Dear Commons Community,

Former Vice President Mike Pence blasted former President Trump on Monday for embracing the position that abortion policy should be determined by states and avoiding taking a stance on whether the federal government should enforce a national ban at a certain cutoff point.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Pence — who was Trump’s running mate in 2016 and 2020 —said Trump’s newly announced position on abortion was a “slap in the face” to opponents of abortion rights who voted for their ticket.  As reported by The Hill.

“President Trump’s retreat on the Right to Life is a slap in the face to the millions of pro-life Americans who voted for him in 2016 and 2020,” Pence wrote in his post, before praising the steps their administration took to further the anti-abortion effort.

“By nominating and standing by the confirmation of conservative justices, the Trump-Pence Administration helped send Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of history where it belongs and gave the pro-life movement the opportunity to compassionately support women and unborn children. In the landmark Dobbs decision, the Supreme Court returned the question of abortion to the states and the American people,” Pence wrote.

Pence, who ran for president in 2024 on a fiercely anti-abortion rights platform, has been critical of Trump for equivocating in the past on the issue of abortion.

Pence recently announced he would not endorse Trump’s 2024 candidacy, saying Trump was “walking away” from conservative principles, including “a commitment to the sanctity of life.” Pence also cited Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election as a key reason he was withholding his support.

In his statement Monday, Pence took aim at Republicans who have backed down from boldly embracing an anti-abortion position.

“The American people elect presidents, senators and congressmen, and a majority of Americans long to see minimum national protections for the unborn in federal law. But today, too many Republican politicians are all too ready to wash their hands of the battle for life,” Pence said.

“Republicans win on life when we speak the truth boldly and stand on the principle that we all know to be true — human life begins at conception and should be defended from womb to tomb. However much our Republican nominee or other candidates seek to marginalize the cause of life, I know pro-life Americans will never relent until we see the sanctity of life restored to the center of American law in every state in this country,” he continued.

Pence’s remarks came after Trump made his most comprehensive statement to date on abortion since becoming the party’s presidential nominee.

In a roughly four-minute video posted to Truth Social, Trump said he was proud to have ended Roe v. Wade through the appointment of conservative Supreme Court justices, but he did not endorse any kind of federal abortion legislation despite pressure to do so from some conservative groups. He said states should determine their own abortion policies.

“My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint,” Trump said. “The states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state.” 

“Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks or some will have more conservative than others and that’s what they will be,” he added. “At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people. You must follow your heart, or in many cases your religion or your faith.”

Trump is trying to sit on the fence on the abortion rights issue.

Also, Pence should not worry too much because Trump will lie on any issue at any time.

Tony 

Stephen Shankland/CNET

Dear Commons Community,

Eyes will be on the sky today as a total solar eclipse will be visible to people in large swaths of Mexico, the United States and Canada.

The event will be visible to millions who live along the route the moon’s shadow will travel during the eclipse, known as the path of totality. For those in the areas experiencing totality, the moon will appear to completely cover the sun. Those along the very center line of the path will see an eclipse that lasts between 3½ and 4 minutes, according to NASA.

The next total solar eclipse won’t be visible across the contiguous United States again until August 2044. (It’s been nearly seven years since the “Great American Eclipse” of 2017.) And an annular eclipse won’t appear across this part of the world again until 2046.

Here’s everything you need to know about how to view today’s eclipse safely courtesy of CNN.

Tony

————————————————————————-

What is a total solar eclipse?

A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between Earth and the sun, completely blocking the sun’s face.

Those within the path of totality will see a total solar eclipse. People outside the path of totality will still be able to see a partial solar eclipse, where the moon only blocks part of the sun’s face.

During a total solar eclipse, the sky will darken as it would at dawn or dusk, and there are several phases for sky-gazers to anticipate.

The moon doesn’t suddenly appear between Earth and the sun — the event begins with a partial eclipse in which it looks like the moon is taking a “bite” out of the sun, causing the sun to resemble a crescent. Depending on your location, the partial eclipse can last between 70 and 80 minutes, according to NASA.

When the moon begins to cross in front of the sun, the star’s rays will shine around valleys on the moon’s horizon, creating glowing drops of light around the moon in a phenomenon called Baily’s beads.

Baily’s beads will quickly disappear until a single point of light remains, resembling a glistening giant diamond ring.

The diamond ring will disappear when totality arrives, and there is no longer any sign of direct sunlight. Bright stars or planets like Venus may shine in the dark sky, and the air temperature will drop as the sun disappears. The sudden darkness causes animals to grow quiet.

The chromosphere, or part of the sun’s atmosphere, may glow in a thin pink circle around the moon during totality, while the sun’s hot outer atmosphere, or corona, will appear as white light.

As the moon continues its trek across the sun’s face, the diamond ring and Baily’s beads and the partial solar eclipse will appear on the opposite side of the moon until the sun fully reappears.

Where can I see the eclipse?

The total solar eclipse will be visible in parts of Mexico, Canada and more than 10 US states, while a crescent-shaped partial solar eclipse is expected to appear in 49 states — weather permitting.

The eclipse will first appear over the South Pacific Ocean and begin its journey across North America. Mexico’s Pacific coast is the first point of totality on the path, expected at 11:07 a.m. PT (2:07 p.m. ET).

The pathway will continue across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Then, it will cross over Canada in southern Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, ending on the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland at 5:16 p.m. (3:46 p.m. ET).

Use our interactive map to determine what the eclipse will look like from your viewing location.

How do I safely view the eclipse?

The only time it’s safe to view the sun without eye protection is during the “totality” of a total solar eclipse, or the brief moments when the moon completely blocks the light of the sun and no sunlight is visible, according to NASA.

Otherwise, wear certified ISO 12312-2 compliant eclipse glasses or use a handheld solar viewer before and after totality, and at all times during a partial eclipse.
Separately, you can observe the sun with a telescope, binoculars or camera that has a special solar filter on the front, which acts the same way eclipse glasses would.

Directly staring at the sun can result in blindness or disrupted vision. During the 2017 total solar eclipse, a young woman was diagnosed with solar retinopathy, retinal damage from exposure to solar radiation, in both eyes after viewing the eclipse with what doctors believed were eclipse glasses not held to the safety standard. There is no treatment for solar retinopathy. It can improve or worsen, but it is a permanent condition.

The lenses of solar eclipse glasses are made of black polymer, or resin infused with carbon particles, which blocks nearly all visible, infrared and ultraviolet light, according to The Planetary Society. Sunglasses don’t block infrared radiation.

For safe manufacturers and resellers of eclipse glasses and filters for optical devices, including cameras and smartphones, check out the list curated by the American Astronomical Society.

Worried that you might have bought fake eclipse glasses? Test them out indoors first to make sure they’re safe to use while looking at the sun.

Put on your eclipse glasses before looking up and remember to turn away from the sun before you remove them again. Always keep an eye on any children wearing eclipse glasses to make sure they don’t remove them while looking at the sun.

If you normally wear eyeglasses, keep them on and put eclipse glasses over them or hold a handheld viewer in front of them, according to the American Astronomical Society.

Don’t look at the sun through any unfiltered optical devices — camera lenses, telescopes, binoculars — while wearing eclipse glasses or using a handheld solar viewer, according to NASA.

Solar rays can still burn through the filter on the glasses or viewer, given how concentrated they can be through an optical device, and can cause severe eye damage.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, had a piece yesterday entitled, “Donald Trump’s Insatiable Bloodlust.”  In it, she reviews his “apocalyptic vibes and violent rhetoric and talk of blood baths.” Here is an excerpt:

“If he’s not elected, he bellowed in Ohio, there will be a blood bath in the auto industry. At his Michigan rally on Tuesday, he said there would be a blood bath at the border, speaking from a podium with a banner reading, “Stop Biden’s border blood bath.” He has warned that, without him in the Oval, there will be an “Oppenheimer”-like doomsday; we will lose World War III and America will be devastated by “weapons, the likes of which nobody has ever seen before.”

“And the only thing standing between you and its obliteration is me,” Trump has said.

An unspoken Trump threat is that there will be a blood bath again in Washington, like Jan. 6, if he doesn’t win.

That is why he calls the criminals who stormed the Capitol “hostages” and “unbelievable patriots.” He starts some rallies with a dystopian remix of the national anthem, sung by the “J6 Prison Choir,” and his own reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance.

The bloody-minded Trump luxuriates in the language of tyrants.”

She concludes with references to his Republican Party enablers as follows.

“As Stephen Greenblatt writes in “Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics,” usurpers don’t ascend to the throne without complicity. Republican enablers do all they can to cozy up to their would-be dictator, even introducing a bill to rename Dulles airport for Trump. Democrats responded by introducing a bill to name a prison in Florida for Trump.

“Why, in some circumstances, does evidence of mendacity, crudeness or cruelty serve not as a fatal disadvantage but as an allure, attracting ardent followers?” Greenblatt asked. “Why do otherwise proud and self-respecting people submit to the sheer effrontery of the tyrant, his sense that he can get away with saying and doing anything he likes, his spectacular indecency?”

Like Macbeth’s castle, the Trump campaign has, as Lady Macbeth put it, “the smell of blood,” and “all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten” it.”

Read the entire piece!

Tony

Arson Suspect Being Sought for Setting Fire at Bernie Sanders’ Office.  Courtesy of  Daily Mail.

Dear Commons Community,

A fire at Senator Bernie Sanders’ Vermont office is being investigated as arson, the Burlington Fire Department said Friday.

Firefighters were dispatched Friday morning to the building that houses the independent senator’s only congressional office in the state. They found “a fire in the vestibule between the elevator and the entrance door to [Sanders’] office,” the fire department said in a news release. As reported by NBC News and Daily Mail.

Police in Burlington said “an unknown male subject entered the vestibule” of Sanders’ office and then “sprayed an apparent accelerant on the entrance door.”

“He then lit the accelerant and fled,” the police statement said. It also said that a “significant fire engulfed the door and part of the vestibule, impeding the egress of staff members who were working in the office and endangering their lives.”

There were no reported injuries. The door to Sanders’ office was damaged by the fire and other parts of the building had water damage.

The suspect has not been apprehended, and there is no known motive, according to police.

“We are grateful to the Burlington Fire and Police Departments who responded immediately today to a fire incident that took place in our office building,” said Sanders’ state director Kathryn Van Haste in a statement. “We are relieved that no one on our staff and, to our understanding, no one in the building was harmed.”

Van Haste said that U.S. Capitol Police and the Senate Sergeant at Arms are coordinating with local first responders.

The Burlington Fire Marshal’s office, Burlington Police Department and Vermont State Police are conducting a joint investigation.

A spokesperson for the state police did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday night.

The suspected arson comes as Capitol Police recorded an uptick in threat assessment cases last year. Police investigated more than 8,000 cases — about 500 more than the previous year — including cases involving “concerning statements and direct threats,” according to a January release.

A few too many sickos in this world!

Tony

The New York Times.  Robert Neubecker

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times had a featured article yesterday on college tuition entitled, “Some Colleges Will Soon Charge $100,000 a Year. How Did This Happen?”  Here is an excerpt.

“It was only a matter of time before a college would have the nerve to quote its cost of attendance at nearly $100,000 a year. This spring, we’re catching our first glimpse of it.

One letter to a newly admitted Vanderbilt University engineering student showed an all-in price — room, board, personal expenses, a high-octane laptop — of $98,426. A student making three trips home to Los Angeles or London from the Nashville campus during the year will hit six figures.

This eye-popping sum is an anomaly. Only a tiny fraction of college-going students will pay anything close to this anytime soon, and about 35 percent of Vanderbilt students — those who get neither need-based nor merit aid — pay the full list price.

But a few dozen other colleges and universities that reject the vast majority of applicants will probably arrive at this threshold within a few years.  Their willingness to cross it raises two questions for anyone shopping for college: How did this happen, and can it possibly be worth it?”

Boston University, Tufts, Wellesley, and Yale — among the top private colleges in the country — will begin charging the nearly six-figure sum a year for tuition, housing and other expenses, according to the schools’ admissions websites, The Boston Globe reported.

The entire article is worth a read especially if you have children or grandchildren who will be attending college soon.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Dear Commons Community,

Barry Diller, Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC and Expedia Group and founder of the Fox Broadcasting Company and USA Broadcasting, wasn’t optimistic about Trump Media stock’s future when asked about it during a recent interview — and doesn’t get why people were so excited about it in the first place.

“Why are you even talking about this? It’s a scam,” Diller said in an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Thursday.

TMTG’s total revenue in 2023 was just $4.1 million, according to an SEC filing on Monday — while losing $58 million. Those numbers, Diller suggested, should not indicate “buy” to any reasonable investor.

“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “The company has no revenue.”

Questioning how anyone could see Trump Media as a valuable company, Diller concluded that its shareholders must not have financial soundness in mind when purchasing the stock. “They’re buying it for other reasons,” he said, calling them “dopes.”

Diller said the platform offers little opportunity for future growth.

“Why would it be bigger?” he asked, adding that Donald Trump — a major part of the platform’s appeal — is “only interesting now” because he’s “out there entertaining the folks” on the campaign trail.

Trump Media shared surged to as high as $79.38 on March 26, the day trading began on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “DJT.”

Since then, the Truth Social owner’s share price has plunged by 49% to the closing price of $40.49 yesterday.

TMTG did not return a request for comment before publication.

Meanwhile, short-sellers are already betting millions against the company, The New York Times reported, citing data from S3 Partners.

Trump could also find it difficult to materially benefit from Trump Media in the short-term, since he is prevented from selling his shares for another six months as part of a “lock up” period — unless the company’s board allows otherwise.

Diller knows what he is talking about!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The U.S. economy added 303,000 jobs in March, blowing past expectations and indicating that economic growth remains on a firm footing.

The reading matches the largest one-month boost in payrolls since May 2023 and is a significant increase from the 270,000 added in February and the 256,000 in January.

Economists had forecast that about 200,000 jobs would be added for March.

The unemployment rate declined slightly to 3.8%, and wage growth came in at 4.1% over the last 12 months, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said.

Sectors seeing the largest job gains included hospitals, restaurants, local governments, large warehouse retailers, and specialty trade contractors. Manufacturing added zero jobs on net.  As reported by NBC News.

“The economy continues to display remarkable resilience, defying high interest rates and fears of a substantial slowdown,” Mark Hamrick, Bankrate’s senior economic analyst, said in an emailed note.

He added that more people were both working and looking for work, something that brought the labor force participation rate up to 62.7% — another sign of a strong economy.

The strong data point may prompt the Federal Reserve to continue to push back the interest rate cuts it had been signaling for this year. That means the cost of borrowing money for everything from credit cards to autos to homes is likely to remain elevated for some time. By keeping interest rates high, the central bank seeks to cool consumption for goods and services — too much of which keeps price growth elevated.

Following the release of Friday’s report, traders shifted the odds of the first rate cut of 2024 from June to September.

Yet with the pace of hourly pay slowing in March to the slowest annual rate of the post-pandemic period, some economists are optimistic that the ongoing jobs boom may not turn into higher inflation.

A series of new reports suggest the surge in immigrant workers in recent years, while a politically volatile topic, has helped keep a lid on the pace of pay increases that may be helping fuel inflation.

“Labor supply increased significantly [in 2023], thanks to rising participation among 25-to-54-year-olds, as well as a strong pace of immigration,” Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell said in a speech earlier this week.

Nevertheless, Powell said the central bank was in no rush to start bringing interest rates down.

“We do not expect that it will be appropriate to lower our policy rate until we have greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably down toward 2 percent,” Powell said. “Given the strength of the economy and progress on inflation so far, we have time to let the incoming data guide our decisions on policy.”

In a note to clients following the release of Friday’s jobs report, Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management, said that while the strong payrolls number could mean a delayed interest-rate cut, next week’s inflation report will be more critical in determining what the Fed does next.

“Today’s report should reassure markets that, if the Fed does not cut in June, it’s because the economy is still strong and earnings should remain in an upswing,” she wrote.

Is everybody happy?  Everybody except Trump and Fox News.

Tony

Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, Joe Cunningham, the national director for the political organization No Labels, said that the group won’t put forth a third-party presidential ticket because the hero the group was looking for “never emerged.”  Here is a quick analysis courtesy of The Hill.

“Cunningham joined Fox News channel’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto” shortly after No Labels made its announcement, where he was questioned about what went wrong.

“Let me say, it’s not for lack of trying, that’s for sure,” Cunningham said. “And the shorter answer is that to field this ticket, No Labels was looking for a hero, and a hero never emerged.”

The group announced it would end its effort to put together a “Unity ticket in the 2024 presidential election,” even after it gained ballot access in more than 20 states.

Cunningham said the group has been “very straightforward and upfront and honest” with voters that they would only move forward if two conditions were met: If Americans wanted another option outside the two dominant parties, and if the group could find someone to lead it.

He said Americans “definitely” wanted another option instead of the two leading candidates, President Biden and former President Trump. Cunningham argued that No Labels ran into trouble finding a candidate who would back it.

“At the end of the day, we weren’t able to find candidates that we felt had a straightforward path to victory in this,” he said.

No Labels leaders hinted at a list of potential candidates, including Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), and former GOP primary contestants former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) and former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, but ultimately none took the group up on their possible offers.

“At the end of the day, pushing a bat back against your respective political party is difficult in this duopoly and the establishment does not reward dissent and so we found it difficult to find the leaders to step up with the courage to be able to say ‘OK, we’re putting our country first and you know, damn the consequences within our respective parties.’”

I also believe that No Labels along with the other third party movements this year are nothing but spoilers.  And there is too much at stake in the 2024 presidential election for spoiler candidates.  We still remember Jill Stein and the Green Party in 2016.

Tony

Credit…Sam Whitney/The New York Times

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times columnist, David Brooks, has an amusing piece today entitled “Why is Technology so Mean to Me.”  He reviews all the little everyday kinks that occur in our technology-driven world from unstable Wi-Fi, to earbuds not synching up to our iphones,  to printer problems, etc.  It is a fun read and so true of our relationships with our PDAs and laptops.

Below is the entire column.

Tony

——————————————————————————————–

The New York Times

Why Is Technology Mean to Me?

April 4, 2024

By David Brooks

Opinion Columnist

It is never easy to re-examine one’s fundamental convictions, but now I am forced to question my previous disbelief in the existence of Satan. I am compelled to confront this ugly possibility by the fact that from time to time my electronic devices seem to fall under demonic possession.

Now, I should start by saying that I am not someone with a natural animosity toward personal technology. I have been known to be completely reasonable when the supermarket self-checkout machines refuse to let me proceed until I place my last purchased item into the bagging area. I patiently explain, sometimes with dramatic physical re-enactments, that, in fact, I have placed the product directly in the center of the bagging area, and even into a bag itself.

Despite these kinds of sympathetic efforts, technology finds me wanting; I am disfavored within the silicon-based community, and the situation has become so bad that it’s brought to mind this possibility of a malevolent presence — Beelzebub, Lucifer, the Dark Lord, whatever you want to call him.

Let me describe the events of last Friday, when technology was especially mean to me. I woke up in Chicago to find that my phone, which normally charges through the port on the bottom, was no longer accepting charges from that entry point. I didn’t think much of it, assuming I could clean out some dust or something.

Then I tried to pair it with my earbuds, which it usually automatically pairs with. Nothing doing. This sometimes happens, so I tried connecting it with my backup earbuds, the ones that sound like they’re beaming music from the bottom of the Pacific. These devices also refused to be on speaking terms. I went to the Bluetooth page on the phone, and it was just a bunch of “not connected” readings.

I did what any master technologist would do. I rubbed the earbuds against my phone in a seductive circular manner that I thought might foster a rapprochement. I put them in my ears and grazed the phone against my cheeks with a pressure that was amorous and gentle, but also firm. Still, the phone and earbuds refused to sync. People talk a lot about artificial intelligence but not enough about artificial obstinacy.

As I rushed to the airport my Find My app rubbed salt in the wounds by telling me I had left behind the earbuds that my phone refused to recognize in the first place. At the airport it occurred to me that I might clean the charging port by using a suction technique. So if you were at Midway International Airport last Friday and a small child asked you, “Why is that man sucking on his phone?” that man was me.

I got on the plane, secure in the knowledge that Southwest has very reliable Wi-Fi service. But the flight attendant informed us that this time it wasn’t working, because, you know, Satan. I got home and found my home Wi-Fi wasn’t working, either. I fixed it by turning it off and on, a maneuver that shows, as the Silicon Valley types would say, that I am “tech savvy.”

While at home I had to print six documents. I used to have a printer that served me well until one day it decided my ink cartridges were “corrupt” and refused to do any further printing. I bought more cartridges from the printer’s manufacturer, but my printer still saw shadiness in all new cartridges — like QAnon members looking at national politics.

We bought a new printer, but it’s snooty. Asking it to print something is like applying to Harvard. It was willing to print out an essay from the journal Daedalus and an academic paper on aging, but it was unwilling to print four other documents from mere newspapers and websites. Like Bartleby the Scrivener, it would prefer not to.

You might be reading this account thinking that I’m the problem here. I’m just a technology idiot who doesn’t know how to fix things. I am open to this possibility. When I last went shopping for a car and the salesman started explaining the amazing electronic features on the new models, I was unable to follow him after 0.7 seconds. But I remind you of the central reality. Gizmos that were working for me one minute stopped working the next. I want my technology to have many capacities, but free will is not among them.

As I’m writing this sad tale my computer is alerting me that I have to shut it down for a vital security update, as it does frequently when I’m on deadline. For a decade, if I deleted an email on my phone it was also deleted on my laptop, but one day that stopped working, too. Every time I log onto my bank’s website, using the same computer each time, I get an email telling me a new device has been detected. And don’t even get me started on subjective security questions. How am I supposed to remember what my favorite pizza topping was 15 years ago when I opened that account? People grow and change.

I am thinking of finding a priest who can do a full-scale technological exorcism — like in that old Linda Blair movie. Before I do, let me just send this off to my editor before my computer crashe$^%#&*((@”+!%#.