves. That’s why we print statements from powerful people we like without printing the facts showing those people are lying to you. You can do that part. We trust you.

If you could go back in time a couple years and show people the sort of garbage official DHS accounts now routinely post, you'd be accused of having concocted some slanderous over-the-top parody. Just a constant stream of nakedly white supremacist imagery and rhetoric.