Pearl River      There can’t be much doubt that the New York Times is not President Trump’s favorite newspaper.  Weeks ago, they included in the Sunday paper a special section that sought to survey the changes that Trump had wrought in his first year.  Stripping out any opinion, and looking at “just the fact, ma’am,” it wasn’t hard to make a pretty unvarnished list of changes big and small, narrow and wide across the country, so here goes.

• The administration has pushed universities to act against protestors. The gates of Columbia University are now closed.
• North Carolina’s Lumbee Tribe won full federal recognition that it has sought for more than a century.
• By threatening to cut off funding, the administration got Washington DC to remove their mural that “Black Lives Matter.”
• Reversing the Biden administrations renaming of military installations that honored Civil War confederates, many were renamed after obscure soldiers with similar names to the Confederate generals.
• The CDC stopped collection statistics on maternal and infant health due to staff cuts.
• Some medical clinics in places like Nebraska closed in anticipation of Medicaid cuts under Trump’s signature tax and policy bill.
• Atlanta lost thousands of jobs due to cutback at the Center for Disease Control, headquartered there.
• Following instructions from Health Secretary Kennedy, Utah banned fluoride in public drinking water and Arkansas blocked food stamp recipients from buying sugary sodas.
• The Gateway Tunnel between New York and New Jersey was halted by Trump to punish Democrats for the government shutdown.
• Cuts to national park staffs have left them so thin that they can’t stop littering, flying drones, and cliff jumping.
• The administration dedicated $625 million to reinvigorate the coal industry, stopped construction on several wind farms, and blocked a coal capture grant for the giant coal-fired plant in Gillette, Wyoming.
• Reduced much of the American refugee program to a trickle of white South Africans.
• Curtailed visas admitting international students to American universities.
• Implemented immigration occupations by ICE in numerous American cities.
• Opened numerous new detention facilities to expand the deportation program across the country.
• Ended temporary protection status for immigrants from numerous countries and has begun deporting even Cubans, long felt immune.
• Reduced immigration at the border to an average of 245 per day from a peak that was over 10,000.
• Tariffs raised fertilizer prices for farmers by 20%, cut soybean purchases from China, and more.
• Instigated the redrawing of congressional districts in many states.
• Cut funding for public radio and television.

Get the picture?  No state, red or blue, was spared one way or another, either from canceled grants, lost jobs, or coming budget cuts.  None of this factual list even includes the changes internationally.  This is just a short list of the many domestic changes.  This is what the first year of Trump’s second term has meant, whatever the rhyme and reason.