Veritas  😱✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️😱

Autocrats Playbook:  Taking over institutions of higher education, directing investigations into critics and rivals, pardoning “friendly” criminals, deploying the military and military-like institutions domestically, going after “unsympathetic” media outlets, dismantling cultural institutions, extorting corporations, attacking judges, coopting the legal profession, deporting and imprisoning immigrants and even citizens, and becoming president for life.  These are just some of the things that Trump has done or is trying to do.  Not so coincidentally these actions are all part of the autocrats’ playbook.  Each one is hugely problematic but when combined they’re lethal for democracy. Pushing back is essential which is why Harvard’s decision to fight the administration’s efforts to take over its day-to-day operations, including its hiring, admissions, and coursework decisions, is so notable.  Harvard, like the other institutions of higher education that the Trump administration has targeted is very far from perfect.  Their leaders were depressingly late to pushing back against the anti-Semitic activities that pervaded their campus, but Trump and his allies, are engaging in dangerous overreach.  They are using what they are painting as just a fight against anti-Semitism into an effort to remake the targeted universities in their image, ironically while frequently deploying anti-Semitic and racist tropes, cozying up to white supremacists, and likely spurring more anti-Semitism. The Harvard administration had already been negotiating changes with the Trump administration and had committed to adopting much of what had been demanded before last weekend when, emboldened by their success elsewhere, the Trump team upped their demands into takeover territory. So now Harvard is pushing back and if any institution can afford to lose a few billion dollars in government funding it’s Harvard. At $53 billion, Harvard’s endowment is larger than all other universities and dwarves that of most.  Already a few other colleges are joining them by pushing back too.  Just as the pervasiveness of anti-Semitism, or for that matter all forms of discrimination, is worth fighting, so are Trump’s efforts to control educational institutions.  Of course, Trump being Trump he’s now threatening to go after Harvard’s tax-exempt status.  That won’t be easily achieved which isn’t to say that he won’t try and given the number of law firms who’ve signed on to help him with his pet causes, he’ll have help, but that help won’t come from Susman Godfrey, the most recent law firm that Trump tried to extort.  Yesterday, US District Judge Loren AliKhan called Trump’s order against them a “personal vendetta” and a “shocking abuse of power.”  She blocked his actions against the firm.     

Deportations are US: This week’s other big story concerns Abrego Garcia, the migrant who was deported to the El Salvador prison. With El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele by his side, Trump, together with his toady, Attorney General Pam Bondi who makes former Trump AG Bill Barr appear almost saintly, insisted that they can’t possibly bring Garcia, who, despite any evidence, they continue to insist is a violent, gang member, back to the US.  They are lying, they know they are lying, most of us know they are lying but Garcia continues to rot in the El Salvador hell hole. There is precedent for the US bringing home “accidentally” deported individuals. During the last Trump administration, Trump facilitated the return of someone “accidentally” deported to Iraq, but this is Trump 2.0, worse than the last version so directed by Trump, the DOJ is pushing back against the courts: judges and Justices be damned, even firing the few remaining DOJ attorneys unwilling to lie on their behalf.  As Judge Paula Xinis put it yesterday, the DOJ and the Trump administration have done absolutely nothing to bring Garcia back to the US or even report on his true status.  She isn’t buying their assertion that SCOTUS’s direction to “facilitate” his return means that they don’t have to do anything more than ask Bukele for his help, while winking and nodding to make sure that he knows they really don’t want him to help.  Bukele is being paid to house the deported immigrants most of whom like Garcia were never gang members.  As a recipient of US largesse, he most certainly can be told to return Garcia, assuming Garcia is still among the living, though Bukele might be a bit reticent since Garcia probably has lots to say about the heinous conditions at CECOT, the prison where he’s being held.  As to the CECOT facility, Trump and Bukele joked about there being plenty of room there for any US citizens that Trump might want to send over, except maybe they weren’t joking. Going forward,  it’s likely that the AP won’t be invited into the press pool to report on Trump’s press moments with foreign leaders.  Yesterday, circumventing yet another court ruling, the White House press office rewrote its rule to exclude wire services like AP from future events.     

Make America Sicker:  It’s not just measles that’s on the rise, cases of pertussis, more commonly known as whooping cough, are increasing too.  As a result, related deaths are rising too: two babies have died in Louisiana, one each in Washington state, Idaho and South Dakota.  None of this is surprising, vaccine rates for measles, mumps, and rubella, pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B and polio have fallen significantly since COVID and are likely to continue falling given RFK’s discrediting of vaccines. Yesterday, the Washington Post and the NY Times both ran stories about the increase in autism.  Unfortunately, both papers ran with inflammatory headlines, hiding the CDC’s important conclusion that diagnosis of autism is up because of increased awareness and screening both of which facilitate early intervention.  In fact, rates are higher wherever there are more screening programs.  Unfortunately, that’s not likely to be the “conclusion” of the study that RFK has his anti-vax “expert” heading so don’t be surprised when his report due out in five months ties the increase in autism to lifesaving vaccines. Sadly, there will likely be more measles, mumps, pertussis, and polio going forward.                

And:  On Monday when I referred to Congress’ targeted budget cut being $1.5 billion, I meant to type $1.5 trillion. However, the observation still stands, cuts that large, especially when accompanied by increases in border and military spending and tax cuts can only be achieved by taking bigly bites out of Medicaid and other social programs.  

#BringThemAllHome