Notices by Gregg Gonsalves (gregggonsalves@med-mastodon.com)

“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.” https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/a-carnival-of-destruction-2024-11-17#:~:text=It%20is%20for%20this%20reason,best%20guarantee%20of%20their%20loyalty.%E2%80%9D

How to survive the broligarchy: 20 lessons for the post-truth world.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/17/how-to-survive-the-broligarchy-20-lessons-for-the-post-truth-world-donald-trump

RFK Jr.'s involvement in this tragedy needs to be more widely known. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/measles-in-samoa/

“We forget what this country was like 50 years ago – how many children died every year from polio, pertussis, measles.
We’re going to see the return of diseases we have controlled for decades and with that many additional severe illnesses in hospitals and deaths – and that’s just from the rhetoric, not even withdrawing vaccines.”
-Dr Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

The New York Post, no bastion of elite woke liberalism, comes out swinging against the RFK Jr. nomination for HHS. https://nypost.com/2024/11/14/opinion/putting-rfk-jr-in-charge-of-health-breaks-the-first-rule-of-medicine/

Under the new administration, we are likely to see significant attacks on core public health functions in the United States. We need to organize coast-to-coast to figure out how to stem the damage and keep our communities safe and healthy. https://forms.gle/jSLhZXmma4YihfFH6

“What kind of ancestors do we want to be? With every action or inaction, we help decide how the future will unfold. What principles and commitments do we want to adopt for a democracy that doesn't yet exist? How will we cast our votes for a society we won't live to see?”

Dear Donald Trump. You did try to kill the Affordable Care Act. In July 2017, 31 of us got arrested in the Senate Gallery trying to stop the motion to proceed. The ACA was spared by John McCain's no vote. You're a liar and hazardous to our nation's health. https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/25/politics/senate-gallery-protesters-health-care/index.html

My Yale colleague Timothy Snyder on not obeying in advance, the decision of the wealthy and powerful, including the owners of the Washington Post and LA Times to capitulate now and what it means for the rest of us. https://snyder.substack.com/p/obeying-in-advance?r=dwh6t&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&timestamp=219.9&triedRedirect=true

The #WashingtonPost and #LATimes will go down in infamy for their cowardly decisions to forgo a presidential endorsement this year. Let’s be clear. This is appeasement of authoritarianism. It is obeying in advance. It is cowardice.

I’ve been waiting for the New York Times to post the story on its homepage about Donald Trump‘s call to have the military deal with internal enemies the past few hours even if it’s shown up in other media. I am still waiting.

Can't believe I had to write this. But given the upswing in anti-vax sentiment in the US and the low vaccination rates for COVID and flu (and the under-vaccination of kids for some infections), it has to be said loud and clear. Vaccines work. Get yours today. https://www.thenation.com/article/society/vaccines-work/

So Trump and Vance are inciting violence, stochastic terrorism to be more exact, in Springfield, OH. All this is being covered as just another of Trump’s “upending norms”. Schools and hospitals have shuttered due to bomb threats. What has to happen for the press to wake up and call this what it is?

I need to vent. This racist is spreading lies about HIV and Haitians like it's the 1980s, AND when he went back to Ohio after Yale Law School, started a sham charity to fight the opioid epidemic (which has resulted in, well, guess what? HIV outbreaks including in OH). He has not one single shred of human decency. https://www.advocate.com/election/jd-vance-haitian-hiv-stigma

I cannot even believe this misinformation coming out of the Florida Department of Health. This is just beyond the pale. They are discouraging the use of mRNA COVID vaccines. This is beyond irresponsible. It is malpractice.

https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/FLDOH/bulletins/3b56786

Read this piece. It's about misrecognition and denial. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-moral-failings-of-american-press-coverage-of-nazi-germany

Live from New York.

#whitedudesforharris has raised over $2M for VP Harris as "The Dude" himself, Jeff Bridges comes on to support her candidacy!

So, JD Vance is being mercilessly mocked this week, but he represents a real threat to the fight against the opioid epidemic in the US. ~80,000 people died from an opioid overdose in 2023. JD Vance could very well make this worse. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/jd-vance-opioid-crisis-vice-president/

The best piece I've read on #JDVance is by @gabrielwinant. Could not be more timely. Read it. https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-45/politics/j-d-vance-changes-the-subject-2/