I seem to be falling into a routine of writing a Friday roundup of happenings in the U.S. Government. Since I have some good and exciting news to blog about tomorrow, I’ll get this week’s roundup of Washington, DC happenings out of the way on Thursday.

It might seem petty for me to comment on the “little” things Trump does, but when you look at them all together you can’t help but see a pattern. All the “little” distractions are intended to make us not see the big picture.

Here we go…

---

Painting the wall black

Trump not only appoints and hires the best people. He also gives them the best jobs to do. A case in point is that he has ordered his “big, beautiful wall” that separates part of the United States from part of Mexico black to make it hotter.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has been unable to report how much all that black paint is costing the American taxpayers, much less people being paid to do the painting.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Where is the Department of Government Efficiency? DOGE has gone quiet.

---

More White House redecorating?

Apparently, destroying Jackie Kennedy’s beautiful rose garden and replacing it with a concrete patio replete with gutters made in the image of the U.S. flag was not enough.

Building a 90,000-square foot $200 million ballroom on the White House lawn will not be enough.

It appears that the West Colonnade – the iconic walkway that connects the residence quarters of the White House with the West Wing presidential offices – is Trump’s next target.

With the help of Jeanine Pirro, a former TV personality who Trump appointed to be U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, it looks like the beautiful colonnade is being transformed into another picture frame gallery since every inch of the Oval Office wall is now covered in picture frames and there’s not room for one more gaudy gold frame.

Trump must own stock in a company that makes gaudy gold picture frames.

Since the West Colonnade walkway is open to the elements of nature, it doesn’t seem to me to be an ideal place to hang pictures, but nobody asked me.

This is wrong on many levels, and it begs the question: “Why do the President of the United States and the new U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia have time to redecorate the White House?

It’s almost as if Trump plans to never leave.

---

Did Trump forget the name of the Pacific Ocean?

I do not watch Trump’s favorite TV network. Never have. Never would. Never will. I prefer to get my news from reliable sources and not from puppets of the Trump Regime.

That being said, I saw a quote from Trump’s conversation on that network on Tuesday morning where he appeared to forget the name of the Pacific Ocean. He has a clever way of covering up his gaffes. He does that by never speaking in complete sentences.

Here’s what Trump was quoted as saying on Tuesday after he called in to his favorite TV network’s early morning show:  “You know we have an ocean that’s separating us, right? A thing called…. an ocean. A big, beautiful ocean. And, uh, they don’t, they’re right there. So it’s a different kind of a thing for them.”

It is embarrassing that all other world leaders have a better command of the English language than the President of the United States.

It reminds me of the time during his first term when Trump discovered that Puerto Rico is surrounded by water.

---

Trump proclaims himself “a war hero”

Donald Trump, who dodged the draft during the Vietnam War by paying a doctor to claim he had bone spurs, has proclaimed himself to be “a war hero” because he sent planes to help Israel bomb Iran.

On a TV show on Tuesday night, Trump started out talking about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but his attention quickly turned to himself, as it usually does. Trump said, “[Netanyahu is] a war hero because we work together. He’s a war hero. I guess I am too. Nobody cares, but I am, too. I mean, I sent theses planes.”

I’ll just leave it at that.

---

Continuing war on renewable power

As the rest of the world pursues a future using renewable energy, on Wednesday Trump vowed that his administration will not issue permits for any solar or wind power projects.

Trump said that wind and solar energy are a scam. He wrote, “The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!”

I guess the days of the United States leading the way into new and better sources of power are over.

(I can’t let this go without quoting my high school senior English teacher, Mrs. Cline, saying, “One exclamation point is sufficient.” Maybe Trump never took an English class. There’s certainly no evidence that he did.)

---

Mail-in ballots, anyone?

After taking Vladimir Putin’s advice on how to run an honest election, on Monday, Trump said he would issue an Executive Order to stop all mail-in voting in the United States.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to walk that back on Tuesday by saying that what Trump meant to say was that he would work through Congress to make such a change.

My first thought on Monday was that Trump’s plan/threat would mean our military personnel deployed outside the United States would no longer be able to vote. Is that really what Trump wants? He claims to love the military when he’s not calling them suckers and losers.

Congressman Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey threw himself into the fray on Tuesday when he said, “Other times, people who are passed away—these are real people I spoke to, large numbers of them, and it’s indicative of what happened around the country.” This brings to mind that famous quote from a movie, “I see dead people walking.” New Jersey has a U.S. Representative who talks to them.

---

I hate to beat a dead horse, but public education in Oklahoma has taken another turn

Most of us can be glad we don’t live in Oklahoma or have children attending the public schools there. You may recall that I paid my respects to Oklahoma State School Superintendent Ryan Walters in my August 13, 2025, blog post, We can only hope other states don’t follow Oklahoma!.

Walters continues to make the news as he has now put in place what he called an “America First” Test for teachers moving to Oklahoma from predominantly Democratic states.

You read that correctly. Only teachers moving into Oklahoma from states that voted for Kamala Harris instead of for Donald Trump in the 2024 election are required to take this test.

You can’t make this stuff up!

The test is based on Walters’ assumption that everyone who lives in a “red state” supports everything Trump says and does and everyone who lives in a “blue state” disagrees with everything Trump says and does. At least he’s only in charge of public education in Oklahoma and not the entire country!

I understand there were 50 questions on the test ranging from which chromosomes determine a baby’s sex to how many United States Senators there are, to one about freedom of religion being important to a nation’s identity.

That’s bizarre, considering it is the Republican Party that seems hell bent on making all Americans conservative right-wing Democrat-hating Christians.

Under the U.S. Constitution, we currently have freedom of religion, which also means we have freedom from religion. The government cannot dictate which religion I practice and I am free to practice no religion at all.

Walters was quoted as saying this about the test: “You’re not going to come in here and teach that there’s 27 genders. There’s boys and girls. That’s in our science standards. You’re going to come in, and you’re not going to undermine American exceptionalism by teaching anti-American, anti-Semitic hate.” 

Where do these Republicans get off accusing “woke” people as being anti-Semitic? It has been my experience that Trump supporters are more likely to be anti-Semitic than anyone else, but maybe my personal observations are wrong.

The most bizarre part of all this is that Donald Trump shows no signs of believing in God or any power higher than himself. Why conservative right-wing Christians have fallen under his spell will forever baffle me.

Back to the “woke” test in Oklahoma… Is it not important for Republican teachers to know about chromosomes, the US Senate, and freedom of religion? I guess not.

The objective in Oklahoma is clear. It is not to attract good teachers. It is to attract narrow-minded, easily-influenced teachers who are willing to profess they only vote for Republicans.

---

Another issue we hoped was dead, but it isn’t

Trump has vowed to double down on all museums in the United States because he thinks they are “too woke” and they spend too much space and time talking about “how bad slavery was.”

Does this mean that museums will now have to tell us how good slavery was?

If nothing else, this points to two things: (1) Donald Trump is a racist and (2) he can only view slavery as being good for the economy. How else can anyone human being see slavery as a good thing?

He says he is going to send lawyers into the museums to get rid of all the “woke” exhibits. He says he will start with the Smithsonian Institution.

This is either insanity, dementia, or pure evil.

Regardless of the root of Trump’s problem, it is the rewriting and literal white-washing of American history.

If we cannot depend on the Smithsonian Institution to present our history – the good, the bad, and the ugly – then there is nothing we can depend on.

Can’t someone make him stop?

Janet