The following is an edited transcript of an interview between Morning Wire host Georgia Howe and Vani Hari, aka The Food Babe, on her support for RFK Jr. during his Senate confirmation hearings and how her personal story led her to fight to remove harmful chemicals from children’s food. Catch the full interview on a special Sunday edition of Morning Wire. * * * Make America Healthy Again champion, RFK Jr., was grilled on Capitol Hill this week as part of his confirmation process to become Health and Human Services Secretary. Despite fierce opposition from some Senators, parents and health advocates on both sides of the aisle have lined up to support him. In this episode we speak with Vani Hari, longtime food activist and New York Times bestselling author who was in the room supporting Kennedy during his Senate confirmation hearings. She explains why she believes parents are finally winning the battle to get chemicals out of kids’ food. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images GEORGIA: Joining us to discuss the war over chemical-laced packaged food is Vani Hari, bestselling author, activist, and creator of the Food Babe blog. Vani thanks so much for coming on. VANI: Thank you so much for having me. GEORGIA: So first off, tell me a little bit about your path to food activism. How did you become interested in nutrition to begin with? VANI: My parents came here as immigrants in the 1960s. And when they came to the United States, they were big on adopting the American culture. So when my dad went back to have an arranged marriage to my mother in India and they ended up coming here to live the rest of their lives, the first thing he introduced her to was a McDonald’s hamburger. And that’s how I was raised on an American standard diet. We were one of the only Indian families in Charlotte, North Carolina at that point, where I grew up and where I live now. So everything was kind of handed to us in terms of what we should be eating and my parents were very trusting of the American food system. As a result, I was really sick as a child. I had eczema, I had asthma, I was in and out of doctor’s offices for most of my life. I was on so many prescription drugs. When my parents would take me to see doctors, they never asked them, like, “What is she eating? What are you feeding her?” They never asked about my diet, they just put me on the next medication. And that is how I grew up. In my early 20s, I hit rock bottom when I ended up in the hospital having to get my appendix taken out, one of my organs. At the time they said, “Your appendix is something you don’t even need. It’s an organ that just can come out.” They made such a light situation out of it. I started to question what the doctors were telling me. Why did God give us an appendix? Why do we evolve having an appendix? I wanted to find answers. What happened to my appendix and why was it about to burst? Jonathan Alcorn/Bloomberg via Getty Images So when I started to research what was happening in my body, I found out that I had extreme inflammation, and that was coming from my diet. When I started to make changes shortly after that scare, I remember getting this one big book and there was a concept in it that hit me like a ton of bricks: The majority of foods on the grocery store shelf are dead. They’re not alive. And I thought, that’s how I’ve felt for most of my life. Like a zombie. Not wanting to get up in the morning to go to school. Not wanting to participate in activities or physical sport activities because I didn’t have the energy because of my asthma. So when I started to take the concepts in that book and apply them to my life, I started to eat as much real living food as possible, things like fruits and vegetables and things that I would find at the farmer’s market — my whole life changes. I mean, it was dramatic to the point where I lost all of the weight that I had put on as a result of this lifestyle. I also started to realize a level of health that I never thought was possible. I got off nine prescription drugs, and the people around me who grew up with me — my relatives, my friends, my family — they were like, “Whoa, you have made a dramatic transformation in your appearance. What are you doing? We want a piece of what you’re doing.” They actually begged me to start a blog to share this information, to share my recipes and what I was doing, and why I suddenly refused to eat candy because it had artificial food dyes. They wanted to know the green drink that I was drinking and what was in it and how they could make it at home. And this is before we even had a Whole Foods in Charlotte. Back then it was the little mom and pop natural food stores or the farmer’s market. So I had to really teach people in my community and people around me about these new methodologies of how to take care of your health and actually look at the root cause of what’s happening in your body. I started to realize that there were so many people out there beyond my friends and family who didn’t know the truth about what was happening in our food supply. I wanted to investigate it for them. And I wanted to investigate it for my own personal reasons. There are so many products that I thought were healthy but weren’t actually healthy. Things that I thought were good for me because they only had 400 calories or this many fat grams or they had the marketing of “eat fresh” at their fast food chain — I thought I was eating fresh, but I found out I wasn’t. So I started to investigate these major fast food chains and major food companies. And then companies started reaching out to me. I think the first one was a yogurt chain who I was very upset with because they were really promoting the fact that they were using “organic milk” in their yogurt. And I thought, “This is amazing. This is so awesome. I could go to the mall and I can have this treat and it’s good for me.” But when you looked at the ingredients, they were coloring their products with artificial food dye. They were putting in preservatives and trans fats. Yes they were starting with organic milk, but they were adding 30 more chemicals to the concoction they put in the machines. So I wrote about that and how duped I felt, and it went so viral that the CEO of the company reached out to me, pulled the marketing off their stores, and apologized. GEORGIA: Wow. VANI: That was my first taste of activism, and my first taste of, “Oh my gosh, my voice can make a difference.” And then Chick-fil-A invited me to their headquarters after I wrote an article called “Chemical Filet or Chick-fil-A?” I showed the hundred ingredients that they have in their Chick-fil-A sandwich and how I thought they were healthier than going to McDonald’s. But when I compared them to the McDonald’s ingredients they were virtually the same. And this really shocked people. I mean, it went so viral that the executives at Chick-fil-A invited me to their headquarters to consult on their menu items on how to make their ingredients better.  When I was taking off work to go there to consult with them, instead of consulting with the banking institutions, I was like, “Okay, something got to give here. Like this is obviously way more impactful than what I’m doing at the banks.” So I ended up deciding to quit my job. I was not making a dime doing Food Babe. It was literally a passion project. The beautiful thing that happened after I quit my job was, I was able to spend 100% of my time researching the food industry. And the first thing I did — you know, I was an avid traveler. I loved to travel, it’s been a passion of mine since I was a little girl. And whenever I would go to Europe or another country, I’d always feel better. I felt better. I liked the food better, it tasted better. And I thought, “What’s going on here? Why is it so different?” So I started to compare products that we have here in the United States to products that they sell in other countries — the exact same products. Like a Doritos package here in the United States versus a Doritos package in Europe. And I would compare the ingredients. I did this large investigation and I think the title is something like, “How U.S. Companies Are Exploiting Americans.” I showed these stark differences between the same product that’s being sold here and in other countries, and how in other countries they’re using better and safer ingredients. And while here they’re using man-made chemical additives. That side-by-side comparison went so viral that it was an opportunity to finally say, “You know what, we need to hold the food companies accountable for this.” Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images One of the examples in that investigation was Quaker Oats. Here in the United States, Quaker Oats has a “Strawberry and Cream” Quaker Oat pack, right? They had dyed Apple pieces to make them strawberry — dyed with a Red 40, an artificial food dye, linked to hyperactivity in children and can be contaminated with carcinogens. But in Europe, they’re using real strawberries. And you know, Quaker quickly got caught on that and that product doesn’t exist anymore, thankfully. But it was something that I just couldn’t believe the stark differences. So I decided to take on one of the largest food companies in the world, which was Kraft at the time. They were serving little children Mac and Cheese with artificial food dyes — Yellow-5 and Yellow-6. Meanwhile, in Europe, they’re using paprika and beta carotene. It was a viral petition. It was so exciting, for the first time we were on national TV. So I took them on. I remember it [the petition] gained a lot of steam, like 270,000 signatures, very quickly. And on April 1 — it wasn’t Happy April Fool’s Day for Kraft that day because I took the petition to their headquarters and I demanded a meeting and they sat down with me. I sat down and I looked them in the eye and I just said, “Why aren’t you doing this for American children? You already have the formulation in other countries. Why are we getting the man-made additives that are linked to all of these health issues that we’re experiencing? You know we have crazy chronic rates of disease with our kids, we have like close to half of children on some kind of medication. What is going on here?” And they looked at me and they said, “We have to agree to disagree.” And they dismissed me. And I thought, you know what? I’m not going to let up. I’m going to keep leading the charge. I’m going to keep educating the public. I’m going to tell people the truth about these chemicals. Within six or seven months, they had to change because what happened was we were able to change the marketplace. People went from Kraft Macaroni and Cheese to their competitor, Annie’s, who didn’t use artificial food dyes. And then General Mills saw an opportunity — we’re going to buy Annie’s for $800 million. So, at that point, Kraft’s like, “Shoot, we’re going to lose all our market share. We need to change right now.” And they did. The funniest part of it all, which just makes me laugh to this day, is whenever they told the press that they were making the change, they’re like, “It had nothing to do with the petition,” right? “It had nothing to do with the worldwide press on this issue.” So I took that momentum and took on more giants… * * * Catch the FULL INTERVIEW on Morning Wire

Pets hate going to the vet. And can we really blame them? It’s not like we humans enjoy our visits to the doctor, either. That said, Hannah Hickman’s cat is not like most others. This adorable black-and-white cat, named Demarcus, absolutely loves his visits to the vet. No, really. He actually and truly has a fantastic time. Allow me to paint a clearer picture. Imagine, if you will, a pet who hates the vet more than anything. For example, this puppy who is extremely picky about who is allowed to examine her. Then there’s this tiny kitten who is much more dangerous than she seems. With those two in mind, the level of love that Demarcus has for the vet is at the same intensity as their hatred. See for yourself in the video below. @hhgrade713 #catsoftiktok #cats ♬ original sound – Hhgrade713 While most pets would cower in fear or beg to leave, Demarcus can’t wait for the vet workers — or, as he’d probably call them, his friends — to arrive. Because that’s simply how much this cute kitty loves to be around others. Even the vet is the perfect place to hang out! “As a former vet receptionist they’re absolutely fighting over who gets to be the tech for his room lol,” someone admits in reply to Hannah’s video, with another adding, “I know those techs talk about him all day afterwards.” This Adorable Cat Isn’t The Only One Who Loves The Vet… In sharing Demarcus’ love for the vet, others are now sharing their own similar stories. Turns out, this odd love for the vet may be more common than you think! Sounds like these four-legged friends need to have a play date, perhaps one that takes place at a vet’s office… “My social butterfly of a cat purrs so loudly at the vet that they struggle to hear his heartbeat,” someone shares. “He and Demarcus understand each other.” You can find the source of this story’s featured image here! The post Most Pets Hate Going To The Vet, But Demarcus The Cat Loves It! appeared first on InspireMore.

The LAPD called the protests 'non-permitted'

Charli XCX emerged from Cambridge, England, with a distinctive blend of pop sensibility and experimental ambition that quickly set her apart in a crowded musical landscape. Raised in Essex, she honed her songwriting skills from an early age, drawing inspiration from diverse pop acts and embracing a creative vision that would later redefine contemporary pop music. Her early exposure to music and performance laid a strong foundation for a career marked by both commercial success and artistic exploration. Her foray into the music industry began with an independent spirit; as a teenager, Charli began sharing her music online and performing The post Complete List Of Charli-XCX Songs From A to Z appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

Donald Trump has issued a flurry of executive orders in his first week in office. One of them outlawed DEI—diversity, equity, inclusion—quotas, or reverse racial discrimination, whichever term you like to use, in government, but it doesn’t, I think, apply to private entities, unless you enroll at any private entity, a university like mine, Stanford, who gets federal funds, will be subject to it. And that’s going to be tricky, but I hope he tries to make that executive order as well. My point is, we’ve had some things in the news very quickly. Columbia University, right at the beginning of the new spring semester, had a class offered by a Jewish professor on the history of Israel and Judaism in the Middle East, and it was swarmed by pro-Palestinian protesters. We don’t know who they were. They had mask on, of course, and they disrupted the class because it was what taught by [a] Jewish person and there were Jewish students there, and they disrupted it. And now we’re told that Columbia University, it’s under a shadow of suspicion that they are antisemitic to tell you the truth. They are now looking at these people. I would advise all of these people though, this is not Joe Biden. If you are on a student visa and you disrupted or broke into a classroom, and you, what, committed a felony, or the university suspends you, then I think it’s very likely that the State Department will look at your student visa. This came up because at New York University last year, during the finals, no less—the same type of protest swarmed the library and disrupted everything and New York University has suspended those pro-Palestinian, I shouldn’t say pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas protesters for one year. So, what are they going to do if some of them are on foreign student visas? My point is this, all of these elite students at these elite universities talk a great game, but when—they’ve never faced any consequences. If Donald Trump and if these universities are afraid of Donald Trump and they clamp down, I think you’re going to see deterrence start to work to discourage other protests, because one thing we know about all these young students, they are careerist and they are used to being pampered, whether they’re Americans or foreigners. And if some of them have to go back to their beloved Palestine or Syria or Egypt, they’re going to be very unhappy. And if some of these children of the elite are suspended or charged with felonies, and that’s on their record, they’re going to be very unhappy. I’d like to finish very quickly with another thing that came up related to education. There’s a wonderful interview with Marc Andreessen, the Wall Street entrepreneur financier, but especially a techie. And he was the one that created Netscape. He’s a multi-billionaire along with his partner, Ben Horowitz. He gave a long interview to a New York Times columnist, Ross Douthat, but here’s what I’m interested in—at one point, he was asked, what made you change? Why did you endorse Donald Trump? And he said, among other things, they tried to control our industry. In other words, he said, we could deal with the taxes. We could deal even with the regulation, but they wanted to pick winners or losers and deny us to create, to express ourselves. But here’s the point. He said, and we looked at the students that we were hiring from these elite universities, the DEI people, the radical, and we realized from what they were saying about us, their employers, they wanted to destroy us. This should, this should be taken very seriously by Stanford University, by UC Berkeley, by USC, by UCLA, by Caltech, all these universities that feed into Silicon Valley. These people are getting very tired of your graduates going in there and they’re not prepared very well. The entrance exams have been watered down. There are four years without a SAT requirement, four years without a comparative adjudication of GPA, the quality of the graduates that Silicon Valley people like Andreessen hire is going like this and the activism and the obnoxiousness is going like this. And if I was to distill that entire interview, it would be something like, we in Silicon Valley don’t really respect the Stanford brand or the UCLA brand or the Berkeley brand very much anymore because these people are not very good at what they used to be excellent at, and they don’t like the people who hire them, and the people who hire them are us. So, we’re going to see some big changes, and it’s long overdue. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Silicon Valley Is Sick and Tired Of Its Woke Employees appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A taxpayer-funded sob story about federal workers being cruelly required to return to work at (gasp!) the office every single day aired earlier this week on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition show, headlined “Trump wants federal workers back the office, meaning longer days and added expenses.” But the single example offered wasn't exactly the stuff of a nightmare commute. Host A Martinez introduced the brief story. A Martinez: Federal agencies have submitted plans for their workers to return to the office full time for the first time since the pandemic, as directed by President Trump. That means thousands of government workers will likely descend on Washington each day. Scott Maucione from member station WYPR reports from Baltimore. Maryland public radio reporter Maucione presumably went out looking for sympathetic stories, but the thin gruel of anecdotes he returned with wasn't exactly reminiscent of the Trail of Tears (Twenty minutes in the car!). Maucione actually had to grant dubious anonymity to this hard-put female bureaucrat for his radio report. Scott Maucione: It takes Lane 20 minutes to drive to the train station in Baltimore. Lane: The train ride is anywhere from about 40 minutes to an hour. I wake up at 4:10 in the morning and I get to work bright and early between about 6:00 and 6:15. Maucione: Lane's a Federal employee and works in-person two days a week, a common setup for some Federal workers. NPR is only using her middle name because she fears speaking out about the new telework policies may jeopardize her job. Lane says she works those two in-person days back-to-back, finishing up at the office around 3:00 p.m. and getting back home around 5:00. Lane: You know, I'm so exhausted at the end of the day. By that third morning when I'm, you know, waking up and teleworking, I am just so brain dead. It's actually hard to focus that next day. I cannot imagine trying to get in the car and go in a third day. Not exactly an inspiring work ethic there. Maucione makes it sound like a trial for federal workers to actually go into work every day, though even in the post-COVID age of telecommuting, millions of private sector Americans have no choice. Maucione: Lane, like many of the more than 300,000 Federal employees in the surrounding DC area, may have to find a way to make it into the office five days a week, depending on how agencies implement a new executive memo from the Trump administration…. He continued nonsensically: Maucione: The Trump administration's memo claims that telework has degraded government services and made it difficult to supervise workers. However, Federal agencies have had telework policies and agreements with employees for 15 years. The Office of Personnel Management has produced numerous studies that show Federal teleworking improves morale, retention and stress. But what about the key metric of productivity? "Public" broadcasting inevitably sides with bureaucrats and not the people that pay for them.  This story, irrationally sympathetic to federal workers and dismissive of taxpayer concerns, is reminiscent of the many one-sided media stories of the plight of federal workers during government shutdowns, often instigated by Republican attempts to slow the growth of federal program spending. Here's a deathless example from 1995: “On December 22  -- just six days after the start of the second shutdown -- ABC’s Jack Smith lamented on World News Tonight: “The shutdown now has a human face. Joe Skattleberry and his wife Lisa both work for the government. Both have been furloughed. They can’t afford a Christmas tree.”

On Sunday's edition of The Weekend on MSNBC, weeknight host Chris Hayes questioned Trump's machismo for imposing higher tariffs on Canada and Mexico than on China. He's tougher on allies than on adversaries, because that's easier, less risky. He even claimed Trump has been "extremely generous to adversaries" like Russia and China.  HAYES: He likes the conflict, he likes to project strength, but he's sort of a coward fundamentally. And the stakes of actual conflict and fights with adversaries is much higher. And so this is a way of kind of, a little bit of bullying, and cake and eat it too, where he can, like, play tough against Justin Trudeau, which is a very different thing than playing tough against Xi. Co-host Symone Sanders analogized it to Trump's treatment of Gavin Newsom. While blasting Newsom in public, Trump, according to Sanders, is very polite to him in person. Sanders put on a soft voice, supposedly imitating Trump: "Hey, how are you doing? Good to see you." That's when Steele stepped in: "And he says it like that [puts on effeminate voice]: "Hey, how are you doing? [laughs].  It's kind of a little Mike Tyson voice." As you'll see in the screencap, Sanders, Alicia Menendez, and Hayes were amused by Steele's mocking. How do you think they would have reacted if a conservative had similarly mocked a liberal's voice?  I've never heard Trump employ such a voice. But apparently there is something wrong with that in Steele's mind. Questioning manhood in the same sentence as Mike Tyson. Next time Steele runs into Tyson, perhaps he'd like to mock him to his face about his "little" voice.  MSNBC The Weekend 2/2/25 8:10 am ET MICHAEL STEELE: Chris, what do you think the siren call is for Trump relative, because you touched on it, relative to these three players: Mexico, Canada, and China.  My, my assessment is, yeah, he projects he hates China. You know, he, everything is, you know, China bad, China bad. Yet, they're not penalized to here the way our allies are, our friends to the north and the south, you know? Instead of, you know, let's negotiate a border deal with Mexico and Canada if you're concerned about fentanyl and drugs coming. Oh, by the way, Donald Trump, the largest purveyor of fentanyl coming into the country are United States citizens, not Mexicans. So, just so you know.  What do you think that siren call is for him relative to China? What is he hearing that actually weakens him when it comes to China? A lot of bloviating, not much agitation with respect to things like tariffs.  CHRIS HAYES: So here is a consistent thing that he's done. He, I think he likes the attention that conflict draws. He likes conflict with allies as opposed to actual adversaries. He is routinely and consistently picking fights, tougher on getting into conflicts with allies and sort of, you know, extremely generous to adversaries.  I mean, look at the way he talks about, look at the way he talks about Russia, obviously, the fact that China's getting off relatively cost-free here compared to allies. But look at the way he talks about NATO, the way he talks about Canada, the way he talks about Mexico.  Like, what it is for him is, he likes the conflict, he likes to project strength, but he's sort of a coward fundamentally. And the stakes of actual conflict and fights with adversaries is much higher. And so this is a way of kind of, a little bit of bullying, and cake and eat it too, where he can, like, play tough against Justin Trudeau, which is a very different thing than playing tough against Xi. SYMONE SANDERS: I just know it's what he did with, um, it's what he does with Gavin Newsom -- STEELE: Yeah, exactly. SANDERS: -- or any Democrat he says he doesn't like. He's all talk, and then he gets on the talk, and he's like, "hey, how you doing? Looks great. Good to see you." STEELE: And he says it like that. [Adopts effeminate voice] "Hey, how you doing?" He's got that little Mike Tyson voice. 

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UPDATED: Trump Admin. Lays Down the Law Over Panama Canal, Sets Up Major Confrontation; Panama Folds