The Trump DIaries
This new administration of the U.S. Government is changing lots of things, and fast. I have begun a series of commentaries, from the perspective of an academic and a scientist, but also from the perspective of a person who prioritizes human well-being over economy.
TD26:
What is Trump’s End Game?
Since re-taking the presidency half a year ago, Trump has made massive-scale changes to the country (many of which have been the subject of my Trump Diaries essays). Trump and his team have reduced the size of the federal government, lowered governmental spending massively, reduced governmental regulation and enforcement, all but eliminated foreign aid, and slashed taxes for the wealthy at the cost of increasing the national debt impressively. They have all but closed the borders of the U.S. to immigration—including eliminating most of the routes to political asylum for oppressed people—and created an air of inhumane persecution for the people that they do not wish to have here in the U.S. Globally, they have turned the U.S. away from its traditional allies, and isolated the country in diplomatic, human rights, ethical, and security dimensions. They have turned the U.S. rather abruptly towards Christian Nationalism, along the way reducing freedom of expression, constraining freedom of the press, near-eliminating programs aimed at providing equal opportunities for the full diversity of people in the country, and taking steps towards restricting access to voting by U.S. citizens.
So what is Trump after?
For a long time, I thought that Trump’s career as a politician was one big grift, and that he would be proud of himself for using the U.S. presidency to make off with huge sums of money (remember the Trump International Hotel thing in Washington, D.C.?). In fact, I expected that, after his first term as president, he would laugh at the country and tell us how he had “taken” the country in the biggest grift ever. Indeed, he has found a bunch of ways to make tons of money out of being president, and it looks like he will get away with it. But that is nowhere near all that he is doing… that is, he is doing the grifting plus a bunch of things that don’t make much money at all.
If it were about money, first of all, he has plenty of it. But what do you do with money if you don’t have time to enjoy it and spend it? Trump doesn’t look like he is in good health, and is already pushing 80, so it doesn’t feel like he will be around for a very long time in a healthy old age. And I am not sure that he is much worried about leaving a huge inheritance for his kids or grand-kids… he doesn’t sound like he particularly cares about them, and they already have a bunch of money anyway.
So why do all this? Here are some thoughts …
Stay out of jail: Maybe this is a small point at this stage, but becoming president again did make all of the prosecutions and such simply go away. That’s got to be part of this, at least in some small way. However, a realist would say that he was never going to jail even if he hadn’t been re-elected for a second term as president… very simply, the law does not apply equally to every person in this country.
Ego: Is it fun to play around the world just because you can? Clearly, Trump has an ego that is enormous, and he obviously loves the power and freedom that being the president of the U.S. brings. This is why he steals World Cup trophies and medals, and says things that he knows will get people upset around the world. Some of his followers even go so far as to equate Trump with Jesus Christ (see image of a recent book for sale on Amazon!)
Watch the world burn: Michael Caine (as the wise butler Arthur) told Batman in Dark Knight that some men just want to watch the world burn. Although this is a tempting idea to pursue, I don’t think so… the Joker, in that movie, had a pretty deep philosophy about how the world is by nature chaotic, and that people who want an orderly world are blind to reality. Trump just doesn’t seem to be that thoughtful, and certainly nowhere near that sophisticated.
Dumb and manipulated? Trump clearly does a lot of things that he does not particularly care about. As president, this has taken him to many social positions that have won him favor and adoration from different sectors, which perhaps is a big bump to his ego. Maybe you do anything that your followers want you to do just so that they keep following you and thinking the world of you? Maybe that is enough?
Soooooo …
Does Trump believe in much of anything? He currently owns the Republican party, but Trump has switched his party affiliation multiple times: Republican, Independent, Democrat, whatever. About abortion and choice, in 1999, he said:
I am very pro-choice. I hate the concept of abortion. ... I just believe in choice. Again, it may be a little bit of a New York background, because there is some different attitude in some different parts of the country. ... I was raised in New York and grew up and worked and everything else in New York City. But I am strongly pro-choice.
And yet he is the president that explicitly promised to fill the Supreme Court with justices who would overturn Roe vs. Wade.
So where does this leave us about understanding what Trump is actually after? He’s an old man with all the power and money in the world. But he really appears to be consumed by his ego… the need to have others fawning over and doing whatever he wants them to do. And his ego demands more power, which in turn has led him to allow himself to be used and manipulated by many others. Does Trump agree, say with overturning Roe or with implementing Project 2025? Sadly, I think that he just does not care, so long as he gets his way, feels important, and has his ego stroked endlessly.
Trump Diaries #26, 17 July 2025
TD25: SMALL GOVERNMENT
14 July 2025
Trump’s administration is purging the U.S. government workforce… this time, we see the headline More than 1,000 People Laid Off at US State Department, reported by the BBC. Trump argues that the U.S. government is too large, and aims to reduce the size of the U.S. government and reduce spending massively. This State Department purge is only the latest in a long sequence of “reduction of force” firings that Trump, Elon Musk, and “DOGE” have implemented across the government since Trump re-took the presidency in January.
[This round of firings comes soon after a recent Supreme Court ruling, in which the justices paused an order from a federal judge in San Francisco that had stopped the governmental worker purge for a time. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson provided a 15-page dissenting opinion, which she began with the following:
Under our Constitution, Congress has the power to establish administrative agencies and detail their functions. Thus, over the past century, Presidents who have attempted to reorganize the Federal Government have first obtained authorization from Congress to do so. The President sharply departed from that settled practice on February 11, 2025, however, by allegedly arrogating this power to himself.
Notwithstanding the dissenting opinion, the majority decision removed the barriers to the Trump administration’s massive reductions to the U.S. government, manifested most recently in the State Department, and clearly to continue in departments throughout the government.]
It is interesting to contemplate, however, the terrible disaster on the Guadalupe River of the early morning of July 4. The loss of life is heartrending, period. The temptation exists, however, to blame someone: it could be Kerr County for not prioritizing a system of warning sirens, or the National Weather Service for some trip-up in issuing advisories, or FEMA for not getting there soon enough, or Kristi Noem for insisting on signing off personally on any expenditure above $100,000, or Trump and DOGE for the reduction in force in the National Weather Service, or the camp owners and homeowners who built in a dangerous floodplain. Or maybe we just blame God or chance or Mother Earth for a terrible storm that caused the floods in the first place.
Regardless of who of all of those listed above is to blame, one thing is completely clear: we have a big federal government precisely because the U.S. is a big, prosperous, and active country. Emergencies will arise, and we will need to count on the National Weather Service to predict extreme weather events, or the U.S. Geological Survey to give us warning of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to monitor disease outbreaks, or the U.S. Department of Agriculture to prevent establishment of new invasive agricultural pests, or any number of other challenges for such a big country. Or the Federal Emergency Management Agency to mitigate the terrible effects after disasters have happened. And it is not just about disasters: how about the Federal Reserve to provide wise and apolitical management of the economy, or the diplomatic corps to negotiate international affairs intelligently and effectively, or USAID to reach out to the rest of the world to avoid suffering?
So the point is not to blame someone for the Texas disaster. Rather, the point is that the U.S. is so big that the potential for disasters will arise regularly (somewhere in the country), and that challenges for the prosperity of the country will always be looming. Managing these threats requires a large, capable, and experienced workforce working for the U.S. government.
Trump’s reduction in force for the U.S. government is exactly what the country least needs. DOGE swept through one arm of the government after another, firing whomever they could, and bullying even more into retirement or resignation. The reduction in force was not strategic, nor were the targets chosen strategically or based on analysis and contemplation. Rather, the firings were based on convenience (e.g., fire the people with least seniority) or ideology (e.g., fire the entire STD-focused arm of the CDC). We have no idea as to what the next disaster will be for the U.S., but we are quite clear that there will be a next disaster. When these disasters happen, we look to the federal government, but… thanks to Trump’s smaller government idea… there will less and less of a federal government to avoid the worst consequences, or bail us out once they happen.
Trump Diaries #26
Read the Trump Diaries series on Substack, at https://townpeterson.substack.com/
TD24: Nobel Prize?
Obama got a Nobel Peace Prize, so Trump should too. Right?
One group after another has been lining up to tell Trump that they have nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize. Recently, it was Pakistan, in recognition of Trump’s guiding Pakistan and India to a resolution to their most recent round of troubles. Now it is Israel, to recognize Trump’s leadership in getting Israel and Hamas to a ceasefire agreement. Some Republican members of Congress have apparently promoted the idea as well. Apparently, all of these individuals think that Trump deserves this most revered of honors.
In the Netanyahu letter to the Nobel Committee, the Israeli leader cited Trump's role in brokering the Abraham Accords and his "steadfast and exceptional dedication to promoting peace, security and stability around the world." Trump thought that he could put an end to the Israel-Gaza conflict quickly and the Russia-Ukraine war on his first day in office. One of the first Trump-Nobel efforts, by Republican members of Congress in 2018, were spurred by his efforts to ease nuclear tensions with North Korea.
But none of the major conflicts mentioned above is resolved. Israel continues its bombardment of Gaza, as does Russia for Ukraine. Trump has not emerged as a leader working for peace: he has appeased Putin, he proposed turning Gaza into a new “riviera” development (talk about gentrification!), and North Korea is as scary as ever. The initial signing of the Abraham Accords happened, but they are seen as abandoning the cause of the Palestinians; Saudi Arabia has indicated that the Palestinian issue will be a deal-breaker for their full participation. And about India and Pakistan, Trump said that he helped mediate the ceasefire preventing a potential nuclear conflict, but India made clear that the cessation of hostilities was achieved by direct communication and without any U.S. role.
The most recent Nobel Peace Prizes have gone to a remarkable lineup of admirable individuals and groups who are genuinely advancing peace around the world. In the last three years, the Prize has gone to a group in Japan working to create a nuclear-free world, an Iranian promoting human rights in Iran, and groups in Belarus and Ukraine promoting human rights and resisting oppression in their countries.
Has Trump really been working at that level? Now for my prediction, which will surprise no one: when the Nobel Committee does not give Trump the much-desired Prize, he will start saying how biased and corrupt they are. No introspection, no intellectually honest self-assessment, just blame.
Trump Diaries #24, 8 July 2025
TD23: Checks and balances
6 July 2025
Mike Johnson: “Mr. President, this is the gavel used to enact the big, beautiful bill, and I want you to have that for your collection.”
Donald Trump: “Are we ready? Are you ready?” [bangs the gavel on the desk several times]
This was just a silly celebration of a celebration after a hard fight to pass President Trump’s huge budget bill, but the symbol of “passing the gavel” is actually a big thing. Passing the gavel is a symbol of transition of power from one to another… in this case from the most powerful person in Congress to the president of the country. In the complex system of checks and balances outlined in the U.S. Constitution, the president’s power is limited in several ways by Congress:
The president does not have the power to wage war without Congressional approval.
The president does not have the power to impose taxes without Congressional approval.
The president appoints cabinet members and Supreme Court justices, but the Senate approves them.
The president can negotiate treaties with other countries, but they must be approved by the Senate.
Congress can investigate how the president implements the laws that the Congress passes.
Congress controls the nation’s budget, and can guide presidential activities by deciding where to and where not to dedicate resources.
So far, in just six months, Trump has mounted a major attack on Iran without advising Congress, and his many tariffs have been imposed by his whims rather than by something approved by Congress. Trump’s “Department of Governmental Efficiency” was run by an individual whose appointment was never approved by Congress. What is next?
TD22: Independence Day
4 July 2025
Today is the 249th birthday of the United States. I thought to respond to the passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill” yesterday, but maybe—given the importance of the day—something broader is in order. So I decided that I would celebrate this day by re-reading the Declaration of Independence, the document that made this day special.
Everyone knows this quote, which is easy, as it is right at the beginning.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
But it still has a lot of meaning: note that it says all men (let’s assume that that includes women!) are created equal. Not just the ones who are lucky enough to be citizens, or white-skinned, but all people.
But keep reading all the way down through the Declaration, and you find statements like this:
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
And then, about King George,
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures… [National Guard and U.S. Military deployed in Los Angeles?]
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: … [imposing tariffs that are paid by the people, not by the country doing the importation]
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: … [how about Kilmar Abrego García?)
And concludes, about King George [and for today … DJT?]
A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Perhaps something there that is relevant to today? Happy Fourth of July, everyone!
TD21: FULBRIGHT QUITS
29 June 2025
In the mid-1940s, after the close of the Second World War, the U.S. faced a world that was fractured and full of resentments, hatreds, and misunderstandings. Young Senator J. William Fulbright proposed an arrangement by which surplus war materiel would be sold to fund a broad program of international exchange between the U.S. and other countries. Fulbright’s plan also included an arrangement in which the U.S. could trade debt accumulated by other countries for further funding of the exchange program. The program was extended and expanded in 1961, with passage of the Fulbright-Hays Act. Throughout, the Fulbright Program has been based on the idea that interchange, interaction, and communication could build understanding and promote peace and rich learning on global scales.
The Fulbright Program has evolved into a prestigious global program of international exchanges, both with U.S. scholars going abroad, and with international scholars coming to the U.S. I personally have done extended stays in Brazil, Chile, and India, thanks to Fulbright, and I have hosted Fulbright scholars from Egypt, Togo, Mexico, Brazil, and elsewhere. Indeed, Fulbright has been so successful that one is often introduced in academic circles as a “Fulbright Scholar” (the name was even featured in a Paul Simon song!), so this program is one of the most evident and effective academic programs in U.S. culture for the past 80 years.
[A sad side note is that last week I found a very nice and comprehensive history of the Fulbright program on the State Department website, and bookmarked it so that I could return when writing this diary entry. It no longer exists!]
A recent (11 June 2025) Substack post, however, came directly from the Congressionally mandated Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, which makes the final decisions about granting these prestigious fellowships. I will quote from it, so that their words stand clearly:
Effective immediately, members of the Congressionally mandated Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board voted overwhelmingly to resign from the board, rather than endorse unprecedented actions that we believe are impermissible under the law, compromise U.S. national interests and integrity, and undermine the mission and mandates Congress established for the Fulbright program nearly 80 years ago.
At the program’s inception, Congress clearly specified that the Fulbright Board has final approval authority of applicants, which occurs after an exhaustive and deliberate, year-long process led by non-partisan career staff at the State Department and Embassies around the world. The process involves 49 binational, treaty-based commissions and over 150 countries, which contribute a significant amount of the annual funding for the Fulbright program. In fact, 35+ foreign governments match or exceed the U.S. government’s annual contribution.
…
However, the current administration has usurped the authority of the Board and denied Fulbright awards to a substantial number of individuals who were selected for the 2025-2026 academic year. The administration is also currently subjecting an additional 1,200 foreign Fulbright recipients to an unauthorized review process and could reject more. We believe these actions not only contradict the statute but are antithetical to the Fulbright mission and the values, including free speech and academic freedom, that Congress specified in the statute.
…
It is our sincere hope that Congress, the courts, and future Fulbright Boards will prevent the administration’s efforts to degrade, dismantle, or even eliminate one of our nation’s most respected and valuable programs. Injecting politics and ideological mandates into the Fulbright program violates the letter and spirit of the law that Congress so wisely established nearly eight decades ago.
Not much more to say about this. It is what it is. And what it is is that the Trump administration is doing everything possible to diminish higher education and learning in this country. This effort can take the form of open attacks on Harvard University and other high-profile institutions, revoking grants that do not fit with the MAGA ideology, and cutting budgets for federal research funding sources massively. Here is a new way: reduce the international experiences for U.S. students and researchers, en route to a more isolated country with fewer people able to analyze and explore the fascinating insights that other scholars have developed around the world.
TD20:
War?
23 June 2025
This one is going to be short. Just three key excerpts from some pretty important documents. President Trump used the U.S. armed forces to bomb Iran a couple of days ago.
The Congress shall have Power … To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy… (U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8)
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States… (U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 2)
And, from the War Powers Resolution of 1973:
The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.
Isn’t that clear enough? Congress decides when we are at war, and the president commands the armed forces once we are at war. The president can send the armed forces into conflicts only if Congress allows it, or if there is an attack on the United States.
[According to the Nixon Presidential Library, the War Powers Resolution was born from frustration in Congress about Nixon’s secret bombing campaign in Cambodia, which was conducted without congressional approval.]
I don’t get it. The U.S. Congress has the only power to declare war. There has not been any invasion of the U.S., by Iran (or by MS-13, Tren de Aragua, or anyone). So how does Congress allow Trump to use the U.S. military without approval. Shall we just get rid of the Constitution? Have we already?
TD19: Positive Parks
18 June 2025
So apparently our national parks are all being hung with signs that read more or less thus (this text is copied from a sign posted at Rocky Mountain National Park):
[National park name] belongs to the American people, and the National Park Service wants your feedback. Please let us know if you have identified (1) any areas that need repair; (2) any services that need improvement; or (3) any signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes and other natural features.
June 13 was apparently the Department of the Interior internal deadline for all National Park Service properties to have this signage posted.
Posting these signs apparently comes out of Trump’s 27 March 2025 executive order entitled, Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. The order begins with something that I can almost agree with… “Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.” I agree, except that the great bulk of this revision has happened not over the past decade, but rather since Trump re-took the presidency.
Very quickly, however, we can see where Trump is headed with this executive order:
Under this historical revision, our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed. Rather than fostering unity and a deeper understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame, disregarding the progress America has made and the ideals that continue to inspire millions around the globe.
And then we get down to work… Here is what Trump is instructing the U.S. government to do:
… take action, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to ensure that all public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties within the Department of the Interior’s jurisdiction do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times)…
DOI Secretary Doug Burgum then got to work putting Trump’s broad order into effect. He issued a 20 May 2025 letter that sets out how the Department of the Interior would proceed. The purpose of the letter was:
… to restore Federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums, to solemn and uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing.
He directs the National Park Service to review all DOI properties to detect anything that disparages Americans “past or living (including persons living in colonial times)” or that describes natural features in anything unrelated to its “beauty, abundance, or grandeur.” Then,
Within 120 days of the date of this Order, each land management Bureau shall remove any content meeting the criteria identified in paragraph 1 or otherwise found to be inconsistent with the purposes of EO 14253. The relevant land management Bureau shall then take action to replace the removed content with content that focuses on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people or, with respect to natural features, the beauty, abundance, and grandeur of the American landscape…
So, by 20 September 2025, all National Park Service properties will have good, positive depictions of all of the people and landscapes that they feature in any interpretative signage. [As a museum curator, I have to ask … does anyone know how much time it takes to develop new content for those displays?]
OK, to help Burgum and the National Park Service out, I will do my best to create some new taglines for some National Park Service sites, as Burgum’s order indicates that they will have to create a lot of new content for almost all sites across the National Park Service. [Note to readers: the items that follow are intended to caricature the abject stupidity that will be involved in attempting to portray all Americans and American history positively. In no way do I really believe this revisionist crap, please believe me!]
-
Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site. “This school is important because it was here that 9 African-American children were given the opportunity to go to a really nice school in 1957. It was such a happy event and the children were so well-received by the magnanimous local people that the local police, the U.S. Army, and the Arkansas National Guard were all brought in to help with the celebration.”
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Manzanar National Historic Site. “Manzanar is one of several beautiful American landscapes that were set aside as special housing for more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans during the early 1940s.”
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Ford's Theatre National Historic Site. “This national historic site celebrates an old theater in Washington, D.C., that opened in 1863. It was at this theater that an encounter between two good American citizens gave Andrew Johnson the opportunity to become President of the United States.”
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Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park. “This attractive park was established in Topeka, Kansas, to commemorate the 1954 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to let black and white children play and attend school together.”
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Antietam National Battlefield. “This site is located in northwestern Maryland, and commemorates a big get-together that happened in 1862, and united good-hearted Americans from all over the country, north and south.”
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Homestead National Historical Park. “This national historical park celebrates an amazing program of the U.S. government that allowed good Americans to take ownership of land across the great American landscape. Given that no one was living there before the whites of European descent arrived to civilize the landscape, this program opened the U.S. to humanity and helped to make America great.”
Okay, okay, I cannot do any more of this. I am usually known for a dark and sarcastic sense of humor, but I am feeling sick already from what I have just written above. I am very sorry if I have offended anyone with any of the rewrites of historical events that I have just listed above… they are intended only to highlight the stupidity of the Trump and Burgum orders.
The simple truth about history is that it is never all about good stuff. Rather, history is about good and bad, beautiful and ugly, all mixed together. Trump and his minions may think that they will now be portraying America in a more positive light. In my view, whitewashing history only builds our own ignorance.
TD18:
She's
Fired!
16 June 2025
On 30 May 2025, Donald Trump announced on TruthSocial the following:
Upon the request and recommendation of many people, I am herby terminating the employment of Kim Sajet as Director of the National Portrait Gallery. She is a highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI, which is totally inappropriate for her position. Her replacement will be named shortly. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Sajet is the first woman to serve as director of the National Portrait Gallery, and has led the institution for 12 years. She was born in Nigeria, though her parents were Dutch parents; she was raised in Australia, and is a citizen of the Netherlands. She studied at Georgetown University, Bryn Mawr College, University of Melbourne, and Deakin University. She had previously worked as director of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and two Australian art museums. Her bio on the National Portrait Gallery website reads:
As the first woman to serve as director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Kim Sajet (pronounced Say-et) has been exploring new ways to place personal experience and creativity at the center of learning and civic awareness. Not just a place to see famous Americans, the museum explores identity as a social construct that has been shaped in equal measure by opportunity and ability, prejudice and fear…
Yeah, I guess that I can see why she would be on Trump’s list of people to be fired, though to me she sounds like a fascinating individual who would be ideal to lead an institution that might otherwise be a bit dry and uninteresting.
[As an aside, I had to create a Truth Social account to write this essay, and that let me see what other people on Truth Social had to say about Sajet… It’s not pretty:
GOOD RIDDANCE: Fired Director of the National Portrait Gallery is a Crazed Leftist, Trump-Hater, World Economic Forum Member, and Democrat Donor
and
Sajet hates America. She can go back home to Nigeria, where she was born.
Ouch. It always comes back to telling immigrants to go back home where they belong.]
So the end of the story is that the Smithsonian responded to Trump very correctly that Trump as President cannot fire a Smithsonian employee, yet Sajet resigned recently. I have no direct information about Sajet’s motives in resigning, but I am guessing that the Smithsonian leadership (likely including Sajet) analyzed the situation and concluded that Trump’s next move would be to dissolve the Smithsonian Board of Regents, and take control of the institution entirely. My read is that Sajet “took one for the team,” and resigned to save the Smithsonian, at least for a while longer.
But what about Trump’s real motives? If he were genuinely looking to purge the Smithsonian of DEI and other identity-based initiatives, wouldn’t he have gone after the National Museum of African American History and Culture, National Museum of African Art, or the National Museum of the American Indian first? Or wouldn’t he have cancelled the planned National Museum of the American Latino, or the affiliate status of the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History. Why not fire Smithsonian Secretary, Lonnie Bunch, who was the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, has since been named Secretary of the Smithsonian, and has spoken up in protest against Trump’s desire to fire Sajet?
Rather, I think that a more pedestrian reason is lurking in the background. That is, Sajet rejected an amateurish and adoring “portrait” of Trump for display in the National Portrait Gallery… the amazing story was reported recently by The Washingtonian, which I will summarize here. Julian Raven, the painter (hard to say “artist” in this case), describes himself as “the artist who painted the prophetic, symbolic, patriotic, and historic Trump portrait/painting.” Raven apparently had “a vision” in 2015 of an eagle swooping down to save a fallen flag, which he eventually connected to Trump and eagles (he later described the moment as “WOW! WOW! WOW!”).
Raven traveled across the country as a Trump campaign groupie, and arrived uninvited to Trump Tower, where he passed a mini-version of the painting to one of Trump’s minions. He crashed a Trump meeting on African-American churches, charmed his way in, and eventually got his painting hanging in the Trump campaign headquarters. When Trump won the 2016 election, Raven realized that he had his big chance—to have his masterpiece hang in the National Portrait Gallery—as part of the celebration of Trump’s inauguration festivities. [You can see an image of the painting below, and you can make up your own mind… to my eye, it is pedestrian and has no creativity, insight, inspiration, or message, other than sucking up to Trump.]
Shortening a very long story, it apparently fell to Sajet to reject Raven’s bid to infect the National Portrait Gallery with his painting. In the course of a 12-minute conversation, she eventually had to tell Raven simply that “… the painting is no good.” Raven has since let loose a torrent of legal cases, and has appealed decisions all the way to the Supreme Court (which has not agreed to hear his case). But the simple message is clear… Sajet rejected a favorite portrait of Trump for inclusion in the National Portrait Gallery. What could paint a bigger red target on Sajet’s back more than that?
TD17: WAR ON CALIFORNIA II
13 June 2025
Five days ago, I wrote TD15, about Trump’s little war on California, in which he federalized California National Guard troops, and sent U.S. Marines as well, to quell protests that had turned violent in Los Angeles. There are lots of angles to this story, and the legal battles by which Governor Gavin Newsom will eventually reclaim control of the California National Guard are only beginning. This one will be complicated… but it comes down to a misstep in how the national disgust with Trump’s actions is being expressed.
In this diary entry, however, I want to focus on that one detail that is highly relevant… Up until now, in The Trump Diaries, I have pointed out errors and excesses committed by Trump. I will get back to Trump briefly at the end of this short diary entry, but I want to focus on an error being made by a small segment of the people doing the protests. This comment is particularly important because tomorrow is both Trump’s big birthday military parade and the “No Kings” protests in cities across the country… that is, there is going to be a lot of opportunity for protest, and it is really crucial to get this right.
Martin Luther King brought a fascinating innovation to the fight for civil rights in the U.S.: nonviolence. In effect, King’s idea was a nonviolent response to violence and hatred that had the effect of bringing about massive change. According to Stanford’s Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute, King’s idea of nonviolence had six key principles. (1) One can resist evil without resorting to violence. (2) Nonviolence seeks to win the “friendship and understanding” of the opponent, not to humiliate him. (3) The evil itself, and not the people committing the evil acts, is what must be opposed. (4) Those committed to nonviolence must be willing to suffer without retaliation, as suffering itself can be redemptive. (5) Nonviolent resistance avoids “external physical violence” and “internal violence of spirit” as well, which King described as, “The nonviolent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent but he also refuses to hate him.” Finally, (6) the nonviolent resister must have a “deep faith in the future,” stemming from the conviction that “the universe is on the side of justice.” King’s thought about this topic clearly was deep, and one will have to contemplate each of the principles in order to follow King’s idea of nonviolent resistance.
Why am I bringing this up? Clearly, there are many ways to protest against something that is unjust, and nonviolence is just one of those tactics. However, in this case, in terms of real power, Trump holds all of the cards. Not only is he the president, but the Congress is controlled by Republicans who appear to be unwilling or unable to control Trump’s excesses, and the courts are still a mystery as to how much backbone they will end up showing.
Trump is waiting for any violent dimension of protest as an excuse to send in troops. What happened in Los Angeles was mostly genuine protest, but there were some violent moments; it was the latter (not the former) that Trump used as a pretext for his first attempt at a military takeover. (It is worth noting that the first judge to decide on Newsom v. Trump indicated that what happened in L.A. did not even qualify as a rebellion, and therefore Trump had no right to federalize National Guard troops.) Further violence as a part of otherwise well-intentioned protests will only give Trump more pretexts to take over more of the freedoms that at least used to be so magical about the U.S.
It is not about who is right and who is wrong in these protests. Rather, it is about who can consistently take the moral high ground. Any moment of violence in protests opens the door for Trump to take another step towards normalizing dictatorial behavior. I’m just saying…
TD16: I'M FIRED!
10 June 2025
Early in his second term as president, Donald Trump named Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., son of the revered Senator and Attorney General by the same name, to be the 26th U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. RFK Jr. was originally an environmental lawyer, but is mostly known as a conspiracy theorist, presidential candidate and anti-vaccine activist, who has benefitted enormously from the visibility accorded him by the Kennedy family name. Since the early 2000s, in particular, RFK Jr. has spouted misinformation about vaccines and other misguided ideas about public health in abundance.
RFK Jr.’s recent book, The Real Anthony Fauci, is advertised thus:
During more than a year of painstaking and meticulous research on his laptop and through interviews, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unearthed a shocking story that obliterates media spin on Dr. Fauci . . . and that will alarm every American—Democrat or Republican—who cares about democracy, our Constitution, and the future of our children’s health.
The lies and ugly spin in the book about Anthony Fauci are not the subject of this commentary. Rather, I focus on the emphasis on the careful scholarship that RFK Jr. allegedly does “on his laptop.” Such must be the basis of a cogent, evidence-based book, right? And we would expect similar thorough scholarship from him in his new role as HHS Secretary, right?
On 22 May 2025, RFK Jr’s agency issued a major report entitled, The MAHA Report (that stands for “Make America Healthy Again,” by the way). The report was announced with language similar to that announcing RFK Jr.’s book… “MAHA Commission Unveils Landmark Report Exposing Root Causes of Childhood Chronic Disease Crisis.” The report begins with typical RFK Jr. rhetoric:
This report—Make Our Children Healthy Again: Assessment—is a call to action. It presents the stark reality of American children’s declining health, backed by compelling data and long-term trends. More importantly, it seeks to unpack the potential dietary, behavioral, medical, and environmental drivers behind this crisis. By examining the root causes of deteriorating child health, this assessment establishes a clear, evidence-based foundation for the policy interventions, institutional reforms, and societal shifts needed to reverse course.
Note, in particular, the focus on establishing a “clear, evidence-based foundation” for the changes that RFK Jr. wants to see in our society.
[Indeed, I agree with many of the recommendations that the report makes, as general routes to improving the health of people in this country. However, RFK Jr. links his environmental causes of poor health in America to his head-up-his-ass ideas about vaccination, with comments such as
Despite the growth of the childhood vaccine schedule, there has been limited scientific inquiry into the links between vaccines and chronic disease, the impacts of vaccine injury, and conflicts of interest in the development of the vaccine schedule.
Doubt and mistrust in vaccines pervade everything that RFK Jr. says and does. Given his current position as one of the leaders in public health for the country, that is perilous, given known, clear ties between vaccine hesitancy and disease spread.]
But let’s get back to the “clear, evidence-based foundation” for the rather radical recommendations in the MAHA report. Soon after the report was published, the Washington Post and the New York Times both reported on large numbers of invented citations and misconstrued interpretations of research results in the MAHA report’s supposed evidence-based foundation, and evidence suggesting that the report was at least in large part AI-generated. The problems were of sufficient magnitude that Stephen F. Lynch, Acting Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the US House of Representatives, wrote the following to RFK Jr.:
I write with serious concerns about the report recently released by the White House titled “The MAHA Report: Make Our Children Healthy Again” (the Report). Despite the Report’s insistence on “pursuing truth” and “embracing science,” … public reporting has revealed that the Report cites scientific studies that do not exist, misrepresents the findings of certain studies, and may have used artificial intelligence (AI) to draw conclusions that are not based on actual scientific research. Given your history of promoting medical misinformation and conspiracy theories, I am concerned that the Report—which you oversaw as Chair of President Trump’s Make America Healthy Again Commission—manipulates and falsifies science to advance President Trump’s political objectives.
Jeez! That kind of says it all. The only thing that I will say is that if I did something like that, I would most likely end up getting fired. Yes, I am a professor, and I do have tenure, but tenure does and should have limits. One of those limits is proper academic conduct: inventing citations or mis-citing research as saying one thing when it does not say that thing is high on the list of examples of academic mis-conduct.
My university’s policy regarding scholarly misconduct is quite clear about this:
Each person engaged in scholarly research under the auspices of the University is expected to adhere to the highest professional standards of intellectual honesty and integrity in proposing, performing, and reviewing research, in reporting research results, and in the public exhibition, display, or performance of creative work…
A finding of research misconduct requires that:
1. There be a significant departure from accepted practices of the relevant research community; and
2. The misconduct was committed intentionally, knowingly or recklessly; and
3. The allegation be proven by a preponderance of the evidence…
Very simply, if I had done what RFK Jr.’s report… whoever the authors may be… my butt would be fired from the University of Kansas for academic misconduct. How about it, Donald, please tell RFK Jr. … You’re fired!
Read the full Trump Diaries series at https://town432.wixsite.com/peterson-lab/general-9
TD15: War on California?
8 June 2025
In the US, veterans are venerated and appreciated and thanked for their service to the nation. This national gratitude stems from the perception that the armed forces exist to protect the US, and to preserve the freedoms that we so revere in this country. The armed forces have almost always served this country in situations overseas... Yesterday, however, Trump did something very different.
The Constitution makes the president the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, but Congress was given the power to raise and support armies, declare war, and make rules for the government and regulation of the armed forces. A significant nineteenth century act, Posse Comitatus, however, states:
Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, or the Space Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. (Note that Posse Comitatus was originally intended to make sure that the armed forces would not be used to impede the racist Jim Crow laws being enacted in the South after the Civil War; a minor further note is that it was amended in 1959 to make it fully applicable in Alaska, in 1994 to remove a limit on amounts of the fine, and in 2021 to add in the Marine Corps and the Space Force.)
However, the Insurrection Act of the late 1700s and early 1800s, states:
Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.
In effect, the Insurrection Act allows the President to deploy the military to suppress insurrections, enforce federal law, or protect civil rights when a state either can’t or won’t take care of the situation. Almost always, this deployment is at the request of the state concerned.
A summary by the Brennan Center listed only 30 times that the Insurrection Act has been invoked in the quarter-millennium of the US’s history. In the 1700s, presidents Washington and Adams used it to suppress revolts in Pennsylvania that arose because of federal taxes, and it was used in the early 1800s to manage border-area problems with Canada and Mexico. In 1831, Andrew Jackson used the Act to put down the famous Nat Turner slave rebellion, and Jackson again invoked it to send troops to resolve a labor dispute in Maryland.
In 1861, the Act was used by Abraham Lincoln in response to the secession of southern states from the US, and in the 1870s Ulysses S. Grant used it to put down a series of uprisings and terror campaigns by the Ku Klux Klan and others in the South. In the 1870s and 1880s, and again in the 1910s and 1920s, other presidents used the Act to put down labor disputes and resolve regional disputes, particularly in western and southwestern states. In 1932, though likely without the approval of the actual president, General Douglas MacArthur, Army Chief of Staff, led forces to clear out protest camps set up by World War I veterans who were destitute in the wake of the Great Depression.
In the middle twentieth century, presidents Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson used the Act (mostly, at least) to protect the emerging civil rights of African-Americans. Nearer the end of the twentieth century, it was used to put down a revolt by Cuban detainees in Georgia, to suppress looting in the Virgin Islands after a hurricane, and to stop riots in the wake of the acquittal of police officers who beat Rodney King brutally in Los Angeles.
And what about Donald Trump? In 2020, amid broad, but largely peaceful, protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by police officers, Trump issued a statement:
First, we are ending the riots and lawlessness that has spread throughout our country. We will end it now. Today, I have strongly recommended to every governor to deploy the National Guard in sufficient numbers that we dominate the streets. Mayors and governors must establish an overwhelming law enforcement presence until the violence has been quelled… If a city or a state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.
Although Trump did not—in the end—formally invoke the Insurrection Act, the threat was there and it was real. (Of course, he did not make any such bold moves on 6 January 2021, when his supporters stormed the US Capitol.) And yesterday, Trump sent national guard troops to stop protests about ICE deportations—crucially, this deployment is happening over the objections of the governor of the state of California. The official White House statement yesterday read:
In recent days, violent mobs have attacked ICE Officers and Federal Law Enforcement Agents carrying out basic deportation operations in Los Angeles, California. These operations are essential to halting and reversing the invasion of illegal criminals into the United States. In the wake of this violence, California’s feckless Democrat leaders have completely abdicated their responsibility to protect their citizens. That is why President Trump has signed a Presidential Memorandum deploying 2,000 National Guardsmen to address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester. The Trump Administration has a zero tolerance policy for criminal behavior and violence, especially when that violence is aimed at law enforcement officers trying to do their jobs. These criminals will be arrested and swiftly brought to justice. The Commander-in-Chief will ensure the laws of the United States are executed fully and completely.
The idea that Donald Trump’s administration could have “zero tolerance” for criminal behavior is laughable and more than a bit hypocritical, but the situation is scary. Protests are legal, and are part of the First Amendment rights given to all in the US by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. When protests involve illegal behavior, the local and state authorities enforce the law.
Trump gets involved when it is a protest against the federal government in his most-hated-state, California, by people who disagree with him. But not when it is an armed uprising threatening the lives of the entire US Congress. Very clearly, Trump has and does use the great power of the US Presidency to further his own purposes, ignoring the law and ignoring the Constitution. The message? Protest against Trump all that you want… but you may find the US Army deployed to stop your protest.
TD14: Dead fish?
6 June 2025
Recent weeks and months have seen a series of policy changes made by the Trump Administration about “foreigners” in the US. Each one has been justified in terms of assuring national security, avoiding terrorism, controlling immigration, and putting America first. But what are the real motives?
Many changes made by Trump and his people have had to do with refugee programs. First was a program called “temporary protected status” (TPS) that allowed people from a number of countries that are in conflict and poverty to live legally and safely in the US. TPS derives from the Immigration Act of 1990. That act had a component entitied “Family Unity and Temporary Protected Status,” which
Establishes a program for granting temporary protected status and work authorization to aliens in the United States who are nationals of countries designated by the Attorney General to be subject to armed conflict, natural disaster, or other extraordinary temporary conditions. Authorizes the Attorney General to grant such temporary protected status. Prohibits deportation during the period in which such status is in effect. Directs the Attorney General to: (1) authorize such alien to engage in employment in the United States; and (2) provide such alien with an employment authorized endorsement or other appropriate permit.
This 1990 act also set up special temporary protected status for Salvadorans, as a first TPS beneficiary country. Over the years, according to USCIS.gov, TPS status was extended to citizens of other countries, with the current list including Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar), Cameroon, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Lebanon, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, and Yemen.
TPS has been a major target from the Trump Administration since the beginnings of Trump’s first turn as president (see this link for a detailed summary). In late 2017, Trump cut off TPS status for citizens of Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan, and early in 2018 added El Salvador to the list of countries removed, and then Nepal and Honduras. The justification was that those countries had improved sufficiently that TPS status was no longer merited for people from those countries.
In 2018, a coalition of different TPS holders and their children (who were US citizens) filed a civil case, Ramos v. Nielsen, that challenged TPS termination for Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti, and El Salvador. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the TPS terminations were motivated by racism and were not in accord with the Constitution; the Trump administration apparently also did not follow the Administrative Procedure Act in changing TPS policies. Although the protections from Ramos v. Nielsen lasted through the Biden presidency, Trump and his cabinet members, now back in power, are now busy cancelling TPS protections as quickly as they are able. (I’m not going to try to summarize all of the twists and turns in this process!)
Trump’s rhetoric about ending TPS has been far from concluding that the countries in question are now better, and their citizens no longer in peril. Rather, early in 2018, President Trump told a group of members of Congress, “Why do we want all these people from ‘shithole countries’ coming here?” More curiously, he apparently added a comment that it would be better to have more people coming to the US from places like Norway. And this was not an isolated comment: six years later, in 2024, at a fundraising event in Florida, he was quoted directly as saying,
And when I said, you know, “Why can’t we allow people to come in from nice countries,” I’m trying to be nice. Nice countries, you know like Denmark, Switzerland? Do we have any people coming in from Denmark? How about Switzerland? How about Norway?”
Still, on 7 February 2025, Trump issued an executive order that actually opened up new ways for people to immigrate into the US. It was titled, Addressing Egregious Actions of The Republic of South Africa. In that order, Trump accused the government of the Republic of South Africa of aiming to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation, as well as
countless government policies designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business, and hateful rhetoric and government actions fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners.
(He also pointed out that South Africa has accused Israel, and not Hamas, of genocide, and indicated that the US cannot support the government of South Africa’s “undermining United States foreign policy, which poses national security threats to our Nation, our allies, our African partners, and our interests.”) Not only does Trump, in that executive order, stop all foreign aid or assistance to South Africa, but also
The United States shall promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation… The Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall take appropriate steps, consistent with law, to prioritize humanitarian relief, including admission and resettlement through the United States Refugee Admissions Program, for Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination.
Wait a minute… Trump is putting “America First,” and is very generally throttling off immigration into the US. In particular, he is focused on stopping immigration from what he terms “shithole countries.” (Although I personally have great affection for South Africa, I very much suspect that Trump would add it to his shithole list if black South Africans were eager to immigrate to the US. But the Afrikaners are not black… I’m just saying…)
So Trump is putting an end to all of TPS that he has been able to stop. And it’s not just TPS … on 4 June 2025, Trump issued another executive order titled Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats, restricting travel and immigration to the US by citizens of a broad swath of countries in Africa and Asia. The picture is one in which Trump is stopping immigration to the US from a multitude of countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, all of which are composed in largest part of people of color. But Trump is busy opening the doors to white refugees from South Africa.
There is an old saying that if something looks like a dead fish, and if it also smells like a dead fish, then most likely it is a dead fish. So if the immigration policies of the Trump administration look racist and if they also sound racist, shouldn’t we just be honest and conclude that they are racist?
TD13: International students
28 May 2025
I have been an academic since my late 20s, and I have had the rich and enormously rewarding experience of mentoring many younger scientists in these more than thirty years. That is, as a faculty member, I have guided undergraduates, masters students, doctoral students, and postdoctoral researchers along their paths towards careers in science, most often in academia also. This mentorship process includes not just helping the students with the science, but also with myriad other decisions related to life in science and higher education.
My students have included a large number of individuals whom I deeply admire. That is, beyond being good scientists, they have also been good people, with strong, ethical, belief systems that guide their behavior and decisions. This strength of character has included expressing opinions, including some with which I have disagreed, but those opinions have always been expressed cogently, respectfully, and still firmly. In sum, I am more than proud of the young people whom I have had the honor to work over these many years. They are strong, intelligent, and firm in their beliefs. And some of them are not natural-born U.S. citizens…
I have been very proud to share aspects of the U.S. system with this group of smart young people from other countries. For instance, when I have had new international students and scholars around election day, I have had the custom of inviting my visitors to join me in voting. Although most of them come from democratic countries, many of them have enjoyed the opportunity to witness the U.S. voting system (as I have enjoyed having similar opportunities to see voting in Brazil and Mexico). I have also proudly—at least in the past—described to my international guests how speech is protected in the U.S. by the First Amendment to the Constitution, such that they are free to attend any meeting or event or protest, say what is on their mind, or write what they are thinking, while they are in the U.S.
Indeed, the First Amendment to the Constitution reads as follows:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Note that there is no mention of this amendment applying only to U.S. citizens, and not to foreigners. But the issue is clearly more complex than that… I found an interesting article, entitled “First Amendment Rights of Non-citizens, Aliens,” by Allison Hayward and John Vile, in 2023, and distributed via the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University. That essay provided some useful details about under what circumstances non-citizens have rights more limited than those of citizens under the First Amendment; the following is a brief summary.
A 1950 case, Knauff v. Shaughnessy, before the Supreme Court, found that aliens wishing to enter the U.S. have fewer First Amendment protections because there is no particular right to enter the country. Those limitations were extended and amplified during a McCarthy Era case (Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 1952), in which a legal resident alien who was a member of the Communist Party was deported. Hayward and Vile list other situations in which the government has use the political viewpoints of aliens against them: a British anarchist in 1904, deportation of communists in 1952, and denial of a travel visa to a Marxist in 1972.
However, once an individual is lawfully present in the U.S., they have full First Amendment rights. Justice Francis W. Murphy described the law in his commentary on Bridges v. Wixon in 1945 thus:
… the Bill of Rights is a futile authority for the alien seeking admission for the first time to these shores. But once an alien lawfully enters and resides in this country he becomes invested with the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to all people within our borders.
So international students, who are present lawfully as temporary residents in the U.S., should have—and always have had up to this point—full First Amendment protections, just as I do and just as any U.S. citizen does.
With Trump’s second presidency, however, everything seems to be changing. ABC News correspondent Bill Hutchinson reported on 6 April 2025 about a series of international students who had been targeted by the government for deportation. A partial list… Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student of Palestinian descent, was arrested, even though he is a legal permanent U.S. resident and is married to an American citizen, supposedly because he was supporting Hamas. Ranjani Srinivasan, a doctoral student at Columbia University, was in the U.S. on an F-1 student visa, but was accused of supporting Hamas and self-deported on March 11, because her student visa had been revoked and she was being expelled by the university. Yunseo Chung is a junior at Columbia University, and is a lawful permanent U.S. resident who has lived in the United States since she was 7 years old; she was arrested because she had participated in what the government called a "pro-Hamas" protest but that she describes as advocating for Palestinian human rights. Rumeysa Ozturk is a doctoral student at Tufts University, and is Turkish with a valid F-1 visa, but was arrested supposedly because she was engaged in activities in support of Hamas; in reality, she published an op-ed in the school student newspaper recommending that Tufts divest from ties to Israel. Hutchinson’s report describes a number of additional examples, but the above illustrate the general gist of the situation: international students have no right to free expression, at least in the view of the Trump administration.
So what do I say to my students and colleagues who are in the U.S. as temporary, but lawful, residents? Unfortunately, and with quite a bit of regret, what I have to say to them is that U.S. is currently in a period in which our revered Constitution and the protections included in its wonderful Bill of Rights have been suspended. These documents, which provided a unique and admirable degree of freedom in the U.S., are no longer in force… it may be that the courts will set things right eventually, but right now, freedom of speech is not guaranteed, at least for international students, and perhaps for any of us.
TD12: EMOLUMENTS?
15 May 2025
President Trump recently was very excited about the Qatari government offering him the gift of a luxury plane for use as a new presidential plane. Many in the U.S., both in the government and among the general populace, have concerns about this deal that run from national security to ethics. As a result of reading the news about the Qatari gift, I got interested simply in the idea of a U.S. president accepting any gift from any foreign country. I prowled around on the Internet, and found a very interesting paper published in the Pepperdine Law Review in 2020… it’s titled “A More Perfect Union: The Emoluments Clause,” by Grant C. Rasak. What I found exciting about this paper is that Rasak summarizes “emoluments” (i.e., gifts) that have been made to U.S. presidents or the U.S. government through the history of the U.S.
The Foreign Emoluments Clause makes clear that, without the consent of Congress, federal officials shall not accept an emolument (gift) from any king, prince, or foreign state; the Domestic Emoluments Clause provides a complementary indication that, aside from salary, the President shall not receive any other emolument from the United States either. It all seems pretty clear. You get your presidential salary and nothing more, unless Congress says that it is OK. In fact, this is pretty much how it works for pretty much everyone—you get your salary, and you are expected not to get any “extras” unless your employer is aware of it (i.e., declaration of conflicts of interest) and approves of it.
So what have been the “emoluments” cases over the 250-ish years of the United States’ existence? This is where Rasak’s paper is invaluable, and I am summarizing Rasak’s summary here.
George Washington was given a painting by Marquis de Lafayette (a Frenchman who was a hero in the American Revolutionary War) without any consent of Congress. Washington said that the Emoluments Clause did not apply because the artwork was not from any king, prince, or foreign state (it was from a French citizen). Washington also argued that the gifts were not from the United States, because Marquis de Lafayette was French. Washington was so revered in the early U.S. that he was allowed to keep these gift.
After Washington’s presidency, however, Congress got more strict. Andrew Jackson, who was rightly quite a bit less trusted than Washington, was given a gold-plated medal by Simón Bolívar, a foreign leader. Congress did not allow Jackson to keep the gift, and Jackson donated the medal to the Department of State. Perhaps more comparable to the present day, The Imam of Muscat (a foreign leader) gave Martin Van Buren horses, pearls, Persian rugs, shawls, and a custom-made sword; again, Congress told the president to pass the gifts on to the Department of State and the Department of Treasury. The same Imam gifted John Tyler two prized horses, and Tyler had to auction the horses and give the resulting funds to the Department of Treasury.
Somewhat later, Abraham Lincoln as president was known for his amazing collection of top hats. Apparently, a Washington D.C. hat-maker made many of these hats for Lincoln, and his services were made in exchange for legal advice from the president. These exchanges were seen as having been made as a bargained exchange between the two men, so Congress allowed Lincoln to receive this domestic emolument.
The Statue of Liberty was a gift to the U.S. from France. President Grover Cleveland presided over the dedication ceremony of the Statue of Liberty in his home state of New York, so the impressive statue could have been considered as an emolument to the President. Congress, however, allowed this exchange of gifts between the leaders of the two countries because the statue symbolized America’s rich history and strengthened diplomatic relations between the U.S. and France.
In 1880, Queen Victoria gifted the Resolute desk, made from oak from the British ship HMS Resolute, to Rutherford B. Hayes. Hayes, in view of the importance of the desk as a symbol of the U.S. presidency, preserved it for his successors, and Congress consented to the emolument because it serves as a lasting symbol of the presidency.
Theodore Roosevelt, with a deep love for the American West, was instrumental in creating and expanding the National Park Service. In the early days of the Service, during Roosevelt’s presidency, it appears that land to be set aside as national parks was gifted directly to Roosevelt to be under control of the office of the President. The specific case in point was Bear Lodge Butte, later to be declared as the first U.S. national monument (Devil’s Tower National Monument). Congress explicitly approved this domestic emolument via passing the Antiquities Act in 1906.
Some of the examples are genuinely trivial… Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill (Prime Minister of Great Britain) gifted cigars from one to the other, with at least implicit approval of Congress. In a different example, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had led the Allied forces in World War II, was to be knighted by Denmark; although Eisenhower was appreciative of the ceremony, he did not accept the foreign title. Going back to cigars, John F. Kennedy apparently enjoyed handrolled cigars—given that Cuban cigars are considered the very best in the world, the day before signing the Cuban Embargo, Kennedy directed his press secretary to order freshly imported Cuban cigars; because, as agreed between the two men, Kennedy compensated his press secretary with the fair market value for the cigars, Congress allowed the domestic emolument because it was an agreed-upon exchange between the two men.
Ronald Reagan apparently adored jelly beans, and would exchange jelly bean packages with leaders of other countries; Reagan was allowed to interchange these gifts and to purchase the jelly beans from the producer because these were bargained-for exchanges, and because they strengthened U.S. diplomatic relations. George W. Bush was given a Bulgarian shepherd puppy by the president of Bulgaria, but because Bush compensated his Bulgarian counterpart for the fair market value of the puppy, it did not require Congress’ consent. Saudi Arabia’s royal family presented Barack Obama with rare jewels, but Obama proactively made arrangements for the gifts to be preserved in the U.S. National Archives.
That, thanks to the careful scholarship of Rasak, is a summary of emoluments that have been given and taken through the history of the U.S. presidency.
As with many things, however, things changed rather radically with the Trump presidencies. Trump was a businessman, but refused to divest himself entirely of business interests back at the beginning of his first presidency. One major nexus of concerns was the Trump International Hotel in the Old Post Office in Washington D.C.: as President, Trump was in effect both the landlord and tenant for the building, which created a vast array of potential conflicts of interest. Foreign and domestic leaders would visit the hotel, and the visits were often quite public and did enrich Trump and his business interests. Although Trump resigned from The Trump Organization and transferred company control to his relatives, avenues of direct monetary benefit to Trump remained quite clear.
That, of course, was just the first round of Trump, so the stakes were small (i.e., only a few millions of dollars); the second Trump presidency is quite different, and not in a good way… The Qatari airplane gift is worth $400 million. The $TRUMP meme coin is currently worth $2-3 billion. The deals that Trump’s sons Eric and Don Jr. are making around the world are massive: the Executive Branch (a half-million-dollar-each-to-join club in Washington D.C.), an 80-story Trump International Hotel and Tower in Dubai (with units to sell at $20 million each), a Trump development in Qatar for luxury residences, and more and more. In effect, the Trumps are raking in billions, all thanks to the influences of Donald.
Compare Trump's emoluments with all of the previous examples over the past 2-3 centuries, which were invariably trivial in value. Maybe someday Trump will write his memoirs. He could title it “The Art of the Steal,” with the subtitle, “How I Bilked America for Billions” or “Making Emoluments Great Again” [Note the fantastic acronym from this latter subtitle … MEGA!] or “How to Use the Republican Party and Make a Fortune.”
TD11: President Grifter
12 May 2025
Considerable recent attention has focused on “goings on” about Washington, D.C., and whether President Trump may be using his office to make large sums of money. During Trump’s first administration, there was considerable outcry about the arrangements that he made (or rather did not make) to divest from his own business interests. And there was a big fuss about the Emoluments Clause (Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 reads “… no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”), particularly as regards foreign governments booking large numbers of rooms at the Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C.
And it was pretty shady. Trump is clearly a man who is accustomed to taking any opportunity to make money in any way that he sees an opportunity. Was he “grifting” when his various business interests may have gained a bit of an advantage, or he made a few hundred thousand dollars extra from his hotel? Did he really charge the Secret Service rent for space that they needed in order to provide personal protection for Trump himself and his family? Sure, but, in the big scheme of things, it was not all that much money.
So the idea of having a Grifter President is pretty interesting. I got to thinking about this, and decided to play around a bit with other presidential scandals. Not ones of influence or politics (like, for instance, Watergate and Richard Nixon), but ones that are about grift… just good old money-making schemes. I had heard about Teapot Dome and Whitewater and scandals like those, so I decided to jump in and explore … This Trump Diaries entry is not a comprehensive list of all of the relatively few financial scandals around U.S. presidents, but rather just a sampling, trying to hit the high points.
So here are four examples of grifting around the U.S. presidency. They are at least among the most famous such scandals…
Belknap Impeachment
William Belknap served as Secretary of War under President Ulysses S. Grant in the late 1800s. Although a lawyer by training, he was apparently a natural soldier, and by the end of the Civil War he had been promoted to the rank of brigadier general. President Grant asked Belknap to serve as Secretary of War in Grant’s administration. In 1875, however, Belknap and others in the Grant administration (likely including Grant himself) removed U.S. troops who had been shielding the Black Hills region of South Dakota from white mining and settlement. Gold had been found there, and so as soon as the troops were gone, miners rushed in. When the Native Americans in that region were unwilling to sell their land, the U.S. occupied the region.
Belknap, as Secretary of War, however, had the power to grant trading licenses at U.S. military outposts in the West, which were apparently worth a ton of money. Belknap set up an extremely shady scheme regarding the trading license at Ft. Sill, in which a man named John Evans would make payments to an intermediary, who in turn would give part of the funds to Belknap's wife (or rather one of Belknap’s wives!). A Congressional investigation eventually revealed how the profits from the Fort Sill license went out to Belknap and his wives, Carita and Amanda (he married Carita in 1869 but she died in 1870; he married Carita’s sister Amanda in 1873). As the scandal unwound, Belknap resigned in 1876; notwithstanding the fact that he had already resigned, the House of Representatives voted unanimously to impeach him, but the Senate could not assemble the two-thirds majority needed to impeach, apparently in largest part because Belknap was by then out of government service and many senators thought that it was therefore beyond the purview of the Senate.
Teapot Dome
In the course of World War I, it became very clear that the U.S. military would need petroleum reserves under its control to avoid shortages in the event of world conflicts and necessary military mobilizations. The U.S. Navy had major oil fields allotted to it in Wyoming and California, among other areas. In 1921, President Warren Harding used an executive order to transfer control of two such oilfields from the Navy to the U.S. Department of the Interior. These areas included the “Teapot Dome” Oil Field in Wyoming, and two areas in California. Harding’s Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, later leased the Teapot Dome site to Sinclair Oil Corporation. This deal was done without any competitive bidding (which was not illegal at the time). However, the oil company then gave loans and gifts to Fall that amounted to a rather impressive amount of money—that part was illegal.
Although Fall tried to be discreet about his newfound wealth, he did manage to pay up his property taxes, which were pretty far out of date on payments, and people apparently noticed his changed financial fortunes. Worried about getting caught, he asked a friend to say that the friend (not the oil company!) had loaned Fall a large sum of money; the friend eventually confessed to investigators that he had not made the loan. After a long sequence of investigations, reporting in the media, and trials, Fall went to prison; he served a one-year sentence, and was eventually released. He lived another ten years or so in relative poverty and obscurity. The Teapot Dome Scandal led the Supreme Court to rule that Congress had the power to compel testimony, and to Congress’s passing of laws to enable investigations of corruption.
Spiro Agnew and Bribery
Spiro T. Agnew was Vice President in the Richard Nixon Administration in the 1960s and 1970s. A Greek-American, he studied law, and eventually entered politics and supposed “public service.” He became an important executive in the Baltimore regional government, and later governor of Maryland. In 1968, Richard Nixon invited Agnew to be his running-mate. Agnew served one full term with Nixon, but in the second term was forced to resign, pleading “no contest” to one felony charge of tax evasion. OK, tax evasion is pretty light, right? Well, actually, it was way worse than that…
Agnew had been requesting and receiving kickbacks from contractors in his various positions in Maryland. Agnew’s misdeeds in Baltimore County could not be the basis of criminal accusations because so much time had passed that the statute of limitations had passed. However, a man named Lester Matz was granted immunity if he cooperated with the authorities, and eventually indicated that he had been giving Agnew a part of the value of contracts that he secured with Agnew’s help. Most intriguingly, Matz testified that he had met with Agnew, and had given him $10,000 during his time as Vice President. Eventually, an investigation ensued, and Agnew resigned formally on 10 October 1973. After twenty-some years in a series of intrigues and sketchy schemes for making money, along with a big of anti-Semitic racism, in 1996, Agnew died, apparently of leukemia.
[In a curious twist in a particularly corrupt period in the U.S. presidency, note that Agnew resigned on 10 October 1973, and President Nixon himself was forced to resign on 9 August 1974. The Watergate Scandal, which eventually led to Nixon’s resignation, began in 1972, and clearly had the potential to topple Nixon from the outset of the investigation. In effect, both the President and the Vice-President each had to resign, though for different corrupt reasons… if Nixon had not appointed Gerald Ford to replace Agnew as Vice-President before he himself had to resign, then the Presidency—then owned by the Republicans—would have passed to the Speaker of the House, who was Carl Albert, a Democrat.]
The Whitewater Affair
The so-called Whitewater Affair was about some real estate investments made by the Whitewater Development Corporation, with which Bill and Hillary Clinton were associated. Whitewater was an investment scheme regarding developing land for weekenders and vacationers on the White River in Arkansas. An investigator looking into how a savings and loan company owned by other investors in the Whitewater Development Corporation had failed became interested in possible connections to the Clintons, and reported the situation to the FBI. Eventually, Congress caught wind of the possible scandal, and the same investigator ended up testifying to the Senate Whitewater Committee about the situation.
The key point was an individual named David Hale, who claimed that Bill Clinton had convinced him to make an illegal loan to one of the partners in the Whitewater Development Corporation (though Hale’s veracity in his claims was not 100% clear). Other Whitewater Development Corporation people were convicted in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, an Arkansas governor ended up convicted of fraud, and one of the Whitewater Development Corporation investors ended up in prison for contempt of court. The Clintons were never accused formally, and three investigations were unable to uncover enough evidence of any criminal conduct by them, but the cloud of scandal dogged the Clintons throughout Bill’s presidency and Hillary’s candidacy (which failed tragically, leading to “Trump, Part I.”
Trump, Part II
So we come up to the present, and the number and magnitude of presidential “grifts” in the news are astounding. The President’s grown sons are roaming around the world, making real-estate deals as fast as they can, sometimes just days before “Dad” comes on an official state visit. The Trumps have begun marketing a $TRUMP “meme coin” to investors, with prizes like in-person time with the President and Oval Office tours to the biggest investors. One scheme after another—one grift after another—emerges in the news, causes an uproar, and then blends into the ocean of Trump grift.
However, consider the relative magnitude of the funds involved in the historical schemes and scandals discussed above, compared to what the Trump grift is doing. The meme coin scheme alone has a current value of $2,800,000,000. The real estate deals are about huge sums of money, much of it from foreign investors. And then there are all the other grifting schemes… so maybe Trump is the greatest of all time. Not the greatest president of all time, but the greatest president-grifter of all time. He’s damn good at that.
TD10: English Only?
2 May 2025
This one is a bit personal for me, so I will ask you to forgive me in advance. My grandparents never spoke much English; my parents each learned English when they got to grade school, having been raised in households where Greek (my father) and Armenian (my mother) were the “official” languages. Fast forward, and my own home is primarily Spanish-speaking… everyone is fluent in English, but my wife and kids are immigrants from Mexico, and we as a family are comfortable carrying out most of our daily household business in Spanish. Simply put, for me, English is my first language, but my life is far richer for being able to speak Spanish and Portuguese with reasonable fluency, and I am working on learning Greek as well… The U.S. is a country rich in human diversity… what used to be called lovingly the “melting pot”… and part of that diversity is language.
I am not the only one… Even Trump… Not only have two of Trump’s wives been immigrants who spoke English with accents (Ivana from what was then Czechoslovakia, Melania from what was then Yugoslavia), but Trump himself is only a second-generation “American.” Trump’s paternal grandfather was born Friedrich Trump, in Bavaria, Germany. He came to the U.S. in 1885, and he got established in the northwestern part of the U.S. and in western Canada, where he ran a series of brothels. When he returned to Germany to get married, the German government revoked his citizenship, apparently because he had originally gone to the U.S. to avoid military service, so he brought his new family to the U.S. in 1905. I could not find any references to his English proficiency, but surely it was not great, at least in his first years in the country!
[If you do not like the idea of running a brothel as a respectable profession, maybe it’s better than Friedrich’s son Fred, who was the subject of a large-scale court battle with the U.S. Department of Justice because he discriminated openly against African-American and Puerto Rican-American renters in his New York properties… I’m not sure which is worse!]
Anyhow, on 1 March 2025, Trump designated English as the official language of the U.S. Highlights from this “presidential action” include:
From the founding of our Republic, English has been used as our national language… It is therefore long past time that English is declared as the official language of the United States. A nationally designated language is at the core of a unified and cohesive society, and the United States is strengthened by a citizenry that can freely exchange ideas in one shared language… To promote unity, cultivate a shared American culture for all citizens, ensure consistency in government operations, and create a pathway to civic engagement, it is in America’s best interest for the Federal Government to designate one — and only one — official language.
[To be honest, I am a pretty avid news hound, even in these depressing days of 2025, but I missed this declaration entirely until last week.]
Less than two months later, another “presidential action” took the language lockdown one step farther [and this one also seems not to have gotten reported in the national news either]. In an order entitled Enforcing Commonsense Rules of the Road for America’s Truck Drivers, Trump announced:
Proficiency in English… should be a non-negotiable safety requirement for professional drivers. They should be able to read and understand traffic signs, communicate with traffic safety, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo weight-limit station officers. Drivers need to provide feedback to their employers and customers and receive related directions in English. This is common sense.
That is why Federal law requires that, to operate a commercial vehicle, a driver must “read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public, to understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, to respond to official inquiries, and to make entries on reports and records.” Yet this requirement has not been enforced in years, and America’s roadways have become less safe.
It is unclear to me that there is any evidence behind this idea, that America’s roadways have become less safe, or that immigrants who do not speak English are to blame.
Trump’s order continues with “… a violation of the English language proficiency requirement results in the driver being placed out-of-service.” And then, the Trump commercial driver goes on to some much darker points. These parts least imply that people who do not speak English well are likely to be illegal immigrants that Trump’s ICE agents could deport:
(a) review non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) issued by relevant State agencies to identify any unusual patterns or numbers or other irregularities with respect to non-domiciled CDL issuance; and
(b) evaluate and take appropriate actions to improve the effectiveness of current protocols for verifying the authenticity and validity of both domestic and international commercial driving credentials.
English First Movements Historically
Data from the 2023 American Community Survey (run by the U.S. Census Bureau) indicate that only 245.5 million U.S. Americans over 5 years old speak only English; 43.3 million speak Spanish, of whom 17.5 million speak English “less than ‘very well.’” The list of languages spoken by hundreds of thousands or millions of U.S. Americans is enormous: French, Haitian, Italian, Portuguese, German, Yiddish, Pennsylvania Dutch, Greek, Russian, Polish, Armenian, Gujarati, etc., etc., etc. Quite simply, the U.S. is a melting pot, and U.S. culture includes the languages of the world. Trump’s executive orders are the first instance in which English (or any language) has been designated as the official language of the U.S.
These arguments, however, under the moniker of “Official English,” go back even to before the U.S. was a country. These discussions soon took on ominous tones… for instance, the 1887 Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs included this recommendation: “Schools should be established, which children should be required to attend; their barbarous dialects should be blotted out and the English language substituted.”
The report goes on with:
Longer and closer consideration of the subject has only deepened my conviction that it is a matter not only of importance, but of necessity that the Indians acquire the English language as rapidly as possible. The Government has entered upon the great work of educating and citizenizing the Indians and establishing them upon homesteads. The adults are expected to assume the role of citizens, and of course the rising generation will be expected and required more nearly to fill the measure of citizenship, and the main purpose of educating them is to enable them to read, write, and speak the English language and to transact business with English-speaking people. When they take upon themselves the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship their vernacular will be of no advantage. Only through the medium of the English tongue can they acquire a knowledge of the Constitution of the country and their rights and duties thereunder.
Every nation is jealous of its own language, and no nation ought to be more so than ours, which approaches nearer than any other nationality to the perfect protection of its people. True Americans all feel that the Constitution, laws, and institutions of the United States, in their adaptation to the wants and requirements of man, are superior to those of any other country; and they should understand that by the spread of the English language will these laws and institutions be more firmly established and widely disseminated. Nothing so surely and perfectly stamps upon an individual a national characteristic as language.
And later…
To teach Indian school children in their native tongue is practically to exclude English, and to prevent them from acquiring it. This language, which is good enough for a white man and a black man, ought to be good enough for the red man. It is also believed that teaching an Indian youth in his own barbarous dialect is a positive detriment to him. The first step to be taken toward civilization, toward teaching the Indians the mischief and folly of continuing in their barbarous practices, is to teach them the English language. The impracticability, if not impossibility, of civilizing the Indians of this country in any other tongue than our own would seem to be obvious, especially in view of the fact that the number of Indian vernaculars is even greater than the number of tribes. ...
But it has been suggested that this order, being mandatory, gives a cruel blow to the sacred rights of the Indians. Is it cruelty to the Indian to force him to give up his scalping-knife and tomahawk? Is it cruelty to force him to abandon the vicious and barbarous sun dance, where he lacerates his flesh, and dances and tortures himself even unto death? Is it cruelty to the Indian to force him to have his daughters educated and married under the laws of the land, instead of selling them at a tender age for a stipulated price into concubinage to gratify the brutal lusts of ignorance and barbarism?
Enough said, perhaps—the blatant racism pervading this report is clear, and this report was part of the justification for what became a tragic forced assimilation of Native Americans into Western culture, such as via the Native American boarding schools. [It is worth noting that having Native American dialects spoken fluently served the U.S. government amply during World War II, when Navajo speakers were used as “code talkers” to communicate key messages for the U.S. and its allies.] This cultural destruction, under an “Official English” banner, was repeated in Hawaii, with similar catastrophic effects on Hawaiian culture. Indeed, it even was applied to white people… during World War I, the German language was the subject of considerable suppression across the U.S. [Even names of towns and villages were changed: “Germantown,” Kansas, was turned into Mercier, during World War I.]
Putting the Pieces of the Puzzle Together
Why does Trump care? English is the dominant language in the U.S. All immigrant families are speaking English at least by the first generation that is born in the U.S., just like my family and Trump’s family did. So why make a big deal of it?
Put it all together… contemplate the commercial truck driver English proficiency order… it is not about building unity or helping immigrants to assimilate. Rather, this is part of a Trump strategy towards what is in effect ethnic cleansing of the U.S.: the more that you make immigrants uncomfortable, and the more that you make it difficult for new immigrants to be employed (not everyone has the means to start a brothel, right???), the fewer immigrants that you will have.
I will end this essay with a prediction about one little detail... Currently, in the testing for immigrants to become naturalized as citizens, civics tests are administered in English and candidates are tested for English proficiency. “A naturalization applicant must only demonstrate an ability to read, write, speak, and understand words in ordinary usage.” However, if you are older than 50 or so years, and have been a lawful permanent resident for a given number of years, you are exempt from the English proficiency requirements, and you can take the civics part of the test via interpreter. My prediction is that this set of exemptions will not last long, and rather will be removed by the Trump administration as another way of reducing immigration into the U.S.
TD9: The Supreme Court Army?
29 April 2025
The U.S. Constitution created a government with three branches (executive, legislative, judicial), each with specific roles and powers, and each with the power to limit the power of the other branches. That is, the legislative branch creates laws, the executive branch puts them into effect, and the judicial branch checks to make sure that the laws and their execution fit with the Constitution. The legislative branch creates laws, but the executive branch (i.e., the president) can veto them. The legislative branch has the power to remove members of the executive or judicial branches from office (i.e., via impeachment); also, one part of the legislative branch approves budgets, and another approves presidential appointments to judicial and executive branch positions. The executive branch names key judicial officers (i.e., judges), and can make treaties, but only with ratification by part of the legislative branch. And the judicial branch can nullify any law or any executive action. So this system is complex, with all sorts of ways in which one branch provides a “check” on how absolute is the power of each other branch. This system was designed to avoid the country slipping into autocracy, in which any individual has too much power.
In the course of American history, this system has generally worked quite well, in that no branch has been able to dominate over the other two. Particularly interesting would be if the executive branch were to overrule or ignore the rulings of the judicial branch (specifically, the Supreme Court). Two very different points in history are interesting in this respect, the first regarding Abraham Lincoln, and the second regarding Andrew Jackson.
Lincoln and Dred Scott
Dred Scott (1799–1858) was an enslaved man who was taken by his owner from the south into Illinois and then Wisconsin, both “free” states. When Scott was taken back to Missouri, a slave state, his “owners” assumed that he was still their property. Scott attempted to recover his freedom based on two Missouri laws about slavery as it related to the complex slavery-politics-related landscape of the U.S. at that time. Eventually, the Supreme Court, in a very unfortunate decision termed Dred Scott v. Sandford, decided that Scott had no right to freedom simply because persons of African descent could not be U.S. citizens. The broader implication of the majority opinion was that Congress could not ban slavery or limit slavery in new territories or states.
Abraham Lincoln, at the time an important politician, did not agree with the Supreme Court’s decision, making the following speech a few months later:
And now as to the Dred Scott decision. That decision declares two propositions—first, that a negro cannot sue in the U.S. Courts; and secondly, that Congress cannot prohibit slavery in the territories... We think its [the Supreme Court’s] decisions on constitutional questions, when fully settled, should control not only the particular cases decided, but the general policy of the country, subject to be disturbed only by amendments of the Constitution as provided in that instrument itself. More than this would be revolution. But we think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it to overrule this.
Now, Lincoln was not yet president, and could do nothing to reverse (or ignore) the decision at that time. Near the close of the Civil War, and just before Lincoln’s death, the 13th Amendment was proposed, which prohibited slavery in the United States. The 14th Amendment continued the progress, making all persons born in the U.S. citizens. Lincoln did not agree with Dred Scott, and argued vehemently against it, but also said “We offer no resistance to it”… he believed that the U.S. legal system would get to the right answer, as it eventually did with the 13th and 14th amendments.
Andrew Jackson and Worcester
General Andrew Jackson, since the War of 1812, had made a career out of “Indian removal,” leading campaigns across the southeastern U.S. He was president in 1832, when the Supreme Court, in Worcester v. Georgia, found that Georgia laws aiming to seize Cherokee land violated treaties signed by the U.S. federal government.
Jackson supposedly commented, "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it", although it is not clear that he actually said those words. Rather, what he did say was a bit less poetic: “The decision of the supreme court has fell still born, and they find that it cannot coerce Georgia to yield to its mandate.” The insinuation was that the president and the state of Georgia had armies, but the Supreme Court did not, so which is likely to prevail in a difference of opinion? That approach from a very powerful president was the root of a massive-scale ramping-up of “Indian removal” efforts, including the infamous and tragic events now referred to as the Trail of Tears.
Now
Donald Trump’s administration has been deporting non-citizen U.S. residents of various types as quickly as they are able (see the 21 April 2025 Trump Diaries essay on “alien enemies”). Ostensibly, the Trump administration’s deportations have focused on criminals, but in their mad rush to deport massive numbers of people, they have been more than careless, such that many individuals who are not criminals or gang members have been deported.
One particular case in point was that of Kilmar Armando Abrego García, a Maryland man of Salvadoran origin who was under a protective court order that he not be deported to El Salvador. Trump’s people, of course, not only deported him, but deported him to El Salvador. Even worse, he was deported with no “due process,” in that he never had a hearing to establish whether he really should be deported in the first place. The case was debated in the courts, and eventually reached the Supreme Court.
On 10 April 2025, the Supreme Court published its Noem v. Abrego Garcia decision, as follows:
The order properly requires the Government to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.
Translation: the Trump administration needs to get Abrego García back from El Salvador, and give him appropriate “due process” in consideration of his case. However, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who was the judge who issued the initial opinion in favor of Abrego García, used the more explicit terms “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego García’s return, which could be interpreted as ordering the Trump administration to change its foreign policy to secure Abrego García’s return. For this reason, the Supreme Court added some caveats:
The intended scope of the term “effectuate” in the District Court’s order is, however, unclear, and may exceed the District Court’s authority. The District Court should clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs. For its part, the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.
What has the Trump administration done in response? Nothing. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt summarized an interaction between Trump and the president of El Salvador:
I will tell you what the president of El Salvador told you in the Oval Office: El Salvador does not intend to smuggle a designated foreign terrorist back into the United States… He is an El Salvadoran national. That is his home country. That is where he belongs.
Trump's "border czar" Tom Homan said:
There was an oversight, there was a withholding order. But the facts surrounding the withholding order had changed. He is now a terrorist, and the gang he was fearing, from being removed from El Salvador, no longer exists.
Whether or not Abrego García is a gang member or a terrorist or a good guy or a bad guy is not the point… he deserves, as do all who live in the U.S., due process, in the form of a hearing to figure out the facts regarding his situation, rather than the “spin” that an administration official might make.
Abraham Lincoln knew that the Supreme Court was wrong in its Dred Scott decision, but concluded “We offer no resistance to it”… So why does Trump get to ignore a Supreme Court decision that he does not like? Perhaps… and perhaps that will consign him to the same shameful dustbin of U.S. history as the Trail of Tears and Andrew Jackson’s role in making it possible.
TD8: Alien enemies?
21 April 2025
In the late 1700s, the United States was in the midst of many potential conflicts: the War of Independence had concluded just a decade before, and the War of 1812 would begin just a decade and a half later, both against Great Britain. In the 1790s, however, the US was close to war with France. The US government was concerned that non-citizens living in the United States, called “aliens,” might side with the French during any war that might ensue. As a result, the US Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which imposed longer residency requirements for citizenship, and allowed the US president to arrest, imprison, and deport “aliens” during wartime.
Here are relevant parts of these acts, each followed by my interpretations of each of them:
“… whenever there shall be a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government, and the President of the United States shall make public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being males of the age of fourteen years and upwards, who shall be within the United States, and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured and removed, as alien enemies.”
[So, in times of war, or when “any invasion or predatory incursion” is even threatened, the President makes a public proclamation, and any males 14 years or older can be taken into custody and thrown out of the country. A 16 April 1918 act removed the restriction to only males. Note also that this is clearly pertains only to people “not actually naturalized,” so it cannot be applied to US citizens.]
Provided, that aliens resident within the United States, who shall become liable as enemies, in the manner aforesaid, and who shall not be chargeable with actual hostility, or other crime against the public safety, shall be allowed, for the recovery, disposal, and removal of their goods and effects, and for their departure, the full time which is, or shall be stipulated by any treaty, where any shall have been between the United States, and the hostile nation or government, of which they shall be natives, citizens, denizens or subjects: and where no such treaty shall have existed, the President of the United States may ascertain and declare such reasonable time as may be consistent with the public safety, and according to the dictates of humanity and national hospitality.”
[So people who are not actually chargeable with hostility or other crimes should be given time to get their affairs in order… like selling or taking with them their possessions… and that the president then has discretion to establish how much time the deportees will have. The act indicates that it should be “… according to the dictates of humanity and national hospitality…” but that clearly assumes that the president of the US has some humanity and wishes to show any hospitality. Note that no mention is made of deporting these “alien enemies” to countries that are not their own native countries.]
It is worth noting that the Alien Enemies Act is actually part of the broader “Alien and Sedition Acts,” all passed in 1798. The Sedition Act was a means of limiting free speech in the US, prohibiting publishing writing against the government and opposition to Congress or the president. The Sedition Act was applied to only 10 individuals… most famously was Luther Baldwin, a common laborer, who got drunk and commented loudly that he did not care if cannons were fired up President John Adams’ rear end. The Sedition Act expired at the end of Adams’ term. Clearly, it was too-powerful a tool in the hands of politically appointed presidents, as it could be used at the discretion of the president to silence any opposition.
But back to the Alien Enemies Act… It was used three times in history (see this article for much more detail). On 11 July 1812, James Madison decreed that “all the subjects of His Britannic Majesty, residing within the United States, have become alien enemies…” and required that British immigrants move at least 40 miles from the coast, which meant (of course) moving out of key eastern coastal cities. More than a century later, Woodrow Wilson invoked this law at the beginning of US participation in World War I: German immigrants had to register, and about 6000 were detained. Finally, and most famously, Franklin D. Roosevelt used the Act soon after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, which led to the US entering World War II: more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans were confined to camps across the country. The constitutionality of the Roosevelt executive order that initiated the Japanese confinement was upheld (shamefully) by the Supreme Court in Korematsu v. United States, and was not overruled until more than 70 years later.
However, during President Trump’s first term, he initiated his infamous “Muslim Travel Ban.” Hawaii and several other states challenged Trump’s order, pointing in particular to the racist anti-Muslim motivation for the ban. In 2018, the very-conservative Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts, in the majority opinion, made clear that Korematsu v. United States was decided in error. He stated: “… reference to Korematsu, however, affords this Court the opportunity to make express what is already obvious: Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court of history, and—to be clear—‘has no place in law under the Constitution.’” He also indicated that “The forcible relocation of U.S. citizens to concentration camps, solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of Presidential authority.” [He was referring to forced relocation to concentration camps inside of the US, but we can probably assume that he would also object to camps in other countries.]
Watching the news these days, the Alien Enemies Act, though seemingly a discarded artifact of history, is back, 80 years after the Japanese confinement fiasco. That is, on 14 March 2025, President Trump issued an executive order entitled, “Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of The United States by Tren De Aragua.” Among the various points in this executive order, we find the following:
“Tren de Aragua (TdA) is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization with thousands of members, many of whom have unlawfully infiltrated the United States and are conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States… TdA has engaged in and continues to engage in mass illegal migration to the United States to further its objectives of harming United States citizens, undermining public safety, and supporting the Maduro regime’s goal of destabilizing democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States… Evidence irrefutably demonstrates that TdA has invaded the United States and continues to invade, attempt to invade, and threaten to invade the country; perpetrated irregular warfare within the country; and used drug trafficking as a weapon against our citizens.”
[This verbiage is laid out to argue that Trump does not need a formal declaration of war by Congress, but rather is arguing that Tren de Aragua is actively invading the US, so the president has the discretion to act under the Alien Enemies Act.]
“I proclaim that all Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older who are members of TdA, are within the United States, and are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the United States are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.
[A key point here is that the Trump order applies to all Venezuelans in the United States other than those who are citizens, naturalized citizens, or permanent residents. Note that there is no restriction to those Venezuelans who are members of Tren de Aragua.]
I further find and declare that all such members of TdA are, by virtue of their membership in that organization, chargeable with actual hostility against the United States and are therefore ineligible for the benefits of 50 U.S.C. 22. I further find and declare that all such members of TdA are a danger to the public peace or safety of the United States.”
[Note that, here, Trump shifts the discussion, and equates being Venezuelan with being a member of Tren de Aragua. This is a clear “weasel” move: very few Venezuelans are TdA members, but Trump equates the two in this passage. The reference to 50 U.S.C. 22 is about whether the people to be deported should be given proper warning and time to put their affairs in order.
“Alien Enemies apprehended pursuant to this proclamation shall be subject to detention until removed from the United States in such place of detention as may be directed by the officers responsible for the execution of these regulations… Alien Enemies shall be subject to removal to any such location as may be directed by the officers responsible for the execution of these regulations consistent with applicable law.”
[And of course, here, the executive order is saying that the “enemies” can be sent anywhere that the US government wishes to send them. No mind that the original Alien Enemies Act made no mention of deportation to other countries, where the deportees may not be citizens.]
A plethora of questions comes to mind. What is the evidence that we are in fact in a wartime situation? There is no Congressional declaration of war, so it must be a situation in which an “invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government.” Well, what is the actual evidence that Tren de Aragua (1) is indeed invading or trying to invade the US, and (2) is that invasion an initiative of the Venezuelan government? Are the people being deported actual criminals? Is the situation so dramatic and perilous that they should not be given a reasonable period of time to put their things in order?
But the most crucial concern that comes up is about race. Chief Justice Roberts made it clear: any such punishment (confinement, deportation) that is “solely and explicitly on the basis of race” is unlawful and outside the powers of the president. On 10 April 2025, Noem v Abrego Garcia offered a first glance of what the Supreme Court will say… an apparently unanimous court ruled that the deportation of one Salvadoran native (and legal resident of the US) was illegitimate, though the decision was presented rather narrowly and without clear reference to the Alien Enemies Act. It also should be pointed out that Trump’s executive order was about Tren de Aragua (a Venezuelan gang), but the Trump administration alleges that Abrego Garcia is part of MS-13 (a Salvadoran gang). Notwithstanding a 20 January 2025 Trump executive order saying that both Tren de Aragua and MS-13 are foreign terrorist organizations, and that members of those gangs might be subject to the Alien Enemies Act, Trump’s executive order about the Alien Enemies Act was about Venezuela, and it does not appear that the act is yet applicable to Abrego Garcia.
I would like to assume, then, that the Supreme Court will speak clearly when a case about the 2025 use of the Alien Enemies Act is finally brought to the court. The Alien Enemies Act is very clearly being applied based solely on race, which the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has made clear is inappropriate. As a respectful citizen of the US, I certainly hope that the Supreme Court has the ethics and backbone required to make such a decision.
TD7: A Third Term?
8 April 2025
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was first elected President of the United States in 1932, and re-elected in 1934. He was cagey about his plans to run for a third term in 1940, but eventually he ran, despite his opponent’s making the third term a major issue of debate in the campaign. Four years later, Roosevelt had the excuse of the country being in the thick of World War II, and ran yet again. Although his new opponent also raised the issue of presidents being elected too many times, Roosevelt was successful in his fourth election bid. But, 82 days after being inaugurated for the fourth time, Roosevelt died.
Roosevelt’s passing in office, after heavy campaigning by Republicans against very-long-term presidencies, combined with complete Republican control of Congress, led to the development of what would eventually become the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution. The crucial portion of the text of this amendment reads, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.” This Amendment, however, simply codified an idea that dates back to George Washington: it is not good for the country to have presidents who spend too long in the office of President.
Fast-forward through almost eighty years since the 22nd Amendment was approved, and no president has seriously explored staying over-long in office. Until now, of course. President Trump has commented recently about the possibility of a third term in office. Very recently, in an interview with NBC News, he indicated that he was “not joking.” He said, “A lot of people want me to do it… But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.” And about how one could achieve a third term in spite of the 22nd Amendment… “There are methods which you could do it.” One approach that has been discussed in various circles is that Vice-President J.D. Vance would run for the presidency, with Trump as his vice-presidential candidate, and then—upon election—would resign and leave the office to Trump. (Trump has indicated that there are still other possible approaches.)
The most straightforward approach, of course, would be to get rid of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution. Constitutional amendments are difficult, though… the process is initiated via a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, or by request from two-thirds of state legislatures (this latter possibility has never been done). A potential amendment, however, does not become part of the Constitution until it is ratified by three-quarters of the states; that is, 38 of the 50 states would then have to approve, which is not likely to happen fast or likely not at all. (Indeed, the 27th Amendment, which places limits on Congress’s ability to raise its own salary rates, was proposed on 25 September 1789, but not ratified until 7 May 1992: that is, 202 years, 7 months, and 12 days later.) So, we can basically conclude that Trump’s third term would not come to be via amending the Constitution.
The Vance-Trump handoff approach, however, is not without antecedents. Of course, not here in the United States. Rather, it echoes the legendary 2008-2012 “tandemocracy” of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev in Russia. Putin was… get this… barred by the Russian Constitution from serving a third consecutive term as President of Russia, but of course did not want to give up power in his country, so he supported Medvedev as President. In the resulting Medvedev administration, Putin served as Medvedev’s Prime Minister. Although Prime Minister is a lower position than President in Russia, it is not clear that Putin was not actually in charge. Putin was re-elected as President in 2012, and continues in that role to this day. Given Trump’s well-known admiration for Putin, perhaps he finds this path to a third term appealing.
Could Vance and Trump pull off a tandemocracy? In theory, certainly, Vance could run for President after Trump’s current term, and there is nothing to stop him and the Republican Party from putting Trump on the ballot as Vice-President. Then, upon being elected successfully, Vance would only have to resign, and Trump would be in place for another term. Great plan? I don’t think so… Vance has to rank amongst the most ambitious humans ever to walk the Earth, so imagining him resigning the presidency voluntarily is pretty much unimaginable.
TD6: Vaccines Cause Autism?
11 March 2025
The antivax movement is going strong in the United States in 2025. The President himself has waffled and equivocated on whether vaccines are okay. His appointee to head the Department of Health and Human Services is an open antivax activist; and appointees who will head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health have both hedged and hesitated on this matter. None of these individuals has succeeded in expressing a clear view that large-scale vaccination is and should be a crucial element in public health policy in the United States (and worldwide).
Vaccination is the process by which immunity to a disease is developed via exposure to a substance that resembles a disease-causing microorganism; vaccines have been made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe, or from the toxins or proteins that it produces. Vaccines have been in use at least as far back as the 16th century (in China), and maybe centuries earlier; the first vaccinations reduced vulnerability to smallpox via exposure to cowpox virus, a closely similar virus.
Vaccines have been at the root of many important successes in public health. Thanks to vaccination, smallpox was eradicated globally as of 1980. Other serious diseases, such as polio, measles, and tetanus, are now massively reduced and restricted, though they were previously major public health concerns and sources of considerable mortality and sickness. The efficacy of vaccination in reducing disease incidence can be appreciated in the abrupt declines in incidence of polio and measles in the accompanying figure (adapted from a graphic by Max Roser). Very simply, these vaccines have had an overwhelming positive effect on public health in the United States and worldwide, removing several of the most severe and most damaging diseases from the picture. (For perspective, before vaccines were developed, measles caused on the order of 2.6 million deaths worldwide each year; measles deaths are now vanishingly rare.)
A particularly concerning suite of childhood diseases was measles, mumps, and rubella (or German measles). In 1971, the MMR vaccine was introduced, which was essentially a cocktail of previously developed vaccines for the three diseases. Although this triple vaccine saw very broad adoption, in 1998, a British researcher named Andrew Wakefield published a paper in The Lancet that reported on studies of 12 children, purporting to link MMR vaccination to intestinal problems, and in turn to development of autism. Although the sample size was small, the publication seemed to present a damaging scenario by which MMR could cause permanent developmental damage to children.
But … the story is only beginning … Thanks in largest part to the persistence of a journalist named Brian Deer, Wakefield’s work began to fall apart. Major points in this story are as follows:
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Ten of the 12 authors of the original Wakefield paper (all except Wakefield and one author who could not be contacted) later retracted the interpretation that Wakefield promulgated, with the statement, “We wish to make it clear that in this paper no causal link was established between MMR vaccine and autism as the data were insufficient.”
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In the paper, Wakefield altered many facts about patients’ medical histories to bolster his claim that he had identified a new syndrome.
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The Lancet formally retracted the original Wakefield publication because of problems with the study design, as well as problems with how the human-subjects permissions were obtained and documented.
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Numerous detailed epidemiological studies based on analysis of vastly larger datasets have failed to find evidence of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.
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The Royal Free Hospital received a grant, and Wakefield personally received more than £400,000, from the United Kingdom’s Legal Aid Board, an entity interested in legal action against the MMR vaccine manufacturers; crucially, these financial conflicts of interest were not appropriately disclosed in the publication.
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Wakefield attempted to patent a measles vaccine and an autism cure nine months before the publication in The Lancet, pointing to considerable financial gain for Wakefield if MMR vaccines were to be discredited.
In sum, Wakefield clearly had many reasons to wish to discredit MMR vaccines, other than science and care for human well-being. Rather, he was an unscrupulous, unprincipled, and dishonest individual who was out to “make a buck.”
Now, 20-some years later, unfortunately, Wakefield’s supposed research results published in The Lancet have not faded into the infamy of academic misconduct. Rather, thanks to his own dishonesty, the “antivax” movement reveres his work as a truth that the scientists are trying to cover up. Wakefield is married to a model and lives in the United States.
Worst of all, however, thanks to the doubts cultivated by Wakefield, vaccine hesitancy is growing in the United States. At the moment, measles is spreading rampantly, simply because a lower percentage of the U.S. population is vaccinated. Wakefield was out to garner fame and make a buck, but the effect has been and will be that of vaccine hesitancy costing lives. President Trump and his health-related appointees have fallen into the trap of listening to Wakefield’s profit-driven lies, and the U.S. population may pay the price.
TD5: Jay Bhattacharya to Lead the NIH?
3 March 2025
Jay Bhattacharya is a Stanford University professor, holding both M.D. and Ph.D. (in economics) degrees. President Trump has nominated him to lead the National Institutes of Health during Trump’s second term as president. On the face of it, an academic at a leading institution of higher education, with one foot in the medical world and one foot in the world of economy, would sound like a great choice for NIH leadership. However, if one goes a bit beneath the surface, this choice may not be as good as it seems to be.
During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Bhattacharya was a very loud and controversial voice. That is, with two others, he coauthored the Great Barrington Declaration, which argued that (1) mortality from COVID-19 was generally low, but significantly higher in the elderly and infirm; (2) lockdowns as a public health measure have significant negative consequences in and of themselves; and (3) achieving so-called “herd immunity” was the best way to damp out the epidemic. (Herd immunity is the idea that if most individuals in a population get infected, recover, and thereby have some level of immunity, the epidemic will die out.) Based on very fragmentary, early evidence about COVID-19 infection rates, Bhattacharya and colleagues argued that it was much better simply to let COVID-19 sweep through the less-vulnerable sectors of the population, building immunity in the great bulk of humanity, and thereby killing off the epidemic.
Bhattacharya’s reasoning, and indeed data generated by his own research team, however, were immediately called into question, with concerns ranging from the design of the sampling, false-positive rates in the serological testing, and others. The concern is that the inference of lower public health threat from COVID-19 (e.g., that case fatality rates were not as high as one might think) is not sound.
Indeed, not only was the science questioned, but it also emerged that the study had been—in part at least—funded by David Neeleman, founder of JetBlue Airways and a loud opponent of lockdowns. This funding—in effect a conflict of interest regarding the conclusions of the research—was not declared in the scientific publication documenting the outcomes of the study, which stated only, “We acknowledge many individual donors who generously supported this project with gift awards. The funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study, nor in the decision to prepare and submit the manuscript for publication.” In MY academic position, if I published a paper that alleged controversial results without acknowledging funding from interested parties, I would be investigated for academic misconduct, and my job would be in danger.
Bhattacharya was criticized widely for his argument, in the scientific community, by the U.S. public health leadership at the time, by the director-general of the World Health Organization, and by the media. Crucially, one of the most biting critiques of his ideas came from Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, who called him a “fringe epidemiologist.”
Although Bhattacharya says that he was just trying to spark debate about what COVID-19 policy would ideally do to eliminate the epidemic, his ideas really were—and are—fringe ideas. Hundreds of studies in public health have analyzed best approaches to damping out infectious disease outbreaks: the broad consensus is that social distancing is a crucial element to combating such outbreaks and epidemics. (Arguing to the contrary is, to be honest, a lot like doubting the reality of climate change, or the efficacy of vaccination.) Bhattacharya would argue that negative consequences of social distancing, as would manifest in a lockdown, outweigh the reductions in transmission of the disease in question, but this argument depends on COVID-19 being less dangerous, and we have seen that that conclusion is based on uncertain evidence.
So President Trump has made his choices about who will head the many government departments and agencies, and among them is Bhattacharya to head the National Institutes of Health. Bhattacharya clearly has an axe to grind with NIH over being called “fringe,” as he has indicated in numerous interviews about the subject. As NIH researchers are being fired and NIH grant budgets are being slashed, what will happen to the institution with a boss who has such a vendetta? My sincere hope is that 2025-2029 will be a period without any major public health emergencies.
TD4: How To
Kill U.S. Universities
15 February 2025
The US has long been ranked as the world leader in science. That is, for many decades, the US has dominated in terms of investment in scientific research. For example, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ranked the US in 2022 as #1 in terms of investment in research, at US$761.6B, compared to US$620.4B by China; no other country gets above one-third of those amounts. And those investments paid off in publications and insights deriving from those investments, with 2022 rankings placing the US above China; again, no other country coming close to the top two. Rankings after 2023, however, show China closing the gap, and in a number of cases now surpassing the US in terms of science prominence worldwide.
The US Government provides billions of dollars of funding to support scientific research at institutions across the country. The lion’s share of this funding goes, of course, to support the research per se, such that the fantastic insights that US university-based researchers produce derive from grants from US Government funding agencies. These grants come from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and many other US Government agencies. However, what academic researchers put into their grant budgets is what is needed directly to do the research… supplies, salaries, and equipment… which does not cover what else is needed to sustain the institution’s support for that research.
Think about it… a business might sell a TV for $500, which it purchased for $200. It does not take the $300 difference as pure profit; rather, the business needs to pay the electrical bill, the water bill, the upkeep of the building where it is located, etc. Rather, much of the $300 difference between purchase price and actual cost gets eaten up by those other expenses that must be covered in order to keep the business in business.
Universities are no different. They maintain enormous physical facilities and human resources that are not covered in the “direct” costs of a grant, and instead are covered via what is called “indirect costs” in grant budgets. Indirect cost rates are set by means of a negotiation between the US Government and the institution, and are the result of long years of experience with the costs at the university associated with carrying out the research. These indirect costs play a crucial role in “keeping the lights on” at US universities: they pay for the facilities and infrastructure that make our research production possible.
At the University of Kansas, where I work, these indirect costs amount to about one-third of the total expense of a research project, which again is at a rate negotiated with the government and which is vital to the university’s ability to function as a research institution. Universities function based on budget revenues that come from various mixtures of state appropriations, tuition, gifts, endowment, etc., but one crucial element is those indirect costs that accompany research grants. About 21% of KU’s budget comes from grants and contracts; other universities may be lower or higher.
Back during his first term, President Trump was apparently looking around the government budget, trying to find money for his “wall” along the Mexican border, and was impressed by the amount of money in the budget of the National Institutes of Health that went to indirect costs, rather than directly supporting research. Now, in his second term, those indirect costs are apparently a prime target in Trump’s cost-cutting rampage… the new Trump-era “DOGE” policy is that all NIH indirect cost rates have been cut to 15% (down from the 40-60% that is normal), although this reduction is being debated in the courts. The simple truth is that indirect costs are not waste, but rather go to pay very real expenses associated with universities supporting research: if the US is to be a leader in research worldwide, then this is a massive slash to its research budget.
What happens if President Trump’s assault on indirect costs in federal research grants continues? US universities will, quite simply, face massive budget shortfalls, on the order of 10-15% across the board. Not only will these budget cuts affect research per se, but they will also affect the universities themselves: research grants contribute significantly to fostering a rich educational environment for our students. State governments are unlikely to respond by increasing their contributions to higher education budgets, and tuition rates are already far too high, creating barriers for many promising students who would like to study. So the effect will be that US universities decline, in the short time because of budget shortfalls, which will affect the programs that they are able to offer. In the long term, as US universities decline, so also will the US’s prominence as a world leader in research.
Do we have to be #1 worldwide in terms of research? Is that so significant? Maybe not—I have many great colleagues in China and elsewhere, and I have learned an incredible amount from them. So more power to the world scientific community. But what happened to Trump’s idea that his second term would make America great again?
TD3: THE
DE LONG STRAIT?
6 February 2025
The name change from “Gulf of Mexico” to “Gulf of America” seems to be a done deal now, notwithstanding the horror of geographers and historians. Shortly after taking office again, on 8 January 2025, President Trump said, in a press conference, that the name of the Gulf would be changed to the Gulf of America because “we do most of the work there and it’s ours.” On this basis, in spite of the fact that Mexico has more than 2000 miles of Gulf coastline compared with only a bit more than 1600 miles for the United States, President Trump feels that the name change is more than appropriate.
(I do need to point out that the original “Gulf of America” was a remote bay in the Russian Far East. It was named after the ship “America” that carried its Russian discoverers there in the 1850s. However, it was renamed by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in the 1970s to a more appropriate, Russian, name, Zaliv Nakhodka.)
Given that President Trump has moved forward with renaming the Gulf of Mexico, we might think a bit about the set of placenames of major bodies of water that surround the United States. The Great Lakes are named Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior; we could certainly think of some reasons to dislike some of those, as all are either Native American names or of French derivation. Another target might be the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, as they come from Greek mythology and a Portuguese misnomer (it apparently seemed like a peaceful sea when Ferdinand Magellan first sailed it in 1520), respectively. In this essay, however, I would like to address a particularly disturbing name for a body of water that adjoins the United States, the Bering Strait.
Vitus Bering was Danish, born in 1681 (he would die in 1741, but more about that in a bit). He was a cartographer and explorer, and became an officer in the Russian Navy early in the 1700s. In the course of two expeditions from the North Pacific Ocean northward into what is now called the Bering Strait and the Arctic Ocean beyond, Bering mapped and explored large swaths of these remote parts of Russia. However, on the second expedition, after documenting the fact that Siberia and Alaska were separate land masses, terrible conditions forced Bering to take refuge on an island in the Commander Islands group. There, Bering and quite a number of his ship’s crew died, perhaps of scurvy.
So, what to do about this body of water just west of Alaska? I think that we should take this name back from Denmark and Russia, and change it to something much more American. The “Strait of America” doesn’t work for me, though: too many U.S. Americans probably don’t know the difference between a gulf and a strait, so we have to diversify our use of names a bit, no?
I will argue for the De Long Strait as a better name. Why? A bit after Bering’s expeditions, Lieutenant Commander George W. De Long led the Jeannette Expedition of 1879–1881 in an effort to reach the North Pole via a novel route northward from the Pacific Ocean, passing between easternmost Asia and westernmost North America. Although the Jeannette got snared in ice, and eventually sank, the effort was nothing short of heroic, and achieved what success it achieved thanks to the heroism of De Long. De Long died of starvation in a remote river valley in northern Siberia.
In sum, the Bering Strait was named after a foreigner, and indeed after an officer in the Russian Navy. Worse still, President Trump has underlined on many occasions how much he dislikes “losers” of any sort, and particularly in the military. Bering was just such a loser, dying for lack of vitamin C in his diet. As such, I will advocate strenuously for renaming the Bering Strait to something more appropriate. While it is true that De Long also died a “loser” (like Bering did), at least it was to starvation rather than to scurvy. And in this age of “America First,” it is high time that we recognize the De Long Strait as a better name.
TD2: WHAT’S GOING ON WITH THE TRUMP “RESEARCH GRANT PAUSE”?
30 January 2025
The US government gives out billions of dollars in research grants to various sectors, including academia. These grants are a crucial element in how our government invests in research and development across all of science, both basic and applied. These grants, in my own case, currently range from mapping risk of tick-borne disease across the Great Plains, to cataloguing the diversity of African plants, to understanding how many viruses are “out there” hosted by mammals of the world. More generally, however, US government research grants are how the US stays a world leader in science.
The new Trump administration, however, has issued a series of executive orders, which have led the major science funding agencies to “pause” research grant activities. That is, I just got an email from the Director of the National Science Foundation to all NSF grant leaders, indicating that “all review panels, new awards, and all payments of funds under open awards will be paused as the agency conducts the required reviews and analysis.” Why? Well, later in the same message, it is indicated that “In particular, this may include, but is not limited to conferences, trainings, workshops, considerations for staffing and participant selection, and any other grant activity that uses or promotes the use of DEIA principles and frameworks or violates Federal anti-discrimination laws.”
A bit of background on how the National Science Foundation gives out grants. Proposals for funding from NSF are judged on two criteria, which are to be given equal weight in proposal evaluations. These criteria are (1) “intellectual merit,” which is whether the proposal lays out a solid case that the project proposed will do interesting, useful, and novel science, and (2) “broader impacts.” Broader impacts are all about ways in which the project can be designed to have positive effects on science more generally. A common focus of broader impacts in NSF proposals has been on opening avenues for broadening participation in science, particularly among groups of people that are underrepresented in scientific endeavors.
The sad truth is that academia has not had this focus on broadening participation in the past. As a consequence, nationwide, for example, only 43.3% of employed professors are women, while 56.7% are men. That is quite different from the balanced gender composition of the broader US population. The disparities are even stronger in terms of representation of groups such as LGBTQIA+, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Native Americans. So “diversity” is not about some crazy liberal scheme to favor immigrants or anything like that, but rather just to get the world of science and the academy to look more like how the American populace looks.
No indication is given as to how long this “research grant pause” will last: already, it has been challenged in the courts, stopped by judges’ decisions, and partially rescinded. No doubt, of course, the Trump administration will try again, and will come out with something similar (maybe slightly less problematic), and some of this anti-“diversity” thinking will infuse into how this country operates.
To me, science is a world of marvels, in which people pursue their curiosity and explore how the world works. Sharing these marvels with a broad swath of humanity seems to me to be the neatest thing possible. Maybe that’s why I became an educator in science. These ideas of stopping anything having to do with diversity (in this case in science) seem to me to be unjust, unkind, and certainly nothing that sounds Christian. How about let’s “make American great,” and let everyone into the science club?
TD1: A NEW MAP OF THE UNITED STATES
8 January 2025
President-elect Trump has been making statements about his plans or wishes to rename geographic features. First came his idea to return “Denali” to its earlier “Mount McKinley,” notwithstanding the fact that the Koyukon (a Native American group) had referred to the peak as "Denali" since well before the birth of McKinley in the 19th century. More recently, he has stated his wish to rename the “Gulf of Mexico” as the “Gulf of America,” regardless of the fact that Mexico was a named place bordering that water body when the southeastern parts of what is now the USA were not yet part of the USA. Trump seems to be offended by geographic features relevant to the USA having names that are not derived from good, pure American English.
Given all of these plans coming from the future President of the United States, I have a modest proposal for the USA. We have a whole bunch of state names that are also more than a bit offensive. Think about this:
Alabama is a Native American name, as are Alaska (though perhaps modified a bit by being stated in Russian!), Arkansas, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. For that matter, Indiana is derived from Latin for “Land of the Indians.” Given the Denali precedent, we cannot accept the continued use of these names.
And, of course, our state names should be in English. Arizona is a Spanish word, as are California, Colorado, Florida, Montana, and Nevada. Vermont is from a French word. Hawaii is (obviously) from Hawaiian, and Rhode Island is from a Dutch word. While we are at it, New Hampshire is named after the English county of Hampshire, and New Jersey after one of the British Channel Islands. New Mexico is (obviously) named after old Mexico. We cannot be honoring these varied references to other cultures or other parts of the world.
Then we get to the really bad ones. Delaware was named for a French first Governor-General of the Colony of Virginia, and Georgia was named after King George II of Great Britain. Louisiana was named in honor of King Louis XIV of France, and Maryland after Queen Henrietta Maria (wife of King Charles I) of England. New York was named after King James II of England (then the Duke of York). North and South Carolina were named after kings Charles I and II of England. Then, in a rather prurient reference, Virginia (and, of course, West Virginia) is named in honor of the virginity of Queen Elizabeth I of England, who never married.
We are down to just five states that might have acceptable names. Pennsylvania after Admiral William Penn, the father of the state’s founder—but the elder Penn was a member of the British military, so forget that one. Oregon’s name is of controversial derivation, but it was first so named by a British army officer in a petition to King George III, so forget that one too. Maine’s name might refer to the idea of being the mainland, but probably comes from the French province of Maine or the English village of Broadmayne. And the name Idaho may have been made up as a practical joke, but was supposedly from a word in a Native American language
So that leaves just Washington: George Washington, often termed the father of this country. However, Washington was originally a commander in a regiment in service of the British colony of Virginia before he went on to more American occupations. And what is more, the name Washington comes from the town of Washington in County Durham, England.
For that matter, the whole country is named the United States of America, and the name America is in honor of Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer. What is more, the first maps of America show South America and the Caribbean, so it wasn’t even “our” America that was given the name of that Italian guy.
In sum, here is my proposal for revised place names for US states. (For clarity, these are integer numbers assigned randomly to the 50 states. All historical details cited above were cribbed from various sources on the Internet, to give full credit.)
