RFK Jr's sewer swim, and our national dunk in filthy streams

A moving picture of our times

Reality bites sometimes, and sometimes you get away with things you should not do. Swimming in an open sewer is not a risk most people would accept, but our Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the moonbat of all moonbats, embraces it. This is not some conspiracy tale, either.

Image: Forest Hills Connection

Asked what the level of E. coli in the water of Rock Creek is, a USGS tech told a concerned citizen in 2023, “it is very, very high.”

[The tech] went on to explain that the water has to be diluted by a factor of 1,000, or the readings would be off the charts. And he stressed that these E. coli levels pose a hazard to human and dog health. He told me that I should warn people not to come into contact with the water. Brower told me he often sees people and their dogs doing so, and it worries him.

It doesn’t worry RFK, Jr.

If any of Kennedy’s grandchildren get sick from swimming in contaminated water, it’s on him. I pray they don’t, and if they didn’t swallow the water, or have any open wounds, and cleaned themselves off, perhaps they’ll be fine. However, the country is getting the message that risk management, in practice and as an example, is a dead art.

I think RFK Jr.’s sewer swim is a decent example of where we are with our national government. Sure, there’s signs at Rock Creek Park warning you to “stay dry” because of high bacteria levels. And they were ignored. The signs are there to warn the public, but many people ignore them. The signs were placed by our government, and one of the highest positions in the Trump administration cabinet ignored them.

Examples practically write themselves. President Donald Trump appointed hundreds of federal judges during his first term, including three Supreme Court justices. But he frequently ignores judges and instructs government lawyers to fight and delay their orders. This goes on to the point where non-compliance would bring personal disaster to the lawyers and law enforcement people who are ordered to do things like release a Ph.D. student who was surrounded by law enforcement and “disappeared” from a street in suburban Boston, then shipped to Louisiana for deportation.

Granted, senior federal Judge William K. Sessions was a Clinton appointee. But ICE complied with his order, and Rumeysa Ozturk is now free. Many of the student visa revocations that the Trump administration pursued are now also rescinded. For 235 years, we’ve known that suppressing free speech—even if it’s detestable speech—is a poor way to run the government. The warning signs are posted all over history, as other administrations attempted it and watched their attempts fail spectacularly. But the Trump administration ignored the warnings, and will likely continue to do so.

Tariffs are a bad idea for the economy. The warning signs flash bright red, and the stock market tanks at the threat of big tariffs. Trump went ahead with “Liberation Day” and made it a farce, since we’re pretty much back to where we started, even with China (a bit higher).

In every area I can think of, the Trump administration has been taking a long dip in an open sewer, and somehow, so far, has not put itself in the hospital. We can still buy most of the goods we like (even 20 dolls if we wish); we can still get vaccinated if we want; we can still buy electric cars, etc.

But the contamination is still high. Russia’s war in Ukraine still rages, and I don’t think President Vladimir Putin has any interest in a 30 day cease fire where at the end of it he doesn’t win. At some point, we will need to decide whether we’re still dipping in that infested pool of appeasement, or we’re truly moving on and letting Europe deal with Russia, or we’re going to change course again and help Ukraine. I don’t see Trump helping Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, who he despises (I’m sure it’s mutual).

In Gaza, Israel has exhibited no intention of ending its military operations. Hamas has not grown so weak it can’t control its population (though some cracks have appeared). Trump opened direct negotiations with Hamas, and won back the last remaining living U.S. citizen held hostage, 21 year-old Edan Alexander. Praise God for that. But neither side in that war is going to back away from decades of blood feuds. And any crack in the relationship between the U.S. and Israel could have catastrophic effects for Jews around the world, including here in the U.S. This, despite Trump’s efforts to thwart the worst troublemakers on campus here.

It’s not a good look that, as Trump arrives in Saudi Arabia, that he wants to accept a Qatari 747-800 luxury aircraft on behalf of our nation, then transfer it to himself when he leaves office. It smacks of payola—Qatar paying for access to our president, and demonstrating with a gift and a released hostage, that it can deliver. Qatar is not a friend of the United States. It funds terror. It supplied much of the money that built the tunnels and bought the weapons which enabled Hamas to do its evil on October 7, 2023. It’s blood money, and we should not accept it.

Both sides in the Middle East are stained with blood. The Saudis are drenched in it. The Israelis swim in blood, both their own shed blood and the blood of the Palestinians. The old adage about if the terrorists would put down their guns, there’d be no war, and if Israelis put down their guns, there’d be no Israel, has lost its luster. Israel has largely taken the guns from its enemies’ hands. And there’s still war, because as long as the terrorists still possess one gun, I suppose it’s too many after all the blood that’s been spilled.

Trump swims in those contaminated rivers, and so far, it hasn’t destroyed him. I suppose one builds up a kind of immunity to it, from years of practice.

The signs are all posted, and have been there for decades. The rivers of healthcare, free speech, and foreign policy are all contaminated. Some of the things that need to be done are worth doing—our borders, eliminating unnecessary government bloat and regulation, dealing with China’s theft of intellectual property, rolling back the insane intersectional “woke” mind virus. But again, risk management is dead, so we do these things by continually taking a dunk in the sewers.

Don’t tell me that this is the only way we can solve these problems, by swimming in filthy streams. If you truly believe that, then don’t call yourself a Christian. I pray, just like I do for RFK Jr. and his grandkids, that the country doesn’t get incurably sick from swallowing the contaminated water and having it enter our open wounds. Eventually, reality bites.

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