When the IRS was exposed for targeting conservatives in 2013, the policies to blame remained in place, leaving the door open to more weaponization.

How a viral video exposed the fall — and rise? — of California

Social media often serves as a cultural barometer, providing useful insight into cultural trends and their shifts. Consider a song parody video that recently went viral. “California Freedom” is an AI-generated satirical reimagining of the 1960s classic “California Dreamin’” by the Mamas and the Papas. Remember that one?

The original song painted California as a paradisiacal escape from the drab and dreary East Coast, a dream only a lucky few could call their home: “All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray. I’ve been for a walk on a winter’s day. I’d be safe and warm if I was in L.A. — California dreamin’, on such a winter’s day.”

California Freedom gets closer every day as locals rise to the challenge and opportunity in front of them.

The song predates the internet era, but its imagery is timeless: golden sunshine, palm trees, beaches, teens in drop-top cars cruising down Sunset Boulevard. It depicted California as a place of effortless joy — life as it ought to be.

— (@)

This is a starkly different California. The scenes are familiar but jarring: riots, wildfires, corrupt officials with clown faces, piles of money from China and other state malefactors. Set to the same tune, the new lyrics deliver a biting contrast:

Our governor’s a clown, so’s the mayor of L.A. Corruption at the top, arrogance on display. Always assumed we would conform — we’re finally awake. California freedom gets closer every day ...

At first glance, this parody video might seem dark and pessimistic, a major fall away from the sunshine of the original. But the opposite is true. The Mamas and the Papas’ version is the one with a sad, nostalgic, depressed message despite its lovely harmonies and lilting flute interlude. The writer is resigned, stuck. He has little agency in his condition. He tells us:

Stopped into a church I passed along the way. Got down on my knees, and I pretended to pray. You know the preacher liked the cold, he knows I’m gonna stay ... if I didn’t tell her I could leave today… California dreamin’ on such a winter’s day ...

The lead singer contributed nothing to the California dream he longed for and felt no control over his own life. Many in his generation shared that attitude. Baby Boomers who came of age in the mid-1960s soaked up messages that told them they were powerless over their future. They grew up and raised children with little resilience, unprepared to face adversity.

These were the kids who never walked alone in the woods or dug up worms by hand. They grew into college students who needed “safe spaces” and coloring books to cope with opposing viewpoints. They are the fragile offspring of a generation that surrendered its agency — and passed along the habit.

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

But the “California Freedom” video tells a different story. Early on, the bear from the state flag rears up, growls, and bares its teeth — startling Nancy Pelosi. We see ICE and law enforcement pushing back on rioters. And after a litany of the corrupt and destructive acts of key state leaders, the original song’s flute solo plays once again — but this time, Donald Trump is shown performing it in front of California’s most iconic and breathtaking landscapes.

Trump playing the flute may draw laughs — a wink at his claim of childhood musical talent — but the image carries weight. His administration has moved swiftly and forcefully to restore order where leftist leaders welcomed chaos and destruction. Through initiatives like the Department of Government Efficiency and budgetary reform, Trump has choked off taxpayer funds to activist groups pushing bloated, often corrupt government control over everyday life.

The video places Trump against California’s most iconic landscapes — redwoods, poppy fields, the Golden Gate — transforming a moment of satire into something more. It’s not just a gag. It’s a statement: California’s promise still lives. Freedom, prosperity, and integrity don’t flow from bureaucrats or ideologues. They come from the land itself — and the people who choose to defend it.

The video speaks clearly: We have agency. California doesn’t have to remain broken. Beneath the corruption, arrogance, and engineered collapse lies a chance to rebuild. The bear — California’s symbol — rises, growls, and shows its teeth. And through the noise, the music plays again. Behind the drug camps and trash-choked boulevards, the state’s beauty and strength still hum with life.

This energy, stronger than COVID lockdowns that crushed working people while Gavin Newsom dined at the French Laundry, signals something new. The future is coming — and it looks nothing like the ruins left behind.

I first traveled to the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1970s to meet my fiancé’s family, and I fell in love immediately with the land and the sea. Later, while living in Silicon Valley, we explored the state whenever possible. In the L.A. area, I walked the ocean paths often.

What happened to California in the decades since grieves me. It’s one reason I refused to retire there.

But now, a new generation offers hope. Young people inspired by Trump are shedding the passive fragility their parents too often embraced and indulged. They’re building a different California — one rooted not in globalist pretensions or bureaucratic arrogance but in the sea, the mountains, and the enduring beauty of the land itself.

California freedom gets closer every day as locals rise to the challenge and seize the opportunity in front of them.

FBI Won’t Say If It Will Reinstate Whistleblowers Booted After Exposing Biden-Era Corruption

The FBI is refusing to say if it will reinstate whistleblowers who said they were previously retaliated against after disclosing information about the agency’s Biden-era corruption, The Federalist has learned. The saga became public roughly two years ago, when a handful of FBI officials came forward with allegations highlighting “egregious abuse, misallocation of law-enforcement resources, […]

Corrupt cops, silent press: Legacy media ignores Capitol Police’s decades of corruption

The corporate media has earned a reputation for ignoring, downplaying, or outright denying stories that challenge its ideological leanings — from the lab-leak theory of COVID-19 to the obvious decline in President Joe Biden’s mental and physical fitness. These stories eventually became impossible to deny. But in many cases, the recognition came too late to matter.

So far, that reckoning hasn’t come for the United States Capitol Police.

'The corruption persists because of what they know about bad Congress members and their bad behaviors.'

For years, allegations of corruption have dogged the USCP. Yet, local and national media outlets continue to turn a blind eye — even after an officer with a scandal-ridden history was named interim chief of the department.

Last year, Blaze News investigative reporter Steve Baker published a detailed exposé uncovering deep-rooted misconduct within the USCP. His report alleged theft of government funds, perjury, fraud, and forgery involving high-ranking officers. Among the most damning revelations: Former Captain Sean Gallagher and two lieutenants under his command reportedly participated in a 2010 overtime scam.

Gallagher allegedly forged his supervisor’s signature on overtime forms, according to a 2012 internal investigation by the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility. He later claimed the forgery “never resulted in personal gain.” That revelation built on a 2014 National Journal report about the overtime abuse, though the earlier article did not name the officers involved.

Despite the seriousness of the allegations and the clarity of the documentation, Baker’s story received little to no attention from other media. Not even Washington-based outlets like the Washington Post or WUSA9 reported on the claims.

“Why is it that Blaze Media has done an exclusive on multiple cases of Capitol Police corruption, and the other media — especially the local media, who should be holding local agencies accountable — are ignoring the story?” Baker said in an interview.

U.S. Capitol Police Acting Chief of Police Sean Gallagher. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

That silence has consequences. As media scrutiny wanes, institutional accountability weakens — and careers flourish despite serious allegations.

On June 2, the U.S. Capitol Police announced Gallagher would serve as interim chief. Despite the prior disciplinary record, Gallagher has continued to ascend the department’s ranks. The appointment drew immediate criticism from within the agency.

The U.S. Capitol Police Labor Committee, which represents officers on the force, issued a rare rebuke, stating Gallagher “fails to meet the standard of trust and integrity required” to lead. Their public opposition stirred some interest among local reporters, but national media coverage remained scarce.

Departing Chief J. Thomas Manger defended the promotion, arguing Gallagher’s familiarity with the department outweighed past controversy. “If they pick someone from the inside, they’re going to know what our mission is,” Manger said before retiring. He accused the union of orchestrating a “smear campaign.”

Still, the union’s resistance had an effect. Within days, the department appointed Michael Sullivan, former acting police chief in Phoenix, to take over the USCP permanently.

'It has far-ranging implications. The Capitol Police are charged with protecting every member of Congress. And yet no one wants to cover it.'

But for Baker, the deeper problem remains unaddressed.

“These cops know where all the bodies are buried,” he said. “The corruption persists because of what they know about bad Congress members and their bad behaviors.”

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Baker pointed to former Assistant Chief Yogananda Pittman, who was accused of intentional inaction during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol protests. She later landed a chief position at the University of California, Berkeley.

Too often, he said, officers with serious black marks on their records go on to secure law enforcement jobs elsewhere — thanks, in part, to systemic failures in reporting misconduct.

“All of these bad actors in law enforcement, when they have these types of disciplinary actions against them, that is supposed to be reported to a national database called the Lewis Registry,” Baker explained.

The Lewis Registry serves two critical functions: alerting prospective employers of past disciplinary actions and making such records accessible to defense attorneys if an officer testifies in court.

In Baker’s view, the Capitol Police scandals should concern more than just local watchdogs or city beat reporters.

“This is not just a local D.C. story,” he said. “It has far-ranging implications. The Capitol Police are charged with protecting every member of Congress. And yet no one wants to cover it.”

The U.S. Capitol Police, the Washington Post, and WUSA9 did not respond to Blaze News' requests for comment.

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Why I’m rooting for the lunatic over the creep in NYC

Although I would do so reluctantly — while holding a barf bag in one hand — if forced to vote in the next New York City mayoral election, I’d cast my ballot for Zohran Mamdani.

Yes, that Zohran Mamdani.

It isn’t just the Democratic Party destroying these cities — it’s the people who keep voting for them. Let them live with the consequences.

A dire warning about this unappetizing candidate, a “Muslim lefty from the other side of Queens,” just appeared in the New York Post, which reports that Mamdani consorts with pro-Hamas rioters, adores Black Lives Matter, and recently said Bill de Blasio was “the best mayor of his lifetime.”

In a sane political environment, such a figure would be consigned to the loony bin. But in the present urban climate, voters find themselves grasping for the least ghastly option — if they bother voting at all.

And Mamdani, God help me, appears marginally less disgusting than Andrew Cuomo, who is now the front-runner.

Cuomo, who presided over the slow death of New York as governor, seems poised to take the helm of a city already in decay. In any race to the bottom, he’d win in a landslide. This is a man who groped and manhandled female staffers while parading his feminist credentials; who packed nursing homes with COVID patients, causing the deaths of thousands; who then lied about it repeatedly and shamelessly. He worked tirelessly to eliminate cash bail, unleashing a wave of criminality across the state.

And yet, somehow, Mamdani is supposed to be worse?

That former Mayor Mike Bloomberg — now a prolific funder of leftist candidates — is backing Cuomo only sharpens the stench of this whole affair. The staleness of the New York political class, its complete moral exhaustion, has never been more evident.

Still, I’ll give you another reason I prefer Mamdani: Sometimes collapse is a better catalyst than stagnation.

Cuomo would likely run the city into the ground — but slowly. He’d reward the usual Democratic parasites with patronage, keep street crime just under the boiling point, and exercise marginally more restraint when it comes to unwanted touching. He’d reassure the woke plutocrats and Wall Street donors that he won’t rock the boat too much. He knows the game and plays it well.

But the rot would fester.

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

New York would remain unsafe. Schools and other public institutions would stay in the grip of culturally radicalized unions. The courts would remain ideological tools of the left. Nothing would improve. The decline would just ooze along — business as usual.

Mamdani, by contrast, might deliver a spectacular crash.

If he’s as doctrinaire and deranged as his critics suggest, his administration could bring about real catastrophe with impressive speed. That kind of shock might finally push productive citizens to flee en masse and accelerate the corporate exodus already under way. Sometimes it takes a maniac to wake the slumbering.

This wouldn’t be the first time a disastrous mayor paved the way for genuine reform. In 1994, New Yorkers elected Rudy Giuliani after enduring the catastrophic tenure of David Dinkins. Giuliani cracked down on crime, brought investment back, and helped restore a semblance of order. But it took years of misrule to make that turnaround politically possible.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking: That kind of change isn’t possible any more. Cities like New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia are too far gone. Their voting blocs are locked into leftist fantasy. The idea of another Giuliani, a Richard Daley Sr., or even a Frank Rizzo showing up today seems laughable.

Maybe so. But if that’s true, then the voters are getting exactly what they asked for. It isn’t just the Democratic Party destroying these cities — it’s the people who keep voting for them.

Let them live with the consequences.

Given the state of our urban politics, the choice now is between ideological lunatics and cynical reprobates. Mamdani may fast-forward the train wreck. Cuomo might slow it down. But either way, the crash is coming.

At least with Mamdani, we might finally reach bottom — and from there, maybe, begin again.

How Big Pharma left its mark on woke CDC vax advisory panel — and what RFK Jr. did about it

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last week canned all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — the federal panel whose vaccine recommendations become official policy at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and apply to the entire American population once adopted by the agency's director.

Kennedy accused the ACIP of "malevolent malpractice" and vowed to appoint "highly credentialed physicians and scientists who will make extremely consequential public health determinations by applying evidence-based decision-making with objectivity and common sense."

Among the eight individuals whom Kennedy has appointed to the committee are:

Dr. Martin Kulldorf, a former professor of medicine at Harvard University who risked his career by both swimming against the tide of establishment thinking during the pandemic and co-authoring the Great Barrington Declaration with now-National Institutes of Health Director Jay Battacharya;
Dr. Robert Malone, an early pioneer in messenger RNA technology who faced years of abuse for questioning the safety of mRNA vaccines and the severity of COVID-19; and
Dr. Cody Meissner, a professor of pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth who ruffled feathers in 2021 by criticizing ruinous mask mandates for children.

The removal and replacement of members of the committee is a wish fulfilled for longtime critics of the ACIP and a nightmare realized for medical and pharmaceutical establishmentarians satisfied with the status quo.

Those in the establishmentarian camp now clutching pearls over Kennedy's actions appear eager to ignore or downplay the conflicts of interest, ideological bents, and questionable decisions that were apparently commonplace on the committee.

Lucrative questions, questionable decisions

The ACIP's members as of April 2025 were:

Helen Talbot, professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine;
Edwin Jose Asturias, professor of pediatrics and infection diseases at the University of Colorado School of Medicine;
Noel Brewer, professor in public health at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health;
Oliver Brooks, interim chief executive officer at the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases;
Lin Chen, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School;
Helen Chu, professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Washington;
Sybil Cineas, clinical associate professor of pediatrics and medicine at Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University;
Denise Jamieson, vice president for medical affairs at the University of Iowa's Carver College of Medicine;
Mini Kamboj, professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College;
George Kuchel, professor of medicine at University of Connecticut Health;
Jamie Loehr, family physician;
Karyn Lyons, chief of the immunization section at the Illinois Department of Public Health;
Yvonne Maldonado, professor of global health and infectious diseases at Stanford University;
Charlotte Moser, co-director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia;
Robert Schechter, chief of the California Department of Public Health Immunization branch;
Albert Shaw, professor of medicine at the Yale School of Medicine; and
Jane Zucker, adjunct professor at SUNY's department of community health services.

All 17 of the members were appointed by the Biden administration. Thirteen were appointed last year.

Photo illustration by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Data provided on OpenPaymentData.CMS.gov, a site managed by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, provides some insights into just how cozy some of the former members were with the organizations whose products they were tasked with scrutinizing.

The website indicates that between 2017 and 2023:

Asturias apparently collected around $54,000 from pharmaceutical companies, including $20,705 in what appear to be consulting fees. Among the companies that paid Asturias what appear to have been consulting fees were Pfizer and Merck Sharpe & Dohme LLC, a bio-pharmaceutical subsidiary of the company whose pneumococcal vaccine Capvaxive the committee voted to recommend in October. Asturias also appears to have received millions of dollars in research support from Big Pharma, including over $3.1 million from Pfizer and over $730,000 from the British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline LLC. The Colorado Sun reported that the research support was for Asturias to study RSV, pneumonia, and other diseases both in Guatemala and the United States.
Brooks apparentlyreceived over $18,000 in what appear to be consulting fees from the vaccine maker Sanofi Pasteur and thousands of dollars more from the company categorized as "compensation for services other than consulting, including serving as faculty or as a speaker at a venue other than a continuing education program."
Chen, a proponent of masking during the pandemic, apparently collected $55,111.07 from pharmaceutical companies. Like Asturias, she has collected thousands of dollars in consulting fees from Merck Sharpe & Dohme LLC but also plenty in consulting fees from the vaccine manufacturer Valneva, which the committee has since blessed with multiple recommendations. During Chen's directorship, Mount Auburn Hospital Travel Center received over $245,000 from the COVID-19 vaccine maker Moderna.
Chu apparently received over $6,000 in consulting fees from Merck Sharpe & Dohme and thousands more from the Illinois-headquartered pharmaceutical company AbbVie Inc. According to documentation from the Washington State Department of Health, Chu served as a co-investigator on studies funded by Pfizer, Novavax, and GlaxoSmithKline; has received research support from Gates Ventures, the Gates Foundation, Sanofi Pasteur, and Cepheid; and has served on advisory boards for Abbvie, Merck, Pfizer, Ellume, and the Gates Foundation.
Kuchel apparently received $10,720 in consulting fees from Big Pharma, the largest payment of which was from Johnson & Johnson's pharmaceutical company, Janssen Global. ACIP recommended the use of the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine last year.
Maldonado, who publicly emphasized the supposed need for children to get vaccinated for COVID-19, apparently received over $33,147 from pharmaceutical companies, including $27,577.71 in what appear to be consulting fees. Like Asturias and Chen, Maldonado received a sizeable consulting fee payment from Merck Sharp & Dohme in 2023. When broken down by general payments, Pfizer ranked number one for Maldonado. Prior to her appointment to the ACIP, the CDC indicated that Maldonado "served as Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) for Pfizer meningococcal vaccine trials and as a site PI for Pfizer pediatric COVID-19 and maternal RSV vaccines and AstraZenaca [sic] varicella zoster vaccine trials." She reportedly abstained form voting on the COVID-19, pneumococcal, and influenza vaccines.
Shaw, a member of Yale's Infectious Disease Diversity, Equity, and Antiracism Committee, apparently received $2,590 in consulting fees from Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals.

According to the HPV IQ subpage on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Gillings School of Global Public Health website, Brewer "has received grants from and/or served on paid advisory boards for Pfizer, Merck, [GlaxoSmithKline LLC], FDA, CDC, and NIH."

The Defender reported in 2023 that Brewer — who suggested in 2023 that the "U.S. needs to get on an annual [COVID-19 vaccine] schedule, as we do for seasonal flu vaccination" — served on different paid Merck human papillomavirus boards since 2011 and served as a general consultant for the company for several years.

'They have a big job to do.'

Brewer reportedly received over $500,000 in grant funding to study HPV vaccine uptake from Merck and over $400,000 from Pfizer to "study how trainings might improve physician perceptions and recommendations of the HPV vaccine."

A Science investigation published in March downplayed the possible impact of Big Pharma ties among ACIP members, claiming that five of the 13 physicians on the committee prior to Kennedy's purge received no Big Pharma payments in the "several years before the service began" and that the various kinds of payments from drugmakers that eight other members received "averaged just over $4000 a year, nearly $3000 less than the average for all U.S. specialist physicians."

Blaze News reached out to Asturias, Brewer, Brooks, Chen, Chu, Maldonado, and Shaw for comment.

Brewer told Blaze News that his "last research grant from a pharmaceutical company ended nine years ago, in 2016," and the numbers provided above "are about right" and that "the actual numbers are higher by maybe $10K and change."

Brewer added, "I wish the new ACIP committee members well. They have a big job to do," then referred Blaze News to a recent article in Science, which notes that "the new panel members have been authors on about 78% fewer vaccine-related papers than the ousted members."

Ideological bent

Helen Chu joined Democratic Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.) to complain at a press conference on Thursday about the firings. Murray called the removal of Biden administration appointees a "dangerous, practically unthinkable step to undermine public health and vaccine confidence."

Chu, meanwhile, characterized the previous work of the ACIP as "transparent" and "unbiased."

Contrary to Chu's suggestion, biases ran deep on the panel in years past. While some of these biases may have been professional, others were ideological.

Noel Brewer, for instance, is a 2020 Biden donor whose social media history signals a possible DEI-lensed preoccupation with race.

'We must ask whether our own research, teaching, and service are intentionally antiracist.'

Brewer kicked off 2023 complaining that AI tools like ChatGPT sounded "straight, white and probably a few other things too." Months later, Brewer suggested that the lack of diversity in the authorship of certain textbooks was indicative of "white supremacy culture in academia." When discussing academic tenure and promotion decisions in September 2023, Brewer claimed that "fit, culture, and so on are tools of white supremacy."

Oliver Brooks — criticized in 2022 by Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary for reportedly voting in favor of recommending that kids ages 5-11 receive COVID-19 vaccine booster shots without outcomes data — is a repeat donor to Democratic politicians including Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, and failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

Like Brewer, his outlook appears tinged by identity politics.

Amid the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020, Brooks tried to provide an analogy to George Floyd's death in an editorial titled "Police Brutality and Blacks: An American Immune System Disorder" in the Journal of the National Medical Association in which he stated that the "country as a whole sets stereotypes as well as biases against black Americans which inevitably leads to social misinterpretation of the safety of Americans when a black person is present."

Brooks also noted, quoting another article, "We must ask whether our own research, teaching, and service are intentionally antiracist and challenge the institutions we work in to ask the same."

When Americans were protesting in 2020 in favor of reopening the country, Brooks framed the matter in identitarian terms on C-SPAN, noting, "If you look at those protesting to open up the environment — I prefer to use the term 'environment' as opposed to 'the economy' because it's not about money; it's about lives — most, I won't say all, most of the protesters are white or not inclusive of African-Americans or LatinX individuals."

Like some of her former colleagues on the panel, Sybil Cineas apparently has found it difficult to separate medicine from racial concerns or vice versa.

For instance, Cineas, listed as a member of the advisory group for Brown University's Office of Belonging, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, signed an open letter in 2021 to Tulane University's board of trustees, which complained of a "pervasive culture of White Supremacy" in the medical profession that "is perpetuated by the deeply hierarchical power structures of academic medicine."

The 'nuclear' decision

Kennedy noted in a June 9 op-ed that the point of "retiring" the committee members, including those "last-minute appointees of the Biden administration," was to help restore the public's trust "that unbiased science guides the recommendations from our health agencies."

"The committee has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine," wrote the health secretary. "It has never recommended against a vaccine — even those later withdrawn for safety reasons. It has failed to scrutinize vaccine products given to babies and pregnant women. To make matters worse, the groups that inform ACIP meet behind closed doors, violating the legal and ethical principle of transparency crucial to maintaining public trust."

'Most of ACIP's members have received substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies.'

When painting the committee as a succession of compromised members, Kennedy referred to a decades-old investigation that found a "web of close ties" between the CDC and the companies that make vaccines.

Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images

He also highlighted the revelation that four of the eight then-ACIP members who voted in 1997 to recommend routine vaccination of infants with the rotavirus vaccine had financial ties to the very pharmaceutical companies developing such vaccines. This was especially damning because the recommended vaccine was subsequently withdrawn on account of its ruinous and in some cases deadly side effects.

Although members are now barred from holding stocks or serving on advisory boards associated with vaccine makers, Kennedy indicated that "these conflicts of interest persist."

"Most of ACIP's members have received substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies, including those marketing vaccines," wrote the health secretary.

'Ending the conflict of interest is the first critical step to restoring unbiased, science-based analysis of safety and efficacy of vaccines.'

The health secretary emphasized that the "malpractice" impacts Americans nationwide, in part due to the committee's "stubborn unwillingness to demand adequate safety trials before recommending new vaccines for our children."

Kennedy claimed that "a compliant American child receives between 69 and 92 routine vaccines (depending on brand/dictated dosage) from conception to 18 years of age."

"ACIP has recommended each of these additional jabs without requiring placebo-controlled trials for any of them," said Kennedy. "This means that no one can scientifically ascertain whether these products are averting more problems than they are causing."

Peter Hotez, a cable news vaccine promoter and the founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, was among the medical establishmentarians to recently contest this claim about placebo-controlled trials, saying, "That's simply not true."

'The pharmaceutical companies have been running a regulatory capture scam.'

Kennedy claimed in response that such protesters were wrong — and made sure to bring receipts.

— (@)

The health secretary also indicated on Friday that the ACIP will "institute bias policies recommending that ACIP panelists recuse themselves from decisions in which their current or former clients have a financial interest."

Mixed reception

Blaze News senior editor Daniel Horowitz said, "This is a nuclear bomb on the biomedical security state."

"The heart of the problem with vaccine safety stems from the fact that the pharmaceutical companies have been running a regulatory capture scam," continued Horowitz. "They place scientists and doctors on their payroll and then insert those individuals into government advisory positions. Ending the conflict of interest is the first critical step to restoring unbiased, science-based analysis of safety and efficacy of vaccines."

Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Children's Health Defense, which was chaired by Kennedy from 2015 to 2023, similarly celebrated the news.

Mary Holland, president and CEO of CHD, told Blaze News in a statement that Kennedy's announcement "marks a pivotal advancement in the radical transparency he promised the country."

"Children's Health Defense has long highlighted the conflicts of interest involving the ACIP committee. It is unbelievable that ACIP members were allowed to participate in deliberations regarding a product in which they might have a financial stake," said Holland. "No wonder the committee consistently approved every vaccine for use, including those that were proven unsafe and subsequently removed shortly after approval. Ending this practice represents a significant step forward in restoring the public’s trust in our health agencies."

Of course, Kennedy's actions did not please everyone.

'I've never seen anything this damaging to public health happen in my lifetime.'

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, one of the Democratic lawmakers who has received a fortune in donations from the pharmaceutical industry, called the firing of the ACIP members "a public health disaster."

Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, was among the many who concern-mongered last year about the impact that Kennedy could have if afforded power and access in the Trump administration.

Last week, Offit wrote, "RFK Jr. will do everything he can to make sure that all vaccines are no longer mandated and to make vaccines less available, less affordable and more feared. This is only the beginning."

One of the dismissed ACIP members complained to CNN, "I've never seen anything this damaging to public health happen in my lifetime."

Rebecca Noble/Getty Images

The ex-member, whose name was not disclosed, added, "I'm shocked. It's pretty brazen. This will fundamentally destabilize vaccination in America."

Bruce Scott, the president of the American Medical Association, similarly expressed distress last week, claiming that the action undermines public trust "and upends a transparent process that has saved countless lives."

Tina Tan, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, claimed that Kennedy's "allegations about the integrity of CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices are completely unfounded."

BlazeTV host Steve Deace, considering the action within the broader context of the MAHA movement, told "Blaze News: The Mandate" last week that President Donald Trump's decision to make Kennedy the health secretary "might be the closest we're ever going to get in America to a tribunal on what happened during that time [the pandemic]."

The firings at the ACIP are "the closest thing to real consequences — people losing their jobs — that we have seen," added Deace.

— (@)

HHS indicated in a statement that it will convene its next meeting June 25 through June 27 at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta.

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