Pull up a comfortable chair. This post is long, but I believe its length stands as proof of the chaos here just in the last week or two. I considered breaking it up between two days, but I think its length alone makes a point.

In case you are wondering why I did not blog yesterday about Wednesday’s performance for Donald Trump by Pam Bondi, I did not have time to digest it and spit it onto the page. That will come either tomorrow or on Monday of next week.

Oh, daily life pretty much goes on as usual except in cities being targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. People must continue to work to support themselves and their families. Children need to continue to attend school. Life goes on, but life would be less stressful if we weren’t slammed every day with unnecessary crises.

I have taken the gloves off this week. Perhaps you noticed, if you’ve read my last four blog posts.

I know I irritate people who cling to Donald Trump, but I offer no apologies. Not because I see apologizing as a weakness (like Trump does), but because I refuse to apologize for standing up for the U.S. Constitution and the ideals upon which my country was formed.

As I tell the Trumpers who attack me on Facebook, you don’t have to read what I post. I have the right to post it and you have the right not to read it. If you want to convince me I’m a left-wing woke radical, don’t bother. I wear that moniker proudly.

I feel compelled to blog about more than a dozen things today that have me concerned or, at the least, intrigued.

Not a day passes without at least one piece of alarming news coming out of the Trump regime or from his followers. Most days there are so many pieces of alarming news that it feels like we Americans are being gut-punched by a fire hose.

That’s all part of the plan. That’s the only way they can ram Project 2025 down our throats and “take back” the “good old days” when blacks and women had no rights and few people spoke truth to power.

I try to keep up. I take notes. I pay attention. I get my news from various sources. But I cannot keep up. Things fall through the cracks. It’s overwhelming – which is all part of their plan.

Americans are weary. We are tired of the fire hose of hate and destruction. We. Are. Tired. That is part of their plan.

They are hellbent on confusing us with lies and throwing so much chaos at us 24/7 that we give up.

You will find that I freely refer to Republicans in this post. I hate to throw all Republicans under the bus, but I have lost my patience over the last 13 months. The Republican Party has blindly and completely embraced Donald Trump and everything he says and does, so I no longer feel the need to tiptoe around them.

If you are a Republican and have not removed yourself from that affiliation, I am left to assume that you agree with Donald Trump. It is his political party now. With rare exceptions, no one in the party has the gumption to challenge anything he says or does.

If you are a registered Republican and you have remained silent as Donald Trump has stomped all over the U.S. Constitution, torn down the East Wing of the White House, ordered masked men to round up people with Spanish accents – including children – and warehoused them, been found guilty of 34 felonies, bragged about grabbing women by their genitals, published racist words and images on social media, threatened our allies, taken Putin’s word over that of U.S. intelligence organizations, slapped his name on the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts (and announced its closure on July 4, 2026), and lied to your face about more things than you can count… then perhaps you need to do some soul searching.

Silence is complicity.

Full disclosure: I used to be a registered Republican. I’m not proud of that. I was young and misguided. I have voted for Republicans and I have voted for Democrats. I used to “vote for the person, not the party,” but those days are over for the foreseeable future. I cannot in good conscience cast a vote for a Republican in light of what the Republicans in the North Carolina General Assembly have done to destroy public education and what the Trump Administrations have done to every facet of our country.

Hurrah for that Grand Jury!

The American people had a victory this week! A Grand Jury – made up of average Americans – refused to indict two U.S. Senators and four U.S. Representatives who participated in a video in which they merely stated the law: If you are in the U.S. military, you do not have to carry out an illegal order.

In fact, the Nazis who followed Hitler’s orders found at during the Nuremberg Trials that they didn’t have to carry out illegal orders. It is international law, not just U.S. law.

Donald Trump and Pam Bondi weaponized the U.S. Department of Justice when they tried to prosecute Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania for making a video in which they simply stated that members of the military do not have to follow illegal orders.

It infuriated Trump for these military veterans and lawmakers to remind the American public – not just military personnel – that there is a law of humanity in place. He ordered the U.S. Department of Justice, which he thinks is and treats as if it is his personal law firm, to go after those six members of Congress.

Trump called those six Democrat members of Congress “seditious” when the video aired. He wanted them to be executed for stating the law.

It would have been wonderful if the Republican members of Congress had shown outrage over Trump’s remarks. It would have been wonderful and encouraging if the Republican members of Congress had shown outrage over the attempted prosecution of their fellow lawmakers.

I believe we will see more such failures of the U.S. Department of Justice as it is headed by a woman who is only there to try to carry out Trump’s vindictive wishes.

FBI raid of Fulton County, Georgia, Elections Records

On January 28, 2026, the FBI raided the building where the voting records from Fulton County, Georgia, from the 2020 presidential election were housed. Some 656 boxes of ballots, ballot images, tabulators, and voter rolls were seized by the FBI and taken to an undisclosed location.

Even though voter registration records in the United States are public information and easily found on the Internet, it is creeper for the FBI to seize a county’s voter registration rolls.

The icing on the cake was that Trump spoke directly via telephone to the FBI agents who participated just minutes after the raid. That is not what the President of the United States is supposed to do. Until Trump assumed office in January 2025, the FBI was apolitical. The U.S. President is not supposed to direct, interfere with, or in any way get involved in the FBI investigations.

Fulton County filed suit against the Trump Administration to try to get the records back.

Until forced to this week, the Trump Administration gave no justification for the January 28, 2026, seizure, but Brad Raffensperger is running for Governor and Trump has endorsed his opponent.

You will recall that Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on January 2, 2021 and asked Raffensperger to “find” him 11,780 votes. That action by Trump should have disqualified him to ever run for office again, but it didn’t.

Trump will never accept the fact that he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. His fragile ego cannot accept that he lost. “Loser” is one of the worst things he can think of to call someone.

Therefore, even though the Fulton County, Georgia votes were re-counted by hand twice after the initial count on election night in 2020, Trump thought he could pressure a state with a Republican Governor, a Republican Secretary of State, and a Republican Lt. Governor to cave and “find” him the votes he did not receive.

He accused the vote counters of cheating. He knows so little about how strictly ballots are counted, preserved, and transported that he made up lies about the containers holding the ballots and specifically two black women who helped count the votes.

So now the 2020 votes from Fulton County, Georgia, are who knows where. The Fulton County Board of Elections is responsible for the security of those ballots, but the Trump Administration has seized them and taken them to an undisclosed location.

As of February 9, Fulton County officials had not been told where the records they are responsible for were being held or what had been done with them or to them. As I write this on February 12, I cannot find that they have found out where those records are being held. The 2020 Fulton County voters don’t know what is being done with their personal information.

Last week, a federal judge ordered the FBI to unseal and reveal the warrant used on January 28 in Fulton County no later than Tuesday, February 10. Much to my surprise, the affidavits associated with the warrant were unsealed on Tuesday afternoon.

WSB-TV in Atlanta reported, “According to the documents, the FBI was told to investigate a discrepancy in the vote counts reported by Fulton County election officials, with the warrant alleging that there were missing ballot images from the 2020 election records.”

Here we are in 2026, still having to prove that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Why are none of the Republicans who were elected in 2020 claiming that the election was rigged? Odd how that worked out. Only Donald Trump is crying “foul.”

If you think the seizure of the Fulton County, Georgia, voting records does not pertain to you because you don’t live there, just think how you would feel if the FBI seized the voting records of your county. If they can do it in Atlanta, they can do it anywhere.

FBI briefing

Election officials from all 50 states have been summoned to an FBI briefing on “preparations for the midterms” on February 25. The email from the FBI was said to be from Kellie Hardiman, “FBI Election Executive.” I believe this briefing is unusual.

ICE, Steve Bannon, November mid-term elections

In a related matter, last week former Trump bestie and jailbird Steve Bannon proudly announced that ICE agents will surround the polling places in November. Of course, ICE agents do not work for Steve Bannon. (Thank goodness!) But Trump and his minions are wasting no time in trying to scare voters away from the polls. They continue to operate under the delusion that undocumented immigrants vote. They spend a lot of their time focusing on remedies for problems that do not exist, like voter fraud.

ICE statistics

Trump took office on January 20, 2025, promising to immediately get rid of “the worst of the worst.” He often claims that immigrants are murderers, rapists, and dangerous gang members. “The worst of the worst.”

It is hard to get reliable statistics about the arrests made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but some interesting numbers have been reported by various news outlets this week. I’m sure these percentages could be off my two or three percentage points, but these are the numbers I have read:

From January 25, 2025 through January 31, 2026, 40% of those arrested and detained have no criminal records, 14% are violent criminals, and less than 2% are gang members.

I have heard more than one county sheriff say they can only keep an undocumented immigrant in custody for 48 hours. If ICE agents don’t come to pick those prisoners up in 48 hours, they must be released. Perhaps it would be a better use of ICE agents if they would pick up the undocumented immigrants already in local police custody instead of it taking five ICE agents to murder a nurse who has knelt in the aid of a woman said agents have shoved to the ground.

The New START treaty

Remember The New START treaty between the United States and Russia? It was signed in 2011. Trump let it expire on February 5 while he was waxing poetic at the 74^th Annual Prayer Breakfast. With the treaty’s expiration, there’s no longer a cap on the number of nuclear weapons either country can have.

I’m not sure which part of that equation worries me more, since Trump’s finger is on “the red button.”

Does this fall under the red “Make America Safe Again” baseball cap?

The National Governors Association Annual Meeting

It came to light last week that Maryland Governor Wes Moore – the only black governor in the U.S. – had been uninvited to the 2026 National Governors Association (NGA) dinner at the White House on February 20. Governors of every state, commonwealth, and territory in the United States are automatically members. Their annual dinner at the White House is a time for all of the governors and their spouses to get together, share best practices on a non-partisan basis, and have dinner with the President of the United States, Cabinet members, and other government officials.

I jumped to the conclusion that this was another case of racism; however, according to the last report I read, Colorado Governor Jared Polis, also a Democrat, has also been uninvited

Gov. Moore serves as Vice Chair of the National Governors Association. He was elected to that position by a non-partisan vote.

It was reported by Reuters on Tuesday, February 10, that the NGA’s annual meeting with Trump has been cancelled. Brandon Tatum, CEO of the NGA, released a statement saying, “To disinvite individual governors to the White House sessions undermines an important opportunity for federal-state collaboration.” He also said, “At this moment in our nation’s history, it is critical that institutions continue to stand for unity, dignity and constructive engagement.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president “can invite whomever he wants to dinner and events here at the White House.” It seems that someone has forgotten that the White House belongs to the American people, not to any sitting U.S. President. Of course, that became blatantly clear the day Trump demolished the East Wing.

According to The New York Times, Trump did the uninviting.

Does this “Make America Great Again?”

The possible renaming of Penn Station

Trump claimed that it was U.S. Senator Chuck Shummer’s idea that Penn Station in New York City could be renamed for Trump. Shummer denied it.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed in Tuesday’s press briefing that it was Trump’s idea, not Shummer’s.

Ooops!

What they think is “fake outrage”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told us to stop our “fake outrage” last Friday after the photograph of former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama with their heads on ape bodies was posted on Trump’s Truth Social account for 12 hours.

The only fake outrage I saw on display last week (and continuing this week) was Republicans who were in an uproar that a Puerto Rican performer, “Bad Bunny” was headlining the Super Bowl halftime show. They said he wasn’t American. They said only Americans should perform during the Super Bowl.

But Bad Bunny is American. Puerto Rico is part of the United States. Why else did Trump go there and throw rolls of paper towels at them in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017 during his first term in office? Did he understand then that Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory? By the way, that’s when he discovered that Puerto Rico is an island, but I digress.

Besides the point that Puerto Ricans are American citizens, perhaps the Republicans can explain why they were not outraged when Phil Collins of Great Britain performed in Super Bowl XXXIV, U2 from Ireland in Super Bowl XXXVI, Shania Twain from Canada in Superbowl XXXVII, Paul McCartney in Super Bowl XXXIX, and Coldplay in Super Bowl L? Do you want more examples of “foreigners” performing at the Super Bowl?

It appears that the Republicans’ outrage over Bad Bunny is the fact that his first language is Spanish and he chose to sing in Spanish for the Super Bowl on Sunday.

Music has no language. Music has a beat, a mood, a spirit, a way of tugging at your emotions no matter the language in which the words are sung.

Sadly, though, I don’t think the outrage about Bad Bunny was fake. I think they were dead serious.

They see Americans of European descent becoming a minority in a few years, and the only way they know to deal with it is to lash out, call names, and discriminate. That’s their modus operandi.

Trump posted his displeasure over Bad Bunny again during the Super Bowl. He whined because he couldn’t understand a word Bad Bunny sang. He claimed that “nobody” could understand it. It’s too bad Trump did not celebrate all the countries in the Americas, like Bad Bunny did. I guess Trump did not agree with the huge “The only thing more powerful than hate is love” sign during the performance. That is obviously a concept and core value that Trump cannot fathom.

The Make America Great Again alternative half-time show featured Kid Rock, whose song lyrics should be considered cringe-worthy by the MAGA crowd who claim to be “the party of family values.”

The Epstein Files

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick can’t seem to get his story straight about his association with Jeffrey Epstein. He admits that he took his children to Epstein’s private island and residence in 2012. Lutnick had earlier said that he cut off all contact with Epstein in 2005, calling him “gross.”

Democrats in Congress are calling for Lutnick to resign.

Republicans used to call for the release of all the Epstein files, but Trump said last week that “it’s time to move on.” Nothing to see here.

The only person who has gone to prison for the raping of countless young girls on Epstein’s property is a woman.

Oh, the irony!

Speaking of irony… U.S. Olympic skier Hunter Hess

U.S. Olympic skier Hunter Hess dared to express his displeasure with ICE killing American citizens in Minneapolis. Hess is quoted as saying, “I think, for me, it’s more I’m representing my friends and family back home, the people that represented it before me, all the things that I believe are good about the U.S. If it aligns with my moral values, I feel like I’m representing it. Just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.”

Trump took offense. He takes offense at anyone who speaks their mind if their opinions do not line up with his. When he is offended, he goes on the attack. It’s all he knows to do.

This was Trump’s response on Truth Social to what Hunter Hess said: “U.S. Olympic Skier, Hunter Hess, a real Loser, says he doesn’t represent his Country in the current Winter Olympics. If that’s the case, he shouldn’t have tried out for the Team, and it’s too bad he’s on it.”

That’s not all Trump wrote about Hess, but you get the point even though to read his social media posts you must meander your way through randomly-capitalized words. They must have had top-notch English teachers at those expensive private schools he attended.

In the old days, if a U.S. President with extremely thin skin wanted to call a citizen or member of the U.S. Olympic team a name, he probably just muttered under his breath, but today Trump puts everything out there in cyberspace for the world to see.

The wife of Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller weighed in, too. She said that if you don’t love America you should be representing it in the Olympics. What she and other Republicans cannot grasp is that we who protest and voice our anger and disappointment and disgust at what the Trump Administration is doing… we do it BECAUSE we love America! They think we hate America. No, we love America and we mourn for what the Trump Administration has done to destroy this once beacon of freedom.

By the way, Mrs. Miller, the First Amendment gives us freedom of speech, just like it gives freedom of speech to you.

U.S. Senator Rick Scott of Florida also weighed in. He twisted Hunter Hess’s words. Hess did not say he did not want to represent the United States. Senator Scott has been quoted as saying that the United States is a “for freedom and democracy,” but he doesn’t think an American participating in the 2026 Winter Olympics has freedom of speech.

Trump’s supporters, of which Rick Scott is one, think it is all right for Trump to say derogatory things about the United States, its elected representatives, its member states, its cities, and segments of its population.

I guess that’s more accurately described as hypocrisy instead of irony.

National Park informational displays and signs

It’s not getting publicity by the major news outlets, but the underground reports almost weekly of informational displays and signage being removed from our National Parks. Any display or sign that conveys an unfortunate or evil piece of United States history is being removed. 

Displays about the removal and abuse of indigenous peoples, displays about slavery, and displays giving scientific facts about climate change are especially being targeted and removed.

United States history is being rewritten and erased. I shudder to think of future school history books that will be adopted by right-wing state school boards.

The “Melania” film by Amazon

It seems that music composed by Jonny Greenwood for the Daniel Day-Lewis movie, “Phantom Thread,” was used in “Melania’ without permission. Greenwood and “Phantom Thread” director Paul Thomas Anderson have asked for that music to be removed from “Melania.”

Although Greenwood does not hold the copyright to that piece of music he composed, use of it without permission from Universal is a breach of his composer’s agreement.

This is not the first time members of the Trump family have used music without permission. They seem to have little or no respect for copyright law or related law.

A ray of light on tariffs

Reports indicate that Trump’s tariffs, which he said would “Make America Rich Again,” cost the average American family $1,000 in 2025 and will cost them $1,300 in 2026 if left in place.

In a slightly bi-partisan vote of 219-211 in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday, the House adopted a resolution calling for Trump to remove tariffs on Canada.

In response, Trump threatened the six Republicans who voted for the resolution.

The Gordie Howe Bridge

Canada has built and paid for a bridge from Windsor, Ontario to Detroit, Michigan. Be sure to remember the phrase “and paid for.”

Those of us who live more than 500 miles from Detroit have not heard much about it.

The Gordie Howe International Bridge cost C$6.4 billion ($4.6 billion US) and was scheduled to open early this year. It is a grand bridge with six lanes for vehicular traffic plus bike lanes and pedestrian walkways. Government agencies in both countries worked together to select the name for the bridge.

Canada built the bridge “to make automotive trade between the two countries easier,” according to Forbes.

In a nutshell, the Ambassador Bridge, which opened in 1929, is currently the main automotive trade traffic carrier between the two countries, but the bridge’s owner (Detroit International Bridge Company) has been crossways with Canada for the last two decades or so. For instance, the company made plans to build another bridge right beside the Ambassador Bridge. The older bridge would be relegated to emergency traffic. Canada objected to that plan.

Canada proposed a new bridge to be built with the state of Michigan. and Canada sharing construction costs. Michigan declined, so Canada decided to finance construction of the Gordie Howe Bridge itself. During Trump’s first term in office, it was agreed that this would be a toll bridge and tolls collected would pay off the construction costs.

Fast forward to February 9, 2026. Trump posted on his social media outlet that he “will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them.” The “them” is Canada.

Here we go again. Trump trying to change the rules in the last quarter of the game. That is no way to conduct relationships with other countries – especially a wonderful neighbor country like Canada – and it’s no way to conduct business.

The oft-said line I heard during the 2016 presidential campaign, “We need a businessman in the White House” continues to ring hollow in my head.

And lest I forget to mention this…

The U.S. House of Representatives Oversight Committee subpoenaed former President Bill Clinton and former First Lady and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to testify regarding the Epstein files. Committee Chair James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, just knew that the Clintons would refuse to come and could then be held in contempt of Congress.

But that’s not what happened. The Clintons agreed to come and testify in a public, televised hearing. After all, Rep. Comer talks a lot about transparency. It turns out that a public hearing is not what Rep. Comer had in mind, especially since he didn’t expect the Clintons to show up.

Democrats in Congress are taking note that this will set a precedent. Forcing a former U.S. President or the family of a former U.S. President to testify before Congress has never been done before. When will today’s Republicans learn to be careful what they wish for? Woe be unto Donald Trump and his family when the Democrats win control of the Congress!

Someone must have told Trump that turnabout could be fair play someday in the future, for he started talking about how much he has always liked bill Clinton and what “a very capable woman” Hillary Clinton is. He said, “I hate to see it in many way.”

Who knew that Trump though Hillary Clinton was “a very capable woman?” Is that why he encroached on her personal space from behind like a starving vulture in that President debate that I cannot unsee?

Who knew he held the Clintons in such high regard?

I try to learn something every day, but I didn’t see that coming.

Hillary Clinton is scheduled to testify on February 26 and Bill Clinton is scheduled to testify on February 27. Oversight Committee Chair Comer says their hearings will be taped and released “later.” In Comer’s mind, that qualifies as a “public” hearing. 

I have some experience with public hearings and public informational meetings. Letting the public see and hear the hearing “later” does not meet the definition of “public hearing.”

Janet

P.S. Just so you know, we aren’t giving up. I just realized I forgot to even mention environmental issues!

The government should be afraid of its citizens, not the other way around.