Texas Has Not Pinpointed Source Of Measles Outbreak: Official

 by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The source of the measles outbreak in Texas has not been determined, a top Texas official said on March 3.

A measles testing site in Gaines County, Texas, on Feb. 27, 2025. Jan Sonnenmair/Getty Images

“For this particular outbreak, we don’t know the individual who introduced it into the community,” Dr. Jennifer Shuford, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, told a state House of Representatives committee.

Cases of measles first cropped up in Gaines County in January. Since then, an additional 144 cases have been confirmed.

Many measles outbreaks are caused by a person who travels outside the country and then returns with the disease.

A handful of cases identified in Harris County, also in January, were determined to be travel-related. Those patients did not spread the disease, which spreads through respiratory droplets, Shuford said.

As for the outbreak that started in Gaines County, “We don’t know who introduced measles into the community and from what country,” Shuford said later during Monday’s hearing. “We just don’t know that about this particular outbreak.”

She also acknowledged, under questioning from state Rep. Mike Olcott, that suggesting the source was travel-related was speculative.

Olcott noted that the number of illegal immigrants coming across the U.S.-Mexico border has surged in recent years and asked whether Shuford would agree an illegal immigrant could have been the source. She said she would not.

“We’ve seen examples where it’s not travel from our southern border, that it’s other travel that just happens to get into a pocket of under-vaccinated. And that’s why I can’t pin it on this,” she said. “I don’t have any data that would say yes or no.”

Nearly half of confirmed cases have been among children aged 5 to 17, with another 31 percent being detected among children aged 0 to 4, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Of the 84 patients with known vaccination status, 79 were listed as not having received any doses of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Another five had received at least one dose.

A school-aged child who died was unvaccinated, officials said.

Children are advised by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to receive one dose of the MMR vaccine at 12 to 15 months of age and a second dose at age 4, 5, or 6.

Gaines County and surrounding areas have recorded falling vaccination rates for years.

Statewide, 2.3 percent of primary school students had a conscientious exemption for at least one vaccine, according to a survey conducted for the 2023–24 school years. Across the state, 94.3 percent of kindergartners and 97.6 percent of seventh graders had received a full series of the shot.

The percentage of conscientious exemptions to at least one vaccine was much higher in some counties, such as Gaines County, where the outbreak started. The percentage was 13.6 percent among school students there. And just 82 percent of kindergartners and 90 percent of seventh graders in the county had received a full series of the MMR vaccine.

At 95 percent coverage, herd immunity, or broad protection among the community is achieved, Shuford said. “We know when those vaccine levels get lower than 95 percent that there’s enough unprotected people together to cause an outbreak or to allow an outbreak to happen,” she said.

She attributed falling vaccination rates to a decrease in trust in vaccines.

State Rep. James B. Frank noted that the vaccination schedule from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention contains dozens of doses, many more than other developed countries. He asked whether public health officials should focus on messaging that conveys to people that certain vaccines are high-reward and low-risk, such as the MMR vaccine.

Shuford said that the MMR vaccine “is one of our really good ones” while other shots, such as the COVID-19 vaccine, don’t work as well. “Part of it is on us in public health not communicating well,” she said.

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently said that people should consult with their doctors concerning vaccinations while recommending vitamin A for people who become infected with measles.

For people who are exposed to measles and are unvaccinated, Texas officials recommend a vaccine within 72 hours of exposure. If that is not accomplished, unvaccinated children who were exposed are at risk of being excluded from school. Texas Administrative Code states that a child “who has not received the required immunizations for reasons of conscience, including religious beliefs, may be excluded from school in times of emergency or epidemic declared by the commissioner of the department.”

Shuford could not say how many children are being prevented from attending school.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/texas-has-not-pinpointed-source-measles-outbreak-official

'Rare Flu Complication Rose in Recent Years'

 Reports of children in the United States with influenza-associated encephalopathy or encephalitis (IAE) increased from none during the 2020-2021 flu season to a preliminary 14% for the 2024-2025 season, based on a new analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

IAE involves a range of neurologic syndromes triggered by flu infection of the respiratory tract, with diagnosis based on brain lesions detectable on imaging, wrote Amara Fazal, MD, and colleagues at the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

A series of anecdotal reports of pediatric cases with IAE in January 2025 prompted the CDC’s investigation; the findings were published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).

IAE is potentially fatal but rare, and no national surveillance exists for the condition specifically. The researchers reviewed data from the Influenza-Associated Pediatric Mortality Surveillance System for flu seasons from 2010-2011 to preliminary data from 2024-2025.

No pediatric influenza deaths with IAE were identified during 2020-2021, but the median proportion was 9% across the study period. Preliminary data through February 8, 2025, showed that nine of 68 pediatric flu deaths (13%) involved IAE, including four with acute necrotizing encephalopathy (ANE).

The findings were limited by several factors including the potential over- or underestimation of cases, incomplete data for the current season, and lack of data on the prevalence of IAE overall, such as less severe cases, and the inability to compare ranges of illness over time because of the absence of established surveillance, the researchers wrote.

However, the results suggest that clinicians consider IAE in children with febrile illness and neurologic symptoms compatible with IAE, the researchers noted. These symptoms include “seizures, altered mental status, delirium, decreased level of consciousness, lethargy, hallucinations, or personality changes lasting more than 24 hours,” they wrote. Influenza-associated ANE should be considered in children with IAE symptoms accompanied by rapid neurological decline and lesions on imaging, they added.

“CDC has posted a national call for possible pediatric IAE cases identified during this influenza season on EPI-X and can be contacted at severeflu@cdc.gov,” the researchers wrote.

View From the Clinic

“Currently, influenza related death is reported to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but severe manifestations of influenza such as IAE that may significantly harm people without causing death are not tracked,” said Lori Handy, MD, MSCE, associate director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, in an interview.

“Understanding the epidemiology of circulating infectious diseases and sharing that with the healthcare community helps clinicians better identify what might be impacting a given patient they are seeing,” Handy said. “When that infectious disease is vaccine preventable, it is critical that both healthcare providers and the public understand the whole spectrum of the disease to better appreciate the value and importance of getting vaccinated,” she added.

Although IAE is a known complication of flu infection, it is rare, and many healthcare providers may be unfamiliar with it, Handy said. “The MMWR publication alerts providers during this flu season to help them make this diagnosis more rapidly and be able to provide the best evaluation and treatment for their patients,” she noted.

Stay Vigilant to Potential for IAE

“During influenza season, consider IAE in children with febrile illnesses and neurologic signs or symptoms as outlined in the MMWR: Seizure, change in mental status, delirium, decreased level of consciousness, lethargy, hallucinations, or personality changes lasting > 24 hours,” Handy told Medscape Medical News. “Consider ANE if there are also compatible changes on neuroimaging, and when these diagnoses are being considered, begin antiviral therapy,” she said.

“We need to best understand the full spectrum of disease, not just those cases that result in death,” said Handy. “Providers can help by identifying and reporting cases so that we can have a better understanding of how often this is occurring, and then studies to identify optimal strategies for prevention and treatment can occur,” she said.

The researchers had no financial conflicts to disclose. Handy had no financial conflicts to disclose.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/rare-flu-complication-rose-recent-years-2025a10005br

'Default Palliative Care Referrals Increase Consults'

 A default palliative care referral intervention increased palliative care consultations by more than fivefold and decreased end-of-life systemic therapy by more than half among patients with advanced cancer being treated in the community oncology setting.

METHODOLOGY:

• Early palliative care among patients with cancer can enhance quality of life and reduce intensive end-of-life care and is recommended by national guidelines. However, there are barriers to making these referrals and limited strategies to increase access in the community oncology setting.
• Researchers developed an intervention — an algorithm-based default palliative care referral, embedded in an electronic health record (EHR) — to help overcome barriers to palliative care referrals. The EHR algorithm assigned scores to each patient based on their palliative care risk factors to identify those eligible for palliative care.
• The researcher conducted a trial across 15 community oncology clinics and evaluated 562 patients with advanced lung cancer or noncolorectal gastrointestinal malignant tumors who were randomly assigned to either the control group (n = 266; eight clinics) or the EHR algorithm-based default palliative care group (n = 296; seven clinics).
• Clinicians at the control sites received weekly reports on palliative care referral rates compared with their peers and referred patients at their own discretion. Those at intervention sites also received default palliative care orders using the EHR.
• The primary outcome was completed palliative care consultation within 12 weeks of enrollment; exploratory outcomes included quality of life, feeling heard and understood, and markers of intensive end-of-life care.

TAKEAWAY:

• Overall, 43.9% of patients in the intervention group completed palliative care consultations compared with 8.3% of those in the control group, highlighting a significant increase in completed palliative care visits using the algorithm-based default referral (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 8.9; P < .001).
• Among patients completing palliative care visits, both groups showed similar engagement in terms of the median number of visits (2.9 in the intervention group vs 3.4 in the control group) and the percentage of individuals with more than one visit (84.2% vs 89.3%).
• Among patients who died at the 24-week follow-up, those in the intervention group had lower rates of systemic therapy within 14 days of death than those in the control group (6.5% vs 16.1%; AOR, 0.3; P = .05). No significant differences in overall survival or late hospice referrals were observed between the two groups.
• At 24 weeks, no significant differences were observed between the groups in terms of health-related quality of life (mean difference, −0.5; P = .68) and feeling heard and understood (mean difference, −0.1; P = .51).

IN PRACTICE:

“In this randomized clinical trial, an intervention combining algorithm-based automated identification of patients eligible for PC [palliative care] with default PC referral led to an increase in PC visits and a decrease in end-of-life systemic therapy among patients with cancer,” the authors wrote. “This study provides guidance for scalable, algorithm-driven PC implementation across community oncology settings,” they added.

SOURCE:

This study, led by Ravi B. Parikh, MD, MPP, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, was published online in JAMA Network Open.

LIMITATIONS:

The findings may not be generalizable to other community-based systems without embedded palliative care. The palliative care algorithms were limited to depression and distress screening surveys, lacking external validation despite being based on national guidelines. Additionally, patient-reported outcomes may have been underpowered because of low completion of assessments.

DISCLOSURES:

This study was supported by Emerson Collective. Several authors reported receiving grants or personal fees and having other ties with various sources. Additional disclosures are noted in the original article.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/can-default-palliative-care-referrals-increase-consults-2025a10005c3

'Summary Aims to Clarify Guidance Around Dense Breasts'

 In September 2024, more than 40 million women who get annual mammograms in the United States began receiving information on their breast density because of a mandate from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). For the first time, a federal rule dictated that mammography centers were required to tell women whether their breasts were considered “dense,” a designation assigned to about half of all women in the US. Most states had previously established those requirements.

Authors of a paper published in JAMA Insights note that the FDA mandate “increases the complexity of breast cancer screening for women and their clinicians, many of whom may not be prepared to interpret and act on information about breast density.”

To help ease conversations with patients about breast density, Christoph I. Lee, MD, MS, with the Departments of Radiology and Health Systems and Population Health at the University of Washington, Seattle, and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, and Joann G. Elmore, MD, MPH, with the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles, and professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, offer an evidence-based summary aimed at informing shared decision making. 

Three concepts dominate the summary:

• Women with dense breasts who don’t have other breast cancer risk factors should not be considered at high risk for breast cancer.
• Screening beyond routine mammography is not necessary for women with dense breasts at average risk for breast cancer.
• Deciding whether to order supplemental screening with breast MRI or ultrasonography should be based on a comprehensive risk assessment (not breast density alone) and should include patients’ values regarding risks and benefits of additional interventions.

Among the common questions the paper answers is whether breast density affects the accuracy of mammograms. The answer: “Digital mammography and digital breast tomosynthesis have high accuracy for detecting breast cancer, even for dense breasts (digital breast tomosynthesis sensitivity is [about] 88% for all women and 77% for women with dense breasts).”

The paper also addresses benefits and harms of supplemental screening.

Lee and Elmore note that no randomized trials to date have shown a reduction in breast cancer deaths when MRI or ultrasound screening is added after a mammogram for asymptomatic women with dense breasts.

But there can be harms for supplemental screening. Ultrasonography screening after a woman with dense breasts has a negative mammogram “likely leads to greater harms than benefits,” the authors write. They point to a population-based modeling study that suggests adding supplemental ultrasonography every other year for women 50-74 years old with dense breasts who had previous negative mammograms “would result in 354 additional biopsy recommendations per 1000 women compared with biennial mammography alone, while only preventing 0.36 additional cancer deaths per 1000 women with dense breasts.”

A comparative effectiveness analysis published in 2024 estimated that adding MRI to digital breast tomosynthesis for all US women ages 40-74 years with dense breasts who underwent screening every other year over 3.5 decades “would lead to more lives saved (9.5 vs 8.5 per 1000 women screened) but increased the number of false-positive results (1850 compared with 1392 per 1000 women screened) and benign biopsies (628 vs 221 per 1000 women screened).

However, the authors add, supplemental screening for women at high risk for breast cancer (more than 20% lifetime risk) can be offered.

Harms from false-positive imaging and benign biopsy results may include patient anxiety, discomfort, and financial burden, the authors note.

Dr. Lee receives funding in part from the National Cancer Institute for breast cancer-related research and reported receiving personal fees from the American College of Radiology for journal editorial board work and DeepHealth/RadNet for research consulting and royalties from McGraw Hill, Oxford University Press, and UpToDate outside the submitted work. Dr. Elmore receives funding in part from the National Cancer Institute for breast cancer-related research and reported receiving personal fees from UpToDate. 

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/summary-aims-clarify-guidance-around-dense-breasts-2025a10005cv

'Drug Labels Often Neglect to Inform About Obesity Dosing'

 Obesity can alter the action of many types of medications in ways affecting safety and/or efficacy, but this often isn’t mentioned in the labels.

Experts in obesity and pharmacology are trying to raise awareness about this problem, given the high prevalence of obesity in the population. With some medications, such as the antifungal posaconazole (Noxafil), obesity can increase the half-life such that the drug remains in the body longer in people with obesity than in those with normal weight and presents a drug-drug interaction risk.

With others, such as the generic antibiotic cefazolin, lower concentrations in plasma and/or tissues can result in undertreatment.

Other common medications for which obesity alters drug disposition include the antipsychotic brexpiprazole (Rexulti), the antidepressant vortioxetine (Trintellix), the immunosuppressant tacrolimus (Prograf), the emergency contraceptive levenorgestrel (Plan B), and the over-the-counter nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory ibuprofen (Advil).

In many cases, the issue can be resolved with changes in dosing or longer washout periods, but this information often isn’t included in product labels. “We need to be aware of these differences and handle these drugs differently in people with obesity,” Pharmacologist and Obesity Advocate Theodore K. Kyle, RPh, told Medscape Medical News.

Traditionally, people with obesity have been excluded from clinical trials of many drugs (other than those used to treat obesity or type 2 diabetes), in attempts to avoid heterogeneity in the data. In November 2022, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) held a workshop entitled Bridging Drug Efficacy and Safety to the Obese: Considerations and Scientific Approaches and the proceeds were subsequently published.

In October 2023, the American College of Clinical Pharmacology issued a “call to action” for the inclusion of people with obesity in clinical trials and for specific dosing considerations to be included in the labeling.

In November 2023, a joint statement from the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, the Obesity Action Coalition, the Obesity Medicine Association, the STOP Obesity Alliance, and The Obesity Society called on the FDA to “close gaps in the testing and approval process for new drugs intended for use by people with obesity.”

In a statement provided to Medscape Medical News, the FDA said that “the [2022] workshop helped the Agency highlight some of the scientific, regulatory, and practical challenges in evaluating the impact of obesity in adult and pediatric patients on safety, efficacy, drug dosing, and disposition. If a significant safety risk is identified pre-approval or post-approval, FDA can ask sponsors to generate additional data or conduct further analysis.”

Since 2022, specific language about obesity has been included in FDA guidance documents on the development of drugs for pediatric populations, and for the treatment of diabetic foot infections. And some manufacturers have begun including this information in the labeling of new drugs.

But there is no requirement for the companies to go back and gather the information for drugs already on the market, Kyle explained, noting that the available information for older drugs comes from dedicated modeling investigations. “In fact, we don’t have efficacy and safety studies. What we have are pharmacokinetic studies that tell us how these drugs behave…That information should be in the label,” said Kyle, the founder and head of the obesity advocacy and scientific consultancy at ConscienHealth.

The omission is especially striking given the routine inclusion of people with chronic kidney and liver disease as “special populations” in product labels, when they account for just 2.2% and 1.7%, respectively, of US adults compared with 42% who have obesity, Kyle and coauthors noted in a 2023 review article.

“Identifying people with obesity as a special population would speed awareness of the potential for changes in drug pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics and may 

increase the likelihood that this information is taught and implemented as part of standard medical training,” they wrote.

The Problem With Posaconazole

At the Obesity Week meeting in November 2024, Harvard Obesity Expert Caroline M. Apovian, MD, presented results of an online survey of 100 experienced oncologists who prescribe posaconazole to their chemotherapy patients for preventing and treating fungal infections. Because posaconazole is a CYP3A4 inhibitor, oncology drugs that are CYP3A substrates must be paused during posazonazole treatment, with a washout period before restarting.

The half-life of posazonazole is nearly twice as long in people with obesity, so the washout period needs to be doubled before the cancer treatment can be resumed. But this information isn’t on the label.

The research, conducted in collaboration with Emerald Lake Safety, found that less than half of the oncologists surveyed were aware of the increased half-life in people with obesity. Most (87%) said they would have expected to see that information on the label. All 100 said they would use the information going forward.

“When you have cancer and you take posaconazole, you have to wait a certain time period before you can start the chemotherapy again. And if you don’t wait long enough in a patient with obesity, the chemotherapy will be less effective. In the long run, they may end up failing the chemotherapeutic agent,” said Apovian, co-director of the Center for Weight Management and Wellness, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston.

She added, “We know that patients with obesity sometimes have worse cancers. We always thought, are we not diagnosing them as early because they have a lot of fat tissue and so we can’t feel it or are patients not coming in for screening? Now we have another [potential] reason: The chemotherapeutic agents aren’t as effective because of the posaconazole.”

The Noxafil (posaconazole) label does say “Pharmacokinetic modeling suggests that patients weighing >120 kg may have lower posaconazole plasma drug exposure. It is, therefore, suggested to closely monitor for breakthrough fungal infections.”But it doesn’t give any alternative dosing guidance.

“Critical information needed by physicians for the safe use of posaconazole in people with obesity is not available in posaconazole’s drug label and it needs to be…All Merck has to do is put it on their label,” Apovian said.

A Merck representative told Medscape Medical News, “Merck supports the appropriate and responsible use of posaconazole based on clinically meaningful information. Drug interactions associated with posaconazole are currently well-described in the medicine’s labeling, and new data regarding product safety are reviewed on an ongoing basis by our safety teams. Additionally, the label for posaconazole includes relevant information about drug concentrations in people with obesity. We plan to share relevant data on this topic at an upcoming medical meeting.”

Other Drugs in Obesity

In their 2023 review article, Apovian, Kyle, and colleagues provided a table with examples of drugs with actions affected by obesity, current dosing recommendations, and suggested changes for people with obesity. Among them are the following:

• Brexpiprazole (Rexulti), an anti-psychotic with an increased half-life in people with obesity, resulting in significantly longer time to attain effective plasma concentrations.
  • Proposed change for those with obesity: For patients with schizophrenia, initiate dosing at 1 mg twice daily (as opposed to once daily in those without obesity) for 3 days, increase to 2 mg twice daily (vs daily) for 4 days, then increase to 4 mg daily thereafter as tolerated (same regardless of weight).
• Cefazolin, a first-generation cephalosporin antibiotic for which tissue concentrations are lower in people with obesity, risking undertreatment of infection.
  • Proposed change: 2 g intravenously prior to incision (vs 1-2 g), with 2 g (vs 500 mg to 1 g) every 4-6 hours (vs 6-8 hours) postoperatively.
• Levenorgestrel (Plan B): Emergency contraception is less effective in people over 70 kg, resulting in an increased risk for pregnancy.
  • Proposed change: Patients over 70 kg should use an alternative form of emergency contraception (because higher dosing doesn’t appear to help).
• Ibuprofen (Advil): A nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agent with a higher clearance in people with obesity.
  • Proposed change: Increased doses may be necessary in people over 70 kg.

Kyle is currently engaged in a project to assess the extent of the problem in drugs already in the market. “We know this is a problem with many drugs, but because people haven’t been looking for it, we don’t know how large the problem is…When we know better, we should be doing better.”

Apovian has participated on advisory boards for Altimmune, Inc.; Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; BioAge; Biolinq Incorporated; Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH; Caribou Biosciences, Inc.; Covidien LP; Form Health, Inc.; Cowen and Company, LLC; Currax Pharmaceuticals, LLC; Fractyl Health, Inc.; Lilly USA, LLC; L-Nutra, Inc.; Mediflix, Inc.; Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc.; NodThera Limited; Nutrisystem; OptumRx, Inc.; Pain Script Corporation; Palatin Technologies, Inc.; Redesign Health Inc.; ReShape Lifesciences, Inc.; Scholar Rock, Inc.; Terns, Inc.; Verily Life Sciences LLC; Veru Inc.; Vida Health, Inc.; Wave Life Sciences; Xeno Biosciences; and Zyversa Therapeutics, Inc. Kyle had received consulting fees from Emerald Lake Safety, Novo Nordisk, Roman Health Ventures, Nutrisystem, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Gelesis.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/drug-labels-often-neglect-inform-about-obesity-dosing-2025a10005ba

'China Plans to Reduce Energy Use Per Unit of GDP by 3% in 2025'

 

China plans to reduce the amount of energy it uses to grow its gross domestic product by around 3% in 2025.

That target is slightly higher than the goal of -2.5% it set in 2024, but below the actual result of -3.8% for the year. The country is targeting overall GDP growth of around 5% this year.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-05/china-plans-to-reduce-energy-use-per-unit-of-gdp-by-3-in-2025

Suddenly, Leaving NATO is on the Table!

 by Ron Paul

Over the weekend, President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk made quite a stir with just two words posted on his social media platform, X. Responding to a post that, “It’s time to leave NATO and the UN,” Musk replied, “I agree.” The comment immediately made the rounds on social media and also on mainstream and alternative media.

Was this the Elon Musk who owns X speaking, or was it the Elon Musk who has become one of President Trump’s closest advisors? Does it even matter?

Having someone so close to the US president who advocates finally extracting the US from these international organizations is a significant and very positive shift for the United States.

With the truth coming out about how USAID has been working against US interests for decades, the disinfectant of public scrutiny is now turning to our membership in – and generous funding of – international organizations like NATO and the United Nations.

I have long advocated our exit from NATO. At the end of the Cold War, with its very reason for existence gone, NATO decided to look for other ways of stirring up trouble.

First NATO involved itself in the first Gulf War and then it decided its mission should be to bomb Serbia to smithereens – in the name of “human rights.” I agree with the late Sen. Robert Taft, who argued at the time NATO was formed that we should not join the “Atlantic Alliance.”

It has become much clearer these past few months just how far NATO has shifted away from US interests. Even though the United States funds a whopping 70 percent of NATO’s cost, our own NATO “allies” are working against the United States as President Trump attempts to pull us back from the brink of war with Russia.

A simple telephone call between Presidents Trump and Putin was met with hysteria among NATO member countries, and Just as US and Russian high-level delegations were meeting in Saudi Arabia to look for way to walk back from a war footing, our “allies” decided to hold their own summit in opposition to the US move.

In Paris our “partners” pledged to continue their failed Ukraine policy and to ridicule the United States for looking to try something different.

To add insult to injury, right at the center of the table in Paris was none other than the Secretary General of NATO himself, former Dutch politician Mark Rutte! The message was very clear: “we are working against you – we push war while you push peace – but you must keep footing the bill.”

Also over the weekend Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep Thomas Massie (R-KY) echoed Elon Musk’s sentiment, with Sen. Lee posting a chart showing the wildly disproportionate amount of US taxpayer dollars that go to funding NATO with the statement, “Get us out of NATO.”

Rep. Massie added to Lee’s comment, “NATO is a Cold War relic that needs to be relegated to a talking kiosk at the Smithsonian.”

As in the time of Sen. Robert Taft, the sentiment against NATO membership is coming from the conservative end of the US political spectrum. With President Trump’s clear mandate to pursue his “America first” agenda we have the best opportunity in decades to sever our damaging and expensive entangling alliances across the globe.

Let’s start with NATO!

https://dailyreckoning.com/suddenly-leaving-nato-is-on-the-table/