James Comey and Gavin Newsom have very little in common, except that both have become targets of a Department of Justice that increasingly appears willing to focus on Trump's critics and political opponents. At what point do isolated cases become a pattern worth questioning?

It was this painting (30 x 40) that needs to cure for the next 6 months before shipping that drove this! Most of my paintings have been 15 x 20 and smaller. But this collector loves larger artwork! I have always been drawing, in all media, designing and painting since I was little.

I made a 2-page Take Action Flyer for anyone to download and use! We need all hands on deck! drive.google.com/file/d/1ppq4...

Can't be stated enough how much more progressive candidates are running better campaigns. Yes, that comes back to having & refusing to abandon values & convictions plus willingness to fight. But also - they're spending more time with voters because they spend less with consultants & donors.

Really enjoyed speaking with @joho.bsky.social and @wendyorent.bsky.social about what’s been happening at the NIH under Jay Bhattacharya, often driven by Russell Vought. Got in a nod to efforts to impeachvought.com. Give it a listen!

Friday greetings🪷 Tunisian boulangerie in Toulouse, France Tunisian Ghraiba are the cone shaped pastries. I tried one of the long shaped "Corne de Gazelle". It was superbe! After cooking it is soaked in honey.😋

Important to understand how Rs in Congress are attempting to weaponize a many decades old scandal to undermine the credibility of the government and scientists today. Great piece from @elizabethginexi.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/elizabet...

Devotees gather on the banks of the Ganges to offer prayers. A woman holds a lit 'diya' (earthen lamp) before releasing it into the water. In Varanasi, the river is worshipped as a divine mother, and this ritual symbolizes the offering of one's inner light to the divine. Photo Shubhodeep Roy

The harm this administration has caused to research participants and the risk to public health they have created are unbelievable: open.substack.com/pub/27unihte...

WHO adds first diagnostic test for Ebola Bundibugyo virus to its Emergency Use Listing bit.ly/4v6iEbb

Thursday greetings🪷 When others show disrespect for a person, it is often a reflection of their low character & deep insecurity, not your worth. When there is no respect shown, this is information. So one must keep walking away because they do not deserve to walk beside you.🪷☸️☺️

Scott Atlas is literally the Merchants of Doubt Fellow at Hoover.

Good response to the absurd @washingtonpost.com editorial from Scott Atlas and the billionaire funded Hoover Institute.

The administration is trying to foment witch hunts. www.science.org/content/arti...

🌿📚 More than 64 million pages of biodiversity knowledge are freely available through the Biodiversity Heritage Library. As funding challenges put its future at risk, the Internet Archive is proud to help preserve this invaluable resource. 🌎 Learn more 👇 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

We can now settle the age old debate: what comes first is the fucking corporations.

If I don't know you, don't expect me to follow you.☺️ All my follow backs are at my discretion. Same goes for bl0ks.☺️

Amazing Betty Freidan & Pauli Murray (African American), along with 28 activists, The National Organization for Women (NOW) was established, 6/30/1966. Betty was a graduate of Smith College. She was fired from her job because she was pregnant. She wrote "The Feminine Mystique"👉 2nd women's movement

Tuesday Greetings🪷☸️ Long Island, NY, East Hampton "old money" area. Lilly Pond Lane.(beauty)Trees are hundreds of yrs. old. Private cemetery of the Lion Gardiner family. One of the Island's oldest, wealthiest families. Gardiner's Island was a forced labor plantation for 200 yrs. Pathetic cruelty.

Monday greetings🪷

The Department of Justice doesn't just depend on winning cases. It depends on being trusted. When a federal judge decides DOJ's word alone is no longer enough, that's not just another courtroom dispute. It's a warning about the credibility of one of our nation's most important institutions.

I agree with this entirely- who wouldnt? But what are staff in these environments to do? To spell out the very obvious point: if services are constantly under pressure & staff stretched, these conditions work against the likelihood of good listening. This is not an excuse it's the daily reality.

What began as mourning over government negligence, has resulted in an 18 month long anti-corruption uprising. The students & civil groups don't want just a change in leadership but a complete system overhaul of their government.

Out of one side of his mouth, Bhattacharya tries to blame NIH for leveling US life expectancy - ignoring impacts of the pandemic and the fact that research can only inform but not change the public health policy that affects life expectancy. 🧵1/?? www.usnews.com/news/live-ev...

Out of the other side of his mouth, Bhattacharya says NIH must know its limits & avoid research aiming to inform policy. Public health policy is a critical pathway for improving both duration & quality of life. If NIH cannot produce the evidence to inform health policy, who will?

Life expectancy is driven by a variety of policies, from where we build sidewalks, to what foods we subsidize, to how & whether we enable access to healthcare, to how and whether we regulate pollution, to zoning laws that determine where grocery homes and grocery stores are built, and so much more.

Bhattacharya blames "woke science" for lack of progress on life expectancy over 15 years. After trying to build health equity research at NIH for a decade +, I can assure you NIH only recently started to wake up after the world saw substantial disparities in both criminal justice & COVID in 2020.

Even if NIH research were the sole driver of life expectancy (it's not), the time horizon from research finding to practice is ~17 years. Research resulting from any changes made to NIH since 2020 is ongoing or just published & couldn't possibly be responsible for outcomes over the past 15 years.

Bhattacharya says staff are resisting "fundamental change" needed to modernize NIH & improve science. But Jay Bhattacharya never bothered to learn how NIH works. He ignores input from staff on changes, resulting in foreseeable harm that could be avoided. www.27unihted.org/bethesda-dec...

An exemple of Bhattacharya making changes without understanding. At NIDDK Council, Bhattacharya justified consolidation of K awards by saying they create a holding pattern since K awardees can't get an R01. (They can.) Thankfully, one of our Councilors corrected him. Yet the policy continues.

I've come to the conclusion that Jay Bhattacharya doesn't care to avoid harm at NIH nor does he want to improve science. For some in this administration, the harm & destruction of science are the point. But for Bhattacharya, the harm & destruction are the cost of maintaining his position of power.

What they taught in school: GDP up = good. What they left out: The atmosphere has a limit Soil can die Water runs out 8 billion people need a living planet, not just a growing economy

Your Sunday night 60sec of calm.

Speak truth to power for enforced loyalty can never win against the truth.

Read pt 4 of the probationary project analysis, the career, economic, and mental health impacts. It’s an insightful and devastating read. open.substack.com/pub/27unihte...

IKYMI: This story answers several questions I was asking about Xocova (ensitrelvir) in threads at the start of June. Xocova could be an important tool in preventing illness post exposure, but should be thought of as part of a broad mitigation strategy—& the price may keep it out of reach for many.

Terrible news and this is in Paris, not Bordeaux or Toulouse.🥵🫠

Rebecca Lindsey ran Climate. gov for years before DOGE cut her job. The scientists rebuilt it themselves, with their own money and put it back online this week🔥😁 Its a success story from the brain drain that the Trump admin didn't want. Since they fired these people they are back to work again.👏

The Battle over the Constitution Has Spread to American Science. I'm out in the @theatlantic.com today about the new OMB proposed rule. It's just the longtime agenda of the the Supreme Court. US science and cancer cures now all depend on us picking up a fight with the Roberts Court.

Sunday greetings☕🌞 Kids cooling off in the summer heat. Toulouse, France🆒

More democrats like this, please? I am sick of neoliberals.

As he was treated badly before being rescued, he cannot fly and survive in the wild but he finds joy in teaching human beings about love and languages. #Bernie21Birthday #BernieTheCockatiel

Bestie 💕💕💕

So happy to have you at our Laughing Nuts Club LG 😆

Your regular reminder that nuclear is one of the worst energy options for a warming world. Not only is the construction of plants & the mining, milling & manufacture of fuel GHG intensive, but NPPs don’t do well in high temps. All plants need a heat synch & must shut down if they lose it. 1/

Loss of the heat synch might be because the river or lake a plant uses grows too warm, which happens more as heatwaves become longer & more frequent. It also happens if the water level in a river or lake drops because of drought, & also if water levels rise from storms or runoff & cause flooding. 2/

If a nuke plant uses the ocean as for its cooling system, it is also subject to a number issues that have become more frequent & severe—warmer waters, rising and falling sea levels, hurricanes and flooding, and the proliferation of certain types of sea life that have clogged water intake at NPPs. 3/

In sum: nuclear is an extraction technology—not a renewable—that is GHG-intensive throughout its lifecycle, & NPPs need a cool & constant heat synch, something much less reliably present as temperatures rise in our accelerating #ClimateCrisis. Nuclear is not a solution—it’s part of the problem. 4/4