News chunks: MAGA hides important truth; COVID science & MAGA update

ITEP (Institute of Taxation & Economic Policy) posted an interesting article about an obscure topin of very high personal interest, namely hiding the truth. ITEP's article, Dismantling Access to the Truth is a Big Deal, says that MAGA hiding truth from the public is a big deal. This may seem boring as hell, but boring or not, this is damned important. (which is probably why our crappy, complicit MSM isn't reporting it properly)

ITEP point out the the standard partly true talking point. It says that a democratic society cannot make good decisions without knowing how prior decisions turned out, assessing the current situation, or developing reasonable predictions. Ah yes, the fantasy of the American democracy. An informed public? That ain't gonna happen.

Anyway, frustrated ranting aside, here's what's important. Elite MAGA thugs have blocked public access to all reliable, comprehensive, non-partisan federal datasets. That includes the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, historical data tables from Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income, economic reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, scoring from the Joint Committee on Taxation, and Congressional Budget Office analyses. 

Aw, that's cute, a bullshitted baby

The ITEP article points out that federal data is used as a stable reference point to calibrate analyses by lots of non-governmental organizations and businesses. Everyone worked from the same information, which was as reliable as possible and non-partisan. The data had been produced by non-partisan experts acting in good faith who understood their job was to be as accurate as possible. Now everyone is in the dark. We will get bullshit from incompetent, corrupt MAGA thugs. They will insult us with Trump's false, bullshit version of reality. We're going to get MAGAed on good and hard. That is here despite the damage to American society, our economy and our democracy MAGAfication will cause. 

 

Aw, ain't that cute,

he's been MAGAed on

As ITEP  feebly complains, "the current threats to that [producing reliable data] are inexcusable." Inexcusable? No shit Sherlock! Attaboy ITEP, you give 'em hell! 👍👏 /s

Who could have possibly seen this colossal, cynical stupidity coming?

Pretty much everyone paying any attention. Here is my first prediction out of seven from Nov. 13, 2024:

1. Federal data collection functions will be (i) stopped entirely, or (ii) almost completely kept from the public, and spun into lies when the data is inconvenient. (That was a Ronald Reagan tactic -- I think he invented it)

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The BMJ, an highly respected publisher of biomedical research, published some research about an odd biological effect of COVID infections on the immune system in a paper, Why scientists are rethinking the immune effects of SARS-CoV-2. What is now clear is that a COVID infection often causes varying degrees of loss of immune memory of, or functioning against, past infections or pathogen exposures. The severity of immune response loss varies from person to person and from pathogen to pathogen. But in general most people after a COVID infection lose some or most of their ability to ward off new infections by one or more pathogens.

As is usual these days with MAGA and inconvenient science, there is a political, weaponized poison dart. As time passed in the COVID pandemic, doctors started seeing a rise in non-COVID infections, including rare infections in healthy people and children. Researchers came up with the "immune debt" concept. Immune debt hypothesized that increasing infections were caused by COVID lockdowns. In lockdowns children didn't normally encounter various pathogens as they normally would. That was hypothesized to prevent children from developing normal immunity without getting an observable infection. Those normal, very mild infections are called subclinical infections. That was real science in 2021. 

But then came cynical, radical right authoritarian demagoguery. Once MAGA demagogues became aware of the immune debt hypothesis, they sunk their filthy, lying demagogue claws into it and weaponized it. MAGA used the hypothesis to criticize and help authoritarian confuse the public about most everything related to COVID infection, research, treatment and prevention. Their demagoguery got some innocent people killed. Now, several years later, the BMJ paper points out that the immune debt hypothesis is falling out of favor among real doctors and scientists. 

The BMJ paper comments on the lingering effect of MAGA poison, calling it an awkwardness or hostility to less convenient explanations for the rare infections after a COVID infection:

Long covid remains a hot topic among the public and researchers and has certainly raised awareness of postviral disease. Yet there persists an awkwardness, even a hostility, when it comes to the idea of SARS-CoV-2 undermining immune health.

Clearly, the idea of COVID (SARS-CoV-2) undermining immune health is something that MAGA elites and demagogues do not want to talk about. It's too inconvenient. It makes past government efforts to deal with the pandemic look mostly like reasonable public health measures. Instead, MAGA demagoguery needs to portray anti-COVID measures as evil, lying, socialist, pedophile tyranny by Democrats. 

The current science thinking is that a COVID damages or suppresses the immune cells needed to keep a pathogen exposure from progressing to a clinically observable infection. There's no name given to this concept in the BMJ paper, but it uses terms like (1) immunity disruption, (2) immunity reset, which hypothesizes that COVID causes effects reminiscent of measles, which can cause immune amnesia, (3) immune system scar, or (4) immune dysfunction. But the point is the immune debt hypothesis that cruel MAGA demagogues love to demagogue the public with probably isn't what is going on.

There's no solid data I could find about how common the decreased immune effects are after COVID infections. Pxy estimates a 5-25% range for immune damage in normal people and a 40-50% range for immunocompromised people, but those are just rough estimates.

Q: Does Germaine have MDS (MAGA Derangement Syndrome), or are MAGA politics and policy really as bad as Germaine argues they are? 

A Reckoning Within: Israeli Voices Confront Genocide in Gaza

 

A profound crisis has emerged within Israeli and global Jewish discourse regarding the ongoing war in Gaza. Far beyond the simplistic frame of “Israeli views vs. outsiders,” leading Israeli human rights organizations, scholars, former military leaders, and ex-prime ministers have joined a growing chorus describing Israeli state policy as constituting genocide and crimes against humanity, while international bodies and NGOs reinforce these charges with rich documentation. This debate exposes a rift at the heart of Israeli society and Judaism, challenging the “New Antisemitism” narrative—promoted in the U.S. and elsewhere—that treats genocide accusation as itself anti-Jewish. In reality, this is now a deeply intra-Jewish and intra-Israeli confrontation with profound moral, historical, and political consequences.

Israeli Human Rights Organizations and Political Leaders

B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel have issued unprecedented reports and public testimony alleging the Israeli government’s coordinated, deliberate actions to destroy Palestinian society in Gaza and systematically attack its health infrastructure. Their leaders, Yuli Novak and Guy Shalev, cite the UN Genocide Convention and other international legal standards, drawing on extensive firsthand research and evidence from the ground. Former Major General and Knesset member Yair Golan has likewise warned of moral catastrophe and collective punishment, using language previously reserved for academic circles.

Ehud Olmert, former prime minister, published landmark op-eds describing Israel’s war in Gaza as “exterminationist” and denouncing the construction of concentration camps in the Strip, warning of ICJ and ICC prosecution and pariah status for Israel. His condemnation goes beyond critique of Netanyahu, instead indicting the governing ethos and societal complicity. Ehud Barak, another former PM, has characterized Israel as a global pariah and called for nonviolent civil resistance against the government, showing how centrist and center-right figures now voice outrage.

Genocide Scholars and Expert Testimony

Amos Goldberg and Omer Bartov, preeminent Israeli genocide historians, have both changed their positions over the course of the war. Goldberg’s January 2025 video declared Gaza a genocide based on the Raphael Lemkin definition and the convergence of intent and pattern. Bartov, originally cautious, published a widely read New York Times op-ed in July 2025 citing direct evidence of genocidal intent, citing statements from Israel’s top officials and the systematic destruction and deprivation in Gaza. Importantly, Bartov’s public conclusion marks a major shift, as he is Israeli-born, a former IDF officer, and a global authority on genocide; his conversion exposes the depth of the crisis among Jewish intellectual elites.

Shael Ben-Ephraim, an Israeli academic and international law specialist, underwent a dramatic reversal and now documents genocide and concentration camp policies in Gaza, tying decades of territorial fragmentation, denial of Palestinian identity, and state violence to the present moment. Scholars such as Dirk Moses, Raz Segal, Melanie O’Brien, and others amplify this consensus, applying the legal and historical frameworks of genocide studies to the case of Gaza, and pointing out that the patterns in Israeli policy fit not only legal criteria, but also philosophical and historical models of group extermination.

International Human Rights Community

By the end of 2024, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch had condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, collecting extensive documentation of physical destruction, intentional starvation, attacks on civilian infrastructure, and government policies. Amnesty’s material is especially detailed, offering both legal analysis and humanitarian impact reports that have become key sources for journalists, diplomats, and tribunals worldwide.

New Antisemitism, US Policy, and Repression of Protest

Despite this mounting evidence and the unambiguous public stands of so many Israeli Jews—including top government and military leaders, genocide scholars, and human rights professionals—the US mainstream media and most American politicians persist in presenting genocide accusations largely as expressions of antisemitism, with protesters routinely branded as antisemites. The “New Antisemitism” ethos justifies aggressive surveillance, sanctions, and punishment. University students and foreign nationals lose visas, are detained or deported, and placed on watchlists for protest. UN personnel—Francesca Albanese, Karim Khan, UNRWA officials—have been sanctioned for public statements and investigation, their motives attacked rather than their evidence engaged.

The Intra-Israeli and Intra-Jewish Crisis

These facts reveal a glaring rift between the official narrative of antisemitic motivation and the reality of agonized dissent inside Israel and the Jewish community. Many leading voices specialize in the very fields—genocide, Holocaust history, international humanitarian law, and Jewish ethics—whose insights have global legitimacy. Several have served in the IDF, the Knesset, and Israeli government at the highest levels. Few controversies in modern Jewish history have involved so public an admission of criminality and moral crisis by prominent insiders.

As Rabbi Ismar Schorsch argues, the crisis is theological as well as political. He warns that continued violence will leave Judaism itself “riddled with hypocrisy and contradictions,” severing the covenant and leaving future generations to bear the burden of silence and complicity. Schorsch’s voice, alongside Goldberg and Bartov, underscores the distinctly religious and ethical dimension of the trauma.

Conclusion

It is no longer credible to cast the genocide debate as a clash between outsiders and Israeli society—a binary that never captured reality and is now obsolete. Instead, the voices condemning Israel’s war as war crime, ethnic cleansing, and genocide include the chief actors in the history and destiny of the Jewish State. The drive to suppress or punish protest, branding it antisemitism, stands fundamentally at odds with the testimony of Israeli Jews from across the political and intellectual spectrum, who themselves are wrestling—often in public agony—with the meaning of Jewish ethics, historical memory, and the survival of justice through a period of profound darkness.

The world must now recognize this is a serious intra-Israeli and intra-Jewish moral reckoning, one that challenges the future not only of Israel and Palestine but of Jewish history and conscience itself.

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Endnotes

1. B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel, CNN Amanpour interview and public reports, July 2025, transcript here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNJbNCCejvg&t=515s

2. United Nations, “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” 1948. https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/documents/about-genocide/Genocide%20Convention-EN.pdf

3. Ehud Olmert, “Enough is Enough: Israel is Committing War Crimes,” Haaretz op-ed, May 27, 2025. https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2025-05-27/ty-article-opinion/.premium/enough-is-enough-israel-is-committing-war-crimes/00000197-0dd6-df85-a197-0ff64a5c0000

4. Ehud Olmert interview, CNN International, July 14, 2025.

5. WSWS, “Former Israeli Prime Minister Olmert denounces Gaza ‘humanitarian’ plan,” July 14, 2025. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/07/15/hitj-j15.html

6. Al Jazeera Liberties, “Olmert Draws Stark Parallels Between Israel's 'Humanitarian City' Plan and Concentration Camp,” July 16, 2025. https://liberties.aljazeera.com/en/olmert-draws-stark-parallels-between-israels-humanitarian-city-plan-and-concentration-camp/

7. Amos Goldberg, video testimony, January 2025; transcript here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKkiKvn2Zt0&t=1s and an more recent statement from July, 2025 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy1pmFu-goM&t=15s

8. Omer Bartov, “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It,” New York Times, July 15, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/opinion/israel-gaza-holocaust-genocide-palestinians.html

9. Raz Segal, “A Textbook Case of Genocide,” Jewish Currents, April 2024.

10. Dirk Moses et al., statements in Bartov NYT op-ed; Melanie O’Brien, International Association of Genocide Scholars publications.

11. Bartov op-ed; Segal, Moses, Schabas, Shaw referenced as developing academic consensus.

12. Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, “A Hard Tisha B’Av,” JASS Berlin, July 6, 2025. https://www.jassberlin.org/post/a-hard-tisha-b-av-rabbi-dr-ismar-schorschchancellor-emeritusjewish-theological-seminary-7-6-2025

13. Shael Ben-Ephraim, “I Used To Say Israel Was Not Committing A Genocide In Gaza—I Was Wrong. This is Why,” The Grand Scheme/ Substack, May 1, 2025. https://shaielbenephraim.substack.com/

14. Israeli government statements on self-defense and rejection of genocide charges, see Ministry of Foreign Affairs and IDF spokesperson; referenced passages in Bartov NYT op-ed.

15. Amnesty International, “Israel’s Conduct in Gaza Amounts to Genocide,” December 2024. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-international-concludes-israel-is-committing-genocide-against-palestinians-in-gaza/

16. Human Rights Watch, “Israel and Gaza: Crimes and Documentation,” 2024. https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/04/israel-gaza-crimes-documentation

17. Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur report, October 2024; notes on US sanctions. https://www.un.org/unispal/document/genocide-as-colonial-erasure-report-francesca-albanese-01oct24

18. US media coverage of antisemitism accusations and actions against protesters, see Bartov NYT op-ed; university and legal press reports.

MAGAfication of the federal government: Ripping the band-aid off

Ripping the band-aid off

By now it is clear what djt and MAGA elites are doing. They are gutting the entire federal system that protects and serves average citizens and the public interest. At the same time, they are directing the power and wealth flow from the people and public interest to parts of the government that protects and serves special interests and their wealth. dkt and MAGA elites plan to privatize as much of federal government functions and services as possible, as fast as possible. Services that are not privatizable will just disappear. The impact of the wealth and power flow is going to get very ugly, very soon for a lot of average people. The pain is already starting to be felt.

A personal anecdote: A woman in her 80s living in Oregon and relying on Medicaid just got kicked out. She voted for djt in 2024. She was told she was no longer qualified for Medicaid. She doesn't know exactly why she lost her health care benefits. Presumably she told why she lost her health care in dense legalese that she didn't read or couldn't understand. Her response was sad: "Gosh, I hope this wasn't Trump". It was Trump. The poor dear, she's been MAGAfied & shafted.

Poisoning Medicare

News reporting: MAGA wants to privatize Medicare. The NYT reports (not paywalled) that a new quasi-privatization effort simply adopts barriers to health care access that the private sector already uses. Those barriers are enthusiastically hated by millions of people who have private health care. 

• The Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction Model (WISeR) represents a significant shift in traditional Medicare's approach. AI-powered prior authorization is now required for services previously covered without pre-approval. Starting January 1, 2026, Medicare beneficiaries in Arizona, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and Washington will face new barriers to accessing certain medical procedures.

• Millions of older adults (like me! 👍) chose traditional Medicare specifically to avoid the prior authorization hassles associated with private sector, for-profit Medicare Advantage plans. Now the same restrictive practices and barriers are coming to traditional Medicare. That eliminates one of its primary advantages. 

• The program uses artificial intelligence algorithms similar to those that have faced significant criticism in Medicare Advantage plans. Studies show that AI tools have been "accused of producing high rates of care denial, in some cases 16 times higher than is typical". These systems have been subject to multiple high-profile lawsuits because they enable fast, easy denial of many claims.

• Special interests get rewarded for denying medial care. Contracted companies get a percentage of the savings generated from rejections. That is a direct financial incentive to deny claims for profit. This puts companies at direct odds with clinicians and patients. Profit over patient care is the goal.

• The wealth and power flow: The program transfers decision power from Medicare beneficiaries and their doctors to private technology companies with profit motives. This incentives prioritizing profit over patient care. The same companies that manage prior authorization for criticized Medicare Advantage plans can now their reach into traditional Medicare. Consumers will be shafted, but companies will profit nicely.

It's clear that we're going to get MAGAfied whether we like it or not. I'm not gonna like it. But I'm just a pipsqueak with no power. I don't have the hundreds of millions of dollars it takes to buy government services, perks, benefits and protections from djt. Bummer!

Q: How much did insurance companies have to spend on "free speech" buying $TRUMP meme coin and donating to his campaign**, library and whatever else djt wants to spend money on himself for?  

** Regarding his political campaign, one can reasonably presume it's for when he illegally runs for his 3rd term on office. That's just fair & balanced.

Blog note: Getting back to normal

Welp, ladies 'n germs, it looks like my experiment in reaching out to the MAGA side is pretty much done.

I banned MC because I got tired of his insults and bad faith trolling. I submitted a post for LATW this morning before banning MC, but it got blocked or hung up. I presume I'm kaput there. 

The experience was useful but unpleasant. Most or nearly all MAGA people see me as a radical leftist who insults, lies and Dog only knows what else. I get lots of insults from that crowd, but essentially no useful feedback. They don't challenge my fact assertions or point out flaws in my reasoning. Instead they just criticize and insult me.  

I dug deep into the situation with Pxy. It made some interesting comments about the MAGA mindset, which I posted here two days ago.

The research confirms what you've experienced firsthand: MAGA operates within what scholars call "epistemic closure" - a completely self-contained information ecosystem where any challenge to their worldview is automatically interpreted as evidence of the conspiracy [or false belief] they believe in. …. This isn't mere bias - it's what researchers call "truth subversion": deliberate practices designed to destroy the very concept of shared factual reality.

That sounds right to me. With those MAGA folks there definitely is little shared factual reality with the rest of us. Also hardly any trust or good will, but plenty of negative vibes and ill-will. 

In all of this, I've been doing a lot of deep diving with Pxy. 👍 It also said that me continuing to try to make my fact and bias error reduction set better is at a point of diminishing returns. It's something about asymptotically impossible or whatever. So I'll just leave it alone for a while .... probably. 🤪