Dear Commons Community,

Tariffs might be President Donald Trump’s favorite word. To legendary investor Warren Buffett, there is less to be excited about.

“Tariffs are actually an act of war” Buffett said in an interview with CBS that aired on Sunday.

The Berkshire Hathaway CEO and billionaire investor said tariffs over time serve as a tax on goods and could raise prices for consumers.

“The Tooth Fairy doesn’t pay ‘em!” Buffett said with a laugh.  As reported by CBS and CNN.

Tariffs disrupt trade between countries by raising taxes on imported goods, and those new costs are often passed on to consumers through higher prices. Tariffs are considered by many economists a political cudgel — sometimes used in a trade war — and not an efficient framework for international trade.

Buffett offered his thoughts in a rare sit-down interview, with CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell. The segment focused on the late Katharine Graham, former publisher of the Washington Post and a friend of Buffett’s, though he answered a few questions about the economy.

The Oracle of Omaha said it’s critical to ask, “And then what?” when thinking about the implications of tariffs and who will bear the cost.

“You always have to ask that question in economics: Always say, ‘And then what?’” Buffett said.

Trump is set to go ahead with tariffs on America’s three biggest trading partners today, imposing 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico and hiking tariffs implemented on China.

The Trump administration has gone back and forth on its proposed tariff plans. Economists expect tariffs to increase the cost for US consumers on everyday goods that rely on international supply chains, from electronics to vehicles. Trump’s tariff proposals also come at a time when US consumer confidence is declining and concerns of inflation are lingering.

China has hit back at the United States with its own tariffs, stoking concerns of a trade war similar to Trump’s first term. And this time, the European Union and other trading partners are also targets, with Trump outlining a plan for “reciprocal tariffs” on countries that have tariffs on US goods.

While Buffett didn’t elaborate on his comment about tariffs being an act of war, tariffs have long been associated with protectionist trade policy that has influenced isolationist foreign policy. In the 1930s, after the United States hiked tariffs as part of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 (which exacerbated the Great Depression), the French media reportedly called it a declaration of (economic) war.

Buffett has previously been outspoken about the negative effects of tariffs. In 2016, he said Trump’s proposals for tariffs on the campaign trail were “a very bad idea.”

When Buffett was asked by O’Donnell about his thoughts on the general state of the economy, he said it was the “most interesting subject in the world,” though declined further comment.

Buffett, whose every word is watched closely by investors, drew attention over the past year due to a growing cash pile at Berkshire Hathaway.

Berkshire amassed its cash and cash equivalents to a record $334.2 billion in the fourth quarter, up from $167.6 billion the year prior. Berkshire added to its cash position while selling stock in blue-chip companies like Apple (AAPL) and Bank of America (BAC), raising questions about his thoughts on the US market.

Berkshire’s operating earnings in the fourth quarter surged to a record, and both its class A shares (BRK.A) and class B shares (BRK.B) closed at a record high just last week. Buffett said most of the money he manages will always be in the United States.

“It’s the best place,” Buffett said. “I was lucky to be born here.”

Buffett knows what he is talking about!

Tony

James Lankford

Dear Commons Community,

Senator James Lankford, R-Okla., said yesterday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is “rightfully concerned” about Russia reneging on agreements, as some Trump administration officials took to the airwaves to criticize the leader of the longtime U.S. ally.

“I understand Zelenskyy is rightfully concerned that Putin has violated every single agreement he’s ever signed and that he can’t be trusted,” Lankford said in an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”

His comments come after an explosive exchange in the Oval Office between President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Zelenskyy, in which the U.S. leaders berated the Ukrainian president for his approach to diplomacy and argued that he didn’t sufficiently thank the U.S. for its support, despite Zelenskyy having thanked the U.S. numerous times. Current and former Russian officials praised Trump after the confrontation.

Zelenskyy pointed out during the Oval Office exchange that Russia has previously broken ceasefires, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin “killed our people and he didn’t exchange prisoners.”

Asked Sunday about Putin’s not keeping previous agreements, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told ABC News’ “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos that “moving forward is the question, not the past,” before adding that the United States wanted to engage Russia in negotiations.

Lankford was asked on “Meet the Press” whether he was concerned that the United States was turning its back on Ukraine, a longtime ally. Lankford said “no.”

“No, we’re not turning our back on Ukraine, nor should we,” he said. “Putin is a murderous KGB thug that murders his political enemies and is a dictator.”

We need a few more Republican leaders to tell Trump not to turn our back on Ukraine!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

In her column yesterday, Maureen Dowd weighed in on the “sickening spectacle” of a meeting between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday.  Entitled, “Trump is Rootin for Putin,” she reviews the meeting as “the man (Trump) who tried to upend democracy by bullying the man (Zelenskyy) who is fighting for democracy.”

She added that “it was shocking to see Trump parrot the view of Vladimir Putin, a murderous tyrant who wants to swallow Ukraine in a fit of nostalgia for the Soviet Union.”

She concluded Trump is nothing more than a “truckler” to Putin!

Her entire column is below.

Tony

The New York Times

Trump Is Rootin’ for Putin

March 1, 2025

By Maureen Dowd

Opinion Columnist

It was a sickening spectacle: the man who tried to upend democracy bullying the man who is fighting for democracy.

The air seemed to turn flame red as the TV stars-turned-pols sat side by side in elegant yellow armchairs and had the wildest dust-up ever televised from the Oval Office.

“This is going to be great television — I will say that,” President Trump noted. The Ukrainian ambassador, Oksana Markarova, hung her head in her hands.

It looked like a setup. Vice President JD Vance, a malign presence who has said he does not care a fig about Ukraine, chided Volodymyr Zelensky for not being grateful enough to America, i.e. Trump.

“Have you said, ‘Thank you’ once this entire meeting?” Vance pressed Zelensky, who has thanked America over and over.

Trump barked at Zelensky, “You’re gambling with World War III” and wagged a finger at him: “You’ve got to be more thankful because, let me tell you, you don’t have the cards. With us, you have the cards, but without us, you don’t have any cards.”

Pretty rich for a draft dodger to lecture a man whose name has become synonymous with wartime bravery. (Trump once said that avoiding sexually transmitted diseases was his personal “Vietnam.”)

When a reporter asked what would happen if Russia broke the cease-fire again, Trump snapped, “What if anything? What if a bomb drops on your head right now?”

The bust of Churchill so beloved by Trump watched over the three men as they sparred. Can you imagine F.D.R. petulantly ordering Churchill to be more thankful? Can you imagine Churchill’s chilly disdain for Trump’s protection-racket demand for Ukraine’s minerals.

As though this weren’t enough humiliation, a member of the president’s new handpicked press pool, Brian Glenn of the right-wing Real America’s Voice, asked Zelensky, “Why don’t you wear a suit?” And then, “Do you own a suit?”

(He was echoing Trump, who mocked Zelensky when he arrived, saying “Ooh, you’re all dressed up.” The Ukrainian president had on black pants, top and boots, similar to what Elon Musk wears at the White House.)

Even though we should be used to it by now, it was still shocking to see Trump parrot the view of Vladimir Putin, a murderous tyrant who wants to swallow Ukraine in a fit of nostalgia for the Soviet Union. Trump insisted that they were fellow victims.

“Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Trump said, as though they were Army buddies. “He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia.” U.S. intelligence agencies found that Russia meddled in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf.

“You see the hatred he’s got for Putin,” Trump said of Zelensky. “It’s very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate.”

The president doesn’t understand why Zelensky is not happy with Putin for invading the smaller country and beating the bejesus out of it, for decimating a generation of young Ukrainian soldiers, for breaking cease-fires and committing war crimes.

Zelensky deserves our thanks. He has endured so much, keeping the David versus Goliath dream alive, exposing the weakness of the Russian military and basically taking it on the chin for the rest of Europe to keep Putin from gobbling up more territory.

But instead of being gracious, Trump booted Zelensky out of the White House, leaving the hero’s lunch on a tray in the hall, torpedoing his existential fight to save his battered country and Ukrainian lives.

Republican lickspittles like Lindsey Graham and Jim Banks praised Trump and trashed Zelensky while Russian leaders rejoiced. “The insolent pig finally got a proper slap down in the Oval Office,” said Dmitri Medvedev, the former Russian president and Putin toady.

A cascade of gobsmacked Western leaders wrapped Zelensky in a warm online embrace. “Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader,” said Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat. France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, posted, “Il y a un agresseur: la Russie.”

European leaders had tried to guide Trump in the days before Zelensky arrived, but Trump is wedded to his demented dream of a troika of strongmen — himself, Putin and Xi Jinping — astride the world.

Macron and Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain came to Washington, humoring Trump. Starmer grandly delivered a cream envelope with an “unprecedented” invitation from King Charles III for a second state visit, perhaps to Balmoral.

A real king soothing the ego of a hooligan who thinks he’s a king.

All the flattery did not soften up Trump. It puffed him up. Everyone is so obsequious around Trump that he now gets huffy at the least pushback. He can make any claim, no matter how outrageous — that Ukraine started the war with Russia, that Zelensky is a “dictator.” But if anyone points out that he is wrong, he blows a gasket.

After Trump flew off to Mar-a-Lago, Zelensky did an interview with Bret Baier on Fox News. He did not apologize when Baier asked him if he should. “I can’t, you know, change our Ukrainian attitude to Russia,” he said, adding that Putin wants to “kill us.”

He said the meeting came a cropper because he talked honestly about the need for security guarantees. “We just want to recognize the reality, the real situation.” He added that everybody is “afraid that Putin will come back tomorrow.”

Trump does not do well with reality; he tries to impose his own on the rest of us.

Zelensky said that Trump told him he wanted to be in “the middle” of the negotiations. But the Ukrainian president demurred: “I want really him to be more at our side” because “the war began when Russia brought this war to our country.” About Ukrainians, he said: “They just want to hear that America on our side and America will stay with us, not with Russians.”

Seems simple. Unless Trump’s art of the deal is all about truckling to Putin.

Dear Commons Coimmunity,

European leaders have rallied behind Volodymyr Zelensky after Donald Trump’s ugly exchange on Friday with the Ukrainian president in the White House.

The leaders of Germany, France, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands, and  more than a  dozen other countries were among those who posted social media messages backing Ukraine – with Zelensky responding directly to each one to thank them for their support.  As reported by the BBC.

The Ukrainian president arrived in London to attend a summit hosted by UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer who “retains unwavering support for Ukraine”, Downing Street said.

It comes after extraordinary scenes in the Oval Office on Friday as US President Trump clashed with Zelensky, telling him to make a deal with Russia “or we are out”.

At one point, Trump told Zelensky he was not thankful enough for US military and political support during Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion, and that he was “gambling with World War Three”.

As a flurry of supportive messages for Ukraine were posted by European leaders following the row – along with posts from the prime ministers of Canada, Australia and New Zealand – Zelensky replied to each one: “Thank you for your support.”

French President Emmanuel Macron posted: “There is an aggressor: Russia. There is a victim: Ukraine. We were right to help Ukraine and sanction Russia three years ago – and to keep doing so.”

Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said the Netherlands supports Ukraine “now more than ever”, adding: “We want a lasting peace and an end to the war of aggression started by Russia. For Ukraine and its people, and for Europe.”

Germany’s outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote that “no one wants peace more than the citizens of Ukraine”, with his replacement-in-waiting Friedrich Merz adding that “we stand with Ukraine” and “we must never confuse aggressor and victim in this terrible war”.

Germany’s foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said the “unspeakable” row resembled a “bad dream” and “underlined that a new age of infamy has begun”.

She said she would “wholeheartedly push” for measures that could help Ukraine “withstand Russia’s aggression even if the US withdraws support, so that it can achieve a just peace and not a capitulation”.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said: “Ukraine, Spain stands with you,” while his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk wrote: “Dear [Zelensky], dear Ukrainian friends, you are not alone.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada “will continue to stand with Ukraine and Ukrainians in achieving a just and lasting peace”.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese posted that his country had “proudly supported the brave people of Ukraine in their struggle to defend their sovereignty against the brutality of Russian aggression and in support of international law”.

European Union chiefs Antonio Costa and Ursula von der Leyen assured Zelensky in a joint statement that he was “never alone”.

“We will continue working with you for a just and lasting peace,” they said.

Poland’s Tusk and France’s Macron were among those posting messages of support to Zelensky

There were also supportive messages for Ukraine from political leaders in Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Romania, Sweden and Slovenia.

On Saturday, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told the BBC he had spoken with Zelensky twice following the White House meeting.

He said he was “not at liberty to say what was discussed” but shared that he told Zelensky “we have to respect” what Trump has done for Ukraine so far.

He said Zelensky must “find a way” to restore his relationship with his US counterpart.

Zelensky left the White House early following his row with Trump – but afterwards thanked the US president on social media for his support, saying: “Ukraine needs just and lasting peace, and we are working exactly for that.”

Writing on messenger app Telegram on Saturday, Zelensky said it was “very important for us that Ukraine is heard and that no one forgets about it, neither during the war nor after”.

“It is important for people in Ukraine to know that they are not alone, that their interests are represented in every country, in every corner of the world,” he added.

The Western world is standing with Ukraine regardless of the Trump and Vance debacle!

Tony

Andrew Cuomo

Dear Commons Community,

Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced yesterday that he is running for mayor of New York City, relaunching his political career.

In a 17-minute video, Cuomo pitched himself as an accomplished moderate who can save a city he described as threatening and “out of control,” and is capable of navigating the delicate balance between working with Republican President Donald Trump and fighting him, when necessary.

“I am not saying this is going to be easy. It won’t be easy, but I know we can turn the city around, and I believe I can help,” he said.

The Democrat is expected to mount a formidable campaign, despite entering the race deeply wounded by a scandal that forced his resignation as governor in 2021.

He takes on a large field of primary opponents with low name recognition plus an incumbent, Mayor Eric Adams, who — for now — remains under indictment on federal corruption charges and under scrutiny from critics who question his independence from Trump.

Cuomo brings fundraising prowess, a record of accomplishments over three terms as governor and potential support among moderate voters who helped propel Adams to office.

Yet it is unclear whether voters are willing to give Cuomo another chance following his remarkable downfall, when he went from being hailed for his leadership during the onslaught of COVID-19 to being castigated for his behavior with women and questioned about his pandemic response.

In his campaign video, Cuomo acknowledged past “mistakes” but did not directly address the harassment allegations.  As reported by The Associated Press.

“Did I always do everything right in my years of government service? Of course not,” he said. “Would I do some things differently knowing what I know now — certainly. Did I make mistakes, some painfully? Definitely, and I believe I learned from them and that I am a better person for it, and I hope to show that every day.”

Adams, caught on a city street by a Politico reporter Saturday, welcomed Cuomo to the race.

“Come one, come all. Everybody should put their position forward,” Adams said. “I have a great record to run on. We look forward to the campaign.”

Plotting a comeback

Cuomo had been circling a return to politics for years while his lawyers and political consultants kept trying to discredit his accusers.

At least 11 women credibly accused him of harassment that included unwanted kissing and touching and remarks about their looks and sex lives, according to a report released by New York’s attorney general. One aide filed a criminal complaint accusing Cuomo of grabbing her breast when they were alone in the governor’s mansion.

Cuomo denied the sexual assault allegation, which a prosecutor ultimately dropped, citing a lack of enough proof to get a conviction.

Cuomo, 67, said he did not intentionally mistreat women and had simply fallen behind the times of what was considered appropriate workplace conduct.

Taxpayers spent millions of dollars defending him and his aides against lawsuits related to the allegations.

The first woman to publicly accuse Cuomo of harassment, Lindsey Boylan, wrote in an essay published in Vanity Fair on Saturday that New York “deserves better.”

She said that rather than repent and atone, Cuomo has waged a “vengeful” legal campaign against his accusers.

“While the women who worked for and with Cuomo may no longer be subject to inappropriate behavior, misconduct, or sexual harassment, some of us remain the victims of what could be interpreted as an ongoing campaign that weaponizes the legal system as a tactic for retribution,” Boylan wrote.

She added that even though she never sued Cuomo, she has spent $1.5 million on lawyers to respond to subpoenas in his other cases.

A crowded Democratic primary

There are already several candidates vying to beat Adams in June.

Among them are city Comptroller Brad Lander, state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, state Sen. Jessica Ramos, state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani and former city Comptroller Scott Stringer, who was a front-runner in the mayor’s race four years ago until a woman accused him of groping and kissing her without her consent 20 years earlier.

In a statement, Ramos called Cuomo a “corrupt bully” who “brings nothing to this race but baggage.”

Myrie said New York shouldn’t be forced to relive “the Andrew Cuomo show.”

“We deserve better than selfish leaders who spent decades in office putting their desire for power above New Yorkers’ needs,” Myrie said.

Adams is a vulnerable incumbent

The mayor is facing a tempest over the U.S. Justice Department’s extraordinary effort to end the criminal case against him over the objection of the prosecutors who brought the charges.

An indictment said Adams accepted luxury travel perks and illegal campaign contributions from people who wanted to buy his influence, including a Turkish official and other foreign nationals.

After Trump took office, a top Justice Department official ordered prosecutors to dismiss the charges so Adams could focus on assisting the president’s immigration agenda, while leaving open the possibility that charges could be refiled after the election.

The dynamic led critics to claim that Adams struck a deal to help Trump’s immigration crackdown in exchange for legal salvation.

Adams has strongly denied such an arrangement, while resisting intense pressure to step down. Some of his top deputies announced plans to resign in protest.

Long rise to power, quick fall

Cuomo started in politics working for his father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, and later became U.S. housing secretary under President Bill Clinton and New York attorney general before being elected governor in 2010.

His star power was highest during the pandemic, when his televised daily briefings attracted admirers who saw him as a steady hand during a frightening time. The briefings led to a more than $5 million book deal to write “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons From the Covid-19 Pandemic.”

But women began coming forward in late 2020 and early 2021 to accuse Cuomo of misconduct, and he faced a potential impeachment before stepping down. A state ethics panel concluded that he improperly used taxpayer resources to prepare and edit his book.

Questions about COVID-19 in nursing homes

Cuomo was further damaged by allegations that his administration unintentionally contributed to a wave of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes by initially barring them from refusing to readmit virus patients discharged from hospitals.

The governor said the allegations were baseless, but his administration was found to have substantially undercounted nursing home deaths as it sought to deflect criticism.

Cuomo still has a significant campaign war chest that, technically, he could draw on. But the process of transferring state donations to a city committee would be complicated and require each donor to sign off, a potentially burdensome effort.

As incumbent Mayor Eric Adams has indicated, Cuomo is welcome to the race!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday’s White House meeting with Donald Trump, JD Vance and Volodymyr Zelenskyy was a disaster for all involved (see video below).  Trump and Vance tried to bully  Zelenskyy into surrendering to Russia’s Vladimir Putin.  Zelenskyy would have none of it and walked away from any agreement that failed to guarantee American support against Putin’s transgressions and duplicity. Trump and Vance retaliated by talking down to Zelenskyy and saying he was not thankful enough for what the United States had done for his country .  (As an aside, CNN reported that Zelenskyy has publicly thanked the US thirty-one times in the past four years.)

Dear Commons Community,

Houston Chronicle

The Houston Chronicle reported yesterday that  the Texas A&M University System is set to acquire one of the highest-performing AI supercomputers for $45 million from World Wide Technologies Inc.  The purchase is expected to triple the university’s supercomputing capacity. It will put the Texas school on the map as the holder of one of the highest-operating AI supercomputers of any university in North America, according to the press release.

“This investment will triple our computing capacity, which will support the A& M System’s growing research initiatives, particularly in areas such as machine learning, generative AI applications, graphics rendering and scientific simulations,” the university’s Chancellor John Sharp said.

Sharp said the university plans to use this supercomputer to contribute to Texas’s economic growth and technological advancements.

The model is the NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD with DGX H200 systems. It is part of a $45 million agreement with World Wide Technologies Inc., a NVIDIA channel partner.

Other universities have made moves to acquire the world’s top supercomputers with the evolution of AI, including the University of Florida, which spent $24 million on an advanced supercomputer. The University of Chicago also recently opened its exascale supercomputer to researchers.

With AI quickly deepening its hold on society, universities have been calculating how to stay ahead of the curve. Just last year, the University of Texas at San Antonio opened a new college for AI, data science and computing.

While AI could lead to slight decreases in the number of jobs in fields such as sales, there are expected to be increases in employment in software publishing, computing infrastructure providers and more over the next decade, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Software development is expected to be the 12th fastest growing individual overall in the next decade, the Bureau of Labor reported.

Congratulations to Texas A&M!

Tony

Congresswoman Kim Schrier

Dear Commons Community,

 Late Wednesday, Rep. Kim Schrier (D-Wash.) tore into Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for downplaying a child’s death in a measles outbreak in Texas, saying she blames Kennedy for the tragedy because of his long record of spreading disinformation about vaccines.

State health officials confirmed Wednesday that an unvaccinated child in rural West Texas had died amid the outbreak, becoming the first U.S. death from measles since 2015. Measles is highly contagious but preventable with vaccines. Asked later in the same day about the unnamed child’s death during the first Cabinet meeting of President Donald Trump’s new administration, Kennedy said only that measles outbreaks are “not unusual” and that “we have measles outbreaks every year.”

Schrier, who is a pediatrician, said she was stunned by Kennedy’s response.  As reported by The Huffington Post.

“He’s full of, you can put four letters there,” she told HuffPost. “Starts with an ‘S.’”

The fact that a child has died from a vaccine-preventable disease is “devastating,” Schrier said. “And by the way, I do blame him and others like him who, for the past 20 years, have been spreading lies about vaccines, which are safe and effective. And that has been proven time and again. This is settled science.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for

As of Tuesday, the Texas Department of State Health Services has reported 124 cases of measles since late January, the largest outbreak the state has seen in nearly 30 years. The vast majority of these cases are children, and all but five of these cases are in people who are unvaccinated or with an unknown vaccination status.

Measles vaccines were first developed in the 1960s and then combined with vaccines for mumps and rubella in the 1970s. Measles was considered eradicated in the U.S. in 2000. But there have been outbreaks from time to time, and Schrier said it is because of people like Kennedy, who has a high profile and has denigrated vaccines dozens of times.

He has repeatedly promoted the false claim that vaccines cause autism, something he did as recently as 2023 in a Fox News interview. In a podcast interview that same year, Kennedy said, “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.” In 2021, he urged people to “resist” guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on when children should get vaccinated.

During a 2019 measles epidemic in Samoa that left 80 children dead, Kennedy wrote to the country’s prime minister, falsely claiming the measles vaccine was probably causing the deaths.

“People like him keep telling vulnerable parents that there’s something wrong with vaccines,” Schrier said. “They are preying on these parents, and that has a direct line to the death of this child.”

The Washington state congresswoman also took aim at senators who voted this month to confirm Kennedy to his powerful post atop HHS, despite knowing he spent decades rejecting science and pushing conspiracies about childhood vaccines causing autism. Kennedy was confirmed on a party-line vote, except for one Republican who voted no: Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a childhood polio survivor.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who is a physician and chairs the Senate’s top health committee, briefly waffled on whether he would support Kennedy’s nomination. He specifically raised concerns about Kennedy’s record of spreading lies about vaccine safety. But in the end, he supported him.

A Cassidy spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment about Kennedy downplaying the measles epidemic in Texas.

“Every Republican senator who voted to confirm him as secretary of Health and Human Services knew that this was going to happen,” Schrier said, referring to the child who died from measles.

Scientists are already on edge about the possibility of Kennedy using his position to sow doubts about vaccines. On Wednesday, a panel of scientific experts that advises the Food and Drug Administration on vaccine policy learned that its upcoming meeting to discuss next year’s flu vaccines had been canceled. No reason was given.

Schrier said measles is “one of the most contagious diseases I have ever dealt with” as a pediatrician. The Texas outbreak is particularly worrisome, she noted, as it has spread into New Mexico and has health officials on high alert in Louisiana ― Cassidy’s home state.

“There have been outbreaks, but this is a big one,” she said. “And [Kennedy] has contributed to it.”

YES!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of well-established vaccines, said Wednesday that his department is tracking an outbreak of measles that has infected more than 100 people and killed a child in Texas. But he played down the consequence of the resurgence — 25 years after the disease was declared to be eliminated in the U.S.  As reported by NBC News.

“We’re following the measles epidemic every day,” Kennedy said during President Donald Trump’s first Cabinet meeting since being sworn in Jan. 20. “Incidentally, there have been four measles outbreaks this year in this country. … So it’s not unusual. We have measles outbreaks every year.”

But the death of an unvaccinated school-age child in West Texas, confirmed by a state health official this week, is the first fatality in the U.S. since 2015.

Kennedy has been scarce at HHS headquarters, has not visited a number of HHS agencies and has not sent all-staff emails to the department’s workforce, according to one department official. Notably, this person said, Kennedy has not done anything to address the measles outbreak.

“It’s almost like he’s still in campaign-mode rather than realizing he’s head of a large agency and workforce,” the HHS official said.

An HHS spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.

Trump’s decision to tap Kennedy to lead HHS reflected the president’s own tortured relationship with pandemic disease, mass immunization and a political base that has become increasingly critical of vaccines following the health and economic damage wrought by Covid-19.

It also poses a risk to Republican lawmakers in the midterm elections if measles, bird flu, Ebola or another disease rips through the country following Kennedy’s appointment and the Department of Government Efficiency’s cutbacks in foreign and domestic efforts to combat those viruses, according to some GOP strategists.

“If you’re cutting a program, that increases the potential for something to go wrong — you’re going to own it,” said one strategist who has worked on Republican presidential, Senate and House campaigns. “Maybe the measles thing is the canary in the coal mine. … This is a small example of a potential problem. This has real-life consequences, and that’s the part that is politically perilous.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who voted to confirm Kennedy, said the government needs to pay close attention to the public health implications of communicable diseases.

“We should be worried about any outbreak, particularly measles,” Murkowski said.

Billionaire Elon Musk, a temporary Trump White House adviser who is the public face of DOGE, erroneously said Wednesday that public funding for anti-ebola efforts had been turned back on after DOGE cut it off, according to The Washington Post, which reported that the money is still frozen. The DOGE cuts, and Trump executive orders pausing some government operations, complicated the administration’s response to an avian flu outbreak that has spiked egg prices and could endanger people. But Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said this week that her department would commit as much as $1 billion to combating the economic and health effects of the disease.

Many political experts believe Trump’s reactions to Covid-19 hurt him in losing re-election to Joe Biden in 2020. In order to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the Trump administration issued stay-at-home guidelines that contributed to economic losses. Congress and Trump then spent trillions of dollars — later augmented by a massive Biden stimulus law — to prevent an economic collapse. At the same time, Trump launched Operation Warp Speed, a successful effort to push drug companies to develop a vaccine in record time.

But many Trump voters were upset by the federal guidelines and more-stringent state-level commercial shutdowns, and some questioned the efficacy and safety of the vaccine. Trump’s pride in pushing for the vaccine dissolved during his 2024 campaign. His shift was apparently enough for Kennedy, who dropped out of the race and endorsed him. Since taking office, Trump has issued a federal ban on Covid vaccine mandates in schools and ordered the reinstatement of military personnel who were fired for refusing to take the vaccine during the Biden administration.

In other words, Trump has found a position that allows him to oppose vaccine mandates without banning immunizations, a stance that gives him some room to maneuver to each side when necessary. Kennedy, who was confirmed 52-48, with former Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., casting the only Republican “no” vote, has long been more critical of vaccines — including the MMR shot.

Kennedy has promoted an unfounded theory that vaccines cause autism, and he blamed measles deaths in Samoa in 2018 on immunizations rather than the disease.

“I think that we need a vaccine that is not a leaky vaccine,” Kennedy told NBC News of the MMR vaccine in February 2024. “The immunity that you get is ephemeral, and it wears off over time.”

He added that the “most frightening part” of the measles shot is that “it does not provide maternal immunity.” Asked whether he would recommend that children get the measles vaccine, he walked away from the interview.

The refusal to endorse the shot puts Kennedy in a small minority of Americans, according to polling in recent years. The vast majority of children in the U.S. receive a measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) shot, and roughly 9 in 10 Americans said in 2023 that they believed the benefits of that vaccine outweigh the risks, according to the Pew Research Center.

“It was irresponsible for the president to put a vaccine skeptic in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services,” Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, said. “The death in Lubbock is tragic, and I hope it will be a wake-up call for Republican leaders who have pushed dangerous conspiracy theories about vaccines and advocated for cuts to medical research and public health.”

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., an obstetrician by trade, told NBC News that he spoke to Kennedy on Thursday morning — but that measles did not come up.

“He’s already said that he’s pro-vax,” Marshall said, shifting the blame for skepticism to the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

“Fauci did more to create vaccine hesitancy in this country in two years than Bobby Kennedy potentially could have done in a lifetime,” Marshall said, referring to Fauci’s role on Trump’s coronavirus task force and testimony to Congress about the origins of Covid-19 that some Republicans say was knowingly false.

Marshall also pointed a finger at Biden, pinning the outbreak on undocumented immigrants.

“I encourage everyone to get their measles vaccine, their MMR vaccine. I think it’s a great idea,” Marshall said. “But this wouldn’t be happening in Texas right now if it wasn’t for Joe Biden’s open border.”

Trump frequently portrayed Fauci as a villain during the 2024 campaign and, upon taking the presidency, revoked the security detail protecting him.

During his confirmation hearings, Kennedy said that he is broadly in favor of inoculations, but refused to endorse the measles vaccine.

Let hope that Trump does not handle the measles outbreak the way he handled COVID!

Tony

Gene Hackman with wife Betsy Arakawa at the 2003 Golden Globes

Dear Commons Community,

Gene Hackman, the screen actor with memorable roles in The French Connection, Unforgiven, Superman, and a host of other movies, has died. He was 95.

The actor and his wife, classical pianist Betsy Arakawa, were found dead at their home in Santa Fe Summit on yesterday, reported the Santa Fe New Mexican, citing County Sheriff Adan Mendoza who confirmed to the outlet that the couple had died, along with their dog.

Mendoza added there was no immediate indication of foul play in the deaths, the outlet added. He also did not provide a cause of death or say when the couple might have died.

For decades, Hackman has been one of my favorite actors.

Below is his obituary courtesy of The New York Times.

May he rest in peace!

Tony

The winner of two Oscars, he was hailed for his nuanced performances in films like “The French Connection,” “Unforgiven” and “The Royal Tenenbaums.”

By Robert Berkvist

Feb. 27, 2025Updated 4:50 a.m. ET

Gene Hackman, who never fit the mold of a Hollywood movie star, but who became one all the same, playing seemingly ordinary characters with deceptive subtlety, intensity and often charm in some of the most noted films of the 1970s and ’80s, has died, the authorities in New Mexico said on Thursday. He was 95.

Mr. Hackman and his wife were found dead on Wednesday afternoon at a home in Santa Fe., N.M., where they had been living, according to a statement from the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department. Sheriff’s deputies found the bodies of Mr. Hackman; his wife, Betsy Arakawa, 64; and a dog, according to the statement, which said that foul play was not suspected.

Mr. Hackman was nominated for five Academy Awards and won two during a 40-year career in which he appeared in films seen and remembered by millions, among them “Bonnie and Clyde,” “The French Connection,” “The Poseidon Adventure,” “Mississippi Burning,” “Unforgiven,” “Superman,” “Hoosiers” and “The Royal Tenenbaums.”

The familiar characterization of Mr. Hackman was that he was Hollywood’s perfect Everyman. But perhaps that was too easy. His characters — convict, sheriff, Klansman, steelworker, spy, minister, war hero, grieving widower, submarine commander, basketball coach, president — defied pigeonholing, as did his shaded portrayals of them.

Still, he did not deny that he had a regular-Joe image, nor did he mind it. He once joked that he looked like “your everyday mine worker.” And he did seem to have been born middle-aged: slightly balding, with strong but unremarkable features neither plain nor handsome, a tall man (6-foot-2) more likely to melt into a crowd than stand out in one.

It was Mr. Hackman’s gift to be able to peel back the layers from characters who carried the weight of middle age.

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“Because they’ve been around long enough to experience failure and loss, but not long enough to take it easy, Hackman could play them with a distinctive mix of shadow and light,” Jeremy McCarter wrote in an appraisal of Mr. Hackman’s career in Newsweek in 2010, six years after the release of what turned out to be his last film, the comedy “Welcome to Mooseport,” and two years after he confirmed that he did not plan to make any more movies.

“While some actors congratulate themselves for venturing into the moral gray zone,” Mr. McCarter continued, “Hackman has called it home for so long that we’ve ceased to notice. In his performances, as in life, the good guys aren’t always nice guys, and the villains have charm.”

If the critics had one word for Mr. Hackman as a performer, it was “believable.” He seemed to live his roles, they said, not play them.

“There’s no identifiable quality that makes Mr. Hackman stand out,” Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times in 1988. “He simply makes himself outstandingly vital and real.”

He avoided self-analysis when he talked about acting. “I don’t like to look real deep at what I do with my characters,” he once said. “It is that strange fear that if you look at something too closely, it goes away.”

Mr. Hackman was forever associated with his breakout role, that of the crude, relentless narcotics cop Popeye Doyle — a grim-faced bloodhound in a porkpie hat — in the hit 1971 film “The French Connection.” That performance brought him his first Academy Award, as best actor.

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But that was only one of countless memorable film portraits. He received an Oscar nomination for his work in Alan Parker’s “Mississippi Burning” (1988), in which he played an F.B.I. agent investigating the disappearance of three civil rights workers — a “scratchy, rumpled, down-home-talking redneck, who himself has murder in his heart,” as Vincent Canby wrote in The Times.

In “Unforgiven” (1992), as a vicious small-town sheriff who crosses six-guns with a bounty hunter played by Clint Eastwood, he was a chilling study in sadistic brutality. That performance brought him his second Oscar, as best supporting actor.

Early Accolades

Early in his career Mr. Hackman worked on television shows like “Route 66” and “Naked City,” in improvisational theater and in Broadway comedies, including Muriel Resnik’s “Any Wednesday,” with Sandy Dennis, and Jean Kerr’s “Poor Richard,” with Alan Bates and Joanna Pettet. His performance in a bit part in a 1964 Warren Beatty movie, “Lilith,” made a lasting impression on Mr. Beatty, who remembered him when he was producing “Bonnie and Clyde” and looking for someone to play Buck Barrow, the explosive brother of the gangster Clyde Barrow (played by Mr. Beatty). Mr. Hackman’s performance in that film, directed by Arthur Penn and released in 1967, brought him his first Oscar nomination.

By the time the director William Friedkin cast him in “The French Connection,” Mr. Hackman had more than a dozen films under his belt and a second supporting-actor Oscar nomination, for “I Never Sang for My Father” (1970), in which he played a widower coping with a demanding parent (played by Melvyn Douglas).

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Not all his roles explored life’s dark side. His knack for comedy, honed on the stage, resurfaced in Mel Brooks’s “Young Frankenstein” (1974), in which he was cast as a blind hermit who unknowingly plays host to the monster, and served him well in later films like “The Birdcage” (1996) and “The Royal Tenenbaums” (2001).

By the mid-1970s Mr. Hackman was making movies at such a frantic pace that he became known as the hardest-working actor in Hollywood. In 1972 he appeared in three feature films, most notably “The Poseidon Adventure,” in which he played a minister trying to survive with other frantic passengers aboard a capsized ocean liner. (The other two were “Prime Cut” and “Cisco Pike.”) He repeated that trifecta in 1974 with “Young Frankenstein,” the western “Zandy’s Bride” and “The Conversation,” Francis Ford Coppola’s taut, understated drama about a surveillance expert who becomes involved in trying to prevent a murder.

His work in “The Conversation” was one of a string of critically acclaimed performances in the 1970s; among the others were his brawling ex-con in “Scarecrow” (1973) — which he considered the best performance of his career — and his troubled private eye in “Night Moves” (1975), in which he was reunited with Arthur Penn. But perhaps inevitably, given how many there were, his performances were often routine.

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Mr. Hackman was making lots of money, but he was also wearing himself out. His return appearance as Popeye Doyle in “French Connection II” in 1975 was one of four Hackman films that were released that year. By the end of the decade, he decided he’d had enough for a while.

After playing Lex Luthor, nemesis of the Man of Steel, in “Superman” (1978) — and simultaneously filming his scenes for “Superman II,” released two years later — Mr. Hackman briefly left Hollywood. He did not make another film until “All Night Long,” a comedy co-starring Barbra Streisand, in 1981.

His streak of well-received performances soon resumed: as a high school basketball coach in search of redemption in “Hoosiers” (1986) and a government official who accidentally murders his mistress in “No Way Out” (1987); as a district attorney trying to protect a witness from two hit men in “Narrow Margin” (1990); and, in “The Birdcage,” a remake of the French comedy “La Cage aux Folles,” as a conservative, pompous politician whose daughter’s fiancé turns out to have two gay men, one of them a drag performer, as parents.

No Slowing Down

Even the heart surgery he underwent in 1990 did not slow his pace. In 2001, a year after turning 70, Mr. Hackman was seen in five films: the comedy “The Heartbreakers,” as a tobacco tycoon; “The Heist,” David Mamet’s story of an elaborately planned robbery, as a master thief contemplating retirement; “Behind Enemy Lines,” as a naval chief trying to rescue a pilot shot down over Bosnia; “The Mexican,” a comedy adventure starring Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, as an imprisoned mob boss; and Wes Anderson’s quirky “The Royal Tenenbaums,” as the absentee father of three prodigiously talented children.

That same year the critic David Edelstein, noting that unlike most actors of comparable stature, Mr. Hackman occupied “a middle ground between character acting and movie stardom,” suggested one key to his success. “Even at their jauntiest,” Mr. Edelstein wrote in The Times, “Mr. Hackman’s performances have volcanic undercurrents. It might be that the secret of his uniqueness is that his comfort zone is such a scary and volatile place.”

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Eugene Allen Hackman was born in San Bernardino, Calif., on Jan. 30, 1930, and grew up in Danville, Ill. His father, also named Eugene, was a pressman for the local newspaper. His mother, the former Anna Lyda Gray, was a waitress.

When young Gene was 13, his father abandoned the family, driving away while his son was out playing in the street. As his father passed by, Mr. Hackman recalled years later, he gave him a wave of the hand.

“I hadn’t realized how much one small gesture can mean,” he once said. “Maybe that’s why I became an actor.”

Lying about his age, he enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1946 and served in China and then in Hawaii and Japan, at one point working as a disc jockey for his unit’s radio station. After his discharge he studied journalism at the University of Illinois for six months and then went to New York to learn about television production.

He worked at local stations around the country before deciding to study acting, first in New York and then at the Pasadena Playhouse in California, where Dustin Hoffman was a fellow student. They struck up a lasting friendship, though they did not appear in a film together until 2003, when they were both in “Runaway Jury,” a courtroom drama based on a John Grisham novel.

Back in New York, Mr. Hackman met and married Faye Maltese, a bank secretary, and began the classic actor’s struggle to survive. “I drove a truck, jerked sodas, sold shoes,” he told an interviewer.

A Broadway Hit

Eventually he found theater work, first in summer stock and then Off Broadway. In “Any Wednesday” — his third Broadway play, but the first to last more than a few days — he played a young man from Ohio who goes to New York and falls in love with a tycoon’s mistress. The critics applauded, the play was a hit, and Mr. Hackman never had to sell another pair of shoes.

Mr. Hackman’s first marriage ended in divorce in 1986, after several trial separations. In 1991 he married Ms. Arakawa, a classical pianist, and they settled in Santa Fe. He is survived by his children from his first marriage.

Mr. Hackman returned to the stage in 1992, opposite Glenn Close and Richard Dreyfuss in Mike Nichols’s production of “Death and the Maiden,” Ariel Dorfman’s play about a Latin American woman (Ms. Close) who succeeds in trapping the man (Mr. Hackman) she believes had raped and tortured her as a political prisoner years earlier. It was his first appearance on Broadway in 25 years; it was also his last.

In his later years Mr. Hackman devoted much of his time to painting and sculpture at his adobe home in Santa Fe. He also became a published author. He collaborated with his friend Daniel Lenihan, an underwater archaeologist, on three historical novels, and later wrote “Payback at Morning Peak” (2011), a western, and “Pursuit” (2013), a thriller.

He never formally retired from acting, but he told an interviewer in 2008 that he had given it up because he did not want to “keep pressing” and risk “going out on a real sour note.” Three years later, when an interviewer for GQ magazine told him, “You’ve got to do one more movie,” he said, “If I could do it in my own house, maybe, without them disturbing anything and just one or two people.”

In that same interview, Mr. Hackman was asked to sum up his life in a single phrase. He replied:

“‘He tried.’ I think that’d be fairly accurate.”

Robert Berkvist, a former New York Times arts editor, died in 2023. Yan Zhuang and Alex Marshall contributed reporting.