Tuesday, April 01, 2025

Reality Check: RFK Jr is a nut, promoting fringe conspiracy theories and medical quackery


Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine crusader, is not qualified to have any power at the agency that’s supposed to protect the health of Americans, said research analysts at Cantor Fitzgerald, which was formerly headed by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Cantor’s note came as Peter Marks, the head of the Food and Drug Administration’s biologics division, resigned in protest of Kennedy’s skepticism of vaccines. Kennedy has already taken steps that public health experts say could deter routine immunizations in the U.S.

“We call on the administration to re-evaluate RFK Jr’s role at HHS. Pushing out one of the most trusted leaders of the FDA to promote an anti-science agenda is a step too far for us,” analysts Josh Schimmer and Eric Schmidt wrote in an unusual note to clients Tuesday. “HHS cannot be led by an anti-vax, conspiracy theorist with inadequate training.”

Kennedy has downplayed the importance of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and promoted unproven treatments to counter a measles outbreak. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also carrying out a study into long-debunked links between vaccines and autism, led by a researcher with a history of spreading misinformation about shots.

Read the rest here.

EU Prepares Retaliation for Trump Tariffs

...“We will approach these negotiations from a position of strength,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a speech to the European Parliament on Tuesday, the eve of Trump’s big tariff announcement.

“Europe holds a lot of cards. From trade to technology, to the size of our market. But this strength is also built on our readiness to take firm countermeasures. All instruments are on the table.”

In targeting U.S. services, Brussels could be thinking of bulge-bracket banks like J.P. Morgan or Bank of America, or tech players like Elon Musk’s social network X, search giant Google, or Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer.

“We are certainly not excluding a bigger response, a better response and an even more creative response through services, through [intellectual property rights],” a senior European Union official told reporters in mid-March.

The EU is a net exporter of automobiles, pharmaceuticals and food to the U.S. But it’s a net importer of services — and that gives it more leverage in a trade dispute. (Taking goods and services together, transatlantic trade is actually broadly in balance. The EU enjoys an overall surplus of just $50 billion, or about 3 percent of the $1.7 trillion in annual transatlantic commerce.)

“America’s tech giants, financial industry, and pharma companies have deep roots in Europe. Push too far, and Brussels could tighten the screws: digital levies on Silicon Valley, regulatory clamps on Wall Street, or taxes on U.S. pharma exports,” said Tobias Gehrke, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. 

“America may wield the bigger stick, but Europe has plenty of sharp stones to throw.”

Read the rest here.

Thursday, March 27, 2025

On the rule of law


The MAGA movement is attacking the American judiciary. The evidence is everywhere.

Let’s begin with President Trump. On his Truth Social account, in post after post he has ranted against the judges who’ve ruled against his policies. He has said that judges who rule against him should be impeached. He’s called them “lunatics,” and on Sunday he posted an article by the far-right outlet Gateway Pundit that made the case that federal judges were guilty of “sedition and treason.”

It’s tempting to ignore Trump’s rants as examples of an undisciplined man merely venting, but if there is one thing we know from the opening months of his second term, it’s that his powerful supporters are taking all of Trump’s words very seriously indeed.

On Tuesday, for example, Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, floated the idea of enacting legislation that would eliminate judicial districts or defund the courts in response to rulings against the Trump administration.

“We do have the authority over the federal courts, as you know. We can eliminate an entire district court. We have power of funding over the courts and all these other things,” he said. “But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Congress is going to act.”

So this is when Congress rises from its slumber? To make sure that Trump is protected from prompt judicial review? This is a telling indication that the Republican Congress exists only to please Trump.

Elon Musk, Trump’s virtual co-president, has called the rulings against the Trump administration a “judicial coup,” has demanded the impeachment of federal judges, and has said the Trump administration should fight against “activist” members of the judiciary.

The list goes on. Stephen Miller posted on social media last week, “Under what theory of the constitution does a single marxist judge in San Francisco have the same executive power as the Commander-in-Chief elected by the whole nation to lead the executive branch?” He called the rulings against Trump “naked judicial tyranny.”

In February, JD Vance posted, “If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal. Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

And lest we think this is all just words, Republican lawmakers have now filed articles of impeachment against several federal judges in response to their rulings.

Trumpists are having a temper tantrum, but it’s a mistake to treat their arguments against the federal judiciary as merely a fit. The second Trump term is substantially different from Trump’s first term in a key respect — the people around him have developed actual legal theories and policy ideas to buttress, direct and channel Trump’s impulses.

And these legal theories and policy ideas make Trump’s second term far more dangerous to the Constitution than his first.

In a nutshell, here’s the Trumpist argument: As Miller put it in a press briefing last month, “The whole will of democracy is imbued into the elected president.” He is the only elected official who represents the whole of the American people, and he embodies the people’s general will. Every member of the House has his or her small, defined constituency. Every member of the Senate is confined to representing a single state. The president, by contrast, is elected by the whole of America.

As a result, Miller argued, he is the best expression of American popular will, and Article II of the Constitution, which vests “the executive power” in the president, gives the president the power to hire staff to “impose that democratic will onto the government.”

Under this theory, the president even has the power to issue definitive legal interpretations that control executive branch functions. As he said in an executive order in February, “The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President’s supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch.”

Read the rest here.

Friday, March 21, 2025

Worth a read...

Facing a suddenly hostile US; Europe turns to Germany and Berlin steps up...



Meanwhile Russia continues its campaign of disruption...


Moscow and Beijing rejoice at the imminent demise of Radio Free Europe and VOA...


Four conservative columnists discuss Trump's enduring popularity on the right...


On the huge run-up in gold...



(I agree in part, but also think there is more to the story. Gold has always marched to the beat of its own drum. Geopolitical and US specific political tensions, and the out of control US debt are all contributing. Also there has been a voracious demand for gold coming from other parts of the world, notably China.)

Europe sees opportunity in Trump’s economic chaos...


The weird world of anti-vaxxers...


Tesla owners are trading in their EVs at record levels...


How Republicans Learned to Love High Prices...

Thursday, March 13, 2025

95 Years Ago

The Tariff Act of 1930 (codified at 19 U.S.C. ch. 4), commonly known as the Smoot–Hawley Tariff or Hawley–Smoot Tariff, was a law that implemented protectionist trade policies in the United States. Sponsored by Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley, it was signed by President Herbert Hoover on June 17, 1930. The act raised U.S. tariffs on more than 20,000 imported goods.

Excluding duty-free imports, when enacted, the tariffs under the act were the second highest in United States history, exceeded by only the Tariff of 1828.[3] The act prompted retaliatory tariffs by many other countries.

The act and tariffs imposed by U.S.'s trading partners in retaliation were major factors in the reduction of American exports and imports by 67% during the Great Depression.

Economists and economic historians have agreed that the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff worsened the effects of the Great Depression.

Read the rest here.

Wednesday, March 05, 2025

Hours, Typica, Presanctified Liturgy, for Clean Wednesday

Memory Eternal

My aunt Catherine (Cathy), reposed last night following a battle with cancer. Excepting my mother who still lives, she was the last member of the family from that generation. May her memory be eternal.