I wish they’d publish the vote tally to figure out which Democrats went along with it. I suspect Schumer rolled over and voted yes.
You really think people like him have to “roll over” for that?
Future histories of the collapse of the US will include a section on the utter failure of checks and balances.
Future?
The world will continue to exist and some portion of mankind probably will survive too. At some point, historians will dissect the current crisis – whatever the outcome – with the same scrutiny as today’s historians examine other past events.
And I hope they won’t face the same issues as today’s historians, who have to watch as their departments are cut down one by one while their cries of alarm go unheard.
Well said
Failure? Looks like they were never even there in the first place.
It’s just a piece of paper.
All other western democracies use some sort of parliamentary system akin to what the English have, a party appointed Prime Minister with very limited power. Presidential systems always devolve into fiefdoms.
What a disaster. Welcome back polio.
We’ll be lucky if polio is all that is back. My bet is pandemic bird-flu about as bad as the 1918 pandemic.
Strangely, we just updated all of our vaccines for our kids and selves. This is going to be a total shit show.
Wise move it is going to be a hellscape for kids in the coming years.
I begrudgingly respect Mitch McConnell for being the only dissenter, both here and with Tulsi Gabbard.
He’s still a piece of shit and I’d happily piss on his grave but he’s doing better than the rest of them in the face of the coup.
Good chance he wouldn’t have dissented if Trump’s picks weren’t going to pass without his vote.
Oh I have ZERO doubt
He’s always been a fuckin worm who’s sold out my mountains and the people who worked them.
They ARE the coup.
Nah, he’s just at the end of his career and is no longer concerned with reelection while also 100% confident in the vote passing without his vote. He has the seniority to be allowed to have a “conscience vote” that the other members can’t have.
I can believe that about Gabbard, but McConnell had polio himself. It’s always different for Republicans if it’s about them.
Solid point. It is always the same story: the only moral abortion is mine, gay marriage is evil until my son/daughter comes out, get rid of all government programs except the one that benefits me, don’t vote against the party unless you have a personal reason not to.
I always think of Cheney suddenly not being a homophobe after his daughter came out.
Was a forgone thing given the makeup of the Senate. Facts and qualifications don’t matter if the orange one says so.
I predict Vaccine tourism is just around the corner…
The servile republicans have done their duty to their orange lord again.
Good thing Mexico sent more military to the border to guard it, it’ll be overrun by people trying to get vaccines in a normal country
If you’re thinking of starting a family, I strongly suggest you reconsider.
🤡🤡🤡
Well, maybe we’ll get lucky and this will result in conservatives depleting their numbers. Natural selection and all…
I remember hearing the same thing about Covid.
GOPers actually did have higher mortality from COVID. Not enough to save us from Orange Hitler. But it was significant.
That’s not just a hypothetical. It may not kill large numbers, but it’s going to hurt people.
Cato – small-government crowd – has an article up arguing against this confirmation for RFK Jr. that is specifically pointing out that he will be particularly bad for Republicans because parents there are more likely to be influenced by him and to not vaccinate their children than Democrats, who tend to ignore him.
https://www.cato.org/blog/red-america-would-suffer-under-rfk-jr
Red America Would Suffer Under RFK Jr.
A growing measles outbreak in Gaines County, Texas—24 cases so far in a county that voted 91 percent for Donald Trump—illustrates a grim irony.
Senate Republicans plan to vote today on anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to be the secretary of health and human services. If they seat him, it will be Republican families that suffer.
In the 1960s, measles struck 3–4 million US residents annually, leading to nearly 500,000 diagnoses, 48,000 hospitalizations, and 400–500 deaths. By 2000, measles cases had fallen to fewer than 100 per year, striking only when travelers—mostly, unvaccinated US citizens—brought it home from abroad.
The reason is vaccination. The measles vaccine provides 97 percent protection (immunity) against infection. After its introduction in 1963, US cases dropped by roughly 90 percent within 10 years.
It is hard for the human mind to grasp how beneficial vaccines are. The Lancet estimates that since 1974, vaccines against 14 pathogens have saved 154 million lives. Measles vaccines accounted for more than 60 percent of those gains. That estimate does not include the smallpox vaccine, which eradicated a disease responsible for more deaths in the 20th century than all wars combined.
For decades, Kennedy has publicized small or nonexistent risks of vaccines to the point of frightening people away from the astronomical benefits.
Most infamously, in 1998, The Lancet published an article that falsely suggested a link between measles vaccines and autism. Kennedy stoked those fears—even as contrary evidence accumulated, even after The Lancet retracted that article in 2010, and even in 2011 after Salon retracted Kennedy’s 2005 article on the topic.
Kennedy promises that as secretary, he would approach vaccines without preconceived ideas. He promises that if someone showed him data indicating vaccines are safe, he would “apologize for any statements that misled people otherwise.” Kennedy’s record, however, shows that he clings to his preconceived ideas, regardless of the evidence.
In 2021, the Cochrane Collaboration—which Kennedy calls “the most prestigious scientific research organization”—examined studies covering 1.2 million children and found “no evidence of an increased risk of autism.” Kennedy kept claiming a link exists anyway, citing studies that were older and objectively inferior to those Cochrane reviewed. That is the very definition of unscientific advocacy.
Kennedy says he is not anti-vaccine but merely “asking uncomfortable questions.” This is absurd. The advocacy group he once ran celebrates anti-vaccine sentiment. It sells infant attire with the messages, “No Vax, No Problem” and “Unvaxxed, Unafraid.” In Senate hearings, Kennedy declined to denounce the organization or its messaging. He refused to say whether he still believes vaccines cause autism.
Such propaganda has suppressed support for vaccines and vaccination rates. The share of US adults who consider childhood vaccinations “very important” fell from 94 percent in 2001 to 84 percent in 2019. Public health officials’ mishandling of COVID-19 helped it fall further, to 69 percent in 2024. The share of adults who believe vaccines are worse than the diseases they prevent (!) has risen from 6 percent to 12 percent to 20 percent, respectively.
In many states, measles vaccination rates have fallen below the 92 percent threshold researchers argue is necessary to thwart outbreaks. Alaska and Wisconsin have statewide rates below 85 percent. Idaho’s is below 80 percent. One school district in Gaines County, Texas, has a vaccination rate of around 50 percent.
Twenty-two of the 24 cases in the Gaines County outbreak are children. At least two are under age 5. Nine resulted in hospitalization, some in intensive care. None had been vaccinated. Officials expect more cases.
The Senate may soon give an anti-vaccine activist the power to block life-saving vaccines. But Kennedy could do plenty of harm simply by using one of the most prominent public health platforms in the world to plant undue fears about vaccines.
The resulting harm would fall disproportionately on the children of Trump voters. Republicans are more receptive to anti-vaccine propaganda than Democrats. Thirty-one percent of Republicans believe vaccines are worse than the diseases; 5 percent of Democrats do.
If the Senate confirms Kennedy, more Republican parents will be visiting their kids in intensive care.
That is, as exasperating as I’m sure that Democratic voters find Trump’s deal with RFK to secure the presidency, the damage it will cause to American health will most-likely be greatly-disproportionately among Republican voters.
One can only hope!
Looks like we might be making trips to Canada to get vaccinated. Fucking weak ass Republicans.
Hahahaha 😆
I was excited for a moment because read it as his personal physician.
