Author: Kiera Butler

RFK Jr. Wants to Make It Easier for Doctors to Spread Medical Lies

Here is a bit of news involving Democratic presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. that, unlike his antisemitic remarks and the unfortunate soundtrack during one of his appearances, didn’t exactly go viral. Earlier this week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in a case against a California law that was passed last […]

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Shannon Hale.

In April, bestselling children’s book author Shannon Hale published book number 10 in her acclaimed Princess in Black series. For those who don’t have an elementary schooler in their lives and therefore may not be as familiar with the series as I am, here’s the gist: Prim Princess Magnolia lives in a charming castle doing […]

Meet the Rich Guys Who Want RFK Jr. to be President

When Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced his bid for the presidency at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel on April 19, 2023, he pledged to a cheering crowd to “end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening now to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism in our country; to commoditize our […]

MAGA Groups Claim Schools Are Too Woke to Teach Reading Correctly

Ten years ago, Marilyn Muller began to suspect that her kindergarten daughter, Lauryn, was struggling with reading. Lauryn, a bright child, seemed mystified by the process of sounding out simple words. Still, the teachers at the top-rated Massachusetts public school reassured Muller that nothing was wrong, and Lauryn would pick up the skill—eventually. Surely they […]

The Coming Tidal Wave of Right Wing Covid Lawsuits

In late March, I watched as some 300 lawyers, doctors, and activists assembled in the aggressively beige conference wing of the Midtown Atlanta Hilton for the inaugural Covid Litigation Conference. A promotional flier promised that the event would “provide attendees with the resources they need to begin taking on Covid cases for the first time […]

How MAGA Conspiracies Infected Autism Groups

By any measure, Stephanie Seneff is an accomplished scientist. A senior researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, she’s been a leader in the emerging field of computer response to human speech. After earning two PhDs from MIT in the early ’80s, in the following decades she paved the way […]

It’s Time to Harden the Schools. No, Really.

Last month, in the wake of the school shooting in Nashville that killed six people, Congressman Tim Burchett (R.-Tenn.) said in an interview that went viral, “If you think Washington is going to fix this problem, you’re wrong. They’re not going to fix this problem.” He added, “I don’t see any real role that we […]