Mitch McConnell

Dear Commons Community,

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced his intention to step down from Senate leadership in November. Speaking from the Senate floor yesterday, McConnell grew emotional and reflected on his age and the direction of his party under Donald Trump, the likely 2024 GOP presidential nominee. The Kentucky senator’s influence in his conference has waned in recent years and he has had several health scares that slowed him considerably.  As reported by The Hufffington Post and other media.

“Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time. I have many faults ― discerning Senate politics is not one of them,” the 82-year-old senator said on the floor.

“One of life’s underappreciated moments is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter. This will be my last term as Republican leader in the Senate,” he added.

McConnell was first elected to the upper chamber in 1984 during Reagan’s administration. He quickly moved up the ranks and became party leader in 2007 after Tennessee Sen. Bill Frist stepped down from the post, earning a reputation as a ruthless Machiavellian tactician. Last year, he fulfilled a longtime goal by becoming the longest-serving Senate leader in history.

The Kentucky Republican’s tenure as GOP leader has been extremely consequential. He reshaped the federal judiciary with hundreds of conservative judges, denied President Barack Obama the appointment of a Supreme Court justice, and helped Trump to appoint three conservative justices, shifting the balance of power on the high court for the first time in decades. The Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v. Wade in 2022 wouldn’t be possible without him, and conservatives are poised to win more legal victories in the years to come.

On the legislative front, there are few laws that Congress has passed in the past two decades that McConnell hasn’t shaped or influenced. He’s been one of the biggest opponents of campaign finance reform, arguing instead for more money in politics. He helped push through Trump’s 2017 tax cuts into law, backed Joe Biden’s infrastructure overhaul, and argued fiercely for U.S. aid to Ukraine and other allies abroad.

But a big part of McConnell’s legacy is his subservience to Trump, who has hurled racist attacks against Elaine Chao, his wife. Although he called Trump morally responsible for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, McConnell shielded the ex-president from being convicted in his second Senate impeachment trial, which would have barred Trump from being able to run for office again. There are now reports that he may consider endorsing Trump’s 2024 presidential run.

“He didn’t show the ultimate courage, which would have been to vote to convict and to find enough other senators so we that wouldn’t be back in this nightmare again with Donald Trump,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), an impeachment manager, told reporters when asked about McConnell’s decision on Wednesday.

It’s not clear yet who will replace McConnell as GOP leader. Possible successors include Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.), Senate GOP Conference Chair John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

All three men have different styles and relationships with Trump, the man who they will have to partner in office next year if he returns to the White House. Thune recently endorsed Trump after criticizing him frequently over tone and tactics. Barrasso is viewed as most aligned with Trump and the conservatives in the GOP conference. Cornyn is viewed as more of a dealmaker aligned with McConnell.

McConnell said Wednesday that he intends to serve out his current term until it ends in 2026.

“I still have enough gas in my tank to thoroughly disappoint my critics, and I intend to do so with all the enthusiasm with which they’ve become accustomed,” he said.

Depending upon who replaces McConnell, the entire tenor of the Senate might change!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Donald Trump has paid $392,000 to The New York Times to cover the legal costs from his failed lawsuit against the newspaper and its journalists over a 2018 investigation into his finances that included confidential tax records, a spokesman for the Times told CNN on Monday.

Trump was ordered to pay the money in January, more than eight months after Judge Robert R. Reed granted the Times’ motion to dismiss the case against it and its journalists, concluding the journalists’ conduct was protected by the New York Constitution.

Among the claims that Trump brought against the Times was the accusation that the journalists were liable for “tortious interference” in how they allegedly sought out his niece and caused her to allegedly breach a 2001 settlement contract with the Trump family, CNN previously reported.

The reporting series, authored by David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner, went on to win the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting.

Last year, the judge said he was dismissing the claim against the Times “because The Times’ purpose in reporting on a story of a high public interest constitutes justification as a matter of law.”

The judge pointed to recent amendments made to New York’s so-called anti-SLAPP law — which provides a mechanism for defendants to seek quick dismissal of lawsuits that target conduct protected by the First Amendment — in explaining why he was ordering the dismissal of the defendants and the payment of their attorneys’ fees.

A spokesman for the Times on Monday called the anti-SLAPP statute a “powerful force for protecting press freedom.”

“This decision shows that the state’s newly amended anti-SLAPP statute can be a powerful force for protecting press freedom,” Times spokesman Charlie Stadtlander said in a statement. “The court has sent a message to those who want to misuse the judicial system to try to silence journalists.”

This decision is surely a “SLAPP” at Trump!

Tony

Martin Turnbull

Dear Commons Community,

Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull described Donald Trump’s rhetoric around Russian President Vladimir Putin as that of an admiring “12-year-old boy.”

Speaking on Australian ABC’s “Q+A” show, Turnbull spoke about Trump’s interactions with Putin, saying they show the former president in “awe” of Putin.

“When you see Trump with Putin, as I have on a few occasions, he’s like the 12-year-old boy who goes to high school and meets the captain of the football team. ‘My hero,’” Turnbull said Monday. “It’s really creepy.” 

Turnbull’s criticism comes after the former president compared the recent death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to his own legal woes, and, unlike President Biden and other U.S. leaders, did not place blame on the Kremlin.

The Hill reached has out to Trump’s campaign for comment.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a recent interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, also voiced concerns about Trump’s view of Putin.

“I don’t think he understands that Putin will never stop,” Zelensky said.

Turnbull also warned that Trump winning reelection in November could pose a threat to national security. He said the former president — who is the front-runner in the GOP primary — is leading a party “no longer committed to democracy.”

“The scary thing is that for countries like Australia and many European countries, we may find ourselves not dealing just with two autocracies in Russia and China, but what is Trump’s America going to look like?” Turnbull said. “This is a guy leading a party that is no longer committed to democracy as we understand it.”

Democratic lawmakers have also questioned Trump’s perceived friendship with the Russian President.

Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) argued that were the former president to return to the White House, he would “hand the keys over” to Putin. She also said Ukraine’s fate would be sealed, with Russia’s invasion of the country having recently hit the two-year mark.

Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), an outspoken critic of Trump, recently claimed his comments on Navalny were “beneath the dignity of a human being.” 

“You wonder, what does Putin have on Donald Trump that he always has to be beholden to him, his buddy in vileness?” Pelosi said last week in an interview on MSNBC.

Vile is a good adjective for Trump’s behavior!

Tony

The Cloisters

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, my wife Elaine and I visited The Cloisters in Upper Manhattan. It is part of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and exhibits a collection of medieval art. It is one of New York’s gems frequently overlooked by visitors because of its out-of-the-way location.  Walking up the cobblestone path to the main entrance immediately brings you back in time. It has a beautiful collection of sculptures, paintings, and manuscripts from the period. It is probably most famous for its collection of Unicorn Tapestries.  Its history and “Five Must See Masterpieces” are presented in the video below.

Here are photos taken yesterday of several of its most beautiful pieces.

Tony

Unicorn Tapestries Room

Standing Virgin and Child

Illuminated Manuscript

The Cape

Illuminated Manuscript

Dear Commons Community,

Joe Biden and Donald Trump easily won their party’s primaries in Michigan, but yesterday’s day’s results showed that both candidates have cause for concern in their bid to to win this swing state in November.

An “uncommitted” vote in Michigan’s Democratic primary was the first indication of how backlash over President Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza might impact his reelection campaign. Trump won his primary by a large margin, but support for rival Nikki Haley once again showed that some Republican voters  have misgivings about giving the former president another four years in the general election.

Here are some takeaways from Michigan courtesy of The Associated Press.

Biden, Trump each move closer to party’s nomination

Michigan was the last major primary state before Super Tuesday, and both sides were watching closely for implications for the November general election in one of the few genuine swing states left in the country.

Biden has now cruised to victories over lesser known candidates in South Carolina, Nevada and New Hampshire, which he won in a write-in campaign. Tuesday’s results show that his standing is still strong in Michigan, which Biden returned to the Democratic column in 2020.

Trump has swept all five of the early state contests, including South Carolina, the home state of rival Haley. He now heads into Super Tuesday, when 15 states and one territory hold Republican nominating contests, as the overwhelming favorite to lock up the Republican nomination.

Michigan was one of three so-called blue wall states, including Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, that Trump won in 2016. He predicted a big win beforehand.

Just 16 of Michigan’s 55 Republican presidential delegates will be determined by the primary results, while the remaining delegates will be allocated during a March 2 convention. Trump’s anticipated dominance at the state convention, where grassroots activists will play a key role, will decide the allocation of the remaining 39 GOP delegates.

Some Democrats express anger over Gaza with ‘uncommitted’ vote

Michigan has become the focal point of Democratic frustration regarding the White House’s actions in the Israel-Hamas conflict. It has the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the nation.

That anger came through loud and clear on Tuesday as some voters marked “uncommitted” on their ballot in the Democratic primary. Biden still dominated the primary, but the result could be a concern in a state he won by less than 3% in 2020 and likely can’t afford to lose this year.

Organizers of the “uncommitted” movement had purposely kept expectations low, having only seriously begun their push a few weeks ago. The “Listen to Michigan” campaign that organized the push said they were hoping for 10,000 votes, pointing to Trump’s win of less than 11,000 votes in 2016 to show the significance of that number.

When Barack Obama ran for reelection in 2012, the last time a Democratic presidential incumbent sought re-election, the “uncommitted” option received close to 21,000 votes — or 11 percentage points.

The “uncommitted” vote totals would need to be between 20 and 30 percentage points for Democrats to worry about their impact in November, said Richard Czuba, a pollster who has long tracked Michigan politics.

“Twenty percent gets my attention. If it rises to 25%, that gets a lot more attention and if it rises above 30%, I think that’s a signal that Joe Biden has pretty substantial issues in his base,” said Czuba.

Much of the “uncommitted” vote was expected to come from the east side of the state, in communities such as Dearborn and Hamtramck, where Arab Americans represent close to half of the population. Biden won Dearborn by a roughly 3-to-1 advantage in 2020 and Hamtramck by a 5 to 1 margin.

Some Republicans still oppose Trump

Despite Trump’s clear victory in Michigan, Haley still saw significant support from the swing state’s Republicans.

Some of her best results came in Oakland and Kent counties, where Democrats have been gaining ground in recent years, contributing to their recent statewide success. She also performed better in counties where the state’s largest universities are located, Washtenaw and Ingham counties.

Trump has dominated in primaries with help from his base but his strength among general election voters remains unclear. The former president has appeared in Michigan regularly in the eight years since he became president, while Haley only began stumping in the state over the weekend.

AP VoteCast reveals that a large portion of Trump’s opposition within the Republican primaries has come from voters who abandoned him before this year.

All three statewide Republican candidates that Trump endorsed in the 2022 midterms were crushed by Democratic incumbents.

On to Super Tuesday!

Tony

Dr. Ruth Gottesman

Dear Commons Community,

Albert Einstein College of Medicine will offer students free tuition following a $1 billion donation from Dr. Ruth Gottesman, the 93-year-old widow of a major Wall Street investor.  Dr Gottesman is also a former professor at the Bronx school.

It is one of the largest ever donations made to a US school and is the largest ever made to a medical school.

The Bronx, New York City’s poorest borough, is ranked as the unhealthiest of New York state’s 62 counties.

In a statement, university dean Dr Yaron Yomer said that the “transformational” gift “radically revolutionises our ability to continue attracting students who are committed to our mission, not just those who can afford it”.

Tuition at the school is nearly $59,000 each year, leaving students with substantial debt.

The statement from Einstein noted students in their final year will be reimbursed for their spring 2024 tuition, and from August, all students, including those who are currently enrolled, will receive free tuition.

The donation “will free up and lift our students, enabling them to pursue projects and ideas that might otherwise be prohibitive”, Dr Yomer added.

Dr Gottesman, now 93, began working at the school in 1968. She studied learning disabilities, ran literacy programs and developed widely used screening and evaluation protocols.

Her late husband, David “Sandy” Gottesman, founded a prominent investment house and was an early investor in Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet’s multinational conglomerate. He died in September 2022 at the age of 96.

Dr. Gottesman said in a statement that the doctors who train at Einstein go on to “provide the finest healthcare to communities here in the Bronx and all over the world”.

“I am very thankful to my late husband, Sandy, for leaving these funds in my care, and l feel blessed to be given the great privilege of making this gift to such a worthy cause,” she added.

About 50% of Einstein’s first-year students are from New York, and approximately 60% are women. Statistics published by the school show that about 48% of its medical students are white, while 29% are Asian, 11% are Hispanic and 5% are black.

In an interview with The New York Times, she recalled that her late husband had left her a “whole portfolio of Berkshire Hathaway stock” when he died with the instructions to “do whatever you think is right with it”.

“I wanted to fund students at Einstein so that they would receive free tuition,” Dr. Gottesman said she immediately realized. “There was enough money to do that in perpetuity.”

She added that she occasionally wonders what her husband would have thought of the donation.

“I hope he’s smiling and not frowning,” she said. “He gave me the opportunity to do this, and I think he would be happy – I hope so.”

God bless her!

Tony

Fox cuts coverage of Trump’s rally: Even though he’s entitled to his opinion, he’s not entitled to his own set of facts. The market has indeed been going up but it has nothing to do with Trump. There was also no evidence of a rigged election pic.twitter.com/cwj8YIc1Xo

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 23, 2024

Dear Commons Community.

A team of graduate students at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) recently developed a generative AI tool to help policy analysts and researchers quickly find information within large documents and data sets.   The tool, dubbed “GovScan,” allows policy analysts to scan large documents and data sets to research and find relevant information for policy proposals, cutting the hours-long process down to a matter of seconds.  As reported by government technology.

According to CMU professor Chris Goranson, faculty lead for the project, the tool was developed by students in his Policy Innovation Lab class, a seven-week course where students are encouraged to come up with tech solutions to challenges encountered in government or government-related jobs. He said the tool, dubbed “GovScan,” was developed by Davis Craig and Tyler Faris, students in CMU’s Master of Science in Public Policy and Management program, along with Aakash Dolas and Eashwari Samant, who are in the Master of Integrated Innovation for Products and Services program.

Goranson said the tool can help public servants comb through PDF reports for relevant information needed for things like policy and funding proposals. Noting that policy analysts can typically spend three to four hours looking for data points within relevant reports, he said the platform uses large language modeling to find information in a matter of a few seconds.

“The basic idea was just to improve the usability of government reports,” he said. “That was the idea, was [seeing if] students could come up with a creative solution that would allow people to more efficiently search lots of information spread across lots and lots of different documents.”

Craig said the LLM tool utilizes a keyword search and a “semantic search,” which uses a technique called “vector embeddings” to determine the meaning of a question and scan indexed reports to find relevant ones, as well as data points within reports that are most applicable to a given project. The tool is then able to summarize results and provide citations for the information. Craig likened the tool to “the ‘Control-F’ search function on steroids.”

“We’ve been working on getting it more and more precise so we can be able to find more and more specific pieces of information,” he said. “That’s something that we’re continually working on.”

According to a news release emailed to Government Technology, the idea came after students made note of the challenges faced by analysts and researchers like Maya Mechenbier, a project lead for the U.S. Digital Service. In one scenario, students connected with government workers who’d been tasked with reviewing reports on child-care funding in 50 states, with each report containing hundreds of pages. In cases such as these, the release said, policy analysts need to be able to find particular data points within reports to analyze and compare the effectiveness of programs, which can be difficult for analysts to absorb due to the magnitude and variation of the information.

“Whether it’s for Medicaid or the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) subsidy dollars, states’ plans are typically stored and made public in a PDF form,” Mechenbier said. “Fifty states might do 50 different things with their programs.”

According to the news release, the team has made their work available via a GitHub repository under an open-source license as they work to develop the platform further. The team noted that the application still needs additional testing but hopes the tool will be useful for research officers and policy analysts to do their jobs more effectively.

“It seems simple on the surface, but I think it could be a real game changer in terms of actually allowing people to be much more efficient at researching data,” Goranson said. “The way that usually happens is we just spend hours and hours and hours parsing through it, or maybe we try that with some [other] existing tool, but I think what the students created was something that really leveraged cutting-edge technologies to approach the problem slightly differently.”

I visited the site and it is a simple but  interesting AI application.  What is important is that it is an example of students using and integrating AI into their studies.  We are and will continue to see more and more of this.

Tony

Asa Hutchinson

Dear Commons Community,

Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson (R) said yesterday he thinks former President Trump wants to wrap up the nominating process quickly because he sees certain warning signs looming that could threaten his path to the candidacy.

In an interview with MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart, Hutchinson mentioned as potential threats the multiple court cases against him, the financial fines and fees he must pay, and the nearly 40 percent of South Carolina GOP voters who voted for Haley over Trump.

“I think what Donald Trump is trying to do is to wrap this nomination up very quickly because he knows the storm clouds are gathering over him with the multiple court cases, with the financial judgments against him, and with 40 percent of the Republican base saying we want an alternative,” Hutchinson said.

Hutchinson, who suspended his own campaign for president last month and endorsed Haley, pointed to the party convention as an opportunity to emerge with a different candidate.

Asked whether he would support Trump if Haley dropped out of the race, Hutchinson said, “Well, I’m not going to support a convicted felon.”

“And of course that remains to be seen. So let’s see who comes out of the Republican convention. It’s not done until it’s done,” Hutchinson responded, adding later, “Let’s wait and see who comes out of the convention. I’m not going to support a convicted felon.”

Hutchinson did not say whether he would support Trump as the ultimate nominee, if the former president is not ultimately convicted in any of his four criminal indictments that he faces – two on the federal level and two on the state level.

Hutchinson said that decision is difficult, as a longtime Republican who still believes in the party.

“I’ve always supported the Republican nominee. It’s sort of a big deal to move a different direction. And I have still hope for the Republican Party,” Hutchinson said. “It’s challenged because I see the direction and the challenge that Nikki Haley has in front of her, but we’re going to work hard to see if we can change them between now and the convention.”

I saw the interview with Hutchinson yesterday.  He is one of the good guys in the Republican Party and knows it well!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The political network, Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP), financed largely by billionaire Charles Koch announced yesterday that it will no longer spend funds to support Nikki Haley’s presidential bid.

In an email obtained by NBC News, which was confirmed by two sources who received it, the network’s advocacy arm said that following Haley’s loss in South Carolina, the group no longer believes it can make a meaningful difference for her in the race, senior adviser Emily Seidel said. Instead, AFP will focus its resources down the ballot on House and Senate races.

“She has made it clear that she will continue to fight and we wholeheartedly support her in this effort,” Seidel said. “But given the challenges in the primary states ahead, we don’t believe any outside group can make a material difference to widen her path to victory.”

Politico first reported the decision.  

The move is a blow to Haley as she vows to continue against Trump, who beat her by about 20 percentage points Saturday and captured all but three delegates.

AFP provided crucial support to Haley on the ground, mobilizing its vast network of grassroots political activists to help get the vote out for her in early states. The group also poured money into advertising, hoping to fuel her rise. AFP Action, a super PAC, spent more than $31 million boosting Haley in the race, according to Federal Election Commission data.

Donors to Americans for Prosperity, which is part of the political arm of the larger Koch network and is led by Seidel, had pressed the group to endorse a Republican primary candidate in the race to find an alternative to Trump.

When the group endorsed Haley in November, Seidel said AFP Action was looking for the best Republican “to turn the page on the current political era.” She said that candidate was Haley, with the group “better equipped to help her do it” than any other organization.

Even so, many longtime Koch-world operatives questioned the decision, seeing little chance for her to win the nomination.

Haley’s pathway has now all but closed, with Trump appearing to be cruising toward his party’s presidential nomination.

Haley has said she does not think Trump can defeat President Joe Biden.

Sounding a resolute note Sunday, Haley’s campaign touted new fundraising numbers to fuel the fight ahead.

“AFP is a great organization and ally in the fight for freedom and conservative government. We thank them for their tremendous help in this race,” Haley’s campaign said. “Our fight continues, and with more than $1 million coming in from grassroots conservatives in just the last 24 hours, we have plenty of fuel to keep going.”

Haley’s team added, “We have a country to save.”

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the Koch network had been “played for suckers right from the beginning.”

The announcement Sunday was a disappointing end for AFP’s strategy after it promised a year ago to reverse American politics’ “downward spiral” by backing a Trump alternative.

On Sunday, Seidel wrote that AFP knew from the start that the path “faced the longest odds” but that given the stakes, it “couldn’t sit on the sidelines.”

“This organization exists to do hard things,” she said.

The enthusiasm felt through the start of the year and into New Hampshire appeared to slip as Trump’s grip on the race became harder to ignore.

Asked about AFP Action’s decision, a source briefed on the decision said that after the New Hampshire primary, “they’d already made a commitment on January 8 with the TV buys. And there was hope, realistic hope, that things would change.”

That notion began to fade when the surge never materialized.

“There was an honest objective belief that her campaign was still surging, especially when Donald Trump reacted the way he did towards her doing so well and not dropping out,” the source said. “That hope did not come to fruition.”

The big question now for the AFP is whether it will support Trump?

Tony