#Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Amanda Marcotte at Salon:

Robert F. Kennedy's "make America healthy again" motto is meant to convey that he is sincerely interested in helping Americans avoid getting sick in the first place. During his Senate confirmation hearing for Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, all Kennedy and his newfound Republican supporters could talk about was how in love he is with "prevention." "We should be moving to value-based care, which includes prevention," Kennedy confidently declared. The committee chair, Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Ida., described Kennedy as "passionate" about "preventing and managing chronic disease, improving health outcomes, and reducing health costs."

It should have always been self-evident that Kennedy is not pro-prevention, since he built his career as a vaccine denialist. Yet much of the press seems to have been snookered. So it's especially noteworthy that Kennedy kicked off his new role with a broad attack on drugs people use to prevent depression, diabetes, and other such conditions. On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that echoes Kennedy's lie that he wants to "make America healthy again." HHS is ordered to "assess the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants, and weight-loss drugs." But it's clear from the context that no good faith assessment is intended, as the order repeatedly cites a preordained conclusion that there is an "over-utilization of medication" and an "over-reliance on medication and treatments."

Kennedy has long had it out for these drugs, and repeatedly argues that the only prevention most people need is better willpower. Kennedy occasionally tosses a red herring about "environmental" causes of illness, but mostly he frames the issue as a matter of personal failing, focusing on people's diets and exercise habits as the "root causes" of nearly all illnesses. He regards anti-depressants as an "addictive drug," falsely claiming people have "a much worse time getting off of SSRIs than they have getting off of heroin."  Instead of letting people have drugs that keep them healthy, Kennedy's "solution" looks very much like punishing them for perceived personal failures by putting people into labor camps, which he euphemistically calls "wellness farms." As Mother Jones reported in July, people would be relegated to these "farms," where they would be denied their prescription medications. They would also be barred from having cell phones, computers, or other means to contact the outside world. They would be put to work full-time, presumably for little or no pay, growing organic food. He claims this process would "reparent" supposedly broken people, again framing mental health issues as not a medical issue, but a personal failure.  The racism underlying this vision of labor camps isn't just vibes, either. Kennedy has explicitly argued that Black kids need to "get reparented," ideally in a "rural area" where they are denied most contact with family and friends. 

Add this to the braindead ideas that the RFK Jr.-led MAHA movement is championing: proposing the putting people with mental health conditions in concentration camps (aka “wellness farms”).

[socialjusticeinamerica]

He’s getting the band back together.

[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.

[makingdonalddrumpfagain]

[canadianabroadvery]

As of the 2023-24 school year, Gaines County had one of the state’s highest vaccine exemption rates, at nearly 18%

[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.

[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.

[deadpresidents]

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

[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."