Nothing says “I’m your public health secretary” quite like a man who looks like he personally rejected every vaccine ever invented and whose wellness routine apparently consists of raw milk, conspiracy theories, and whatever his brain worm recommends that morning.
His voice is clear warning for what not to do.
This is the guy blocking mRNA vaccines that could prevent cancer and the next pandemic. A man whose own body is a walking advertisement for why we need public health officials is now in charge of dismantling public health.
The measles outbreak making its greatest comeback in 30 years is the perfect metaphor: RFK Jr. didn’t just bring bad ideas to Washington, he brought the 1950s with him.
Dr. Oz is down the hall. The brain worm is in the office. And somehow this is the A-team for American healthcare.
Idiocracy turns out was a documentary with a 20-year delay. Brawndo’s got electrolytes.
Dr. Oz knows better and sometimes he actually does the right thing despite all his pandering. For example he publicly urged people to get the measles vax just a few days ago. He is also going after the corrupt practice of Medicaid/Medicare “upcoding” of diagnoses to charge more for them. That is the practice that Florida Senator Rick Scott oversaw as CEO of the for profit HCA hospital chain.
As for Trump I think he knows better too. Too bad the media didn’t make a big deal of him getting his covid and flu boosters this year. He panders to his base as much as he tried to mislead them. Anything to keep their adulation coming.
Excellent reporting on the threats of our science denying leadership. The FDA has been hijacked, important research funding has been canceled and millions of lives are threatened due to their policies. We must turn the tide to survive!
Noah, the word your piece ends with capsulizes T2.0 and all if its atrocities: plague. If the cruel and insane actions of this regime/junta were happening in another country, previously we would have recommended that its leaders be tried by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. Now, we live in an era in which we are the pariah among nations and our former allies can no longer count on us to be be the leader of the free world. Sadly, those words no longer apply to us now.
You are so right, David. The lower courts are doing their part only to have the Supremes give a green light to the actions of the mad sociopathic fascist. What a country.
Agreed! Worse, the SCOTUS right wingers never seem to inquire into daddy’s actions … fraud, falsehoods, sexual predation and probable pedophilia … while granting his whims.
The ultimate goal of the ruling oligarchy is to turn the US into a third world country, a subsistence nation where the population expends so much energy just trying to survive that they can no longer resist the wholesale plunder of national wealth.
For the super-rich, the US is not a nation of people working towards maximizing the common good. It is a giant target to be taken over and stripped for parts, just like they take over rival corporations in order to generate short term profit instead of long-term growth.
In the corporate context, this leads to lost opportunities and suppression of good ideas and products. Performed as national policy. It translates to widespread poverty and death on a global scale. But it doesn't matter as long as the rich folk can accumulate more money that they can spend in several lifetimes, or use to buy a private island and indulge their impulses.
That's where the interests of the super-rich and the authoritarian-in-the-making align. It's class warfare on a grand scale, threatening the stability and security of the country and the rest of the world because of our historically out-sized role on a global scale, now abandoned.
This abrogation of every positive role played by America over the past 80 years will relegate this country to second-rate status. It’ll take another 80 years to repair the damage done in a few short years. Might makes right is nothing more than three words that mean one: bullying. The history of bullies is a history of failure. The downfall of America will be Trump’s legacy.
Good piece, but I believe the figure on excess COVID deaths attributable to the felon’s administration’s response (58,000) is wildly low. I recall having read something more like half a million, and while I can’t find a cite to support that right now, I did find this one that estimates hundreds of thousands as of a few years ago: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9115435/
The 58K figure links back to an outdated article from over five years ago.
Of course, it’s getting worse. Because Trump seems to have given up any interest beyond grift and retribution. RFK Jr. (health) and Stephen Miller - both bitter cranks - seem to be giving the orders, Trump the sleepy hand puppet.
Ironically, Paul Krugman took on this same issue of Trump/Kennedy antivaxxing today too. He referred to it as part of Trump's kakistocracy (do look up that word).
The question begged, but goes unanswered, is why? Why is Trump tearing down our government, crippling scientific research, discouraging college attendance, actively insulting and tariffying (sic) all US allies, while embracing our national enemies like Russia? There is not a shred of empathy discernible in the entire Trump administration anywhere. MAGAs babble about being Christians while dancing with the devil at Mar-a-Lago elite parties.
Trump behaves like a psychotic megalomaniac similar to the character Cody Jarrett played by Jimmy Cagney in the 1940s movie "White Heat." In the end, Gagney hollers "Top a the world, Ma!" and blows himself up rather than surrender to law enforcement.
There's some serious psychopathy going on with Trump and, I think, Kennedy as well. Actually the entire administration is an almost inconceivable collection of mental misfits. I don't think there is a "why" in any strategic sense. It's just profound sickness in action. The damage, literally in terms of life and death, is immeasurable and metastasizing.
It could be some sort of Jonestown group identity thing. What Trump 2 does answer is this: What happens when you put 50 sociopaths in the same room with a megalomaniac sociopath?
Kakistocracy (I looked it up) is a word invented in 1644 AD in anticipation of 2025 AD.
Well, obviously, they simply do not care. Everyone outside their small moneyed circle is expendable. All they care about is competing for being the richest - a game for them.
Trump is such an egomaniac, he might be cajoled into pushing vaccines into the toolkit if reporters started questions with "Mr. President, you were widely praised for you hugely successful push to develop and distribute vaccines - mRNA vaccines - to end the Covid pandemic. You even donated some to foreign countries. Would you consider pushing to have new mRNA vaccines - such as Moderna's flu vaccine - recommended by the FDA (etc etc. etc)?
sen bill cassidy, R-LA, could have blocked him, or put real restrictions on him. he just decided that his lifelong commitment to public health care and children didn’t matter as much as getting reelected.
My point is that there hasn't been a serious effort to get the votes. But as you said, getting reelected is the goal. I am personally fed up with this whole shitshow. Democrats actually voted their approval of Kennedy's appointment.
Nothing says “I’m your public health secretary” quite like a man who looks like he personally rejected every vaccine ever invented and whose wellness routine apparently consists of raw milk, conspiracy theories, and whatever his brain worm recommends that morning.
His voice is clear warning for what not to do.
This is the guy blocking mRNA vaccines that could prevent cancer and the next pandemic. A man whose own body is a walking advertisement for why we need public health officials is now in charge of dismantling public health.
The measles outbreak making its greatest comeback in 30 years is the perfect metaphor: RFK Jr. didn’t just bring bad ideas to Washington, he brought the 1950s with him.
Dr. Oz is down the hall. The brain worm is in the office. And somehow this is the A-team for American healthcare.
Idiocracy turns out was a documentary with a 20-year delay. Brawndo’s got electrolytes.
—Johan
Dr. Oz knows better and sometimes he actually does the right thing despite all his pandering. For example he publicly urged people to get the measles vax just a few days ago. He is also going after the corrupt practice of Medicaid/Medicare “upcoding” of diagnoses to charge more for them. That is the practice that Florida Senator Rick Scott oversaw as CEO of the for profit HCA hospital chain.
As for Trump I think he knows better too. Too bad the media didn’t make a big deal of him getting his covid and flu boosters this year. He panders to his base as much as he tried to mislead them. Anything to keep their adulation coming.
Excellent reporting on the threats of our science denying leadership. The FDA has been hijacked, important research funding has been canceled and millions of lives are threatened due to their policies. We must turn the tide to survive!
Noah, the word your piece ends with capsulizes T2.0 and all if its atrocities: plague. If the cruel and insane actions of this regime/junta were happening in another country, previously we would have recommended that its leaders be tried by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. Now, we live in an era in which we are the pariah among nations and our former allies can no longer count on us to be be the leader of the free world. Sadly, those words no longer apply to us now.
Add in our brave federal courts stymied by a rubber stamp SCOTUS.
You are so right, David. The lower courts are doing their part only to have the Supremes give a green light to the actions of the mad sociopathic fascist. What a country.
Agreed! Worse, the SCOTUS right wingers never seem to inquire into daddy’s actions … fraud, falsehoods, sexual predation and probable pedophilia … while granting his whims.
The ultimate goal of the ruling oligarchy is to turn the US into a third world country, a subsistence nation where the population expends so much energy just trying to survive that they can no longer resist the wholesale plunder of national wealth.
For the super-rich, the US is not a nation of people working towards maximizing the common good. It is a giant target to be taken over and stripped for parts, just like they take over rival corporations in order to generate short term profit instead of long-term growth.
In the corporate context, this leads to lost opportunities and suppression of good ideas and products. Performed as national policy. It translates to widespread poverty and death on a global scale. But it doesn't matter as long as the rich folk can accumulate more money that they can spend in several lifetimes, or use to buy a private island and indulge their impulses.
That's where the interests of the super-rich and the authoritarian-in-the-making align. It's class warfare on a grand scale, threatening the stability and security of the country and the rest of the world because of our historically out-sized role on a global scale, now abandoned.
This abrogation of every positive role played by America over the past 80 years will relegate this country to second-rate status. It’ll take another 80 years to repair the damage done in a few short years. Might makes right is nothing more than three words that mean one: bullying. The history of bullies is a history of failure. The downfall of America will be Trump’s legacy.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz: “The United States’ claim to leadership has been challenged, and possibly lost.”
Exactly right—generations to recover … or live in a police state run by criminals.
Just a reminder to myself and others that Trump, Kennedy, and all those who associate with him possess the psychological Dark Triad:
— Machiavellianism: involves interpersonal manipulation and a generalized lack of morality or empathy.
— Narcissism involves: entitlement, selfishness and a need for admiration
— Psychopathy: involves deceitfulness, impulsiveness and manipulative behavior.
Letting 550,000 children die is as easy as sending a dinner back to the kitchen because everything is not to their liking.
Shame for such people. Pthft. What’s that?
Trump’s Dark Triad was made by his father.
Kennedy’s was made by brain damage.
It’s just unimaginable, the death and destruction Trump and his team have caused. He is a criminal here and internationally.
Thank you for your reporting though.
Good piece, but I believe the figure on excess COVID deaths attributable to the felon’s administration’s response (58,000) is wildly low. I recall having read something more like half a million, and while I can’t find a cite to support that right now, I did find this one that estimates hundreds of thousands as of a few years ago: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9115435/
The 58K figure links back to an outdated article from over five years ago.
Of course, it’s getting worse. Because Trump seems to have given up any interest beyond grift and retribution. RFK Jr. (health) and Stephen Miller - both bitter cranks - seem to be giving the orders, Trump the sleepy hand puppet.
Ironically, Paul Krugman took on this same issue of Trump/Kennedy antivaxxing today too. He referred to it as part of Trump's kakistocracy (do look up that word).
The question begged, but goes unanswered, is why? Why is Trump tearing down our government, crippling scientific research, discouraging college attendance, actively insulting and tariffying (sic) all US allies, while embracing our national enemies like Russia? There is not a shred of empathy discernible in the entire Trump administration anywhere. MAGAs babble about being Christians while dancing with the devil at Mar-a-Lago elite parties.
Trump behaves like a psychotic megalomaniac similar to the character Cody Jarrett played by Jimmy Cagney in the 1940s movie "White Heat." In the end, Gagney hollers "Top a the world, Ma!" and blows himself up rather than surrender to law enforcement.
There's some serious psychopathy going on with Trump and, I think, Kennedy as well. Actually the entire administration is an almost inconceivable collection of mental misfits. I don't think there is a "why" in any strategic sense. It's just profound sickness in action. The damage, literally in terms of life and death, is immeasurable and metastasizing.
It could be some sort of Jonestown group identity thing. What Trump 2 does answer is this: What happens when you put 50 sociopaths in the same room with a megalomaniac sociopath?
Kakistocracy (I looked it up) is a word invented in 1644 AD in anticipation of 2025 AD.
Yes, it certainly is a fitting term, but there are so many descriptors that apply (none good!).
Well, obviously, they simply do not care. Everyone outside their small moneyed circle is expendable. All they care about is competing for being the richest - a game for them.
Trump is such an egomaniac, he might be cajoled into pushing vaccines into the toolkit if reporters started questions with "Mr. President, you were widely praised for you hugely successful push to develop and distribute vaccines - mRNA vaccines - to end the Covid pandemic. You even donated some to foreign countries. Would you consider pushing to have new mRNA vaccines - such as Moderna's flu vaccine - recommended by the FDA (etc etc. etc)?
Add « Lyme disease « to the category of vaccine prevention
not being developed /marketed in the US. I’ve been told it’s already available in the EU.
So what happened to the big push to get RFK Jr. out of the job due to his extreme incompetence? Did the Democrats get bored and move on?
they don’t have the votes.
sen bill cassidy, R-LA, could have blocked him, or put real restrictions on him. he just decided that his lifelong commitment to public health care and children didn’t matter as much as getting reelected.
Across history, we see the direction of events can turn on the misguided actions of a single man.
My point is that there hasn't been a serious effort to get the votes. But as you said, getting reelected is the goal. I am personally fed up with this whole shitshow. Democrats actually voted their approval of Kennedy's appointment.
RFK didn’t get a single D vote on the nomination; it was strict party line. https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/13/politics/robert-kennedy-senate-vote-dg
Thank you for the clarification.
However, what have Congressional Democrats done to remove him?