Everyone is talking about Jalen Hurts, but no one is mentioning this. 2022: “Catching Covid is associated with a 5-fold increase in the risk of deep vein thrombosis & a 33-fold increase in risk of pulmonary embolism…” theguardian.com/world/2022/a…

This may be hard to believe @JDVance, but many U.S. citizens want to see pedophiles in the Epstein files held accountable.

Weird, I don’t see much of this on Twitter. Spread the word ✌️

Governments tried to sweep HIV and AIDS under the rug like they are doing with Covid and Long Covid, but people wouldn’t let them. This is why 1000s of people listen to trolls and bots telling them they are crazy every day. This is why they endure attacks from strangers and ostracization from family and friends, this is why they keep talking about the dangers when our leaders are silent. Grassroots activists made sure the conversations pointing to the reality of HIV and AIDS didn’t stop. Their voices made the world safer for us all, they set the example, they held the governments accountable and forced action. That’s what we need right now, because Covid is airborne and billions get infected every year and countless are left damaged. You don’t want to see it, but it is happening. That’s why so many are “still talking about Covid”, that’s why they won’t stop.

It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can’t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say. But that’s exactly what the Trump Administration is doing to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. To understand why this is so appalling, it’s important to know the facts. Congresswoman Omar came to this country with her father when she was 12 years old. Five years later, her father became a naturalized citizen. If Ilhan had been 18 at the time, she would have had to apply for citizenship separately. But because she was 17, she became a naturalized citizen automatically. Congresswoman Omar went on to graduate from college, work as a community organizer, become the first Somali-American legislator elected to public office in the U.S., and win a seat in Congress. There, she has been one of the Trump Administration’s fiercest critics, which has led the president to repeatedly single her out as someone who he believes does not belong in this country. Now the Administration is actively trying to deport Congresswoman Omar, seemingly based solely on the unsubstantiated theory that she was actually 18 when her father was naturalized, and therefore is not a citizen. Federal agents have raided her home, confiscated personal records, and seized her phone — all to try and uncover a nonexistent smoking gun from 20 years ago that will somehow make their case. Think about that. The full weight of the federal government is being brought down on a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president. And it’s not the first time this has happened. Under President Trump, the Justice Department has repeatedly gone after those he considers his political enemies — from the Attorney General of New York, to the former head of the FBI, to members of the Federal Reserve. In those cases, the prosecutions either stalled or were dismissed for having no basis in law, and the same is likely to happen in this case. But not before Congresswoman Omar’s life has been turned upside down, her legal bills have piled up, and she’s been forced to spend time fighting unsubstantiated charges instead of serving the people of Minnesota. The fact that any president, or any administration, is willing to engage in such transparent efforts to intimidate someone should outrage all Americans, regardless of how they feel about Congresswoman Omar’s political views. Because if this becomes the new normal, there’s no reason to believe it will stop with her — or that future presidents, in either party, won’t do the same.

Disability can happen to anyone at any time. It’s not due to deconditioning or a moral failing. Many chronic illnesses are the result of a viral infection from which the body never recovers. We need more awareness, treatments & clean air to reduce viral spread.

The work of Pollyanna Johnson, contemporary ceramics artist #WomensArt #FridayFeeling

🚨 This Katie Zacharia story keeps getting more interesting. Trump’s new press secretary reportedly has a law degree but no verifiable U.S. law license. She claims to have passed a bar exam in China, where foreign nationals aren’t eligible to take the Chinese bar exam or practice law in China UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Her LinkedIn bio says she worked at a Chinese law firm, Zhong Lun, while living there from 2011-2013. Foreigners can work at Chinese law firms for the purpose of advising on the law in the countries in which they are licensed to practice law. But she wasn’t licensed in the US, so what did she do at that law firm? But wait there’s more. Zacharia’s resume and Linked In claim she was GENERAL COUNSEL, from January 2024 to March 2025, for Fix California, a conservative political nonprofit founded by Trump ally Ric Grenell to advance Republican interests in California. The organization reportedly identified her as its general counsel, too. Yet no record of her admission to any U.S. state bar has been found. She’s definitely not licensed in California. 🤷🏼‍♀️ And, according to its 2024 tax filings: 👉 Fix California reported approximately $557,000 in revenue. 👉 It reported ZERO employees. 👉 Zacharia received $27,367 for in-person and fundraising solicitation, NOT LEGAL SERVICES. She also claims to be fluent in Mandarin Chinese. 😂 I’d LOVE to see her hold a press conference in Mandarin. She had a hard time speaking English yesterday. The Trump Temu administration.

this woman was created in a lab to give the maid of honour speech at the wedding of a couple named Jaxson and Brayleigh who met at a college football tailgate party

WE COUNT THE ENEMIES WE KILL. WE RARELY COUNT THE ONES WE CREATE. Nidal Hasan was a patient on my floor in the surgical trauma ICU at Brooke Army Medical Center. I wasn't there when he arrived. I had just left for my deployment to Mosul, Iraq. But the nurses and doctors who cared for him were my peers and my friends, and I know exactly what that required of them, because every one of us had done some version of it before. Before anyone tells me what strength looks like, understand what that work demands. I have cared for a drunk driver who wiped out an entire family and landed in our ICU himself. I have cared for gang members who shot up a block while children were stepping off a school bus, then ended up on our unit with bullets of their own. I have kept alive people who murdered their own families and failed at taking their own lives. And in Iraq, I saved the lives of the very enemy fighters who had just tried to kill us and miraculously survived our response. Every one of those patients got our best. Not because we felt anything for them, but because of who we were. You set aside anger, grief, prejudice and every personal feeling you have, because a life in front of you is a life in front of you. That's the oath. That's the duty. So when Hasan came through those doors, my colleagues did what we had always done. They preserved the life of a man who murdered thirteen people and would have killed them too, given the chance. He killed those men and women in one of the very same buildings many Soldier's like myself have been in when I was stationed at Fort Hood. He is alive today because they did their jobs. That was not sentiment. It was a hard, tangible expression of the values this country claims to stand for. Our principles had to mean something even when the person benefiting from them had violated everything we believed in. Now the Pentagon plans to livestream his execution by firing squad on Dec. 3, and our leaders apparently believe turning his death into a public spectacle will demonstrate American strength. I think it demonstrates how little they understand the enemy they claim to be fighting. We kept Nidal Hasan alive, now our leaders want to make him a martyr. Hasan walked into Fort Hood expecting to die. He believed his death would be rewarded. At his trial, he called no witnesses and offered no defense, and his own court-appointed lawyers worried he was seeking execution. He failed at martyrdom once. Now we're about to hand it to him, in high definition, for every extremist with an internet connection to replay, manipulate and celebrate. We supply the footage. They supply the meaning. Long after the politicians finish congratulating themselves, that video will still exist. Their moment of bravado becomes somebody else's recruiting material for decades. And this failure to think past the immediate display of power reaches far beyond one execution. We count the enemies we kill. We rarely count the enemies we create. Look at the school in Minab, Iran, where multiple investigations attributed the strike that killed more than 100 children and their teachers to us. You cannot bury people's children beneath the rubble of their classrooms and expect a speech about American intentions to decide how they remember you. No denial brings those children home. No claim of good intentions makes their parents forget whose weapons killed them. If those were our children, we would remember for the rest of our lives. We would demand accountability. Many of us would want vengeance. We would tell their stories to the next generation. We know this because we did exactly that after September 11. Why do we imagine other people love their children less, grieve less deeply, or remember less clearly? We have developed a horrifying talent for creating more terrorists than we will ever stop. We inflict suffering, evade responsibility, and then act as though the anger that follows came out of nowhere. Think back to the first time you saw one of those al Qaeda videos of an American being beheaded. Remember the sickness in your stomach. Remember the rage. Remember thinking that only savages would film a killing and send it out for the world to watch. Now ask yourself what the rest of the world will see when the camera is ours. Terrorist organizations stage executions for the cameras. Authoritarian regimes make death a public spectacle to feed fear and rage. Watching our own leaders reach for those same tools should force us to confront how much of ourselves we are surrendering in the name of defeating them. The line separating us from the people we condemn has to live in our conduct. A flag cannot hold it for us. Neither can a uniform, a title, or a declaration that we are the good guys. On that ICU floor, on a bloody street in Mosul, and in trauma bays across this country, people like my colleagues hold that line every day under circumstances most will never face. They keep monsters alive because their duty and their humanity are bigger than their hatred of what those monsters have done. Execute him if that's the sentence. But do it the way a confident nation does; quietly, lawfully, and without giving him the stage he always wanted. Let him be forgotten. I expect our leaders to show at least as much discipline as the nurses who had to care for him. They keep telling us they are defending what makes America different. Every day, they make that difference harder to see. Robert W. Burns III is the editor and publisher of The Space Coast Rocket, an Army veteran and a retired trauma nurse. The views expressed in this column are his own.

President Trump complained at length tonight that he hasn't been given the Nobel Peace Prize for having "settled eight wars," then recited a list of supposed wars settled that includes... - "Egypt and Ethiopia" (who had a diplomatic dispute, not a war) - "Kosovo and Serbia" (who also weren't at war under Trump) - "The Democrat(ic) Republic of the Congo and Rwanda" (the war in the eastern DRC never ended despite a peace deal brokered by his administration that didn't include the rebel coalition doing the fighting) - "Israel and Iran" last year (Israel went back to war with Iran this year along with the Trump-led US) - "Israel and Hamas" (Israel continues to conduct frequent attacks in Gaza despite a ceasefire) Trump also claimed he's "about to settle or win" the war with Iran, the one he started, and also "Russia-Ukraine," though he'd repeatedly promised to end that one within 24 hours of taking office in 2025.

good lord how can anyone be this whiny; are you not ashamed

We have noted at length that the CDC engages in #bluewashing, downshifting COVlD level categories to make them seem lower (links in next post). Did you know, the state of California is a worse offender? Top: CDC's downshifted levels. Bottom: California's even more downshifted levels The California Department of Public Health is literally telling residents COVlD levels this wave never got above "Low," when the CDC said "High." And, in fact, before the CDC downshifted all current and historical levels nationwide on August 14, California's wave peak would have met criteria for "Very High" (WVAL score of 8.83 > 7.80). We literally have public health telling people that Very High COVlD levels are "Low."

THREE WORDS A freestyle-shaped spoken verse built from the words of people living with Long COVID I listen. Probably more than you know. I’m in the Space but I’m not in the Space. You know? Little purple bubble glowing on my phone while I’m staring at another screen, cursor blinking, paper open, sentence half-built, three references missing, reviewer two asking a question reviewer one already asked six pages ago— and somebody in my ear says, “I just wish people understood.” And I stop typing. Just for a second. Then somebody else talks. And I start again. Data open. Numbers running. Regression, revision, resubmission. Lecture tomorrow. Slides unfinished. Website broken in Safari for some reason. Student email. IRB language. Another manuscript waiting for review. Coffee cold. Space still playing. And sometimes I want to grab the mic. Believe me. Sometimes you say something and I have a whole paragraph loaded— but I can’t. I’m working. So I listen. And maybe that’s why I hear certain things. Because when you aren’t waiting for your turn to speak… you hear the words people repeat. Not hashtags. Not talking points. Words. Yesterday I heard three. And I’ve been carrying them around. ⸻ First— somebody was talking about home. Not hospitals. Not governments. Not the CDC. Home. The place that’s supposed to be the smallest circle of safety. Kitchen light. Shoes by the door. Somebody you love walking past you toward whatever comes next. Dinner. Work. School. Concert. Airport. Restaurant. Life. And you’re standing there thinking: You watched what this did to me. You saw it. You saw the appointments. You saw the plans disappear. You watched me learn words I never wanted in my vocabulary. You watched me calculate energy like somebody counting the last dollars in an account that doesn’t refill on payday. You watched me become a person who has to negotiate with Tuesday. So how— how can you look at what happened to me and walk into the same fire like fire forgot how to burn? And then somebody said it. So casually. That their own family— the people living in the same house— weren’t even… afraid. … Afraid. And that’s a strange word now. Because they called us afraid. Remember that? Afraid to go out. Afraid to live. Afraid of people. Afraid of air. Afraid of getting sick. Afraid. Like caution was cowardice. Like observing what happened to your own body was some kind of character defect. Like the courageous response to learning a bridge can collapse is driving faster across it. No— you know what fear is? Fear is watching somebody drown and convincing yourself water has nothing to do with it. Fear is needing normal so badly that anybody who interrupts the illusion becomes the problem. Fear is seeing the smoke, smelling the smoke, watching somebody cough in the smoke— then getting mad at the person who says, “Hey. Maybe there’s a fire.” See, I think we’ve got the word backward. Because I hear people with Long COVID talk about fear all the time— but half the time they’re not talking about their fear. They’re talking about everybody else’s fear of knowing. Fear of changing. Fear of admitting. Fear of the sentence that starts: “If this is true…” because everybody knows what comes after those four words. If this is true— then maybe we should clean the air. If this is true— maybe infection isn’t trivial. If this is true— maybe disability wasn’t an acceptable externality. If this is true— maybe “back to normal” wasn’t a scientific conclusion. Maybe it was a business decision wearing a lab coat. … And I keep typing. Because I’m still at work. ⸻ 👇

Hands up who thinks that Covid isn't over.

Ten things everyone needs to know about American Covid

TIME Magazine has released the full, unedited transcript of its interview with Trump alongside its cover story I put in the comments. I had to take several breaks to get through it, it's bad, really bad, because it's our President. If you've ever visited a loved one in a Memory Care facility you'd know the residents can give hours long dissertations without saying anything of substance, long strings of filterless free association that could lead anywhere. While Trump has always been a narcissist and a con man, he was also an effective communicator, you can't pull a successful con without that skill. What we see in this interview seems to be truly disturbing and we need to face it together as a nation and do something about it. Please take the time to read. time.com/article/2026/10/01/…

I could only make it halfway through this transcript before I had to stop. It’s almost unbelievable that this man is the President of the United States. He rarely finishes a coherent thought. At one point, he actually says that all of his decisions “are correct ones.” His explanations of the national debt and basic economics are astonishingly muddled. And he makes false claim after false claim with absolute confidence. I can't tell if he's just doesnt care that he's lying or actually belives the lies himself. Reading the transcript—not watching him, not hearing the delivery, just reading his actual words—is jarring. time.com/article/2026/10/01/…