The Dictatorship
I’m a pediatrician. When parents attack me for suggesting vaccines, I fume at RFK Jr.
So many parents refusing vaccines for the children I see in my examination room have been encouraged to do so by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the charlatan President Donald Trump has picked to take the reins of the Department of Health and Human Services. The Senate Finance Committee will vote on Kennedy’s nomination Tuesday and, we should all hope, reject it.
I was raised by Depression-era blue-collar parents who knew firsthand the devastating diseases few of today’s parents would recognize. For them, each new vaccine increased the chance that theirs would be the first generation that didn’t expect to bury a child. I still remember how proud my mom was taking me to the pediatrician for vaccines. She was doing her job, keeping us safe. As a pediatrician, I see vaccines as a force field that we and parents use to protect young lives.
As a pediatrician, I see vaccines as a force field that we and parents use to protect young lives.
During medical school and then a residency at Children’s Hospital of Michigan, I cared for countless infants and children hospitalized with bacterial meningitis and invasive diseases caused by pathogens like Hemophilus, Streptococcus pneumoniae and Neisseria. These infections often resulted in devastating damage, such as hearing and vision loss — a fate Helen Keller tragically suffered. Then, a spinal tap was a necessary and routine part of the workup of infant fever. The high-pitched, painful cries of infants with meningitis will forever reverberate in my mind, along with the coughs of infants with pertussis drowning in their own secretions.
During my 30 years as a physician, I have seen how our carefully studied vaccines have revolutionized pediatric care. Because the vast majority of young Americans are vaccinated, bacterial meningitis and its devastating effects have become so rare that only the youngest infants now require invasive procedures like spinal taps during fever workups. In the vaccinated, Pneumococcus rarely causes bloodstream infections or the deadly pneumonia for which it is named. We no longer see the chickenpox infections that result in weeks of missed school and work. Hemophilus isn’t causing the loss of limbs, eyes and airways.
This progress, however, is being threatened by vaccine refusal. As Kennedy sat before a confirmation hearing with the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesdayphysicians like me, who’ve dedicated our lives to the health and welfare of children, watched with outrage and exhaustion. And disgust that Kennedy refused to own his anti-vaccine advocacy.
“I support the measles vaccine,” he told senators. “I support the polio vaccine. I will do nothing as HHS secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking anything.” But the fact is that he has built a name for himself by discouraging parents from getting their children vaccinated.
As Kennedy sat for a confirmation hearing, physicians who’ve dedicated our lives to the health and welfare of children, watched with outrage.
Listening, I thought about the father who recently became angry with me for “insinuating” that his sick, unvaccinated infant needed a workup and hospitalization for his high fever without an obvious source. He accused me of making up concerns to make money for the hospital. As familiar as I am with this particular conspiracy theory, it hits me hard every time I hear it. And we are hearing it more and more often.
Instead of becoming defensive and judgmental, I treat these bedside conversations as a collaboration that has as its common goal a healthy child. I talk about my own experience, painting a picture of the wards from as recently as the 1990s. I told this father that I understood he was acting as an advocate for his child the best way he knew how. Ultimately, his wife heard me and agreed to the workup. By the time their child’s blood culture grew Pneumococcus the next day, their child was already getting his third dose of intravenous antibiotics.
After he was recovered, the mother described the near-tragedy on social media. She shared how worried they’d been and how they initially hadn’t sought care because they didn’t trust hospitals. She added that if her children had received their routine vaccines, then their infant son probably would have experienced Pneumococcus as nothing more than a mild fever or ear infection. And they’d have been spared a hospital bill.
The flames of vaccine hesitancy have been stoked to a bonfire by fictitious stories by self-serving individuals. When Andrew Wakefield first theorized that the measles vaccine caused autism, he may have truly believed that. But by the time more complete and accurate research showed no connection, his taste of fame and the power of sensationalism had seemingly overpowered integrity, and he stuck to his position.
Enter RFK Jr., who, along with his Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine nonprofit group, preyed on the parents of children with autism who were searching for someone to blame. Research again and again has shown his assertions to be false. But repeating and funding independent vaccine studies took precious time. Time during which careers were made sowing fear and mistrust by discrediting the very physicians who’d dedicated their lives to defending their patients’ and the public’s health.
The people who accuse pediatricians of profiting from vaccines, Kennedy included, have ironically amassed fortunes doing so.
The people who accuse pediatricians of profiting from vaccines, Kennedy included, have ironically amassed fortunes doing so.
Parents who are vaccine hesitant are, of course, doing what they think is best for their children. They come to us having “done my research,” fueled by algorithms built to lead concerned parents down a rabbit hole of misinformation. Because they have little firsthand experience with bacterial meningitis, limb-threatening cellulitis, the devastation of measles or the infertility of mumps, they are easily convinced that vaccines are unnecessary — and even harmful.
When parents come in convinced of the deep state conspiracy, it is difficult to heal the partnership that we pediatricians seek to have with them. These conversations have stolen so much time from our ability to care for patients that many practices have chosen to exclude those who refuse vaccines for their children.
Many parents, though, seek our advice — even when they have misgivings. When we are able to have open conversations built on appreciation and partnership, parents often gratefully follow the well-studied vaccine schedule to protect their children.
One of my young parents was unvaccinated as a child and resents that her parents fell for the conspiracy theories. When she first brought her adorable children in, we had lots of conversations, including about immunizations. Like my mom, she sees herself as a fierce advocate for her children when they come in for their well visits and shots. Each visit, when I explain the shots they will receive, we both laugh when she says, “Lock and Load, Dr. Pat, Lock and Load!”
If Kennedy is confirmed as HHS secretary, he will have the ability to submit a generation of children to the experiment he has long hoped would finally prove his misbegotten theories promoting supplements and other measures as preferable to vaccines. Americans need only to look at Samoa for predictions of that outcome. There, in 2018, a nurse tragically used a vial of paralyzing muscle relaxant to dilute a vial of measles vaccine. That mistake resulted in the deaths of two infants. This caused Samoa to suspend the measles vaccination program. Kennedy visited the island, he later wrotebecause “government officials, including the Prime Minister were curious to measure health outcomes following the ‘natural experiment’ created by the respite from vaccines.”
One of my young parents was unvaccinated as a child and resents that her parents fell for the conspiracy theories.
The health outcomes included a measles outbreak that occurred months after Kennedy’s visit, which included thousands of infections and the deaths of 83 people, most of them small children. Kennedy reportedly told Samoa’s prime minister that the deaths were caused not by measles but by the vaccine used to prevent measles.
“I never gave any public statement about vaccines. You cannot find a single Samoan who will say, ‘I didn’t get a vaccine because of Bobby Kennedy,’” Kennedy told senators Wednesday.
Despite his claims that he wouldn’t discourage vaccinations, we have every reason to believe that Kennedy, if he’s put in charge of HHS, would discourage and even defund them. Defunding vaccines would mean even the parents who are steadfast in protecting their children may not be able to afford the vaccines needed to shield them. And that would put the patients I see at increased risk of disabling disease and death.
And then, incomprehensibly, we might owe declining vaccine rates and the return of long-forgotten infectious diseases not to some internet rabbit hole but to a U.S. Cabinet official charged with protecting the health of the nation.
Senators, the pediatricians who kept your children safe implore you to stand with them and with children in opposing the appointment of Mr. Kennedy to the Cabinet.
Dr. Patricia Wells
Dr. Patricia Wells, medical director at The Corner Health Center in Ypsilanti, Mich., leads a multidisciplinary team providing comprehensive, judgment-free healthcare for young people aged 12–25 and their children. There, and in a local emergency center, she witnesses firsthand the effects of gaps in care access and remains vigilant for the emergence of vaccine preventable illnesses.
The Dictatorship
Maricopa County official fears Stephen Miller’s group has taken over election office
Even the Republican county attorney in Arizona’s most populous locality is sounding the alarm on potential election meddling by MAGA world.
That’s the crux of a court filing submitted by Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell this week. For those unaware, Mitchell garnered national attention after Senate Republicans tapped her to question Christine Blasey Ford during Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process after Ford alleged that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her as a teenager. Kavanaugh has flatly denied the allegation.
Two years later, Mitchell successfully ran for Maricopa County attorney, and she endorsed Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2024 — in other words, she is not an opponent of the MAGA movement. So it’s noteworthy that she and her legal team are accusing America First Legal, the right-wing activist group founded by White House adviser Stephen Miller, of effectively taking control of the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, which helps administer elections.
The office is led by Justin Heap, who has egged on the Trump administration’s push to acquire sensitive voter data in Arizona. And the disturbing context to all this is Trump has openly declared that Republicans should nationalize voting processes and “take over the voting” in several cities — like Phoenix, perhaps.
According to The Arizona Republic:
In a June 8 legal filing, Mitchell’s lawyers asked Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney to rein in Recorder Justin Heap’s politically connected firm, the America First Legal Foundation, which it said has undertaken “an unprecedented power grab.”
“The Recorder lacks any explicit or implicit statutory authority to hire outside counsel — let alone a partisan organization — to serve as in-house counsel on ‘all’ matters under his ‘purview,’” Mitchell’s lawyers wrote.
America First Legal is advising Heap’s office as he battles the Republican-controlled Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in an attempt to claim official powers for himself. As Democracy Docket reportedthe dispute at one point allegedly involved Heap seizing election equipment and provisional ballot envelopes while votes were being cast in a local election in March, causing county supervisors to warn about “grave chain-of-custody concerns.”
The Arizona Republic said Mitchell listed several examples of America First Legal wielding unauthorized power in Heap’s office amid the dispute with the board:
Mitchell’s request, handled by the law firm of Snell and Wilmer, identified six examples of what she contends involves America First Legal going beyond Blaney’s intended role for them: litigating the power-sharing agreement with the board.
Now, Mitchell argues, America First Legal has claimed authority over all matters relating to early voting, told election officials to disregard directives from or seek advice from Mitchell’s office, threatened prosecution over drop boxes and sent a warning letter signaling new litigation against the board.
Let’s not downplay the crisis playing out here. The GOP-controlled Board of Supervisors and the Republican county attorney overseeing the largest county in Arizona, where the majority of the state’s voters live, are calling out the pro-MAGA county recorder, who stands accused of allowing a right-wing activist group, founded by a White House official, to have unchecked power over electoral processes. (Heap’s office did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.)
The fact that even conservative officials are sounding the alarm here shows how extreme, unprecedented and potentially threatening to democracy this situation could prove to be.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
A federal judge in Washington has denied a bid Wednesday brought by a watchdog group to immediately block the Justice Department’s “anti-weaponization” fund, for now choosing to trust the department’s assertions that it is not moving forward with the fund.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled immediately, denying Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have blocked the Department of Justice from taking steps to create the fund.
Throughout the 30-minute hearing, the DOJ reiterated that the administration was not moving forward with the nearly $1.8 billion fund, which seeks to compensate individuals who allege they have been politically targeted or victimized by the DOJ.
Andrew Block, the only lawyer present for the government, repeatedly cited Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s June 2 congressional testimonyin which he said the administration was “not moving forward” with plans to create the fund.
Leon indicated he agreed with the DOJ’s position that the case appeared to be moot, saying he was not persuaded there was an issue for the court to decide regarding the creation of the fund. He issued a stern warning to the DOJ, saying, “Don’t play possum with this court!” — meaning he does not want to be deceived.
The plaintiffs argued Blanche’s testimony did not amount to an official cancellation. Nikhel Sus, CREW’s attorney, said Blanche “refused to memorialize that rescission,” or in other words, put it in writing. Sus said that was “highly unusual.” Leon responded, “This whole case is highly unusual to say the least.”
Leon asked the government twice why they would not just rescind the order that established the fund. Block responded, “I don’t know,” and pointed again to Blanche’s public statements about the fund’s future.
Both Leon and Sus raised the issue of Trump’s continued public defense of the fund. “It can still be an important issue and also not moving forward,” Block said. “That isn’t a direction to move forward with the fund.”
Although Leon rejected CREW’s bid for an immediate block, he indicated he is still considering its request for a longer-term block against the fund.
A block order from a separate federal judge in Virginia remains in effect until at least Friday.
Fallon Gallagher is a legal affairs reporter for MS NOW.
The Dictatorship
‘Incredibly dangerous’: Capitol officer badly beaten by Jan. 6 rioters says Trump pardons absolved them
When FBI agents confronted Daniel Rodriguez about using a stun gun on a Washington police officer during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, he wept, seeming to express remorse.
“I’m sorry,” he said through tears in a recorded interview after he was arrested in March 2021. “He’s a human being with children, and he’s not a bad guy. He sounds like he’s just doing his job and he’s — I’m an asshole.”
Two years later, as he was being led away after a judge sentenced him to more than 12 years in prison, Rodriguez raised his fist and screamed, “Trump won!”
Rodriguez is now a free man. The hefty prison sentences imposed on him and four other people convicted of assaulting police officer Michael Fanone — who was dragged into the crowd and severely beaten — were all wiped away in one of Donald Trump’s first acts as president in January 2025: He pardoned almost 1,600 people charged or convicted for their involvement in the riot.
Trump has used the clemency power like no president in history, freeing fraudsters, drug traffickers and corrupt politicians.
But his pardon of Jan. 6 defendants, more than 170 of whom pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement officers, stands apart. MS NOW is spotlighting the clemency granted to Jan. 6 defendants as part of a series on Trump’s pardons, “Justice Interrupted.”
“It’s incredibly dangerous,” Fanone told MS NOW in an interview. “You have individuals who were inspired by Donald Trump’s lies to storm and assault the Capitol and try to prevent the certification of a free and fair election. Donald Trump then absolved them of all of their criminal culpability.”
Trump’s first attorney general and his FBI director each told Congress they opposed pardons for people who hurt police officers, but the president did it anyway. Afterward, even some of his biggest backers balked.
“Pardoning the people who went into the Capitol and beat up a police officer violently, I think, was a mistake, because it seems to suggest that’s an OK thing to do,” Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” after the pardons in 2025.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said on the Senate floor this past January, “People that harm police officers and destroy federal buildings should go to prison, and it’s a damn shame they’re out.”
Trump has never explained why he freed those rioters who violently assaulted police officers. When correspondent Peter Alexander confronted the president about his pardon of the man who shocked Fanone in the neck, Trump brushed aside the question.
“Among those you pardoned, D.J. Rodriguez,” Alexander said to Trump. “He drove a stun gun into the neck of a D.C. police officer who was abducted by the mob that day. He later confessed on video to the FBI and pleaded guilty for his crimes. Why does he deserve a pardon?”
Trump replied, “Well, I don’t know. Is it a pardon? Because we’re looking at commutes and we’re looking at pardons.” Told it was a pardon, he responded, “OK, well, we’ll take a look at everything. But I can say this: Murderers today are not even charged.”
But there was nothing, as Trump commented, to “look at.” Pardons are not reversible.
Fanone believes Trump knew exactly what he was doing: rewarding people who committed violence on his behalf.
“I know that he knows that it was violent. I know that he knows that, and I think that that was intentional,” he said.
In addition to Rodriguez, three others who attacked him were spared most or all of their prison terms:
- Albuquerque Cosper Head got 7 1/2 years for dragging Fanone into the mob while yelling, “I got one!”
- Kyle Young was sentenced to seven years, and Lewis Wayne Snoots to six, for helping to restrain Fanone during the attack.
- Thomas Sibick was sentenced to just over four years for assaulting Fanone and stealing his badge and radio.
Liz Oyer, a former Justice Department pardon attorney, said Trump has disregarded the normal tradition of presidential clemency.
“The things that the Justice Department traditionally looks for are acceptance of responsibility, remorse, rehabilitation, a significant track record of good conduct in the community before we would recommend someone for consideration of a presidential pardon,” she said, adding that few, if any, of the Jan. 6 defendants met that qualification.
“This president’s use of the pardon system is really undermining the legitimacy of our justice system,” she said.
In fact, a Lawfare analysis found that at least 97 of the roughly 1,600 people charged in the Capitol attack have been accused of new crimes since Jan. 6, 2021. At least 19 were accused after being pardoned.
One of the first rioters to breach police barricades, Christopher Moynihanpleaded guilty in February in New York to a harassment charge over threats to kill House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Moynihan was later sentenced to three years’ probation.
Zachary Alama man a judge called “one of the most violent and aggressive rioters,” was sentenced in May to seven years in prison after a jury convicted him of committing a home invasion burglary in Virginia.
Andrew Paul Johnsonconvicted of illegally entering the Capitol, was pardoned despite having been accused of molesting children. In May, he was sentenced to life in prison for the sex crimes.
Fanone wasn’t supposed to be at the Capitol that day, but he rushed there when he heard the distress calls.
He was pulled into a crowd of attackers as he was trying to keep them out of the building. He was holding on to his service weapon to keep it from being taken from him. But once he felt the excruciating, debilitating shock from Rodriguez’s weapon, he knew he was in a dire situation; in fact, he thought he might be killed.
“I knew at that point that I was not going to be able to fight my way out of this,” Fanone remembered. “I wasn’t even going to be able to maintain control of my weapon. The only solution here was that people in the crowd helped me, and when I yelled out that I have kids, it worked.”
His doctors say Fanone suffered a heart attack.
Trump supporters have wrongly called Fanone a “crisis actor,” disputing that he really was attacked. Ed Martin, who once represented Jan. 6 defendants and is now the Justice Department’s pardons attorney, called him a “fake cop.”
Fanone says his life, and the lives of his loved ones, has never been the same.
“My mother’s been the target of swatting events eight times. She had a credible bomb threat called into her home,” he said.
“She had an individual pull up to her house in a pickup truck, approach her in her front yard while she was raking leaves, and throw a bag of dog feces at her.”
In an apparent attempt to wipe the charges, convictions or sentences of Jan. 6 offenders from public knowledge, the Justice Department recently took down press releases naming them from its website, calling it “partisan propaganda.”
Anyone who tries to find the official DOJ announcements of the convictions or sentencing of the men who attacked Fanone will see only broken links.
Ken Dilanian is the justice and intelligence correspondent for MS NOW.
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- ‘Incredibly dangerous’: Capitol officer badly beaten by Jan. 6 rioters says Trump pardons absolved them
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