RFK, Jr. asks if nation can come together over health; Democrat senators say No.
Furious Dems launch coordinated attack on the son of Dem hero Robert F. Kennedy in a two-day series of hearings before Senate committees. Everything now depends on Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana
“Today, America’s overall health is in grievous condition. Over 70 percent of adults and a third of children are overweight or obese. Diabetes is 10 times more prevalent than it was during the 1960s. Cancer among young people is rising 1 to 2 percent a year. Autoimmune diseases, neurodevelopmental disorders, Alzheimer’s, asthma, ADHD, depression, addiction and a host of other physical and mental health conditions are all on the rise, some of them exponentially.”
This was the start of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr’s plea to the members of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday to focus their attention on the declining health of the American people.
It was the first of two hearings on Kennedy’s nomination to serve as the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
America is sick and getting sicker, Kennedy told senators on Wednesday morning.
“The United States has worse health than any other developed nation,” he said, “Yet we spend more on healthcare — double and in some cases triple — as other countries.”
Over half of our countrymen are “chronically ill,” he added.
It’s not just the cost, he said. It’s the human tragedy.
“A healthy person has a thousand dreams: A sick person has only one.”
The reason health costs in our country are so high, said Kennedy, is chronic disease — a term that includes diabetes, heart disease, asthma and often cancer.
There is no single culprit in chronic disease, he told senators, in what appeared to be an effort to distance himself from a focus on vaccines, which have been a main focus of his advocacy through his organization, Children’s Health Defense.
“News reports have claimed that I am anti-vaccine or anti-industry. I am neither. I am pro-safety,” he said, going on to repeat a line he’s used in numerous interviews: “I worked for years to bring awareness about the mercury and toxic chemicals in fish. And no one called me anti-fish.”
But he was also resolute:
“In my advocacy I’ve often disturbed the status quo by asking uncomfortable questions. Well, I’m not going to apologize for that. We have massive health problems in this country that we must face honestly. And the first thing I’ve done every morning for the past 20 years is to get on my knees and pray to God that he would put me in a position to end the chronic disease epidemic and to help America’s children.”
Kennedy listed the things he would do if confirmed:
Make sure tax dollars support health foods;
Scrutinize the chemical additives in our food supply;
Remove financial conflicts of interest from our agencies;
Create an honest, unbiased, gold-standard science at HHS, accountable to the President, the Congress and to the American people;
Reverse the chronic disease epidemic and put the nation back on the road to good health.
One of the last lines of his prepared testimony was an appeal to the senators on the committee, with whom he’d met in one-on-one meetings in their offices in the weeks prior to the hearing:
“I came away from our conversations confident that we can put aside our divisions for the sake of a healthier America,” Kennedy told the senators.
Democrats had other ideas.
One by one, they came out swinging.
Here is part of the opening statement from Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the committee:
When it came to questions for the witness, Wyden first asked to enter into the record the letter from Caroline Kennedy denouncing her cousin, calling RFK, Jr. a “predator” who “preys on the desperation of parents of sick children” by blaming vaccines for illnesses.
Wyden then launched into a series of accusations.
“Mr. Kennedy, You have spent years pushing conflicting stories about vaccines. You say one thing, and then you say another.”
Wyden quoted Kennedy from a podcast in which he said no vaccine is safe and effective and another in which he said he would “do anything, pay anything” to go back in time and not vaccinate his kids.
“Mr. Kennedy, all of these things cannot be true. So, are you lying to Congress today when you say you are pro-vaccine? Or did you lie on all those podcasts?”
Kennedy replied that the quote from the podcast saying no vaccine was safe was a fragment of what he had intended to say before he was interrupted by the podcast host, and that what he was in the middle of saying was: “There are no vaccines that are safe and effective… for every person.”
“He interrupted me at that point. I’ve corrected it many times, including on national TV. You know about this, Senator Wyden, so bringing this up right now is dishonest.”
It didn’t get any better. Wyden went on to accuse Kennedy of trying to take vaccines away from people.
Kennedy responded that he brought a lawsuit against the CDC because it was promoting the Covid vaccine for young children, who were not at risk from Covid-19.
It’s not helpful to report all of the attacks from Democrat senators on RFK, Jr. over the last two days of hearings, but only to record that they were clearly war-gamed, planned and coordinated, and to wonder what their purpose was.
Was it mostly spite that drove them?
It was hard to think otherwise when Democrat Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire blasted Kennedy for his position on abortion, even when he said several times that he’s always believed that “every abortion is a tragedy.”
“When was it that you decided to sell out the values you had your whole life in order to be given power by President Trump?” she demanded.
It’s hard to think that the Democrats’ attack on RFK, Jr. will not be revealed in future to have been a political mistake given that the natural health and medical freedom movements were traditionally made up almost entirely of Democrat voters who have already been migrating over to vote for Republicans.
Most prominent among these transitioners is Third Wave feminist author and former political consultant to the Clintons and the Gores, Naomi Wolf — author of the 1990 book “The Beauty Myth.”
But there are scores of others and and their numbers no doubt grew on seeing the Democrats’ attacks on Kennedy this week.
It’s also worth noting that the extreme polarization on the vaccine issue, and the Democratic Party’s contempt for the concerns of mothers and families on this issue is a relatively recent development and a major regression from just a decade or two ago when Democrat members of Congress often joined Republicans like Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana and Rep. Dave Weldon of Florida in questioning the CDC on vaccine safety and demanding the agency do studies comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated children [these still haven’t been done].
It’s almost like a switch has been flipped. Because Democrats now seem almost united in their extreme contempt for anyone who dares point out the weak data supporting vaccine safety, or the thousands of reports in VAERS of children who’ve suddenly died within a few days of having a round of vaccinations.
We could only wonder why…
The hearing, for those who watched it, was a master class from Kennedy in debunking false media narratives, for example on the issue of the measles outbreak in Samoa [83 people died, most of them didn’t have measles, and Kennedy never told anyone not to get the vaccine].
But for Kennedy supporters, it was concerning at some points, as Kennedy was boxed in and seemed to feel the need (I’m sure they’d counted the votes and made the calculations) to say things such as:
“I support the measles vaccine, I support the polio vaccine. I will do nothing as HHS secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking [them].”
And:
“I am pro-vaccine. I am going to support the vaccine program.”
Bright spots at the Senate Finance Committee hearing were Sen. Markwayne Mullin, Republican of Oklahoma, and Sen Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
Mullin railed against the Democrat senators for their attacks on Kennedy, asking why, with one in 36 kids now diagnosed with autism, we wouldn’t question vaccines.
Sen. Ron Johnson, when it was his turn, said:
“I can’t say as I’m surprised by the hostility on the other side; I’m highly disappointed in it.”
He said he remembered when Kennedy called him up and said he was thinking of setting his political differences aside and joining forces with Donald Trump, in order to get to the bottom of childhood illnesses and other problems facing our country.
“My first response was: Bobby, this is an answer to my prayers,” recalled Johnson.
The CDC schedule of recommended childhood vaccinations now includes 72 doses of 17 vaccines, four or five times the number of vaccines administered to children in the 1970s and 80s.
At the Thursday hearing, where Kennedy testified before a second Senate committee, this time the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, the Democrat playbook was the same. The hostility to Kennedy was off the charts.
But it was the questions coming from the chairman of the committee, Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana that should be of greatest concern to those who would like to see Kennedy quickly confirmed.
Cassidy, a medical doctor, challenged Kennedy on the issue of the Hepatitis B vaccine, the one vaccine that is commonly administered to newborn babies, even though a person can only get Hepatitis B from intravenous drug use or from sexual intercourse.
The hearing ended with Kennedy promising to meet with Cassidy prior to the committee voting on his nomination, to advance it to the full Senate.
To watch the hearings in full, click on the links below:
Senate Finance Committee - Wednesday, Jan. 29 2025
Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee - Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025
Margaret, yes, RFK was up against lecherous, greedy, and ignorant Democrats who have grown used to tapping into the ultra-lucrative medical portion of the Federal budget amounting to
over one trillion dollars annually. And yes, that money is used to produce more and more harmful pharmaceuticals and vaccines. Of course, they will do anything to keep that cash cow flowing. So
RFk was in the serpent's lair. But, it was disappointing to see just how much he bent over backward to these blowhards to ensure them he was not an "anti-vaxxer."You listed a few of his statements where he confirmed he was pro-vaccine. Let me add a few more he brought up during the hearing.
"I support the CDC vaccine schedule, and I recommend parents to follow the CDC schedule."
"I believe vaccines play a pivotal role in healthcare."
"I will support the development and distribution of vaccines for the Avian flu."
"If we want an uptake in vaccines, we need a trustworthy government. That's why I want
to restore trust in the government and the CDC, so if the government says something
they know it's true."
"I'm going to restore trust in government, and that will increase vaccine uptake."
RFK says he wants to "increase vaccine uptake."Is this man speaking what he really is convinced of,
or is he lying to appease the hostile crowd he's being questioned by? If he's lying, what else will he lie about? If he's telling the truth, then it means RFK Jr. is on the side of the vaccine industry and its destructive policies and onslaught on both children and adults in the United States.
There is no other way to look at it.
🙏