How the waste in healthcare drives the US debt

Source: Los Angeles Times
by James Weinstein

“Washington treats healthcare spending like a moral obligation and interest payments like an accounting nuisance. They’re linked: Federal spending that is wasted in the healthcare system forces higher taxes or more borrowing, leaving less money for Medicare, defense or anything else. To slow deficit spending and the ballooning costs of the national debt, policymakers should start by eliminating a large preventable expense: waste in U.S. healthcare.” (05/05/26)

https://archive.is/YQHi9

Thomas L. Knapp

NY: Radical students harass Cornell president after Israel debate clash

Source: New York Post

“Cornell University’s president has blasted a group of radical students for hurling abuse and holding him hostage in his own car following an Israel-Palestine debate series at the Ivy League school. The group of rabble-rousers filmed themselves swarming Michael Kotlikoff and trailing him to his vehicle as he was trying to leave the event at the Ithaca, New York, campus last Thursday. Kotlikoff accused the group — who he said have become notorious for spewing verbal and online abuse toward Cornell staffers in the past – of surrounding his car, banging on the windows and blocking him from leaving. The school prez spoke out after the students posted footage on social media of Kotlikoff apparently backing into the group amid the parking lot chaos.” (05/05/26)

https://nypost.com/2026/05/05/us-news/cornell-president-michael-kotlikoff-accused-of-injuring-2-students-in-parking-lot-clash-after-israel-debate/

Steve Trinward

Demographics, not the Supreme Court, are killing racial gerrymandering

Source: The Hill
by Merrill Matthews

“There’s been no shortage of expressed outrage from the left in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which significantly limits states’ efforts at racial gerrymandering. A Salon headline captures the progressive indignation: ‘Supreme Court guts the Voting Rights Act in ‘Jim Crow 2.0 ruling.’’ The left can never be accused of understatement. But the change needed to happen because U.S. demographics are making racial gerrymandering increasingly difficult. And that’s a good thing.” (05/05/26)

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/5862711-voting-rights-act-challenges/

Thomas L. Knapp

The Fertility Panic Is a Racist, Sexist Tool to Push More Austerity

Source: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
by Julie Hollar

“If you haven’t heard the argument that civilization is about to collapse because women aren’t having enough babies, you haven’t been consuming much media. ‘The Birth-Rate Crisis Isn’t as Bad as You’ve Heard — It’s Worse,’ announced The Atlantic (6/30/25). Business Insider (8/21/25) ran a piece titled ‘America’s Great People Shortage,’ which opened, ‘America is about to tumble off the edge of a massive demographic cliff.’ And NPR’s Brian Mann warned on PBS (4/10/26) that, as a result of the birth rate decline, ‘many people say’ that the US soon ‘will be unrecognizable.’ It’s repeatedly in the news in part because it’s a priority of the ‘pronatalist’ right, which has prominent backers in the Trump administration.” (05/05/26)

https://fair.org/home/the-regressive-ideologies-behind-the-baby-bust-panic/

Steve Trinward

Microsoft, Google, xAI give US regime access to AI models for security testing

Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]

“Tech giants Microsoft, Google and xAI say they will allow the United States federal government access to their new artificial intelligence models for national security testing. The Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) at the Department of Commerce announced the agreement on Tuesday amid increasing concerns about the capabilities that Anthropic’s newly unveiled Mythos model could give hackers. Under the new agreement, the US government will be allowed to evaluate the models before deployment and conduct research to assess their capabilities and security risks.” (05/05/26)

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/5/5/microsoft-google-xai-give-us-access-to-ai-models-for-security-testing

Thomas L. Knapp

Synformation: Epistemic Capture Meets AI

Source: Brownstone Institute
by Robert Malone

“In my role as Co-chairperson and member of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, I have been participating in a training course regarding the GRADE methodology for public health decision-making. The acronym stands for Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation, and this methodology is intended to provide a structured, transparent framework to evaluate the quality (certainty) of evidence and the strength of recommendations derived from that evidence. … The GRADE approach assumes that, in the case of peer-reviewed clinical and epidemiological data (otherwise referred to as ‘evidence-based medicine’), individual studies will reflect various forms of bias (structural, intentional, or unintended), but when systematically analyzed as a collection of information, these biases will either cancel each other out or (if bias is detected) can be statistically compensated for. What could possibly go wrong? Clearly, something did.” (05/05/26)

https://brownstone.org/articles/synformation-epistemic-capture-meets-ai/

Thomas L. Knapp