George F. Will sees cause and effect: When trust in government collapses, that’s how you get RFK Jr..
The pandemic has ended, but the malady lingers on in a social disease: generalized distrust of public health officials. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a price we are still paying for the collapse of confidence in government that accelerated during covid-19.
Donald Trump, ever transactional, has nominated Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. This is Kennedy’s reward for his Damascene conversion from Trump despiser (July 2, 2024: “a terrible president”) to Trump endorser (Aug. 23, 2024). HHS has more than 80,000 employees, a budget of more than $1.84 trillion, and responsibilities encompassing matters of life and death: medical and other health policies.
The vaccinations that conquered smallpox were arguably humanity’s most suffering-reducing, life-enhancing technology in three millennia. Kennedy has said, and later denied saying, “No vaccine is safe and effective.” He has said polio vaccinations have caused soft tissue cancers that “kill many, many, many, many, many, many more people than polio ever did.” Ample research refutes this, and his assertions linking vaccines to autism, and many other comparably reckless pronouncements. Presumably, had Kennedy been in the first Trump administration, he would have opposed the administration’s finest achievement: Operation Warp Speed. This produced the coronavirus vaccine, which Kennedy has called “the deadliest vaccine ever made.”
GFW wrote before Junior's hearing, but Ron Bailey wrote afterward, and he discusses Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s contradictory confirmation hearing answers. Skipping down to the New Hampshire connection:
What about Kennedy's longstanding and ardent pro-choice views? "In 2023, you came to New Hampshire and said, 'I'm pro-choice, I don't think the government has any business telling people what they can or cannot do to their body,'" Sen. Maggie Hassan (D–N.H.) pointed. "So, you said that, right?"
"Yes," Kennedy replied.
Hassan continued, "Mr. Kennedy, I'm confused. You clearly stated in the past that bodily autonomy is one of your core values. The question is, do you stand for that value or not? When did you decide to sell out the values you've had your whole life in order to be given power by President Trump?"
Junior's answer may surprise you! Or it may not. Ron doesn't provide it, but you can get it here.
Kimberly A. Strassel invites her readers to Meet RFK Jr.’s MAHA Elite.
“We have to tell people how to lead better lives.” Politicians have a duty to protect citizens from greedy industries, to stop corporations from poisoning our food, to steer us away from bad choices. America has a health crisis, and government must make us healthier.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?
No, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg nearly 20 years ago, as he became New York City’s nutritional nag, hectoring and mandating residents, inserting the public-health complex into grocery stores, restaurants and family kitchens. Republicans are now lumbering us with Bloomberg 2.0.
How did we get here? Mr. Kennedy in August bartered his small but potentially consequential vote share to Mr. Trump via endorsement, reportedly for a promise that the former Democratic contender would be given “control” of “public-health agencies.” Unable to justify 90% of Mr. Kennedy’s left-wing ideology or history, Republican senators are seizing on the least-offensive aspect of Mr. Kennedy’s repertoire (“Make America healthy again”) and elevating it to religion. Thus does the party that rails against Democratic paternalism embrace its own digestive elitism.
We're not gonna take it.
Also of note:
-
True disbeliever. We looked at Chris Cillizza's mea culpa about his (um) differential skepticism about the lab-leak origin of COVID-19 a couple days ago. Jonathan Turley detects that there's still one lab leak "denier" out on the Left Coast: L.A. Times Columnist Renews Attacks on the Lab-Leak Theory While Dismissing Criticism of China. While most MSM outlets reported the recent news that the CIA now thinks (with "low confidence") that COVID came from a lab, the Times (specifically its science guy, continued to maintain otherwise, deeming the lab-leak hypothesis "fact-free".
As it turns out, it's pretty easy to make a "fact-free" claim when you ignore enough facts. Here's Turley:
Hiltzik criticizes my column and others for highlighting the most recent disclosure. However, he omits that this follows even stronger findings from agencies like the FBI and evidence (as discussed in my column) that government scientists found the theory credible.
He also omits any mention of the fact that he is widely cited as one of the most aggressive voices seeking to cancel scientists who voiced support for the theory. While arguing that scientific journals have not embraced the theory, he leaves out that he targeted schools that sought to allow academic discussions of the theory.
Hiltzik decried an event associated with Bhattacharya, writing that “we’re living in an upside-down world” because Stanford University allowed dissenting scientists to speak at a scientific forum. Hiltzik also wrote a column titled “ The COVID lab leak claim isn’t just an attack on science, but a threat to public health.”
Democracy dies in darkness, Mr. Hiltzik!
-
A good title for a sequel to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly? Bryan Caplan muses on The Rich and the Cheap.
Could raising taxes or regulatory burdens on the rich have negative side effects? Champions of soak-the-rich policies often minimize the fear of such effects by scoffing: “Pshaw. They can totally afford it.”
Except in the direst circumstances, the champions of taxes and regulation are correct. The rich can totally afford it. While they won’t like further impositions, they have, if need be, plenty of surplus to weather the storm.
What the champions of soak-the-rich policies miss, however, is that the negative side effects of their favorite taxes and regulations can still be horrible. Why? Because the mere fact that a person can afford a burden does not imply that they will, given a choice, ignore the burden. And in the real world, taxes and regulations almost always come with choices.
Don’t want to pay the tax? Earn less.
Don’t want to face the regulation? Do less.
Bryan points out that there's a considerable overlap in the Venn diagram of "rich" and "cheap" populations. (I don't know if I'm considered "rich" but I am cheap.)