Ian Alexander

It’s always the same story when they blame “woke.” Kevin Bass received sexual harassment complaints and had made threats of violence before he was kicked out of medical school. It wasn’t anything to do with his right-wing science denialism or his underlying scientific illiteracy and pick-me behavior

Peach Ricotta Cake

Who has too much stone fruit? Gift link:

There is just no precedent in recent world history of an advanced industrialized country sabotaging its own scientific establishment, and destroying the base of scientific knowledge necessary for basic policymaking. An avowedly, actively anti-knowledge regime.

Exclusive: Rubio orders US diplomats to launch lobbying blitz against Europe's tech law President Donald Trump's administration has instructed U.S. diplomats in Europe to launch a lobbying campaign to build an opposition to the European Union's Digital Services Act, which Washington says stifles free speech and imposes costs on U.S. tech companies, an internal diplomatic cable seen by Reuters showed.

Administration that sues American news outlets pretends to be worried about censorship in EU. That's the real headline here www.reuters.com/sustainabili...

Nobody Cares White Supremacists Are Calling the Shots Now Darren Beattie, a speechwriter for Trump early during his first term, posted the following in October 2024, a month before Trump would win re-election: “Competent white men must be in charge if you wa...

"Whether this or that apparatchik is personally racist is wholly irrelevant: the admin and its allies are actively and intentionally handing over political power to racists so they can enact racist policy. What is shocking is how transparent this all is, and how little anyone seems to care."

The repercussions this has for US foreign policy aren’t confined to this administration; it will hollow out the ranks of specialists for generations.

I was a proud recipient of FLAS and other USG-funded scholarships. Without them I wouldn’t speak my languages, which are the crux of my expertise.

Researchers found that pediatric ER visits for asthma decreased by 40 percent almost immediately after a local coal processing plant closed down in 2015.

Our current administration is trying to bring back and increase coal burning power plants, and working to eliminate clean air protections.

The entire business model of R1 public universities rests on 4 revenue sources:

1. Federal grants
2. Private gifts/endowments
3. Tuition (esp. from foreign students)
4. State $

For decades, 📈 in 1-3 offset a secular 📉 in 4. Now, 1 & 3 are being decimated & 4 ain't coming back. The math is clear.

Reporting on the way conservatives planned to promote Prager U while they were defunding PBS would have been useful context for readers and the general public.

Video shows Department of Justice official urging Jan. 6 rioters to 'kill' cops The Department of Justice hired a former Jan. 6 defendant who was caught on tape urging rioters to "kill" police. The department calls him a "valued member" of the administration.

The Department of Justice hired a former Jan. 6 defendant who was caught on tape urging rioters to "kill" police. The department calls him a "valued member" of the administration.

This is just a good illustration of the "tech solution in search of a problem."
Not having easy access to coffee is not America's biggest problem.

it has been said over and over but it’s worth reiterating in the face of this horrifying decision: RFK is quite literally joining the war on cancer on the side of cancer

Kennedy Cancels Nearly $500 Million in mRNA Vaccine Contracts

I truly cannot emphasize enough how this is straight up Lysenkoism.

Because of the incredible work of our nation’s scientists, we have our finger tips on the closest thing humanity has ever come to “a cure for cancer”, but brainworm over here doesn’t believe in it.

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/05/h...

I am going to be a massive humorless asshole about woo-woo shit, no matter how seemingly harmless, for the rest of my life due to this. astrology, homeopathic medicine, etc etc it's all bullshit and it's not fucking harmless. there are people who will die due to this who would have otherwise lived.

I believe one of the new mRNA vaccines was expected to treat colon cancer, and another had the potential to keep pancreatic cancer from recurring. That’s what they’re taking away.

Neat, I guess, but the Supreme Court and gun lobby are why gun control has failed, not a lack of survivors, of which there are plenty of living ones without boiling a lake to poorly animate the talking bust of a dead kid. Again, the eternal question: what does AI actually add to this issue?

A fun reminder that a loss of 60,000 jobs in and around academia is ~50% more than all coal mining jobs in the entire country.

The Boy Genius Who Killed 14 Million Poor People What is the moral weight of responsibility for the men who carried out DOGE’s work?

The Boy Genius Who Killed 14 Million Poor People
What is the moral weight of responsibility for the men who carried out DOGE’s work?

www.thebulwark.com/p/the-boy-ge...

Tariffs, alarming job numbers and a high-profile firing: A wild week for the economy — NBC News The U.S. economy had generally been considered in good shape. By Friday afternoon, some experts were predicting a recession.

This is an example of the type of reporting that is missing serious, detailed, and fact-based context. It’s not a “wild week,” it’s a week that has ended the credibility of our labor market data about job gains and losses in the economy. Do better. stocks.apple.com/AP7HhGYhpQu6...

Everything about this story is horrific:

1. The student never mentions Jews
2. The university is going to expel a student for criticizing a country over genocide
3. A Republican congressman is taking credit and implying the student is a Muslim terrorist
4. The U.S. Justice Department is involved

i think the correct way to think about the lonely boy question is not "how do we reach out to incels?" but "how do we make sure that a teenage boy looking for romantic advice isn't flooded with right-wing propaganda?"

That certainly takes balls to cut 17 million people off health care and then announce you're spending $200 million to build a new ballroom. Let them eat cake.

DOGE Wasted Tens of Billions While Chainsawing the Government in the Name of 'Efficiency': Senate Report | Common Dreams Elon Musk's DOGE wasted more than $21 billion in just six months. Other studies have found that in the longterm it may cost the government more than it saved, while resulting in millions of deaths.

Elon Musk's DOGE wasted more than $21 billion in just six months. Other studies have found that in the long term it may cost the government more than it saved, while resulting in millions of deaths.

www.commondreams.org/news/doge-wa...

Emil Bove Is Everything Trump Wants In a Federal Judge A whistleblower report alleges that during his time at the Justice Department, Third Circuit nominee Emil Bove suggested telling a federal judge “fuck you” in response to a court order he did not like...

After Emil Bove’s confirmation, I do not want to hear shit from conservative legal movement types about how they want “good constitutionalist judges who do law, not policy” or whatever ever again

The fact that literally zero outlets ever cover crime decline as a story is a huge reason. (And before you yell at me, we do!)

Senate Confirms Conspiracy Theorist To Lead National Counterterrorism Center

Hey no big deal and all but... Senate Republicans just confirmed Joe Kent, a conspiracy theorist with alarming ties to white nationalists and far-right groups, to lead the National Counterterrorism Center. www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-...

This is why it was important to shoot down the bullshit lab leak conspiracy theory, because now fascists are deploying it as justifcation as they dismantle U.S. science.

Russell Vought Is Trying to Take It All From NIH Splinter is your home for news and opinions that challenge power in our political and economic system that's becoming more unhinged each and every day.

An outright fanatic who wants to stop all scientific research

a Trump guy could shoot someone on the floor of the senate and get confirmed at this point

in any reasonable world Bove should have been voted down by a supermajority and should be impeached immediately for lying under oath

actual good-government reform is dead for a generation I’d bet. every surviving agency will be in angry defensive crouch because “reform” and “efficiency” will have become associated with innumerate-dipshit Maoism that let food aid rot in storage and threw away HIV medicine for imagined reasons.