<[Event "14th World Open"] [Site "Philadelphia PA"]
[Date "1986.07.??"]
[EventDate "1986"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[White "Pinter, Joszef"]
[Black "Colias, Billy"]
[ECO "D48"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "14th World Open"] [Site "Philadelphia PA"]
[Date "1986.07.??"]
[EventDate "1986"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Schiller, Eric"]
[Black "MacArthur, John"]
[ECO "B97"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "US Amateur Team East"] [Site "Parsippany NJ"]
[Date "2025.02.15"]
[EventDate "2025"]
[Round "1.62"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[White "Shaw, Alan"]
[Black "Feng, Eric Z"]
[ECO "A28"]
[WhiteElo "2200"]
[BlackElo "2286"]

<[Event "68th Mass Open"] [Site "Marlboro Mass"]
[Date "1999.05.30"]
[Round "3"]
[White "Tylevich, David"]
[Black "Hertan, Charles"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B19"]
[WhiteElo "2258"]
[BlackElo "2461"]

<[Event "First Boston Futurity"] [Site "Boston Mass"]
[Date "1981.04.??"]
[EventDate "1981"]
[Round "2"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[White "Johnson, Joel"]
[Black "Stopa, John"]
[ECO "D01"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<Republicans on Capitol Hill are sounding alarm in private over how tech billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency task force will impact their own states as its purge continues to target more and more federal workers across dozens of government departments, Politico reported Tuesday.

Some lawmakers have already expressed misgivings, like Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) who is concerned about the impact on the numerous national parks in his district, and Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) who is fearful about the impact to farmers in his state now that food aid under the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been suspended.

But the concerns keep rolling in.

"Some GOP lawmakers are privately expressing alarm as they pass around a letter the administration sent to fire USDA microbiologists working to stop the bird flu and other animal diseases," Politico reported.

"Several Republican senators have also voiced concerns about how NIH cuts could hurt universities back home."

Meanwhile, "Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who earlier this month praised Musk for 'draining the swamp,' on Saturday criticized the potential firing of probationary FBI agents as counterproductive to law enforcement efforts in his state. And Sen. Lisa Murkowski warned that the administration’s civil-servant culling could hurt energy projects and wildfire management in Alaska."

Another area that has been significantly impacted is the Federal Aviation Administration, which saw a mass layoff of probationary workers despite widespread media attention on a deadly American Eagle plane crash in Washington, D.C. These layoffs were followed by a dramatic upside-down crash of a Delta Connection CRJ-900 flying from Minneapolis to Toronto, the cause of which is still under investigation.

Concerns are not just being shared with reporters. A prior analysis revealed that many Republican lawmakers publicly praising Musk are being bombarded with anger from constituents about the DOGE chaos, and these same lawmakers are assuring constituents they too have concerns and will act as a check on the administration.>

<The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board expressed serious concerns over President Donald Trump's concessions to Russia on Ukraine this week, writing that he "tilts toward a Ukraine sellout."

In recent days, Trump — who has cozied up with Russian President Vladimir Putin since the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 presidential election — has backed off the longtime stance the U.S. has held in solidarity with Europe to protect Ukraine from the yearslong, brutal Russian invasion, falsely suggesting Ukraine started the war and offering up "peace" proposals that one-sidedly give all concessions to Russia.

"Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky replied on Wednesday that Mr. Trump was living in a 'disinformation space,' which may have been imprudent but was accurate," wrote the board, which has also been outspoken against Trump's recent economic policies. "Mr. Trump escalated on Wednesday, as he usually does, calling Mr. Zelensky a 'dictator,' and suggesting Ukraine’s leader snookered the U.S. into supporting a war 'that couldn’t be won, that never had to start.' Mr. Zelensky 'refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden ‘like a fiddle.’'"

None of this is true, the board wrote.

"The war began not because Mr. Putin had legitimate security fears — but because the aging former KGB agent wants to reassemble most of the Soviet empire he saw crumble as a young man," continued the board. "Ukraine has delayed elections while it is operating under martial law and fighting a war for survival. Its constitution allows this, and Britain under Nazi siege didn’t hold an election during World War II. Was Churchill a dictator? Ukraine’s democracy is fragile and would be stronger if it could affiliate with Western institutions like the European Union. The only dictator in the war is Mr. Putin, who poisons exiled Russians on foreign soil and banishes opponents to Arctic prison camps. Call us when he holds a free election."

The board reiterated their gripes with former President Joe Biden's foreign policy, including following through on the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan that Trump initially brokered. Nonetheless, "Americans may have a similar reaction if they see Russia emerge triumphant and realize this wasn’t the peace they had in mind."

The way forward, the board concluded, is "making clear to Mr. Putin the arms and pressure he’ll face if the Russian doesn’t wind down the war to accept a durable peace. As it stands now, Mr. Trump’s seeming desperation for a deal is a risk to Ukraine, Europe, U.S. interests — and his own Presidency.">

<President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at increasing accountability and oversight of federal regulatory agencies, ensuring they operate under the supervision of the President and remain answerable to the American people.

The order, titled Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies, seeks to address what the administration describes as a lack of sufficient oversight of so-called "independent regulatory agencies," which have historically operated with minimal presidential control.

The executive order says the constitutional principle that all executive power is vested in the President, who is accountable to the American people. It argues that previous administrations have allowed independent regulatory agencies to wield significant authority without adequate presidential oversight, undermining accountability and coherence in the execution of federal law.

The order outlines several measures to strengthen presidential supervision of federal agencies and improve accountability:

・OIRA Review of Agency Regulations:

All executive departments and agencies, including independent regulatory agencies, must submit proposed and final significant regulatory actions to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Executive Office of the President for review before publication in the Federal Register. This ensures that regulations align with the President’s policies and priorities.

・Performance Standards and Management Objectives:

The Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is tasked with establishing performance standards and management objectives for heads of independent regulatory agencies. The Director will also report periodically to the President on their performance and efficiency.

・Apportionments for Independent Regulatory Agencies:

The OMB Director will review and adjust the apportionments of independent regulatory agencies to ensure their activities align with the President’s policies and priorities. This includes the authority to restrict expenditures on specific activities or projects if necessary.

・Consultation with the Executive Office of the President:

Independent regulatory agency chairmen are required to regularly consult with the OMB Director, the White House Domestic Policy Council, and the White House National Economic Council. Agencies must also establish a White House Liaison position to facilitate coordination.

・Authoritative Interpretations of Law:

The President and the Attorney General will provide authoritative interpretations of the law for the executive branch. Federal employees are prohibited from advancing legal interpretations that contradict the President or Attorney General’s opinions unless explicitly authorized.

The executive order asserts that the current structure of independent regulatory agencies undermines accountability to the American people. By allowing these agencies to operate with minimal presidential oversight, previous administrations have created a system where significant regulatory actions are implemented without review by the President, who is directly accountable to voters.

“For the Federal Government to be truly accountable to the American people, officials who wield vast executive power must be supervised and controlled by the people’s elected President,” the order states. It aims to restore a unified and coherent execution of federal law by ensuring that all executive branch agencies operate under the President’s supervision.

The order explicitly exempts the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Open Market Committee in their conduct of monetary policy. However, it applies to the Federal Reserve in matters related to the supervision and regulation of financial institutions.>

<Friends,

From time to time, I come across essays that are particularly apt and helpful in terms of understanding the time we are in. Here’s the latest from my friend Harold Meyerson, writing in The American Prospect:

One of the themes recurring in conservative media these days is the normalization of Donald Trump by historical analogy. This kind of sweeping arrogation of power, we’re told by Wall Street Journal editorialists, columnist George Will, and other conservative commentators, has ample precedents in the records of progressive presidents particularly: Woodrow Wilson, both Roosevelts, Lyndon Johnson, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. So why this harping on poor Donald Trump?

Trump’s overreaching claims to power, Will tells us, “is an institutional consequence of progressivism.” Journal editorialists note that “Mr. Trump is stretching laws to see what he can get away with, but so have other recent Presidents,” including both Obama and Biden.

As historical analysis, this is malicious piffle.

No previous president has told the nation’s many thousands of autonomous school boards what their schools should teach; required his cabinet secretaries to affirm his Big Lie that he actually won a presidential election he actually lost; dictated which shows are suitable, and which not, for the Kennedy Center; told the NCAA which athletes to disqualify; or excluded media organizations from the White House that didn’t conform to his renaming international bodies of water. If we seek precedents for this kind of conduct, we must look not to American presidents but to, say, the Bourbons of France.

The power of our presidents has grown chiefly during wartime or other crises, and as the development of mass media, beginning with radio, enabled them to speak directly to their fellow Americans.

There was nothing pernicious or threatening about Franklin Roosevelt’s aptitude for radio or John F. Kennedy’s for television. Trump’s tweets, on the other hand, are pernicious and dangerous, not because he’s mastered that medium but because he deliberately peddles lies and slanders. Nor has he taken power at a time of crisis; rather, he’s claimed this to be a time of national emergency that presumably justifies his power grabs, though that emergency is not visible to the naked eye.

So Trump’s opening salvos are in no way like Franklin Roosevelt’s first hundred days, as some right-wingers have argued.

Roosevelt took office in a time of genuine crisis, when unemployment stood at 25 percent and when an epidemic of runs on banks had shuttered every depository institution in the nation on the eve of his inauguration. To address this, Roosevelt did order federal examiners to spend the next several days assessing the solvency of the country’s banks, but then he turned to Congress to enact the emergency measures that defined his first months as president.

At his behest, Congress enacted a bailout for American farmers and a semi-cartelization of American industry, created deposit insurance for the nation’s bank depositors, and established a Civilian Conservation Corps that provided work to jobless young men and improvements to national parks and forests.

He did not claim for himself powers he knew presidents did not have; he asked Congress, successfully, to enact these far-reaching changes....>