On Monday, Trump signed a sweeping order aimed in part at reversing several Biden administration executive orders on health care, including efforts to lower the cost of prescription drugs for people on Medicare and Medicaid, enhancing the Affordable Care Act and increasing protections for Medicaid enrollees. The so-called initial rescissions order, according to the Trump White House, is aimed at Biden policies that it says are “deeply unpopular” and “radical.”

Trump reverses Biden policies on drug pricing and Obamacare

Seems like there should be a free South Knox/Sevier Ave/Kerns trolley from downtown on weekends at least while the Gay Street bridge is out.

South Knoxville business fears for survival amid bridge closure, Sevier Avenue project

From David Carroll, Chattanooga radio and TV broadcaster,

I do not take offense when a fact checker corrects me. I am thankful that someone cares enough to make me get it right. Like Mark Twain said, “80 percent of the quotes on the internet are made up, and you can’t believe the other 30 percent!”

Heh.

From Daily Kos,

Okay, Reverse Xmas is almost upon us. Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night. A bumpy night that lasts four years. Plus, everyone else in the car will be shrieking and biting and farting the entire time. I begged my doctor to prescribe me a 1,460 day NyQuil dose, but she refused.

Well, Joe Biden delivered his farewell address to the nation. “Hey, sorry for all the peace n’ prosperity, I never woulda bothered creating all those jobs if I knew all y’all were after was excuses to ingest livestock medication. Anyway, you should probably look up the word ‘oligarchy’ before those billionaire social media moguls erase it from the internet.”

What can you say?

H/T RoaneViews

Among those receiving pre-emptive pardons were Gen. Mark A. Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the longtime government scientist who advised Mr. Trump during the coronavirus pandemic; and all the members of the bipartisan House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, including former Representative Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming.

“These are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “Baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety and financial security of targeted individuals and their families.

Good for him.

I wrote my first opinion column when I was in high school, fifty years ago. Guest columns have been part of my career from collegiate days at Penn State, Syracuse, and Ohio University to teaching jobs in Cincinnati, Texas, and Knoxville, Tennessee.

Along the way I’ve picked up several honors for column writing, including two prestigious Sigma Delta Chi awards. I write this not to brag, but to establish credentials for evaluating the state of opinion writing.

It’s not good. The practitioners at some of our largest newspapers are as good as ever, but the bench of opinion writers at other publications dwindles daily. Newspaper chains have dropped many paid local columnists—relying instead on handout material and letting it linger on the front directory pages of news sites for days or even weeks.

Tennessee home prices rose by 122% in last decade. These are the cities where prices increased the most

Cities With the Largest Increase in Home Prices Over the Last Decade

“As introduced, requires a local legislative body to approve an application for a proposed development without allowing public comment, if the legislative body determines that the proposed development is in substantial compliance with the zoning regulations or map that was previously made available for public review and comment.”

“The purpose of this is to take a lot of the politics out of land use ...

Interesting interpretation.

New Tennessee bill would limit public comment on proposed developments

The Supreme Court on Friday delivered a blow to TikTok by upholding a law that could potentially lead to the video-sharing social media platform being banned in the United States.

The justices in an unsigned opinion with no dissents rejected a free speech challenge filed by the company, meaning the law is set to go into effect on Sunday as planned.

court acknowledged that the national security rationale affected its analysis of whether there was a free speech violation

"TikTok's scale and susceptibility to foreign adversary control, together with the vast swaths of sensitive data the platform collects, justify differential treatment to address the government's national security concerns," the court said.

Interesting.

Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt's (R-Mo.) "accusation that the U.S. military has lowered its standards due to diversity, equity and inclusion programs was spectacularly undermined by a typo on a poster behind him."

What can you say? We'll be putting up with this idiocy for the next 4 years.

From 2023,
Bud Light was featured in a social media promotion by a transgender influencer
...
Bud Light has faced a boycott from some conservative commentators and celebrities as its sales have plummeted.

January, 2025,
Donald Trump has received a special personalized inauguration present from beverage giant Coca-Cola, which previously criticized the president-elect after the January 6 Capitol riot.

Coca-Cola condemned Trump and his supporters following the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. At the time, the company said the riots were "an offense to the ideals of American democracy."

Coca Cola supports a convicted felon, a man found guilty of sexual assault, and an insurrectionist. Sheesh. Will there be a big boycott against Coca Cola?

The top pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) — CVS Health’s Caremark Rx, Cigna’s Express Scripts and UnitedHealth Group’s OptumRx — generated roughly $7.3 billion through price hikes over about five years starting in 2017, the FTC said.

The “excess” price hikes affected generic drugs used to treat heart disease, HIV and cancer, among other conditions, with some increases more than 1,000% of the national average costs of acquiring the medications, the commission said.

The FTC also said these so-called Big Three health care companies — which it estimates administer 80% of all prescriptions in the U.S. — are inflating drug prices “at an alarming rate, which means there is an urgent need for policymakers to address it.”

Top three insurers reaped $7.3 billion through their drug middlemen's markups, FTC says

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg is celebrating “masculine energy” in corporate culture amid news that his company is making several policy and program changes, including trashing multiple initiatives around diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI.

Also, abandoning its fact-checking program, as fact-checkers were “too politically biased.”

Hah. The truth is biased?

Like everyone else in his party, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) voted against the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022.
...
In a Nov. 15, 2024, letter, Johnson privately urged the Environmental Protection Agency to award an environmental justice grant to a city in his district ― a grant funded by the IRA,

Well, isn't he special?

The Blount County Director of Schools David Murrell resigned Monday, January 6, 2025. In his resignation letter, he said he wants to "return to a tenured faculty position with BCS."

... "the district had been through three directors in three years and would be going into a fourth."

In a Blount County Board of Education meeting Thursday, an addendum was added to the agenda.

The addendum read, “Agreement, Release, and Covenant Not to Sue,” and attached was an agreement signed by Board Chair Chris Pass and Murrell.

It stated that the board would place Murrell on paid administrative leave until the acting director assigns him to an educator position, which could happen this school year or at the beginning of the next. It also read that the board will not remove Murrell’s tenure “based on any events that have happened before the effective resignation date.”

The agreement also said that Murrell would release BCS from any claim regarding employment, termination, attorney’s fees, discrimination, wrongful discharge, or “any other federal, state, or local constitution, regulation, law (statutory or common), or legal theory.”

What the heck is going on? Why is this Director of Education leaving? Why did the other two leave? Why the deception? Why can't Blount County Schools keep a Director?

In one example listed in the lawsuit, a single mother with two dependents was given a loan even though she had a residual income of -$0.50 based on Vanderbilt’s low monthly expense estimate for the family as well as nine debts in collections.

Sounds kind of like 2007-2008

Maryville-based lender accused of giving borrowers mortgages they could not repay

One of the largest companies that tracks Americans’ location through smartphone data has been hacked by Russian cybercriminals in exchange for ransom, according to two cybersecurity researchers, a person who has posted a massive trove of allegedly hacked files and a notice the company sent to the Norwegian government.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/location-data-broker-gravy-analytics-was-seemingly-hacked-experts-say-rcna187038

You may have heard that last month Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson made her Broadway debut in a specially created one-night-only walk-on role in the jukebox musical & Juliet.
I have it on good authority that another Supreme Court judicial musical is in the works. It borrows very heavily from Evita, and is called Alito.
It culminates with the extremist right-wing jurist Samuel Alito singing as follows:

Don't cry for me, Federalist Society
The truth is, I do Trump’s bidding
These are my wild days, my mad existence
I take his phone calls
And fly my freak flags

Don't cry for me, Tangerine Man
The truth is, I always help you
These are my wild days, my mad existence
Make me Chief Justice
Not that wimp Roberts

Don't cry for me, pregnant women
The truth is, I took your rights, gals
These are my wild days, my mad existence
I need protection
Please keep your distance

Saw the development going up on the South side of the river, looking from the UT campus, around Neyland Stadium.

Gives the area a lot of character. /s

Any parks going up around all those apartments? Any public access to the river?

Makes you think about all the apartments built (or in the process) along Cumberland. They did a good job with the street scaping. However, the sidewalks are too small and the buildings are too close to the road.

A yearlong bipartisan congressional investigation into two private equity-backed U.S. hospital systems found that patient care deteriorated at both operations as their private equity owners reaped significant payouts on their investments in the systems. The findings reinforced academic research showing how private equity health care investments harm patients while enriching investors.

Private equity reduces patient care while enriching investors, Senate report finds

The National Weather Service is predicting 2-8 inches of snow today through tomorrow morning.

Winter weather message.
WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 10 AM EST /9 AM CST/
THIS MORNING TO 7 AM EST /6 AM CST/ SATURDAY...
Snow will begin by mid to late morning, moderate to heavy
at times this afternoon and evening. The snow may mix with sleet
or possibly freezing rain for areas east of interstate 81 and 75
this afternoon. Total snow accumulations between 3 and 6 inches
west of interstate 81 and 75, and 2 to 4 inches east. Ice
accumulations around a light glaze.

Accuweather has a great radar map to follow.

We'll see. I'm ok with snow here in the South. I always hope it's gone the next day.