They’re there to “liberate” the people from their elected representatives.

…what’s even more significant than authorities detaining a U.S. senator for asking a Cabinet secretary a question at a news conference is Noem’s ominous remark immediately prior to Padilla’s interruption.

“We are not going away,” she warned. “We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.”

They are there to liberate “the city” from its elected officials. Not the people of the city but the city. The city is a Platonic essence, a glorious concept that rises above the dross of mere human flesh, so it must be liberated from the choices its ignorant population made. Noem and her enforcers are there to liberate LA the way the Nazis entered Paris to liberate it. Noem is not the Yanks entering Paris in their tanks and jeeps, Noem is that other team four years earlier.

When she says “we” are going to “liberate” Los Angeles from the “socialists” and the “burdensome leadership” of the governor and the mayor, is she merely talking about continuing with ICE’s sadistic, haphazard raids in which undocumented immigrants with no criminal records, including women and children, and even legal immigrants and U.S. citizens have been ensnared in the name of protecting the homeland from a fictitious foreign invasion of terrorists and hardened gang members? Or is the secretary speaking more literally and indicating the Trump administration intends to remove — or otherwise render moot — democratically elected state and local officials who oppose the federal government’s brutal incursion into their jurisdictions?

The meaning of what she said is quite clear – she means the latter. Whether she means it literally or not is less clear. It is not, however, so muddy that we don’t need to be afraid.

Reichstag fire.

Today, in Los Angeles:

Alex Padilla, a Democratic California senator and vocal critic of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, was forcibly removed and handcuffed as he attempted to ask a question at a press conference held by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, in Los Angeles on Thursday.

That is, a Democratic US Senator from California. I thought at first he was a state senator, but the Guardian clarified halfway in. (That’s my passive-aggressive way of saying the Guardian should have made it clear from the beginning.)

In video taken of the incident that has since gone viral on social media, Padilla is seen being restrained and removed from the room by Secret Service and FBI agents.

“I’m Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary,” Padilla shouts, as he struggles to move past against the men pushing him back toward the exit. “Hands off!” Padilla says at least three times. Outside the room, he is pinned to the floor and placed in handcuffs.

A US Senator. Because he asked questions.

The coup is going faster and faster.

“If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, if this is how the DHS responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they’re doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers, throughout the LA community and throughout California and throughout the country,” Padilla, the son of immigrants from Mexico, told reporters. “We will hold this administration accountable.”

We’ll try, and then they’ll imprison or kill us.

“I am shocked by how far we have descended in the first 140 days of this administration,” Adam Schiff, the junior senator from California said in a speech from the Senate floor shortly after viewing the video of the incident. “What is becoming of our democracy? Are there no limits to what this administration will do? Is there no line they will not cross?”

No. There are no limits to what this administration will do. There is no line they will not cross. We’ll be at Auschwitz within months.

H/t What a Maroon

Oh good, a new study.

Cisnormativity impacts core emotional needs of transgender and gender diverse people

Great title. “Cisnormativity” is meaningless and “impacts” is the wrong word. Also: yes, and? To put it in less pseudo-technical terms: knowing that people can’t change sex makes gender lunatics sad. No doubt it does, and hearing from gender lunatics makes the rest of us bored and impatient and irritated.

What in fact are the “core emotional needs” of gender loonies? That’s an easy one. Attention. Constant undivided lavish flattering gushing attention.

Guess what. They can’t have it. Two big reasons: one, we have other things to do with our attention, and two, our attention can’t be flattering because gender lunacy is so absurd and tedious and narcissistic and stupid.

Shall we read a little of the piece?

Despite thousands of years of diverse gender expression, many trans and non-binary people still grapple with the impact of cisnormativity: the belief that cisgender people (people whose gender matches the body they were born with) are ‘normal’ or ‘right’, while others are not. 

Sneaky move. Diverse gender expression is one thing and belief that people can change sex is very much another. Wear engineering boots or ballet slippers, whatever, but you remain the sex you are, end of story, pass the mashed potatoes.

The pressure to conform to this expectation can significantly affect mental health: societal messaging around gender being determined by biology, for example, may affect someone’s ability to feel safe and happy as themselves. 

Ohhhh no you don’t. Stop right there. Sneaky move again. Knowing that people can’t change sex is not “pressure to conform to this expectation.” Those two items are separate. It’s intellectual malpractice to pretend they’re the same. It’s pathetic how heavily the trans dogma relies on this kind of malpractice instead of coming up with a good argument.

And in conclusion:

The researchers propose several changes to better support trans people’s emotional wellbeing: promoting diverse media representation, pushing for changes in healthcare and law to support autonomy and safety, providing affirming resources to families to meet attachment needs, and supporting peer connections to enhance feelings of acceptance. These suggestions all underline the team’s main conclusion: that targeting manifestations of cisnormativity across society is essential to ensure transgender and gender diverse people have their emotional needs fully met, and allow them to thrive as their authentic selves.

And by “their authentic selves” we of course mean their pretend selves. Very scholarly; much professional.

The boots on the ground really don’t want to be there.

California national guards troops and marines deployed to Los Angeles to help restore order after days of protest against the Trump administration have told friends and family members they are deeply unhappy about the assignment and worry their only meaningful role will be as pawns in a political battle they do not want to join.

Three different advocacy organisations representing military families said they had heard from dozens of affected service members who expressed discomfort about being drawn into a domestic policing operation outside their normal field of operations. The groups said they have heard no countervailing opinions.

That seems to mean that the service members contacted the advocacy orgs as opposed to the other way around. If that’s true it’s good to know.

“The sentiment across the board right now is that deploying military force against our own communities isn’t the kind of national security we signed up for,” said Sarah Streyder of the Secure Families Initiative, which represents the interests of military spouses, children and veterans.

“Families are scared not just for their loved ones’ safety, although that’s a big concern, but also for what their service is being used to justify.”

Chris Purdy of the Chamberlain Network, whose stated mission is to “mobilize and empower veterans to protect democracy”, said he had heard similar things from half a dozen national guard members. “Morale is not great, is the quote I keep hearing,” he said.

Surely there must be plenty of Trump fans in the National Guard. I wonder why they’re not calling in to say how awesome all this is.

Trump has taken the unusual step of ordering 4,000 national guard members to Los Angeles without the consent of California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, saying that the city risked being “obliterated” by violent protesters without them.

The city what now? How could it risk being obliterated by protesters? Trump has been to Los Angeles, he knows it’s not a little village of mud huts. It can’t possibly be obliterated by protesters, no matter how many rocks the protesters are carrying.

Earlier this week, he also activated 700 marines from the Twentynine Palms base two hours’ drive to the east, describing Los Angeles as a “trash heap” that was in danger of burning to the ground.

He is such a compulsive liar.

The adventures of The Most Oppressed:

The equalities watchdog has told trans activists that personal attacks on her and her staff have “got to stop”.

Baroness Falkner of Margravine, the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), appeared emotional as she revealed to MPs that she had to cancel one meeting after police warned of a “serious risk” of violence.

She said that while feminist campaigners had acted in a “dignified and respectful” manner, trans rights activists had made it harder for her staff to come to work in safety.

Well yes but that’s because they are THE MOST OPPRESSED. Of course people who are the most oppressed are not going to worry about the safety of other people. It’s all very well for those privileged bitches the feminist campaigners to be all dignified and respectful and shit, but trans people are MORE OPPRESSED THAN ANYONE so they are forced to be abusive and threatening. Forced, I tell you.

Women’s rights activists who do not believe in gender ideology, the idea that sex is a spectrum and that people can change their gender identity, have had to run the gauntlet of intimidating protests from the trans rights movement for years.

After the Supreme Court ruled in April that the word “sex” in the Equality Act refers to biological sex, trans rights activists took to the streets, with one carrying a placard showing an illustration of a gallows alongside a slogan suggesting “the only good Terf (trans-exclusionary radical feminist)” is a hanged one.

Ya that was good old “Sophie Molly”.

Lady Falkner said those on the gender-critical side of the debate, “who felt disadvantaged or felt the law was not supporting them, did so in a dignified, respectful manner, frequently using the last resort of a tribunal or a court to pursue justice for themselves or their loved ones”.

Talking about trans rights activists, she said: “Here we have a group that I appreciate is vulnerable, but I don’t think it is fair because women and girls are vulnerable as well.”

Not just as well. More. Being female is a much bigger vulnerability than being trans is. Violence against women and girls is routine, and very rarely prosecuted, let alone convicted, let even more alone punished.

“The level of agitation that they can cause in terms of personal attacks, libellous attacks, defamation, where our family members are affected – our intimate family members have to think about how they’re going about to their place of work – has got to stop.”

Lady Falkner was then prevented from continuing to talk about the attacks the EHRC has faced by Sarah Owen, Labour MP and the committee chair.

Thanks, Labour. Throwing women overboard yet again.

Two women say many stupid things about JK Rowling:

J.K. Rowling is, unfortunately, on a bit of a winning streak. For years now, she has been almost solely focused on being as transphobic as possible, and in April, she celebrated a ruling from the U.K. Supreme Court stating that transgender women cannot legally be recognized as women. You might think that becoming one of the most prominent faces of anti-trans rhetoric would make Rowling someone whom public figures want to keep their distance from…

No actually what I would think is that people who insist that men are women if they say they are should stop saying that and learn the difference between fantasy and reality.

While Rowling rakes in more cash with which she can help make people’s lives demonstrably harder, HBO is standing by its decision to work with her.

The list of charities JKR has lavishly donated to is long.

 The author has time and time again declared that trans women are not women, but rather that they are men in dresses seeking to harm cis women.

That’s a lie. She doesn’t say that. I do (except for the “cis” part), but she does not.

When Rowling does opt to flag herself as an ally — when she writes that “trans people need and deserve protection” or “I want trans women to be safe” — she routinely follows up with some form of “but” that draws a thick line between trans women and all other women.

Oh yes that “thick line” between men and women. How silly to draw such a thick line, i.e. decline to agree that men are women if they say they are. What possible reason could anyone ever have for distinguishing between the two?

Some of Rowling’s former fans have branded her a TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist), and while she dislikes the label, she shares the gender-essentialist view at its core: that womanhood is fixed, intrinsic, and anatomically determined. 

There is no such view. Gender atheists don’t even talk about “womanhood” – we just point out that men are not women, fixed or unfixed, intrinsic or extrinsic, anatomically determined or rabbit out of a hat determined. Women are different from men; men are different from women. To learn more see mares and stallions, rams and ewes, hens and roosters. Feelings can vary enormously, but the physical facts are what they are.

Rowling has stuck to this line for years, even though doctors and scientists agree that sex assignment and gender are not the same thing.

All of them? These two “writers” are idiots.

Top stories

Bad Kennedy ratchets up his campaign to stamp out lifesaving vaccinations.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday named eight new members to a crucial government panel of vaccine advisors after firing the entire group just days earlier.  His picks include some well-known vaccine critics, including Dr. Robert Malone.

…

It is unclear now how, taken together, the new advisors will affect vaccine policy and availability in the U.S. But public health experts had expected Kennedy could choose members who share his skepticism of immunization.

“We all knew this would happen and it’s a national tragedy and a major threat to children’s health and lives,” Lawrence Gostin, professor of public health law at Georgetown University, said in a post on X.

…

Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the FDA’s independent panel of vaccine advisers, called some of the new members “anti-vaccine activists.”

“I think the public is not going to be getting the same quality of advice as we had before the purge,” he told CNBC. “I think the people who were on the committee that just got fired had far greater expertise in the areas that you needed expertise than this group.”

Offit said he expects recommendations from ACIP to be “less informed” with the new members.

Robert “Bad” Kennedy has no medical education or training at all.

Oh come ON.

It’s not a hoax, it’s right there on their “Pride” page.

We want all colleagues to bring their full self to work, and to support our colleagues, particularly from the non-binary or transgender community, we have pronoun badges available for all our colleagues in store, sites and head office to wear with pride.

The option to display your pronoun is open to any in the LGBT+ community, as well as allies wanting to support colleagues by creating an environment where the display and discussion of pronouns is the norm.

That is, supporting the very few colleagues who subscribe to gender ideology, while bullying the much larger number who know that men are not women. Imagine not wearing the idiot badge in that environment!

Thank goodness Elon Musk is not at all impulsive or flakey, given all the powers Trump handed him.

Billionaire Elon Musk has said he regrets some of the posts he made about US President Donald Trump during their war of words on social media. “They went too far,” he wrote on his social media platform X.

How is that possible? Surely Musk, with so many serious responsibilities, would not impulsively blow up a whole row of bridges in a tantrum?

His post comes after Trump said he was open to the possibility of reconciliation in an interview with the New York Post on Wednesday. The president said he was a “little disappointed” about the fallout, but there were “no hard feelings”.

Aww sweet, do we get to watch them burst into tears and do a huge bro hug?

Hahahahaha science! Science I tell you!!!

Totalitariantrump wants to control everyone and everything.

The Smithsonian Institution has rebuffed Donald Trump’s attempt to fire the director of its National Portrait Gallery, with the museum’s governing board asserting its independence in a direct challenge to the president.

In a statement issued after an emergency meeting Monday, the Smithsonian’s board of regents declared that “all personnel decisions are made by and subject to the direction of the secretary, with oversight by the board” – turning away Trump’s claim of authority over the institution’s staffing.

The standoff centers on Kim Sajet, whom Trump announced he had fired on 30 May, calling her “highly partisan and a strong supporter of DEI” – or diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives – on social media. Sajet has continued reporting to work, creating a direct confrontation between the White House and the US’s flagship cultural institution that has a 178-year-old governance structure built against political interference.

Trump is the last person on the planet who should be meddling with any cultural institution.

This is just plain lying. The BBC telling whoppers right out in the open – whoppers that damage women and delight men who pretend to be women and take all our stuff.

Greens expel ex-spokesperson after LGBTQ+ comment row

You already know what the lie is, of course. It’s not an “LGBTQ+” comment.

The Green Party of England and Wales has expelled its former health spokesperson eight months after an investigation was launched into her comments on LGBTQ+ hate crimes.

Documents seen by the BBC show the Greens expelled Dr Pallavi Devulapalli for breaking party rules by attending a party event while under investigation for calling reports of rising LGBTQ+ hate crimes “mischievous”.

…

Green Party documents show Dr Devulapalli was originally placed on an emergency suspension pending a code of conduct investigation last September. The councillor, who sits on West Norfolk Council, was at the time one of the Green’s most high-profile figures and stood for the party at last year’s general election in South West Norfolk, against former Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss.

During the election she spoke at a hustings event hosted by Friends of the Earth, where she was asked to respond to reports on rising LGBTQ+ hate crime, as well as her opinion on single-sex spaces and where the Green party stood on that issue. She told the meeting: “I’ve yet to meet anyone that actually says somebody should not have the right to be addressed as they please, and to dress as they please.

“I really think there is something mischievous in the air – to make those out to be an issue.” Following the hustings Dr Devulapalli clarified her comments, telling the BBC “there is no trans-hate in society in general”.

This one simple trick: pretend a truth claim about trans people is a truth claim about LGBTQ+ people. Boom: job done: your target stands accused of bashing lesbians and gay men and bisexuals when that is not the case.

This is his idea of heaven.

US President Donald Trump’s administration has sent thousands more troops to Los Angeles on a fourth day of chaotic protests against immigration raids, as the unrest spread to other US cities. Some 700 US Marines have been deployed to the LA area and the contingent of National Guard troops mobilised to help quell the disorder has been doubled to 4,000.

It’s his dream – he gets to play sojers with REAL SOJERS. He gets to send the tough guys in to rough up the nasty brown people Trump doesn’t like.

The state is suing the president for sending in troops without the governor’s permission. It is highly unusual for the American military to have any domestic law enforcement role.

But Trump of course thinks that’s just everybody but him being stupid and chickenshit. Of course the military should be roughing up the peasants! People who don’t have solid gold golf resorts deserve roughing up.

Trump also sent a direct warning to protesters who confronted police and federal forces. He wrote on social media: “IF THEY SPIT, WE WILL HIT, and I promise you they will be hit harder than they have ever been hit before. Such disrespect will not be tolerated!”

He can’t wait. He wants to see them hit.

It’s funny how he didn’t talk this way about the rioters who attacked cops on January 6.

Originally a comment by Artymorty on More than a second.

That nurse Sofia should not have lied to Juno Dawson. He does not have a lovely new vagina. As a famous surgeon in Casablanca once put it, “I don’t change men into women. I transform male genitals into genitals that have a female aspect. All the rest is in the patient’s mind.”

And it’s my understanding that — from what my transsexual British friend told me after he had the procedure — a prerequisite to vaginoplasty surgery in the UK is signing a waiver that explicitly states that the patient is not going to come up from the anesthesia with an actual vagina between his legs.

That Moroccan sex change surgeon’s remark was acute, if a smidge off the bullseye. It’s all in the mind, but it’s not all in the patient’s mind — it’s in the collective consciousness. It’s in the culture. The problem with the trans movement is that it requires total obedience to the mantra “trans women are women” from everyone, or the whole thing falls apart. Like theocracy.

And once the rest of society stops playing along, endlessly humouring these men that their cosmetic surgeries opened a metaphysical portal to womanhood, the ugly truth becomes apparent: they’re just scarred genitals, and ones that require burdensome daily maintenance for life, that are prone to infection, that often require corrective surgeries to fix serious complications, that most of the time can’t even be used for intercourse because it’s too painful, and which the vast majority of “straight” guys don’t want to have intercourse with anyways.

Graham Linehan aptly pointed to Peter Pan, when the audience must clap to demostrate their belief in Tinker Bell to keep her alive. The trans movement thought it could force all of society to keep clapping forever and ever to keep their fantasy of womanhood alive.

If anything, I’m amazed that the charade has lasted this long. How could anyone have been hoodwinked into signing up for an exhausting game of pretend that’s supposed to carry on ’til the end of time?

The minute the novelty wears off, the minute the exciting veneer of newness fades from the sight of crossdressers and preferred pronouns, the moral righteousness of the whole project will fade with it. What’s left will be the banal reality of the human condition. Sex was always binary; preferences around sexuality and gender expression were always diverse; the latter did not change the former.

Once we all get back to normal, there’s going to be hell to pay. The world will suffocate under mountains of regret.

We must shut down USAID to save money but when it comes to siccing the police* on protesters money is no object.

Deploying National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles will cost at least $134 million and last at least the next 60 days, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and a senior defense official told lawmakers Tuesday.

“We stated very publicly that it’s 60 days because we want to ensure that those rioters, looters and thugs on the other side assaulting our police officers know that we’re not going anywhere,” Hegseth told members of the House appropriations defense subcommittee.

Hegseth was repeatedly asked by members of Congress about the cost of the deployment, then conferred with his acting comptroller, Bryn Woollacott MacDonnell, who provided the figure and said it was “largely just the cost of travel, housing and food.”

For a display of Trump’s power and indifference to norms. Not worth a dime, let alone $134 million.

California has filed an emergency request for a court order that would prevent President Trump and the Department of Defense from expanding the current mission of federalized National Guard members and Marines. The request is part of a lawsuit over the federalization of the California National Guard, which is usually deployed by the governor at the request of local authorities.

On account of how that’s what it’s for.

*The police and then the National Guard and the Marines

Well that was a hellish night/morning. I was just about to publish a post late last night when bang the electricity went out. It happens a lot in this nabe, I guess because it’s old so the infrastructure is prone to failure. Starvation because of not opening the fridge. Hot and smoggy outside. Hours and hours pass then finally pop on it comes – just a little under the 12 hours or so it took last time, which was only a year ago (or perhaps two).

Dodged one bullet anyway – before the outage laptop ordered me to update so I proceeded to update, heeding the stern order NOT to shut down during the update because that would ruin EVERYTHING. The electrics going pop waited until the update completed. Thanks, electrics.

Oh grow up ffs.

I had gender reassignment surgery – then the Supreme Court said I wasn’t a woman

Because you’re not. You could have had rabbit ears surgically attached to your head; you wouldn’t be a rabbit. You could have had feathers painstakingly inserted into your skin; you wouldn’t have been a bird. You could have worn a Marilyn Monroe mask; you wouldn’t have been Marilyn Monroe. Forget about being a woman; try being an adult for a change. Adults understand that cosmetic tweaks are not magic and can’t make us something we’re not.

 I’m not trying to make a statement about what a woman is, I just want to be one, writes Juno Dawson.

But you can’t. You can’t be a coffee pot or Delaware or Euripides. The list of things you can’t be no matter how much you want to is infinite. It’s childish to whine about it, let alone claiming you can do it.

On 16 April this year, I held my phone in one hand as a kindly nurse, Sofia, removed my surgical dressings.

“Huh,” I said. “The Supreme Court has just ruled that I’m a man, apparently.”

“Well, you have a lovely new vagina,” Sofia replied.

And all the angels clapped and then we went home for tea.

Why on earth would I share something so personal? It seems that politely asking for a dignified life has fallen on deaf ears, so I’ll be undignified for a second.

Pretending to be a woman and expecting the rest of the world to agree is not even close to “politely asking for a dignified life.” It’s not polite and it’s embarrassingly childish.

If one uses the word “fascism”, people accuse you of hysteria – but isn’t this precisely what fascism looks like?

Uh, no. Not even close.

My view is that despite the law being very clear, actually, a few very determined transphobes have crawled their way to the heart of the law like maggots in an apple.

And there we go: he wants to be a woman and actual women are maggots. I wonder why we don’t cheerfully welcome him into the club.

The coup continues step by step.

The U.S. military will temporarily deploy about 700 Marines to Los Angeles until more National Guard troops can arrive, marking another escalation in President Donald Trump’s response to street protests over his aggressive immigration policies.

The U.S. Northern Command said a battalion would be sent to help protect federal property and personnel until more National Guard troops could reach the scene. For now, the Trump administration was not invoking the Insurrection Act, which would allow troops to directly participate in civilian law enforcement, according to a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity.

For now. One step at a time.

Trump said on Monday he felt he had no choice but to order the deployment to prevent acts of violence from spiraling out of control.

He supported a suggestion by his border czar that California Governor Gavin Newsom be arrested, after the Democrat said California was suing to block deployment of the National Guard.

…

U.S. Marines have been deployed domestically for major disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the September 11, 2001, attacks. They are known for being “first in, last out” in U.S. military interventions abroad, but it is extremely rare for U.S. military troops to be used for domestic policing matters.

So naturally Trump does it. He thinks he knows better than everyone.

Federal law allows the president to deploy the Guard if the nation is invaded, if there is “rebellion or danger of rebellion,” or the president is “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.” California’s suit accuses Trump of exceeding his authority under the statute and asks a court to declare his actions as unlawful.

He does it because it’s unlawful. He’s determined to break every law he can, the way dogs are determined to piss on every tree and bush and rock they can. He wants to own us.

More on Kennedy’s campaign to make America sick again:

Kennedy said the committee members had too many conflicts of interest. Currently, committee members are required to declare any potential such conflicts, as well as business interests, that arise during their tenure. They also must disclose any possible conflicts at the start of each public meeting.

But Dr. Tom Frieden, president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives and former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Kennedy’s actions were based on false conflict-of-interest claims and set “a dangerous and unprecedented action that makes our families less safe” by potentially reducing vaccine access for millions of people.

“Make no mistake: Politicizing the ACIP as Secretary Kennedy is doing will undermine public trust under the guise of improving it,” he said in a statement. “We’ll look back at this as a grave mistake that sacrificed decades of scientific rigor, undermined public trust, and opened the door for fringe theories rather than facts.”

We already look at it that way.

Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, called Kennedy’s mass ouster “a coup.”

“It’s not how democracies work. It’s not good for the health of the nation,” Benjamin told The Associated Press.

Benjamin said the move raises real concerns about whether future committee members will be viewed as impartial. He added that Kennedy is going against what he told lawmakers and the public, and the public health association plans to watch Kennedy “like a hawk.”

“He is breaking a promise,” Benjamin said. “He said he wasn’t going to do this.”

Yeah well. He’s a liar. Big surprise.

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a doctor who had expressed reservations about Kennedy’s nomination but voted to install him as the nation’s health secretary nonetheless, said he had spoken with Kennedy moments after the announcement.

“Of course, now the fear is that the ACIP will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion,” Cassidy said in a social media post. “I’ve just spoken with Secretary Kennedy, and I’ll continue to talk with him to ensure this is not the case.”

In your dreams. He’ll do whatever he wants.