Jon Shaffer

Linked article is very good, ties together a lot of threads from the details of WHO to estimates of the lives Trump/Musk have cost, to historical context.

If your solutions to the commercialization of healthcare are rooted in *not using the word provider* instead of actions like organizing, unionizing, or nationalizing (inclusive “or” there) then I am not sure you are really committed to solutions at all.

RFK Jr misled Senate during confirmation, Congress members and Hawaii governor say Newly revealed emails undermine Kennedy’s testimony about 2019 Samoa trip ahead of deadly measles outbreak

Three members of Congress and the governor of Hawai'i, a medical doctor who responded to the measles outbreak in Samoa, are calling for RFK Jr's resignation. Emails now reveal he lied under oath about his antivax role in those 83 deaths.

Police arrest protesters during sit-in at Williston DHS facility Dozens of protesters were either cited or arrested Monday afternoon during a sit-in at a Department of Homeland Security building in Williston.

www.wcax.com/2026/02/09/p...

now that's the power of a union

Donald MacKenzie · AI’s Scale AI’s scale doesn’t matter just to specialists. The rest of us are being taken on a ride along the logarithmic curve...

‘The International Energy Agency reckons that if the current global expansion of data centres continues, the CO2 emissions for which they are responsible, currently around 200 million tonnes per year, will be about 60 per cent higher by 2030.’

Donald MacKenzie on AI.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

What's the Matter with Florida? An Interview with Zachary Levenson A discussion about Florida's censorship of sociology and teaching under authoritarianism

This week at Group Threat, I spoke with @grundrza.bsky.social about Florida's censorship regime, teaching under authoritarianism, and how folks are coping (or not).

Millions of Americans lose health insurance as COVID-19 era subsidies end With the spike in Affordable Care Act health insurance costs, around 4·8 million people could lose coverage. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.

Millions of Americans lose health insurance as COVID-19 era subsidies end www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

#nokings

Among its many other problems, crypto feels like a needlessly painful way to learn why New Deal financial regulations are important.

goddamn

Iowa universities reviewing low-enrollment majors, could close or merge programs The University of Iowa is reviewing undergraduate majors with low enrollment – like African American studies and gender, women's, and sexuality studies – after the Board of Regents last year mandated ...

Iowa closing the African American studies major during Black history month is diabolical.

This article is from 4 days ago, but it is now official. The minor will continue.

interesting

Got tix for the Broken Social Scene concert in Chicago in July and my elder-millennial soul could not be more excited.

Ugandan minister Steven Tendo, who faced brutal torture abroad, detained by ICE - VTDigger Tendo, who fled his native country to seek asylum and has lived in Vermont since 2021, was detained outside a health care facility in Shelburne where he works, advocates said.

vtdigger.org/2026/02/04/u...

The manifold ways in which these fascists are destroying public health is incalculable. But we need to calculate it anyway.

HHS Is Making an AI Tool to Create Hypotheses About Vaccine Injury Claims Experts worry Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Health Department will use an internal AI tool to analyze vaccine injury claims in a way that furthers his anti-vaccine agenda.

NEW: NEW: HHS is working on an AI tool to analyze VAERS—a database of vaccine injury claims to which anyone can make submissions—and "generate hypotheses." This is from @emilymullin.bsky.social:

Theory Section 2026 Awards. Call for Submissions. The Junior Theorist Award honors the best paper each year submitted by an early-career sociologist (who has received the Ph.D., but who, at the time of nomination, is not more than eight years beyond the calendar year in which the Ph.D. was granted).Only self-nominations will be accepted. All submissions should be accompanied by a letter explaining how the paper advances sociological theory. The winner is to present a keynote address at the Junior Theory Symposium the year after the award is given. The deadline for submissions is March 2, 2026.

Call for submissions!

🔔 2026 Theory Section Junior Theorist Award!
⏱️ Submit by March 2, 2026
🔗 Full call and other awards: asatheory.com/theory-award...

Aid cuts could cause 22m avoidable deaths by 2030, study finds Modelling suggests 5.4m children under five among those who could die if budgets of donor countries such as UK and US continue to be slashed

"Under severe defunding, about 22.6 million more deaths were forecast by 2030, including 5.4 million among under-fives. Mild defunding would mean 9.4 million excess deaths, of which 2.5 million would be young children."
These deaths are avoidable!
www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

"The ‘do more with less’ heuristic mindset is always mobilised to undermine proposals of expanded social care for the impoverished. Slouching towards hallucinations of efficiency, the neoliberal ethos perpetually moves" towards hollowing out care for the poor.

gh.bmj.com/content/8/11...

This also goes for scientific conferences in the USA: just, no.

A not-‘toned down’ Trump regime prepares for ethnic cleansing in Ohio A plan for immigration raids this week on thousands of Haitians in Springfield, Ohio shows that nothing has changed.

Trump's immigration human-rights nightmare isn't pulling back. It's about to get much worse

A planned op this week in Springfield, Ohio targeting hard-working Haitians who came here the right way is nothing less than an ethnic cleansing on U.S. soil

My new column www.inquirer.com/opinion/trum...

Omg

This could have been the protest I was at in Burlington, VT yesterday.

It could be the next protest you go to.

I just got tear gassed along with thousands of union members, many of whom had their families with them. Federal agents at the ICE facility tear gassed children. We must abolish ICE, DHS, and we must have prosecutions. I expect to see enforcement of our city code prohibiting the use of tear gas.

Omg

Just got gassed pretty good at the labor union anti-ICE protest in Portland. Massive march, 5-10k strong. Vibes were very much liberal rather than radical. Lots of kids and older folks.

They gassed the whole crowd as soon as it marched on ICE, in broad daylight.

Just experienced the most intense tear gassing of my life by federal officers outside the ICE facility in Portland where marchers gathered. There was no fast exit as they indiscriminately threw loads of gas and flash bangs. Children were in the crowd screaming. @oregoncapitalchronicle.com

abolish ice is the moderate position

Tbh I’m kinda weirded out by the research this sex trafficking pedophile was was into/looking to fund