President Trump held a National Prayer Day event in what is left of the rose garden at the White House on Thursday, May 1. It was a bizarre thing to watch on NPR on my tablet, since the man demonstrates no faith in God in his words and actions. That aside, it came just three days after North Carolina’s Rev. William Barber II (who has for years been an activist for the rights of poor people and teachers) and another pastor were arrested for praying aloud in the Rotunda of the US Capitol.
It turns out it is technically against the law to do that. Under a Washington, DC law, they were charged with “crowding, obstructing, or incommoding.” It seems they were warned, about 20 law enforcement officers of several levels were summoned with zip ties (which seems excessive), then everyone else was cleared from the Rotunda (including reporters who could have recorded what was about to happen), the doors were locked, and the two pastors were arrested.
My confusion arises because it was apparently only weeks after Conservative activist Sean Feucht led a group singing while playing an electric guitar in the Capitol Rotunda with Republican US Representative and gun rights activist Lauren Boebert in attendance on her knees waving her arms to the music.
I wasn’t there for either incident, and I don’t have all the facts. On the face of it, there seems to be a double standard. Perhaps Mr. Feucht had permission to do what he did, and Rev. Barber apparently did not. Perhaps making prior arrangements or obtaining some type of permission is the difference in the two cases. But lesson learned: don’t pray out loud in the US Capitol Rotunda.
We’ve lost federal funding for mental health grants to public schools. When Trump and Elon Musk brag about the billions of dollars they have saved the American taxpayer, just remember that $1 billion was cut last week from the School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program, which was established in response to the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas in which 19 students and two teachers were murdered. These grants were used to pay for more mental health counselors and therapists in our schools. School systems were notified on April 29 that the grants they had been awarded to use over the next five years have been cancelled.
On May 1, 2025, the same day US President Donald Trump made a big show of having a National Prayer Day event at the White House in which he spoke for the better part of an hour about how miserable his life has been and how the 2020 election was rigged and how “they” tried to rig the 2024 election but “they” failed… he also signed an Executive Order titled, “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media” in which he unilaterally stopped all federal funding support for National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
Although most of programming on NPR and PBS are funded by corporate and individual contributions, they do receive some federal dollars through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). It is reported that NPR gets 10% of its funding from the federal government. Losing that could spell doom for the radio stations in small markets… where it is needed the most.
The Order stops all current and future federal funding to the CPB.
Here is a link to the full text of this the Order: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/ending-taxpayer-subsidization-of-biased-media/.
I watch PBS every day and listen to NPR all the time I’m in the car. There is programming on both that is not available anywhere else. Trump would know that if he had ever listened to NPR or watched the wealth of educational programs on PBS.
PBS offers theatrical and musical productions, documentaries, worldwide travel shows, and numerous educational programs for children and adults. This programming is just not available on commercial TV networks. And there is not comparable radio programming to what NPR offers.
You have to be pretty low to attack “NOVA,” “Nature,” Ken Burns’ highly-acclaimed documentaries, Big Bird, Kermit, Ernie, The Cookie Monster, and Miss Piggy. I don’t recall ever hearing that any of them told the audience for whom to vote.
Trump is already threatening to force the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to cancel the broadcast licenses of the TV networks he doesn’t like. That’s any network that has programming on which anyone criticizes Trump. He started threatening CBS weeks ago. He belittles ABC, NBC, and CNN to their reporters’ faces in interviews and press conferences. Fortunately, none of them are backing down. He tells them their questions are “stupid.” He tells them what they should be asking. Then he usually launches into whining about losing the 2020 election. People of a certain age will understand when I say he is a broken record.
We’ve lost college students believing that they have the right to protest. Since the Trump Administration has come down hard on protests on university campuses by deporting international students suspected of participating in an anti-Israel war in Gaza protest at Columbia University, students hesitate to use their First Amendment right to assembly and free speech. Since Trump is financially punishing universities that allow student protests, students are getting mixed messages about how their school administrators will react if they dare to protest. Dakota State University in South Dakota invited US Secretary of Homeland Security and former South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to give the commencement address on May 10. Students and faculty members there are hesitant to voice their displeasure with the decision and most refused to speak to the Associated Press reporter doing a story about the invitation. A university where students and professors are afraid to even verbally protest has lost the essence of what university is.
Two US Representatives plan to introduce articles of impeachment against Trump, so he is calling them childish names and calling for their expulsion from Congress. He says that have committed “real crimes,” I guess opposed to the 34 felonies he was convicted of before the last election.
We’ve lost Veterans Day. On May 1, Trump declared that May 8 will now be “Victory in World War II Day” because that’s the date in 1945 that Germany surrendered. That was a telling theory, since the war continued in the Pacific until Japan surrendered on August 6, 1945. But worse than that was his declaration that November 11 will now be “Victory in World War I Day” instead of Veterans Day. I just want to know how many more times he is going to insult veterans and still have their support.
Lee Zeldin, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on Friday that he is reorganizing the agency to save $300 million. He plans to accomplish that by creating a new unit within the agency “to align research and put science at the forefront of the agency’s rulemakings.” Time will tell what happens to the EPA in an Administration that is openly anti-environment.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi is cracking down on journalists who obtain “privileged and other sensitive information,” not just classified material, “that undermine President [Donald] Trump’s policies.” The editorial board at The Washington Post is concerned about the future of the Justice Department’s regulation that limited the government’s ability to see journalists’ phone and email records. If we lose our free press, we lose our democracy.
We’ve lost common sense. Attorney General Bondi announced in last Thursday’s Cabinet Meeting that the fentanyl seized by the Trump Administration since January 20 has saved 258 million lives. I’m not good at math, but that would be 79% of the 326 million people who live in the United States. In other words, 79% of Americans would have died from taking fentanyl since inauguration day if not for President Trump? This is the kind of information the Trump Administration is putting out as facts.
We’ve lost the 120 portraits of victims of gun violence in the atrium of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Washington, DC. Justice Department spokesperson Chad Gilmartin said the decision to remove “The Faces of Gun Violence” was not political. That’s good to know.
We thought we had lost the Alcatraz Federal Prison on Alcatraz Island off San Francisco when it was closed in 1963 due to staffing problems and physical deterioration. It wasn’t cost effective in 1963 to repair it. Fast forward 62 years: Trump to the rescue! He announced on social media on Sunday that he has ordered the dilapidated prison to be expanded and reopened for our worst criminals.
We no longer have a US President who respects other nations’ sovereignty, so we’ve lost that internationally held principle in our Executive Branch of the federal government. In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, he said he would not rule out using military force to take Greenland. WHAT?
We’ve lost our confidence that the person holding the office of President of the United States will uphold our Constitution. Donald J. Trump demonstrates through his Executive Orders that he has little regard for the US Constitution, but now we have his actual words. He has taken the oath of office twice, and yet in the “Meet the Press” interview on Sunday, he admitted that he doesn’t know if he has to uphold the Constitution. We don’t know if he has no recollection of that oath or if he is willfully choosing to question the validity of the oath. If he cannot remember the oath he took 15 weeks ago, perhaps Section 4 of the 25th Amendment needs to kick in. If he does not understand the words of the oath… perhaps Section 4 of the 25th Amendment needs to kick in. (Of course, the prospects of Vice President J.D. Vance assuming the office of President is also daunting!)
Trump said he will have to ask his lawyers if he has to uphold the Constitution. The oath is short and straightforward: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
We no longer have a US President who knows what the Declaration of Independence is. In a much-anticipated ABC News interview with the President on his 100th day in office, Trump made a point to show a copy of the Declaration of Independence on the wall in the Oval Office. ABC’s Terry Moran asked, “What does the Declaration of Independence mean to you?” Trump’s response was classic Trump: “Well, it means uhh exactly what it says. It’s a declaration of unity, love and respect.” That is the most bizarre description of the Declaration of Independence I’ve ever heard. He makes it sound like it was a love letter to King George. The look on Terry Moran’s face said it all.
Another thing we’ve lost is any sense of decorum or appropriateness. Trump posting an AI-generated image of him in full Pope attire over the weekend was in the very least in poor taste. I’m not Roman Catholic, but I found it repulsive.
That image of the Wizard near the end of the Wizard of Oz movie from 1939 comes to mind… the one when Toto pulls back the curtain and the Wizard of Oz is discovered to be just an ordinary man who is projecting a far different image of himself.
Is my country being run by a 12-year-old boy who has no knowledge of or interest in learning history and takes nothing seriously? That’s what is being projected for all the world to see.
Until my next blog post
I hope you have a good book to read.
Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.
Janet
Janet's Writing Blog 
I seriously doubt he even has the emotional intelligence of a twelve-year-old. Everything he says is a projection of himself. He accuses others of exactly what he does — classic mirror behavior, but on a global scale.
Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar his words:
“You will go down in history as the greatest mistake of our time, as a danger to humanity.”
And this isn’t a movie script — it’s the reality we’re living in…. 😞
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Republicans in Congress need to grow a pair and put an end to this madness.
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Yes, I’m feeling bad now. That was an insult to 12-year-old boys. That’s a great quote. Describes Trump perfectly. Imagine the US President saying on national TV on Sunday that he didn’t know if he had to uphold the US Constitution! That was talked about for a few hours, but the news cycle moved on today to Trump’s meeting with Prime Minister Carney of Canada. The little bit of the joint press conference of sorts they held in the Oval Office, Mr. Carney looked like he was going to explode. He kept his demeanor, but once in a while he rolled his eyes, looked ill at ease, looked down at the floor, etc. He couldn’t get a word in edgewise as Trump droned on about rigged elections and how Canada will be our 51st state, how we don’t need anything from Canada, and how we subsidize their military. Lies, lies, lies. Trump was just making jabs and baiting Mr. Carney. I would love to be a fly on the wall now while they are meeting behind closed doors. I hope Mr. Carney gives Trump an ear full!
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Can’t at least two or three of them find the guts to go together to the White House and tell him it is over? That’s what happened to Nixon. I’d like to see a repeat of that… except then we’d be stuck with Vance. This is just too horrible. And if one more Republican in Congress says, “We need to give him a little more time,” I will definitely scream.
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I don’t understand why the Republications in Congress are letting him usurp THEIR authority. And they’re going to get creamed in the midterm elections.
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I pray they get creamed in the midterm elections. It baffles me, too. Members of Congress used to delight in reminding the President that they held the purse strings and, therefore, held the power. Now they don’t seem interested in the purse strings or the power. NC Senator Thom Tillis will be up for reelection in 2026. There is hope that former Governor Roy Cooper will run against him. Cooper was elected governor twice. He probably has a better chance of defeating Tillis than any other Democrat, but he hasn’t announced his plans yet.
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We can only live in hope . . .
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Hope and prayer are all we have left.
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Sadly, yes.
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Haha, I love the fentanyl percentages! He really is an idiot, but unfortunately a significant number of people believe any rubbish he spouts. Did you see him being disgustingly rude to Carney yesterday? I honestly don’t understand why any leader of another country goes anywhere near America. I suspect they won’t for much longer.
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Yes, I watched the public part of their “meeting” and Q&A in horror. Carney used great restrain. I would have stood up and walked out! I guess that’s why I’m not a head of state. I kept watching Carney’s body language and eye rolls. The longer it went, the more rude Trump became. It was horrible. I hate to see any more heads of state come to the White House and be humiliated. I keep hoping King Charles will revoke the invitation he issued for Trump to visit him. Trump made such a fool of himself when he visited Queen Elizabeth II and walked ahead of her, etc. He just has no sense of decorum and respects absolutely no one but himself. He is so mentally deranged that he thinks the world respects him. Nothing could be further from the truth, but he is surrounded only by people who reinforce that myth and who heap praise on him every day. His Cabinet meetings are a farce. He and each of the department secretaries made fools of themselves yesterday in the Cabinet meeting about the World Cup. I don’t understand why the teams would risk coming here to compete. VP Vance even made a “joke” during the meeting that people should come here for the World Cup, but they better leave when the games are over; otherwise, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem will deport them. The sense of humor within the Trump Administration is dismal.
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Janet honey, there is a double standard and for the life of me I don’t get some folks who only think Christians are only conservatives and throw darts at “liberals” and their lack of ethics. I don’t know how some folks can form their mouths for such extremism, but this seems like a page from the Old Testament playbook. But let’s not even go there. 😝
Girlfriend, I’m waiting on Toto or Fido to pull that curtain back and expose the hypocrites hanging out with that little man! 🤣 I never in my wildest nightmares would have thought we would see such diabolical maneuvers pretending to be normal. Unreal! 😫
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There are people I have known since birth and others I have known since first grade who are now showing their true colors. It has been a rude awakening for me to realize these people I thought I knew well… I didn’t know at all. They now spout racism, hate for immigrants, disdain for poor people who dare to get government assistance… and yet they go to their churches every Sunday. Their narrow-mindedness is apparently reinforced at their churches. I don’t understand their brand of Christianity. They are so rooted in the terrifying parts of the Old Testament that they seem not to have time for the message of love and inclusiveness of the New Testament. And yes, I eagerly wait for Toto or Fido to yank that curtain back and reveal the little orange toddler. I worry about the teens and young 20s who have grown up not knowing what “normal” is. Trump and the hate speech he has made the new normal is all these young people know. I’m afraid they do not know how government is supposed to function. They’ve come of age in a time of lies and name calling and no consequences or accountability. We must all keep doing the best we can and not give up, Kym. We were made for a time such as this.
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Sadly our PM seems to have decided to grovel to him, so no chance of the State Visit being called off despite a lot of unhappiness about it over here. However he will be met with massive protests, so that’s something to look forward to!
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I hope the Brits come out by the thousands to “greet” our Great Orange Leader! Funny that Trump expected to make a huge splash on the news today with the deal made with the UK, but then the new pope was chosen and Trump lost all his publicity. LOL! He doesn’t like anyone taking the spotlight off him! LOL!
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Haha, yes, that was fun! 😂
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Oh my gosh Janet, PREACH! There are people who I have known for a long time and they have somehow masked their true colors too. I’ve stepped away from my social media contacts with them because I can not believe some of the things they support and they say they are Christians? I too agree with you about their strange brand of Christianity, which is not grounded in Biblical roots as the few verses they pull out of context.
I also agree with you about the normalization of ‘otherisms’ and racism that I hear coming from some of these young folks mouths, as well as some older folks who should know better. This is another reason why my social circle gets smaller and smaller.
In the words of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” She also said, “I will continue to dissent from oppression, inequity, fear. So will you.”
Bless you my friend. Keep fighting! 🥊🙌🏼🥊
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Thank you, Kym. And thank you for that quote from Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Oh, how I wish we still had her on the Supreme Court! She was wonderful and so wise! I will try to present my dissent in a way that she would approve of. I’m afraid sometimes I let my anger lead me to say things in a way that is not constructive or Christian.
I have drafted a devotional book aimed for people like me who have Seasonal Affective Disorder in the fall and winter. I was proofreading part of the manuscript last night and it was a great reminder for me to watch the tone of my words. One of my devotionals in the booklet is based on Matthew 5:13-16… “You are the light of the world.” One of the resources I like is the series of commentaries written by the late Rev. William Barclay. In one of his books, he says it is sometimes a Christian’s duty to be a warning, but he cautions us not to warn in anger, irritation, criticism, condemnation, and not in the desire to be hurtful. Barclay was addressing a Christian admonishing another Christian, but his words serve as a reminder for me to watch my tone and motives in my blogs about politics, too. It’s heavy stuff, and I’m afraid I fall short.
Bless you, Kym. I hope you have a nice, restful weekend.
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Janet, I too have to work on trying to tone down my anger. But even God got angry. That’s not to say that we have the permission to be cruel, but anger and hurt are part of our walk.
When I am composing a topic or issue I am angry about, I write those thoughts down while I’m angry, and clean up my verbiage once I’ve simmered down a bit! LOL 😜 But in times like these, we can’t be okay when we see people, our brothers and sisters being brow-beaten and oppressed by insensitivity and actually weaponizing Christianity for their benefit.
So my dear, may you have a Happy Mother’s Day, and do something fun and exciting for you! Much love! 😘💐🥰💖🤗
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Happy Mother’s Day to you, too, Kym, if you are a mother or have a living mother. I have neither, so it is now a bittersweet day for me. I like your take on writing it while angry and cleaning it up later! I try to do that, too. More successful sometimes than other times. LOL! I agree… there are times God expects us to show righteous indignation like Jesus did when he flipped the tables at the temple!
Best regards to you, Kym. I’m glad our paths have crossed!
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I appreciate your sweet wishes Janet. My mother is here in spirit but she went home to glory in 2003. I still miss her. I do not have biological children but step children. Yet, we are universal mothers to others, whether nieces, nephews, students, mentees or children we come in contact with. So, Happy Mother’s Day anyway my friend. Hugs and cheers! 😍🥂💐
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Thank you, Kym.
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You’re so very welcome my dear Janet! Cheers! 😍🥂😊
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Thanks for your heartfelt and important posts, Janet.
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You’re welcome, Rebecca. This was not the direction I ever thought my blog would take, but I feel compelled to write about these things. I hope this won’t be a permanent thing!
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