There's a paywall at WSJ so I've copied and pasted the opinion piece from the recently fired head of the CDC. The hearing with RFKjr yesterday at the Senate was quite lively.

Nori, its obvious you didnt read the link i posted explaining that Kilmar Garcia did not get due process. Your defense of Trump hiring people he wants doesn't excuse his choice of Jan 6 ers in one case and people chosen to head departments in many cases that are anti the department they are heading. Clean air is being gutted as is the Education Department, etc. Scientific grants to discover cures for diseases is out the window. Foreign aid is gutted too. So many will die overseas and diseases we can no longer help prevent will be brought back to the US. Even though our country is supposed to protect people's rights who differ, Trump is firing all the experts if they don't show their first priority is not to the Constitution but to Trump. Trump is taking over congress's right to decide on tariffs but illegally proclaiming broad tariffs on all countries. As for your saying the dems have no agenda, to the contrary, they are fighting to help those thrown off medicaid and snap programs and Medicare cuts. They are fighting to ban assault weapons and preserve voting rights. I guess to you that is no agenda. Love, Joanie

09/04/25 02:46 PM

#18424

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/04/trump-administration-citizenship-test-00544390

As long as all government personnel, military, law enforcement officers, and citizens who wish to vote take the same exam. Starting with the President, in public.

09/05/25 05:53 AM

#18425

There's a paywall at WSJ so I've copied and pasted the opinion piece from the recently fired head of the CDC. The hearing with RFKjr yesterday at the Senate was quite lively.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the CDC and Me

I was fired after 29 days because I held the line and insisted on rigorous scientific review.

Susan Monarez

I served for 29 days as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Senate confirmed me to ensure that unbiased evidence serves our nation’s health, and for doing that, I lost my job. America’s children could lose far more.

During my first week as CDC director, a gunman opened fire on our Atlanta headquarters on Aug. 8. Investigators recovered more than 500 shell casings at the scene and more than 180 rounds struck CDC campus buildings. Officer David Rose was killed.

Investigators found documents in which the gunman expressed his discontent with Covid vaccines, indicating his actions were driven by vaccine distrust. Amid the trauma, hundreds of CDC employees told me the same thing: We need to take immediate steps to rebuild public trust. That’s the CDC I know: service before self.

Just as we began to recover, I was confronted with another challenge—pressure to compromise science itself.

Reporters have focused on the Aug. 25 meeting where my boss, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., pressured me to resign or face termination. But that meeting revealed that it wasn’t about one person or my job. It was one of the more public aspects of a deliberate effort to weaken America’s public-health system and vaccine protections.

I’m gone now, but that effort continues. One of the troubling directives from that meeting more than a week ago: I was told to preapprove the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric. That panel’s next meeting is scheduled for Sept. 18-19. It is imperative that the panel’s recommendations aren’t rubber-stamped but instead are rigorously and scientifically reviewed before being accepted or rejected.

For three decades, I have worked at the intersection of public health, science and technology innovation—always challenging the status quo and welcoming discovery and change. Real science evolves with evidence.

As President Trump recently wrote on social media: “It is very important that the Drug Companies justify the success of their various Covid Drugs. Many people think they are a miracle and saved millions of lives.” Mr. Trump is right to call for proof. We should always demand evidence—exactly what I was doing when I insisted all CDC recommendations be based on credible data, not ideology or preordained outcomes.

The CDC can’t fulfill its obligation to the American people if its leader can’t demand proof in decision-making. If discarding evidence for ideology becomes the norm, why should parents, physicians or the public trust the CDC’s guidance?

This week, HHS leadership published a vision that mirrors the priorities I laid out during my Senate confirmation hearing and had already advanced during my brief tenure at CDC. But since Aug. 25 I have had serious concerns.

Those seeking to undermine vaccines use a familiar playbook: discredit research, weaken advisory committees, and use manipulated outcomes to unravel protections that generations of families have relied on to keep deadly diseases at bay. Once trusted experts are removed and advisory bodies are stacked, the results are predetermined. That isn’t reform. It is sabotage.

Public health shouldn’t be partisan. Vaccines have saved millions of lives under administrations of both parties. Parents deserve a CDC they can trust to put children above politics, evidence above ideology and facts above fear.

I was fired for holding that line. But the line doesn’t disappear with me. It runs through every parent deciding whether to vaccinate a child, every physician counseling patients, and every American who demands accountability.

If we stay silent, preventable diseases will return—as we saw with the largest measles outbreak in more than 30 years, which tragically killed two children. If we act, the facts can still prevail.

Dr. Monarez served as CDC director (2025) and deputy director of the federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (2023-25).

09/05/25 06:18 AM

#18426

Thanks for posting that, Joan. I know what a PITA it can be to cut and paste those things while saving the formatting.

********

Deb and I were both kept awake the other night by a Barred Owl duet, which went on throughout the night. I had to get up, close the window, turn on the white noise machine. A couple of nights ago it was rowdy bears, not on our street but a block away. Do you call the cops on rowdy bears? Do they arrest them, or just issue a citation?

NH suburban noisy neighbors. Can’t really complain. The garter snake at the back door yesterday was absolutely silent.

09/05/25 06:34 AM

#18427

Yes, Joan, thank you so much for posting that. It was very important and tragic that yet another capable person has been fired and by someone who had a worm eat part of his brain. I'm sure his father would be so upset to see what his son is doing. People will lose their lives because of RFK trashing science. Love, Joanie

09/05/25 10:03 AM

#18428

Jay Shackford

(Editor’s note: My brother-in-law, Fred, sent me the following FB post below by Lee Murphy. It’s worth sharing with you guys. Bests, Jay)

JFK vs. Trump: The Takedown

By Lee Murphy on Facebook

Trump: “Nobody’s done more for this country than me. People say I’m the greatest president, maybe of all time.”

JFK: leans back, half-smiling “Mr. Trump, when I heard ‘greatest of all time,’ I thought perhaps you’d invented something new.... but then I remembered the only thing you’ve ever invented is bankruptcy on a loop.”

Trump: “That’s fake news. I’ve built an empire. Tremendous success.”

JFK: “Fatboy, your company consisted of 11 family members and your father's old bookkeeper. You built a house of cards on debt, lawsuits, and other people’s money. I built the Peace Corps.... you built a university so fraudulent it couldn’t graduate a goldfish.”

Trump: scowls, waving hands “I stood up to China. I was tough. Nobody was tougher.”

JFK: “I stared down Khrushchev with nuclear warheads pointed at our shores. I kept the world from ending. You couldn’t stare down a Twitter/X account without erupting in a tantrum at three in the morning.”

Trump: “I had the biggest victory in history. Everyone knows it.”

JFK: *arches a brow* “Your victory margin was smaller than my hairline.... and I was shot in the head.” You got 49%. You didn't even get a clear majority. It was the closest election since 1968. There was no landslide, no mandate."

Trump: “I created the greatest economy the world has ever seen!”

JFK: “You inherited growth and handed back chaos. I launched the moonshot.... You launched tariffs and tantrums.”

Trump: “I’m tougher than any president. Nobody was stronger than me.”

JFK: *smiles faintly* “Strength is staring down Khrushchev without blinking. Strength is sending civil rights bills to Congress, knowing half the country will hate you for it. Your strength? Throwing ketchup at a wall when you don’t get your way.”

Trump: “My rallies were massive. People love me.”

JFK: “So did the crowds at a circus, Donald.... but they didn’t mistake the clown for the ringmaster.”

Trump: “The media was out to get me from day one. Totally unfair!”

JFK: “I faced segregationists, Soviet spies, and generals pushing for nuclear war. You faced tough questions from reporters.... and ran from the press like a scolded child.”

Trump: “I rebuilt the military. Biggest, best, most powerful ever.”

JFK: “I commanded a PT boat in World War II. I carried my injured crewman on my back through shark-infested waters. You commanded nothing but golf carts.... and even they struggled under the weight., Fatboy, when your country called ...your feet hurt. You were rated 4F ....UNFIT FOR ANY TYPE OF SERVICE

Trump: *snapping back* “I was the most patriotic president ever!”

JFK: *voice hardens, eyes locked* “Patriotism is sacrifice.... it is service.... it is placing the republic above yourself. You used the presidency as a stage for your ego and a cash register for your brand. That is not patriotism, Donald.... that is betrayal. That is treason, and the people WILL hold you accountable”

Trump: *flustered, sweating, waving hands* “Fake news! History will vindicate me!”

JFK: *steps closer, voice like steel* “History does not vindicate frauds. History exposes them. And history will not speak your name with honor. It will speak it with contempt.... as a warning carved in shame. You are not a leader, Mr. Trump.... you are a cautionary tale.”

Trump’s mouth opens, but no words come. Kennedy’s half-smile lingers as he turns to leave, his final line echoing like a verdict:

JFK: “And one more thing, Donald.... ask not what your country can do for you.... because you already asked, and you took everything.”

09/05/25 01:05 PM

#18429

Hey Jack, I'm awakened at night by wild boars (sangliers) digging in my garden. I hear from the mayor that on Sunday there will be a mass sanglier hunt. I plan to get outta town. Those hunters after they've had a few glasses of Pastis are dangerous.

09/05/25 02:48 PM

#18430

Well, here it's a couple of Coors, Joan. But equally dangerous. Hunting season's just starting up. I never know whether I should wear orange so they might guess I'm not a deer, or wear camouflage assuming that if they see it, they shoot at it.

But this is the kind of cultural attitude that creates MAGA.

09/08/25 04:43 PM

#18431

No politics, just nature.

Grafton Pond, as usual, with Mt. Cardigan providing background.

Adult loon, doing drama.

Young loon, doing cute. The teeny fish in its beak is probably not feeling the cute.

48 degrees when I put in this morning!

09/10/25 09:18 AM

#18432

Mix of nature and politics. Ardea herodias comments on Great Orange Buffoon.

09/12/25 10:45 AM

#18433

Nora Skinker (Morton)

The only things shamefully happening on our streets, exist in the form of violent crimes, Jay. Finally we have an administration willing to talk about it, take it seriously & actually act on it: finally DOING something about cartels running drugs to our shores, finally DOING something about antisemitism on campuses, finally DOING something about illegal immigration, finally DOING something about Iran's nuclear development.
Whether I was, am or will ever be wealthy has zero to do with anything. I can only hope that when we attack on this forum, it is merely to attack ideas & never each other personally.

09/13/25 06:03 AM

#18434

In my view, violence against someone like Charlie Kirk, with whom I probably share zero ideas, is violence against all of us, it is violence against our society, against all political discourse, against the ability for our country to maybe ever again exist as a country that welcomes an exchange of ideas. The only responsible thing to wish for is that this kind of violence, which is unique to our country, would end.

Am I wrong to believe that our political leaders have a job in the face of evil or lawlessness, or tumult, or whatever you want to call it? That they have a responsibility to encourage moderation, to ensure us that we will be okay, that we will find a way beyond the hatred that caused the evil?

Or is it better that we have leaders - dare I say, a president, who instead speaks from the Oval Office before ANYTHING was known about the assassin and says “For years those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans, like Charlie, to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals.” So this shooter is now, because the president says so, someone from the radical left? I don’t know where this guy was coming from, but the President is telling us he knows, and by saying so, he encourages the violence to continue as long as it’s in his name. This is by far not the way a responsible leader would speak. He would not encourage the worst in us. He would try to appeal to our humanity in the face of a tragedy. He would behave like a decent human being.

09/13/25 07:06 AM

#18435

Well said, Joan. The level of violence in this country, in word and deed, is horrific. Much of the language of hatred ("I hate them, I really do . . . They hate our country") comes from he who has the biggest loudspeaker, and therefore the potential to foment even more literal violence.

09/13/25 12:35 PM

#18436

Jay Shackford

Good post, Joan.

09/13/25 01:07 PM

#18437

Nora Skinker (Morton)

I expect public figures to be criticized for their policies, behaviors, opinions. I welcome debate from any & all, but no voice in our country should be silenced. Our generation grew up knowing the precious value of free speech but worry that some crucial lessons are being overlooked in the schools, homes, social media of today, It surely is not helpful that leaders spew political bias but it's not coincidence that church attendance is at an all time low, as well. One wonders how increasing secularization & changing societal values have affected moral behaviors. Perhaps the mantra 'Make America Great Again' resonated with many Americans for those very reasons.

09/13/25 02:06 PM

#18438

Jay Shackford

Charlie Kirk Was Practicing

Politics the Right Way

By Ezra Klein/Columnist for The New York Times

Sept. 11, 2025

The foundation of a free society is the ability to participate in politics without fear of violence. To lose that is to risk losing everything. Charlie Kirk — and his family — just lost everything. As a country, we came a step closer to losing everything, too.

We’ve been edging closer for some time now. In 2020, a plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, was foiled by the F.B.I. In 2021, a mob stormed the Capitol in an effort to overturn the result of the election and pipe bombs were found at the Democratic and the Republican National Committee headquarters. In 2022, a man broke into the home of Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House at the time, intending to kidnap her. She was absent, but the intruder assaulted her 82-year-old husband, Paul, with a hammer, fracturing his skull. In 2024, President Trump was nearly assassinated. That same year, Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, was murdered.

In 2025, Molotov cocktails were thrown into the home of Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania during Passover. Melissa Hortman, the former House speaker of Minnesota, and her husband were murdered, and State Senator John Hoffman and his wife were severely injured by a gunman. And on Wednesday, Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was gunned down during a speech at Utah Valley University.

You can dislike much of what Kirk believed and the following statement is still true: Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him. He was one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion. When the left thought its hold on the hearts and minds of college students was nearly absolute, Kirk showed up again and again to break it. Slowly, then all at once, he did. College-age voters shifted sharply right in the 2024 election.

That was not all Kirk’s doing, but he was central in laying the groundwork for it. I did not know Kirk, and I am not the right person to eulogize him. But I envied what he built. A taste for disagreement is a virtue in a democracy. Liberalism could use more of his moxie and fearlessness. In the inaugural episode of his podcast, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California hosted Kirk, admitting that his son was a huge fan. What a testament to Kirk’s project.

On social media, I’ve seen mostly decent reactions to Kirk’s murder. There is grief and shock from both the left and the right. But I’ve seen two forms of reaction that are misguided, however comprehensible the rage or horror that provoked them. One is a move on the left to wrap Kirk’s death around his views — after all, he defended the Second Amendment, even admitting it meant accepting innocent deaths. Another is on the right, to turn his murder into a justification for an all-out war, a Reichstag fire for our time.

But as the list above reveals, there is no world in which political violence escalates but is contained to just your foes. Even if that were possible, it would still be a world of horrors, a society that had collapsed into the most irreversible form of unfreedom.

Political violence is a virus. It is contagious. We have been through periods in this country when it was endemic. In the 1960s there were the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy and Medgar Evers. In the 1970s, Gov. George Wallace was shot by a would-be assassin but survived, and Gerald Ford faced two assassination attempts in one month. In 1981 Ronald Reagan survived after John Hinckley Jr.’s bullet ricocheted off his rib and punctured his lung. These assassins and would-be assassins had different motives, different politics and different levels of mental stability. When political violence becomes imaginable, either as a tool of politics or a ladder for fame, it begins to infect hosts heedlessly.

American politics has sides. There is no use pretending it doesn’t. But both sides are meant to be on the same side of a larger project — we are all, or most of us, anyway, trying to maintain the viability of the American experiment. We can live with losing an election because we believe in the promise of the next election; we can live with losing an argument because we believe that there will be another argument. Political violence imperils that.

Kirk and I were on different sides of most political arguments. We were on the same side on the continued possibility of American politics. It is supposed to be an argument, not a war; it is supposed to be won with words, not ended with bullets. I wanted Kirk to be safe for his sake, but I also wanted him to be safe for mine and for the sake of our larger shared project. The same is true for Shapiro, for Hoffman, for Hortman, for Thompson, for Trump, for Pelosi, for Whitmer. We are all safe, or none of us are.

09/13/25 02:48 PM

#18439

What you are not seeming aware of Nori is that Trump is rounding up huge groups of non violent immigrants who contribute to society. He is very cruel separating families and deporting people to horrific prisons where they throw away the key. And Nori, why did Trump pardon the many violent offenders on January 6 who beat up the police.? Is that a sign of a President concerned with crime? Please answer.

As for the horrific murder of Charlie Kirk, yes the discourse like Trump used blaming the radical left before knowing anything about what prompted the killer, inflames certain people I'm sure rhetoric on the left needs toning down too I was so moved by the governor of Utah's words (opposite from Trump's) that tried to bring people together and calm things and emphasize our commonality. The change needed Nori is to get an assault weapons ban and have stricter laws to prevent so many guns to be easily purchased. Maybe a buy back of guns. There are more guns then people in this country and Nancy Mace saying she will now carry a gun isn't the answer Love, Joanie

09/13/25 07:32 PM

#18440

John Smeby

Joan Ruggles: You say in reference to Charlie Kirk "--- with whom I probably share zero ideas---", does that mean you do not believe in the "Sanctity of Life" where we are created in the image of God, or more simply put "the idea that life is sacred"? Making such statements shows how stupid you are.

Joanie Bender: You say that we should "--- get an assault weapons ban---" while discussing the Charlie Kirk assassination, the cowardly assassin used a hunting rifle, more specifically an imported Mauser .30-06 bolt-action rifle. What does an assault weapons ban have to do with the time-honored right to hunt in America? Please learn what an assault weapon is compared to a hunting single fire bolt-action rifle. Making such statements shows how stupid you are.

Posted a new image (of me) from our most recent cruise on the Adventure of the Seas Royal Caribbean ship last month.

09/13/25 09:05 PM

#18441

Nora Skinker (Morton)

One important take-away from Cox is his pointing a finger at the invasive stronghold social media has on our youth. (Btw, Beijing must be thrilled to be witnessing such an insidious societal & spiritual decline of our country).
Charlie Kirk spent his life pushing us to be better - messaging men to be better dads, husbands, women to be better aware of their responsibilities. Pushing all to put family & faith at the forefront of life, allthewhile, challenging us to challenge him! Can that message be so wrong? While some heard hate, others heard inspiration. As MLK, Lincoln, JFK & many other voices were heard in the wilderness, their deaths brought even greater power to their words. None more so, than those of Jesus Christ whose timeless message was just to love one another.
Though my heart aches for Kirk's fatherless babies, it's heartening to know that more than all the students on all his scheduled campus tour, are NOW finding out who Charlie Kirk was & what his open message to the world looks like.

09/13/25 10:01 PM

#18442

John, calling people stupid is not a way to get your points across. I stand by what I said...if there were less guns on the streets, less people would die.There are more guns in America then there are people. I would have been more interested to see your picture if you hadn't insulted me and Joan for our ideas. . I have always been polite to you and commented on the photos you have shared over the years. Joanie

Nori, I can tell Charlie Kirk was very loved by many people. I don't share many of his ideas about things but I respect very much his right to them and to work to promote them. Our Democracy is based on different ideas and respecting each others differences whenever possible. Love, Joanie

09/14/25 06:43 AM

#18443

John, please add me to your list of "stupid" people. I frequently agree with Joan and Joanie, and feel no more intelligent than they. I'd hate for anyone to read our forum posts and get the impression that you approve of my intelligence more than theirs, given the views that you often represent here. Feel free, as Nori suggests, to attack my ideas, my opinions, my words. When an adult calls people stupid, they come off sounding like a 10 year old.

No offense meant to 10 year olds. Actually, I should amend that and say "sounding like a 10 year old or a bitter old man," to take the onus off the 10 year olds.

********

Speaking of Nori--she suggests some correlation between low church attendance and moral behavior. I'm in the middle of Combee, a history of Harriet Tubman and her part in the emancipation struggle and the Civil War. The book makes it clear how strongly Christian religious belief, church membership and church participation were embedded in the lives of slave owners in the American south. And in the lives of those who fought against slavery!

Correlation is not causation, as many of us must have learned, if not at BCC then later in our education.

09/14/25 06:58 AM

#18444

I agree with Jack. Thanks for your post.

John, I might add and this is not to make you feel unintelligent, but of course I didn't mean when I brought up an assault weapons ban that the rifle used was in that category of guns. I was bringing the assault weapons ban up as a way to cut down on horrific incidences in this country. I know rifles are used to hunt...Tragically one was used that killed Charlie Kirk.

It would be important John to listen to the Governor Cox of Utah's kind message of healing that he gave to those who differ. Love, Joanie

09/15/25 01:59 AM

#18445

As the moderator of this forum, I am charged with censoring posts that are offensive or that attack other members of the forum. I have used that power sparingly in the past -- only once, when Mr. Smeby called one of us some nasty names. I deleted his post. It doesn't seem judicious for that same poster to attack the moderator herself, but since I need to be thick-skinned about these sorts of things, I’m going to leave Mr Smeby’s post up for all to see and to make their own judgments whether this represents civil discourse.

As I said in my post I probably didn’t agree with most of the things that Charlie Kirk espoused. I know I didn’t agree with his views on gender, immigration, homosexuality, climate change. I know I disagreed with his anti-semitic views and his views about the place of women in society. But I wasn’t posting about his views. I was posting about the tragedy of another political killing and about the reaction of the President on Thursday, without any evidence of the identity or motives of the killer.

Mr. Smeby asks whether I believe in the “sanctity of life.” I believe I expressed that very clearly in my post. I expressed sadness that there is this needless loss of life because of political differences in our country and that such violence is shameful. People shouldn’t die because somebody disagrees with them. Even somebody with whom I have few ideas in common.

09/15/25 05:38 AM

#18446

Robert Hall

Thank you Joan for your measured, eloquent response to Smeby's irrational, angry post.

09/15/25 06:12 AM

#18447