Wednesday, November 5, 2025

Links 11/5/2025

The Primary Care Puzzle: Can It Be Solved?

Lisa Rosenbaum, MD, is a national correspondent for the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).  She has just published Is a Long-Simmering Crisis Boiling Over? U.S. Primary Care Today.  The easy, and current, answer is “Yes.”  But this is not necessarily the final answer.  Dr. Rosenbaum begins with the description of the career arc of […]

With Baseless Fraud Claim, White House Says Trump Preparing Anti-Voter Executive Order

Yet more Trump threat display to try to extend the reach of his faction, here by stymieing voter access to elections.

“The Multipolarism of Fools: The BRICS Are Not the Answer”

A hot mess of a BRICS critique, among other things lambasting the growing association as anti-democratic.

Coffee Break: Armed Madhouse – The Poseidon Problem

Russia’s new Poseidon weapon, a nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed undersea drone, threatens coastal cities with massive radioactive destruction. Its speed, stealth, and long range make very difficult to defend against, forcing adversaries to consider ruinously expensive countermeasures. This article examines Poseidon’s capabilities, the challenge of undersea defense, and why renewed arms control is the only rational response.

The Lasting Economic Scars of War

War is even more destructive in economic terms than is widely acknowledged.

Links 11/4/2025

How Brazil’s New Digital Payments System Managed to Enrage (and Terrify) Both Wall Street and Silicon Valley

A mobile payments system that is publicly controlled, easy to use and without fees (for individuals and small businesses) is “tough to beat.” 

Wall Street Journal Insults Reader Intelligence, Depicts Lenders as Addressing Loan Risks When That Horse Has Left the Barn and Is in the Next County

The Wall Street Journal does its readers no favors in its whole-hog adoption of the fraud spin in ‘splaining high profile loan losses.

Technology Empires and the Race to Cement Dominance

A look at how the US and China are seeking to achieve technology hegemonies, and the efforts of smaller countries to carve out niches.

Coffee Break: MAGA Civil War – America First vs. Israel First

A major MAGA civil war has erupted pitting Tucker Carlson against what Nick Fuentes calls “Israel First” Republicans.

Mission Impossible: Why the US Cannot Reverse Its Manufacturing Decline

Debunking magical thinking about the US regaining its manufacturing mojo at scale.

Links 11/3/2025

Tracing a Line Between Israeli Pager Attacks and Ukraine Collapse to the Tennessee Munitions Factory Explosion that Killed 16 Workers in an Impoverished Region of the U.S.

The so-called ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ goes up in smoke. 

Trump’s Deportations Are Causing Farm Labor Issues. He Hasn’t Presented a Viable, Long-Term Solution.

Trump has cast the H-2A program as a quick help for farmers. At the same time, the program has been suspended during the government shutdown, which could cause production problems.