Episode #19 Deep Dive – The Botox Rasputin of the Trump Administration
A deep dive into last week's episode of Paging America
Laura Loomer succeeds in getting the U.S. State Department to halt 'medical-humanitarian' visas for people from Gaza, including children
The U.S. State Department has halted 'medical-humanitarian' visas for people from Gaza, including for children. Social media provocateur Laura Loomer is taking credit.
On Aug. 4, [Ohio-based humanitarian group HEAL Palestine] announced the arrival of 11 critically injured children, ages 6 to 15, along with their siblings and caregivers to several major cities, including Boston, Atlanta and Dallas, for medical care.
The news of their arrival led far-right activist Laura Loomer to claim — without providing any supporting evidence — on social media that HEAL Palestine "is mass importing GAZANS into the US" under the "false claim" of humanitarian aid.
She also demanded that the "Trump administration needs to shut this abomination down ASAP before a family member of one of these GAZANS goes rogue and kills Americans for HAMAS."
When people cheered as the children she described as “Islamic invaders from an Islamic terror hot zone” arrived in Houston and San Francisco this month, Loomer claimed that their shouts of joy were “jihadi chants” and that they were “doing the HAMAS terror whistle”. She also said, “Hopefully all GAZANS will be added to President Trump’s travel ban. There are doctors in other countries. The US is not the world’s hospital!”
Dr. Rob responded with a Substack post titled, “Every Individual in the World Is Our Patient” where he wrote, “[This] is the ethos of medicine: every human being who crosses our threshold is our patient who deserves our help and care.”
The ongoing attacks against the prescribing and use of abortion pills
FOX News reports that 22 Republican state attorneys general are continuing the effort to stop the use of the abortion pill mifepristone. The move is based on a report The Atlantic calls a junk science paper from a Washington, D.C.–based think tank focused on “pushing back against the extreme progressive agenda while building a consensus for conservatives.”
Last year, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected a challenge to the FDA's approval and regulation of mifepristone, preserving access to the abortion pill. However, they did not rule on whether the FDA acted lawfully when it moved during the Obama and Biden administrations to ease the rules for mifepristone's use. Instead, it ruled that the anti-abortion group, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, lacked standing to sue the FDA.
In related news, Costco announced that it will no longer sell abortion pills, bowing to pressure for anti-abortion zealots. Costco claims that the decision was “based on the lack of demand from our members and other patients”, not pressure from conservatives. Washington Democrat Sen. Patty Murray slammed the decision, saying, “I am deeply alarmed by news reports that Costco is refusing to sell safe, effective, and legal medication for no other reason than to appease the politics of anti-abortion fanatics. I refuse to stand by and allow far-right extremists to bully major corporations and dictate what medicine women can or cannot get access to.”
RFK Jr. and MAHA
Where does RFK Jr.’s “loyalty” lie?
On Aug. 15, RFK Jr. tweeted, “Let me be clear: I am not running for president in 2028. My loyalty is to President Trump and the mission we’ve started.”
This announcement is in spite of an organizing call in early July led by the leader of his MAHA PAC, Tony Lyons, vaccine scientist-turned-skeptic Robert Malone, and Kennedy's top adviser Stefanie Spear. The national call was organized by Lyons' non-profit group, MAHA Action. According to reporting by AXIOS, “Several who were involved saw Lyons' participation as a sign the PAC would help prepare a campaign and fundraising machine in-waiting for Kennedy, to be ready if he chooses to run.”
Financial pledges were taken during the call although the 2028 election was not mentioned.
MAHA Committee Report – Round Two
A long-awaited second "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA)commission report has been delayed. However, a leaked copy of it will NOT address the use of pesticides by American farmers, Reuters reports:
The draft document recommends that the administration promote healthier diets and examine vaccines and prescription drugs but stops short of advising any change to how the U.S. approves or regulates agrochemicals.
The move comes as American farmers are turning on MAHA. Via The New York Times:
Mr. Kennedy has cast doubt, fairly or not, on the utility of established industrial farming practices, such as pesticide use. He has stood by as programs beneficial to American farmers have been cut. [...]
Look no further than the cancellation in March of the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement and Local Food for Schools federal programs. Those cuts saved the government about $1 billion but came at the expense of providing schools, child care centers and food banks with fresh food from local farmers. Access to these foods would presumably be part of the solution for reducing diet-related chronic diseases, which MAHA contends are on the rise in underserved communities. The administration killed the program anyway.
Pro-farm influencers are using social media to push back against MAHA influencers who want Kennedy to crack down on pesticide use:
Michelle Miller stands in a field of corn, stalks stretching above her perfectly styled hair, holding a tiny microphone and addressing an audience online.
She was farming genetically-modified corn in Iowa in 2017, she says, when a tornado hit. Now a social media influencer who goes by the name the "Farm Babe," Miller says the wind knocked her corn flat on the ground. But in a feat of botanical fortitude, the plants bounced back. [...]
Miller has starred in hundreds of videos, often set in fields and on farms, since she began her influencing career. She aims to debunk what she sees as misperceptions around farming perpetuated by another universe of influencers, many of whom are now closely aligned with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and his Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, campaign. [...]
Among the most prominent of those MAHA influencers is Vani Hari, who blogs as "The Food Babe" -- Miller says her own name is a self-conscious spin-off. Hari has gained millions of followers by railing against processed food, GMOs, pesticides and other mainstays of the U.S. food system.
RFK Jr. Revives Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines
Kennedy’s HHS has announced that it is reviving the Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines. It’s a move long called for by anti-vaccine activists and it has vaccine policy experts and others very worried:
"RFK Jr. will use this task force to legitimize his false claims about vaccine safety, which will then be used to manipulate the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program," said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
"He will do nothing to make vaccines safer. But that's not really his goal. His goal is to lessen their use," Offit said.
"This is a response to a performative lawsuit that was filed to give RFK Jr. another mechanism to put kids at risk of preventable diseases," Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan, told Axios.
The task force was originally created by Congress under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, and was disbanded after issuing its final report in 1998, fulfilling its mandate.
The lawsuit in question, filed in May, was funded by Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group Kennedy founded. It was largely seen as a way to give Kennedy cover for reviving the task force.
Trump Administration Acts on Criminalizing Homelessness and Mental Illness
The Trump administration has begun cracking down on homeless camps in Washington, DC. Via The New York Times:
While the president said that the authorities would give homeless people “places to stay, but FAR from the Capital,” Ms. Leavitt said that their options would be “to be taken to a homeless shelter, to be offered addiction or mental health services, and, if they refuse, they will be susceptible to fines or to jail time.” [...]
The city has not been able to expand mental health capacity, in part because of $1.1 billion that Congress prevented the District of Columbia from having access to in the budget this year, Mr. Allen, the councilman, said.
The city set up about 60 extra shelter beds last week, Mr. Turnage said. Thirty beds were still open, he said, adding that “capacity is not an issue.”
But Jesse Rabinowitz of the National Homelessness Law Center, a legal advocacy group, said there were not nearly enough beds to take in the hundreds of people living outside in Washington. “There’s nowhere for people to go,” he said.
He also pointed out, echoing Mr. Allen, that “the federal government has not supplied any additional shelter beds.”