What got my antennae pinging was the fact that nowhere in the Times report is it mentioned that a president lacks constitutional authority to unilaterally add territory to the United States. It’s as if President Trump has now done this sort of thing enough times that we no longer need discuss legality — just audacity.
Still, whether it’s a topic of discussion or not, and whether what’s at issue is purchase or conquest, congressional approval — including any necessary funding — is required to add property to the United States.
For example, the Louisiana Purchase was carried out by treaty. Back in a time when presidents worried about such things, Thomas Jefferson had misgivings about whether the Constitution even permitted the acquisition of new territory. He briefly thought about (but decided against) seeking an amendment, concluding that a treaty in conjunction with congressional funding would suffice. The issue, though, was whether the law permitted the national government to acquire territory; it would not have dawned on President Jefferson that he could just take it or buy it with funds Congress had appropriated for other purposes. His administration made the agreement with France in 1803, the Senate approved it, and Congress appropriated the $15 million to complete the purchase — a gargantuan sum in today’s dollars, but still a bargain. (Napoleon needed the money for his wars in Europe and hoped to strengthen the United States vis-à-vis his rival, Britain.)
The Times report quotes two retiring senators — Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.) and Thom Tillis (R., S.C.) — expressing concerns that the president is paying insufficient respect to “treaty obligations” and the “territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark.” Well sure . . . but how about respect for the constitutional authority of Congress?
The president of the United States is the chief executive in a government of divided powers. The president is not the sovereign, and he has no authority to confer American sovereignty on foreign territory.
Alan Dlugash decries Trump’s on-going efforts to displace free markets with state control.
Trying to separate the “what” from the “who,” I confess I am struggling to see what conservatives believe is obvious: that officer Jonathan Ross had good reason to believe Good was trying to hurt him with her car.
I’ve watched all the videos I can find in slow motion and in real time, and I see a man filming with his phone at the corner of a car making a K-turn, and may have knocked into him as it moved. Ross seems to be leaning over the hood from a side angle to put the first shot through the windshield and firing the second and third shots into the car from the side, which makes it hard to believe that he thought the car was aimed at him or anyone else. The road appears clear behind him.
That’s not the final word, of course; though a news outlet disseminated his cellphone footage, his body-cam video, if it exists, hasn’t been released. Further investigation and more videos may reveal additional details. Unfortunately, we’ve become so polarized on the “who” that I no longer trust this administration — which immediately deemed Good a “domestic terrorist” — to adjudicate the “what.” And that is even more troubling to me than the death of Renée Good.
Then again, failure seems to be the gold standard for this union, and now its president Stacy Davis Gates will be able to spread her radical agenda across the state after being elected to lead the Illinois Federation of Teachers. Davis Gates, who has a history of blowing off mandatory union audits and has described testing as “junk science rooted in White supremacy,” is clearly allergic to accountability and excellence.
If the CTU actually cares about fighting injustice, it should focus on the basics. Black students in third through eight grade score 33 percent lower on reading than White students, and low-income students score 32 percent lower than the rest. Meanwhile, the union is being investigated by the House Education and Workforce Committee for failing to produce an annual audit of its spending over the last five years.
Minnesota is not the exception but rather the example Americans finally noticed. Medicaid fraud has been endemic at the state and federal levels for decades. Politicians haven’t done much, even with scholars and journalists raising the alarm.
Medicaid reports $543 billion in “improper payments” over the past decade, though that figure omits one of the largest sources of error: whether states correctly determined the eligibility of the individuals they enrolled and paid providers on behalf of. According to Paragon Institute calculations, this brings improper payments to $1.1 trillion over those 10 years.
Improper payments are not identical to fraud; many involve missing documentation or administrative errors. But that distinction offers little comfort considering how little money is recovered. They are also an open invitation for more abuse.
Actual fraud, meanwhile, is widespread and persistent. In 2024 alone, state Medicaid Fraud Control Units reported more than 1,151 convictions and more than $1.4 billion in civil and criminal recoveries. Federal enforcement recovers a tiny share of what is stolen. Fraud that goes undetected never appears in the data.
That’s only the tip of the iceberg. Medicare, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and many other welfare programs also suffer from massive fraud. The Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) exchange subsidies provide another cautionary example.
A recent Government Accountability Office report shows that the fraud risks in the ACA’s advanced premium tax credit remain severe a decade after they were first identified. The ability to gain subsidized coverage for fictitious applicants without providing required documentation, tens of thousands of Social Security numbers used for overlapping coverage, and more than $21 billion in subsidies never reconciled with tax filings are among the findings. Nonetheless, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has not updated its fraud risk assessment since 2018 and still lacks a comprehensive anti-fraud strategy.
Congratulations to Timothy Taylor on his receipt of a very-much-deserved honor.
