I can’t seem to make any of the links to purchase a subscription work. This one takes you straight to Simon’s Substack. I’d like to purchase a gift; what am I doing wrong?
When you are on this page, go to the upper right where your little avatar is, and click it, then select "Manage Subscriptions". Then you can find gifts.
Looking forward to the conversation with Stuart Stevens.
I know it might not be light fare summer reading, but I've been reading about tuberculosis, past and present, and wondering about what USAID cuts will do to deaths from that. It impacts primarily the same group of people as are impacted by ebola now (poor nutrition, limited healthcare). Already, before USAID cuts, more than 1 million people die every year from TB. There are drug resistant strains that are expensive to diagnose. But my thoughts are that these other diseases, not just Ebola, but TB, AIDS, etc, are also going to become bigger factors with the USAID cuts. Bush was a shitty, shitty president, but the one thing he did right was funding AIDS prevention and treatment in Africa. Trump, I guess, has unwound most of that, and worse. African nations should figure more importantly in the future in a way that is not like the exploitive, extractive past.
Yes that is exactly it. It has a lot of interesting history, and some great insight. First book I've read by that author, I had never heard of him before.
They are killing millions around the world to feed their greed and corruption. And they are killing MANY of us here in this country as well. Where is the Democrat standing up and telling this truth? Where is that person of character that stands up and preaches the strength of diversity and morality? The lack of powerful rhetoric on the democratic side is deafening.
Um, have you listed to Jon Ossoff, James Talarico, or Rob Sands, etc etc? Just watch the interviews Simon has done with the candidates. They're all inspiring truth tellers!
You should start a one-stop Winning the Senate fund like you have for the house. One donation, split among the senatorial candidates. I think a reason that the one-stop House site is raising so much money is that it is super easy to donate to multiple races with one click.
Social media analyst Joohn Choe wrote about the Spencer Pratt thing. Apparently Pratt’s sole purpose was to advance voter fraud talking points. Worth a read for how November is going to go:
“ None of the election-denialists talking about Pratt Spencer or Spratt Pantser or Pretty Spankser or whatever his poncey-sounding name is, appear to have actually taken a look at what his platform was.
There is extremely little in the way of standard MAGA "policy" issues to him. Pratt has no publicly visible hate-stances on gay people, drag queens, trans athletes and other hot-button social issues for Republicans.
In fact, Spratly Prigster is a vapid, literally not figuratively healing-bullshit-crystal-hawking LA reality TV star who advocated for drug addicts, insurance payouts for wealthy, presumably liberal LA homeowners, and denied being MAGA in a televised debate. I don't know if anyone's asked him his opinion on gun control, trans people using bathrooms or drag queen story hours but I strongly doubt he'd have MAGA-felicitous answers for any of that.
Literally the only reason why MAGA seem to be talking about him at all is because of a discredited and frankly abominably stupid conspiracy theory that live TV news showed entire tranches of 24k ballots at a time from Los Angeles had zero Pratt votes, which is easily disproved just by watching the TV broadcasts; there were absolutely no vote irregularities like the memes are claiming.
It's interesting in a way that is somewhat oblique to the direction that people usually go with this, which is to bemoan how bad politicians are, how dumb voters are, or how fucked the country is. I'm not interested in that.
Read between the lines and I think you might be able to infer that
1. using his campaign as an excuse for election denialism is more important than portraying an impression of ideological felicity or beating that RINO charge for Sprightly Pibbles (what even is his name), I think very few people even care who he is, only that he has an (R) after his name
2. election-denialist strategy in 2026 is literally this dumb; there's no procedural tricks or obscure laws or lawyerly tricks, it's just obediently bleating the party line even though it won't actually change the outcome, so that down the line in November someone can say "hey it's just like that one time Democrats cheated in California!" and everyone's (fallacious) availability heuristic will say "oh yeah there was that one time in California" without really recalling what actually happened
3. if MAGAs really are that dreadfully upset about a Republican like Prancer Spats who is basically antithetical to most things that MAGA loyalists believe in, maybe that means that candidate quality is really slipping that badly; certainly that impression would seem to be confirmed by other MAGA candidates like Paxton out there”
And a huge NO NO to the trumpi effort to create a national database of American voters using the Postal Service. Got to be unconstitutional as well as unAmerican. So NO submisssion of vote data to the postal service.
Hi Simon and colleagues - The Jefferson Memorial quote is a perfect admonishment to what these imbeciles are doing - on purpose - to harm global public health and the public health of Americans. We have a ton of work to do when we're finally rid of these lowlifes. I'm excited, though, to see how we rebuild our government to be better than it was pre-Trump. I am beginning to understand those who wish Biden had recognized the crisis we were in with MAGA and fought back hard rather than hoping we could return immediately to kinder, gentler days when the two parties worked together. I do think he misread the moment but I'm still a fan of everything he accomplished and it goes without saying that Kamala would have been a fantastic president. Onward.
We’ll see if these exit polls are representative or not later tonight. But if Platner is struggling to consolidate the D vote, that is a potentially big story.
The best rebuke to the enraging, dangerous accusations against the CA election is that Karen Bass would much prefer to run against Spencer Pratt than the other Democrat!! - Harry Enten.
I hope there are concerted slap downs to the big lie, part deux.
QUESTION...are Blanche and Pulte nominations only voted on by the senate? Who is currently voting on the OMB regs next...house or senate? I try to only ask for immediately relevant votes when I call.
I made my daily morning call to WIR members. I focused this call on telling them to just stop with the election rigging, voter fraud etc. it doesn’t exist. American people are fed up, that’s why Republicans are under performing and losing elections. I also told them to accept responsibility for the mistakes they’ve made ….
It was maybe a bit of a rant but I needed to say it.
These proposed regulations represent a fundamental departure from the principles that have made American scientific research the envy of the world, and they must be substantially revised before any implementation.
Politicization of the Peer Review Process
For decades, federal research grants have been awarded through rigorous peer review by subject-matter experts — a system designed specifically to insulate scientific funding from political influence. The proposed rules dismantle this framework by elevating political appointees over expert reviewers and requiring that awards "demonstrably advance the president's policy priorities." This standard has no legitimate basis in science or administrative law. Research integrity depends on independence from the political moment; this rule destroys that independence.
Unlawful Termination Authority
Current law permits grant termination only for serious cause — fraud, mismanagement, or material noncompliance. The proposed rules would allow termination whenever a grant no longer aligns with shifting "agency priorities." This is arbitrary and capricious on its face and will almost certainly not survive judicial scrutiny. Worse, when combined with OMB's push for multi-year commitments, the government could lock researchers into long-term projects and then terminate funding the moment political winds shift — a mechanism that will chill research and deter the best scientists from seeking federal support at all.
The Replicability Requirement Is Scientifically Illiterate
As written, the proposed rules appear to limit funding to replicable studies. This would categorically exclude entire scientific disciplines — astronomical observation, paleoclimatology, field ecology, and the monitoring of weather and climate systems, among others. These are not fringe activities; they are foundational to our understanding of the natural world and to the United States' ability to respond to climate change, natural disasters, and public health emergencies. Any regulation that inadvertently bans observational science must be corrected before it causes irreversible harm to these research programs.
Elimination of Public Welfare and Environmental Language
The deliberate removal of language directing federal awards to support "the public welfare and the environment" is not a minor technical edit — it is a policy statement. Environmental research, climate science, and conservation work that has been federally funded for generations would lose its explicit statutory footing. As an environmental attorney, I can attest that this language has served as a critical anchor for legal challenges to agency inaction. Its removal will be exploited to defund research that millions of Americans depend upon, including work on biodiversity loss, illegal wildlife trafficking, and deforestation.
International Scientific Collaboration
The "America First" framework adopted in these rules would sever cooperative research relationships that have driven American innovation for generations. The proposed prohibition on working with organizations that engage with "foreign adversaries" would effectively bar U.S. scientists from participating in institutions such as the World Meteorological Organization and CERN. These are not adversarial relationships — they are the infrastructure of global science. Cutting American researchers off from international data-sharing and collaboration will set U.S. science back by years and cede competitive advantage to other nations.
Content-Based Research Restrictions
The prohibitions on research touching on gender, racial equity, health disparities, and climate justice are content-based restrictions on federally funded speech and inquiry. Courts have long been skeptical of government attempts to condition funding on adherence to specific viewpoints, and the legal justifications offered in this 400-page document for these provisions are notably thin — a sign that the agency itself recognizes their vulnerability. The practical effect will be to eliminate entire fields of inquiry affecting large portions of the American population, leaving urgent public health and environmental questions unanswered.
Conclusion
Federal grant regulations must preserve the independence, integrity, and international competitiveness of American science. These proposed rules do the opposite. I urge the agency to withdraw the proposed rules and undertake a transparent revision process that centers scientific merit, legal soundness, and the long-term public interest.
I have to find the quiet time to focus my attention on the Stand Up For Science Interview and Follow ups.
For those interested, there will be a debate tonight at 7pm (Spectrum NY1 TV and Wnyc.org) with five candidates for Jerry Nadler's NY seat. Moderators are Errol Louis, Brian Lehrer and Brigid Bergin.
I can’t seem to make any of the links to purchase a subscription work. This one takes you straight to Simon’s Substack. I’d like to purchase a gift; what am I doing wrong?
Here is the direct link. https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/subscribe?utm_source=menu&gift=true&next=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hopiumchronicles.com%2Faccount
You can also click on your own substack profile picture and use the link for gift subscription.
https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/account,
or choose subscriptions, manage your subscriptions, give a gift subscription
Thanks!
When you are on this page, go to the upper right where your little avatar is, and click it, then select "Manage Subscriptions". Then you can find gifts.
Thank you
Looking forward to the conversation with Stuart Stevens.
I know it might not be light fare summer reading, but I've been reading about tuberculosis, past and present, and wondering about what USAID cuts will do to deaths from that. It impacts primarily the same group of people as are impacted by ebola now (poor nutrition, limited healthcare). Already, before USAID cuts, more than 1 million people die every year from TB. There are drug resistant strains that are expensive to diagnose. But my thoughts are that these other diseases, not just Ebola, but TB, AIDS, etc, are also going to become bigger factors with the USAID cuts. Bush was a shitty, shitty president, but the one thing he did right was funding AIDS prevention and treatment in Africa. Trump, I guess, has unwound most of that, and worse. African nations should figure more importantly in the future in a way that is not like the exploitive, extractive past.
Are you reading: Everything is Tuberculosis? I thought it was a great read, and I have always admired the author
Yes that is exactly it. It has a lot of interesting history, and some great insight. First book I've read by that author, I had never heard of him before.
For the action at our local Tesla dealership in Colorado (56 Saturdays so far) I made a new sign:
SCREW
WORM YOU,
ELON!
A few weeks ago the new sign was:
GOTTA
LOVE
"EBOLA ELON"!
Lots of cheering, honking and waves. Joyous solidarity.
They are killing millions around the world to feed their greed and corruption. And they are killing MANY of us here in this country as well. Where is the Democrat standing up and telling this truth? Where is that person of character that stands up and preaches the strength of diversity and morality? The lack of powerful rhetoric on the democratic side is deafening.
Um, have you listed to Jon Ossoff, James Talarico, or Rob Sands, etc etc? Just watch the interviews Simon has done with the candidates. They're all inspiring truth tellers!
Atul Gawande made an Oscar- nominated documentary film about it.
You should start a one-stop Winning the Senate fund like you have for the house. One donation, split among the senatorial candidates. I think a reason that the one-stop House site is raising so much money is that it is super easy to donate to multiple races with one click.
Social media analyst Joohn Choe wrote about the Spencer Pratt thing. Apparently Pratt’s sole purpose was to advance voter fraud talking points. Worth a read for how November is going to go:
“ None of the election-denialists talking about Pratt Spencer or Spratt Pantser or Pretty Spankser or whatever his poncey-sounding name is, appear to have actually taken a look at what his platform was.
There is extremely little in the way of standard MAGA "policy" issues to him. Pratt has no publicly visible hate-stances on gay people, drag queens, trans athletes and other hot-button social issues for Republicans.
In fact, Spratly Prigster is a vapid, literally not figuratively healing-bullshit-crystal-hawking LA reality TV star who advocated for drug addicts, insurance payouts for wealthy, presumably liberal LA homeowners, and denied being MAGA in a televised debate. I don't know if anyone's asked him his opinion on gun control, trans people using bathrooms or drag queen story hours but I strongly doubt he'd have MAGA-felicitous answers for any of that.
Literally the only reason why MAGA seem to be talking about him at all is because of a discredited and frankly abominably stupid conspiracy theory that live TV news showed entire tranches of 24k ballots at a time from Los Angeles had zero Pratt votes, which is easily disproved just by watching the TV broadcasts; there were absolutely no vote irregularities like the memes are claiming.
It's interesting in a way that is somewhat oblique to the direction that people usually go with this, which is to bemoan how bad politicians are, how dumb voters are, or how fucked the country is. I'm not interested in that.
Read between the lines and I think you might be able to infer that
1. using his campaign as an excuse for election denialism is more important than portraying an impression of ideological felicity or beating that RINO charge for Sprightly Pibbles (what even is his name), I think very few people even care who he is, only that he has an (R) after his name
2. election-denialist strategy in 2026 is literally this dumb; there's no procedural tricks or obscure laws or lawyerly tricks, it's just obediently bleating the party line even though it won't actually change the outcome, so that down the line in November someone can say "hey it's just like that one time Democrats cheated in California!" and everyone's (fallacious) availability heuristic will say "oh yeah there was that one time in California" without really recalling what actually happened
3. if MAGAs really are that dreadfully upset about a Republican like Prancer Spats who is basically antithetical to most things that MAGA loyalists believe in, maybe that means that candidate quality is really slipping that badly; certainly that impression would seem to be confirmed by other MAGA candidates like Paxton out there”
And a huge NO NO to the trumpi effort to create a national database of American voters using the Postal Service. Got to be unconstitutional as well as unAmerican. So NO submisssion of vote data to the postal service.
Hi Simon and colleagues - The Jefferson Memorial quote is a perfect admonishment to what these imbeciles are doing - on purpose - to harm global public health and the public health of Americans. We have a ton of work to do when we're finally rid of these lowlifes. I'm excited, though, to see how we rebuild our government to be better than it was pre-Trump. I am beginning to understand those who wish Biden had recognized the crisis we were in with MAGA and fought back hard rather than hoping we could return immediately to kinder, gentler days when the two parties worked together. I do think he misread the moment but I'm still a fan of everything he accomplished and it goes without saying that Kamala would have been a fantastic president. Onward.
https://x.com/ME_Politics_/status/2064372309213733077
We’ll see if these exit polls are representative or not later tonight. But if Platner is struggling to consolidate the D vote, that is a potentially big story.
He’s at 60%… that’s a ridiculous statement.
New York times headlines with live updates say "Graham Platner is widely expected to win the Democratic primary in Maine." https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/06/09/us/elections-maine-sc-nv-nd-primaries?unlocked_article_code=1.o1A.P-D9.zPb77ilEgnY4&smid=url-share
NPR refers to Platner as "the presumptive Democratic nominee." https://www.npr.org/2026/06/09/nx-s1-5850231/maine-nevada-south-carolina-primary-trump
Official results will be posted here. https://www.maine.gov/sos/elections-voting/election-results-data
Simon
I think there is a "no kings" rally this weekend, Sunday, June 14
Secondly, I think this should come from you to the Bass and Raman campaigns:
Stay out of the mud, keep it clean. Let the world see that Dems can run a race on the issues that confront LA and not get into a cat fight over trivia
The best rebuke to the enraging, dangerous accusations against the CA election is that Karen Bass would much prefer to run against Spencer Pratt than the other Democrat!! - Harry Enten.
I hope there are concerted slap downs to the big lie, part deux.
QUESTION...are Blanche and Pulte nominations only voted on by the senate? Who is currently voting on the OMB regs next...house or senate? I try to only ask for immediately relevant votes when I call.
OMB regs are both chambers, and Blanche and Pulte are Senate focused, but I think it is OK to express your disapproval of both to the House.
I made my daily morning call to WIR members. I focused this call on telling them to just stop with the election rigging, voter fraud etc. it doesn’t exist. American people are fed up, that’s why Republicans are under performing and losing elections. I also told them to accept responsibility for the mistakes they’ve made ….
It was maybe a bit of a rant but I needed to say it.
I submitted this comment to the proposed rules to politicize scientific research grants: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/29/2026-10817/regulation-for-federal-financial-assistance#open-comment
These proposed regulations represent a fundamental departure from the principles that have made American scientific research the envy of the world, and they must be substantially revised before any implementation.
Politicization of the Peer Review Process
For decades, federal research grants have been awarded through rigorous peer review by subject-matter experts — a system designed specifically to insulate scientific funding from political influence. The proposed rules dismantle this framework by elevating political appointees over expert reviewers and requiring that awards "demonstrably advance the president's policy priorities." This standard has no legitimate basis in science or administrative law. Research integrity depends on independence from the political moment; this rule destroys that independence.
Unlawful Termination Authority
Current law permits grant termination only for serious cause — fraud, mismanagement, or material noncompliance. The proposed rules would allow termination whenever a grant no longer aligns with shifting "agency priorities." This is arbitrary and capricious on its face and will almost certainly not survive judicial scrutiny. Worse, when combined with OMB's push for multi-year commitments, the government could lock researchers into long-term projects and then terminate funding the moment political winds shift — a mechanism that will chill research and deter the best scientists from seeking federal support at all.
The Replicability Requirement Is Scientifically Illiterate
As written, the proposed rules appear to limit funding to replicable studies. This would categorically exclude entire scientific disciplines — astronomical observation, paleoclimatology, field ecology, and the monitoring of weather and climate systems, among others. These are not fringe activities; they are foundational to our understanding of the natural world and to the United States' ability to respond to climate change, natural disasters, and public health emergencies. Any regulation that inadvertently bans observational science must be corrected before it causes irreversible harm to these research programs.
Elimination of Public Welfare and Environmental Language
The deliberate removal of language directing federal awards to support "the public welfare and the environment" is not a minor technical edit — it is a policy statement. Environmental research, climate science, and conservation work that has been federally funded for generations would lose its explicit statutory footing. As an environmental attorney, I can attest that this language has served as a critical anchor for legal challenges to agency inaction. Its removal will be exploited to defund research that millions of Americans depend upon, including work on biodiversity loss, illegal wildlife trafficking, and deforestation.
International Scientific Collaboration
The "America First" framework adopted in these rules would sever cooperative research relationships that have driven American innovation for generations. The proposed prohibition on working with organizations that engage with "foreign adversaries" would effectively bar U.S. scientists from participating in institutions such as the World Meteorological Organization and CERN. These are not adversarial relationships — they are the infrastructure of global science. Cutting American researchers off from international data-sharing and collaboration will set U.S. science back by years and cede competitive advantage to other nations.
Content-Based Research Restrictions
The prohibitions on research touching on gender, racial equity, health disparities, and climate justice are content-based restrictions on federally funded speech and inquiry. Courts have long been skeptical of government attempts to condition funding on adherence to specific viewpoints, and the legal justifications offered in this 400-page document for these provisions are notably thin — a sign that the agency itself recognizes their vulnerability. The practical effect will be to eliminate entire fields of inquiry affecting large portions of the American population, leaving urgent public health and environmental questions unanswered.
Conclusion
Federal grant regulations must preserve the independence, integrity, and international competitiveness of American science. These proposed rules do the opposite. I urge the agency to withdraw the proposed rules and undertake a transparent revision process that centers scientific merit, legal soundness, and the long-term public interest.
Following up on Dr. Delawalla's presentation yesterday (Stand Up for Science), I shared this precious video I received this morning with my entire network. https://substack.com/@democraticwarrior/note/c-272601266?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=h0feb
Will we let Vought interfere with the miracle of scientific research!!!??? No way!
I have to find the quiet time to focus my attention on the Stand Up For Science Interview and Follow ups.
For those interested, there will be a debate tonight at 7pm (Spectrum NY1 TV and Wnyc.org) with five candidates for Jerry Nadler's NY seat. Moderators are Errol Louis, Brian Lehrer and Brigid Bergin.
Looking forward to that.