Tag: abuse of presidential power

A look back at 2025

When I think back over 2025, the Thomas Paine quote that immediately comes to mind is, “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

It is said that every generation thinks they are living in the worst of times – the most challenging times – of any previous generation.

If you’ve been reading my blog all year, you know I am not at all happy with the state of things in the United States. My political rants have pleased many of you and, no doubt, driven some readers away.

I majored in political science and minored in history in college. My Master’s degree is in Public Affairs/Public Administration. Although my early career in government is long ago in my past, I will forever be interested in the workings of government and the blessings of democracy.

The workings of the government and the blessings of democracy have been under attack in the United States since January 20, 2025, and there is no end in sight. In my wildest imagination, I couldn’t have anticipated what this year has been like.

The drama and trauma coming out of what’s left of the White House have been nonstop. The U.S. Congress has been a silent no-show. The U.S. Supreme Court has let us and the U.S. Constitution down repeatedly.

When I look back on 2025 in the future, it will fall in the category of one of the worst of my now 73 years. The years my parents died are in that category. The year that illness robbed me of my career and a way to make a living is in that category. The last four months of 2001 after September 11th fall into that category. That puts 2025 in the worst five years of my life. I don’t say that lightly.

The following paragraphs highlight the things that the U.S. President did in 2025. These are just the things that readily came to mind as I wrote this post. They are in no particular order.

We have a U.S. President who…

We have a U.S. President who is systematically plastering his name on everything from the U.S. Institute of Peace, to the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, to a savings plan for infants, to a monstrous ballroom, to a new class of battleships that will lead us into the 19th century. It is traditionally known as an honor when a person has a building named for them; however, there is no honor in naming a building for oneself. Such an action only has negative connotations.

He has desecrated what is left of the White House with the gaudiest gold knickknacks on the face of the earth. He has nailed plaques about former U.S. Presidents written with vitriol on the outside wall of the White House. He plans to build an arch in Washington, DC that is sure to dwarf that one in Paris because, after all, in his eyes bigger is always better – no matter how ugly or inappropriate. We in the South have a word for this: tacky.

He had the entire East Wing of the White House demolished to make way for a 90,000-square-foot ballroom after claiming the ballroom’s construction would come close to the existing building (the East Wing) but would not touch it. Just one of his countless lies.

Two days before Christmas, his Secretary of Homeland Security declared an emergency at the new Homeland Security headquarters on the old St. Elizabeth’s Hospital West Campus at 2700 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, Southeast, in Washington, DC so she could demolish 17 historic buildings there, including an Army hospital built in 1855. Declaring an emergency is a way to bypass the laws regulating the National Register of Historic Places. (St. Elizabeth’s West Campus was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 and was named a National Historic Landmark in 1990 due to its historical and architectural significance.)

He orders boats to be blown to bits and oil tankers to be seized as if he is living in a pirate movie. He sends wannabe federal officers throughout the country to grab anyone who doesn’t have blond hair and blue eyes.

He sends his prisoners “back” to countries they have never been to before. He begs Norwegians to come live in America where they can give up their healthcare, education, weeks of annual vacation, and the right to breathe clean air.

He berates journalists and the memories of beloved individuals like Rob Reiner whom he deems unworthy of respect and “enemies of the people.”

He threatens to cancel the broadcast licenses of major television networks if they dare to report the truth about him.

He continues to have a bee in his bonnet over Greenland. Last week he appointed the Governor of Louisiana to spearhead our stealing of that vast land from Denmark. He wants Greenland so he can control the Arctic along with Russia.

He bombs ISIS in Nigeria because Nigeria sits on a lot of oil and natural gas. He claims he is bombing ISIS because the terrorist organization is killing Christians, but they aren’t just killing Christians.

He gets on national TV and yells at the American people for 18 minutes just before Christmas without taking a breath and Congress does nothing – as if this is normal behavior for a U.S. President. “Nothing to see here.”

He has alienated all our 20th century allies.

He thinks he has the right to oust the dictator in a South American nation because that country sits on a lot of oil. He claims Venezuelans are bringing massive amounts of illegal drugs to the U.S. in those tiny boats. In his mind, though, it is easier to claim they’re transporting drugs and obliterate all the evidence along with the people in the boats.

He buddies up to Vladimir Putin and sends one of his buddies to Moscow to coach Putin in how to negotiate peace in Ukraine as he hangs Ukrainians out to dry to  lose massive amounts of their land and, ultimately, probably their democracy. He only wants to have a hand in ending the war in Ukraine because he thinks it will ensure him of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. He is jealous of President Barack Obama for receiving that honor. What he does not understand is that it is awarded for arms reduction, international cooperation, and human rights contributions. He fails on all counts.

He sits idly by as millions of Americans lose their affordable health insurance on January 1, 2026. It’s just a game to him and the Republican members of Congress who will never have to worry about their healthcare because they don’t have to pay for theirs. After all, they aren’t regular folks. Regular folks must pay for their own health insurance while also paying for the healthcare enjoyed by the President and members of Congress. The irony!

He repeatedly tells us that grocery prices have come down, months after he had an epiphany as he learned a new word: groceries. He called it an old-fashioned word, yet it was a new word for him. Never once in his life has he had to worry about where his next meal is coming from or who will prepare it for him.

He claims to “love the farmers,” but he pulled the financial rug out from under them when he ended the USAID program – not to mention the millions of children and adults who have and will starve to death or die of unnecessary illnesses due to the loss of American food stuffs and medicine.

He rips apart the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health in the name of saving money. He seems to delight in killing science and medical research and, as a result, anyone who benefits from medical or other scientific research. These evil-spirited actions by him and his administration have put the world’s health at risk and turned people from trusting tried-and-true vaccinations.

He punishes colleges and universities for welcoming immigrant and international students and for encouraging students to think for themselves and expose themselves to new ideas.

He has ended all federally-supported programs that encourage women or people of color to get an education and pursue careers. He has randomly said such professions as nursing and architecture are not professional careers and, therefore, people pursuing such careers will no longer be eligible for any federal loans/financial aid.

He calls the Department of Defense the Department of War because that apparently makes him feel like a big man. It shows how small a man he is. Remember how the Wizard of Oz projected his image so he would appear larger than he was? This is what is happening in the White House.

He shields himself and his friends from any punishment they might deserve for hanging out with the likes of Jeffrey Epstein and underage girls. He changes his tune daily about his association with Epstein, and “his” Department of Justice redacts entire pages of the Epstein files while claiming they’re only redacting the names of the victims.

His Christmas Eve message on social media called for CBS to euthanize Stephen Colbert. He didn’t use that word because he has a limited vocabulary, but we got the point. He says Mr. Colbert is filled with hate. Just because Mr. Colbert calls him out every night with jokes that are only telling the truth, our dear leader can’t take it. He proved years ago at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner that he can’t laugh at himself. Small-minded, self-absorbed people cannot laugh at themselves.

He randomly calls countries he doesn’t like “sh%th*le” countries. He calls people from Somalia “garbage.”

And yet this man courts evangelicals and they continue to believe with all their hearts that he is a Christian? They cling to him. He is their golden calf. He is their savior. That, my friends, is one of the greatest mysteries of life and the most frightening part of this entire disaster.

I will, no doubt, continue to call out the wrongs, mistakes, poor decisions, and bad judgment I see coming out of Washington, DC in the coming year. I pray the worst of the Trump Administration is over, but I know I might as well be whistling in the wind. I fear things will continue to get worse, and I shudder to contemplate that we are not quite one-fourth of the way through this attack on our democracy.

The Resistance is alive and well. In the words of Sky, a tiny little girl I know, we will persevere!

On a brighter note

This has been an extraordinarily busy and mentally-rewarding year for me as a writer. As my list of published books grows, I can scarcely believe what I accomplished in 2025.

In 2025, I finished writing and published I Need The Light! 26 Weekly Devotionals to Help You Through Winter; I Need The Light! Companion Journal and Diary; and Traveling Through History: A Collection of Historical Short Stories.

Those three books are available on Amazon and at Second Look Books in Harrisburg, North Carolina, along with three of my earlier books: Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1; Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 2; and the cookbook my sister and I compiled, The Aunts in the Kitchen: Southern Family Recipes.

The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, a vintage postcard book I wrote in 2014 for Arcadia Publishing, is available on Amazon, from the publisher, and in some bookstores.

The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, by Janet Morrison

In 1996, my sister and I compiled three Morrison genealogy books. Those are available through my website, https://www.janetmorrisonbooks.com.

I haven’t made any New Year’s Resolutions. Have you? I’d love to know what you have resolved to do (or not do!) in 2026. Drop me a line in the comments below. Who knows? You might inspire me to adopt one of your resolutions!

I wish you a Happy New Year!

Janet

16 more highlights of how things are going in America

Are you as tired as I am of being bombarded with the news of the day? And yet I feel called to lay out 16 more instances today of not just cracks in our system of government but some basic failings and actions that fly in the face of the US Constitution and common decency. You can thank me now or you can thank me later for deleting three items from today’s list.

Many of the items on today’s list are not being covered in the media. I hear or read a snippet of a story, and then I look for more information and documentation. I use reliable sources, and I don’t deal in conspiracy theories.

I used to not know or care what political party someone else aligned with, but we live in an era now where that seems to be the first thing someone wants you to know about them. That literally wear in on their heads and post it in their yards. There is little tolerance for anyone who does not agree with them, so it is tempting to keep one’s mouth shut.

Our current situation in the US is exhausting everyone who treasures democracy. I am exhausted, but when I learn about something that blatantly runs contrary to the US Constitution and is so viciously forced on the American people, I can’t seem to stay quiet.

For good measure, I’m including a couple of things that you just might not have heard about. Lots of things are slipping under the news cycle radar because too much is happening too fast.

Each thing considered by itself might not seem so bad or dangerous, but when digested together patterns appear.

  • The Kremlin has confirmed that Russian President Valdimir Putin has gifted Donald Trump with a portrait he commissioned by a Russian artist. US Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, was giddy talking about it on TV. After all, Witkoff’s diplomatic experience could fit on the head of a pin with room left over. His qualifications for being US Special Envoy to the Middle East – which apparently includes Moscow? – are that he is an American billionaire real estate investor. The portrait? Who knows better how to flatter and gain the confidence of Donald Trump than ex-KGB Agent Vladimir Putin?

  • The Associated Press reported, “The White House’s Office of Management and Budget has proposed gutting the State Department’s budget by almost 50%, closing a number of overseas diplomatic missions, slashing the number of diplomatic staff, and eliminating funding for nearly all international organizations, including the United Nations, many of its agencies and for NATO headquarters, officials said. The proposal, which was presented to the State Department last week and is still in a highly preliminary phase, is not expected to pass muster with either the department’s leadership or Congress, which will ultimately be asked to vote on the entire federal budget  in the coming months.” It depends on if Congress grows a spine. Stay tuned!

  • Trump has cancelled almost all 1,200 current grants issued by the National Endowment for the Humanities to reappropriate the money to his pet project of a garden of statues of 250 people in American history he deems heroes. I shudder to think whom he would choose for the honor… and whom he will not select. It takes no imagination to come up with both lists. It’s just too bad for the individuals and organizations who were promised funds for their projects and now the rug has been pulled out from under them. Did you enjoy the PBS film series The Civil War, by Ken Burns? Guess where Burns got some of his funding. This is an insidious way for Trump to kill the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). He wants to pull all federal funds from PBS and now he has moved money from a major source of funding for much of the system’s programming. According to the website for the National Endowment for the Humanities, it is an independent federal agency. I guess it isn’t “independent” anymore.

  • It should be no surprise that US Secretary of Health and Human Resources Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. chose David Geier, a person without a medical degree, to conduct a study of possible links between vaccines and autism. Geier his late father published six papers claiming there is a connection between the two. Geier has a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology. The Maryland Board of Physicians charged him with practicing medicine without a license. Anyone want to bet on what Geier’s conclusion will be?

  • A glimmer of Congressional backbone? US House and US Senate versions of a bi-partisan Trade Review Act of 2025 have been introduced which would give Congress the authority to end a tariff ordered by the President after 60 days.

  • It should have come as no surprise that North Carolina’s request for an extension of 100% matching funds for Hurricane Helene recovery was denied, since US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has said she wants to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). NC Governor Josh Stein received the news, ironically, while he was in Avery County with country music star and North Carolina native Eric Church at the groundbreaking for a 40-home development for people who lost their homes in the storm. Eric Church’s foundation spearheaded the project. North Carolina suffered $60 billion in damage from Hurricane Helene last September, and the need for assistance is still great. In February, the State of Georgia’s request for an extension from FEMA was also denied. “Senior Official Performing the Duties of FEMA Administrator” (yes, that is his official title, according to the FEMA website) Cameron Hamilton said in his denial communication to Gov. Stein that the request was “not warranted.” The hurricane recovery aid to NC will continue as a 90% match to what the state spends.

  • On April 3, US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins declared 112 million acres of national forests to be in an emergency situation due to their high risk of wildfires and hazardous tree conditions, allowing them to be open for logging. That’s 59% of our national forest acreage. The emergency designation allows the US Forest Service to bypass environmental laws. Trees in our national forests are logged, so that’s not anything new; however, the 59% percent is troubling and declaring an emergency situation so environmental regulations can be ignored also concerns me.

  • Trump issued a National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM-4) which gives the Department of Defense authority to take control of federal lands to carry out military operation to repel invasions and seal the border. This includes national wildlife refuges and national forests. Indian reservations are excluded. The military can designate those areas as National Defense Areas, closing off public access indefinitely. Using “national security” to override environmental protections and civilian control of public lands can then easily be applied elsewhere. All Trump needs to do is call something a “national emergency.” This is a very slippery slope in the hands of a man who has absolutely no appreciation for nature or the American citizens.

  • Trump and Musk shut down the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). To put a human face on this… Dr. Erik Svendsen, Director of the division, is known for his studies of the effects of the chlorine spill that resulted from a train wreck in 2005 a Graniteville, South Carolina. When the office was suddenly closed by the Trump Administration, Svendsen had to end his participation in a childhood lead investigation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and notify his employees who were working in western North Carolina where Hurricane Helene caused the worst flooding in the state’s history. Water and sewer infrastructure had been ripped apart in September and the area is still dealing with the environmental damage. Too bad! And too bad for state and local health departments across the country that depended on the expertise of Dr. Svendsen and his staff. Too bad for the localities across the nation that were being aided in children’s lead poisoning issues. The division was also in charge of the national asthma control program and other important environmental health tracking networks. The division helped states struggling to make sure private wells are properly built and free of contamination. It was Dr. Svendsen’s division in 2023 that helped health officials in North Carolina unravel a connection between children eating a certain type of applesauce and elevated lead levels in their blood. That work a few years ago resulted in Dr. Svendsen’s division launching efforts that identified 500 additional cases nationally. The result was a national recall of the applesauce polluted with a South American cinnamon high in lead content. An article about this CDC division’s closure in The State newspaper in Columbia, SC quotes Louisiana Sanders, a resident of Graniteville and former SC Department of Health and Environmental Control board member, as saying, “This is going to set us back another 20 or 30 years.”

  • US Secretary of State Marco Rubio struck a deal with Guyana, a neighbor and enemy of Venezuela, to share intelligence information and come to the aid of Guyana if it is invaded by Venezuela. Venezuela wants the oil resources in Guyana. In response, on April 11, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro called Rubio an “imbecile.” I almost missed reading about this whole thing. We might need to just be aware.

  • Deportations on steroids: There have been quite a few heartbreaking and frightening stories about actions and inactions of the US Government over the last 12 weeks. (Has it only been 12 weeks since January 20th?) The most heart-wrenching stories so far have been about deportations. People being kidnapped on the street and forced into unmarked vans. University students forced out of the country because their visas are inexplicably revoked. American citizens receiving emails in the middle of the night telling them they have seven days to leave their country. (There are no instructions for just which country they are supposed to escape to. They are being told their “paroles” have been revoked. These are American citizens who have never sought a “parole” because, after all, they were born in the US and have always lived in the US.) One American citizen who received one of those emails from Homeland Security is an immigration attorney! The report I read said that the Trump Administration is revoking the parole of 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans who came to the US under a Biden-era humanitarian parole program. The immigration attorney in Massachusetts does not fall into any of those categories.

  • I wish I could share with you the details about what happened to an Australian who has lived in the US for more than five years on a work visa, but I can’t write several thousand words about it. I invite you to do an online search and read the gory details for yourself. In a nutshell, he took his sister’s ashes to scatter them in Australia in March. When his return plane landed in Houston, Texas, he was detained, called names, accused of being a drug dealer, and was put on a flight back to Australia after 36 miserable hours of detention. Everything he owns except two changes of clothes are at his home in the US. He is barred from returning to the US for five years. The details are scary, but they can be found at https://www.theguardian.com/ if you want to read them. I’ve only heard his side of the story, but it appears he was denied due process of law. There is an alarming pattern that the Trump Administration only wants due process when it is a member of the administration who needs due process. The rest of us, not so much.

  • In an apparent effort to ward off Trump taking back the Panama Canal, an agreement has been quietly reached in which US troops will be able to deploy to a bunch of bases along the canal.

  • The National Museum of African America History and Culture opened nine years ago. It has been praised for exhibiting the good and the bad in African American history. But Trump said the museum is part of a “widespread effort to rewrite our nation’s history.” I have learned that one of his recent Executive Orders in which he attacked museums and national parks stated, “Museums in our nation’s capital should be places where individuals go to learn ‒ not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history.” Trump says there are exhibits in the Smithsonian museums that make America look bad. He singled out the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Slavery is part of our national history, Mr. Trump, whether you like it or not. It is an ugly part of our history, but you cannot change the fact that it existed. The museums of the Smithsonian Institution are the envy of the world. At least they were until Trump came along.

  • This pales in comparison to Trump’s numerous threats to our democracy, but it deserves inclusion on my list. Michigan Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer arrived for a private appointment with President Trump on April 9 to discuss her concerns about the effects the tariffs will have on her State. Instead of being taken into the Oval Office for their meeting, she was blindsided by being ushered into the room for the signing of an Executive Order calling for the investigation of two high level people in the Biden Administration, Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor. Trump, who has never before had a kind word to say about Whitmer, took that opportunity before cameras to praise the Governor and thereby humiliate her in a public setting and set her up for knee-jerk criticism from her own political party. Can anyone say, “Con man?”

  • Every time Trump, White House Press Secretary Leavitt, or anyone else in Trump’s orbit or on TV calls a judge “rogue,” like Leavitt did yesterday, they are putting all judges at risk. They are not only undermining our justice system, they are encouraging their followers and listeners to pick up a gun or make a bomb to intimidate or murder a judge or someone in a judge’s family. We all need to value and stand up for the rule of law and freedom of the press. We could lose both in the blink of an eye.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have time to read a good book, and I hope you can concentrate enough to read it. I can’t.

Perhaps next week will be the week I only blog once instead of the recent four or five times. We can hope!

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

Janet