Totally, and I get that. I think it’s just important to be very careful with the phrasing of that joke to make sure it doesn’t accidentally imply there’s a chance the association could be there, when we know for certain it is not.

I get the joke and what they’re saying, the only thing that slightly rubs me the wrong way about this kind of joke (I’d rather my kid have autism than be dead) is that it still implies there’s a chance vaccines could cause autism. When in reality the fact that vaccines have absolutely nothing to do with autism is the single most certain fact we know about autism. Get a vaccine or don’t, they’re equally likely to get autism or not, shown time and time and time again.

In their anti vax dream world ravaged by polio and measles and many other preventable diseases, kids dying of respiratory failure and encephalitis, or getting life long disabilities, guess what? Exactly as much autism as before. There’d probably be more, since congenital rubella (the r in mmr) back when it was more common was documented as a potential cause of autism in some individuals, and is prevented by vaccines.

Just for added context, the NIH is the largest funder of medical research in the United States by far. This is absolutely devastating to medical research across the entire country, and the world considering how sprawling and interconnected many of these projects are. This is money that was by law supposed to be distributed to researchers doing important work across the country and internationally, on everything from Alzheimers to cancer to ALS. This will mean the closure of many labs, interrupted and halted clinical trials, many scientists, technicians and coordinators being laid off, and many young scientists never even getting the chance to get their career of the ground. The breadth of the damage from this blatantly illegal sequestration of funds is difficult to describe.

Edit: Headline was changed shortly after I posted this. Decision was so horrific even they reversed themselves after only hours. Even without this things are still bad at NIH though and with medical research funding, so please keep talking to anyone you can about supporting medical research and stopping republicans from destroying it.

How about just 0 and 1? They didn’t specify what base.

He’s already killed a lot of people.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/07/how-rfk-jr-falsely-denied-his-connection-to-a-deadly-measles-outbreak-in-samoa/

"And she seethed at the idea that anyone would question the citizenship of a former federal employee with the “whitest name you could have.”

/sigh

Also she’s still voting for the republicans despite their attempt to disenfranchise her (and millions of other eligible voters)

This isn’t something that gets done like after a few hours or a day or something. It takes quite some time to get through cooling protocols, warming again, complete all the testing, geting everything stable. Talking like a week plus at the quickest. And cranial nerve reflexes are just one thing of many different tests done. And to boot, it sounds like from the article they knew he had cranial nerve reflexes, which anyone halfway competent should know, means there is certainly not brain death. Really want to know what this hospital was doing that they messed up so badly.

Really want to know exactly who declared brain death? For instance in the article the family talks about seeing eye movements and being told they’re "just reflexes."Yeah that may be, but reflexes involving the eyes are cranial nerve reflexes, they go through the brain. There can’t be brain death if they are there. That’s a brain function. Testing to make sure all cranial nerve reflexes are absent (gag, apnea, vestibular, etc) is one of the basic pieces of brain death testing.

There’s a lot of confusion in popular media between brain death and persistent vegetative state. In a persistent vegetative state there’s still many brain functions going, but troubles maintaining consciousness. Brain death testing when properly done there is extensive testing done by a neurologist or someone with a similar background to show no brain function at all remains before it can be declared brain death, no matter how basic, even the simplest of brain reflexes. It’s not just one test but a whole series of testing with different modalities.

Would really like to know what happened here to cause such a colossal mess. Or nearly did, the doctors stopped before doing anything at least.

Polling errors are not predictable beforehand. If they were, we wouldn’t have polling errors. In 2022 for instance there was polling error in favor of democrats not against (or at least too much emphasis on polls with errors in Republican favor).

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/31/us/politics/polling-election-2022-red-wave.html

We can’t know the electorate beforehand, so poll weighting and deciding who is a likely voter is always going to involve some guesswork. So the opposite of what you say is true as well, if there is a small polling error that overstates Trump’s support it would have Kamala sweeping every swing state.

But the polls show a close election, all we can do is do our best to do things that help her win. Like voting early to make sure our vote gets in no matter what, encouraging people we know to register and vote, volunteering, canvassing, donating, etc.

Also important to know, if democrats take back the house, Johnson would no longer be speaker at the time the presidential election is certified. It’s the next congress, not the current one, that will certify the vote. New congress is seated on January 3rd 2025, and the presidential election certification is on January 6th 2025.

“The charges include market manipulation, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and wire fraud, which can lead to sentences of up to 20 years”

SEC also has a press release

https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2024-166

I hate these hyperbolic headlines describing some tiny poll movement in a single poll well within the margin of error, describing it a some definitive clear change in support.

Here’s the times sienna poll today for instance, another high quality pollster, where she went from tied to now 3% ahead and is leading for the first time in that poll since July.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4921203-kamala-harris-donald-trump-national-new-york-times-poll/

If the race is truly a 3 point gap right now, and the margin of error is plus or minus 4 percent, you’re going to see polls with her everywhere from one behind to 7 ahead. It’s a bad idea to hyper scrutinize or draw big conclusions from tiny changes in one poll.

This is why we so desperately need the voting rights act back. It used to be that changes like this required pre clearance before taking effect, and any challenges be worked out before hand.

Another terrible supreme court decision courtesy conservatives/Republicans who don’t respect the right to vote.

So the model image you posted above there says it’s more likely that Trump wins the election than it is flipping two heads in a row while flipping a coin. This is saying it’s less likely for Trump to win than Hillary to win, but something that could fairly easily happen still. These aren’t poll numbers, where 70-30 would be a massive blow out. This is a 30% chance of winning for Trump, closer to a coin flip than a sure thing.

A lot of other models were saying something ridiculous like Clinton had 95% chance to win or something. Nate Silver’s model seems better than others based on this, if anything.

Unfortunately the interest rate is specifically set by law and tied to 10 year treasury bill rates. This cannot be altered with an executive action, would need congress to change the law.

https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/loans/interest-rates#who-sets

That’s why the executive orders are focused on things like minimum payments, how long it takes to get forgiveness, who qualifies, etc, because the laws give the department of education more latitude to adjust those things (or are supposed to at least, weird rulings from republican judges notwithstanding).

It wasn’t the same thing, all three of them were different plans using different justifications based on different laws. One was a blanket forgiveness based on laws allowing for adjustments of student loans in emergencies. One is need based or other circumstance based forgiveness based on a much earlier law giving the department of education wide latitude to make adjustments. And one was adjustments to the income based repayment plans based on the laws establishing those (this has happened many times in the past, such as the establishment of the PAYE and REPAYE plans).

It’s especially egregious that judges are blocking the SAVE plan, as many similar adjustments have been made to income based repayment plans previously with no one taking any issue.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-issues-new-batch-of-sanctions-targeting-west-bank-settlers-amid-rampant-violence/

You can say it’s not enough if you want, but you can’t say it’s nothing. Certainly gets Netanyahu upset at least.

The “pro family” party everyone. Don’t forget their other greatest hits like, kidnapping children of immigrants and not keeping records of who they were kidnapping them from, making reuniting them with their families ever again difficult to impossible.

Absolutely despicable. How do these people sleep at night?

Would love an electric hatch back. Wish they’d bring more of them to the US.