Metropolitan Museum of Art No Longer Accepting Gifts from the Sackler Family!

 

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Sackler Family Donation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Dear Commons Community,

The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced yesterday that it would stop accepting gifts from members of the Sackler family linked to the maker of OxyContin, severing ties between one of the world’s most prestigious museums and one of its most prolific philanthropic dynasties.

The decision was months in the making, and followed steps by other museums, including the Tate Modern in London and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, to distance themselves from the family behind Purdue Pharma. Yesterday, the American Museum of Natural History said that it, too, had ceased taking Sackler donations.  As reported by the New York Times:

“The moves reflect the growing outrage over the role the Sacklers may have played in the opioid crisis, as well as an energized activist movement that is starting to force museums to reckon with where some of their money comes from.

“The museum takes a position of gratitude and respect to those who support us, but on occasion, we feel it’s necessary to step away from gifts that are not in the public interest, or in our institution’s interest,” said Daniel H. Weiss, the president of the Met. “That is what we’re doing here.”

The Met’s relationship with the Sacklers goes back decades, and one of its biggest attractions, the Temple of Dendur, sits in the glass-enclosed Sackler Wing. Mr. Weiss said the museum had no plans to remove the name, as some protesters have demanded.

But its decision to stop accepting future gifts from Sacklers connected to Purdue Pharma, or their foundations, could spur other cultural institutions to follow suit. The family has given tens of millions of dollars and put its name in or on museums, universities and medical schools in the United States, England and Israel.

 “An organization of the Met’s reputational heft sets standards in the field,” said Maxwell L. Anderson, a longtime leader of museums.

In the New York area alone, in addition to the Met, the Guggenheim and the Natural History museum, the Metropolitan Opera and the Dia Art Foundation are among the institutions that have received substantial gifts from the Sacklers. Columbia University, which has the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology, has said it would not accept further donations for the time being.

In a statement, the Sackler family members with ties to Purdue Pharma said that “while the allegations against our family are false and unfair, we understand that accepting gifts at this time would put the Met in a difficult position.”

Tony

 

Elizabeth Warren Slams Fox News as “a hate-for-profit racket that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists.”

Dear Commons Community,

The Associated Press is reporting that Democrat Elizabeth Warren is saying no to a televised town hall on Fox News and slamming the network as “a hate-for-profit racket that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists.”

Several of Warren’s rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination have already held or agreed to hold town halls with Fox News, including Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg.

But Warren tweeted Tuesday that while the network’s reporters are “welcome to come to my events just like any other outlet,” the senator from Massachusetts would not participate in a town hall that would help Fox “make even more money adding our valuable audience to their ratings numbers.”

A spokeswoman for Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez earlier this year restricted Fox News from hosting an official debate for the party, questioning the network’s ability to provide a “fair and neutral” forum.

Ratings data showed that Sen. Sanders drew more viewers to his Fox News town hall than he did for similar forums on MSNBC and CNN.

Tony

Alabama Senate Passes Nation’s Strictest Abortion Bill in the Country!

Dear Commons Community,.

Alabama is one signature away from enacting a near-total ban on abortions after the state Senate passed a controversial bill that makes performing the procedure a felony offense.

Under the Human Life Protection Act, doctors who perform an abortion at any stage of pregnancy could face a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison. The only exception in the legislation is in cases where the life of the pregnant woman is at risk.

 The bill passed yesterday, 25 to 6.

The Alabama House passed the same bill late last month. If Gov. Kay Ivey (R) signs it into law ― she has not publicly made up her mind ― it would become effective within six months.

“Women in this state didn’t deserve this,” said Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton in a fiery speech on Tuesday evening. “The state of Alabama ought to be ashamed of itself.”

 The Senate’s passage of the bill came just days after chaos broke out on the Senate floor over the legislation. Last Thursday, Republican and Democratic lawmakers engaged in a screaming match after some GOP lawmakers attempted to remove the exemptions for rape and incest without holding an official vote. Ultimately, the Democrats’ resistance was not enough. The upheaval over the rape and incest exemptions led to the Senate vote being postponed until Tuesday.

The Human Life Protection Act notes that Alabama has never repealed a state law criminalizing abortion, but because of the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, that law is unenforceable.

State Rep. Terri Collins (R), who sponsored the new legislation, has been outspoken about her intent to change that.

“This bill is very simple,” she told The Washington Post. “It’s not about birth control or the morning after the pill. It’s about not allowing abortion once the woman is pregnant. The entire bill was designed to overturn [Roe v. Wade] and allow states to decide what is best for them.”

Eric Johnston, who drafted the legislation as president of the Alabama Pro-Life Coalition, said he was confident the governor would sign the bill. It is his hope that the law will be challenged, he said, and will eventually be reviewed by the Supreme Court.

He applauded the legislature for not adding any exceptions to the bill.

“It is a traumatic event, and I don’t want to diminish how serious it is,” he said, referring to rape and incest. “But if we are arguing personhood then it does not matter how a child is conceived.”

Reproductive rights groups immediately protested the bill’s passage, calling the measure blatantly unconstitutional. It is believed to be the strictest abortion restriction in the country.

“In passing this atrocious bill, Alabama’s state legislators have shown their complete disregard for the U.S. Constitution and the needs of their constituents,” said Katherine Ragsdale, CEO of the National Abortion Federation, in a statement. “Anti-choice politicians have once again demonstrated that they would rather advance their extreme personal agenda than ensure the safety and well-being of their constituents.”

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said the state should expect a lawsuit if the bill is signed into law. 

“Alabama’s bill is the anti-abortion opposition’s true agenda on full display — ban abortion, punish women, jail doctors, and shame people seeking care,” Kolbi-Molinas said. “We will not stand by while politicians endanger the lives of women and doctors for political gain.”

Allison Coleman, 31, a sexual assault survivor from Birmingham, Alabama, watched the debate on the abortion ban in an overflow room at the statehouse. Her name was brought up by Democrats an example of the type of victim who would be denied an abortion under the new legislation. 

Coleman told HuffPost that she was inspired by the passion of the Alabama Democrats, but “horrified and alienated by the heartlessness of the right.”

Alabama has only three abortion clinics left in the state.”

It will be interesting to watch how this bill plays out.  First, if Governor Ivey signs it. Second, whether it will stand up to judicial scrutiny and end up in the US Supreme Court as a challenge to Roe v. Wade.

Tony

P.S.:  A few hours after I made this posting, Gov. Ivey signed this abortion bill making it a felony in Alabama for a doctor to perform an abortion in nearly all cases.

 

 

Trump Tower is now one of the least desirable buildings in Manhattan!

Dear Commons Community,

For many New Yorkers, Trump Tower once represented the pinnacle of luxury living.

Celebrities such as Steven Spieberg and Johnny Carson called the tower home.

But now, according to Bloomberg, it ranks as one of the least desirable luxury properties in Manhattan.

The name Trump has driven down the value of the condos within the Tower…Bloomberg reports that if you owned a condo, some sales have led to a 20 percent loss after adjusting for inflation.

Just to put that number in perspective, according to PropertyShark, just 0.23 percent of homes in Manhattan over the past two years sold at a loss.

The commercial area of the building is struggling as well.  Real estate broker data reveals that more than 42,000 square feet of office space remain vacant.

Tony

The Chronicle of Higher Education Report on Public-Private Partnerships (P3s) and Outsourcing!

Dear Commons Community,

The Chronicle of Higher Education has recently released a special report entitled, “The Outsourced University: How Public-Private Partnerships Can Benefit Your Campus,” that provides an all-in-one primer on public-private partneships ( P3s) . The following is excerpted from that report.

“Higher-education institutions once handled almost all the functions necessary to enroll, educate, and graduate students. They built and maintained residence halls, sports complexes, and rec centers. They operated their own power plants, laid cable, and pushed steam through underground pipes. They ran kitchens to feed thousands of people, opened stores to sell toiletries, snacks, books, and memorabilia. Security, parking, marketing … the list of duties beyond the classroom goes on.

Today, financial and political pressures are leading more institutions to focus on the academic core — teaching and research — and to transfer much of the rest of their operations to companies that specialize in those areas. Enter the public-private partnership: a kind of marriage between an institution and a private company, in which the company often finances, designs, builds, and operates a college “asset,” as industry insiders call the outsourced facilities and services. Those projects can be fraught with problems over the control, revenue, and risk of a particular campus activity or asset.

While P3s, as the partnerships are known, have long been used to build and operate student housing, they are increasingly being developed now for other kinds of campus infrastructure, like hotels and arenas. And some people see P3s expanding into activities that are closer to the academic core, like online program management and advising. Here are two case studies of successful partnerships.

The Hotel at the University of Maryland at College Park

The strip of Baltimore Avenue that runs in front of the University of Maryland at College Park has long had its share of eyesores. With its cluster of car-oriented, fast-food restaurants and auto-repair shops, the community didn’t exactly bring a shine to the institution. The university has longed to change that.

A cornerstone of that plan has been the Hotel at the University of Maryland, the first hotel to open near the campus since the 1960s. The project was the culmination of a series of partnerships among the university, its foundation, a development company connected to the university, the local government, and a private developer.

The Terrapin Development Company, created by the foundation and the university, was charged with transforming 17 properties that the university had acquired on the strip. In the case of the hotel, the university transferred that property to the development company, putting the land on the tax rolls and easing negotiations with the city.

Terrapin Development also found an unusual P3 partner: The Southern Management Corporation, a company that builds and operates apartment buildings and hotels in the mid-Atlantic region, was owned by a Maryland alumnus, David Hillman.

Hillman was willing to put up all the investment money for the project — $180 million — without help from the university or the state. The university has a lease on the land and will get a percentage of the gross revenue from the hotel, which includes restaurants, a spa, a fitness center, and meeting space.

“Obviously, because we share in the gross revenue, we have an incentive for the hotel to continue to do well,” said Ken Ulman, president of Terrapin Development. But he noted that the university is not responsible for the performance of the hotel.

The hotel, which opened in 2017, has already spurred nearby development, also in the form of partnerships: WeWork, a company that develops and runs shared working spaces, opened a location behind the hotel, its first on a college campus. And nearby the Capital One Tech Incubator — a partnership between the financial company and the university — opened late last year. Capital One gave about $6 million to the university to support laboratories, faculty positions, and the creation of the incubator; the company may benefit from access to student and faculty work in the space.

A P3 Boosts Academics at Concordia U. at St. Paul

Concordia University at St. Paul has a range of partnerships, but one of the most prominent is its relationship with Learning House, a company that offers services in academic program management.

Eric LaMott, provost and chief operating officer of the Minnesota university, said colleges always believe they can handle the administration of academic programs by themselves. But the complexity of the sector and the competitive pressures within it have grown significantly in recent years, and colleges have trouble getting the right people to spin up new programs.

“I tell everybody I am focused entirely on talent acquisition,” he said. “In some categories where I can’t get good talent, I’d rather put the tasks on the shoulders of another professional group and say, You’re responsible for achieving these outcomes.”

Concordia formed its partnership with Learning House in 2012. The company works on branding, marketing, recruitment, and retention for the university’s adult undergraduate programs and many master’s programs, both on the ground and online. (While the company helps recruit students, LaMott stressed that admissions decisions are always made by the university.)

The company can also identify academic programs that could have potential for the university, and help get them off the ground. For example, Learning House identified a regional need for a computer-science program, then went to industry experts to find out what skills employers wanted applicants to have. It provided Concordia with content and resources from its technology boot-camp programs, and faculty members used that information to build lesson plans for the new degree program.

Attending to the elements of partnership is among the most important aspects of the relationship, LaMott said. That has required the university to break down some of the operational walls between departments on the campus, and to align their duties with Learning House.

Administrators have pushed staff members at Concordia to accelerate their responses to the company and developments in their shared projects. Given that its activities affect students directly, a failure by Learning House would reflect poorly on the institution as well.

“This is not a vendor,” said LaMott. “This is a partner and a relationship, because they are holding our entire brand in their hands.” He sees Learning House as a kind of investment firm.

“They’re investing in this institution,” he said, “expecting that we’re going to be able to return that investment.”

P3s and outsourcing will play a more significant role in higher education’s future.  The Chronicle report provides useful information for those contemplating working with a outside provider.

Tony

 

Swarthmore to Ban All Fraternities and Sororities on Campus after Protests!

Dear Commons Community,

Valerie A. Smith, Swarthmore College’s president, said in a written statement on Friday that, based on a  task force’s recommendations, the college would no longer allow Greek life on its campus and would end the practice of leasing buildings to student groups.  The ban comes after recent student protests led to the disbanding of two fraternities. Phi Psi and Delta Upsilon announced last week that they would shut down after the publication of racist, sexist, and homophobic documents, which appeared to have been written by members of Phi Psi, led to a four-day sit-in by student activists.

The two fraternities disbanded before the task force could complete its work. But the protests didn’t stop there. Unsatisfied with how the college had handled the situation, another group of students started a hunger strike.

The showdown highlighted the conflict between student activists demanding immediate action and the common tendency of administrators to act through formal processes.

 “The voluntary disbanding of Phi Psi and Delta Upsilon reflects a broader change in student needs and desires,” Smith said. “Exclusive, dues-paying social organizations no longer effectively meet the needs of our residential liberal-arts environment.”

“I recognize that, for generations, membership in Greek-letter organizations has been a meaningful part of the Swarthmore experience for many in our community,” Smith said. “We now have many more initiatives designed to help us achieve this goal. The college is committed to providing opportunities for all students to flourish and feel at home here.”

As President Smith said in her letter, Swarthmore will be better off for this.

Tony

 

 

More Troubles at the National Rifle Association!

Dear Commons Community,

Last month the National Rifle Association showed that there was a deep rift within its leadership between former NRA President Oliver North and CEO Wayne LaPierre.  A series of documents posted anonymously online over the weekend and verified by both The Daily Beast and The Wall Street Journal show the inner machinations of a group plagued by deep financial troubles to the tune of $24 million.

In a letter North and NRA official Richard Childress sent to top NRA officials last month, North said he was “deeply concerned about the extraordinary legal fees the NRA has incurred” from attorney Bill Brewer.

“The amount appears to be approximately $24 million over a 13-month period,” the nine-page letter  said the gun group was burning nearly $100,000 every day, “seven days a week, every day of every month,” on paying the attorney’s law firm.

“The Brewer invoices are draining NRA cash at a mindboggling speed,” the letter said.

LaPierre, meanwhile, billed the group’s ad agency Ackerman McQueen for more than half a million dollars over the years, letters show. His purchases included a $39,000 shopping spree at a Beverly Hills store.

The other letter asked Mr. LaPierre for detailed records backing up $267,460.53 of travel and rent expenses that Mr. LaPierre billed to Ackerman, which said it in turn billed to the NRA.

They included a trip to Italy and Budapest in 2014, where the listed expenses included $6,500 for lodging at the Four Seasons hotel; $2,400 for a stay at the luxury Castadiva Resort on Italy’s Lake Como; $17,550 for “Air Charter” between Budapest and the Italian city of Brescia; and nearly $18,300 for a car and driver in both countries.

There was also a charge of $1,096 for “Frankfurt Airport Assistance.”

In a statement to The Daily Beast, new NRA President Carolyn Meadows downplayed the money issues, and said it was a “pathetic” that someone would resort to leaking the documents.

“This is stale news — being recycled by those with personal agendas,” she said in a statement given to the publication. “In any event, the entire board is fully aware of these issues. We have full confidence in Wayne LaPierre and the work he’s doing in support of the NRA and its members. It is troubling and a bit pathetic that some people would resort to leaking information to advance their agendas. This has no bearing on the board’s support of Wayne — and the work the NRA does to protect America’s constitutional freedoms.”

The NRA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Brewer’s firm may continue to drain the gun group of money as he represents it in its current federal litigation against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other state officials, as well as a separate investigation by New York’s attorney general.

And it may have more coming its way: Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) called on the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the NRA’s tax-exempt status following a report from The Trace that showed the organization’s shady business deals.

There is no group more deserving of fiscal disaster than the NRA but I cannot foresee big conservative funders allowing its demise.

Tony

 

Blue Moon – Jeff Bezos’ New Lunar Lander to Put People on the Moon!

 

Dear Commons Community,

On Thursday, Jeff Bezos  unveiled a brand new rocket engine and a mockup of a lunar lander he wants to use to shuttle people and cargo to the moon. He also spoke about one day creating giant orbital structures that could host self-sustaining colonies, and his dream of people living and working among the stars.

But he did offer insight into Blue Origin’s lunar lander plans, which could carry supplies to the moon in a few years and eventually put people back on its surface for the first time in nearly half a century. Its first mission is slated for 2024.

“Big things start small,” Bezos told a crowd of reporters and space industry folks at an event in Washington D.C. on Thursday. “It’s time to go back to the moon, this time to stay.”

In his mind, developing a new lunar lander — or Blue Moon, as the spacecraft is called — is the next piece of infrastructure needed to expand human presence in the cosmos. It could help open the door for “thousands of entrepreneurs” to create new space businesses.

Bezos’ Blue Moon project is already years in the making. Thursday’s event was a sign that he and his rocket company, Blue Origin, are dead serious about the moon. And they intend to get there soon.

The event also gave people a glimpse of a to-scale model of Blue Moon, and it was the first public hurrah in years for a space company that typically avoids the spotlight.

This seems optimistic to me but good luck anyhow, Mr. Bezos!

Tony

 

Trump Called Democratic Candidate Pete Buttigieg Alfred E. Neuman – Buttigieg Responded with Class!

Dear Commons Community,

President Donald Trump came up with a nickname yesterday for Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg: Alfred E. Neuman — the freckle-faced, gap-toothed nerdy cover boy of Mad Magazine. But Buttigieg came back with his own zinger, slying dinging the 72-year-old president’s age, saying the outdated reference was a “generational thing.”

Trump told Politico Friday that “Alfred E. Neuman cannot become president of the United States,” when he was asked in a phone interview what he thought of the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

Asked later about his new moniker, Buttigieg, 37, said he had “to Google” the reference to the mascot of a humor magazine launched in 1952.

“I guess it’s just a generational thing. I didn’t get the reference. It’s kind of funny, I guess,” said Buttigieg. 

He added that he was “surprised” Trump wasn’t “spending more time trying to salvage this China deal.”

Trump loves degrading his political opponents with nicknames.  He should look in the mirror at the fat, orange-haired clown he has become. 

What, me worry!

Tony

 

Trump’s New Tariffs on China are the Same as New Taxes on Americans!

Image result for chinese goods

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, President Trump imposed new tariffs of 25 percent on billions of dollars of goods imported from China.  The new tariffs are the same as new taxes to be paid by Americans for products such as electronic equipment, appliances, toys and textiles.  At the same time, the agricultural sector in the United States will see their produce subject to  retaliatory tariffs by the Chinese.  The President’s move yesterday is not good for American consumers or for American agriculture.  The New York Times has an editorial (see below) this morning analyzing the new tariffs.

Tony

—————————————————————————–

New York Times

Trump’s Tariffs Are a New Tax on Americans

President Trump is undermining the credibility of his trade policies by falsely claiming that China is paying the bill.

By The Editorial Board

May 10, 2019

President Trump’s new tariffs on Chinese imports, which took effect at 12:01 a.m. on Friday, are taxes that will be paid by Americans. That is a simple fact, and it remains true no matter how many times Mr. Trump insists the money will come from China.

Mr. Trump’s latest escalation of his trade fight with China is a 25 percent tariff, or import tax, on products that compose about one third of China’s exports to the United States, including Chinese bicycles, circuit boards and wooden doors. The tariff rate on those goods was previously 10 percent. Mr. Trump also has threatened to impose the 25 percent rate on virtually all products imported from China — more than $500 billion in goods last year.

Mr. Trump could make an honest case for this tax increase. He could argue that Americans must endure higher prices because China will suffer too — while China does not bear the direct cost of the tariffs, it is likely to suffer a loss of sales — and the United States needs that leverage as it presses China to change its economic policies.

Instead, Mr. Trump continues to repeat the false claim that the money will come from China, even though he has been told repeatedly that this claim has no basis in fact. He is willfully peddling a falsehood for political gain.

The mechanics of tariffs are not complicated: The government sends a tax bill to the company that brings goods into the country. Most of those tax bills go to American companies, often import firms that specialize in dealing with the customs process.

It doesn’t really matter who gets the bill, however. The important question is where the money to pay it comes from. And in broad terms, there are only two options: It comes either from the firms that make, move and sell the products or from the pockets of the buyers.

Consider the case of washing machines. In January 2018, Mr. Trump imposed a tariff on washing machines, initially at a rate of 20 percent. The tariff caused a 12 percent increase in the price of washing machines, according to a study by economists at the Federal Reserve and the University of Chicago. It also resulted in a similar increase in the price of dryers. Americans responded by buying more domestic washing machines, creating about 1,800 new jobs. But the cost of the tariffs was borne entirely by American consumers. The study estimated that each of those new jobs came at a cost of more than $815,000.

The Trump administration has tried to focus the China tariffs on the industrial supply chain: products used in making other goods, rather than products sold directly to consumers. That means much of the cost initially is absorbed by faceless corporations.

But the bottom line remains either lower profits or higher prices.

Some of the money could, in theory, be squeezed from Chinese manufacturers. But a pair of recent studies by prominent academics, including the chief economist at the World Bank, have concluded that the full cost of the Trump tariffs is being paid here in the United States, although China has suffered a loss of access to the American market.

One of the studies concluded that the cost of the tariffs has fallen disproportionately on the parts of the country that have supported Mr. Trump most strongly, in part because China and other nations subjected to tariffs have targeted their retaliatory tariffs at agricultural products and other goods produced in those parts of the country.

The cost of a tax is not just the money extracted from the private sector but also the disruption of economic activity. Here, too, the tariffs are proving painful. The second study estimated that tariffs were extracting $3 billion a month from American companies and consumers — and causing an additional $1.4 billion a month in lost economic activity.

Mr. Trump’s tariffs also have prompted China to retaliate, and that is causing particular pain for Midwestern farmers who have lost a major market for their crops.

Mr. Trump tweeted on Friday that the federal government would collect $100 billion in tariff revenue and that he would use some of the money to purchase American agricultural products, which would then be shipped to “poor & starving countries.” The rest of the money, he said, could be used for “Infrastructure, Health care or anything else.”

It’s a good idea to raise taxes to pay for foreign aid, infrastructure and health care.

But a tariff is a consumption tax, much like a sales tax, and such taxes tend to be regressive, meaning they cost lower-income families a larger share of their income than they cost upper-income families. There are better ways to raise the money. For example, the ill-considered tax cuts for the wealthy that Mr. Trump pushed through Congress in 2017 could be reversed.

Moreover, there is growing reason to doubt that tariffs are serving Mr. Trump’s stated purpose of persuading China to change its trade policies. There is widespread agreement, both in the United States and among America’s allies, that China is engaged in unfair practices, such as state-subsidized manufacturing, theft of intellectual property and both formal and informal constraints on foreign businesses. Those are real problems, and enforceable commitments to enact reforms could deliver significant economic and environmental benefits. Mr. Trump’s tariffs could yet prove a painful success story.

But the cost of Mr. Trump’s approach has just gone up: Americans will be paying higher prices on a wide range of goods. And Mr. Trump — who famously declared in March 2018 that “trade wars are good, and easy to win” — has yet to show he can strike a deal.