Hearty Soul: RFK Jr. Demanded a Vaccine Study Be Retracted. The Journal Said No. [Video]
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Tag Archives: Robert F. Kennedy Jr
Alternet: ‘Hazing, bullying and harassment’: This Trump official can’t handle the truth | Opinion
Hegseth’s New Rules of Engagement: No. 1—Avoid Accountability
Hegseth’s New Rule of Engagement: No. 2—Suppress Facts
ABC News: Special education staff decimated after shutdown firings: Sources
“Who the heck is going to administer this program?”
The nation’s special education services have been significantly impacted after Friday’s mass layoffs within the Department of Education and it could have an immediate impact on children with disabilities, education department sources told ABC News.
“Do people realize that this is happening to this population of vulnerable students?” one education department leader told ABC News.
“[If] there’s no staff, who the heck is going to administer this program? That’s the absurdity of this,” the source, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution, added.
The department leader stressed that several employees within the offices of Special Education Programs and the Rehabilitative Services Administration — the two divisions that make up the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) — were cut over the weekend.
The agency enforces the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the law creating a free and appropriate education for children with disabilities, and funds special education services to the tune of around $15 billion.
The education department leader called the layoffs to this division “ridiculous,” contending that families of special needs students will be harmed.
“There is a risk that the money to educate their children will not be given to the state, and that their access to support and advocacy for their children with special needs will no longer continue because there is no staff available to administer IDEA,” the department leader noted.
The education department is the smallest cabinet-level agency in the U.S. government.
At the start of the Trump administration, the department had just over 4,000 employees. After buyouts, early retirements, voluntary separations and a Reduction in Force, the agency was shrunk nearly in half earlier this year.
Multiple sources said several departmental offices have now been gutted again, including the offices of Communications and Outreach, Elementary and Secondary Education and other divisions.
A lawsuit brought by the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of federal workers, said the education department RIFed 466 employees – or at least another 20% of the agency’s workforce — during the shutdown.
Rachel Gittleman, the president of AFGE Local 252, believes all remaining offices in OSERS below the senior executive services level were RIFed Friday.
“The RIF of OSERS and OESE doubles down on the harm to K-12 students and schools across the country, which are already feeling the impacts of a hamstring Office for Civil Rights (OCR) from the March RIF,” she said.
News of the shutdown RIF was surprising for many within the special education offices. The employees who lost their jobs are distraught, according to the source familiar with the RIF.
Education department sources also told ABC News that the job cuts could hamstring states.
“If this RIF notice is carried out, the Department of Education can no longer administer IDEA,” one source said. “I have no staff to put the money out and to monitor the states.”
Critics of the Trump administration’s plans to shutter the agency told ABC News that preserving IDEA is one of their top concerns. It is a statutory program mandated by law and has bipartisan support on Capitol Hill.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon, whose mission is to return education power and responsibilities to the state and local level, has attempted to assuage concerns by stating that the department would continue to fully fund and carry out all of Congress’ statutorily required programs.
But the education department leader told ABC News that the latest RIF flies in the face of McMahon’s pledges.
“She’s consistently said she’ll protect IDEA,” the source said. “Well, now, this is not protecting IDEA if they’re getting rid of the team,” adding, “What is she doing with IDEA? Who’s going to administer it?”
The Department of Education did not immediately respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.
President Trump has said the Health and Human Services Department under Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will handle the special needs and nutrition programs for students, but that transfer has not happened yet.
Meanwhile, the education department leader predicts remaining staff within the special education division will not be equipped to take on the responsibility of those who were fired.
“That’s like taking a surgeon and telling them you’re now a brick layer or telling a brick layer you’re now a surgeon: It’s like you just don’t do that,” the leader said. “It’s just so absurd.”
Slingshot News: ‘We Did It With Bobby And Oz’: Trump Invents A New Lie, Claims He Has Found The Cure To Autism During Charlie Kirk Memorial Ceremony [Video]
President Donald Trump claimed, without a shred of evidence, that he has cured autism with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz during the Charlie Kirk memorial ceremony in Arizona this afternoon.
‘We Did It With Bobby And Oz’: Trump Invents A New Lie, Claims He Has Found The Cure To Autism During Charlie Kirk Memorial Ceremony
President Donald Trump claimed, without a shred of evidence, that he has cured autism with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz during the Charlie Kirk memorial ceremony in Arizona this afternoon.
TODAY: RFK Jr Faces Senate Grilling as Calls for His Resignation Grow
RFK Jr Faces Senate Grilling as Calls for His Resignation Grow
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is set to face tough questions on Capitol Hill Thursday, including from his own party, about the country’s public health agencies amid calls for his resignation from more than 1,000 current and former members of his own department. It comes amid growing criticism of the termination of the CDC director and top government vaccine experts. NBC’s Ryan Nobles reports for TODAY.
Slingshot News: ‘Let Somebody Else Get Rich’: Trump Plans To Complete His Dismantling Of The Education Department By Selling Off The Buildings
‘Let Somebody Else Get Rich’: Trump Plans To Complete His Dismantling Of The Education Department By Selling Off The Buildings
During a cabinet meeting at the White House yesterday, Donald Trump discussed plans to close down Department of Education buildings and selling them off so that somebody else can “get rich with the real estate.”
Slingshot News: ‘I’m Not Gonna Tell You’: RFK Jr. Flees From Accountability, Refuses To Let Congress Know When Their Letters Will Be Answered During Hearing
‘I’m Not Gonna Tell You’: RFK Jr. Flees From Accountability, Refuses To Let Congress Know When Their Letters Will Be Answered During Hearing
In a budget hearing held by the House Energy and Commerce Committee several weeks ago, Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) asked Secretary RFK Jr. when his many letters will ever get a response back from the HHS Department. “I’m not gonna tell you… I don’t know,” RFK Jr. replied.
Slingshot News: ‘Citing References That Don’t Even Exist’: RFK Jr. Quivers As He Gets Caught Red-Handed For Academic Dishonesty During Hearing
‘Citing References That Don’t Even Exist’: RFK Jr. Quivers As He Gets Caught Red-Handed For Academic Dishonesty During Hearing
During a budget hearing held by the House Energy and Commerce Committee several weeks ago, HHS Secretary RFK Jr. was publicly shamed by Congressman Raul Ruiz (D-CA) over the MAHA Commission’s catastrophic report, which falsified information and cited nonexistent references.
MSNBC: Laura Loomer’s White House witch hunt is just getting started
The far-right conspiracy theorist has taken credit for numerous high-level firings over what she claims is “disloyalty” to President Trump.
A self-described “proud Islamophobe” and “pro-white nationalism” influencer is one of the most influential people in the Trump White House — despite not actually working for the administration. And she’s brought a particularly odious form of cancel culture to President Donald Trump’s second term that’s led to well over a dozen White House and federal employees recently fired for wrongthink.
Laura Loomer, 32, is known as much for her overt racism as her peddling of evidence-free conspiracy theories — such as 9/11 was an “inside job,” the Parkland high school shooting was staged, and Ohio was being overrun by “cannibalistic Haitians” who were “eating people’s pets.” Loomer has been described by many news outlets as a personal friend and confidant of Trump’s, and she’s fond of bragging about the “scalps” she’s collected, referring to the former White House and federal employees she successfully targeted for firing.
James Risen, writing in The Guardian, noted that Loomer’s critics insist “she has just been taking credit for moves that Trump was already planning,” but added that “Trump himself has said he takes her seriously, so it may be more accurate to describe her as Trump’s de facto national security adviser.”
Loomer has also referred to herself as Trump’s “loyalty enforcer,” and she has just added a few more “scalps” to her collection.
The Daily Wire — a right-wing partisan site co-founded by MAGA pundit Ben Shapiro — reported that National Security Agency general counsel April Falcon Doss had previously worked for Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., on the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. The Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak called her a “transparently partisan activist who has written publicly about her opposition to Trump.” As evidence, Rosiak cited Doss’ call “for Trump to be permanently banned from social media for staging an ‘insurrection.’”
Loomer told The New York Times that she “reposted a tweet that exposed her last week and flagged it for the right people.” Doss was fired last week.
Another civil servant recently “Loomer’d” is Jen Easterly, a former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), who had her job offer to serve as the distinguished chair of the Military Academy at West Point’s social sciences department rescinded by Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. Loomer earlier this week called Easterly’s job offer a “vetting crisis” and later boasted that “All Biden holdovers must be removed from the Trump admin.”
Loomer has taken credit for at least a dozen other “scalps” for “disloyalty” — including federal prosecutors, directors and aides on the National Security Council and even Trump’s original surgeon general nominee, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, because of her support for the Covid vaccines that Trump helped bring into existence in his first term.
But one of the most striking Loomer-influenced cancellations is the resignation of Dr. Vinay Prasad from his roles as the Food and Drug Administration’s head of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and chief medical and scientific officer.
Prasad — an acolyte of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who made a name for himself during the Covid pandemic by blasting the FDA and other health agencies on social media, podcasts and his blog — was only on the job a little more than two months. But he made his MAHA mark when he overrode the FDA’s vaccine experts’ recommendations on two Covid vaccines, which led directly to the FDA announcing its plan to only recommend Covid shots for people over 65 or with high-risk health conditions.
But Prasad was not spared from MAGA cancel culture, after Loomer dug up some old podcast clips where Prasad was critical of Trump. In a classic case of people supporting the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party being shocked that the leopards subsequently ate their faces, the MAGA-friendly and cancel culture-obsessed Free Press (where Prasad has been a contributing writer) published an editorial decrying Loomer’s “shameful smear campaign against our honorable, decent friend.”
Loomer told Politico that she expects “hundreds” more to be purged for disloyalty to the dear leader. And Loomer is soliciting snitches via an anonymous tip line.
“I’m happy to take people’s tips about disloyal appointees, disloyal staffers and Biden holdovers,” Loomer said. “And I guess you could say that my tip line has come to serve as a form of therapy for Trump administration officials who want to expose their colleagues who should not be in the positions that they’re in.”
We’re a little more than one-eighth of the way through the second Trump administration, and one of its defining features is that it is led by astoundingly unqualified people whose raison d’etat is ruthlessly enforcing ideological orthodoxy and slavish devotion to the president, rather than the country and the Constitution.
And whether you previously worked for people Trump doesn’t like, or you told the objective truth about Trump’s attempted self-coup, or even if you previously criticized him before turning MAGA sycophant, your job is not safe from being eliminated at the behest of a person who during the 2024 election made comments about Vice President Kamala Harris that were so unimpeachably racist they even drew rebukes from loyal Trumpists JD Vance and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Trump’s election was widely seen as a rebuke against the excesses of left-wing cancel culture. But the Loomering of the federal government shows we probably haven’t seen the worst of MAGA cancel culture yet.
When the Trump dictatorship decides to reenact the Night of the Long Knives, Laura will be running the show.
Alternet: Trump official brutally mocked after saying he was ‘not going to tolerate’ sick Americans
Dr. Mehmet Oz, President Donald Trump’s Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, declared that the administration will no longer “tolerate” what he called a culture that makes it “easy to be sick in America.” Framing childhood illness as a failure of parenting and physical activity rather than medical need, Oz linked obesity to national security and warned that industries would be forced to cooperate—or face government retaliation.
Oz—often called a conspiracy theorist who has been widely criticized for promoting “quack” products—appeared to endorse an authoritarian vision of public health, suggesting that under Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Americans would no longer be allowed to remain “sick” without consequences, and threatened industry with demands to either cooperate or face retribution.
He also railed against what he called the “over-medicalization” of American society—particularly among children—but failed to distinguish between conditions driven by behavior and those rooted in biology or beyond individual control.
“You’re diagnosing problems that probably should be dealt with with the parents,” he told Fox News Business, referring to children’s health, “or by going out and playing, or just dealing with issues and teaching kids how to mental resilience [sic].”
He warned of risk factors that “cause an obesity epidemic that now prevents three quarters of young men from entering the military,” a questionable claim, and said that this “crisis” is “rolling up towards the older ages.”
“There’s a reason we’re twice as obese as [our] European counterpart countries, we’re ten times more obese than Japan: we’ve made it easy to be sick in America. And this president and this Secretary of Health, Bobby Kennedy, they’re not going to tolerate it anymore,” Oz declared.
Warning that he and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary, “are the tip of the spear,” he threatened “to make sure that we get industry to work with us, or we’ll be coming after them.”
Dr. Oz has a history of linking healthcare policy to politics.
In 2022, during his failed senatorial campaign, Oz said he wanted abortion to be between a woman, her doctors, and local political leaders.
More recently, Oz has said Americans must “earn the right” to be on Medicaid, and said current Medicaid users should “prove you matter.”
Critics, meanwhile, blasted Oz’s latest remarks.
California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom responded, telling Oz, “You just stripped 17 million people of their healthcare.”
Dr. Rachel Bedard, an internist, geriatrician, and palliative care physician, wrote: “Stop being sick, Americans. They aren’t gonna tolerate it anymore.”
Anthony M. Hopper, who teaches healthcare administration, noted, “You know … We would be a lot healthier (in the future) if we spent more money on medical research.”
Retired professor MA Rasmussen wrote: “So you guys are OK with the gutting of the EPA, an agency created to protect us from polluted air & water & the Labor Department which enforces worker safety rules? I guess so. You’re all into blaming the individual rather than corporations or agribusiness or bad public policy.”
Watch the video … at this link.