Heath Waddingham

Horrific. mRNA vaccines have saved millions of lives and could save millions more.

“I don’t think I’ve seen a more dangerous decision in public health in my 50 years in the business,” said Mike Osterholm, a UMN expert on infectious diseases & pandemic preparations.
www.huffpost.com/entry/rfk-va...

Trump Appointee Pressed Analyst to Redo Intelligence on Venezuelan Gang

Tulsi Gabbard's Chief of Staff told a top intelligence analyst to rewrite a report to claim that Venezuela' government directed Tren de Aragua to commit crimes in the U.S. -

so the report would support using the Alien Enemies Act to avoid due process.

🎁 Article

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/u...

SIX MONTHS AGO.

@jsandoval1982.bsky.social Feliz cumpleanos, senor!

"Massive blow to Trump as Japanese car giant moves manufacturing OUT of US in tariff twist" www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/ar...

As for his order targeting Miles Taylor, Trump now defines writing a memoir of time in government service that is critical of Trump "could properly be characterized as treasonous and as possibly violating the Espionage Act."

I sent this to @timmiller.bsky.social on the other site, but I have no expectation that any particular post gets through to him with his mentions.

Gerber Mazariegos, el trabajador guatemalteco con Visa U en trámite que fue detenido por ICE El guatemalteco Gerber Mazariegos tramitaba la visa U, un estatus legal de no inmigrante que le permite a las víctimas de ciertos delitos vivir y trabajar en Estados Unidos.

@adriancarrasquillo.bsky.social Here's coverage in Guatemala of a man with a U visa (non-immigrant victim of certain crimes) in process with an approved deferred action from DHS. Apparently no explanation given for his arrest? Haven't seen US coverage of this yet. www.prensalibre.com/internaciona...

Besides its hateful tone, this congresswoman has no idea what she's saying. Due process determines if you violated a law. Otherwise how do you know?

I'm the FDA point person on COVID-19 vaccines. We'll make sure they're safe and effective. We pledge to do our duty to the best of our ability, independently and without conflicts of interest, and we will be transparent about FDA decisions.

I edited this @usatoday.com opinion piece by Peter Marks, the FDA vaccine chief who just resigned, in October 2020.
“I'm the FDA point person on COVID-19 vaccines. We'll make sure they're safe and effective.”
www.usatoday.com/story/opinio...

This is an attack on the rule of law. If a country seizes people with valid documents for detention and refuses to abide by any judicial process for it, that country is fundamentally lawless.

That the detention is indefinite and in a foreign labor prison makes it even more so.

What Trump has done for US farmers so far:
-frozen their foreign aid program (and left their food to rot)
-encouraged EU to ban their products
-frozen legally-owed reimbursements for their energy efficiency upgrades etc.
-threatened to deport half their workforce
-suppressed research on bird flu

Can’t really read this as anything other than that they anticipate missed checks (former SSA commissioner Martin O’Malley predicts 1-3 months) and are workshopping the dumbest possible lines to justify it

People Are Paying Millions to Dine With Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago Business leaders are paying as much as $5,000,000 to meet one-on-one with the president at his Florida compound, sources tell WIRED, while others are paying $1,000,000 apiece to dine with him in a…

SCOOP: Business leaders are paying as much as $5,000,000 to meet one-on-one with President Donald Trump at his Florida compound, sources tell WIRED, while others are paying $1,000,000 apiece to dine with him in a group setting.

it really is striking the degree to which this crew feels comfortable doing things like this entirely in the open this time around (not that their efforts at subtlety the first time around were all that successful)

DOGE continues to embarrass itself.

Real private consumption across the G10, indexed to 100 in Q4 2019 (pre-COVID) last data point: Q2 2024 Source: Brookings Institution

Pre-COVID trend Pre-GFC trend Real GDP Canada, Euro area, U.K., and U.S. Source: Federal Reserve

Harmonized Headline HICP Inflation in the G7 Source: Council of Economic Advisers

Left chart: Share of Population Age 60 and Older Right chart: Projected Decrease in Per Capita GDP Growth Attributable to Aging: 2024-2034 Source: Council on Foreign Relations | United Nations Population Division and authors' calculations

The American economy has absolutely roared ahead of the rest for the world in its pandemic recovery. We even have an opportunity to put an aging and newly doubtful Chinese economy in the rear view mirror for a century. What a thing to squander.

‘How Are We Going to Afford This?’ U.S. Companies Face Tariff Reality. (Gift Article) Business owners told The Times that President Trump’s tariffs could lead to higher costs and expressed frustration at the sudden uncertainty about policy.

There is no silver lining to this government, no saving grace. Where he isn’t inflicting outright cruelty and malice, Trump is taking a wrecking ball to American prosperity.

What an astounding moment of national self-harm.

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/b...

Why It Matters Who Asks the Questions When the White House handpicks reporters to cover the president, the American public suffers.

On White House seizing control of press pool:

After AP was banned, a press corps boycott was considered but not supported by TV networks

Some correspondents want annual dinner cancelled

Chairman of NewsMax pushed White House to reconsider www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Ready Fire Aim is a lousy way to govern.

Presented without comment. www.ft.com/content/a7c9...

@jvl.bsky.social Hey, look, Ross is surprised that *all this* is happening.

We still are trying to sort out how much China abused a backdoor in our wiretap systems (Trump fired the team investigating it) and now we've just opened up a massive new backdoor to the entire payment system of the United States

What could go wrong?

My instinct is to make the case that USAID is extremely good, actually. But I feel like it’s more important to say, “What is happening is antagonistic to the foundational document of the nation.”

If it's true that a federal govt building is in such a condition of disrepair, the public should know and it should be a mid-sized scandal.

If, however, Elon Musk is making decisions about the future of the U.S. government based on codswallop, the public should know that too.

Shout out to the media who participated in the most obvious misdirection ever

What a night for Santiago Morales. 👏

▪️ Made his debut at 17 years old
▪️ Scored the winning PK