#Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Anna Merlan at Mother Jones:

At an event late last week in Arizona, anti-vaccine activist and Donald Trump transition team member Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he’d fire and replace 600 people from the National Institutes of Health on “day one” of a second Trump term. The NIH is one of the public health agencies Kennedy loathes the most—and despite still lacking any defined role in a new administration, he’s clearly relishing the opportunity to promise retribution against them.  In comments that were first reported by ABC News, Kennedy declared, “We need to act fast, and we want to have those people in place on January 20, so that on January 21, 600 people are going to walk into offices at NIH and 600 people are going to leave.”  Kennedy, a long standing opponent of vaccines, has consistently been critical of the NIH, the Centers for Disease Control, and other federal agencies that are part of the basic infrastructure of public health. His The Real Anthony Fauci attacked Fauci, a former NIH director, at book length, albeit with what one physician reviewer called “many errors and gross misrepresentations.”

The remarks offering some concrete details about Kennedy’s Trump-aligned and so-called “Make America Healthy Again” agenda came during an onstage interview at an entrepreneurship event in Scottsdale, which included discussions of Kennedy’s workout routine and his relationship with the once and future president.

[...]

(Experts believe that autism was underdiagnosed until recent decades; the earliest prevalence weren’t conducted until the 1960s and ‘70s. Autistic adults have a range of abilities and autistic self-advocates have said that Kennedy uses offensive and ableist language to talk about autism: rather than “full blown,” public health experts would generally say “profound autism.” Kennedy also still uses the term “Aspergers,” an outdated phrase referencing a scientist who worked with Nazis during the Holocaust.)

This anti-public health bozo plans to fire 600 NIH workers.

[deadpresidents]

"Somehow disruption doesn't begin to cover it. Upheaval might be closer. Revolution maybe. In less than two weeks since being elected again, Donald J. Trump has embarked on a new campaign to shatter the institutions of Washington as no incoming President has in his lifetime.

He has rolled a giant grenade into the middle of the nation's capital and watched with mischievous glee to see who runs away and who throws themselves on it. Suffice it to say, so far there have been more of the former than the latter. Mr. Trump has said that 'real power' is the ability to engender fear, and he seems to have achieved that.

Mr. Trump's early transition moves amount to a generational stress test for the system. If Republicans bow to his demand to recess the Senate so that he can install appointees without confirmation, it would rewrite the balance of power established by the Founders more than two centuries ago. And if he gets his way on selections for some of the most important posts in government, he would put in place loyalists intent on blowing up the very departments they would lead.

He has chosen a bomb-throwing backbench congressman who has spent his career attacking fellow Republicans and fending off sex-and-drugs allegations to run the same Justice Department that investigated him, though it did not charge him, on suspicion of trafficking underage girls. He has chosen a conspiracy theorist with no medical training who disparages the foundations of conventional health care to run the Department of Health and Human Services.

He has chosen a weekend morning television host with a history of defending convicted war criminals while sporting a Christian Crusader tattoo that has been adopted as a symbol by the far right to run the most powerful armed forces in the history of the world. He has chosen a former congresswoman who has defended Middle East dictators and echoed positions favored by Russia to oversee the nation's intelligence agencies.

Nine years after Mr. Trump began upsetting political norms, it may be easy to underestimate just how extraordinary all of this is. In the past, none of those selections would have passed muster in Washington, where a failure to pay employment taxes for a nanny used to be enough to disqualify a cabinet nominee. Mr. Trump, by contrast, has bulled past the old red lines, opting for nominees who are so provocative that even fellow Republicans wondered whether he is trolling them.

The message to Washington is simple, according to Roger Stone, the longtime Trump friend who relishes his own reputation as a political dirty trickster. 'Things are going to be different,' he said by text."

-- Peter Baker, "Trump Signals a 'Seismic Shift,' Shocking the Washington Establishment,' The New York Times, November 17, 2024.

Here's another incisive article about President-elect Donald Trump's transition and his frightening Cabinet nominees, who are abnormal even for Trump and the personality cult that has been built around him since 2015. For the past quarter-century, Peter Baker has been one of the very best, most level-headed analysts of the contemporary American Presidency, and he seems be stunned by the direction the incoming Trump Administration is already heading. Once again, all of these links are gift links to bypass the New York Times paywall so that you may read and share these important pieces and remain alert to the very real consequences of the 2024 election which are already taking shape.

[gwydionmisha]

This will kill so many people if they dismantle the US Public health system and pandemic response infrastructure as planned.

[schraubd]

Does the NYT Know What a "Progressive" Is?

The NYT reports on the integration of Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. into the Trump campaign. This is news, though its essentially news that "conservative cranks support the supreme conservative crank." But instead, the NYT frames it this way: Donald J. Trump plans to name his former rival, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard, a onetime Democrat, as honorary co-chairs of a presidential transition team that will help him select the policies and personnel of any second Trump administration, according to a campaign senior adviser. Mr. Kennedy ended his independent campaign for president and endorsed Mr. Trump on Friday. Both he and Ms. Gabbard spent most of their public life as progressive Democrats, and Mr. Kennedy had started his presidential run as a Democrat, before renouncing his party and running as an independent instead. Ms. Gabbard left the Democratic Party after her 2020 presidential run and has rebranded herself as a celebrity among Trump’s base of support. Excuse me? Until recently, RFK Jr. was known for two things (aside from his name). First, water-related environmental causes; second, being an anti-vaxx nut. The former I'll agree is a progressive issue. The latter ... well, I guess there was a time when anti-vaxxers were partially associated with the crunchy granola left (you know, before it stopped being funny and started being a Serious Issue of Principle We All Must Respect). But this isn't exactly the profile of a progressive champion. Yet Gabbard is even worse -- she's been widely recognized as a conservative for years! Anti-choice, anti-gay marriage, a friend of dictators and authoritarians the world over ... what, exactly, is supposed to be her "progressive" rep? The answer is that there continues to be a small number of "progressives" (and, I guess, NYT writers) who are absurdly easy to dupe by anyone who makes some vague "anti-establishment" (especially "anti-war") rumblings. But aside from that, nobody actually ever thought that Tulsi Gabbard was any kind of progressive -- she has always been in a class of her own. And the thing is -- Democratic voters have made this conclusion very obvious, by emphatically rejecting both Gabbard and RFK Jr. every time they tried to hop onto the national stage. Their defeats were not situations where the "progressive" faction of the party happened to get outvoted by more moderate or establishment cadres (compare, say, Bernie Sanders). RFK and Gabbard both failed to get any discernable support from any substantial wing of the Democratic electorate -- left, right, or center. Progressive Democrats didn't see either as progressive choices, they saw them for what they were -- conspiratorial right-wing cranks. And now they've found their natural home alongside Trump. No news there. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/kvQKYlA

[idvoteforthatdaddy]

RFK Jr. and Ted Cruz

I can work with RFK, looks wises, but that voice… I don't know.

Throw in Ted and could tolerate it.

[ireton]

WARNING - A DISTURBING TOPIC

DISCLAIMER: Please do your own research and come to your own conclusions.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - "Doctors have been co-opted by the medical cartel...A typical pediatrician's office makes about 50% of its funding comes from vaccines, not actually from selling the individual vaccines, from the traffic...Every kid goes to the doctor at least 10 times to get their vaccines and that foot traffic in and out of the office is a major part of the business plan for the pediatrician office. And they're also then rewarded by Blue Cross Blue Shield which has a reward schedule for pediatricians who vaccinate 80 or 85% of the kids in their office get these giant bonuses, I think 40 or $400 per kid, huge amounts of money, hundreds of thousands of Dollars that they make making sure that 85% of the kids are vaccinated. And that's why they throw you out of the office if you fight back. It's not because they care so much about your particular kid, it's that you'll throw off the metrics and you'll lose them their bonuses. Those schedules have now been published so people can actually go look at the Blue Cross Blue Shield schedule and you can see what your pediatrician is making and that's huge amounts of money from complying. They have these perverse incentives that make it so that they're not really treating your kid as an individual patient and so your job in today's democracy is to do your own research."

[politicalfeed]

Exclusive: Donald Trump is expected to nominate former presidential candidate and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

[batboyblog]

I feel like if there was a video of President Biden conspiring with a 3rd party candidate (and talking anti-Vax nonsense) I'd get a push notification from the New York Times, but here's Trump on the phone with RFK Jr, casting doubt on vaccines, seeming to imply they cause autism, seeming to say he wants RFK Jr to work for him, "we will win" to which Kennedy agrees implying the "We" was Trump and Kennedy.

Link

[voguefashion]

The Kennedys on Vanity Fair

Jackie Kennedy Onassis, August 1989.

Jackie Kennedy Onassis, July 1994.

Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, September 1999.

John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, August 2003.

Jackie Kennedy, May 2004.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (with Julia Roberts George Clooney & Al Gore), May 2006.

Jackie Kennedy & John F. Kennedy, November 2007.

Robert F. Kennedy, June 2008.

Jackie Kennedy, October 2009.

John F. Kennedy & Jackie Kennedy - The Kennedys (Special Commemorative Edition), 2013.

[considerourknowledge]

Ethel Kennedy, Mother of RFK Jr., Dies of Embarrassment

Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and a popular and vital force in the Kennedy political dynasty, died on Thursday. She was 96. Her grandson Joseph P. Kennedy III announced the death, giving the cause as a stroke brought on by the embarrassment of her son Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. endorsing Donald Trump for president. Her death comes a little more than six weeks after her dipshit anti-vaxxer son ended his long-shot independent presidential campaign and endorsed Trump, a man that stands literally opposed to everything that Ethel and Robert Kennedy spent their lives fighting for. "She just couldn't take it anymore. The Trump endorsement was the last straw. The embarrassment of it all killed her," said Rory Kennedy. "It was just years of cumulative embarrassment."

[tedkennedyswife]

November 25th, 1963 - Close-up of Joan at JFK's burial at Arlington Cemetery

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Keith Edwards at No Lies Detected:

Fascism doesn’t come for every generation, but it has come for ours.  This is not a fight on the beaches of Normandy, but in our own country. This article begins a series on what opposing Donald Trump and his movement can look like. I hope you will join me as these progress.

[...]

Do not leave. Faced with the might of the United States government aligned against you, you might consider resigning preemptively to avoid the humiliation of inevitable termination. This is counterproductive for at least two reasons: If you leave, you save Trump Administration officials the time and effort of identifying you, which otherwise could have taken months or years. Second, your principled stand would likely only result in your replacement by an unprincipled Trump loyalist. By staying on, you may find yourself helping to implement policies you find hateful, but by refusing to leave, you can ensure that you have some influence on those policies, because then you can...

Delay. Delay. Delay. Waiting out the enemy until he moves on, gives up, or forgets is a time-honored strategy not just among civil servants but also history’s best generals. That email about a proposed rule change to healthcare protections? Bury it in everyone’s inbox by sending it late. A meeting on reviewing the U.S. government’s foreign aid commitments to a region you oversee? Oops, you’ll be out that day! That agency conference your political-appointee boss requested you arrange? Next month didn’t fit everyone’s schedule, so you had to push it to after the new year! Slow-walking is the classic tool in any bureaucrat’s toolbox, and in the next Trump Administration, you can use it in defense of the Constitution.

Be intentionally incompetent. As a career employee, you likely have always had the advantage of knowing your workplace better than your politically appointed overlords. This is perhaps your most potent weapon against Trump. Draft rules unlikely to survive judicial review. Favor lengthy rulemaking or review processes over expedited ones. Complete tasks sequentially rather than in parallel to draw out timelines. Add complexity, stakeholders, and process wherever possible. In short, exploit the knowledge gap you hold over your bosses to diminish, defuse, and defeat their plans.

Leak. Federal employees have the right to report what they believe to be illegal or abusive of authority to their agency’s inspector general (IG) without fear of retaliation. Trump however has singled out IGs for replacement after one played a pivotal role in his first impeachment, so the availability of this option may depend on how politically prominent your agency is. Fortunately, you can anonymously tip prominent news outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post, which boast extensive investigative units and employ rigorous safeguards to protect sources’ identities. You can also seek out sympathetic elected officials, such as Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee, whose main function is investigation of the federal government. (If you choose disclosure, be sure that the information is not classified, the unauthorized disclosure of which carries stiff federal penalties.)

Disregard and refuse. When you have exhausted all other options, you may want selectively to resort to riskier behaviors. These include going behind political appointees’ backs to subvert their activities, say by picking up the phone and countermanding their directions. In extreme cases, you may have outright to refuse direct orders to the appointee’s face. Though such actions seem like a fasttrack to termination, you may still be protected by the fact that overwhelmed political appointees might hesitate to go through the onerous process of finding a politically reliable replacement. Remember, the longer you stay in, the harder you make it for Trump to do what he wants. Know your rights. If the worst happens and your agency moves to terminate you, you can still fight back. There are multiple avenues an employee designated for dismissal can pursue to delay, reduce, or reverse agency penalties against them.1 The beauty of these options is that they can take months or even years to resolve and may be appealed to higher bodies, further extending the process. All the while, you are collecting a salary and occupying a full-time equivalent (FTE) position that your agency can’t fill until you finally depart. (This is not legal advice. If you find yourself in this situation, please seek a lawyer.)

Keith Edwards writes in his No Lies Detected Substack on how civil servants can show resistance to the tyrannical Trump 2.0 Regime from within.

[deadpresidents]

You know how they say that "all publicity is good publicity"? I don't think headlines like this support that premise.

[presdonaldtrump]

last time i was president, a global pandemic began. so this time around, i picked an anti-vaxxer with brain worms to be the secretary of the department of health

[joansiesbeloved]

jackuno: Just shit in this cup for me buddy @robertfkennedyjr !! If you’re gonna be in charge of ALL PUBLIC HEALTH we should be able to see what’s in your stool at a minimum. 💣💣💣🌋🌋🌋 ALSO !!! IMPORTANT !! I believe PUBLIC HAS THE RIGHT TO SEE THE PRESIDENT NAKED. At least going forward before the election. Let’s see what’s actually going on here — physique / family jewels = great data points.