Wide ranging discussion about my correspondence with Director Bhattacharya and other topics ending with how I am dealing with my discovery that the major interpretation of my PhD thesis work is wrong.

Yes, Mamdani barely cleared 50% in this election, while de Blasio and Eric Adams were above 65% in the last 3 mayoral elections. Ooh, damning, right? Well, you will notice that Begala doesn't bring up *actual votes,* or the highly polarized and highly motivated nature of this year's election 3/

Begala makes the seemingly withering argument that Mamdani "limped across the finish line, an astonishing 18 points behind Kamala Harris" and had "the weakest win of a successful New York Democrat in 35 years." That's technically accurate while being absolute bullshit 2/

Yeah as others have noted, Tom Edsall's piece on Mamdani, Democrats and the youth vote is very good, and almost entirely fair. But let's consider the astonishing bad-faith argument of Clintonite consultant Paul Begala, making the "centrist" case 1/ www.nytimes.com/2025/11/11/o...

worse still, some biomedical institutions decided to make “peace” with these scoundrels, putting dollars and cents ahead of principles like integrity and academic freedom

an actual not-made-up death panel, except there’s only one guy

this is one of the most accurate summaries of the situation i've seen in the news

There is no shame among the media and others who have aided and abetted these folks with supportive editorials and other pieces praising their nominations. These men are odious-their liberal supporters no better.

I realize there's a collective shrug from the media but I personally find it so deeply shameful & so utterly repulsive that the Director of the NIH, Jay Bhattacharya, and the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, Martin Makary, are rubbing shoulders with RFK Jr's buddy Russell Brand Russell Brand FFS

Senate Democrats gave up with nothing to show for it. Now it's time for the *House Democrats "Grow a Spine" Challenge*. Join @defendpublichealth.bsky.social and send a letter to your House Dem Reps telling them to stay strong here: actionnetwork.org/letters/5ae8...

Many thanks as always to @jamescdownie.bsky.social for the opportunity to write this, and for the superb editing eye/making me look good!

Here is my latest for @msnbc.com, on Trump's ill-advised concept of a plan for health care, which entails repealing the ACA, and redistributing private insurers' tax breaks to the people for what would essentially amount to an HSA, which is unhelpful if not wealthy. www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

As long as NYT is asking “Did women ruin the workplace” can they also ask: •Did men ruin safe workplaces? •Did men ruin domestic safety? •Did men ruin public safety? •Did men ruin global peace? Or is a clear “YES” to all these questions just too difficult for fragile men to accept—so NYT avoids it?🤔

From @zeblarson.bsky.social. From Liberal Currents: "Propaganda, Rather than Pandemic Policies, Caused the War on Public Health--The backlash narrative ignores basic facts of the case." www.liberalcurrents.com/propaganda-r...

Tell me you don’t understand risk pools without telling me you don’t understand risk pools

Dems cave. Once again. They got little for their efforts. More importantly, Americans get NO support on health care costs. Why even bother with these people? You win big last week and you capitulate the next.

“To my brothers, and my sisters, I say, ¡Pa’lante!” youtu.be/LilVDjLaZSE

4. In any case, made worse by a stupid clickbait initial headline that vaguely matches an gets changed to make it even worse. Overall: Flaccid nonsense by thoughtless clowns. But they got negative attention they can use to be professionally indignant over.

3. Paper thin overall on a topic — battling wokeness — that has been so macerated into tasteless cud that this point in the game.

2. Insecure interviewer (I have to talk to two people at once, oh my!) who makes a not zero, but very minimal effort to push back, all while wearing out his contrarian circus attack with a dollop of lame humor

Ok I listened to whole thing to be fair. Conclusions: 1. Lightweight guests with jazz hands insights who style themselves to be bold tellers of truth and are simply reductive nincompoops. Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace? www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/o...

If I'm doing the math correctly, Musk's big pay packet yesterday could have made each of these now-dead people millionaires instead. He is among the sickest men the world has ever produced.

🚨 NEW: The majority holder of the world's genetic sequence data is a bad actor who can cut off access to critics and competing services. We've tolerated this for years, and now it threatens the pandemic treaty. Time for WHO to step in. With @ctrlalttim.com: www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/to-f...

A good summary of why Cornell's capitulation to authoritarian extortion is an affront to democracy and academic freedom. aaup-cornell.org/2025/11/07/s...

Unbelievable. NIH has posted 6 open NIH directorships in the middle of a shutdown. What a circus. And an opportunity for more cronyism from RFKJr and Bhattacharya. hr.nih.gov/careers/open...

It funded science too. Grand Rapids pertussis vaccine trials moved forward in the 1930s because of WPA funding for nurses and technicians.

And when you give into a bully, they are just going to punch you in the face again later. This is not a long-term strategy.

And let's name names. #ElonMusk #MarcoRubio #RussellVought and #DonaldTrump (with help from #JohnRoberts). This is premeditated murder--of children. You can spin it anyway you like but you cannot escape this fact.

Hundreds of thousands of people, dead because of a decision made by the world's richest man

Perhaps I need to introduce him to some "Gold Standard Leadership" principles. [1] Integrity: The Foundation of Trust [2] Decisiveness: Cutting Through Complexity [3] Empathy: The Human Side of Leadership [4] Adaptability: Leading Through Uncertainty [5] Vision: Guiding Teams Toward the Future

So how did it go? NIH made 43 DP2 awards, the lowest number in a decade. I really wish Director Bhattacharya would spend doing his actual job rather than badmouthing the agency he is charged to lead and spouting platitudes on podcasts and elsewhere. 6/7

Director Bhattacharya "Let's fund emerging investigators" Yeah, who's the idiot running NIH who allowed 15% or few fewer early stage investigators be funded in FY2025 compared to FY2024? (Estimate: The official numbers are not yet available (at least publicly)

Hundreds of doctors, concerned citizens, public health professionals, and science allies joined us in Washington DC to let the world know: RFK Jr. has got to go! #ImpeachtheQuack @apha.org @moveon.org @physiciandemocracy.medsky.social @pnhpnymetro.bsky.social @drsforamerica.bsky.social and more

It’s time for us to reconnect with the radical, system-changing spirit that was once at the heart of our field. #publichealth #episky #medsky #activism www.thenation.com/article/acti...

CHICAGO: “My uncle was on his way home from getting groceries on his bike — they grabbed him and choked him and punched him… he’s a kind hardworking man. They’re racially profiling people.” Trump’s ICE goons put an elderly man in the hospital and nearly choked him to death.

I’ll keep pushing this line of analysis because I’m increasingly convinced the clearest path out of this mess is for Dems to adopt a relentless anti-corruption, anti-inequality, anti-oligarchy, pro-democracy platform. The Dem leadership hasn’t realized it yet, but they’re now a reform party.

I mean here is an example from the NY Times, which cannot spell the word coalition: "Yet for all the invigoration that success brings, the Democratic Party still hasn’t coalesced around a coherent political identity or a clear electoral playbook that can win in swing states and safe states alike."

"Seven data-driven lessons from the 2025 elections: These results tell us something deeper: voters care about affordability and freedom, and Democrats who focus on that message — whether they’re moderates or progressives — are winning." open.substack.com/pub/gelliott...

God you wake up this morning to #Democratic romp even in unusual places and you have the pundits talking about a party in disarray for wins by Spanberger and Mamdani. It's truly pathological. Check out the usual smart boys and editorial pages. It's bananas.

Young New Yorkers voted overwhelmingly for Zohran Mamdani. But Sierra Carruthers-Wang, a Bushwick dog-walker who self-identifies as a progressive, says that some aspects of his platform make her uneasy.

I couldn’t watch the pundits and newspeople last night. So stupid. So preoccupied with demographics. So silent about policies and positions. And I’m a political scientist too -albeit a political theorist. We do talk about justice.

So much time, ink, & nonsense spilled explaining why the smallest pandemic/inflation-driven anti-incumbent backlash in the entire democratic world was a Paradigm Shifting Tidal Wave Of Crisis For The Democrats. Incredibly parochial in so very many ways. econbrowser.com/archives/202...

This is from @mcopelov.bsky.social is important. The “very serious people” have dressed up their own political preferences as wisdom and savvy for too long. They aren’t helpful. Not at all.

I’m just a small-town political scientist, & it’s still relatively early, but it appears that The Actual Democrats did not Need To Do any of the Things or Learn any of the Obvious Lessons that Ezra Douthglesias said they Must Do & Learn.

It’s time for the pundits who have pushed their own regressive political preferences as wisdom to listen to people like @jenvictor.bsky.social.

Came here to say this, but Jamelle Bouie has this covered. 👇 When the Democratic tent includes candidates like Spanberger and Mamdani, there is no crisis, or fight, for the party. IT’S A COALITION, NOT A POINT ESTIMATE.

#BillAckman can do us all a whole lot of good by just sitting down and keeping quiet for a very long time. He’s been a pernicious influence in American life for too long.

one last observation: donald trump has never won a majority of the vote and yet the political press treats him like the embodied spirit of the american people. will be interesting to see how they discount mamdani as representing new york if he wins less than a majority.

the other thing about this is that there is no reason to pit these candidates against each other? each are good fits for their respective electorates and each shows the value of vigorous campaigns focused on the stated material problems of voters.