Ricardo “Good trouble” Ismach, MD, MPH

Audio Engineer turned Parasitologist turned ER Doc turned documentary filmmaker. Fighter for truth & justice. Strats! K7DZY. And Dad. @[email protected]

[Ricardo “Good trouble” Ismach, MD, MPH @RickIsmach]

https://t.co/jXpqSdJYRZ

[Scott MacFarlane @MacFarlaneNews]

Very tough Washington Post headline for Team Trump

And ... well... for all of us

[Melodies & Masterpieces @SVG__Collection]

“Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” by Marvin Gaye was released as a single 55 years ago today.

[Mike Young @micyoung75]

The election offenses manual told prosecutors not to seize ballots until after certification.

DOJ removed that manual. Then started seizing ballots in swing-state counties.

The sequence matters. They didn't drop the policy and happen to start seizing ballots. They dropped the policy so they could.

[Eric Holder @EricHolder]

June 11, 1963. My late sister in law - Vivian Malone - with the help of the Department of Justice and President Kennedy integrated the University of Alabama. The Governor of the state, George Wallace, stood in the school house door to prevent her from enrolling. The use of State power to trample on the rights of black Americans. In 2026 this resurgent movement by southern Republicans is both historically familiar and alarming.

Vivian fought.

[Ed Krassenstein @EdKrassen]

This is Sad!

For almost 30 years, leaders from both parties have set politics aside to honor the women veterans who gave their lives for this country at Arlington National Cemetery.

Then Trump and Hegseth shut it down.

Why? Because the ceremony recognized women.

This is an insult to every woman who wore the uniform, served with courage, and sacrificed for this nation.

Yesterday, @demwomencaucus stood with the women veterans Trump and Hegseth tried to erase and held an event anyway.

We see you. We honor you. We thank you. 🇺🇸

[Jo @JoJoFromJerz]

There are credible allegations made against Donald Trump that he mutilated a child’s nipples while raping her.
Allegations so serious, his inner circle had to meet in the Situation Room to discuss them.

I mean, how the fuck isn’t this the biggest scandal in the world right now?

[Morgan J. Freeman @mjfree]

🚨🚨🚨 I'm posting this video every day so we NEVER forget what insurrectionist Donald Trump did on J6

Instead of accepting defeat and honoring the peaceful transfer of power, Trump unleashed a deadly mob on the U.S. Capitol in a last-ditch attempt to stay in power

THIS is what an insurrection looks like 👇👇👇

[derek guy @dieworkwear]

No, I don't think the average US consumer will pay 150% more for MiUSA goods. A few things:

First, consumers are practical. They will not pay more just because something was made in the US, but they may pay more if the upcharge comes with an increase in quality. There's no reason to believe that MiUSA clothing is inherently better than clothing made abroad. In fact, sometimes it's worse.

Second, you can look around you. Look at the vociferous MAGA influencers who criticize corporations for offshoring their manufacturing, while at the same time getting their merch made abroad. They could get their merch made right here in the US from fiber to finish — it literally only takes a few clicks of a button — but they won't. I know because I've offered my services to help them reshore their manufacturing, and not a single one has accepted.

Third, look at consumers. Consumers don't want to pay a lot of money for clothes because Western society has long discounted the cultural significance of clothing. Fashion is commonly considered too vain, too mercantile, and too superficial. Just look at how many people loudly posture about how much they either dislike or don't care about clothes. This is a form of virtue signaling to show that you're smarter and more substantive than other people. Thus, it's unreasonable to expect this sort of person to pay a lot of money for clothes — they take pride in not valuing them.

If you want to reinvigorate US garment manufacturing, you can't envision a future in which thousands of Americans make crappy t-shirts and jeans that eventually retail for $25 and $75, with such items sold to US consumers who are likely to be bitter about having fewer options and higher prices. This is not a sensible strategy for either employment or wage growth, as those jobs will eventually be replaced by robots anyway.

IMO, you'd be better off moving upstream into luxury goods and exporting them to the global market. Just as the average Italian doesn't wear luxury Italian suits and the average French person doesn't carry saddle-stitched bags, you don't have to count on Americans wearing Alden shoes and Rochester Tailored Clothing suits. Instead, you can access the larger global market.

This strategy protects the worker. We already live in a world where a machine can pad-stitch a suit. Whether this industrially produced garment is up to snuff to benchmade tailoring is up for debate, but no one can argue that the average consumer can tell the difference between machine and handwork. Yet, those who have the means are willing to pay for the handwork. Why? Because at that tier of clothing, handwork adds a sense of romance — human labor adds something that a machine can never replace. This higher-skilled work also comes with higher wage growth. The US doesn't have an employment problem; it has a wage growth problem.

Instead of erecting tariffs that increase the cost of European leathers, British and Italian wools, and Mongolian cashmere (inputs we need to make high-quality clothes), you can tax the rich and use the money to train Americans in crafts-based, high-end luxury sectors. Then you can export these goods to the global market. But doing so requires government spending (in training and education), lower trade barriers (so you can access other markets and get cheaper inputs), and improved relationships with other countries (such as not insulting Canadians, prompting them to boycott our goods).

The primary MiUSA customer has always been a fashion customer, not someone buying something out of patriotism. I'm reminded of an interview I did long ago with someone who owned a custom button-up shirt company. He had his shirt manufactured at the Garland factory in North Carolina, which is now unfortunately closed. He recalled standing on the factory floor and watching his shirts roll off the same assembly line as some of Thom Browne's Brooks Brothers Black Fleece shirts, which retailed for about twice his prices. His company primarily served people who said they "love" supporting US manufacturing, but behind the scenes, they were often complainers, time wasters, and people with a high return rate. Meanwhile, the fashion customer thinks nothing of spending $300 for a button-up shirt because it has a fashionable label on it. This is the kind of customer you want to pursue, not the supposed "patriots."

The strategy was always doomed from the start because the most vociferous proponents hold all three positions at once:

— wants to virtue signal about supporting US manufacturing
— is against increasing the minimum wage
— buys foreign imports because they're cheap and see thrift as a moral virtue

[Melodies & Masterpieces @SVG__Collection]

Remembering the great Ray Charles, who passed away 22 years ago today.

[Bill Madden @maddenifico]

New York Times investigative journalists Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman are this generation's Woodward and Bernstein.

This story is Trump's Watergate and it's about to EXPLODE:

Vice President JD Vance, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, former Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, White House Counsel David Warrington, FBI Director Kash Patel, Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, and former Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich converted the hallowed Situation Room — America's nerve center for real threats and decisive action — into a pedophile protection racket, where top officials huddled to cover-up the Epstein files scandal and protect a president who used to rape children for fun.

[Scott MacFarlane @MacFarlaneNews]

Brutal news cycles for Trump

Big losses on economy

And failed vote on big security issue in Congress just now

Just filed ====>

https://t.co/vHyaiKpcCd

[Craig Unger @craigunger]

1/ Last month I told a room of Baltic intelligence officers and diplomats that Donald Trump is an asset of Russian intelligence. Not one of them blinked. "Of course," they said. Ho hum. But in America, saying it out loud is still taboo. Why? 🧵

[Democracy Now! @democracynow]

Section 702, enacted to legalize the U.S.'s post-9/11 warrantless wiretapping program, has swept up and stored vast amounts of data from people inside the country, including their emails, texts and cellphone data for nearly two decades.

“It took this nomination of a completely unqualified guy to get enough members of Congress to really stop it." https://t.co/P3Oq0Q9pY1

[Portland Fire & Rescue @PDXFire]

Crews responding to a possible jumper on the west end of the Broadway Bridge.

[Democracy Now! @democracynow]

Amnesty International Accuses Israel of Ethnic Cleansing in the West Bank https://t.co/q2aZV22HRt

[Scott MacFarlane @MacFarlaneNews]

Sen. Elissa Slotkin @SenatorSlotkin (D-MI) says Bill Pulte is a bigger risk than even a lapse of America's foreign intelligence surveillance tools

He's just that dangerous, she argues

Slotkin sat with "Scott MacFarlane Reports" this afternoon

[Laiken Jordahl @LaikenJordahl]

BREAKING: We're suing the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service over their plan to give away 715 acres of a public wildlife refuge to billionaire corporation Space X.

Americans shouldn't be sacrificing their public lands to subsidize a company owned by the richest man in the world.

[Be A King @BerniceKing]

As we observe Black Music Month, this 1958 Jet cover reflects a part of my mother’s public life that is sometimes overlooked. Her voice and artistry were part of the freedom movement, and music was one of the ways she contributed to the struggle for justice.

Her artistry and her activism were never separate.

#CorettaScottKing #BlackMusicMonth #JetMagazine #JetBeauty #MLK

[Ricardo “Good trouble” Ismach, MD, MPH @RickIsmach]

@ashleyroybal Profitable, though…

[Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari @RepYassAnsari]

The White House cover up of the Epstein Files is the most egregious, disturbing and corrupt in American history. It’s criminal.

Read this stunning new reporting from the @nytimes ⬇️

https://t.co/ne1D1161z1