They’ve gone too far, Harriet Tubman!

NOTE: At 2 a.m., just three hours before this blog post was scheduled to be published, I learned that the Harriet Tubman/Underground Railroad webpage on the National Park Service website had been restored! Rather than cancel today’s blog post, I will go forward with it because the only thing that has changed is that for whatever reason that one webpage has been restored.

Nothing else has changed, though. The Trump Administration continues to recklessly… and intentionally… try to erase and destroy American history and democracy. Whether they justify it under the guise of getting rid of “waste and fraud” or eliminating “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” it is all part of this sham racist and misogynist Administration.

What has taken place regarding Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad since January 20, 2025, is a prime example of the incompetence and insidious hate held by members of the Trump Administration.

It offends me when I hear people say that all government employees are corrupt and incompetent. That is the mantra of the Trump Administration. Trump and the people in his inner circle despise federal employees. They are perfectly happy to collect government paychecks and benefits, but no one else working in the government deserves anything but ridicule. Think about that for a minute.

If you want to see corruption and incompetence, you need look no further than the Trump Administration. It is made up entirely of businessmen. Businessmen are never corrupt or incompetent, are they? But evidence to the contrary lies in the fact that almost on a daily basis since January 20 this Administration has made an announcement then had to retract it, has fired federal employees and then had to try to re-hire them, has erased information from a website and then had to restore it. Not to mention high level national security people conducting business on a less-than-secure app, first denying it, then halfway owning up to it, then proclaiming it was no big thing.

The Administration’s total disregard for truth, transparency, and the rule of law and never taking responsibility for mistakes is on display daily for all to see.

It astounds me how the businessmen who are running the federal government have a total lack of knowledge of what government’s purpose is. They only think in terms of profit and loss, but that’s not what government is about. Government is about serving the people, and that’s why Trump and the people in his Administration have it all wrong. Serving the people is a foreign term for them. They only think in terms of making money from the people, and running over anyone who gets in their way. What a pathetic way to see the world!

They delight in firing employees willy-nilly. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. They don’t consider what anyone’s job is. They don’t consider anyone’s expertise. They just conduct wholesale firings.

Hours or days later, when someone has the courage to point out to them that some of those employees helped planes land safely, or some of them were conducting research into cancer treatments or possible cures, or some of them risk their lives to fight wildfires… then a handful of them might be re-hired. That is, if they can locate them, because in the name of anti-waste, anti-fraud, anti-diversity, anti-equity, and anti-inclusion, they erased all the fired employees’ contact information.

I guess that’s the business mentality. After all, more than one person said to me before Trump ran for office the first time, “We need a businessman in the White House.” And that’s supposedly what we got.

What follows is my original blog post scheduled for April 8, 2025:

Until around 9:30 Sunday night, I planned not to blog again about politics until Thursday. That’s when I learned that sometime between January 21 and March 19, 2025, the National Park Service removed all references to Harriett Tubman from its “Underground Railroad” webpage.

Yes, THAT Harriet Tubman! The Harriet Tubman who was the most famous “conductor” on the Underground Railroad.

That’s the Harriet Tubman whose image appeared on a 13-cent first-class postage stamp in the United States in 1978. If you weren’t born until the 1990s, you probably can’t truly appreciate how difficult it was to get the United States to honor a non-white person on a postage stamp. She was the first woman of color (almost any color!) whose image was chosen for a US postage stamp. (Here’s a list of them, if you are interested in digging deeper into that aspect of American history: https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/african-american-stamp-subjects.htm.)

If you don’t know what the Underground Railroad was, please look it up somewhere while you still can. It was not an actual railroad, but it operated like one in many ways except in secret.

Apparently, the “Underground Railroad” webpage’s lead story until the Trump Administration decided to erase all history except that of white men!

Not only did they remove Harriet Tubman and her photograph, they removed references to “enslaved” people and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

Harriet Tubman, enslaved people, and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 have been replaced on the webpage with… and you aren’t going to believe this… or I guess you will if you are a person of color or a female… “Black/White Cooperation.”

The webpage used to (until a matter of weeks ago) open with FACTS about slavery, how slaves struggled to gain their freedom, how the Underground Railroad came about after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

Now, the page’s first two paragraphs emphasize “American ideals of liberty and freedom” and slavery isn’t mentioned.

There is a separate National Park Service webpage dedicated to Harriet Tubman. It has not been removed… yet.

The name “Harriet Tubman” is was synonymous with “Underground Railroad.” Her name will continue to be synonymous with the Underground Railroad until her name is wiped from the entire internet and all books about her or the Underground Railroad are destroyed… and after that, her name will still be whispered and kept alive through oral history.

The Trump Administration has also targeted the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Smithsonian American Art Museum for having exhibits and using language he doesn’t like… or someone has told him he shouldn’t like. After all, we all know what a limited vocabulary he has.

The Administration continues to threaten universities, libraries, museums under the guise of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), but if Trump and his minions were truthful they would just admit that they are racists, bigots, and mysogenists. We all know, though, the truth is not in them. They are small, fearful, hateful bullies.

I believe God is weeping. He gave us freewill, but it must grieve him to see what so many Americans have done with that freedom and responsibility.

In case you can’t see the forest for the trees…

Before you jump on me for making a mountain out of mole hill… for getting all bent out of shape over “just” the removal of Harriet Tubman, the Underground Railroad, and slavery from a US Government webpage, I’m worried about the big picture. Yes, I’m upset over those specific things being scrubbed from a government webpage, but I’m more concerned over what this portends.

I’m 72 years old and I NEVER thought the United States Government would erase our history. It has taken hundreds of years for indigenous peoples and Americans of African descent to get their stories – their history – in the history books. All that progress is under siege and threatened today.

Where do we go from here?

It falls on each of us to learn as much history as we can… while we still can… and commit it to memory so we can tell future generations the truth.

It falls on us to protest any way we can. It you are fortunate enough to be represented on any level of government by someone not affiliated with the Republican Party, call them, write them, encourage them, support them in their efforts to stop this madness.

If you are represented by Republican politicians, your have your work cut out for you. They have been advised not to hold town hall meetings. I know from experience that when you write them (letters or email) if you get a response it might not be on the topic you wrote them about.

The response you receive will quickly descend into a regurgitation of the usual Republican talking points singing the praises of Trump and how we all need to just be patient because great wealth is going to come to each of us and it is coming quickly.

On the other hand, we’re told it might take years for us to realize that prosperity because it took decades of our allies taking advantage of us to get us in the dire economic situation we were put in by the Democrats.

In other words, if we live long enough, this great American nightmare might end.

Make a sign and join a non-violent protest. Respond to hecklers with “Bless your heart!”

We must follow the example set by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and protest peacefully. Only the other side storms Capitol buildings and attacks police officers.

If need be, we can protest and wait patiently to vote in the mid-term election on November 3, 2026, when every one of the 435 seats in the US House of Representatives will be up for election and 33 US Senate seats will be up for election.

One thing I hope to live to hear

I hope to live long enough to hear a sane future US President speak the words that President Gerald Ford uttered to the nation after President Nixon was forced to leave the White House in shame: 

“My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. But there is a higher Power, by whatever name we honor Him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy. As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate, more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars, let us restore the golden rule to our political process, and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate.” ~ newly-sworn in US President Gerald R. Ford, nationally televised from the East Room of the White House on August 9, 1974.

I heard President Ford say those words, and I desperately want to hear a future US President say them, substituting “the Trump Administration” for “Watergate.”

Until my next blog post, probably tomorrow

I hope you have a book or something to give you a few minutes respite from what’s happening.

Janet

Books I Read in March 2025, & Hurricane Helene Update

Several of my recent blog posts have been 2,000 words or more, which is way beyond where I like them to be. These are uncertain and stressful times, and some topics I have been led to blog about could not be covered in a few words.

Alas, today will be a somewhat shorter post because I did not get many books read in February; however, I have a couple of special items to share about Hurricane Helene recovery in western North Carolina, so this post isn’t as short as I thought when I started writing it.

There were several books I attempted to read or listen to, but a lack of interest or inability to concentrate meant that those books were not finished.

I only completely read two books last month, so this section of today’s post will be short.

Words to Remember: So that you don’t forget yourself, by Becky Hemsley

Words to Remember : So you don’t forget yourself, by Becky Hemsley

I discovered poet Becky Hemsley on Instagram a few months ago. Many of her postings struck a chord with me, so I purchased one of her books of poetry, Words to Remember: So that you don’t forget yourself.

This book is jam-packed with poems that inspire. I repeatedly thought about my four great-nieces (ages 20 to 27) as I read the 74 poems in this book.

If you need encouragement or you know someone – especially a young woman – who needs to be reminded that they are good enough, give them a copy of this book.

One Big Happy Family: Heartwarming Stories of Animals Caring for One Another, by Lisa Rogak

One Big Happy Family, by Lisa Rogak

My sister happened upon this book and let me borrow it before she had to return it to the public library. What a jewel! (My sister and the book!)

This book contains 50 stories, one- to three-pages in length (including wonderful photographs) about unlikely animals who have bonded, become best friends, adopted orphans of other species, and shown a deeper understanding of empathy than a lot of human beings are capable of.

A few examples of these unlikely friends: a cat and a squirrel, a Springer Spaniel and lambs, a Border Collie and her Vietnamese pot-bellied piglets, a goat and a wolf, a cat and her chicks, a chicken and her Rottweiler puppies, a rabbit and her kittens, a bulldog and her baby squirrels, an orangutan and his lion cubs, a dog and his baby monkey.

Each story includes a “Family Fact” sidebar with an educational sentence or two about one of the species featured in that story. For instance, I learned that pigs like to roll around in the mud because they lack the ability to sweat to cool off. And I learned why Dalmatians are associated with fire trucks.

This would make a great gift for any animal lover and for a child. These delightful stories from around the world will make you laugh and smile. Just what the doctor ordered for your mental health in 2025!

This next is in the “I didn’t see that coming!” category…

Beowulf: A New Translation (translated by Irish poet Seamus Heaney)  

Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney

Don’t laugh! Ann Patchett highly recommended this translation of Beowulf on Instagram on February 21, 2025. The said it was good to read when you can’t sleep because your mind is racing and worried about what’s going on. (I’m not sure now if that was a direct quote, but it is the jest of what she said.) I was pretty keyed up about what’s going on, so I decided to check it out of the public library.

Patchett seemed to be saying that reading this wonderful translation of this ancient work that I had to read in Old English as a high school student would renew my confidence that the monster will not eat me. In Beowulf, the monster (Grendel) is killed by Beowulf.

I was glad to learn that because after reading it in Old English in high school I had no idea what it was about. I didn’t even remember that it was a poem.

After bringing Seamus Heaney’s modern English translation of Beowulf home from the library, I struggled through around half of the 22-page Introduction. I eventually jumped ahead to the actual poem. If I could have read this translation as a teenager, I might have at least understood what the poem was about.

I did not read the entire translated version. Life is short. I needed something to take my mind off politics, but Beowulf wasn’t it.

In case you have a hankering to read Beowulf, this appears to be an excellent translation. The edition my county’s library system has is bilingual, with the Old English version on the left page and the translation on the facing page. It was published in the year 2000.

I gather from Patchett’s comments that the moral of this legend is that good wins over evil. I’ll try to keep that in mind as I navigate the minefield laid out by the Executive Branch of the US Government in 2025.

There are a couple of other books I started reading in March. I’ll finish them in April and tell you all about them in May.

Hurricane Helene Update

As I write this post late on Saturday night, areas from Texas to Missouri and Kentucky are experiencing major flooding. I would be remiss not to mention that flooding and the suffering of the people affected; however, as I have maintained since last September, I live in North Carolina and I will continue to blog about the Hurricane Helene recovery efforts in my state.

As of Friday, 139 roads in North Carolina were still closed due to Hurricane Helene. That count included nine US highways, 13 state highways, and 117 state roads. That’s an overall decrease of seven road since March 21.

Although the region received some rain last week, the weather turned unseasonably warm on Friday. Wildfires continued to be a problem.

I realized that I have failed to mention one 501(c)3 foundation that was born out of the devastation Hurricane Helene left in Mitchell and Yancey counties in North Carolina, so I’ll remedy that oversight today. First, I need to explain a word in the name of the foundation: hollers. If you look up the word “holler,” you will be told that the definition of that word is a loud shout (noun) or to give a loud shout (verb). That’s not what “holler” means as used by Rebuilding Hollers Foundation, based in Bakersville, NC. If you’re from the mountains of NC or anywhere close by, you know that a holler is the area at the foot of a mountain… as in “hills and hollers.” Now that you know what a holler is, here’s a link to the Rebuilding Hollers Foundation website: https://rebuildinghollers.org/page-18086. Six months after the storm and the flooding that resulted from 30 inches of rain, the need is still overwhelming.

I have reported a lot of bad news and scary news in my blog over the last couple of weeks, so I am delighted to share some uplifting news with you today! This next story makes my heart sing! Yancey County hasn’t received as much media attention as Buncombe County (where Asheville is) because that’s just the way it is when any natural disaster happens. For instance, New Orleans got most of the attention after Hurricane Katrina, although neighboring small towns on Mississippi’s coast were devastated. That’s just the way it is, but I recently learned about an amazing way the carpentry students at the only high school in Yancey County are actively aiding recovery after unprecedented destruction.

Photo by Chandler Cruttenden on Unsplash

The students in the Advanced Carpentry Class taught by Jeremy Dotts at Mountain Heritage High School in Burnsville, NC are building a tiny house to be given to someone impacted by Hurricane Helene. What a wonderful way a public high school is empowering students who were themselves affected by the hurricane! Thank you, Mr. Dotts, for teaching your students empathy and compassion while also teaching them carpentry skills! Here’s the link to a story a TV station in Raleigh-Durham did on the project: https://abc11.com/post/high-school-carpentry-students-turn-homebuilding-storm-victims/15903556/.

But that’s not the complete story, by any stretch of the imagination! I wanted to look deeper and I discovered that tiny house is just one part of the story. First, I found an article from 2022 about the carpentry program (https://www.ednc.org/the-construction-of-a-yancey-county-carpentry-program/) and then I found a website that gives details of how carpentry isn’t the only skill or trade the students in Yancey County can learn in high school and how course completions can transfer into credits at Mayland Community College. (https://mhhs.yanceync.net/page/skilled-trades/.)

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every high school or at least every county in America could have a program like this? After all, everyone can’t excel in science or math. Some people excel in carpentry… and those of us who don’t have woodworking and construction skills rely on those who do every day of our lives.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read. Find something to read that will calm your nerves and enable you to escape the stresses of life for at least a few minutes every day.

Savor your memories of and time with friends and family.

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

Janet

Authoritarianism does not happen overnight. It happens over 74 days.

In my March 24, 2025, blog post I said “no one wants to read a 3,000-word blog post.” I hope I was wrong, because today’s weighs in at 3,096 words, if you don’t count the words on the memes I created.

I’ve written more than 10,000 words in my four blog posts this week. If I could have added 10,000 words to my historical novel manuscript this week, I would be on Cloud 9 and much closer to publication than I am today. I didn’t work on my novel at all.

Unfortunately, I have “bigger fish to fry” now than completing my novel or my historical short stories. My country is in dire danger from within.

If you disagree with me or don’t know what I’m talking about, you are not paying attention.

My blog post today might make you mad and I hope it does!

The actions and inactions of the Trump Administration delineated below are just “off the top of my head.” It might look like I’ve been keeping a list since Inauguration Day, but I have not.

The most frightening part of this is that there are, no doubt, literally thousands of actions being carried out in locked-up government offices, museums, and libraries all over our country that I haven’t heard about… that have not been leaked out… that reputable news organizations have not been privy to or uncovered yet… that our President does not want us to know.

What has happened since Inauguration Day, January 20, 2025… in no particular order

A word here. A word there. A government agency here. A government agency there. Lies repeated ad nauseam.

Muzzle public television by cancelling their funding. Muzzle radio and television stations by reminding them that you can take away their broadcast licenses. “Plant” people in a press conference to ask ridiculous and programmed questions while banning certain reputable news organization such as the Associated Press from the room. My “favorite” so far was the “plant” who asked you on March 28, 2025, “What is a woman?” Your response made me want to vomit.

Your US Department of Agriculture orders 21 tractor-trailer trucks hauling nearly $1 million worth of food (more than 377,000 pounds) to turn around and not deliver the food to Tennessee food banks. The same thing happened in Ohio. How many other states? A US President has to be a certain level of evil to prefer to let tons of food rot than to be delivered to food banks for distribution to people who need that food to supplement what they’re struggling to pay for at the supermarket or corner store. Mr. Trump, you’ve not only never missed a meal, you’ve never had to give a thought to how to pay for the food you have eaten every single day of your life! You are literally taking food out of the mouths of children and old people in the name of “Make America Great Again.”

You shut down Voice of America. It was silenced for the first time in 83 years. It was broadcasting in 49 languages across the world – in accordance with Congressional funding — so people could hear the news in their own language and compare it to the propaganda their own governments were telling them. You claimed that Voice of America was “horrible.” You criticized it for reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic and for quoting people who disagree with you. Voice of America was also broadcasting what you were saying, Mr. Trump. It was telling people living under repressive regimes that in America it was okay to criticize the government. Oh… since it’s no longer okay to criticize the US President, I guess that message is no longer something we should brag about.

Ignore court orders day after day. Go after any judge, law firm, or attorney who dares to make a ruling or file a law suit not to your liking. Then have the Speaker of the US House of Representatives float the idea that US courts can be defunded and, therefore, shut down.

Put a host of incompetent people on your Cabinet, then fire thousands of government employees without regard to merit or risk to public health or safety.

Pardon 1,500 insurrectionists who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, chanted “Hang Mike Pence” broke windows, assaulted police officers, defecated on the floors and walls, broke into and trashed offices, and tried to prevent the certification of the November 5, 2020 Presidential Election results. Say they were “treated unfairly” and call them “patriots.” Say they were just a bunch of grandmothers touring the Capitol.

Grant clemency to people like Jason Galanis – you know, the guy who was sentenced to 14 years and five months in prison back in August 2017 for his role in a bond scheme that defrauded the Oglala Sioux tribe and pension fund investors out of tens of millions of dollars. Such notices of clemency take place in quiet, so how many have taken place since January 20th?

Shut down the United States Agency for International Development, which was the bastion of goodwill for us throughout the poorest parts of the world. Turn the US Departments of State and Defense into bully pulpits to intimidate and threaten our long-time allies.

Declare an invasion when there wasn’t one. Invoke war powers in a time of peace. Imprison peaceful protest organizers on university campuses. Turn professors and medical researchers away at the border.

Pay El Salvador millions of dollars to take your prisoners without due process. Some are dangerous gang members, but some… well, we just don’t like what they look like or their accent. Even when your spokesperson admits at least one of them (that father from Maryland) was sent to El Salvador due to an “administrative error” you claim there is no way to bring him back to the US? Until January 20th, we were the most powerful country in the world, but ten weeks later we can’t ask El Salvador to release someone from prison? You paid El Salvador to imprison these people. We don’t have to ask for any of our money back, Mr. President. Just ask for the prisoners we sent down there who aren’t guilty of any crimes and are not members of a gang to be released. The next plane load of gang members and collateral damage you send down there should be able to bring back the ones you shouldn’t have sent there. If you don’t have a phone, I believe your Secretaries of Homeland Security and Defense have cell phones and know how to text on Signal.

Arrest university students from other countries whether or not they participated in a protest against the genocide taking place in Gaza. Hurrah for the Columbia University students who chained themselves to locked campus gates on Wednesday to protest the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil! You renew my faith in today’s college students! The US Constitution protects the freedom of speech of everyone here – citizen or foreign student. Why were two students at North Carolina State University at Raleigh sent packing because Secretary of State Marco Rubio cancelled 300 student visas? One of them was a fourth-year chemical engineering student from Saudi Arabia who had never participated in a protest or written anything on social media or otherwise apparently said anything against Trump or the US Government. He has to complete his degree online from Saudi Arabia. I want to know what about that will “Make America Great Again” or anything else other than ensure that America will be hated by other countries.

Tell citizens the words they cannot put in writing or on government websites. Then tell them they cannot talk about things that are being discussed in Congress or on certain news networks. We’ve learned about 373 words, word combinations, and topics just this week.

Send masked ICE agents out in unmarked vans without identification or warrants to kidnap people walking their children home from school and take them away to who knows where. And at North Harbor Dairy in Hounsfield, New York, a third grader, a 10th grader, and an 11th grader were kidnapped by ICE agents in the same manner on March 24, 2025. There is speculation that they were taken to a detention center in Texas. Is this how you’re “making America great again” or “making America rich again” or “making America safe again” or “making America healthy again.” Call me dense, but I’m having trouble figuring out what kidnapping/arresting third graders is supposed to do for the United States. Instead of ICE making me feel safe, they are scaring the heck out of me!

Go after the National Park Service and world-renowned museums such as the Smithsonian Institution and tell them what they can and cannot exhibit.

Blackmail universities into caving to your racist whims in order to not lose federal grants. It seems you have a total lack of understanding of what a university is supposed to be. First, Columbia University. Now, it’s Harvard and Princeton under scrutiny. If professors, students, and researchers flee to other countries, it’s no skin off your teeth. After all, you told us years ago that you “love the uneducated.”

Appoint yourself as Chair of the Board of Directors of a beautiful facility such as the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and dictate from the Oval Office which artists should and should not be allowed to perform. You say it’s in bad shape. Please don’t tacky it up like you have the Oval Office!

Pick fights with long-established allies. Threaten to take other countries by saying you will use “any means necessary” to get control of them. (Sounds sort of like Russia invading Ukraine, doesn’t it?)

Tell the American people that they will not pay higher prices for goods and materials due to tariffs because the tariffed countries will pay the bill. (Does “Mexico will pay for the wall” ring any bells?)

Call Americans who attend town hall meetings held by the few members of Congress who are brave enough to face voters “paid troublemakers.” You simply cannot imagine that a citizen of the United States would do ANYTHING without being paid! On a basic level, that’s related to your comment about the soldiers who gave their lives fighting the Nazis and Japanese in World War II. You asked, “What was in it for them?” You were incredulous!

Have the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, launch an investigation into ABC (the American Broadcasting Company) and its parent company, Disney, because you think they’ve hired too many minorities and women? Or perhaps you’re mad because Disney is making children’s movies that feature princesses of color? (Carr wrote, “While Disney started as an iconic American company, it recently went all in on DEI.”)

Post on your Truth Social account on March 28, 2025: “People that get caught sabotaging Teslas will stand a very good chance of going to jail for up to twenty years, and that includes funders. WE ARE LOOKING FOR YOU!!!”

Excuse your Cabinet members and top security advisors for taking part in a text exchange about the impending bombing of the Houthis in Yelen on a less-than-secure app (Signal) while reminding us that Hillary Clinton used an insecure server for some of her emails as Secretary of State. Now we learn that Michael Waltz, national security adviser to the White House, and staff members were using gmail? If Hillary was wrong, why aren’t your people wrong?

While we were distracted by “Signalgate,” there was also another breakdown in security. Two spreadsheets detailing work down by the US State Department and USAID were sent to Congress and leaked online. This put workers operating under repressive regimes at danger after they had been assured their work and identities would be protected.

And you remained silent while First Buddy, Elon Musk – who is maybe in charge of the not-authorized-by-Congress Department of Government Efficiency, or maybe he’s not… no one seems to know – offered to pay two voters in Wisconsin $1 million each for signing an online petition promising to vote a certain way in the April 1, 2025, election of a hotly-contested State Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin. After the public started raising illegality issues, Musk took down his original online offer and posted different wording to make it sound not-quite-so-illegal. I’m sure votes have been bought before in the United States, but I don’t recall that it was publicly advertised in advance like Musk did this time. To announce such payments out loud for all to hear is a new low in American politics. He seems to work for you, but you couldn’t bring yourself to tell him not to pay voters? Or were you enjoying another $3.2 million weekend at Mar-a-Lago at taxpayers’ expense and didn’t hear about it? A judge tried to stop this before the $1 million payments could be made on Sunday night but, an hour before the payments were being issued, the Wisconsin Supreme Court voted unanimously to allow the payments! I would like to think that some people who voted for Trump would even think this isn’t right.

While countries around the world immediately sent teams of rescuers and aid workers to Myanmar and Thailand after last week’s devastating earthquake, the New United States of America sat idly by. The US “plans” to send three people to Myanmar. By the way, the tiny country of Vietnam already has 100 people helping in Myanmar. It is appalling that the Trump Regime is demonstrating on the world stage that they absolutely don’t care.

Before the election last November, you told us that if people voted for you “this time” they would “never have to vote again.” That was chilling to those of us who were paying attention. Even though the US Constitution bars a person from serving more than two terms, as a wannabe dictator, you said some interesting things on Sunday in an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker. The Washington Post quoted you as saying, “there are methods which you could do it.” Also, “A lot of people want me to do it.” The newspaper reported, “Welker then mentioned a hypothetical plan where Vice President JD Vance would run in 2028 and ‘pass the baton.’ ‘Well, that’s one. But there are others, too,’ Trump responded. ‘I’m not joking,’ Trump said.”

Threaten to bomb Iran if it doesn’t adjust its nuclear program to your liking. (In our arrogance, Americans think that only America should have nuclear weapons, but look who has our nuclear codes: the insecure bully in the White House!)

With a strike of your pen, put tariffs on 185 countries (including a couple of uninhabited islands) and tell us the money from those tariffs will start pouring in and will quickly “Make America Rich Again.” I thought our nation was already rich. And why did you not raise tariffs on goods coming from Russia and Belarus?

You are so completely self-centered that you fire medical researchers and employees who quite possibly saved your life when you had Covid-19 and were whisked away via helicopter to Walter Reed Medical Center. Dr. Peter Stein approved the monoclonal antibodies treatment that just might have saved your life, Mr. President. How do you thank Dr. Stein four-and-a-half years later? You fire him. He was the Director of the Office of New Drugs at the Federal Drug Administration, and you just fired him in the name of “waste and fraud” in the Department of Health and Human Services.

You take advice from conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who said that the terrorist attack on the US on September 11, 2001, “was an inside job.”

Until Trump came along

Until you came along, we were one of the richest countries in the world. Until you came along, we were rich in things like readily coming to the aid of other countries. Until you came along, we were rich in allies and friends. Until you came along, other countries held us up as a beacon of freedom and the greatest democracy the world had ever know.

Until you came along.

Remind us every single day that everything that is wrong in America today is the fault of your predecessors, and only you can save us.

Sit in the Oval Office that you have tackied up (Southerners know what I mean!) to look as gaudy as your Mar-a-Lago resort and laugh. (Will we ever be able to repair its walls from all those nail holes? You’ve made the Oval Office look like a Frame shop!)

You have no sense of humor, but I imagine you are laughing with your minions and rich friends while this 249-year-old experiment in democracy called America disappears into the pages of history as a failed experiment that only children in other countries will read about years from now.

Whine, and tell the American people that we are victims. Tell us that the entire world has taken advantage of us and cheated us… even though America has been showered with blessings and resources and decades of peace on our soil that most people in the world can only dream of.

Has it only been 74 days? It seems like 74 years.

It is exhausting… and that’s what you want. You want us so tired that we can no longer speak out against your policies. You want us so distracted by a crumbling economy that we stop listening to you because we’re spending all our time wondering how to pay for groceries or car repairs. It’s easier for you to do your dirty work if we are too tired or distracted to keep up with the news.

People who know early- and mid-20th century world history know what comes next.

Mr. Trump, you might not get your comeuppance here on earth, but I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes on Judgment Day!

To my blog readers, until my next post and beyond

Pay attention, no matter how painful it gets. Get your news from a variety of reputable sources.

Don’t compromise your principles.

Read the US Constitution. It is a constitution, not a list of suggestions.

It’s time to stop agreeing to agreeably disagree when it comes to our American democracy. Right is right and wrong is wrong. It’s past time for us to be polite.

My next anticipated blog post will be on April 7 about the books I read in March along with a brief report on Hurricane Helene recovery in western North Carolina.

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

Janet, a disgruntled political science major

Don’t look now… more banned words in America!

On Monday, I blogged about 298 words that The New York Times reported that the Trump Regime does not want US Government agencies to use. Yesterday, I blogged about an additional 53 words and topics that PEN America identified that weren’t on The New York Times list.

I hoped that would be the end of it. Silly me!

Today we’ll consider 22 of the words and combinations of words that the US Department of Agriculture can no longer use, according to leaked memo issued by the department’s Research Services Division. The New Republic reported on the list online. The report indicated that there were dozens of other words in addition to these 22 the article highlighted.

Here we go….

  • climate
  • vulnerable
  • safe drinking water
  • greenhouse gas emissions
  • methane emissions
  • sustainable construction
  • solar energy
  • geothermal
  • nuclear energy
  • diesel
  • affordable housing
  • prefabricated housing
  • runoff
  • microplastics
  • water pollution
  • soil pollution
  • groundwater pollution
  • sediment remediation
  • water collection
  • water treatment
  • rural water
  • clean water

The New Republic article reported that according to USDA’s Northeast area financial management, travel and agreements section head, Sharon Strickland, agreement including “these terms or similar terms cannot be submitted.”

This is to ensure compliance with Trump’s Executive Orders.

A problem that Trump has not anticipated is the fact that most farm equipment runs on diesel fuel. Since he has never stepped foot on a farm, much less driven a tractor (which I have since before I was old enough to drive a car), he probably doesn’t know that.

What if microplastics are discovered in soil on a farm? There will be no way for that to be reported, so I guess we’ll have to just ignore it.

On March 29, Secretary Chris Wright of the US Department of Energy had called for the expansion of geothermal energy. On March 30, Sharon Strickland’s March 20 memo was leaked saying the USDA can’t use the word.

Is it possible that the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing?

Can we, as citizens, utter the word “geothermal” or not? We need a user’s manual.

I do not live on a water system. I grew up and once again live out in the country and I rely on water well. Therefore, “rural water” piqued my interest. Do you know what “rural water” is?

According to the US Geological Survey, “rural water use” is “self-supplied water used in suburban or farm areas for domestic and livestock needs, and includes domestic use, drinking water for livestock, and other uses such as dairy sanitation, cleaning, and waste disposal.”

Photo of a glass of clear, clean water
Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

Maybe I’m biased, since I’ve drunk well water most of my life, but the above-listed uses of “rural water” sound important to me. “Safe drinking water” and “clean water” do, too.

If I’m going to eat fruits or vegetables grown on a farm or eat chicken, beef, pork, lamb, or any other meat raised on a farm or fish sold in the United States, I want to know that the water used to raise all that food was clean or relatively clean.

When I have to have a new well drilled for my household use, I’m glad that someone from the county health department is required to test that water and certify that it is safe for me to drink. If I had to depend on the USDA to do it, I would be out of luck.

And what about “soil pollution” and agriculture? If there is an oil spill on a farm, I think someone in the government should take action to monitor the situation and certify that the agricultural products coming from that farm are safe for us to consume. Do we not assume that’s something the USDA does?

Government is supposed to do those things that we cannot do for ourselves. I don’t know there was an oil spill. Even if I hear about the oil spill, I cannot visit that farm to take soil samples. I don’t have the scientific skills necessary to test those soil samples. I don’t have the scientific skill to test produce, milk, or meat samples from that farm and certify them as safe to consume.

If the USDA cannot talk about soil pollution or water pollution, where does that leave us? What about this is going to “Make America Healthy Again”?

Part of my brain is stuck in pre-January 20, 2025, so it is telling me my examples are extreme… that this would never happen in America. But fire a lot of the USDA employees and then tell the few that are still there not to use certain words. Sounds like a recipe for a disaster to me.

My thoughts

I live in North Carolina It is one of the top five pork-producing states. In 1996 and 1999, respectively, Hurricanes Fran and Floyd caused extreme flooding in the eastern part of the state… where most of the pigs are raised. Thousands of pigs drowned which caused dire and immediate health problems. Lessons were learned and safeguards were put in place for the future.

But what if another hurricane hits coastal North Carolina and in a matter of hours kills thousands of pigs? We have a State Department of Agriculture, but if you live in Kansas do you want to rely on another state to certify that the seafood coming out of the rivers and Atlantic Ocean that are downstream from those farms is safe for you to eat?

My point is that we are the United States of America, and we deserve a reliable national system of food inspection.

How is the US Department of Agriculture supposed to monitor crops or the safety of our food without using terms like water pollution, soil pollution, groundwater pollution, sediment remediation, water collection, and clean water?

How is any government agency supposed to operate without using these words?

Our country is in deep trouble when words like “clean water” cannot be used by every government agency.

Can someone please stop the madness?

Until my next blog post

Watch for my blog post tomorrow about a few of the things that have happened since January 20, 2025 – the day Trump took the oath of office without placing his hand on the Bible. A mere technicality that ten weeks after the fact doesn’t seem so important.

Pay attention to what’s happening.

Keep reading reputable nonfiction and fiction.

Don’t compromise your principles.

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

Janet, a disgruntled political science major

Just when you think things can’t get worse in America & fires in NC & SC

I hope you read my March 31, 2025, blog post. It was about the 298 words that The New York Times published on March 4, 2025, that the Trump Regime does not want US Government agencies to use.

The words on that list were a gut punch.

But then, on March 212, 2025, PEN America published an updated list or words and topics. (https://pen.org/banned-words-list/).

PEN Americais a nonprofit organization that works to defend free expression in the United States and around the world through the advancement of literature and human rights. The PEN America list repeats most of the words on The New York Times list.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

My blog post today draws your attention (I hope!) to the words and topics from PEN America that were not on the New York Times list. Here they are:

abortion

accessibility

autism

Black and latinx

Cancer Moonshot

continuum

Covid-19

definition

dietary guidelines/ultraprocessed foods

disabled

discussion of federal policies

diversity and inclusion

diversity/equity efforts

EEJ

EJ

entitlement

elderly

equitable

equitableness

evidence-based

fetus

fluoride

gay

H5N1/bird flu

hate

hispanic

ideology

indigenous people

inequity

intersex

issues concerning pending legislation

male dominated

marijuana

measles

minority serving institution

MSI

NCI budget

obesity

opioids

peanut allergies

promote

science-based

self-assessed

socioeconomic status

special populations

stem cell or fetal tissue research

topics of federal investigations

topics that have received recent attention from Congress

topics that have received widespread or critical media attention

understudied

vaccines

vulnerable

woman

PEN America’s comments

PEN America’s article, “Federal Government’s Growing Banned Words List Is Chilling Act of Censorship,” is self-described as “most assuredly incomplete.”

The article goes on to say, “These policies’ tentacles already extend beyond government websites, though removing HIV resources from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, regardless of whether they mentioned ‘gender ideology’ or other banned terms, is bad enough. Reports say scientists are self-censoring in hopes of improving their chances of getting government grants.

“That’s exactly the sort of response the administration is hoping for, and it will immeasurably limit the research and other work supported by the federal government, universities and more, on the public’s behalf.”

The PEN America article said these restrictions on words “represent a dystopian effort to control what Americans think and say, despite President Trump’s lip service to ‘freedom of speech and ending federal censorship.’ There’s nothing ‘free’ about banning words or ideas.”

Some of the abbreviations are elusive

I had to look up EEJ, EJ, MSI, and NCI budget. In case you’re not familiar with them either, I’ll save you the trouble.

EEJ is, apparently, electroejaculation. EJ is, apparently, environmental justice. MSI is either Microsoft Installer or Micro-Star International Co., Ltd, a Taiwanese multinational information technology corporation. NCI budget is the US National Cancer Institute budget.

My two-cents’ worth

I won’t take time to comment on each word, word combination, or topic, but the following from the list leave me gobsmacked, to borrow a British word:

autism – This is a real thing. Thousands of children and adults (and their caregivers) deal with it every day. You can’t erase it by erasing the name.

Cancer Moonshot – President Biden’s plan to try to find cures for cancer

Covid-19 – Outlawing the name of a pandemic doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

dietary guidelines/ultraprocessed foods – So how are you going to “Make America Healthy Again” without dietary guidelines?

disabled – Sort of like autism… You can’t erase it, although Nazi Germany tried to.

discussion of federal policies -This just defies reason! Does it mean I can no longer blog about federal policies?

diversity and inclusion – Dog whistle for hiring people of color and women.

diversity/equity efforts – Ditto.

elderly – Okay. I’m 72 years old. That makes me a “baby boomer,” but doesn’t it also make me elderly?

evidence-based – Another one that defies reason.

fetus – Ditto!

fluoride – I know RFKjr. doesn’t want cities to put fluoride in their water, but come on!

gay – Please don’t outlaw this word. I have a friend whose name is Gay, and we’ve already found out voters didn’t like it when you had references to the Enola Gay taken down from the Department of Defense. Give it up!

H5N1/bird flu – So what are scientists and physicians to call it if not H5N1?

hate – I’m sorry, but some people are full of hate. Some of them live and work on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC.

hispanic – I’ll let people of Spanish descent handle this one.

indigenous people – I guess I should let indigenous people handle this one, too.

issues concerning pending legislation – What are you thinking?

male dominated – No, we wouldn’t want anyone to say that any levels of government or business are male-dominated, would we? (By the way, you forgot the hyphen.)

marijuana – What word are we supposed to call this plant?

measles – Been there, done that in the second grade. Wish there had been a vaccine then. I know researchers and physicians know it as rubella, but what’s wrong with laypeople calling it measles?

obesity – We have an obesity epidemic in America, so maybe you need to rethink banning this word.

opioids – We also have a opioids epidemic in America. Fentanyl is a synthetic piperidine opioid. Isn’t that the root of the President’s attacks on Mexico and Canada?

peanut allergies – Peanut allergies are a real thing.

science-based – Here we go again down the same path as evidence-based.

topics of federal investigations – Does this just apply to government employees or does it also apply to reporters?

topics that have received recent attention from Congress – Ditto.

topics that have received widespread or critical media attention – Does this just apply to government employees or can regular citizens no longer discuss amongst ourselves things we heard on the news or read online?

vaccines – I think I know who we have to thank for this one. After dedicating your entire adult life to outlawing vaccines, at least now you’ve convinced the powers that be to ban the use of the word.

vulnerable – The way things are going, I feel like most people living here now are vulnerable. When it applies to the majority of a population, does it qualify for a new word. “Vulnerable” is starting to lose its punch.

woman – I don’t know what to say about this one. First you ban the word, then it makes it easier to ban the woman.

If today’s list and the list I shared on March 31, 2025, don’t send a shiver down your spine, you must not have a spine.

Some of you are, no doubt, laughing at these lists and at me for being concerned about them.

Some of you are, no doubt, in denial. (“Surely, a United States President would not encourage or instruct US Government employees to “limit or avoid” these words or topics. That’s just silly!”)

Keep in mind that censorship was an important weapon in Nazi Germany before and during World War II. Censorship is not laughing matter. Censorship is not silly.

A brief message about western North Carolina and South Carolina fires

I failed to mention in my blog about Hurricane Helene recovery in western NC on March 26, 2025, that firefighters had poured in from across the United States to fight the numerous wildfires in our mountains. Some of the fires are in the exact areas that were hit so hard six months ago by the hurricane.

I understand that firefighters from Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming have come to help North Carolinians fight these fires!

Thank you, each of you!

I learned on Sunday that FEMA had awarded Polk County a Fire Management Assistance Grant. It will cover up to 75% of eligible firefighting costs.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (I’m glad we still have one of those on the state level!) issued a Code Red Air Quality Action Day for Henderson, Transylvania, and Polk counties on Sunday due to extreme smoke.

Much-needed rain fell over the area on Sunday and Monday, alleviating the fire situation and allowing some 300 firefighters to take a break. The terrain is challenging and most of it is still littered by the millions (yes, millions!) of trees that came down during the hurricane. In addition to hampering firefighters in gaining access, the downed trees are feeding the fires.

As of yesterday afternoon, the Table Rock Fire in South Carolina was only 30% contained. Arson charges have been filed by the SC Forestry Commission against two 18-year-olds and a 19-year-old who were smoking cigarettes and, through their negligence, started the 13,000-acre Table Rock Fire. A juvenile suspect in the case has been charged and released into the custody of his parents. It is the largest fire in South Carolina’s history.

It renews my faith in some of my fellow Americans to know that in times of trouble, there are still people who will go to another state’s aid not caring whether most people in that state voted for a Republican or a Democrat.

The statewide burn ban in NC will be lifted at 8 a.m. today, except the ban still exists for fires within 100 feet of a residence.

Until my next blog post tomorrow

Pay attention to what’s happening.

Watch for my blog post tomorrow about words that the United States Department of Agriculture is not allowed to use now.

Keep reading reputable nonfiction and fiction.

Don’t compromise your principles.

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

Janet, a disgruntled political science major

P.S. No, I didn’t even mention the tariffs that took effect today. I can’t address everything.

Words Trump wants federal agencies to “limit or avoid”

Find a comfortable chair. This is another long blog post.

I’ve been mulling over today’s topic for several weeks. It’s one thing to erase history – and the Trump Administration seems to be doing an admirable job, if that’s what you want done.

And some people do want that done. As I voiced my displeasure with everything the Trump Administration has done in two short months a classmate, whom I’ve known for 65 years, told me “it’s a beautiful thing to watch.” His comment made me nauseous.

Photo of a taxidermied elephant on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC
A taxidermied elephant on display at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
Photo by J. Amill Santiago on Unsplash

Several days ago, the Trump Administration (or should I say, Regime?) attacked the Smithsonian Institution and National Park Service. Both were targeted for having “divisive” and “anti-American” exhibits. “Divisive” and “anti-American” can be translated to mean that they have some exhibits about people of color and women of any color. It’s feeling more and more like 1931 in Germany around here.

I have a hunch the elephant pictured above that is displayed at the Smithsonian Institution will be safe, though, since the elephant is the mascot of the Republican Party.

Equally troubling to me as erasing history is the Trump Administration’s efforts to limit or perhaps erase perfectly good words from our vocabulary.

Photo of a pencil with an eraser on the end
Photo by Kim Leary on Unsplash

People are disappearing, history is disappearing, and words are disappearing. Our allies are disappearing, and who can blame them?

Several weeks ago, a list of words was cobbled together that the Trump Regime wants US Government agencies to “limit or avoid.” The White House denies issuing a list, but they have left government agencies to use some of their own judgment in erasing specific words from their documents and websites. It seems that the hints they’ve been given are fairly loud as they are supposed to use Trump’s too-numerous-to-mention Executive Orders as their guide.

This is rich, coming from a President who has difficulty speaking in complete sentence. (Before you jump on me… I’m not being disrespectful; there is proof all over TV, video and audio clips, the internet, and the printed word.)

You can’t make this stuff up.

In case you missed it here is the list of 298 words and combinations of words that The New York Times published on March 4, 2025, that US Government agencies are supposed to “limit or avoid”:

  • accessible
  • activism
  • activists
  • advocacy
  • advocate
  • advocates
  • affirming care
  • all-inclusive
  • allyship
  • anti-racism
  • antiracist
  • assigned at birth
  • assigned female at birth
  • assigned male at birth
  • at risk
  • barrier
  • barriers
  • belong
  • bias
  • biased
  • biased toward
  • biases
  • biases towards
  • biologically female
  • biologically male
  • BIPOC
  • Black
  • breastfeed + people
  • breastfeed + person
  • chestfeed + people
  • chestfeed + person
  • clean energy
  • climate crisis
  • climate science
  • commercial sex worker
  • community diversity
  • community equity
  • confirmation bias
  • cultural competence
  • cultural differences
  • cultural heritage
  • cultural sensitivity
  • culturally appropriate
  • culturally responsive
  • DEI
  • DEIA
  • DEIAB
  • DEIJ
  • disabilities
  • disability
  • discriminated
  • discrimination
  • discriminatory
  • disparity
  • diverse
  • diverse backgrounds
  • diverse communities
  • diverse community
  • diverse group
  • diverse groups
  • diversified
  • diversify
  • diversifying
  • diversity
  • enhance the diversity
  • enhancing diversity
  • environmental quality
  • equal opportunity
  • equality
  • equitable
  • equitableness
  • equity
  • ethnicity
  • excluded
  • exclusion
  • expression
  • female
  • females
  • feminism
  • fostering inclusivity
  • GBV
  • gender
  • gender based
  • gender based violence
  • gender diversity
  • gender identity
  • gender ideology
  • gender-affirming care
  • genders
  • Gulf of Mexico
  • hate speech
  • health disparity
  • health equity
  • hispanic minority
  • historically
  • identity
  • immigrants
  • implicit bias
  • implicit biases
  • inclusion
  • inclusive
  • inclusive leadership
  • inclusiveness
  • inclusivity
  • increase diversity
  • increase the diversity
  • indigenous community
  • inequalities
  • inequality
  • inequitable
  • inequities
  • inequity
  • injustice
  • institutional
  • intersectional
  • intersectionality
  • key groups
  • key people
  • key populations
  • Latinx
  • LGBT
  • LGBTQ
  • marginalize
  • marginalized
  • men who have sex with men
  • mental health
  • minorities
  • minority
  • most risk
  • MSM
  • multicultural
  • Mx
  • Native American
  • non-binary
  • nonbinary
  • oppression
  • oppressive
  • orientation
  • people + uterus
  • people-centered care
  • person-centered
  • person-centered care
  • polarization
  • political
  • pollution
  • pregnant people
  • pregnant person
  • pregnant persons
  • prejudice
  • privilege
  • privileges
  • promote diversity
  • promoting diversity
  • pronoun
  • pronouns
  • prostitute
  • race
  • race and ethnicity
  • racial
  • racial diversity
  • racial identity
  • racial inequality
  • racial justice
  • racially
  • racism
  • segregation
  • sense of belonging
  • sex
  • sexual preferences
  • sexuality
  • social justice
  • sociocultural
  • socioeconomic
  • status
  • stereotype
  • stereotypes
  • systemic
  • systemically
  • they/them
  • trans
  • transgender
  • transsexual
  • trauma
  • traumatic
  • tribal
  • unconscious bias
  • underappreciated
  • underprivileged
  • underrepresentation
  • underrepresented
  • underserved
  • undervalued
  • victim
  • victims
  • vulnerable populations
  • women
  • women and underrepresented

Some of my thoughts on the subject

I considered using bold font to highlight my favorites/most angering/most ridiculous words on the list, but that would have been all 298 of them.

As a writer, words are my life. Words help me communicate. I’ll bet they help you, too. Without words, our communications would be extremely limited.

I haven’t read how Trump intends to enforce this or what punishments will be meted out to offenders. And who comes next? Writers? Reporters? Universities? Teachers?

Depending on your background, gender, or ethnicity, there are probably particular words on the list that strike a nerve with you.

Here are 51 that set me off

“Black” (capitalized) — I have Black friends. I don’t see anything wrong with the word “Black.” In fact, my great-grandmother’s surname was Black. My sister and I mentioned her in one of the Morrison genealogy books we published in 1996. I hope the Trump Administration will not ban our book, but we’re on a slippery slope when we start outlawing words.

“female,” “females,” “women,” and “biologically female”– Hmmm. Now those are intriguing words to put on a government’s “limit or avoid” list. I couldn’t help but notice that “male,” “males,” and “men” are not on the list, but “biologically male” is. Surely, it was an oversight on the part of the “biologically male” person who obviously wrote the list to not include “male,” “males,” and “men” on the list.

“mental health” – I have some relatives who struggle with mental health. I’m not sure what to do with this word combination now. Does the Trump Administration think by not using the words “mental health,” mental health issues will no longer exist? How wonderful it would be if we could just use a word and make a whole category of illness disappear!

“belong” – My mind jumped back to a trip to Scotland where I learned that there instead of saying, “She’s Campbeltown,” the locals would say, “She belongs to Campbeltown.” Since the plural form of the word isn’t on the list, maybe that use of it would be legal. Otherwise, Scots might want to think twice before visiting America. Oh… my bad…. They’ve all taken America off their bucket lists since January 20.

“pronoun” and “pronouns” – This is going to be challenging for English teachers, but it will simplify diagramming sentences.

“sex” and “chestfeed” – I don’t know what to say about these. I don’t want my blog to be flagged as obscene, but is “chestfeed” really a word? Is it actually a thing we need to be concerned about?

“systematically” – What?

“orientation” – I guess there will be no more orientation meetings for new government employees or college freshmen at schools that receive federal funds.

“trauma” – Some hospitals are qualified trauma centers, but I guess they won’t be much longer. Heaven forbid if they receive any federal funds.

Photo of a poster with words like trauma, PTSD, and anger on it
Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash

“environmental quality” – You’ve got to be kidding, Trump! Just because you don’t want the citizens of the United States to have “environmental quality” doesn’t mean that the citizens of the United States don’t want “environmental quality.” Just because you want to drink contaminated water and breathe polluted air, Mr. Trump, doesn’t me the rest of us do. You can’t just outlaw the words “environmental quality” and make the whole concept of a healthy environment go away.

“disability,” and “disabilities,” – I shudder to think what will soon become of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It is that act that requires handicapped bathroom stalls, automatic doors to permit easy ingress and egress at government buildings, hotel rooms with bathrooms accessible to people in wheelchairs, etc. Need I keep going?

That leads me to “barrier” and “barriers” – which I think must be on the list because the Americans with Disabilities Act tries to prevent physical movement and communication barriers from remaining in place that make it difficult for blind, deaf, and people restricted to wheelchairs to do what they need to do. Have you ever wondered why you didn’t see many (or any?) ramps into public buildings in the 1950s, but now you do? They didn’t just happen. It wasn’t because architects started adding them out of the goodness of their hearts.

Photo of a really long staircase
Photo by Joseph Akbrud on Unsplash

“race,” “racial,” “ethnicity,” and “gender” – The folks who create US Passports better get busy figuring out how to get around those questions.

“historically” – I assume this is targeting “Historically Black Colleges and Universities.” Take out the words “historically” and “Black” and it is going to be difficult to know which “colleges and universities” one is talking about. Oh… my bad… that’s the point!

“discriminated,” “discrimination,” and “discriminatory” – Are we no longer allowed to talk about or file lawsuits regarding discrimination? This is appalling!

“minority” – Lucky for the US Congress that this list, at least for now, only applies to the agencies in the Executive Branch of the government because, otherwise, they would have to come up with a new term for “Minority Whip” and “Minority Leader” in their official titles.

“expression” – Wipe that silly expression off your face!

“identity” – Seems like a legitimate word to me.

“prejudice” – Since we still have a US Department of Justice, so to speak, I guess the lawyers are going to have to find a new way to label the rulings on certain lawsuits. You see, the term “without prejudice” is a legal phrase. It is used by judges to indicate that a case can be revisited or that the verdict is not final.

I noticed it’s acceptable to use the word “racist,” but it’s not okay to use the words “anti-racist” or “anti-racism.” Interesting.

“Native American” – I think it should be left up to the indigenous peoples of America to tell the rest of us what they want to be called. I don’t think that she be left up to Donald Trump. When I was doing the research to write my vintage postcard book, The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, I learned that the Cherokee Indians in the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina prefer to be called Indians. The official name of the tribe there is Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

“tribal” is also on the list. That’s unfortunate because some tribes, such as the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians have tribal courthouses and tribal councils. Please don’t tell them they can no longer use the word “tribal.” The US Government has already taken too much from them.

“bias,” “biased,” “biased toward,” “biases,” and “biases towards” are all on the list. I agree with “biases towards” being on the list because “towards” is incorrect grammar in the United States. I have a problem with the other four, though.

“allyship” – I must admit that was a new word for me. I looked it up and discovered that it refers to those of us in relatively advantaged groups who intentionally support or advocate for disadvantaged people. I hope I’m guilty of having done “allyship” in the past, and I hope I will continue to be guilty of it in the future! As a Christian, I am called on to do that.

That leads me to “advocacy,” “advocate,” and “advocates.” – Now that’s just sad. When you are in the hospital or a nursing home, you need an “advocate” to look out for your best interests. That can be a relative or a social worker or… hut oh….

My doctor says if I have osteopenia and I don’t exercise and eat a calcium-rich diet, I am “at risk” of developing osteoporosis. I assume the Department of Health and Human Resources can no longer “advocate” for “at risk” conditions and illnesses. That’s the least of our worries, though, with RFK, Jr. in charge of that department.

“equality,” “equity,” “inequalities,” “inequality,” “inequitable,” “inequities,” and “inequity” – Does anyone else see a blatant pattern here?

I noticed the word “justice” does not appear on the list. That’s nice, because that word is used in the Preamble of the US Constitution. Whew! That was a close call!

You know the words to the Preamble, don’t you, Mr. Trump?

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

I thought about highlighting my “favorite” words on the list, but before I knew it I had pulled out 50 of them. I’ll just leave it at that for today, but my new purpose in life is to make sure I use at least one word on the list every week in my blog. Heck, I might use more than one.

Some of my comments about specific words on the list were tongue-in-cheek, but I assure you that I take this very seriously.

In essence, Trump’s putting out the word that federal government agencies can read his myriad Executive Orders and surmise the words they need to “limit or avoid” pretty much makes their use on government documents and websites illegal.

No, there is no enacted law prohibiting the use of these words. However, one definition of “illegal” is “not sanctioned by official rules.” (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, 2001.)

How do you ban books in the 21st century?

You make your citizens afraid to use words on an ever-growing list.

Just when you think things can’t get worse

PEN Americais a nonprofit organization that works to defend free expression in the United States and around the world through the advancement of literature and human rights. On March 21, 2025, the organization published a growing list of words being singled out by the Trump Administration as words Trumps doesn’t want us to use.

My blog post on Wednesday, April 2, 2025, will list the words identified by PEN America that did not appear on the March 4, 2025, New York Times list.

Arlington National Cemetery

With so much going on, and a couple of long blog posts in March, I waited until today to mention how the US Department of Defense is erasing history specifically on the Arlington National Cemetery website. US history seems to be in Trump’s cross-hairs.

Photo of rows and rows of white grave markers in Arlington National Cemetery
Photo by Janne Simoes on Unsplash

Under the heading, “Arlington National Cemetery removed links to webpages about Black, Hispanic and female veterans,” Snopes.com (published March 14, 2025; updated March 15, 2025) verified that the following links had been removed from the Arlington National Cemetery website:

          African American History, removed from the Notable Graves subsection;

          Hispanic American History, removed from the Notable Graves subsection;

          Women’s History, removed from the Notable Graves subsection;

          African American History, removed from the Themes drop-down menu of the Education section; and

          Civil War, removed from the Themes drop-down menu of the Education section.

This should be no surprise, since Trump has called veterans suckers and losers.

Until my next blog post

What are your “favorite” words on the list of 298 words I shared today?

I hope you have a good book to read.

Nurture your friendships and relatives.

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

Janet

Six Months After Hurricane Helene

It has been six months since Hurricane Helene ravaged western North Carolina. The State of North Carolina has just allocated an additional $524 million for Hurricane Helene recovery, and the National Hurricane Center issued its final Hurricane Helene report last week.

Photo by JD Designs on Unsplash

As of Friday, March 21, 146 roads in North Carolina were still closed due to Hurricane Helene. That count included 9 US highways (that’s 2 fewer than the previous Friday), 15 state highways (that’s 2 fewer than the previous Friday), and 122 state roads (that’s 2 fewer than the previous Friday).

Last Wednesday, March 19, NC Governor Josh Stein, a Democrat, signed a bill that had finally passed the NC Legislature that will provide $524 million in hurricane relief in the western part of the state. The bill emphasizes home and private road repairs, agriculture, and infrastructure to aid businesses.

Stein had asked the Republican-controlled General Assembly for an additional $1.1 billion for Hurricane Helene recovery on top of the $1.1 billion the State of North Carolina has already spent or appropriated.

The Associated Press reported last Wednesday night: “Stein’s administration projects that disaster relief approved by Congress in December and other federal funding sources may ultimately provide more than $15 billion in Helene recovery funds to North Carolina. Stein is now seeking another $13 billion from Washington.”

About 4,600 households in western NC were still receiving temporary housing assistance as of a couple of weeks ago.

The WUNC public radio website (https://www.wunc.org) gives the following breakdown of the $524 million for western North Carolina Hurricane Helene recovery:

  • $200 million for crop loss programs and agricultural debris removal
  • $120 million for rebuilding and repairing homes
  • $100 million for repairing private roads and bridges
  • $55 million for small business infrastructure grants
  • $20 million for debris removal
  • $10 million for volunteers and nonprofits actively assisting in the disaster
  • $10 million for fire department grants
  •  $9 million for learning recovery in the Helene-affected counties 
  •  $4 million for travel and tourism marketing 

The bill also extends the state of emergency and increases the number of counties eligible for school calendar flexibility due to missed school days.

In addition to the $524 million for Hurricane Helene recovery, the legislature allocated $217 million for Hurricanes Matthew (2016) and Florence (2018) recovery on the coast.

The $9 million for a voluntary summer school program in districts that were closed for many weeks due to Hurricane Helene is less than Governor Stein requested.

Stein had requested money for two business grant programs to help companies that suffered significant losses, but the legislature omitted those programs from the final bill. Instead of Stein’s request, the legislature designated $55 million in the form of grants to local governments for sewer, utility, and sidewalk repairs which will indirectly benefit small businesses.

The dollar amount for the damage caused by Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina alone has been estimated to be $53.6 billion, so drops of relief continue to drip into the bucket.

The need is still great, but in the NC General Assembly the people who are still homeless or hanging on by a thread since the hurricane must compete for the millions of dollars our legislators want to give out in vouchers so children can go to private schools instead of our public schools. (Don’t get me started!)

The National Hurricane Center released its final report on Hurricane Helene on Friday. The full report can be found on the NOAA website: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL092024_Helene.pdf .

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

A few highlights from the report as it pertains to the storm in western North Carolina:  106 deaths in NC were attributed directly or indirectly to the storm. Busick, NC in Yancey County got 30.78 inches of rain – the most recorded anywhere from the hurricane. Approximately 40 miles to the south (as the crow flies), a site in Transylvania County, NC recorded 29.98 inches. Ten counties in the state recorded more than 18 inches of rain, so you can see that a large part of the mountains in NC received incredible amounts.

Mt. Mitchell recorded sustained winds of 80 miles per hour and gusts as high as 106 miles per hour. The small town of Banner Elk recorded wind gusts of 101 miles per hour. The hurricane caused more than 2,000 landslides, most of which were in North Carolina.

The North Carolina Forest Service estimated 822,000 acres of damaged timberland, which resulted in $214 million in damages to North Carolina forests.

By the way, US Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, announced at Monday’s meeting of the President’s Cabinet that she plans to “eliminate FEMA.” Apparently, there are no natural disasters in her home state of South Dakota. At the age of 53, she is fortunate if she’s never experienced one. She and Trump think states can handle disasters better than the nation. States don’t have the resources the US Government has… but maybe that’s just my opinion. We’ll see how this works out.

Until my next blog post

My planned topic for next Monday is the 298 words Trump wants federal agencies to limit or avoid. As you can imagine, this hit a nerve with me!

I hope you have a good book to read.

Hold your family close.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet

Two US Supreme Court Rulings in 1898 and 2025

There is so much we can learn from history! Today’s headlines often mirror events that happened years ago.

You get a bonus blog post from me this week. As I explained yesterday, what I wanted to say this week amounted to more than anyone wants to read in one sitting.

Today’s post is about a couple of US Supreme Court rulings. Tomorrow’s post is about Hurricane Helene recovery in western North Carolina six months after the storm

United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 1898

My sister made me aware of the United States v. Wong Kim Ark US Supreme Court case. This ruling about American birthright came down in 1898.

The 14th Amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868 – 30 years before the Wong Kim Ark case. The wording of the 14th Amendment seems straightforward, but our current US President wants to do away with it.

The first clause of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution reads as follows: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Let’s take a step back and see what prompted Mr. Wong Kim Ark to take his complaint all the way to the US Supreme Court.

Who was Wong Kim Ark and what was this Court Case about?

Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco, California in 1873. His parents were subjects of the Emperor of China but were permanently residing in the United States. The family still lived in San Francisco in 1890 when Wong Kim Ark took a trip to China.

He returned to his home in San Francisco on July 26, 1890. He lived there and worked as a laborer as a US citizen. In 1894 he took another trip to China but, when he returned to the US in August 1895, he was denied entry on the grounds that he was not a US citizen.

A lower court ordered him to be released because he was a US citizen. The United States appealed the lower court’s decision, and the case went to the US Supreme Court.

Justice Horace Gray delivered for the majority in the 6-2 ruling by the US Supreme Court. In his statement he indicated that the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 had no relevance in this case.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first law of any significance that limited immigration into the United States. The Act was the result of violent acts committed against Chinese workers. It prohibited Chinese laborers from entering the US for ten years. Exceptions included merchants, teachers, students, travelers, and diplomats.

Justice Gray wrote, “It is conceded that, if he is a citizen of the United States, the acts of Congress, known as the Chinese Exclusion Acts, prohibiting persons of the Chinese race, and especially Chinese laborers, from coming into the United States, do not and cannot apply to him.”

As in most cases that reach the level of the US Supreme Court, there is more here than meets the eye. Having taken one Constitutional Law course in college does not qualify me as a Constitutional scholar, so I’ll just leave it at that.

If you wish to delve more deeply into the United States v. Wong Kim Ark decision, you may do so. I just found it serendipitous that the anniversary of this case fell during a time when the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution is under fire.

Why is the 14th Amendment under attack by Trump?

It is obvious that the president does not want children of undocumented Hispanic immigrants who are born in the US to automatically have US citizenship as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

The White House appears to be arguing its case on https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-meaning-and-value-of-american-citizenship/. It seems short-sighted to me for Trump to “show his hand” on this matter since it is destined to go before the US Supreme Court if he insists on pursuing his contempt for the 14th Amendment.

We have not heard the last of this.

A March 5, 2025 US Supreme Court ruling to consider

On March 5, 2025, we saw only five of the nine US Supreme Court Justices vote that the United States should be required to honor its promises of $2 billion in foreign aid through the now-possibly-defunct United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The slim majority decision gave me a sigh of relief but immediately angered me because the vote should have been 9-0.

Photo by Isak Engström on Unsplash

What is it in the life experiences of Associate Justices Alito, Kavanaugh, Thomas, and Gorsuch that influenced them to vote in the negative? What made those four men believe that funds authorized by the US Congress and promised to other countries and organizations should not be honored? Should not be paid?

What makes those four men think the United States should not be a country of its word? I really want to know.

Justice Alito argued in an eight-page dissent that resembled a pro-MAGA social media post that a US District Court Judge could not compel the US Government to spend money authorized by Congress. He essentially went after Judge Amir Ali, the lower court judge who had ruled in the case.

From what I have read, I think his anger is misplaced. It is the US Constitution that gives Congress the authority to allocate money. If Mr. Alito has a problem with that, perhaps he should have stated his disfavor with the Constitution instead of against Judge Amir Ali.

I certainly hope Justice Alito was not lashing out at Judge Ali because Judge Ali was born in Canada. I hope he wasn’t lashing out at Judge Ali because he was appointed by President Joe Biden. And I certainly hope he wasn’t lashing out at Judge Ali because he is a Muslim.

Perhaps I’m looking for a “there” when there’s no “there” there, but the current US Supreme Court in general seems to be in Trump’s pocket. This is the same group of Justices that ruled in 2024 that nothing a US President does is illegal.

I pray we haven’t heard the last of this!

Arlington National Cemetery

With so much going on, and a couple of long blog posts in March, I waited until today to mention how the US Department of Defense is erasing history specifically on the Arlington National Cemetery website. US history seems to be in Trump’s cross-hairs.

Under the heading, “Arlington National Cemetery removed links to webpages about Black, Hispanic and female veterans,” Snopes.com (published March 14, 2025; updated March 15, 2025) verified that the following links have been removed from the Arlington National Cemetery website:

          African American History, removed from the Notable Graves subsection;

          Hispanic American History, removed from the Notable Graves subsection;

          Women’s History, removed from the Notable Graves subsection;

          African American History, removed from the Themes drop-down menu of the Education section; and

          Civil War, removed from the Themes drop-down menu of the Education section.

This should be no surprise, since Trump has called veterans suckers and losers.

The latest US Department of Defense blunder

It seems to me that our Department of Defense (DoD) needs to spend less time erasing history and more time holding top secret war plans in a secure location (which until the Trump Administration was the policy) and much less time holding top secret war plan meetings via text messages.

Thank you, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, for being a true patriot and not leaking the plans for the United States bombing the Houthis in Yemen last week. Leaking the plans that you were texted would have put US military personnel is grave danger. Were you included on the text list by mistake, or is there someone in the DoD who wanted this information leaked to a journalist?

I wonder who DoD Secretary Hegseth will text top secret information to next.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read.

Hold your family close.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet

“First they came for the…”

Every week I think I’ll write a shorter blog post, but every week there’s something in the news about which I’m compelled to comment. Every week I think I’ll get back to work on the novel I’m writing.

The original blog post I wrote for today came in at more than 3,000 words. No one wants to read a 3,000-word blog post, so I’ve divided it into three posts.

Tomorrow I will blog about a couple of US Supreme Court rulings made in 1898 and 2025 that I initially was going to blog about today.

Wednesday’s post will include a breakdown of the $524 million bill passed by the NC General Assembly and signed by Governor Josh Stein las week as well as highlights from the National Hurricane Center’s final report about Hurricane Helene.

And you know me… if something else happens before I post tomorrow and Wednesday, I’m liable to go off on another tangent. While we still have a modicum of free speech in America, I will take advantage of every opportunity to speak out about injustice and actions that run counter to the US Constitution.

A blog post update

Last week I reblogged Tangie T. Woods’ post from her “Mrs. T’s Corner” blog about Lt. Col. Charles Calvin Rogers’ information being taken down from the Department of Defense (DoD) website.

The DoD seemed to get confused about exactly what on its website qualified as the “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) that the Trump Administration wants eradicated from all federal government departments and resources.

Under the Trump Administration, the online record of the Medal of Honor that Lt. Col. Rogers received on May 14, 1970 was changed to read, “dei-medal-of-honor.” There is no such medal and there was no such thing as DEI in 1970.

Of course, the teenagers working for Elon Musk would not know that. They wouldn’t care that Lt. Col. Rogers served in the war in Vietnam. They probably could not find Vietnam on a map if their lives depended on it.

And, since Elon Musk is from South Africa, he probably doesn’t know anything about the war in Vietnam either.

The last I heard, Lt. Col. Rogers’ information has been corrected, but the bigger problem still exists as every single day something else is erased from history by the computer geeks working for Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency.

According to the Associated Press on Saturday, March 22, 2025: “The restoration process has been so hit or miss that even groups that the administration has said are protected, like the Tuskegee Airmen, the first Black military pilots who served in a segregated World War II unit, still have deleted pages that as of Saturday had not been restored.”

Would someone please explain to me what the online removal of the records of the Tuskegee Airmen and military Medal of Honor recipients has to do with “Efficiency” because I’m having trouble understanding it?  

Last week, Principal Chief Mitchell Hicks of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians issued a statement about how indigenous peoples on the North American continent have been marginalized by the government since European settlers arrived here.

Chief Hicks pointed out in his statement that even though the US Government tried to wipe out the Cherokee language, during World War I it was the Cherokee who developed a secret code based on their language for the US military to use. He said in his statement that the Cherokee people will make sure their military history is not erased.

Thank goodness the Cherokee people are doing this, because we cannot depend on the United States Government to preserve it.

We are not stupid. We all know exactly what is behind all these anti-DEI actions. White men have dominated politics and business in the US since the country’s formation, and many of them cannot accept the fact even in the 21st century that women and people whose skin is all shades of brown and black have brains.

Many of them claim to be Christians, but they reject the essence of the teachings of Jesus Christ. Their words and actions fly in the face of the teachings of Jesus Christ.

As a Presbyterian, I believe that in the eyes of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, all people – women and men – of every shade of skin hold equal value. It is offensive when someone claims to be a Christian but they endorse political leaders who demean women and disrespect people of color.

If some of those old white men in the White House, the US Congress, and the US Supreme Court are not getting that message at their churches, maybe they need to find another church.

If you think I’m being disrespectful to the US President and other old white men, my words don’t hold a candle to the disrespect they are showing me and my fellow citizens every day through their words, their actions, and their inactions.

DEI was about making sure everyone had an opportunity to get into the college they were academically-qualified to attend. It did not guarantee that they would pass the courses and graduate. It was about everyone having the opportunity to apply for a job. It did not guarantee them the job. It was about making sure everyone had a chance to sit at the proverbial table.

When I was a little girl in the 1950s, it wasn’t like that. In fact, when I was a teenager in the late 1960s, things were just beginning to change. I pray our country never goes back to the dark days of racial segregation and gender discrimination.

The Republican Party (i.e., Donald Trump, for he is the Republican Party now) has twisted the opportunities that DEI offered into something ominous, vile, and discriminatory. Through Project 2025 that his friends wrote, he is attempting to erase opportunity and history.

But some of us were entering the workforce in the 1970s and we know from personal experience how it was. It makes me sick to my stomach to know that my four great-nieces who are in their early twenties will not have the same opportunities their mothers had in the 1990s.

You see, the problem wasn’t solved when Lt. Col. Rogers’ military record was restored to a website. That was accomplished only after a public outcry. But the evil, hate, ignorance, small-mindedness, and fear (yes, fear!) that resulted in his record being mislabeled and removed is very much still with us.

If you think I’m reckless in my use of the word “evil,” according to Merriam-Webster, evil is defined as “morally reprehensible,” “arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct,” “causing harm,” and “something that brings sorrow, distress, or calamity.”

The Trump Administration and his Department of Government Efficiency is all about evil, hate, ignorance, small-mindedness, and fear (yes, fear!). They work from a place of evil. They set out to hurt everyone they hate, don’t understand, and fear. They fear that white people will soon be in the minority in the United States. They fear that since women are going to colleges and universities in greater number than men, that eventually more women will attain positions of leadership in government and business.

Elon Musk has been quoted as saying that the biggest weakness of “the West” is empathy. I beg to differ. I think empathy has been one of our strengths. We showed empathy through the work of the USAID. Through the Voice of America radio broadcasts we showed empathy toward people who were trapped in authoritarian governments.

Trump and Musk have ended USAID and stopped the Voice of America. Being from South Africa, though, Mr. Musk has little experience with empathy. The word “empathy” is not in Trump’s vocabulary.

That takes us to “ignorance.” The people who took down the photograph of the Enola Gay airplane took it down because it had the word “Gay” in it. Well, duh! “Gay” just happens to be a woman’s name.

If you don’t believe me, look it up. And if you don’t know what the Enola Gay was, by all means, look it up if you still can.

While we’re on the topic of Government Efficiency…

US Department of Agriculture has halted $500 million in deliveries to food banks nationwide that the Biden administration announced last year. Even The Washington Post has reported this. One more slam at farmers and people who need a little help putting food on the table.

And even though under 26 U.S. Code 7213 it is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, a $5,000 fine, and mandatory termination of employment for a federal employee to give anyone access to a taxpayer’s tax return information, the US Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is working on an agreement with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to gain access to private tax records.

ICE claims to only be going after the tax records of undocumented immigrants, but this is a slippery slope.

If you aren’t careful, Mr. Trump, someone outside the IRS could someday gain access to your tax records! We all know how much you don’t want that to happen, even though every US President for decades before your first term made their tax records public. You promised to follow suit as soon as your 2015 tax audit was completed. We’re still waiting….

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read.

Hold your family close.

Remember the people of Ukraine.

And remember the people of western North Carolina where a half-dozen wildfires were still burning out-of-control yesterday afternoon. Three of them are in Polk County, which was hit hard by Hurricane Helene last September.

Look for my next blog post tomorrow!

Janet