Answer: Yes. … The Globe’s James Pindell has the details. … And let’s hope Dems show more common-sense on a lot of other issues, like immigration and public safety, as well as focusing more on the needs of the working class.

Here’s the list of 60 colleges the Trump administration is now targeting for possible sanctions. I count a total of nine schools from New England. … Is your college on the list? Mine is. And I’m sort of proud of it, similar to how many considered it a badge of honor to be on Richard Nixon’s original enemies list.

… I’m obviously not proud Tufts and other schools stand accused of potential antisemitism. I also don’t want to see the schools slapped with huge financial sanctions. But I don’t for a minute believe antisemitism is the real reason the Trump administration is going after these schools. As noted over the weekend, it’s about ideology. It’s about payback time. It’s about DEI and woke and CRT and radical left-wing professors and earthy environmentalists, and, going way back, the 1960s and Black Panthers and hippies etc, etc., etc. It’s about the raw anti-leftwing sentiment that’s totally consumed the right. Sooner or later, they’re going to crack down on a school for whatever reason. Might as well make the list now. … 

Update – Like Larry Summers, I have my own principled complaints about colleges, such as their infuriating double-standards on campus free speech and their long-time intolerance of non-lefty viewpoints on campus, etc. But as Summers said of the Trump administration’s recent Columbia action: “This kind of heavy-handed indiscriminate sanction will slow scientific progress, deny opportunity, chill legitimate discourse, and undermine the rule of law.” … Summers comments via Globe.

The Herald’s Peter Lucas goes there. … I gotta admit: I’ve been thinking the same thing with all her recent high-profile national appearances etc. But a White House run seemed so far-fetched, I dismissed it. Maybe I shouldn’t have. Here’s why: Michael Dukakis, Paul Tsongas, John Kerry, Mitt Romney, Bill Weld, Jill Stein, Elizabeth Warren, Seth Moulton, Deval Patrick, etc. etc.

A month after announcing a round of layoffs, MGB is back with yet another round of layoffs, the BBJ reports. … The deficit situation is apparently worse than thought — or at least worse than what pundits like me thought. … No mention of probable federal health-care funding cuts to come.

Have you noticed the Globe’s coverage of the 5^th anniversary of the COVID outbreak? It’s been casting a critical eye on some of the initial responses five years ago to the pandemic — and the subsequent orthodoxies that arose around those responses. From the Globe’s Emily Spatch earlier this month: “Six things we got wrong about COVID-19, from washing groceries to herd immunity.” Then there this from the Globe’s Chris Serres: “COVID lockdowns were a giant social experiment. Did they work?” Last but not least, from David Scharfenberg: “The case against Anthony Fauci.”

Cutting to the chase: the Globe is a liberal paper in a liberal state questioning many of the pandemic-era assumptions and policies once passionately espoused (and enforced) by liberal-establishment types – and it’s been refreshing to see the Globe tackle these issues. . … I guess at this point, for the sake of balance, I’m supposed to point out the right’s own Covid dogmas and blunders, from not wearing face masks at White House events to suggesting disinfectants might work to treat COVID, etc. etc. But I won’t go there. 

First Columbia University. Now Harvard and eight other colleges could be the next schools to see federal funding yanked by the Trump administration, the NYT is reporting.  … The administration said last week that it was pulling $400 million from Columbia due to its alleged failure to crack down on campus antisemitism. But don’t buy it. That’s only partly the reason. The driving force behind this is long-standing right-wing animus toward higher-ed and its lefty ways stretching back decades and beyond. As Steven Levitsky, a Harvard professor, recently told the Globe, the funding cuts are all part of a broader campaign against higher-ed. “They are coming after the universities and they are using antisemitism as an easily available weapon,” he said. “The attacks are coming.” …  

And they are indeed coming, as the Times reports, and they’re initially going to use antisemitism as a cover. But Corey Deangelis, a conservative education activist, recently spilled the beans on Fox News about how the real goal for the Trump administration needs to be eliminating left-wing dominance of higher-ed in general. It won’t be just funding they’ll go after. They’re also going to go after audit accreditors and others to force radical changes, as Inside Higher Ed and Brookings have recently reported.

Update –From the NYT’s David French: “The MAGA Culture War Comes for Georgetown Law.” …

A day after the SBA said it was moving its offices out of Boston and other ‘sanctuary cities,’ the longtime SBA chief for Massachusetts says it’s time to hang it up, the BBJ reports. … 

There’s a pattern forming here, confirming (partially) my assertion last month that it was just a matter of time before Trump slaps on some tariffs, quickly declares victory and then ends them. … He’s not declaring victory today with his latest round of tariffs, but he is quickly ending/postponing/modifying them amid typical chaos. 

In a WSJ column headlined ‘Snap out of it, Democrats,’ here’s Peggy Noonan’s opening line: “Democrats looked like fools Tuesday night.” … And they did. What idiot thought the insult paddles were a good idea? They looked like something out of a Rexulti television commercial. And don’t get me going on Rep. Al Green’s tirade that got him thrown out of the chamber.  … Unfortunately, I think Noonan is right: Dems are going to be in the political wilderness for a long time if Tuesday night was any indication.

Update – In the battle to move the party to the center on key issues, it looks like Seth Moulton isn’t so alone anymore: “Newsom says trans athletes playing in women’s sports is ‘deeply unfair.’ 

Congressional Republicans had much better things to do yesterday, like, oh, defending the Constitution of the United States of America against a rampaging authoritarian king wannabe. Instead, they chose to go after four lowly Blue State mayors over their sanctuary-city policies. For that reason alone, I was rooting for Mayor Michelle Wu to stuff ‘em at yesterday’s GOP three-ring committee hearing – and that’s precisely what she did. … The Globe’s Joan Vennochi notes Wu’s effective deployment of motherhood, religion and loyalty to blunt the GOP lines of attacks. The holy trinity strategy worked. … And don’t forget the $650K the city spent on lawyers and consultants to prep Wu before yesterday’s testimony. That worked too, for Wu  that is, not taxpayers. 

How sure am I that Wu more than held her own yesterday? The Herald’s coverage downplays Wu’s stage performance, emphasizing instead how Wu and Boston could yet legally and financially suffer as a result of her testimony yesterday. From the Herald’s Joe Battenfeld: “While Wu will come out of the hearing high-fiving with her sycophantic supporters in the media and at City Hall, in the end it won’t be a victory if she or the city doesn’t escape legal trouble.” … Ah, yes. The same Republicans who won’t lift a finger to defend the constitution and congressional prerogatives are determined to make sure Democrats follow the letter of the law when it comes to immigration issues …