Writers and Editors

Updated 3-3-26

 
• America’s hunger for Greenland is tearing NATO apart (The Economist, 1-17-26)

   Donald Trump could gain an island and lose a continent. 

   TRUMP'S HUNGER for Greenland is setting off an explosive row within NATO.

President Donald Trump, infuriated by European allies’ resistance to his effort to annex the autonomous Danish territory, said on January 17th that he would impose 10% tariffs on imports from eight European countries that had sent troops there two days earlier. European leaders vowed not to be bullied.

---Bleak Times in Copenhagen: Danes Feel Betrayed and Bewildered by Trump (Elisabeth Bumiller, NY Times, 1-18-26)

    The American president’s vow to get Greenland, the semiautonomous Danish territory, has thrown the tiny, pro-American Nordic nation into crisis. These are bleak times in Copenhagen, where Danes say they feel betrayed, bewildered and frightened by Mr. Trump’s threats to take over Greenland, the semiautonomous Danish territory and a source of national identity and pride. Greenland, 50 times the size of Denmark, has long made the tiny Nordic nation more of a player on the world stage.
    Danes have been particularly stunned by Mr. Trump’s taunts that Denmark relies on “two dog sleds” to defend the Arctic island. “It’s like fifth graders bullying the small guy in the corner,” said Company Sgt. Maj. Bager, the Danish soldier who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

---Denmark Rejects Trump’s Plan to Send Hospital Boat to Greenland (Ali Watkins and Amelia Nierenberg, NY Times, 2-22-26) Denmark’s defense minister said Greenland did not need health care assistance, a day after President Trump said he planned to send a “great hospital boat” to the island. It was not clear why Mr. Trump planned to assist Greenland with its health care. Greenlanders have the right to health care that is free at the point of use, including prescription medications, according to the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers.

---Song and video#1 about Greenland telling Trump to stick it
---Song and video#2 about Greenland telling Trump to stick it  (Facebook reels)

Click on the microphone top left to bring up sound and volume of the video.

 

---Your Primer on Greenland (James Fallows, Breaking the News, 1-8-26)

1) If a map looks wrong, consider: China is 4 times the size of Greenland; Africa is 15 times its size.

2) The US has nothing to gain by ‘owning’ Greenland. Zero.

3) No one wants us there. Zero.

4) The island is smaller than it appears on most maps, but its distances and remoteness are profound. "Far more people live within my tiny jurisdiction in Washington DC than in the entirety of Greenland. (Ward 3, in Northwest Washington, is about 32 square miles, and has nearly 80,000 people. All of Greenland is about 850,000 square miles, and has about 55,000 people.")

5) The whole idea of taking over Greenland would appall the founders of our country.

6) This showdown has gone from idiotic to actually dangerous.

---Brooks and Capehart on Trump forcing allies to reevaluate ties with U.S. (PBS News Hour, 1-23-25) NY Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart of MS NOW join Geoff Bennett to discuss the week in politics, including President Trump’s remarks in Davos forcing Western leaders to reevaluate their relationship with the U.S. and escalating tensions over the ongoing immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota.
---The true danger posed by Donald Trump (Greenland's True Meaning, The Economist, 1-21-26)

---The president’s hunger for Greenland is tearing NATO apart (The Economist, 1-17-26) Donald Trump could gain an island and lose a continent. America's hunger for Greenland is setting off an explosive row within NATO. President Donald Trump, infuriated by European allies’ resistance to his effort to annex the autonomous Danish territory, said on January 17th that he would impose 10% tariffs on imports from eight European countries that had sent troops there two days earlier. European leaders vowed not to be bullied.
---Greenland: It's getting serious (Weekly Sift, 1-19-26) What started as a punch line is turning into a trade war with our allies. No one can explain why it's worth blowing up NATO to acquire Greenland. An informative discussion.
---The Real Reason Trump Backed Off Greenland: Wolff (Michael Wolff, Daily Beast, 1-22-26) Michael Wolff unpacks why Trump’s latest global threat was never going to be realized. “He’s going to squeeze this for all of the attention he can get... and it is really an offering to him because it’s attention.”
---Trump steps back from the brink on Greenland. But the damage has been done. ( Eli Stokols and Diana Nerozzi, Politico, 1-21-26) The president’s effort to acquire Greenland, even with the threat of force off the table, has changed the way allies see the U.S. His continued heckling of allies as “ungrateful” for not simply giving the U.S. “ownership and title” of what he said was just “a piece of ice” did little to reverse a deepening sentiment among NATO leaders and other longtime allies that they can no longer consider the United States — for 80 years the linchpin of the transatlantic alliance — a reliable ally.
---Greenland? Monty Python would have a field day (Robert Reich, 1-19-26)

    'It could be a Monty Python skit from forty years ago: A demented U.S. president demands the Nobel Peace Prize (which he initially spells “Noble”), after converting the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War, sending troops into American cities, threatening Canada, and abducting the president of a Latin American country by force.
     'When he doesn’t get the Prize, he says he’s no longer in favor of peace and decides to invade Greenland. When Greenland refuses him, and Denmark and the rest of Europe make a fuss, he goes into a rage, raises tariffs on Europe (which are really import taxes that cost Americans dearly) and threatens war on NATO. The president of Russia is delighted....
     'The Monty Python team was so funny because they came up with completely absurd situations, handled them with deadpan seriousness, and stretched them to the limits. But this particular situation isn’t funny. It’s actually happening. And Trump is truly, tragically, frighteningly out of his mind.'

---European nations weigh retaliation after Trump’s Greenland threats ( Leo Sands, Kate Brady, Ellen Francis and Tobi Raji, video and article, Washington Post, 1-18-26) "Greenland Is Not For Sale!"

    Protestors rally in Copenhagen, reject Trump's threats. Trump's newest warning to impose tariffs on nations opposing his bid to acquire Greenland threatens U.S. military and trade alliances built up over decades.
---Trump has tariffs. Europe has a ‘trade bazooka.’ This Greenland standoff could get ugly, fast (Auzinea Bacon, CNN, 1-8-26) 

 ---Why Trump zeroed in on Greenland and why it matters in 3 maps (Amanda Macias, Fox News, 1-18-26) 

    Greenland is remote in geography, but central to global strategy. A semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, Greenland is home to a key U.S. military base and has become increasingly important to global security and trade as melting ice opens new shipping lanes and access to natural resources. That shift underscores the serious geopolitical calculation behind Trump’s interest in the island’s location, military value and the rapidly changing Arctic.         

---Humans: Instructions (Tillie, on Quora, 1-22-26)
“Trump doesn’t know the Greenlandic people at all. We don’t place much value on money, on Kardashian-style lips, or that kind of thing. In Greenland, for that matter, you can’t even own land: you can be granted a plot to build your house on, and you own the house that sits on the land, but not the land itself.
   "That’s because Greenlanders don’t believe the land belongs to a single person: it belongs to everyone. And the same goes for the sea and the wealth it contains.
   "That’s why it’s a huge miscalculation to think Greenlanders can be bought with money. We can’t. Everyone here knows the history of the Inuit in Alaska and of all native populations, Indigenous peoples, Native Americans. Their lands were taken from them, and they were not treated well in the United States. And we know that Trump largely surrounds himself with people tied to white supremacism.
   "We are not white, as you can see. And so we know that our rights would probably be taken away.

• Behold Donald of Deliria! (Maureen Dowd, Opinion, NY Times, 1-17-26)

Donald Trump was always an impresario of chaos.

He told me that when violence broke out at his rallies, it added sizzle to the proceedings.

He seemed proud of the anarchy and bloodshed in his name on Jan. 6.

He was more into deals than invasions, then, dreaming of beachfront hotels rising in North Korea and Gaza.
     Trump Redux is infatuated with drone strikes and airstrikes, tumescent with the power of the world's greatest military, hungry to devour the hemisphere in one imperialistic gulp. He plucked the dictator of Venezuela out of his compound to plunder that country's oil. He's threatening Iran with military action. He demands that protesters in Iran not be killed, while stoking tension against protesters in Minnesota. He has infuriated Denmark, formerly one of the most pro-American countries in Europe, by warning he will strike a deal to get Greenland "the easy way" or will get it "the hard way."

      Tariffs are not the only focus of the president's second term, however. 

     (Trump boasts of his luxury real estate portfolio, which is not generally considered a  Read More 

The free speech and freedom of association clauses of the First Amendment generally prevent the government from requiring nonprofit, private, or political associations to disclose their members' names. The reasoning is that forced disclosure of membership lists would inhibit people from joining some organizations.

 

• EEOC Files Subpoena Enforcement Action Against University of Pennsylvania Over Antisemitic Work Environment (EEOC press release, 11-18-25) 

 

• UPenn faculty condemn Trump administration’s demand for ‘lists of Jews’ (Alice Speri, The Guardian, 1-13-26)
     Groups say EEOC demand for names and personal details echoes dark history and threatens safety and civil rights. Several faculty groups have denounced the Trump administration’s efforts to obtain information about Jewish professors, staff and students at the University of Pennsylvania – including personal emails, phone numbers and home addresses – as government abuse with “ominous historical overtones”.
     The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is demanding the university turn over names and personal information about Jewish members of the Penn community as part of the administration’s stated goal to combat antisemitism on campuses. But some Jewish faculty and staff have condemned the government’s demand as “a visceral threat to the safety of those who would find themselves identified because compiling and turning over to the government ‘lists of Jews’ conjures a terrifying history”, according to a press release put out by the groups’ lawyers.

 

• EEOC v. University of Pennsylvania (ACLU press release, 1-13-26) The ACLU of Pennsylvania has filed a motion to intervene in EEOC v. The University of Pennsylvania on behalf of five organizations affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania after EEOC issued a subpoena to the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) demanding that Penn create and turn over membership rosters for the Jewish Studies Program and Jewish and Jewish-affiliated campus organizations, plus personal contact information and addresses of the Jewish members.

• Penn groups seek to block creation of federal 'registry' of Jewish students and faculty (Kristin Hunt, Philly voice, 1-14-26)

     The EEOC sued the university for information as part of its antisemitism investigation. Five campus organizations are trying to join the lawsuit.Five groups affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania have filed a motion to intervene in a federal lawsuit seeking lists of Jewish organizations on campus and their members.

       Since July, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has pressed Penn for this information as part of its probe into antisemitism on Penn's campus. The EEOC requested, among other things, a list of the school's Jewish clubs and rosters of their members. It also sought a list of employees in the Jewish Studies program and their personal emails, phone numbers and mailing addresses.

     After Penn refused to furnish the information, the EEOC sued Penn in November to compel the university to honor the subpoena.

     Now, more parties are trying to join the lawsuit and, in doing so, block what they call a "centralized registry of UPenn's Jewish students, faculty, and staff." "Such compelled disclosure will be experienced as a visceral threat to the safety of those who would find themselves so identified because compiling and turning over to the government 'lists of Jews' conjures a terrifying history," the court documents read.

     The ACLU of Pennsylvania and other civil rights lawyers filed the motion on behalf of the five groups. They include two Jewish organizations — the American Academy of Jewish Research and the Jewish Law Students Association of the University of Pennsylvania Carey, Law School — as well as the Penn Association of Senior and Emeritus Faculty, the American Association of University Professors and the AAUP's Penn chapter.
      "It doesn't matter what the stated intent is," Witold Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said in a statement. "The moment our government begins compiling lists of people based on their religion or ethnicity — especially when those groups have historically faced persecution and worse — we cross a dangerous line. These types of registries don't remain benign; they create a user-friendly tool for discrimination, and history shows us that actors with malicious goals can easily weaponize them."

[Back to Top]

Updated 3-20-26
• The Latest. (Journalism Institute summary of news, National Press Club, 1-5-26)

    'The Latest' column is an outstanding resource.

(Here is a summary of headlines, minus links. Scroll down for headlines with links to the stories.) 

    "The Trump administration is trying to control its Venezuela message by funneling info through the White House. Pentagon beat reporters tell me they're not getting answers from military spokespeople. Press officers are regularly referring questions to the WH.' (Brian Stelter) / New York Times, Washington Post held off on reporting Venezuela raid (Semafor) / Disinformation floods social media after Nicolás Maduro's capture (WIRED) / Behind the scenes of our Nicolás Maduro front page (New York Times) / How a New York Times reporter got a phone interview with Trump after Maduro's capture (New York Times) / 'The Washington Post editorial board comes out in favor of the Venezuela attack/operation to capture Maduro' (Max Tani) etc.

 
• ‘Blind Into Caracas’ (James Fallows, Breaking the News, 1-3-26)

    Less than 24 hours in, members of the Trump team are celebrating victory. None of them seem to have wondered what happens a day, a month, a decade from now. Trump has assumed one-man authority to disrupt the world economy with tariffs, launch lethal assaults on other nations, and declare a “boots on the ground” military occupation.
    This is an overthrow of a foreign government. It’s an act of war. It is an open-ended declaration of foreign occupation. And as all at the microphone either proudly declared and reluctantly admitted, it was pulled off without consultation with anyone outside their little circle.
    [Is this impeachable?]

More on those stories (where that column's links led):

--- The Trump administration is trying to control its Venezuela message by funneling info through the White House. Pentagon beat reporters tell me they're not getting answers from military spokespeople. Press officers are regularly referring questions to the WH. Images of Venezuela attack flooded social media. Reporters struggled to get answers on U.S. military questions. ~Brian Stelter, Chief Military Analyst, CNN, on Blue Sky, NY Times and Washington Post, 1-5-26
---Comment: (Pat Az‬ ‪@pataz1.bsky.social)‬: Because they’re trying to force everyone to report on it as a law enforcement operation”, which @cnn.com dutifully used as their framing the day it happened.)
---News organizations held off on reporting Venezuela raid (Max Tani and Shelby Talcott, Semafor, 1-3-26)

First in @semafor.com: NYT, WaPo learned of the secret US raid on Venezuela soon before it was scheduled to begin but held off  Read More