Dear Commons Community,

A federal judge on Wednesday gave Harvard University a victory in its fight against the Trump administration, siding with the Ivy League school in its effort to restore more than $2 billion in federal funding for research frozen by the White House.

The decision from US District Judge Allison Burroughs rejects the administration’s argument that it was targeting the university due to antisemitism on the school’s campus.  As reported by CNN.

“A review of the administrative record makes it difficult to conclude anything other than that defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities,” wrote Burroughs, an appointee of former President Barack Obama.

“Their actions have jeopardized decades of research and the welfare of all those who could stand to benefit from that research, as well as reflect a disregard for the rights protected by the Constitution and federal statutes,” Burroughs added.

The decision is a major victory for Harvard, the only university targeted by the Trump administration to take on the White House directly in court. The administration has argued it is cracking down on antisemitism on campus, but Harvard has become the epicenter of a broader fight over academic freedom, federal spending and campus oversight.

While Wednesday’s ruling is a major win for the school, the Trump administration is almost certain to escalate its fight against the elite academic institution, prompting longer-term questions about the school’s financial future. Already, the White House said it plans to appeal.

“This activist Obama-appointed judge was always going to rule in Harvard’s favor, regardless of the facts,” White House spokesperson Liz Huston told CNN on Wednesday. “To any fair-minded observer, it is clear that Harvard University failed to protect their students from harassment and allowed discrimination to plague their campus for years.”

In a statement to the Harvard community on Wednesday evening, Harvard President Alan Garber said the ruling “validates our arguments in defense of the University’s academic freedom, critical scientific research, and the core principles of American higher education,” but acknowledged some uncertainty ahead.

“Even as we acknowledge the important principles affirmed in today’s ruling, we will continue to assess the implications of the opinion, monitor further legal developments, and be mindful of the changing landscape in which we seek to fulfill our mission,” Garber said.

Burroughs pointed to some of the research projects impacted by the administration’s cuts, including efforts to create a predictive model to help emergency room physicians at the Department of Veterans Affairs determine whether suicidal veterans should be hospitalized, research on Lou Gehrig’s Disease, the development of a chip to measure NASA astronauts’ radiation exposure on an upcoming excursion to the moon and support for a government program on emerging biological threats.

“There is no obvious link between the affected projects and antisemitism,” the judge said.

When the funding was frozen, Burroughs added, there was no investigation into whether any particular research labs, she said, “were engaging in antisemitic behavior, were employing Jews, were run by Jewish scientists, or were investigating issues or diseases particularly pertinent to Jews, … meaning the funding freezes could and likely will harm the very people Defendants professed to be protecting.”

She also took aim at numerous Trump social media posts. His concerns about Harvard, she said, “were untethered from antisemitism,” quoting many of them directly.

In her ruling, Burroughs wiped away a “Freeze Order” the administration issued in April that would have held up more than $2 billion multi-year grants to the university and barred the government from withholding any additional federal funds “to Harvard in retaliation for the exercise of its First Amendment rights, or on any purported grounds of discrimination without compliance with the terms of Title VI.”

Burroughs made clear in her opinion that she viewed combating antisemitism as an important goal. Harvard, she wrote, “was wrong to tolerate hateful behavior for as long as it did.”

“The record here, however, does not reflect that fighting antisemitism was defendants’ true aim in acting against Harvard and, even if it were, combatting antisemitism cannot be accomplished on the back of the First Amendment,” she wrote.

An important judicial battle won but the war is not over!

Tony

Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Library of Congress; Getty.

Dear Commons Community,

Robert Ubell had an opinion essay published earlier this week in Inside Higher ED entitled, “Trump Hijacks American Science and Scholarship”.  His message is that Trump’s recent executive order giving political appointees authority over grant approvals amounts to a Communist-style takeover.  Below is his entire essay.  Well worth a read!

Tony

————————————————

Inside Higher Ed

“Trump Hijacks American Science and Scholarship”

by Robert Ubell

September 4, 2025

In a nearly daily barrage, President Trump and his MAGA forces heave fireballs at science and higher education. In the last weeks alone, the administration has been busy hurling a demand for a billion dollars from the University of California, Los Angeles; axing proven mRNA vaccine research; and demanding colleges submit expanded sex and race data from student applications, among other startling detonations. Amid the onslaught of these unsettling developments, it would be easy to miss the decisive change in conventional scientific and scholarly practice, one so vast that it threatens to overturn our revered American research achievements.

On Aug. 7, Trump issued an executive order that uproots more than a half century of peer review, the standard practice for funding federal scientific grants. Taking approval out of the hands of experts, the new rule makes grant approval contingent upon the assent of political puppets who will approve only those awards the president finds acceptable.

When I first came upon the order, I was immediately struck by how closely it resembles the unquestioned authority granted to senior political appointees in Soviet Russia and Communist China. As if dictated by commissars, the new rule requires officials to fund only those proposals that advance presidential priorities. Cast aside, peer review is now merely advisory.

It took my breath away, suddenly realizing how completely threatening the new order is to the very foundations of the democratic practice of research and scholarship. As Victor Ambros, Nobel laureate and co-discoverer of microRNA, aptly put it, the order constitutes a “a shameless, full-bore Soviet-style politicization of American science that will smother what until now has been the world’s pre-eminent scientific enterprise.”

Decades ago, long before I entered higher ed, I worked at a small publishing company in New York that translated Russian scientific and technical books and journals into English. As head of translations, I’d travel once or twice a year over many years to Moscow and Leningrad (now, once again, St. Petersburg) to negotiate with Soviet publishers to obtain rights to our English translations.

One evening in the late ’60s, I invited a distinguished physicist to join me for dinner at a Ukrainian restaurant not far from my hotel in Moscow. We talked for some time openly over a bottle of vodka about new trends in physics, among other themes. As dinner drew to a close, he let his guard down and whispered a confidence. Mournfully, he told me he’d just received an invitation to deliver the keynote address at a scientific conference in England, but the Party official at his institution wouldn’t permit him to travel. I still remember the sense of being privy to a deep and troubling secret, reflected in the silence that followed and the palpable unease at the table. Shame enveloped him..,

Over a couple of dozen years of frequent trips to the Soviet Union and Communist China, I never met a single Party official. My day-to-day interactions were with administrators, editors, researchers and faculty who managed scientific publishing or were involved in teaching, research or other routine matters. The Party secretary remained hidden behind a curtain of power as in The Wizard of Oz.

On one rare occasion in the 2010s, at a graduation ceremony at a local technical university in Beijing where I ran a couple of online master’s degrees in partnership with Stevens Institute of Technology, a student seated next to me in the audience drew near and identified a well-dressed official several rows ahead of us up front. “The Party secretary,” he revealed in hushed tones. I saw the officer later at the reception, standing by himself with a dour expression, as faculty, students and family members bustled about at a distance.

One afternoon at that university in Beijing, I came upon a huddle of faculty in a corner office. As they chatted quietly among themselves in Mandarin, I took a seat at the far end of the room to give them privacy. But I could make out that a man in the group was disturbed, his face flushed and his eyes close to tears. Later, I approached one of the faculty members in the group with whom I’d grown close and asked what had troubled his colleague.

“Oh,” he replied. “He often gets upset when the Party secretary objects to something we’re doing. He worries that our joint program is in jeopardy.”

These personal reflections, based on my limited encounters with scientists and faculty, do not reveal the full extent of the control over scientific research exerted by Party functionaries. But if you compare the president’s new order with that of the Party’s authority in Soviet Russia and Communist China, you’ll find they’re all out of the same playbook.

The order’s demand for political appointee approval takes decisions out of the hands of apolitical, merit-based peer-review panels. In the Soviet Union and China, adherence to the Party line and loyalty to the regime was (or is) paramount, with grant funds being used to advance ideological or state power. Similarly, the president’s order establishes a party line, stating that federal money cannot be used to support racial preferences, “denial … of the sex binary in humans,” illegal immigration or initiatives deemed “anti-American.”

Relegating peer review is no small matter. It is at the center of modern science, distributing responsibility for evaluating scholarly work among experts, rather than holding this responsibility in the fist of authority. Even though peer review is under criticism today for its anonymity and potential biases, among other perplexing features, when researchers referee proposals, they nevertheless participate in a stirring example of collaborative democracy, maintaining the quality and integrity of scholarship—characteristics anathema to far-right ideologues.

Of all the blasts shattering American science and higher education since the president assumed office in January, this executive order may be the most devastating. It is not one of Trump’s random shots at research and scholarship, but an assault on democracy itself.

Robert Ubell is vice dean emeritus of online learning at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering. A collection of his essays on virtual education, Staying Online: How to Navigate Digital Higher Education, was published by Routledge.

Dear Commons Community,

Calling for the Trump administration to release the Epstein files in their entirety, victims of convicted sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein spoke publicly — and defiantly — outside the U.S. Capitol yesterday.  As reported by the Huffington Post.

“I am no longer weak, I am no longer powerless, and I am no longer alone. And with your vote, neither will the next generation be,” Anouska De Georgiou, a woman who said she was abused by Epstein on his island in the Caribbean and elsewhere for years, said at a press conference.

“President Trump, you have so much influence and power in this situation. Please use that influence and power to help us,” De Georgiou said.

Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) staged the press conference as they push to force the House to vote on a bill that would require the Justice Department to make the Epstein files public.

While the press conference was happening, Trump repeated his claim that the entire Epstein story is a “Democrat hoax” designed to hurt him politically.

Khanna and Massie were flanked not only by Epstein’s victims but by one of the largest crowds of media, activists and onlookers seen in years for a press conference on the east side of the Capitol ― a scene that suggests Trump’s efforts to bury the story won’t succeed. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a major Trump ally, also joined the press conference.

“This is not a hoax,” Massie said. “This is real. There are real survivors. There are real victims in this criminal enterprise, and the perpetrators are being protected because they’re rich and powerful and political donors to the establishment here in Washington, D.C.”

Massie and Khanna are pushing for a vote on their bill using a “discharge petition,” which allows any House member to bring a bill to the floor for a vote ― even against the wishes of the speaker — if they can get 218 signatures from House lawmakers first. So far, Massie’s got only four of the six Republican signatures he needs, and the White House is lobbying hard against motion.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has said the petition is irrelevant because the Justice Department is already complying with a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee. Late Tuesday, the committee announced it had made thousands of Epstein documents publicly available, though it posted them in an unwieldy Google Drive folder and most of the material had already been made public.

“I appreciate the efforts of my colleagues on Oversight today,” Massie said Wednesday. “They may find something, but they’re allowing the DOJ to curate all of the information that the DOJ is giving them. If you’ve looked at the pages they’ve released so far, they’re heavily redacted. Some pages are entirely redacted, and 97% of this is already in the public domain.”

Khanna emphasized that the release of the Epstein files isn’t about one political party or movement.

“We’re united in restoring trust in government,” he said. “We’re here not as partisans but as patriots, Democrats, progressives and, yes, MAGA supporters, to demand justice.”

Releasing the material in a searchable format, as Massie and Khanna’s legislation would require, would allow internet users to enter the words “Donald Trump” and see if the president’s name is mentioned, for example. Trump and Epstein were friends for years before a mysterious falling out that preceded Epstein’s first arrest related to soliciting underage prostitutes. Trump’s name reportedly comes up repeatedly in the Justice Department’s material.

The Epstein victims who spoke Wednesday repeatedly rejected Trump’s “hoax” claim.

Haley Robson asked Trump to “meet me in person to see that this isn’t a hoax.”

Being painted as a liar, Robson said, was crushing.

“It feels like you want to explode inside because nobody, again, is understanding that this is a real situation. These women are real,” she continued. “To say this is a hoax — please humanize us. I would like Donald J. Trump and every person around the world to humanize us. There is no hoax. The abuse is real.”

Fellow abuse survivor Chauntae Davies, who said she was flown to Epstein’s private island as well as to Africa with “Bill Clinton and other notable figures,” said she felt for years that, if she spoke out, no one would believe her. Epstein and his friends were too powerful, Davies said.

“The truth is, Epstein had a free pass,” Davies said, noting that Epstein often bragged about his relationships with the rich and powerful. “He bragged about our current President Donald Trump. It was his biggest brag actually.”

Former model Lisa Phillips, who said she was taken to Epstein’s island in 2000 while on a photoshoot at another island nearby, said that what she saw there was a “glimpse into a very dark and disgusting world.”

While U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has said there is no Epstein “client list,” Phillips said she and other Epstein abuse survivors have been discussing the creation of their own list.

“Many around him knew, many participated and many profited, and yet he was protected,” Phillips said of Epstein. “So I stand here today for every woman who has been silenced or dismissed, we are not asking for pity, we are here demanding accountability, and I am demanding justice. Congress must choose, will you continue to protect predators or will you finally protect survivors?”

The majority of what the Justice Department gave the House Oversight Committee appears to be already public. The records mostly appear to be court documents that emerged when Epstein’s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell was on trial after Epstein’s death. Some of the records include redacted video footage of abuse victims relaying what happened to them when they worked as masseuses for Epstein.

Epstein died by suicide while in prison in New York in 2019. He was awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. After he died, some of the women who said they were abused by Epstein appeared in court the next day and described how Epstein’s suicide felt like “new trauma all over again,” and said their hope to see justice done was dashed.

Some of those same survivors speaking outside of the Capitol Wednesday echoed that outrage and channeled it anew at Maxwell ― and at the Trump administration for apparently offering Maxwell special treatment.

In July, while actively seeking a pardon from Trump for her 20-year prison sentence on sex trafficking charges, Maxwell met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche for a two-day private interview. Transcripts of that interview were released in August.

During her time with Blanche, Maxwell — who had received limited immunity for the meeting — was effusive in her praise for Trump and told the president’s former personal lawyer that she never witnessed Trump “in any inappropriate setting in any way” or with “anybody.” Specifically, Maxwell told Blanche she never saw Trump receive any massages nor, she said, did Epstein recruit masseuses from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. That last claim directly conflicted with what Trump has said about why he cut off his relationship with Epstein.

After the meeting, Maxwell was moved from a federal prison in Florida to a facility in Texas with some of the lowest security restrictions in the country, prompting outrage by lawmakers and former Bureau of Prison officials alike who questioned why someone convicted of preying and exploiting underage girls and young women would receive such cushy treatment.

Teresa Helm, who said she was groomed by Maxwell to be abused by Epstein, said when she listened to audio of Maxwell’s interview with Blanche, it disgusted her.

The same “polite coercive voice” Maxwell used when she recruited her and wanted to “send me off to a monster,” was the same she used in the interview with Blanche, Helm said.

“Nothing can be believed from what she’s said. She’s been charged with perjury. I sat there and listened to this woman’s voice lie, and there was no pushback from Todd Blanche because, does he even have the facts to be able to push back on her?” Helm said. “We could push back. Why couldn’t we attend that? Why weren’t we there that day? Why wasn’t one of us consulted prior to that meeting? I’m very angry. The feelings that come up listening to this woman’s voice. Yes, it’s triggering. We all worked very hard on healing, and it still gets to us.”

Annie Farmer, who was abused by Epstein and made some of the earliest police reports about his conduct, called Maxwell “a major architect” of Epstein’s trafficking and abuse.

“And the fact that she paints herself as a victim is disgusting. We weren’t told about her prison transfer, we were told about it on the news,” Farmer said.

De Georgiou said she only got a notification from the Justice Department about Maxwell’s prison transfer after it had already happened.

“This woman abused children,” De Georgiou said. “I was abused by Epstein and Maxwell for over 10 years, and she was present for some of my abuse. She was present, complicit and enabling. It’s one of my worst nightmares that she not only be transferred but the possibility that is very much going around that she might be pardoned. This is not OK.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, the City University of New York announced that eight of its senior colleges have been spotlighted for offering the best returns on investment for students nationwide, according to Forbes’ newly published report: “The 25 Colleges With the Highest Payoff.”  CUNY boasted eight entries on the list, including seven in the top 10 — more than any other university system.  Brooklyn College was ranked No. 1. 

The other CUNY colleges named are Hunter College (2), The City College of New York (4), Lehman College (5), Queens College (8), John Jay College of Criminal Justice (9), Baruch College (10) and College of Staten Island (21).

“There’s no better way for our students to start this new academic year than with a reminder that the excellent education they’re receiving at CUNY will pay off after they graduate,” said CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez. “As more rankings are focused on which colleges best set up their students for success, it is no surprise that CUNY has repeatedly come out on top.”

“We are proud that Forbes has recognized the extraordinary quality and value of a Brooklyn College education,” said Brooklyn College President Michelle J. Anderson. “Being ranked first among colleges with the highest payoff affirms Brooklyn College is a transformative investment. This achievement reflects the dedication of our faculty, the determination of our students, and the strength of our alumni network.”

To determine the ranking, Forbes looked at how long it takes for students to earn back the out-of-pocket costs of their degree — a calculation developed by the public policy think tank Third Way — along with how much debt students take on to attend college. In presenting the ranking, Forbes noted that CUNY “routinely outperforms all other state systems on this list,” due to its affordable tuition rate and that, for the University’s graduates, “median income 20 years after graduation is an impressive $121,600.”

This is the third year that Forbes has released a shortlist focused on which colleges deliver the best return on investment for its graduates; the eight CUNY senior colleges named this year were also on the inaugural list, and they were joined by York College on last year’s ranking. This year is the first where a CUNY college holds the No. 1 position.

Other Recent Rankings Recognition

Four CUNY senior colleges — Baruch College, Brooklyn College, City College and Hunter College — were also recognized for their overall value by The Princeton Review, which named the four colleges among its best-value colleges list as part of its publication of “The Best 391 Colleges: 2026 Edition.” The greater list is based on survey and opinion data from 170,000 students who attend the recognized four-year schools. New this year, Princeton Review highlighted three CUNY colleges for having standout stats based on the survey: City College was noted as having the lowest average undergraduate debt, Brooklyn College stood out for having the most diverse student body and Baruch College had the most countries represented among its students.

CUNY community colleges dominated Niche’s 2026 list of the best community colleges in the state, including comprising the entire top five list. Ranked No. 1 was Borough of Manhattan Community College, followed by Queensborough Community College, Kingsborough Community College, Bronx Community College and LaGuardia Community College. Also in the top 10 was Hostos Community College, which ranked No. 8.

Congratulations CUNY!

Tony

 Protesters at California Republican Jay Obernolte’s  event in Victorville

Dear Commons Community,

Trump’s second term has turned Republican town halls into battlegrounds and Fox News’ Jessica Tarlov spelled out why.

“The reality is, is that no Republican that represents a swing district can hold a town hall,” Tarlov said on “The Five” panel show yesterday. she echoes what other pundits and journalists have been saying.

It’s “because everyone in their district is showing up to scream at them about cuts to government benefits, what Donald Trump is doing in militarizing D.C and wanting to go around the country taking over,” she continued. “The fact that they are arresting good, hardworking people at Home Depots and in churches and in immigration courts and most of all, the cost of living is too damn high.”

Tarlov suggested the Democratic message to counter Trump and the GOP is actually “simple”:

“Your life is more expensive under Donald Trump, he started trade wars that are completely unnecessary and is jacking up the cost of living, he’s coming for your healthcare and the most important thing to him is to give tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.”

“That’s it, plain and simple. Put a bow on it,” she concluded.

Amen!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Clay Shirky, a vice provost at N.Y.U, has an opinion essay in today’s New York Times entitled, “Students Hate Them. Universities Need Them. The Only Real Solution to the A.I. Cheating Crisis“.  He reviews a trend among many college faculty who have moved back to using in-class testing to combat student reliance on AI for take-home tests and essays.  He comments that in an effort to combat AI-assisted cheating, professors are returning to the use of traditional paper “blue books” for in-class exams.

This shift is happening at many large universities. 

Colleges with reported increases in blue book use include:

• Texas A&M University: Campus bookstore sales of blue books have increased by over 30%.
• University of Florida: Sales have risen by nearly 50%.
• University of California, Berkeley: Sales saw an 80% surge over the past two years.
• University of Michigan: The Alumni Association provided over 8,500 blue books to students during the 2024–2025 school year to reduce financial strain and promote academic honesty. 

Why colleges are reviving blue books

• Preventing AI cheating: The primary driver is the desire to ensure academic integrity in the age of AI tools like ChatGPT. By requiring handwritten answers, professors can more accurately assess a student’s own knowledge and writing ability.
• Assessing critical thinking: In-class, handwritten essays test skills that AI cannot replicate, such as the ability to generate and organize ideas in real time under pressure.
• Low-tech solution: Blue books offer a simple, readily available tool for addressing the complex problem of AI-assisted plagiarism. 

It is important to note that blue books are not the only solution colleges are exploring. Some educators combine low-tech assessments with modern methods, such as oral exams or teaching AI literacy, to ensure genuine student learning.

Tony

Robby Soave

Dear Commons Community,

California Governor  Gavin Newsom slammed Trump on Friday over the federal government’s decision to take a 10% stake in tech company Intel.

“I mean, this guy [Trump] has completely perverted capitalism,” Newsom told “Pivot” host Kara Swisher Friday. “It’s crony capitalism. It’s whatever you pay him off.”

Newsom’s attack on Trump stemmed from a conversation about New York City mayoral candidate and self-proclaimed democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, and his plans to create a network of city-owned grocery stores to keep prices down.

The California governor said Mamdani’s plan could be a national policy, drawing a comparison to Trump’s Intel deal.

“It sounds like Trump’s been paying a lot of attention to him with his desire to socialize great American companies and continue to invest like he did with Intel and others,” Newsom said.

“It’s just perverse that they could be shaping the Democratic Party in the context of the socialist brand, when, in fact, this guy is the leading nationalist and socialist of our time, Donald Trump,” Newsom added later.

Trump’s Intel deal enraged some from his MAGA base, who called it a “terrible” idea and also compared it to socialism.

Conservative radio host Erick Erickson slammed the president on his podcast, arguing “you can’t just be against socialism when the left does it, if you’re not against socialism overall.”

“So if you support socialism, apparently Donald Trump is your guy,” Erickson continued.

Republican Sens. Thom Tillis (N.C.) and Rand Paul (Ky.) both came out against Trump’s deal, with Tillis telling CBS’s Major Garrett, “I don’t care if it’s a dollar or a billion-dollar stake.”

“That starts feeling like a semi state-owned enterprise à la CCCP,” Tills said, referring to the Russian acronym for the USSR — Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Robby Soave, co-host of The Hill’s commentary show “Rising”  and a senior editor for Reason Magazine, commented:

“… the government owning part of Intel is, on some level, socialism. It’s at least socialism-ish”.

Yes it is!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Maureen Dowd in her column on Sunday entitled, “Vax Quack Lacks Facts”, takes down Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for his disastrous decisions regarding vaccines.  To quote: 

“It’s infuriating to see Bobby Kennedy Jr. be so benighted about vaccines, risking the health of all Americans. How can the most powerful country on earth sow the seeds to make people sick again with preventable, even once-eliminated diseases?

…

The boneheaded vaccine debate has inflamed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is reeling from mass layoffs and a deadly shooting by an anti-vaxxer at its headquarters.”

She concluded:

“Asked about the C.D.C. meltdown Friday, Trump’s creepy consigliere Stephen Miller told reporters that Kennedy is “a crown jewel of this administration.”

Crown crank, more like it.”

Her entire column is below.

Tony

—————————————————————-

The New York Times

Vax Quack Lacks Facts

Aug. 30, 2025

By Maureen Dowd

Opinion Columnist, reporting from Washington

I almost died of rubella when I was 3.

I was very weak and wouldn’t eat. My mother was frantic. The doctor prescribed mashed lima beans and I pulled through.

I still keep lima beans in the freezer.

It’s infuriating to see Bobby Kennedy Jr. be so benighted about vaccines, risking the health of all Americans. How can the most powerful country on earth sow the seeds to make people sick again with preventable, even once-eliminated diseases?

Between school shooters and R.F.K. Jr., children in America are vulnerable in ways they don’t have to be. Officials are endangering children instead of shielding them.

The boneheaded vaccine debate has inflamed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is reeling from mass layoffs and a deadly shooting by an anti-vaxxer at its headquarters.

Kennedy tried to fire the director, Susan Monarez, then called in President Trump to finish her off after she refused to go along with his dictum to back his advisers if they recommended restricting access to proven vaccines. Other officials quit, leaving the health agency in crisis, just as Winter Is Coming.

The administration put out the most restrictive policy yet on the new Covid vaccines, with more constraints likely, given that Kennedy has stacked the C.D.C. advisory committee with vaccine skeptics and outright anti-vaxxers.

When I was growing up, vaccines were the great American success story. It felt momentous when my father picked up my sister and me to go get polio shots.

My father helped guard F.D.R. at baseball games and other events. He saw F.D.R.’s braces, a result of polio, and saw the elaborate lengths the White House went to to camouflage the paralysis in the president’s lower body.

My family was grateful to be in the age of scientific achievement — from vaccine shots to moon shots. My mother would tell us harrowing tales of how her little sister, Mary, died in 1918 from the Spanish flu.

Trump and Kennedy are yanking us back to those dark times.

This month, Kennedy canceled nearly $500 million in grants and contracts for developing mRNA vaccines, the best chance against a future pandemic. That followed the cancellation of a $600 million contract to develop a vaccine for bird flu.

In March, as measles spread in Texas, Kennedy went on Fox News and promoted vitamin A and cod liver oil containing it as “dramatically” effective remedies. Some unvaccinated children took so much vitamin A, they showed signs of liver damage.

In 2019, Kennedy went to Samoa and claimed, falsely, that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine had contributed to the deaths of two Samoan infants. That helped spark a measles outbreak that killed 83 there and infected 500 in Tonga.

On Wednesday, Kennedy was acting bizarre, saying he can tell as he walks past children if they are dealing with “mitochondrial challenges” or “inflammation.”

He has no medical degree. Can he mysteriously divine illnesses just by looking?

Our health secretary is a certified quack. But the president, who is letting Kennedy run wild, knows better. Trump got seriously ill from Covid and was saved by the doctors at Walter Reed, who gave him antibody treatments and remdesivir — not the remedy he once suggested people consider: bleach. His greatest triumph — and a stirring example of American scientific chops — was Operation Warp Speed, a push to develop a Covid vaccine in less than a year, saving many lives and springing us from our awful sequestration.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Trump told top donors that he wished he could brag about Operation Warp Speed. But he can’t offend MAHA (the ironically named Make America Healthy Again movement). He can’t push his greatest accomplishment because of the willful ignorance of some of his supporters.

Why does this notorious germaphobe play lickspittle to debunkers of science?

Disgusted with Monarez’s dismissal and the way Kennedy places ideology over science, four top officials resigned. One of them, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told The Journal and CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that Kennedy had not even bothered to be briefed by the center’s specialists on Covid and measles.

“Yes, he’s getting information from somewhere,” Daskalakis told Collins, “but that information is not coming from C.D.C. experts who really are the world’s experts in this area.”

Republicans failed miserably in not blocking Kennedy’s nomination. Senator Bill Cassidy, the gastroenterologist who cast the deciding vote on Trump’s snake-oil health secretary, said Wednesday that the chaos at C.D.C. would require oversight by Congress.

To which I reply: Physician, heal thyself. You were too craven to vote against someone you knew would decimate our health system because you wanted to hang onto your seat. You swapped the Hippocratic oath for the Hypocritic oath.

Asked about the C.D.C. meltdown Friday, Trump’s creepy consigliere Stephen Miller told reporters that Kennedy is “a crown jewel of this administration.”

Crown crank, more like it.

Dear Commons Community,

Today while most of us will be celebrating the end of summer with family and friends, we should take a moment to remember the contributions and achievements of American workers. They are the true builders of America – its freedoms, accomplishments, and strengths.

Tony

 AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Dear Commons Community,

Vice President JD Vance expressed his unequivocal confidence in Trump’s good health, while noting he’s nevertheless been well prepared to take over the top job if “a terrible tragedy” should occur.

In an interview published this week, USA Today asked Vance, “Why should Americans trust you to lead the country?”

“Well, I’ve gotten a lot of good on-the-job training in the last 200 days,” the VP replied, before quickly pivoting to praising Trump’s health.

“The president is in incredibly good health. He’s got incredible energy,” Vance said, adding that Trump, 79, is typically the “last person making phone calls at night” and “the first person” to wake up and begin making phone calls in the morning.

Vice President JD Vance says President Donald Trump is in “incredibly good health,” with “incredible energy.”

Vance then reiterated his preparedness to become president, if necessary.

“I feel very confident the president of the United States is in good shape, is going to serve out the remainder of his term and do great things for the American people,” he said. “And if, God forbid, there’s a terrible tragedy, I can’t think of better on-the-job training than what I’ve gotten over the last 200 days.”

Speculation has been swirling over the president’s health in recent weeks following the appearance of recurring bruising on his hands. In July, the White House attributed the bruising to “frequent handshaking” and taking aspirin as part of a preventative cardiovascular regimen.

On Friday night, rumors about Trump’s well-being reached a fever pitch after a White House pool report revealed he had no events scheduled over the three-day Labor Day weekend. However, Trump was photographed on Saturday morning as he headed to play golf.

Tony