Pretty-convincing small trial finding dialectical behavior therapy more effective than SSRIs in reducing suicidality in highly vulnerable patients with borderline personality disorder. psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/...

A clear test of whether the Supreme Court majority is originalist or merely political & subservient. If the Court rules against unbounded Presidential authority to impose tariffs, democracy still has a chance, despite SCOTUS's willingness to undermine it elsewhere www.nytimes.com/2025/11/04/o...

Quick email to Ramesh Ponnuru on what we know about SSRIs and violence www.nationalreview.com/corner/do-ss...

At last. Today ‪@nytimes.com‬ has an essay describing Trump's routine acts as coming from an authoritarian playbook. That's what's often missing from reporting & opinion both: Reminders that a behavior under discussion not only ruptures norms but also serves in a campaign to undercut democracy.

In 1969, when the Waldorf-Astoria had lost much of its glory, it rented rooms to Newsweek for staff who had to work late into the night. I was put up there when writing on the moonshot for the July 28 issue when "Newsweek beat Time" to the newsstand. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Not sure why the whole Web isn't saying this. Trump's Brazil tariff is illegal. Presidents can impose tariffs only for limited economic reasons. Interfering with a prosecution abroad is not a permitted rationale. The issue is both legislative & constitutional. Only Congress can levy taxes.

Sad to learn of the death of Anna Ornstein, a yet more influential figure in psychiatry than this obituary suggests—and a sterling person. Oddly, I just quoted her in a talk I gave in Germany last week. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/04/h...

SSA BS. Is this politicization a first? Just got an email from the Social Security Administration patting the President on the back for the budget-busting bill Irony (one of many) is that the bill changes the taxation of benefits in a way that threatens to deplete the fund a year early.

Yesterday, a friend said that last year, when reading my novel, Death of the Great Man, she had found an important section implausible. The protagonist's daughter-in-law, although married to an American citizen & under consideration for a Green Card, is suddenly slated to be deported to a war zone.

Listening to a podcast about the Ortega y Gasset's Revolt of the Masses (1929) which, for my sins, I have not read. He warns that in modern democracy, the masses become spoiled children who enact spiritual barbarism based in a lack of awareness of the history of institutions.

@peterdkramer.bsky.social recent novel is worth your attention www.peterdkramer.com/death-of-the...

Medicare cuts. They're real. 4% per year x 10 years if the House bill passes the Senate unchanged. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

I just came across an email saying that three days ago, Psychology Today re-featured an essay of mine from 10 years ago that maybe does still have something to say about (our current whipping boys) antidepressants and the clinicians who use them. Take a look. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-p...

It's possible that in the markets, US corporations have enjoyed a stability premium—up-valuation based on their being housed in a strong, predictable economy. Will they now, due to Trump's impulsivity & wrongheadedness, suffer an instability penalty, lower valuation simply for being based in the US?

Hate to say this, but you've gotta head to X & explore the posts around this clever realization by James Surowiecki. He figured out the formula the While House used, which has nothing to do with reciprocal tariffs—& the Administration inadvertently confirmed his finding. x.com/JamesSurowie...

Not sure how I missed this highly distressing piece by Thomas Edsall in @nytimes.com. It should have gotten more play. Trump is running what, in my novel Death of the Great Man, characters call a thanatocracy, government out to kill its own citizens (& others). www.nytimes.com/2025/03/25/o...

The president has no unilateral power to slash the budget passed by Congress. We cover *every* aspect of the argument for presidential impoundment power and show that nothing in the Constitution, federal case law, or American history supports it. Summarized: www.ifyoucankeepit.org/p/musk-and-v...

Re-upping for the daytime crowd: "Stop saying 'continuing resolution.' Start saying blank check for Elon Musk." @jfallows.bsky.social on why Democratic Senators should vote No. fallows.substack.com/p/the-only-p...

I need to post this note to correct an earlier one that got a lot of play. For patients on Medicare and Medicaid, to cover PAXLOVID now that the government subsidy has lapsed, Pfizer has extended the Paxcess program. paxlovid.iassist.com . It's not insurance, but it provides free coverage.

PAXLOVID alert. Went to a pharmacy to pick up a Paxlovid Rx for (for real) a friend. Out-of-pocket cost for one course of treatment was almost $800, discounted from Pfizer's charge of $1500. Medicare subsidy for Paxlovid expired 2 weeks ago, & no one has given thought to how to make it accessible.

History will remember this day— when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for.

Generations of American patriots, from our revolution onward, have fought for the principles Zelenskyy is risking his life to defend. But today, Donald Trump and JD Vance attacked Zelenskyy and pressured him to surrender the freedom of his people to the KGB war criminal who invaded Ukraine.

In Trump's 1st term, Covid upended the economy via illness, unemployment, supply chain disruptions, & later inflation. Now, he seems intent on destroying a flourishing economy by creating illness, unemployment, supply chain disruptions, & inflation. Hoping I'm wrong—but that if not, voters notice.

@jfallows.bsky.social on how Trump's & Musk's mindless destruction of the advisory system for air safety is a marker for destruction of other systems that make us safe—and economically competitive. open.substack.com/pub/fallows/...

Matt C Kramer (artist) in nytimes agaIn: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/w...

@nickkristof.bsky.social effectively says that the "existential" threat to democracy is already being enacted. In the distance, he can imagine a way back. It will be a difficult project, no? Once you have a corrupt bureaucracy, loyal to ideology, stripped of true expertise—how do you reform it?

What would it mean to negotiate with Republicans on a budget bill? The GOP would get spending on some programs & the Democrats on others—& Trump would not release funds for the Democratic initiatives. How can you support a budget that won't be adhered to? www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/u...

Bravo @kairyssdal.bsky.social

"BREAKING: RFK JR CONFIRMED AS HHS SECRETARY" Quick hed that says it all about our times. Farce as news, news as deadly threat.

Questions of standing are going to complicate these suits against the Administration. Ideally, Congress would ask the courts to make the President obey the law—protecting agencies that the legislature has established and disbursing funds it authorized. It's Congress that has been undermined.

1/ My first real contact with infants involved holding & trying to feed "failure-to-thrive" babies, ones not gaining weight. I would put in time at the end of my clinical pediatrics shifts in med school or, more, at night when I was on-call on the unit. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/s...

Reposting my thread from just prior to Trump's inauguration.

I don't know that I've seen anyone comment on RFK, Jr's, collection of concerns (& falsehoods). He focuses on autism via vaccines, mental illness via SSRIs & ADHD meds, gay men via HIV/AIDs, & gays (again) & transgender youth via pesticides. The entire concern is with the marginalized or disfavored.

Confessions of an Ambivalent Psychiatrist A guest essay by the psychiatrist Susan Mahler on her experience of depression (including treatments with ECT) and how she finds herself in a position where both lived and professional experience are failing her www.psychiatrymargins.com/p/confession...

Hornby on 🐝 nickhornby.substack.com/p/my-spellin...

From the rival site:

Another unjustified pro-Trump take by NYTimes. Trump accedes to Colombia's demand that its citizens be treated w dignity & transported on non-military flights. NYTimes frames the result as a victory for Trump & his threats, as if it were Colombia that had backed down. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/26/w...

Let me get this straight. Petro calls for dignified transit. Trump threatens tariffs. Petro smacks Trump in a post threatening his own higher tariffs. And Trump agrees to what Petro asked for. And yet NYT is calling this *Petro* backing down?

1/ Prediction for Trump's first day/week in office: a series of proclamations & proposed laws so numerous & outrageous as to amount to what hypnotists call a confusional induction. The main point will not be the particulars but the overall effect, creating a focus on Trump.

Regarding Douthat's fantasy that Canadians' will be open to joining the States: Merger might be more attractive if we adopted national health care. Our current pitch is, Join the US, and assume the risk that illness will bankrupt you. Not much of a draw.

NYTimes hed watch. Asked how vigorous he might be at 86, Biden said, “I don’t know. Who the hell knows?” I find the response to be a step shy of acknowledgment that he might not have been able to serve out his term. I mean, who among us knows how vigorous he or she will be in four years?

For those who doubt the value of diagnosis, this story of a woman whose dementia was cured offers a counterargument. www.thefp.com/p/sean-fisch...

Sad to learn that we will not be graced with another David Lodge novel. I read every one with pleasure, and was blessed with the chance to review one. The Times gives a thoughtful appreciation. A book reviewer must have been involved in the obit's composition. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/03/b...

Looking at material on how RFK, Jr, plans to direct healthcare policy, it came to me that the Trump Administration will have the quality of a fractal, where the the know-nothing stance at the top—arbitrariness & authoritarianism—is reproduced in every smaller part.

in story-telling and in politics. An important truth rests in the center of this unflinching satire on the near-future state of the US under the sway of the greatest liar of all. Kramer makes claims that many would shy away from, using the tools of the analyst and the tyrant. Highly recommend!

Thanks

Touching to read this appreciation of Jimmy Carter by Walter Shapiro, who also died this year. They were both good men. Walter prepared the obit, and The New Republic held it, ready to release. newrepublic.com/article/1707...

Matthew C. Kramer with a beautiful, detailed illustration (for a terrific guest essay on Schubert's piano sonatas) in the NYTimes this morning. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/28/o...

Crucial for the press (& all of us) not to accept Trump's excesses as normal. "I do not believe that warnings about the dangers of an unchecked Trump are overstated. Instead, it is the creeping sense that Trump is entering office largely unopposed that more and more worries me." bit.ly/3BQhB9B

Time for the country to declare moral bankruptcy and be taken over by Denmark. bsky.app/profile/jonc...