RFK Jr. says he may bar scientists from publishing in top medical journals
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Tuesday that he may bar government scientists from publishing in the world’s leading medical journals, instead proposing the creation of “in-house” publications by his agency - the latest in the Trump administration’s attacks on scientific institutions.
“We’re probably going to stop publishing in the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and those other journals because they’re all corrupt,” Kennedy said during an appearance on the “Ultimate Human” podcast. He also described the journals as being under the control of pharmaceutical companies.
The three journals he named, all established in the 1800s, publish original, peer-reviewed research and play a central role in disseminating medical findings worldwide. JAMA, published by the American Medical Association, and the Lancet each say they receive more than 30 million annual visits to their sites, while the New England Journal of Medicine says it is read in print and online by more than 1 million people each week.
“We use rigorous peer review and editorial processes to ensure the objectivity and reliability of the research we publish,” a spokesperson for the New England Journal of Medicine said in an emailed statement. “NEJM will continue to focus on publishing scientific breakthroughs to improve the health of Americans and people around the world.”
The other journals did not respond to a request for comment on Kennedy’s remarks.
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Life in Post Democracy Era: The Trump 2/Elon Dictatatorship
Trump has no plan for who will grow US food: ‘There is just flat out nobody to work’
ast spring, Carmelo Mendez was pruning peach trees in Colorado on a temporary visa, missing his children and wife back home, but excited about how his $17.70 hourly wage would improve their lives. This spring, he’s back in the Mexican state of Tlaxcala frantically searching Facebook for a job on one of the thousands of farms across the US that primarily employ guest workers like him.
Mendez is one of the more than 300,000 foreign agricultural workers who comes to the US every year on an H-2A visa, which allows him to temporarily work plowing fields, pruning trees and harvesting crops in states from Washington to Georgia, Florida to New York, Texas to California. But as federal immigration policies change rapidly, farmers and workers alike are uncertain about their future.
“Without [this guest worker program], I believe agriculture in the US would decline a lot because people there don’t want to do the work,” Mendez said.
As the fate of the hundreds of thousands of undocumented farm workers remains in limbo amid Donald Trump’s mass deportation threats, and the administration’s H-2A policies are undecided, the future of these guest workers remains unclear. Their numbers grow each year – and they are increasingly central to an industry historically dominated by undocumented workers. The industry isn’t creating new jobs either.
Farmers agree with farm workers like Mendez. They say they cannot attract other workers to their rural fields.
The debate over guest workers is dividing Republican support. Jonathan Berry, who was nominated to be the solicitor at the Department of Labor, wrote the labor chapter for Project 2025, the rightwing proposal to overhaul the government from the Heritage Foundation thinktank. That section advocates for replacing H-2A workers with local workers and automation. While technology could replace some specific farm tasks, many crops still depend primarily on human labor, and small farmers say they can’t afford to invest in equipment that could take more than a decade to pay off. Other co-authors of the chapter, such as economist Oren Cass, do not think the jobs should be eliminated, but that farmers should improve working conditions to attract citizens to them instead.
On the other hand, Trump’s power depends on a coalition that includes agricultural communities, who voted for him at almost 80% in 2024, according to Investigate Midwest, a journalism non-profit. Agribusiness also donated more than $24m to his re-election. Farm groups insist US citizens are unwilling to do the arduous labor and that eliminating H-2A workers could collapse the food system. They generally advocate for loosening regulations for H-2A workers, like reducing wage and housing requirements. Trump heeded their calls before. In 2019, his Department of Labor unsuccessfully proposed removing some regulations on the H-2A.
Labor leaders argue farmers prefer H-2A workers, despite their costs, because they are easily exploitable. Since the visa is connected to their employment, workers cannot find a job elsewhere, making their ability to be in the country completely dependent on an employer who can revoke it at any moment, and sometimes holds on to their passports, against DOL requirements.
The DC-based Economic Policy Institute, a liberal thinktank, has said this amounts to a program that exploits and silences migrant workers, replacing year-round workers in the process. In some cases, US prosecutors have accused farmers and recruiters of using the H-2A program to engage in forced labor trafficking.
“The situation of agriculture workers in the US is really bad already, but what they’re going to do is legalize this oppression,” said Carlos Marentes, executive director of the El Paso-based Centro de Los Trabajadores Agrícolas Fronterizos. “In the H-2A program, the way they’re proposing to get rid of the regulations and any guarantees that workers get is going to look like legalized slavery. The industry understands that they need a labor force, but they [want] a labor force that is going to be afraid, that is going to be grateful because the employer is providing you a job.”
If mass deportations go forward as promised, growers and ranchers will be even more desperate for these workers. Undocumented workers compose about 40% of the agricultural workforce, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
These longtime farm workers say that the system is designed to replace them with this more vulnerable group, limiting their work opportunities and decreasing their union’s power by giving farmers an alternative labor pool.
Click on the link for the full article
ast spring, Carmelo Mendez was pruning peach trees in Colorado on a temporary visa, missing his children and wife back home, but excited about how his $17.70 hourly wage would improve their lives. This spring, he’s back in the Mexican state of Tlaxcala frantically searching Facebook for a job on one of the thousands of farms across the US that primarily employ guest workers like him.
Mendez is one of the more than 300,000 foreign agricultural workers who comes to the US every year on an H-2A visa, which allows him to temporarily work plowing fields, pruning trees and harvesting crops in states from Washington to Georgia, Florida to New York, Texas to California. But as federal immigration policies change rapidly, farmers and workers alike are uncertain about their future.
“Without [this guest worker program], I believe agriculture in the US would decline a lot because people there don’t want to do the work,” Mendez said.
As the fate of the hundreds of thousands of undocumented farm workers remains in limbo amid Donald Trump’s mass deportation threats, and the administration’s H-2A policies are undecided, the future of these guest workers remains unclear. Their numbers grow each year – and they are increasingly central to an industry historically dominated by undocumented workers. The industry isn’t creating new jobs either.
Farmers agree with farm workers like Mendez. They say they cannot attract other workers to their rural fields.
The debate over guest workers is dividing Republican support. Jonathan Berry, who was nominated to be the solicitor at the Department of Labor, wrote the labor chapter for Project 2025, the rightwing proposal to overhaul the government from the Heritage Foundation thinktank. That section advocates for replacing H-2A workers with local workers and automation. While technology could replace some specific farm tasks, many crops still depend primarily on human labor, and small farmers say they can’t afford to invest in equipment that could take more than a decade to pay off. Other co-authors of the chapter, such as economist Oren Cass, do not think the jobs should be eliminated, but that farmers should improve working conditions to attract citizens to them instead.
On the other hand, Trump’s power depends on a coalition that includes agricultural communities, who voted for him at almost 80% in 2024, according to Investigate Midwest, a journalism non-profit. Agribusiness also donated more than $24m to his re-election. Farm groups insist US citizens are unwilling to do the arduous labor and that eliminating H-2A workers could collapse the food system. They generally advocate for loosening regulations for H-2A workers, like reducing wage and housing requirements. Trump heeded their calls before. In 2019, his Department of Labor unsuccessfully proposed removing some regulations on the H-2A.
Labor leaders argue farmers prefer H-2A workers, despite their costs, because they are easily exploitable. Since the visa is connected to their employment, workers cannot find a job elsewhere, making their ability to be in the country completely dependent on an employer who can revoke it at any moment, and sometimes holds on to their passports, against DOL requirements.
The DC-based Economic Policy Institute, a liberal thinktank, has said this amounts to a program that exploits and silences migrant workers, replacing year-round workers in the process. In some cases, US prosecutors have accused farmers and recruiters of using the H-2A program to engage in forced labor trafficking.
“The situation of agriculture workers in the US is really bad already, but what they’re going to do is legalize this oppression,” said Carlos Marentes, executive director of the El Paso-based Centro de Los Trabajadores Agrícolas Fronterizos. “In the H-2A program, the way they’re proposing to get rid of the regulations and any guarantees that workers get is going to look like legalized slavery. The industry understands that they need a labor force, but they [want] a labor force that is going to be afraid, that is going to be grateful because the employer is providing you a job.”
If mass deportations go forward as promised, growers and ranchers will be even more desperate for these workers. Undocumented workers compose about 40% of the agricultural workforce, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
These longtime farm workers say that the system is designed to replace them with this more vulnerable group, limiting their work opportunities and decreasing their union’s power by giving farmers an alternative labor pool.
Click on the link for the full article
Trump will unleash his 'alternative powers' after court blocks tariffs: analysis
After a court brought President Donald Trump’s tariff plans to a crashing halt, Trump will be turning to “alternative powers” in order to impose his agenda, according to The Economist.
“The administration’s power to impose universal tariffs, the court argued, is specified in a different law: the 1974 Trade Act,” the outlet wrote.
This act allows Trump to impose a 15% tariff for 150 days. “It also allows unlimited levies (tariffs) on specific trading partners whose trade policy the administration judges to be ‘unjustifiable’ or to ‘[burden] or restrict’ American firms,” they said.
Trump is only able to impose this tariff after an investigation, a public notice, and a comment period. These restrictions were put in place after President Richard Nixon used an earlier version of the bill.
“It is to these alternative powers that Mr. Trump can now be expected to turn,” the Economist wrote. “A universal tariff of 10% applied under the Trade Act would give the administration about five months to have the ruling overturned on appeal.”
This, however, is not realistic because the act would require an investigation into every trading partner that hasn’t come to the table with a trade deal. Thus, the disputes will likely find their way to the Supreme Court.
Click on the link for the full article
After a court brought President Donald Trump’s tariff plans to a crashing halt, Trump will be turning to “alternative powers” in order to impose his agenda, according to The Economist.
“The administration’s power to impose universal tariffs, the court argued, is specified in a different law: the 1974 Trade Act,” the outlet wrote.
This act allows Trump to impose a 15% tariff for 150 days. “It also allows unlimited levies (tariffs) on specific trading partners whose trade policy the administration judges to be ‘unjustifiable’ or to ‘[burden] or restrict’ American firms,” they said.
Trump is only able to impose this tariff after an investigation, a public notice, and a comment period. These restrictions were put in place after President Richard Nixon used an earlier version of the bill.
“It is to these alternative powers that Mr. Trump can now be expected to turn,” the Economist wrote. “A universal tariff of 10% applied under the Trade Act would give the administration about five months to have the ruling overturned on appeal.”
This, however, is not realistic because the act would require an investigation into every trading partner that hasn’t come to the table with a trade deal. Thus, the disputes will likely find their way to the Supreme Court.
Click on the link for the full article
