THIS IS A FOLK TREATMENT I’D NEVER HEARD OF: Human breast milk found to enhance corneal healing in new research.

Years ago, a young patient’s mother told Emily McCourt, MD, associate professor of ophthalmology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, that she hadn’t used a prescribed ointment to treat her baby’s chemical corneal burn but instead used her own breast milk.

“I remember thinking, ‘Well, that’s interesting because this patient looks amazing,” McCourt recalls. “Then, I thought about all my patients who said they’ve used breast milk in their baby’s eyes for blocked tear ducts and rashes. There was a real opportunity to look into what was happening and why.”

Interesting.

THE DEEP STATE IS REAL, BUT IT’S NOT ALL THAT SPECTACULAR:

On the one hand it's hilarious and pathetic – but on the other it's incredibly instructive – that US corporate media continues to refer to propaganda outlets funded by USAID as "independent media."

Trump and Musk attack "independent media"! (by cutting their US Govt funding). https://t.co/IHoOGIK0nh

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 10, 2025

More like pathetic and dishonest, and kinda cringey.

Related: Your Job Is to Push the Yes Button: The secretaries make the game clear.

Notice when a counter-argument doesn’t describe the argument: I refute (thing I will only vaguely reference). This mode of “argument” is somehow becoming the new normal, quickly.

A gaggle of former Secretaries of the Treasury — Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geithner, Jacob Lew and Janet Yellen — warn in the New York Times today that the President of the United States is interfering with the operations of the executive branch. No, really. It remains entirely true that warnings about the threat to “Our Democracy” are, in fact, warnings about the threat to Our Bureaucracy. Five people who’ve served at the top levels of the federal government can’t produce one clear and reasonable premise between them.

They just want the money to go to their crowd, because it always has and they feel entitled to it.

The administrative state is impartial, honest, accurate, and pure. “Civil servants” are good; political people are bad. But this is how Article II begins: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” Our entire system of government is premised on the authority of people who, having been elected to office, are accountable to be the people of the country for their choices. A function of government that “has historically been operated by a very small group of nonpartisan career civil servants”: not present in the Constitution. Prove otherwise, if you’d like to try. Show me the authority of that “very small group of nonpartisan career civil servants” in Article II, and tell me exactly where to find it.

Five former senior government officials, feeling themselves wonderfully virtuous, have casually upended the entire American system of government without noticing that they’ve done it. Dire warning: The President of the United States is acting like he’s in charge of the executive branch.

More reason to abolish the civil service.

Related: Smashing the ‘rice bowls’ — how elites are lashing out at Trump and Musk’s reforms.

THE E.V. BUBBLE CONTINUES TO DEFLATE: The EV transition hits some snags at Porsche and Audi.

EVs are cool in some respects, but most people rationally don’t want them. And broad adoption would require more electrical generation capacity than greens can tolerate.

VINAY PRASAD: NIH reduced indirects from 60+% to 15%: 10 things you should know. “You might not realize that when the National Institutes of Health gives out grants, it also pays the institution getting the grant with ‘indirects’, which can be used for any purpose. That means if 100 dollars is paid to the individual grant recipient, 60 dollars or more may be paid to the university. For some facilities it is 90 (see links below). This is obviously money that can’t be spent on more grants. . . . The NIH is now in line with many philanthropic associations that cap indirects at 10-15%. See below. This is widely considered acceptable by universities.”

YOU WOULD NEED A HEART OF STONE NOT TO LAUGH:

Tens of thousands of angry liberals in D.C. had to drive to work today for the first time in four years, and their seething rage at having to go to work—for Donald Trump!—is making me laugh so hard.

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) February 10, 2025

Related:

Joe Biden's final jobs report is out and it's a doozy.

– 589,000 jobs revised into oblivion
– 70% of jobs created in the government sector
– 99.2% of jobs going to foreign-born workers

This is the mess they’re handing Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/zUmz4pfBKU

— Peter St Onge, Ph.D. (@profstonge) February 10, 2025

NOT FADE AWAY: James Lileks on Buddy Holly.

GABBY GIFFORDS’ STAFF forgot to turn off replies before putting up an idiotic post.

RACIST, SCHMACIST: After objecting to schools’ ‘equity’ programs, liberal parents attacked, called ‘racist.’ Nowadays if they’re calling you racist, it usually just means they’re defending some sort of grift or graft.

IN SOME WAYS, CHANGING THIS CALCULUS WILL DO MORE GOOD THAN ANYTHING:

The calculus for joining government is radically changing. The promise of gaining control of enormous dark money government slush funds and routing them to your friends who stand up totally vague and nebulous NGOs that then launder the money back to you and your other friends, is…

— Tyler Winklevoss (@tyler) February 9, 2025

CDR SALAMANDER: 21-Days of Trump Chapter 2: How is Everyone Holding Up? Not we Americans…but the rest of the world. “Our poll of 28,549 people across 24 countries revealed four things. First, Europeans are almost alone in mourning Trump’s election. . . . The USA is EU-positive, which is something that the Europeans should leverage. Instead they seem intent on making problems with the relationship—something that does not help either party. The media and ruling class still get their view of the USA from the New York Times and Washington Post—and their derivatives—and it shows. People in the USA who only have those news sources hate their own country, so this is no shock.”

Related:

HOW BUREAUCRATS THINK ABOUT ACCOUNTABILITY: “Elon Musk and DOGE are doing what amounts to a comprehensive audit of the federal government, and it is driving the Democrats nuts. This is, of course, because the federal budget is their piggy bank that funds both the leftists themselves and all their evil plans.”

IT’S AMAZING HOW FAST THEY’VE COLLAPSED ONCE THE MONEY SPIGOT WAS CLOSED:

Today, the entire local opposition called for a massive demonstration against mining.

Every political party joined the call, along with 90% of all NGOs, universities, churches, and activist groups. They ran a month-long mainstream media and social media campaign, had the backing… pic.twitter.com/y6UJrtWF19

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) February 9, 2025

If your ministry has to close down after state funding dries up, it's not a "ministry," it's a state church. https://t.co/yNiKarMLkG

— @instapundit (@instapundit) February 10, 2025

It’s as if the global left was always a sham. I’m reminded of after the fall of the Soviet Union, when all sorts of “grassroots” “popular rebellions” disappeared overnight once the outside funding stopped.

GOOD: The Supreme Court’s SFFA Decision Has Caused An Unprecedented Shift In Law School Admissions. Proof that they were discriminating according to race before.

ROGER KIMBALL: Trump, Musk, and the Deep State: The Battle Over Transparency Begins. “Trump and Musk are unraveling the deep state’s secrets at record speed, and the left is panicking—wielding emergency orders, judicial overreach, and legal theatrics to stop the exposure.”

Spoiler: It won’t work.

DON SURBER: What Trump did THIS weekend: Elon Musk must have read Matthew Lesko’s book on free government money.

ICYMI: THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRATS ARE GOING BATSHIT CRAZY OVER:

UPDATE: Reader John Steakley writes:

From some of what I see online and conversations with my lefty friends, the Dems seem to be coalescing around an innocuous-sounding theme of “Slow Down.” I.e., without debating the merits of what Trump is doing, can’t we just all agree that he’s doing it all way too quickly?

This avoids any awkward debates about the merits of USAID funding transgender basket-weaving classes in Patagonia, and skips right to the real Democrat goal of just stalling Trump until we are closer to midterm elections.

If the GOP indulges this for even a second, they deserve every midterm loss they will suffer.

Keep going. Don’t slow down. Don’t even slow down to talk to the bitter losers asking you to slow down. You have at best four years of a GOP Congress and probably only two. Don’t waste time.

Faster, please.

Related:

Dems: We need 80000 IRS agents to audit your $600 venmo payment.

Reps: There are over $100B annual entitlement payments to people without social security numbers.

Dems: Auditing is extremely dangerous to our democracy!

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 9, 2025

Plus:

If you’re outraged at all the ridiculous and wasteful government spending you should be. If you’re outraged that DOGE is looking into things, I wonder why?🤔

— Phil Mickelson (@PhilMickelson) February 9, 2025

I’M SURE THIS IS ALL ON THE UP AND UP: Dem congressman’s charity has more than $30 million tied up in Cayman Islands funds: ‘The wealthiest among us must help to provide more access for others to pursue the American dream,’ Goldman said last week.

WHEN NANCY PELOSI AND JOE BIDEN ARE THE FACES OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, IS THAT A SURPRISE?

CBS just recorded their highest approval rating for President Trump in their polling history this past week.

The thing that makes this newsworthy is the age split: Trump's doing better among the young than the old! pic.twitter.com/nUlLtLlDrk

— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) February 9, 2025

Related:

One of the underrated aspects of why the Democratic Party is in the dumps right now is that they are so lame and cringe.

That’s showing up with young voters.

Luckily, they’ve made David Hogg vice chair of the party so that’s sure to up their appeal. https://t.co/oyttc6tfZ7

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) February 9, 2025

Also, younger people consume more non-mass-media news so the monolithic narrative approach doesn’t work on them very well.

WHAT A FERTILITY COLLAPSE LOOKS LIKE:

Unbelievable but true, there more people in France born in 1946 (and still alive) than there are people born in 2024 https://t.co/OAi6FUj1sS pic.twitter.com/X1QTZJPCbC

— François Valentin (@Valen10Francois) February 8, 2025

HARSH BUT FAIR:

I have no sympathy for academic researchers and their staff who do shit science and live off NIH grants. I am sorry. Never have. Never will. They do work that cannot be reproduced, just say the same empty slogans that are in vogue. During the pandemic they failed society and…

— Vinay Prasad MD MPH (@VPrasadMDMPH) February 8, 2025

OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.

IN ENDORSING KAMALA, SHE CHOSE . . . POORLY.

This Super Bowl game is off to a great start.

The whole stadium BOOED Taylor Swift but ERUPTED in cheers for President Trump.

Based. pic.twitter.com/Z9PyGEERvr

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 10, 2025

GOOD. SLS IS A WHITE ELEPHANT. Boeing warns SLS employees of potential layoffs.

BRR: Unpacking the records of history’s cruelest summers.

THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRATS ARE GOING BATSHIT CRAZY OVER:

UPDATE: Reader John Steakley writes:

From some of what I see online and conversations with my lefty friends, the Dems seem to be coalescing around an innocuous-sounding theme of “Slow Down.” I.e., without debating the merits of what Trump is doing, can’t we just all agree that he’s doing it all way too quickly?

This avoids any awkward debates about the merits of USAID funding transgender basket-weaving classes in Patagonia, and skips right to the real Democrat goal of just stalling Trump until we are closer to midterm elections.

If the GOP indulges this for even a second, they deserve every midterm loss they will suffer.

Keep going. Don’t slow down. Don’t even slow down to talk to the bitter losers asking you to slow down. You have at best four years of a GOP Congress and probably only two. Don’t waste time.

Faster, please. (Bumped).

Plus:

Because…THIS pic.twitter.com/cnQUPEEKdd

— EFHutton (parody) (@EFHutton123) February 8, 2025