Judge John C. Coughenour – appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1981

Dear Commons Community,

A federal judge yesterday temporarily blocked President Trump’s executive order to end automatic citizenship for babies born on American soil, dealing the president his first setback as he attempts to upend the nation’s immigration laws and reverse decades of precedent.

In a hearing held three days after Mr. Trump issued his executive order, a Federal District Court judge, John C. Coughenour, sided with Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon, the four states that sued, signing a restraining order that blocks Mr. Trump’s executive order for 14 days, renewable upon expiration. “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” he said.  As reported by The New York Times.

“Frankly,” he continued, challenging Trump administration lawyers, “I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar would state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It just boggles my mind.”

Mr. Trump responded hours later, telling reporters at the White House, “Obviously we’ll appeal it.”

The president’s order, one of several issued in the opening hours of his presidency to curtail immigration, both legal and illegal, declared that children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants after Feb. 19 would no longer be treated as citizens. The order would also extend to babies born to mothers who are in the country legally but temporarily, such as tourists, university students or temporary workers, if the father is a noncitizen.

In response, 22 states, along with activist groups and expectant mothers, filed six lawsuits to halt the executive order, arguing that it violates the 14th Amendment. Legal precedent has long interpreted the amendment — that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States” — applies to every baby born in the United States, with a few limited exceptions: Children of accredited foreign diplomats; children born to noncitizens on U.S. territory occupied by an invading army; and, for a time, children born to Native Americans on reservations.

The courts have never recognized the constitutional legitimacy of further limitations on birthright citizenship, and Judge Coughenour of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington did not appear eager to break with that pattern on Thursday.

Judge Coughenour’s order marks the beginning of what will almost certainly be a long battle between the new administration and the courts over Mr. Trump’s ambitious second-term agenda, which seeks to transform American institutions in ways that could be interpreted as running afoul of law and precedent. Other orders, including attempts to strip job protections from career federal employees and accelerate deportations, are also facing court challenges.

Brett Shumate, a lawyer for the federal government, said the administration’s order on birthright citizenship was “absolutely” constitutional. He argued on behalf of the Trump administration that undocumented immigrants “remain subject to a foreign power” and therefore “have no allegiance to the United States.” Nor, the government argued in a filing, would their American-born children.

After the ruling, a Justice Department spokesman promised that the department “will vigorously defend” Mr. Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship before the courts and “the American people, who are desperate to see our nation’s laws enforced.”

The 14th Amendment refers to people who are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. The judge asked the government whether undocumented immigrants’ children who committed a crime would be subject to U.S. law. Mr. Shumate responded that they would be “subject to the jurisdiction with respect to the laws of this country, but not with respect to the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment.”

“Citizenship is different,” Mr. Shumate said.

To that, Judge Coughenour’s decision was emphatic: “I’ve been on the bench for over four decades,” he said. “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order. Where were the lawyers when this decision was being made?”

In the case before Judge Coughenour, who was nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan, the four state attorneys general argued that Mr. Trump’s order would deny rights and benefits to more than 150,000 children born each year and leave some of them stateless. States would also lose federal funding for various assistance programs.

The states’ 32-page complaint cited testimony from former Assistant Attorney General Walter Dellinger. In 1995, Mr. Dellinger told Congress that a law limiting birthright citizenship would be “unconstitutional on its face” and that even a constitutional amendment would “flatly contradict the nation’s constitutional history and constitutional traditions.”

Federal government lawyers in the hearing pleaded for more time, saying a delay in ruling would make little difference since the executive order would not take effect until next month. The states responded that the administration’s order created an immediate burden for them, requiring them to alter systems that determine eligibility for federal-backed programs, and that the status of babies born to undocumented mothers in the meantime would be unclear.

A separate federal lawsuit challenging the executive order filed by 18 other states and two cities is being considered by a court in Massachusetts. Four other lawsuits by activists and pregnant mothers have been filed in the district courts of Maryland, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, as well as the Central District of California.

In a status conference about the Maryland case on Thursday, Joseph W. Mead, an attorney at Georgetown Law School’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection who represents four pregnant mothers and two nonprofit groups, argued that the courts should intervene quickly so that the mothers could know the legal status of their future children.

“Mothers today now have to fear that their children will not be given the U.S. citizenship that they’re entitled to,” he said.

After the hearing in Seattle, Nick Brown, the attorney general in Washington State, called the executive order “un-American.” But he warned the fight against it is far from over.

“We will be back in court,” he said, “as will many other people across the country.”

This will likely drag out for quite a while!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I have just finished reading, “Agent Zo: The Untold Story of a Fearless World War II Resistance Fighter ” by Clare Mulley.  It is the story of Elzbieta Zawacka – nom de guerre “Zo” – a fearless World War II resistance fighter who operated in Poland.  A teacher, she became one of the most decorated women of World War II for her relentless fighting of the the German occupation of her country.  She took incredible risks including a thousand mile-journey through German occupied Europe in order to reach London as an emissary of the Polish Home Army command.  After completing this mission, to return home, she became the only woman to ever parachute behind enemy lines into Poland.  The author, Clare Mulley, is a first-rate story teller.  I had read her previous, The Spy Who Loved, The Secrets and Lives of Christine Granville, one of Britain’s most daring and decorated special agents during World War II. In Agent Zo, Mulley duplicates the literary excellence of The Spy Who Loved… If you are at all interested in the contributions of women during World War II,  I highly recommend Mulley’s work

Below is a review of Agent Zo, compliments of the New Journal of Books.

Tony

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New York Journal of Books

Agent Zo: The Untold Story of a Fearless World War II Resistance Fighter

Author:   Clare Mulley

Reviewed by:  Marissa Moss

“an exceptional job bringing this complicated and compelling history to light”

Clare Mulley, historian and author specializing in World War II, does an exceptional job bringing this complicated and compelling history to light. Elzibieta Zawacka, known as Agent Zo, fought her entire life for women’s military worth to be recognized, first in the Polish Home Army fighting the Nazis, then under the Soviet dominated rule in post-war Poland, finally as an archivist and historian in a democratic Poland. This book is one Zo herself would be proud of, modest though she was about her own impressive achievements.

The amount of research Mulley did is truly staggering, especially given that almost all of it had to be done with the aid of translators. She manages to tell Zo’s personal story as the gripping adventure it was while also providing the bigger canvas of her lifetime. Mulley lays out the broader histories such as the little-known aspects of Poland’s post-war history, the Soviet domination and repression that resulted in the arrest and torture of people, including Zo.

All this was done in service of the revisionist history imposed on the country to erase the resistance army that had fought so long and so hard to free Poland, the people knowing the history had to be erased, along with any documentation. Besides that, Mulley weaves in the history of women in the military and Poland’s unique recognition of the valuable role women could play, granting them the same military status as men long before any other country in Europe.

The history of the Polish resistance and women’s military status are closely linked. As Mulley writes:

“Around 40,000 women would eventually be sworn in as members of the Polish Home Army, making it the largest resistance force in occupied Europe. Initially, they served in liaison, as messengers and couriers, as paramedics and in logistics; the day-to-day functioning of the early underground resistance would have been impossible without them.”

Women went on to more dangerous assignments. Zo herself risked death many times to get crucial information to the Allies. She ferried cash, weapons, and information, zigzagging across enemy territory, once even parachuting back into Poland, a first for a woman. She was involved in so many high-level missions, she developed quite a reputation and ended up with the rank of brigadier general (retired).

“Resourceful, determined and courageous, for many of her colleagues Zo had become a ‘true legend of the Home Army’ as soon as she had crossed wartime borders for the hundredth time.’  ‘She is a courier of extraordinary self-reliance,’ one report recorded. ‘She is decisive and steady, which is why she was capable of escaping by jumping from a train.'”

Zo was instrumental in getting women the recognition they deserved from the Home Army, advocating for a decree that would grant them equal status.

“The more Zo had seen of the women’s auxiliaries in Britain, the more convinced she had become that the Home Army needed their own distinct service model. . . . The main problem, as she saw it, was ‘how best to present the difficult matters that were so completely ignored or misunderstood by men.'”

Zo’s many achievements during the war are well summed up:

“For four long years she had organized and run an intelligence network, crossed wartime borders over a hundred times as a courier and, as an emissary, challenged and changed military policy and practice at the highest level. Along with her colleagues, she had helped grow the Home Army into an organisation that could wreck over a thousand enemy train engines in a single week, and supplied the intelligence that paved the way for many of the Allied bombing raids. She had also seen her entire family arrested, and the execution of many of her friends.”

The Nazi surrender should have brought Zo the peace she had fought for with so much courage. Instead, “she felt that her country’s occupation by one hostile foreign power [Nazi Germany] had now been replaced by another [Soviet Russia], and Poland was still not free.”

Zo herself would was sent to prison, arrested for being part of a network spying on the communist government. She wasn’t part of any such group but looked guilty simply because of her past. Like many of her compatriots in the Home Army, her real crime lay in telling the story of Poland’s resistance, a story that contradicted the official Soviet version. Tortured and put in prison for years, Zo was finally freed, determined to collect even more stories of the Home Army, especially the part played by women.

Zo was officially recognized with many awards and medals, but to her what really mattered was the history she had lived through. She created a vast archive, hoping to educate a new generation about their country’s history. This book serves her mission well.

Marissa Moss is the author of A Soldier’s Secret: The Incredible Ture Story of Sara Edmonds, a Civil War Hero.

Dear Commons Community,

The creator of ChatGPT, OpenAI, is teaming up with another US tech giant, a Japanese investment firm and an Emirati sovereign wealth fund to build $500 billion of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in the United States.

The new company, called The Stargate Project, was announced by Donald Trump who billed it “the largest AI infrastructure project by far in history.”  As reported by the BBC.

The venture, which began under President Joe Biden’s term in office, announced $100 billion of funding was being made available immediately, with the rest to come over four years, creating an estimated 100,000 jobs.

It is a partnership between OpenAI, Oracle, Japan’s Softbank and MGX, a tech investment arm of the United Arab Emirates government.

The AI industry has exploded in recent years, creating massive extra demand for the data centers which it relies on, while also raising concerns about the huge amounts of water and power such facilities require.

Elon Musk, however, clashed with Trump and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman over the Stargate project.  

Musk, a close Trump adviser who helped bankroll his campaign and now leads a government cost-cutting initiative, questioned the value of the investment yesterday.

“They don’t actually have the money,” Musk wrote on his social platform X. The project  has well under $10 billion  secured. I have that on good authority.”

Altman responded Wednesday to say Musk was “wrong, as you surely know” and inviting Musk to come visit the first site in Texas that is already under construction.

Billionaires squabble and poor Trump is in the middle!

Tony

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde and the Trumps

Dear Commons Community,

The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, delivered a powerful sermon during a prayer service on Tuesday marking President Donald Trump’s inauguration. And Trump, who was in attendance, was less than pleased.

During the service at Washington National Cathedral, Budde made a direct plea for “mercy” to Trump, who was seated in the front with Melania and other family members and Vice President JD Vance. She asked the newly inaugurated president to have “mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”  As reported by The Huffington Post.

Budde then referenced some of Trump’s campaign promises and the flurry of executive orders he’d issued on the first day of the second term of his administration, such as his attempt to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants and his executive order rolling back protections for transgender people.

“There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives,” Budde said in her sermon.

She then talked about the people who work hard at various jobs across the country who “may not be citizens or have the proper documentation,” but the “vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.”

“They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurdwaras and temples,” she said. “I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away.”

“Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land,” she said. (Watch her entire sermon here.)

Trump has since lashed out at Budde over her remarks, writing on his Truth Social platform that Budde is a “so-called Bishop” and “Radical Left hard line Trump hater.” He charged that she “brought her church in the World of politics in a very ungracious way.”

“She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart,” he wrote.

The president also demanded an apology, but Budde has declined.

“I am not going to apologize for asking for mercy for others,” she told Time magazine on Wednesday.

Budde, who has used her platform to call attention to civil rights issues and to challenge Trump before, received wide praise online for addressing Trump directly in her sermon. Supporters of Trump criticized the bishop, accusing her of politicizing the prayer service.

But faith leaders have historically found inspiration for their social justice activism in their religion. And Budde “certainly has the Christian faith on her side” when it comes to the messages in her sermon, said William Willimon, a bishop in the United Methodist Church, an author and a professor of the practice of Christian ministry at Duke Divinity School.

Willimon said that Budde’s plea for mercy was “particularly moving.”

“There’s no instance in the life, work, teachings of Jesus where mercy ever takes a backseat to anything else,” he told HuffPost, adding, “Not only is Jesus merciful, he commands his followers to be merciful.”

“Even to those who are our enemies and those who wrong us, he ordered mercy,” he added.

The messaging behind Budde’s sermon was rooted in her faith.

Willimon said that he was moved and felt “proud” of Budde’s sermon. He emphasized that she presented the sermon as an “issue of mercy.”

“Mercy is a Christian virtue,” he said, later adding that “government officials are often not known for being merciful.”

Trump is “a president that’s shown great mercy for convicted criminals who attacked the government in his name,” he said, seemingly referencing Trump’s pardons for those convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, “and yet is so stunningly unmerciful with these vulnerable immigrants and others.”

Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, president and CEO of Interfaith Alliance and an ordained Baptist minister, said that as he watched Budde deliver her sermon, he saw how “deeply she was drawing on her spiritual calling to say what she knew the Gospel was inspiring her to say.” (

“I was grateful for her courage to speak gently, but truthfully, to the most powerful man in the world,” he told HuffPost.

It was important that Budde, a Christian leader, addressed Trump in her sermon.

Raushenbush said that Budde was “acting as a pastor” to Trump in that moment. She was “giving spiritual direction to someone in her congregation who happened to be the president of the United States.”

“You could see that Trump was unused to anyone, much less a Christian leader, speaking to him in any way that wasn’t simply delivering praise,” he said, later adding, “In the kindest way, she was offering him a moment to reflect and even repent. The fact that his heart was too hardened to hear it is on him — not her.”

Willimon said that the Christian faith, particularly in the context of the presidential inaugural events that have taken place this week, has been “misrepresented.” He pointed to faith leaders who participated in the inauguration, such as the Rev. Franklin Graham, who he believed delivered “divisive” and “political” comments.

“So I thought it was wonderful for [Budde] at this particular time to stand up and say, in effect, ‘By the way, world, Christians see these matters differently,’” he said.

Faith leaders should speak up on issues that affect communities.

“Religious leaders have a twofold obligation, which is to help congregants cultivate a relationship to the sacred, the Divine or spirituality, as well as to help individuals understand their moral obligations to each other,” Raushenbush said. “If you are only doing one or the other, you are not fully fulfilling your role as a faith leader.”

“So, of course, we have to talk about how transgender people are being targeted, because they are our neighbors — and in my Christian tradition, we have an obligation to love our neighbor as much as we have an obligation to love God,” he said. “Same with immigrants and others. We cannot sit these questions out and still say that we follow the mandates of Jesus.”

Willimon said that although some pastors may choose to not speak up on social justice issues on certain occasions or address certain issues in places beyond the pulpit — perhaps in counseling or at small gatherings — it’s still, overall, important to “speak up.”

“We should speak up,” he said, particularly if you know a lot about a particular subject and “feel Jesus put you up to it.”

Those criticizing Budde for the themes of her sermon are missing the mark.

“It makes me wonder just how much they know about the Christian faith or the church,” Willimon said of Budde’s critics.

He added, “What they’re really saying is not that Christians shouldn’t engage in politics, it’s just Christians shouldn’t engage in politics that I don’t approve of.”

He said that he’d ask Budde’s detractors to ask themselves whether they thought she accurately spoke up for the Christian faith and whether her message was derived from Scripture.

“And the answer to that is resoundingly yes,” he said.

Willimon said that Budde’s sermon should be viewed as a model for preachers and that there are other Christian leaders across the country spreading similar messages in their communities.

Raushenbush said that people criticizing Budde as being “political” have “clearly not read the Bible.”

“There is a lot in the Bible about welcoming the stranger and the immigrant and the outcast,” he said.

Raushenbush said he found it “striking” that Budde’s sermon was deemed controversial or “radical,” since her words were “squarely within the mainstream Christian tradition.”

He also called out those who spew Christian nationalist rhetoric, spreading hate and violence.

For those people, their “real objection” to Budde is that she’s a “Christian who put forward another way — one of mercy, kindness and unity,” he said.

Amen!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

On Monday, Donald Trump issued a flurry of executive orders, several of which could effect higher education especially those related to diversity, equity and inclusion. He banned DEI efforts across the federal government, eliminated a number of programs related to race and gender, and declared that there were “two sexes.” As reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The flurry of executive orders and policy revocations sends a message about opposition to DEI that could prompt colleges to act preemptively, some higher-ed experts say.

Trump’s actions come as Republican state lawmakers and colleges in red states have eliminated or altered diversity offices, programs, and jobs on campuses.

With federal funding on the line — millions in student financial aid, as well as lucrative contracts and research grants — more colleges could be motivated to revisit their DEI efforts, said Eboo Patel, founder and president of Interfaith America.

“It seems very plausible that higher-education institutions will pre-comply, even before the Department of Education or the National Science Foundation writes it into specific projects,” Patel said. “Universities will adopt the spirit of the executive order.”

While the Trump administration has not yet signed an executive order specifically directed at higher education, Trump did end White House programs focused on advancing educational equity and opportunities for Hispanic, Native American, and Black students. The administration also rolled back efforts supporting tribal colleges and Hispanic-serving institutions.

Spared was the White House’s program focused on historically Black colleges, which Trump supported during his first term; in 2017, he signed an executive order to move the HBCU program into the White House from the Education Department.

Emmanual A. Guillory, senior director of government relations at the American Council on Education, said executive orders and revocations are common for new presidents. Former President Joe Biden signed 160 executive orders during his administration, many of which aimed to undo the 220 executive orders from Trump’s first term.

Even though Trump just got rid of several programs focused on students of color and minority-serving institutions, “it doesn’t mean that there wouldn’t be a forthcoming executive order with some different language,” Guillory said. “Every president is going to have their stamp on things.”

How the executive orders will be implemented, Guillory said, will be most important.

“Right now, what has been signed doesn’t necessarily, we believe, have a direct, hard impact,” he said. “But what comes after will matter.”

Guillory added that the American Council on Education is prepared for the new administration: “We are looking forward to working with the new political appointees.”

Meanwhile, an executive order asserting that the government will only recognize “two sexes” took aim at Title IX protections for transgender students that were championed by the Biden administration. (Those protections are enshrined in federal regulations, but a court blocked their enforcement this month.)

Trump’s order directed the forthcoming U.S. attorney general to issue guidance that Title IX does not require “gender identity-based access to single-sex spaces,” and barred federal funds from being used “to promote gender ideology.”

Trump also issued nearly a dozen executive orders on immigration, including efforts to limit birthright citizenship and require the Department of Homeland Security to fingerprint all undocumented immigrants. Trump’s pledges to crack down on immigration have created uncertainty and confusion for the country’s 400,000 undocumented college students — many of whom benefit from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA — and 1.1 million international students.

Trump also revoked a Biden-era policy that effectively shielded undocumented immigrants from arrest while inside educational institutions, churches, and hospitals. On Tuesday, more than 20 states and cities sued over the executive order on birthright citizenship, a right enshrined by the 14th Amendment.

“The biggest change might be that foreign students and immigrants (or their children) enroll less frequently, putting strain on the institutions that rely on them when enrollments are dropping among the native-born,” Harry J. Holzer, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University, wrote in an email.

Trump’s actions on DEI reflect a broader shift in the public’s perception of diversity-related programs, Holzer said. Colleges have increasingly come under scrutiny for race-conscious hiring practices, for instance, with critics saying such efforts are discriminatory and limit free speech.

“DEI practices have made many students and faculty afraid to express moderate or conservative views,” Holzer said. “But Trump’s practices could now make progressives and people of color more fearful. Free expression is harmed either way.”

We will have to wait and see how these play out in our colleges and universities.

Tony

The definition, defines antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews”.  As reported by The Guardian.

However, critics of the definition say it is designed to protect Israel by punishing legitimate criticism of the country. The examples of antisemitism attached to the definition include “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour” and “applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation”.

The definition has been accepted by the US state department, several European governments and some EU groups after strong lobbying by pro-Israel groups.

Civil rights groups have expressed concerns that the Trump administration will embed the IHRA definition throughout the federal government. In November, the ACLU denounced the IHRA definition as “overbroad” and encouraged lawmakers to reject an effort to codify it.

The ruling is the latest fallout from the turbulence that broke out in campuses across the US over Israel’s intense bombardment of Gaza and claims from many Jewish students that have experienced harassment, intimidation or worse as a result.

Harvard’s former president Claudine Gay was one of three Ivy League university heads to resign amid anger among Republicans in particular over a perceived failure of campus authorities to quell the protests and protect Jewish students.

She stepped down in January last year, shortly after Elizabeth Magill, the former president of the University of Pennsylvania, after both gave what were deemed to be excessively legalistic responses in a congressional hearing about their institutions’ policies towards antisemitism.

The chief inquisitor, the former Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik, is Trump’s nominee as ambassador to the United Nations.

Columbia saw its president, Minouche Shafik, resign in August following months of criticism in Congress over her efforts to end the protests, despite deploying New York police to dismantle a protest encampment.

Tony

George Will

Dear Commons Community,

Conservative columnist George Will tore into President Donald Trump’s second inaugural address for The Washington Post — but also had some words of advice for those who saw the end of America as they know it in his words.  Thei recap is courtesy of Raw Story and Reuters.

“Donald Trump does not deal in felicities. His second inaugural will be remembered for being worse than 59 others, including his first (about ‘stealing,’ ‘ravages’ and ‘carnage’). It was memorable for its staggering inappropriateness,” wrote Will. “Inaugurations should be solemn yet celebratory components of America’s civic liturgy. Instead, we heard on Monday that because of ‘corrupt’ and ‘horrible’ ‘betrayals’ by others, ‘the pillars of our society’ are ‘in complete disrepair.’ The challenges will be ‘annihilated,’ not because God blesses America, but because God chose him.”

This kind of spectacle, he wrote, “replicated what have become the tawdriest events on our governmental calendar: State of the Union addresses. Wherein presidents leaven self-praise with wondrous promises, as their partisans repeatedly leap onto their hind legs to bray approval. There was much such leaping in the Capitol Rotunda on Monday.”

However, Will continued, America will ultimately move past Trump’s baser instincts — in part because they are not nearly so unique as either his supporters or detractors presume them to be.

Will quoted Stephen Kotkin of the Hoover Institution, who had this to say on Trump: “This is somebody the American people voted for who reflects something deep and abiding about American culture. Think of all the worlds that he has inhabited and that lifted him up. Pro wrestling. Reality TV. Casinos and gambling, which are no longer just in Las Vegas or Atlantic City, but everywhere, embedded in daily life. Celebrity culture. Social media. All of that looks to me like America. And yes, so does fraud, and brazen lying, and the P.T. Barnum, carnival barker stuff. But there is an audience, and not a small one, for where Trump came from and who he is.”

At the end of the day, Will concluded, however much Americans abhor each others’ politics and attitudes about it, “Most people [realize] that the universe under its current administration produces many disappointments. Then they shrug and get on with their lives. Today, many emotionally dilapidated obsessives experience either despair or euphoria about the inaugurations of presidents, who come and go. Both groups should rethink what they expect from politics, and why they do.”

I tried to watch Trump’s speech but gave up on it after about ten minutes!

Tony

Marjan Fasad / HuffPost

Dear Commons Community,

While many Hispanic people in the United States are of Caribbean, South American or Mexican origin, there are thousands of identities represented within the greater community. The Huffington Post and Capital One celebratedtwo people who have helped build a pan-ethnic mosaico  through new patterns of perspective, fibers of language and layers of legacy. As reported by The Huffington Post.

Dr. Antonio R. Flores: Education For All

When Dr. Antonio Flores arrived in the United States at the age of 25, he didn’t speak much English. In spite of having to learn a second language, Flores completed his master’s degree and a Ph.D. He later became the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU)’s president and CEO.

HACU’s mission is to champion Hispanic success in higher education through its 488 colleges, universities and school districts located in 35 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and 9 countries in Latin America and Europe. The association hopes to foster the next generation of diverse leaders in higher education to ensure all students can find a diverse community on their college campuses.

In 2022, HACU welcomed 39 fellows into its fourth cohort of the Leadership Academy, a program that prepares professionals for leadership roles in the full spectrum of institutions of higher learning with an emphasis on HSIs (Hispanic-Serving Institutions) and Emerging HSIs.

“Most of these young people at Hispanic-Serving Institutions are first-generation college students,” said Flores. “For me, that means they’re already leading the way and setting the tenor for future generations. We have a chance to help them through internships and leadership programs, and that’s what we’re committed to doing so that they can make a difference for many others who may be less fortunate than they are.”

Increasing the representation of diverse teachers and leaders in education can help build cultural understanding in students, thereby boosting academic performance. Flores hopes that, ultimately, college graduation will help to advance earnings and employment for the students.

Marla Bilonick: An Entrepreneurial Mindset

Marla Bilonick, President and CEO of the National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders (NALCAB), is another example of a leader supporting her community. She’s always been intrigued by the entrepreneurial spirit and how different environments and support systems can help people succeed or fail. During the recovery period following the Sept. 11 attacks, she developed this understanding by working with small businesses and discovering that even the best of them can’t survive without the proper resources. This fueled her passion for community economic development and eventually led her to oversee NALCAB.

NALCAB, a national network of nearly 200 mission-driven organizations spread out across 45 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. Its mission: to address affordable housing, invest in Latino-owned small businesses and neighborhoods, provide financial coaching, champion policy reforms to advance racial and economic justice, support affordable housing and provide financial counseling for credit-building and homeownership.

“Having intentionality when we serve Latino communities and community members where NALCAB network nonprofits are located is very important to me,” said Bilonick. “The Latino economic engine is very powerful. If you want to stimulate the U.S. economy, this is the community you have to invest in.”

As NALCAB’s president and CEO, Bilonick heads up support for member organizations to gain access to funding, nonprofit resources and professional development to build thriving communities. But she is constantly “ears to the ground,” listening to her member organizations discuss the local needs of low- to moderate-income families and individuals they serve.

“These days, I like to get as much input from other people as I can since I find that great ideas exist outside of me,” said Bilonick. “Coming together as a group to unify organizations and listen to their concerns allows NALCAB to influence programming from the government and chambers of commerce.”

We are fortunate to have people like Dr. Flores and Ms. Bilonick.  We need more of them.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, had a piece yesterday entitled, “Trump Brings a Chill to Washington.”  While she paints a bleak picture of Trump returning to the White House, she also reminds her readers that Joe Biden is partly responsible for  “resurrecting Trump.”

It is a well-worth quick read.  The entire column is below.

Tony

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The New York Times

“Trump Brings a Chill to Washington.”

By Maureen Dowd

January 19, 2025

For many moons over the Potomac, the protocol for inaugurations has been as immutable and dignified as the words of presidents engraved on their monuments.

Leaders and luminaries would put aside their grudges and come together to celebrate democracy. This day marks the deepest conviction of the American experiment – that power must pass peacefully from one commander in chief to the next.

But what if you are coming to honor a man who tried to overthrow the government and steal an election? A man who riled up his followers to sack the Capitol and then lumbered out of town, a sore loser in a vile humour, skipping the inauguration of his successor?

Does he merit the usual privileges? Should everyone honor him in his moment at the center of the sacred traditions he desecrated?

When Michelle Obama and Nancy Pelosi blow off Donald Trump on his triumphant day, are they being rude and unpatriotic? Or are they justified, given his incendiary words, misogyny and racism, his defilement of this tradition at the heart of America?

The weather will not be the only bitter chill in town. Besides Michelle’s and Nancy’s cold shoulders, Barack Obama and the Clintons are skipping the inaugural lunch.

Trump is returning as a colossus. He has brought Washington – Democrats and Republicans – to heel, teamed up with Elon Musk and slapped a gold “Trump” sign on Silicon Valley. The lords of the cloud helped fund the coronation, and they are making a pilgrimage here to bow to their new overlord. (This includes the CEO of TikTok, who is surely hoping that his company’s sponsoring of an inauguration party and his online flattery about Trump’s 60 billion TikTok views will lead the new president to save the social media platform.)

But not everyone is looking forward to what’s in store.

It will be hard to forget Trump’s day of infamy, January 6th, as he gets sworn in at the Capitol, which was smeared with blood and faeces by rioters recast by Trump and his acolytes as “hostages”, “patriots”, “tourists” and “grandmothers”.

The wintry cold is ordinarily part of the inaugural tradition. William Henry Harrison got pneumonia and died a month after his 8,445-word speech in March 1841. John F Kennedy did his speech without an overcoat in a –14 degree wind chill. Ronald Reagan came in from the cold for his second inaugural. Trump posted on Friday that the “Arctic blast” would force the shindig inside, to the Capitol Rotunda. But given Trump’s obsession with crowd size, many wondered if he was just shivering at the thought that the weather would keep spectators away.

An X account belonging to a beloved DC dive bar, Dan’s Cafe, drily posted about the shift to the rotunda: “Good thing his supporters already know how to get inside.”

Trump’s last inauguration was marred by his meltdown over crowd size; he called the National Park Service director the next day to press him to produce additional photographs of the crowds on the Mall after the agency shared photographs showing that Obama had a much larger crowd at his inaugural than Trump did. The one-day-old president also sent out his White House spokesman, Sean Spicer, to bluster falsely about how Trump’s crowd was the largest ever to witness an inauguration.

That set the tone for the highchair king’s first term: Reality must take a back seat to ego stroking – or else.

The mood in Washington is very different this time around. Instead of a rowdy resistance and a women’s march that drew nearly 500,000 here and some five million across the globe – an international swath of pink hats – we have Republicans who have got even more sheeplike and Democrats who still seem deflated and flummoxed, with no compelling ideas or pols to lead them out of the wilderness.

And this as Trump is surrounded not by advisers, generals and a daughter trying (and failing) to temper him but by fervent loyalists who will help him toss out executive orders the same way he tossed out paper towels in Puerto Rico, with no worries about who might be hit.

When she was trying to lure Joe Biden out of the race last summer, Pelosi said he had been such a consequential president, he belonged on Mount Rushmore. And Biden has made several speeches this week trying to buff his accomplishments.

But he will be merely a footnote in the vertiginous saga of how Trump won the White House again, despite a hail of impeachments, lawsuits, insults and lies and an attempted coup that put his vice-president, lawmakers and police in danger.

The chip on Biden’s shoulder devoured his judgment about what was good for him, for his party and for the country. His narcissism trumped his patriotism.

A new New York Times article, “How Biden’s Inner Circle Protected a Faltering President,” reveals that Biden was encased in the same sort of delusional bubble as Trump. Mimicking Trump’s self-serving sycophants, Biden’s staff ginned up positive comments from allies to show the boss and protected him from negative stories.

Many noticed that Biden was in a fog, or “dans les vapes”, as an aide to President Emmanuel Macron of France called it. But challenges to the Panglossian narrative about the president’s stamina and mental fitness were met with hostility. Jill Biden and advisers spun a Trump-like web of deceit around the White House.

Even Biden himself now admits that he isn’t certain he could have made it through four more years. “Who knows what I’m going to be when I’m 86 years old?” he recently told USA Today’s Susan Page.

But he persisted with his fiction that he was hale and hearty long enough to ensure that Democrats had no time to choose a ticket with a real shot at stopping Trump.

As Biden, baked in Washington tradition, dutifully follows the script on Monday, he should ponder what his legacy will truly be: resurrecting Trump.