Pun Salad

Specifically, our Eye Candy du Jour, first appearing here in 2019:

But we have words too, and Eric Boehm's are from the May 2025 Reason: America Is Losing Trump's Trade War to Itself.

'Twas chaos! And I guess it's still on.

Also of note:

• Just three? Confession: I worked at NIH for a while. It was a turning point in my professional career, in that I decided life as a biophysics researcher was not for me. The people were nice though. Never met Fauci.

  But I pay special attention to NIH in the news, and Zachary R. Caverley has had it with The 3 myths supporting NIH funding.

  The Trump administration's proposal to cut National Institutes of Health (NIH) indirect funds has been widely attacked, with heated claims it will annihilate biomedical scientific research in the United States. Leading with a picture of a 12-year-old child with muscular dystrophy, Shetal Shah, a neonatology professor, argued in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that the cuts would "hobble" vital medical research, and a Time magazine interviewee went as far as to call it the "apocalypse" of U.S. science writ large. While the funding cut has been blocked by federal judges for now, the future fiscal status of the NIH, and the university researchers that depend on it, remains uncertain.

  It recalls the bad old days of the "sequester"—remember them? Let me resurrect an old CBS News story I linked to back in 2013:

  Professor Laura Niedernhofer at the Scripps Research Institute in Florida believes her team of 40 scientists can find a drug to diminish the impact of old age. The drug won't keep you young, she says, it would make the old less frail. "My hypotheses would be that there would actually be drugs that would simultaneously dampen osteoporosis, dementia, maybe some fatigue and muscle wasting all at the same time," she said.

  Alas, her funding was sequestered! My snarky comment at the time:

  OH MY GOD. Professor Laura was RIGHT ON THE VERGE of discovering a MIRACLE DRUG that would SAVE US GEEZERS from ALL SORTS OF INFIRMITIES. And all she needed was A BIT MORE GOVERNMENT MONEY, and it would have pushed her RIGHT OVER THE GOAL LINE and SAVED US ALL.

  But now that MIRACLE DRUG will be LOST FOREVER. It's HOPELESS, thanks to the SEQUESTER.

  There is nothing new under the sun, except you can substitute DOGE for SEQUESTER.

• Something I didn't learn in my high school US history class. For some reason I'm reading David McCullough's biography of John Adams, because pretty much all I remembered from that class was John Adams was a Bad Guy because of the Alien and Sedition Acts, from which Thomas Jefferson saved us!

  Well, not exactly. the Acts were four in number; three had expiration dates, and they were simply allowed to die.

  But the fourth, the Alien Enemies Act, did not expire. And was not repealed. And, yes, President Trump has been using it as legal cover for deporting folks.

  Legally? Well, Damon Root differs: Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act violates Madison's view of presidential power.

  President Donald Trump claims that the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 grants him the power to deport certain Venezuelan-born aliens without due process based on the mere allegation of membership in a criminal street gang.

  But the text of the Alien Enemies Act does not allow the president to do anything of the sort. "Whenever there shall be a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government," the act states, the president may direct the "removal" of "all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being males of the age of fourteen years and upwards, who shall be within the United States, and not actually naturalized."

  I'm no fan of Venezuelan-born aliens who are in street gangs. But how hard could it be to prove that?

• Moving at the speed of sludge. Universities all over the country are backing off from DEI-related policies, like requiring ideological litmus tests "diversity statements" in employment applications. So the University Near Here … has nothing to report in that area, as reported by Damien Fisher: Facing Millions in Budget Cuts, UNH Still Spending on DEI.

  The University of New Hampshire may be facing tens of millions of dollars in cuts in state funding, but it’s still spending money on controversial Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs and employees. Not only are DEI policies unpopular with Republicans in the New Hampshire House, but President Donald Trump has also signed an executive order seeking to end government support for them.

  An appeals court upheld the Trump administration’s ability to execute the order while legal challenges work their way through the court.

  On Tuesday, the House Finance Committee passed an amendment to the state budget banning government contracts with DEI mandates.

  But if UNH is shying away from the race-based DEI policies in question, it isn’t showing. The school has made no announcements about shutting down any of its many DEI operations, and has previously indicated it does not see any changes coming.

  I assume there's a lot of panic-fueled discussion going on in Thompson Hall, but nothing public.