I write southern historical fiction, local history, and I've written a devotional book. The two novels I'm writing are set in Virginia and the Carolinas in the 1760s. My weekly blog started out to follow my journey as a writer and a reader, but in 2025 it has been greatly expanded to include current events and politics in the United States as I see our democracy under attack from within. The political science major in me cannot sit idly by and remain silent.
Once-a-week, since November 25, I have blogged about a different story from my new book, Traveling Through History: A Collection of Historical Short Stories.
The sixth story in the book is “Whom Can We Trust? A Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence Short Story.”
Tradition tells us that Archibald and Maggie Sellers McCurdy built their log cabin in what is now Cabarrus County, North Carolina, in 1773. At that time, Cabarrus had not yet been formed out of the eastern part of old Mecklenburg County. Their house was on the National Register of Historic Places until vandals burned it down a few years ago. Sadly, I never did see the house, but I have seen photographs of it and detailed floor plans and exterior drawings have been preserved.
Archibald McCurdy’s gravestone at Spears Graveyard of Rocky Ri er Presbyterian Church, Cabarrus County, North Carolina
Those drawings and photographs made it easy for me to imagine the McCurdys’ lives. Theirs are names I’ve heard all my life. Archibald was a foot solider in the militia during the Revolutionary War. Maggie was a patriot in her own right, as she earned the name “She-Devil” by the British and Tories. I explain a couple of her feats in the Author’s Note at the end of “Whom Can We Trust?”
Marker placed at Archibald McCurdy’s grave by the Daughters of the American Revolution
The story is set in May 1775 at the time of the signing of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. I was inspired by a story I’ve heard all my life about what Archibald McCurdy did on the day that document was signed.
You can find the paperback at Second Look Books in Harrisburg, NC, or ask for it at your local independent bookstore. Bookstores can order it from IngramSpark.
Today is Bill of Rights Day in the United States. The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution are known as the Bill of Rights. Those amendments were ratified on December 15, 1791, when nine of the 13 states in the union at that time voted for their adoption.
The U.S. Constitution is a living, breathing document. Even when it was written, many people knew it was inadequate for the new nation because it gave the national government too much power and gave individual citizens and states too little power.
In fact, the U.S. Constitution itself was not ratified (adopted by three-fourths of the states) until there were assurances that amendments were going to follow. The process, though, was not as simple as one might imagine.
For Americans in 2025, the first ten amendments to the Constitution are taken for granted. They make sense to us. They appear to us as a neat little package we easily call the Bill of Rights; however, did you know that when the first Congress of the United States convened on March 4, 1789, they considered 145 proposed amendments?
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in their meetings in New York City over the next six and a half months to hear the debates! Can you imagine?
On September 25, 1789, the Congress submitted 12 of those 145 amendments to the states for consideration. Ten of the 12 were approved by the required nine states over the next 27 months and the Bill of Rights became the law of the land on December 15, 1791.
I tried in vain to find a list of those 145 proposed amendments online this weekend. It would be interesting to know what they were about and why only 12 of them were submitted to the states for consideration.
Even without knowing what the other 133 proposed amendments addresses, I can safely say that our lives have been much simpler since 1791 with a ten-amendment Bill of Rights instead of a 145-amendment Bill of Rights!
The Bill of Rights, condensed version
The First Amendment guarantees us freedom of religion, speech, and the press.
The Second Amendment guarantees us the right to bear arms.
The Third Amendment guarantees that in a time of peace, no citizen will be required to house a soldier without their consent, nor during a time of war except as prescribed by the law.
The Fourth Amendment guarantees us to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. (Unfortunately, I do not believe ICE and the U.S. Border Patrol are currently being held to that.)
The Fifth Amendment is more complex than the first four. It addresses the protection of our rights to life, liberty, and property. It talks about indictments, military actions, double jeopardy, not having to testify against yourself, due process of law, and the taking of private property for public use without just compensation. (The “due process of law” clause has been ignored in some cases this year by the Trump Administration. We have not heard the last of this.)
The Sixth Amendment guarantees us a speedy public trial by an impartial jury in the jurisdiction in which the alleged crime was committed when we are accused of a crime. It also addresses the right to obtain witnesses and assistance of legal counsel for our defense.
The Seventh Amendment addresses our rights in civil cases.
The Eighth Amendment protects us from excessive bail, fines, and “cruel and unusual” punishment.
The Ninth Amendment protects us from being denied our rights or disparaged by the rights that other people have. Just because a right is not listed in the U.S. Constitution, it does not mean that we do not have that right or those rights. Just because a right is not mentioned in the Constitution, the government cannot infringe upon it.
The Tenth Amendment states that powers that are not specifically delegated to the federal government by the Constitution are, therefore, rights of the states or of the people.
Just for fun, when did the Eleventh Amendment come along?
Thinking about the Bill of Rights today, I was curious to find out how long after December 15, 1791, was the Eleventh Amendment ratified and what is it about? We never hear anything about it.
In 1793, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Chisholm v. Georgia that individuals from one state could sue the government of another state. The Eleventh Amendment was ratified in 1795. It protects states from being sued by individuals from another state or country. It established the principle of state sovereign immunity.
How many amendments have been proposed since 1787?
Since the U.S. Constitution was written in 1787, approximately 11,985 amendments have been introduced in Congress. Most of them never made it off the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives or the floor of the Senate. Twenty-seven amendments to the Constitution have been ratified.
Janet
P.S. On Friday, the National Trust for Historic Preservation filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to try to stop the construction of President Antionette’s 90,000-square-foot dance hall at the White House. The suit argues that President Antionette did not go through the legal review process for the project.
The courts have not been able to stop him on anything else, so it will be interesting to see where this case goes. I suppose if it goes all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court his buddies who form the majority of the court will vote for Trump to proceed with his little dance hall. Or, if they vote to stop him, he will just ignore their ruling. After all, he has already demolished the East Wing of the White House to make room for it.
“Let them eat cake.” Or, as he proclaimed last week with the Christmas season fast approaching, a child only needs one pencil.
In addition to the Western Hemisphere, the document addresses Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa – in that order.
Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash
Asia
As only a document coming out of the Trump White House can say, the Asia portion of the strategy begins with the words, “President Trump single-handedly reversed more than three decades of mistaken American assumptions about China: namely, that by opening our markets to China, encouraging American business to invest in China, and outsourcing our manufacturing to China, we would facilitate China’s entry into the so-called ‘rules based international order.’ This did not happen. China got rich and powerful, and used its wealth and power to its considerable advantage. American elites—over four successive administrations of both political parties—were either willing enablers of China’s strategy or in denial.”
That’s rich, coming from Trump who had so much of his Trump brand merchandise manufactured in China! And his daughter had her line of jewelry made in China! The Trump family took full advantage of the “mistakes” of precious U.S. Presidents and got richer and richer at the expense of the American factory worker.
The document goes on to state, “… the Indo-Pacific is already and will continue to be among the next century’s key economic and geopolitical battlegrounds. To thrive at home, we must successfully compete there—and we are. President Trump signed major agreements during his October 2025 travels that further deepen our powerful ties of commerce, culture, technology, and defense, and reaffirm our commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. America retains tremendous assets—the world’s strongest economy and military, world-beating innovation, unrivaled “soft power,” and a historic record of benefiting our allies and partners—that enable us to compete successfully. President Trump is building alliances and strengthening partnerships in the Indo Pacific that will be the bedrock of security and prosperity long into the future.”
Several hundred words later, the Asia section of the document ends with, “We will also harden and strengthen our military presence in the Western Pacific, while in our dealings with Taiwan and Australia we maintain our determined rhetoric on increased defense spending. Preventing conflict requires a vigilant posture in the Indo-Pacific, a renewed defense industrial base, greater military investment from ourselves and from allies and partners, and winning the economic and technological competition over the long term.”
It appears that Australia was thrown into that last paragraph as an afterthought.
Europe
The European section of the National Security Strategy begins by throwing Europe under the bus, as Trump likes to do. He is critical of every country, including his own. Nothing is good enough. After laying out some supposed statistics (I say supposed because, sadly, I don’t believe anything the Trump Administration says), the document says if the current trend in Europe continues, “the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less. As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.”
The paper goes on to address the threat Russia poses with its nuclear weapons and the need to “reestablish conditions of strategic stability across the Eurasian landmass, and to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states.
I find the following statement in the NSS interesting, considering the Trump Administration’s propensity to make it more difficult for U.S. citizens to vote and its blatant efforts to prompt states to gerrymander Congressional district lines to assure him of retaining the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
That statement: “A large European majority wants peace, yet that desire is not translated into policy, in large measure because of those governments’ subversion of democratic processes. This is strategically important to the United States precisely because European states cannot reform themselves if they are trapped in political crisis…. Not only can we not afford to write Europe off—doing so would be self-defeating for what this strategy aims to achieve. American diplomacy should continue to stand up for genuine democracy, freedom of expression, and unapologetic celebrations of European nations’ individual character and history…. Our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory. We will need a strong Europe to help us successfully compete, and to work in concert with us to prevent any adversary from dominating Europe…. We want to work with aligned countries that want to restore their former greatness.”
The document then addresses NATO and its future as “certain NATO members will become majority non-European.”
The Middle East
This section of the NSS begins by addressing energy and how the Middle East is not as important in that arena as it was for decades. It touts the fact that the U.S. is now an energy exporter. It also boasts that Trump has “revitalized” U.S. alliances in “the Gulf.” It says the threats to peace in the Middle East are not as strong as the news headlines indicate. It brags about the U.S. June 2025 Operation Midnight Hammer attack on Iran’s nuclear program.
Africa
The NSS document starts this section by criticizing past American policy in Africa as spreading liberal ideology. Instead, the Trump Administration seeks to partner with “select countries” to create trade to replace the foreign aid of the past.
This section of the document ends with, “The United States should transition from an aid-focused relationship with Africa to a trade- and investment-focused relationship, favoring partnerships with capable, reliable states committed to opening their markets to U.S. goods and services. An immediate area for U.S. investment in Africa, with prospects for a good return on investment, include the energy sector and critical mineral development. Development of U.S.-backed nuclear energy, liquid petroleum gas, and liquified natural gas technologies can generate profits for U.S. businesses and help us in the competition for critical minerals and other resources.
In other words, what’s in it for Trump? He can only see the world through the lens of business. That lens only sees how he can personally benefit financially.
I hate to have such a distrust for and poor perspective of a U.S. President. I don’t enjoy writing any of this.
What we have here in the United States is obviously a Wizard of Oz situation.
The White House quietly released the November 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) and posted it on the White House website. Since it is the announcement of the official U.S. foreign policy, there is usually a bit of fanfare with its release, but not this year.
Most Americans will never hear about it, much less read it.
It begins with a letter signed by Trump but obviously written by someone else. Probably Stephen Miller. Why do I say that? Simple. It is written in complete sentences.
The letter
That letter is enlightening because it does list the “eight raging conflicts” Trump claims to have put an end to in “just eight months” this year. In case you’re having trouble keeping up with the wars Trump has ended, here’s the list as found in this letter: Cambodia & Thailand, Kosovo & Serbia, the Democratic Republic of Congo & Rwanda, Pakistan & India, Israel & Iran, Egypt & Ethiopia, Armenia & Azerbaijan, and Israel & Gaza, although Israel is not named in the letter. (He wouldn’t want to show the government of Israel in a bad light, would he?)
The letter is full of bluster and boasts of all the amazing things Trump has done and all the “weakness, extremism, and deadly failures” of the Biden Administration. As only Trump can boast, the letter states, “Over the past nine months, we have brought our nation — and the world – back from the brink of catastrophe and disaster.”
The NSS document
The NSS document itself contains 29 pages of details of what the United States wants and what the United States wants from the world.
Some of the introductory remarks would be laughable if they weren’t so sad. For instance, “We want to maintain the United States’ unrivaled ‘soft power’ through which we exercise positive influence throughout the world that furthers our interests” rings hollow considering the Trump Administration obliterated USAID.
The sudden obliteration of USAID not only resulted in the starvation of hundreds of thousands of children but also their preventable deaths by the withholding of medical treatments – not to mention how the cessation of the food aid programs hurt the American farmer terribly.
The paragraph that really made me gag, though, was this one:
“Finally, we want the restoration and reinvigoration of American spiritual and cultural health, without which long-term security is impossible. We want an America that cherishes its past glories and its heroes, and that looks forward to a new golden age. We want a people who are proud, happy, and optimistic that they will leave their country to the next generation better than they found it. We want a gainfully employed citizenry – with no one sitting on the sidelines – who take satisfaction from knowing that their work is essential to the prosperity of our nation and to the well-being of individuals and families. This cannot be accomplished without growing numbers of strong, traditional families that raise healthy children.” (Notice the subtle reference to “traditional families.”)
Dear Leader Kim Jong Un of North Korea couldn’t have written that paragraph better! Delete the words “American spiritual” and I would swear I was reading a translation of a statement by Kim or Xi.
A paragraph that sent chills down my spine, though, was this one: “We want to ensure that the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States; …we want …; we want … ; and we want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations. In other words, we will assert and enforce a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine;….”
It was “Trump Corollary” that got to me. Why does his name have to go on every cotton-picking thing?
The document goes on to delineate U.S. policy by region: The Western Hemisphere, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Introductory remarks that preface the regional details include, “The United States is by every measure the most generous nation in history – yet we cannot afford to be equally attentive to every region and every problem in the world.”
The Western Hemisphere
Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash
The so-called “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine involves making new partners and reconsidering our military presence in the Western Hemisphere. This seems to involve beefing up our Coast Guard and Navy presence “to control se lanes, to thwart illegal and other unwanted migration, to reduce human and drug trafficking, and to control key transit routes in a crisis.” It also includes “targeted deployments to secure the border and defeat cartels, including where necessary the use of lethal force to replace the failed law enforcement-only strategy of the last several decades.”
Also, “…as we prioritize commercial diplomacy, we will work to strengthen our security partnerships – from weapons sales to intelligence sharing to joint exercises.” This is in response to non-Western Hemisphere nations’ incursions of influence in recent years.
But the National Security Strategy goes on from there and seems to concentrate on the economy and what’s in it for United States companies. As a student of political science, it reads to me as a complete overhaul of the U.S. State Department and the responsibilities of our diplomats and State Department employees out in the field. This makes me cringe.
The U.S. “will reform our own system to expedite approvals and licensing – again, to make ourselves the partner of first choice. The choice all countries should face is whether they want to live in an American-led world of sovereign countries and free economies or in a parallel one in which they are influenced by countries on the other side of the world….
“All our embassies must be aware of major business opportunities in their country, especially major government contracts. Every U.S. Government official that interacts with these countries should understand that part of their job is to help American companies compete and succeed.
“The U.S. Government will identify strategic acquisition and investment opportunities for American companies in the region and present these opportunities for assessment by every U.S. Government financing program, including but not limited to those within the Departments of State, War, and Energy; the Small Business Administration; the International Development Finance Corporation; the Export-Import Bank; and the Millennium Challenge Corporation.
“We should also partner with regional governments and businesses to build scalable and resilient energy infrastructure, invest in critical mineral access, and harden existing and future cyber communications networks that take full advantage of American encryption and security potential.
“The aforementioned U.S. Government entities should be used to finance some of the costs of purchasing U.S. goods abroad. The United States must also resist and reverse measures such as targeted taxation, unfair regulation, and expropriation that disadvantage U.S. businesses. The terms of our agreements, especially with those countries that depend on us most and therefore over which we have the most leverage, must be sole-source contracts for our companies. At the same time, we should make every effort to push out foreign companies that build infrastructure in the region.”
The part about U.S. State Department – or any other U.S. Government employee – who interacts with countries in the Western Hemisphere to understand that it is “part of their job to help American companies compete and succeed” is a 180-degree change in the purpose U.S. Government employees. It is not part of the job of a State Department employee to promote American companies! At least, it wasn’t part of their job until last Friday. That is absolutely not the job of the U.S. diplomatic corps!
I suppose this being put in writing by the Trump Administration should come as no surprise. After all, the U.S. State Department no longer makes “peace agreements;” it makes “deals” because Trump has an overwhelming lack of understanding or appreciation for the traditional functions of government in a democracy.
Western Hemisphere Command
It was not a coincidence that we learned on Thursday or Friday that two U.S. military command centers will be moving to Fort Bragg here in North Carolina over the next year as a new “Western Hemisphere Command” has been announced.
Possible blog post tomorrow
If I can recover from reading the Western Hemisphere portion of the National Security Strategy, I will blog tomorrow about how it addresses Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
The advisory committee on vaccinations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were hand-picked by notorious vaccine-denier Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He just happens to be Trump’s pick for U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. He received the blessings of and confirmation by the U.S. Senate to serve in that capacity.
Photo by Mufid Majnun on Unsplash
There are things I would like to say to and about the Senators who voted to approve Kennedy for that Cabinet position, but I will temper my remarks here. To give a person who for decades has promoted conspiracy theories about vaccines to Secretary of Health and Human Services was a travesty.
When the U.S. Senate approved the likes of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, and Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security… we get what they voted for: dangerous incompetence.
When people held their noses and voted for the likes of Donald J. Trump for U.S. President, we got what they voted for: dangerous incompetence and a colossal hatred for anyone who isn’t a rich, white male.
What we have now is a growing avalanche of physicians and other medical professions telling us not to trust anything that comes out of the CDC, the Federal Drug Administration, or Health and Human Services. Let that sink in!
On December 5, Trump said he supported the recommendations of the CDC vaccine advisory committee (many of whom are known vaccine deniers) in their recommendation that we abandon the 1991 CDC recommendation that all newborn babies in the U.S. receive the hepatitis B vaccine.
Apparently, Trump knows just as much about immunology as the quacks and Republicans on the advisory committee. Having a medical or any level of a health degree was not a prerequisite to be on the committee. Let’s just let any person off the street who supports Trump form new vaccinations policies and schedules for all Americans. What could possibly go wrong?
The hepatitis B vaccine decision flies in the face of medical data. In 1990, approximately 20,000 infants in the U.S. got hepatitis B. In 2020, twenty infants in the U.S. got hepatitis B. The vaccine not only prevents the liver damage caused by hepatitis B. It also prevents the liver cancer that can result from that liver damage.
It remains to be seen how this ill-advised new CDC policy will play out over the coming years. Will pharmaceutical companies limit production of the hepatitis B vaccine? Will parents who want their newborns to be protected from this highly-contagious disease be able to get the vaccine for their children? No one knows the answers to those questions.
A memo that Trump signed on Friday praised the new CDC recommendation and went on to endorse the new policy that instead of leading the world in health science, the CDC will now follow the lead of “peer, developed countries.”
I guess it’s fortunate that Trump’s children and grandchildren were all vaccinated as newborns before this 34-year-old mandate got scrapped last week. His future grandchildren and great-grandchildren might not be so fortunate.
When Trump promised to “drain the swamp,” we didn’t know he thought the CDC was part of the swamp.
We are left to wonder if the CDC will survive three more years of attacks by Trump and Kennedy.
Meanwhile, in Washington, DC last week…
In a move that is so blatantly racist and narcissistic, the Trump Administration removed Martin Luther King Day and Juneteenth as days that all our national parks could be visited for free and replaced them with… you are not going to believe this… Trump’s Birthday!
This is not a joke. This is the truth. You can’t make this stuff up!
The United States of America used to be a nation of laws, or am I naïve?
I did not plan to blog today, but something came to my attention that I can’t let slide.
Amnesty International has issued a 48-page report. I thought it was going to be a report on the organization’s findings throughout the world but, no, it is a report on detention facilities in the State of Florida. 48 well-documented pages.
The U.S. Detention Center dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” due to its location in the Everglades and the manner in which it was publicized by the Trump Administration and the early reports that came out of there, has completely fallen off the radars of news organizations. With Border Patrol and ICE activities in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, New Orleans, and Minneapolis-St. Paul dominating the news cycles along with the Epstein Files and whether the United States is going to bomb Venezuela and force a regime change in that country… “Alligator Alcatraz” cannot compete for attention.
Thank goodness it hasn’t fallen off Amnesty International’s radar. The organization’s report this week paints a horrible picture of conditions at “Alligator Alcatraz.”
I know there are Americans who glibly turn a blind eye to any reports that put the Trump Administration in a bad light. They seem to think it’s acceptable for the U.S. to bomb boats in international waters and launch multiple attacks to kill any survivors. They also tend to agree with Trump that anyone who ends up in a detention center is sub-human and deserves horrible treatment. Many of these people also claim to be Christians. This baffles me, but that isn’t the purpose of today’s blog post.
(And why is Trump’s good buddy, Steve Witkoff, giving Putin advice on how to negotiate with Trump? But I digress.)
Photo by Mitchel Lensink on Unsplash
I cannot easily summarize the report in this blog post, but here are a few highlights:
Lights are on around-the-clock;
Although the United Nations considers solitary confinement lasting more than 15 days to be torture, but at “Alligator Alcatraz,” some detainees have been in solitary confinement for more than 100 consecutive days;
Inadequate/ill-maintained plumbing results in toilets overflowing and flooding cells;
Detainees are allowed one five-minute shower per week;
Mold, insects, and rodents abound;
Food is often spoiled or maggot-infested;
Medical and mental health care are often withheld;
At least four detainees have died due to medical neglect;
Detainees are effectively dropped from the immigration court system because ICE and GEO Group refuse to report them to other government authorities;
Guards have used pepper spray in closed cells and then denied decontamination;
Sexual assault is occurring;
Detainees are punished if they complain about conditions;
Force-feeding has been used without proper medical oversight
There are 1,400 detainees being held there now at a facility built for 700;
ICE renewed GEO Group’s contract to operate the facility inspite of all the evidence that the company is not maintaining current standards of incarceration in the United States; and
The Department of Human Services Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties has not inspected “Alligator Alcatraz” since July 2025.
My thoughts
Call me a “bleeding heart liberal” if you wish, but I would ask you if this is now the acceptable penal standard in the United States of America? Do we aspire to be a “Third World” country?
Is anything on the above list making “America Great Again” or did I misunderstand Trump’s campaign promise?
If you are all right with our country treating detainees horribly, then you and I have fundamental differences in how we interpret the teachings of Jesus Christ as well as the letter and spirit of the United States Constitution.
The sobering lines of Martin Niemoller’s much-quoted “First they came” statement/poem come to mind.
They haven’t come for me yet, but I feel compelled to speak up for the least of these among us and alleged atrocities committed by the United States Government or its private contractors such as GEO Group.
I love my country. That is why it hurts so much when we fall short of our potential and our history.
Today I am introducing you to the main character in “You Couldn’t Help But Like Bob,” the second story in my new book, Traveling Through History: A Collection of Historical Short Stories.
Genealogy has been a hobby of mine since I was a young adult. Robert Dooling is the most colorful of my ancestors that I have found so far. He immigrated from Ireland to America in the early 1700s and settled in Virginia.
Some people would be embarrassed at discovering one of their great-great-great-great-great-grandfathers was on the wrong side of the law in Colonial Virginia, but that just made Robert Dooling that much more interesting to me. To my way of thinking, that’s a lot better than just knowing an ancestor’s birth and death dates.
I devoured the colonial court records, eagerly searching for every tidbit or reference to Robert. As far as I know, he never did anything too serious. Perhaps his worst offence was “abusing” a Justice of the Peace. (I’m not clear on what constituted “abusing” a Justice of the Peace in Tappahannock, Virginia in the early 18th century.
I had fun creating a fictional story about this man I only know on paper, but his blood runs through my veins and I’m grateful to know more about him than just his name.
Here are the opening lines in the story:
“You couldn’t help but like Bob. Unless he owed you money. Unless you were a Justice of the Peace in Essex County, Virginia in the early 1700s.
“Even so, you just couldn’t help but like Bob.
“To say Bob was irritating would be an understatement, but you couldn’t stay made at him for long. Unless he owned you money or tobacco. Unless you were a Justice of the Peace, tired of seeing him dragged into your court room.”
I hope you will enjoy reading the story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
After you read “You Couldn’t Help But Like Bob” in Traveling Through History: A Collection of Historical Short Stories, you’ll know more about him. I hope you will like him, too!
When I blogged on November 7, I had no idea I would not blog again until November 22. My sister is recovering nicely from her surgery. The jury is still out on the condition of her sole caregiver. (LOL!) The main reason I haven’t blogged in 15 days is that my desktop computer went rogue on November 11. I did not have time to call for help for it until late yesterday. My new best friend/computer guy came today and I am now back in business as a blogger and a writer.
The timing couldn’t have been worse for computer problems with my new book, Traveling Through History: A Collection of Historical Short Stories, just being released. All the publicity memes and ads I created in advance on Bookbrush.com (I love Bookbrush!) could not be accessed and posted on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, or Bluesky. I can still use them, of course, but the dates I labeled many of them with have now passed. I’m living in a time warp of sorts.
Traveling Through History: A Collection of Historical Short Stories, by Janet Morrison
I have not been able to mail 85 book publicity postcards in the metro area because the local independent bookstore has not received her shipment from IngramSpark yet. Another case of hurry up and wait.
I’m not one to always look for the silver lining in a black cloud, but (1) my sister is improving each day and (2) I’ve gotten some much-needed exercise putting ice packs on her wound every 20 minutes all day every day. I’ve averaged walking more than three miles-a-day, which is probably 2.5 miles more than my usual.
All of this came at an inopportune time. Some of you have, no doubt, missed my daily political rants. Others of you have probably thanked God for the absence of them.
“Let them eat cake!”
During my absence from the blogosphere this month, President Marie Antoinette ordered the U.S. Border Patrol to leave Chicago and descend upon us here Charlotte. I watched local and national news programs as the masked and heavily armed Border Patrol Agents roamed Mecklenburg County and beyond (including very small mountain towns more than 100 miles to the west) and randomly round up anyone who looked or sounded Hispanic — regardless of their citizenship status.
They came without coordinating or communicating with the Sheriff of Mecklenburg County or the Charlotte Chief of Police. Standard protocol is that a federal law enforcement agency alerts local law enforcement of their operations so local police do not interfere with the operations. It just helps for local police to be aware of what the feds are doing, but that’s not how U.S. Border Patrol works.
They pointed high-powered weapons at unarmed men, women, and children, broke out car windows, and detained people for days without their families knowing where they had been taken. I understand some were taken hundreds of miles away to Georgia.
Skyline of Charlotte, North Carolina. Photo by Daniel Weiss on unsplash.com.
The general terrorism in sections of Charlotte with high Hispanic populations resulted in Hispanic- and Latino- owned businesses closing shop all week in an effort to keep their customers safe. Grocery stores and other businesses offered home deliveries to customers who were afraid to leave their homes.
Some 30,000 Charlotte-Mecklenburg school students stayed home from school out of fear of either being picked up in transit or out of fear that if they went to school their parents would be arrested and taken away before they got home from school that afternoon.
A teacher at East Mecklenburg High School was interviewed. She eloquently described what last week was like in the school system with 21 percent of the students being afraid to go to school. She did not use the word “terrorized” lightly. She spoke of teachers making home visits to their scared students to reassure them and to deliver food and toiletries to their homes.
What we have now in America is students not only having to worry that a shooter is going to come into their school and murder students and teachers, they also have to worry that the United States Government is going to send men in unmarked vehicles and wearing full military garb plus masks and sunglasses that completely hide their identities to harass them and possibly zip tie them and haul them away to parts unknown as they just attempt to attend school.
It did not help the situation for Assistant White House Chief-of-Staff Stephen Miller to announce that those 30,000 school students stayed home this week because they were all illegal aliens. Stop lying, Mr. Miller! Most of those students are American citizens. They just don’t have a white face like you have, Mr. Miller. That’s all they are guilty of. Since you don’t appear to be Native American of indigenous ancestry, Mr. Miller, I assume that you have immigrants in your family tree. Most Americans do.
When all was said and done in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, in less than a week, more than 370 individuals were arrested out of a population of 1.2 million. President Antoinette enjoyed his Great Gatsby-themed party in Florida as he sent Border Patrol Agents here under the guise of arresting “the worst of the worst.” The final report isn’t out yet, but the last I heard only two gang members were arrested. Of the first 170 people arrested, only 44 had police records (including such things are parking tickets and speeding tickets.)
At least one U.S. citizen’s truck window was broken out by Border Patrol. He was taken miles away. Border Patrol kept his truck keys. At least two women from Puerto Rico were accosted, questioned, zip-tied, and led away to an unmarked vehicle. The Trump Administration hasn’t learned yet that Puerto Rico is a U.S. Territory. Its residents are U.S. citizens. I can’t un-see the video of Trump throwing paper towels at Puerto Ricans after Hurricane Maria in October 2017. It was when Hurricane Maria hit that Trump told us that Puerto Rico is an island surrounded by water. Duh!
Before I close, I want to emphasize how the U.S. Border Patrol Agents are dressed. The word “mask” is woefully inadequate to describe what they are wearing. These so-called masks are heavy knit fabric. It reaches from their throats to their eyes and encircles their heads. Dark sunglasses cover their eyes. They wear hats. (I can’t help but compare them to the Ku Klux Klan… cowardly white people afraid to show their faces.)
They are dressed in fatigues with bullet-proof vests. Wads of zip ties hanging from their belts or one of their numerous pockets. They are heavily armed. They appear to be very short on patience and totally void of empathy for their fellow American citizens. They have been filmed stopping in the street in a residential neighborhood, jumping out and accosting two Hispanic-looking men who were hired to put lights on a resident’s outdoor Christmas tree.
It has come to this: random racial terrorism being practiced by the United States Government at the direction of the United States President.
They seem to have left Charlotte, although the website of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security indicated they would be here until December 4. Is that a trick?
New Orleans, apparently you are next on Trump’s hit list. Remain calm and vigilant. Remain calm and vigilant. Be on the lookout for unmarked SUVs bearing Illinois license plates.
Update from Chicago
Marimar Martinez, the teacher in Chicago who was shot five times by U.S. Border Patrol, is recovering from her injuries and is returning to the classroom. She had been called a “domestic terrorist” by Border Patrol after she blew her vehicle’s horn to warn residents that the agents were in the neighborhood, but all charges against her were suddenly dropped this week.
Border Patrol accused her of ramming their vehicle, but video of the incident proved it was their vehicle that sideswiped her care. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security continues to publish falsehoods about her though, even as the department has dropped all charges after their case fell apart in a hearing.
Trump calls for execution of lawmakers
In other news here in America, when six Democrat lawmakers dared to make a video to remind all U.S. citizens that members of the U.S. military are not required to obey an illegal order, Trump called for the six to be arrested and executed.
Republicans told us that Trump did not mean it, and that’s supposed to make it okay.
As a writer, I know that words are more powerful than the sword. It is frightening and embarrassing that we have a U.S. President who is reckless with his language. It is also frightening that no one in a position of authority is holding him accountable for anything he says or does.
Resignation of U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene
Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia surprised everyone last night when she announced her resignation from the U.S. Congress as of January 5, 2026. Trump calling her a “traitor” was a bridge too far for this staunch ex-supporter of him and his administration. Perhaps other politicians who have sold their souls to the devil should take note. When he turns on you, you are dead to him.
This gives me a glimmer of hope that there are cracks in Trump’s armor.
Mozambique
It is being reported that ISIS has quickly gone into Mozambique since USAID has halted. ISIS is not filling the gap in aid. They’re filling the gap of influence. They’re recruiting the young men. They are beheading people who don’t comply with their demands.
People with decades of experience in the U.S. State Department warned us that in addition to millions of people starving to death, the halting of USAID would result in radical terrorist groups rushing in to take our place. It appears those decades of government service meant they knew a lot more about international relations than Trump and his minions will ever know.
All Trump could see was we were spending money to help Third World countries and he detested that policy. He couldn’t be bothered to understand that much of that food aid was a product of American agriculture. Even in his second term in office, Trump doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.
All those people who thought it was not in our national interest to ship American grain and other agricultural products to other countries, how do you like the prospect of ISIS spreading its hate for America among “the least of these.”
Most Trump supporters pride themselves in being Christians. This continues to baffle me. What version of the Bible tells you to hate the foreigner? I’ve never read that version.
In closing
That’s my rant for today. Maybe it’s a good thing I haven’t been able to watch or listen to as much news this month as my usual! I hope to blog about my new book in a couple of days.
Thank you for taking the time to read my blog.
When you have a minute, please look for my books on Amazon.
Remember the brave people of Ukraine, as it appears Trump has been played like a fiddle by Putin.
I am fortunate that the U.S. Constitution protects my right to criticize the U.S. President.
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America
I may as well live in the 7th Congressional District of Arizona.
I’m not represented in the U.S. House of Representatives any more than the residents of the 7th District of Arizona. That’s the district in which Adelita Grijalva was elected on September 23, 2025, but Speaker of the House Mike Johnson refuses to install her because she is a Democrat and she will vote to have the Epstein files released.
Johnson might lose his position as Speaker of the House if he allows the truth to come out. At the very least Trump will have him “primaried” in 2026. But that’s enough about him.
Photo by Kyle Mills on Unsplash
My Representative in Congress
Three weeks ago, on October 10, I blogged about some of my frustration with my U. S. Representative: My Congressman sent a newsletter.
I’m still frustrated with him. I requested a response from him when I emailed him on October 10, but I haven’t received a reply yet. Of course, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson gave my Congressman a nice paid vacation the last week of September, all of October, and the foreseeable future.
My Congressman’s newsletters set my hair on fire. At least I know where he stands. He stands with Donald Trump. And he despises the likes of me because I don’t stand with Donald Trump. No doubt about it.
His newsletter on October 18 opened this way: “Dear Janet, Pro-crime Democrats continue to release dangerous criminals onto the streets to roam our neighborhoods.”
This guy represents me in no way, shape, or form.
Any U.S. Senator or U.S. Representative who spews hate against everyone in their opposition political party has no right to “serve.” Such people have lost sight of their job description and oath of office.
My Congressman went on in his October 18 newsletter to call on the City of Charlotte to ask for the National Guard to descend upon us.
The subject line of his October 25 newsletter was “The Democrats are Using the Troops as Leverage!” That pretty much set the tone for the entire newsletter.
In the meantime, I will not receive a response to my October early October letter to him. My Congressman will keep preaching. (Jesus must be so proud!) After all, that’s his “calling” and I guess he will represent the people of the 8th District of North Carolina in his spare time or whenever he decides to take that $174,000-a-year job which also gives him a $79-per-day food allowance and lifetime retirement and health insurance seriously.
I don’t think the mothers with young children or the elderly individuals who get the equivalent of $6.00-per-day in SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits are the problem – especially since SNAP benefits end at midnight tonight, thanks to President Trump refusing to turn loose the $6 billion “rainy day” fund Congress earmarked for SNAP in the event of a government shutdown.
I don’t think the members of Congress know how disgusted Americans are. This “Mexican Stand-off” between the Republicans and Democrats must stop! I think both parties are to blame for the shutdown.
Starting tomorrow, a lot of people aren’t going to have any money for food, here in the richest nation in the world. The “Pro-Life” Republican Party is obviously only interested in babies being born. They don’t care whether they have anything to eat once they exit the womb. We’ve always known that, but starting tomorrow it will be blaringly obvious for the whole world to see.
I wonder what my Congressman and President Trump are eating this weekend.
The Constitution of the United States of America is a living, breathing document. It is at the same time sacred yet amendable.
However, we ignore it at our own peril.
The 2028 Presidential Election
Donald Trump started handing out “Trump 2028” baseball caps a few months ago. His supporters think things like that are hilarious. On Tuesday, he said on Air Force One that he might run again. He claimed he hadn’t thought about it, so what are the “Trump 2028” baseball caps about?
Trump and his supporters have a strange sense of humor. It would be unconstitutional for Trump to be elected three times. Keep in mind, they already think he has been elected three times. He and they are in denial that he lost the 2020 election.
When he took the oath of office on January 20, 2025, he swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America, so running for a third term as President would break that oath.
The only ways Trump and his supporters knew to react to more than seven million Americans protesting in the streets on October 18 was the (1) call it “fake” news; (2) claim they were being paid to protest; (3) call them names like “left wing lunatics” and “ANTIFA”; and (4) support an AI-generated video put out by the White House in which a crown-wearing Donald Trump piloted a fighter jet that dumped feces on American protesters.
“No Kings” protest in Brooklyn, NY. Photo by Bradley Andrews on Unsplash
All that was easier than taking the protests seriously. All that was easier than giving just one day of respect for the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. You know the one. It’s the one that gives U.S. citizens the right to exercise free speech. That includes peacefully assembling and protesting. It also guarantees that we have a free press, even though we no longer have a free press at The Pentagon. It also guarantees that we are free to practice any religion or no religion at all and our government will make no laws regulating religion.
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America
Everything that’s being said and done is to distract us from the destruction of the East Wing of the White House and the fact that the Epstein files, which were on the desk of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi months ago, have not been released
Then comes Steve Bannon
Last Thursday, Steve Bannon, who likes to think he is responsible for getting Trump elected in 2016, said that Trump will be elected President again in 2028 and will serve a third term. In other words, — the United States Constitution be damned. He said, “We have a plan.”
I guess he had plenty of time to think and make plans while he was in prison for Trump.
You remember Steve Bannon — the Steve Bannon who went to prison for defying a subpoena in the Congressional investigation of the attempted coup on January 6, 2021, and the Steve Bannon who misled thousands of Trump campaign donors into thinking they were paying for the wall along our border with Mexico. That’s not where their contributions went. Bannon got caught and charged, but Trump pardoned him.
That’s what Trump does. We’ve lost count of how many criminals Trump has pardoned and put back on the streets all while accusing other countries of emptying their prisons and sending their criminals to America.
No, Mr. Trump. A lot of those criminals are your friends, and you are a felon.
So now, what better way to get in the good graces of Trump but to start in 2025 proclaiming that he will be re-elected U.S. President in 2028 even though that’s unlawful.
The law means nothing to these people and it, apparently, means nothing to their supporters. Otherwise, their supporters would be up in arms. Otherwise, their supporters would have been demonstrating in the streets. Otherwise, their supporters would be doing something beside happily going along with everything and anything Trump and the likes of Steve Bannon do or say.
Everything that’s being said is to distract us from the fact that the East Wing of the House was demolished last week and the Epstein files, which were on the desk of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi months ago, have not been released.
Then comes U.S. Representative Randy Fine of Florida
Congressman Randy Fine, who represents the 6th district of Florida is calling for the 22nd Amendment to be repealed for Donald Trump because he brokered a peace settlement in Gaza.
I guess any excuse will do.
Everything that’s being said and done is to distract us from the month-long federal government shutdown, the demolition of the East Wing of the White House, and fact that the Epstein files, which were on the desk of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi months ago, have not been released.
Wording of the 22nd Amendment
Section 1 of the Twenty-Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is easy to understand. It reads as follows:
“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.”
The Twenty-Second Amendment was ratified on February 27, 1951, so it has been the law of the land for nearly 75 years.
Where we are
So here we are. We have a sitting U.S. President talking about breaking the Constitution by running for a third term.
We have a sitting U.S. President who took a wrecking ball to the East Wing of the White House just because he wanted to destroy it.
Everything he destroys is a test. If he gets away with it, he destroys something bigger the next time.
Everything that’s being said and done is to distract us from the month-long federal government shutdown, the bombing of boats in international waters, the demolition of the East Wing of the White House, and fact that the Epstein files, which were on the desk of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi months ago, have not been released. In other words, the men and women in charge of our government couldn’t care less about the trafficking of girls and women by the rich and famous for the purpose of sex.
They are all counting on us not paying attention. They are throwing so much at us every single day that they think we will stop watching and listening. Well, they don’t know me!
Trump is calculating, but he is also a loose cannon. No one knows what he’ll do or say next. It is all a game to him. It is the way he has conducted business all his life. He just runs over people. He makes empty promises.
He says he cares about the poor and the middle class as he laughs all the way to the bank. He says he cares about the American farmer as he slaps tariffs on foreign governments and overnight cut off the farmers’ markets and laughs all the way to the bank.
He sees no difference between business and government – and that, my friends, is the root of the problem. Too many American voters in 2016 and 2024 did not grasp the difference between business and government. They said, “We need a businessman in the White House.” How’s that working for you?
Business is profit driven. Government is not.
Business is by the owner, for the owner, of the owner.
Our government in the United States of America is by the people, for the people, of the people.
Anyone who does not see the difference between business and government in America is woefully uneducated. (Trump famously said, “I love the uneducated!”)
Anyone who thinks the federal government can operate like a business is shortsighted. Show me where in the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution where it says the purpose of government is to make a profit.
Sadly, his followers also see it as a game. They have no respect for the 249 years it took our ancestors to build this nation. No respect.
They value nothing but the laughs Trump can supply them with today. They gleefully repost the ludicrous and disgusting AI-generated memes Trump and his minions post on social media, not caring for one minute the hurt and damage those memes are doing to their fellow Americans. They repeat his lies, never questioning the validity of anything he says.
Little-by-little, our rights are being eroded. Laws are ignored. We have a sitting U.S. President who believes and operates as if he is above the law, and his followers think that’s wonderful. No matter what he does or says, they stand by him.
How they have such little regard for their children and grandchildren is beyond my imagination but, since I have no children or grandchildren, I have been told more than once that I do not understand such things, I have no responsibilities, and I do not have a right to an opinion.
As a single woman with no children or grandchildren, I say the U.S. Constitution was nice while it lasted. I’m really going to miss the 22nd Amendment. I’m already missing the promise of The Preamble, most of the 1st Amendment, and many of the guarantees promised in the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments.
And in my heart, I miss the East Wing of the White House even though CNN Chairman and CEO Mark Thompson has been quoted as saying that CNN viewers like me are not interested in that story.
I have said it before and I will say it again: I used to wonder how Hitler brainwashed the people of Germany in the 1930s and accomplished what he did. I no longer wonder. I don’t say that lightly.
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