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LetMyPeopleVote

LetMyPeopleVote's Journal
LetMyPeopleVote's Journal
November 27, 2025

Maddow Blog-With latest addition to the CDC leadership, RFK Jr. makes a bad situation even worse

Ralph Abraham’s work as Louisiana’s surgeon general was a mess. Now he’ll help lead the CDC.

With latest addition to the CDC leadership, RFK Jr. makes a bad situation even worse
Ralph Abraham’s work as Louisiana’s surgeon general was a mess. Now he’ll help lead the CDC.
Read in MS NOW: apple.news/AxwYtUgGbTs6...
👉geez, so your only qualification is to be a lunatic now

(@enuffsaysv.bsky.social) 2025-11-27T01:59:03.837Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/with-latest-addition-to-the-cdc-leadership-rfk-jr-makes-a-bad-situation-even-worse

When it comes to CDC personnel, part of Kennedy’s problem stems from those he’s fired, including former CDC Director Susan Monarez and experts on federal health advisory committees. But the other side of the coin matters, too. While the secretary has ousted officials whom he should’ve kept, he’s also brought in officials whom he should’ve avoided.

Take Ralph Abraham, for example. Roll Call reported:

Louisiana’s surgeon general and former House member Ralph Abraham will assume the No. 2 position at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a department spokesperson confirmed Tuesday. Abraham, an outspoken critic of mass vaccination and strong supporter of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA agenda, will be CDC’s principal deputy director. The appointment was not announced by the agency.


.....His tenure was not without controversy. The Washington Post reported, “Abraham drew intense criticism in office for instructing health officials to stop promoting vaccines including flu shots and instead emphasize personal choice and consulting with doctors. In a December legislative hearing, Abraham said he regularly sees patients injured by coronavirus vaccines and alleged adverse reactions were being covered up, NPR reported. He has also supported research into an extensively debunked connection between vaccines and autism.”

Abraham has gone so far as to describe Covid shots as “dangerous” (they are not), and he touted ivermectin during the 2020 pandemic despite science showing that the drug was an ineffective treatment.

As for his credentials, Abraham, a veterinarian for many years before going to medical school, has described himself as a “practicing family medicine physician” and a “country doctor.

An NBC News report added, “While Abraham is licensed to practice medicine in Louisiana, the Louisiana Illustrator reported in February that he didn’t appear to be board-certified in the specialty of family medicine. A search for Abraham on the American Board of Family Medicine’s website yielded no results. A separate search on the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiner’s site lists Abraham as a general practitioner but not a family medicine doctor. (Board certification isn’t required to practice any particular specialty, but it’s viewed as an extra layer to ensure a doctor’s credentials, experience and expertise, according to the American Board of Physician Specialties.)”

Nevertheless, RFK Jr. has brought the Louisiana Republican on to serve as the principal deputy director at the CDC, effectively the No. 2 at the agency.
November 26, 2025

Deadline Legal Blog-'Flatly false': Kilmar Abrego Garcia's lawyers call out Trump admin's 'shocking' conduct

Abrego’s lawyers cited the government’s falsehoods to support his motion to dismiss his criminal charges.
https://x.com/CharlesPDavis/status/1993153104410239178
https://www.ms.now/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/kilmar-abrego-garcia-trump-motion-dismiss-charges

A running theme of the Trump administration’s legal efforts is not only pressing aggressive claims, but also resisting, misleading and – as one federal judge put it last week – “outright lying” in service of President Donald Trump’s agenda.

The latest instance comes in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose legal ordeal has provided a lot of material when it comes to shady government conduct.

Abrego became a famous target of the administration’s bumbling malevolence after the government illegally sent him to a Salvadoran megaprison earlier this year and swore he’d never be back in the U.S. — and then finally achieved his court-ordered return after developing a criminal case to have waiting for him. While theoretically pressing that case toward trial, the administration is moving to quickly deport Abrego, as he seeks to dismiss the criminal charges on the grounds that they’re unlawfully vindictive and selective. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges of unlawfully transporting undocumented immigrants.......

But Abrego’s lawyers wrote to the Tennessee judge in his criminal case that the government’s representations about Costa Rica in his immigration litigation “were revealed to be flatly false” on Friday night. They cited a report in The Washington Post quoting Costa Rica’s minister of public security as saying that his country would accept him without further negotiations.....

His lawyers argue that the government’s “shocking (yet, sadly, now predictable) conduct” provides three reasons.

First, they wrote, “the government’s misrepresentations are unmistakable proof of continued vindictiveness.” Second, they wrote, “the government’s recent conduct emphasizes the importance of meaningful discovery and testimony on vindictive and selective prosecution that goes up to the highest levels of the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security.” And third, they wrote, “given the Department of Justice’s brazen attempts to mislead the courts and defy court orders, documentation of how the Department of Justice has collected, reviewed, and produced discovery material in response to this Court’s orders is necessary to ensure that the government has made ‘a good faith effort to comply’ with the Court’s discovery order.

The DOJ has not yet responded to the filing, which Abrego’s lawyers lodged on Sunday.

How this latest revelation affects Abrego’s criminal case, if at all, remains to be seen. Indeed, his potential removal could moot the criminal proceedings entirely – and that may be just as well, as far as the administration is concerned. The criminal case always seemed to be more of a political tool. That’s not unusual in this administration, where Abrego isn’t the only high-profile defendant to raise what were previously rare claims of vindictive and selective prosecution. James Comey and Letitia James, for example, have done the same in Virginia, though they just got their cases dismissed on other grounds, due to what a federal judge found to be the unlawful appointment of their Trump-installed prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan.
November 26, 2025

Rachel Maddow-The Trump administration can't stop lying to the courts

Almost a year into the president’s second term, he appears to be crossing a new Rubicon when it comes to the courts.

Does anyone think that any House or Senate Republicans will condemn the regime’s practice of lying under oath?

“The Trump administration can’t stop lying to the courts”
www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

Gary M. Hartman (@garymhartmam.bsky.social) 2025-11-26T19:32:06.458Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-lying-courts-kilmar-abrego-garcia-james-comey

Do you remember Kilmar Abrego Garcia? The man whom the Trump administration was forced to return to the United States after it admitted that it had wrongfully, illegally — and according to the federal government, accidentally — sent him to a weird black-hole terrorism prison in El Salvador.....

Justice Department lawyers wrote to the judge, “It is now the assessment of the Department of State that the Government of Costa Rica would not accept Petitioner at this time without further negotiations and, likely, additional commitments from the United States.”

But that doesn’t appear to be true. On Friday, Costa Rica’s minister of security, Mario Zamora Cordero, told The Washington Post his country would accept Abrego. “That position that we have expressed in the past remains valid and unchanged to this day,” he said. “Costa Rica’s offer to receive Mr. Abrego Garcia for humanitarian reasons stands.”

This kind of thing has become a pattern for the Trump administration in court. Take the federal government’s attack on Chicago. During a recent appearance in court, Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol official overseeing the administration’s Operation Midway Blitz in the city, said he had thrown tear gas into a crowd because protesters had become violent and he had been hit in the head with a rock.

However, he was unable to stand by his own story in court. In an order released last week, the judge in the case wrote that Bovino had “admitted he lied multiple times about the events … that prompted him to throw tear gas at protesters.”....

At the beginning of this administration, we were all watching to see if Donald Trump would defy court orders. While we have seen the administration do just that, almost a year in, the federal government also appears to be crossing a different Rubicon: blatantly and repeatedly lying to judges about what it is doing and how it’s doing it.

Lying to any judge especially a federal judge is a dumb idea. The trump DOJ continues to tell lies and getting caught in these lies.
November 26, 2025

MaddowBlog-Still no signal from Trump Mobile phones more than five months after launch

Remember when Trump’s family announced a new wireless phone service and cell phone that would carry his name?
https://x.com/Barlofa/status/1993424692674531344
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/still-no-signal-from-trump-mobile-phones-more-than-five-months-after-launch

So no one was especially surprised in June when the Trump Organization announced the launch of a wireless phone service that would carry the president’s name — marketed to those Donald Trump Jr. described as “real Americans” — and sell a gold-colored $499 phone, dubbed the T1.

At the rollout, the public was told to expect everything to be in place by the end of the year. As November nears its end, what happened? NBC News reported:

NBC News placed an order for a T1 phone in August, paying the $100 deposit for the purposes of tracking the $499 phone’s development. After confirming with the credit card company that the transaction was not fraudulent, NBC News received a confirmation email verifying the order. But the company provided no proactive updates after the order. NBC News made five separate phone calls to the Trump Mobile customer support line between September and November.


In October, NBC News was told to expect a Nov. 13 ship date. When that date came and went, an operator at the call center said to expect delivery in the “beginning of December.” (The same operator blamed delays on the government shutdown, which didn’t appear to make any sense.)

Making matters worse, the Trump Mobile website has gone through a series of edits, including the elimination of release dates and “Made in the USA” assurances.
November 26, 2025

'Indeed frivolous': Appeals court upholds $1 million penalty against Trump and his lawyer

I have been following this lawsuit for a while. This case was a joke.

'Indeed frivolous': Appeals court upholds million penalty against Trump and his lawyer

#TuckFrump (@realtuckfrumper.bsky.social) 2025-11-26T15:04:41.000Z

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-alina-habba-2674344756/

A federal appeals court upheld a $1 million penalty against President Donald Trump and his former lawyer Alina Habba for filing a "frivolous" lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, James Comey and others.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Trump's 2022 lawsuit – which first came in at 108 pages and then 193 pages in an amended complaint – violated federal court rules with tenuous links between a myriad of defendants and legal claims.

"The district court decided that the amended complaint advanced legal theories foreclosed by precedent 'that the most basic legal research would have revealed,'" reads the 36-page decision.....

"Trump leaves all these frivolous claims behind, making a total of 11 of his 16 claims he does not appeal," the court ruled. "Trump and Habba give us no reason to reverse the district court’s ruling that these claims were frivolous."
November 26, 2025

Maddowblog-White House hedges on Trump's curious claim about his call with Brazil's Bolsonaro

Did the president talk to Bolsonaro as the Brazilian plotted to escape? Trump said yes, but the White House isn’t so sure.

An amazing new Trump controversy, Part I of II:

- Friday night: Jair Bolsonaro’s son summons a crowd to their family home

- Later Friday night: Bolsonaro takes a soldering iron to his ankle bracelet days before starting a lengthy prison

- Saturday morning: Bolsonaro is re-arrested

Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-11-25T18:35:57.718Z

An amazing new Trump controversy, Part II of II:

- Saturday afternoon: Trump says he spoke to Bolsonaro the night before and planned to see him “in the very near future”

- Monday afternoon: The Trump White House isn’t sure whether Trump actually had the conversation he referenced two days earlier

Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-11-25T18:36:44.390Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/white-house-trump-bolsonaro-phone-call

On Friday night, Bolsonaro’s son publicly encouraged the former president’s supporters to come to his home for some kind of previously unannounced protest. Hours later, early Saturday morning, law enforcement officials were notified that Bolsonaro’s ankle monitor had been tampered with. Though it was still on, Brazil’s former president had taken a soldering iron to his tracking device after his son had summoned a crowd to the family’s home.

Bolsonaro’s lawyers said he wasn’t trying to flee (notwithstanding earlier efforts to find a country to escape to) but rather, the former Brazilian president felt unwell because of the medications he was on.

So according to his own defenders, this guy took a soldering iron to his ankle monitor because some drugs left him confused.

And it was around this time that the story got even weirder.

Trump says he spoke to Bolsonaro last night and plans to meet with him soon

Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-11-22T17:27:27.585Z


......Of course, given the Brazilian was on house arrest and poised to begin a lengthy prison sentence, it was far from clear how, exactly, Trump intended to hang out with him. For all intents and purposes, it would suggest that Trump either was going to make a previously unannounced trip to Brazil, or the American president expected Bolsonaro to make his way to the U.S.

But wait, there’s more.
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1993057878249468087

So let’s recap:

Friday night: Bolsonaro’s son summons a crowd to their family home.

Later Friday night: Bolsonaro takes a soldering iron to his ankle monitor.

Saturday mornin[g/b]: Bolsonaro is re-arrested.

Saturday afternoon: Trump says he spoke to Bolsonaro the night before and planned to see the Brazilian leader “in the very near future.”

Monday afternoon: The White House isn’t sure whether Trump actually had the conversation he publicly referenced two days earlier.

I can appreciate on a personal level how easy it is to grow inured to the madness surrounding our incumbent American president. But even by Trump standards, this one’s a doozy.

November 26, 2025

NYT-Shorter Days, Signs of Fatigue: Trump Faces Realities of Aging in Office (gift link)

This is the article that really pissed off trump

President Trump has always used his stamina and energy as a political strength. But that image is getting harder for him to sustain.
https://x.com/DeanObeidallah/status/1993682925615829443
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/us/politics/trump-age-health.html?unlocked_article_code=1.4E8.Xuu2.wLwq4A4Y9jal&smid=url-share

The reality is more complicated: Mr. Trump, 79, is the oldest person to be elected to the presidency, and he is aging. To pre-empt any criticism about his age, he often compares himself to President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who at 82 was the oldest person to hold the office, and whose aides took measures to shield his growing frailty from the public, including by tightly managing his appearances.....

Still, nearly a year into his second term, Americans see Mr. Trump less than they used to, according to a New York Times analysis of his schedule. Mr. Trump has fewer public events on his schedule and is traveling domestically much less than he did by this point during his first year in office, in 2017, although he is taking more foreign trips.

He also keeps a shorter public schedule than he used to. Most of his public appearances fall between noon and 5 p.m., on average.....

Mr. Trump has prompted additional questions about his health by sharing news about medical procedures he has had, but not details about them. While in Asia, Mr. Trump revealed that he had undergone magnetic resonance imaging at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in early October......

Mr. Trump also applies makeup to a bruise on the back of his right hand, adding speculation about a medical condition that his physician and aides say is caused by taking aspirin and shaking so many hands. In September, the bruising on his hand, coupled with swollen ankles, caused observers on the internet to speculate wildly about his health......

For years, concerns and questions about Mr. Trump’s health have often been met with obfuscation or minimal explanation from the people around him. Mr. Trump’s physicians have not taken questions from reporters in years, including when he was seriously ill with Covid in 2020. There were no medical briefings held after an assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pa., last summer.

Many of the facts that concerned critics about Mr. Trump’s physical health during his first term are present now. He does not get regular exercise, in part because he has a long-held theory that people are born with a finite amount of energy and that vigorous activity can deplete that reserve, like a battery. He enjoys red meat and is known to eat McDonald’s by the sackful....

Still, in his second term, Mr. Trump’s schedule shows some significant changes.

According to a Times analysis of the official presidential schedules in a database maintained by Roll Call, Mr. Trump’s first official event starts later in the day. In 2017, the first year of his first term, Mr. Trump’s scheduled events started at 10:31 a.m. on average. By contrast, Mr. Trump in his second term has started scheduled events in the afternoon on average, at 12:08 p.m. His events end on average at around the same time as they did during the first year of his first term, shortly after 5 p.m.

The number of Mr. Trump’s total official appearances has decreased by 39 percent. In 2017, Mr. Trump held 1,688 official events between Jan. 20 and Nov. 25 of that year. For that same time period this year, Mr. Trump has appeared in 1,029 official events.

trump is not in good health and trump is showing signs of senility or mental decline. I can see why this article pissed off trump.



November 26, 2025

Trump flips out at New York Times 'creeps' in furious rant over 'hit piece' about his naps

trump is not well

Trump flips out at New York Times 'creeps' in furious rant over 'hit piece' about his naps

#TuckFrump (@realtuckfrumper.bsky.social) 2025-11-26T13:05:36.000Z

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-fatigue-2674344283/

The New York Times appears to have touched a nerve with Donald Trump after reporting that observers are noting his lack of energy and increasing fatigue as his age catches up with him during his second year.

In the report, the Times noted, “... when he is in public, occasionally, his battery shows signs of wear. During an Oval Office event that began around noon on Nov. 6, Mr. Trump sat behind his desk for about 20 minutes as executives standing around him talked about weight-loss drugs,” before reporting that the 79-year-old president appeared to all observers to have dozed off as those around him spoke.

Clearly stung, Trump took to Truth Social on Wednesday morning to lash out, while also boasting about his last election win for some curious reason.

I am not going to post trump's social media post.
November 26, 2025

'Doesn't look good for her': Halligan gets warning she could now be disbarred

Halligan will join a growing list of other sanctioned trump lawyers

'Doesn't look good for her': Halligan gets warning she could now be disbarred

#TuckFrump (@realtuckfrumper.bsky.social) 2025-11-24T18:43:46.000Z

https://www.rawstory.com/lindsey-halligan-disbarment-comey-james

Lindsey Halligan could face potential disbarment over her actions in the cases involving President Donald Trump's enemies former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, an analyst said Monday.

Bradley Moss, a national security attorney, told CNN that Halligan's career future is now in question.

"It doesn't look good for her in terms of any real idea that she's going to get to remain there, unless somehow they succeed on appeal," Moss said. "But a bigger concern I would have about Lindsey Halligan is a lot of what came out, particularly in the Comey case, about how she presented things to the grand jury, that speaks to potential ethics violation, that speaks to potential disbarment at some point by which ever state bar she's licensed in.

"That's no small thing... that's in real jeopardy from what we learned from this whole case."


United States District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie Monday dismissed the federal government's indictments, citing that Halligan, who was Trump's former personal attorney and appointed to her role as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was invalid because it was never approved by the Senate.

"This is a mess of their own making and it's the president's personal vendetta and it's blown up in their faces on a Monday morning as we're getting ready for Thanksgiving," Moss added.
November 25, 2025

Deadline Legal Blog-Judge dismisses Comey and James indictments, says Halligan unlawfully appointed

James Comey and Letitia James both challenged the legality of Halligan’s installation. It’s one of several issues in their cases.

Judge dismisses Comey and James indictments, says Halligan unlawfully appointed
www.ms.now/deadline-whi...

Jeff Johnson (@liberalarkie.bsky.social) 2025-11-24T18:16:47.495Z

https://www.ms.now/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/james-comey-james-indictments-dismissed-lindsey-halligan-unlawfully-appointed

A federal judge has ruled that Lindsey Halligan was unlawfully appointed as the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, leading the judge to dismiss the indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The indictments are dismissed “without prejudice,” meaning they could theoretically be brought again by a lawful prosecutor.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the DOJ will appeal. James’ lawyer said they “will continue to challenge any further politically motivated charges through every lawful means available.” Comey said his prosecution was “based on malevolence and incompetence.”

U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie issued similar separate opinions on Monday in Comey’s and James’ cases explaining her decision.....

The appointment issue is just one of several motions to dismiss that Comey and James have raised in their respective cases, another big one being vindictive prosecution. The appointment issue required an out-of-district judge to handle, and the matter fell to Currie, a South Carolina judge who held a joint hearing with Comey’s and James’ lawyers and the DOJ before issuing her ruling.

Judges around the country had previously deemed unlawful the attempted installations of other lawyers to lead prosecutors’ offices in the Trump Justice Department, including Alina Habba in New Jersey. Yet that still hasn’t led to defendants being able to dismiss their cases as a result of that illegality.

“The official who purported to secure and sign the indictment was invalidly appointed to her position as interim U.S. Attorney. Because of that fundamental constitutional and statutory defect, the indictment is a nullity and must be dismissed,”
Comey’s lawyers wrote in his motion to dismiss, adding that dismissal should be permanent “in order to deter the government’s willfully unlawful conduct.” Likewise in her motion, James’ lawyers wrote that dismissal is warranted because “there is no evidence that any other government attorney played a role in securing the indictment.”

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