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The New Dark Age

www.theatlantic.com

How Ivermectin Became Right-Wing Aspirin

Once a suspect COVID treatment, now a cure for everything
www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com

Remember ivermectin? The animal-deworming medication was used so avidly as an off-label COVID treatment during the pandemic that some feed stores ended up going out of stock. (must show a pic of you and your horse, a sign at one demanded of would-be customers in 2021.) If you haven’t heard about it since, then you’ve existed blissfully outside the gyre of misinformation and conspiracies that have come to define the MAGA world’s outlook on medicine. In the past few years, ivermectin’s popularity has only grown, and the drug has become a go-to treatment for almost any ailment whatsoever. Once a suspect COVID cure, now a right-wing aspirin.

In fact, ivermectin never really worked for treating SARS-CoV-2 infections. Many of the initial studies that hinted at a benefit turned out to be flawed and unreliable. By 2023, a series of clinical trials had already proved beyond a doubt that ivermectin won’t reduce COVID symptoms or mortality. But these findings mattered little to its fans, who saw the drug as having earned the status of dissident antiviral—a treatment that they believed had been suppressed by the medical establishment. And if ivermectin was good enough to be rejected by mainstream doctors as a cure for COVID, health-care skeptics seemed to reason, then surely it must have a host of other uses too….

…..Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been a particularly strong proponent. In his 2021 book about the pandemic, Kennedy referred to the “massive and overwhelming evidence” in ivermectin’s favor, and invoked its “staggering, life-saving efficacy.” He also argued at great length that the pharmaceutical industry—with the support of Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates—had engaged in a historic crime by attempting to discourage its use.

Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health, has similarly backed the conspiracy theory that the use of ivermectin was dismissed by “the powers that be” in an apparent ploy to ease the approval of COVID vaccines. (Not everyone in the current administration is a fan: Before he became the FDA’s vaccine czar, the oncologist Vinay Prasad publicly disputed Kennedy’s views on ivermectin, and earlier this year he calledits use for cancer “the right’s version of masking on the airplane and praying to Lord Fauci.”) In response to questions about Kennedy’s and Bhattacharya’s current views on ivermectin, the HHS press secretary Emily Hilliard told me that they “continue to follow the latest scientific research regarding therapeutic options for COVID-19 and other illnesses.” She did not respond to questions about Prasad.
 
Unbelievable….

www.msnbc.com

HHS faces new accusations of presenting nonexistent research, adding to alarming pattern

Many people here and around the world need to be able to rely on U.S. health officials. That’s becoming increasingly difficult.
www.msnbc.com www.msnbc.com

Vaccine advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reportedly prepared a presentation this week that included a dubious claim: An animal study, the presentation said, found that a vaccine preservative can have “long-term consequences in the brain.”

As CNN reported, the study in question “doesn’t appear to exist.”

Lyn Redwood, a former leader of Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group that lists US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a founder, is scheduled to give the presentation Thursday at a meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The slides, posted online Tuesday, cite a 2008 study in the journal Neurotoxicology by ‘Berman RF, et al,’ called ‘Low-level neonatal thimerosal exposure: Long-term consequences in the brain.’ The presentation claimed that results from a study in newborn rats suggest long-term ‘neuroimmune effects’ from the vaccine preservative.
Click to expand...
CNN’s report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, noted that the citation appeared to refer to Dr. Robert F. Berman, a professor emeritus at the University of California Davis, who told the network that the research included in the presentation, as far as he knows, “does not exist.”
 
If you really think MAHA is the way to go, get ready for your personal tracking devise.
So many 100% unqualified appointments by Trump. The choice of Kennedy as the guide to improving the health of Americans is the most asinine choice of all.

What could….possibly….go wrong?!

But, our MAHA advocates will approve: tracking devises for everyone, yay!!

www.dailymail.co.uk

RFK Jr's bonkers plan to fit every American with a tracking device

The Health Secretary revealed his plans during a House hearing yesterday, praising the devices as a way to help people 'take control of their health' and trigger 'good... diets'.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk

Robert F Kennedy Jr wants to fit all Americans with a tracking device within the next four years.

The Health and Human Services secretary revealed his plans during a House hearing yesterday, saying the devices — like Apple Watch, Fitbit, Whoop and Oura ring — were 'key to the MAHA agenda'.

He said the technology could help people lose weight and exercise more regularly, as well as 'take control of their health' and encourage 'good judgements about their diets, about their physical activity, about the way that they live their lives.'

In an effort to get a smartwatch, ring or monitor on every American, RFK Jr said he is planning to launch 'one of the biggest' advertising campaigns in history to encourage more people to wear the devices — which range from $99 to nearly $800.

The health secretary said officials were 'exploring' how the government could pay for the devices for some Americans.

It is the latest proposal in his Make America Healthy Again mission, and comes amid his vow to find the cause of - and solve - the rising rates of cancer, chronic disease and autism in young people.

But some commentators called the move unusual for the health secretary, who has previously railed against a 'surveillance state'.

RFK Jr revealed his plans to the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee yesterday, saying: 'We think that wearables are a key to the MAHA agenda, Making America Healthy Again.
 
Did anyone really think this guy would do otherwise? In MAGA land, ignorance always triumphs over human knowledge.

www.theguardian.com

RFK Jr will be ‘personally responsible’ for children’s deaths by halting vaccine alliance funding, experts say

US health secretary says US will decline to renew funding for Gavi, a partnership that works to provide vaccines for poorest countries
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

Robert F Kennedy Jr will be “personally responsible” for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children after he refused to renew US funding for a global vaccines body, public health experts said.

The US health secretary said Wednesday that the United States would halt funding for Gavi, the vaccine alliance that has immunised more than one billion children since 2000, in a statement that has also been criticised for spreading disinformation on vaccine safety.

Gavi is a partnership between public bodies and the private sector that works to provide vaccines in many of the world’s poorest countries. It has prevented an estimated 18.8 million deaths, and hosts global emergency stockpiles against Ebola, yellow fever, meningitis and cholera. The US has long been one of its major funders, and provided around 13% of its budget.





View: https://x.com/ashishkjha/status/1937892835841146885
 
www.usatoday.com

Thanks, Supreme Court! It's now my right to prevent my kid from learning about Trump. | Opinion

Attempts to teach my children anything about Donald Trump place an unconstitutional burden on my First Amendment right to freely exercise my religion.
www.usatoday.com

I have a deeply held religious conviction that, by divine precept, lying, bullying and paying $130,000 in hush money to an adult film star are all immoral acts.

So it is with great thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court and its recent ruling allowing Maryland parents to opt their children out of any lessons that involve LGBTQ+ material that I announce the following: Attempts to teach my children anything about Donald Trump, including the unfortunate fact that he is president of the United States, place an unconstitutional burden on my First Amendment right to freely exercise my religion.

In its June 27 ruling, the high court cited Wisconsin v. Yoder and noted, “The Court recognized that parents have a right ‘to direct the religious upbringing of their children’ and that this right can be infringed by laws that pose ‘a very real threat of undermining’ the religious beliefs and practices that parents wish to instill in their children.”

Well, I wish to instill in my children the belief that suggesting some Americans are “radical left thugs that live like vermin” and describing a female vice president of the United States as “mentally impaired” and “a weak and foolish woman” are bad things unworthy of anyone, much less a commander in chief.

So any attempt to teach my children that Trump exists and is president might suggest such behavior is acceptable, and that would infringe on my right to raise my children under the moral tenets of my faith. (My faith, in this case, has a relatively simple core belief that being a complete jerk virtually all the time is bad.)

As Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his opinion regarding the use of LGBTQ+ books in schools, some “Americans wish to present a different moral message to their children. And their ability to present that message is undermined when the exact opposite message is positively reinforced in the public school classroom at a very young age.”

Exactly. I wish to present a moral message to my children that when a man is found liable for sexual abuse and has been heard saying things like “I moved on her like a bitch” and “she’s now got the big phony **** and everything” and “Grab ’em by the *****,” that man is deemed loathsome by civil society and not voted into the office of the presidency.

That wish is undermined by any book or teacher exposing my student to the fact that Trump is president.

Alito cited several books that were at issue in Maryland schools, including one called “Love Violet,” which “follows a young girl named Violet who has a crush on her female classmate, Mira. Mira makes Violet’s 'heart skip’ and ‘thunde[r] like a hundred galloping horses.’ Although Violet is initially too afraid to interact with Mira, the two end up exchanging gifts on Valentine’s Day. Afterwards, the two girls are seen holding hands and ‘galloping over snowy drifts to see what they might find. Together.’”

As Alito wrote, “Like many books targeted at young children, the books are unmistakably normative. They are clearly designed to present certain values and beliefs as things to be celebrated and certain contrary values and beliefs as things to be rejected.”

OK. By that same logic, any class discussion or history lesson involving Trump and his status as president has the potential to teach my children that it’s normal to have a president who lies incessantly, demeans transgender people and routinely demonizes migrants.

Any in-class acknowledgement of Trump as president would, in Alito’s words, be "clearly designed to present certain values and beliefs as things to be celebrated and certain contrary values and beliefs as things to be rejected.”

I will now object to any book or classroom mention of Donald Trump​

I simply will not stand idly by while a taxpayer-funded school indoctrinates my children into believing a fundamentally dishonest and unkind person like Trump has the moral character to be president of the United States. My faith has led me to teach them otherwise, and any suggestion that Trump’s behavior is acceptable would undermine that faith.





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Sardines said:
Yeah it's really the right wing that is all about memes. I think it is their primary art form. They get confused when the meaning of art starts getting complicated.
Click to expand...

I get a fair number of left wing memes sent to me, but yeah the right does love them.
 
Rewriting history will remain part of Trump’s erasure of truth. Future historians will not be fooled by this BS…..

www.theatlantic.com

The ‘Russia Hoax,’ Revisited

CIA Director John Ratcliffe wants to rewrite history.
www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com

Last week, CIA Director John Ratcliffe released a report that, by his account, finally reveals the whole story about one of the most closely scrutinized documents ever produced by American intelligence agencies.

The “CIA Note,” as it’s officially called, is ostensibly an effort to learn lessons from the past, and it might never have been written absent Ratcliffe’s intervention. In May, he ordered CIA analysts to review the “procedures and analytic tradecraft employed” when drafting an assessment that Russia conducted covert operations to influence the 2016 presidential election, intending to damage Hillary Clinton in order to help Donald Trump. These are the conclusions that Trump, for nearly a decade, has called the “Russia Hoax.”

In public remarks, Ratcliffe claimed that his agency’s review proved that Barack Obama–era national-security leaders had created a “politically charged environment” when they produced the assessment, throwing the credibility of their findings in doubt. “All the world can now see the truth,” he wrote in a post on X. The former heads of the FBI and CIA, along with the director of national intelligence, had “manipulated intelligence and silenced career professionals—all to get Trump.”

Those are profound allegations of ethical misconduct and public deception, and they’re particularly serious coming from the CIA director, a historically apolitical office. But you will find scant evidence to support these claims in the report that Ratcliffe now brandishes like a smoking gun.
 
www.hcn.org

Mass layoffs can move forward, with devastating impacts for conservation and science - High Country News

‘Shortsighted’ cuts could eliminate bird banding program, federal bee research and much more.
www.hcn.org www.hcn.org

Imminent cuts reportedly include up to 80% of staff at the U.S. Geological Survey’s biological research arm, known as the Ecosystems Mission Area, whose science is the bedrock of American conservation. Even without additional budget cuts currently pending before Congress, the layoffs could virtually eliminate all biological research at that agency.

“The Trump administration is pushing fast forward on the extinction crisis,” Noah Greenwald, the Center for Biological Diversity’s endangered species director, said about the plans in May. “If we get rid of the science that shows (environmental) problems, we won’t have to think about it, but that won’t make them go away.”
 
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/...9-lIhdQ1RBLC8za-EQ_aem_-dwrwc63iDDfZlpePtnW7g

The move is an escalation of Trump’s weaponization of American citizenship. While the president has enacted mass deportations for immigrants and looked to end birthright citizenship for the children of some immigrants, his threat to revoke the New York-born actor’s citizenship marks a new frontier.

“Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship. She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Saturday morning. O’Donnell currently resides in Ireland.
 
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This is real shameful. So many educational programs for children and adults. Shows like Nova and Nature. Masterpiece Theater. The recent second season of Wolf Hall, airing 10 years(!) after part one, was superb!

www.theguardian.com

‘Devastating’: US public broadcasters condemn Trump cuts to key programs

PBS chief says cuts package ‘goes against the will of the American people’ as smaller outlets could face total closure
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

Public broadcast station leaders are condemning Donald Trump’s latest victory after Congress approved a bill to cancel all federal funding for public broadcasting programs including PBS and NPR.

The House signed off on the bill early on Friday morning, after Wednesday’s key decision in the Senate to pass $9bn in spending cuts, effectively slashing public broadcasting as well as foreign aid. The PBS president and CEO, Paula Kerger, said that the Senate’s approval of the package “goes against the will of the American people”.

“These cuts will significantly impact all of our stations, but will be especially devastating to smaller stations and those serving large rural areas. Many of our stations which provide access to free unique local programming and emergency alerts will now be forced to make hard decisions in the weeks and months ahead,” Kerger said.

“Despite today’s setback, we are determined to keep fighting to preserve the essential services we provide to the American public.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...ote-trump-cut-foreign-aid-public-broadcasting
Similarly, NPR’s CEO, Katherine Maher, said: “Nearly three in four Americans say they rely on their public radio stations for alerts and news for their public safety.

Kate Riley, the president and CEO of the advocacy group America’s Public Television Stations, said the organization was “devastated that the Senate voted to eliminate federal funding to the local public television stations throughout this country that provide essential lifesaving public safety services, proven educational services and community connections to their communities every day for free”.

The head of Native Public Media, Loris Taylor, called the Senate’s decision “deeply troubling”.

Taylor, who heads a network of 57 Native radio stations and four T stations, had privately implored South Dakota Republican senator Mike Rounds to reject the package, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Following the Senate’s passage of the bill, which Rounds ultimately endorsed, Taylor said: “It poses an immediate threat to the survival of small, rural, and Tribal stations across the country. These hyperlocal stations, many of which are the only source of local news, emergency alerts, educational programming, and cultural preservation, operate with limited resources and rely on [the Corporation for Public Broadcasting] funding to stay on the air.

“Without this federal support, Native and rural communities stand to lose critical lifelines that connect them to the rest of the nation.”
 
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