Get ready for some "warflation": higher prices for oil, gas, food (lots of fertilizer passes through Hormuz), goods made with petrochemicals (umbrellas, shampoo, toys, etc.), and pretty much anything that needs to be transported anywhere.
Affordability! open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...
Perhaps the occasion of this jobs report is a good time to reup my NYT op-ed:
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/23/o...
Between the decline in employment in February and the downward revision to December, job growth has now effectively slowed to zero. #numbersday
Trump take Dow 50,000
passive voice final boss grand champion honorable mention award for turning slurs into a sentient thing that can do actions www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/u...
Trump Says 'I Guess' Americans Should Worry About Iran Retaliating on U.S. Soil: 'Like I Said, Some People Will Die'
people.com/trump-says-i...
Correction. Orwell never said this. He did however, warn that: "political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” (That's Politics and the English Language, one of my favorite essays)
Tell me you've never read Orwell without oh just nevermind
Hands off our Dunkin' the patriots yelled as they manned the barricades
www.bostonglobe.com/2026/03/05/n...
NOEM TAKING QUESTIONS - DOES NOT APPEAR TO KNOW SHE WAS FIRED
Hey FOIA nerds. We made the educational puppet video you didn't know you needed about how awful Massachusetts is on public records. #foia #masspoli
You're welcome :)
When we talk about Baby Boomers not getting off the stage: In 1997, the US president was born in 1946.
In 2007, the US president was born in 1946.
In 2017, the US president was born in 1946.
And next year in 2027? The US president will have been born in 1946.
A plurality of Americans think ICE should be abolished. Would you support abolishing ICE?
✅Support 47%
❌Oppose 44%
The Economist/YouGov
Keep hearing commentators/Hegseth saying a version of "this is not Iraq, we are not doing nation-building, it's a decapitation, the people will handle it."
That's what Iraq 2003 was supposed to be! Nation-building, de-Baathification, disbanding of Iraqi army, it all came *after* things went wrong.
Sen Mark Warner stunning words after briefing from Trump regime: "Let's bc clear. There was no imminent threat to the United States by the Iranians. There was a threat to Israel. If we equate a threat to Israel as the equivalent of an imminent threat to the US, then we are in uncharted territory."
Someone has laid down an Epstein Walk of Shame in Farragut Square. The stars point toward the White House.
Eisenhower
RFK Jr *lies* when he says cervical cancer risk is increased in women who get the HPV vaccine.
New study: "States with high vaccination rates have seen the biggest drop in cervical cancer, while states with low vaccination rates have had little to no progress"
www.cidrap.umn.edu/human-papill...
🫣
In my utopian vision of the future, instead of offloading all the pointless, annoying work tasks (like reports that none one will read and needlessly opaque forms) to robots, we restructure work and society so that the pointless tasks don't happen at all.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. By Rebecca Skloot Doctors took her cells without asking. Those cells never died. They launched a medical revolution and a multimillion dollar industry. More than twenty years later, her children found out. Their lives would never be the same.
Read it
The family of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose cells were taken from her without her consent in 1951, has reached a settlement with the pharmaceutical giant Novartis. The family had accused Novartis of profiting from Lacks’s cells, which have been used in groundbreaking research.
For the love of god why are people asking AI this kind of stuff in the first place????
I must have missed that day of reality when everyone decided to just blindly trust this thing that's been around for one hot minute.
From the March 3 agenda of Foxborough's select board
⚽️ 👀
This is amazing.
www.getyourfuckingmoneyback.com
Incredibly smart national story by @anjalihuynh.bsky.social
Younger candidates are running for office, arguing costs are too high. They’re putting their kids front and center as they make it.
www.bostonglobe.com/2026/02/27/m...
Cover of The Lancet:
@thelancet.com
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
"Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, Members of the Committee... as a former Senator, I have respect for legislative oversight and I expect its exercise, as do the American people, to be principled and fearless in pursuit of truth and accountability. As we all know, however, too often Congressional investigations are partisan political theater, which is an abdication of duty and an insult to the American people. The Committee justified its subpoena to me based on its assumption that I have information regarding the investigations into the criminal activities of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Let me be as clear as I can. I do not. As I stated in my sworn declaration on January 13, I had no idea about their criminal activities. I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein. I never flew on his plane or visited his island, homes or offices. I have nothing to add to that. Like every decent person, I have been horrified by what we have learned about their crimes. It's unfathomable that Mr. Epstein initially got a slap on the wrist in 2008, which allowed him to continue his predatory practices for another decade. Mr. Chairman, your investigation is supposed to be assessing the federal government's handling of the investigations and prosecutions of Epstein and his crimes. You subpoenaed eight law enforcement officials, all of whom ran the Department of Justice or directed the FBI when Epstein's crimes were investigated and prosecuted. Of those eight, only one appeared before the Committee. Five of the six former attorneys general were allowed to submit brief statements stating they had no information to provide. You have held zero public hearings, refused to allow the media to attend them, including today, despite espousing the need for transparency on dozens of occasions. You have made little effort to call the people who show up most prominently in the Epstein files. And when you did, not a single Republican Member showed up for Les Wexner's deposition. This institutio…
as the public who also want to get to the bottom of this matter. My heart breaks for the survivors. And I am furious on their behalf. I have spent my life advocating for women and girls. I have worked hard to stop the terrible abuses so many women and girls face here and around the world, including human trafficking, forced labor, and sexual slavery. For too long, these have been largely invisible crimes or not treated as crimes at all. But the survivors are real and they are entitled to better. In Southeast Asia, I met girls as young as twelve years old who were forced into prostitution and raped repeatedly. Some were dying of AIDS. In Eastern Europe, I met mothers who told me how they lost daughters to trafficking and did not know where to turn. In settings around the world, I met survivors trying to rebuild their lives and help rescue others - with little support from people in power, who too often turned a blind eye and a cold shoulder. If you are new to this issue, let me tell you: Jeffrey Epstein was a heinous individual, but he's far from alone. This is not a one-off tabloid sensation or a political scandal. It's a global scourge with an unimaginable human toll. My work combatting sex trafficking goes back to my days as First Lady. I worked to pass the first federal legislation against trafficking and was proud that my husband signed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which increased support for survivors and gave prosecutors better tools for going after traffickers. As Secretary of State, I appointed a former federal prosecutor, Lou CdeBaca, to ramp up our global antitrafficking efforts. I oversaw nearly 170 anti-trafficking programs in 70 nations and directly pressed foreign leaders to crack down on trafficking networks in their countries. Every year we published a global report to shine a light on abuses. The findings of those reports triggered sanctions on countries failing to make progress, so they became a powerful diplomatic tool to drive concrete…
Infuriatingly, the Trump Administration gutted the Trafficking in Persons Office at the State Department, cutting more than 70 percent of the career civil and foreign service experts who worked so hard to prevent trafficking crimes. The annual trafficking report, required by law, was delayed for months. The message from the Trump Administration to the American people and the world could not be clearer: combatting human trafficking is no longer an American priority under the Trump White House. That is a tragedy. It's a scandal. It deserves vigorous investigation and oversight. A committee endeavoring to stopping human trafficking would seek to understand what specific steps are needed to fix a system that allowed Epstein to get away with his crimes in 2008. A committee run by elected officials with a commitment to transparency would ensure the full release of all the files. It would ensure that the lawful redactions of those files protected the victims and survivors, not powerful men and political allies. It would get to the bottom of reports that DOJ withheld FBI interviews in which a survivor accuses President Trump of heinous crimes. It would subpoena anyone who asked on which night there would be the "wildest party" on Epstein's island. It would demand testimony from prosecutors in Florida and New York about why they gave Epstein a sweetheart deal and chose not to pursue others who may have been implicated. It would demand that Secretary Rubio and Attorney General Bondi testify about why this administration is abandoning survivors and playing into the hands of traffickers. It would seek out officers on the front lines of this fight and ask them what support they need. It would put forth legislation to provide more resources and force this administration to act. But that's not happening.
Instead, you have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President Trump's actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers. If this Committee is serious about learning the truth about Epstein's trafficking crimes, it would not rely on press gaggles to get answers from our current president on his involvement; it would ask him directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files. If the majority was serious, it would not waste time on fishing expeditions. There is too much that needs to be done. What is being held back? Who is being protected? And why the cover-up? My challenge to you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, is the same challenge I put to myself throughout my long service to this nation. How to be worthy of the trust the American people have given you. They expect statesmanship, not gamesmanship. Leading, not grandstanding. They expect you to use your power to get to the truth and to do more to help survivors of Epstein's crimes as well as the millions more who are victims of sex trafficking."
Here is Hillary Clinton’s opening statement to House Oversight on Epstein.
Clinton says she does not recall ever encountering Epstein and says she knew nothing about his crimes.
She also says that Trump should testify under oath and criticizes the committee for not holding any public hearings.
This is an excellent and infuriating read from the Globe’s Spotlight team on Harvard’s deep ties to Epstein. And they interviewed Dr. Claudine Gay to get her thoughts on Larry Summers. It felt redemptive and I loved these reporters for making the choice to do so.
www.bostonglobe.com/2026/02/25/m...
