Tuesday, February 4, 2025. Junior claims he won't violate ethical guidelines and enrich himself by instead directing the case in question to his son who will instead try to get rich off it, Elon Musk remains a menace, Glenn Greenwald remains a fool and a Brazilian nut so why's he butting into US matters, and much more.
As noted in yesterday's snapshot, Senator Elizabeth Warren issued a press release regarding Robert Kennedy Junior's nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services:
Washington, D.C. – During Wednesday’s Senate Finance Committee hearing, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)questioned
President Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services
(HHS) Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. about his apparent conflicts of interest.
Following pressure from Senate Democrats, RFK Jr., today in written responses to Senator Warren, agreed to amend his flawed ethics agreement (see Warren QFRs at the end of Part 2 and start of Part 3).
In response to this new information, Sen. Warren released the following statement:
“After public pressure from Senate Democrats, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
has acknowledged dangerous conflicts of interest that would allow him to
profit from an anti-vax lawsuit while serving as HHS Secretary. While
he has now pledged in writing to fix his flawed ethics agreement, the
answers he has provided to this committee also raise new questions about
the scope of his conflicts.
“Given these ongoing questions, RFK Jr.'s nomination must not move
forward to any Senate vote until the details of his revised ethics
agreement can be thoroughly reviewed. It’s also critical that the
revised ethics agreement ensures that he cannot use his role as Health
Secretary to open the floodgates to more anti-vaccine litigation and
then cash in after he leaves office, including adopting a four-year
post-employment ban on accepting any compensation from lawsuits
involving any entity regulated by HHS.
“It would be insufficient for RFK Jr. to only divest his interest in
the Gardasil case while leaving the window open to profit from other
anti-vax lawsuits, including future cases he could bring after leaving
office.”
I'm not real big on 'addendums.' You want to say something in a hearing, you say it in a hearing. His 'addendum' has no weight at all.
And it turns out that it's a garbage addendum.
Warren's concern was with him profiting from his position.
Now we learn that he promised to step away from a vaccine lawsuit . . . by putting Connor Kennedy in charge of the case. That would be his son. No, that's not divesting. That's handing your child money.
That is how corrupt and stupid Junior is.
'We are concerned that you will use this office to profit from lawsuits.'
Junior responds, 'No, no, I'll put Connor in charge and that way it'll be my son profiting!'
The smell of corruption always hovers around Junior. Always.
Grasp that we've had eight years of did Hunter Biden profit from his father, did Jared, Ivanka, Eric, Donald profit from their father? Accusations tossed around. Ethics ignored. And now unelected Junior thinks he can move a case over to his son and that removes conflict of interest?
In what world?
Kaia Hubbard (CBS NEWS) reports a vote is expected today by the Senate's Finance Committee regarding sending the nomination out of the Committee and advancing it for a full Senate vote:
Meanwhile, two Democrats on the committee, Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon,
the ranking member, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, raised alarm
about possible conflicts of interest in recent days, penning a letter
to Kennedy concerning his potential to profit from vaccine-related
litigation. Paired with his long-held stances on vaccine safety, the
senators said the possible conflicts give them "grave concern" about his
ability to serve as HHS secretary.
Kennedy has earned referral fees
from a Los Angeles personal injury law firm, Wisner Baum, for years.
The firm is currently suing Merck concerning warnings about the safety
of the HPV vaccine. Kennedy agreed to divest his interests in the cases
he has referred to Wisner Baum to a "non-dependent, adult family
member." The senators noted in their letter that Kennedy in his written
response to committee questions indicated he was divesting the interest
to one of his adult sons — a detail which they called "troubling."
"The
arrangement outlined in your Ethics Agreement Amendment is plainly
inadequate, as it would appear to allow an immediate family member to
benefit financially from your position as Secretary," the senators
wrote, adding that "vaccine-related decisions" that Kennedy could make
as HHS secretary "could result in significant financial compensation for
your family."
“I will be voting against
your nomination because your views are dangerous to our state and to our
country,” said Maryland Democrat Angela Alsobrooks after Kennedy defended his view that Black people should be on a different vaccine schedule than white people.
Kennedy could still win a surprise vote from the Democratic caucus. But the likeliest possibilities — senators like Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, or New Jersey’s Cory Booker, who share Kennedy’s desire to regulate pollution and food additives — have given every indication they’ll be nos.
After the health committee hearing, Booker shared a video on X of an emotional Sen. Maggie Hassan
(D-N.H.) in which she spoke of her son’s cerebral palsy and the torment
she felt as a mother that something she did could have caused it. “The
problem with this witness’ response on the autism cause and relationship
to vaccines is because he is relitigating and churning settled science
so we can’t go forward,” she said.
The Senate Finance Committee is considering Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s nomination
on Tuesday, with a key vote on whether to advance his confirmation to
lead the Department of Health and Human Services after a pair of fiery
hearings last week.
Kennedy appeared Wednesday before the finance committee for a confirmation hearing, before testifying
to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions the
following day. During both appearances, Democrats on the committees —
and even some Republicans — grilled the longtime environmental lawyer
and activist on his stances on vaccines, abortion, and other issues.
Meanwhile, Donald Chump, the convicted felon, continues in his efforts to destroy the United States.
The U.S. federal government manages
a larger portfolio of risks than any other institution in the history
of the world. In just the past few weeks, wildfires raged across
Southern California, a commercial flight crashed over the Potomac, a
powerful Chinese-developed AI model launched to great fanfare, the
nuclear-weapons Doomsday Clock reached its closest point ever to
midnight, a new strain of avian flu continued its spread across the
globe, and interest rates on long-term government bonds surged—a sign
that investors are worried about America’s fiscal future. The
responsibility of managing such risks is suffused throughout the federal
bureaucracy; agencies are dedicated to preparing for financial crises,
natural disasters, cyberattacks, and all manner of other potential
calamities.
When
one of those far-off risks became a real-life pandemic in the final
year of Donald Trump’s first term, this sprawling bureaucracy, staffed
mostly by career civil servants with area-specific expertise, helped
limit the damage, often despite Trump’s own negligence and attempts to
interfere. This time, things may turn out differently. Trump is
committed to dismantling the federal bureaucracy as we know it—and, with
it, the government’s capacity to handle the next crisis. Like an
individual who chooses to forgo health or fire insurance, most Americans
won’t feel the negative impact of this effort as long as everything in
the world runs smoothly. What happens when the next crisis strikes is
another story altogether.
No
country was fully prepared for what became one of the deadliest
pandemics in history, but it is hard to think of a leader who handled
COVID more poorly than Trump. He spent the crucial weeks leading up to
the outbreak downplaying the severity of the virus, at one point referring to
it as the Democrats’ “new hoax.” His administration never developed a
national plan for getting the virus under control and reopening the
economy, leaving the states to fend for themselves. Meanwhile, the
president undermined his
own public-health agencies at every turn, telling states to “LIBERATE”
their economies, refusing to wear a mask, and, at one point, suggesting
bleach injections as a potential therapeutic. A February 2021 analysis
by The Lancet, a British medical journal, found that
the U.S. could have avoided 40 percent of the deaths that occurred
under Trump’s watch if its death rate had matched the average among
America’s peer countries.
The
administration’s pandemic response did include one shining success:
Operation Warp Speed, a public-private partnership that produced and
distributed high-quality vaccines in record time, saving countless
lives. But that triumph is the exception that proves the rule. The idea
for the program came from
Robert Kadlec, an assistant secretary for preparedness and response at
the Department of Health and Human Services, and Peter Marks, an FDA
official—two seasoned public-health experts who had served in top
government roles for years beforeTrump took office. The project was then
championed by HHS Secretary Alex Azar, who had been appointed by Trump
after working off and on for the department since 2001; managed by
Gustave Perna, a four-star general who had served in the military for
more than 40 years; and staffed by bureaucrats with decades of
public-health experience. (This success story has, of course, become
distasteful to mention on the right, because it involves vaccines.)
These are exactly the sorts of experienced public servants whom Trump is trying to push out of government.
He'll
destroy everything if he's allowed too. And what does he care about
the future? What is his future? He's a 78 year old morbidly obese
man. He'll be lucky to make it to 2028. And if he does? What?
Another divorce? A good chance of having to deal with a gay son? What
does he have to live for? Nothing. Not one damn thing.
So it doesn't matter to him.
And so we all suffer.
It didn't have to be this way.
Yes, Kamala Harris would have been a great president. But that's not what I'm talking about.
Let them die.
Next time, just let them die.
What'll really happen is they'll come running for the vaccine. But until they do, in the next pandemic, just let them die.
The worst thing the US government did in 2020 was try to save people.
You can't save stupid. At some point, you have to grasp that you need to let them drown before they take everyone else down with them. Their stupidity -- amplified by home schooling -- should be allowed to kill them next time.
I
understand the need for a herd immunity. But, next time, maybe let the
stupid have their own way and thin out the herd. Then we'll worry about
herd immunity.
We spent
too much time and money fighting a pandemic that some people don't even
want to admit took place. That's some deep seated denial.
Chump
wants to shatter FEMA as well. But even MAGA sees problems with that
-- yes, even deeply stupid MAGA sees problems with that. Alex Henderson notes:
The
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was created in 1979 under
Democratic President Jimmy Carter, and Republican President George W.
Bush recognized the agency's importance when FEMA was placed under the
umbrella of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2003.
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a recurring theme of the Bush
Administration was that disasters were a national security matter.
But
President Donald Trump, now two weeks into his nonconsecutive second
term, is expressing his hostility to FEMA — a hostility that, according to Politico's Zack Colman, GOP lawmakers aren't necessarily on board with.
Trump
is toying with the idea of abolishing FEMA, saying he may "recommend
that FEMA go away" and adding, "I'd like to see the states take care of
disasters."
"President
Donald Trump's suggestions that he might shut down the federal agency
charged with responding to disasters are running into trouble with
Republican lawmakers," Colman reports in an article published on February 2.
"Deeply red states are experiencing some of the costliest disasters,
and lawmakers from those states fear that eliminating Federal Emergency
Management Agency would leave them on the hook for increasingly
expensive bills."
Maybe
they could find their spines and push back on foreign born Elon Musk
attempting to hijack the US government for his own personal reasons.
The racist Elon, when not doing his Nazi salutes, shares fond memories
of South Africa, where he was born, where his father was born, where he
lived up until apartheid started to crumble. Elon loved apartheid. He
loved Blacks not having legal rights. He's trying to recreate that in
the US and Donald Chump's idiot enough to let him.
Donald
Trump on Sunday vowed to "act" on a purported situation in South
Africa, the home country of "first Buddy" and richest man in the world
Elon Musk, and some of his closest supporters pushed back.
After that, he mentioned an issue that some on the far-right have long complained about.
"South
Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people
VERY BADLY. It is a bad situation that the Radical Left Media doesn’t
want to so much as mention," the President said. "A massive Human Rights
VIOLATION, at a minimum, is happening for all to see."
He
added, "The United States won’t stand for it, we will act. Also, I will
be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full
investigation of this situation has been completed!"
Wow.
I don't think I've seen Chump so committed to an issue since he was
attacking Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana
and Korey Wise . You remember them. The ones innocent of rape who
were wrongly convicted and termed The Central Park Five? Even after the
real rapist confessed, even after the guilty verdicts were vacated,
Chump repeatedly lied about the young men. When it's time to attack
Black people, the world see that Chump can move pretty fast for a fat
guy when he's motivated.
Poor
Elon. Trump strokes Elon's . . . ego and even that's not enough for Elon
because he's the truly unqualified. Liars like Glenneth Greenwald and
Matt Taibbi dream of caressing the ass hair Elon moved to his scalp due to
his male pattern baldness. As they dream and cream over that
possibility, they never find time to call out his suppression of free
speech. Janna Brancolini (THE DAILY BEAST) explains:
Elon Musk is threatening to fire federal employees who leak information as he and President Donald Trump unleash unprecedented chaos on the government.
On Sunday, a user posted an anonymous “operational security reminder” on Reddit’s FBI forum
with advice for sharing information so it can’t be traced back to the
source. The post claimed that Musk’s staffers are using
“‘fingerprinting’ on emails and notices” as a way of identifying
“information leakers.”
“This
is essentially an email watermark—adding a space here, making a typo
there, and similar subtle changes to track leaks,” the post read.
Musk later replied to someone sharing the Reddit post on X.
“With regards to leakers: if in doubt, they are out,” wrote the world’s richest man. The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
After spending more than a quarter of a billion dollars on President Donald Trump’s
re-election effort, Musk was put in charge of the Department of
Government Efficiency or DOGE. The entity, which is not a government
department, has been tasked with radically cutting federal spending.
Musk’s comment comes as President Donald Trump plunged the FBI into chaos by targeting officials linked to investigations into the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Remember,
it's not free speech to Matt and Glenneth unless it's someone making
hate speech. Then it's free speech. Then it's the language that they
love.
Glenneth's a damn
racist as well and we've noted it for decades here. Plural. These are
the people that our left media raised and praised.
We really deserve a better left media.
Seems like the bigger issue is Musk and a bunch of teenage groypers ransacking the government like The Joker and his henchmen, but Democrats inaccurately calling him a "foreigner" is a big issue too, I guess.
Glenneth, he is a foreigner. I get it, you're stupid. We've spent decades now explaining that you lie when you claim you were a Constitutional lawyer and that you do not understand Constitutional law.
You serve up your dumb ass opinions as if they matter. And as though the US needs to hear from some weirdo in Brazil. You're jut a iar and who hates their own country.
But, point of fact, there is no Constitutional protection or recognition of dual citizenship.
That's reality.
Here's some more reality, Elon's father is from South Africa -- grew up there and fled like Elon and the rest when apartheid was crumbling and White racists like the Musks could no longer get rich off Black people. His trashy and ugly mother was born in Canada and her racist family elected to move to South Africa. There they had Elon. He is a citizen of South Africa. Via his mother, he's a citizen of Canada as well. He lied and did not follow the rules regarding his attempts at citizenship in the US -- per his own brother.
But more to the point, you're now trying to argue that he has triple citizenship.
I think Clarence Thomas, given the chance, would love to tackle this issue.
Not only is dual citizenship not mentioned in the Constitution but there is no justification for triple citizenship. A Clarence Thomas would most likely note that the issue is not in addressed in the Constitution but while -- for the sake of families -- it might be necessary to allow dual citizenship, there is no justification for triple (or more) citizenship.
See, part of actually knowing Constitutional law also requires grasping the manner in which Supreme Court justices would most likely make their arguments.
Glory Glenn did not practice Constitutional Law and you don't have to take my word for it. No, just look at the rulings every time he stood before a judge with some racist as his client and he tried to argue the case revolved around a Constitutional issue or issues. Every time he attempted that argument, judge after judge struck him down because he doesn't know Constitutional Law.
By the way, if you've missed it, we noted it yesterday, Glenny and the other grifters have taken to attacking THE MAJORITY REPORT's Emm Vigeland. I have one question there as toy poodle Aaron Mate joins the attacks, Katie Halper have you no sense of decency?
You're going to keep your head down and act like it's not happening?
You probably are because you're that pathetic. Closing in on fifty and trying to look late 20s, you've been a joke forever and a day. But let the left recognize this right now that while men -- and male aspiring Ana -- are dog piling on Emma, you did nothing to stand up for her or to call on others to stop it.
That's because you're not a feminist. You used it to get on at WBAI and then you worked your grift on over to the right.
These toxic men can move to the right and make money. But where do you see yourself in five to ten years? The new Tammy Bruce? It'll be cute if she passes her confirmation hearing, especially with everyone on DAYS OF OUR LIVES aware that Brenda Benet showed up on the set repeatedly with one bruise after another. Tammy does love to play herself as the victim. A lot of DOOL actors see her as an abuser and blame Tammy for Brenda's suicide.
On Musk, let's note Lawrence O'Donnell from last night on MSNBC.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office.
Murray: “It’s
already painfully clear that this is the most corrupt administration in
our history, and it’s putting our economy, our government, and our most
at-risk communities in serious jeopardy.”
Murray: “Maybe Elon
will decide he doesn’t like that Blue Origin—and not SpaceX—gets a
contract, so he wants to gum up the works on their payments. Private
corporations and competitors need to take note. And anyone who thinks
that surely won’t happen has not been paying attention.”
Washington, D.C. — Today, Senator Patty Murray
(D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, joined Senate
Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR),
Brian Schatz (D-HI), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to sound the alarm over
Elon Musk and his team at the so-called “Department of Government
Efficiency” being granted access to the federal government’s central
payments system, which handles $6 trillion and the vast majority of all
federal disbursements each year. Musk and his associates were granted
access to the U.S. Treasury’s payment systems the same weekend they
threatened their way into the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID) and seized Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
computer systems. New reporting indicates they are now forcing their way into Small Business Administration (SBA) systems, as well.
Murray and her colleagues outlined the threat of Musk and the
administration abusing the Treasury’s payment system to illegally block
funding and payments, the danger of allowing Musk access to Americans’
most sensitive personal data, and how this administration’s historic
corruption and illegal funding freezes are putting our country’s economy
and national security in jeopardy.
Senator Murray’s remarks, as delivered, are below and video is HERE:
“Well we’re two weeks in, and it’s already painfully clear
that this is the most corrupt administration in our history, and it’s
putting our economy, our government, and our most at-risk communities in
serious jeopardy.
“In particular, we learned that Elon Musk now has access to the
Treasury Department’s most sensitive payment system handling six
trillion dollars every year and managing nearly all federal
disbursements. It’s a system that contains extremely sensitive personal
and commercial information, and I’ve been hearing from people
across my state who are truly alarmed about what Musk and his associates
having access to this system could mean for their data—and for funding
that they count on.
“Let’s not mince words here. An unelected, unaccountable
billionaire—with expansive conflicts of interest, deep ties to China,
and an indiscreet axe to grind against perceived enemies—is hijacking
our nation’s most sensitive financial data system and its checkbook so
that he can illegally block funds to our constituents, based on the
slightest whim or wildest conspiracy. Funds—mind you—that Congress passed on a bipartisan basis.
“Some Republicans are trying to suggest that Musk only has ‘viewing
access’ to Treasury’s highly sensitive payment system as if that’s
acceptable either. But why on earth should we believe that—particularly
when he is saying the exact opposite loudly and repeatedly for everyone
to see?
“What funds will Elon target next—life-saving medical research? Housing assistance? Food banks? We
already know he is falsely attacking faith-based organizations that
help people—and promising to cut off funds based off conspiracy
theories.
“The world’s richest man has vowed to cut off funding that helps the least among us. Think about that. And
next—think about how many dollars he himself makes from government
contracts. And the Trump Administration is handing the keys of the
Treasury over to him? It does not get more blatantly corrupt than that.
“And let me underscore just how dangerous this is—because now that
Trump has handed over Treasury’s checkbook, what if Elon decides he
doesn’t like how Ford is getting federal funds to build an EV battery
plant, what’s next? All Elon has to do is say ‘oh, they’re woke,’ and he can convince Trump to illegally cut off those funds.
“Maybe Elon will decide he doesn’t like that Blue Origin—and not
SpaceX—gets a contract, so he wants to gum up the works on their
payments. Private corporations and competitors need to take note. And
anyone who thinks that surely won’t happen has not been paying
attention.
“Now, make no mistake: Trump and Musk have absolutely zero
legal authority to hold up any federal payments that are law, but that
has not stopped them so far.
“This country is still reeling from the chaos of last week’s
blanket spending freeze and Trump’s illegal executive orders to withhold
funds are still not yet revoked. Trump and Musk have yet to find a law
they think applies to them.
“That is not how things work in this country. We have a
democracy. We have checks and we have balances—where the President is
accountable to Congress, where we pass the laws, and he implements them.
“But some of my colleagues across the aisle seem to be forgetting
that our democracy does not work by magic. We have to do our part to
hold the President accountable. Our job is not to say ‘yes’ to
everything any President does—no matter how lawless or harmful.
“Democrats are pushing back with the tools that we have. We
will speak out, we will press this administration, we will open
investigations, and we will demand accountability. The one tool we do
not have is the majority in this Congress.
“So that means our Republican colleagues have to say ‘enough.’ We need them to join us. We need them to stand up to the corruption and lawlessness and stand up for the people they represent.”
