Heart & Soul Conversation # 26……Baseball-More Than A Game

Former Department of Justice officials who were either forced out or resigned in protest of President Donald Trump's administration left some scathing resignation letters for their bosses, and a new organization is seeking to preserve as many of the letters as possible, according to a new report.

Since Trump took office in January, about 5,000 employees at the Department of Justice have either quit or resigned, CBS News reported on Sunday. Meanwhile, a cadre of those former employees is banding together to create a public display of the messages the former employees left for their bosses. Those employees have created an organization called Justice Connection that is organizing and posting the messages, the report added.

Stacey Young, a former civil division attorney for the Justice Department, is leading Justice Connection. A spokesperson for the organization told CBS News that they are working to preserve the messages because they "show what is happening in our country at this moment."

The repository includes messages left by high-profile former employees such as Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey.

"Fear is the tool of a tyrant, wielded to suppress independent thought," Comey wrote in a message. "Instead of fear, let this moment fuel the fire that already burns at the heart of this place."

Another former DOJ lawyer, Hagan Scotten, who resigned in protest of the Trump administration's decision to stop prosecuting New York City Mayor Eric Adams on corruption charges, also had her farewell message captured in the online database.

"If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion," Scotten wrote. "But it was never going to be me."

Read the entire report by clicking here.

The Wall Street Journal's conservative editorial board slammed President Donald Trump's Health Secretary over his "ideological crusade" to turn the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention into an anti-vaccine agency.

Last week, the CDC revised its Vaccine Safety page to include a new advisory for claims that "vaccines do not cause autism." The website now says the claim "is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism. Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities.”

The new guidance cites a discredited study authored by a scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who wrote a newsletter for Children's Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. led, WSJ's editors wrote in a new editorial.

Kennedy has repeatedly asserted that there are ties between vaccines and childhood rates of autism, although experts have questioned the evidence he's provided to support such claims.

The editors noted that the revised guidelines seem like a lawyerly attempt by Kennedy to keep his promise to GOP Senators like Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) not to change the CDC's vaccine advisory.

"He is also breaking his pledge to Mr. Cassidy not to push vaccines for children off the market," the editorial notes. "Early next month, Mr. Kennedy’s handpicked Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will discuss aluminum adjuvants and could require manufacturers to remove them from vaccines. That could force a dozen vaccines out of use."

"The aluminum ingredient in vaccines isn’t the same as what’s in kitchen foil," the editorial adds. "Aluminum is naturally present in plants, soil, water, and many foods, including vegetables, tea, and chocolate. During the first six months of life, infants ingest significantly more aluminum from breast milk or formula than they get from vaccines. But RFK Jr. is on an ideological crusade. Reformulating these vaccines with different adjuvants would cost billions of dollars and could take years."

Read the entire editorial by clicking here.

A clinical psychologist flagged a sign that President Donald Trump may be experiencing a "serious cognitive problem" during a podcast interview that debuted on Sunday.

Trump has displayed some questionable behavior in recent days, including an instance where he snapped at a reporter on Air Force One and told her, "Be quiet, piggy." The event renewed conversations about Trump's cognitive health.

Dr. John Gartner, an author and former professor at Johns Hopkins University, discussed Trump's mental fitness during an interview with The Daily Beast's Joana Coles on a new episode of "The Daily Beast Podcast."

Gartner noted that Trump has admitted to taking multiple cognitive tests since taking office. Trump appears to be divulging the information to address concerns about his mental state, but Gartner said the admissions reveal a much larger problem.

"They said they did advanced imaging," Gartner said. "Okay, well, Trump said not once, not twice, but three times that he had taken cognitive tests. Plural. Okay, so not just a screening exam...They gave him multiple tests. We do not give people multiple cognitive tests unless we suspect there's a serious cognitive problem."

"We also never, ever...give someone an MRI unless we suspect or need to rule out a serious problem," he continued. "So, we know his doctors gave him multiple cognitive tests and an MRI. They didn't say explicitly because of the brain, but we can certainly be sure they scanned his brain. If they're giving him a neuropsychological battery, they're scanning his brain."

"If Donald Trump were just an ordinary patient and you saw these kinds of serious signs of dementia, a responsible doctor would give him both a neuropsychological battery and an MRI," he added. "Of course, they're not telling us why they gave those tests.
They're not telling us the results."