In early May, Reuters reports, the US government revoked “virtually all” of Harvard University’s federal research grants — nearly $3 billion worth — because they “no longer effectuate agency priorities.”

Now, president Donald Trump says (in a post to his “Truth Social” platform) he’s “considering taking Three Billion Dollars of Grant Money away from a very antisemitic Harvard, and giving it to TRADE SCHOOLS all across our land.”

Mainstream media coverage of the whole matter seems focused mainly on the reality TV style melodrama — Trump’s specialty — and on the question of whether he can legally take money appropriated by Congress for Party A to do Thing B and re-appropriate it for Party B to do Thing C.

The melodrama sees to itself, and the legal horse seemingly escaped the barn years ago when Trump unconstitutionally misappropriated Defense Department funds to build his silly “border wall” — after Congress refused him the money multiple times — and got away with it instead of facing impeachment and removal for his lawless mishandling of government funds.

What I’m not seeing much discussion of is whether it’s a good idea for the federal government to stop writing checks to a well-heeled private university (Harvard has more than $50 billion in the bank) for various things, and instead spend that money on teaching young Americans to weld, build houses, repair cars, etc.

At first blush, the concept does look like sound. America is full of college graduates working behind the counters of convenience stores, in the kitchens of fast food restaurants, wrangling carts at Walmart, etc., all while trying to pay off the crippling debt they incurred studying social work, creative writing, and so forth. Why not equip the NEXT generation with the skills they need to earn better livings, and hopefully make that training affordable?

Here’s why:

The government does not and cannot know how many welders, carpenters, and auto mechanics the economy “needs,” let alone how many it will “need” a year from now or in 2035 … just as it has no way of knowing whether Little Bobby should rack up tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt while hoping to become an elementary school math teacher or university physics researcher.

That’s what markets are for. Markets aren’t perfect, but they’re much better at figuring out what people need, and delivering it less expensively, than governments.

Ending all federal funding of “higher education” institutions would negatively impact my household’s finances, at least temporarily (a close family member works in university research), but it would be the right thing to do. It would result in better, cheaper, and more relevant education all around.

Let Harvard be Harvard, and let trade schools be trade schools. Give tax funding to neither.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Man carrying child’s body in Gaza. Fars Media Corporation.  Attribution 4.0 International license.

On May 20, Israeli forces bombed two homes in Gaza, where, Reuters reports, “children were among the 18 dead.” The attack was justified, the Israeli regime claims, because — who knows? — there might have been a Hamas member hiding in one of the closets or something. To criticize those killings, we’re told, is “anti-semitic” even though the dead were almost certainly all semites (Palestinian Arabs). And there are a LOT of such attacks.

On May 21, a gunman killed two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC. Cue outrage — THAT attack, the Israeli regime tells us, was both unjustified and “anti-semitic.”

It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the victims being actual, voluntary employees of the regime that’s conducting those daily attacks in Gaza, even though the perpetrator (allegedly one Elias Rodriguez of Chicago) was shouting “free free Palestine” as he was taken into custody outside a pro-Israel “Young Diplomats” event. He obviously just hates Jews, see?

And maybe he DOES just hate Jews. There’s certainly a lot of ethnic hatred out there, and it’s sick regardless of who’s infected with it or who it’s aimed at.

A lot of that ethnic hatred is aimed at Palestinian Arabs (who are, again, semites), by the Israeli regime,  used by that regime and its supporters to justify the murders of, at a minimum, tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians over the last year-and-a-half. Multiple Israeli officials have openly called for the “ethnic cleansing” of Gaza and even genocide of the Palestinian Arab population.

But we’re supposed to ignore all that — the pro-Israel media “charm offensive” is already in full swing. The victims (Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky), the New York Times laments, were young. They were in love. They were just minding their own business and looking forward to a trip to Israeli-occupied Jerusalem next week, where Lischinsky intended to propose.

Yes, it’s very sad. I mean that. When it comes to murder, my sympathies are always with the victims, not the perpetrators.

But  similarly sad things could be, and haven’t been, widely reported concerning the victims of the Israeli strike. Mainstream media haven’t mentioned the victims’ marriage or travel plans, their occupations, or even their names. They’re just not important, I guess.

As in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, “all animals are equal — but some animals are more equal than others.”

What can we do about that? I’m not going to try to solve the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians here. That’s a thorny matter with a long, ugly history.

But there’s one obvious first step, and that’s for people to stop murdering and excusing murder over it.

Unfortunately, both sides suffer from an over-abundance of people who aren’t willing to take that first step.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“I guarantee you,” Joe Biden told CNN’s Jake Tapper two months before winning the 2020 US presidential election, “I will be totally transparent in terms of my health and all aspects of my health.”

Even as we’ve continued to learn more about the Biden administration’s desperate attempts to hide his severe cognitive decline over the last couple of years of his administration, his personal post-presidency office issued a statement on May 18 announcing that the 82-year-old was diagnosed, on May 16, with stage 5 prostate cancer that has metastasized to his bones. Thoughts, prayers, etc.

Various medical experts seem inclined to argue the matter, but I’m just not buying the “just now diagnosed” story.

Joe Biden, like other presidents, belongs to a special class of people, also including e.g. “super-athletes,” whose health and physical conditions are subject to near-constant monitoring and analysis by medical professionals.

The public, naturally, wants to know everything about a president’s health. So does that president and his inner circle. But that doesn’t mean the latter group wants or intends to disclose bad news to the former group.

The president’s perceived health affects everything from markets to foreign relations to, yes, voting inclinations. Therefore, the line from the White House — not just Biden’s White House, any White House — will always be that the president is in excellent health. He’s vigorous! He’s in great shape! No worries!

The claim that Joe Biden’s “aggressive” prostate cancer went from “undetected” to “stage 5 metastatic” in the four months since he left office is risible.

He and his doctors almost certainly knew about the cancer while he was still president.

They probably knew about it before he dropped out of the 2024 presidential race last July.

They just didn’t want YOU to know about it until he was well out of office and merely a sympathetic old man whose health situation affected only himself and his loved ones, rather than the so-called “leader of the free world” whose admission of a serious health problem might cost him, or his party, votes in an upcoming election.

“Totally transparent,” in Bidenese,  means “people look right through me and seeing nothing I don’t want them to see.”

It’s not just Biden. It’s not just serious medical conditions. It’s government, and the political class, from top to bottom.

Politicians love to squawk about “transparency,” but in reality they spend much of their time hiding anything they don’t want known and punishing anyone who dares reveal it. If you don’t believe me, ask Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Reality Winner,  or any of the other whistleblowers prosecuted for telling the public the truth.

The secrecy cancer inherent in politics is much more aggressive and deadly than one man’s medical diagnosis.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY