It is getting more difficult by the week to blog about the things going on in our federal government. I have just about run out of words.

I know I’m “preaching to the choir” because people who read my blog either already agree with me or I’m “spitting in the wind” if they don’t. None of you are going to change your minds at this point. You either acknowledge what has happened to our country or you don’t.

If you have not seen and heard enough since January 20, 2025, to join the Resistance, you never will.

Violent rhetoric

In case you thought all the nasty people were “on the left,” I will just take a moment to point out that it was John Gillette, a Republican Arizona State Representative who posted a threatening statement on X in response to an old YouTube video clip from March in which Democrat U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal talked about preparations for street protests against the Trump administration.

Gillette’s post: “Until people like this, that advocate for the overthrow of the American government are tried, convicted and hanged … it will continue.”

Congress member Jayapal in no way advocated for the overthrow of the American government. As far as I know, peaceful protests are still protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

No rule of law on international waters

Trump has put U.S. military personnel in violation of criminal and military law by ordering them to kill 17 people in boats in international waters. Just because Trump says those 17 people were smuggling drugs into the United States doesn’t make it true.

Traditionally, drug smugglers who are caught in the act are arrested and tried in a court of law. Trump’s tactic this year of ordering the military to blow up boats, the boats’ occupants, and all possible evidence of a crime is reckless and wrong.

What the meeting at Quantico cost us

It was a meeting that could have been securely held via Zoom. In an apparent show of power, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth summoned hundreds of Generals and Admirals to Quantico, Virginia, for a meeting yesterday.

They had to leave their command posts from all over the world with one week’s notice for what was reported to be a 71-minute meeting. Or, maybe that was how many minutes Trump rambled on about how he loves his signature, about President Obama and President Biden, and about the multitude of wars no one can identify that Trump claims to have ended this year.

The parts of his talk that I heard were incoherent ramblings. If anything, they were worse than his usual “weavings.”

I heard the cost of the meeting for taxpayers was $6 million, which is pocket change for Trump and his ilk. No big deal.

But the monetary cost of the meeting is the least of our worries.

If I get started writing about the remarks Secretary of Defense Hegseth said about women in the military, social justice, and climate change, I will say some things I should not put in print. I know some women in the military who could fight just as hard and effectively as Hegseth. Just sayin’.

Every American should be horrified by the words of Hegseth and Trump. When the Secretary of Defense of the United States of America announces to the world that we will no longer abide by “the rules of engagement,” it is indeed a dark day in our country and the world at large.

If the United States military is no longer going to abide by the international laws and norms for the conduct of war, then no one in the world is safe.

When a United States President thinks it is a good idea to send troops into our cities to train, it is a dark day for our country.

When a United States President cannot tell the difference between a live news report (i.e., reality) and an old video clip of a civil unrest and declares war on Portland, Oregon, we should all be very, very afraid.

When the United States President posts an AI-generated racially-doctored and derogatory meme of the Minority Leader of the United States Senate and the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives on social media, one is led to ask if he is 79 years old or 12 years old. (I apologize to all the 12-year-olds of the world. That was unfair to you.)

All this from this week, folks. And it was only Tuesday evening as I wrote this.

The Federal Government Shutdown

Here we go again. The United States Congress cannot figure out a budget for more than three months at a time. Regular people should be so lucky!

It is sad that so many of the members of Congress think this is a game. They are playing with peoples’ lives and livelihood. Trump glibly said he will just fire a lot of federal government employees. That’s a great attitude, isn’t it?

As if the National Park Service employees remaining in the mountains of North Carolina haven’t already taken it on the chin since Hurricane Helene twelve months ago… as if the basket weavers, glass blowers, quilters and other textile artists, potters, furniture makers, wood crafts persons, and jewelry artisans of the Southern Highland Craft Guild haven’t already nearly gone bankrupt… the United States Congress just shut down the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Asheville as part of the federal government shutdown. At least, that’s what has happened during prior shutdowns.

So, Senators and Representatives, why did you choose to kick the people of western North Carolina when they were already down?

It is the very beginning of the fall tourist season in those mountains. Countless people have worked to reopen and reconstruction roads and businesses to serve tourists and residents alike. They have pinned their hopes on the 2025 fall tourist season to help them hang onto the businesses they lost or nearly lost to the hurricane.

Members of the Southern Highland Craft Guild greatly depend on selling their unique creations at the Folk Art Center. To say it is a shame that it will be closed for the duration of the government shutdown would be the understatement of the year.

The Folk Art Center is also the home of the 20,000-volume Robert W. Gray Library of “books, exhibition catalogs, video, and more relating to craft from around the world.”  (https://southernhighlandguild.org/folkartcenter/)

And this, America, is just one small victim of the federal government shutdown – all because Republicans and Democrats no longer talk to each other – and most of them on both sides of the aisle apparently couldn’t care less about you and me. They have forgotten who they work for, and they have forgotten their oaths of office.

In closing…

I think most of us in the United States are weary. The reckless attacks on our democracy are taking a toll on many of us. It’s like trying to stand up to the unrelenting force of a fire hose.

I am so old that I remember the decades when women and people of color almost had equal rights.

I remember when members of our military could be proud of their service and could have respect for their Commander-in-Chief and the Secretary of Defense, even if they did not agree with some of the decisions made and orders issued.

I remember when we could depend on the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Supreme Court to protect us.

I remember when politicians had the skill and desire to compromise to make our 249-year-old experiment in democracy work.

It’s sad to feel like the best years of the United States America are behind us.

Janet