The Globe’s Rob Gavin has harped on it. Others have noted it too. Now the NYT’s Ezra Klein is pounding away at it, i.e. Blue States’ high-cost-of-living problem. And it is a problem. A major problem. … Klein piece via the inestimable Contrarian Boston.

The WSJ has an intriguing story about a “faculty-on-faculty war” underway at Columbia, pitting humanity and poly-sci types against science, engineering and business types. The divide is not as clear cut by studies as portrayed. There’s a Jewish-faculty component that’s tied to concerns over pro-Palestinian protests on campus, the WSJ reports. But the political divisions by schools are definitely there – basically far-left humanities professors versus more moderate professors in other fields. … And I strongly suspect there’s similar faculty divides on other campuses.…

Faculty members at colleges across the country will present a unified front against Donald Trump’s blunt-ax assaults on academia. But underneath the veneer of solidarity are some simmering hard feelings, much of it tied to the antics of radical far-left academics on campuses.

There’s no doubt that stocks are taking a beating these days amid widespread economic fears of a recession, tariffs, trade wars, etc. But you have to wonder if there’s more than a little hysteria at work when you read headlines like this from the Globe: “Should you sell all your stock? Buy a car now? Don’t panic: Here’s how to handle the economic turbulence.” … Fanning panic while pretending to tamp down panic. … Okaaaay.

So what’s really going on? Well, as stated, there really are some genuine economic concerns out there. But there’s also a strong element of hysteria being whipped up by a MSM that’s once again revealing its old left-of-center biases – as well as hysteria being whipped up by your usual-suspect partisans in general. As Justin Wolfers, an economics and public policy professor at the University of Michigan, pointed out in the NYT regarding recent economic news: 

“You could almost hear people on the left squeal with delight that the data were confirming their concerns about the Trump presidency. Those squeals led to equally absurd counterclaims from the right.”

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. …