The U.S. Senate voted 52-48 on Thursday afternoon to confirm Robert F Kennedy Jr., better known as RFK Jr., as President Donald Trump’s head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The vote broke nearly along party lines, with 52 Republicans in favor, and 48 Democrats opposed. Former GOP leader Mitch McConnell was the sole Republican to vote no.
During his confirmation hearing last week, Kennedy placed an emphasis on ending the chronic disease epidemic in the country.
He also pledged to tackle obesity and ultra-processed foods as two key priorities that lie ahead.
More to come…
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US Budget Deficit Hits A Record $840 Billion In First 4 Months Of 2025; Interest On Debt Hits Record $1.2 Trillion
First the good news: Elon Musk’s DOGE is going through government spending with a fine-toothed comb, slashing a million here, a billion there.
The bad news: at the rate it is going, DOGE will need a few hundred years to make a tangible impact, because as the Treasury reported earlier today, in January the US government spent a near-record $642 billion, a 29% increase from the $500 billion in January…
… while it collected just $513.3 billion in tax revenues, a far more modest 7.5% increase YoY…
… which resulted in a $129 billion budget deficit for the month…
… the second highest January deficit on record (only the post-covid shock of 2021 was great)…
… and $840 billion so far in fiscal 2025.
This is a problem because as shown in the next chart, the cumulative budget deficit for the first 4 months of fiscal 2025 is the highest on record, surpassing even the fiscal shock from the depths of the post-covid response.
And the punchline is that no matter what Musk does, the USS Titanic is now more or less on autopilot because while a few billions in discretionary spending can be cut, interest on the debt can not be – without a default (it can however be inflated away… and it will be) – and in January, gross interest on the Federal debt hit a record $1.167 trillion in the past twelve months thanks to another $83.6 billion in interest spending.
Another way of looking at it: in the first four months of the fiscal year, the US has spent $392 billion on interest alone, the highest 4 month total ever.
What else to say? Well, we could lie to you and tell you that there is some hope and that DOGE will be able to fix this, but as much as we’d like that to be the case, we are now well beyond the Minsky Moment and for all the kicking and screaming, there is only one way all of this ends.
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Dems exhaust the last of their credibility with a false Trump ‘constitutional crisis’ – Jonathan Turley
Forty years ago, a radio personality coined the phrase “jump the shark” in reference to the episode of the sitcom “Happy Days” in which the character Fonzie (Henry Winkler) jumps over a live shark on water skis. The term is often applied to dying franchises that turn to sensational language or scenes to try to revive the fading interest of the public. More often, you jump the shark and land in utter obscurity.
This week, the Democratic Party jumped the shark.
For years, Dems and their allies pushed the absurd claim that democracy was about to die if Joe Biden or Kamala Harris was not elected president. The public wasn’t buying it. In 2024, Donald Trump won a majority of the voters as well as control of both houses of Congress.
Rather than examine its messaging, Democrats decided to double down. After the election, politicians and pundits announced a new “constitutional crisis” surrounding the effort to downsize the federal government led by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Kris Mayes, the attorney general of Arizona, declared this week, “We are on the brink of a dictatorship, and America has never been in a more dangerous position than she is today.” The same media that carried the breathless accounts of the imminent death of democracy with the last election are now running “constitutional crisis” articles with many of the same “experts.”
Despite Trump repeating that he “will abide by the courts” while appealing opposing decisions, NPR insisted that Trump’s circle has indicated it is “willing to ignore court orders and defy judicial authority.”
During his first term, Trump repeatedly lost cases — as did his predecessor, Barack Obama, and successor, Biden — but he continued to comply with those rulings.
The fact is that we have the oldest and most stable constitutional system in history. It has repeatedly survived challenges from political to economic meltdowns that would have destroyed other systems. That Madisonian system relies on an independent judiciary, including Trump appointees who regularly ruled against the Trump administration, including on the Supreme Court.
For many citizens, what is most striking is not Trump’s actions, but how Democrats are seeking to prevent the very reforms that a majority of voters supported.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) warned that this “is a really, really sad day in America. We are witnessing a constitutional crisis. We talked about Trump wanting to be a dictator on day one. And here we are. This is what the beginning of dictatorship looks like when you gut the Constitution, and you install yourself as the sole power. That is how dictators are made.”
Actually, that is not how dictators are made but how democracies work. Trump ran on reducing the deficit and size of the government. The public is worried about a crisis — though it is not one of democracy but debt.
In 2024, the $6.75 trillion budget exceeded our tax receipts of $4.9 trillion. The rest, $1.8 trillion, had to be borrowed. As a result, the national debt has ballooned and, if left on its current trajectory, would amount to 250% of gross domestic product within three decades.
We are becoming a debtor nation where every citizen now shoulders a $106,000-per-capita burden to pay for our out-of-control spending.
Nevertheless, in the first DOGE subcommittee hearing in the House, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) insisted that he would “defend democracy,” which is “under attack” by DOGE and the effort to carry out of Trump’s campaign pledges.
What is truly in danger is the status quo. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) may have ironically had the most honest moment when he joined one of the daily protests and yelled how Musk’s government efficiency efforts are “taking away everything we have.”
By declaring a constitutional crisis, these figures are using “rage rhetoric” that gives a license for extreme conduct and messaging.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has declared a “coup” is being carried out.
Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) insisted “God d—-it shut down the Senate! … WE ARE AT WAR!”
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) called on citizens “to fight back” as Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) called for a fight in the streets and for citizens “to rise up.”
Not to be outdone in the rage-fest, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) yelled, “We are gonna be in your face, we are gonna be on your a–es, and we are going to make sure you understand what democracy looks like, and this ain’t it.”
Biden was repeatedly found to have violated the Constitution, including with unilateral actions through executive orders. Courts called him out for it. None of these Democratic members declared a coup or collapse of democracy. Such court challenges are common and often these early initiatives shake out with new guarantees and judicial guidelines.
The courts may oppose certain moves by Trump and DOGE, but these are decisions of process, not policy. Eventually the president will be able to pare government spending, which is what the Democrats are really upset about — not the invented “constitutional crisis.”
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