We’ve reached the end of the work week and the end of the month simultaneously: it’s Friday, July 31, 2026, and National Avocado Day. Here’s a video that will tell you how to make great guacamole (leave out the cilantro for those, like me, who can’t stand it). You probably need a mortar and pestle, too.
It’s also National Cotton Candy Day, National Raspberry Cake Day, National Spam Day (always good to have a can in the cupboard, as it has many uses), and Shredded Wheat Day.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 31 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Breaking news, ripped from the headlines: Trump says that the “Board of Peace” created to run Gaza has struck a deal with Hamas, which has agreed to disarm. But of course there is no verification from Hamas (article archived here):
President Trump said on Thursday in a social media post that the Board of Peace, an organization the administration established to oversee a Gaza cease-fire, had reached an agreement for Hamas to begin disarming in the Gaza Strip.
There was no immediate comment from Hamas or Israel. The Board of Peace said Thursday evening that Hamas had agreed to a “detailed road map” on disarmament of its forces and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
“For the first time, Hamas officially has committed to an actionable plan for relinquishing all its weapons, which will be followed by Israeli withdrawal,” the board said in a statement on social media.
Mr. Trump hailed the plan as “a critical step towards Gaza finally being governed by a new Palestinian government that will work closely with the Board of Peace to help the Palestinian people.” He added: “At the same time, Israel will have the security it deserves, with Gaza no longer used as a base for terror attacks.”
In a call with reporters held shortly after the president made his post, a senior Trump adviser involved in the negotiation effort said that the process for disarmament would happen over a matter of weeks.
If anybody believes that Hamas will disarm, I have some land in Florida to sell you.
*Yesterday the U.S. and Saudis struck Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, and the NYT says this severely risks expanding the war. The NYT of course does not want the war explaned. (Article archived here)
From the first link:
The Middle East teetered on the brink of an expanded war on Thursday, after Iran and the United States reignited their hostilities and inflamed conflicts on other fronts that threatened to draw in more countries.
For the first time since the war began in February, the authorities in Egypt said Thursday that an unidentified drone had caused an explosion at the Mediterranean port of Damietta the previous day. Earlier, Saudi Arabia also acknowledged direct involvement in the war for the first time, after conducting joint strikes with U.S. forces on Iranian-backed militias in Iraq on Wednesday.
From the second:
For months, the government in Baghdad has sought to curb the Iran-backed militias that have long operated in Iraqi territory, struggling to meet the Trump administration’s demands that it bring them under state control, disarm them and cut off their funding.
A wave of U.S.-Saudi airstrikes that targeted the militias early Wednesday now risks upending those efforts. The attacks, which killed at least 20 people, have provided a new justification for Iran’s allies in Iraq to hold on to their arms and claim that they are the forces best positioned to protect the country’s sovereignty. And for Iran, the violence presents a chance to encourage these allied militias to join the regional war.
“The era of shedding Iraqi blood with impunity is over,” Mohammad Tamimi, leader of the Iran-aligned militia al-Waad al-Sadeq, said. “Our response will not be mere statements. It will be actions on the ground to enforce the equation: a bombing for a bombing.”
*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal summarizes Netanyahu’s recent meeting with Trump & Co.:
The conversation, according to my source, was less a one-on-one than a roundtable—Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President J.D. Vance, and others weighing in across a wide range of issues.
Netanyahu isn’t losing sleep over the lack of face time. His goal was never to sell Trump on a renewed war; if anything, a private audience on the eve of one would only confirm the suspicion that he was the man pouring poison in the president’s ear, with any potential consequences of such an action laid entirely at his feet.
Netanyahu reportedly laid out three paths: diplomacy, war or blockade. He was far more interested in the latter two, assuming any diplomatic agreement with Iran would collapse on Iranian intransigence and pointing to continued economic pressure and military campaigns as the live options. But he was careful not to show it. As a senior source told The Times of Israel’s Jacob Magid, “Netanyahu did not tell Trump which of the three scenarios he preferred, although the premier did acknowledge doubts regarding the possibility that Iran will uphold any agreement it signs.”
This is not the same Netanyahu who walked into the White House on February 11, plan in hand, slideshow cued, testimonials from Israeli security officials at the ready. The change is deliberate. That presentation, and its consequences, have become a weight on his reputation—in Israel as much as in the United States. His selling point as Israel’s premier “Trump Whisperer” took a serious blow over the last few months of rocky relations and inconclusive results in Iran. Maybe it was time to return to an actual whisper: less room for a spectacular win, but less room for a spectacular loss.
Trump’s only line before the meeting came on Fox News: “We already know everything,” and “we don’t need Israel’s intelligence.” Whether or not that’s true, this was no Mossad chief unveiling Syria’s clandestine reactor to the Bush administration—it was a friendly workshop. As they say, teamwork makes the regime change work.
Right now, diplomacy with Iran seems fruitless. They want far more than the U.S. is willing to provide, and seem intransigent when it comes to their nuclear program. War or blockade seem the only efficacious policies right now, and we have no idea how efficacious they’d be.
*Evan Barker, who previously wrote a Free Press piece called “My former colleagues are destroying the Democratic Party,” has followed this up with a newer FP piece called “The inside story of how Democrats lost the working class.” And of course I read all such stories.
From 2018 to 2023, I was a Democratic operative, working for a slew of progressive candidates. I taught DSA-aligned staffers how to build a money machine for the left; coached progressive politicians on how to speak to donors; and collaborated with billionaires to create a robust fundraising network. I chart this story in detail in my forthcoming book, Nothing Left, a dispatch from the inside of the left’s rise and takeover of the Democratic Party.
In late 2024, I decided to leave the party, disillusioned by a leadership class that I had watched drift further and further from the working-class Americans they purportedly represented. But my history means that I have worked directly with the people behind almost every victory in the recent socialist sweep, including New York City’s Brad Lander and Darializa Avila Chevalier, and Colorado’s Melat Kiros.
So believe me when I tell you: This far-left earthquake is only the beginning. It will not stop in deep-blue cities. What you just witnessed is only a preview of what is to come.
That’s not good news! It gets worse:
. . . Today’s hard left may masquerade as a grassroots, organic movement, but there is now major funding behind many of its most radical candidates. Donor networks like “Way to Win,” for example, promote far-left campaigns at their conferences and via email lists, introducing candidates to mainstream Democratic donors and helping infuse their campaigns with cash. The wealthy Soros family has backed some of the most incendiary “Squad” members and causes. Meanwhile, the very same operatives involved in earlier iterations of the Squad now have a decade of experience. These are not the “crazy activists” you see fighting online; they are highly competent, skilled and, for the most part, keep a low profile. They’ve now built an entire ecosystem that runs parallel to the official Democratic apparatus—equipped with their own consultant network, endorsing organizations, donors, and, yes, billionaires who back them. This is not a right-wing conspiracy. I have the receipts.
. . . The great irony, of course, is that the socialist movement is not composed of the working-class people it claims to represent. Rather, they are children of lawyers, professors, donors, and NGO directors who grew up with an incredible amount of privilege. So too are many of their voters. Darializa Avila Chevalier, for example, ran in a district that includes the Bronx, but she lost the working-class section by 30 points. She did well with young people and higher-income voters, and won the college-educated areas of her district by double digits.
. . .In response, the Democratic establishment and the progressives have nearly morphed into the same conglomerate. Fueled by the loss of working-class voters, this messy coalition has had no option but to concentrate its efforts toward the newly minted, overeducated, upper-middle-class base. For an illustration of that reality, one need only look at the Democrats trying to fight back. Two weeks ago, moderate Democrats signed a “Promise to America” pledge, outlining principles including “We are capitalist, not socialist,” and advocating “secure borders” and “safe communities.”
The effort is laudable. But just thirteen Democratic congress members signed it, out of the 212 in the House. The rest are either on board with the socialist surge, or quietly tolerating its rise. Most likely, that is because they are terrified of being primaried by a progressive caucus determined to rack up as many wins as it can ahead of the presidential election.
What it means is that the far left is steadily, with little to no resistance, capturing the Democratic Party.
So, what’s the solution? The only hope is for Democrats to stand up and expose the progressive movement for what it is. These people will not help your wallet. They will not lower costs. They will try to take down our borders, abolish our prisons, lambast our country, divide us into identity groups, and abandon the values of the working class. They say so explicitly. And even if they didn’t, I should know; I was there, until the moment I gathered enough courage to leave.
Ms. Barker says the solution is to expose the “progressives” for what they are, emphasizing that they are not the party of the working class. Ignoring this movement won’t help. I’m doing my bit; now you do yours. Go out and expose progressivism today!
*Apropos of Fauci’s roasting the other day before a Congressional committee, the WaPo editorial board has written an op-ed called “The sad takeaway from Fauci’s refusal to testify” (archived here). While they note that Fauci wasn’t perfect, that kind of grilling is no way to have an impartial and useful assessment of how what we did wrong and what we need to do to mitigate pandemics in the future.
Anthony S. Fauci refused to answer any questions about the origins of covid-19 while testifying before a Senate committee, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 111 times. President Joe Biden preemptively pardoned Fauci, and the retired civil servant followed the advice of his lawyers to say nothing lest he perjure himself.
But it’s a real shame that the country cannot have an honest conversation, with the benefit of hindsight, about the many mistakes that were made six years ago. America has never fully grappled with the causes and consequences of covid.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), who spearheaded the Senate’s investigation into Fauci, had repeatedly said he wants to put the former health official behind bars. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said during an interview this week that “if he lies again, he could be subject to perjury prosecution.”
Fauci resisted issuing guidance to reopen schools for far too long, upending education for millions of kids. He was too slow to accept scientific evidence that the coronavirus spread via airborne droplets, blunting protective strategies.
Newly released diaries show Fauci was self-absorbed and often held different views in private than he expressed in public.
But while it’s fair to criticize Fauci, it’s quite another to try to concoct new ways to prosecute him. Paul is now threatening to hold Fauci in contempt for invoking his constitutional rights.
. . .In 2021, a bipartisan group of lawmakers sought to establish an independent commission to investigate the crisis. But that floundered amid political dysfunction.
Such a panel, which would have been modeled off the 9/11 Commission, could have pieced together a more definitive, nonpartisan record of facts regarding the virus’s origins. More importantly, it could have evaluated where the government went wrong in responding to the pandemic.
The failure to conduct such oversight squandered a precious learning opportunity to strengthen U.S. defenses against the next deadly pathogen.
They’re right. There’s nothing to gain by prosecuting an 85-year-old man now. Unfortunately, unless he gets further immunity from prosecution, Fauci, who’s the one person we need to hear from, is likely to remain clammed up.
*Hadi Matar, the man who nearly killed author Salman Rushdie by stabbing him in 2022, has been found (additionally) guilty, this time for aiding a terrorist group and following the fatwa orders of the Ayatollah in Iran. (Matar had already been convicted of attempted murder.)
A man who stabbed the author Salman Rushdie more than a dozen times was found guilty on Wednesday of aiding a foreign terrorist group and carrying out the orders of the Iranian government, which had called for Mr. Rushdie’s death more than three decades ago.
Hadi Matar, a young man who had been enraged by Mr. Rushdie’s work, rushed onstage at a retreat in western New York in August 2022 and stabbed him repeatedly. Mr. Rushdie survived the attack, but was left with severe nerve damage and blind in his right eye.
Mr. Matar was convicted of attempted murder in state court last year and sentenced to 25 years in prison. On Wednesday, Mr. Matar, 28, was convicted of providing material support to a terrorist group and committing an act of terrorism that transcended national boundaries.
The verdict, which was reached by a federal jury in Buffalo after just two hours of deliberation, means Mr. Matar could spend the rest of his life in prison. He is set to be sentenced in November.
Mr. Matar showed no response in the marble-and-wood courtroom as the verdict was read aloud. He kept his head lowered, his chair swaying slowly from side to side.
Nathaniel L. Barone II, a lawyer for Mr. Matar, said afterward that he was disappointed with the verdict, which he said he would appeal. The current war with Iran, he said, presented an inherent challenge in convincing jurors of Mr. Matar’s innocence.
There was no debate over whether Mr. Matar had attacked Mr. Rushdie on that day. The trial, which lasted one week, centered on Mr. Matar’s motives: Prosecutors had to convince jurors that he had committed an act of terror and supplied material support to a known terrorist organization.
. . . prosecutors argued that without the fatwa, Mr. Matar would not have been compelled to attack Mr. Rushdie. They presented his notes and composition books, which frequently mentioned the importance of carrying out the fatwa and his pursuit of Mr. Rushdie. In a composition book, he wrote, with bullets before each entry, “We need to kill him ASAP,” “finally get this over with,” and “beginning of Jihad.”
That sounds dispositive to me. Unless they can argue that Matar was not guilty by reason of insanity, which seems unlikely, these are the hallmarks of terrorism inspired by the fatwa. If you read Rusdhie’s compelling book about the attack, Knife, you’ll see how close to death he came. Matar remains a danger to society, and should be dealt with accordingly.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili thinks the Zeitgeist is a spirit:
Hili: Careful, the Zeitgeist is lurking behind you.
Andrzej: Just ignore it.
In Polish:
Hili: Uważaj, za tobą czai się Zeitgeist.
Ja: Nie zwracaj na niego uwagi.
*******************
From Stacy:
From Things With Faces, an angry mop:
From Meow Incorporated:
Only one tweet today as I am entertaining visitors. Regular service will return tomorrow or Sunday.
This Czech Jewish boy was gassed to death as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was fourteen years old. https://t.co/IvcymPu8eD
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) July 31, 2026
Good gawd. Wapo cleanly and positively quotes Rand Paul and RFKjr, but beats up on Tony Fauci. From my knothole it seems to have been a matter of priorities in peoples’ performance index. Dr Fauci (an MD with residency and practice experience) prioritized as few deaths as possible from the virus with the economy and education establishment secondary; while people like Bhattacharya (an MD degree with no residency or fellowship, but directly followed by a PhD in business) in his Great Barrington Declaration seemed to prioritize the economy, letting deaths from the pathogen be a secondary concern.
I stand with Dr Fauci. Thank you for your years of service, sir.
And a ps to uni types who complain about the defunding of fundamental research by trump and the doge boys, you might review all of the fundamental research that Tony Fauci supported, sometimes with strong backbone against the tide, over his long career in government.
One alta kocker’s view…you kids get off my lawn!
That’s a good summary, Jim, I agree. Right wing twitter is aflame with hatred for Faucci whom they view like the physical manifestation of the devil.
Which reminds me while I hate the Dems with the anger of a 17 year old towards his cheatin’ girlfriend, the GoP are still the party of stupid.
best regard,
D.A.
NYC
Closing the schools was a horrible decision…I think that Sweden got this one right and we got it wrong. Children were not a vulnerable population for this disease, and any adults working in the schools that were at risk could have been dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
I’m not sure the degree to which Fauci was culpable for this, as schools are run at a local level, but these decisions ruined education for millions (and…the children affected were disproportionately poor and nonwhite…the very people the Democrats claim to represent.)
There is a ton of evidence that young children, even asymptomatic kids, operate as vectors of covid, have high viral loads, and can transmit disease to other kids in the classroom. A JAMA study of 850,000 households showed more than 70% of intra-household infections originated with young kids.
IOW, there is plenty of evidence that closing schools was a prudent idea. Blaming Fauci, not covid, for school closures is a phenomenon of indulgent hindsight, imho.
Did you have school-aged kids that had to learn remotely during those times? We did…it was a joke. We had to hire someone to sit with our young ones to make sure they were actually paying attention and getting something out of these lessons. Every teacher I spoke to after said that trying to teach grade school children in this way was a complete farce.
But, we were fortunate to have resources to hire help. Millions of kids did not and effectively lost years of schooling. Those deficits will never be made up.
Again, what were the outcomes of countries that did not close all of the schools? Were death rates massively greater than our own? I don’t think that was the case at all.
I had a school-age grandson living in my household who went to school when covid was rampant. I isolated myself from him as much as possible, got my vaxes. He tested positive. I never got it. I hated every minute of it.
Sorry you were inconvenienced. I’m glad I’m alive.
It was the best decision at the time, with what was understood at the time. What is seldom pointed out is that teachers (or their unions) did not want to be in the classrooms. They were afraid and under-paid, and many had elderly parents to care for.
It’s worth pointing out that Sweden, the country that did pretty much follow the Great Barrington Declaration (isolate and protect the vulnerable but don’t lockdown and don’t close schools) had a low overall death rate, with an outcome as good as any. Prioritising “as few deaths as possible from the virus” leads to other deaths (e.g. less early detection of cancer), and prioritising overall deaths (including deaths caused by damage to the economy) is a defendable strategy.
Sweden placed 35th out of 235 nations for having the highest mortality rate from covid. 200 nations did better. Not exactly a glowing recommendation.
Like all of your comments on this topic yesterday and today, this is an extremely misleading statement. See
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/?srsltid=AfmBOopT4kW8JSP00q0INtkI0cQBklJJYLKK3vf4mMVV1pgiNNA1eUwI
For mortality rates as a function of country. You can see not only how Sweden compared with its peers (i.e. countries in Europe) as well as the raw mortality rates to the extent that data has been accurately measured (more accurate in developed nations, less so in less developed).
Countries with a higher mortality rate than Sweden include:
– Austria
– France
– Greece
– Italy
– Hungary
– Belgium
– UK
– Spain
– Portugal
– Most Eastern European countries
– Peru
– Argentina
Most of the European countries on the list with higher mortality rates (including Belgium whose rate exceeded Sweden by nearly a factor of 2) had stricter public health policies.
It goes without saying (but it should be said apparently because the old lies never seem to die) that the mortality rates were most statistically significantly correlated with non-public health policy factors (e.g. geography, obesity, age, preexisting conditions).
As for the shutting down of schools, those of us in Western Canada (and most of Europe!) would like to note that we kept the schools open and somehow people stayed alive. Somehow. Might have had something to do with mortality curves that scaled exponentially with age and preexisting conditions or some crazy statistical facts that were completely obvious within four months of the beginning of the pandemic..
The question is whether shutting down schools was justified or not given what we knew at the time. There were good reasons to do so from an epidemiological perspective – and I listed some – and consequences for doing so. Among those consequences were people being infected and dying – your “somehow people stayed alive” rings pretty glib in light of that.
No doubt mortality rates are complicated by all sorts of factors. But portraying Sweden as some sort of proof that school closures were not a good idea at the time is retrospective finger-pointing and misses the point. I could list a whole slew of countries with worse health care systems and better mortality rates than Sweden – but to what end?
Really don’t care for your accusations of “extremely misleading statements” and “apparently because the old lies never seem to die”. Ad hominem comments are frowned on here.
Initially Sweden’s approach looked like an unmitigated disaster: by Summer 2020, confirmed per capita deaths were five times higher in Sweden than in Denmark or Germany, and ten times higher than in Norway and Finland. However, subsequent waves then eroded a lot of this difference, and indeed Sweden was overtaken by many other countries, though it remained the worst among the Nordics.
“The question is whether shutting down schools was justified or not given what we knew at the time.”
And that’s an extremely simple question to answer to those not living in a certain epistemic bubble within the States. It wasn’t. Again, many places throughout the developed word did not shut down schools (like in Western Canada! Holland! Places with far lower mortality rates than the States mind you), so there was extensive and hard data about transmission from children, mortality in young populations, etc, dating back to within four months of the beginning of the pandemic.
Even later on, it was also a decision to recommend keeping schools closed in Blue States even after incredibly effective vaccines were released and widely available in early ’21. We left the Bay Area in Fall ’20 and were amazed to learn that they kept public schools closed there until Summer ’22; 2022! As a result of supposedly “following the science.”
Whether you think it’s an ad hominem attack or not (it isn’t), your comments (and Alex M’s) about Sweden, and your comments on this topic yesterday and today, are extremely misleading. Here’s a useful exercise: plot the statistical distribution of mortality rates (even as a function of time!) against various factors and look at the correlations. This isn’t a hard thing to do, and you have to go where the data takes you.
Even in the throes of 2020 it was clear that the public-facing discussions about public health response in the States were decoupled from those statistics. Despite all of the invective about Florida, mortality rates there were exceeded by California as an example.
Misleading indeed. Yesterday’s claim that Wuhan is located near the bat caves that provided coronavirus samples was nonsense. The cave region of China is very, very far from Wuhan. AI says “The bat cave containing RaTG13—the closest known relative virus sample to COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic—is located in Mojiang County, Yunnan Province, approximately 1,500 kilometers (about 930 miles) away from Wuhan.”
I don’t know why some people become so agitated over the lab leak theory, which I was told by a Chinese acquaintance is widely accepted in China itself.
Schools in BC closed on March 17, 2020 and reopened on June 1.
Frau: Indeed. They reopened before the summer closure. Alberta closed as well and then reopened for the Fall. The contrast is with closures in the States throughout the 20-21 and 21-22 academic years.
“Here’s a useful exercise: plot the statistical distribution of mortality rates (even as a function of time!) against various factors and look at the correlations. This isn’t a hard thing to do, and you have to go where the data takes you.”
Okay, I asked AI to graph the correlation between country’s mortality rates and the occurrence of school closures. Early school closures were, in fact, correlated with reduced mortality rates:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/96198796@N05/55435617705/in/dateposted-public/
and
https://www.flickr.com/photos/96198796@N05/55435617700/in/dateposted-public/
Btw, I used this source to filter mortality rates, infections etc. It accrued data until 2024, as opposed to your source which accrued only until 2022. Belgium, according to Worldometers, had double the number of infections and similar, not double the mortality rate of Sweden:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Thirdly, there seems to be a bit of rehabilitation of the Barrington Declaration (which AIUI, opposed school closures) in these comments. Just a reminder that the Barrington Declaration was roundly denigrated by the scientific community, as it relied on virtually non-existent herd immunity among other defects.
Lastly, viral research facilities are often located in city centers near where exotic viral outbreaks are anticipated. The fact that the wet market outbreak was 12 Km from one of Wuhan facilities is not a coincidence. And the story of covid does likely involve bats and caves, though I apologize for getting the proximity of Wuhan to bat caves wrong.
Roger:
The flaw with the plots you’re presenting should be pretty obvious: namely that of confounds. You’re picking a narrow interval in time, and one x-axis which is confounded with many other decisions. To be clear, the statistical analysis I’m suggesting you do has be a little more sophisticated than that! It should also be somewhat finer grained.
Canada for example appears on your plot in a very simple way with one data point. But the responses throughout the country, BC/Alberta vs. Ontario/Quebec for example, varied wildly, with roughly similar outcomes. Already there you get a scatter plot where mortality is almost decorrelated from school closures.
It should also be noted that one of the chief arguments for closing schools in the States was that of risk to children. That was known to be nonsense very early on, as (with a worldwide pandemic it was quick to establish that) mortality curves scaled exponentially with age.
The way you’ve discussed GBD and lab leak (conspiracy theory; roundly denigrated) by the way is not how scientists tend to operate. In real time you’re nicely illustrating the difference between scientists (I’m a physicist) and public health/politician types. Evidence about COVID origin remains circumstantial, and it is true that (a substantial fraction) of epidemiologists are willing to declare victory on that front without dispositive evidence one way or the other. In early 2020, the state of affairs was not clear even by this rather weak level of rigour, and at least coming from other arenas of science (where such circumstantial standards fall far short of what it takes to say you’ve discovered something) there is a question of whether the standards of the field are strong enough to rely upon.
(Last post for me here; I’ve already over-commented. Sorry!)
Imho, no simple answer due to uncertainties at the time, Coel…and I’m not sure we even we have a good SEIR sim math model now. So nobody could get a reliable prediction on how many deaths any strategy would mean. I like Fauci’s conservative wrt virus-induced deaths approach. Cannot undo dead, but with effort could recover lost social and educational opportunities for the living. But neither side of the argument should be subjected to what Fauci is now suffering.
I don’t blame Fauci for the policies he advocated. As you say, there was a lot of uncertainty at the time, and covid could have been ten times deadlier than it turned out. He made reasonable judgement calls. What I do blame him for is lack of honesty at the time, making statements he knew were wrong, claiming certainty that was not warranted by evidence, and unfairly disparaging dissenters. He acted the partisan while claiming to be a disinterested scientist. That has damaged trust in science and damaged trust in vaccines (which we’re now paying for, such as with the idiot RFK Jr).
Is he being unfairly treated now? Well, the remedy is full disclosure. I can understand that he doesn’t want to respond to the equally partisan Republicans, but he could (for example) pick a neutral podcaster and give an honest account of that time. (NB My replies seem to be glitching and appearing in the wrong place.)
He is following the advice of his lawyers. The group running the inquisition is out for scalps, not facts.
Jim wrote:
I completely disagree. Bhattacharya and the other signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) believed that extended school closures and lockdowns would cause greater health harms than would a strategy of keeping the schools open and the economy running while focusing protection on the elderly and others at high risk of severe Covid. From the introduction of of the GBD:
I don’t read that as prioritizing the economy over people. I see quite the contrary.
Also, Bhattacharya’s Ph.D. was in economics, not business. His Stanford webpage states, “Dr. Bhattacharya’s research focuses on the economics of health care around the world with a particular emphasis on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations.”
That doesn’t sound like work that an uncaring person would undertake.
Thanks Jay. Probably the only time I have disagreed with you on something. I apologize to all on my sloppiness regarding (Double) Dr. Bhattacharya cv…l knew the correct details in the back of my mind…shoulda moved it to the front. (I need an editor badly). That said, I still support the analysis that led to closing and trying to keep kids physically separated versus the strategic impacts of kids missing the many peripheral non-academic but key functions of our (US) schools for an extended period.
Here’s another good piece about what in blazes is happening in the Democratic party:
https://www.theradicalist.com/p/what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-democrats?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Rushdie attacker Matar’s sentence is good.
From my brief and unspectacular practice of criminal defense in NY I learned that it is hard to go to jail here- for we are a forgiving people 🙂
but if you work at it.. you can go “up the river” for a long time.
Note John Lennon assassin Mark Chapman is STILL in prison.
I’m hoping Luigi Mangione, and Maduro will enjoy such long stays. We have The Best Crimes here! I (heart) NY.
D.A.
NYC
Iran is front and centre that likes to war and murder it’s subjects, what’s not to like? It’s very popular at the moment, war… peace is so irritating and quiet and now, it appears the Ukrainians are now having a go at them with drones hitting shadow supply ships in the Caspian Sea. These ships were loaded with arms, military equipment, for the russian big mistake war 😳 Legit targets apparently and the Iranians need the funds, so they’re are a little pissed.
China’s’s messy little hands are also stirring the pot selling shoulder-launched missiles to the Iranians for the US airforce supposedly to play with.
Popular wars indeed.
Most of this info comes from Substack, YouTube, news feeds.
I have been hearing a lot about the DSA campaign here in Michigan. There is now a new ad from the moderate incumbent Democrat (Haley Stevens) against her DSA opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, which obliquely admits that he was part of the effort in the last election to get Democratic voters to stay home. During that time, the war in Gaza was in full swing and the Biden admin., with much reluctance and complaint, was still shipping arms to Israel to help it defend itself. But there was this very prominent effort from activists to get voters, especially Muslim voters (which are a significant Democratic faction in Michigan) ,to refuse to vote if Biden continued to support Israel. Real hard ball.
Still, that bit in the campaign ad was very oblique about this point, saying only that El-Sayed worked against the Biden admin. to help Trump win Michigan. So the Stevens campaign is still being over-cautious about coming right out and telling it like it really is.
El-Sayed also said that he wants to behead Senator Fetterman and put his head on a pike for his support of Israel. What is it about Muslims and beheading?
No he didn’t. I’m not a fan, but you’re spreading lies. Even ugly metaphors shouldn’t be construed as reality.
Not lies, that is what he said. You are construing it as a metaphor and I don’t doubt that it was. My question though about Muslims’ apparent obsession with beheadings applies even to the metaphor.
Yes, lie. He did not say that. He said (abbreviated) “put one ogre on a pike”
He didn’t say: “I want to decapitate Senator Fetterman and put his head on a spike.”
Again, metaphor.
Big difference.
As far as your apperent obsession with militant Islamists beheading individuals, I guess it’s an easy and dramatic and sure way to kill someone. Decapitation has quite a long history, no? As do the metaphors that accompany the act.
He said afterward that by “ogre” he meant Fetterman. Maybe you missed that (I’m being generous here).
PS Do you consider El-Sayed a “militant Islamist”?
You sound paranoid.
And I’m done. Adieu
One thing I’m seeing in big leftist forums (largely Dem not DSA) is a refusal to vote a candidate who takes AIPAC money.
The great irony, of course, is that the socialist movement is not composed of the working-class people it claims to represent.
The idea of the “champaign socialist” is not new. The labor movement in the US, as judged by union membership, is very small. I wonder, though, the extent to which the DSA could attract the working class, given that the DSA’s ideology is now based on identify politics. Class warfare is still there, but now the classes are racial.
As for Fauci, I believe that there is value in prosecuting him, if for no other reason that to establish the truth. The Senate will publish a report eventually, but lots of people will just say it’s partisan and ignore it. At the same time, though, people need to have a reasonable expectation that they might be held accountable for their actions. Finally, it might wipe the smug smile off the man who declared that he was Science.
“to establish the truth.”
a) About what?
b) It has already been established that Republicans have little interest in truth.
I like cilantro, but some people think it tastes like soap.
Regarding Hamas’s offer to disarm, I read that Israel rejected it, but Prime Minister Netanyahu has yet to respond publicly. It may nonetheless be a step forward. We’ll see: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/with-netanyahu-mum-senior-israeli-official-reiterates-opposition-to-disarmament-plan-approved-by-hamas/.
I was glad to read from numerous sources that the meeting with Netanyahu and Trump (and advisors to both) went well. It seems that Netanyahu has decided that the negotiations will inevitably fail and that the best approach is to discuss options for when that happens. No persuasion needed, no PowerPoint.
Fauci: as I mentioned yesterday, better to establish a Space Shuttle Challenger-like independent commission to get to the bottom of the COVID-19 epidemic. This Senate committee is well-positioned to humiliate Fauci, but it is not the place to evaluate how the epidemic originated or how it was managed. But of course, Rand Paul’s goal was the former, not the latter.
Here’s the full text of the Board of Peace deal: https://www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-of-board-of-peace-deal-for-hamas-to-disarm-israel-to-withdraw-from-gaza/
And here is a detailed report on the agreement’s provisions: https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-will-be-very-disappointed-if-israel-obstructs-his-gaza-plan-us-official-warns/
It sounds promising to (naive) me.
Most of the countries that are low on that list are poorer countries with less-developed health systems that do not have the same recording systems. Also, developed Western countries have much larger elderly populations than places like Africa (with covid risk rising thousand-fold with age). And Sweden, with no lockdown and no school closures, is still lower on that list than the US, and in line with many similar countries.
Anyhow, to properly evaluate their policies one should consider total death rate (not just covid death rate), plus developmental and learning loss of children, damage to the economy, etc.
The Jesuits claimed that if they controlled a child to age seven, they would have his/her mind for life. In regard to champagne socialists, this group spends the first seven years of life absorbing their superiority to the lower social orders—and attitudes that go with that status. The direction the Democratic Party is headed might confirm the Jesuits’ insight into human developmental psychology.
Why is regime change not the stated goal of the war with Iran?
Why are human rights groups and the UN silent when it comes to the publicized executions of even the mildest dissidents of the regime? Why doesn’t the pope address these murders?
I could accept higher fuel prices if I knew there was a stated goal to the war and that we were pushing hard to achieve it.
I just sent the following letter to my representative (without the redactions, of course), one of the apparently few remaining sane Democrats:
Dear __________:
I recently read this in Evan Barker’s Free Press article “The Inside Story of How Democrats Lost the Working Class”:
*
Two weeks ago, moderate Democrats signed a “Promise to America” pledge, outlining principles including “We are capitalist, not socialist,” and advocating “secure borders” and “safe communities.”
The effort is laudable. But just thirteen Democratic congress members signed it, out of the 212 in the House. The rest are either on board with the socialist surge, or quietly tolerating its rise. Most likely, that is because they are terrified of being primaried by a progressive caucus determined to rack up as many wins as it can ahead of the presidential election.
What it means is that the far left is steadily, with little to no resistance, capturing the Democratic Party.
*
Were you one of the 13 (I hope so)? If not, are you addressing the islamo-socialist agenda of the far left? I know many Democrats have left the party for exactly these reasons; I would hate to have to do so myself, but if there is no resistance to a growing, extremely dangerous movement such as that fronted by such people as AoC and Mamdani, I may not have any other choice. Your position and thoughts will be greatly appreciated, especially as I have voted for you each election since I moved to _____________ in 2021. In other words, are you standing for principles? Or merely for reelection?
Best Wishes,
Mark Joseph
With regard to the (incorrect) claim that the CDC did the best with what they knew at the time when it came to (extremely political!) decision to recommend school closures during COVID, I strongly recommend David Zweig’s book from the MIT Press:
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262549158/an-abundance-of-caution/
And what did Trump do with what he knew at the time? He knew how deadly Covid was according to many sources. But instead of disseminating the dire information he knew to be true and preparing Americans for the impending deadly threat, he downplayed the virus with dissimulation and lies (16 cases and going down, we’ll be open by Easter, etc.). Now he won’t even take credit for starting the warp speed program that was instrumental in creating the vaccines.
I don’t give a hoot about Zweig or any other Monday night quarterback regarding Covid. And going after Fauci in no way prepares us for another pandemic. This is political theater, pure and simple. Trump is very good at it, and at this point, everyone knows how to play the game.
Have you heard of the Jason Arday case? https://ncofnas.com/p/dei-fraud-and-cover-up-at-cambridge
I have lost all respect for Baron-Cohen! Not ignorant of the facts, but utterly committed to defending this DEI fraud, now claiming he might kill himself if such completely unfair and unfounded allegations were investigated, because autistic people are more suicidal. A scholar turned activist, having just canceled a study about the genetics of autism after the “autistic community” protested. Apparently being autistic means being “special” and not having to follow any moral standards now.
Evan Barker is a throwback (in this context, a compliment) to when the Democratic party was the party of FDR, Truman, and JFK. Essentially the Democratic party was (back then) the party of the Northern working class and Southerners (of all types).
Times change (not always for the better).
Now the Democratic party is dominated by UMC (Upper Middle-class) liberals. Cultural issues dominate (as you expect). Can anyone imagine FDR advocating DEI?
For the record, I read a biography of Truman and once (a long time ago) shook hands with JFK.