America's left just lost an election in which voters overwhelmingly rejected their current fad: that it is perfectly normal for men to be surgically converted into women, use women's bathrooms and locker rooms, and compete against women on the sports pitch or in the ring. They could be chest feeding birthing persons for all we know.
Enter the carping against Robert Kennedy Jr., who was nominated to become President-Elect Donald Trump's Health and Human Services secretary. "He's unqualified!" they bray. Suddenly, the leftist mainstream and fringe media begin the drum beat of "He's unqualified!" stories.
Who's the HHS secretary right now? No cheating. Say his name. If you thought the HHS secretary was the dude on the left you were wrong. That's Dr. Rachel (né Richard) Levine, the assistant HHS secretary.
"If I transitioned when I was young I would not have my children. I can't imagine life without children."
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) March 2, 2024
This is Biden's HHS Deputy Rachel Levine in 2019. Levine is behind the current push to expand trans castration for minors.pic.twitter.com/2m9AzAubXP
The guy on the far left below with that puppy is attorney Xavier Becerra, who was given the lovely parting gift of California attorney general and HHS secretary when he couldn't have the U.S. Senate seat from California because Kamala Harris hoovered it up. It was her turn, you understand.
I'll stipulate that RFK Jr. may not be the best candidate for HHS that ever was. But making the argument that Rachel Levine, a doctor who wears a skirt and claims men can be women, and Xavier Becerra, an attorney, are better is downright crazy talk.
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I'll even stipulate that I think RFK Jr. is a big environmental lefty who I would never want close to the Environmental Protection Agency, but unqualified for HHS? Tell me, what are the qualifications for this august office? It's whoever is a political gamer who's your friend -- that's the answer.
Did you know that the first Health Education and Welfare (the HHS precursor agency) secretary was a woman, Oveta Culp Hobby, who was an Army vet, or that Elliot Richardson and Cap Weinberger were HEW secretaries?
To the extent that most all HEW and HHS secretaries spent time with scientists and doctors, it was as patients, not as students in med school.
Note the name of the guy who wrote this X message. It'll come in handy in a couple sentences.
RFK Jr. is a grade-A crank. He has no place leading our health agencies. Let’s not pretend that his views have any value whatsoever.
— Benjamin Mazer (@BenMazer) November 14, 2024
My latest for @TheAtlantic https://t.co/SlKZbWV4fQ
Nice photo.
The leftist press, including another hyperventilating screed by The Atlantic that just hit the social media water table in the past few days, call RFK Jr., the former Democrat, "fringe," a "crank," and a "denier." Worse, the reliably lefty writer and associate medical professor Dr. Benjamin Mazer contends that to normalize RFK Jr.'s beliefs, such as wanting to halt fluoride additives to the water supply, casting a suspicious eye on the COVID vax and its chief cheerleader Anthony Fauci, questioning where autism came from, and wanting to make the food supply less toxic to the human body, is to "sanewash" him.
Sanewash.
It's worth taking a minute to chase after the derivation of the word "sanewash" because it's a wonderful study of self-satisfied leftists being creators or early adopters of the word and recycling it in the journalistic circle of life.
Here's how the smear happened as I put on my X account, so please look at the entire document because it's too big to show you here. Start at the bottom with the crazy Atlantic article and move on up to find out where permission to use "sanewash" came from.
This is the anatomy of a smear. pic.twitter.com/N7Zz3NIMve
— Victoria Taft, The Adult in the Room, FITF Squad (@VictoriaTaft) November 24, 2024
With a straight face the writer ignored the evidence and referenced a writer for Media Matters for America, the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party funded by George Soros and David Brock, to support his "sanewashing" claim. Garçon! An order of fact checkers, please!
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The Atlantic article is so tawdry that I won't bother linking it here, but I will offer a few quotes:
RFK Jr. is a conspiracy theorist with no scientific qualifications.
Let’s be clear: Many scientists consider Kennedy to be a fool, and a ludicrous pick to run HHS, because the evidence supports that assessment.
Let’s call a crank a crank.
Every group imaginable is said to be in on a plot to bring about worldwide totalitarianism and population control: governments, pharmaceutical companies, nonprofits, scientists, and, of course, the CIA.
What's interesting is that the above could have been written about probably any HHS secretary. Mazer missed the Censorship Industrial Complex, COVID censorship, and Twitterfiles stories. He's a very busy man.
By comparison, let's do a quick check of Biden's current cabinet and other appointees with Fox News reporter Elizabeth MacDonald:
As the media and Democrats attack Trump’s nominees—RFK Jr, Tulsi Gabbard, Matt Gaetz etc—let’s take a look at how unqualified Biden’s nominees are for their jobs -
Xavier Becerra, HHS - not a doctor, he’s a lawyer, ex-attorney general of California
Jared Bernstein, Chair of…
— Elizabeth MacDonald (@LizMacDonaldFOX) November 15, 2024
The Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), which we once-upon-a-time depended on to sling the darts and laurels and keep journalism on the straight and narrow, also used the word sanewashing when referring to Trump in a September 2024 article. Sadly, these days CJR is to journalism what "Christianity Today" is to Christian doctrinal integrity.
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The word also gives these reporters who use it—all from the left—the added assurance that they can never be accused of calling someone overtly "crazy" or "insane."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is a lot of things, but insane isn't one of them.
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