Why did it work? Propaganda works. That’s why billions get spent on it every year. But it’s especially effective in the U.S. where our for-profit healthcare system already breeds distrust—millions of Americans don’t even have a primary care doc. For millions experiences with the system are bad.

There’s a very clear and obvious reason the right is so skeptical of medicine: there’s a ton of right-wing money being spent to make it so. Why did it get so bad with COVID? The big money on the right saw public health measures as economically disruptive and politically unpalatable. So here we are

Maybe more ivermectin will fix this

The health gap between Republican and Democrats started in the 2010s and has been widening ever since. At first it was happening because college grads were moving Left and everyone else was moving Right. Education predicts health bc of better information and access as well as income. My latest.

@whatsitlike.me reports on a new tactic favored by venture capital and private equity to shrink debt and walk away from risky investments virtually scot-free: Chapter 7 bankruptcy, using the example of the popular convenience chain, Foxtrot.

Beyond the environment cost, how many hikers are going to end up getting mowed down this way?

Turns out there is a reason why life expectancy is falling in Republican-ruled states: the Republicans have adopted loco conspiracy theories in place of sound public healthcare policy, and you can count the consequences in corpses. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Lots of folks responding to my latest piece w things like "good riddance," "this is Darwinism," etc. which is to be expected IG. But I gotta push back. 1) Rooting for strangers' deaths is wrong. (When I say strangers I don't mean public figures whose actions have had known deadly consequences)

@whatsitlike.me reports on a new tactic favored by venture capital and private equity to shrink debt and walk away from risky investments virtually scot-free: Chapter 7 bankruptcy, using the example of the popular convenience chain, Foxtrot.

The popular convenience chain Foxtrot liquidated and then reopened a virtually identical version of its old self within weeks: same name, some same locations, same top executives. How? Chapter 7 bankruptcy, a wonky tactic growing in popularity for startups backed by VC and PE cash.

@whatsitlike.me reports on a new tactic favored by venture capital and private equity to shrink debt and walk away from risky investments virtually scot-free: Chapter 7 bankruptcy, using the example of the popular convenience chain, Foxtrot. /1 www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

The original Foxtrot liked to promote a certain image. Bougie, minimalist, squeaky clean. My reporting tells a different story. Failed health inspections in the double digits. Employees encouraged to sell graying charcuterie boards. To wipe sewage off products & sell them after a flood.

When Foxtrot, an "elevated" Chicago convenience chain, shut down without warning, people were pissed. They owed money to local food vendors, and backpay to store employees. Months later, they reopened with unsettled debt. I wrote about how for @motherjones.com www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

The National Science Foundation is terminating and suspending grants again, and at Grant Witness we need you to help to track them! 🧪 We can only identify research being suppressed by under-the-radar suspensions directly from researchers. Please report! grant-witness.us/posts/2026-0... #NSF

I'm building my natural immunity through wellness supplements (into my arm)

We should never have let fame become a middle-class job, or even middle-class job adjacent. It’s the toxic run-off of actual accomplishment, and instead we made it the top of the food pyramid.

I thought this serial killer documentary had a really effective creepy soundtrack. It was my dryer.

The manifesto left behind by the San Diego mosque shooters dedicates only a few paragraphs to the shooter’s hatred of Islam but pages and pages to their hatred of Jews, which would seem weird if you were a newborn baby deer who knew nothing about Christian Nationalism

My god, if I pick up one more book about the overdose crisis where the very first perspective comes from a cop…

Which is why we need to remember all the successful therapeutic uses of psychedelics before they entered the popular culture in the 1960s. So much of that history has been buried.

Between 1950-65, there were more than 1,000 scientific articles on psychedelics, 40,000 research subjects (including Bill Wilson of AA), and 6 international conferences on LSD alone. Then Congress slammed the door shut b/c hippies discovered psychedelics & we lost important medicines.🤬

And away we go—per defense attorney, at least some of the Broadview Six will file a claim with the weaponization slush fund www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news...

“The study, published in Jama Network Open this month, showed that 19 participants who received a single dose of psilocybin were more likely to abstain from cocaine than 17 participants who received a placebo of diphenhydramine, a common antihistamine.”

Addictions happen in part because dependency causes the brain to resist change. Psilocybin might help. A new, small clinical trial found that psilocybin could help people abstain from cocaine. www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

💯

AI companies are stealing the voices of local Chicago journalists to train their models. The journalists are fighting back. capitolnewsillinois.com/news/tech-gi...

Free market capitalism and true democracy that serves the people cannot coexist. In his new book, Mordecai Kurz argues tech-fueled inequality has led workers to conclude that democracy no longer serves them. Now, they are turning toward fascism. My latest. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...

I would love to see some harm reduction orgs get these @pulitzercenter.org micro-grants to get the communities they work with involved in journalism. pulitzercenter.org/event/inform...

Really really gross for politicians to exploit the drug crisis by making shit up when there are real emerging dangers in the drug supply that actually need people’s attention.

BREAKING: The US supreme court upholds nationwide access to mail-order mifepristone, an abortion medication - for now. They're sending the case back to the lower courts, with the expectation it will return to SCOTUS in a year or so. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

🤯 Our paper about a big wave, published 1wk ago @science.org, has been downloaded >65,000 times. My MSc advisor used to say "There are only 4 people in the world who give a shit about what we're working on and 2 are in this room." Apparently not. 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Read about oxygen's role in compassionate overdose response. #harmredux #harmreduction #streetmedic remedyallianceftp.org/pages/compas...

If this sounds like you, I encourage you to look into my two favorite genres of country music — 1. I will die for my union and the cops who shot us are going to Hell, and 2. I just killed my husband and it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.

Once again, I'm thinking about those two pugnose eels that were found in the heart of a mako shark 🦈🧪 www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Slightly increase a band My Bloody Wife

Slightly increase a band Radiointercourse

Slightly increase a band Stainless Steel and Wine

Slightly increase a band Mumford and Associates

Slightly increase a band Vatican Roan

Slightly increase a band The Red Hot Ghost Peppers

People don't trust AI and aren't optimistic about its impact. Majority don't want it selecting kill targets. & Younger folks use it more, and trust it less. poll.qu.edu/poll-release...

Would you be surprised to learn that the Trump administration is defunding test strips that could prevent fentanyl overdoses but supporting naloxone that can reverse fentanyl overdoses once they actually happen? My latest. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Opening a lucrative PR firm where for $100k I will hand my wealthy clients a note that says “stop commenting for stories like this”

When Elias Kass submitted his presentation on vaccines to conference organizers, he thought they'd say it was too long. Instead, a CDC rep said if Kass didn't change references to “equity” and “a pregnant person”, he would not be able to present: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

I'm sorry I was not familiar with Louise Lucas's game

I recently wrote about an executive order intended to speed access to psychedelic medications for The Guardian. That order was pretty meaningless, bc the FDA is already close to approving several psychedelic medications. I'm covering each of these psychedlic meds for my newsletter. Subscribe!

Universal basic income sounds cool and all but what about requiring these incredibly rich companies to pay a living wage?

The Trump administration had been quite active about mind altering substances recently. First, an executive order encouraging psychedelic medication access (apparently spurred by Joe Rogan.) Second, a weird and partial cannabis rescheduling. I wrote about both. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

I'm not drunk... I always walk like this. Evolution of sideways locomotion in crabs🧪 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Results suggest that sideways locomotion acted as a key innovation, potentially promoting adaptive radiation by enabling true crabs to exploit a wide range of ecological niches.

There’s a Hannah Montana anniversary special. Please respect my and all other Hannahs’ privacy during this difficult time.