Why doesn’t the US Congress do something about Trump?

I rarely blog on Saturdays. Of my 755 blog posts, I doubt if more than two or three have been on a Saturday.

This week, I ran out of days. That has happened twice recently, so I’m afraid there is a trend developing.

I had originally planned today’s topic for Thursday, but it got pushed to Friday, and in the wee hours of Monday morning, it got moved to Saturday.

Today’s topic centers around a question I’ve seen a thousand times on social media and comments on my blog since January 20, 2025. I don’t begin to know the answer, but the other day I stumbled upon some information that shines a light on one of the ways the members of Congress who are trying to do something about the Trump Administration are being stopped in their tracks.

Photo Credit: Andra C. Taylor Jr on unsplash.com

Why doesn’t the US Congress do something about Trump?

Many of us are at our wit’s end wondering why the Democrats and Independents in the US Congress aren’t doing more to stop all the destruction being wrought by the Trump Administration.

Today’s blog post focuses on some efforts by Democrats in the US House of Representatives and how those efforts have been thwarted.

I would still like to know why neither the Republicans nor the Democrats in the US Senate have not been able to do anything to stop Trump. It seems to me that people in the US Senate should all have the welfare and preservation of our democracy as a priority, but it appears that few of them do.

The following information somehow got past me on April 29, 2025, but the new media can’t report everything. Or perhaps I was on politics overload that day and just missed it.

There are 435 seats in the US House of Representatives. On April 29, there were 220 Republicans, 213 Democrats, and two vacancies. That’s a slim majority for the Republicans, but it is a majority and means that the Republicans chair every House committee and sub-committee. The system virtually guarantees that the Speak of the House will be of the majority party, which Representative Mike Johnson, of course, is. The Speaker of the House controls what bills can be brought up for a vote, so he holds tremendous power.

A monkey wrench thrown in the system on April 29, 2025

This is complicated and, to my knowledge, was not reported at the time by mainline news organizations.

Under the rules of the US House of Representatives, any legislator may introduce a “resolution of inquiry” for consideration. That inquiry is then referred to a committee. Although the majority party can stall and essentially block a resolution of inquiry from going beyond committee referral, a resolution of inquiry has special dispensation: 

“If the committee to which such a resolution is referred has not reported the measure back to the House within 14 legislative days after its introduction, a privileged and non-debatable motion to discharge the committee of further consideration of the resolution becomes available on the chamber floor.”

In other words, if the committee to which an inquiry resolution has been referred does not report back to the full House within 14 legislative days after its introduction, it can then be introduced to the full House.

However, on April 29, 2025, an interesting and very pointed clause was included at the end of a House Resolution 354: “Each day during the period from April 29, 2025, through September 30, 2025, shall not constitute a legislative day for purposes of clause 7 of rule XIII.”

“What’s the big deal?” you may ask.

It means that none of the resolutions of inquiry put forth by Democrat members of the House will be considered until after September 30, 2025, if then… if ever. (For obvious reasons, no Republicans have put forth any resolutions of inquiry because they don’t want any Trump Administrations shortcomings to be investigated.)

Those resolutions of inquiry pertain to such concerns as the partial shutdown of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, Elon Musk’s possible conflicts of interest as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and the deportation of certain individuals to El Salvador.

Two specific House Resolutions that will now not be considered are H.R. 255 and H.R. 286.

House Resolution 255 calls for President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to turn over all communications regarding the Signal app interchange about US military strikes on the Houthis in Yemen that included the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg.

House Resolution 286 directs President Trump to share all communications and documents related to DOGE’s use of artificial intelligence to mine federal agency records of “sensitive, personally identifiable information of American citizens.”

So those investigations are dead in the water, thanks to the Republicans in the US House of Representatives. The Republicans in the House have no interest in finding out why the US Secretary of Defense thinks it is acceptable to relay military scheduled bombing details via a less-than-secure social media app.

The Republicans have no interest in delving into Elon Musk’s gathering of American’s personal information in the name of “Government Efficiency,” even though their own personal information has probably been compromised.

And the Republicans in the House have no interest in investigating the “administrative errors” being made in the deportation of people to El Salvador.

The only reason the Republicans don’t want any of these issues to be investigated is that the findings might reflect poorly on Donald Trump. Therein lies the fear those US Representatives live with 24/7. When they assumed office, each of them pledged to defend the US Constitution but when it comes down to it, all they want to defend are Donald Trump and their own reelection prospects.

Ever since the party-system evolved in the US, politicians have connived and created new rules to steer legislation in ways to benefit themselves or to protect the President if he is from their political party. That’s a practice as old as humanity; however, when a democracy is as divided as ours is now in the United States, it seems particularly reckless for the party that has such a slim 220 to 213 majority in the House. (There are currently two vacancies, in case you’re wondering why 220 plus 213 only adds up to 433.)

If there is nothing to hide…

If the Trump Administration has nothing to hide, it seems they would welcome the investigations the Democrats have called for, but that is not to be. Not until after September 30.

The incident in New Jersey on Friday, May 9, 2025

Three Democrat members of the US House of Representatives (Bonnie Watson Coleman, Rob Menendez, and LaMonica McIver, all of New Jersey) visited the Delaney Hall detention center in New Jersey on Friday, May 9. Members of Congress have the right to do that.

Also in the group was Ras Baraka, the mayor of the City of Newark, New Jersey.

The government’s side of the story is that Mr. Baraka was told he was trespassing and was asked to leave. He was there to protest the existence of the detention center which was constructed without the government obtaining a building permit.

Photographs show a heavy police response, with all officers wearing masks and sunglasses. Long story short, Mayor Baraka was arrested and held for a few hours.

The video shown on TV shows a lot of pushing and shoving by Homeland Security police officers. On Saturday, the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Laura McLaughlin, said the three members of Congress who were involved might be arrested. The investigation is ongoing.

Although this incident happened just a week ago, it seems like a month ago. It has disappeared from the headlines.

It’s as if Oprah is back, “Here’s a plane for you, and a plane for you…

I haven’t heard this mentioned by any of the main TV networks. It has been reported by the Associated Press and The Washington Post that the Department of Homeland Security wants to buy a new $50 million plane for Secretary Kristi Noem, other DHS officials, and top US Coast Guard officials to use.

$50 million here, $50 million there. Pretty soon they’re be talking about a lot of money. Isn’t it nice that the Trump Administration is getting rid of waste in government?

This just seems wrong to me on so many levels. First of all, what’s wrong with flying commercial or traveling by car? Government employees are not supposed to fly around in $50 million private jets. Period.

At least we now know what the Trump Administration meant when they said they were ushering in a “Golden Age.”

But what are the major TV networks reporting?

They are reporting on the Sean Diddy Combs trial, the Menendez brothers parole order, and the Kim Kardasian theft some years ago.

In this age of instant information, it is becoming more difficult for Americans to get any real, substantive, or important news.

I am becoming as worried about the press as I am about our government. When reporters are too distracted by bright shiny objects to inform us about the dismantling of our democracy, we have indeed lost perhaps the most important pillar of our society.

Until my next blog post

As I write this on Friday afternoon, President Trump is on his way home from the Middle East. I’d like to think he is returning to real life after his week of being wined and dined by the oil-rich countries in the Middle East. I fear this week of praise and opulence will only leave him on “a high” that will embolden him to even more frightening words and actions.

I hope you have a book that is so engrossing that you hated to put it down long enough to read my blog!

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet

National Cancer Institute Appears to be in Limbo

I wish I had included this in my “Some things we’ve lost, like …” blog post on May 6, 2025.

The National Cancer Institute is one of the 27 components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

A couple of weeks ago, the National Cancer Institute had 28 Scientific Advisors. Today it has none. I copied the following from the National Cancer Institute’s website (National Cancer Institute (NCI) | National Institutes of Health (NIH) on May 7, 2025, because it will probably disappear soon:

“The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is the federal government’s principal agency for cancer research and training. Established under the National Cancer Institute Act of 1937, NCI is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), one of 11 agencies that make up the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

NCI’s mission is to lead, conduct, and support cancer research across the nation to advance scientific knowledge and help all people live longer, healthier lives.

“As the leader of the cancer research enterprise, collectively known as the National Cancer Program, and the largest funder of cancer research in the world, NCI manages a broad range of research, training, and information dissemination activities that reach across the entire country, meeting the needs of all demographics—rich and poor, urban and rural, and all racial/ethnic populations. Specifically, NCI focuses on two broad roles:

“Cancer Research

  • Leads the nation’s research efforts to improve cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, and survivorship
  • Supports 72 NCI-Designated Cancer Centers and more than 5,000 grantees
  • Coordinates and supports all phases of clinical trials across 2,500 clinical trial sites nationwide, seeking the development of new and improved cancer treatments
  • Supports intramural research scientists in our own laboratories and clinics
  • Partners with industry, private philanthropic organizations, other federal agencies, and other national and foreign institutions to engage in cancer research and training opportunities that otherwise might not be possible because of their complexity and cost
  • Collaborates with private-sector life sciences companies to advance promising innovative technologies that fuel improvements in detection, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer
  • Supports the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, the only federally funded research and development center dedicated exclusively to biomedical research
  • Maintains long-term storage of publicly available cancer genomic and clinical data
  • Supports construction of laboratories, clinics, and related facilities for cancer research

“Training and Support for Cancer Researchers

  • Strives to attract, train, and retain the best minds to become the next generation of cancer researchers
  • Provides support to scientists and their institutions to create outstanding environments for researchers to train, conduct basic and clinical research, and care for cancer patients
  • Funds training and career development opportunities across a broad spectrum of cancer research disciplines through training grants, fellowships, research career development awards, and research education grants
  • Supports targeted cancer research training for individuals from backgrounds underrepresented in the biomedical and behavioral sciences to achieve and sustain a diverse workforce
  • Provides comprehensive training programs that support the needs of qualified individuals at all stages of their career development, ranging from middle-school students to independent researchers
  • Offers training opportunities centered in hospitals and research institutions across the nation, in addition to intramural training programs offered at NCI laboratories and offices in Maryland

“As a federal agency, NCI receives its funds from Congress. The bulk of our budget supports extramural grants and cooperative agreements to facilitate research conducted at universities, medical schools, hospitals, cancer centers, research laboratories, and private firms in the United States and abroad. These funds also support intramural research at NCI’s laboratories and offices in Bethesda, Rockville, and Frederick, MD.

“Our investments have led to declines in the rates of new cancer cases and cancer deaths overall in the last few decades in the United States. In line with this improvement, the number of cancer survivors in the United States has more than doubled from 7 million in 1992 to more than 15 million in 2016—and is expected to rise to more than 26 million by 2040. These trends reflect advances in cancer detection, diagnosis, and patient care that have resulted in people living longer, healthier lives than ever before.”

I copied the following paragraph from http://Grants & Funding | National Institutes of Health (NIH): “The National Institutes of Health is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world. The NIH invests most of its nearly $48 billion budget in medical research seeking to enhance life and to reduce illness and disability. NIH-funded research has led to breakthroughs and new treatments helping people live longer, healthier lives, and building the research foundation that drives discovery.”

So how does the National Cancer Institute continue that work without any scientific advisors?

After reading online that the National Cancer Institute was looking for candidates to apply for the position of Advisor in Bioinformatics in the Surveillance Research Program, Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, I copied the following from https://www.cancer.gov/about-nci/careers:

“The largest of the institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) is a premier research center that offers research, programmatic support, and training opportunities at its laboratories and offices in Maryland. 

“In accordance with the https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/hiring-freeze/ dated January 20, 2025, which is effective immediately, we have been informed that all recruitment activities must cease.”

If you voted for Trump and you did not want this to happen, it is time for you to let President Trump, your two US Senators, and your US Representative know you don’t like this. That power rests with you.

The Trump Administration should be afraid of YOU now. It should be afraid of the people who elected them. Please, please show them that they should be afraid of you!

When you write or call their offices, be sure to tell them you voted for them and you voted for Trump. They need to know that their base is not happy with this decision

If, like me, you didn’t vote for Trump, either of your US Senators, or your US Representative, you should contact them anyway and let them know your displeasure. Just don’t count on hearing back from any of them.

We need a businessman in the White House?

What really irritates me with my public administration background is that we keep being told the government needs to be run like a business. “We need a businessman in the White House.”

If this is the way business works, thank goodness businessmen (of course, they are all men!) weren’t in charge of our government for its first 248 years. If they had been, we wouldn’t have lasted into the 18th century, much less until 2025.

No wonder Trump has bankrupted so many companies. It must take a certain level of business acumen to bankrupt a casino.

Trump’s embarrassing remarks in Qatar

Speaking to US military personnel at the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar this week, President Trump mocked France for celebrating the Allied victory in World War II on May 8.

I watched the video. Trump said, “We love France, right. But I think we did a little more to win the war than France did, do we agree?”

How dare he!

He continued, “You know. I don’t want to be a wise guy. But when Hitler made his speech at the Eiffel Tower, I would say that wasn’t exactly ideal.”

Trump went on to repeat a supposed conversation he had with French President Emmanuel Macron, mimicking Macron’s voice.

Trump said, “Russia was celebrating, France was celebrating, everybody was celebrating but us. And we’re the ones that won the war. We won the war.”

Someone needs to remind Trump that it was European countries like France that were bombed and occupied by German troops.

Someone needs to remind Trump that it was a joint effort by Allied troops from many countries that won the war. The United States of America did not single-handedly win World War II!

This was a pathetic show of ignorance of history by President Trump in front of a captive audience of American troops.

Until my next blog post

I sincerely hope you have a good novel to read. I hope you are not in the doldrums like I’ve been in since Inauguration Day, unable to enjoy a novel.

But I do hope you are disgusted with how our country is being run.

Support small local businesses and restaurants. They need your business.

Support your local public library system! They are always operating under tight budget restraints. If you don’t darken the door or ever check out a book, music CD, or other resource, it makes it difficult for them to justify their very existence. It makes it difficult for them to justify their budget requests for the next fiscal year. Did you not know that?

In North Carolina, at least, local governments’ fiscal years begin on July 1. May and June are when county commissions are studying budget requests and deciding where to make cuts. Public libraries are often a target of those cuts. This is a critical time to let your local elected officials know that libraries are important. Sadly, many of them never use a public library and are ignorant of the resources they hold.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet

More Trump Administration Shenanigans

I originally had most of today’s post included in yesterday’s, but at 2,500 words I was afraid no one would read it. Meanwhile, today’s post grew to 2,000 words. The sad and frightening part is that I am only learning about the tip of the iceberg.

As I get ready to publish this, President Trump is touring the Middle East. It remains to be seen how many “deals” he makes and how many promises he makes. It remains to be seen if he has kept the best interest of the United States or his own business interests as a priority.

Here are the items I salvaged from my draft of yesterday’s post to share with you today. They are in no particular order and cover and wide range of topics. None of this is good news, in my opinion.

US Department of Justice Attorney Richard Lawson said when questioned by US District Court Judge Loren AilKhan in federal court last Thursday that he has not seen any written agreements between President Trump and the nine big law firms that Trump claimed on Truth Social to have made agreements in which those firms will represent Trump’s pet projects pro bono. Do those agreements only exist in Trump’s mind?

Trump has fired all three Democrat-appointed US Consumer Product Safety Commission commissioners. They maintain their firings are illegal since Congress established the agency and, therefore, it is not under the President’s control. The agency has always been bipartisan, but I cannot imagine Trump will appoint anyone who isn’t one of his MAGA supporters. Maybe there are still some employees left at Fox News that he can draw from.

Fifty-nine white Afrikaners from South Africa were given refugee status in the United States on Monday. It is reported that up to 1,000 Afrikaners will be admitted as refugees in the US this year. The Trump Administration has closed America’s doors to all other refugees. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said it is a textbook case of how the refugee program is supposed to work.

A process that normally takes years only took the Afrikaners several months.

Just go ahead and read between the lines. That’s what I’m doing. (Be sure to read “Another bit of encouragement” below.)

The New York Times reports that 44 US Government contracts amounting to $220 million that Elon Musk and DOGE cancelled… have been restored. Don’t be fooled by any official DOGE reports or its website, though, because Musk is still listing them as cancelled. No surprise there.

According to the Associated Press, on Monday, “a federal judge refused to block the Internal Revenue Service from sharing immigrants’ tax data with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement for the purpose of identifying and deporting people illegally in the U.S.” The irony is that they are paying federal income tax and now that fact is going to be used to track them down and make their deportation possible.

Mexico’s Secretariat of Foreign Relations has reported that 181 Mexican nationals have died between January and April 2025 while trying to illegally cross into the United States. That is twice as many as the 91 who died in the same period in 2024. The Trump Administration’s crackdown on illegal border crossings is blamed, as people are trying to cross in more dangerous areas than before. I’m not in favor of people coming into the United States illegally, but I think this drastic increase in deaths is worth noting. Of course, the United States is not reporting any of this.

In 2021, President Joe Biden signed into a law that had passed Congress with an overwhelming bipartisan vote. The Digital Equity Act was designed to make sure seniors and all parts of the United States would have access to the internet.

President Trump heard about it. Calling is “racist” and “unconstitutional,” he ordered an immediate end to the funding that was mandated by the Act.

The funding provided for states and localities, including indigenous tribal councils and school districts, to come up with plans to best serve their citizens and then be eligible for funds to implement the infrastructure aspect.

Trump has suddenly ended the funding! This is nothing more than a ruse for Trump to appear to be anti-racist, constitutional, and saving taxpayers “billions of dollars.” Like he proudly said during his campaign, “I love the uneducated!”

Trump’s blatant attacks on public education, private education, universities, libraries, museums, and now the internet should be a wake-up call to all Americans, but it won’t be.

I mentioned in at least one earlier blog post the Trump Administration’s termination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) which provided some funding for local libraries and museums. Congress had appropriated the funds for this fiscal year, but Trump suddenly pulled the plug. More than 100 libraries on federally-recognized tribal lands lost their funding. Many of them are in remote areas where internet service is sparse. Those libraries are a lifeline for the indigenous communities.

Meanwhile… it is reported by various sources that Trump is prepared to accept an extravagant Boeing 747-8 luxury aircraft from the royal family of Qatar. I heard on Tuesday that the plane is already in the United States. It is reported that this plane will be used as Air Force One until Trump leaves office, at which time it will go to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation.

The Foreign Emoluments Clause in Article 1, Section 9 of the US Constitution prohibits anyone holding federal office or employment from accepting gifts, emoluments, office, or titles from foreign governments unless that get congressional approval. The purpose of this is to prevent undue external influence from outside the United States by decision-makers.

So far, I have not found any mention of the US Congress approving the transfer of this airplane. The acceptance of such an aircraft for any purpose – but especially for use by the US President – is wrong on more levels than I can enumerate.

During his first administration, Trump entered an agreement with Boeing that the company would modernize two Boeing 747s that would become two new Air Force One airplanes. The price tag on that contract has already gone more than $2 billion over budget and the planes aren’t scheduled to be ready until 2027 or later. In 2019 (the most recent year a price was made public), the cost of a new Boeing 747-800 series was around $400 million.

All the legal and ethical and common sense concerns aside… this flying palace from Qatar would have to be stripped down to nothing and rebuilt just to remove all the hidden listening devices. That alone will take years! But what do I know? I’m just a citizen. Maybe Qatari spying devices are not a concern of the Trump Administration.

The Washington Post reports that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard fired two of the top officials on the National Intelligence Council. The council wrote a report that contradicted President Trump’s rationale for invoking the Alien Enemies Act and the deporting of alleged Venezuelan gang members without due process. Apparently, an honest assessment by intelligence agents is not allow if it does not repeat what Donald Trump says.

Michael Collins, the acting chair of the National Intelligence Council, and his deputy, Maria Langan-Riekhof, were fired.

The Washington Post reports states: “The actions are the latest purge by Gabbard, who has said she is fighting politicization of the intelligence community but has removed or sidelined officials perceived to not support Trump’s political agenda.

“The NIC is the top U.S. intelligence community body for analyzing classified intelligence and providing secret assessments to the president and other top policymakers. Its reports include spy agencies’ annual global threat assessment and studies of the possible causes of anomalous health incidents, also known as Havana syndrome and the origins of the coronavirus that led to the pandemic in 2020.”

It has been reported that in his first 100+ days in office, President Trump has only had 12 “daily” briefings. That’s an even worse record than the first time he was President. They are called “daily briefings” for a reason. I can’t imagine being President of the United States and having no interest in what’s going on in the world.

According to the ACLU, members of Congress doing Trump’s bidding have snicked a provision into the “big, beautiful tax bill” still under consideration that would give the executive branch the power to shut down any nonprofit organization. The Trump Administration has no appreciation or patience for anyone or any organization that is not turning a profit.

The Trump Administration has cancelled a $6.7 million grant that would allow Dr. James Antaki, a professor of biomedical engineering at Cornell University, to continue researching his PediaFlow device that could boost blood flow in infants with heart defects. He has been working on this device since 2003. It is designed to help infants survive until they can have a heart transplant.

His grant was withdrawn on April 8. It would have funded research over four years. His years of research are now in jeopardy, as well as the jobs of PhD students who were working with him.

The Trump Administration has shut down the office leading the Safe to Sleep campaign, which provided education on safe sleep practices for infants. Infant deaths decreased by 50 percent after the campaign launched in 1994. It is said that the campaign has saved thousands of infants’ lives.

This and the withdrawal of the PediaFlow device research both seem at odds with Trump’s plans to reward women who have more babies. It is sort of like the conservative’s “Pro-Life” motto. They are only interested in the baby being born. After it is born, they don’t want it to have adequate food or healthcare. They vote against all such support programs for children. They even threaten now to end the Head Start program which provides early childhood education and meals.

Go figure. I have no words for this level of evil in the richest country in the world.

Finally, the tiniest of tiny glimmers of hope from the US Senate

Finally! This has been a long time in coming, but on Tuesday the Republican US Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota sided with the Democrats in their fight to deny President Trump’s takeover of the Library of Congress!

As I reported in yesterday’s blog post, Trump fired Dr. Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress last week along with the head of the US Copyright Office, Shira Perlmutter. Trump named US Department of Justice people with no library or copyright experience to assume those and other positions.

The Library of Congress is not a library in the commonly accepted understanding of the word. The Library of Congress goes way beyond that! The US Copyright Office is part of the Library of Congress. Within three months of any copyrightable work being published in the United States, two copies must be submitted to the US Copyright Office for inclusion in the collection at the Library of Congress.

It is not a circulating library. People can obtain access to the collection for research purposes, but materials are not checked out. Members of the United States Congress have access to the materials held there. As the name indicates, it is the Library of Congress.

On Tuesday, May 13, 2025, Senator Thune reported that people from the Trump Administration met with the US Senate Rules Committee, and “we made it clear that there needs to be a consultation around this” and congressional “equities” must be respected and protected.

I would have liked to have seen much stronger language. In fact, there doesn’t need to be any “consultation” with the White House about the Library of Congress!

As the Democratic US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries stated, “It’s the Library of Congress, not the library of the executive branch.”

We’ll have to wait and see how this shakes out but, personally, I would not trust anyone in Donald Trump’s realm of influence or friends with one single book or sheet of music in the Library of Congress. This whole mess started because Elon Musk wanted Dr. Carla Hayden to turn over a trove of books to him to use for Artificial Intelligence training and she refused!

Another bit of encouragement

I’m pleased to report that the Episcopal denomination has ended its decades-long partnership with the US Government to resettle refugees, citing this week’s plane load of 59 white Afrikaners brought into the United States as refugees from South Africa. The organization cited its ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. Two weeks ago, the federal government informed the Episcopal Church that it was expected to resettle the white Afrikaners.

The request crossed a moral line for the Episcopal Church. The Most Reverend Sean W. Rowe, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church explained that the denomination is part of the global Anglican Communion that boasts among its leaders the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a celebrated opponent of apartheid in South Africa.

Hurrah for the Episcopalians! Seeing individuals and groups standing up for their principles is a wonderful thing to see in 2025!

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read.

Don’t forget the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina. Parts of the mountains in western North Carolina received more than five inches of rain in a couple of days earlier this week and experienced flooding and there was at least one mudslide on US-74 between Bat Cave and Gerton. These people can’t seem to get a break.

Janet

The New American Dream?

Donald Trump campaigned in 2024 on “Make America Wealthy Again.”

Republicans tell us to be patient. They say it’s coming. We must suffer through short-term pain while we focus on long-term gain.

The “American Dream” has always been that if you work hard enough, you can accomplish anything you want. Another part of the American Dream is that each generation will be better off than the previous one.

That’s not the new message now from the Trump Administration.

Trump said he isn’t worried about empty store shelves.

US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, who has a permanent smile on his face, has said that with all the manufacturing facilities supposedly returning to the US, multiple generations in a family can look forward to working in the same factory.

That’s definitely a new twist on the American Dream of each generation being better off than the one before.

The Huffington Post quoted Lutnick as saying, “This is the new model, where you work in these kinds of plants for the rest of your life, and your kids work here, and your grandkids work here.”

That sounds bleak to me. It sounds more like a nightmare than a dream.

Trump Administration considers suspending habeas corpus

According to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller on Friday, the Trump Administration is considering suspending habeas corpus.

Habeas corpus is a legal procedure by which a report can be made to a court alleging the unlawful detention or imprisonment of an individual, and requesting that the court order the individual’s custodian to bring the prisoner to court, to determine whether their detention is lawful.

We were a nation of laws until January 20, 2025. For any member of the Trump Administration to lecture us about the US Constitution is rich!

Mr. Miller, the United States of America has not been invaded. Illegal border crossings by people fleeing corrupt governments is not what the US Constitution means when it invokes the word “invasion,” and anyone with an ounce of common sense knows it.

Yes, we have a border problem, but we have not been “invaded” in the truest sense of the word.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been nabbing people and whisking them away in unmarked black vehicles for weeks now. The ICE officers are reportedly not usually in uniform. They present no identification. They rough up any bystanders who dare to ask them to show identification.

I have seen videos of some of the arrests. They look like the Gestapo, and they look a lot like the Proud Boys who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. We’ve never had law enforcement look like this in the United States, and it is unsettling to say the least. People, including young women as young as 16 are slammed face down on the ground or asphalt, handcuffed, and shoved into black military-style heavy vehicles.

People are being arrested and detained in undisclosed locations, usually hundreds of miles from home. The Trump Administration has ignored habeas corpus since he took office on January 20. The difference, if he decides to suspend it, will mean that his thugs can then legally arrest and detain people without a chance of a court hearing.

What has America become?

A Tufts University graduate student, Rumeysa Ozturk of Turkey, was ordered to be released by a Vermont judge on Friday. She had spent six weeks in a detention facility in Louisiana after being arrested on the street by ICE. It was all caught on video. ICE accused her of supporting Hamas. Judge William K. Sessions III ruled that the government did not have enough evidence to hold her. Their only “evidence” was that she co-wrote an op-ed in the Tufts Daily newspaper last year. The op-ed encouraged the university to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and “divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.”

Rumeysa Ozturk’s case is proof that the Trump Administration is ignoring habeas corpus. If it can be ignored in cases against international students, it can be ignored for anyone.

Miscellaneous news from the Trump Administration

Via email last Thursday night, President Trump fired Dr. Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress. The Library of Congress is our national library. It houses the world’s largest collection of books, films, photographs, and manuscripts. It is the home of the US Copyright Office.

Dr. Hayden is a professional librarian and had been the Librarian of Congress since 2016. I cringe to think who from Fox News Trump will replace her. Fox News is functioning as Trump’s human resources department.

Apparently, Trump got wind of the fact that Dr. Hayden had worked to add more works from minorities into the library’s collections. He’ll have none of that!

But on Monday, when Trump tried to put his former personal lawyer and current Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche, in as acting Librarian of Congress, the library staff would have nothing of it! Yea! Staff said Congress has a say in who holds that position, and they refused to let two top Department of Justice officials picked by Blanche to even enter the building! Way to go, librarians!

On Friday, US Copyright Register Shira Perlmutter had denied Elon Musk access to “troves” of copyrighted materials for the purpose of training Artificial Intelligence. It is no coincidence that she was fired by President Trump less than 24 hours later.

Perlmutter had been Register of Copyrights since October 2020. She had concerns about releasing copyright material for use by AI technology. As a holder of seven copyrights, I appreciate her efforts.

When I tried to look her up on the US Copyright Office website at 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, all her information was already gone.

Looking elsewhere online, I found that Ms. Perlmutter is no slouch. She hold a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania and has been a law professor. She has stated that copyright laws need to keep pace with technology. She was the chief policy officer and director for international affairs at the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

She has been executive vice president for global legal policy at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and vice president and general counsel for intellectual property policy at Time Warner.

No doubt, the guardrails protecting copyrighted material from AI will be off when Trump puts his choice in Perlmutter’s place. He is all in favor of AI. He has no concept of intellectual property and how copyrights work.

Seeing live video at 2:00 pm Eastern Time yesterday of the US President being whisked away at 9:00 at night in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in a souped-up shiny black golf cart driven by a Saudi with two perhaps US Secret Service agents anxiously hanging on in the back seat was more than a little unsettling. I guess the Qataris, the Saudis, and the Iranians are Trump’s new besties. I enjoy writing fiction, but I don’t have enough imagination to make this stuff up.

The day after stating in sworn testimony before a Congressional committee, Acting Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Cameron Hamilton, was fired by Trump. In the hearing, said, “I do not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency.” The Trump appointee and former US Navy SEAL was fired on Thursday.

The newest Trump hire from Fox News is Jeanine Ferris Pirro. Although she had a career in the court system in New York more than 20 years ago, her real claim to fame has been serving as a TV host on the Fox News network. On Thursday, May 8, Trump appointed her as interim United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.

It is beside the point that Jeanine Pirro was one of the defendants in Smartmatic’s February 2021 defamation lawsuit against For News (Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News Network) because she made false accusations on the air about the voting machines being rigged against Donald Trump in the 2020 election. Fox News paid Smartmatic $787.5 million to settle out of court and was required to acknowledge that the statements made on air were false.

It is also apparently beside the point that she was charged with driving 119 miles per hour in the 65 mile-per-hour zone.

Now the attorneys working under Ms. Pirro will be expected to respect and abide by her directions and leadership.

Part of Trump’s “big, beautiful budget” is slowly working its way through Congressional committees and small snippets of it are coming to light. I’m angered that the budget proposal calls for four oil and gas lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge over the next ten years.

This Administration’s wholesale disregard for wildlife and the beauty and global importance of pristine areas is stunning in its greed, ignorance, and short-sightedness.

The leasing of 6,250 square miles of public land is mandated in his budget proposal to apparently help the coal industry. The world adopts solar and wind power as the US reverts to the filthy air of the 1950s and 1960s.

Coincidentally, Trump has cut off federal funding to support coal miners who suffer from Black Lung even as he pushes for more coal mining jobs and a resurgence of coal-burning power plants.

Voice of America Update

On a brighter note, CNN reported on Saturday that the US is bringing back Voice of America. That’s good news. Too bad the Trump Administration shut it down completely on a whim just two or three weeks ago. They had no appreciation of its 83-year history. We were supposed to get “tired of winning,” but so far we’re just tired of “losing” and being jerked around.

Trump takes a sledgehammer to an agency one day and then tries to resurrect it later. That’s no way to run a country. It is no way to run a business either, but I wish he’d give up his day job and go back to his businesses.

Another glimmer of hope

On Monday some two dozen clergy linked arms and stood outside the gate of the Delaney Hall ICE Detention Center in New Jersey where the Mayor of Newark was arrested on Friday and there was a confrontation between three Congress members and ICE security officers. The clergy spoke against what is going on at the detention center. One of them was quoted as saying that “what’s going on inside the center violates the tenets that God has laid down on this Earth.”

Until my next blog post

With librarians, park rangers, and clergy standing up to Trump, I have some hope that our current nightmare might eventually be stopped.

I hope you have a good book to read.

Don’t forget the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina. Eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina were rattled by an unusually strong (4.1 magnitude) earthquake on Saturday morning. They must be wondering what’s next!

Janet

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

I’m embarrassed to be sharing old news today.

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

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

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

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

Let that sink in for a few minutes.

No, let that sink in for a few days.

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