Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Appears Before Senate Finance Committee
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Appears Before Senate Finance Committee

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Appears Before Senate Finance Committee

This should be fun.

Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee. It begins at 10 AM ET.

The Finance Committee has Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders. Yippee.

Fix Medicaid

No, he doesn’t want to get rid of Medicaid.

Sanders Can’t Research

Big Pharma Money

Warren is such a fool.

Proof Hearings are Theater

These hearings are worthless.

RFK Jr. Won’t Touch Your McDonald’s

Good b/c I love McDonald’s.

Wydon Shut Down

Fox News received a copy of RFK Jr.’s opening remarks:

“The CDC says 90% of healthcare spending goes toward managing chronic disease, which hits lower-income Americans the hardest. The President’s pledge is not “To Make Some Americans Healthy Again.” It’s all of us,” RFK will say.

“There is no single culprit for chronic disease. Much as I have criticized certain industries and agencies, President Trump and I know that most of their scientists and experts genuinely care about Americans’ health. Therefore, we will bring together all stakeholders, in pursuit of this unifying goal,” his remarks continue.

President Donald Trump has nominated RFK to serve as secretary of health and human services, and the nominee also plans to push back on his reputation as “anti-vaccine.”

“News reports have claimed that I am anti-vaccine or anti-industry. Well, I am neither; I am pro-safety,” RFK will say. “I worked for years to raise awareness about the mercury and toxic chemicals in fish, but that didn’t make me anti-fish. All of my kids are vaccinated, and I believe vaccines have a critical role in healthcare.”

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Comments

Democrats are desperate for their first scalp and will go hard until they get one…with each confirmation hearing becoming more and more deranged the longer they go without getting anyone shot down.

    Probably doesn’t make any difference in the process of putting the Trump agenda in place. They had a list of “actings” already to go; not allowing Biden holdovers to sabotage the agenda. Saw a recent post where, apparently, actings can fire employees immediately, while “new”management has to wait 120 days.

      Liz in reply to SHV. | January 29, 2025 at 12:35 pm

      SHV – I remember seeing that comment and tried to find the waiting period rule. Does anyone have a reference for it?

      The only reason I can see for that rule is that an “acting” (who may still be a leftover from the prior administration) supposedly knows the people in the various positions. But the new person has to have a waiting period to figure things out.

    Wow. Democrats really hate heretics. They are yelling and hysterical.

    Of course NeverTrumpers like Erick Erickson are trying to back stab RFK Jr. too.

The vile Dhimmi-crats’ hostility and rage towards any person who is deemed to be a heretic (e.g., RFK, Jr.; Gabbard; et al.) is simply contemptible and outrageous. These reprobates are Maoist fanatics, to their wretched cores.

Senate confirms first out transgender federal official, Rachel Levine, as assistant health secretary

Think about that, the honorable senate confirms a travesty that promoted satanic beliefs on our children

There was a time when I thought RFK Jr. was a bit of a nut, That was before I listened to him. I find that he is a trial lawyer with a well-rounded, classical education that includes math. He can explain the meaning of statistics to a judge so that even a judge can understand what he is saying.

That is not a gift: it is a sign of the confluence of humility, a good education plus diligent, careful work in pursuit of something reliably close to the truth.

The reality is that many items common in our society carry with them risks to a small number of our population. Sometimes it takes a while for these risks to surface, and sometimes they are hard to diagnose.

However, we now have a LOT more information about these items and their effect on different types of people. It’s time to sort through this information and make sense of it.

For example, some people react badly to caffeine. It took some work to track this down. Perhaps its a genetic thing. More recently, data has emerged that suggests reactions like this may be the result of multiple factors, including the current state of a person’s gut microbiome.

As for me, I treat caffeine as a food group.

I have a family member who has celiac disease. She was sickly for years until the doctors made a diagnosis. After many more years, some data has emerged that this could be a response to trace pesticide, again possibly combined with a lack of a particular, common gut microbe.

Given the size of our population, the prevalence of medical records, and the availablity of some magical analytic techniques, we might be able pull out the information that could guide millions of us to better health.

RFK Jr. is admittedly supported by some people who have a much harsher take on several industries and products — which is much more a suspicion than a matter of proof. His approach is meticulous and temperate. He also was raised in a political family, and so has a great deal of insight into the way our bureaucracy and legislature have operated in the recent past. He is in a good position to understand how regulatory capture operates.

The nomination of RFK Jr. to head HHS is an opportunity to revitalize an abused agency, and put it on the path to a happy combination of competence and transparency.

    mailman in reply to Valerie. | January 29, 2025 at 10:59 am

    That is a very good, well reasoned response V!

    “The nomination of RFK Jr. to head HHS is an opportunity to revitalize an abused agency, and put it on the path to a happy combination of competence and transparency.”

    Yeah, this doesnt matter to Democrats. They are after a scalp and will go hard to get RFK.

    The only real question is how many Republicans will be traitors and side with Democrats…and how many of those who side with Democrats moved to appoint Levene a few years ago?

    Take a note of these names as these small c conservatives need to be ousted from the Senate and replaced with people who will actually work for their constituents.

      Paddy M in reply to mailman. | January 29, 2025 at 12:56 pm

      At least 3, more than likely. 2 of them voted to confirm Levine who is the pinnacle of physical and mental health you know

Don’t mess with my Medicare and I absolutely don’t want to be on Medicare advantage

I don’t want to be on a private insurance, private has become a disaster

    CommoChief in reply to gonzotx. | January 29, 2025 at 1:44 pm

    Fair enough as a philosophy but ‘leave it alone’ creates a funding issue. Currently Medicare Part B (out patient services) gets 75% of funding not from Medicare but from general revenues. So does Part D.

    Medicare Part A (hospital in patient) is funded by the HI trust fund and payroll tax revenue. This has a projected surplus (excess revenue to expense) through 2031 but then begins drawing down the accumulated surplus. By 2036 the surplus will have been spent and they will have revenue of about 90% ish of what they project benefit demand to be in ’36.

    In sum doing nothing isn’t a realistic option for anyone who will.be alive past.the next decade or so. Doing nothing means automatic cuts. Raising taxes or siphoning off even more general revenue to underwrite Medicare seem questionable without any accompanying reduction in benefit/coverage as part.of a.grand political compromise among the various generational cohorts.

No secret vote needed. Murkowski, Collins, McConnell, Tillis and Graham.

One knows a person by, in part, who his enemies are. I’m not in agreement with Mr. Kennedy on any number of issues, but he does indeed appear to be a quality person, based on the people shrieking at him this morning.

Let him run HHS — I really don’t see how it could get worse, and I think he’ll surprise us all.

Truth is my wish was Ben Carson

I think he didn’t want any position

    MarkS in reply to gonzotx. | January 29, 2025 at 12:46 pm

    we had Ben, we still have chemicals in our food that no other civilized country on the planet allows

      Milhouse in reply to MarkS. | January 30, 2025 at 7:49 am

      What makes them so “civilized”? These are the same countries that don’t allow capital punishment, self-defense, or free speech. So them banning something else shouldn’t impress anyone.

The bigger potential the nominee has for being a disruptive force, flipping over the desks and getting between vested interests and their grift, gravy train and cushy sinecure the more hysterical the opposition becomes in the confirmation theater.

IMO unless the nominee is shown to be blatantly unqualified for an executive branch appointment then they should be confirmed.. The person occupying the Oval Office should be allowed their nominee to assist their term of administration as President baring something that makes them patently disqualified. Holding unorthodox opinions about the methodology or current practices of the bureaucracy of a particular agency doesn’t meet the threshold for disqualification.

I’ve been watching Senate confirmation hearings since C-Span started and became widely available on cable. And, I’ve had the opportunity to be in the room for roughly two-dozen confirmations. By FAR, this is the most stupidly contentious and petty hearing I can remember seeing and I sat through a couple during W’s term that were insane. This is next level moronic.

SeiteiSouther | January 29, 2025 at 2:14 pm

And of course Bill Cassidy is being a wishy washy little bitch.

Doesn’t matter how he votes at this point, I’m voting for his primary opponent.

    CommoChief in reply to SeiteiSouther. | January 29, 2025 at 2:58 pm

    I.suspect a very good predictor of how these Senators vote on confirmation will be the amount of funding they take from big food conglomerates, Pharma, Health care IN and Health care/Hospital Industry. That and whether their family members have a financial interest in one of those.

According to sources, Pfizer booked the most primetime questioning slot, while Moderna’s lower Senate sponsorship level bought the opening statement.

“The next round of questions, which will be centered on shielding vaccine manufacturers from lawsuits, is brought to you by Pfizer,” announced Senator Elizabeth Warren. “We are deeply thankful to Pfizer and all of our corporate sponsors who make this show happen.”

Babylon Bee

IneedAhaircut | January 29, 2025 at 3:40 pm

Kennedy should have asked Senator Warren if she would take the same pledge not to take money from big pharma. Heck, he could have asked the whole Senate panel if any of them would take that pledge.