2025: Scott Pelley - Commencement News Archive Good morning, everybody. What a beautiful day. What a beautiful North Carolina day for a graduation. Incredible. Thank you, President Wente, Provost Gillespie, members of the Board of Trustees and Kat...

Worth reading. Scott Pelley’s Commencement speech at Wake Forest commencement.news.wfu.edu/2020s/c2025/...

In Private, Some Israeli Officers Admit That Gaza Is on the Brink of Starvation

How can the people who Nazis starved 80 years ago do this to others today? www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/w...

Social Security Lists Thousands of Migrants as Dead to Prompt Them to ‘Self-Deport’ By placing migrants in Social Security’s “death master file,” the Trump administration is seeking to cut off their access to credit cards, bank accounts and other financial services.

First, tell lies about dead people being alive (#SocialSecurity paying 150-year-olds). Then tell lies about live people being dead (and breaking the law doing it?). www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/u...

Video of the international student at Tufts being arrested by "federal authorities" in Massachusetts has been released and it's terrifying.

They're not even uniformed officers. Just secret police thugs in hoodies and masks.

From WCVB: youtu.be/PuFIs7OkzYY

The Cost of the Government’s Attack on Columbia American universities have given the country prosperity and security. The Trump administration’s attack on academic freedom endangers all of that.

Remember "the goose that laid the golden egg"? #Princeton President Eisgruber points out that America should treasure Columbia and America's other research universities, not defund them.

Maybe if the >80 US Nobel laureates signed a letter?

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Has anyone produced a guide to let federal employees know when/how they can/cannot refuse to do something they consider (a) illegal, (b) contrary to regulation, or (c) harmful? #RefusetoObey #Whistleblower

Senior U.S. official exits after rift with Musk allies over payment system A top Treasury career staffer, David A. Lebryk, announced his retirement. Surrogates of Musk’s DOGE effort had sought access to sensitive payment systems.

We don't know what the dispute was but it was serious enough for the US Treasury's most senior career official to resign. Political influence in, e.g., #SocialSecurity checks would make the OMB grant pause memo seem trivial.

wapo.st/4jH7XYa

Cut taxes or save Social Security? The $5 trillion question Revenues that would go to making the TCJA tax cuts permanent could be used to make Social Security solvent for at least the next 75 years.

Cut #taxes or save #SocialSecurity? Guess which option won't be considered by the Congress or the President. www.brookings.edu/articles/cut...

Starbucks and Workers United Union Agree to Contract Mediation A labor agreement, covering more than 500 U.S. stores, would be the company’s first. Talks stalled last year over wages.

#Starbucks & #Union are trying to reach a contract. It would be a first for the industry and a first for Starbucks, which previously opposed its employees' desire for a union to represent them. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/b...

How the Islamic State Radicalizes People Today A man who pledged allegiance to the terrorist group carried out a deadly attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day.

"...in light of the New Orleans #Terroristattack both political parties should ask: “Why is this massive [social media] industry not helping prevent such attacks? Why not a tip, as we [get] from banks and every financial institution worldwide...?” www.nytimes.com/2025/01/04/w...

Opinion | Dave Barry’s 2024 year in review How many goofs can one nation endure? The answer is Boeing in the wind.

Dave Barry, both sad and funny: on "New Year’s Eve in a beloved tradition, revelers will gather in Times Square...as that giant ball starts to descend, the people gazing up will all be united...by a common hope — specifically, that the giant ball was not manufactured by Boeing." wapo.st/3ZVw5Ns

Jimmy Carter’s Century | by Jeffrey Frankel - Project Syndicate Jeffrey Frankel shows why the 39th president of the United States was more successful than previously believed.

As we rush to form judgments about the #PresidentBiden and #Bidenomics, it's worth remembering how much opinions have changed about #PresidentCarter. Jeffrey Frankel did an economic reappraisal in his @projectsyndicate.bsky.social blog: www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/m...