Karen Rachel Heckert

If there is one crucial lesson to learn from Hungary, it is this: You cannot defeat an authoritarian populist with a fragmented opposition. If you want to win, you must swallow your pride and unite behind a single candidate

To state the obvious (but being forgotten by many), we didn’t need to go to war to open the Strait of Hormuz. It was already open. To claim this outcome as a war achievement is paradoxical.

DOJ demanded voter files from all 50 states. DOJ sued 31 states for refusing their demand. My law firm intervened to protect voters in those cases. DOJ is now 0-5. My firm is 5-0. Lesson: When we fight we win.

War in the Middle East. ICE unleashing violence on our streets. Health care ripped away from millions. This is why the President is so desperate to suppress the vote.

If you paid $1 in federal income taxes this year, you paid more than: Walt Disney Citigroup CVS Kohl's Ticketmaster Tesla United Airlines GoDaddy Paypal Palantir Roku HP 3M PG&E Halliburton That’s absurd. We need real and progressive tax reform.

Thank you!

@EndTribalism He's lying. It did not have a 4 day test, and there was a placebo. Also, there's more than one Hep B vaccine. He doesn't mention that.

NATO is for mutual defense, not a blank check for fighting other people’s wars. Its essence is prevention, not intervention. The alliance was designed to deter conflict, not to seek it out.

At this rate, Trump is going to demand the Justice Department open a criminal investigation of the pope....Hello? Kudos to Pope Leo for his moral clarity — and for not backing down. robertreich.substack.com/p/leo

A retired lawyer in the U.S. was watching the news when he saw the story about the new Trump commemorative coin and something immediately didn't sit right with him. So he did what lawyers do. He went digging... And he found it. A federal law passed in 1866 that explicitly prohibits living people from appearing on U.S. currency. It's not a grey area. It's not open to interpretation. It's been sitting in the books for over 150 years. The last time this actually happened was 1926 when a coin featuring Calvin Coolidge was minted while he was still alive and serving as president. The backlash was immediate. The coins were pulled. And the law was reaffirmed... Now this retired lawyer has filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Mint not because of who is on the coin, but because the law says it simply cannot be done. Full stop... No political agenda. No protest. Just one guy, a dusty legal statute, and a federal case that nobody in Washington apparently saw coming

TODAY IS TAX DAY. HERE'S WHAT WARREN BUFFETT SAID ABOUT PAYING TAXES IN 2024 "Berkshire sent in a check for over $5 billion to the U.S. federal government last year." "If 800 other companies had done the same thing, no other person in the United States would have had to pay a dime of federal taxes. No income taxes. No Social Security taxes. No estate taxes. Nothing." "It doesn't bother me in the least to write that check. And I would really hope, with all that America has done for all of you, it shouldn't bother you that we do it."

Every time you manufacture vaccine doubt, a vaccine preventable disease returns. It was true for varicella, polio, and pertussis. It remains true for measles. Most pundits here don’t have to experience the consequences. Patients have to deal with the consequences.

Imagine beefing with the Pope all week and having your sycophants claim the Pope doesn't know the Bible only for one of your sycophants to come out here and quote a fake Bible verse from a movie. Embarrassing.

"I wanna get in and get out after a couple of terms. ... I want to get to the point where we have a normal functioning democracy again ... where the Michael Ashers, the Alex Boreses or the Jack Schlossbergs of the world can get elected, take my place, and get back to the ordinary stuff of legislating."

I don't believe that Donald Trump believes in much of anything. I don’t believe he has a moral core. In fact, I believe he holds people of faith in contempt. Religion for him is just one more tool in his toolbox to divide us in order to dominate us.

The sister of someone I grew up with was killed in a domestic violence situation, leaving her two year old without a mother. There were several times the police could’ve protected her and didn’t. In Texas, you cannot legally be granted a divorce if you are pregnant, even if you have been a victim of domestic violence. Also in Texas, protective orders are exceedingly hard to obtain, yet protective order violations are not enforced unless the violator just happens to be randomly apprehended during another law enforcement encounter, such as a traffic stop. 23 women in Texas have been killed in the last 3 years by a partner with an active warrant for a protective order violation. We do not protect women in this state, or this country. When I am elected, we will be one voice closer to that changing. I will be filing bills to address each one of these situations with solutions.

Trump's Budget Director admitted it: Trump & Republicans CHOSE to give big PERMANENT tax cuts to the rich, while the much smaller cuts for working Americans EXPIRE in 2 years. Their priorities are clear. We need a tax code that works for working people, not the super-rich.

BPD trains in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu-based arrest technique to decrease injuries, improve de-escalation wbaltv.com/article/bpd-br…

@blueboatmom @JeromeAdamsMD I worked for a doctor who was the first woman surgeon at Johns Hopkins Medical. She was outstanding in her field but had to stop operating because post-polio syndrome made it hard for her to stand. She went on to establish a surgical ICU unit, but it was a great loss for patients

@RachelHeckert @JeromeAdamsMD My mom got polio age 4. Affected her left lower leg. Many surgeries and various orthotics didn't save her from daily pain in walking but as many polio patients do, she was stoic and didn't let it stop or slow her down. Post polio weakened her- couldn't walk last 10 yrs of life.

Controversial take: Widespread vaccine acceptance wasn't driven by altruism… but by raw fear of diseases actually seen. The last generations to witness polio's iron lungs are in their 70s and 80s. Smallpox scars? Gone since the early 1970s. Today's parents have never watched a child paralyzed or disfigured by these preventable horrors. Until the memory - or reality - returns, winning hearts and minds will stay an uphill battle. Agree? 🤷🏽‍♂️