Pharmageddon, Part II

The final Senate V. Kennedy smackdown wrap-up

If you’re old enough *waves cane proudly* to predate not just Netflix but even DVRs and VCRs, you know the pain of finding out that the annual airing of The Wizard of Oz is scheduled for the exact same time slot as the season finale of Dallas. Your mom is adamant about the family tradition of terrorizing you and your siblings with flying monkeys (and she makes microwave popcorn!), but if you don’t show up at school on Monday knowing who shot JR, your social life will implode. Did I mention you have exactly one TV?

That’s what yesterday felt like. There was The Kennedy Assassination: Bureaucratic Edition on ABC, Hawaiian Punch: The Tulsi Takedown on CBS, and The Kash Grab: Deep State Desperation on NBC. Sure, I get more than three channels and I can record anything I’d like to watch later. But these senate hearings last for several hours each, and I don’t know if you guys know this, but I actually have a job-job so I couldn’t do it all.

I made it through nearly all of The Assassination and more than half of The Takedown but sadly didn’t even get to turn on The Grab—which I hear was my huge loss and I will remedy that this weekend. All three appointments are hugely important IMO, but I had the most invested in Kennedy so that’s where I spent the time that I had.

I’ll try to detail below how Day Two of Kennedy’s Senate Confirmation Hearings differed from Day One, but if I had to sum it up in a single snapshot, it would be this one:

Key déjà vu moments:

• A posturing of policymakers (*see yesterday’s post for a growing list of venery-for-senators suggestions) trotted out the same tired lines of questioning and demanded the same hypocritical promises with the same self-awareness as a sewer rat giving a TED talk on hygiene.

• Kennedy maintained the “pro-safety” stance on vaccines he took the day before (and for the previous several decades) and bemoaned our nation’s gold-medal status in the Chronic Disease Olympics. He proposed enhancing public trust in our health agencies through—prepare yourselves, people—greater transparency. *Someone please get Senator Tammy ‘Safe-and-Effective’ Baldwin a fan.

• The confusion of legislators asked Kennedy—again—if he actually believes Lyme disease is a bioweapon (yeah, maybe, kinda), and if he actually thinks antidepressant drugs could be linked to school shootings (also yeah, well, sorta). To the latter, Kennedy had the nerve to reply, “we need to study all the causes of mass shootings. All the causes.” *Someone please get Senator Tina “I Love My Prozac” Smith an inhaler.

• The impossible yes-or-no questions (“Would you agree that the only thing more dangerous than your distrust in proven, settled science is your confidence in your erroneous convictions, Mr. Kennedy? Yes or no?”). The refusal to listen. The insults (“You’re saying you did not say that? That’s fine, you’re doubling down on that.”) The misplaced rage. The next-level hypocrisy. Nobody summed it up better than Dr. Eli David did in this tweet, captioned “Robert Kennedy Jr. thinking to himself: ‘Wow, so this is what happens to you when you get 7 Covid shots.’”

Key differences:

• Kennedy was better. Edgier. Sharper. Angrier. More aggressive. In the hearing’s very best, most satisfying moment, he called Senator Bernie ‘Do You or Do You Not Support the Onesies’ Sanders corrupt to his face and accused him of accepting millions of dollars from pharma. If the rugged seventy-one-year-old made you swoon before, this performance might make you pass out.

• The hordle of halfwits actually veered off the anti-vax course a few times, notably when Senator Patty ‘Brought to You by Pfizer’ Murray wanted to know if Bobby had made sexual advances toward women without their consent because [sprays the following phrase with neon irony glitter] “character matters,” and when Senator Tim ‘the Science Is Settled’ Kaine lost it over Kennedy’s audacity to question official narratives and his refusal to “take sides” on 9-11.

• Senator Rand ‘You can Shove Your Hep B Shot Where the Sun Don’t Shine and Oh Yeah No Healthy Child Died from Covid’ Paul and Senator Markwayne ‘What’s Wrong With You All’ Mullin gave powerful, passionate, logical testimonies. They made so much simple sense that the entire shriek of progressives is still scratching its collective head.

• The biggest disappointment was there was no instantly meme-worthy moment. Sigh. We’ll always have the onesies.

(On a semi-related note, I was about to ask have Sanders and Larry David ever been seen in the same room together but then I Googled it to see if I could find a funny pic and I found out they’re actually related. Did you guys know this? I think I need a minute.)

As almost-awful as Day 2 was in comparison to Day 1, I popped far fewer blood vessels in my neck watching it. Thanks to my visit from Pollyanna, I was able to watch with more amused detachment than frustrated rage. The bloat of bureaucrats is showing the world its true colors, and it really is a spectacular sight to see.

Which hearings did you watch and on a scale of one to Elon’s bank balance, how big is your crush on Tulsi today? Who do you think will get confirmed and who won’t? Talk to me in the comments. ;)

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