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There's a lot going on in the world right now ... here's an update

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Trump’s Harvard Scandal Gets Worse

A couple of days ago, I wrote about the Trump administration’s war on Harvard … well, it’s not going away.

The Trump administration is escalating its campaign against Harvard University — and looking for new ways to bring the storied institution to heel.

The White House convened officials from nearly a dozen agencies on Wednesday to brainstorm additional punitive measures, according to one administration official and a second person familiar with the meeting, who were granted anonymity to share details. The administration official said that forthcoming actions are expected from the State, Treasury, Health and Human Services and Justice departments, among others, and could happen as early as next month.

And to make matters worse, there is this quote from a White House press spokesperson.

“The latest moves against Harvard are truly just scratching the surface,” said White House spokesperson Harrison Fields, without specifying what else the administration has to bring Harvard to heel. “Harvard decided to litigate this on MSNBC, the now defunded NPR, and the ratings-disaster CNN instead of acting like adults like many of their competitors have done and engaging in fruitful conversations and actions that would have saved them from their self-inflicted demise.”

What the actual fuck is happening? The White House is publicly boasting about its efforts to punitively target a private educational institution, which, as far as I can tell, is an absolutely egregious abuse of executive branch power. I know this isn’t the same thing as Joe Biden not recognizing George Clooney at a fundraiser, but that Trump’s war on Harvard isn’t the most significant political scandal in America right now is, itself, a massive scandal. We’ve become so inured to the Trump administration's law-breaking and corruption that behavior, which in any other situation would be considered outrageous and illegal, now barely registers.

Bending The Knee Is A Bad Idea

Photo by Naassom Azevedo on Unsplash

So all those law firms that made deals with Trump are paying the price.

Support for the law firms that didn’t make deals has been growing inside the offices of corporate executives. At least 11 big companies are moving work away from law firms that settled with the administration or are giving—or intend to give—more business to firms that have been targeted but refused to strike deals, according to general counsels at those companies and other people familiar with those decisions.

… In interviews, general counsels expressed concern about whether they could trust law firms that struck deals to fight for them in court and in negotiating big deals if they weren’t willing to stand up for themselves against Trump. The general counsel of a manufacturer of medical supplies said that if firms facing White House pressure “don’t have a hard line,” they don’t have any line at all.

Six months ago, political pundits were telling us that with Donald Trump’s election, there’d been a vibe shift in American politics. Companies began scrapping their diversity programs, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talked about wanting more “masculine energy” in the workplace, and Wall Streeet bankers extolled the fact that they could now use the words “retard” and “pussy” in the workplace without fear of getting cancelled. Granted, there is still evidence of that shift, but the backlash hitting those law firms that bent their knees to Trump is a good reminder that people tend to prefer fighters to supplicants.

It’s also the reason that Harvard is unlikely to give in to Trump. Getting out from underneath the White House’s thumb will not be worth the public relations price that the university will pay.

What’s Going On

• It used to be that taking a wrong turn into Canada was just an annoying diversion. These days, it could mean ending up in ICE custody.

• The Trump administration is ending multiple HIV vaccine studies, which could set back efforts at developing an HIV vaccine by years.

• “Halting PEPFAR, which provided about 20 million people with HIV antiretroviral drugs at a microscopic cost, has already killed an estimated 54,500 adults and 5,800 children. Many, many more will follow. Roughly 1,500 babies have been born HIV-positive every day since January 21, because Musk cut off their mothers’ medication."

• As my friend and colleague Anthony Fisher points out, the Trump administration is declaring war on free speech.

• Ukraine launched a massive drone strike against Russian airbases, destroying more than 40 military aircraft.

• The Trump administration knew most of the Venezuelans that it deported to a Salvadoran prison had no U.S. convictions .. I know I’m as shocked as you are.

• Once again, Jews are being attacked in America … this time in Boulder, Colorado.

• Robert Keohane and Joe Nye write about the end of the long American century.

• There’s a thing called the Taco Bell 50K, and it’s worse than you think.

• Last week, Iowa Senator Joni Ernst told a raucous town hall that “we all are going to die,” in response to a question about Medicaid cuts in the House-passed GOP budget. Over the weekend, she posted a mocking video in which she said, “I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth. So I apologize, and I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.” Additionally, it appears that the video was filmed in a cemetery. Ernst, who is up for reelection next year, has also allegedly been sleeping with a top Air Force lobbyist. It should make for an interesting reelection fight next year.

• Donald Trump’s lock screen is a picture of Donald Trump.

  

• In related news, the president of the United States shared a post on Truth Social that suggests Joe Biden was a robot.

  

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