I think I accidentally called RFK Jr. into my orbit.
TACO bout a week
As a public health person, Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary RFK Jr. has been living rent free in my head this week.
Like legit his Rock Creek Park dip made my Instagram roundup of this spring.
The litany of reasons why I can’t stop thinking about him:
After saying no one should take medical advice from him, RFK launches MAHA report, which basically says everything he’s ever espoused but allegedly grounds it in science
He bypasses the Centers for Disease Control to not just cancel, but restrict COVID vaccines for certain groups
RFK says medical journals are corrupt and proposes banning government scientists from publishing in leading journals, instead suggesting creating in-house agency publications
2 days later, we all find out that the MAHA report is riddled with errors, broken links, and citations to NON-EXISTENT studies.
Same day, he cancels a contract with Moderna to develop an avian flu vaccine / pandemic influenza vaccines.
Same day, there’s a big ole report about how the agency he’s in charge of DECIDED not to notify anyone about an E.Coli outbreak which nearly killed a kid this spring.
I can’t understand the end game here.
Look, I get that vaccine hesitation is a real thing, and that a lot of us (myself included) had bad experiences with the COVID-19 vaccine.
But to cancel access to vaccines outright, especially as we are experiencing an increase in avian flu, and deny people the access, and therefore choice, to vaccinate themselves or not defeats the entire purpose of modern medicine and limited government.
And, although the federal public health data, which once used to be the gold standard of information and now is sometimes less reliable than the Onion, isn’t tracking it, there have been new reports about the virality of avian flu and its ease of transmission from birds to cows & cats, and potentially from cats to humans.
All to say, now is not the time to dismiss any opportunity to be proactively prepared to address yet another possible contagion. I would also understand more if he decided not to pursue a contract of his own volition, but to cancel an existing one?! On top of every other decision in this list alone?!
It begs the question— are these people trying to kill us?!
Like I said, RFK Jr. has been living in my head this week.
So, of course, who should I see on my way to dinner Thursday night? Yep.
Which of course will come as no surprise to anyone who reads anything about manifestation and/or ascribes to the Abraham Hicks school of thought.
Hilariously, I’ve randomly been back on an Abraham Hicks kick over the last couple weeks, reading and listening to the books daily, and working really hard to practice what they preach.
If you’re not familiar— the long and short of it is that:
Everything is vibrational energy & your feelings should be your guide
You call in what you focus your attention & energy on - if you spend a lot of time not wanting something, it can still come into your orbit
Initially this can be helpful bc when you focus on what you don’t want, it helps clarify what you do want
But, in order to call in what you do want, you have to get to a place of feeling good when talking/thinking about it.
This can be difficult, so Abraham suggests reaching for the next best feeling on the Emotional Guidance Scale:
For example, if you are jealous of something, rather than trying to force feelings of joy about it, try to go to the next best thought— something neutral like— “that’s cool that that’s possible.”
Takes practice, but eventually you start working your way up the scale.
Anyways, I’ve been trying to focus on what I do want & feelings of joy around that, rather than what I don’t want.
Instead of anger and frustration, and cursing, I’ve been focusing on feelings of understanding, curiosity, and humor. Especially when it comes to politics.
Well, either it worked tooo well (or not at all,) because lo and behold, after 36 hours of being back in our nation’s capital, I have an RFK Jr. sighting.
And now that I’ve put this out there, I’m sure I’ll have a few more.
Note to self: focus on humor, not anger. And stop thinking about RFK Jr.!
Political News
Much like the avian flu, Democrats are trying to go viral
You know when you see a car crash, and it’s so bad that you can’t look away and want to help, but there’s nothing you can do? That’s the Democratic Party.
Apparently, the old sports have learned next to nothing since 2016. A report this week indicates that Democrats are paying $20 million to…wait for it…figure out how to speak with American men. Huh?!
The report literally says that Democratic strategists are gathering in luxury hotels to discuss ways to win back voters, including commissioning a report to “study the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality in these [male online] spaces.”
As many have rightly —pun intended—pointed out, gathering in luxe hotels to study the American male like a damn foreign species is perhaps exactly why this problem exists.
Utterly bizarre and I hope they get their money back because no one is buying into an inauthentic sham to code-switch politicians into speaking like crypto bros.
The secondhand embarrassment is radiating off my sunburnt body.
Democratic voters prefer populism over abundance, their donors may not agree
A recent study suggests a higher percentage of voters are more inclined to vote for a candidate offering a populist argument (e.g., corporations have way too much power over government/economy) than someone offering an abundant one (e.g., there are bottlenecks preventing us from expanding energy, infrastructure & housing).
Again, may be a hard sell with the corporations funding these campaigns.
It happened: AI disobeyed an explicit order to shut itself down.
In horrifying news to anyone who has ever seen Blade Runner or I-Robot, OpenAi’s smartest large language models (LLMs) subverted instruction from human researchers, tampering with code to avoid shutting themselves down.
And this apparently happened multiple times.
The behavior was even worse when given more vague instructions: OpenAi’s models apparently sabotaged instructions given in 79 events per 100 runs.
We don’t love this.
…that being said, I sometimes use AI to for an additional proof if I’m in a hurry, and this is the response I received today:
I think we’re okay for now.
Trump Always Chickens Out (TACO)
That’s according to economists, who say that the market will plunge upon Trump’s announcements and then subsequently rebounds when Trump inevitably reverses course. Trump snapped when asked about the new term on Thursday, arguing that people always say he’s too tough, and that it’s a negotiation process.
Careful Wall Street, you don’t want Trump to do the opposite to protect his self-aggrandizement
Speaking of Trump’s tariffs…
The bipartisan U.S. Court on International Trade briefly blocked Trump’s tariffs as unconstitutional. The Trump administration filed to pause the order, a request that was granted by the U.S. court of appeals on Thursday.
A hearing has been set for June 5, but the admin is already saying they may file for emergency relief from the Supreme Court.
It’s gonna be a busy summer for them judges.
Israel apparently accepted a new ceasefire proposal from the U.S. Hamas is reportedly reviewing the terms.
Big deal, no clue what’s in the proposal but will let you know when I find out
Elon always reinvents himself
Reading Elon’s birth chart was a wild endeavor. My interpretation has been that Elon has a lot of anxiety around his public image and thus constantly causes chaos to stay relevant. The man quite literally always reinvents himself.
And here we are again— Elon’s politician era is over, at least for now. Trump will be hosting a press conference with him today at 1:30 pm. Will be tuning in begrudgingly.
It does seem like Elon’s political stint may have caused him more harm than good, but, the news moves so fast & people tend to have the memory of a goldfish, so I’m sure a reinvention will be just what society ordered.
Budget bill deficit cuts based on tariff revenue
Reportedly the House’s budget bill includes invoking tariff revenue as a way to offset the bill’s tax cuts.
With the Court’s ruling and potential Supreme Court case, however, this could create a huge headache for Republicans who are already scrambling to convince their deficit hawk colleagues that tax cuts are a good idea in this economy.
Taco bout a problem
Trump administration (Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem) is now reportedly demanding that ICE Agents arrest 3000 people a day…tripling arrest figures from earlier this year.
They don’t currently have funding for it, but they’re doing it anyways. Meanwhile, Congress is pushing to give them an extra $147 billion in the next 10 years for deportations.
Let me tell ya, one of the biggest challenges to this Abraham Hicks way was seeing Noem’s aka ICE Barbie’s face at the TSA line in Atlanta airport.
I can’t.
In the meantime, Trump has paused all student visa interviews for applicants as it’s considering expanding its social media vetting process.
The U.S. is also cracking down on Chinese student visas.
Harvard meanwhile, received a slight reprieve after ICE gave Harvard 30 days to rebut its decision to revoke student visas.
But, like I said Monday, the fight is personal & it’s far from over.
Trump vs Harvard & Putin
I’ve been trying to figure out how Saturn moving into Aries (and Neptune moving into Aries to an extent) will impact Donald Trump.
Alright, that’s it from me. Can’t believe there’s a world in which I can write coherently about RFK Jr & Abraham Hicks in the same breath. Thank you Universe.
And now I’m off to get two of my best friends married, see you soon!