United States | News & Politics

"Congress has the sole constitutional responsibility to declare war and to authorize the use of force," notes a joint letter to the president. "You have failed to secure such authorization for these strikes."

To the former health leaders, it seems pretty clear: Kennedy is a threat to the nation.

Leaked emails from former Israeli UN Ambassador Ron Prosor show David Frum, Douglas Murray offering to write his speeches and a CNN producer fundraising for Israel’s Iron Dome during Israel’s 2014 war

Blue states and cities can issue these bonds and use them to fund all the research, subsidies, programs and projects that Trump is trying to murder.

The rush to blame video games for all the world’s ills is, of course, nothing new. While some of the more novel examples of this blame-game include current Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s claim that video games are the reason the Medicaid is abused (yes, seriously), this nonsense is more commonly trotted out whenever violence is committed, typically for mass shootings. It’s irresponsible and not based on anything remotely resembling scientific data and it should stop.

To win again, Democrats must stop warning voters against the kind of people movies taught us to love.

from Politico
By Dan Brooks
09/07/2025 10:00 AM EDT

That Trump was a boarding school graduate who inherited over $400 million did not seem to affect voters’ calculus, in the same way Danny the caddy doesn’t ask why he should risk his college scholarship to help a millionaire win a bet. In the narrative of the 2016 election, Trump was the slob, even though he was a textbook snob in both background and agenda. From cutting taxes for the wealthy to slashing regulations for corporate America, his policies reinforced the positions of those already in power, i.e. the snobs. But his rhetoric, demeanor and attitude toward the mythic Washington establishment has been pure slob.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6364757

Among an avalanche of public health reversals these past couple months, the administration limited COVID-19 vaccine access to 65-and-over and patients with a short list of preconditions, chopped the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network down from eight to two infections, and dropped CDC testing for unusual infections medical doctors submit from across the country.

It also baselessly announced that Tylenol taken during pregnancy causes autism, moved to fire all members of the Preventative Services Task Force (which requires insurance companies to cover specific treatments), gave AI companies a share of savings they find in cutting patients off Medicare, and continued its war on unions at the heart of the federal response to national emergencies.

In response to the unspooling protections, groups of individual U.S. states have veered off in national schisms long found in U.S. public health. West Coast and New England states are establishing vaccine alliances whose policies supersede the CDC’s now-inadequate COVID-19 recommendations. In the other direction, Florida moved to ban all vaccine mandates for schoolchildren.

In op-eds in The New York Times and walkouts at the CDC, public health’s managerial class is punching back against Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s efforts to strip out federal-led public health research and policy.

It’s been a necessary and laudable response. It’s also telling that these very managers met protests against the Biden administration’s own eugenics-proximate response to COVID-19 with silence or dismissal.

Failure in deed matched failure in word. The Biden administration moved Paxlovid to the open market — at an exorbitant mark-up — and instituted an employer-friendly five-day recommendation for COVID-19 quarantine that the CDC subsequently dropped, entirely despite molecular kinetics showing high viral loads 10 days and on in many infected people.

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This aggressive collection practice is widespread even in a state considered to have strong consumer protections.

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Despite mounting threats to the US economy — from high tariffs to collapsing immigration, eroding institutions, rising debt and sticky inflation — large companies and investors seem unfazed. They are increasingly confident that artificial intelligence is such a big force, it can counter all the challenges.

Lately, this optimism has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The hundreds of billions of dollars companies are investing in AI now account for an astonishing 40 per cent share of US GDP growth this year.

AI companies have accounted for 80 per cent of the gains in US stocks so far in 2025. That is helping to fund and drive US growth, as the AI-driven stock market draws in money from all over the world, and feeds a boom in consumer spending by the rich.

Since the wealthiest 10 per cent of the population own 85 per cent of US stocks, they enjoy the largest wealth effect when they go up. Little wonder then that the latest data shows America’s consumer economy rests largely on spending by the wealthy. The top 10 per cent of earners account for half of consumer spending, the highest share on record since the data begins.

Stephan Marcum, 58, of Stanton, Kentucky, allegedly refused to speak with police about front yard ‘Halloween decorations’ resembling body bags and labeled as local officials

“We’re expanding the watchlist,” FBI director says amid 300% increase in domestic terror investigations.

Plenary power

A plenary power or plenary authority is a complete and absolute power to take action on a particular issue, with no limitations. It is derived from the Latin term plenus, 'full'.[1]

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/47489689

When a health insurance company refuses to pay for treatment, most people begrudgingly accept the decision.

Few patients appeal; some don’t trust the insurer to reverse its own decision.

But a little-known process that requires insurers and plans to seek an independent opinion outside their walls can force insurers to pay for what can be lifesaving treatment. External reviews are one of the industry’s best-kept secrets, and only a tiny fraction of those eligible actually use them.

CBS News staffers are coming to terms with the news that controversial commentator Bari Weiss is their new editor-in-chief, as the storied network’s owner Paramount Skydance acquires her Substack-based publication the Free Press in a reported $150m deal.

In conversations with the Guardian, six current network employees expressed a mixture of apprehension, skepticism and frustration over the appointment. “A throwing up emoji is not enough of a reflection of the feelings in here,” one particularly incensed CBS News employee said in a text message.

“It’s utterly depressing. Somebody who has zero experience in television news or even hard news for that matter... but with a clearly defined political agenda,” said another staffer. “It’s hard to see this as anything more than an attempt to bend the knee completely.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will hear arguments in its latest LGBTQ+ rights case Tuesday, weighing the constitutionality of bans passed by nearly half of U.S. states on the practice known as conversion therapy for children.

The justices are hearing a lawsuit from a Christian counselor challenging a Colorado law that prohibits therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation or gender identity. Kaley Chiles, with support from President Donald Trump’s Republican administration, argues the law violates her freedom of speech by barring her from offering voluntary, faith-based therapy for kids.

Colorado, on the other hand, says the measure simply regulates licensed therapists by barring a practice that’s been scientifically discredited and linked to serious harm.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/37017841

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/37210143

https://www.latintimes.com/mamdani-breaks-silence-about-maduro-cuban-president-diaz-canel-how-jorge-ramos-daughter-paola-589809

The initial answer was mild, condemning the repression in both countries but declining to call them "dictators." However, his campaign sent a much more contundent position days after the interview:

" I want to be clear on where I stand. I believe both Nicolas Maduro and Miguel Diaz-Canel are dictators. Their administrations have stifled free and fair elections, jailed political opponents, and suppressed the free and fair press. And yet, our federal government's long history of punitive policies toward both countries, including extrajudicial killings of Venezuelans and the continuation of a decades long blockade of Cuba, have only worsened these conditions. Democratic socialism is about dignity, justice and accountability. And above all, it's about building a democracy that works for working people, not one that preys on them."

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