On a Wing and a Prayer, but Mostly a Prayer

 

                  Remnant of a commercial airliner and an Army helicopter from 

                         Reagan Airport crash, Jan 29th, that killed 167 passengers

On a Wing and a Prayer, but Mostly a Prayer

“I think it is clear that the blame belongs with the last administration…[Former DOT head Pete] Buttigieg and Joe Biden did nothing to fix the system that they knew was broken… During COVID, when people weren’t flying? That was a perfect time to fix these problems.”

 Dean Duffy, Department of Transportation head at a May 19th press conference at the DOT.

As we watch near-hits (not, “near-misses”) at airports across the land, as aircraft crashes rise and military aircraft threaten commercial traffic, and archaic systems across the land, but most visibly at Newark’s major airport (one of the main NYC hubs), crash or blank out, you have to ask yourself why this escalation in commercial flying risks in the United States is so bad, much worse than anything we have seen in recent years.

Asks LA Times journalist, Michael Hiltzik (LA Times column on May 20th), “Who’s responsible for the aviation mess? Transportation Secretary Duffy says it’s everyone but him.” Standard Trump administration response, even as two cabinet level Trump appointees whose major qualifications appear to be as former Fox News personalities – Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth – just cannot do much more than remain silent or blame the Biden Administration. The above quote is classic, particularly since Trump was President during a significant part of the COVID pandemic. When asked, Hegseth never did explain why Army helicopters frequent commercial airspace without clearance from civilian traffic controllers.

But GOP opposition to authorizing needed FAA technology upgrades and adding more air traffic controllers is the main culprit, along with the dramatic inexperience of Duffy and Hegseth amplified by DOGE efforts to trim the federal workforce. Blame Biden. He managed to pass an infrastructure bill that included serious upgrades to our nation’s ports and airports, which Republicans are trying to repeal, federal savings that would give tax cuts to the rich.

But flying, for pleasure, business or even necessity is a normal part of American life, so naturally when there are a string of mishaps that, remarkably all happen after Trump took office, DOGE eliminated as many federal employees as possible… including offering buyouts to air traffic controllers who take years to train… under the “watchful” eye of some of the least competent and least knowledgeable cabinet and subcabinet appointees in our nation’s history, well, that “blame Biden” mantra doesn’t cut it anymore. And while we cannot blame the January 29th collision over the Potomac River near Reagan National Airport on Trump, 9 days after he was sworn in for Trump 2.0, stuff that developed later is all Trump. As Hiltzik continues:

“The highest-profile failure (so far) is the disaster named Newark Liberty International Airport, where flight delays can last for the better part of a day and questions about safety are rife… Duffy, a former reality show contestant and four-term congressman, comes to the blame game with dirty hands. Let’s take a look…

“First, in 2019, when Duffy was a Republican member of Congress from Wisconsin, the bill to fund the Department of Transportation among other agencies came before the House. Duffy voted against it. So did 179 other members of the GOP caucus; 12 Republicans joined the Democrats to pass the measure… Second, the pandemic year in which ‘people weren’t flying’ was 2020. That year, the domestic passenger count plummeted to 369.4 million from 926.7 million the previous year. It was the lowest figure since 1984… Who was president in 2020? Not Biden, but Donald Trump.

“After 2020, passenger loads crept back up, reaching 666.2 million in 2021 and continuing higher to the record of 982.7 million last year. If there was an opportunity to upgrade the air traffic system at the least inconvenience to passengers, it was 2020. But nothing was done then, on Trump’s watch… I asked the Department of Transportation last week if Duffy could reconcile these evidently misleading and inconsistent statements. I’m still waiting for a reply.

“Duffy has maintained that it’s still safe to fly in and out of Newark, despite outages during which air traffic controllers’ screens went black and radios went silent — for 30 seconds on April 28 and 90 seconds on May 9. A backup system failed at the airport May 11 for 45 minutes, causing delays and cancellations for hundreds of flights.

“Duffy admitted to the right-wing radio host David Webb on May 12 that he had switched his wife’s flight reservation for the next day from Newark to LaGuardia airport. He subsequently explained that he didn’t say to do so because he thought Newark was unsafe, but to spare her a long delay. In other words, he had found a solution for his family, but not for the overall traveling public, which didn’t speak well for his management of the mess at Newark.

“It’s proper to note that the Federal Aviation Administration has been in an operational funk for years. Duffy can try to blame Biden, but that’s a smokescreen. During Trump’s first term, when the FAA’s problems were well known, hiring and deployment of air traffic controllers actually shrank from the level during the Obama administration according to the DOT’s inspector general, to the point where staffing ‘could not keep pace with attrition… In the first budget he submitted after taking office in 2017, Trump proposed slashing the DOT budget by 13%. The budget plan called for cutting 30,000 workers from the FAA staff.’”

Can we fix the system? Not if budget cutting and tax cuts are a priority over everything else. Not if we cut federal employees and ask questions later. And if we need to weed our fraud, corruption, waste and incompetence, let’s start at the top of the Trump administration and work our way down. Grift, hotel and resort deals, a big gift that we actually asked for, crypto investments, conflicts of interests…. Let’s face it, Trump appointees do not reflect a meritocracy… more a kleptocracy. 

I’m Peter Dekom, and as long as mythology and conspiracy theories are taken as the truth… and blame is more valuable than fixing the problem, the merger of common sense and earned expertise cannot be expected to fix what needs to be fixed.

Department of Justice Sues Federal Judges to Stop Justice?

Department of Justice Sues Federal Judges to Stop Justice?

She all but admits she is Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, paid for by the government, defying courts left and right. Her constitutional chops and commitments are non-existent, leading to Pamela Jo Bondi’s facing serious ethics charges in her native Florida, where she once presided as that state’s attorney general. Indeed, “[now US] Attorney General Pam Bondi is accused of ‘serious professional misconduct’ in a Florida Bar complaint, the Miami Herald reported Thursday [6/5].

“Bondi’s record as the head of the Justice Department is being slammed by close to 70 law professors, attorneys and former Florida Supreme Court justices via a Florida Bar ethics complaint filed Thursday [6/5], according to the Herald… In the complaint, the group alleges Bondi has breached ethical duties in her current role and that ‘serious professional misconduct that threatens the rule of law and the administration of justice’ has been carried out by the attorney general, the Herald reported.” The Hill, June 5th.

But Bondi’s truthfulness faces additional challenges: “The attorney general, Pam Bondi, professed ignorance of reports of immigration officials hiding their faces with masks during roundups of undocumented people, despite widespread video evidence and reports that they are instilling pervasive fear and panic.

“Challenged at a Wednesday [6/25] Capitol Hill subcommittee hearing by Gary Peters, a Democratic senator for Michigan, Bondi, who as the country’s top law officer has a prominent role in the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policy, implied she was unaware of plain-clothed agents concealing their faces while carrying out arrests but suggested it was for self-protection.

“‘I do know they are being doxxed … they’re being threatened,’ she told Peters. ‘Their families are being threatened.’... Bondi’s protestations appeared to strain credibility given the attention the masked raids carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents have attracted on social media and elsewhere.” Guardian UK, June 25th. How would they be “doxed,” when there is no way to know who they are?! Even if all she watched was Fox News or social media, she would know these agents are frequently masked with no IDs.

It's no secret that Bondi and friends cannot fathom how the judiciary could possibly meet her boss’ deportation targets if the detainee’s due process rights are protected. So, screw the Constitution, and let’s get on with it, a vector that the Supreme Court’s shadow docket is awfully close to allowing. Bondi seems willing to take on the entirety of Maryland’s entire federal district courts… kind of like the government’s suing itself: “The Trump administration has filed a lawsuit against federal judges in Maryland over an order that blocks the immediate removal of any detained immigrant who requests a court hearing… The unusual suit filed Tuesday [6/24] in Baltimore against the chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Maryland and the court’s other judges underscores the administration’s focus on immigration enforcement and ratchets up its fight with the judiciary.

“At issue is an order signed by Chief Judge George L. Russell III and filed in May blocking the administration from immediately removing from the U.S. any immigrants who file paperwork with the Maryland federal district court seeking a review of their detention. The order blocks the removal until 4 p.m. on the second business day after the habeas corpus petition is filed.

“In its suit, the Trump administration says such an automatic pause on removals violates a Supreme Court ruling and impedes the president’s authority to enforce immigration laws… ‘Defendants’ automatic injunction issues whether or not the alien needs or seeks emergency relief, whether or not the court has jurisdiction over the alien’s claims, and no matter how frivolous the alien’s claims may be,’ the suit says. ‘And it does so in the immigration context, thus intruding on core Executive Branch powers.’… The suit names the U.S. and U.S. Department of Homeland Security as plaintiffs.” Associated Press, June 26th.

And this from the June 26th Los Angeles Times: “Emil Bove, a former criminal defense attorney for the Republican president, forcefully pushed back against suggestions from Democrats that the whistleblower's claims make him unfit to serve on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Bove's nomination [to that federal bench] has come under intense scrutiny after the whistleblower, a fired department lawyer, claimed in a complaint made public Tuesday [6/24] that Bove used an expletive when he said during a meeting that the Trump administration might need to ignore judicial commands.”

Given the twisting and squirming of Homeland Security and Department of Justice officials to avoid or deflect court orders, even at the Supreme Court level, whom do you believe? Bove or the whistleblower? A rogue President, blasting through constitutional guardrails helmed by officials who believe that loyalty to “whatever Trump wants” represents their full compliance with the oath in office to protect the US Constitution.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the only destructive rogues I want to see are pirates in the movies!

It Always Comes Down to Healthcare

It Always Comes Down to Healthcare

We spend an annual average of $17 thousand per American on healthcare, far and away the most expensive medical costs on Earth. We still charge more on average than other developed nations on prescription drugs, and we have an archaic patent program that effectively allows relatively minor, and often merely cosmetic, changes to extend the 20-year patent on way too many drugs. And the reason our costs are so high? We have institutionalized the highest healthcare profits, at every level, in the developed world. Hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, health insurance carriers, medical mediators and medical malpractice costs have profits built into the program with software that monitors doctors and time spent on patients, especially those associated with any government program or subject to “we deny coverage” standard responses from so many private carriers.

In the name of profits, and under the “obliterating” false moniker of “creeping socialism,” making damn sure that we never get universal healthcare, the issue that teases justifiable populist ire (along with the rest of this nation) is complete and affordable healthcare. For those at the top of the economic food chain, in line to slorp at Trump’s Big Beautiful tax cut for them, healthcare is easily purchased. And I mean a Rolls Royce level of healthcare. Look at the above map of the UCLA Medical Center, one of the best in the nation. Check out the names on the buildings… donations from mega-rich who live in Los Angeles. You will find the same smattering of mega-donors and their programs and buildings, often the same names as above, in major hospitals across the land, but, in addition to Los Angeles, San Francisco, the Silicon Valley, Boston, Cleveland, DC, New York, Seattle, Houston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Raleigh-Durham, etc., etc. also have their main donors on buildings everywhere. Guess what kind of medical care those donors receive when they are in need of that expertise. I can promise you that if you are not one of them, well you don’t get a donor-floor room or chef or the immediate, “whatever it takes” medical care.

Apparently, the GOP no longer cares about the absurd deficit that their tax cut would impose on this nation, further eroding this country’s creditworthiness internationally. And we pay through the nose for that in the form of much higher interest rates we have to pay foreigners to buy the bonds that support that debt. But those spoiled mega-rich folks want that tax cut… and they don’t really want to appear irresponsible when it comes to the national debt. So, the answer has focused on offsetting cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and SNAP (food program). The cosmetic “work for benefits” is a misdirection since most of the Medicaid recipients who can work do work… and still need that program.

So, these MAGA-GOPs fall back on the tried and true, except it’s always false, “fraud and waste” rubric. Yes, we know that most of that fraud and waste is at the top of this administration, but the need to try and shift blame and claim the efficiency high ground is almost atavistic with this consortium of congressional Trump sycophants. As June came to a close, at her weekly press conference and given the GOP’s desire to cut over $800 billion from Medicaid while telling us that there will be no reduction in the program, White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, answered this question from a reporter on the President’s position: "There is a conversation on the hill right now about the Medicaid cuts… I'm curious, if the final bill the president's been talking about comes to him and has Medicaid cuts to it, would he sign it, or would he rather Congress do away with those cuts?"

Without any appearance of her tongue in her cheek, Leavitt responded: “I think our friends in both the Senate and the House know exactly where the president stands on Medicare… He wants to get rid of the waste, fraud, and abuse and they are working to do that in the Senate right now." But there is no amount of fraud or waste even under the most corrupt nation on the planet that could make even a slight dent in the $800 billion that they want to cut… so the obvious result is that millions of people are going to lose coverage, and lots of children will go hungry when the SNAP food supplement program is slashed.

But Republicans are having more issues dealing with staying within the bounds of a budget reconciliation process, where a simple majority of the Senate is sufficient to pass a qualified bill. Topics outside of that reconciliation effort are subject to a Senate rule that requires a 60-vote majority to bring legislation to a floor vote… and the GOP will never muster that 60-vote requirement, because Democrats hate this entire process. The individual who determines what is or is not part of that reconciliation process is the Senate Parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough. On June 26th, she denied the GOP plan to cap states' ability to collect more federal Medicaid funding through health care provider taxes – a controversial provision that would have funded much of the bill's tax cuts. Most of the savings in the bill came from the changes in Medicaid.

With Donald Trump’s dragon breath down GOP congresspeople’s necks getting hotter, these legislators have to face a horrible choice: vote for Trump’s Big Beautiful bill, accepting the unpopular billionaires’ tax cut, and watch vast swaths of their constituents lose healthcare coverage or vote against the bill and incur Trump’s wrath as the midterms approach. Trump 2.0 has inflicted the greatest damage on this nation since our Civil War… but even that war did not erode our Constitution to the degraded concept is has become. Universal healthcare would have been cheaper by far and solved so many of our coverage issues.

I’m Peter Dekom, and who knew that the crack in the Liberty Bell would ultimately be that prescient?!

Why is Trump Treating Immigration Protests as a Literal War between Red and Blue?

 

Why is Trump Treating Immigration Protests as a Literal War between Red and Blue?

There is no question that even beyond his “distractions” – well produced for television with lots of well-edited footage – Donald Trump is satisfying his MAGA Base’s desires. First, to tear down the elusive “deep state” by taking down huge chunks of the federal government to no one’s real advantage. Second, to impose Red cultural values on the Blue states and cities that have repeatedly voted against those values. The notion that the federal government was a cesspool of waste and corruption was clearly not substantiated, as this opinion from a DOGE employee clearly illustrates:

“A former employee of the Department of Government Efficiency says that he found that the federal waste, fraud and abuse that his agency was supposed to uncover were ‘relatively nonexistent’ during his short time embedded within the Department of Veterans Affairs… ‘I personally was pretty surprised, actually, at how efficient the government was,’ Sahil Lavingia told NPR's Juana Summers.

“Lavingia was a successful software developer and the founder of Gumroad, a platform for online sales, when he joined DOGE in March. Lavingia said he had previously sought to work for the U.S. Digital Service, the technology unit that was renamed and restructured by the Trump administration. He told NPR that he just wanted to make government websites easier for citizens to use and didn't really care which presidential administration he was working for, despite protests from his friends and family.” NPR, June 5th. The operations of Social Security, Medicare, etc. were also found clear of measurable fraud or waste. Their software was in dire need of updating, but that was not much of a revelation.

If there were anywhere that waste were rampant, it would have to be in the Department of Defense, where a detailed budget had not yet been provided to Congress when the MAGA House passed the Big Beautiful Bill with a significant increase for military expenditures. The DOD is indeed continuing to fund a massive new construction effort that is little more than an expansion of the Cold War military. Big aircraft carriers, new massive stealth jet fighter-bombers plus the cost of the upgraded flotillas needed to protect those massive investments. Did someone miss the massive drone attack (each costing in the hundreds of dollar range) In the span of a few hours on Sunday [5/29], nearly a third of Moscow’s strategic bomber fleet was destroyed or damaged with cheaply made drones sneaked into Russian territory, the latest evolution of asymmetrical warfare? OK, those weapons do look good in naval show-offs and military parades and flyovers, but that’s just not the way wars are fought these days.

And truthfully, we are deploying a whole lot more active military troops these days against our own people in American cities than against foreign powers attacking us. While a lot of what we are seeing in US cities seems to mirror the anti-Vietnam War protests of the 1960s, that outrage was about our involvement in a foreign war. Starting with the relatively small protests in Los Angeles, which were easily handleable by local police, then spreading across the country, Trump was clearly putting the United States on genuine wartime footing. The Red vs Blue war, an intentional fomenting of a civil war.

“The Pentagon is reviewing a Department of Homeland Security request to deploy more than 20,000 additional National Guard troops to aid the Trump administration's widening crackdown on illegal immigration around the United States, according to officials and documents… Keeping 20,000 National Guardsmen on duty for one year would cost $3.6 billion, according to a U.S. official briefed on the potential deployment. However, it's unclear how many Guardsmen are available to fill the request, according to a Defense official.” USA Today, June 10th. Active duty US Marines, purely a combat force, are also being inserted into local protests.

In Los Angeles, those federalized Guardsmen didn’t really have much to do, but they were apparently mostly there to intimidate and instill fear. As the above photograph of those Guardsmen sleeping on concrete floors suggests, they weren’t treated particularly well either. But through all of this brouhaha, journalists were subjected to rubber bullets and detention, members of Congress have been arrested, and the protests went severely national. Inexperienced, ideolog and former Fox News commentator-turned Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, was having the best time playing with toy soldiers… but who were definitely not toys:

“Pete Hegseth’s first congressional hearing as Defense Secretary was supposed to focus on budgetary matters, but the former soldier was not going to miss an opportunity to strike fear into the hearts of America’s enemies — in this case, a few hundred protesters in Los Angeles… In his opening statement to the House Appropriations subcommittee, Hegseth delivered a made-for-Hollywood’ monologue about the U.S. military’s new ‘warrior ethos,’ one that is focused squarely on ‘war fighting’ and ‘lethality.’.. So deadly are the soldiers under his command that the word ‘soldier’ no longer suffices. In Hegseth’s Department of Defense, they are ‘war fighters’ — a term he used repeatedly, implying an army of perpetually deployed and exhausted Rambo figures always searching for targets to shoot.” The Independent, June 10th.

Invoking statutes from a long, long time ago, Trump is reveling in the unclear use of buzz words – like “rebellion,” “insurrection,” and all sorts of national “emergencies” to justify a transfer of Congressional, and even judicial power, to him alone. Trump has become an economic wrecking ball of such economic proportions that according to a “World Bank report, the U.S. economy alone—which is the world's largest—is predicted to grow half as fast in 2025 than it did in 2024, with a drop from 2.8 percent to 1.4 percent… The report directly ties this predicted slowdown to a substantial rise in trade barriers following the Trump administration's sweeping tariff campaign against major trading partners… ‘It isn't theoretical anymore. It's measurable damage. The economy already contracted 0.3 percent in Q1, with Yale's Budget Lab projecting a sustained GDP reduction of 0.6 percent annually,’ Michael Ryan, a finance expert and the founder of MichaelRyanMoney.com, told Newsweek. ‘That translates to $180 billion in lost economic output every year. That's the equivalent of losing an entire state's economic contribution.’" Newsweek, June 10th. So, we have a failing economy and a wave of escalating domestic violence all in favor of an autocrat wannabe with little or no concern for human life.

On May 4, 1970, Four Kent State University students were killed and nine were injured when members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a crowd gathered to protest the Vietnam War. America and the administration were shocked. But if you listen to the rhetoric today, having our military inflict injury and death on civilian protestors is the apparent goal. Is that OK with you? 

I’m Peter Dekom, and is all this violence and destruction worth ending democracy to instill an angry mob’s effort to anoint Donald John Trump as America’s autocrat for life?

Vote for Infectious Laughter, Not Viruses and Bacteria

 

Vote for Infectious Laughter, Not Viruses and Bacteria

Healthcare in the United States is expendable at all levels under the MAGA anti-science, anti-healthcare spending (the old mislabeled “creeping socialism” label) and anti-higher learning and research “elitism” rubric. Access to healthcare in the United States in rural red states is horrible as life expectancies in those states illustrate. Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and even Texas (notwithstanding cities like Houston, which has some of the best teaching hospitals and research centers in the country) hover near the bottom of metrics relating to healthcare. Reproductive healthcare is vaporizing in red states, as old men attorneys general seek to hunt down residents who have received such care in states that prioritize keeping their populations healthy.

As the Supreme Court ruled on June 27th (Medina vs Planned Parenthood), even where there is government-sponsored healthcare coverage, the states can pick and choose which medical facilities are qualified to provide that care. The upshot in this case is that in South Carolina, as is the how the world works for about a quarter to half of available rural healthcare facilities in red states, even without banned abortion care, is that Planned Parenthood was the only overall screener for all sorts of medical issues, from cancer to colon to coronary testing. Red states are about to cut Planned Parenthood from qualified lists for Medicaid recipients. And with Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” about to slash $800M to $1.1B in relevant Medicaid and SNAP (food stamps) funding, we are going to see small rural hospitals and nursing homes fold in order to fund unneeded tax cuts that will mostly benefit the top earners in the country.

That the pledge “not to touch Medicaid” from Trump and his GOP minions in Congress is now as clear a lie as we have faced in recent politics. Trumpsters are making bald-faced and wildly unsupportable claims that the resultant “growth” will more than make up the cuts to these social programs. Only if the Easter Bunny arrives with a few extra trillion dollars. What is strange is that even diehard Trump supporters who have said they will vote for the bill (like Missouri Senator Josh Hawley) have acknowledged that Medicaid recipients will be devasted by the legislation. Under Trump’s threat of supporting rising GOP primary challengers to Congresspeople who do not vote for his disgusting bill, GOP scoundrels in Congress will hold their noses and vote yes.

One Senator, Thom Tillis (R/NC), who has told the truth about the massive pain about to be inflicted on anyone who depends on Medicaid and SNAP, won’t seek reelection after opposing Trump’s bill. He’d rather step aside than support legislation that would devastate at least 20% of his constituents. “In Washington over the last few years, it’s become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species… I look forward to having the pure freedom to call the balls and strikes as I see fit and representing the great people of North Carolina to the best of my ability, said Tillis on June 29th.

Trump immediately upped his threat to “primary out” any Republican in Congress at their next election… if they did not vote to support a bill his core legislative proposal. “It ‘proves there is no space within the Republican Party to dissent over taking healthcare away from 11.8 million people,’ said Lauren French, spokesperson for the Senate Majority PAC, a political committee aligned with the chamber’s Democratic members.” Associated Press, June 30th.

With a hideous quack, lacking a medical degree, running the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy, Jr, a notorious anti-vaxxer who has reconfigured his CDC vaccine advisors to emphasize conspiracy theories over decades of proven medical realities… appointees who still believe that vaccines cause autism and lower IQs. How quickly, so many Americans forget the past, as Laura Ungar, writing for the June 30th AP, describes: “In the time before widespread vaccination, death often came early… Devastating infectious diseases ran rampant in America, killing millions of children and leaving others with lifelong health problems. These illnesses were the main reason why nearly 1 in 5 children in 1900 never made it to their 5th birthday.

“Over the next century, vaccines virtually wiped out long-feared scourges such as polio and measles and drastically reduced the toll of many others. Today, however, some preventable, contagious diseases are making a comeback as vaccine hesitancy — often fed by misinformation — pushes immunization rates down. And well-established vaccines are facing suspicion even from public officials, including the head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist.

“‘This concern, this hesitancy, these questions about vaccines are a consequence of the great success of the vaccines — because they eliminated the diseases,’ said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious-disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. ‘If you’re not familiar with the disease, you don’t respect or even fear it. And therefore you don’t value the vaccine.’…

“Some Americans know the reality of these preventable diseases all too well. For them, news of measles outbreaks and rising whooping cough cases brings back terrible memories of lives forever changed — and a longing to spare others from similar pain… Getting rubella while pregnant… With a mother’s practiced, guiding hand, 80-year-old Janith Farnham helped steer her 60-year-old daughter’s walker through a Sioux Falls art center. They stopped at a painting of a cow wearing a hat….

“Jacque was born with congenital rubella syndrome, which can cause a host of issues including hearing impairment, eye problems, heart defects and intellectual disabilities. There was no vaccine against rubella back then, and Janith contracted the viral illness very early in the pregnancy, when she had up to a 90% chance of giving birth to a baby with the syndrome… Janith recalled knowing ‘things weren’t right’ almost immediately. The baby wouldn’t respond to sounds or look at anything but lights. She didn’t like to be held close. Her tiny heart sounded like it purred — evidence of a problem that required surgery at 4 months old.

“Janith did all she could to help Jacque thrive, sending her to the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind and using skills she honed as a special education teacher. She and other parents of children with the syndrome shared insights in a support group…Meanwhile, the condition kept taking its toll. As a young adult, Jacque developed diabetes, glaucoma and autistic behaviors. Eventually, arthritis set in… Today, Jacque lives in an adult residential home a short drive from Janith’s place. Above her bed is a net overflowing with stuffed animals. On a headboard shelf are photo books Janith created, filled with memories such as birthday parties and trips to Mt. Rushmore.”

Multiply this story a millionfold. But so many more just died, so their stories died with them. Polio is mostly eradicated today, but vaccines invented, tested and deployed with school children eliminated scenes like the above photograph of polio victims confined to iron lung wards, in a California hospital. Maybe, we need to let a lot of people die to allow conspiracy theories to replace the bona fide practice of medicine. 

I’m Peter Dekom, and 007 is a piker’s license to kill; appointing an unqualified hack, without even a medical degree who is implementing conspiracy theories to replace medical reality, to run HHS is much more efficient at culling the American herd… er… human beings who should matter.