Pennsylvania Nears 1,000 Measles Cases as RFK Jr. Remains Silent

An unvaccinated resident in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, was confirmed to have died from measles, according to an announcement by the state Health Department Wednesday.

The death marks the fifth measles-associated death in the Keystone State this year, per state statistics. At least 943 measles cases have been reported within the state so far.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were, comparatively, far behind in recording national figures related to measles: As of Tuesday, the CDC reported just two measles deaths in the entire country.

That discrepancy has sparked a fierce debate between Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over the health agency’s decision not to rely on state data but instead to use mortality figures from the National Center for Health Statistics.

Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told Reuters Tuesday that the incongruous statistics could undermine public confidence and even lend ammunition to Kennedy’s anti-vaccine followers who would argue that the deaths were “invented or inflated.”

“To the public, that gap looks like either incompetence or concealment,” Adalja told the newswire.

Kennedy’s flippant and dismissive rhetoric regarding the measles vaccine has left many Americans confused as to his own stance on the jab. A survey published Tuesday by the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center found that just one in three Americans believe Kennedy recommends the MMR vaccine, despite his belated decision to support the scientifically backed shot on August 2.

Yet the measles situation has only become more grave as the country descends into the cold season. Pennsylvania authorities reported 114 new cases over the last week, a third of which were children under the age of 18. Overall, there have been 176 hospitalizations.

But those who are vaccinated against the virus stand a much better chance of remaining healthy: Less than one percent of the total number of cases involved people who were fully vaccinated against measles.

Measles was declared eradicated from the U.S. in 2000, a status determined by the lack of continuous transmission of the disease over a period of 12 months or more. That designation could be lost in November, when the U.S. is scheduled to undergo another review.

As of September 24, at least 3,659 measles cases were confirmed by the CDC—by far the highest count across the country since 1991.

Pete Hegseth’s “State of the Force” address Wednesday was a bizarre journey in which he rehashed or remixed his most common talking points in TED Talks fashion.

Hegseth got to the culture-war stuff early on in his address, bragging about firing a slew of longtime military leaders at the beginning of his tenure as defense secretary.

“I think the generals heard the message. Those who responded positively … are leading newly focused, and newly empowered and disciplined formations,” Hegseth said. “Those generals who did not? Who clung to the woke department, or seemed to think civilian control of the military is simply a suggestion? Well, they no longer work here.

“It’s worth saying again, so that the fake news understands it. We are no longer the ‘woke’ department, or the ‘weak’ department. Simple translation of that? No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos,” Hegseth said, calling back to an often used slogan and transphobic slur. “No wimps, no radicals. Just warriors. Just tough, ready, committed troops.… The ideological clowns are out,” he continued. “The patriotic cowboys are in—with testosterone testing on top.”

Hegseth also took time to take cheap shots at the press, of which he used to be a part.

“Our so-called press makes Iranian state media look reasonable,” Hegseth said. “Our media’s shameful lust for political retribution blinds them to the consequences of reckless, so-called ‘reporting.’ So-called ‘journalists’ juiced up on Trump Derangement Syndrome think they’re fighting against our president. But they’re really undermining you. Our warfighters.”

The defense secretary also announced Project Meridian, a massive upcoming study on the “future of warfare” led by Elon Musk, Newt Gingrich, and Palmer Luckey. He unveiled the Office of Religious Affairs, an outfit that will report “straight to the top” to “strengthen religious support,” and revealed that he’d be making a further 20 percent cut to military leadership.

The defense secretary sounds ridiculous. Patriotic cowboys and testosterone testing are not things you want to hear coming from the mouth of the head of the largest military in the world. And yet, here we are.

“Send me,” Hegseth concluded, heavily paraphrasing the Bible. “Send me to fight the redcoats. Send me to fight the Communists. Send me to fight the Islamists. Send me.”

Some 600 attendees at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s State of the Force speech at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia Wednesday received an unexpected keepsake during the officer-reduction announcement: a 144-page “field manual” filled with Hegseth’s “no fatties, no tr*nnies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals” philosophy.

The booklet is a collection of Hegseth’s speeches, but also included a noteworthy foreword by Donald Trump that—seven months into the Iran war—pledged not to send American soldiers into “dumb wars.”

“Our goal is PEACE, which is why we prepare for War—Especially the Wars of the future,” Trump’s foreword declared, according to a copy obtained and shared by ABC News’s Steven Beynon.

“As your Commander-in-Chief, I will not ask you to fight dumb Wars,” it continued. “I will unleash you to be violent, lethal and unstoppable—and I will always have your back. Godspeed, Great Warriors. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

But actions speak louder than words. Since returning to office, Trump’s approach with America’s military has been brash, careless, and at times completely irrational. See: the midnight raid to abduct former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, the indefensible airstrikes against small watercraft in the Caribbean and Pacific, the sudden abandonment of longstanding U.S. responsibilities in Ukraine and Taiwan, and the White House’s sudden interest in invading Cuba.

U.S. involvement in Iran was arranged following a February 11 meeting between Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and several U.S. and Israeli officials in the White House Situation Room.

It was reportedly Netanyahu’s direct influence—and ensuing pressure campaign—that thrust America into the war. Trump opted for violence without congressional approval, and against the advice of America’s top military commanders, who argued at the time that components of Netanyahu’s plan to attack Iran were “farcical,” according to a New York Times report published earlier this year.

Since then, the war has killed at least 22 U.S. service members and wounded more than 820 others. It has also killed more than 3,500 people in Iran and injured tens of thousands of locals, according to data published by Al Jazeera.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced onetime trillionaire Elon Musk, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and right-wing entrepreneur Palmer Luckey as the new heads of “Project Meridian”—a massive upcoming study on the “future of warfare.”

Hegseth made the announcement at his “State of the Force” address on Wednesday afternoon, describing the trio of Trump loyalists as “the best forecasters of future conflict.”

“There are obvious biases and risks to asking ourselves to both ask the questions and answer them. So today we are leveraging a unique source of American advantage—one our adversaries do not have: our innovators, our senior leaders, and our technologists. Big thinkers and doers who will forecast the creative solution to tomorrow’s conflicts,” Hegseth said. “And that’s why today … I’m announcing Project Meridian, an effort led by America’s best minds to study the future of warfare.”

Musk, Luckey, and Gingrich will work with private sector leaders, experts, and Pentagon chief technology officer and former Uber vice president Emil Michael to “creatively look to the future and identify the domains that we must conquer.”

Before the Project Meridian announcement, Hegseth introduced the Autonomous Warfare Command, a unit focused on robotic, artificial intelligence and drone warfare—domains in which Musk and Luckey have a particular interest. Hegseth noted that Project Meridian’s findings would be submitted in the next 120 days with a “full public rollout.” He will be meeting with the three “great minds” later Wednesday.

We’ll have to wait and see what comes of Project Meridian and the rest of Hegseth’s bizarre, TED Talk–style speech. What makes Luckey, Musk, and Gingrich so uniquely good for the job? Does he really think other countries don’t have industry leaders and politicians as smart as them? That the collective minds of a dotcom-era billionaire, a Zionist V.R. entrepreneur, and an old partisan really give the U.S some kind of military edge?

“Project Meridian will ruthlessly map the trajectory of wars, domains, and technologies to ensure this War Department, your War Department, dominates the future,” Hegseth promised.

Attorney General Todd Blanche is launching an investigation against almost every federal judge in Minnesota.

In a press conference Wednesday, Blanche announced that the Department of Justice filed a misconduct complaint in federal court against all but one of the federal district judges in Minnesota, attacking them for speaking to The New York Times for an article published earlier this month about the federal government’s immigration crackdown in the North Star State.

“Seven federal judges in the District of Minnesota talked to The New York Times about cases, some of which are ongoing, in a manner that the Department of Justice views as a clear violation of their ethical duties,” Blanche said. “Their conduct has undermined public confidence in an impartial judiciary in Minnesota.”

According to the complaint, U.S. District Judge Patrick Schlitz had a 90-minute interview with the publication, and six other federal judges in Minnesota also spoke to the Times. Schlitz, appointed by President George W. Bush, said to the newspaper that the Trump administration’s disregard for court orders during its immigration crackdown in the state “created a grave threat to the rule of law.”

“I would say aloud to myself, ‘This just never happens,’” Schlitz said, while declining to discuss active cases.

“They weren’t arresting, in my view, people who were dangerous criminals on the street,” Tunheim said to the Times.

Blanche attacked the judges’ comments in the article as “blatantly false,” saying that the DOJ has asked the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals to investigate the judges, who should “recuse themselves from every case involving DHS, either criminal or civil in nature, because of the obvious bias they have shown in this article with The New York Times.”

That would essentially grind federal court proceedings in Minnesota to a halt, which is probably by design. Trump and Blanche have railed against federal judges who rule against the Trump administration, calling them “activists.” While it is rare for federal judges to speak to the press, it is not illegal, and none of the judges targeted by the DOJ Wednesday mentioned ongoing cases. Schlitz even told the Times that he believes the administration’s violations of his court orders were mostly inadvertent.

“My impression was that most, if not all, of the noncompliance was due to incompetence,” Schlitz said, “not due to conscious defiance of orders.” But even that deference wasn’t enough for Trump and Blanche.