Lemmings are small rodents living in the Northern Hemisphere, primarily in the Arctic. They are known for large migrations– but mostly for a myth of their mass suicides, as large numbers follow their leaders off cliffs.
Today’s GOP is filled with the human variety of lemmings. We saw them emerge during the pandemic, as anti-science hysteria led to the rejection of mask wearing and vaccination. Even after the pandemic, vaccination rates have continued to fall–and that decline has followed a partisan pattern.
There are two ways people can avoid vaccination. Families can get a religious or medical exemption from state laws requiring childhood vaccinations in order to send their children to public school. Or adults can simply fail to take advantage of vaccine availability. In states that voted for Donald Trump, the number of children receiving exemptions has increased. Adult noncompliance rose in both blue and red states, but more in red states.
Although states, not the federal government, set vaccine mandates, the incoming administration could encourage anti-vaccine sentiment and undermine state programs. Trump’s nominee RFK, Jr. would absolutely do so. He dismisses out of hand any studies that refute his beliefs. As the linked article notes,
He claims that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism, despite more than a dozen studies performed in seven countries on three continents involving thousands of children showing that it doesn’t.
He has claimed that “there is no vaccine that is safe and effective.” (Childhood vaccines have prevented more than one million deaths and 32 million hospitalizations over the past three decades.) He has encouraged people not to vaccinate their babies: “I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby, I say to him, ‘Better not get him vaccinated.’”
When asked about the polio vaccine, Mr. Kennedy claimed that it caused an “explosion in soft tissue cancers” that killed “many, many, many, many, many more people than polio ever did.” Setting aside the fact that an “explosion in soft tissue cancers” hasn’t occurred, studies comparing children who received early batches of polio vaccines with unvaccinated children found no differences in cancer incidence. By 1979, paralytic polio was eliminated from the United States. When Mr. Kennedy says he wants vaccines to be better studied, what he really seems to be saying is he wants studies that confirm his fixed, immutable, science-resistant beliefs.
The author of the article, a doctor who previously served at the FDA, explained that the panel authorizing vaccines is composed of actual “skeptics,” who require significant evidence of efficacy before approving them.
Vaccine skepticism is baked into the systems with which health experts monitor vaccines after they’re authorized for use. We know that clinical trials are not enough; we need to constantly ask questions and examine new data. That’s why we have surveillance systems that can detect problems too rare to be picked up in clinical trials.
That ongoing surveillance allowed the FDA to discover that the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine caused dangerous clotting in about one in 250,000 people.
Detecting such risks allows us to weigh these rare harms against the enormous benefits of these vaccines.
Mr. Kennedy, on the other hand, has claimed that the Covid-19 vaccines, which have saved the lives of at least three million Americans, are “the deadliest vaccine ever made.”
Kennedy routinely misrepresents studies he cites and ignores data that doesn’t support his conclusions. And this is the person that Donald Trump has nominated to be Secretary of Health, presumably as a reward for Kennedy’s political support.
In one sense, the nomination of JFK, Jr. is no different from Trump’s other choices, none of which have been even slightly based on the suitability of the nominee. Trump rather obviously sees these positions as rewards for loyalty–I rather doubt the notion of qualification has ever occurred to him. (After all, he himself is massively unqualified for the Presidency.–or for that matter, any responsible position.)
All of which brings us back to the issue of those Republican lemmings. At this point, it is more likely than not that this parade of clowns, misfits and ideologues will be confirmed by a Senate controlled by Republican invertebrates who value their own immediate political prospects far–far–above concerns for government competence and/or the common good. (And yes, Indiana’s Todd Young is one of them.)
It isn’t very nice to point this out, but people who take Kennedy’s anti-vaccine delusions seriously are overwhelmingly MAGA crazies and Christian Nationalists, so–on the bright side– we might see a decline in the number who will survive to vote for GOP troglodytes.
Meanwhile, sane Americans will watch as the lemmings go over the cliff. Unfortunately, they’ll take rational governance with them.
rfk.jr not JFK.jr. Everything else I agree with
My mother was a firm antivaxxer. I’m 67 years old and didn’t get the normal childhood vaccines. Instead, I suffered through rubella (German measles), mumps, whooping cough, measles, chicken pox, etc. As an older adult though and able to make my own informed decisions, I am fully vaccinated with everything. I don’t comprehend the level of mis and disinformation on fact based science. Why would you put your children at risk? I remember rubella as a time I was very very sick. I am firmly against RFK, Jr. and have contacted both Young and Banks (although Banks is beyond a lost cause) about my thoughts on RFK Jr and a couple of others. I keep hoping Young keeps an open mind (call me delusional).
Thanks for the reference, albeit oblique, to natural selection. The other supportive mechanism behind evolution – and survival – is called punctuated equilibrium. This means that speciation occurs in great leaps instead of the steady live/die off process associated with natural selection. Punctuated equilibrium posits that bursts of new species will occur followed by periods of relatively low appearances of new species.
In the spirit of today’s blog, we might just be on cusp of a significant extinction event among MAGAs and other mindless Republicans. Let’s call it the RFK, Jr. extinction event … and let’s also hope that it gobbles up all those who listen to this f***ing idiot.
THX. I fixed it. Don’t know why I keep doing that!!
Sheila – Correctly says RFK, Jr. at top, then “In one sense, the nomination of JFK, Jr. is no different…” toward the bottom. 🙂 Still a great column. As usual. Thank you.
The choice of lemmings is a great image, in more ways than one. As a metaphor they are useful to describe a mindless instinct for self and group-destruction, but they are also a manufactured lie, a case of misinformation on a grand scale, like the Big Lie itself.
Recently I watched a documentary about the lemmings “going over the cliff”, which was a film made by the Disney corporation called “White Wilderness”. It was supposed to have taken place in Alaska, but the film was actually made in Alberta, and the whole story about lemmings performing mass suicide is in fact a lie that has been repeated enough times that now it lives in our mind as fact. (That is, in itself, worth writing about)
So your image of lemmings is a perfect metaphor for the MAGADOGE folks who blindly follow the lie in more ways than one. I will include a link from Snopes about the film below, for any who are interested.
Thank you, Sheila, for another terrific post.
Trump is in the WH and not prison, in big part, is because of his followers.
They believe that Barack Obama was not born in this country, but that Trump — a pathological liar, congenital cheater, serial adulterer, psychopath, rapist, swindler, bully, misogynist, racist, and raving lunatic — was sent by God.
For more on how we got here, see my blog post with hundreds of names/bios of Trump accomplices. Sources included.
Here’s link
https://drchrislamb.com/only-the-worst-people-introduction-cast-of-characters/
Perhaps our collective ability to know more and more about—well, more and more—has overrun our ability to individually learn enough of it. The objective measure of our abilities has taken a back seat to other measures, like wealth, beauty, or fashion.
Knowledge is the key to functioning well in this world, and that is a relatively new reality for our species.
That is why the race is on to unlock AI’s potential to think and do things for us. We can potentially access this potential through our personal trappings, our watches, phones, cars, and the dozens of screens that litter our lives.
We are that close to a revolution in equipping ourselves with absolute superiority, which is the ability to manipulate others (for good or evil)(power).
Good and evil have always had to do with the masses. Government is how the masses are directed to act. Here and now, the answer is to concentrate power to a very few.
We’ve always known that the perfect government would be a beneficent, all-knowing dictator. Of course, we voluntarily chose a significant step in the opposite direction: an evil dictator, despite the partially shared knowledge that this has never worked for the masses.
Unfortunately, the means to capture AI requires great wealth, which we have acted to concentrate into the hands of a few.
The masses will choose the future of life on earth, and here and now, the masses are following the few who only want more power.
We proved in the last election that we have a short attention span. If you can’t remember your friends and relatives who died during the pandemic, what can you recall? If any Senator who is not up for re-election in 2026, fears being primaried from the right, let me assure you, nobody but Orange Jesus (OJ) will remember a few votes against some clearly incompetent nominees for critical positions.
I don’t believe that OJ will survive that long and if he does, he will be completely mad. If he hasn’t been deposed by the billionaire’s club that is his cabinet, the club will set him up as a shaman and someone will be interpreting his “speaking in tongues” to say what the Koch consortium wants.
The clown car is full this week. We have hearings for RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Kash Patel. Is there anyone out there who thinks any of these candidates is qualified to be dog catcher, much less for the positions for which they are nominated.
BTW, everyone needs to know that the suspension of NIH meetings puts a stop to peer review and to more new research. This will cripple the medical schools in every state. It’s the NIH that funds physician-researchers salaries, the labs and the cost of monitoring the research. The critical part here is the salaries. If your university has a reputation for medical research, you need to understand that those researchers are providing care to patients AND teaching the medical students we need to address the shortage of providers that has been critical. It also ends one of my personal favorites the Orphan Drug Program. This program does research that isn’t profitable and therefore won’t be funded by any pharmaceutical company.
Pete, the Chinese AI Deepseek research was completed with minimal investment. This has disrupted Trump’s $500 billion (taxpayer money) investment in OpenAI. I believe Musk has also blown up this funding, so we’ll see what happens. Deepseek also costs a fraction of OpenAI’s product. In the marketplace, when you provide a superior product at a lower price, you win. 😉
Personally, I’m going to keep an open mind about RFK, Jr. Unless something has changed since the last time I read about the FDA, Big Pharma funds around 75% of the FDA through what they call “user fees.” Plenty has been written about our “health industry” controlling public health. Remember, we don’t have a public health system – we have a profit-driven health system, which means the oligarchs make the rules. Big Pharma isn’t interested in the health of the public, or we’d have sugar taxes like we have tobacco taxes. The industry is profit-driven.
There is a Wikipedia page on the pardons and commutations made by Trump, and it showed that he pardoned a lot of criminals, including healthcare executives who committed Medicare fraud. The oligarchy is like a cabal of thieves. Anybody who trusts our politicians and their masters is somewhat delusional.
Don’t you want to know why Biden gave Fauci a blanket pardon for any and all crimes committed? I certainly do…
Speaking of, the CIA now believes COVID materialized from a “lab leak from China.” I would agree that it came from a lab leak, but not from China. My money is still on the bioweapons lab at Ft. Detrick in Maryland.
The FDA’s rule is not to upset the apple cart. RFK, Jr. will upset the apple cart, the orange cart, the watermelon cart, etc., etc. LOL
Sheila mentioned Sen Todd Young as a lemming. Based on his past and his “bipartisanship”, I emailed him and encouraged him to consider the lack of qualifications for the various appointments he would be asked to support. His reply was an email explaining how the approval process works followed by a newsletter celebrating the new administration. He has become Mike Braun’s clone and another Trump bitch.
Regarding the egregious nominations on deck for this week – Todd Young is our only hope – call his offices daily and implore him to do his job and honor his oath. It’s easy to leave a message. Pass it on.
DC: (202) 224-5623
Indy: (317) 226-6700
Amen Daleb
when and where did the lab in china start this study?(blame game coming) and what mutations did it go thru that were studied. sars 19 was the start as far as some labs concluded. but like some and say anthrax,it lays in the ground until cattle disturb its predense. some study may have said it was origin with bats that were consumed from a open market in china. some have studied released pathogins from long ago, when digging and earth movements. china has no history recorded of many a settlement that died off centries ago. there was a story years back in DW.com called pass the salt please,and whereas the euro studied may have narrowed who started the euro covid pandemic. eitherway, complaining and listening to those who just conned America into submissioin will justify their view,and ya better like it…or else trump will find another blah blah blah…
The man is just not qualified for the position that he will/or is in. But then that is the case with lots of people Trump hires/supports. *sigh* Unfortunately, it’s the American people who will suffer for it. Not only that but people who aren’t American but are affected by American policies.
Thanks Todd for the alert about a $500B investment in Open AI.
Relevant to this is a 1/16/25 63-min. Tucker interview of the mother of a deceased AI engineer whistleblower, Suchir Balaji.
Based only on the interview, her story seems to have merit.
https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-poornima-rao
No problem, Gordon. Suchir, like so many other whistleblowers, succumb to deaths that appear like suicides. Boeing killed off two whistleblowers.
Suchir’s autopsy says he was hit in the head and then shot in the face. While his Glock was found near his body, independent investigations say there was no ammo. There is also a significant lack of interest in legacy news in this story, which is always a red flag to me.
I have also noticed that the New York Times and Canadian News agencies are suing OpenAI for copyright infringement, which is what Suchir was blowing the whistle about. More will be revealed, or they’ll kill the story.
Following up on the above comments about $500B investment in Open AI, one of the sponsors of the 1/20/25 inauguration was Sam Altman, CEO of Open AI. As. can be seen on the 1/16/25 Tucker interview (link in above post), the mother of the deceased Open AI whistleblower engineer, Suchir Balaji, alleges her son was murdered, and one who would have a motive for that murder was Sam Altman.
A group of “legislators” that can approve a Hegseth (sp?), can be expected to do nothing sane. Hitler got rid of his opponents by way of murder, Trump is doing it by fear of murdered career, and the cujoneless “legislators” are kissing the backside!
Here you go Gordon. This is from a media site I follow:
https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/openai-whistleblower-family/
Todd, you might not see this, but I have to say it. Tony Fauci is one of the nicest guys I ever met. If you think he got a pardon because he’s guilty of something criminal, let me assure you that the thing he is guilty is not kowtowing to OJ. Because of that he and his family have been threatened routinely. What Biden did with his blanket pardon was to fend off Kash and Pam, who would appoint a special prosecutor to “investigate” him.
If anyone reads this, you should know that China has a different take on lab safety than we do. I don’t think that Covid was released on purpose, but the cultural differences between our two countries leads me to think that they were careless rather than malicious.
As a person who has worked on lots of potentially dangerous projects I can assure you that malice is very rare, but it is damnably easy to get so bored with “procedure” that you become careless. That is when accidents happen like getting fingers crushed in machinery. It wasn’t malicious on anybodies part, but as it’s said in the vernacular, *t happens.