I’ve spent two weeks thinking carefully about this, and I’m going to do my best to explain the theory of change for RFK’s removal, as I see it. That includes where impeachment fits, what to ask from House vs Senate, etc. During the first term, we saw political appointees fired when they became embarrassments *to conservatives*: Scott Pruitt is a great example. This time around, everyone is much harder to embarrass, and they spent more time - literally, four years - hand-vetting people through e.g. Heritage But the basic math is the same: if they decide they vetted you wrong, and you're clownish, loud, *and* in the way, they'll find a way to punt. The best, most obvious example of this is Elon Musk: once people got sick of his memelord shit *and* it was making them catch extra heat in court, he was out Elon is also a good proof of concept for what victory is here: If we win, it won't be a hard out. RFK will never be "fired." Instead, he'll have "completed his mission" at HHS, and will go take another job, probably at some new MAHA-branded something. That doesn't mean we don't demand RFK fired or impeached. RFK and his appointees will never be pushed out unless they are both (1) clownish and loud, and (2) failing at the mission. On the second bit, that comes down to the courts. But, in a lot of ways, we're winning that battle already, and it's already embarrassing them. bsky.app
BREAKING: per email sent to agency staff NIH will _NOT_ reterminate the ~900 grants which were reinstated. "[W]e would strongly recommend against re-terminating such grants, because it will likely be viewed as a reapplication of the now-vacated Challenged Directives."
What do we, as non-lawyer people, do to help push #2? I think the answer is probably (1) donate to orgs, (2) donate to independent journalists like @chrisgeidner.bsky.social, and (3) most importantly, keep these guys off their footing. When they're spread thin or pissed off, they get sloppy. This is what Congressional Democrats are already gearing up to do: drag RFK, Jay, whoever - any appointee at any level, the less polished the better - into televised hearings with Instagram reel-ready moments 24/7. Make them angry, sleep-deprived, and then ask hard questions over and over. They know this, because this is their job, and we're getting good signals this is already the intent. bsky.app
Donald Trump is purging the CDC leadership and putting in charge the guy who thought RFK Jr. was doing a “great job” after measles cases hit a record high. These fools can’t be trusted with your health.
It needs to be broader than RFK, though. The man is a Kennedy - he's spent his entire life in front of a camera, and, he's an accomplished liar. He is much less a crazy person thank you think, and much more a run of the mill right-wing content creator. He's Alex Jones. bsky.app
Good. I have questions and the American people deserve answers.
www.politico.com
So, investigative hearings: bring in person after person to answer the same questions. Ask them to produce documents, and then explain email correspondence from January 2025. Get their records from when they worked at FOIAble institutions. Ask them about videos like this: bsky.app
New acting director of CDC Jim O'Neill expressed being pro paid organ donation. "There are plenty of healthy spare kidneys walking around, unused."
We need to remember that RFK made it in - all of these people made it in - already having said absolutely awful things on the record. So the bar is high. One place to start: drill down on the CDC shooting. Ask RFK's appointees if they condemn his inciting rhetoric. statnews.com
www.statnews.com
The other thing that this does is tie them up. There's a comms machine, and a legal machine, that exists in the Republican private sector and is used seamlessly by the federal government when they're in power. *Those people*, off-camera, need to be tied up in running interference 24/7 on hearings. This will: 1. Make them sloppier in court, and 2. Give them less time and resources to pursue their agenda, whether that's building terminating grants, data systems to track abortions, seeding RFK-friendly op-eds at places like the Journal, or getting a new CDC director through confirmation. Democrats can do this basically forever, and must. This is probably the end of business-as-usual for HHS, NIH, CDC, and the FDA. The goal isn't to get good people in. The goal is to do at least 3 years of successful opposition. I know that sounds like a long time, but it's their job. And: They did it to Obama, and it worked. So where does impeachment fit into this? Upshots - it gives us a framework for hearings. - it's a word that a major org (@standupforscience.bsky.social) has done the legwork to popularize. - it better serves the aesthetics of wielding power as an opposition party, rather than just begging Trump to let us win. Problem 1: We might succeed at impeachment; we won't succeed at removal. Problem 2: Impeachment is a one-shot action, and when we fail to remove, we look weak. So hearings end after that. Problem 3: There's a lack of consensus messaging about what, exactly, we would be impeaching over - the CDC shooting? the botched firing / mass resignations? the garbage was already spouting for decades that got him the job in the first place? Problem 4: There's not a consensus among legal experts that this is the right and proper way to do this. medpagetoday.com
www.medpagetoday.com
Let's work our way back up the chain and see if any of this matters. I haven't actually shared my full personal view on #4 yet, despite posting the link, because, (1) I'm not a lawyer, (2) I've seen law professors on here already reach different conclusions, and (3) Larry is a friend and collaborator. But, I'm not sure I agree with his comments. To me, this directly maps onto where SCOTUS discourse was 2-3 years ago: talking about "packing the court" can be met with technical qualms and "well then they'll just do it too" but at the end of the day, it's an emergency, and we can either do something imaginative, or a technically sound nothing. So #4 is sort of "who cares," in my mind. #3 is also sort of a big "who cares" - let the Dems figure out what message tests best with the billions they spend on A/B testing. 🙃 #2 and #1 are the biggest downsides, in my mind. We need a multi-year tar pit, not a desperate molotov. We need Her Emails. I don't think you Benghazi the RFK world by impeachment. I think you literally just Benghazi them. Again: Republicans do this all the time, because they're bloodthirsty, relentless freaks who only care about winning. Let's just be bloodthirsty, relentless freaks about this. But as I said: impeachment is already popularized, and people understand it, and if they demand it, I think that the effect it has will be to get the Democrats to use the tools of power smartly. So: I don't think it's bad that people are calling to demand impeachment. No infighting. I think it's just worth laying all of this thinking / the ways it reflects different conversations I've had with folks out in one place, because we've had a billion conversations about this in the 14 days since we wrote the STAT piece, and no one quite knows which parts are aimed at which audience. (And I think it's fine to put the playbook out in public, because the only part of this that would catch Republicans off guard would be that the Democrats try their best, for once.) All of this means that what's happening right now - people are calling to demand impeachment, firings, hearings; Congressional Democrats are taking that as a demand signal and threatening to make this a tar pit; this is spreading the WH thin and making them mad - is winning bsky.app
Stephen Miller: Secretary Kennedy, one of the world's foremost experts on public health, is working hard to restore the credibility of the CDC as a scientific organization committed to the scientific method
It would be great to get The Big Win and see some people fired. But winning looks like this for the next 1-3 years. That's the theory of change: just Benghazi them to fuck. If you are someone who has been watching me for the last two weeks wondering why I think this is a winnable fight, or were looking for an argument for why this is worth trying to do - sincerely, I hope that clears this up. (I think most of us speaking out are already working from this playbook.) Anyway I posted all of this because @publichealthguy1.bsky.social asked me a question about my thoughts on a very small piece of it and I thought it would be funny to do this instead of text him back Impeach! Ugh, something I forgot to mention: I think it's good that Senators are getting to work, but I think if you want Endless Sustainable War, that *has* to happen in the House, both because of numbers of people and committees, and because we might actually take it back in the next election. So... both. So call your reps, not just your senators!