...and while I think it's possible to make an argument that his assassination--that ANY political assassination--is an attack on diversity of thought and free speech, to posthumously hold him up as an example of someone who genuinely believed in those values for his opponents is simply not honest.

One more thing: Being a "Debate me!" guy is not the same as genuinely believing in diversity of opinion; it comes from a belief that you can crush dissent by winning every argument, often with sophistry. Kirk started a McCarthyite website that targeted professors on the left. He was no pluralist...>

You can write this only if, by virtue of your income, identity, or both, you are utterly removed from the consequences of politics. To pretend that the racist, misogynistic, anti-gay vileness that Kirk spent his life spreading is secondary to the fact that he spread it "the right way" is appalling.

I refuse to vote for Republicans’ slush fund bill that grants Trump and Elon Musk permission to continue rigging our government and our economy against the middle class.

It would greenlight even more chaos and more cuts to critical programs.

Hell no, I cannot support that.

Trump and Vance’s meeting with Zelensky in the Oval Office today “gave the lie to any claim that this administration’s policy is driven by any strategic effort to advance the interests of the United States, however misguided,” @davidfrum.bsky.social writes.

Read more: theatln.tc/SowY3Uin

A grassroots movement is calling on all Americans to abstain from shopping with major retailers tomorrow, February 28, as part of an “economic blackout.”

I encourage you to join. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/boycott

Congrats, everyone—the Elon boycott is working! Reports indicate that Tesla inventory is swelling, especially with Cybertrucks piling up outside their factory. Keep the boycott going, and don’t forget—today is the Economic Blackout!

Trump and RFK have talked a lot about addressing chronic illness. But their early actions show otherwise.

Many infections cause chronic illness. Cutting the Long COVID advisory committee, shows that they will ignore a significant cause of chronic illness for many.

Elon Musk has purchased $40M on a series of Superbowl ads attacking USAID. Watch this ad, which tells the truth, instead.

#saveforeignaid #standwithUSAID

Great point.

If you want to “Make America Healthy Again,” one of the worst things you can do is slash the budget of the world's largest public funder of biomedical research, the National Institutes of Health.

Losing NOAA would be devastating. Project 2025 authors want to get rid of it because it monitors climate change, and privatize the information it currently provides for free, so you'll have to buy information about the weather and the winds (imperative for mariners).

Outside of USAID headquarters, Senator Brian Schatz:

"If you want to change an agency, introduce a bill and pass a law. You cannot wave away an agency that you don't like or that you disagree with by executive order, or by literally storming into the building and taking over the servers."

BOOM!

A private citizen shutting down a government agency is a coup. Do not normalize this.

A memo leaked to the Associated Press reveals that the White House has told the U.S. CDC to stop working with the WHO immediately.

This breaks protocol which requires the approval of Congress and a one-year notice to leave the WHO.

Trump attempts to freeze $3 trillion in federal grants. If this goes through, the nuclear blast radius will be huge—Suicide hot line, domestic violence shelters, cancer survivors. Time to see how strong our checks and balances are. Congress, universities and governors, it’s beyond time to engage

🤌

CDC data is still only dripping out. High level covid, flu, and RSV was released as scheduled today but the weekly not deeper dive into flu (also known as Fluveiw) or ILI (general count of cough and fever). Also still no bird flu MMWRs.

This sure doesn’t seem like freedom to me.