In addition to being the most obsequious assemblage of ass-kissing sycophants outside North Korea, the Trump cabinet is remarkable for comprising individuals who are singularly unqualified, corrupt and dangerous in their individual positions. Attempting to suss out which cabinet member is the worst is like ranking acute food poisoning symptoms, e.g., which is worse, explosive diarrhea or projectile vomiting?
So who’s most dangerous in the Trump cabinet? Is it the paranoid, black-out drunk second-tier Fox News personality Trump put in charge of the Pentagon? The dumb, culty Russian asset overseeing intelligence agencies? The reality TV dunderhead in charge of transportation, including aviation safety? The pollution lobbyist in charge of the EPA? The vapid, lying puppy shooter heading up Homeland Security?
I could go on, but in my opinion, the worst of that historically horrid bunch is the fossilized testicle* who is currently laying waste to the nation’s public health and medical research infrastructure. The roadkill desecrating sewer swimmer whose own famous cousin warned us to keep far, far away from a critical agency in charge of safeguarding life and health because he’s a fucking psycho.
“When I call Kennedy a ‘dangerous crank,’ I’m not saying that as an insult or as hyperbole, but honestly as the most economical way of describing the man’s views,” says @chrislhayes.bsky.social on RFK Jr.
— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris.bsky.social) August 28, 2025 at 8:19 PM
One of the perils of our deeply stupid era is that every bad thing is happening everywhere, all at once, so it’s hard to focus. There’s also the problem of nanosecond-length attention spans, a sick compulsion to simply gawk at destruction and a hazy nostalgia for fake bygone times.
These poor qualities have combined to allow the dangerous crank RFK Jr. to wreak unprecedented levels of havoc, mostly under the radar. So, maybe it’s time to focus and shine a harsh spotlight on one dangerous individual, which is one of the few tools a party out of power has. Perhaps it’s time for a House lawmaker to file an impeachment resolution with an aim to remove this crackpot from his office.
It’s a timely issue. The CDC is in crisis. Senate-confirmed Director Susan Monarez was forced out when she refused to rubberstamp Kennedy’s anti-science opinions on vaccines. Career professionals resigned in protest. Trump and Kennedy are putting a Thiel lackey, Jim O’Neill, in charge. Also, the organization Stand Up for Science started a petition to Congress asking lawmakers to impeach and remove Kennedy.
Impeachment isn’t likely to go anywhere since Republicans hold power in both chambers and are either scared shitless of or in thrall to the aspiring dictator Trump. But a period of unified focus on RFK Jr.’s unfitness could draw attention to the destruction at Health & Human Services. It could underscore Republican complicity in the dismantling of medical research and public health capabilities.
And if Democrats retake power in Congress in the upcoming federal elections, an impeachment in the House could be the start of an effort to punt the wizened ball-sack RFK Jr. into the sun via a conviction in the Senate. That’s also unlikely with the ossified partisan divide in that chamber, but we have to start somewhere. This seems like a good place to start.
Open thread.
*Thanks, Tony Jay!
Stone Cold Facts, Baby!
Omnes Omnibus
This is a big reason that I find it difficult to call anything a distraction. Your top five things may not be the same as mine, but they are all pretty fucking important.
Suzanne
Amongst all his myriad other sins, which you have helpfully catalogued here….. he’s fucken dirty and gross.
Ben Cisco
Good to see the pushback, against barbequed Mel Gibson, the Fanta Menace, and all the rest.
Got to do a bit of that now at the VA. Guy* wanted to know what I thought of the rumor that National Guardsmen would be deployed to Birmingham to “fight crime.” I don’t think he liked my answer.
*Three guesses
JML
Tina Smith absolutely crushed Secretary Brainworm yesterday. (think it was yesterday?) I’m going to miss having The Velvet Hammer representing MN.
It’s hard to say which useless hunk of meat in the Current Occupant’s cabinet is the most dangerous. They’re basically all dreadful. It feels like Brainworm Bobby is going to cause the most lasting damage?
MattF
Derek Lowe agrees.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Cisco: The National Guard is not Batman.
WaterGirl
You are in extra fine form this morning, Betty Cracker! I bow before you.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus:
New rotating tag!
eclare
@Suzanne:
There is a photo of him walking barefoot to the restroom on a commercial flight.
sixthdoctor
OT, though maybe this will free up Ernst to be the new Sec Def after Hegseth quits/is fired/chokes on his own whiskey puke…
BREAKING: Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa won’t seek reelection to Senate in 2026, sources say.
cbsnews.com/news/joni-ernst-wont-seek-reelection-to-senate-in-2026-sources-say/?linkId=856120698
Suzanne
@eclare:
:::::HURL:::::
God, what his skanky feet must look like.
azlib
My own personal biggest fear with this adminsitration is a new deadly pandemic where these evil people have dismantled our ability to create, test and manufacture a vaccine to combat the infection. Maybe we will dodge the bullet, but what if we don’t?
WaterGirl
@sixthdoctor: Good news for us!
I wonder if the resounding Republican defeat in the Iowa special election had something to do with her decision.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Somewhat on topic, on the subject of roadkill:
Jackie
@sixthdoctor:
Hope, hope, HOPE “sources” are correct!
”People are gonna die, anyway,” basically killed her own political career :-D
Professor Bigfoot
@Omnes Omnibus: EVERYTHING is a distraction from EVERYTHING ELSE.
And there’s a LOT.
That’s the point, though, isn’t it? That the autocrat throws SO MUCH SHIT that we lose track of what is “true,” what is factual and just let it all go.
Omnes Omnibus
@azlib: I strongly suspect that Kennedy wants such a pandemic. It combines his eugenicist views with radical environmentalism. Culling the population.
Bupalos
I’m in agreement on these points and that RFK is probably the most dangerous of the bunch. He also represents one of the two overlapping alliances that is absolutely central to Trump’s power. While we tend to focus on Trump almost solely as a political phenomenon driven by politics of race and gender, these factors aren’t really among the things that are new that made the difference for him and thus undergird his power. Trump gets marginally less of the white vote and marginally more of the male vote than Mitt Romney did. These aren’t the differences powering him politically, compared to the Before Times.
The dynamics that have made the DIFFERENCE (lower positive Democratic margins among minorities, less educated, and lower income people) are largely bound up with a growing paranoia and a rejection of experts and institutional expertise, as life simply gets worse. RFK jr is an avatar of this zeitgeist, and I think a lot of us underestimate the critical margins that his presence in the administration draws to Trump. We met his endorsement and deal with Trump during the election as a ho-hum thing. But this alliance is actually critical. It would be a great thing to bring it down, but it’s also more powerful than we probably understand, and simply attacking it in plain terms that sound like an appeal to institutional trust might well backfire.
Ben Cisco
@Omnes Omnibus: More or less what I told him. Also, trash pickup is not crime-fighting, and neither are photo-ops.
Omnes Omnibus
@Professor Bigfoot: Nope, pick up a shovel or a broom and start cleaning up where ever. It all needs to be done. Just don’t get too mad if more people start somewhere else.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Bupalos: of course paranoia and conspiracy theories are not new in American politics, but they do seem to be on the rise and I think you have it right.
Ben Cisco
@WaterGirl: A worthy inclusion!
Deputinize America
Pardon Sirhan Sirhan – he killed fewer people and is probably more likeable.
Captain C
@eclare: We’re going to find out he’s into scat play, aren’t we?
Mr. Bemused Senior
@eclare: so, he’s also one of these people who take their shoes off on a plane. No surprise.
Jeffro
This is an absolutely excellent idea – thanks Betty!
TheOtherHank
RFKj is absolutely the worst of them. Everyone else needs to actively do something to cause problems (e.g., invading Canada is not done on a whim), but all RFKj needs to do to kill millions of us is break things, which he is already doing.
OK, I’ll admit Duffy breaking flight safety will kill people, but it’s one or two planeloads of people at a time, not a pandemic killing people by the thousands.
Omnes Omnibus
@Deputinize America: Release the man who murdered the father because the son is a piece of shit? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Jeffro
Right??
Like…is this the kind of thing we should be footloose n’ fancy free about?
Or to make it more real for folks: what if we’d never had mRNA vaccines available after Covid hit? What would have happened to our hospital systems (including all the folks who needed urgent care for non-Covid injuries and illnesses)? What would the death toll likely have been?
Jackie
This article is a worthy read:
Click the link for the checklist and how Moynihan breaks it down.
hueyplong
@Jeffro: The whole point of our concern over RFK is that your hypothetical is likely to be field tested, and none of us thinks that will go well.
Snarki, child of Loki
New rules!
Every admin position that requires Senate confirmation to fill, requires Senate confirmation to fire.
When a treaty is ratified by the Senate, it requires Senate ratification to cancel.
All officials that violate these requirements maybe SHOT DEAD BY ANYONE, without legal consequence, and receive a gold medal also, too. This also applies to any asshole judge that tries to evade this clause.
Eyeroller
@Omnes Omnibus: I question whether he really cares about the environment. Maybe decades ago, but he has always used it as a grift, from what I have read. He left it behind since the anti-vax anti-science grift was more profitable, though I do believe there is some sincerity to his crackpot health beliefs.
gvg
@Omnes Omnibus: and if he SAYS that sort of thing out loud when a population is scared and panicked enough during an epidemic crisis,he could find out what mob justice really means. These geniuses are playing with fire. They think they will survive untouched because they are special.
You would think, given his family history, he’d know better.
matt
I think RFK Jr. has special significance in this administration because he’s a very direct avatar of American decline. There’s no other purpose to him. There’s no real ideological project other than destruction of capability.
Josie
@matt:
“RFK Jr is an avatar of American decline.”
Perfect. Shortened and nominated.
ETA: I have always maintained that he is the most dangerous of Dear Leader’s nominations.
cmorenc
@Deputinize America:
But-for Sirhan Sirhan, RFK (Sr) would have won in 1968, and the future going forward from there would have had a much more progressive arc than with Nixon & Ford. One key difference between the RW arc and the progressive arc of US history the past 70 years is how many flukey, exceedingly narrow bad breaks the progressive side has suffered, like RFK’s assasination because he exited a campaign event via an insufficiently secured kitchen, or Gore’s narrow loss in 2000 or Hillary’s or Kamala’s narrow losses in 2016 and 2024, whereas it was pure luck that Reagan survived Hinkley’s close-range attempted assasination, or that Trump survived the assasination attempt last summer. Not saying here that assassination is at all an acceptable or big-picture constructive way to force regime change, but rather just noting that RW assasins of progressive figures seem to be much more effective at their work.
peter
@Professor Bigfoot: Or as Karis Nemik said in one of the early episodes of Andor, “The pace of repression outstrips our ability to understand it. And that is the real trick of the Imperial thought machine. It’s easier to hide behind forty atrocities than a single incident.”
RaflW
@sixthdoctor:Trump & Trumpism are not popular. How many signals do there have to be for the press to wake up & smell the bitter, cheap Folgers?
Everything is framed as if he’s summoning the great powers of the people. Bullshit! We hate what’s happening, polls have him deep under water. Experienced R’s like Ernst know it.
WaterGirl
@BenCisco: Thank you!
Hey, I think you are missing a space in your nym.
Captain C
@RaflW:
Given that many of their paychecks depend on them not ever understanding this, I’d say it’ll never be enough.
RaflW
@azlib: The way I see such a scenario going down is that Europeans band together, maybe-probably jointly with the BRICS and develop the treatments and vaccine(s) necessary.
It will be up to millions of us to rise up in the streets (unless we’re deathly ill) to fucking demand access. And demand lots of resignations from Trump’s shit-ass cabinet.
Meanwhile, in the current situation: I think Dems need to be making ton of hay over the CDC resignations and (??) firing. It’s a big deal. A lot of us are mad and scared! I called and emailed my DC delegation on that yesterday afternoon. Everyone should, IMO.
Omnes Omnibus
RW Nutjob Rebecca Bradley of the WI Supreme Court is not running for reelection next April. We have a chance to make it a 5-2 liberal court. Judge Chris Taylor is the likely Dem candidate. Here is her website.
Lyrebird
@peter:
Certainly seems true wrt mass shootings and the gun lobby.
I wish we were not in this timeline, but I wonder if enough damage and disease brought by RFKJr will help make this Betty Cracker idea closer:
WaterGirl
@Snarki, child of Loki:
I love both of those!
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s excellent news!
I’m sure we’ll be all over that in 2026.
cain
@azlib:
I hate to break it to you, but covid is still here. The only thing we have right now is mask until of course the feds make it illegal to wear masks.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: A win in 2026 would make future sup. ct. elections less fraught.
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: And the father was a zillion times better than the son? Fuck Sirhan Sirhan. He should rot in jail (should have been executed).
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Let’s go Iowa!
The 2026 Senate map looks better and better…
Geminid
When I saw speculation by Republicans that Kennedy’s MAHA Movement would play a helpgul role in their party’s midterm efforts, I thought that was wishful thinking. There is some basis for it though. I believe Kennedy helped the 2024 Trump campaign reel in a sizable bloc of voters they would not have gotten otherwise, and those voters may have made the difference. But I don’t think Kennedy cost Trump votes last year even though he should have. Next year could be a different story.
Ben Cisco
@cmorenc:
Sorry that a bystander was killed, but that was a ‘work’ – at least wrt the Fanta Menace getting ‘shot.’
Ben Cisco
@WaterGirl: Noted and corrected.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Geminid:
The 2022 midterms or the 2026 midterms? Because I can’t see that happening for the 2026 elections once people see the effects from Kennedy’s policies, plus the fallout from Trump’s general unpopularity
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’m sceptical too. But I’ve seen Republicans say this like they believed it.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid:
I agree, but the average voter needs to understand the scale of the destruction Kennedy has brought down on our public health capabilities. I haven’t seen any evidence so far that they do, but the crackup at the CDC, feckless GOP Senator Bill Cassidy’s break with Kennedy, a Dem lawmaker filing an impeachment resolution, etc., could help drive that message.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: It;s over a year until the next election. That is a lot of time for nasty health stuff to happen.
BlueGuitarist
last night’s open thread, MagdaInBlack
so i’d started referring to him as “Desiccated testicle face”
I think even out of context you’d know that refers to that endless disgrace to his family,
who should be impeached.
If he knew people called him that he’d probably use it to make a ton of money selling bull testicles to rubes who follow Tucker Carlson’s guidance on how to be “manly”
Fossilized also, too
Melancholy Jaques
@Omnes Omnibus:
I expect more bad things like this to happen. It’s open season on any foreign looking people for the wanna be heroes.
WTFGhost
The former is more dangerous to the uninitiated (most parents and teachers have learned that fecal matter is slippery as any slippery other thing you’d want to mention, on most waterproof surfaces.
Worse? Spontaneous projectile vomiting is one of the few symptoms that’s worse than it actually sounds, which, you know, pretty effing impressive if you ask me.
dc
What tremendous writing talent, Betty Cracker. Thank you!
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The notion that Kennedy would help Republicans win next year might actually express the obverse: Republicans can’t win next year if they alienate Kennedy’s “MAHA” followers.
When RFK Jr. was confirmed last February I thought, they can always dump him if and when he becomes a liability. Now I’m not so sure.
@Geminid:
Eunicecycle
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I love it! The images are perfect.
JCJ
@Omnes Omnibus: Wow. That is huge. I wish Justice Bradley nothing but ill.
Boris Rasputin (The Evil Twin)
@Omnes Omnibus:
@azlib: I strongly suspect that Kennedy wants such a pandemic. It combines his eugenicist views with radical environmentalism. Culling the population.
The wrong Kennedys are dead. Not that we see much proof of life in this one.
Kathleen
@Boris Rasputin (The Evil Twin): I think both you and OO are right.
Tehanu
@Deputinize America: I oppose capital punishment, but if they let Sirhan Sirhan out, I will be at the prison gates to ensure he doesn’t get one step farther. He’s never shown any remorse for murdering the man who might have ended the Vietnam war six years earlier and who might have moved the country onto a better path. RFK senior was not a saint — no one in politics is — but I will never forgive his loss.
@cmorenc: What you said.
Glidwrith
@Jeffro: I’m fairly sure I saw a chart showing deaths before and after the vaccines became available. Best recollection: we were losing more than 100,000 people per day, worldwide.
Betty Cracker
@Boris Rasputin (The Evil Twin):
The wrong ICE is melting. The wrong Amazon is burning.
Soprano2
@Omnes Omnibus: Why it is they always think it won’t affect them I don’t know. How did that “my immune system is strong I don’t need a Covid vaccine” work out for them? Not so well, I suspect.
David_C
He is doing his best to run the three science and public health agencies, FDA, NIH, CDC, into the ground. So much machinery that is invisible to the American Public is being wrecked, with the bureaucrats trying to achieve the seemingly impossible and raise the alarms.
Thank you, Betty!
JaySinWa
@Soprano2:
Survivor’s bias covers a lot of things.
Denali5
@RaflW: I called my Congressional Representatives today too, They need to hear from us.
sab
@Deputinize America: Sirhan is who did the most to turn American public opinion against Palestinians. Leave him where he is.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes! those are long terms, right? Something like 10 years? Or am I confusing that with the PA supreme court?
WaterGirl
@Ben Cisco: It just didn’t feel right! :-)
I think I fixed all your comments that were space-less in this thread.
emjayay
@cmorenc: Thumbs up, if this crap commenting system had that.
Geminid
@emjayay: 🤔…👎😎