“numerous studies going back to the year 2000 all indicate there is no particular reason to fear cell phones as a cause of cancer, and a new paper by Li Zhang and Joshua Muscat of the Department of Public Health Sciences at Pennsylvania State University examines the most up-to-date data from the United States to examine this question as if for the first time.
Most studies on this question so far have been case-control studies. This type of study is subject to biases (information bias and selection bias) because it selects subjects who already have the disease of interest (in this case, brain cancer). Although prospective studies avoid the biases inherent in case-control studies, they are expensive and difficult to carry out, especially for rare diseases such as brain cancer.
But now researchers can take advantage of the exponential increase in exposure to cell phones since their introduction in the mid-1980s. In the space of several decades, humans have gone from having no exposure—zero percent of the population exposed—to nearly universal exposure. This means that we can take advantage of what is referred to as a “natural experiment,” the approach that Li and Muscat take in their illuminating new study.
An earlier analysis of this type was carried out by the National Cancer Institute. That study showed no evidence of an association between cell phone use and cancer, but the data only went up to 2012. Possibly cell phones had not been in use long enough for an effect to show up. Li and Muscat extend the period of observation by nine years.
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The authors conclude that “these findings suggest that mobile phone use does not appear to be associated with an increased risk of brain cancer, either malignant or benign.””
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“in the face of this evidence, RFK Jr. insists on propagating this debunked claim, and he is sponsoring a study by a discredited researcher that he hopes will provide the answer he favors. This is an unforgivable waste of money that could be spent on addressing an important health issue. But it is also more than that.
From observing RFK Jr., and those he appeals to, we see that the belief in different bogus claims tends to be correlated. A belief that cell phones are causing cancer or that vaccines cause autism can serve as a sentinel indicator of the susceptibility to other false beliefs, such as those targeting pesticides and genetically engineered crops. It’s noteworthy that the prominent anti-biotech advocacy organization U.S. Right-to-Know is anti-vaccine in addition to being fiercely against glyphosate and other pesticides and genetically modified crops.
These, and many others, are zombie risks that never die. It doesn’t matter what the specific risk is. The credulity, the failure to take any commonsense evidence or distillations of the scientific evidence into account, the refusal to value the judgment of experts who have spent untold hours examining the issue, or the conclusions reached by institutions such as the National Institutes of Health, the Institute of Medicine, or the American Cancer Society, into account are the same.
RFK Jr. appears to have an implacable drive to do away with vaccines by undermining public confidence, disrupting insurance coverage, and making it too costly for pharmaceutical companies to produce them, as happened in the 1980s. Exposing his lies is literally a matter of protecting the lives of children and adults from the all-too-real infectious diseases that RFK Jr. doesn’t believe in.”
https://reason.com/2025/06/25/despite-what-robert-f-kennedy-wants-you-to-think-cell-phones-do-not-cause-brain-cancer/
Trump Media Group grifting Trump supporters by a large buyback. Instead of investing in the businesses, the company is raising money to put it in Trump’s pocket. Trump owns 60% of the stock, so a buyback makes him richer. Buybacks are normally done by profitable companies to reward their shareholders. Trump Media Group is not profitable. They raised money via an equity sale and then bought back their stock, essentially transferring some of the money raised into Trump’s pockets. (Discussion of this begins at 21:37).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0KLHBPsObc
For renters who are disciplined with their investing, their wealth often matches or beats people who own a home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBG-g1CKfgs
Trump wants NATO to spend more on defense. Here’s who is actually paying.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/22/trump-nato-defense-spending-winners-losers-00409979
“How on earth are voters in America’s largest city choosing between a 33-year-old socialist and a sex pest for mayor?
But seriously, these are the choices Democrats here have before them when they go to the polls Tuesday in the most revealing primary election since the party’s debacle last year.
There’s Mamdani, a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America by way of a noted workers’ paradise, Bowdoin, who’s calling for city-owned grocery stores and offending the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by trying to rationalize calls to “globalize the intifada.”
Then there’s former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who was forced out of office less than four years ago after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment, now says he regrets resigning and has expressed little contrition about his personal conduct or his deadly mishandling of Covid-19.
Cuomo is despised by much of the city, including some of his biggest benefactors, and is the favorite to win.
Oh, and if either Mamdani or Cuomo falls short in New York’s ranked-choice Democratic primary, each already has secured a separate ballot line in the general election; if they win, they’ll get to use it in addition to the Democratic party line, and if they lose, they’ll still get the chance to run as independents. Neither ruled out remaining in the race when I asked them if they’d run on a third-party line this fall.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/06/22/new-york-mayor-race-cuomo-mamdani-column-00416423
Eric Edelman, Suzanne Maloney, and Andrew Miller: How Weak Is Iran? | Foreign Affairs Interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFdWYUNDwSU
What’s Left of Iran’s Nuclear Bunkers?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF3_O7x7IW8&t=903s
Texas governor vetoes hemp ban bill
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/23/texas-governor-vetoes-hemp-ban-bill-00418149
“House Republicans are aiming to slash funding for the nonpartisan watchdog for waste, fraud and abuse within the federal government by nearly half in the next fiscal year, according to spending bill text released Sunday night.”
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“GAO has served as the nation’s chief investigator of wrongdoing at federal agencies for more than a century, but has been fighting for months as Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration have attempted to undercut its legal conclusions and independence. Now, they are attempting to shrink the agency into submission as it pursues nearly 40 investigations into whether the White House is illegally withholding, or “impounding,” money Congress had previously approved.
Also tucked into the bill is a major policy change that would eliminate the GAO’s ability to bring civil action against the executive branch over impoundments of funds.
“GAO’s work makes it possible for the legislative branch to hold government accountable,” said Daniel Schuman, executive director of the American Governance Institute. “Congress needs independent expert advice, which is exactly what GAO provides.””
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjn8ghWKAq0
“Under the War Powers Act of 1973, the law that governs presidential authority to order military strikes, there are three lawful ways for a commander-in-chief to order the bombing of another country. None of them appears to cover the strikes carried out on Saturday.
Here is the relevant section of the law (emphasis added): “The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.”
The first two options provided by the law are clearly not involved here, as Congress did not declare war against Iran and did not pass an authorization for the use of military force (as was done to allow the invasion of Iraq in 2002).
The third circumstance also does not apply to Trump’s attack on Iran, which was not carried out in response to an attack on American troops and did not respond to a crisis threatening American soil.”
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“The War Powers Act should not be treated as a series of suggestions that can be discarded when they seem inconvenient. Indeed, limits on executive power are most essential at the moments when they are inconvenient—otherwise, they are meaningless. Trump’s attack on Iran was not just an assault on a suspected nuclear weapons program; it was yet another blow against the separation of powers and the fundamental structure of the American constitutional system.”
https://reason.com/2025/06/22/the-attack-on-iran-is-unlawful/