Rubio and his Pop-Tarts.

RFK Jr. and Marco Rubio are getting into the act

Fake news…….
I prefer cherry flavor https://t.co/bVMZJV9dPl

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 13, 2026

But there are also lots of things out there like this:

When Marco goes for the pop tarts 😂 pic.twitter.com/kbbr6XUNZf

— Politi_Rican 🇵🇷 𝕏 🇺🇸 (@TheRicanMemes) August 13, 2026

And this:

Marco Rubio in the first ever Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts ad 🤣💀 pic.twitter.com/4X5STDt7my

— DFF (@DumbFxckFinder) August 13, 2026

"I'm not going to travel the world with a cooler full of sauerkraut. It's ridiculous. I can't do it!"

🤣 LMAO! Marco Rubio just dropped this hilarious response to Sec. RFK Jr.'s diet

Q: Have you adopted RFK's diet of red meat and fermented vegetables?

RUBIO: "No! This is a CRAZY diet. This is a diet that consists of eating sauerkraut and meat. Now you understand like this is… pic.twitter.com/qgaMNjsIhu

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 11, 2026

"But however long Kennedy lasts in government, his Make America Healthy Again coalition already lies in shambles, its catalog of achievements short."

"What happened? At present, there is no confirmed head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or of the Food and Drug Administration. There is no surgeon general and no head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease... no confirmed boss at the F.D.A.’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.... MAHA has been steamrolled on food and pollution by business-aligned Trump appointees elsewhere in the government, forced to concede longtime crusades against glyphosate, mercury and other airborne toxins.... The administration just signed off on more forever chemicals in pesticides and drinking water. A much-hyped report trying to link autism with the use of Tylenol in pregnancy was quickly disproved by larger studies, and a memo linking 10 childhood deaths to Covid vaccination was contradicted by the agency’s own review of the evidence...."

From "Has the MAHA Movement Given Up? Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his allies promised public-health libertarianism. The idea couldn’t survive once they took power" (NYT)(gift link, because there's lots more at the link).

"Tucker Carlson... has called the nicotine pouch brand ZYN a 'lifesaving' product that can increase productivity and 'male vitality.'"

"Mr. Carlson went so far as to say that the pouches are 'like the hand of God reaching down and massaging your central nervous system.'...  'What the Make America Healthy Again movement is saying is, "I am going to question what I’m told," said [biohacking influencer Dave Asprey,] who has encouraged his followers to do their own research on and experiment with nicotine, which he calls one of 'Mother Nature’s cognitive enhancers.'... Another common refrain among MAHA supporters is that the medical establishment has made Americans sicker by suppressing information about natural cures and instead pushing prescription medications. That was the focus of an episode last year of the popular 'Culture Apothecary' podcast, titled 'Nicotine is NOT the Villain: What Big Pharma Hides from Parents.' Alex Clark, the podcast’s host and a leading figure in the MAHA movement, interviewed a chiropractor and alternative medicine practitioner who suggested that the drug industry had buried information on nicotine’s benefits and claimed that nicotine could treat Covid, cancer and more...."

From "Influencers Are Spinning Nicotine as a ‘Natural’ Health Hack/The influencers, many of them aligned with the Make America Healthy Again Movement, say the medical establishment has unfairly demonized the compound" (NYT).

like the hand of God reaching down and massaging your central nervous system — reminds me of that Trump-is-like-Jesus illustration:

MAHAspital.

"The thing that has made doctors raise an eyebrow and reach for the defibrillator... is... 'We are ending the war on protein.'"

"Red meat, in particular, is fine. Steak, meatloaf and cream are back on the table of God-fearing Americans. Plus, they need to aim for three servings of full-fat dairy a day.... To see whether these dietary guidelines are going to make me live for ever or are a recipe for cardiac arrest, I tried out RFK’s butter and steak diet for a few days...."

I'm reading:

He looks skeptical, but skip past all the details of what Harry Wallop ate, here's where he ends up: "Curiously, over the four days on the Maha diet I have lost 3lb and gained some strength — I manage 72 push-ups on day 5. The weight loss is almost certainly because I cut out most carbohydrates and I studiously avoided any added sugar...."

Bobby flips the food pyramid.

From "Welcome to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030."

The message is simple: eat real food.... American households must prioritize diets built on whole, nutrient-dense foods—protein, dairy, vegetables, fruits, healthy fats, and whole grains.... For decades, federal incentives have promoted low-quality, highly processed foods and pharmaceutical intervention instead of prevention.... Under President Trump’s leadership, we are restoring common sense, scientific integrity, and accountability to federal food and health policy—and we are reclaiming the food pyramid and returning it to its true purpose of educating and nourishing all...

"Today, the Trump Administration is proud to announce the United States of America’s updated Childhood Vaccination Schedule."

"This Schedule is rooted in the Gold Standard of Science, and widely agreed upon by Scientists and Experts all over the World. Effective today, America will no longer require 72 'jabs' for our beautiful, healthy children. We are moving to a far more reasonable Schedule, where all children will only be recommended to receive Vaccinations for 11 of the most serious and dangerous diseases. Parents can still choose to give their children all of the Vaccinations, if they wish, and they will still be covered by insurance. However, this updated Schedule finally aligns the United States with other Developed Nations around the World.... Many Americans, especially the 'MAHA Moms,' have been praying for these COMMON SENSE reforms for many years...."

Writes Trump, on Truth Social.

"In a conservative’s brain, psychedelics are not a drug. They are a medicine. In the old-school left psychedelic movement, they’re seen as a drug."

"That drug has healing properties, but it also has other properties that they celebrate that are not just medicine. I think what you might be seeing from mainstream blue communities is concern about looking like weirdo, hippie lefties if they support psychedelics. It also might be a commitment to mainstream medicine. It also could be, politically speaking, skepticism if conservatives like it...."

Said Kyrsten Sinema, quoted in "Kyrsten Sinema Is Ready for Her MAHA Turn/In a new interview, the one-time Democrat says the movement for psychedelic medicine should capitalize on the Trump administration" (Politico).

There's also this about her "ibogaine treatment" to deal with her mental distress over her grandmother’s dementia:

"There were forty-three runaways, part of a troop of roughly fifty.... All were rhesus macaques, a species known for its deep communal bonds and larkish intelligence...."

"'Macaques are the marines of monkeys, because they never leave a man behind,' Lisa Jones-Engel, a primatologist and senior science adviser at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (peta), told me. 'They could have followed the woods and ended up in a rhesus nirvana. What kills me is they were crying for their friends and daughters to come with them.'... Groups that oppose animal testing, historically the province of liberals and progressives, were in the process of forging a delicate alliance with the incoming Trump Administration. An estimated third of the forty-eight-billion-dollar budget of the N.I.H. goes toward funding animal research—and animal protectionists, Make America Healthy Again adherents, and anti-establishment libertarians were realizing that they shared a desire to see that budget slashed...."

From "The Runaway Monkeys Upending the Animal-Rights Movement/A troop of macaques escaped one of the largest primate-breeding facilities in America. Now a strange coalition of uncompromising activists and maga loyalists is demanding that all lab animals be set free" (The New Yorker).

"The MAHA movement’s war on glyphosate is part of a broader war on modern farming... It reflects a fantasy of agricultural purity..."

"... where less intensive food production can heal the land and reverse climate change, even though less intensive farms that make less food per acre need more acres and more deforestation to make the same amount of food. Many liberals repulsed by Mr. Kennedy’s unscientific bias against vaccines and Tylenol share his unscientific bias against agri-chemicals, genetically modified organisms and industrial agriculture.... This is a scientific truism that MAHA misses: The dose makes the poison. You shouldn’t swallow an entire bottle of Tylenol, but it’s a safe product, and it would take a higher dose of glyphosate than Tylenol to kill someone. Some rats might — might! — have gotten sick from ingesting glyphosate, but the proportion of it in their diets was almost certainly thousands and maybe millions of times higher than the proportion in yours. In any case, it’s much less damaging than the alternatives...."

From "Spraying Roundup on Crops Is Fine. Really" (NYT).

There's an interesting political reshuffling going on here. I think there are a lot of people who are devoted to the improvement of American food who are going to feel slighted by the accusation that they're caught in a "fantasy of agricultural purity" and too dumb to understand the old saw "The dose makes the poison." Don't focus on what may have happened to some rats. Let the scientists balance the good and the bad and tell you the conclusion: Roundup is fine. Now, shut up and resume microdosing. 

This is another way Democrats can drive its natural constituents into the arms of Republicans. They could have had Kennedy on their side. They didn't want him. 

"I'm still mulling the point... about whether or not both parties moved in an individualistic direction and that there were these big solidaristic movements on the left that that began to to fade.... "

"My instinct was it was wrong. And as I think about it, I think it's right, but I think that it's right for possibly a different reason...."

Mulls Ezra Klein, in the new episode of his podcast, "MAHA Is a Bad Answer to a Good Question." I'm jumping you to a spot about half an hour into the discussion:

"I think there's a sense that that politics failed... particularly after 2024... You look around at the way... communal shaming worked. You look at the way people look back on the pandemic. You look at the backlash now to what gets called wokeness, Me Too. And whatever you believe about the underlying arguments being made that the effort to shame your way to a better world was a political failure — not a small political failure, but a political failure that has empowered the absolute worst people, the people you feared the most, like a Murderers' Row of who you did not want to have power.... And the move — I'm not sure if I would call it towards individualism — but away from this heavily enforced solidarity of both action and language — very, very aggressive on speech and info hazards — that that was part of what went wrong....  [T]he left became extremely comfortable with the deployment of state power on behalf of institutions and so on in a way that really radicalized the other side. And the other side didn't become libertarian — in a strange way, they became authoritarian...."

Klein seems to be blaming the left for making the right authoritarian, but isn't he also accusing the left of authoritarianism? What is "heavily enforced solidarity" that's "very, very aggressive on speech and info hazards" — what is it to be "extremely comfortable with the deployment of state power" — if not authoritarianism?

By the way, what is a Murderers' Row? The term goes back to at least 1850, when it referred to a row of prison cells in New York City's Tombs. But most Americans probably think of it in as referring to baseball— especially the 1927 New York Yankees, which had a very intimidating batting lineup. If that's your reference point, Klein sounds like he's expressing awe and admiration for the left's adversaries. Trump is the Babe Ruth of politics.

"You convince him to come marry you, move here and have babies. This is where your future should be, if you like him enough for that."

Said Leslie Aberlin, owner of a development called Aberlin Springs, to a "prospective resident, the girlfriend of a local banker."

Aberlin is quoted in "This Ohio Farm Community Is a Mecca for the ‘MAHA Mom’/In a neighborhood that appeals to people from both the right and the left, residents strive for a finely tuned state of political harmony" (NYT)(gift link).

Ms. Aberlin loves that so many “traditional wives,” as she calls stay-at-home moms, are raising their children in her community. While she brought up her two kids as a single mother, divorcing her ex-husband soon after her second baby was born, she calls herself a “boss woman by accident.” She believes women have been “sold a bag of goods” about the importance of a career, and are usually more fulfilled when they focus on their kids full time.

1. What's wrong with buying a bag of goods?  She means sold a bill of goods. With a bag of goods, you've got the goods. They're in the bag. A bill of goods is a document that merely lists the goods. You just bought the piece of paper. 

2. The real estate is real, but what about the mystique of the MAHA Mom? Buying a personal residence always comes with something intangible, the life you imagine for yourself in that house."

3. It's not a house, it's a home — Bob Dylan quote.

4. The home is never in the bag.

"I think most men are gay in DC — either out or closeted depending on whether they’re Democrats or Republicans."

"I want to marry someone who allows me to protect feminine energy in a world that is forcing me to be a girl boss because they keep sending Steve to prison. Perhaps I have…"

Said Natalie Winters, quoted by Katy Balls in The London Times, "My night out with Trump’s young Maga crowd in Washington."

"Steve" = Steve Bannon. Winters works as a White House correspondent for Steve Bannon’s "War Room."

"What is the social scene like in Maga term two? '‘I think there is more of a diversity of ways that groups enter this movement, so you get a broader… For instance, Maha — it’s more the trad wife, pro-natalist people who are really into that. It all mixes. It’s a bigger tent,' says Winters. There is also a bunch of tech bros in town, but to the disappointment of some in the Maga coalition and some of the young Republicans looking for husbands, they rarely come out...."

Are women today thinking about themselves in terms of "feminine energy"? A quick search for the term will turn up some very lightweight stuff. I won't link to any of it. I'll just quote the 2 times the phrase has come up on my blog:

2013: "If you are truly a feminine woman at your core, but don’t know how to let your femininity surface, you will end up unhappy, feeling miserable and depleted.... Being able to claim your feminine energy is at the heart of your own happiness, and most definitely the happiness of your relationship." 

That's a quote from Renee Wade.

2025: "And I, I just think we kind of swung culturally to that part of the, the kind of the spectrum where, you know, it's all like, okay, masculinity is toxic. We have to like get rid of it completely. It's, like, no, like it's, both of these things are good, right? It's like you want, like, feminine energy, you want masculine energy. Like I, I think that that's like you're gonna have parts of society that have more of one or the other. I think that that's all good."

And that's a quote from Mark Zuckerberg.

"Screen time together is better than individual device time, experts say. Start playing multiplayer video games like Mario Kart on the same screen...."

"Pick a movie or TV show to watch together as a family, without checking a your phone. 'TV is underrated in the age of short form video, if you’re worried about their attention span,' says Devorah Heitner, author of 'Growing Up in Public: Coming of Age in a Digital World.' 'It’s an opportunity to connect, and it’s also an opportunity to have a shared vocabulary.'"

From "The White House is worried about kids’ screen time. Here are five things parents can do. A new MAHA-led report on childhood health has harsh words about screen time, but the reality is more nuanced" (WaPo)(free-access link).

Did you ever think it would come to this, that the situation with children would get so bad that watching more TV would come to be regarded as therapeutic?!

That's a free access link, so you can see multiple other issues, such as the painful dissonance for parents who want to get their kids off the devices but hate to be on the same page with Trump and Bobby.

"One divide in the MAHA movement is between those who are focused on the nation’s food system — concerned about petroleum-based food dyes, highly processed foods and seed oils..."

"... and those who believe the nation’s health problems stem from the use of vaccines. Means shares Kennedy’s focus on eliminating food dyes and ultra-processed foods. At times she has promoted health practices that public health experts warn can be harmful, such as drinking raw-milk smoothies. 'We’re never going to hear anything about the safety of vaccines from Casey Means,' Mike Adams, an anti-vaccine advocate who runs the far-right website Natural News, said in an X live-stream on Thursday. 'Because again, she’s an impostor, she’s a plant, airdropped into the movement to change the narrative so you don’t talk about vaccines. Instead you talk about this other stuff — seed oils or whatever.'..."

I'm reading "Uproar over surgeon general pick exposes MAHA factions among RFK Jr. allies/Casey Means, a prominent nutrition advocate in the Make America Healthy Again movement, has been described as insufficiently critical of vaccines" (WaPo).

I know Casey Means from this great episode of Joe Rogan (from last October):

Excerpt:

"Stop trying to sane-wash, RFK Jr. Just. Stop. It."

That's the top-rated comment at The Washington Post's "Did RFK Jr. or Michelle Obama say it about food? Take our quiz" (free-access link).

All that's going on there — the supposed "sane-washing" — is that you are confronted with how much RFK Jr. and Michelle Obama sound like each other.

I closely followed this issue on a daily basis for the entire relevant time period, and I scored 3 out of 7 — worse than the average of random guessing!

And did you listen to the NYT "Daily" yesterday? Here's "How R.F.K. Jr. and ‘Health Freedom’ Rose to Power" (audio and transcript at Podscribe).

Bobby surrenders.

Make America Healthy Again starts TOMORROW. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/LLzr5S9ugf

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 17, 2024

"Right-leaning social media influencers... and their merry bands of wine moms and girl bosses have long waited for this moment: Validation..."

"... that they, too, can 'go wild on medicines,' no matter how many lives it puts in danger. Should Kennedy be instated to this unnamed high-ranking public health role... his intention is to dismantle and privatize the foundations of public health initiatives.... The bombastic Trump attitude may at times seem at odds with the Ballerina Farm wannabes and their sprawling broods, a picturesque life off the grid fueled by unpasteurized milk and sunshine with that one 'I think I like this little life' line from that song playing on a constant loop in the background, but consider that so many of these 'wellness'-minded people consider themselves to be freethinking rebels, a value that Trump also cherishes, albeit with wildly different understandings of how to use bronzer.... If all the newly pumped MAHA tradwives need something cute and farmhouse-chic to slurp up Kennedy’s Kool-Aid, great news: He has just the whimsical heart-emblazoned glass for you."

From "When MAGA Won, So Did MAHA, the 'Healthy'Arm of the Trump Apparatus/With RFK Jr. as a figurehead, American public medicine is set to enter its 'MAHA' era, no ha-has about it" (Vanity Fair).

RFK Jr. and Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard each take a quick turn touting Trump.

RFK Jr: "Don't you want a President who's going to get the chemicals out of our food and don't you want a president who's going to get the corruption out of Washington and don't we deserve a president of the United States that's going to make America healthy again?"

Tucker Carlson: "The single biggest lie that Donald Trump has exposed is that this is a functional democracy when in fact it's a country oppressed by a small group of its unhappiest citizens for their own benefit, and the promise of this campaign is that Donald Trump will return this country to its owners...."

Tulsi Gabbard:  "We have seen from the very beginning how much President Trump has been attacked, smeared, censored — the government weaponized against a candidate for President and a former President in ways that have never been seen in our country before. The reason why this has happened is because he is the sole person who has had the courage to stand up against the uni-party War Machine in Washington and has the audacity to call for peace and an end to war. While he has challenged the swamp creatures in Washington, all of you have resoundingly nominated him for President 3 times in the last 3 presidential elections. We know whose side he stands on. He stands on the side of the people. He stands on the side of peace and prosperity and freedom for all Americans...."