James Tepper

Husband, dad, Deadhead, guitarist. Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience at Rutgers. I cook a mean carne asada burrito and am a master of eggs.

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

Trump/Musk have cancelled ALL scientific grants at Columbia University in NYC. This is just about the worst case scenario for researchers at Columbia and will certainly be a career-ender for many of their currently un-tenured faculty, most of whom have more than 5-10 years of post-doctoral research.

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

I am not a fan of most DEI initiatives. I am against all forms of antisemitism unequivocally. But the Trump/Hegseth policy of wiping from the internet anything that contains certain “forbidden” words without regard to the actual content and context of the deleted web pages is stupid and dangerous.

This is identical to how Big Brother controlled the masses in Orwell’s “1984”. How or why MAGAts and Republicans cannot see this is just an example of how effective their strategy of denial and repeated and deliberate use of false information really is.

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

Trump’s DEI purge has reached absurd proportions with the deletion of pages from the Pentagon web sites about Jackie Robinson and the Holocaust. What the fuck is wrong with these people? The entire world is simultaneously laughing at the Trump’s administration as well as worrying about what psychotic move they’ll make next.

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

@JerryK1986 @RonDeSNews It is clear that you have no idea what does or does not constitute treason. I doubt you can even define the word.

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

@CarolNicke35019 @RonDeSNews Of course this is all a crock of shit. Easy enough to disprove from financial disclosure docs that they are all required to file.

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

@TrumpRealDaily She’s ignorant and full of hubris. I give her a 0.

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

The least, and I mean the absolute least that Trump can do with the savings of the salaries of the tens of thousands of federal employees that he has and is firing is to use that money to pay down our debt. Not to finance more tax cuts that benefit his billionaire buddies.

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

Four federal judges in recent days have blocked or overturned various Trump/Musk moves designed to further disassemble the Constitutionally mandated self regulation of the US government and replace it by an Executive Branch that Trumps the other two.

What makes more sense? That all 4 Judges and others that are trying to block Trump and the Muskrats attempts to issue unconstitutional Executive Orders is that there is some collusion among Judges to block lawful acts for strictly political reasons or that Trump/Musk are attempting unprecedented illegal overreach of Presidential power designed to weaken the Legislative and ignore the Judicial branch ? Seems obvious what is happening.

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

@Hunter_Eagleman Horseshit!

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

Trump sure is winning! Just as he said on the campaign trail, he’s settled the Israel/Hamas war and the war in Ukraine, on his first day in office, if not before. NOT!!

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

"I do whine because I want to win, and I'm not happy about not winning, and I am a whiner, and I keep whining and whining until I win,"#Trump said on CNN in 2015.

So much whining.

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

Social Security retirement benefits are funded (or supposed to be) entirely from taxes taken from workers’ earnings. Fine. But for some bizarre( to me) reason, the income used to calculate the SS taxes owed has an arbitrary cutoff. Salary earned above this limit contributes nothing to SS.

And the cutoff is relatively low. In 2024, the cutoff was $166,800. That means that zero percent of income above that number is collected for SS. What this means is that INDEPENDENT OF FEDERAL INCOME TAX, wealthy wage earners are not contributing any of their income over $168,600 to the SS pool.

Problem with the predicted insolvency of SS around 2035? Easy peasy. Simply raise the earnings cutoff on which SA tax is collected. Why is this not ever discussed?

$168,600 for a single earner is hardly low income. And raising that limit to be the same as it is for all Federal taxes not only simplifies our arcane federal tax structure, it will also completely eradicate the risk of SS insolvency.

Yes, it’s a tax increase, but not for the poor or lower middle class (at all!!) and it also doesn’t single out multi-billionaires either. It’s dependent on one’s earnings.

If one is earning at least $168,600 (and most households have not one but two earners), raising the limit to the same as Federal Income Tax is not only fair and logical, but it’s COMMON SENSE.

Isn’t that what the Republicans keep screaming about?

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

Trump inherited a robust, booming economy from Biden (yeah, I know what he says. But he lies). He was told by the vast majority of economists that the tariffs and his plans would be deadly for Americans. We are starting to see that now as stocks have been crashing hard on the heels of uncertainty and on news of the on again- off again- on again tariffs and and the pending gov’t shutdown.

So much winning!! Next stop: recession.

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

DJT stock now down 46% since Trump assumed office. So much winning! Go Trump!! All those regular folks that have little or nothing invested are laughing their asses off.

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

@SamPeg75698 @jurgen_nauditt Well shit!! Someone has to. Trump sure as fuck won’t dare oppose his buddy, Putin.

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

Hegseth, Trump’s DEI lapdog, is apparently using DOGE’s really dumb AI to scrub all federal photos, text, videos etc. of anything that smacks of DEI. This now extends to historic photos of the plane and crew that dropped the world’s first nuclear bomb. Why? Because the name of the plane was, as any educated American older than 30 knows, “the Ebola Gay “.

You absolutely cannot make this shit up. This guy is as dumb as a bag of hammers.

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

You guys really still
Ok with this. It’s exactly as predicted. We don’t have a cabinet. We have an echo chamber.

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

Are Republicans really OK with approving nominees that have repeatedly said and shown that they see their job as merely rubber-stamping whatever fever dreams Trump has?

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

It was 10. I should have placed a bet.

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

What’s the over /under on the number of times Trump will mention Biden by name in his speech tonight, mostly blaming him for the sad state of affairs we are in now. 7?

[James Tepper @JMTepper1]

I feel bad, terrible even, for people who find themselves in a body that does not match their internal gender. I am in favor of allowing them to switch clothing, pronouns and even have surgery to make their corporeal selves match their internal gender. No questions, period.

But biological males and biological females are different, no argument there. Different, not better or worse. And once past puberty, males, under the influence of genetics but mostly a genetically endowed hormonal milieu, develop significantly stronger bones, much greater muscle mass, Less fat and and altered fat distribution and dozens or hundreds of other physiological changes. These alterations are largely permanent.

Allowing make to female transgender individuals to participate in sports with biological females is simply not fair. And should not be allowed. It is, as the Republicans say, common sense.

This does not make me a vicious anti-LGB+ person. I will continue to fight for the rights of all LGBT folks to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Marriage, family, kids. Everything. Except for physical competition with biological females.

This one, small thing is simply not fair. And I am staunchly against it. As you should be too. It’s only common sense.