Catch & Release

Timber rattler in the trap. Oops.
Sometimes you catch things you weren't fishin' for.

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Caught

 

Free

 

Modeled current and projected deaths from USAID destruction

 

I asked three AI-based "search engines" the following question: "What are the latest authoritative estimates of deaths that have occurred, and are projected, as a consequence of the destruction of USAID?" Below are the responses.

 

Google AI 

 

AI Overview

Authoritative epidemiological models estimate that the abrupt dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has caused over 700,000 deaths since early 2025, with projections warning that up to 14 million to 22.6 million preventable deaths could occur globally by 2030. [1, 2]

Current Death Toll Estimates (Occurred)

Immediate Mortality: Independent tracking models and public health researchers (such as epidemiologist Brooke Nichols' impact tracking models) estimate that at least 700,000 excess deaths have occurred since the initial 2025 funding freezes and termination of programs. [1, 2]
Demographic Impact: Estimates indicate that over half a million of these early fatalities are children under the age of five, driven heavily by collapsing access to HIV/AIDS treatment (such as PEPFAR interruptions), severe acute malnutrition treatment, and malaria prevention. [1, 2, 3]
Geographic Focus: The majority of the mortality toll has manifested in low- and middle-income countries, predominantly across sub-Saharan Africa and parts of West and Central Asia. [1, 2, 3]

Projected Mortality (By 2030)

Standard Projections: Landmark studies published in The Lancet project that if current defunding trends and the permanent collapse of former USAID programs persist, 14.1 million avoidable deaths will occur by 2030. This includes roughly 4.5 million children under five (about 700,000 extra child deaths per year). [1, 2]
Severe Scenarios: Broader global health analyses in The Lancet Global Health estimate that under a severe or total global aid reduction scenario, excess mortality could climb as high as 22.6 million deaths worldwide by the end of the decade. [1]

Administration Stance

U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and administration-affiliated figures like Elon Musk, have contested these models, asserting publicly that "zero" or no fatalities have resulted directly from the suspension of the agency, maintaining that alternative or bilateral frameworks would cover essential humanitarian needs. [1]

 

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Perplexity 

The most authoritative published estimates I found are: about 600,000 deaths already occurred from the dismantling of USAID, and more than 14 million additional deaths could occur by 2030 if the cuts continue. Those figures come from a Boston University model cited by Harvard and from a peer-reviewed Lancet analysis summarized by UCLA.[1][2]

What has already happened

Harvard reports that Atul Gawande cited Boston University epidemiologist Brooke Nichols’s model as estimating that USAID’s dismantling “has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children.” Harvard also says the toll will keep rising over time as deaths from interrupted treatment and malnutrition appear with delay. [1]

What is projected

The UCLA summary of the Lancet study says USAID-funded programs helped prevent 91 million deaths between 2001 and 2021, and that the 2025 funding cuts could lead to more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including over 4.5 million children under five. The Boston University tracker cited in March 2025 gave a much smaller near-term estimate, saying more than 176,000 additional deaths from HIV and at least 62,000 from tuberculosis could occur by the end of 2025 if funding were not restored.[1][2]

How to read the estimates

These numbers are not contradictory so much as they measure different things: an early, disease-specific, near-term tracker versus a broader, multi-country projection through 2030. The 600,000 figure is presented as an estimate of deaths already attributable to the shutdown, while the 14 million figure is a forecast if the cuts persist.[1][2][3]

 

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ChatGPT

The most authoritative estimate currently available comes from a peer-reviewed study in The Lancet (published in 2025) that modeled the mortality consequences of a complete or near-complete loss of USAID funding. It is important to distinguish modeled excess deaths attributable to the loss of aid programs from a literal count of deaths already verified as having occurred; many future deaths cannot be directly observed or attributed in real time.[1]

Best current estimate: ~14 million additional deaths by 2030

The study, “Evaluating the impact of two decades of USAID interventions and projecting the effects of defunding on mortality up to 2030”, analyzed data from 133 low- and middle-income countries and compared projected mortality under continued USAID-supported programs with a scenario of defunding. It estimated: [1]

• 14.05 million additional deaths from 2025–2030 if the funding cuts persist
  • Uncertainty range: 8.48 million to 19.66 million deaths
• 4.54 million additional deaths among children under age 5
  • Uncertainty range: 3.12 million to 5.91 million children
    

The projected annual excess deaths in the model are roughly:

Year	Estimated additional deaths
2025	~1.78 million
2026	~2.50 million
2027	~2.48 million
2028	~2.45 million
2029	~2.43 million
2030	~2.41 million

Deaths that may already have occurred

There is no universally accepted, independently verified “death toll so far” from USAID dismantlement, because mortality attribution takes time and requires country-level surveillance. Some rapid-response models and analyses have estimated hundreds of thousands of excess deaths already occurring, but these are model outputs rather than confirmed counts. For example, one mortality-tracking effort cited estimates above 700,000 deaths after roughly the first year, but such estimates remain less established than the peer-reviewed Lancet projection.[1]

What causes the projected deaths?

The Lancet analysis linked USAID-supported programs to reductions in deaths from major causes including: [1]

• HIV/AIDS (the study estimated USAID support was associated with preventing about 25.5 million HIV/AIDS deaths over the prior two decades)
• Malaria (about 8 million deaths prevented)
• Neglected tropical diseases (about 8.9 million deaths prevented)
• Tuberculosis
• Childhood pneumonia and diarrhea
• Malnutrition
• Maternal and newborn conditions
• [1] 

How much confidence should be placed in the number?

The 14 million figure is not a measured death count; it is a counterfactual estimate: how many more people are expected to die if programs previously supported by USAID disappear and are not replaced. The uncertainty interval is wide because outcomes depend on whether other donors, governments, NGOs, and international agencies fill the gap. [1]

So the concise answer is:

• Already occurred: no authoritative final tally exists; some models suggest the toll may already be in the hundreds of thousands. [1]
• Projected through 2030: the leading peer-reviewed estimate is about 14 million excess deaths (range ~8.5–19.7 million), including about 4.5 million children under five, if the dismantlement-level funding reductions continue. [1]

 

 

 

A leech and a parasite

"I inherited the worst inflation in the history of our country. And now we have almost no inflation," lied Donald Trump in an NBC New interview on February 4.

Inflation hit 9.1 percent in the summer of 2022 as a consequence of Covid-era supply chain disruptions, but that was not nearly the "worst inflation in the history of our country" and Trump wasn't in office to bring it down. By January of 2025, when Trump was sworn in, inflation had fallen all the way to 3 percent. That was the inflation Trump "inherited." A year later inflation is 2.4 percent, all thanks to the Federal Reserve, at which Trump has continually sniped and griped for its inflation fighting efforts.

Not only did Trump not inherit high inflation, but he also didn't do anything to bring down the modestly elevated inflation he did inherit. Trump, however, is always eager to take credit for the accomplishments of others.

Like with this disparagement of Joe Biden at a rally on Thursday, in which he said Biden "was sleeping while you were trying to get a job. You weren’t working, and now we have the most people working in history."

Now, huh? I wonder why there are so many people working right now. Maybe it's because Biden created an astonishing 15.4 million jobs during his four years as president. It's an all time record; no other president has come anywhere close to that many jobs created in a single term. So what Trump actually did inherit, thanks to Biden, is a country with lots of people working.

What, you might wonder, was Trump's contribution to our "now [having] the most people working in history"? This: Trump added a paltry 359,000 jobs total in his first full 12 months in office, for a dismal average of just 30,000 per month. The "sleeping" Joe Biden averaged 321,000 per month over a full four years. Now that's impressive. (You can get authoritative job creation numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)

Trump would like you to think he heroically brought down inflation when he actually had nothing to do with it. There wasn't much remaining by the time he arrived on the scene. And he certainly didn't bring down prices, as he promised he would. (Prices and inflation aren't the same thing.) He'd like you to think the country's record number of people working is his doing too, but his actual performance has been underwhelming, and that's being charitable. He actually had the gall to slander Biden, who really did create unprecedented numbers of jobs. Truly, Trump is a leech and a parasite, always trying glorify himself by taking credit for the accomplishments of others. It's a defining story of his life.

And he thinks you're stupid. He thinks you will swallow whatever he's peddling. I do have to admit, the abject stupidity of his supporters, or at least their stupendous ignorance, is one of the only explanations I can come up with for how Trump gets away with continually spewing outrageous lies, and creating an alternative reality, where he's always the star, that bears no resemblance to the actual one. Such flagrant lying by a president is as unimaginably noxious as it is unprecedented.

I will leave you with the graph below showing total nonfarm employment. It comes from the St. Louis Fed, the Federal Reserve branch responsible for the Fed's economic data. I added my own annotations marking the intervals that Trump has held office. As you can see, in his first term employment continued up at about the same rate as the long term trend Trump had inherited from Obama. So in this and several other respects, Trump can take credit for not screwing up Obama's economy. Which is hardly the economic "miracle" Trump claimed he accomplished. The recovery after the Great Recession of 2008--a catastrophe Obama really did inherit--was one of the longest economic expansions in U.S. history. Trump got in at the end, and promptly took credit for all of it. That's our Donald. Then Covid hit in the final year of his first term, and jobs were decimated. Counting the Covid bloodletting, Trump actually lost millions of jobs over his first term. But fair persons that we are, we won't blame him for those. Suffice to say that Obama created tens of thousands more jobs per month over his final three years as Trump did in his first three.

Now, over a year into his second term, we can see Trump's recent contribution to the employment picture: that pathetic little flat squiggle at the right edge of the graph. That's his contribution to our "now [having] the most people working in history" for which he wants to take credit.

He really is a piece of work, isn't he?

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Copyright (C) 2026 James Michael Brennan, All Rights Reserved 

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Perplexity on the 2020 election in Michigan

 

A Feb 17, 2026 NYT article titled "Republicans, Braced for Losses, Push More Voting Restrictions in Congress," referred to a 2020 letter from state Michigan Republicans to the state's secretary of state outlining voting concerns. I've been working on a piece on 2020 election conspiracy theories, so it got my attention. The letter itemizes a long list of common Republican complaints which conspiracy theorizers toss around. I didn't have time to fully research the Michigan situation myself at the time, so I decided to ask the Perplexity AI based search tool to provide me a quick overview, and I stashed it here.

Here's what I asked, and what Perplexity answered. 

Question to Perplexity: 

A November 16, 2020 letter by Michigan Republicans to Michigan's secretary of state itemized a long list of election security concerns. Were these ever addressed? Is the election audit process that was already in place likely to uncover election problems of the sort listed in the letter? Were (and are) there sufficient safeguards already in place to detect fraud and other election problems? And to what extent was the 2020 election in Michigan carefully examined? 

Answer from Perplexity:

Michigan’s 2020 election, including the issues raised by Republican legislators in November 2020, was examined in multiple layers by courts, the Michigan Senate, and extensive post‑election audits, and those processes did not find evidence of outcome‑changing fraud while also identifying areas for procedural improvement. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

What happened to the November 2020 Republican concerns?

The November 2020 Republican letters and statements alleged things like ineligible ballots being counted, ballots counted multiple times, improper treatment of absentee ballots, problems with observers, and general vulnerabilities in Detroit and other jurisdictions. [7] [3]

Those themes were specifically examined in later investigations and audits, most notably by the Michigan Senate Oversight Committee (led by Republicans) and by the Bureau of Elections’ post‑election audit program. [2] [3] [6]

The Republican‑led Senate Oversight Committee spent months reviewing fraud allegations, holding hearings, examining documents, and interviewing witnesses; its June 2021 report explicitly concluded that the certified and audited results of the November 2020 election “were accurately represented,” while also listing real vulnerabilities and recommending reforms.​ [3]

 
In other words, the committee treated the kinds of issues raised in those letters as claims to be tested and, after review, rejected the broad fraud narrative while still pushing for changes in training, procedures, and law. [2] [3]

How robust was Michigan’s audit process?

Michigan ran what state officials described as the most comprehensive series of post‑election audits in its history after the 2020 general election, involving more than 250 audits statewide. [5] [6] [1] [2]

These included:

• A statewide “risk‑limiting” audit (RLA) of the presidential race, in which randomly selected paper ballots from across the state were manually checked against machine‑tallied results and found to confirm the outcome. [5] [2]

• Hand‑count audits of selected races (for example, U.S. Senate) in many jurisdictions, comparing paper ballots directly to machine totals to test tabulator accuracy. [1] [2]

• Procedural audits in counties, cities, and townships that examined how absentee ballots were processed, how equipment was secured, and whether local officials followed legal and administrative requirements. [6] [2] [5]

The Michigan Auditor General later reviewed this audit program and concluded that the post‑election audits were effective overall and that the outcome of the 2020 election accurately reflected the will of the voters, while pointing out weaknesses in training, documentation, and oversight of local officials performing audits. [1] [2]

The Bureau of Elections agreed with those findings, implemented or began implementing recommended improvements (such as better training and more formal audit‑related certification), and emphasized that, despite the noted administrative issues, the audits still collectively upheld the accuracy of the 2020 results. [2] [1]

Can these audits catch the kinds of problems alleged?

The main categories of alleged problems in 2020 Michigan—mis‑tabulation by machines, batches counted more than once, counting of ineligible or late absentee ballots, and mishandling of ballots in large cities—map directly onto what risk‑limiting and procedural audits are designed to detect. [8] [7] [5] [2]

• Machine mis‑tabulation or double‑counting: Randomly sampling and hand‑counting paper ballots in an RLA and targeted hand‑count audits of specific contests will reveal if the electronic totals diverge from what is on the paper. If there were large‑scale double‑counting or systematic machine errors, you would expect to see statistically significant discrepancies in those samples, which the audits did not find. [6] [5] [2]

• Widespread use of ineligible or late absentee ballots: While some kinds of eligibility issues can be difficult to detect after the fact, procedural audits examine whether clerks followed rules for signature verification, deadlines, chain of custody, and ballot handling, and they did not uncover systemic failures that could plausibly have changed statewide outcomes. [5] [6] [2]

• Problems with observers and access: These are primarily legal and procedural questions, and they were addressed through litigation and legislative review; courts rejected broad claims that improper observer access undermined the count, and the Senate committee likewise did not find those complaints sufficient to cast doubt on the statewide result. [7] [3]

Experts broadly view risk‑limiting audits, when combined with traditional canvass and recount mechanisms, as a strong safeguard against large‑scale tabulation errors and many types of fraud because they rely on the voter‑verified paper ballots as the ultimate record. [8] [5]

Michigan’s system in 2020 was not perfect—training and documentation gaps were real—but the evidence from audit samples and investigations indicates it was capable of detecting major discrepancies, and it did not reveal any that would call the certified presidential result into question. [3] [6] [1] [2] [5]

Were there sufficient safeguards then, and are there now?

Before 2020, Michigan already had a paper‑ballot system, bipartisan canvassing boards, pre‑ and post‑election testing of voting machines, requirements for post‑election audits, and legal avenues for recounts and court challenges, all of which are standard safeguards against fraud and error. [8] [2] [5]

The post‑2020 reviews demonstrated that these safeguards largely functioned as intended for detecting tabulation problems and major irregularities, while revealing that processes around training, documentation, and audit oversight needed strengthening. [3] [1] [2]

Following 2020, the Bureau of Elections and Legislature pursued additional changes, such as improved training programs and certifications for local officials conducting audits and a broader package of election‑law reforms designed to address vulnerabilities the Senate Oversight Committee identified. [1] [2] [3]

Later statewide elections (for example, 2024) have likewise been followed by recounts and broad audit programs; their results have again reported that Michigan’s election system accurately tabulated votes and met “good general compliance” standards, while continuing to refine procedures. [9] [10]

How thoroughly was the 2020 Michigan election examined?

By early 2021, more than 250 post‑election audits had been completed across Michigan, involving over 1,300 clerks of both parties and nonpartisan officials, and every one of those audits confirmed the accuracy and integrity of the 2020 general election results. [6] [2] [5]

In addition, the Republican‑led Michigan Senate Oversight Committee conducted what it described as a lengthy and thorough investigation into fraud allegations and concluded that the certified and audited results accurately reflected the vote, while recommending reforms rather than any new statewide “forensic” audit. [4] [3]

Multiple court cases in Michigan related to the 2020 election also reviewed and rejected fraud claims, often noting a lack of evidence or unreliable affidavits; while each case was limited to particular issues, the pattern reinforced the findings of audits and legislative inquiry. [4] [3]

Outside fact‑checking organizations reviewing Michigan’s handling of 2020 likewise highlight that the state did not conduct a separate Arizona‑style “forensic” audit because it had already completed what they describe as the most extensive post‑election audit program in its history, which validated the presidential result. [4] [5]

Taken together—court rulings, the large statewide audit program, and the Republican‑led Senate investigation—Michigan’s 2020 election was subject to unusually intensive scrutiny, and those examinations converged on the conclusion that while procedural improvements were needed, there was no evidence of widespread or outcome‑changing fraud of the sort alleged in the November 2020 Republican letters. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [1]

1. https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/MISOS/bulletins/30d40e3

2. https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2022/03/04/michigan-elections-auditor-general-report/6979835001/

3. https://www.misenategop.com/senate-oversight-committee-releases-report-on-november-2020-general-election/

4. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/05/14/fact-check-michigan-did-not-authorize-forensic-audit-2020-election/5057526001/

5. https://www.michigan.gov/sos/resources/news/2021/02/12/statewide-election-audit-process-affirms-presidential-election-outcome

6. https://www.michigan.gov/sos/resources/news/2021/03/02/more-than-250-audits-confirm-accuracy-and-integrity-of-michigans-election

7. https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/michigan-republican-senators-request-election-audit-from-secretary-of-state

8. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/review-robust-post-election-audits

9. https://www.michigan.gov/sos/resources/news/2025/10/13/2024-postelection-recount-and-audit-report-confirms-michigans-elections-are-secure-and-accurate

10. https://www.michigan.gov/sos/-/media/Project/Websites/sos/Elections/Ballot-Access/November-2024-post-election-audit-report.pdf?rev=5e193acac9334f13932c72cb8bb39854

Perplixity: The Inflation Reduction Act was "Paid For"

Here's the result of a query to the AI-based Perplexity search engine: 

Was the Inflation Reduction Act actually "paid for"?

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was designed to be "paid for" through a combination of new revenue measures and cost savings, according to official estimates and legislative summaries. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) projected that the law would raise approximately $738 billion in revenue, primarily from tax reforms (such as a 15% minimum tax on large corporations), enhanced IRS enforcement, and prescription drug pricing reforms. The authorized spending was estimated at $891 billion, with the difference expected to reduce the federal deficit.

Key revenue sources included:

• 15% minimum corporate tax on companies earning over $1 billion in profits. 
• Enhanced IRS enforcement to close the tax gap, targeting high-income earners and corporations.
• Prescription drug pricing reforms, including allowing Medicare to negotiate prices, which was projected to lower federal spending on drugs.

Independent analyses and government projections at the time of passage indicated the IRA would reduce the federal deficit over a 10-year period, meaning it was technically "paid for" in the sense that new revenues and savings would offset or exceed new spending. However, some critics argue that the burden of these revenues ultimately falls on taxpayers, either directly or indirectly.

It is important to note:

• Some recent estimates suggest the actual cost of the IRA could be higher than initially projected, especially as more programs are implemented and demand for incentives grows. This has led to debate about whether the law will ultimately be deficit-reducing as originally forecast.
• The law's impact on inflation and its distributional effects remain contested, but the mechanism for "paying for" the bill was clearly outlined in the legislative process and official analyses.

In summary, the Inflation Reduction Act was structured to be "paid for" through a mix of new tax revenues and spending reductions, with official estimates projecting a net reduction in the federal deficit over time. Whether these projections hold in practice depends on future implementation and economic conditions.