Trump picks Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services

Stephan: 

Not a single man or woman Trump is appointing for high office is either competent or ethical. They remind me of cartoons in a comic book. But Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s appointment may end up killing you or one of your children. Never forget his role in Samoa in killing children by getting the government to stop measles vaccinations. Here will oversee medicare and Medicaid, essential to about half the children in America, and almost all of the elderly. I would not have thought it possible that such a weirdo could take over U.S. healthcare.

Trump victory gives RFK Jr. free rein to shape public health Credit: The Seattle Times

President-elect Donald Trump has picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, a source familiar with the move told CNN, a choice that would add to Trump’s list of provocative picks whose confirmation processes will test the loyalty of Senate Republicans.

The source said Kennedy accepted the offer Thursday, and multiple sources told CNN that Trump could announce the choice later in the day. Kennedy has been in Palm Beach for several days following the election.

Politico was first to report the selection.

The move is a notable one given that only days before the election, Trump’s transition co-chair Howard Lutnick told CNN that Kennedy was “not getting a job for HHS.”

“He would not be in charge of HHS?” he was asked on “The Source with Kaitlan Collins.”

“No,” Lutnick said, “of course not.”

That answer set off an internal uproar in Trump’s orbit, with Trump making clear to Kennedy that he […]

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Stores don’t sell your favorite product anymore. That’s on purpose

Stephan: 

Can’t buy things you used to buy at a store where you usually look for somewthing? Well, if it wasn’t sufficiently profitable, as this article describes, it’s probably because the  company that produced it stopped making it. Once again greed is shaping our culture. American society is dominated by greed, it is the only social priority that seems to matter. Wellbeing is rarely a factor.

Dollar General is cutting about 1,000 products from shelves. Credit: Scott Olson / Getty

NEW YORK, NEW YORK — Pepperoni was getting out of hand at Hormel.

The food giant last year was selling 71 different versions of its Hormel Pepperoni brand. There was diced pepperoni. Turkey pepperoni. Mini-slices of turkey pepperoni. Pepperoni sticks. Pepperoni with 50% less sodium. Pepperoni with 25% less fat. Thick-sliced pepperoni. The list goes on.

But Hormel is removing, consolidating or repackaging 25% of the items as part of a company-wide strategy to prune unprofitable items across dozens of its brands like Spam, Applegate and Jennie-O, the company said in June. Around 80% of Hormel’s profit comes from a small number of products, like Hormel Bacon and Fire Braised-brand meats, while the rest of its tens of thousands of items often drive up costs and sit untouched in warehouses and on shelves for long periods.

Hormel is reviewing its product lineup to invest in items with higher profit margins, improve lower-performing items and “remove production complexity,” a spokesperson for […]

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As planet heads toward 2.7°C rise, tracker warns global climate action has ‘flatlined’

Stephan: 

The scientists of the world who study the climate are screaming at the politicians, and you, that we are not doing anything close to what we should be doing to preserve human civilizations as they exist today. Your children, and their children are going to condemn us for this failure. In my remote viewing project it is clear that the civilization changing crisis will reach a peak in 15 years.

Existing policies and actions taken by world governments put the world on track for a median estimate of 2.7°C of warming by the end of the century, Climate Action Tracker revealed on Thursday at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.

If global leaders make no further effort to reduce emissions, temperatures have a 33% chance of spiking past 3°C of warming by 2100 and a 10% chance of overtaking 3.6°C, which report lead author Sofia Gonzales-Zuniga called “an absolutely catastrophic level of warming.”

“The combined global effect of government action on climate change has flatlined over the last three years, underscoring a critical disconnect between the reality of climate change and the lack of urgency on policies to cut emissions,” Climate Action Tracker (CAT) announced during its annual update at COP29.

The report attributes the lack of progress to the fact that few governments announced new climate targets in 2024 while they continued to facilitate the increased burning of fossil fuels, despite the pledge made at last year’s COP28 to transition away from oil, gas, and coal.

It […]

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Krugman delivers economic reality check: Trump’s mass deportations will make grocery prices soar

Stephan: 

If you think lettuce and cantaloupes are expensive now, as Nobel Laureate economist Paul Krugman explains, get prepared for prices to double. Trump’s deportation scheme every economist I have checked says is going to devastate the economy. All those Trump voters who thought he was going to “fix things” are about to learn how sensationally wrong their decision was. I think we are about to have the worst period in American history.

Economist Paul Krugman with President Joe Biden on August 14, 2023 Credit: Creative Commons

Donald Trump, during his 2024 presidential campaign, attacked the Biden Administration and Vice President Kamala Harris relentlessly over inflation.

Harris countered that Trump’s proposals — mass deportations and new tariffs on imported goods — would make inflation worse. Regardless, President-elect Trump enjoyed a decisive victory on Election Night 2024 and will begin his non-consecutive second term on January 20, 2025.

Liberal economist Paul Krugman, in his November 11 column for the New York Times, warns that grocery prices will soar if Trump follows through on his mass deportations plan.

“I’ve written about the likely inflationary impact of Donald Trump’s policies,” Krugman explains. “All of that still stands. But there’s an issue that I haven’t stressed as much as I probably should have: the specific effects of his proposed deportations on grocery and housing prices, both of which have been political flashpoints.”

According to Krugman, Trump’s “mass deportations” would “degrade productive capacity, balloon deficits and — yes — […]

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Trump Cabinet of Villains Grows With Gabbard for DNI, Gaetz for AG

Stephan: 

If you have been watching the news today you are probably as outraged and disgusted as I am. What Trump is doing is straight out of the fascist playbook. To be an unchallenged authoritarian, you fire or dismiss anyone who might oppose you, and appoint only slavishly loyal incompetents who will do what they are told. SR isn’t big enough to do all the horror stories of these appointments Trump is trying to make. But I do emphatically note Trump doesn’t want them to go through the usual advise and consent confirmation process because that would mean the background and incompetencies of those people would become glaringly public. So the next thing to watch for is does the Senate recess, or do they stay in session and confirm or deny this scum from being confirmed. That will tell us what kind of Senate we are going to have for the next two years — or maybe longer.

U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who represented Hawaii as a Democrat but is now a Republican, arrived at Philadelphia International Airport on September 10, 2024.
Credit: Julia Beverly/Getty

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump continued to stoke global fears for the future on Wednesday by announcing more picks for top leadership positions in his next administration: former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence and Republican Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz for attorney general.

The president-elect also confirmed his widely reported plan to name Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as secretary of state. The Associated Pressnoted that “the choices continued a pattern of Trump stocking his Cabinet with loyalists he believes he can trust to execute his agenda rather than longtime officials with experience in their fields.”

The announcements have provoked comparisons to blockbuster villains. One social media user quipped that “Trump’s Cabinet is shaping up like Dr. Evil’s collection of henchmen,” while Justin Jones—a Tennessee Democrat expelled from the state Legislature over […]

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