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- Losing My Perspicacity, September 5, 2025
Good morning and Happy Friday! Thanks for starting your day with me.
Well, we had quite the kerfluffle on Capitol Hill yesterday, as Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified before the Senate Finance Committee about the mess he’s caused since taking over the agency. Of all the Kennedy kids, the family picked the absolute worst one to name after RFK. Before we get into the hearing, here’s a little tidbit from New York Magazine’s sweeping exposé Hijacking the Kennedys.
Ethel’s relationship with her third child, named for her beloved husband, had always been tempestuous. When Bobby was a young man, she regularly threw him out of the house for drug use and other chaotic behavior; when he was 13, a coatimundi he kept as a pet attacked Ethel and sent her into premature labor with his brother Douglas. In high school, after Ethel excoriated him for getting arrested for marijuana possession in Hyannis, he packed up and drove west without telling anyone in his family where he was going, eventually selling his car and hopping freight trains. Bobby seemed to relish the chance to break away from his family and ride the rails with the other vagabonds. “I could be one of them,” he said later. “And not be a Kennedy.”
Yeah, I think we all would have been fine with RFK Jr. not being a Kennedy. All of this could have been avoided because he sure as hell didn’t make it to where he is today based on his brains. Also, it seems “Bobby Jr.” has always been a huge problem for this family. And now he’s a problem for all of us.
Yesterday’s hearing was prompted by the shambles RFK Jr.’s tenure has left the Centers for Disease Control in, beginning with his misinformation campaign against vaccines and fluoride, and in favor of raw milk and Ivermectin, and ending with his firing of the CDC Director after she held the job for less than a month. Somewhere in the middle, an anti-vaxx conspiracy theorist shot up CDC headquarters, killing police officer David Rose.
We’ve seen RFK Jr. in action before Congress before, and yesterday’s performance was no different. The TL;DR version — everyone is lying but him, there is no data that proves that (insert modern medical staple) is effective, and everyone questioning him is in the pocket of Big Pharma. When committee members ask him about comments he’s made directly relevant to the topic at hand, he never said it. If they ask him about something that hurts Americans, he didn’t do it, or he wasn’t aware of it. It’s like watching a five-year-old try to lie his way out of getting in trouble.
Despite legacy media’s attempts to “both sides” the hearing (the NY Times’ recap was particularly egregious), it was nothing less than a beatdown by most of the Democrats and a few Republicans on the Committee. It’s difficult to see how we ever get out of the mess we’re in unless the media is willing to call a spade a spade and admit that RFK Jr. mumbled and stumbled and flubbed his way through this thing, getting belligerent when he didn’t have a decent answer.
Here’s Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) taking him to the woodshed. I strongly encourage you to watch the entire thing.
youtube.com/watch?v=Altv... Senator Bernie Sanders
— Mozelle Victory (@godswrath699.bsky.social)2025-09-04T22:21:25.124Z
And here is Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who is President in some alternate reality that I am desperately trying to get to, proving that she knows far more about how our health system works than the head of HHS.
Senator Warren asks Robert Kennedy to resign at today’s hearing… youtu.be/hRSq6f8dbQ4?...
— Fighting Liberal Texas Dem🌈🌊💙🦋Congress Switchboard 202-224-3121 (@fightingliberal.bsky.social)2025-09-04T22:57:17.851Z
And here’s Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who voted to confirm Kennedy, pointing out the obvious — you can’t both praise Trump for Operation Warp Speed and believe the COVID vaccine killed millions and did more harm than good.
SEN. CASSIDY (R) : “Do you agree Trump deserves the Nobel Prize for Operation Warp speed?” RFK JR.: “Absolutely.” SEN. CASSIDY: “But you just told Senator Bennet the COVID vaccine killed more people than COVID.” RFK JR.: “….”😬 🤷🏻♂️
— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social)2025-09-04T15:27:28.572Z
It’s a real shame that Committee members aren’t allowed to replay video during hearings, because despite RFK’s constant “I never said that” refrain, there are, indeed, videos circulating all over social media of him saying exactly that. Have you ever seen a guy who makes a bunch of sexist remarks in front of his buddies go all deer-in-the-headlights when confronted about it by a woman? That’s what watching this hearing felt like. Fortunately, Bobby Jr. here loves nothing as much as the sound of his own voice, so there is plenty of evidence to refute his denials.
Also, math was involved.
RFK Jr: It's gonna be the biggest infusion of federal dollar into rural healthcare in American history BERNIE SANDERS: Yeah. You know why? Because you're cutting $150b for rural hospitals, you're putting $50b back. That's not an infusion. That's a loss of $100b.
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)2025-09-04T16:16:01.654Z
While it felt good to watch members of Congress call Kennedy a liar to his face, which has apparently never seen an ounce of sunscreen in his life, I turned off the hearing and immediately made an appointment to get my COVID vaccine on Saturday. I’m done believing saner minds will prevail; I want to get the jab while it’s still available to me.
However, there is some good news for those who live in Washington, California, or Oregon. Your governors have created an alliance to protect their citizens from Kennedy’s quackery and ensure they retain access to vaccines. It sounds like there will be something similar happening in New England, and one doctor is organizing medical professionals in Michigan to avoid the mess at HHS altogether.
Before we move on, I want to take a moment to point out that Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) could have used his time yesterday to ask about rural healthcare or funding for clinical trials or any number of other issues that are vital to keeping Americans healthy. Instead, he took the tried and true Republican route of demonizing women’s reproductive freedom.
The amount of time these old white guys spend thinking about women’s access to abortion is bizarre. Meanwhile, more than 30,000 Montanans are set to lose their healthcare coverage as a result of the Big Bloated Bill.
America Stop Sending Morons to Congress Challenge.
Today: Norwegian Wealth Fund divests from Caterpillar over Gaza; I guess we’re bombing the Caribbean now; Alligator Alcatraz is, sadly, still open; and The High Note.
Let’s get into it.
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Norway wants no part of what’s next in Gaza
Donald Trump is currently fuming because Norway’s $2 billion wealth fund wound down its holdings in Israel and said it will sell all its remaining shares of Caterpillar. The reason? Norway knows that Caterpillar will be heavily involved in clearing the rubble that Gaza has been reduced to.
Last week, Norges Bank Investment Management, or NBIM — which manages the fund on behalf of the Norwegian population — said it would exit its stake in Caterpillar and five Israeli banks, citing “unacceptable risk that the companies contribute to serious violations of the rights of individuals in situations of war and conflict.”
At the end of last year, the fund held a 1.2% stake in New York-listed Caterpillar.
However, the fund’s ethics council had recommended cashing out of that holding, with NBIM saying at the time that management believed Caterpillar’s bulldozers were “being used by Israeli authorities in the widespread unlawful destruction of Palestinian property.”
I’m generally not one to say “too little too late” when people do the right thing, but this would have been great to see, like, a year ago. Nevertheless, hats off to the Norwegians.
So we’re bombing the Caribbean…
It’s amazing the things our government does that barely make the news. If you missed it, the US bombed “a drug-carrying vessel that departed from Venezuela and was operated by the Tren de Aragua gang,” killing 11 people. Given Trump’s penchant for claiming people are Tren de Aragua members without any evidence whatsoever, I am skeptical.
Shout-out to my pal Charlie Pierce for this fantastic headline: “Does the Reason Trump Bombed That Boat in the Caribbean Happen to Rhyme with Schmepstein?”
I remain dubious about any involvement of the military in our doomed and futile “war” on drugs. At one time or another, the drug trade has corrupted the legal system and every level of law enforcement. Get the military in there with both feet and pretty soon you wind up with the South Vietnamese army. That possibility gets immeasurably worse when the process is run by a half-dead elderly man surrounded by malignant meatheads. But Daddy likes big boom-booms, so back comes the Monroe Doctrine with a vengeance. Maybe. Allegedly.
Despite Trump’s cavalier attitude about the bombing, the penalty for drug trafficking is not death, and it isn’t “The American Way” to ensure that criminal suspects have the right to defend themselves within the confines of the legal system before a finding of guilt and imposing a sentence?
Everyone loves to yell, “Innocent until proven guilty!” when their favorite athlete is charged with a crime, but no one seems to care when the accused isn’t famous or, heaven forbid, is a poor person from another country.
Meanwhile, US officials are scrambling to justify the bombing, and some are even casting doubt on the official narrative:
But some officials at the Defense Department privately expressed concern on Wednesday about the administration’s shifting narratives, including where the vessel was headed. Mr. Rubio had said on Tuesday that it was going to Trinidad, while Mr. Trump said the United States. On Wednesday, Mr. Rubio changed his version, saying the drug-laden boat was bound for the United States.
***
Two Defense Department officials also said on Wednesday that they did not see how the 2001 war authorization could be used to justify military action against drug cartels in the Caribbean.
***
In the former official’s opinion, it was more likely that the vessel was carrying migrants on a human smuggling run. It would be impossible to know for sure, however, given that any evidence of drug smuggling was destroyed in the attack.
I’m so tired of being the assholes of the world.
Alligator Alcatraz is still open, dammit
An appeals court has temporarily blocked a lower court order that mandated Alligator Alcatraz be emptied of detainees and essentially shut down within 60 days.
On Thursday, the Eleventh US Circuit Court of Appeals granted requests from the State of Florida and the US Department of Homeland Security to stay a district court’s preliminary injunction that would have forced the site to wind down operations within 60 days. A preliminary injunction is a temporary order put in place until a court can make a final decision in a case.
“After careful consideration, we grant the defendants’ motions and we stay the preliminary injunction and the underlying case itself pending appeal,” ruled the divided three-judge panel in the majority opinion.
The original court order agreed with the plaintiffs’ environmental and human rights concerns.
In a major blow for the plaintiffs – environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida – and their key legal argument, the judges ruled the detention facility is operated by the state, not the federal government, and therefore falls outside the obligations under the National Environmental Policy Act. NEPA, signed by President Richard Nixon, is considered one of the foundational environmental laws formed at the beginning of the modern environmental movement.
While detainees at the site are being held in federal custody (ICE/DHS), until the State of Florida seeks reimbursement from the federal government for whatever it has expended in setting up and maintaining AA, the legal argument could go either way.
Not great.
The High Note
Each Day, I do my best to leave you with a smile on your face, a song in your heart, and the will to fight another day.
In honor of Boyz 2 Men singing the national anthem in Philly last night, please enjoy the cast of Always Sunny performing their homage to the original Motown Philly group:
Rob McElhenney was at the game last night, and I can think of no good reason why the NFL didn’t recreate this. Once again, Roger Goodell lets America down.
Hey, survive and advance out there today, kids. Don’t let the bastards get you down.
Have a great weekend.
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