Trump Regime Abandons Longstanding Advice on Alcohol

NY Times -   Ever since the federal government began issuing the Dietary Guidelines in 1980, it has told Americans to limit themselves to one or two standard alcoholic drinks a day. Over time, the official advice morphed to no more than two drinks a day for men, and no more than one for women.

No longer. The updated guidelines issued on Wednesday say instead that people should consume less alcohol “for better overall health” and “limit alcohol beverages,” but they do not recommend clear limits. 

The guidelines also no longer warn that alcohol may heighten the risk of breast cancer and other malignancies.

Venezuela

NY Times -    President Trump said on Wednesday evening that he expected the United States would be running Venezuela and extracting oil from its huge reserves for years, and insisted that the interim government of the country — all former loyalists to the now-imprisoned Nicolás Maduro — is “giving us everything that we feel is necessary.”

“Only time will tell,” he said, when asked how long the administration will demand direct oversight of the South American nation, with the hovering threat of American military action from an armada just off shore.

Trump’s EPA Could Limit Its Own Ability To Use New Science Information

ProPublica  - Ethylene oxide was once considered an unremarkable pollutant. The colorless gas seeped from relatively few industrial facilities and commanded little public attention. 

All that changed in 2016, when the Environmental Protection Agency completed a study that found the chemical is 30 times more carcinogenic than previously thought.

The agency then spent years updating regulations that protect millions of people who are most exposed to the compound. In 2024, the EPA approved stricter rules that require commercial sterilizers for medical equipment and large chemical plants to slash emissions of ethylene oxide, which causes lymphoma and breast cancer.

It was doing what the EPA has done countless times: revising rules based on new scientific knowledge.

Now, its ability to do that for many air pollutants is under threat. 

In government records that have flown under the radar, President Donald Trump’s EPA said it is reconsidering whether the agency had the legal authority to update those rules. 

Chemical companies and their trade organizations have argued that the EPA cannot reevaluate hazardous air pollution rules to account for newly discovered harms if it has revised them once already.

It doesn’t matter if decades have passed or new information has emerged. 

If the EPA agrees, environmentalists fear that the decision could have wide implications, significantly curbing the EPA’s ability to limit nearly 200 pollutants from thousands of industrial plants. The next time new science reveals that a chemical is much more toxic, or that the amount of pollution released from a factory had been underestimated and would cause legally unacceptable health risks, the agency would not be able to react.

Trump regime removing US from dozens of international organizations

Shortlysts -  The Trump administration is withdrawing the U.S. from dozens of international organizations, most of which are tied to the United Nations. This move reflects a deliberate effort to reshape American engagement abroad and redefine the country’s priorities within global institutions.

The administration says the decision is about focus and priorities, arguing that many organizations no longer serve clear American interests or align with U.S. policy goals. Instead of default participation, the government wants to reassess where engagement is worthwhile.

This move matches President Trump's pattern of questioning multilateral institutions and prioritizing national sovereignty. Supporters say leaving gives the U.S. more freedom and reduces entanglements that can dilute accountability.

But many warn that stepping away from global institutions reduces American influence and allows other countries to shape norms without U.S. input, making it harder to rebuild presence later.

Politics

Axios - President Trump's proposal yesterday to increase the Pentagon's budget to $1.5 trillion for 2027 would push defense spending to its highest levels since the end of the Cold War.... Trump's proposal easily clears previous defense budgets by hundreds of billions of dollars, a move that will likely satisfy congressional hawks.  It would be the largest Pentagon budget as a share of GDP since 1990, the year after the Berlin Wall fell.

Greenland

The Hill - Republican senators are telling senior White House officials, including senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, to “drop” talk of a U.S. takeover of Greenland, possibly with military force, which has driven a wedge between the United States and Denmark, a key NATO ally. Republican lawmakers worry the threat of an invasion of Greenland, which most shrug off as bluster, will hurt relations with key European allies.

Meanwhile . .. .

NPR -  The ACLU and several authors have sued Utah over its "sensitive materials" book law, which has now banned 22 books in K-12 schools. Among the books on the ban list are The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. (via KUER)

Donald Trump

NPR - Trump takes 325 milligrams of daily aspirin, which is four times the recommended 81 milligrams of low-dose aspirin used for cardiovascular disease prevention. The president revealed this detail an interview with The Wall Street Journal published last week. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that anyone over 60 not start a daily dose of aspirin to prevent cardiovascular disease if they don't already have an underlying problem. The group said it's reasonable to stop preventive aspirin in people already taking it around age 75 years. Trump is 79. This is what you should know about aspirin and cardiac health:

💊 Doctors often prescribe the low dose of aspirin because there's no benefit to taking a higher dose, according to a large study published in 2021.
💊 Some people, including adults who have undergone heart bypass surgery and those who have had a heart attack, should take the advised dose of the drug for their entire life.
💊 While safer than other blood thinners, the drug — even at low doses — raises the risk of bleeding in the stomach and brain. But these adverse events are unlikely to cause death.

Minneapolis mayor on the ICE killing

Contrarian -   The mayor of Minneapolis, recognizing the urgency of the moment, got out in front of the public quickly and pre-butted the lies which have routinely followed such incidents. Mayor Jacob Frey said, “This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed.. . . What I can tell you is the narrative that this was just done in self-defense is a garbage narrative that is not true.” He added, “It has no truth, and it needs to be stated very clearly.”

More important, he put the blame where it should be. “ICE, get the fuck out of Minneapolis,” Frey declared. At the same time, he urged calm, asking residents not to give Trump fodder for more vicious and substantial deployments. “We are going to meet that hate with love,” Frey said. “We are going to meet that despair with hope.” He urged residents: “Let’s rise to this occasion,” calling on Minneapolis to show something “far more beautiful than the kind of division they’re trying to stoke.”

Trump dumps climate change

Axios - President Trump's decision to yank the U.S. from UN climate change agencies will set back international progress on addressing the climate, observers say.  The U.S. is the world's second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and provides much of the scientific heft addressing the problem.

• Climate scientists and activists predicted it will further isolate the U.S. on the global stage.

Trump last night announced a pullout from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the foundation of most global climate work, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which regularly assesses climate science.

• "The UNFCCC underpins global climate action," EU Climate ​Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said in ⁠a post on ⁠X. "It brings countries ⁠together ‌to ⁠support climate, reduce emissions, adapt to ‍climate change, and track ​progress."
• The U.S. "has some of the world's best climate scientists (and more of them than anywhere else) & has contributed disproportionately to understanding the climate system," University of Hawaii climate scientist David Ho said in a Bluesky post.

Climate advocates were dismayed after Trump withdrew a second time from the Paris Agreement upon taking office. But they said the latest move still stings.

• "Pulling out of the UNFCCC is a different order of magnitude from the Paris Agreement," said Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity.  "It removes the U.S. completely from the global climate framework and negotiations."
• Avoiding climate talks "will only isolate the United States further, undermine our global stature with allies around the globe, and cede the field to China," said Kaveh Guilanpour, vice president for international strategies at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X that the organizations are "anti-American, useless, or wasteful international organizations. Review of additional international organizations remains ongoing."

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Support for the military action in Venezuela by Gender Men: Approve: 50% (+18) Disapprove: 32% Woman: Approve: 35% (-4) Disapprove: 39%

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Young Men (16-29) Favorable View: • Barack Obama: 56% • MrBeast: 55% • Joe Rogan: 53% • Donald Trump: 46% • Bernie Sanders: 39% • Andrew Tate: 35% • JD Vance: 33% • Gavin Newsom: 26% • Kristi Noem: 17% • Incels: 17%

Trump approval rating 

RCPolling (@RealClearPolling):

Approve: 43.9%
Disapprove: 52.7%

Question

Amy Klobuchar: “What’s the difference between Greenland and Donald Trump? Answer

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Jamelle Bouie, NY Times   - There are many ways to diagnose the state of the nation, but if there is a sickness eating away at American democracy, it is our culture of elite impunity. Trump is at once a symptom of this disease and its apotheosis, a living representation of all the ways the United States has encouraged, tolerated and rewarded the most selfish and antisocial behaviors imaginable, at least among a certain class of person. And with the full might of the federal government in his hands, Trump hopes to institutionalize impunity — to make it the only rule, both here and abroad.

Stupid Trump stuff

Express UK -   Donald Trump launched an attack against former US presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden as he attended a Republican event on Tuesday. The US president repeated the unfounded claim that the election in which he was defeated by Mr Biden "was rigged", and said "nobody is worse" than Mr Obama. 

He also said "the fake news" would call him a dictator after launching into a bizarre rant on elections and former Democrats leaders. Mr Trump said: "They have the worst policy. How we have to even run against these people. Now I won't say cancel the election, they should cancel the election, because the fake news will say, 'He wants the elections canceled. He's a dictator.'