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.

Photo by John Cardamone on Unsplash

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.

Photo by Chela B. on Unsplash

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 are you?

I have followed John Pavlovitz’s blog for years. He is a pastor whose church left him. Notice my phrasing. In these times of evangelicals blurring the lines between church and state and morphing into what resembles a political party, Mr. Pavlovitz found himself out of step with his congregation.

Mr. Pavlovitz now writes on Substack. Like me, he is worried about the state of things in America and is baffled over how people who profess to be Christians think all the chaos, name-calling, lying, and destruction of our democracy that have taken place since January 20 are just fine. They say they would vote for it again, if given the opportunity.

On April 25, Mr. Pavlovitz wrote an excellent piece on Substack titled, “Do You Miss Who You Were Before All This? I Do.” Reading that article prompted me to write today’s blog post.

I wanted to address this on April 26 or April 28, 29, or 30, or May 1, 2, or 6, but I had already started writing my posts for those days. I was just trying to keep up with all the craziness going on in the US Government, so I had to plug today’s topic into my first available day… Friday, May 9.

Mr. Pavlovitz wrote eloquently in his April 25 piece about how he misses his former self. He realizes he has been dealing with the growing intolerance for others in our society and in our world for a decade now.

He misses his former self who laughed more easily, who naively thought most people around him had the same worldview, who more easily gave people the benefit of the doubt than he does today.

I can identify with everything he said, and I miss my former self. In fact, I miss the person I was before November 5, 2024.

The me I was before the election was a hopeful me. That me thought that surely there were enough good people in America that Donald Trump would not be reelected.

As the election results came in on the night of November 5, I realized how I had misjudged my fellow Americans.

The night that Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in November 2016 was a huge disappointment.

The night Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris was a gut punch.

In the ensuing weeks, I tried to convince myself that even though the next four years would be bad, we would weather the storm. America was strong. Ultimately, good would prevail.

Then Inauguration Day came and whiplash set in. The Project 2025 playbook we had been warned about, was put into place at warp speed.

I have lost some things, like my sense of humor, joy to greet each new day, anticipating that day will be a good one.

But I have learned a lot about myself.

I have learned that I can speak up for democracy when it is no longer a safe thing to do.

I can speak out against injustice.

Photo of a woman speaking into a megaphone
Photo by Juliana Romão on Unsplash

I can put myself out there on the internet with my blog and say things that I know some people won’t like. Some of those people are my friends, relatives, and fellow church members.

I have found what I am willing to fight for. It was easy to be patriotic my first 72 years. It is not so easy now to be patriotic in America if you love democracy. The MAGA people have blurred the meaning of patriotism. In their eyes, if you don’t blindly and angrily support Trump, you are not patriotic. It is not so easy when you know that speaking up against the United States President can land you in harm’s way.

The MAGA people have blurred what it means to be a Christian. They seem to have a convoluted belief that God favors America and God wants America to be rich and turn its back on poor people here at home and around the world. They seem to believe that God wants America to wield such a fierce and powerful military that the rest of the world will cower in fear. The fact that they conflate that worldview with believing in Jesus Christ just doesn’t add up in my mind.

Coming to grips with this new Christian Nationalism movement is the most frightening part of our current situation in the United States. So many people who profess faith in Jesus Christ appear to have lost sight of his teachings. Instead of clinging to “Love thy neighbor,” they cling to “An eye for an eye.” Or, at best, they only consider people who are just like they are as their neighbors.

I am momentarily encouraged when I hear things like a US District Court for the District of Columbia granting a temporary restraining order to block Trump’s dismantling of the Institute of Museums and Library Services.

I am momentarily encouraged when I hear that the Voice of America shutdown is moving its way through the court system.

I am temporarily encouraged when I hear that there was enough public outcry and pressure put on by a journalist that the Guatemalan woman who was eight months pregnant and walked through an Arizona desert for two days with just one bottle of water is going to get a chance to tell a judge why she sought safety in the United States because she was scared to remain in Guatemala. If not for the press, though, she would have been deported as soon as her baby was born.

I cringe when Trump says the press is “the enemy of the people.”

It should not take a judge or a reporter to stop the injustices. The injustices should not be happening, but they are happening in such numbers and with such rapidity that there’s no way for the judiciary or the press to catch them all.

When I ask, “How are you?” please don’t say, “Fine.” If you are truly “Fine” right now in America, you’re obviously not paying attention.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a nice, relaxing weekend.

I hope you have a good book to read.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet

 

I took one for the team

Exercising my freedom of speech by leaving a comment on someone else’s post on Facebook several weeks ago brought down the wrath of the MAGA folks on my head.

The post I commented on stated that France and the UK were going to give more aid to Ukraine. I merely commented that I was glad they were and that’s what the United States ought to be doing. That’s all I said. I didn’t say anything about boots on the ground because that wasn’t what I had in mind.

Most of the 600+ people who reacted to my comment left a “Like” or a “Heart” emoji. A good many responded that they agreed with me; however, you have to be on the lookout for those MAGA trolls.

The MAGA responses to me ranged from, “That war is none of our business” to “That war is Europe’s problem,” to “Here’s a history lesson for you: The US didn’t jump into World War II until Pearl Harbor was bombed” to “You should send your children there to fight” to “You should send your grandchildren there to fight” to “You should buy a plane ticket and go there to fight” to “You’re ignorant. You need to shut your mouth!” One man was so angry, he responded twice. His second response was my history lesson about Pearl Harbor. I must have gotten on his last nerve.

Photo of a man's hands holding a cell phone
Photo Credit: Marten Bjork on unsplash

Just out of curiosity, I clicked on some of the choleric responders’ names. What I discovered was that not a single one of them has ever posted anything on Facebook. They just troll people like me and leave hateful comments. I decided to mention it today in my blog post because it serves as a reminder to all of us just how vicious and determined Trump’s cult members are.

I guess these MAGA macho men get their kicks by essentially anonymously (since all the information on their Facebook pages are a name (probably bogus) and “gender: male”) by making crude remarks to a 72-year-old woman they don’t know. They are pathetic.

If they were trying to frighten me or silence me… it obviously didn’t work.

Until my next blog post

Read for pleasure.

Do what you can to fight authoritarianism.

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

Janet

The Importance of Looking Good to Hide Ineptitude

Today I decided to take a somewhat light-hearted look at the Trump Administration after yesterday’s list of many things we’ve lost.

This is old news from a couple of weeks ago, but I think it is indicative of the priorities of the Trump Administration. Everything in the Trump world is about money and looks.

We know from the comb-over to try to hide his bald spot and the abundance of make-up President Trump wears that looking good (or thinking you look good?) is his top priority.

There are memes making the rounds on social media about all the blond women representing the administration and the cross necklaces they all wear.

I don’t know what is in those women’s hearts. It’s up to God to judge, but I don’t see any reflection of the teachings of Jesus Christ in their actions and their words ring hollow. It’s not part of their jobs to demonstrate the love of Christ, but if you’re going to wear a cross necklace I think you should try. When your words and actions don’t reflect the beliefs your jewelry advertise, it gives non-Christians a disingenuous idea of what Christ is all about.

Besides, we used to have separation of church and state in the US. It’s one of the reasons we fought a big war in the 1770s.

But it doesn’t stop with the blond women.

Make-up room at the Pentagon

Photo of a make-up mirror
Photo credit: Tile Merchant Ireland on unsplash.com. (Not a photo of the make-up mirror at the Pentagon.)

CBS reported on April 24 that the US Department of Defense has spent several thousand dollars to give a room next to the Pentagon press room a face lift. The old mirror on the back of the door has been replaced with a larger mirror with make-up lights. A table was removed from the room and a chair was replaced. The person on the inside talking to CBS will, no doubt, be fired by the time I report this.

It is speculated that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth learned while working at Fox News that one must always be camera ready.

Who knew that looking pretty was a priority for a US Secretary of Defense?

Now, if he would just keep his shirt on. I really don’t want to see his tattoos again.

Does the wife of the US Defense Secretary need a security clearance?

Speaking of the Hegseths, CNN reported on April 24 that Pete’s wife, Jennifer, had applied for a security clearance although she does not have a government job. I don’t know if she has been issued that clearance, but I would be surprised if she is denied.

She has been included in her husband’s phone calls and texts about bombing schedules in Yemen.

It makes me wonder if he has instructed all his relatives and friends to apply for security clearances so he won’t be criticized for including his wife, brother, and personal lawyer on his future phone calls and text messages.

Perhaps he has one of those “friends and family” service plans on his cell phone.

I’m making light of this, but it really is a serious breach of security and erosion of confidence for the troops as well as regular citizens.

Until my next blog post, unless I lose internet service again

I hope you have a good book to read.

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

Janet

Some things we’ve lost

President Trump held a National Prayer Day event in what is left of the rose garden at the White House on Thursday, May 1. It was a bizarre thing to watch on NPR on my tablet, since the man demonstrates no faith in God in his words and actions. That aside, it came just three days after North Carolina’s Rev. William Barber II (who has for years been an activist for the rights of poor people and teachers) and another pastor were arrested for praying aloud in the Rotunda of the US Capitol.

Photo credit: Andra C. Taylor, Jr. on unsplash

It turns out it is technically against the law to do that. Under a Washington, DC law, they were charged with “crowding, obstructing, or incommoding.”  It seems they were warned, about 20 law enforcement officers of several levels were summoned with zip ties (which seems excessive), then everyone else was cleared from the Rotunda (including reporters who could have recorded what was about to happen), the doors were locked, and the two pastors were arrested.

My confusion arises because it was apparently only weeks after Conservative activist Sean Feucht led a group singing while playing an electric guitar in the Capitol Rotunda with Republican US Representative and gun rights activist Lauren Boebert in attendance on her knees waving her arms to the music.

I wasn’t there for either incident, and I don’t have all the facts. On the face of it, there seems to be a double standard. Perhaps Mr. Feucht had permission to do what he did, and Rev. Barber apparently did not. Perhaps making prior arrangements or obtaining some type of permission is the difference in the two cases. But lesson learned: don’t pray out loud in the US Capitol Rotunda.

We’ve lost federal funding for mental health grants to public schools. When Trump and Elon Musk brag about the billions of dollars they have saved the American taxpayer, just remember that $1 billion was cut last week from the School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program, which was established in response to the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas in which 19 students and two teachers were murdered. These grants were used to pay for more mental health counselors and therapists in our schools. School systems were notified on April 29 that the grants they had been awarded to use over the next five years have been cancelled.

On May 1, 2025, the same day US President Donald Trump made a big show of having a National Prayer Day event at the White House in which he spoke for the better part of an hour about how miserable his life has been and how the 2020 election was rigged and how “they” tried to rig the 2024 election but “they” failed… he also signed an Executive Order titled, “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media” in which he unilaterally stopped all federal funding support for National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

Although most of programming on NPR and PBS are funded by corporate and individual contributions, they do receive some federal dollars through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). It is reported that NPR gets 10% of its funding from the federal government. Losing that could spell doom for the radio stations in small markets… where it is needed the most.

The Order stops all current and future federal funding to the CPB.

Here is a link to the full text of this the Order: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/ending-taxpayer-subsidization-of-biased-media/.

I watch PBS every day and listen to NPR all the time I’m in the car. There is programming on both that is not available anywhere else. Trump would know that if he had ever listened to NPR or watched the wealth of educational programs on PBS.

PBS offers theatrical and musical productions, documentaries, worldwide travel shows, and numerous educational programs for children and adults. This programming is just not available on commercial TV networks. And there is not comparable radio programming to what NPR offers.

You have to be pretty low to attack “NOVA,” “Nature,” Ken Burns’ highly-acclaimed documentaries, Big Bird, Kermit, Ernie, The Cookie Monster, and Miss Piggy. I don’t recall ever hearing that any of them told the audience for whom to vote.

Trump is already threatening to force the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to cancel the broadcast licenses of the TV networks he doesn’t like. That’s any network that has programming on which anyone criticizes Trump. He started threatening CBS weeks ago. He belittles ABC, NBC, and CNN to their reporters’ faces in interviews and press conferences. Fortunately, none of them are backing down. He tells them their questions are “stupid.” He tells them what they should be asking. Then he usually launches into whining about losing the 2020 election. People of a certain age will understand when I say he is a broken record.

Photo of a cell phone with CBS on the screen

We’ve lost college students believing that they have the right to protest. Since the Trump Administration has come down hard on protests on university campuses by deporting international students suspected of participating in an anti-Israel war in Gaza protest at Columbia University, students hesitate to use their First Amendment right to assembly and free speech. Since Trump is financially punishing universities that allow student protests, students are getting mixed messages about how their school administrators will react if they dare to protest. Dakota State University in South Dakota invited US Secretary of Homeland Security and former South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to give the commencement address on May 10. Students and faculty members there are hesitant to voice their displeasure with the decision and most refused to speak to the Associated Press reporter doing a story about the invitation. A university where students and professors are afraid to even verbally protest has lost the essence of what university is.

Two US Representatives plan to introduce articles of impeachment against Trump, so he is calling them childish names and calling for their expulsion from Congress. He says that have committed “real crimes,” I guess opposed to the 34 felonies he was convicted of before the last election.

We’ve lost Veterans Day. On May 1, Trump declared that May 8 will now be “Victory in World War II Day” because that’s the date in 1945 that Germany surrendered. That was a telling theory, since the war continued in the Pacific until Japan surrendered on August 6, 1945. But worse than that was his declaration that November 11 will now be “Victory in World War I Day” instead of Veterans Day. I just want to know how many more times he is going to insult veterans and still have their support.

Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash

Lee Zeldin, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on Friday that he is reorganizing the agency to save $300 million. He plans to accomplish that by creating a new unit within the agency “to align research and put science at the forefront of the agency’s rulemakings.” Time will tell what happens to the EPA in an Administration that is openly anti-environment.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi is cracking down on journalists who obtain “privileged and other sensitive information,” not just classified material, “that undermine President [Donald] Trump’s policies.” The editorial board at The Washington Post is concerned about the future of the Justice Department’s regulation that limited the government’s ability to see journalists’ phone and email records. If we lose our free press, we lose our democracy.

We’ve lost common sense. Attorney General Bondi announced in last Thursday’s Cabinet Meeting that the fentanyl seized by the Trump Administration since January 20 has saved 258 million lives. I’m not good at math, but that would be 79% of the 326 million people who live in the United States. In other words, 79% of Americans would have died from taking fentanyl since inauguration day if not for President Trump? This is the kind of information the Trump Administration is putting out as facts.

We’ve lost the 120 portraits of victims of gun violence in the atrium of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Washington, DC. Justice Department spokesperson Chad Gilmartin said the decision to remove “The Faces of Gun Violence” was not political. That’s good to know.

We thought we had lost the Alcatraz Federal Prison on Alcatraz Island off San Francisco when it was closed in 1963 due to staffing problems and physical deterioration. It wasn’t cost effective in 1963 to repair it. Fast forward 62 years: Trump to the rescue! He announced on social media on Sunday that he has ordered the dilapidated prison to be expanded and reopened for our worst criminals.

Photo credit: Matt Briney on unsplash

We no longer have a US President who respects other nations’ sovereignty, so we’ve lost that internationally held principle in our Executive Branch of the federal government. In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, he said he would not rule out using military force to take Greenland. WHAT?

We’ve lost our confidence that the person holding the office of President of the United States will uphold our Constitution. Donald J. Trump demonstrates through his Executive Orders that he has little regard for the US Constitution, but now we have his actual words. He has taken the oath of office twice, and yet in the “Meet the Press” interview on Sunday, he admitted that he doesn’t know if he has to uphold the Constitution. We don’t know if he has no recollection of that oath or if he is willfully choosing to question the validity of the oath. If he cannot remember the oath he took 15 weeks ago, perhaps Section 4 of the 25th Amendment needs to kick in. If he does not understand the words of the oath… perhaps Section 4 of the 25th Amendment needs to kick in. (Of course, the prospects of Vice President J.D. Vance assuming the office of President is also daunting!)

Trump said he will have to ask his lawyers if he has to uphold the Constitution. The oath is short and straightforward: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

We no longer have a US President who knows what the Declaration of Independence is. In a much-anticipated ABC News interview with the President on his 100th day in office, Trump made a point to show a copy of the Declaration of Independence on the wall in the Oval Office. ABC’s Terry Moran asked, “What does the Declaration of Independence mean to you?” Trump’s response was classic Trump: “Well, it means uhh exactly what it says. It’s a declaration of unity, love and respect.” That is the most bizarre description of the Declaration of Independence I’ve ever heard. He makes it sound like it was a love letter to King George. The look on Terry Moran’s face said it all.

Another thing we’ve lost is any sense of decorum or appropriateness. Trump posting an AI-generated image of him in full Pope attire over the weekend was in the very least in poor taste. I’m not Roman Catholic, but I found it repulsive.

That image of the Wizard near the end of the Wizard of Oz movie from 1939 comes to mind… the one when Toto pulls back the curtain and the Wizard of Oz is discovered to be just an ordinary man who is projecting a far different image of himself.

Is my country being run by a 12-year-old boy who has no knowledge of or interest in learning history and takes nothing seriously? That’s what is being projected for all the world to see.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet

Blowing up the King’s gunpowder in 1771

My blog today is about my favorite local history story. It was 254 years ago last Friday – May 2, 1771, that a group of teenage boys and young men from Rocky River Presbyterian Church in present-day Cabarrus County, North Carolina, decided to blow up a shipment of King George III’s gunpowder.

The Regulator Movement in Rowan and Alamance counties to our north was reaching a boiling point in April 1771. Word reached the settlement of Scottish immigrants at Rocky River that a shipment of gunpowder was coming from Charleston, South Carolina to Charlotte and on to Salisbury, North Carolina. That gunpowder was destined to be used to put down the Regulators.

The Regulator Movement never took hold in present-day Cabarrus County (which was part of Mecklenburg County), but there was a strong and growing anti-Royal government sentiment here. Destruction of that gunpowder shipment would be detrimental to the government.

Nine teenage boys and young men from Rocky River decided to take matters into their own hands. They found out the munitions wagon train of three wagons would camp for the night of May 2 at the muster grounds near or along the Great Wagon Road in what is now Concord, North Carolina.

They blackened their faces to disguise themselves and sworn an oath on a Bible that they would never tell what they were about to do and would never reveal the names of the participants. They set out for the militia muster grounds some nine miles away and surprised the teamsters and guards. They had no desire to harm those men, so they led them and their animals to a safe distance away.

The gunpowder and blankets were gathered into a pile, and a train of gunpowder was laid. James White, Jr., fired his pistol into the trail of gunpowder. The resulting explosion was heard some nine miles away in the vicinity of Rocky River Presbyterian Church. Some people thought it was thunder, while others thought it was an earthquake.

Photo by Vernon Raineil Cenzon on Unsplash

The nine perpetrators made their way home, cleaned themselves up, and said nothing about their overnight adventure.

The Battle of Alamance took place on May 6, 1771, and the Regulator Movement was effectively put down by the royal government. Governor William Tryon proclaimed on May 17, 1771, that he would pardon the rebels if they would turn themselves in by May 21.

That deadline was extended until May 30. Some of the perpetrators headed for Hillsborough to turn themselves in, but they were warned along the way that it was a trick. Governor Tryon planned to have them hanged. Some returned to the cane brakes of Reedy Creek, not far from the church, while others fled to Virginia and Georgia.

In a trail which began on May 30, 1771, twelve Regulators were found guilty of high treason. Six were hanged.

Perhaps news of that trial reached Rocky River or maybe half-brothers James Ashmore and Joshua Hadley simply feared that one of the other gunpowder perpetrators would disclose their identities. For whatever reason, Ashmore and Hadley went independently to tell Colonel Moses Alexander what they knew. Imagine their surprise when they ran into each other on Colonel Alexander’s front porch!

James Ashmore pushed his way into the Colonel’s house and told him he was ready to talk. He was taken to Charlotte on June 22, 1771, where he gave a sworn deposition before Thomas Polk, a Mecklenburg County Justice of the Peace.

Ashmore revealed the names of the other eight young men who had conspired and carried out the attack. The search for the men began in earnest. Several of them narrowly escaped capture, and their stories and more details of the progression of the case through the colony’s royal government at included in my book, Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1, which is available from Amazon in e-book and paperback and at Second Look Books in Harrisburg, NC.

William Tryon became Governor of New York and Josiah Martin was appointed Governor of North Carolina. Twenty-nine “inhabitants of Rocky River & Coddle Creek Settlement” (including my great-great-great-great-grandfather) signed a petition asking Governor Martin to pardon the perpetrators, but the request was denied.

Photo by Kate Remmer on Unsplash

For nearly a year, the women of Rocky River Presbyterian Church provided food and clothing for the perpetrators who hid in the cane brakes along Reedy Creek. Rev. Hezekiah James Balch prayed openly for the young men’s safety from the church’s pulpit. Their identities remained a well-kept secret.

The young men were fugitives until independence was declared. After the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence was issued on May 20, 1775, followed by the Mecklenburg Resolves eleven days later, all county citizens were considered to be in rebellion.

Back to the present

Yesterday was “May Meeting” at my home church, Rocky River Presbyterian in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. It wasn’t a “meeting.” It was more like an annual homecoming. It dates back to 1757. It is held on the first Sunday in May. The 11:00 a.m. worship service includes The Lord’s Supper/communion.

After the worship service, we all gather around a long wire “table” for Dinner in the Grove except on the occasional year now like yesterday when it rains or has poured rain all night and we have to eat inside the fellowship hall. Everyone brings their best and favorite homemade dishes and it is the biggest feast you can imagine.

Imaging May Meeting 1771

The more I study and contemplate the blowing up of the King’s munitions wagon train by members of Rocky River Presbyterian Church on May 2, 1771, the more I try to travel back in my mind’s eye to May Meeting 1771.

Everyone for miles around knew that the King’s gunpowder had been blown up on Thursday night. Everyone probably had a pretty good idea who among them had participated in the act of civil disobedience.

I imagine the hushed conversations under the large oak, scalybark hickory, red cedar, and poplar trees in the former church grove a couple of miles from our present sanctuary where the congregation met in a log church.

Local people were, no doubt, coming to grips with which side they were going to attach their allegiances in the inevitable coming war. Most, as it turned out, would choose to be patriots. After all, they had left Scotland and some had left Ireland in search of a better life, and they were pretty sure the King of England was not offering them a better life. He was placing more and more taxes and tariffs on them.

On Sunday, May 5, 1771, I imagine individual men carefully approached one or two men they knew they could trust and then they made quiet comments about the gunpowder explosion while they roughed the hair on the heads of their little boys who were too young to know the gravity of the situation.

I imagine many of the individual women did the same with their trusted friends while they small daughters clung to their long skirts.

And I’m sure the teenagers huddled in their usual groups and talked about what had happened on Thursday night. There was, no doubt, speculation about which of their friends had taken part in the attack.

I can imagine them quietly calling the roll, so to speak, and speculating about why Robert Davis was not at church that day. Or why were Ben Cochran and Bob Caruthers in serious conversation away from the crowd? Had they taken part? How much trouble were they really in? What was going to happen to the boys and young men who were guilty? How would they be punished?

Hurricane Helene Update

As of Friday, 56 roads in North Carolina were still closed due to Hurricane Helene. That count included four US highways, four state highways, and 48 state roads.

This from https://governor.nc.gov/news/press-releases/2025/05/01/governor-stein-announces-55-million-grants-have-been-distributed-nearly-3000-western-north-carolina: “Governor Josh Stein announced that the Dogwood Health Trust, the Duke Endowment, and the State of North Carolina have distributed $55 million to 2,812 small businesses through the Western North Carolina Small Business Initiative. These grants are supporting western North Carolina businesses impacted by Hurricane Helene and bolstering regional economic recovery. More than 7,300 businesses applied.

“’These grants will go a long way in helping western North Carolina’s beloved small business owners keep their doors open after Helene,’” said Governor Josh Stein. “’But the volume of unfunded applications makes it crystal clear – more help is desperately needed. I’m ready to work with the legislature to deliver support for small businesses that power our mountain economy.’”

After being closed for seven months, Morse Park at Lake Lure, NC partially reopened last weekend. The 720-acre lake itself remains drained as storm debris, silt and sediment are still being removed.

The village of Chimney Rock, NC was nearly wiped off the face of the earth by Hurricane Helene. It had been hoped that the town and Chimney Rock State Park would open by Memorial Day, but that’s not going to be possible. The security checkpoint will continue until further notice. You must have a pass to enter and travel through the village on the temporary road. NCDOT is working on a temporary bridge in the village to help restore access to the state park. The park has not announced a reopening date. The notice I read last Wednesday night from the Village indicated that construction of a new US-64/US-74A/NC-9 has begun.

Until my next blog post

Get a good book to read.

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

Janet

Do you enjoy National Parks? Plus 8 other good things being targeted by the Trump Administration

Just as I attempted yesterday afternoon to schedule this blog post to be published at 5:00 a.m. today, my internet and phone service were severed in a farming accident just up the road. With partial service restored and technicians coming back tomorrow to try to finish repairing the problem, I’m attempting to post this now at 7:40 p.m. on April 30.

I might not be able to post tomorrow. I’ll try in a few minutes to schedule it for 5:00 a.m. May 1 and hope for the best.

Today’s blog is a continuation of yesterday’s post. There is a limitless supply of things being done by the Trump Administration that cause me great concern. Here are a few.

  • I have been reading numerous sources that are reporting that US Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has handed the operation of the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs  over to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)… a “department” by the way that was not created or approved by the US Congress. For example, DOGE has targeted the US Park Service’s Southeast Utah Group’s office. It oversees Arches and Canyonlands national parks and Hovenweep and Natural Bridges national monuments. DOGE says by cancelling the lease of that office will save $805,408 over a ten-year period. That is an annual savings of a whopping $80,548 per year and it is a loss of oversight over two of the most iconic national parks in the United States. For $80,548 a year…. Will the people who work in that 35,358-square-foot building be relocated? If so, how much will it cost to secure and pay for that space? Or perhaps they will all just be fired because the Trump Administration obviously have a vendetta against national parks and the people who love them. DOGE is nickel and diming the most beloved parts of our country to death in the name of “Efficiency.” That’s just one example. This puts the wrecking ball called DOGE in charge of more than 400 national parks and more than 500 million acres of federal land, wildfire preparation, financial management, and training. What makes all these even scarier is that the guy in charge of our National Parks, Bureau of Land Management, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs background is in the oil industry. Anyone else think this one is cringe worthy? It’s been done very quietly because someone somewhere in the White House must know that we Americans love our national parks. They don’t, but we do. Repeated statements proving that the national parks generate much more money for the US economy than they cost continues to fall on deaf ears at the White House.
Photo of an arch in Arches National Park
Arches National Park.
Photo by Ben Stiefel on Unsplash
  • Pay to Play. Is a $239 million Presidential Inauguration what Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, James Monroe, and George Washington had in mind? That’s how much Trump raised for his 2025 inauguration. Due to bad weather, it wasn’t all spent. The leftovers can be spent for things like Trump’s presidential library, which is the grandest oxymoron ever. In all fairness, more than a dozen of Trump’s $1 million donors also donated to Biden’s inauguration. Back to the $239 million for the inauguration… Brazilian meat company JBS, which owns Pilgrim’s Pride brand, donated $5 million. JBS stands to benefit from Trump’s recent efforts to lessen restrictions on the poultry industry. Investment banker Warren Stephens donated $4 million and has been nominated to be US ambassador to the UK. Real estate investor Melissa Argyros has been nominated to be ambassador to Lativa for her $2 million donation. Jared Isaacman’s $2 million donation bought him a nomination to be the next NASA administrator. Florida attorney Dan Newlin’s $1 million bought his nomination to be US ambassador to Colombia. Former Cantor Fitzgerald chairman and CEO Howard Lutnick donated $1 million and became US Secretary of Commerce. He literally can’t stop smiling. Just watch his next TV interview, if you doubt me. Linda McMahon donated $1 million and became US Secretary of Education, although her background is in the notoriously crooked wrestling industry. Tilman Fertitta donated $1 million and became Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Italy. Ken Howery donated $1 million and will likely be our next ambassador to Denmark. (Our apologies to Denmark for… everything.) Scott Bessent got off easy. His $250,000 donation resulted in his new job as US Treasury Secretary. Edward Walsh and his wife, Lynn Walsh, each donated $25,000 and got Edward his nomination to be US ambassador to Ireland. Ripple Labs, a cryptocurrency firm, donated $4.9 million and in March the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) dropped litigation regarding a question over whether Ripple Labs’ cryptocurrency meet the legal definition of a security. Robinhood Markets, a financial technology company donated $2 million and in February the SEC closed its investigation into that business. I’m not saying “Pay to Play” has not happened in any previous presidential administrations. There have been rotten players in politics since the beginning of time. My point is, looking at it from the outside, it looks as if things have gotten out of control. A president who wants states to hire their Department of Transportation employees based on merit isn’t bothered with considering merit when it comes to Cabinet positions or ambassadorships.

  • The Museum of the Aleutians was notified that its three-year National Endowment for the Humanities grant for its Sharing Voices Project had suddenly been cancelled only partially through its first year. The project’s goal was to expand public access to more than 150,000 artifacts and other compiled histories of the Unangam village of Tachiqalax on Unalaska Island. “We had just finished our first podcast and hired staff to start in June,” says Dr. Virginia Hatfield, executive director of the museum since 2017. This was reported on the Alaska Humanties Forum Facebook page on April 25.
Photo of children at the museum
Photo of a children’s program. Copied from the Museum of the Aleutians.

  • Trump has pardoned former Las Vegas City Councilwoman Michele Fiore for her conviction on multiple counts related to fraud just weeks before her scheduled sentencing. Fiore raised money for statues of two Las Vegas police officers who were killed in the line of duty but then spent tens of thousands of the dollars for plastic surgery, rent, and her daughter’s wedding, according to prosecutors.
  • I read that some owners of artifacts and exhibits in the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC have received emails telling them that their materials are being returned to them. Sadly, the surprising part of this is that those artifacts aren’t just being thrown away. Funny how politicians convicted of fraud are valued and rewarded by the Trump Administration while artifacts in the National Museum of African American History and Culture hold no value at all.
Photo of the National African American Museum in Washington, DC
Photo of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC.
Photo by Tomasz Zielonka on Unsplash
  • Although many educators caution against the use of AI in schools, the Trump Administration has a different theory. By Executive Order, Trump wants to bring more artificial intelligence into K-12 schools. We were all led to believe that Trump wanted to remove the federal government from public education, but here he goes signing more education Executive Orders.
  • The Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice has long been considered the department’s crown jewel, but Reuters is reporting that about a dozen of the division’s attorneys have been reassigned. Former prosecutor Joyce Vance wrote that the new mission statement for the voting section of the Department of Justice “barely mentions the Voting Rights Act.” She said the losing the Civil Rights Division would be “unthinkable.” The article I read said, “Some of the work Vance’s office did with the Civil Rights Division included ‘protecting the rights of diabetic school children, making sure voters in wheelchairs could access their polling places, and prosecuting police use of excessive force that left people badly injured.’”
  • Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent with The New York Times has described the current White House Press Room as a place “of open hostility, and mockery and disparagement in a way that’s meant for he larger audience, not for the people in the room.” Mr. Baker has been a White House reporter through 17 different press secretaries over his career. He says the current atmosphere under Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt goes beyond anything he has seen before. He is quoted as saying the Trump Administration doesn’t “view the briefing room as a way to impart information. They don’t even view the briefing room as a way to shape reporters’ stories. They view the briefing room as a theater for the MAGA audience.” When journalists cannot get straight answers to their legitimate questions from the press secretary of the President of the United States without being scorned, mocked, or ignored, there is no point for holding the press briefings. Just like all of Trump’s press conferences, there are “planted” so-called reporters in the room to ask him planned softball questions that are often introduced with a few words of praise. That is not journalism.
  • Continuing in his predictable anti-environment vein, on April 24, Trump signed an Executive Order instructing US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to “expedite the process for reviewing and issuing seabed mineral exploration licenses and commercial recovery permits in areas beyond national jurisdiction under the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act.” It was no accident that this was ordered on the day that Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store was in Washington to meet with Trump. The Norwegian Prime Minister tried something similar last year when he tried to open up areas in Norway’s territorial waters for exploration by mining companies. He was stopped by an outcry from environmentalists. It remains to be seen if Trump will be successful. Katie Matthews, chief scientist and senior vice-president of global campaign group Oceana, said, “This is a clear case of putting mining companies’ greed over common sense. Any attempt to accelerate deep-sea mining without proper safeguards will only speed up the destruction of our oceans.”  My take: Look up “greed” in the dictionary and there should be a picture of Donald Trump.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read.

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

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
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  • 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.
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  • 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
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  • 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.
Photo of a pile of brown 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
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  • 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
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  • 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
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  • 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
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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