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Parsing Biden’s 2024 State of the Union Address

Karen Dolan Institute for Policy Studies
President Biden credited progressive economics with a strong post-COVID recovery. But on Gaza and immigration, he failed to draw much distinction with his conservative opponents.

Intel’s $3.5 Billion Boondoggle

Austin Ahlman The American Prospect
The microchip giant’s ‘secure enclave’ project will take nearly 10 percent of a CHIPS Act manufacturing fund that is already stretched thin.

Extinction Crisis

Susan C. Moser Dear Human at the Edge of Time
Susan Moser’s poetry addresses the “extinction crisis”—thousands of species disappear forever—as human life goes on in this world.

Ozempic Is a Brain Drug

Sarah Zhang The Atlantic
The latest weight loss drugs succeeded not because we fully understood the hormone they’re based on but because we got lucky. And drug development, for all the careful research required, does sometimes come down to luck.

Florida Is Swamped by Disease

Richard Luscombe The Guardian
In Florida, quackery is replacing science. The state is in the grip of a measles outbreak, yet Joseph Ladapo, the surgeon general, continues to ignore medical science to stop it.

One Big Thing Biden’s SOTU Got Right

Zack Beauchamp Vox
The president dodged the “norms trap” by going straight after Trump on democracy. There is no hypocrisy in defending truth against lies.

Friday Nite Videos | March 8, 2024

Portside
Eagle Pass Residents Sound Off on the Real "Invasion. " The IRS Files: How Billionaires Avoid Taxes. This Video Game Software Helps Us Do Paleontology. Working Families Party Responds to State of the Union. Biden Takes Down Supreme Court Justices.

Sketches From Spain: Homage to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade

Philip C. Kolin, reviewer Portside
No one is better qualified than Peter Neil Carroll to write a book of memorial poems about the valiant men and women who volunteered for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to fight the fascists in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939.