Donald Trump uses surrogate Marco Rubio to spread horrible lies about Democrats by using rants about "isms" of unknown origin

Echo opinion published in the Boston Globe, by 

Stephen Kinzer, a senior fellow at the Watson School of International and Public Affairs at Brown University.  
Marco Rubio got it wrong❗
How the secretary of state warped the meaning of a proud American tradition.

In a fire-and-brimstone speech last month that often bordered on the bizarre, Secretary of State Marco Rubio identified “a distinctive and unique evil.” Rubio ranted and called it “far-left terrorism” and asserted that it poses a “serious threat” to the United States.

“It is time for the people of the civilized world to defend ourselves,” Rubio told an audience at the State Department, “to stand united against this encroaching darkness, and fight for what is ours.”

Much of Rubio’s speech was a boiler-plate rant reflecting Donald Trump’s cultist obsessions. Its central premise is dubious at best, since “far-left terrorism” is in fact quite low on the list of dangers that face the United States and the world. The oddest piece of this speech, though, was Rubio’s mention of anti-imperialists as part of the evil coalition.

“They can call themselves 🤥anti-capitalist or 🤥anti-imperialist or 🤥communist or 🤥anarchist or 🤥Marxist, but the fundamental character is always the same,” he asserted. “It is a 🤥poisonous resentment cloaked in the language of equality and justice and liberation.”  💩💩💩❗

TRUTH❗ Anti-imperialism has no relation to communism, anarchism, or Marxism. In fact, anti-imperialism is a rich American tradition. Especially at this point in our American history, it should be taken seriously. Rubio has every right to embrace the imperial idea. Other Americans, however, have an equal right to oppose it without being demonized as allies of communists or anarchists.

Debate over imperialism is as old as our Republic. It addresses a profound question: Should the United States seek to impose its will on foreign nations or allow them to go their own way❓

George Washington warned future generations of Americans not to become involved in “obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests.” John Quincy Adams declared that the United States “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” 

Abraham Lincoln opposed the American invasion of Mexico in the 1840s, and Ulysses Grant called it “a wicked war.”

The widest-ranging debate over imperialism exploded in 1898, when the United States set out to crush Spanish power in the Philippines, Guam, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. 

Massachusetts was the epicenter of opposition.

Headquartered in an office near what is now Liberty Square in Boston’s financial district, the Anti-Imperialist League became a major force in American life. It was headed by George Boutwell, a former Massachusetts governor. Its eminent supporters included Andrew Carnegie, the richest man in the United States; Samuel Gompers, the country’s most prominent labor leader; former president Grover Cleveland, who had unsuccessfully opposed the annexation of Hawaii; and Mark Twain, who forthrightly declared: “I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.”

In the debate over whether the United States should begin imposing its will abroad, the most powerful arguments were presented by the two US senators from Massachusetts. George Frisbie Hoar called it “the greatest question ever discussed in this Chamber from the beginning of the Government” and colorfully denounced the rising imperialists: “You have no right at the cannon’s mouth to impose on an unwilling people your Declaration of Independence and your Constitution and your notions of freedom and notions of what is good!”

To this, the silver-tongued internationalist Henry Cabot Lodge had an equally powerful response. The United States, he said, “has a great mission in the world — a mission of good, a mission of freedom. I would have it fulfill what I think is its manifest destiny.”

Senators voted narrowly to ratify the treaty by which the United States turned the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico into American colonies. Anti-imperialists appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the Constitution gives the government no power to impose its will on foreign lands. The Court rejected their argument by a 5-4 margin. In a ringing dissent, Chief Justice Melvin Fuller wrote that overseas military expeditions are “wholly inconsistent with the spirit and genius, as well as with the words, of the Constitution.”

This debate reemerged repeatedly. Following World War II, Senator Robert Taft, known as “Mr. Republican,” opposed the creation of NATO because “the building up of a great army surrounding Russia” would set off “an inevitable arms race.” Debates over US intervention in Vietnam and Iraq also echoed those of the late 19th century.

Anarchism and Marxism are ideas that came to the United States from Europe. Neither ever found much support. Anti-imperialism is the opposite: a homegrown ideology that has long been embraced by a significant minority of Americans. 

Rather than a “far-left” idea, it is essentially a conservative one. It argues for humility, restraint, and limits on America’s role in the world. Liberal utopianism is what drives the idea that American intervention in other countries will ultimately lead to peace and prosperity for all.

Lumping anti-imperialism with communism also reflects a deep misunderstanding of history. Countries that have proclaimed themselves Communist, notably China and the Soviet Union, were built on imperial conquest at least as fully as the United States was.

Whether “far-left terrorism” is truly the deep threat that Secretary Rubio perceives may be debated. So may the question of whether the United States should seek to project military power around the world. To describe anti-imperialism as a form of 🤥 “far-left terrorism,” however, is a slander that ignores American history.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans hurt middle class by enabling Iran war causing high gas prices

 Trump’s War Is Punishing the Poor, Starting at the Gas Pump

New York Times echo opinion by Jeff  D. Colgan

The cruelty of high fuel prices isn’t just about the cost, but also about the unequal burden it places on American households. 

Energy costs have been walloping the working class since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. And things could get a lot worse this summer, with prices rising ever higher the longer the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to shipping.

A research team at Brown University built a website to track the rising, real-time energy costs of the war with Iran. By mid-May, higher prices for just two energy products — gasoline and diesel fuel — added nearly 💲40 billion in costs to American consumers. That’s more than the Pentagon’s cost estimate of its military operations, now approaching $29 billion.

Before the attack, the average price for a gallon of gasoline in the United States was 💲2.98. Since then, the average price has soared to about $4.50 a gallon. That average smooths over a lot of regional variation. In California, prices have climbed past 💲6 per gallon. Colorado had an increase of more than 💲1.50 per gallon since February, lifting prices from below the national average to above it.

The rise in diesel fuel prices, critical to commerce, has been even sharper. Diesel is up by more than 50 percent. Even if you don’t purchase diesel directly, you’re paying a premium for other daily goods, because many of them are transported using trucks, locomotives and other engines that run on diesel fuel. If you buy a package online, you’re paying for diesel indirectly. Farmers are feeling it, too. There’s no escape in the air, either, with FedEx and UPS imposing surcharges as a result of rising jet fuel prices.

Americans watched campaign ads with Trump driving a garbage truck and serving fries at MacDonalds, but we never see his fake PR with a picture of him pumping gasoline! 

On average, each U.S. household has paid an extra 💲295 because of higher gasoline and diesel fuel prices since Trump's Iran war began. That’s more than a week’s worth of groceries for the average household. The burden falls hardest on poorer people, who are using less fuel than richer households, but whose costs make up a far larger portion of their budgets.

According to our analysis, Americans in the bottom 18 percent have had to spend at least half a week’s income to pay off the higher price of fuel since the end of February. As a result, they are cutting back on the gas they use, while households with incomes above 💲125,000 barely reduced their real gas consumption.

Fuel prices are likely to remain elevated for months, even if the fighting stops. Oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz will remain low until Iran grants passage, either explicitly through an agreement or simply in practice, without acknowledgment. 

But, even if the strait opens again, many insurers will be wary of allowing ships to transit it — just as the insurers were after the Houthis previously threatened shipping in the Red Sea.

Moreover, Iran might continue to charge a toll or tax on tankers for moving through the strait, which would get passed on to refiners. And don’t forget the physical damage already inflicted on the oil production equipment and processing facilities in the Persian Gulf, some of which will take years to repair or reconstruct. All these supply constraints push prices up.

Without a resolution soon, experts expect the fuel crisis to get much worse. Energy producers have been shielding the markets from the full impact of the conflict by drawing down their inventories, in hopes of refilling storage tanks when supply constraints ease. 

But, global inventories will reach critically low levels by the end of May, just as the summer driving season ramps up. That could drive oil prices higher — up to $200 per barrel, according to some analysts.

Suppose that gasoline prices rise to 💲5 per gallon across the United States. That would mean an extra 💲513 per household from Memorial Day to Labor Day, compared with what consumers were paying before the war began, bringing the total gas bill for a typical household to 💲1,558 over the course of the summer.

If gasoline prices top 💲6 per gallon on average — a real possibility if oil goes to 💲200 per barrel — that would mean an extra 💲825 per household. Just for gasoline. Other fuels, such as diesel and jet fuel, will skyrocket. Those prices will, in turn, affect the prices of everything else, from groceries to air travel. Tomato prices are already up nearly 40 percent.

Extra energy costs are bound to have a political effect. High gasoline prices are visible, posted on thousands of roadside signs nationwide. Americans saw them rising soon after Trump ordered the attack on Iran. That makes it difficult for Trump to avoid blame.

And it could spell trouble for the Republicans in the November midterm elections. No one should doubt Trump’s uncanny ability to shift the conversation away from potentially damaging topics, but even he may struggle with the anger voters feel every time they fill their tanks.

They’re not being unreasonable. Americans can and should hold  Trump accountable for the mess he has created in the Persian Gulf. Despite claiming to be the party of national security, the Republicans have proved to be poor shepherds of the national interest. 

In the case of Iran, their missteps are having direct, visible consequences for Americans’ pocketbooks.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans are losing the Iran World War because of cheap drones.

(Meanwhile, the cost of oil keeps going up because Donald Trump declared an illegal war without any plan about how to win or exit.)

Drones are blowing up old assumptions about US foreign policy.

#ImpeachTrumpNOW attention Senator Susan Collins

Echo essay published in the Boston Globe by Stephen Kinzer

America will find it harder to win arguments with military might alone. 

Waging war is one of humanity’s oldest pursuits. That is unlikely to end. Leaders seeking power or glory will always want to prove themselves on battlefields. The way wars are fought, however, changes over time. Today those changes are especially dramatic. Wars used to be won by the side that fielded the biggest, meanest, and best-equipped army. America’s misadventure in Iran is the latest proof that those days are over.

War is becoming democratized. Weaker powers can now resist
stronger ones in new ways. Revolutionaries, like those in Algeria, Vietnam, and Cuba, have often shown that smaller and more agile forces can triumph over larger ones.
Now governments are learning the same lesson. America’s failure to crush Iran, and Russia’s failure to impose its will in Ukraine, show that superior force is no longer enough to guarantee victory. In the new age of cheap drones, the value of expensive missiles, bombs, and fighter jets is suddenly limited. Today’s conflicts in Iran and Ukraine are opening a new era of warfare.

This is more than just an evolution in weapons technology. It is a paradigm shift that threatens the long-term power of countries that rely on military force to deter or resist enemies. The United States is the most prominent of those countries. 

That has profound implications for the course of American power.
The most immediate cause of this sudden reversal of fortune is the development of drones. They have become the poor man’s weapon of choice. That makes them the future of warfare.
Drones are cheap and easy to build. Depending on size and power, they can cost anywhere from 💲300 to 💲50,000. Compare that with the cost of American-made missiles that can shoot down drones: 💲3 million for each Patriot missile, at least 💲10 million for a THAAD interceptor. A drone factory can churn out hundreds in a week. Producing and delivering a Patriot battery takes a minimum of two years. Seeking to take advantage of this mismatch, Iranian leaders have sent swarms of drones to attack targets in Israel and the Persian Gulf. These are not intended to produce military victory. Iranians have realized that they can win simply by surviving. This is naturally unsettling to the United States, which is used to winning wars according to the old rules.
A similar dynamic shapes the war in Ukraine. Russia’s overwhelming military advantage should have allowed it to achieve its war goals in Ukraine just as easily as the Americans were supposed to achieve theirs in Iran. But as the Prussian general Helmuth von Moltke the Elder tartly observed more than a century ago, no war plan survives contact with the enemy. In the early stages of the Ukraine war, infantry charges and armored attacks were common. Now they are rare. The reason is simple: Any operation on open ground can be quickly spotted and attacked by drones.
One key difference between these two wars is the adaptability of the attacking power. Russia shifted its strategy just as Ukraine has. The two belligerents match each other drone for drone.
The United States has proved less willing or able to make such a sharp shift. Our lumbering and overfed defense industry is focused on making highly complex weapons systems that are also highly profitable. As Iran steadily churns out drones, the United States has scrambled to respond. Americans have even turned to their Ukrainian partners for advice on drone technology — a remarkable case of a student surpassing the teacher. 

In the future, if Iran and Ukraine are any indication, countries that adapt more quickly and imaginatively to strategic challenges will have an advantage over those that are slow-moving and tradition-bound.
This presents the United States with profound challenges. The most obvious is a challenge to our way of waging war. There was a time when a simple demand from Washington was enough to terrify a national leader into resigning. But obviously, that no longer works. If the United States wants to continue exercising military power over faraway lands, it will have to find new ways to do it.
The larger challenge for Americans is to decide whether exercising coercive power is what the United States should be doing in the 21st century. Our foreign policy is largely a matter of identifying enemies and finding ways to weaken or destroy them. The alternative would be to accept other countries as they are, and even seek to make them partners in a shared prosperity. Yet in Washington, it is an absolute taboo to suggest that compromising with Russia, China, or Iran could contribute more to our national security than any weapons system.
Raw power no longer brings either victory or stability. This is a gleeful moment for the underdogs. Superpowers do not seem so super anymore.
Stephen Kinzer is a senior fellow at the Watson School of International and Public Affairs at Brown University.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans can help to end gun violence. But GOP cruel medical care cuts reduce access to mental health care

I'm a scholar of gun violence. Not even I can process what happened at Brown University. Rather, my typical response to school shootings is to call for policy changes. But I’m afraid the task ahead is bigger than that. Echo opinion by Leva Jusionyte published in the Boston Globe.

Ieva Jusionyte, a professor of international security and anthropology at Brown University, was awarded a MacArthur genius grant in October.

I write and then delete what I’ve written. I have too much to say and nothing that should need saying. A man brought a gun into a classroom in a Brown University building where I regularly teach, killed two students, and injured nine others. Many more spent the night barricaded in their dorms, hiding in bathrooms and basements, escorted from building to building by SWAT teams armed with assault rifles.

When alerts of an active shooter started coming in, with a reminder of the order in which we should act — RUN, and if that’s not possible, HIDE, and as a last resort, FIGHT — I was at home, wrapping presents, getting ready for a holiday party at a friend’s house on the edge of campus. I read the alerts but brushed them off. Must be a precaution. A false alarm. But the alerts kept coming: calls, messages, emails. I texted my students and worried about those who did not respond.

As an anthropologist who studies gun violence, I work in proximity to death and injury. I teach classes and write books about the wounds that firearms leave on our bodies and communities. I am expected to step back from raw emotions and explain. Provide analysis. Have answers. Offer policy solutions. Some friends and colleagues who reached out to check on me as soon as they heard about the shooting said they were sorry that this one hit (what a verb!) so close to home. While this horrible event was still unfolding, they already told me I should write about it, the way I wrote about gun violence I witnessed as a paramedic and EMT, the way I wrote about the gun violence I researched on the other side of the Mexican border. Some asked me what policy changes I would advocate for.

I didn’t even know whether my students were safe, whether they were still alive. Policy was the last thing on my mind. 

Frankly, I was angry at people asking me to write about gun laws. I needed time to cry, to grieve. I still feel it isn’t the right time to analyze and offer policy solutions. As I watch other scholars comment on the shooting, I realize that my aversion to addressing what’s happened must seem like the reactions of politicians who, in the aftermath of school shootings, offer thoughts and prayers instead of calling for reforms that would end this violence. But I am still struggling to find the right words.

Our community came together. Students offered one another food and shelter. Alumni volunteered to buy train tickets home for those who needed them. People rushed to donate blood. In the face of this horror, many of us wanted to do something, to be useful. Many also sought company to share the pain, to mourn, to start healing. Community members gathered at what had been originally scheduled to be a menorah- and tree-lighting ceremony to mark the start of Hanukkah. The candlelight vigil honored both those killed and wounded at Brown and the people who, just hours later, were slaughtered on Bondi Beach in Australia. Gun violence is global, and so is solidarity forged in its wake. But ours is a tragedy uniquely familiar to Americans these days. This ritual — of survivors and community members coming together — was real, and heartfelt, and necessary. It was also so recognizable that it felt rehearsed. Because it was. We’ve seen this before. Survivors and community members do this again and again. 

At least two of the students on Brown’s campus last weekend had survived school shootings before. It’s become a national tradition. A national shame.

After every school shooting I can remember, my anger about what happened has found expression in straightforward, unequivocal calls for change. Yes, we need better mental health services and access to them, but the focus of my attention has always been the guns. 

I supported gun safety regulations: background checks, waiting periods, restrictions of the types of weapons that we as civilians could buy. There was something empowering about being able to offer these tangible solutions, about believing that those atrocities could be prevented from ever happening again if only we as a nation took gun safety more seriously.

I have none of that conviction, that clarity of vision, now. 

Perhaps this is not surprising because this is my community and the frustration of not being able to do anything to prevent this is too strong, the pain too raw. All I could do the day after was walk, furiously, aimlessly, on the freshly fallen snow, cycling through rage and numbness. My world contracted and the only people who mattered, the only ones I wanted to talk to, were my students. But even now, as I am slowly beginning to think about what happened not only as a member of the community of survivors but as a scholar of gun violence, I still don’t have anything to offer. Not an explanation. Not a solution.

Rhode Island already has strong gun laws and one of the lowest rates of gun ownership in the country. As far as we know, the weapon used in the shooting may have been a 9mm handgun. In fact, handguns are the weapons most commonly implicated in mass shootings in the United States. In Rhode Island, you need to be at least 21 years old and wait seven days before you can purchase one from a federally licensed dealer. Rhode Island also recently outlawed large-capacity magazines. But it’s not as if there are borders and checkpoints between states. We don’t know where or how the killer acquired the gun or whether it was purchased legally. And even when we have more details and we can point to the existing limitations of the laws, tweaking regulations will only do so much. Too little, too late. Until there is another mass shooting and we rally for another Band-Aid we put on our gun violence problem.

This is where I usually stop, draft after draft. I don’t know how to proceed. I believe in strong gun laws. I am for gun safety. What I am tired of is putting so much faith in policy solutions. But what is the alternative? Admit that this is it, that we should accept gun violence as a normal part of our lives; adapt to it, the way we are adapting to climate change reengineering our cities to survive rising sea levels because we can’t come together to stop heating the planet? As a scholar of gun violence, I know there are practical steps we can take — technological, policy, legal solutions — that would make us safer and less likely to die from guns. But as an anthropologist, I also understand that mass shootings in the United States are embedded in our long history of violence, inseparable from our economy, politics, and popular culture that enable this violence to continue in forms both visible and unrecognized.

Ours has always been a violent country. Perhaps the difference is that those earlier forms of violence — the genocide of the indigenous people, slavery, anti-Mexican and anti-Chinese violence — had a grammar, a vile logic that explained, to the perpetrators and those masses who enabled and justified them, why some people were lesser than others and so they could be killed. There is no such logic, no such explanation in school shootings. 

This violence is senseless❗ It doesn’t serve any ideology, any master narrative. We attribute it to mental health struggles of people turned killers. We blame unlocked doors. We blame powerful weapons and the greedy gun industry that profits from selling them. We blame politicians who fail to regulate them. Survivors, family members, activists work tirelessly, in a Sisyphean effort, to pass new laws, to make it safer for us to live in our communities. I admire, respect, celebrate their work: Students Demand Action, Moms Demand Action, Everytown for Gun Safety. They’ve started a movement, which is growing. Our first thought is always about the laws and the infrastructure — doors, cameras — because those are simple, tangible things. 

But, I’m afraid the task ahead is bigger than that. We won’t legislate our way out of this. We need to change our culture and our society — a society where it is, first of all, conceivable, and only then possible, that someone would walk into a classroom and open fire at students preparing for an exam.

What matters right now is the wounded community, the shattered sense of safety. Guns injure and kill people we care about — our family, friends, students — each and every one a very special person whose absence leaves a hole in our hearts and our lives. But guns also hurt the community, tear the social fabric. Trauma is a shape-shifter. It will take time for the wounds to heal. And yet some of the students I know already come from communities with frayed social fabric. From Columbine, from Palestine, from families torn apart by border walls and suicides. They have already survived school shootings and wars. Right now, our students are shocked and hurt and grieving. And they are strong and resilient and hopeful. If I don’t know how to end this essay, it’s because it is not mine to end. It is theirs. In the weeks, months, years ahead, I will follow their lead.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans do harm to children's development cutting health and food programs

Echo opinion published in the Boston Globe:  As a clinical psychologist with my career working in medical settings and, specifically, with adolescents and their families, I am troubled by the news that Donald Trump is reviving the Presidential Fitness Test for America’s schoolchildren.

The test will have no meaning in a vacuum. In the past, such tests were either scorned by the fit or feared by the not so fit. 

Yet, I wonder how children, who may have lost their nutrition programs, and their health care are expected to become healthier. Even their after-school programs, which often provide safe physical activities, are under threat.

More important than tests are available adult role models. So it was horrifying to see former New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor, a registered sex offender, at the White House event❗ ⚠️

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who will oversee the test’s administration, commented that his documented, long-term heroin addiction, which began in his teens, was finally conquered by a spiritual awakening years later. (❓Maine Writer- Did RFKjr's "awakening" happen before or after he was stricken with brain worms❓)

Perhaps these men are now fit, but they are certainly not role models for adolescent health. And the president? Apart from his criminal record, here is an overweight man who complains about the correct type of sugar in his soft drinks and who has greeted collegiate athletes at the White House with literal towers of highly processed fast food. His exercise❓ Driving around in a golf cart.

From Carol Landau in Providence, Rhode Island

The writer is a clinical professor emerita of psychiatry and human behavior and medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and a psychological consultant on higher education.

RFKjr! OMG "why would a former herion addict be put in position of power over Heatlh and Human services" ?

Echo opinion What's Next for Public Health, by Dr. Ashish K. Jha* 

The hurricane of nominations by President-elect Donald Trump has the country reeling and trying to understand just how 🌪️ big a storm is coming and what it will bring.  🌪️🌀💥

There are big winds  blowing around the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services, with related health care appointments feeding the storm. At this time of uncertainty for public health, it’s important to understand what these nominations mean for the health of the American people.

There are challenges to be sure. More people have health insurance, but health care costs are still too high. COVID-19 has left empty seats at too many tables this Thanksgiving. But there’s been much progress in public health, and the data prove it. Fewer people are dying from heart disease. Cancer deaths are down. Even our latest public health scourges — opioids and respiratory disease like COVID — are on track to cause fewer deaths. In the past 50 years alone, life expectancy in the United States has increased by nearly a decade.

Understanding what is — and has been — driving progress also brings an understanding of what’s at risk in these nominations and what they will mean to health care and the health of the American people. Over generations, progress has been driven by data and science, rigorously collected, analyzed, and translated into action and policy. It is a dynamic process, with our understanding of what works and what doesn’t continually improving over time and experience. Scientific exploration is constantly expanding, fueled by new technologies and a continuous supply of new insights and information.

The Department of Health and Human Services, with a budget of nearly $2 trillion, has been responsible for much of this progress in health. It includes the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. 

For decades of Republican and Democratic administrations, leaders, informed by experts and evidence, have created the rules governing hospitals, doctors, and others providing health care, as well as evaluating medical devices, vaccines, and the regulation of food and medicine to keep Americans safe.

Although there is a need and room for improvement and reform across HHS. But the incoming administration is signaling more: a disturbing change of direction, away from science and data, beyond reform and improvement, to instead take a wrecking ball to the whole place. Its justification is rooted in bumper sticker slogans, pseudoscience, and personal grievances.

Some of those nominated to lead agencies responsible for protecting and improving the health of Americans have long records of pushing bad information — unsupported (and often refuted) by facts, data, or evidence. Consider that Kennedy has argued for an approach to health and medicine antithetical to how we have made progress. 

He espouses ideas that have been widely debunked with data, such as the notion that vaccines cause autism (they don’t) and that HIV does not cause AIDS (it does). He says that on his first day in office, he’ll stop funding research into new medicines and infectious diseases for eight years.

This would stop and reverse the engine of science, data, and discovery that has driven progress improving the health of the American people. There is no apparent plan for a better approach.

Hoping for a cure for a rare cancer that has hospitalized your child? The US government won’t help you find it.

Concerned your elderly parents will skip their flu shots or COVID boosters as vaccines are discouraged❓ Some of the folks being discussed to lead our key public health agencies won’t recognize the link between missed vaccines and deadly illness — though that connection is clear. 

Consider the recent experience in Samoa, where a Kennedy campaign to end childhood vaccinations led to a measles outbreak and 83 deaths, mostly of unvaccinated children.

And Kennedy has promised to hollow out large parts of the FDA. How do we then bring data and science to approve new treatments and improve America’s health? Imagine you depend on insulin every day. Will it be safe? Can we be sure essential food and medicines are safe?

I get it. The pandemic shook people’s trust in key institutions — like the FDA, the CDC, and HHS — and for good reasons. But our work should be to reform these institutions, not erase them, leaving nothing in their place to protect and advance our health.

The bumper sticker slogans are appealing. No one is arguing against protecting Americans from dangerous chemicals or poisons. 

We are all committed to helping Americans eat healthy and stay healthy. But we’ve got to be honest about how we’ve done that and how we can continue to make progress.

Here’s to a confirmation process through the US Senate that provides the critical opportunity for questions to be honestly asked and answered, not just for the senators but also for the millions of Americans they represent. It’s our health that’s on the line.

*Dr. Ashish K. Jha is dean of Brown University School of Public Health and a contributing Boston Globe Opinion writer.

Comment on this opinion:  I consider such (incompetent) nominations to be criminal acts aimed at the health of Americans. 

Musk and Putin are likely telling Trump to nominate people who will weaken and terrify us. I consider Trump to be a criminal who should never have been allowed to run. The danger posed by a man like Kennedy pushes us into an America we have never experienced before--not even in Trump 

Biden should take whatever action he can right now--but failure to get Trump where he belongs in jail long before this has led us to this nightmare.

Incompetence in charge of our nation's health❓😠 "I can't understand why a former herion addict woul be put in position of power like this one will."