The Costs of Standing Up to Tyranny; a Federal Attorney Targets Medical Journals–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: April 28, 2025

Indy Digest: April 28, 2025

It’s been downright disheartening to see how many powerful institutions have bowed down to President Trump and his dictatorial desires—rather than “doing the right thing” and putting up a fight.

Even more disheartening: The institutions that are putting up a fight are suffering for doing so, making it less likely that others will follow in their footsteps.

First up: Harvard University, which has become arguably the most powerful organization to fight Trump’s blatantly unconstitutional demands. NBC News recently looked at the mood on the campus:

Town halls warning of layoffs. Medical leaves for mental health. Students readying for deportation. These are the grim signs of a campus under siege. …

Outwardly, the university has become a symbol of defiance for refusing to cave to the administration’s demands, but on campus, many say the mood is one of frustration and fear, particularly for international students and faculty. Though reactions to the clash vary, many worry that Harvard will no longer be Harvard if President Donald Trump follows through on his threats.

“Students are unsure whether they can publish, whether they can travel, and wondering whether they can finish their degree,” Jocelyn Viterna, the chair of studies of women, gender and sexuality and a sociology professor at Harvard, said about international students. “I know students are also afraid that they might end up in a Louisiana prison because of something they happen to like once on Facebook.”

Two dozen faculty, students and staff described in interviews this week how their lives have been upended by the showdown. Some faculty are now communicating by Signal, which encrypts and auto-deletes messages, worried that their texts could be shared with the government. Some international students are now walking in groups, for fear of being yanked off the street by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Just a reminder, folks that this is happening in the United States of America, in 2025.

And it’s worth noting that even Harvard is making some changes because of the anti-diversity sentiments Trump and co. have horrifyingly sewn into the fabric of what was once the land of the free, and the home of the brave. As the Harvard Crimson reported today: “Harvard will immediately rename its Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging to ‘Community and Campus Life,’ the University announced Monday. The move comes as the Trump administration continues its campaign to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programming at universities. … Harvard publicly rebuffed the demands and sued the administration over the $2.2 billion funding freeze it imposed in response. But the renaming of OEDIB indicates that Harvard may be willing to concede ground as DEI initiatives face a tidal wave of political hostility.”

Example No. 2: 60 Minutes, which has long been held as a beacon of journalistic integrity—and is now the target of a lot of Trump’s ire as a result.

Last week, Bill Owens, the executive producer of the show, resigned. As The New York Times reported on April 22:

In an extraordinary declaration, Mr. Owens—only the third person to run the program in its 57-year history—told his staff in a memo that “over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for ‘60 Minutes,’ right for the audience.”

“So, having defended this show — and what we stand for — from every angle, over time with everything I could, I am stepping aside so the show can move forward,” he wrote in the memo, which was obtained by The New York Times.

“60 Minutes” has faced mounting pressure in recent months from both President Trump, who sued CBS for $10 billion and has accused the program of “unlawful and illegal behavior,” and its own corporate ownership at Paramount, the parent company of CBS News.

It’s also worth noting, as the Times explains: “Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, is eager to secure the Trump administration’s approval for a multibillion-dollar sale of her company to Skydance, a company run by the son of the tech billionaire Larry Ellison. She has expressed a desire to settle Mr. Trump’s case, which stems from what the president has called a deceptively edited interview in October with Vice President Kamala Harris that aired on ’60 Minutes.'”

Well, on last night’s edition of 60 Minutes, the reporters on the show indicated that they would not stop putting up a fight. As The Associated Press explains:

“60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley paid tribute Sunday to Bill Owens, the show’s executive producer who resigned last week, saying on the air that “none of us is happy” about the extra supervision that corporate leaders are imposing.

Pelley made his comments at the end of the evening’s CBS News telecast, saying that in quitting, Owens proved he was the right person for the job.

“It was hard on him and it was hard on us,” Pelley said. “But he did it for us — and you.”

I highly recommend clicking here and taking less than two minutes to view Pelley’s entire segment.

Amen for the journalists, university leaders and others willing to do the right thing—and pay the price for doing so.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• A federal prosecutor appointed by Trump is now sending threatening missives to … medical journals. The New York Times reports: “A federal prosecutor in Washington has contacted The New England Journal of Medicine, considered the world’s most prestigious medical journal, with questions that suggested without evidence that it was biased against certain views and influenced by external pressures. Dr. Eric Rubin, the editor in chief of N.E.J.M., described the letter as ‘vaguely threatening’ in an interview with The New York Times. At least three other journals have received similar letters from Edward Martin Jr., a Republican activist serving as interim U.S. attorney in Washington. Mr. Martin has been criticized for using his office to target opponents of the administration. His letters accused the publications of being ‘partisans in various scientific debates’ and asked a series of accusatory questions about bias and the selection of research articles.

• Meanwhile, the Trump administration is pushing back against headlines that it deported children—at least one of whom is battling cancer—who are U.S. citizens. The Washington Post explains: “Early Friday, three U.S. citizen children from two families were removed from the United States with their mothers by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. One of them is a 4-year-old with Stage 4 cancer who was sent without medication or the ability to contact their doctors, a lawyer for the child’s family said. The others are 2 and 7 years old. The children’s situations have intensified concerns that the Trump administration is carrying out deportations in a way that violates the legal rights of both citizens and noncitizens. Speaking to CBS’ ‘Face the Nation,’ (Trump border czar Tom) Homan said Sunday that he’s not aware of any specifics in the case of the 4-year-old citizen with cancer, but he dismissed the use of the word ‘deported’ to describe the removal of the American children from the country. … Charles Kuck, an immigration attorney and law professor at Emory University, said that while Homan might argue that the children weren’t, by legal definition, ‘deported,’ the U.S. government effectively facilitated their removal from the country.”

• There’s been a mass of resignations and reassignments at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division due to a change in priorities away from, well, civil rights. According to NBC News: “More than a dozen senior lawyers—many with decades of experience working under presidents of both parties—have been reassigned, the current and former officials say. Some have resigned in frustration after they were moved to less desirable roles unrelated to their expertise, according to the sources. ‘It’s been a complete bloodbath,’ said a senior Justice Department lawyer in the division who is not authorized to speak publicly. … Rather than focusing on enforcing federal laws against discrimination, the division is now charged with pursuing priorities laid out in a series of Trump’s executive orders, including ‘Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports’ and ‘Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,’ according to the memos, which were issued by division head Harmeet Dhillon and obtained by NBC News. Dhillon is a conservative culture warrior who represented Trump in challenging the results of the 2020 election and ardently backed his baseless claims of fraud.”

• The Trump administration continues to treat classified information with a decidedly “LOL!” vibe. NPR says: “Two members of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency were given accounts on classified networks that hold highly guarded details about America’s nuclear weapons, two sources tell NPR. Luke Farritor, a 23-year-old former SpaceX intern, and Adam Ramada, a Miami-based venture capitalist, have had accounts on the computer systems for at least two weeks, according to the sources who also have access to the networks. Prior to their work at DOGE, neither Farritor nor Ramada appear to have had experience with either nuclear weapons or handling classified information.”

• Closer to home, our partners at Calmatters report that the state has been sharing private health data with … LinkedIn?! Some details: “The website that lets Californians shop for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, coveredca.com, has been sending sensitive data to LinkedIn, forensic testing by CalMatters has revealed. As visitors filled out forms on the website, trackers on the same pages told LinkedIn their answers to questions about whether they were blind, pregnant, or used a high number of prescription medications. The trackers also monitored whether the visitors said they were transgender or possible victims of domestic abuse. Covered California, the organization that operates the website, removed the trackers as CalMatters and The Markup reported this article. The organization said they were removed ‘due to a marketing agency transition’ in early April. … In a statement, Kelly Donohue, a spokesperson for the agency, confirmed that data was sent to LinkedIn as part of an advertising campaign. Since being informed of the tracking, ‘all active advertising-related tags across our website have been turned off out of an abundance of caution,’ she added.”

• And finally … today’s recall news involves … apple juice! CBS News says: “Martinelli’s is recalling more than 170,000 apple juice bottles because their contents may be contaminated by patulin, a toxic substance produced by some fungi. The recall covers round glass 10-ounce bottles with white metal screw-top lids that were distributed in 28 states, from Alabama to Wisconsin (including California), according to the FDA recall notice. S. Martinelli & Co., the Watsonville, California, beverage company that makes the drink, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The recall is listed as Class II, which under FDA guidelines signals that a product may ‘cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences or where the probability of serious adverse health consequences is remote.’ ‘To date, we have not had any reported health issues related to the recall,’ Martinelli’s said in a statement emailed to CBS MoneyWatch.”

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