My 529/student loan post seems to have hit some nerves. I guess I'm looking for greater self-awareness among my fellow boomer 401(k)/529 millionaires indignant about SL loan forgiveness. Indignant reaction reminds me a bit of some UC colleagues, who self-righteously decry (1/4) charter schools+educ vouchers as neoliberal pathologies while sending their own kids to our tax-subsidized+every-way-exclusive Lab School, or who embrace "Defund the Police," while indignantly speaking at university meetings to demand better UCPD coverage on their street (2/4).

Wow the FBI really blew this whole opioid episode. (1/) No--not the Federal Bureau of Investigation—the Dick Wolf TV reboot: The FBI, Season 4 episode 7, which I watched last night seeking mindless entertainment (2/)

Israel faces a moral, strategic, epidemiological, and diplomatic imperative to help Palestinians achieve rapid COVID vaccination in the occupied territories. So far, the story is a huge Israeli failure on each of these fronts. (1/n) COVID is a looming public health disaster in Palestinian areas. As the party w/military control, Israel has a legal+moral responsibility to ensure that people are vaccinated. This is separate+apart from the many other historic+security differences between the two peoples. (2/n)

Today’s @nytimes story highlights a familiar but lethal disparity issue in COVID-19 care: Ensuring that patients get care at the right hospitals--and that hospitals actually providing such care have the resources they need for proper care. nytimes.com/2021/02/08/us/… Thread (1/n) Vaccines, PPE, distancing+hand-washing are obviously critical. Another immediate imperative to save lives: Ensuring that COVID patients receive care at hospitals w/staffing, resources+expertise to treat them—and that front-line hospitals are supported with these resources. (2/n)

An intentionally over-simplified+bad-graphics nerd-thread with irrelevant math symbols and bad hand-writing inspired by @ADPaltiel, @jasonlschwartz, Amy Zheng+@RWalensky in their recent Health Affairs piece. healthaffairs.org/doi/pdf/10.137… Today's intentionally over-simplified+bad-graphic nerd moment seeks to explain why we must keep masking, hand-washing+distancing even after we have a good but imperfect vaccine that reduces transmission by some amount gamma--maybe 70%. Why am I using Greek letters? No idea. (2/n)

I've been thinking lately about what makes Twitter so toxic. Aside from its obvious problems, I think we all need to rethink "dunking-on" culture. And I've come to believe that winning arguments is often over-rated in creating lasting change+political reforms. (1/n=10) Building relationship, sharing perspectives, and genuinely listening are usually much more important than besting someone in an argument. I felt this first-hand doing GOTV in 2008, 12+16. I teach health policy. So I probably know more policy than the ambivalent voter (2/n)

The NY AG suggests that the Trump Foundation is a comprehensive fraud. I fully believe this, but I am also truly puzzled. (thread). nytimes.com/2018/12/18/nyr… I'm not surprised that the Foundation is riddled with self-dealing, hidden favoratism, and tax scams. washingtonpost.com/politics/trump…

58. I share the anger that leads many of us to shun President Trump+his core political team. Let’s do so with cold civility, properly acerbic but with no profanity or screaming, let alone any form of physical intimidation. 59. We should proceed with confidence. Most Americans don’t want 5-year-olds separated from their parents at the border or millions of people to lose Medicaid. They don’t want tax cuts for the top 1%.

33. The President pursues many policies that hurt millions of people, often vulnerable+politically marginalized people. The Muslim ban+his cruelty towards immigrants are the most obvious examples of measures that must be strongly resisted. 34. He has key weaknesses. He is angry, nervously defensive+deeply unpopular despite a strong economy which should have boosted his fundamentals. His immigration, health+tax policies are quite unpopular outside his base. That’s one reason he lies about these policies so much.

25.King also knew his audience. Though he certainly hoped to change hearts, he wasn't expecting to change the hearts of Birmingham’s white elite. He was trying to defeat them. He wasn’t relying on changing the hearts of white people across the northern states. 26.The moral clarity of his cause helped, too. At some level, many white Americans understood that, even if they also nitpicked the civil rights movement’s confrontational tactics+consistently preferred the slower, less decisive+discomfiting path to dismantling official racism.

1.I have been thinking about a great Twitter exchange with @gregggonsalves+@republicofspin. I had a few thoughts for 62 lunch tweets. politico.com/magazine/story… 2.Tl;dr—Trump folk have no right to expect or demand decorousness from the rest of us. But it’s smart strategy to general accord them civility anyway.

Conversation about articles like this would go better if people (1) distinguished the strategic dilemma facing Democrats+liberals from the moral+historic context of the Trump victory, and (2) avoided stereotypes about who liberals actually are. 1/237 nyti.ms/2Ieg0h3 As a matter of strategy, Dems+liberals absolutely must reach constituencies that voted for President Trump. Obama->Trump voters are a key heartland constituency. Many are reachable, particularly through issues such as Medicaid+disability. We certainly can't give up on them. 2/237