THEE 🪷 DAWN

My neighborhood in Berkeley has been celebrating all afternoon with an impromptu street party outside Kamala’s childhood home.

@brhodes Nope. Our VOTERS are the problem 1) Despite pundits and press having no guts to cover it without euphemistic language, various forms of bigotry motivate many voters 2) A too-low degree of literacy in civics & macroeconomics makes for audiences susceptible to slopulist promises

“Free Palestine.” I grew up on those words. In Lebanon, most people around me wanted a free Palestine for a very practical reason — to send the Palestinian refugees back. The civil war that tore my country apart was ignited in no small part by the Palestinian armed factions who turned Lebanon into their launching pad. “Free Palestine” meant: free us from them. In Damascus, where my father’s family lived, the sentiment was different but equally self-serving. Palestine must be returned to the Arabs, its righteous owners. No one asked follow-up questions. No one was expected to. Palestine was central to Islam, most Arabs are Muslim, therefore supporting the Palestinian cause was reflexive. A non-brainer in the most literal sense — no brain engaged at all. Nobody stopped to point out that Palestine is not an Arabic word. Nobody found it strange that Jerusalem, the supposedly third holiest city in Islam, is not mentioned once in the Quran. Not once. Nor is Palestine. The entire theological and political architecture of this cause rests on a foundation that their own scripture doesn’t bother to acknowledge. What was actually happening was indoctrination. A systematic, generational rejection of Jewish sovereignty — and frankly, of any minority sovereignty. Jews, Christians, Druze, Kurds, Assyrians, Yazidis — the Arab world has been remarkably consistent in how it treats people who are different. We just don’t talk about that. Instead, in the West, we talk about Palestine. In the West, a civilization that has elevated human rights to its highest moral currency, the Palestinian cause has become the one exception to every rule. In the queue of human suffering, Palestinians cut the line every time. Homosexuals executed in Gaza and hanged from cranes in Iran? Palestine first. Women imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for campaigning for the right to drive — a right they were denied until 2018 — girls sold into marriage in Afghanistan, women erased from public life entirely under the Taliban? After Palestine. Political dissidents ground into dust in Syrian and Egyptian prisons, journalists disappeared in Libya, children starving in Yemen while their rulers wage proxy wars, entire populations hollowed out by hunger in Sudan? All of it waits. Christians ethnically cleansed from Iraq and Syria, the Arab world methodically emptied of every Jewish community it once held — a demographic erasure carried out across a century with surgical patience and near-total Western silence? Palestine is still first. So let’s end where we started. Free Palestine. Which Palestine, exactly? The Roman invention? The British administrative line? The British Mandate covered the entire territory of what is today Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and Jordan. In 1921, 78% of that mandate was handed to the Hashemite family — a dynasty imported from Hijaz in present-day Saudi Arabia — and became the Kingdom of Jordan, which it remains to this day. A foreign royal family, on the majority of historic Palestine, ruling it as a monarchy. Nobody protests that. No flags, no chants, no encampments. The remaining 22% was designated for the Jews, became Israel, and is the only part that any pro-Palestinian activist has ever had a problem with. So when you say Free Palestine, you mean that 22%. You mean the Jews. And free it from whom? From a people with a three-thousand-year-old documented presence in that land, to restore the glory of a name coined by Roman colonizers, a name lifted from the Torah, a name that has no roots in Arabic, no mention in the Quran, and no history as a sovereign state? You are not chanting for liberation. You are chanting for colonialism — the Roman kind, repackaged for social media. Free Palestine is not a cause. It is a colonial term, coined by invaders, recycled by the indoctrinated. The least you can do is have the intelligence to understand it and the decency to reflect on your position. 📍#Israel

The FDA just gutted the rules that keep flavored vapes and high-nicotine pouches off our kids' shelves. The science has not changed. The danger to children has not changed. What changed? On April 30, Reynolds American, the tobacco giant behind Camel and Lucky Strike, cut a $5 million check to a Trump super PAC. Two days later, Reynolds executives sat down for lunch with Donald Trump at his golf club to complain about FDA vape regulations.  Trump reportedly interrupted the meal to call the FDA Commissioner directly. Less than a week later, the FDA reversed course, opened the door to fruit-flavored vapes, and let companies sell unauthorized nicotine products while applications are still pending. The FDA Commissioner resigned days after. This is corruption, pure and simple. Nearly 90 percent of the 1.6 million middle and high schoolers who vape use flavored products. Nicotine before age 25 rewires the developing brain, worsens anxiety and depression, and hooks kids fast. We know this. The FDA knew this. And they did it anyway. A Secretary who claims to care about chronic disease just helped Big Tobacco addict the next generation. If you want to know who this administration works for, look at who writes the checks. wapo.st/4wGG8Wa

A peer-reviewed study found Black patients matched with Black doctors were 27% less likely to die in the hospital. A separate study found Black residents live longer in counties with more Black primary care physicians. “Find A Black Doctor” exists because the disparities are real

Putin didn't invade Ukraine because of NATO. He invaded because Ukrainians were proving democracy works. Historian and Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum puts it plainly: Putin looked at Ukraine's democratic movement and thought, "If they can do it in Ukraine, then people could do it in Russia. So I need to crush this." That's the real threat Ukraine posed. Not missiles. Not borders. A working democracy next door. Applebaum frames the war as a fault line between the democratic and autocratic worlds. Russia isn't just trying to take territory. It's trying to erase Ukraine as a nation, reduce it to a colony, and send a message to every country that the post-1945 rules of Europe no longer apply. Those rules were simple: no invasions, no wars, borders don't change by force. Russia understood exactly what it was breaking when it crossed into Ukraine.

Not getting enough attention: the one-page order from Todd Blanche to wipe out every audit of Donald Trump. Many experts believe it’s illegal, and here’s why. Federal law prohibits the President or his aides from directing or halting an IRS audit. Agents who carry out a politically motivated audit, or stop one at the direction of the White House, can face prison time. That is the statute on the books. Now look at what just happened. Todd Blanche, the Acting Attorney General and Donald Trump’s former personal criminal defense lawyer, signed a one-page order demanding the IRS drop every existing audit of Trump, his family, and their “affiliates.” One of those audits reportedly could have cost Trump more than $100 million. The Treasury Department’s top lawyer resigned over it. The acting top IRS lawyer had to recuse himself because he previously represented Trump in his tax cases. There is no precedent for an Attorney General ordering an end to audits of a group of taxpayers. Many experts say the Attorney General has no authority to do this. So we have a likely illegal order, signed by the President’s former lawyer, on behalf of the President, protecting the President. And the only people with jurisdiction to investigate it work for the President. I will fight this with every tool I have.

NEW: Multiple ICE warehouses were sold by people in Trump's circle who were sitting on the properties and losing money. We dug into it, and found that some properties were bought by the feds for 10x their list price. It's a new level of corruption — and you're paying for it.

This administration has just turned nearly 2 billion dollars of taxpayer money into a political slush fund — paying off insurrectionists and cop beaters with public money Trump personally controls and which the public will not be able to see. The message is unmistakable: loyalty is protected, disloyalty is punished. That’s why scandals that would have destroyed previous administrations simply evaporate now. Instead, nothing happens. The institutions responsible for enforcing accountability are now staffed, controlled, or intimidated by people whose first priority is loyalty to Trump.

That’s the real lesson here. Democrats can want him stopped. Independents can want him stopped. The entire world can want Trump stopped and none of it matters if Republicans refuse to help. Trump has now spent years proving that if you cross him publicly, he will come for you. Primary challenge. Online mob. Donor retaliation. Conservative media humiliation. Political exile.

They didn't want to award the Capitol Police a medal or a plaque but want to reward the people who orchestrated and took part in the violence that injured me and ended my career. In the name of national reconciliation, they pardoned the same rioters who attacked us and now being rewarded for the violence they inflicted on us the officers. They are trying to make the lives of the rioters whole or better than before they assaulted us. Yet to the officers, no apology, no compensation, no acknowledgment of the bravery and sacrifice we made to protect “each of your representatives” regardless of what party they belong. Why did we risk our lives for then? What a betrayal this is to us and to the rule of law days after “police week”.

This New York Times piece is worth your time. Here’s what is happening, as simply as I can put it. Back in January, Trump sued the IRS, an agency he controls, demanding $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns a number of years ago. IRS lawyers did their jobs. They wrote a memo laying out the defenses that could beat the suit, including the fact that Trump filed too late. His own lawyer was in court when the leaker pleaded guilty in October 2023, more than two years before Trump sued. The Justice Department never showed up to court. Never argued back. Never used the defenses sitting on their desk. The judge got suspicious and ordered both sides to explain whether they were actually opposing each other or just colluding. The day before that brief was due, Trump dropped the suit. Same day, his Justice Department announced a $1.776 billion taxpayer-funded “anti-weaponization fund.”  Trump gets a formal apology. The IRS agrees to drop any audits of him and his family, even though a 2024 Times report found a loss in an ongoing audit could cost him over $100 million. The acting Attorney General, Trump’s former criminal defense attorney, picks the five commissioners who decide who gets paid. Trump can fire any of them. Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are not ruled out. This is the most corrupt thing I’ve ever seen from an American president. Where in the hell are my Republican colleagues? nytimes.com/2026/05/19/adm…

Reminder: Long COVID's disability & suffering will be the pandemic's most devastating long-term global legacy. Neither GBD supporters nor critics anticipated its scale or included it in their policy calculus -and “let er rip” strategies prioritizing widespread exposure clearly worsen the toll. Millions affected, with real costs in lives and productivity (on top of 20 million direct deaths globally, which we should never forget or minimize). nature.com/articles/s4385…

The crazy part about this Yale thing is that it just shows folks are going to complain about black people whether they meet the metric or not. It’s sad but not surprising. Through this whole thing we figured out that Yale admits about 10 black students per year. We also learned the median GPA and MCAT of black students admitted to Yale was a 3.88 and 518 MCAT. (These are insanely good scores for anyone. ) For those of you that don’t know Median means half have higher half have lower. Therefore 5 of out of the 10 or 50% had a HIGHER GPA and MCAT than 3.88 and 518. Hopefully the merit crew can all agree without question on their admission. Now, about the 5 that had lower. Many would argue as they have in my comments for the last 3 days “these are the people taking Someone else’s spot” But is that true compared to the data from the rest of the class? This table here shows the latest available data showing MCAT and GPA of all accepted students at Yale. It shows that of those accepted 60 had greater than a 518 MCAT and 56 had less than 518. So 52% had above and 48% had below a 518. Remember the split was 50/50 for black students. This is not a statistically significant difference in entrance standards. Nearly half of Yale’s entering class that year had an MCAT of less than 518. Only 5 out of the 56 who did were black. The other 51 were white students, Asian students etc. There were 10 students who applied with > 518 who didn’t receive admission. Why is the merit of the 51 from those groups who did get admissions not being called into question. Why is nobody saying that they stole someone else’s seat. Why is it that the merit calculator only comes out when the student is black student whether they reached that 95 percentile mark or not. Why are they only ones being scrutinized? Thats what I have an issue with. Either we scrutinize every student that got in below that mark, all 56 of them, or we admit the scrutiny was never really about merit. You have to Pick one. The reality is the admissions process is about so much more than just MCAT and GPA. If someone writes in your letter of recommendation that you’re the rudest most pompous person they’ve ever come in contact with you’re not going to get in. If you cannot hold a conversation in an interview and you are extremely awkward, you are not going to get in. physicians have to be smart yes but they also should be personable,compassionate, professional , empathetic and if you can’t show that through your letters, your activities, your personal statement, your interview because all you can do well is answer multiple-choice questions you are not going to get in and this goes for everyone black white whatever. A 528 means nothing if you can’t look a scared patient in the eye and make them feel safe. Admissions committees know that. Patients know that. The only people who don’t seem to know it are the ones counting other people’s scores instead of building their own résumés.

A year ago I warned what would happen if the U.S. tore down our disease detection system around the world With Hantavrirus and now a very concerning Ebola outbreak in DR Congo, we are seeing VERY clearly what we’ve lost. And why it matters. Read my @TheAtlantic piece from a year ago outlining what happened, and follow along as I continue to cover these issues in the coming days. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Black folks are the progressives y’all claim to be. Been that way for decades.

It is amazing how little the press is willing to dissect US decline under Trump. The US got no help with Iran, was scolded on Taiwan, says it got a small Boeing deal (China has not confirmed) and Trump appeased on Chinese students, microchips, etc. Xi even insulted US power. And yet it is being reported as a modest successful event. It was a strategic failure by the US and marks a notable moment in US decline.

America is eating its young. We’re a nation built on the greatness of our research universities, it’s what gave us the Manhattan Project, victory in the Cold War, over HIV/AIDS. Our future depends on a robust NextGen of scientists. But we traded it for wellness influencers, climate denialists, and phony MAHA ideologies that more resemble a twisted Lysenko version of Stalinist Russia in the 1930s and 40s

The Supreme Court is not even pretending to be impartial anymore. Republicans can redistrict but Democrats can’t.

Nonsense. We have half dozen papers in our best scientific journals, Cell, Science, Nature, detailing the evidence for zoonotic spillover of SARS-2, happening just like SARS-1, MERS coronaviruses, and not a single scientific paper, nor even plausible mechanism for GOF lab leak

Man F**k the confederacy. 🖕🏾😫 These racists are not going away until we VOTE them away. They are redrawing maps because they know we coming in force to VOTE. Black vs. racism. Plain and simple. They fear Black turnout more than anything else. That’s why they suppress votes, redraw districts, close polling places, and fight so hard to control who gets represented. The answer is not silence. The answer is organization. The answer is registration. The answer is turnout. Every election. Every time. No excuses.