I have this chalkboard in my mind titled "Days Since Massive Human Rights Abuses," and I keep waiting to be able to erase the zero and write a 1, but it never happens. Trump is deporting and trying to deport migrants to autocratic third countries where "torture 1/2 www.nytimes.com/2026/04/04/w...

🚨 Essay alert: I finally saw The Testiment of Ann Lee, & then I stayed up all night writing about it. I need to sleep, but then I'm going to read what I wrote (I hope it's words) & post it on my site, even though it's not about psych or public health or messaging - b/c the Shakers are amazing, too.

Well, *that's* not good. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/04/o...

Gift 🎁 link to a piece by Julie Rehmeyer about the 2023 death of her friend Beth Mazur, who was co-founder of the advocacy organization #MEAction, & who died by suicide while visiting Rehmeyer: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/03/s...

Are other folks getting "blob" & other errors when they tried to post anything with a link or photo? If you've experienced this problem, how did you fix it? It typically takes me 3 tries (closing & reopening the app) to get anything with a link/photo to post. For threads, esp., this is a... 1/2

On folks who eschew well-studied, regulated meds like statins, but happily inject unregulated, unapproved, mail-order peptides. This is a good article, excerpted below: www.statnews.com/2026/04/03/p... 🧵1/8

Some of the kids are alright: Obies reject AI with class. "Let us not ask what AI can do for Oberlin students, but what Oberlin students can do ourselves, while we still have the brain capacity to think on our own." (Photo posted twice so I could post all of the text in alt text.)

The upshot: The FDA demanded new placebo studies in order to approve a 2026-2027 shot for folks aged 50-64 who aren't high-risk. But Pfizer and BioNTech needed to recruit ~ 25,000 to 30,000 study participants who weren't high risk, & they couldn't get enough... 🧵 www.reuters.com/business/hea...

Statement from the American Psychiatric Association. (These folks are MDs.)

Trump's "actions show that the White House is unbowed by Americans’ concerns over the high cost of living even as the war in Iran is expected to aggravate inflation and November’s midterm elections draw closer." "About 6 in 10 [American] adults say... 1/2 www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

It would be awfully nice if RFK were next, as long as we're working through the cabinet....

Woah! Buh-bye, Bondi! A nice start to the weekend, for once.

So stocks are down and oil is up, this morning. Brilliant move, there, last night. Also, the House Republicans now own the shutdown. Interesting morning.

More on alpha gal syndrome: AR, KY & VA require labs or doctors to report positive tests; MO is thinking about it. But NY says meh, even though "Long Island is a hot spot." www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/n...

So inspiring

US public health is now virtually indistinguishable from an April Fools' joke. What to know: 🔹️Rabies & pox viruses were removed from a list of tests the CDC conducts for state & local health depts. "Experts worry that with drastic staff reductions, the... 🧵1/4 www.nytimes.com/2026/04/01/h...

Gift 🎁 link. Mind you, this women's retreat took place *before* Trump assumed office. The 2024 event gave "women a chance to mingle with higher-ups and bond over their shared challenges in a male-dominated workplace, said one participant. It was fun, energizing and useful.... 1/2 wapo.st/4m9rJgw

Lawlessness & intimidation from our military: Today, Hegseth nullified an Army disciplinary investigation into "unauthorized helicopter flybys" over No Kings protests by two pilots. One had flown by demonstrators (& circled them) six times, "dipping as 1/2 www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Little changes add up. Gift 🎁 link, because it's almost April. wapo.st/41EswMM

Happy Transgender Day of Visibility - but it shouldn't be just one day.

Maybe Bryon Noem just wanted in on some of the fun Cosplay Kristi's been having - she did seem to be having a ball. If she utters one word of complaint, she's a massive hypocrite. What's good for the goose....(Gee, I hope she doesn't shoot any geese.)

We are not having a good day in the courts. Wow, this is terrible. "The decision to allow the government to collect the names and phone numbers of Jewish people on campus could allow the government to pursue similar tactics elsewhere." www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/u...

LOL, but it won't matter, because the Republican-led Congress will approve it in a hot second. (Elections matter!) This whole debacle has become an apt metaphor for what the GOP is doing to the country: democracy replaced by huge ugliness that benefits only the rich. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/u...

"The report found advanced degrees in social work and psychology may have a zero to negative return, while medicine, law and pharmacy degrees show the highest return." Here's a thought: Maybe we were never in it to get rich. www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

Bad news. (Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only dissenter; Kagan has been disappointing, lately.) If a therapist tells a client to cut themselves or stop eating in order to drive out the demons, will SCOTUS call that protected speech, too? Ffs. www.axios.com/2026/03/31/s...

Health Psych 🧵: I did a related🧵 the other day - about how (& why) people like and prefer to listen to folks who tell them what they want to hear. Sociopaths (just like chatbots & bffs) know this. High-functioning sociopaths (a small subset of the whole) become extremely good at doing it. 1/9

Yes, I hate RFK Jr. with the heat of a thousand suns. But I wish we talked more about the fact that what he & Trump do is figure out what people want (e.g., to eat French fries; to feel superior to non-citizens) & then just give it to them. They sell us our own worst impulses; we need to be better.

That tracks. Anti-choice "care" centers exist to discourage women from choosing an abortion, not to provide good medical care. Most women have no idea. “Clients acknowledge that these scans are performed for educational purposes only....there is nothing to fix." Anti-choice sure ain't pro-life.

To paraphrase the 13th c. English rota, "Covid is icumen in, and flu it is a go." The cicada variant (about which I've heard crickets, lol) is slow-spreading but immune evasive, upping the risk of breakthrough infections. Maybe get vaxxed anyway, huh. www.discovermagazine.com/new-cicada-c...

Today's newly learned thing: Have you been pronouncing Thoreau "Thur-OH," like I always have? "Ruh-roh! [It's] actually 'THU-ro.'" This may be a hard switch to make. After years, I still catch myself calling Derek Jacobi "Jah-CO-bee," instead of JAH-kuhbee. Argh. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/28/b...

Postcards, letters & calls: I'm glad someone asked me about this tonight, because it's definitely time to get moving. Let's go, progressives! We need to win in 2026 to undo damage already done and prevent more harm!

I'm great at Where's Waldo, yet I haven't found even one masked face in any crowd shot from Saturday. (And I've looked!) Trump's regime harms the medically vulnerable community, & we want our voices heard, too. Next time, organizers, please add at least one event per state that's masks-required.

Gift 🎁 link. I don't watch Queer Eye, but canceling is a warning sign to minority groups that have fought for representation & inclusion. We're "in an era of backlash-whiplash, when the gains of the past few decades seem to be at increasing risk of slipping away." www.nytimes.com/2026/03/29/o...

Need contact info? Here it is: 🔹️HELP members: Murkowski: (202)-224-6665 Collins: (202) 224-2523 Cassidy (chair): (202) 224-5824 🔹️Full HELP committee members: www.help.senate.gov/about/members 🔹️Your own senators: www.senate.gov/senators/sen...

Members of the Senate (esp. those on the HELP committee, like Murkowski & Collins, rn) need to hear from voters - from all of us - that we don't want Means confirmed at Surgeon General. She's bad for health, & stopping her confirmation would send the.... 1/7 www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/...

From five years ago. This is the point in the year where I start to get a little antsy for summer.

Caturday: Is it possible this angelic creature dropped a dead mouse on my pillow at 4am last Wednesday? Who's to say.

Someone in a covid group who does not ask healthcare workers to mask just posted that they were pleased their own mask use was respected during a recent hc interaction. I'm glad for them, but also exasperated. This is what I responded: "I'm glad your wishes were respected. I also want... 🧵1/3

Gift 🎁 link As readers of my long 🧵s know, I'm not a fan of learning about the world in soundbites. I think the headline-only strategy of staying informed that's popular on social media doesn't tell people what they should know, & I know it doesn't encourage... 1/5 www.nytimes.com/2026/03/27/o...

For those who haven't been deeply following the bizarre road Trump is taking us down in Iran, this is an informative, straightforward & fairly short take on diplomacy, troop deployment, & how, at this point, everything's gonna cost us. Gift 🎁 link. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/28/o...

It's not just that Trump has no filter, saying whatever pops into his head. It's that what's in his head is so damn weird. Never once in my life have I thought of Elvis Presley, “Could I have taken him in a fight?” But Trump feels the need to share that with us. Wtf. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/u...

What can you do when people insist on voting against their own interests? Dairies with an immigrant workforce produce 79% of US milk, & its price "would double without them." But 95% of Wisconsin Republicans support mass deportation, & 87% approve of ICE tactics. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/27/u...

Across his two terms, Trump has been the worst thing to happen to health, worldwide, in a very long time - in so, so many ways. "Cuban health care was once the pride of the island. Now the U.S. oil blockade is upending even basic medical care." www.nytimes.com/2026/03/26/w...

More reporting. The problem comes down to how RFK's FDA works & is perceived to work, as I've said before. 🔹️"A maxim of food safety is that when the government says your product is making people sick, you stop selling it....In the history of the modern... 🧵1/7 www.theatlantic.com/health/2026/...

🧵 As I used to say to my IRL friends about early pandemic behavior, "IFTYS." Medicare Advantage (MA) is the privatized version of Medicare. Many seniors & disabled folks choose MA plans over traditional, gov. run Medicare (TM) b/c they see hundreds of ads... www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/...

In case you haven't found your place to be tomorrow, pick one here. (Tonight is for making signs.) Get out and get loud! www.mobilize.us/nokings

Is no one here for social psychology, anymore? Where are all the psych students? This is interesting stuff! (Okay, in my opinion, but I really think so.) Chatbots are changing off-line human behavior in ways that make us much nastier people. Read how here ⬇️

Psych 🧵/mini-essay: This is some fascinating - and alarming - research. In social psychology, self-verification theory tells us that people want their own views of themselves confirmed by external feedback - say, by the people they know, whose opinions they value. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/26/w...

Idaho is not a nice place. Lots going on there, this week, all of it bad. 🔹️Today, they criminalized using bathrooms (even at private businesses) that don't match a person's sex assignment at birth. 1st offense: up to a year in prison; 2nd: a felony, up to 5 yrs. 🧵 www.nytimes.com/2026/03/27/u...

Please make a plan to help flip the country blue in 2028; what state & national groups can you connect with? What activities can you participate in? Regardless of whether you could weather the storm of another Republican regime, personally, a great many real, living humans can't. #WeAreNotThem