I just had an ah-HAH! Moment. A fwq days ago there were news stories (and Rachel Maddow commentary) on how the Trump Administration has effectively shut down cancer research in the U.S. We were leading the world in cancer research, and now we’re not. And this destroying of the research doesn’t appear to be just a by-product of the DOGAE cuts but has been systemic and target4ed. And Rachel asked, why is he doing this? What is the constituency that is pro-cancer? A guest she interviewed speculated that it was the tech bros like Peter Thiel who wanted to smash up the cancer research establishment because they think finding a cure is taking too long. Maybe, but that didn’t really make sense, and there doesn’t seem to be evidence that the tech bros have discussed such a thing.
But I just read that at a recent press conference Trump started rambling about Joe Biden having “stage 9” cancer — there is no “stage 9” — and how he must have had it for a long time to get that far. But this tells me Trump has “Biden cancer” living in his addled head. Is he destroying cancer research because he hates Joe Biden?
On to the bigger crisis, which is media consolidation. Behind the Kimmel firing is a bigger story about how nearly all of our media are being gobbled up by a few right-wing rich people. Corporate ownership of media has been an issue for a while, but there has been a standing FCC regulation that prevented any single entity is from owning television stations that, in total, reached more than 39% of all U.S. TV households. Look for that to be eliminated soon, to allow right-wing media to control much more of the nation’s televised news. And then there’s David Ellison, a very rich right-wing guy who already controls Skydance and Paramount and is gunning for a lot more stuff, including streaming companies. We’re going to be hearing a lot about media consolidation going forward.
See also Media consolidation is shaping who folds under political pressure — and who could be next from Poynter.
Regarding censorship, I keep reading comments from righties claiming that Biden did it too. They are angry because, during the covid crisis, the Biden Administration reached out to social media companies and asked that they clamp down on covid misinformation, which was hampering efforts to get the pandemic under control and actually killing people. Righties called this “pressure,” but I have yet to hear that any social media company was actually threatened with anything. In any event nothing seems to have changed, so it didn’t work.
As I keep saying, righties don’t fundamentally grasp what “censorship” is. And they think the 1st Amendment mans they have a right to not be disagreed with.
At Intelligencer, some guy named Ross Barkan writes that Trump Is Going to Lose the War on Free Speech. I truly hope so. Barkan says some insightful things but throws in a few too many elements of both-siderism for the article to get my full endorsement.
What MAGA will learn, as enough time passes, is that they cannot engineer full cultural control. They cannot force millions of people to suddenly pretend to think Kirk is a fallen martyr who should never be critiqued again. They cannot convince college students, through brute pressure on gutless administrations, to salute the Israeli flag and cheer Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocidal incursions into Gaza. The moral panics of the 20th century, for all their vileness, had genuine backing across the culture; there was widespread anti-communist mania that fueled the Red Scare and made red-baiters like Richard Nixon into major political and cultural figures. After September 11th, George W. Bush enjoyed an approval rating north of 90 percent, and anti-war dissidents were forcibly suppressed as many Americans cheered on new invasions. The specter of another mass casualty terrorist attack was the Bush administration’s justification for the Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay, and spying on American citizens.
Trump has no comparable emergency to gesture towards and Republicans, utterly subservient to his whims, are glad to dispense with the illusion they ever cared about free speech. It’s remarkable to witness how fast conservatives have abandoned any pretense of caring about the First Amendment after years of decrying illiberalism on the left.
Okay so far. But I think this is off —
The Kirk assassination is to the right what George Floyd was to the left: a spectacular, filmed murder that galvanizes their side to make unprecedented demands on language and speech. In 2020, openly criticizing the movement to defund or even abolish the police was, on the left, the ultimate taboo. It was similarly taboo to question the conventional wisdom of prolonged Covid lockdowns. A year later, individuals who refused to take the new Covid vaccine could be fired from their jobs and barred from all forms of indoor entertainment.
Are these things really equivalent? Were there media personalities who were taken off the air or fired under government pressure for badmouthing George Floyd? Here and there some people were fired for publicly making racist remarks about George Floyd that their employers decided reflected badly on the company. That happens. But Barkan forgets that “George Floyd” as a label covers more than George Floyd. There also was Breonna Taylor and Elijah McClain.. Ahmaud Arbery wasn’t killed by police, but it was apparent the only reason his killers were brought to justice in Georgia is that there was a nationwide stink about a black man murdered while jogging on the assumption he was a thief. And going back further there was Michael Brown and Philando Castile and Trayvon Martin. And many more. “George Floyd” wasn’t about a single man but a pattern of brutal injustice that had been going on much too long. I’m not seeing an equivalence with the shooting of What’s His Name. Not even apples an oranges; more like apples and toothpaste.
Even on the Left “defund the police” (I never saw serious calls to abolish the police) was never more than a slogan / talking point that elected Democrats wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot billy club. And mostly what happened to it is that the Right used it against Democrats who never once expressed agreement with it, but it got hung around their necks anyway. And even on the Left expressing disagreement with it was hardly taboo; I saw plenty of disagreement, especially once a backlash started. It seems to have gone away now, though.
Further, I never saw any repercussions against anyone who complained about Covid lockdowns A number of people were fired by their employers for refusing to get Covid shots, but this was not at the insistence of the Left. And there have long been many state regulations about people who work in hospitals and medical clinics being fully vaccinated, for good reason.
If this writer could lose the both siderism he might go places. Too bad, though.
Finally — there are a number of reports that Trump is about to fire his own U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia because the guy has failed to file charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James. And this is apparently because the U.S. attorney, Erik Siebert, hasn’t found any evidence against James to make a case. See Greg Sargent, Trump Firing Top Prosecutor for Failing to Invent Fake Crimes by Foes.
Government sponsored medical research is much broader than just cancer research. It's my opinion that Musk and maybe other billionaires were behind killing this.
I recall that he was determined to trim $ x million dollars per day, when DOGE was active. There was some big total amount – many billions of dollars – he was going after, I don't know where that number came from or why.
Something like medical research is a big, easy target if you're on that kind of bean-counting quest. I don't think Trump figured into it. He was perfectly willing to let EM destroy anything he wanted.
I read an anecdote about what happened when DOGE showed up at the Social Security Administration. Someone working there rolled out this large map, a flowchart of how a particular feature worked in the Social Security software. It was a big roll of paper, stretched out across a large wall. The people working there were hopeful that someone would finally update the archaic software that ran social security.
Instead, DOGE went for the quick hitters, the easy things that would save money, and ignored the herculean redesign / rewrite of the core software. This is why they have closed so many brick and mortar offices and have made it difficult for clients to interact with them. Any idiot can close offices, reduce service, and claim a big savings.
This is the same mentality behind curtailing medical research. THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE PUBLIC. If Musk needs medical treatment, he can always buy it somewhere, somehow. Literally, "the public be damned".
As for the concentration of media – that horse left the barn long ago. The good news is only old people watch legacy media, and the technology has been democratized. Anybody can start a YouTube channel. And more of this is on the way. You can't imagine how much I want to roll up my sleeves and help solve this problem.
That's what I thought, too, but the news investigations and Rachel Maddow say otherwise. This wasn't just a by product of DOGE mass firings and cuts. It has been targeted and methodical.
See the New York Times on this.
I read the Times article, but came to a different conclusion. It's entirely about the efforts to dismantle cancer research, but – unless I missed it – it makes no argument that other medical research isn't similarly affected. I think they only interviewed people within that medical research "silo".
"And Rachel asked, why is he doing this? What is the constituency that is pro-cancer?"
It has nothing to do with cancer. Why is he destroying the defense department, the DOJ, HHS, the Education department, the media, major universities. Why is hell bent on causing long term damage to the economy and every institution he can get his tiny hands on? Because he is a Russian asset, he is working for Putin. His goal is to weaken the US and turn it into an oligarchy much like Orban has done in Hungary. There is no other explanation that makes sense, he's working for Putin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR8-1PToZAg&list=RDRR8-1PToZAg&start_radio=1
I believe the scope of the retribution and vengeance Trump talked about during the campaign was always much wider than he said. Of course, going after democrats, because he sees them as having persecuted him; never mind all the stuff he did that any objective, rational observer would conclude warranted impeachment, law suits or prosecution. Trump wants vengeance on America, for rejecting him. He wants the entre country to feel pain, and thereby bring America as a country to heel. There are easy things he could do, or in some cases, just leave things alone, that would shore up his support, beyond the relative few in the top 1% who he does work for. But Trump is literally destroying everything, from FEMA to cancer research, food safety and health regulations, scientific research, alternative energy — what sense does it make to kill a wind energy program that s 80% completed? — and just about everything that have positive effect in the average person's life. He put stooges in charge of institutions whose charter is destroying them from within.He either fired or forced out over 100,000 federal workers, his tariff "policy" is causing the loss of thousands more jobs, which of course effects the unemployment rate. But visiting retribution upon America is more important than common sense.
Whether he's dong Putin's bidding or not, how long will it take America to see, if ever, God forbid, that Trump is sating his vengeance against the entire country? And he's far from done.
I caught some of the Kash Patel hearings this week – tried to avoid much of it, because it was so much heat and so little light. Jay Kuo – who was a litigator – does a great job at showing which Democrats were effective at dealing with Patel, and which were not, and why, in his master class, To Kash a Troll.
While he screamed at the men, Patel was totally meek before Jasmine Crockett.
You have stumbled upon quite the problem of life itself. All life. it seems, tries in some way to stay alive both itself, and for its kind of life also. Some life forms seem to exist with a priority toward having their kind continue to exist over their own individual existence. This tendency is observed even if life forms with not only no brains but also no neurons at all not even a few unorganized ones like the jellyfish. It is a common factor which separates that with life from that which is not alive.
Humans are the only life forms where at least some of the species is aware of this generality and can even write about it I do now or read and consider it now, yet all life forms seem to "know" it somehow.
Humans are also the only life forms who seem to act not only for their personal demise, but for the demise of their kind. It never made sense. Sigmund Freud was compelled to add Thanatos to his theory about humans after observing the senseless deaths of what is now known as the first world war. He saw lacking any other "force" which would make humans the only species that was apparently attracted to its own extinction.
When we observe our own actions, our species does continue to exhibit behaviors contrary to self-preservation and the preservation of our species. This seems a fact.
This anomaly in the evolution of life on Earth may have happened before in the vastness and near timelessness of the Universe. Will some other species from some distant planet discover how our species failed at the fundamentals of all life. At least all life forms that made it to now. Many, of course, did not. Our species is rapidly increasing the number of other species in peril. That, in itself, are actions which are contrary to the preservation of ourselves. Whatever you call this "force" it is strong and getting stronger. Why are we killing Cancer research? Why are we fighting life- saving vaccinations? Why are we supporting apparent genocide? Because the death- wish or whatever the force is called is very strong in our species it seems. Stronger than the forces that kept our species and all other species alive till now. Have we become too "smart" for our own survival? So "smart" that we do not know what life forms without neurons or brains seem to know universally? The lucky life forms. The ones unable to deny they act in subservience to the death wish. They "knew" the life wish from the dawn of life on earth itself. Way before the evolutions of neurons or brains or apples or even apple trees.
IDK for sure, but a lot off righties oppose socialized anything. Medicine, paid for by the public, rather than by private companies, is (to them) immoral. The tragic truth is that the cost is often borne by the public while the profits are privatized.
In the libertarian wet dream, all problems are slved by gifted individuals who are robbed by socialists. Progress in cancer research is made in laboratories by teams and those teams share results. It's not progress in the manner they were taught by Ayn Rand,
But I'm not sure if that's why Trump butchered cancer research.
I don't think that there was much thought in the decision that is worth wondering about, especially something built on reason or principle, even libertarian deep thought. I suspect that he could not figure out how to monetize it and there is some MAGIC cure that is being held back by the """elite""" to stick it to folks with "we the people" stickers on their pickup trucks.
I think the simplest explanation is that gutting cancer research would give the libs a sad — the only public policy goal they have is to "own the libs".
You got it. With the R's simple is best, like it would irritate the libs. Don't forget the grudge though. They swore when smoking was robbed from them that nothing like that would ever happen again. Those cancer people did that to them and revenge is needed.
The R's like addictions and monopolies. It is there stock in trade when they can get them. Tobacco was a great one and the cancer people queered it for them. Haters love grudges and they have one there, especially the southern ones.
Aide: "Sir, there's no such thing as stage 9 cancer."
DJT: "Thank you." "Biden has stage8 cancer."
Aide: "Sir, ditto stage 8 cancer. It only goes up to 4."
DJT: "You're fired."
One of my favorite cartoonists, Clay Bennett's latest – Have you noticed how handsome and smart President Trump is?