Monthly Archives: June 2025

A PERSONAL TRIBUTE TO BILL MOYERS, WHO NEVER STOPPED PUSHING

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[This article first appeared at Common Dreams on June 30, 2025.]

A Personal Tribute to Bill Moyers, Who Never Stopped Pushing

by Steven J. Harper

On June 26, America lost an iconic force for good. I lost a great friend.

A Life of Public Service

A partial summary of Bill Moyers’ impressive life fills entire pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post – treatment reserved for royalty and rock stars. Bill was both.

In those pages you’ll read about his illustrious political career as President Lyndon Johnson’s special assistant, press secretary, and key architect of the “Great Society” – a collection of programs that are now in danger, including the War on Poverty that produced Medicare, Medicaid, the Food Stamp Act and the Economic Opportunity Act; the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the Voting Rights Act of 1965; the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965, and more.

You’ll marvel at his unparalleled journalism that resulted in landmark documentaries, best-selling books, dozens of EmmyAwards, two Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia University Awards, nine Peabody Awards, three George Polk Awards, and the first-ever Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the American Film Institute.

A Source of Private Inspiration

I’m going to cover different ground that you won’t find anywhere else. During the final years of Bill’s life, I had the honor of working directly with him on one of his most important missions: preserving democracy.

[To continue reading, please click here to reach my Substack page (No paywall)]:

https://substack.com/inbox/post/167185823?triedRedirect=true

TRUMP’S ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL (UGLY) BILL VERSUS AN UNSUNG HERO

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[This article first appeared at Common Dreams on June 25, 2025.]

Trump’s One Big Beautiful (Ugly) Bill v. An Unsung Hero

by Steven J. Harper

In the dead of night at 2:53 a.m. on May 22, the House of Representatives began to consider President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” 

Four hours later, Republicans passed it by a single vote – 215 to 214. It included a provision that effectively forgave most of Trump’s unconstitutional actions and undermined the federal courts. 

Republicans in the Senate made it worse.

Over the weekend, an unlikely hero blocked this assault on the Constitution: the Senate parliamentarian. Will her ruling stick? Or will Senate Republicans detonate the “nuclear option” to save the provision?

[To continue reading, please click here to reach my Substack page (No paywall)]:

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-bill-vs-parliamentarian

RFK Jr.’s GUIDE TO MAKING AMERICA SICK AGAIN

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[This article first appeared at Common Dreams on June 15, 2025.]

RFK Jr. STRIKES AGAIN – AT AMERICANS’ HEALTH

by Steven J. Harper

Someone should have told Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy that President Donald Trump’s mishandling of the last pandemic probably cost him the presidency in 2020. Building on his longstanding anti-vaxxing crusade, Kennedy has followed a three-step program that will worsen the next outbreak.

Step 1: Reduce vaccine availability. Three weeks ago, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – one of Kennedy’s HHS agencies – announced that for healthy Americans under 65, COVID vaccines will not be approved until they pass large scale and time-consuming clinical trials. That is a daunting obstacle.

Step 2: Reduce vaccine eligibility. The following week, Kennedy announced that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would no longer recommend the COVID vaccine for children and pregnant women. Within days, the CDC had to walk it back somewhat, stating that whether to vaccinate a child should be the product of “shared decision-making” involving parents and physicians. But pregnant women remain in the limbo world of “no recommendation.” In any event, the negative impact on overall public health will be enormous.

Step 3: Eliminate vaccine expertise. On June 9, Kennedy fired the entire CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) – all 17 of them. This committee of outside experts reviews the most recent data on all vaccines to assess safety, efficacy, and clinical need. It develops a recommended guidance schedule for all vaccines, including seasonal flu shots and COVID boosters. Physicians rely on that guidance in counseling patients, and insurance companies and government programs use it to determine the vaccines they will cover. Committee members received their termination notices via email sent two hours after Kennedy announced their firing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

With Kennedy’s selection of his first eight replacements on June 11, we’re getting a sense of the disaster that will accompany Step 4.

[[To continue reading, please click here to reach my Substack page (No paywall)]:

https://stevenjharper.substack.com/p/rfk-jrs-guide-to-making-america-sick

RFK Jr.’s DEADLY WAR ON SCIENCE

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[This article first appeared at Common Dreams on June –, 2025.]

RFK Jr.’s Deadly War on Science

by Steven J. Harper

During an NBC interview on November 6, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was cleaning up his lifelong anti-vaccination act as he lobbied to become Health and Human Services Secretary in the Trump administration.

“If vaccines are working for somebody, I’m not going to take them away,” he said. “People ought to have choice…”

Kennedy is not a doctor or a scientist, but he got the job as America’s top public health officer. Now he’s making the wrong choices for all of us.

[[To continue reading, please click here to reach my Substack page (No paywall)]:

https://stevenjharper.substack.com/p/rfk-jrs-deadly-war-on-science