Middleboro Review and so on

  July All-Access Special: For a limited time, you can lock in 40% off your subscription—just $6/month—to ensure you never miss a premium article or member-only podcast episode again. Get unfiltered, deep-dive political analysis from the sharpest strategists in the game when you upgrade now for just 16 cents per day! RFK Jr.'s Summer Sh*t Show Americans want straight answers about the cyclosporiasis outbreak, but the nation’s top health official is too busy talking about orange juice and TikTok. Jennifer Schulze Jul 28 ∙ Guest post Jennifer Schulze is a longtime Chicago journalist. She’s on Bluesky @newsjennifer.bsky.social . Subscribe to her Substack, Indistinct Chatter Going to the grocery store these days is a nightmare. Almost everything costs more than it did the week before, and now you also have to worry about whether explosive diarrhea-causing parasites are infecting the fruit and vegetables for sale in the produce section. I went to three grocery stores near my home th...

Who DOGE Hurts: Gutting NOAA Joyce Vance On March 12,  there was reporting  that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was preparing to lay off more than 1,000 workers as part of the Trump administration's "reductions in force" directive to federal agencies. Cuts like that call into question whether NOAA will continue to provide the early warnings and predictive modeling that help people prepare for weather emergencies in advance. People who live in hurricane and tornado country keep their “NOAA weather radios” handy, and they are especially important for events that occur, as they frequently do, when most of us are asleep. In theory, it sounds like one more bad thing to worry about. In practice, it’s much worse. We’ve just had a demonstration of precisely how effective NOAA is and what we stand to lose without it. Beginning on Friday, violent, long-track tornadoes with damaging winds of up to 80 mph and large hail materialized across the Midwest and ...

Dispatches of alarm and hope, on politics and society, democracy and justice. Because silence is not an option. We may read and write alone, but we drive change together. A Lawless President's Contempt The crisis facing our democracy is escalating. How long will the courts and the people stand for it? Steven Beschloss Mar 17 In the courtroom where he was convicted of 34 felony counts last May. (Photo by Justin Lane via Getty Images So 77 million Americans voted for  a vengeful convicted felon who’s pursued a life of crime and promised he’d exploit the presidency for retribution. No one should be surprised that this sociopath, provided near-total immunity by the U.S. Supreme Court if elected again, is now acting in an utterly lawless manner. The crisis to our constitutional democracy and the rule of law is escalating. The evidence is mounting, as the Trump regime defies court orders meant to check its power. Two deportation cases in the last few days underscore their belief that the...