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?
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
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 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 25th 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
Janet's Writing Blog 