{"id":279852,"date":"2026-09-05T19:02:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T19:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/279852\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T19:02:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T19:02:14","slug":"power-hungry-pennsylvania-gov-josh-shapiro-owes-rfk-jr-an-apology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/279852\/","title":{"rendered":"Power-hungry Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro owes RFK Jr. an apology"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been said that when politicians look in the mirror, they see a future president staring back at them.\u00a0To be sure, many believe that is precisely what Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro<\/a> imagines he sees when he gazes at the man looking back at him.\u00a0But did he intentionally cross a line in service to his opportunism? \u00a0<\/p>\n

One person who may\u00a0think\u00a0so is Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Aug.\u00a025, the Pennsylvania Department of Health reported<\/a>\u00a0“two measles-associated deaths in Pennsylvania,” both\u00a0in\u00a0Lancaster County and neither, allegedly,\u00a0vaccinated against measles. Shapiro immediately\u00a0high-tailed it to a\u00a0local\u00a0hospital to\u00a0express his “deepest condolences”\u00a0to the families,\u00a0while also admitting that he had received a call from Kennedy but declined\u00a0the secretary’s offer of federal\u00a0assistance.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Said Shapiro<\/a>: “I was very, very blunt with him and I made very clear that his actions and the rhetoric that is coming from this administration\u00a0are having a negative impact on communities across America.”<\/p>\n

Is that\u00a0true?\u00a0According to former\u00a0New York Times journalist and bestselling author Alex Berenson, no.<\/p>\n

For those who may not know, Berenson was\u00a0arguably the\u00a0major voice of reason in our nation during the\u00a0COVID-19 pandemic.\u00a0His\u00a0reporting was exceptional,\u00a0calling\u00a0out the hysteria, the deliberate misinformation and the blatant power grabs\u00a0connected\u00a0to\u00a0the\u00a0Biden administration’s draconian COVID dictates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But then, so did RFK, Jr.\u00a0Aside from his\u00a0widely read\u00a0book, “The Real Anthony Fauci,”<\/a>\u00a0Kennedy regularly posted\u00a0on the\u00a0manufactured madness\u00a0around the pandemic while also quite questioning the true effectiveness and safety of the\u00a0new\u00a0COVID\u00a0vaccines. \u00a0<\/p>\n

For those reasons\u00a0\u2014\u00a0and\u00a0perhaps\u00a0because Kennedy dared to run<\/a>\u00a0against the flailing Joe Biden in 2024\u00a0\u2014\u00a0many on the left\u00a0viciously\u00a0turned on the man they once revered,\u00a0labeling\u00a0him\u00a0a “vax-denier.”<\/a>\u00a0 The fact that Kennedy and Berenson have been proven correct time and again appears of no consequence to\u00a0those politicians, journalists and biased medical “professionals” seeking to smear them at all costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But\u00a0back to Berenson,\u00a0and a post he put out after Shapiro’s\u00a0press conference. \u00a0<\/p>\n

“Measles\u00a0is\u00a0highly contagious and can (very rarely) have terrible consequences. Vaccinating against it makes sense. But hyping measles’s dangers, while pretending the vaccine carries no risks, is wrong,” he wrote<\/a>. “Worse, that jab-at-any-cost mindset bleeds into every shot, including ones that clearly do not work and have real dangers for kids, like the mRNA Covid shot.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Berenson,\u00a0who took\u00a0a much deeper dive<\/a>\u00a0into this controversy\u00a0for The Free Press, then\u00a0cuts\u00a0to the chase: “Of course, though, the legacy media fell over itself to highlight the Pennsylvania deaths. The reason was obvious.\u00a0Despite endless hype about measles, not one person in the United States had died from the illness this year before Shapiro’s announcement. Not one.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Is any child or any adult dying from measles a tragedy?\u00a0Of course.\u00a0But cherry-picking alleged cases for seeming political gain\u00a0is\u00a0beneath contempt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To this very point, Kennedy posted<\/a>: “Governor Shapiro’s unseemly rush to Lancaster County to\u00a0convene\u00a0a national press conference and his giddy delight in announcing two measles deaths was a morose commentary on the contemporary political dialogue. The performance was a replay of the Democrats’ COVID playbook: fearmongering, misinformation, finger-pointing, and the weaponization of infectious disease fears for political gain.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why do Democrats like Shapiro and their allies in the media\u00a0seek\u00a0to turn a\u00a0rare\u00a0measles death into national news?\u00a0If\u00a0they\u00a0are\u00a0truly concerned\u00a0with saving lives, why not instead address the thousands of lives being lost every year in America’s inner cities?\u00a0<\/p>\n

To this point, President Trump recently and rightfully called out the\u00a0mayor of Chicago and Illinois’s governor with this post<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Truth Social:<\/p>\n

“Chicago violence is unchecked and at record levels. It has never been worse! This\u00a0weekend\u00a041 people were shot, 3 DEAD. These numbers are becoming normalized. It is out of control! The city will die if the Federal Government, a\u00a0fine tuned\u00a0crime fighting machine, is not invited in, by the Mayor or Governor, to HELP. I am\u00a0awaiting\u00a0the call. Nobody should be forced to live under these conditions. Like D.C. and others, they will have almost no crime, FAST! The State and City\u00a0can’t\u00a0do what I do. Governor Pritzker, CALL!!! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just how bad is Chicago?\u00a0As the Chicago Tribune reported several years ago, over the course of the last 60 years, more than\u00a040,000 men, women and children<\/a>\u00a0have been murdered in the city, and more than 500,000 have been wounded\u00a0\u2014\u00a0most of them Black, thousands of them innocent bystanders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Does\u00a0Shapiro care\u00a0about such\u00a0tragic\u00a0violence in\u00a0American cities?\u00a0Who knows?\u00a0He’d\u00a0rather hold a press conference about two deaths\u00a0that may have been<\/a>\u00a0measles related.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Secretary Kennedy closed out his post with this: “Governor Shapiro got his headlines. He correctly gambled that the slavish mainstream media would dutifully amplify his scolding without any effort to check his facts.” \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Indeed. Ambulance-chasing politics often does succeed.\u00a0But at what cost?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Douglas MacKinnon is a former White House and Pentagon official.<\/p>\n

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