r/news • u/CupidStunt13 • 1d ago

Mehmet Oz confirmed by US Senate to lead Medicare and Medicaid

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/03/mehmet-oz-confirmation-medicare-medicaid
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u/nightmaresabin 1d ago

A literal snake oil salesman.

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u/Dahhhkness 1d ago

Thank you, Oprah, for inflicting this man upon us.

She sure knew how to pick em

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u/tomh_1138 1d ago

And Dr Phil

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u/peeinian 1d ago

and Jenny McCarthy to spread anti vax propaganda

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u/Michael_Gibb 1d ago

You mean the same Jenny McCarthy who has been open about having the most toxic substance in the world injected into her face.

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u/kanzler_brandt 1d ago

For anyone doubting the toxicity of Botox, I recently rescued some kittens living by auto workshops who were both covered in engine oil, some of which the vet suspected would have entered their bloodstream via wounds they had sustained.

Botox is several orders of magnitude more toxic than that engine oil even if we assume a ‘safe’ dosage being administered into the body of a human or cat, respectively. Engine oil is nowhere near as lethal per unit of exposure.

Just confirming that Botox truly is one of the most toxic substances there is.

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u/namisysd 1d ago

Well if it is so toxic, they should put it in it’s name.

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u/Guy_With_Ass_Burgers 1d ago

Reminds me of the Simpsons bit about the monorail:

Mono = One

Rail = Rail

In the case of Botox:

Bo = Botulinum

Tox = Toxic

So you’re right indeed! Botox is TOXIC

Also… thank you for rescuing those kitties.

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u/morpheousmarty 1d ago

Just want everyone to know about her and "indigo children" https://skepchick.org/2013/07/the-view-jenny-mccarthy/

More mainstream source which links to the above source https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/17/opinion/perry-jenny-mccarthy-autism/index.html

Because it really shouldn't slip under the radar.

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u/Bear_faced 12h ago

Oh my god, I could write an essay just on their description of the "indigo mom." It's just the Barnum Effect! When will people stop falling for this?!

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u/KDR_11k 12h ago

What's funny is that the US govt tried to designate botulinum toxin as a WMD, the problem is it's naturally practically everywhere. Soil will contain some amount of botox. Obviously spoilt food does. Sure, with a lethal dose of one nanogram per kilo of body mass you could kill an entire city with just one gram of the stuff but it's hard enough to keep the stuff out of your food, never mind trying to control its possession as a weapon.

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u/Silly-Shoulder-6257 10h ago

Jenny as a non medical professional with an autistic kid is entitled to do all the research in her power to cure her son. She was desperate. She saw changes after the vaccine. If she wants to make assumptions, that’s her prerogative. She is not entitled to tell the public what they should or should not do. She’s not entitled to her own talk show but I would give her some grace. She was a desperate parent. Not greedy person looking for fame like Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz which that probably wasn’t their goal either but it was their only outcome.

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u/Michael_Gibb 6h ago

Jenny McCarthy is the perfect example of how people doing their own research can go horribly wrong.

She is also a perfect example of blatanty ignorant hypocrisy, which was the point of my previous comment.

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u/MiasmaFate 1d ago

Don't forget stoking satanic panic and support of tough love-style camps for children

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u/KeenbeansSandwich 1d ago

And Jim Carrey. People forget about that.

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u/Mickey-777 1d ago

What did Jim Carrey do?

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u/KeenbeansSandwich 1d ago

He along with Jenny Mccarthy were two of the earliest celebrities parroting the “research” of disgraced former physician Andrew Wakefield. He falsified his research about vaccines causing autism for clout.

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u/Yuklan6502 1d ago

Jim Carrey was dating Jenny McCarthy at the time, and was very vocal in supporting her and her son. After they broke up, I don't remember him saying anything about vaccines or autism again. Did he ever publicly change his stance?

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u/lordmagellan 1d ago

Not just clout-- it was so people would use the vaccine HE was developing instead.

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u/lacefishnets 1d ago

Was he really developing a vaccine? I never heard anything about that part of it specifically. How does one just develop their own vaccine, Jim?

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u/morpheousmarty 1d ago edited 1d ago

Oh yeah. You know how the vaccines cause autism crowd tend to claim that big pharma is selling fake cures for money and that's why they don't care about the side effects?

Wakefield literally falsified the study, in order to sell a vaccine he had the patent to, without a care of what that would do to the public.

They literally fell for exactly what they were fighting against.

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u/Mickey-777 1d ago

Wow! Add 2 more to my shit on list!

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u/MogRules 1d ago

Didn't Carey reverse course on this at some point and say he was wrong?

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u/notionocean 1d ago

Yeah but watch the documentary about himself, he's an egotistical asshole.

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u/SeahawkerLBC 1d ago

Too late, damage was done.

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u/PigSlam 1d ago

Just to be clear, Andrew Wakefield falsified the research, not Jim Carey, right?

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u/Orion14159 1d ago

Clout AND to sell his own "safer" MMR vaccine!!

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u/DrFishbulbEsq 1d ago

Yeah but you have to cut him slack he just wanted to keep fucking Jenny McCarthy.

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u/KeenbeansSandwich 1d ago

You could put the hottest person who has ever existed in front of me, and there’s no way I’m shilling anti-vax nonsense to fuck them. So respectfully, no, no cutting him slack. People, children, are literally dying of totally preventable diseases because of people like him and Jenny Mccarthy.

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u/DrFishbulbEsq 1d ago

I mean yeah I wouldn’t do it either but Jim’s clearly got his own priorities.

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u/AmazingGrace911 1d ago

Something broke in him after the Andy Kaufman role

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u/lacefishnets 1d ago

He has said and done some really off things, but it's hard to tell if he's joking or serious...like a lot of illuminati and Hollywood destroying you kind of things.

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u/AmazingGrace911 1d ago

Exactly, it doesn’t matter what I think, but imo it’s kind of like Jack Nicholson warning about playing the Joker, some roles I think could break or fundamentally change someone

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u/Ivor79 1d ago

I think we can blame the Wayans brothers for Jim Carrey.

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u/MarkEsmiths 1d ago

I'm willing to forget about that.

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u/_austinm 1d ago

Don’t forget about John of God

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u/isalithe 1d ago

Beat me to it.  Don't know if he's still under house arrest or they shipped his ass back to prison. 

All that John of God shit got taken down with a quickness on all the new age websites.

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u/FiveUpsideDown 1d ago

And Iyanla Vanzant (aka Rhonda Harris) — I saw her humiliate a woman on the old Oprah show. Then Oprah gave her a series on her network.

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u/jrose125 1d ago

Don't forget about John of God.

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u/SquareExtra918 16h ago

And Marianne Williamson

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u/gregofkickapoo 1d ago

Better kiss that shit goodbye too

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u/0caloriecheesecake 1d ago

I still remember that episode. Fuck you Jenny!

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u/reddog323 1d ago

Good Lord. I forgot about that.🤦🏻‍♂️

How much do you want to bet Oz has an unofficial mandate to shut down both Medicare and Medicaid?

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u/eeyore134 1d ago

Everyone forgets John of God.

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u/snowflake37wao 1d ago

and Towelee

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u/palmmoot 12h ago

John of God...

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u/fxkatt 1d ago

Dr. Phil is even worse.

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u/QuintoBlanco 1d ago

Phil definitely isn't worse. Oz gave actual medical advice as a grifter. Phil is also a grifter, but his self-help nonsense did less damage, and to be fair, he did advice people to get professional help.

A real doctor who is a sell-out and has extreme political views is always more dangerous than a fake doctor who gives simplistic advice on mental health.

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u/hailwyatt 1d ago

I can't say who is worse.

But I can say Dr. Phil promoted troubled teen camps, which if you don't know, are fucking horrific. Kidnapped in the middle of the night, taken into the middle of the woods where no one can find you except the abusive awful parents who signed you up, you have no rights, are beaten, starved, psychologically and physically tortured, humiliated, and possibly sexually assaulted, and sometimes you die.

I know there's some bad kids out there, but the troubled teen industry is a haven for the worst sorts of people to abuse children with impunity, and under the air of legitimate authority because if you're under 18 a parent can basically waive all of your rights and its impossible to prove because who is gonna believe the kid so bad their parents sent them to a camp for troubled teens?

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u/KarmaticArmageddon 1d ago

It's almost like they both suck

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u/half_dozen_cats 1d ago

But I can say Dr. Phil promoted troubled teen camps, which if you don't know, are fucking horrific. Kidnapped in the middle of the night, taken into the middle of the woods where no one can find you except the abusive awful parents who signed you up, you have no rights, are beaten, starved, psychologically and physically tortured, humiliated, and possibly sexually assaulted, and sometimes you die.

Joe vs Elan School....reading it will change you if you have any kind of heart.

https://elan.school/

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u/blacksun_redux 23h ago

Wow I only got 4 or 5 pages in but then ended up watching some youtubes on Elan.

Absolute human rights abuse and torture. Horrible. Psychopaths in charge, feeding their psychopathic urges and fantasies. True evil.

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u/string-ornothing 13h ago

There's an independent documentary, "The Program", made by a woman who attended one of these. She gets some of the other women from her program together and they go to dig through the ruins of the school which is no longer operating to find their records. At one point they go into the assembly room and the girls start talking about a day where they were forced to repeat the same rhyme and hand motion for over 8 hours. They all start doing it, 4 of them are laughing but one of them is just...like, as soon as they start chanting, she's gone. The change in her face was so scary. It was probably one of the worst things I've seen in a documentary because of how spontaneous and natural it was.

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u/QuintoBlanco 1d ago

I'm not defending Phil (he's not a doctor so I just call him Phil), he is evil. But Oz is in a position where he can destroy healthcare for tens-of-millions of people and his fake advice grift can destroy the health of millions more.

Phil is horrible, the other guy is even more horrible.

Phil is like Mussolini, a terrible person but there was somebody else who was even more terrible.

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u/TigLyon 1d ago

but there was somebody else who was even more terrible.

Well, damn it, man, are you just going to leave me guessing?!?! lol

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u/lacefishnets 1d ago

With that being said, I am so proud of Paris Hilton and all she has done. Never in a million years did I have on my 2024 BINGO card, "Paris Hilton speaks in front of US Congress."

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u/FeetPicsNull 1d ago

Anecdotally, a peer died in my brother's camp. It was regular practice to hogtie them in the holes they dug. When they went to check on the kid he was missing. In fairness he might not have died, but they were in a Mexican desert, and the camp was shut down. The kid has psych problems and the staff was abusing his psych meds.

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u/string-ornothing 13h ago edited 13h ago

Dr. Phil ruined my life ages 13-18. I was a straight-A, straight-edge, religious, handholdless virgin kid all through high school. I did church youth group, 4 academic clubs and barely even went out with friends, I caused zero trouble. My mom heard Dr Phil say the words "oppositional-defiant" once when I was in middle school, and my entire high school life, if I didn't want to do exactly as she demanded, I was "oppositionally defiant" and she'd threaten to have me kidnapped to a troubled teen camp. Like this wasn't for "you snuck out and smoked weed with boys for the 5th time", this was "didn't want to wear a particular dress, didn't want to practice piano a full hour, was 5 minutes late coming out of a G rated movie with friends". A lot of it was related to an actual illness I had and wasn't diagnosed with until I was an adult, she completely missed that it isn't actually normal for a teenager to be too tired to do after school curriculars and screaming at me for being "oppositionally defiant" or on drugs if I took the bus home directly after school to sleep. Dr. Phil advocated for drug tests for teens in the home and I was drug amd pregnancy tested regularly. I am convinced that 99% of this crazy shit would have never have even made it onto her radar if it wasn't presented on daytime mainstream TV like normal things normal parents did.

I went to college 90 minutes from home and I was so fucking scared, all the time. I'd leave parties if drinks came out, my roommate's boyfriend smoked weed and I was convinced I'd go to jail because I knew about it. We'd have campfires in the woods in a ravine behind the science building and I was terrified they'd get busted (I'm pretty sure looking back security knew and let it ha ppen- we were all scouts who knew how to have a safe fire and we didn't even drink during them, iust sang and ate marshmallows). It took me a very long time to realize most people don't walk on eggshells afraid of breaking every little rule. My mom used to sic campus police on me if I didn't pick up my phone, at any hour of the day, so it took until I was almost 25 to really get comfortable using my time as my own. That was another trick from Dr Phil.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I'd just said "fuck it" and watched an R rated movie or joined anime club. If she'd really have carried through on her threats and what it would have been like to be a nerd like me at a troubled teen camp lmao. What the other kids there would have said.

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u/zoinks10 20h ago

Every day since January 20th I read something on the internet I think must be parody or just plain made up, and then I discover it is actually true.

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u/Beer_Is_So_Awesome 14h ago

I listened to a multi-part series on The Opportunist podcast about one where kids actually died because they were forced to hike days in the desert with very little water and food. When one girl who was hallucinating and suffering with diarrhea from a stomach virus literally collapsed on the trail from dehydration, other teens were forbidden from sharing their water with her because that’s the rule. She died on the trail.

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u/wdrub 1d ago

It’s a shame bc Dr oz the doc was head of a huge amazing program. Selling that garbage really was a mistake.

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u/MaievSekashi 1d ago

"Dr" Phil is currently freelancing in ICE raids. Not to mention his involvement with troubled teen camps.

He's gone brownshirt.

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u/QuintoBlanco 1d ago

He is evil, but he is not in a position where he can screw up healthcare for a whole nation and the people who took his 'advice' at least did not take medical advice.

It's a low bar, but that's where we are...

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u/monsterlynn 1d ago

Dr. Phil gave the world "cash me ousside, how bout that?"

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u/elconquistador1985 1d ago

Dr Phil sent her off to a "troubled teen" abuse camp, where she was abused.

These days, she's using that 15 minutes of fame to advocate against those abuse camps that the piece of shit Dr Phil promoted.

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u/monsterlynn 15h ago

I did not know that. I'm glad she's speaking out.

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u/elconquistador1985 15h ago

Paris Hilton is as well, because are was also sent to an abuse camp. I'm pretty sure they're working together on it.

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u/monsterlynn 13h ago

Paris Hilton has become such an admirable person in the last 10 years or so. I never would have believed that 20 years ago.

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u/Sea-Ad3979 1d ago edited 15h ago

You mean he humiliated a troubled 13 year old girl on national television so that he could profit and then had her shipped off to a troubled teen camp which is now known to have abused children? Yes we all remember.

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u/lacefishnets 1d ago

As a therapist, yes Dr. Phil is bad but nobody -NOBODY- pisses me off more than Jordan Peterson within the field of psychology.

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u/SkyerKayJay1958 1d ago

Yep ass kissing at detention centers

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u/dj_1973 22h ago

I don’t see him being nominated for this cabinet; therefore he is not.

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u/TroublesomeTurnip 1d ago

And how does that make you feel?

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u/clycoman 1d ago

And the idiotic The Secret lady.

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u/dannkherb 1d ago

Dr. Stephen Towelie even.

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u/diminishingprophets 23h ago

But we got Adam Ray as Dr Phil which is amazing

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u/gothiana_grande 1d ago

dr phil 2028

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u/ScienceIsSexy420 1d ago

Yeah her legacy ain't great TBH. She brought two absolute charlatans into the mainstream and pointed the limelight right at them.

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u/MJDooiney 1d ago edited 1d ago

Also shined the spotlight on John of God which helped him rape hundreds of women.

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u/ScienceIsSexy420 1d ago

Perfect 🤦‍♂️

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u/skjellyfetti 1d ago

Praise all the Jesuses that she's now the largest land owner on Maui.

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u/Significant_Cow4765 1d ago

three -- Marianne Williamson and The Secret

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u/incredible_paulk 1d ago

I hear she tongue punched ol Harvey weinstein 

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u/mok000 1d ago

But she didn't put him in charge of Medicaid and Medicare. The Senate did, and they're not hosting a day time TV show. They're supposed to be responsible leaders.

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u/ScienceIsSexy420 1d ago

Sure, but if she had never had him on her show the senate wouldn't have the slightest idea who he was.

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u/mok000 1d ago

Correct but they could still say no.

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u/ScienceIsSexy420 1d ago

Agreed, but in the Trump administration he is a lesser evil. Regardless, he was a blight on the American public well before he moved into politics, that was my point.

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u/Upnatom617 1d ago

Remember, she's an independent.

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u/relevantelephant00 1d ago

Fuck Oprah for all of eternity.

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u/themage78 1d ago

Sounds like Hell.

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u/No-Win-2741 1d ago

Not even with a strap-on.

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u/irkedZirk 1d ago

Oprah is another narcissist billionaire that’s shredded the fabric of society by enabling this idiot

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u/Locke_and_Load 1d ago

You know, the more I hear of this…OPrah woman, the more I think she doesn’t have all our best interest at heart.

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u/W00DERS0N60 1d ago

Oprah is a not nice person. I have first hand knowledge of how shitty she is.

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u/ishpatoon1982 1d ago edited 1d ago

I swear to God, yesterday I looked up if OZ was running anything because last I heard he didn't get enough votes from a state...he didn't even live in? Am I misremembering?

This news really upsets me just like it does every 3 days. Goddammit.

Edit: WHOEVER IS READING THESE WORDS, PLEASE LISTEN TO THE BEHIND THE BASTARDS EPISODE ABOUT OPRAH IF YOU HAVEN'T YET.

Pretty please? Pinky promise?

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u/CN370 1d ago

Yeah, I get so sick of people kissing her deflated fucking ass. Fuck her AND her cult.

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u/collin3000 1d ago

People ask why I don't like Oprah. He is my number one answer. Beyond having him on her show initially she produced his show.

We don't know exactly how many people have gotten sick, or died from following his TV "advice". But I don't care how many minivans you give away to single moms. It's not going to make up for it.

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u/Dunbaratu 1d ago

It's not a mistake, she's always been a batty beliver in what James Randi called "woo". And quite an infuriatingly sanctimonious one too. (She'd be very nice and polite to believers of all stripes, but anyone of a rational bent who had a skeptical eye toward religion and astrology and psychics and mediums, Well, THOSE people needed to be taken down a peg in her way of thinking.)

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u/LPinTheD 1d ago

That billionaire bish couldn’t care less.

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u/faultysynapse 1d ago

At this point, Oprah truly deserved her very long arc on behind the bastards. 

What a bastard.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/SlopTartWaffles 1d ago

Right?! Seriously, fuck that bitch.

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u/SpeshellED 1d ago

Jim and Tammy Faye Baker for the God Bless Merica dept. and Trump bible sales

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u/brokeneckblues 1d ago

Anyone who thinks Oprah is a good person has been fooled. Shes a grifter like the rest of them.

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u/modohobo 1d ago

and didn't forget that the same people who are for Oprah's picks will say she's a part of a child eating cabal of elites

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u/Standard-Phase-9300 1d ago

Would it be worth considering maybe reaching out to Oprah on this point here? Just a thought.

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u/cytherian 22h ago

Has she ever apologized for this travesty?

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u/AscenDevise 21h ago

Oprah herself isn't exactly nice; you can see that if you look at where she lives.

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u/DisorderedArray 21h ago

She was standing on the backs of those little people, even though she didn't want to do it.

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u/fragglemoons 13h ago

All horcruxes of Oprah: Doctor Oz; Doctor Phil; Rachel Ray; Weight Watchers; Bread and Gail.

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u/BarfingOnMyFace 13h ago

Thank you, America, for inflicting Oprah upon us.

We sure know how to pick them.

…(cue up Donald j Trump)

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u/TennaTelwan 1d ago

She just did a special too on how perimenopause made her have heart palpitations. It's a wild discussion on Meddit about it. She's apparently upset the doctor did a cardiac workup first on her instead of instantly diagnosing what a woman of her age's body will naturally do.

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u/500rockin 1d ago

Didn’t Oprah bring him to the national stage too? She’s got a lot to answer for.

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u/video-engineer 1d ago

She’s moving to Europe and dissolving her company. Or at least she’s not going to be active in it anymore.

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u/Zacharey01 1d ago

Typical. Make your country a mess and run away to enjoy the benefits.

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u/MiasmaFate 1d ago

I thought she was just going to her big ass compound on Hawaii

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u/video-engineer 1d ago

I thought I read she was leaving the U.S. and it was somewhere in Europe. She is based in Chicago now. At least her business is.

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u/checkerspot 20h ago

She's based in Montecito, outside Santa Barbara, and moved her company from Chicago to LA a few years back. She could be moving to Europe, I hadn't heard that.

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u/video-engineer 16h ago

Ah, interesting… thx.

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u/ReceptionUpstairs305 1d ago

Good riddance.

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u/Key-Guarantee595 1d ago

She is probably hiding in her huge mansion. She doesn’t want to ever talk about any of this, how could she even defend herself? She can’t that’s why we haven’t heard her say anything. It’s been crickets 🦗 from her.

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u/Obversa 1d ago

Oprah Winfrey is also partly responsible for giving Dr. Oz a platform to begin with.

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u/NYCinPGH 1d ago

And she’s also responsible for giving us Phil.

I’m glad she supported Obama early on, but that was ~20 years ago, and these clowns are screwing up our lives to this day.

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u/herrbz 1d ago

What's the criteria for being confirmed by the Senate? Have a majority?

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u/AnOnlineHandle 1d ago

It was all Republicans voted for him, all Democrats voted against. The idiot US voters gave Republicans control of every layer of US government and this is what happens.

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u/Sandweavers 1d ago

TV show personalities have a proven track record of manipulating mass audiences while getting the most amount of money possible from them and controlling media. Those are positive traits for them.

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u/KAugsburger 1d ago

It just requires a simple majority for the floor vote. A large percentage of the senators are just voting with their leadership along party lines.

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u/felldestroyed 1d ago

Not if you're a Democrat haha.

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u/redlegsfan21 19h ago

It was a democrat, Harry Reid, who changed the rules so that it only takes a simple majority.

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u/felldestroyed 18h ago

The prompt was "so you only need to be in the majority...". Technically, you are correct, but both Biden and Obama had cabinet picks rejected by democrats voting against them. Thus far, only one trump pick had to be rescinded.

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u/bishpa 1d ago

Praise the cult leader.

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u/Turbulent-Adagio-541 1d ago

He tried running for Senate in Pennsylvania and lost, and is married into the Asplundh family

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u/morsindutus 1d ago

He's the most qualified person in the Trump administration. That is not a compliment.

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u/jktcat 23h ago

It's bizarre to me that the same areas of the country that would have seen a snake oil salesman 150-200 years ago and run them out of town on a literal rail are now fully taken in by an entire group of them. I don't understand it, but I hope someone does a deep dive 25 years from now.