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A Super Tuesday for Donald Trump Oliver Wiseman

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Donald Trump at a Mar-a-Lago election-night party on Super Tuesday. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Time to dust off those pussy hats, folx. 

H.L. Mencken famously defined democracy as the “theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” For all the talk of Biden-Trump being the rematch no one wanted, turns out it’s the rematch primary voters want—and the rest of us are going to get it, good and hard. 

Last night Donald Trump romped to an overwhelming victory. On the Democratic side, Biden won in fifteen of the sixteen states and territories up for grabs. (Shout-out to some guy called Jason Palmer, who clinched the Democratic American Samoa nomination.) 

Many challengers tried to save us from this fate. Trump’s primary rivals tested a range of anti-Trump strategies. Ron DeSantis promised Trumpism without the drama—and discovered people want the drama. Chris Christie went all-out anti-Trump—and was booed for it. Mike Pence championed the Trump-Pence administration’s track record—and put everyone to sleep. And Vivek Ramaswamy wasn’t so much running against Trump as running to be his running mate. 

That left Nikki Haley as the last woman standing. The Haley campaign became a rallying point for Republicans out of sync with the prevailing MAGA mood—but never showed signs of being anything more than that.

So: here we are. Trump, a 77-year-old man who says he’d like to be dictator for “one day.” And Joe Biden, who is 81, got the following ringing endorsement from Hillary Clinton yesterday: “You know what, Joe Biden is old. Let’s go ahead and accept the reality. Joe Biden is old.” 

Clinton framed the coming election as “a contest between one candidate who’s old but who’s done an effective job and doesn’t threaten our democracy” and one “who is old, barely makes sense when he talks, is dangerous, and threatens our democracy.” 

Who’s excited?

Why Nikki Haley’s Supporters Stood by Her

The one woman left—no, not Marianne Williamson, though God bless her—as of closing time last night was Nikki Haley. A lot of people pinned a lot of hope on Haley. And they put their money behind her candidacy: the former South Carolina governor raised $24 million in the fourth quarter of 2023 alone.

Though she’s yet to officially drop out, the verdict is in: the Haley campaign didn’t work. So why did many of her donors keep writing checks even after the writing was on the wall? The Free Press’s Joe Nocera, who profiled Haley in New Hampshire back in January, made a few calls to find out. 

Going into Super Tuesday, one thing was clear: Nikki Haley was going to lose most, if not all, of the 13 Republican primaries to Donald Trump.

Of course, all the donors to the SFA Fund, the Nikki Haley super PAC, knew this as well. As her quest became ever-more quixotic, some big backers, like AFP Action, a Charles Koch vehicle, pulled their funding. But many others stuck with her; Haley raised an impressive $16.5 million just in January.

So why didn’t they abandon her? Calling around on Tuesday, the answer I heard from a handful of donors was that she was reminding the country of what kind of person a Republican candidate ought to be. And that her campaign was so important for the country that they were happy to contribute even though, in political terms, it was a lost cause.

“I think she is illustrating what a Republican standard-bearer can and should be,” said Jay Lefkowitz, a lawyer and former George W. Bush aide. He added, “I think she should stay in the race, even after Super Tuesday. You never know. If Trump is forced to file for bankruptcy or convicted of a crime, or has serious health issues, that could change everything.”

Mina Nguyen, a financial executive, described herself as “proud” to support Haley. “Nikki provides a much-needed voice in this country, one that reflects my own as a daughter of refugees who believes in America’s great values,” she said in an email. “I think it’s important for America to see that there can be a candidate who represents hard work while remaining ethical, fierce advocacy without being a bully, and individual liberties without scandal.”

And Cliff Asness, the founder of the hedge fund AQR, put it very simply: “Doing what you think is right is almost always worth it, succeed or fail, and this is no exception.”

Haley’s merry band of disgruntled Republicans may be in the minority within their party, but they could yet play a decisive role come November, if they stay home and coalesce around a third-party candidate, or even vote for Biden. 

One big question for Haley now: Will she endorse Trump? 

Our Other Super Tuesday Takeaways

It’s the Trump Show—Even in California: In California, the battle to fill Diane Feinstein’s old Senate seat will be a contest between a Democrat and a Republican. The deep-blue state’s jungle primaries mean the top two candidates, regardless of party, go through to the general, and usually that means a choice between two Democrats. But not this time, because Republican and former L.A. Dodger Steve Garvey made it into the top two. 

Garvey will be up against Adam Schiff, the congressman who Republicans sought to expel from the House over Russiagate but who will now almost certainly become a senator. Schiff fought off his Democratic opponents by, well, not really fighting them at all, but instead posing as an anti-Trump crusader. And that, it seems, is what the voters wanted. 

And as for Stefan Simchowitz, the art-world upstart running in the race as a Republican and who we profiled on Monday—he did not come close to winning. As Simchowitz told Suzy: “Sometimes if you know you’re going to lose you can only win.” That’s the spirit, Stefan!

Cheerio, Deano! Time’s up for Dean Phillips’s quixotic presidential bid. I’m on the record as an admirer of the Minnesotan with moxie. But I’m starting to think he might not be the next president of the United States. Yes, Phillips did very badly last night. Back in November, Phillips said on X that if his “campaign is not viable after March 5th, I’ll wrap it up and endorse the likely nominee—Biden or otherwise.” Time to honor your word, Dean.

The Death of the Centrist: Arizona independent Kyrsten Sinema announced yesterday that she wouldn’t seek reelection. In every way, Sinema is a strange bird: a Democrat turned independent; an open bisexual in the Senate; a lawmaker who somehow finds the time to train for Ironman competitions; and a peacock among pigeons who dresses like an extra from The Hunger Games. We don’t know about her fashion sense, but the rest of it—the independent-mindedness in an era of groupthink, her willingness to call it as she sees it—we admired. But in 2024 we can’t have nice things. Here’s how Sinema put it in a video announcing her decision not to run again: “Compromise is a dirty word. We’ve arrived at that crossroad, and we chose anger and division. I believe in my approach, but it’s not what America wants right now.” 

Her departure puts the filibuster in jeopardy, and the race in Arizona is between MAGA die-hard Kari Lake, who bombed in the gubernatorial race in 2022, and Ruben Gallego, a progressive Democratic Congressman. 

In bowing out, she follows two other moderates out the Senate chamber: Joe Manchin, a Blue Dog Democrat who has served West Virginia as a senator since 2010, and Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential candidate, who, announcing his decision not to run, said of his fellow baby boomers: “we’re not the guys to be making the decisions” about America’s future. (The presidential candidates didn’t get the memo.) 

What Will No Labels Do Next? The lesson of Romney, Manchin, and Sinema is an ugly one: Americans want the hard stuff. Bipartisanship is for wussies. This is the backdrop to all the umming and ahhing at No Labels over whether to field a presidential candidate. They don’t have a candidate or, as far as we can tell, much of a plan. And this week they’ll decide whether or not they will enter the race. Democratic operatives are desperate that they don’t—fearing that a moderate alternative undermines the contrast Biden plans to draw between himself and Trump. 

Free Speech Under Threat Across the West 

Imagine a world where you could go to jail for a “hateful” meme or a text message. That could soon be Ireland’s reality. That country is seriously considering a sweeping law that would criminalize the act of “inciting hatred” against individuals or groups based on specified “protected characteristics” like race, nationality, religion, and sexual orientation. The definition of incitement is so broad as to include “recklessly encouraging” other people to hate or causing harm “because of your views” or opinions. In other words, intent doesn’t matter. Nor would it matter if you actually posted the “reckless” content. Merely being in possession of that content could land you a fine of as much as €5,000 ($5,422) or up to 12 months in prison, or both. 

It’s not just Ireland. Canada has just announced extensive new hate speech legislation. And in Britain, existing laws mean that tweeting “transwomen are men” can lead to a knock on the door from the cops.

The Free Press’s Rupa Subramanya reports on the new hate speech laws that threaten the most basic freedom across the West. Those fighting censorship in Canada, or Britain, or Ireland, wish they had a First Amendment to fall back on.

Ten Stories We’re Reading

Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, which he’ll deliver Thursday evening, is seriously high stakes. (Politico)

Donald Trump has broken his silence on the Israel-Hamas war. “Finish the problem,” he said Wednesday of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. (NBC

A far-left group called the Vulkan claimed responsibility for an arson attack that halted production at a Tesla plant in Germany. Because electric cars are the obvious target for ecoterrorism. (The Guardian)

RFK Jr. is considering seeking the Libertarian Party’s nomination. “He’s a rogue punk rocker of the political system,” said one source close to Kennedy. (The Hill)

Across Washington, D.C.’s, high schools, 60 percent of students were chronically absent in the 2022–23 school year. (D.C. Policy Center)

The FBI is hunting a suspected Iranian assassin accused of plotting to kill Mike Pompeo and other former U.S. officials. (Semafor)

Global climate policy isn’t working. (The Honest Broker)

The golden age of American Jewry is ending, writes Franklin Foer. (The Atlantic

Rich countries are addicted to cheap labor—and it’s stopping them from investing in productivity-boosting technology. (WSJ)

When did novels stop mattering? (The Intrinsic Perspective)

Also on our radar. . . 

→ Supreme sanity: On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that Colorado did not have the right to remove Donald Trump from the ballot. The decision was unanimous—because the law here is pretty clear (as Bill Barr argued in our pages back in January). In a sane world, everyone would recognize Colorado’s move as a foolish scheme. It would be tossed out and that would be that. 

Here, in the reality-based community, that’s exactly what happened. But it was a different story for the #Resistance die-hards. 

Columnists and cable news analysts with a few legal textbooks collecting dust on their shelves rushed to argue that all nine justices had it wrong. 

In The New York Times, friend of The Free Press David French accused the court of “erasing part of the constitution.” (Sorry David, we’re with the justices on this one.) 

George Conway (ex-husband to Kellyanne) said that he couldn’t “make heads or tails” out of the court’s reasoning—which says more about Conway than it does about the court. 

And then there’s Keith Olbermann, patient zero of Trump Derangement Syndrome and someone who, honestly, it feels a little cruel to mention at this stage, talking about dissolving the court and. . . golden showers (?) on X.

→ France, like most Americans, is moderate on abortion: France made history this week by becoming the first country to explicitly enshrine abortion rights in its constitution. A special session of lawmakers backed the amendment, which makes abortion a “guaranteed freedom” in French law. As most of the coverage has noted, the effort was galvanized by events this side of the Atlantic—in particular the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs

Millions of pro-choice Americans will likely read the headlines about France’s new law with envy. But it’s worth remembering that, with some exceptions, abortion is legal in France only in the first fourteen weeks of pregnancy. As The Washington Post notes, “that’s more restrictive than in nearly half of U.S. states, where abortion is protected well past fourteen weeks. This amendment won’t in itself loosen any laws.” For further context, Donald Trump is privately mulling a sixteen-week national abortion ban.

So the lesson from France is more complicated than it first seems. The French have a national consensus in favor of a right to abortion in the first fourteen weeks of pregnancy. Pro-choice campaigners who want to try to enshrine a national abortion rights law in the United States should take note and reckon with Americans’ nuanced views on abortion that aren’t properly captured by titles like “pro-life” and “pro-choice.”

Meanwhile, for more on how attitudes on this issue are shaping the right, read Olivia Reingold’s latest: “How Abortion Became ‘the Defund the Police of the GOP.’ ” 

→ Hot take: a nuclear Iran would be bad: You might have thought that, given all of Iran’s troublemaking in the Middle East of late, now would be the time to take a stand against its march toward nuclear-power status. Apparently not. 

The Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency is meeting for its quarterly confab in Vienna this week, and Reuters reports that Western powers were considering proposing a resolution condemning Iran for its failure to cooperate with the organization but decided against it. The reason for backing down? Because the Biden administration wasn’t on board. According to Reuters, Britain, France, and Germany were pushing for the move but “Washington has opposed seeking a resolution against Iran for months, at least in part because of the impending U.S. presidential election in November, diplomats have said, and again it was the most reluctant of the four powers.”

I don’t know, a nuclear Iran seems bad, guys, and not something we should choose to ignore because there’s an election coming. Does that make me a warmongering neocon? 

→ TikTok KO: Remember banning TikTok? Whatever happened to that? It came up a while back, most lawmakers seemed to think it was bad for an app with ties to the Chinese Communist Party to be a whole generation’s main source of news and entertainment, and then. . . we forgot to actually ban it. (Read: the lobbyists got to work.) Well, a bipartisan group of lawmakers have decided to cross it off their to-do list. The legislation, which was introduced in the House yesterday, would force ByteDance, the Chinese tech company that owns TikTok, to sell the platform in the next six months or face a ban. Announcing the bill, the lawmakers called TikTok “an unacceptable risk to U.S. national security.” 

The White House came out in support of the legislation. “We appreciate the work of Representatives Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi and we look forward to working with Congress to further strengthening this legislation to put it on the strongest possible legal footing,” said a National Security Council spokesperson

Mike Gallagher is the congressman leading the effort. Read his Free Press essay: “Why Do Young Americans Support Hamas? Look at TikTok.” 

And finally. . .  

We couldn’t go without mentioning America’s big brother, Jason Kelce. 

In January my colleagues Evan Gardner and Suzy Weiss debated who was the better Kelce brother: Travis, who plays for the Kansas City Chiefs and is (for now) Mr. Taylor Swift, or his older brother, the all-pro Philadelphia Eagles center Jason. That debate is surely settled after Jason announced his retirement, after a brilliant thirteen-year career, in a forty-minute press conference in which he thanked everyone from his coaches to his high school band teacher to “Thirsty Thursdays” at a local bar—and riffed on the meaning of life and the importance of being a good dad. Watch his speech and try not to cry. 

Oliver Wiseman is a writer and editor at The Free Press. Follow him on X @ollywiseman

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Things Worth Remembering: ‘A Game Most Like Life’ Charles Lane

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It feels like only yesterday I called up my friend Douglas Murray with a strange idea: What if you wrote a column for us about poetry?

We had no idea if anyone would be interested in it. I still wasn’t sure many people would be interested in The Free Press itself. But I knew I didn’t want this institution we were building to focus solely on what was wrong with the world. As I wrote at the time: “If ours is an era of building and rebuilding, what things are worth saving?”

In the two years since this column began, the world has changed so much. We have a new president. One war has started—and perhaps is now ending. Another still rages.

The Free Press has covered it all. And so has Douglas himself, reporting from Israel and Ukraine, and speaking across the globe. Meantime, he has written nearly 100 editions of Things Worth Remembering—an unbelievable feat. Somehow he also found time to write a forthcoming book about the future of the West.

Given how much is on his plate, for the time being Douglas is stepping back from this incredible column he’s helped to build. He’ll continue to be a beloved contributor to, and friend of, The Free Press. And fear not: Things Worth Remembering will carry on every Sunday.

Over the years, fans of this column have said to me: “If I had to choose one thing worth remembering, it’d be. . . . ” It made me realize most writers have a poem they return to when they feel lost, a song they replay, or a snippet of some great book that materializes again and again. So we are expanding the column to bring in new voices and choices. I think you’ll love what they have to say.

Today, on Super Bowl Sunday, we start with our deputy editor, Charles Lane, who knows exactly what Americans should remember on this important date: a speech given multiple times, in the late ’60s, by the greatest football coach in the world, Vince Lombardi. It touches on a lot of things we care a lot about at The Free Press: courage, hard work, and excellence. I hope you like it as much as I do—don’t forget to leave your thoughts in the comments.

Happy Super Bowl Sunday, everyone!
—BW

“I sometimes wonder whether those of us who love football fully appreciate its great lessons,” said Vince Lombardi, in what friends and family called “the speech.”

The greatest professional football coach of the twentieth century, Lombardi tried and tested various versions of this talk as an in-demand public speaker during the late ’60s. The text quoted here is from “a representative version” of the speech, which his son Vince Jr. compiled and published in 2001. Lombardi’s words are undeniably magnificent, even to those who might have no interest in tonight’s Super Bowl.

Lombardi acknowledged that his was “a violent game,” suggesting that it would be “imbecilic” to play it otherwise. But this “game like war,” he believed, was also “a game most like life—for it teaches that work, sacrifice, perseverance, competitive drive, selflessness, and respect for authority are the price one pays to achieve worthwhile goals.”

Lombardi’s is not quite the household name it was—time does that to fame. To the extent he is remembered today it is often as the originator of a ruthless coaching doctrine—“Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”—that someone else actually coined.

Still, every year the Super Bowl restores him, at least for a moment, to popular awareness: The winning team tonight will take home the Vince Lombardi Trophy, a brilliant 20.75-inch–high, seven-pound prize made out of pure sterling by Tiffany silversmiths.


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February 8, 2025 Heather Cox Richardson

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Yesterday the National Institutes of Health under the Trump administration announced a new policy that will dramatically change the way the United States funds medical research. Now, when a researcher working at a university receives a federal grant for research, that money includes funds to maintain equipment and facilities and to pay support staff that keep labs functioning. That indirect funding is built into university budgets for funding expensive research labs, and last year reached about 26% of the grant money distributed. Going forward, the administration says it will cap the permitted amount of indirect funding at 15%.

NIH is the nation’s primary agency for research in medicine, health, and behavior. NIH grants are fiercely competitive; only about 20% of applications succeed. When a researcher applies for one, their proposal is evaluated first by a panel of their scholarly peers and then, if it passes that level, an advisory council, which might ask for more information before awarding a grant. Once awarded and accepted, an NIH grant carries strict requirements for reporting and auditing, as well as record retention.

In 2023, NIH distributed about $35 billion through about 50,000 grants to over 300,000 researchers at universities, medical schools, and other research institutions. Every dollar of NIH funding generated about $2.46 in economic activity. For every $100 million of funding, research supported by NIH generates 76 patents, which produce 20% more economic value than other U.S. patents and create opportunities for about $600 million in future research and development.

As Christina Jewett and Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times explained, the authors of Project 2025 called for the cuts outlined in the new policy, claiming those cuts would “reduce federal taxpayer subsidization of leftist agendas.” Dr. David A. Baltrus of the University of Arizona told Jewett and Stolberg that the new policy is “going to destroy research universities in the short term, and I don’t know after that. They rely on the money. They budget for the money. The universities were making decisions expecting the money to be there.”

Although Baltrus works in agricultural research, focusing on keeping E. coli bacteria out of crops like sprouts and lettuce, cancer research is the top area in which NIH grants are awarded.

Anthropologist Erin Kane figured out what the new NIH policy would mean for states by looking at institutions that received more than $10 million in grants in 2024 and figuring out what percentage of their indirect costs would not be eligible for grant money under the new formula. Six schools in New York won $2.4 billion, including $953 million for indirect costs. The new indirect rate would allow only $220 million for overhead, a loss of $723 million.

States across the country will experience significant losses. Eight Florida schools received about $673 million, $231 million for indirect costs. The new indirect rate would limit that funding to $66 million, a loss of $165 million. Six schools in Ohio received a total of about $700 million; they would lose $194 million. Four schools in Missouri received a total of about $830 million; they would lose $212 million.

Lawmakers from Republican-dominated states are now acknowledging what those of us who study the federal budget have pointed out for decades: the same Republican-dominated states that complain bitterly about the government’s tax policies are also the same states that take most federal tax money. Dana Nickel of Politico reported yesterday that Republican leaders in the states claim to be enthusiastic about the cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency but are mobilizing to make sure those cuts won’t hurt their own state programs that depend on federal money. Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt told Nickel that governors can provide advice about what cuts will be most effective. “Instead of just across the board cutting, we thought, man, they need some help from the governors to say, ‘We can be more efficient in this area or this area, or if you allow block grants in this area, you can reduce our expenditures by 10 percent.’ And so that’s our goal.”

Yesterday, Tim Carpenter of the Kansas Reflector reported that Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS) is concerned about the Trump administration’s freeze on food distributions through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). USAID buys about $2 billion in U.S. agricultural products a year, and farmers are already struggling with rising costs, low prices, and concern with tariffs.

Their spokespeople urge the continuation of USAID: the senior director of government affairs at the American Farm Bureau Federation said that “USAID plays a critical role in reducing hunger around the world while sourcing markets for the surplus foods America’s farmers and ranchers grow.” Moran added: “Food stability is essential to political stability, and our food aid programs help feed the hungry, bolster our national security and provide an important market for our farmers, especially when commodity prices are low.”

Meanwhile, federal employees are telling the stories of the work they’ve done for the country. Yesterday, a public letter whose author claimed to be an employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation whose job is at risk in Trump’s purge of the agency wrote an amalgamation of the FBI agents being purged: “I am the coach of your child’s soccer team,” the letter read. “I sit next to you on occasion in religious devotion. I am a member of the PTA. With friends, you celebrated my birthday. I collected your mail and took out your trash while you were away from home. I played a round of golf with you. I am a veteran. I am the average neighbor in your community.”

But there is another side to that person, the author wrote. “I orchestrated a clandestine operation to secure the release of an allied soldier held captive by the Taliban. I prevented an ISIS terrorist from boarding a commercial aircraft. I spent 3 months listening to phone intercepts in real time to gather evidence needed to dismantle a violent drug gang. I recruited a source to provide critical intelligence on Russian military activities in Africa. I rescued a citizen being tortured to near death by members of an Outlaw Motorcycle Gang. I interceded and stopped a juvenile planning to conduct a school shooting. I spent multiple years monitoring the activities of deep cover foreign intelligence officers, leading to their arrest and deportation. I endured extensive hardship to infiltrate a global child trafficking organization. I have been shot in the line of duty.”

“[W]hen I am gone,” they wrote, “who will do the quiet work that is behind the facade of your average neighbor?”

Less publicly, Joseph Grzymkowski expressed on Facebook his pride in 38 years of service “with utmost dedication, integrity, and passion. I was not waste, fraud, and abuse,” he wrote. “Nor was I the “Deep State…. We are the faces of your Government: ordinary and diverse Americans, your friends and neighbors, working behind the scenes in the interest of the people we serve. We are not the enemy.”

Wth his statement, Grzymkowski posted a magazine clipping from 1996, when he was a Marine Analyst working in the Marine Navigation Department for the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), located in Bethesda, Maryland—now known as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) in Springfield, Virginia. That office provides maritime intelligence for navigation, international obligations, and joint military operations.

On January 6, 1996, a historic blizzard dumped snowfalls of 19 to 31 inches on the East Coast. Stranded alone in the station when his relief couldn’t get through the snow to work, Grzymkowsky stayed at the radio. “I realized there were mariners who needed navigation safety messages delivered, and I wasn’t about to jeopardize the safety of life or cargo at sea simply because we were experiencing a blizzard,” he told a journalist. “One doesn’t leave a watch on a ship until properly relieved, and I felt my responsibility at the watch desk as keenly as I would have felt my responsibility for the navigation on the bridge of a ship.”

For 33 hours, he stayed at his desk and sent out navigation safety messages. “I had a job to do and I did it,” he recalled. “There were ships at sea relying on me, and I wasn’t going to let them down. It’s nothing that any other member of this department wouldn’t do.”

Notes:

https://grants.nih.gov/grants-process

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R43341/45

https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/report/20

https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-do/budget

https://www.unitedformedicalresearch.org/nih-in-your-state/alabama

https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-do/impact-nih-research/serving-society/direct-economic-contributions

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/us/politics/medical-research-funding-cuts-university-budgets.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/06/trump-usaid-money-american-farms/

https://kansasreflector.com/2025/02/07/kansas-moran-davids-sound-alarm-on-delay-of-usaid-food-aid-to-starving-people-worldwide/

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/07/republican-state-doge-budget-013596

https://southfloridareporter.com/a-trump-policy-change-will-restrict-billions-in-funding-for-medical-research-programs-at-universities/

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12HuhGA67_QPIibLa6nB32BtepQR3zQE_DvDTDGrZ5dU/edit

Grzymkowski article is from a 5th Anniversary Special Edition (1996–2001) of NIMA’s Edge magazine, an authorized, internal information publication published for the National Imagery and Mapping Agency personnel and its customers.

https://msi.nga.mil/

https://msi.nga.mil/whats-new

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The Pot of Gold at America’s Western Edge A.M. Hickman

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The boughs of the pomegranate bush clattered in the morning wind, branches drooping with heavy, frost-bruised fruits. The bush lilted her morning greeting to the rows of olive and grapefruit and palm, nodding to the yerba santa and the blue oaks. My own eyes seemed to be covered in a golden gauze as I rose to survey the variegated domain of fertile hills sprawling out before me. Everything was yellow with the spicy nicotine and ocher diamonds of the impossible California skies.

For those who have never been to California before, picture this: a heady sabbatical in Tuscany with Dr. Seuss. Everything in this westernmost state seems to ebb and flow in brief fits and starts through manicured vineyards, blossoming pastures, ranch roads, and hazardous gravel switchbacks slung high above dusty, half-filled reservoirs. It is America’s shimmering Eden, her promised land, the trophy of our young Republic that stands proudly as proof that every ounce of westerly motion was worth it.

To the pioneers, it was the end of the road. It was as far as a wagoneer could travel, cresting high over the infamous Donner Pass, if they had not yet succumbed to madness or scrofula, nor to hunger, smallpox, or cannibalism. Catching sight of the Pacific Ocean, the good earth bowed for the pioneers and did her curtsy. God Himself was the conductor of this symphony of holy life and sun-kissed valleys and endless deep-green ridgelines—and at the end of His great rhapsody, a frontiersman would build his fence lines and furrows and aqueducts.

In some sense, California is the mother of the very particular, feverishly intense, and unstoppable optimism that makes the United States what it is. All Americans are Californians at heart. We are, at our best, a fanatically optimistic sort of people—who might push for a half-year’s time across rough country just to see if the rumors of gold might be half true.

And in the case of California, the rumors were true: There was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. From the earliest “salad days” of these western farmers to the oil booms, the mining frenzies, the rise of Los Angeles and San Francisco, and later, the heady madness of Silicon Valley’s technological revolution. The incredible winnings of California’s early settlers course through the blood of Americans the whole country over, whether they have each seen California for themselves or not.

It all began the first moment that the pioneers caught sight of the poppies along the Sacramento River.


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