Good afternoon! The man running America’s health department is facing questions about whether he told Congress the truth about a trip preceding a deadly measles outbreak. On Thursday, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden and Maryland Sen. Angela Alsobrooks opened an investigation into Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s testimony about his 2019 visit to Samoa. Kennedy told senators the trip had “nothing to do with vaccines.” The senators are seeking records from Children’s Health Defense to test that account.
An investigation has to establish what happened; announcing one does not establish guilt. But the secretary’s account deserves scrutiny, especially while American families are confronting a disease we know how to prevent. I would prefer a health department whose relationship with measles involved stopping it, rather than a congressional inquiry into what its leader said about his activities before an outbreak.
Here on the Homefront, I stayed up late doing laundry and making sure my daughter had everything she needed for her early departure with Grammy for her birthday trip. She has a girls’ trip ahead of her, complete with painted fingernails and toes. I have more laundry. We are both pursuing our dreams, although hers seem considerably better funded.
I’m a little tired today, but there are weekend pieces to prepare and bags to pack before the rest of us leave. There are also drawings to make, plants to tend, and Pokémon games to play, because I refuse to let the entire day be claimed by tasks that reproduce themselves while I’m doing them. The laundry, in particular, appears to have established a breeding population.
I may consider a nap. I will almost certainly spend the available nap time considering the nap, then discover I have run out of time to take it.
Tomorrow, I will attempt to keep up with my daughter on the trampolines as she bounces her way to five. Today, she gets to revel in being one of the girls, adored and celebrated, with very important decisions to make about nail polish. We will all feel the love. Which is lucky, because our sitting president is making it increasingly difficult to feel anything other than immense red rage. I would like to watch my child grow up without having to spend quite so much energy fighting for a country, and a world, fit for her to inherit.
That’s why I keep returning to measles. The CDC’s update today puts the United States at 5,412 confirmed cases this year through November 12, compared with the 5,182 we reported Monday. That is an increase of 230 in the reported total. The full-year total for 2025 was 2,289. We’ve already more than doubled that, with weeks still left in the year.
The Kennedy inquiry asks for records related to his Samoa travel and communications between Children’s Health Defense and the federal government since Trump returned to office. Those documents may help establish whether his testimony matched his activities.
Parents deserve reliable information, and Congress needs truthful answers to assess the people entrusted with public health. Every hour spent untangling a senior official’s account is an hour in which families still need someone doing the actual job.
The question of who will insist on those answers is becoming a fight inside the Democratic Party. Chris Van Hollen announced Thursday that he’s running for Senate majority leader, challenging Chuck Schumer. Schumer says he has the votes to retain the position. The caucus will decide by secret ballot in December.
Van Hollen’s opening argument is that voters demanded a change in the status quo as well as a change from Trump’s policies. In an interview reported by Roll Call, he identified restoring Medicaid funding and extending Affordable Care Act tax credits among his priorities, while arguing that Democrats must go further on healthcare affordability.
That’s the useful test for this leadership contest. Tell us what you will fight for, how you intend to use the majority, and what people should expect you to accomplish. Families waiting for affordable care can’t pay a medical bill with a photograph of Democrats looking pleased beside a podium.
And the incoming majority already faces resistance. AP reports that a senior Justice Department aide told prosecutors to prepare for a “wartime” footing. The department says that language concerned public safety. The White House has also suggested that anticipated Democratic investigations could amount to criminal conduct, while Attorney General Todd Blanche said Thursday that warning of investigations is not itself a crime and that no investigations into Democrats’ rhetoric were open.
Congress will need persistence. A subpoena can lead to a lengthy enforcement fight; winning an election does not make an administration cooperative. I want Democrats preparing for that resistance with the seriousness it deserves. The public should be able to follow what Congress requests, what the administration supplies, and where officials refuse to answer.
Trump, meanwhile, directed JD Vance on Thursday to shift his attention away from Iran and toward alleged corruption and crime in Democratic-controlled cities and states. Vance has blamed the war and its economic consequences for Republican election losses. Trump’s proposed change of assignment turns our attention back toward the people and places he treats as domestic adversaries.
My concern is what federal power will be used to do. Allegations need evidence, and investigations need a legitimate purpose. Residents of a Democratic city deserve the same protection from their government as anyone else. Their votes should not make them targets.
There is also work underway that offers something more useful than another target. At Thursday’s COP31 summit in Antalya, partners announced more than $480 million in new philanthropic commitments to reduce methane and other powerful greenhouse gases. Another $25 million was announced to expand a program helping countries put reductions into practice.
These are commitments, with delivery still ahead. But cutting methane offers a practical way to slow warming in the near term. The next questions are tangible: where the money goes, which projects it supports, and whether emissions fall. Those are results worth watching for, and work worth doing.
I will be watching a nearly five-year-old make equally serious assessments of a trampoline park tomorrow. She will want me to bounce higher. My bladder, having survived two pregnancies, may ask whether we could establish a committee.
She deserves that uncomplicated excitement. She deserves adults who take care of the things she can’t yet understand or control, so she can get on with the very important business of growing up. Today, that means packing the bags, writing the weekend pieces, and insisting that the people with power answer for what they do. Then, with any luck, it means a little time for Pokémon.
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I’m an independent writer raising three children in an old house with a project list that has developed ambitions of its own. Your support helps keep this reporting going, our family moving, and the occasional birthday adventure possible. Thank you for being here with us.