Make America Trump: President Trump turned Washington’s 4^thof July celebration into a 2020 political campaign event using Army tanks and armored vehicles as a backdrop of power and members of the military as a cheering section.

  Trump avoided his usual barbs at the press and his opposition in the Democratic party, but the crowd was packed with his political supporters and even members of the military who violated the rules against political activity wearing Trump “MAGA” hats, “Trump 2020” paraphernalia, and chanting “four more years.”

  The President who dodged military service delivered to the rain-soaked crowd a rambling speech about the history of America’s armed services as a chorus sang each service hymn and he cued a flyover of fighter jets, helicopters, and other military aircraft. 

  Trump made an unusual call for  national unity and hailed a long list of Americans who contributed to the country’s history, from Harriet Tubman to the test pilot Chuck Yeager. “As long as we stay true to our cause — as long as we remember our great history — as long as we never, ever stop fighting for a better future — then there will be nothing that America cannot do,” Trump declared to chants of “USA, USA.”

  NY Timescontributor Timothy Egan wrote this morning, “Kids in cages and tanks for the tyrant. After that dictator-friendly Fourth of July, it’s time for all true patriots to conduct a political gut check.”

Academic Theft:In a stunning settlement of a nasty fight between two of California’s biggest universities,  the private University of Southern California agreed this week to pay the University of California $50 million for poaching a noted  Alzheimer’s researcher from the public university’s San Diego campus.

  UC had previously accused USC of  stealing away top scientists and their lucrative research grants with “predatory” practices and a “law-of-the-jungle mind-set.”

   In its apology, USC said it regretted the way neurology professor Paul Aisen and his lab staff left UC San Diego in 2015, departures that were secretly coordinated with high-level administrators at the Los Angeles university.

  “These actions did not align with the standards of ethics and integrity which USC expects of all its faculty, administrators and staff,” the apology said.

Kickball: The Netherlands beat Sweden 1-0, or “one-nil,” as they like to say in the soccer world, to set up the match for the final game against the US on Sunday.

Quake: A 6.4 magnitude earthquake hit Southern California yesterday in a remote desert area 150 miles northeast of Los Angeles.  It was felt in Los Angeles itself. 

 There were some reports of injuries and fires, and a hospital was evacuated, but mostly the quake was of the variety known as “soup cans off the shelf.”

Career Ender: Miami Dolphins defensive tackle Kendrick Norton lost an arm as the result a car accident, the team has confirmed. 

  The22-years-old Norton is  a 6-foot-3, 309-pound defensive tackle. He was a seventh-round pick out of the University of Miami for the Carolina Panthers in 2018. Early reports said Norton might have a career-ending injury, then came word that an arm had to be amputated.

The Obit Page: Arte Johnson, one of the cast comedians on the hip 1960s comedy show “Laugh-in,” has died at age 90. Johnson played a lecherous old man on a park bench and a German soldier named Wolfgang who would comment on the previous skit saying, “Very interesting, but shtoopid.”

Hot Dogging:Joey Chestnut won the Nathan’s Famous hot dog-eating contest again, jamming 71 tube steaks down his throat in 10 minutes.

 Chestnut was featured in an ESPN documentary, causing sportswriter Peter King to tweet that it’s “A shame that as at least a fifth of children in America go to bed hungry nightly they’re highlighting gluttony, treating someone who overeats excessively as a ‘competitive athlete.’ Truly disgusting.”

  The top-dogger defended his sport saying they contribute to food banks and  “It’s easy to criticize something. He could easily criticize NASCAR for greenhouse gas emissions.”

  But NASCAR donates all of its greenhouse emissions to the public.

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