We’ll have none of that!

It has been a few days (well, four) since I blogged about politics in the United States, so today I’ll try to briefly hit on some things you might have missed.

Office of Special Counsel

Paul Ingrassia was appointed the lead the Office of Special Counsel by President Trump and be his liaison with the Department of Homeland Security. That is the office that handles such things as illegal campaign actions by high officials. Thirteen of Trump’s senior aides were found to be in violation of the Hatch Act during his first term in office.

The problem with Paul Ingrassia being appointed to this position is: He is a former far-right podcaster who in while Trump tried to overthrow the 2020 election posted, “Time for @realDonaldTrump to declare martial law and secure his re-election.”

Don’t expect any whistle blowing within the Trump Administration.

The National Association of the Deaf

During the Covid 19 pandemic, all 50 states provided American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters during their governors’ press briefings, but the Trump White House refused to do so even after repeated requests from the National Association for the Deaf (NAD) and members of Congress. This led NAD to file a lawsuit against Trump on August 3, 2020 which asked for the immediate use of ASL interpreters during television broadcasts of coronavirus press conferences and briefings.

The suit maintained that the White House was in violation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The Act mandates that people with disabilities have access to all White House communications. That is, of course, crucial during a public health crisis. After a judge ordered the White House to provide ASL interpreters for all Covid 19 press briefings, that was done.

President Joe Biden took office on January 20, 2021, and four days later announced that there would be ASL interpreters for all White House press briefings.

Fast forward to January 20, 2025, the day Trump’s second term began. On that day, he signed an Executive Order to halt all Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) programs and activities in the federal government.

No more ASL interpreters at the White House or in any department in the Executive Branch of the US Government.

“It’s Déjà vu all over again.” The National Association for the Deaf filed a lawsuit against President Trump, press secretary Karoline Leavitt, and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles for being in violation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Closed-captioning is helpful, but it usually skips or misinterprets some words. For people who are completely deaf, being able to watch an ASL interpreter is of paramount importance.

What’s the point of complaining about cuts to Medicaid if we’re all going to die anyway?

At a town hall meeting on Friday, Republican US Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa was questioned about the cuts to Medicaid that are in the “big, beautiful bill” passed by the US House and now under consideration by the Senate. Her response to her constituents: “People are not – well, we all are going to die, so, for heaven’s sakes.” Her words were met with jeers.

NBC News also reported, “Ernst also got into testy exchanges about DOGE cuts and her support for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Butler County town hall, but was asked repeatedly about the proposed Medicaid changes.”

When this happens when citizens go to public meetings held by a US Senator or US Representative, their questions should not be brushed off in such a way.

When writing your US Senators and Representative appears to be a waste of time

Three weeks ago, I wrote emails to both US Senators from North Carolina and my US Representative expressing my concern that the US had been placed on the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist due to human rights.

Senator Thom Tillis responded the next week and thanked me for writing him about the border crisis.

Senator Ted Budd responded last Thursday and told me repeatedly that he is working hard to uphold the US Constitution.

Representative Mark Harris responded a week or so ago and only praised the job President Trump is doing and said that every Executive Order signed by Trump should be codified into law by the Congress.

Now that I know how they feel about the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist….

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)

On Friday, Trump fired Kim Sajet, the Director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. She had held the position for 12 years. Her crime, according to Trump was for being “a highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI.”

So, if you hire or promote persons of color or women, you are not welcome in the Trump orbit.

If a person can lose their job for being “a highly partisan person,” it seems to me that would include everyone Trump has hire or appointed… or pardoned.

A false economy and a public health gamble.

Reuters reported that the Trump Administration cancelled a federal government contract with Moderna for the late-stage development of its bird flu vaccine for humans.

Are we heading for Remigration?

Remigration is a policy that calls for the removal of migrants. The goal appears to be to create white ethnostates.

It came to light last Thursday that the US State Department had sent a 136-page notification document to six Congressional Committees for approval by July 1. In addition to creating an Office of Remigration in the State Department, the document says that the new office “will also actively facilitate the voluntary return of migrants to their country of origin or legal status.”

Much of the Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Bureau will be eliminated, as if the US isn’t already on a human rights watchlist!

The document tells of dramatic changes coming to the US diplomatic service, and the establishment of a new Deputy Assistant Secretary of State position to oversee “Democracy and Western Values.”

That last part is cringe-worthy. Trump’s disdain for democracy is one thing that worries me, and what do they mean by “Western Values?”

American Bar Association, thanks but no thanks

In a letter to William R. Bay, President of the American Bar Association, on May 29 US Attorney General Pam Bondi informed Mr. Bay that the US Department of Justice will no longer take ABA ratings into consideration in judicial nominations because “its ratings invariably and demonstrably favor nominees put forth by Democratic administrations.”

The letter went on to say the American Bar Association will be treated like any other “activist organization.”

Kudos to CNBC reporter Megan Cassella

Photo of three tacos — Photo by Jarett Lopez on Unsplash

Kudos to CNBC reporter Megan Cassella for daring to ask Trump what he thought about TACO: Trump Always Chickens Out.

In fairness to the Republicans…

On Tuesday, May 27, the US Supreme Court declined to review a lower court’s decision that allows the transfer of sacred Apache land in central Arizona to a foreign copper mining company.

The Apache Stronghold coalition of indigenous and non-indigenous people last year lost their case in front of the 9^th US Circuit Court of Appeals. So, this started under the Biden Administration.

The Apache Stronghold maintains that copper mining in the Tonto National Forest sacred lands will create a crater.

Once more, the federal government slaps the faces of indigenous people.

Until my next blog post

Keep reading everything you can. I hope you’re reading a really good book now.

Hold family and friends close.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet

Tying up some loose ends

I used to struggle to write a 500-word blog post. Now I struggle to keep them under 2,000 words. As long as Donald Trump is in the White House, I will not run out of material. Of course, I might be shut down before then. Nothing is guaranteed or taken for granted anymore.

You put a crooked New York City businessman in the White House, and this is what you get. I would like to think the voters have learned a lesson.

Pay to play

I don’t claim to understand crypto currency. Investing in it is not on my radar. It seems to be the newest, shiniest object to grab Donald Trump’s attention. If there is a way to make a buck, he will try it.

Making a profit is the only thing he understands. That’s why he is so bad at running the federal government. Government is not designed to turn a profit. Therefore, Trump sees it as something unnecessary. Something to be torn apart. Trashed. But I digress.

The business side of Donald Trump – which no one would ever confuse with the public Donald Trump – found a way to cash in on the crypto currency industry. It is a way for him to receive millions of dollars from rich Americans and even richer foreigners.

Trump has again pushed the limits. No other president in our history would have considered doing anything like that.

He hosted a dinner for his investors at his golf club just outside Washington, DC. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was quick to defend the entire thing. She explained that it was all on the up-and-up because he did it at night “on his own time,” and the dinner was not held at the White House.

When one is a government employee at a high level or in any position of respect, they are still representing the position they hold even “on their own time.” If you don’t believe it, just ask any public school teacher.

Government employees are not free to break the law “on their own time.” Those in positions of authority are never really “off the clock.” Again, just ask any public school teacher.

Ms. Leavitt also emphasized that the dinner attendees, who had paid an average of $1.7 millions did not expect anything in return except a dinner.

Yeah, right, Karoline.

When Jake Tapper of CNN asked US Speaker of the House Mike Johnston, about it, he said he didn’t know anything about the dinner. He went on to indicate that he was too busy last week to know about it. Keep in mind that if something isn’t important to the Speaker of the House, it doesn’t get brought up on the floor of the House Chamber.

Nothing to see here.

Harvard University, again/still

On Tuesday, Trump cancelled all government contracts with Harvard University totaling around $100 million. Those contracts include medical and agricultural research. President Emeritus of Harvard University and former US Secretary of the Treasury, Larry Summers, called it “extortion” in an interview on CNN. Mr. Summers said, “If Harvard can’t resist these steps toward tyranny, who can?”

Yesterday it was revealed that Trump wants to limit Harvard to having no more than 15% of its students from other countries. In the 2024-2025 school year, 27% of the student body were international students.

A bill of attainder is a legislative act that declares a person or group guilty of a crime and it goes on to provide for punishment, often without a trial. The US Constitution probits bills or acts of attainder. I’m no expert on Constitutional Law, but it seems like President Trump is crossing a line as he targets Harvard University.

Nuclear Energy

Trump signed four Executive Orders on Friday easing regulations on the nuclear power industry. As reported by NBC News, “The executive orders aim to reform nuclear energy research at the Department of Energy, clear a path to allow the Energy Department to build nuclear reactors on federally-owned land, overhaul the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and expand uranium mining and enrichment in the U.S.”

A photo looking down on a nuclear power plant. — Photo by Patrick Federi on Unsplash

I cringe to think about which federally-owned lands he will put nuclear power plants on and which national parks and national monuments will be decimated by uranium mining.

The regulations were put in place for a reason, but Trump cannot be bothered with evidence or regulations. The safety of the public is the least of his concerns.

50% Tariffs on the European Union

On Friday, May 23, Trump announced that 50% tariffs would begin on Sunday, June 1 on all goods coming into the US from countries in the European Union.

Oh, wait! That was last Friday. On Sunday, May 25, Trump announced that 50% tariffs on the European Union will begin on July 9.

It’s just Thursday, May 29. He will probably change his mind many more times before July 9.

When Democrats change their minds, Republicans call it “flip-flopping.” When Trump does it, they don’t call it anything.

Or maybe this is all a moot point. As I was preparing to schedule this post last night, the three-person United States Court of International Trade ruled that President Trump cannot use the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs. That law requires a “national emergency” for tariffs to be imposed, so Trump declared a series of “national emergencies” that did not exist.

The ruling last night gets to the question of whether the US President has the authority under the IEEPA to impose “unlimited tariffs on goods from nearly every country in the world.”

Of course, the Trump Administration will appeal the ruling. He never passes up an opportunity to appeal a court ruling.

Here we go!

Deal with Nippon Steel

When asked to talk about the new deal between US Steel and Nippon Steel on Sunday, President Trump called Nippon Steel “Nissan” three times in forty seconds.

Photo of a metal worker — Photo by Erwan Hesry on Unsplash

This was a deal that President Joe Biden blocked late in his term in office due to national security concerns. Trump used to be against it, but now he’s all for it.

Is Trump “flip-flopping,” or is this nothing?

The EPA needs a new name

Calling the EPA the Environmental Protection Agency is now a farce. On Saturday, May 24, Reuters reported the following: “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has drafted a plan to eliminate all limits on greenhouse gases from coal and gas-fired power plants in the United States, the New York Times reported on Saturday, citing internal agency documents.

“The EPA argued in its proposed regulation that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from power plants that burn fossil fuels “do not contribute significantly to dangerous pollution” or to climate change because they are a small and declining share of global emissions, according to the NYT report.

“The EPA also said that eliminating those emissions would have no meaningful effect on public health and welfare, the report added.

“According to the United Nations, fossil fuels are by far the largest contributors to global warming, accounting for more than 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90% of carbon dioxide emissions.

“The EPA did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Reuters could not immediately verify the details of the NYT report.

“The U.S. government under President Donald Trump has moved quickly to remove all federal spending related to efforts to combat climate change and to eliminate any regulation aimed at addressing greenhouse gas emissions as part of its effort to bolster oil, gas and mining operations.

“On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives advanced Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill, which may end numerous green-energy subsidies that have supported the renewable energy sector.”

The draft of the EPA’s plan reportedly went to the White House on May 2. The President has not acted on it specifically yet. The New York Times report indicated that there will be an opportunity for public comment probably in June. I’ll believe that when I see it.

The public hasn’t been given a time to comment on anything since January 20.

Perhaps the EPA can be renamed the Environment Attack Agency (EAA) or the Attack the Environment Agency (ATEA).

How about a new Trump battle cry? MACA! Make America Choke Again!

National Security Council

On Friday, May 23, it was announced that the Trump Administration was cutting the staff of the Office of the National Security Council by half with those employees putting placed on administrative leave.

These were the people who monitored events and trends around the world so the US President could be kept up-to-date daily on the things a person in that position should know about. Since Trump rarely reads his daily briefings, I guess he decided the support staff of the National Security Council was a waste of taxpayer money.

ICE instructed to triple arrests

It was reported by CNN yesterday that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem are demanding 3,000 arrests per day by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Considering ICE has already made a number of false arrests, we can now expect that number to triple.

Ximena Arias Cristobal, a 19-year-old college student of Dalton, Georgia, has finally been released after being mistakenly arrested for a traffic violation made by another driver in a car similar to hers. She was detained by ICE for two weeks.

She was brought into the United States by her parents when she was four years old. She said in an interview on CNN that the family has tried repeatedly through various lawyers for 15 years to become American citizens, but every door has been closed to them. If deported to Mexico, she will be sent to a place she is not familiar with and it will be difficult for her to continue her college studies in Spanish.

Should ICE set up a staging area in a church parking lot?

On May 20, ICE set up a staged an operation in the parking lot of Central United Methodist church in Charlotte as preschool children were being picked up by their parents and grandparents. The church had not approved the intrusion.

This activity by ICE has been condemned by local faith leaders and state legislators. Jennifer Copeland, Executive Director of the North Carolina Council of Churches said, “The places where people come to worship, pray, study, and live out the tenets of their faith should be unavailable for this kind of posture.”

Central United Methodist Church offers Bible studies in Spanish and the church’s preschool is bilingual.

An uplifting commencement address by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell

In my blog post on Tuesday, one of my topics was President Trump’s commencement “speech” at West Point. If you missed my post or didn’t otherwise hear about it, please read my Tuesday post:

In contrast to Trump’s speech at West Point, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell spoke at Sunday’s commencement at Princeton University. His audience apparently got a more appropriate speech that the cadets at the US Military Academy.

Reports say that Mr. Powell told the Princeton Class of 2025 that universities in the United States are “the envy of the world and a crucial national asset.” He called on them to preserve democracy and not to take universities in the United States for granted.

Fortune reported online: “I strongly urge you to find time in your careers for public service,” Powell said. “Since the founding of this great democracy 250 years ago, generation upon generation have assumed the burden and the honor of moving us closer to the ideal that all are created equal. Now it’s your turn.”

President Trump has long been critical of Mr. Powell.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read.

Don’t forget the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet

No more contempt of court? (& other concerns)

Today I will touch on a variety of things going on within the Trump Administration. None of the news organization can cover everything, so I try to gather items from reputable sources across the board.

No more contempt of court for people like US Presidents?

Photo of a gavel — Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash

Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” which was passed in the US House of Representatives by a whopping ONE vote, is being hashed out in the US Senate. Various aspects of it get picked up by the broadcast news, but one item that is getting almost no publicity is perhaps the worst slam on our democracy yet: It will eliminate the power of courts to hold officials in contempt for disregarding court orders!

That bears repeating: As it was passed by the US House of Representatives, it will eliminate the power of courts to hold officials in contempt for disregarding court orders.

Trump is already ignoring court orders and no court has had the guts to hold him in contempt, so the remedy appears to be for us to strip the courts of any power they could hold over an elected official.

As a regular citizen, if I am called up for jury duty and I don’t show up, I will be held in contempt of court. The judge will order officers of the law to come to my house and transport me in the back seat of a police car to the courthouse where I must appear before the judge who is already unhappy with me. That’s the law. There are consequences when regular citizens break the law.

If this tiny part of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is passed by the Senate, he will sign it into law, thereby making himself untouchable by the Department of Justice.

The last guardrail will be gone.

You have 215 Republicans in the US House of Representatives to thank, but they don’t need your thanks. They have already been thanked by Donald Trump.

Now, we wait to see what the US Senate will do with that 1,000-page “big, beautiful bill.” Will they have the guts to remove the part that strips the judicial branch of our government from its power of checks and balances? Or will they see it as their own way out of being held accountable by the justice system?

Suppose they pass it as it is written. How happy they will be if we have another presidential election someday and a Democrat is elected President? (I did not use the word “if” by mistake. I intentionally used it.)

Be careful, legislators, over what you codify into law. It might come back to bite you.

And that, my friends, is how a 249-year-old democracy is dismantled.

Harvard University

Photo of a red Harvard graduate school banner hung on a pole on the side of a building — Photo by Manu Ros on Unsplash

Another way a democracy is dismantled is to attack and take control of its institutions of higher learning.

It was great that a judge placed a temporary injunction against Trump’s order that he would prevent Harvard University from enrolling any international students, but the damage has been done.

Even if Harvard wins in court, Trump has done irreparable damage to higher education in the United States because there is now a level of fear among students from abroad who will, no doubt, think long and hard before coming to our country to study.

And will students who are American citizens now think twice before they participate in a peaceful protest? Will Trump sign an Executive Order to prevent them from finishing their education? If he can do it to foreign students who are here legally to study, what is to stop him from doing it to American citizens?

And if the courts rule that he cannot do that? Nothing will happen to him. In 2024, the US Supreme Court ruled that the sitting US President cannot be charged with a crime. In May 2025, the US House of Representatives voted 215 to 214 that an elected official cannot be held in contempt of court. Will the US Senators agree?

The irony in Trump’s order that Harvard can no longer admit an international student is that his order would eliminate foreign Jewish students from Harvard all in the name of ridding the university of antisemitism.

Trump is like a dog with a bone. Over the weekend, he took to social media to demand the names of the international students at Harvard along with the names of the countries from which they came. He wants those countries to now pay. Since those students already pay for their education, I’m not sure what their countries are supposed to pay for… or who gets the money. Probably not Harvard.

His governance via social media and Executive Order are really getting old. Since Trump rules by Executive Order, the “big, beautiful bill” passed y the House of Representatives last week was one of the only things they’ve had to do since January 20.

Let’s be clear. This is not an attack on Harvard University. It is an attack on and a threat against every college and university in the United States. Harvard is just the test case to see how far he can push back on academia.

After all, he did say, “I love the uneducated,” when he was campaigning for office.

In an oddly-related story, the Pentagon promotes Kingsley Wilson

I didn’t know her name either, so don’t feel bad. She has been promoted to the position of Press Secretary for the Department of Defense. She is an interesting pick, in light of President Trump’s outrage over antisemitism at Harvard.

It is reported that Wilson has repeated antisemitic comments regarding conspiracy theories against a Jewish lynching victim whose cause helped found the Anti-Defamation League. It’s so bad that some Republicans have criticized Wilson’s employment in any position at the Pentagon.

The Trump Administration is consistently inconsistent.

Speaking of the Pentagon, while I still can

Brian Stelter of CNN reported that more restrictions have been placed on journalists covering the US military. New credentialing constraints were issued by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last Friday night. Also, key parts of the Pentagon that journalists have had access to in the past will now require them to be accompanied by an official escort.

The Pentagon Press Association’s statement said it has tried to communicate with Hegseth “to keep in place a professional working relationship that as persisted for decades,” to no avail.

Stelter reported, “The association said it is ‘puzzled’ about why the Defense Department ‘is devoting such attention to restricting Pentagon media instead of engaging with it as senior leaders have long done.’ Hegseth’s public comments indicate that he views the media as the opposition. He has denounced what he called the ‘hoax press’ and promoted himself by appearing on Fox opinion shows hosted by his friends.”

Hegseth used to be a Fox News personality, like many of the other members of the Trump Administration.

Can someone please tell him to lose the red baseball cap?

First of all, the MAGA campaign caps are baseball caps. They aren’t “MAGA hats.” I know “hat” sounds more high class than “baseball cap,” but that’s not what they are. A man’s hat has a brim all the way around. A baseball cap has a bill on the front.

It was embarrassing enough that the graduating cadets at the US Military Academy at West Point had to listen to a political speech from Trump as their commencement speaker on Saturday, but did he have to wear his bright red MAGA baseball cap?

I have a hunch that he had to wear it because the event was held outside and there are some major issues with Trump’s balding head and his dyed blond locks of hair having to be swept in all directions. What if the wind picked up? What if his hair couldn’t be controlled with grease like it appeared during his Oval Office ambush of South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa earlier in the week?

Too bad he couldn’t just rent a cap and gown and dress like a normal college-level commencement speaker. And what was the pink necktie about?

A video clip that I saw on TV showed Trump saluting while wearing his campaign cap. I tried to find out what he was saluting, but I couldn’t find it. I hope he wasn’t saluting our flag! Whatever he was saluting, it was a ridiculous and embarrassing image of a US President.

In a world where President Barack Obama was heavily criticized by Republicans for wearing a tan suit once, how is it now acceptable for President Donald Trump to wear a baseball cap everywhere he goes? Asking for a friend.

If a man wears a cap to a baseball game, he automatically removes it for the playing of our national anthem. I imagine the national anthem was played at the West Point commencement ceremony. I wonder if Trump removed his cap for it. We’ll probably never know.

Before I leave Trump’s speech at West Point, I will quote one line from it that sent a chill down my spine. He said, “The job of the U.S. Armed Forces is not to host drag shows, to transform foreign cultures, but to spread democracy to everybody around the world at the point of a gun.”

What a bizarre statement! That sounds like we’re going to force democracy on people “at the point of a gun” whether they want it or not. All the while, he is working every day to destroy our democracy. I don’t think another country wants his brand of democracy!

Photo of a building at West Point with a statue in front of a George Washington on a horse — Statue of George Washington on a horse in front of a building at the US Military Academy at West Point.
Photo by Dave Lowe on Unsplash

That was not the most bizarre thing Trump said in his nearly hour long “speech.” In addition to drag shows, he talked about trophy wives. (That must have made the female cadets uncomfortable… and that was probably why he brought up the subject.) He talked about boats and yachts.

His mind wonders and his words tend to follow his mind when he strays from reading the teleprompter. It has become one of his trademarks. He refers to it as “weaving” and justifies it as something he does by intention.

If any other US President had almost daily gone off the rails and rambled about sundry topics in every speech or other public remarks, the 25^th Amendment would have been enforced and the Vice President would have replaced him.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read and time to read it.

Value time with family and friends. Tomorrow is promised to no one.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet

More Snippets of What’s Happening to and in the US

As we continue through another week of the Trump Administration, I’m blogging again today about some of the things that are going on here in the United States. I wish I did not need to do this. It is not what I ever had in mind for my blog. With the free press continually under attack by Trump, though, I believe I’m doing what I must do.

Yesterday’s ambush of South Africa’s President

In another embarrassing and bizarre ambush, yesterday Donald Trump blindsided President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa in the Oval Office with a video and stack of papers claiming widespread genocide of white farmers in South Africa. I had flashbacks of how he ambushed Ukrainian President Zelensky in February.

At least once, Trump made a mistake he has made before when he said, “Africa and other countries.” Apparently, the private education Trump claims to have received did not include geography.

Before the day was out, Agence Frances Presse was rightfully calling yesterday’s meeting: “The Ambush Office: Trump’s Oval becomes test of nerve for world leaders.”Perhaps other world leaders will not request meetings with Trump or accept any invitations that come from him.

With ambush as the US President’s modus operandi, it is unlikely any other nations want their presidents or prime ministers to visit our country.

Emboldened by his week of being praised in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, Trump is full of himself and showing his true colors. He just can’t help himself.

The flying palace

The US Secretary of Defense accepted the $400 million airplane “gift” from Qatar yesterday, so now the American taxpayers are on the hook for the estimated $1 billion it will cost to gut it and rebuild it to Air Force One security standards. All this, so Trump can take it to his future presidential library, which is an oxymoron if there ever was one.

States’ rights

I read on Sunday that although Trump brags about being all for “states’ rights,” there is a provision in his budget bill that bans state and local governments from regulating Artificial Intelligence for 10 years. States can’t make laws about AI. No state laws about facial recognition, AI surveillance, or the misuse of date AI collects.

Miscellaneous Research

In the name of eliminating waste in the US Government, thousands of studies being conducted at state-supported colleges and universities have been cancelled by the Trump Administration. Without taking the time or even making the effort to analyze what they are cutting, they decided it would be easier to just de-fund anything and everything remotely associated with diversity, equity, or inclusion (DEI).

The Charlotte Observer published a report about 17 grants totaling $469,069 that had been awarded to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte that have been cancelled by Trump, while WSOC-TV reported that UNCC has lost $14 million in federal funds.

The 17 grants that the newspaper wrote about were cancelled, some of which were already in progress, included such things as the spread of online misinformation; encouraging girls and black youth to pursue careers in computer science; youth with disabilities transitioning into independent living; autoimmune disease (pemphigus) research; and black youth suicide detection and prevention.

It is obvious that any studies or programs that had anything to do with diversity, equity, or inclusion (DEI) were the grants being cancelled. Grants to study or help African Americans were obviously targeted, while 74% of patients with the potentially fatal autoimmune disease pemphigus are white and 61% of them are women.

UNC-Charlotte is just one of the 16 institutions that are part of the UNC system. What UNC-Charlotte has lost is a drop in the bucket compared to the federal grant losses at UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State University at Raleigh.

This has happened in every state and at countless colleges and universities, both state-supported and private.

Our apologies to France

In a 51 to 45 vote, The US Senate confirmed Charles Kushner as US Ambassador to France. He is the father of President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. In 2005, the elder Kushner was sentenced to two years in prison for 18 counts, including tax evasion and witness tampering. He pleaded guilty to the tax evasion and making illegal campaign contributions.

Ashli Babbitt Settlement

US taxpayers learned on Monday that the Trump Administration is paying the family of Ashli Babbitt nearly $5 million. Ashli Babbitt was the insurrectionist killed at the US Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. Yes, you read that correctly.

Ms. Babbitt was shot as she tried to breach the barricaded House Speaker’s Lobby. President Trump has called her a “martyr” and a “patriot.”

Making America Safe Again?

There was a glimmer of hope after the elementary school massacre in Uvalde, Texas in 2022. There was bipartisan support for investing in mental health support for students. But then the Trump Administration came along in 2025.

The US Department of Justice cancelled hundreds of grants that funded local government and community organizations’ gun violence prevention programs.

Photo of children holding signs saying thoughts and prayers don't stop bullets. — Heather Mount on Unsplash

Then the Trump Administration blocked $1 billion in grants for student mental health because this was no longer in “the best interest of the federal government.”

The latest example of the Trump Administration’s “Make America Safe Again” mantra is the legalization of “forced reset triggers.” I’m no firearms expert, but the best I can tell from reading and hearing the news reports is that this device enables a semiautomatic weapon to become even more deadly as it makes the shooter able to fire hundreds of rounds in a minute.

So when US Attorney General Pam Bondi said last week that this “will enhance public safety,” what did she mean? I guess I’m just stupid, because I don’t understand any of this.

Venezuelans losing Temporary Protected Status (TPS)

On Monday, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Trump Administration. The Court granted emergency application to the Department of Homeland Security to proceed with the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who had been given TPS by the Biden Administration. This ruling overruled a district court order.

US loses its AAA bond rating

And then there’s this, which sent stock markets around the word into a loss on Monday.

Shall I say something good that Trump did?

To be fair, I will point out that on Monday President Trump signed into law the Take It Down Act. The bill, which was championed by First Lady Melania Trump, sets stricter penalties for the distribution of non-consensual intimate imagery online and “revenge porn.” The bill had overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress.

Finally, something most Republicans and Democrats can agree on!

Trump’s US Interior Department loves plastic

The US Department of the Interior was recognized last June for its ongoing efforts to phase out the use of any and all single-use plastics. That was Joe Biden’s Department of the Interior.

Donald Trump’s Department of the Interior has rescinded the order behind that phase-out. So much for curbing pollution in our national parks. All bans on plastics on all federally managed land are being lifted.

US Secretary of Homeland Security’s Misunderstanding of Habeas Corpus

US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem got tripped up in a Congressional hearing on Tuesday when US Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire referenced White House advisor Stephen Miller’s comment earlier in May that the Trump Administration was “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus.

Senator Hassan asked Secretary Noem, “What is habeas corpus?”

Secretary Noem’s response was jarring. She said, “Well, habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country, and suspend their right to –”

Senator Hassan jumped in to cut her off. “That’s incorrect,” Hassan said. She went on to explain to Noem what habeas corpus is.

As I stated in my May 14, 2025, blog post, The New American Dream?: “Habeas corpus is a legal procedure by which a report can be made to a court alleging the unlawful detention or imprisonment of an individual, and requesting that the court order the individual’s custodian to bring the prisoner to court, to determine whether their detention is lawful.”

I also referenced habeas corpus in my May 19, 2025, blog post.

Senator Hassan and Secretary Noem’s exchange did not stop there.

“So, Secretary Noem, do you support the core protection that habeas corpus provides, that the government must provide a public reason in order to detain and imprison someone?” the senator asked.

Noem’s response was lame and telling: “I support habeas corpus. I also recognize that the president of the United States has the authority under the Constitution to decide if it should be suspended or not.”

In case we needed any more proof, we now have a member of President Trump’s Cabinet and his close advisor both stating in public that the suspension of habeas corpus is under consideration.

Meanwhile

Against my better judgment, I signed up for my US Representative’s newsletter. This former Baptist preacher does not disappoint. This week’s newsletter sang the praises of Trump ad nauseum. He is pushing for congress to codify into law every Executor Order Donald Trump has signed.

Here’s just one paragraph from his long newsletter of Trumpian praise: “It doesn’t matter if we have to vote seven days a week. The Republican Congress needs to be passing bills that codify the executive orders that have been advancing the America-first agenda. That’s why I joined 16 of my colleagues in calling on Speaker Johnson to prioritize codifying President Trump’s wins into law.’

In case you missed my May 19, 2025, blog post, I gave a little background information about Representative Harris and the election fraud that landed him in court in 2018.

Mr. Harris has not responded to my email to him a couple of weeks ago about my distress over the fact that the United States is on the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist for a narrowing of civil liberties.

He is a prime example of why I am frustrated with people who claim to be Christians but support Donald Trump. There is a disconnect there that I will never understand.

Until my next blog post, which I hope won’t be until next week…

I hope you have a good book to read and time to read it.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet

Snippets of what’s happening to and in the US

Every time I think I won’t feel compelled to post on my blog multiple days a week, I am proven wrong. To live in the United States today is to live wondering what is going to happen next. Our new normal is to expect the unexpected. Every. Single. Day.

Our new normal is to expect things to get a lot worse before they will get better. Our new normal is to know that things are probably never going to return to what was normal for the last 80 years.

Last night, we learned that the Trump Administration, against a US District Court order, deported immigrants to South Sudan.

Photo of a person's head in the dark inside of an airplane peering out the window — Photo by kian on Unsplash

Apparently, Trump thinks it does not matter that it was against a court order. Apparently, Trump thinks it is okay to deport people to South Sudan where there is fighting between opposing forces and a civil war taking place in neighboring Sudan. He thinks it is all right to deport people to a country in Africa… even though at least two of those deportees were from Southeast Asia.

One of the individuals is from Vietnam and one is from Burma. The nationalities of the others – indeed, the total number of deportees on that flight – has not been revealed. Immigration attorneys say there are “likely” at least ten other immigrants on that deportation flight.

I apologize for referring to these two people as “deportees,” “immigrants,” and by their nationalities; however, I have not found their names. But they are human beings. They have names. They probably have families.

By living in the United States of America, they ~~have~~ had rights. They had a right to a hearing before a judge to determine if they could remain in this country or if they should be deported. That did not happen.

Common sense tells me that if a person is to be deported, they should be deported to their country of origin. They should not be deported to a country in which their language is not spoken. They should not be deported to a country in which their language is not spoken and in which a civil war is underway.

I have run out of words to express my horror at what the Trump ~~Administration~~ Regime is doing. My vocabulary is exhausted.

US District Court Judge Brian Murphy of Boston held an emergency hearing yesterday about this case and scheduled another hearing for today. In the meantime, according to The Wall Street Journal, the judge ordered the US to maintain custody of the deportees and ensure they are treated humanely.

I often pray that Donald Trump will accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and turn from his evil ways. I often pray those words. It would truly be a miracle, but I believe in miracles. We experienced a miracle in my family on Christmas morning in 1978. Miracles do happen.

Now, to what I had originally written for today’s blog post…

While some of us are still struggling to understand how the technicality of the Trump Administration saying the $400 million flying palace from Qatar is going to the US Department of Defense and not to President Trump, small bits and pieces of the “big, beautiful budge bill” are coming to light.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson wants the bill passed by Memorial Day (May 26) or at least by July 3.

It’s almost impossible find out what is in the bill, since it is not available online for the public. Hey, it’s just our money, right?

I have read that this budget will add $150 billion to the Pentagon’s budget, pushing the Defense Department’s budget to more than $1 trillion.

Photo of a pile of US paper money — Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash

I have read that this budget takes Medicaid healthcare coverage away from 13 million Americans. These are children, people living with disabilities, and the elderly.

This budget will give the wealthiest people in the United States additional tax breaks. It is those tax breaks and the increased defense budget that resulted in the politicians choosing to leave 13 million citizens without health coverage.

It is no big deal to them. Those 13 million people are not likely to raise a stink The ones under 18 years of age can’t even vote. They are America’s most vulnerable citizens and, hence, the easiest for the people in Congress to target.

I have said it before, and I will say it again: Many, if not most, of the members of the US Congress claim to be Christians, so what about any of this follows the teachings of Jesus Christ? (At least, when they are running for office, they claim to be Christian. How many of them, when asked, “What the last book you read?” answer, “The Bible”?)

Why do so many Christians across this country think cutting Medicaid is wonderful. “It will save us money! Cuts must be made!”

Yes, it will save us money to spend on more weapons. It will save the richest among us money because they will pay less in income taxes.

Just like eliminating USAID will save us money because why would the richest country in the world want to send medical and food aid to the poorest countries in the world?

Just like cutting off the funding for medical research will save us money… but only in the short term.

The motive behind one “big, beautiful budget bill” is to overwhelm Congress and the public. Put everything in one bill, and it will be so long that nobody can read it. That’s the point. At 1,116 pages, I would guess that very few members of Congress have read the entire thing.

Granted, there is wasteful spending in the federal government. Granted, if wasteful spending is not stopped, our national debt will continue to increase

My objection is with the manner in which the Trump Administration has chosen to address the problem. We hear example after example of worthwhile research and aid programs being slashed just because Elon Musk’s teenage employees with no knowledge or interest in the operation of government in a democracy were given free range to eliminate agencies and programs with the touch of a button on a keyboard.

Wholesale, sweeping cuts in government grants have resulted in the immediate loss of jobs, careers, and doctoral degree research studies. Those are just the instantaneous losses that are visible to the thousands of individuals affected.

The long-term effects will not be realized this year or next year. They will be identified in the coming decades when we learn that cures for various cancers would have been discovered in the 2020s if not for these budget cuts.

President Trump warned us that there could be short-term pain due to his single-handedly imposed global tariffs, but he is yet to even own up to the pain he has inflicted in the name of taking waste out of the government. He has yet to own up to the short-term losses in medical research, much less long-term losses we can only imagine.

And yet, his followers still say he is a “wonderful President.” Some of them still dare to say he was sent by God.

Under the Cover of Darkness

When a person or group is proud of what they are doing, they tend to do it in broad daylight. If that group is a legislative body, they definitely do it in broad daylight. If that legislative body is the United State Congress, they tend to do it at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time or later so the citizens in the Pacific Time zone will be awake to see it or hear it.

The US House of Representatives Committee on the Budget held a vote on Trump’s “big, beautiful budget bill” at 10:00 p.m. on Sunday. Who does that? Who meets late on a Sunday night to vote on something important?

Photo of the US Capitol building at night — Raphael Assouline on Unsplash

It gets worse. The House Rules Committee scheduled their next meeting for 1:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time this morning.

My erratic sleep habits almost guarantee that I am wide awake at 1:00 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, but I’m the exception to the rule.

Making America Healthy Again?

While politicians boast about money saved, they fail to mention the medical and social research being lost. What is the real cost in terms of lives?

We’ll never know what diseases could have been prevented, treated, or cured if the research Congress had approved had not been terminated by the Trump Administration.

We will have to pin our hopes on other countries picking up the slack and hiring the researchers the United States is losing.

Until my next blog post, which I hope won’t be until next week…

I hope you have a good book to read.

Value time with family and friends.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet

A blog post I never dreamed I’d have to write

I’m embarrassed to be sharing old news today.

I’m even more embarrassed about the old news I’m blogging about today.

I learned a few days ago that CIVICUS Monitor, a global civil society alliance of local, national, regional, and international organization that monitors civil liberties in 198 countries, placed the United States of America on its Watchlist on March 10, 2025.

The Watchlist released on that date added Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Pakistan, Serbia, and the United States of America.

That beacon of freedom, that shining city on a hill, the United States of America is on a Watchlist for a “narrowing” of civil liberties.

Let that sink in for a few minutes.

No, let that sink in for a few days.

What is the CIVICUS Monitor?

The CIVICUS Monitor website (https://monitor.civicus.org/) states, “The Watchlist draws attention to countries where there is a serious decline in respect for civic space, based on an assessment by CIVICUS Monitor research findings, our research partners and consultations with activists on the ground.”

Here is what the website (https://monitor.civicus.org/watchlist-march-2025/) reports about the United States of America, just as of March 10, 2025:

“The United States of America (USA) has been added to our Watchlist as the country faces increasing undue restrictions on civic freedoms under President Donald Trump’s second term. Gross abuses of executive power raise serious concerns over the freedoms of peaceful assembly, expression and association.

Following his inauguration on 20 January 2025, Donald Trump has issued at least 125 executive orders, dismantling federal policies with profound implications for human rights and the rule of law. Some of these orders have eliminated federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes, falsely framing them as discriminatory, and have introduced measures targeting undocumented migrants and transgender and non-conforming people.

“Since mid-January, many civil society organisations, both in the US and abroad, have been forced to terminate or scale back essential human rights and humanitarian programmes due to growing uncertainty caused by the arbitrary suspension of foreign aid and a broad freeze on federal funding. The lack of clear guidelines has sparked legal challenges at the national level.

“The administration has taken steps to dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a decades-old institution, and laid off thousands of its employees. It has also withdrawn from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the UN Human Rights Council, exited the Paris Climate Agreement, rejected the Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals, and announced sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC), targeting its personnel as well as individuals and entities that cooperate with it. These actions could further undermine global efforts for climate justice, human rights, and civic freedoms.

“These measures come amid a broader potential curb on the freedom of association. On 21 November 2024, the US House of Representatives passed a bill allowing the Treasury Department to revoke the tax-exempt status of non-profits it deems to be supporting terrorism, without due process guarantees. This would grant the executive branch sweeping authority to financially cripple civil society organisations based on broad and vague criteria.

“The sustained onslaught on peaceful pro-Palestine solidarity at university campuses has seen students and faculty members increasingly subjected to harsh sanctions without justification. On 30 January 2025, President Donald Trump,signed an executive order purportedly aimed at combating antisemitism, which calls for the cancellation of visas and the deportation of non-citizen college students and others who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests. On the same day, reports alleged that a far-right group was compiling a list of pro-Palestine protesters for potential deportation.

“Authorities have also targeted climate justice activists protesting the Mountain Valley Pipeline project in Virginia and financial institutions supporting fossil fuel expansion. Another concern is the growing role of private corporations in suppressing environmental activism. Two key developments exemplify this: the USD 300 million lawsuit against Greenpeace by the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline; and research exposing the fossil fuel industry’s role in driving the proliferation of anti-protest laws.

“The first months of 2025 have seen an alarming legislative push in multiple states, further threatening restrictions on the freedom of peaceful assembly. At least 12 state-level bills introduced between January and February 2025 would impose new restrictions on protests. Notably, bills in Indiana (SB 286), Iowa (HF 25), Missouri (HB 601), New York (S 723), and North Dakota (HB 1240) seek to criminalise the use of masks during protests. They could also expose protesters to heightened surveillance technologies and intimidation tactics, as evidenced by the doxing attempts over the past year against pro-Palestine protesters.

“Meanwhile, Minnesota’s new bill (SF 1363) introduces new civil and criminal liabilities for those supporting protesters who engage peacefully in demonstrations on a critical public service facility, pipelines or other utility property. These restrictions show a broader trend since 2017 of escalating constraints on protests and could trigger a new wave of repression against those expressing dissenting views.

“There are also serious concerns about freedom of expression and access to information, particularly for journalists covering politically sensitive issues. On 11 February 2025, two journalists from the Associated Press (AP) were banned access to White House-related press briefings due to the agency’s editorial policy to continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico by its internationally recognised denomination rather than the presidentially decreed “Gulf of America.” AP filed a lawsuit against administration officials, but a federal judge denied the agency’s request for the immediate restoration of full access to presidential events for its journalists, ruling that access to the president is at his discretion and not a constitutional right.

“Moreover, on 25 February, the White House press secretary announced that the administration will decide which media outlets can access the presidential press pool. These recent decisions raised concerns about unprecedented restrictions on public access to independent reporting on government affairs.”

What’s next?

CIVICUS Monitor will closely track developments in the United States of America, while calling on the United States Government “to do everything in their power to end the ongoing crackdowns immediately and ensure that perpetrators are held to account.”

What you can do

If you have information on civil liberty injustices in the United States of America, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Pakistan, or Serbia, you can send that information to monitor@civicus.org.

You can also make sure your US Senators and US Representative are aware of this. Ask them if this is a list they are proud for our country to be on. Ask them what they are going to do about it. Ask them when they are going to start holding the “perpetrators” accountable.

Until my next blog post tomorrow

Stop reading that novel!

Act on this now!

Spread the word. Contact your elected officials, not just in Washington, DC, but your state elected officials. Tell them to apply pressure in Washington.

That’s my plea to you today. This is your assignment this week.

Janet

“No less than 20,000 officers”

I had another blog post not only written, but scheduled to go live at 5:00 this morning. But it will have to wait until tomorrow.

At 11:30 last night, I learned that President Trump issued a Proclamation on Friday, May 9, 2025, titled “Establishing Project Homecoming.”

What a sweet-sounding name, but don’t be fooled. It’s not about a homecoming. It’s about a homegoing, or a “get-out-of-our-country-going.”

Some Americans will love this, but it makes me sick, and not just due to the obvious grammatical error.

Establishing Project Homecoming: A Proclamation, May 9, 2025

If you wish to read the entire proclamation, and I hope you will, you can find it on the White House website: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/establishing-project-homecoming/.

Aside from the inflammatory introductory remarks about our country being invaded by illegal aliens, the most troubling part is Section 3(b):

“No later than 60 days after the date of this proclamation, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall supplement existing enforcement and removal operations by deputizing and contracting with State and local law enforcement officers, former Federal officers, officers and personnel within other Federal agencies, and other individuals to increase the enforcement and removal operations force of the Department of Homeland Security by no less than 20,000 officers in order to conduct an intensive campaign to remove illegal aliens who have failed to depart voluntarily.”

“and other individuals” – That leaves the door open to just about anyone. As if the ICE officers we have already seen on video act like they have ever read the US Constitution or anything else.

What we have seen so far is men wearing sunglasses just above their masks. They appear to have no identification or warrants. They ride in unmarked vehicles. They show up in large numbers to arrest one individual. They slam the individual to the ground, face down, hand cuff/zip tie them, and shove them into the what sometimes resembles a SWAT armored vehicle. They drive off to an undisclosed location, leaving the person’s family members wondering where they are and what to do about it.

If animals were being treated like this, animal rights groups would be all over it. These are people, though, not animals.

Now, in addition to the 80,000 officers Homeland Security already has, they want “to increase the enforcement and removal operations force of the Department of Homeland Security by no less than 20,000 officers” by July 8.

How many more people will be picked up by mistake? How many more people will be shipped to a prison in a country not their own due to an “administrative error” or some such lame excuse?

I’m at a loss for words to convey how sick and frightening this is, and I am not an illegal alien.

I don’t recognize the United States of America. I don’t recognize the brutality with which the Trump Administration is attacking immigrants, freedom of speech, due process, education, libraries, museums, scientists, medical researchers, the environment, federal employees, farmers, and small businesses reliant on imported goods and materials.

This scorched earth approach to every facet of our government and economy doesn’t make sense to me… but I guess that’s what you get when you put a businessman in the White House.

If you voted for Trump, did you realize you were voting for a police state?

Hurricane Helene Update

As of Friday, 56 roads in North Carolina were still closed due to Hurricane Helen. That count includes five US highways, five state highways, and 46 state roads.

There is nothing new about the I-40 or Blue Ridge Parkway reconstruction project.

The nonprofit Orchard at Altapass opened this weekend! It is on a six-mile stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway that is open near Little Switzerland. Put it on your itinerary. Hurricane Helene wiped out 400 of their apple trees, but they still have 2,500 and need people to support them this year.

The Hazard Mitigation Grant Program is underway in counties affected by Hurricane Helene. Under the program, as I understand it, property owners apply for consideration for acquisition, elevation, or land stabilization. Their property is evaluated for whichever category the owner prefers.

It is an effort to give homeowners the opportunity to secure their homes to mitigate damage from a future storm or to sell their land to be left vacant so there won’t be a structure there to be damaged or washed away if another major storm occurs. FEMA provides 75% of the funds and the State provides the remaining 25%. More than 400 property owners in five NC counties have submitted applications according to an online report by Karen Zatkulak of WLOS in Asheville on May 7. (I was not able to easily current statistics for the other 22 counties and Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians/Qualla Boundary that sustained damage from the hurricane.)

A new machine manufactured by Tigercat is operating in Haywood County, NC to convert wood into biocarbon. Since Hurricane Helene, an abundance of trees are lying on the ground over hundreds of square miles in western NC.

Twenty tons of wood debris can be reduced to 2,000 tons of biochar, which is “a carbon fertilizer that can revitalize soil and conserve water for long periods. The amount already made is now going to local farmers who lost their land during Hurricane Helene,” according to an online WLOS report by Ed DiOrio on May 6.

Until my next blog post, tomorrow

Read what you can

Get your news from reliable sources.

Don’t stop paying attention. Our country and our way of life hang in the balance.

Please overlook any errors. Writing a blog post at 1:00 a.m. is never a good idea. I couldn’t find an appropriate image to illustrate this post. All the officers in the free law enforcement photos online are identified as “Police” on their uniforms and their vehicles say, “Police.” I couldn’t find any free photos of masked men riding around in unmarked vehicles arresting people.

Janet

How’s that Salmonella infection working for you?

Due to my ongoing internet service problems after underground cables were ripped up just up the road from my house, I will schedule this post for 5:00 a.m. on Thursday, May 1, 2025, and hope it goes out! More repairs are to be made tomorrow, so I don’t know when I’ll have internet service. I’m sending it without any photographs. Just trying to get it scheduled while I can. Please overlook my typos!

There is a lot going on in the Trump Administration. Some of it is proudly proclaimed on live TV. Some of it is announced with the President surrounded by colorful charts or a map of the Gulf of Mexico on a tripod. (Yes, I will continue to call it by it’s rightful and historical name, even though Trump gave each of his Cabinet members a “Gulf of America” baseball cap at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting.)

Some things… I dare say most of them… are done quietly. I try to highlight as many of them as possible on my little blog. I bet some of the items that made my list today flew under your radar.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has made the decision to withdraw a rule that would have finally set real limits on salmonella levels in raw poultry. Three years of work on this rule that could have prevented more than 160,000 infections every year was simply trashed. Salmonella makes 1.35 million Americans sick every year and kills 420 of them. This rule that the USDA just scrapped would have required poultry companies to test for the most dangerous Salmonella strains. Profits over public health It’s enough to make me want to become a vegan. Apparently, the USDA did not get the memo saying that the US Department of Health and Human Resources has a new motto: “Make America Healthy Again.”

President Trump’s pick for US Surgeon General, Dr. Jannette Nesheiwat has been described by the president as “a double board-certified medical doctor,” and a “proud graduate of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.” However, it seems now that she did a residency at the University of Arkansas, but she got her medical degree from the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine in St. Maarten. Her LinkedIn account does not mention the school in the Caribbean. She might be highly-qualified, but it would be nice if the Trump Administration would vet its nominees for such positions of responsibility.

The Miami Herald is reporting that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has built a two-story plexiglass “tent” in Krome, Florida to house 400 detainees. US Representative Frederica Wilson was taken on a tour last week, three weeks after she had requested to be shown the facility. The report says there are 200 cots on each floor, temporary bathrooms and a TV room. Since she smelled fresh paint on her visit, Rep. Wilson said her next visit will be unannounced so she can see for herself what the conditions really are. She indicated that what she was shown on her tour did not match what she has been hearing about the facility. A plexiglass “tent”? I can’t quite picture that.

The Miami Herald newspaper reported that a mother was deported to Cuba, leaving her US citizen husband and their one-year-old daughter who was still breastfeeding behind in Tampa, Florida. What about this makes America great? Absolutely nothing.

The wife and children of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the US Government admitted was shipped off to a prison in El Salvador by mistake, have had to go into hiding at an undisclosed location because that same US Government made their home address public! Can’t someone make this incompetence on steroids stop? My hunch is that the individual who made Mrs. Abrego Garcia’s home address public would not want their own address made public.

Trump is considering eliminating the 988 Suicide Prevention Hotline for LGBTQ+ Youth. The hotline has fielded 1.3 million calls since it was launched by the Biden Administration in July 2022. I’m left to conclude that it is being eliminated because it doesn’t turn a profit. With all these business people running the government now, they have no concept of doing anything just for the good of the people. Besides, this Administration has made it clear that they don’t recognize LGBTQ+ people as being human beings. They’ve never tried to hide their disdain for individuals who do not fit the mold of white and straight.

I read that the soon-to-be-proposed “big, beautiful budget” from the Trump Administration is going to eliminate the Narcan grant program, although the CDC has evidence that there was a 24% decrease in drug overdose deaths in the year ending last September, partly due to Narcan being distributed to first responders through the program. We’ll never know all the minute details of the budget bill, even after it is approved by Congress. It’s too massive, but many American families know that Narcan being available to first responders has saved lives.

Calling US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s new TV and radio ads telling immigrants not to come to America “propaganda,” and the President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico is taking steps to ban the TV and radio ads in her country.

CNN is reporting that the Trump Administration is considering sending South American and Central American asylum seekers to Libya and Rwanda. I honestly cannot believe I’m having to type those words. I cannot believe this is seriously being considered. Anyone in the White House considering this is evil personified.

At his Cabinet meeting on April 30, Trump said that the current economic downturn is Joe Biden’s fault and the continued economic woes we will see in the next three months are also Joe Biden’s fault. He also in a roundabout way said that children aren’t going to have as many toys and the toys they get are going to be more expensive. The example he gave was that instead of having 30 dolls, a child might only have two dolls and those two dolls are going to cost a couple of dollars more. Trump seemed to be the last person in the country to figure that out. Only an out-of-touch billionaire President would speak in terms of a child having 30 dolls. There are some children in the US that would love to have just one doll. And, of course, it’s not just dolls or other toys that aren’t going to be available in the coming months.

On Wednesday afternoon, April 30, the executive in charge of the Port of Los Angeles told CNN that imports coming into his port are down 45% and very soon dock workers and truck drivers will not have much work to do, while the President was announcing at his Cabinet meeting that “cargo ships are making U-turns” in the Pacific Ocean to head back to China to pick up merchandise. Why would anyone believe Trump?

The Trump Administration launched an investigation of the University of California at Berkeley on April 25. The US Department of Education will examine all the foreign money the university has received in the last ten years. The Beast reported in May 2023 that UC-Berkeley had not reported $220 million it received from the Chinese government to build a joint Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute (TBSI). TBSI opened in Shenzhen, China in 2014, but UC-Berkeley says it is no longer affiliated with it. Maybe UC-Berkeley’s foreign receipts do need to be looked at, but it seems like just another Trump attack on a public university. Time will tell.

Not giving us an evening to rest, on Monday night Trump floated the idea of using US military personnel for domestic crime prevention. In the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo in Charlotte, North Carolina in September 1989, I appreciated the National Guard personnel who directed traffic at major intersections for days until electricity could be restored, but I do not relish the thoughts of the normalizing of seeing military personnel on our streets to fight domestic crime. Besides being an extremely un-American concept, I don’t believe that is the highest and best use of soldiers, sailors, and US Marines. It remains to be seen what Trump will say his plan is. More importantly, it remains to be seen what the true intent and true objective is. If history tells us anything, it tells us that the promise and the delivery by the Trump Administration have very little in common.

On Sunday, April 27, Trump got on social media and told Republicans to have protesters removed from their town hall meetings and “not treat them nicely.” So much for the First Amendment to the US Constitution!

Citing “senior Wall Street execs with ties to the White House, Fox Business senior correspondent Charles Gasparino reported on X on April 24 that President Trump’s people are giving insider tips to Wall Street executives about trade deals in progress. In particular, one being worked out with India. When asked about this, Gasparino indicated that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s office made no comment but did not deny the truth of the report. If this report is true, it doesn’t sound legal to me. If not illegal, it should be.

Trump has removed former US Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff (who is Jewish) from the board overseeing the United States Holocaust Museum. He also removed four other people who were placed on the board by President Biden. That is the President’s prerogative, but it is highly unusual. He says he will only have people on the board who “support Israel.” This is just one more case of Trump conflating things like facts and purposes of museums or other public entities. He and many Americans continue to confuse antisemitism with anti-Israel. It is possible for someone to be against the actions of the government of Israel as a country while not being antisemitic. One is a political entity – a government – and the other is a religion. The political state of Israel created after World War II is not the same as the references to Israel in the Bible! The state of Israel in 2025 is a government that is forcing starvation of the children in Gaza by not permitting international food aid into Gaza. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see what Benjamin Netanyahu is doing. No wonder he and Trump are friends.

Finally, an “honest” politician. In a live interview on CNN on Wednesday, April 30, Republican US Representative Randy Fine of Florida said, “I’m here to fight Democrats.” We knew that most the members of Congress like to talk about “reaching across the aisle, “working with my friends across the aisle,” and such platitudes when we know they have no desire to talk to their peers from the other political party. It was surprising to hear a Republican Congressman admit on live TV that he sees his purpose as a member of the US Congress “to fight against Democrats.” When there is no desire or incentive to compromise or try to work together for the good of the country in a time when there is an authoritarian in the White House, we are in a bad place.

Do you remember that war in Ukraine that Trump was going to end in one day? Do you remember how he was going to bring prices down? Do you remember how we were going to get tired of winning?

Most of us are tired 102 days into the second Trump Administration, but I don’t know anyone who is tired of winning.

By the way, Trump has not only denigrated Cabinet meetings into nothing but a Kum Ba Yah moment when every US Department Secretary has to praise him and tell him how wonderful everything is today in the United States, but now he literally rewards them with ridiculous baseball caps proclaiming that the Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America.

It looks like a parent handing out birthday favors to the children at a birthday party.

Isn’t it wonderful that we have “a businessman” in the White House? There is such an air of decorum at the Cabinet meetings!

Until my next blog post tomorrow

I hope you have a good book to read and time to read it.

I hope you have not lost hope in America even though my almost daily blog posts lately have given you little about which to be hopeful.

Don’t forget the people of Ukraine, Myanmar, and western North Carolina.

Janet, a disgruntled political science major

13 additional questionable actions by the Trump Administration

Are you as tired of hearing this stuff as I am? That’s part of their plan. Just wear us out and wear us down. They want us to get so tired of being bombarded every day by more Executive Orders and lies that we will eventually tune it out.

We are faced with pure evil in America today.

I’m tired, but I’m not tuning any of it out. The following list is in no particular order.

Virtually every family has been touched by Alzheimer’s Disease. There were 35 research centers in the US that were studying Alzheimer’s Disease, many of them conducting drug trials. The Trump Administration stopped the funding for 14 of the 35. Some of them ran out of money three weeks ago. Let that sink in… drug trials for Alzheimer’s Disease suddenly stopped. If you voted for Donald Trump, this is what you voted for and I think it’s time for you admit it. I think it is time for all y’all who voted for him to tell him to stop. To stop everything he is doing. Every single thing. You put him in the White House, and you have the power to remove him from the White House. All you have to do is flood the White House and the offices of your Republican Senators and Representatives with phone calls, emails, and letters. Y’all are the ones with the power to stop every bit of this. Don’t say you didn’t vote for “this.” Yes, you did. You knew you were voting for a convicted felon who lies about everything. You knew he had no empathy for anyone, and if ending the funding for Alzheimer’s research doesn’t prove that, I don’t know what would.

Photo of a woman working in a medical laboratory — Photo by CDC on Unsplash

Continued assault on universities. CBS reported on April 23 that President Trump signed an executive order to change the college accreditation process so colleges are accredited based on “results,” with the president wondering aloud about looking into the math capabilities of students admitted to Harvard University and Yale University. In his campaign in 2024, he said the accreditation organizations were “dominated by Marxist Maniacs and lunatics.” He, of course, never offered any evidence to back that up. The problem is… the accreditation of institutions of higher education is, by law, controlled by third-party entities and not the federal government – much less the US President. The report quoted White Houe staff secretary Will Scharf as saying that Trump thinks the accrediting entities are focused on “woke ideology” instead of results. This Executive Order affects law schools and graduate program as well. First, Trump tried blackmailing universities by threatening to end their federal funding if they continued to admit students based on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). That worked at Columbia University, but it didn’t work at Harvard or Princeton. Next, he said he would weaponize the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) that all international students must process through in order to be admitted to a college or university in the US. Now, he’s threatening all colleges and universities by saying he will take control of the accrediting entities. Attacking the intellectual freedoms of colleges and universities is right out of the fascist playbook. If you voted for Trump, you voted for this. If you didn’t know he was going to attack institutions of higher education, you didn’t read Project 2025.

Photographs of university students having a serious discussion — Photo by Antenna on Unsplash

On Friday, April 25, US District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty in Monroe, Louisiana, issued an order for a hearing to be held at 9:00 a.m. CT at the Federal Courthouse in Monroe regarding “In the interest of dispelling our strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.” The two-year-old daughter of a woman was deported to Honduras after the child’s father’s lawyer informed the US Department of Justice that the child was a US citizen. Judge Doughty stated, “The Government contends that this is all okay because the mother wishes that the child be deported with her. But the Court doesn’t know that.” At 1:06pm CT, the Court was informed that a phone call to the mother could not be placed “because she (and presumably VML) [the child’s initial’s in Court documents] had just been released in Honduras.” ABC News reported that the child “was initially detained with her undocumented mother at a routine immigration check-in in New Orleans earlier this week. My first question is, Why couldn’t the US Government postpone the mother’s deportation until a judge could hear the facts in the case? My second question is, At what age does the US Government believe it is okay to deport an American citizen? My third question is, Will the US Government only deport American citizens who are minors, or should all of us be ready to be snatched up and shipped off to another country at any time?

Photo of a child in the dark inside of an airplane peering out the window — Photo by kian on Unsplash

In a similar case, a mother and her two minor children were deported to Honduras. Her four-year-old daughter who was deported is being treated in the US for Stage 4 metastatic cancer. The child was deported without access to her medications or medical care. I defy anyone to tell me what about that makes “America Great Again.” Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar” whose official job title is White Houe Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations (his business card must have to be the size of a poster!), maintains that this mother wanted her children to be deported with her. Of course, a mother does not want to be separated from her children. Of course, a mother does not want to be separated from her child who is going through cancer treatment. BUT… this case could have been handled in a more humane way. From everything I’ve heard and read, there was no pressing need for that mother and her children to be deported on April 25, 2025. The mother was not a dangerous criminal. The mother had merely missed an appointment with immigration officials due to circumstances beyond her control. If the case could have been reviewed by a US District judge, I’m sure a postponement in deportation could have been worked out. But when deportation planes take off in the hours before daylight and deportees are detained in isolation without access to legal counsel, the court system is eliminated from the process.

In 2021, President Joe Biden issued a proclamation making the traditional Columbus Day holiday in October also Indigenous Peoples Day. Finally, the indigenous peoples in the US were getting a little bit of respect and recognition. On April 27, 2025, Trump made clear his disdain for indigenous peoples as he said we will no longer have Indigenous Peoples Day. He delighted in announcing that he is restoring Columbus Day as just Columbus Day. The point of his doing this can only be interpreted as a punch in the gut to every person in this country who has indigenous DNA. There is absolutely nothing constructive that can come out of this.

Bilungual “Welcome to Cherokee” sign in Cherkee, North Carolina

Last Thursday, Trump claimed that gasoline was down to $1.98 per gallon “in some states.” Of course, he couldn’t name which states because it wasn’t true. According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), no state had an average price below $2.70 per gallon, and the national average price is $3.17. Why can’t he just tell the truth? Plus, Americans aren’t going to get any sympathy from the people in England or Scotland for our $3 to $4 petrol.

Photo of a sign displaying gasoline prices, including $3.59 per gallon for regular unleaded. — Photo by Thomas McKinnon on Unsplash

Last Thursday, Trump said that grocery prices have come down. According to the Consumer Price Index, grocery prices in March were 0.49% higher than in February, the biggest month-to-month jump since October 2022. Average grocer prices in March 2025 were up 2.41% over March 2024, the biggest year-over-year increase since August 2023. What can’t he just tell the truth?

Photograph of fresh citrus produce at a market — Photo by David Trinks on Unsplash

Last Tuesday, Trump said, “as you know, the cost of eggs has come down like 93, 94% since we took office.” On Thursday, he said eggs prices had dropped by 87%. Actually, the average price of a dozen large Grade A eggs in January was $4.95. If the price had dropped by 93 or 94% since January 20, eggs should be selling now for less than 38 cents-a-dozen. The average price nationally in March was $6.23 per dozen. I paid $4.96 last Wednesday, which is about what I’ve been paying for a couple of months because I’m fortunate to live in a major egg-producing state. Why can’t Trump just tell the truth? Plus, the reason the price of eggs skyrocketed this winter was because chicken flocks were hit with the bird flu and infected flocks had to be slaughtered. It was a crisis of supply and demand, but the Trump Administration has maintained from the beginning that (1) chickens were unnecessarily slaughtered or (2) they have completely ignored the fact that there is a bird flu and chickens were slaughtered. It was convenient to just blame the Biden Administration for the price of eggs.

Last Thursday, the US Department of Justice stopped the funding of more than 350 grants for such things as hot-lines for drug addicts to call for help, programs for violence prevention and juvenile justice, crime victims, and the fight against opioid abuse. The reason? To protect Americans against “toxic DEI policies.”

Photo of a red telephone receiver lying off the hook with apparently no one at the other end to answer the call for help — Photo by Trintage on Unsplash

KTVX in Salt Lake City reported that Carlos Trujillo, a naturalized US citizen working as an immigration attorney in that city received an order on April 11 to self-deport within seven days. “I know the laws of this country,” Trujillo told Nexstar’s KTVX. “I am not leaving. I am not deportable. But I do want everybody to know that these kinds of things are happening.” The report continued, “Trujillo said the ‘threatening language’ of the email bothered him. Trujillo encouraged the immigrant community to be aware of the changes in the laws and to know their rights. He said many people who received the email are in the country under legal circumstances. Trujillo isn’t the only one receiving a letter from the Department of Homeland Security saying it’s time to leave – a similar email was sent to hundreds of thousands of people across the United States…. However, Trujillo came to the U.S. about 24 years ago, and has been a naturalized U.S. citizen for roughly a decade.” I was born and have lived my entire life in the US, but I’m thinking about applying for a passport so I can prove that I am a US citizen. I realized my driver’s license does not prove citizenship.

Photo of a US passport — Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

CNN reported on April 24 that the court document that migrants are handed gives them 12 hours to say if they will challenge their deportation under the Alien Act of 1798, which gave the government the authority to deport people during wartime. (We are not at war, folks! Just sayin’.) The form is in English only. If they wish to challenge their removal, they have 24 hours to hire an attorney and file their challenge. During World War II, immigrants were given 30 days to do so.
It was reported on CNN on April 24, that more than 1,500 student visas have been revoked by the US State Department since January 20.

Photograph of college students — Photo by javier trueba on Unsplash

Reuters reported that US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy has told states that they must ensure personnel practices are merit-based in order to receive federal funds. The Trump Administration said on Thursday that states could lose federal funds if they don’t cooperate with federal immigration efforts or if they continue DEI programs. Duffy had earlier announced that he will favor giving states priority for transportation funds for locations that have high birthrates. Transportation funding has traditionally been political, but this is the first time I remember the US Government announcing that as an official policy.

Aerial view of complicated highway interchanges — Photo by Jared Murray on Unsplash

Until my next blog post tomorrow

It’s difficult, but don’t give up on American democracy. (I’m saying that to myself. I need to hear it every day.)

Remember the people of Ukraine, Myanmar, and western North Carolina. They do not have the luxury of worrying about every little thing the Trump Administration does. They’re just trying to survive and put their lives back together.

Janet

A War on Civil Rights

I didn’t want to post a blog on a Saturday, but here I am.

On Thursday, April 23, 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order titled “Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy.”

Under the guise of allegedly encouraging “meritocracy and a colorblind society, not race- or sex-based favoritism,” the order calls for an evaluation of all pending proceedings under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), which was passed in 1974 and was amended in 1976 to prevent lenders from discriminating against women based on marital status.

Only Congress can change the law, but an Executive Order muddies the water. If a lender chooses to follow the order, they can do so.

If a woman or a person of a racial minority thinks they have been discriminated against by a lender, they can file a complaint with the lender or thet can hire a lawyer and take their case to court. It could be years before the case is heard and settled. In the meantime, they did not get that credit card, or home improvement loan, or that loan that would have made it possible to buy a car or a home.

As reported by Newsweek, “The EO’s main target is the principle of disparate-impact liability, the idea that racism, sexism, or some other form of discrimination can occur without explicit intent. The President believes that disparate-impact liability is a key tool in a ‘pernicious movement’ that ‘endangers’ the U.S.’ foundational principle of ‘creating opportunity, encouraging achievement, and sustaining the American Dream.’”

In Trump’s mind, making sure that a dark-skinned person is not discriminated against equates with denying a white-skinned person being discriminated against. Or, the law making sure women are not discriminated against by financial lenders equates with denying men the opportunity to borrow money or get a credit card.

But that isn’t what it means at all!

Just because a woman gets approved for a loan does not mean that a man applying for a loan gets denied. There is enough pie for everyone who qualifies for a loan.

But this is all smoke and mirrors. Through Executive Order, Trump is putting dark-skinned people and women in their place. He is putting them at a disadvantage. He is denying them an equal opportunity to attain the American Dream.

That’s exactly what this is about. This is nothing but a white men’s backlash because some of them want to go back to “the good old days” when they didn’t have to compete with women or dark-skinned people. Some of them don’t want a level playing field.

In case you are saying, “So what?”

In case any of this sounds all right or good to you, you are obviously not a woman “of a certain age” or a black person.

I am a white woman of a certain age, so I can and will speak to this. I grew up in the era in which women could not necessarily get credit or a loan without a man co-signing.

Women of a certain age know exactly what Trump’s end game is.

I was turned down for a credit card by a major gasoline company in the early 1970s, and the reason I was given was, “we don’t give credit cards to single women.” But who needs Exxon or Texaco? Amoco gave me a credit card and I was a loyal customer for years.

When I bought my first car (used) at the age of 22 in 1975 after earning a Bachelor’s degree, I was told by an agent for a nationally-recognized car insurance company that my rate for car insurance would be higher because I was a single woman. My father was with me, and this made him as mad as it did me. We stormed out of the insurance agent’s office. Rest assured, my father nor I ever considered doing business with Nationwide Insurance again.

I was interviewed for a job with the City of Charlotte in 1977 after I had earned a Master’s degree in public administration, and the interviewer said to me, “I don’t think a woman can handle this job.” My father had died. I was single. I was desperately looking for a job in my chosen field. Cities and counties weren’t exactly lining up to hire women for management positions. I didn’t want to burn my bridges, so I didn’t file a complaint.

I want women who came of age after the late 1970s to believe me when I say, “You don’t want to go back.”

Until my next blog post

Find time to read a good book and take a break from the chaos, but then come back and continue the fight for our democracy.

Remember the people of Ukraine, Myanmar, and western North Carolina.

Janet

Janet's Writing Blog

Category: Racism & Bigotry

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13 additional questionable actions by the Trump Administration

A War on Civil Rights

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