SEEKING RATIONALITY AMONG REPUBLICANS PART 2

YESTERDAY IN PART 1, WE DISCUSSED IRRATIONALITY of the Trump/Netanyahu war. Today, we focus on RFK Jr.’s measles epidemic and on Trump’s dangerous ignorance of Mother Nature.

A Year and a Half Late, a Brain Worm Short.  Ed Pilkington reports, “RFK Jr. Tells U.S. Families to Vaccinate Children Against Measles Amid Outbreak,” The Guardian, August 2, 2026. 

Pilkington recounts, “Kennedy, a leading vaccination skeptic who has spent years amplifying misinformation about vaccines, including the shot that protects against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), made his call in the course of a contentious interview with CNN’s ‘State of the Union’ on Sunday morning.”

“His remark,” Pilkington continues, “came as the incidence of measles crossed a milestone—the U.S. has now officially recorded 2,371 confirmed infections so far this year, surpassing 2025’s total tally of 2,289. Taken together, the past two years have seen more measles infections in the U.S. than the rest of the 21st century combined.”

Pilkington observes, “Kennedy continues to shrug off criticism that his work as a prominent vaccine skeptic, both before and after he entered the Trump administration, has exacerbated the problem. Asked whether he took any responsibility for the measles surge, he said: ‘Absolutely not.’ ”

Non-brain-worm rationality would beg to differ.

Hot Enough For Ya? Matthew Bloch et al. report, “Tracking Dangerous Heat in the U.S.,” The New York Times, August 7, 2026, with a telling image.

With much of the U.S.—indeed, much of the world— suffering from extreme temperatures and wide-spread wild fires contributing to dangerous air quality, Seth Borenstein reports the absurdity of Trump’s thinking on the matter: “Trump Calls Climate Change Threat to Public Health ‘a Scam’ But Scientific Findings Show Otherwise,” PBS News, February 13, 2026.

Borenstein cites, “Thousands of scientific studies have looked at climate change and its effects on human health in the past five years and they predominantly show climate change is increasingly dangerous to people.”

A straightforward point of rationality: Do you believe Trump? Or the science community? Or news sources he’s endeavored to disable?

Where’s Trump’s Sharpie so he can redraw these threats? ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2026