Edgar Lee
Three Trump cabinet nominees announced in November have been confirmed by the Senate this week, making it 16 out of 22 nominees confirmed thus far.
Tulsi Gabbard was confirmed on February 12 as the Director of National Intelligence. Gabbard will be the primary specialist for national security, that is, the security of U.S. imperialist dominance. In her 2024 book For Love of Country, she writes that the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood “is the most recent front in the greater war being waged by Sunni and Shia Islamist jihadists throughout the world” and that “Islamist jihadists are the greatest short- and long-term threat to the safety, security, and freedom of… people throughout the world.” Under her direction and owing to reactionization, the genocidal so-called “War on Terror” will be amplified throughout the Middle East, primarily against the Palestinian national resistance, contrary to the populist anti-war, “America-first” sentiment that Trump exploited during the elections.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as the Health and Human Services Secretary on February 13. Kennedy will oversee the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), as well as 11 agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has trafficked the anti-pharmaceutical monopoly (“big pharma”) sentiment of the masses, and used it to promote anti-scientific positions, particularly regarding COVID-19, fluoride consumption, and vaccines.
Brooke L. Rollins was confirmed as the Secretary of Agriculture on February 13, responsible for overseeing the United States Department of Agriculture. Rollins was the President of the Texas Public Policy Foundation from 2003 to 2018, a lobbying organization that has consistently sided with the fossil fuel industry and denied the detrimental effects that global warming has on humanity. From 2021 up until her cabinet confirmation, she was the President of the America First Policy Institute, an organization that promotes fracking, a practice carried out by oil and gas monopolies that negatively affects the land worked by small farmers.
When the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s anti-biofuel (fuel derived from organic materials) positions were brought up at her confirmation hearing, she dodged the issue, saying that the Foundation publishes 900 to 1000 posts yearly and that she was not responsible for the articles that are published by the organization she is the president of. The Texas Public Policy Foundation still endorses her Secretary nomination, even after her departure from the organization.
Image: The U.S. Capitol building. Credit: Federal Emergency Management Agency.
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