“Even though litigation over NIH grant payments will likely proceed in the Court of Claims, the administration can, at least for the time being, withhold NIH funding for research it deems woke. The Court’s illogic boggles the mind. How can they plausibly hold that in a case where, after a hearing, the lower court has decided that the government’s conduct is probably illegal, and then allow the illegality to continue indefinitely while they consider the matter?” (09/04/25)
“One of the strangest things about an American university education is that it bundles a whole lot of different things together. If you want to take a course in high-level mathematics or listen to the lectures of an accomplished historian of Ming China, you must also buy membership in one of the country’s most lavish gyms; purchase all-you-can-eat meals at breakfast, lunch, and dinner; rent a room in a student dorm even if your parents happen to live a few miles down the road; pay an army of administrators whose jobs range from organizing parties to hiring puppies for you to pet during finals; subsidize student clubs that are devoted to such varied activities as playing Dungeons & Dragons or blind-tasting exclusive wines; and help to pay the lavish salaries of football and waterpolo coaches. This is a financial problem.” (09/04/25)
“Dear Republicans, I am sorry I have not had time to write sooner, and I only have time for a short missive. But I want you to know that you are NOT going to like living with the precedents that Trump is setting right now for Presidential power. I know you have convinced yourselves that you will be in power forever. Believe me, I know — the Democrats thought the same thing after 2020 and even more so after the 2022 election.” (09/04/25)
Source: Common Dreams
by Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch
“We lost more than 80,000 Americans to overdose last year, making it the leading cause of death for adults aged 18 to 44. But, for the first time in years, we have some reason for hope: in 2024, overdose deaths dropped by 27 percent. That progress, however, didn’t happen on its own. It came from investments in harm reduction: an ecosystem of strategies including naloxone distribution, syringe service programs, medications for opioid use disorder, and housing-first programs that secured shelter for people before connecting them to care. Unfortunately, much of that progress is in danger. In recent weeks, President Trump issued an executive order targeting the very programs that provide these services and helped bring down overdose deaths. In doing so, the administration is cutting federal funding for proven, evidence-based interventions.” (09/04/25)
“President Donald Trump desperately wants the Nobel Peace Prize. His lust for the ultimate sign of international and establishment acceptance is truly cringeworthy. Does he know whose ranks he would be joining if he received the nod of appointees by the Norwegian parliament? Many prior recipients, however worthy, are international unknowns. Other better-known awardees were unworthy. … In short, Trump has no claim to the Nobel Peace Prize. And that judgment comes before considering his direct complicity in mass killing committed by U.S. client states.” (09/04/25)
“In his deliberately archaic new rendition of Homer’s epic, Jeffrey Duban takes a defiant stand against the modernisation of classical literature in defence of a disappearing tradition.” (09/03/25)
“The U.S. has sent eight warships and one attack submarine to international waters off the coast of Venezuela, nominally to combat ‘cartels [that] have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western Hemisphere … [and] flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs.’ Part of this operation has been the designation of the ‘Cartel de los Soles’ in July, as a specially designated terrorist group. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump celebrated the operation’s first result on Truth Social — a drone strike on a small wooden boat with outboard motors, that he claimed was being used to transport drugs to the U.S. The entire naval operation raises a number of questions. First, Venezuela is not a leading source of the drugs reaching U.S. streets. … Perhaps more important, there is no actual organization called Cartel of the Suns.” (09/04/25)
“Has a major world power ever intentionally inflicted so much damage on itself in such a constricted period of time? I’m sometimes inclined to reach for a vivid and bloody metaphor to describe it: The world is watching us, stunned, while we slit our own throat — with our initiation of trade wars with countries around the globe … our president’s display of pathetically gullible obsequiousness to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin; with firing the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for refusing to go along with the anti-vaccination ignorance of the Secretary of Health and Human Services; with attempting to fire a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors … with the president militarizing the nation’s capital and threatening to deploy troops to other cities around the country.” (09/03/25)
“Americans are now hit with tariffs when they shop from overseas sellers on eBay and Etsy. Shein and Temu had months to get ahead of the curve.” (09/04/25)
