Pediatrics

Kudos to the American Academy of Pediatrics for pulling no punches in its response to Donald Trump’s misguided Aug 10 executive order calling for children to get fewer vaccines.

The EO is “not only disheartening but dangerous,” said a statement from AAP president Andrew Racine, especially as measles cases are at a 35-year high and with the cold and flu season quickly approaching

Racine mocked the White House’s position that the EO presented the “gold standard” for childhood vaccine recommendations.

“Today's executive order is not based on 'gold-standard science,'” he said. “There is no new evidence to justify significant changes to childhood immunization guidance.

Racine also trashed Trump’s implication linking vaccines to autism. “Decades ago, children received only a small fraction of the vaccines required today,” Trump said at the Oval Office event. “In those times, people were much healthier, and of course, the high rates of autism now observed did not exist.”

Racine pointed out that dozens of studies involving millions of people show there is no link between between vaccines and autism, and yet Team Trump promotes the disproven idea just to scare families.

‘Today's executive order will do nothing to support families of children with autism or advance understanding of the condition,” said Racine. “The only purpose of this announcement is to sow confusion so that more people doubt the importance of vaccines.”

AAP’s recommendations are to ignore the nonsense coming from Dr. Trump and his Health & Human Services Secretary hatchet man Robert Kennedy, Jr.

The organization encourages parents and caregivers to talk with their child’s pediatrician or clinician and ignore the administration’s weaponization of vaccines.

Scott Bessent, the billionaire Treasury Secretary, is tired of hearing about the gap between the rich and poor.

“I get sick of hearing about this K-shaped economy, he said on CNBC. “I can say here definitively, the K-shaped economy is over.”

Get out of your bubble, Scott.

An AP-NORC conducted in late July shows that only 32 percent of adults approve of Trump’s handling of the economy.

Almost seven of ten (69 percent) of respondents called the economy “poor,” citing the cost of groceries and gas.

Trump campaigned on the promises that prices would come down very quickly, once he held office.

His unnecessary war with Iran is the reason that gas prices are just too damn high, paraphrasing the great New York mayor and governor candidate Jimmy McMillan.

The K-shaped economy is unfortunately alive and well.

The image of the wartime president hunkered down in an airport catering container to slither away from a possible Iranian threat is not a great look for our tough-guy commander-in-chief.

But it's perfect grist for Iran’s propaganda machine.

The Washington Post exclusive blockbuster has Trump saving his own skin while the airplane crew, White House staffers and press corps remained on the plane, which took off from Turkey despite the threat that it might be blown out of the sky by Iranians. The passengers, which included Bessent, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, advisor Stephen Miller and communications director Steven Cheung, were set up to be sacrifical lambs.

Why didn’t Trump ground the aircraft until the threat had passed? It’s because everybody is expendable in the world of the narcissist-in-chief.