Health and Human Services (HHS) head Xavier Becerra appeared before Congress recently to testify on his department’s COVID Public Health™ response.
Via New York Post:
“At a congressional hearing Tuesday, Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) asked Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra whether forcing 2-year-olds to mask during the pandemic saved any lives.
It’s an easy question because there is only one correct answer: Forcing 2-year-olds to mask at any time during the pandemic did not save any lives. Period.
Becerra could’ve added that it was an insane overreaction, not based on science whatsoever, and he is sorry on behalf of his health agency for pushing it.
Instead, Becerra pretended not to understand the question before trying to gaslight the congressman — and the rest of us — by saying, “Who did the forcing?””
MUST WATCH: @KevinKileyCA absolutely eviscerates HHS Secretary Becerra, "Did forcing 2-year-olds to wear masks save lives?" pic.twitter.com/LZYt27F6Zq
— Justin Hart (@justin_hart) June 13, 2023
Becerra’s department, to be precise, did the forcing by dangling coveted federal funding for HHS programs like Head Start over the heads of schools to coerce them into instituting masking policies. This policy was not revoked by the HHS until late 2022, after much of the damage caused by the forced masking of children was already done.
Via The Hill, Sep. 2022:
The Office of Head Start (OHS), the federal program within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that provides preschool and child care services to low-income families, announced today that it will soon be dropping its universal masking rule for its grant recipients.
In a statement provided to The Hill, an HHS spokesperson said, “Today, OHS notified programs that, in the near future, it intends to publish a final rule that will formally remove the requirement for universal masking in Head Start programs for all individuals ages 2 and older, which will align Head Start program masking requirements more closely with the updated CDC guidance.”
The entire exchange was an exhibition in gaslighting and obfuscation. At no point in the representative’s questioning did Becerra answer the question he was asked. Instead, as Kiley notes in real time, he took the question, reframed it to elicit the answer he wants to give using PR talking points, and offered that non-answer for the public record.
As I’ve asked rhetorically before, what exactly is the point of having these kabuki theatre congressional productions if the subpoenaed individuals, required under oath to answer questions forthrightly, are permitted to obstruct the due oversight granted to Congress in the Constitution?
The detrimental impacts of masking (along with school closures and social lockdowns in general) are difficult to overestimate — all for a virus with a death rate in children of 2 per 1,000,000,
Join the conversation as a VIP Member