You wanna know how stupid I am? Here we go… Autism Family After Bari Weiss left the New York Times, I started following her work. I liked what she was doing enough that I became one of the early Founding Members of Common Sense, the publication that eventually became The Free Press. Mike to Mike: “You are so smart. You really know how to find the Patriots!” Then autism entered the picture. The Free Press gave @JillEscher a platform to present the familiar argument from an autism parent who believes vaccines were not responsible for her children’s autism. Fine. She is entitled to that view. But there are autism parents with very different experiences and very different questions — particularly around vaccines, immune dysfunction, environmental exposures, and the direction of autism research. And right now, @FogelSylvia and others at HHS/IACC are trying to widen that conversation: xitter.cf/FogelSylvia/status/209… So when Bari and @TheFP hosted Jill, I politely asked: “Why not have a discussion between autism parents with different views?” Not a shouting match. Not censorship. A discussion. Crickets. Eventually, I dropped my Founding Member status at The Free Press. Lesson learned? I thought “independent journalism” meant being willing to question every institution and every orthodoxy — including the ones your own audience may be comfortable with. Apparently, independence can have boundaries too. Military Family Oh yeah - we’re also a military family. So now I’m watching Bari Weiss at CBS News and wondering whether this new era of “independent thinking” will include a serious examination of America’s record of Middle East regime-change wars - their stated goals, their human cost, their unintended consequences, and whether the establishment press adequately challenged them at the time. Don't get me started on The Pentagon... The New York Times is now covering Bari’s arrival at CBS: nytimes.com/2026/05/28/busin… Funny how the circles keep closing. I started this journey thinking I had discovered the people willing to challenge the system. Now I have a simpler test: Will you challenge the system when the subject is uncomfortable for your own side? Because eventually— “There’s a man goin’ ’round takin’ names.” And I’ve been keeping notes. Independent journalism isn’t about questioning their orthodoxy. It’s about being willing to question your own.

As soon as you talk about medical freedom for everyone, they cancel you. They removed me as soon as I gave them medical freedom to make their choices to support vaccines. It’s kind of amazing.

Thank you @AutismMomTracy for getting this on the record: 🙏 “I want to respond to Dr. Halladay’s comments because I believe it illustrates exactly why this Strategic Plan is necessary. I do not dispute that genetics plays an important role in autism for some individuals. But Dr. Halladay states that a specific genetic variant can be identified as the primary cause in approximately 20% of autistic individuals. My question is: what about everyone else? For decades, federal autism research has heavily prioritized genetics, with genetics and genomics accounting for approximately 38.5% of NIH autism research funding, while environmental factors received only about 5.8%. That is sad. And I want to add something from my experience working directly with families: the parents I speak with who have pursued extensive genetic testing for their children overwhelmingly tell me that testing has provided no genetic explanation for their child’s autism. Their experiences matter, and they reinforce why we must investigate beyond genetics. But this Plan is not anti-genetics. It recognizes that autism is heterogeneous and that genetic susceptibility may interact with immune, metabolic, mitochondrial, gastrointestinal, environmental, neurological, and developmental factors. Families repeatedly report children who develop normally and then experience significant regression, losing language, motor abilities, cognition, and other previously acquired functions and we have a responsibility to investigate why. We are not replacing genetics with another single theory of autism. We are replacing genetic primacy with broader scientific inquiry.”

Thanks Tracy, great summary:

JB - Sending support from The Adirondacks. We just put in a 2sranch.com order. No rush:

Gratitude Post? We are hiking in The Adirondack Park, and NY State does some wonderful things with our Parks. The Adirondack Park has a special designation that promotes community conversations, and a huge part of the 6 million acres are un-touched. Can we just be nicer to our Tax-paying Citizens in the coming re-vamp of back to "We the People" government?

Gratitude Post - Sincerely happy to see that we are having a "Come to Jesus" moment with "Transitioning", and now - LETS TALK ABOUT VACCINE DAMAGE TO APRAXIA-AUTISTICS TOO. Come on: @AgeofAutism @ChildrensHD @MaryBowdenMD @stkirsch @FogelSylvia @CombatingAutism @AutismActionNet @JollyRoger0yv theepochtimes.com/article/cl…

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PARENTS DIE? - AUTISM PARENTS 101 Hey @MaryBowdenMD - This was a keen observation yesterday on @TuckerCarlson. I am trying, but we need help. Thanks: “My thought with Kennedy—and this is just speculation; I have no inside information at all—is he is loyal to the autism mothers, which is understandable. They’re the ones that got him on this train of medical freedom, and he is passionate about getting to the bottom of autism. I completely commend that. But I think that goal overrides mRNA. He’s got to choose. If he chooses mRNA right now, he’s going to get fired. And so he’s staying quiet so that he can make more progress on the overall vaccine schedule for children.” @AgeofAutism @uTobian @AutismActionNet @maryhollandnyc @ChildrensHD @NY_ChildrensHD @SusieWiles47 @FogelSylvia @CombatingAutism @katiewr31413491 @KatieBSweeney

Hey @SusieWiles47 - Let's revisit @uTobian status on iacc.hhs.gov We know it was you. Don't end up in 5 years where Fauci is today: @SecKennedy

Gratitude Day - I am sincerely grateful that The Beagles are being rescued. Now let's rescue some kids: theepochtimes.com/article/be…

Public comments are due Friday, July 24, by 5:00 p.m. ET. IACC Full Committee Hybrid Meeting - Friday July 31, 2026 - 9 AM open.substack.com/pub/outsid… @KatieBSweeney @FogelSylvia