Tag: Kennedy Center Honors

Odds and Ends from the Past Week or So

We started this week with Trump’s announcement that he is deploying 800 National Guard soldiers to get rampant crime under control in Washington, D.C. in spite of the fact that major crimes there are at a 30-year low. Could it be that Monday’s announcement and nearly two-hour news conference were meant to distract us from the Epstein files and everything else that’s going on?

Trump announced on Wednesday that he is putting forth a crime bill which will in the beginning only pertain to Washington, DC. He said he will need National Guard troops in the district for more than 30 days and he will declare a national emergency if he has to. In other words, that’s all part of the “plan.”

In the last seven months, Trump has mastered the practice of solving problems that didn’t exist by declaring emergencies that weren’t happening.

Today, Trump and Putin will meet in Alaska to discuss the future of Ukraine. Too bad Ukraine was shut out of the negotiations. Trump and Putin are both so arrogant, that makes perfect sense to them. What could possibly go wrong?

Here are a few other highlights from this week. I can’t keep up with everything.

Transgender members of the U.S. Air Force

On August 7, 2025, the U.S. Air Force announced that all transgender members of that branch of the military are being forced out of the service. Service members with 15 to 18 years of service were allowed to apply for an exception, but they were all denied.

In May, the U.S. Supreme Court gave the Pentagon permission to ban transgender troops. The Air Force is the first branch of the military to follow through. Even those who have served for 18 years are being forced out without retirement benefits. Their only options are to take a lump-sum separation payment or be removed from the service with nothing. Their service records are being reverted to their birth gender.

This is no way to treat members of our military. A PBS report quoted a master sergeant with 15 years of service including a deployment to Afghanistan as saying, “I feel betrayed and devastated by the news.”

National Weather Service needs people

Photo by Brian McGowan on Unsplash

You’ll recall that a few months ago, the Trump Administration said we didn’t need the National Weather Service any more, so hundred of employees were fired. Now it seems that after a record-breaking hot summer and a summer filled with floods in places that have not had floods before… the Trump Administration now wants to hire 450 people.

Someone must have told them this is hurricane season?

Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge

A 2023 land protection plan for the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge provided for the refuge to be expanded by 700,000 acres in West Texas and eastern New Mexico, but the Trump Administration cancelled those plans so the land will be available for energy development and agriculture.

White House Protocol Snubbed

It is White House protocol for the official portraits of the three preceding Presidents to be displayed in the entrance to the building so visitors can see them.

In a typically petty move, Trump ordered the portraits of President Barack Obama, President George W. Bush, and President George H.W. Bush to be moved to locations where they cannot be viewed by visitors.

President Obama’s portrait was moved to the top of a staircase that is only used by the First Family, Secret Service, and certain staff. The portraits of both President George W. and George H.W. Bush were moved to the same staircase area.

Trump has snubbed them and moved their portraits, but that doesn’t mean I can include their pictures in my blog.

President Barack Obama Photo from the Library of Congress

President George W. Bush Photo from the Library of Congress

President George H. W. Bush Photo from the Library of Congress

Trump Golf Resort in Vietnam

As Vietnamese farmers are being paid a pittance for their land, the Trump Organization plows forward with construction of a golf resort in Vietnam. Trump wants us to think that the recently negotiated tariffs with Vietnam and the progress toward building the resort have nothing to do with one another.

He wants us to think it is coincidental that the trade tariffs on Vietnamese goods dropped from 46% to 20% at the same time his golf resort plans were being approved.

The 54-hole golf course for VIPs, luxury hotels and villas received swift approval in Vietnam as no fewer than six mandatory procedures, including environmental impact assessments, were ignored.

Reuters quotes the White House as stating, “the business deals of the Trump Organization are entirely separate from trade negotiations.” After all, President Trump’s personal assets are in a trust managed by his children>

Yeah, right!

Trump’s Impeachments & the Smithsonian

USA Today reports that Trump’s two impeachments have been reinstated in the Presidential Impeachments exhibit at the National Museum of American History. The report says, “Some text was changed between displays, specifically concerning Trump’s involvement with the Janu. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and accusations of election interference.” The article did not explain whether references to the attempted coup on January 6, 2021, and Trump’s election interference were included in the revised exhibit or omitted from it.

Kennedy Center Honors

Trump announced the 2025 recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors on Wednesday during a long, rambling press conference. He said he will serve as master of ceremonies for the nationally-televised show even though he claimed that he does not want to do it. It seems the White House Chief of Staff convinced him that, even though he is the President of the United States, he should serve as the master of ceremonies. He went on to say that the TV ratings will be higher if he does it, so he has agreed to do it.

What a joke!

He say $257 million will be spent to rehabilitate the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He claims it has fallen into disrepair. Of course, that’s what he says about the White House, too.

He said new grass will be planted at all the parks in Washington, DC because the grass there is “old.” He says he knows grass because he owns golf courses. In other words, chemical fertilizer will be running freely through the parks in Washington, DC and I suppose sprinkler systems and grounds keepers with Ph.D.s in grass will have to be hired. Anything to keep a park from looking like nature!

He couldn’t leave well enough alone at his announcement and prese conference, though. He had to one again refer to U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas,” and he had to rant again about how he actually won the 2020 election but it was “rigged.”

He was able to find the silver lining in being denied the Presidency in 2020, though, because it allowed him to win in 2024 and now he will preside over the World Cup in 2026 and the Summer Olympics in 2028.

He managed to sneak into his comments that he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

One has to wonder if this manic state he’s been in all week will continue through tomorrow’s meeting with Putin. If Putin flatters him, it will only get worse.

Continued crackdown on Smithsonian

Photo of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC
National Portrait Gallery, a member museum of the Smithsonian Institution
Photo by Sung Jin Cho on Unsplash

Trump announced that eight institution members of the Smithsonian will initially be targeted for a thorough review of all exhibits. It is no accident that the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of African American History and Culture are two of the eight museums Trump singled out for scrutiny.

The other six museums are the National Museum of American History, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Air and Space Museum, the National Museum of Natural History, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

Trump’s August 12, 2025, letter to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institutions stated, “This initiative aims to ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.”

Frankly, Trump’s intrusion into the exhibits at the 21 Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo just destroyed the confidence I’ve always had for the Smithsonian.

He is rewriting history. This is un-American. This is an authoritarian act.

Janet

MASA? The Reimaging of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

“Make America Safe Again” appears to be the new slogan of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), but I’ve never felt less safe in my life.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) thugs with masked faces in unmarked vehicles are turned loose to supposedly apprehend “the worst of the worst” among us. The Trump Administration’s catch phrase, “the worst of the worst” can be translated to “immigrant,” except for those who have married into Trump’s family.

In his ramblings at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts yesterday he mentioned not letting people into the country if you don’t like what they look like. That pretty much sums up the outlook of his Presidency. He doesn’t want them counted in the U.S. Census either.

I have not seen ICE thugs in person. I live in a semi-rural area. But I’ve seen enough photographs and news reports. All this heightened militarization of the federal government only scares me, even though I’m white and was born in the United States. What’s to say ICE nabs me by mistake?

I keep procrastinating getting a new passport to prove I’m a citizen. It seems like I shouldn’t have to pay $195 just to have a document to prove I’m a citizen. I could just carry a copy of my birth certificate everywhere I go, just in case; however, that merely proves I was born here, and that’s not going to be sufficient after the U.S. Supreme Court lets Trump do away with the 14th Amendment.

What’s to say they nab me because I write uncomplimentary things about Trump? Come to think of it, my passport won’t do me any good if that happens. Maybe I don’t need a passport after all.

The Department of Homeland Security website

Something told me to visit the website for DHS (https://www.dhs.gov/) yesterday afternoon, but I wish I hadn’t. Now I can’t un-see it.

At the top of the home page is a stern-looking image of “Uncle Sam” pointing his finger at the person viewing the computer screen. The text: “AMERICA NEED YOU! America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out. JOIN ICE.” The words, “JOIN ICE” are in a clickable button for your convenience.

I’ve seen photographs of the “Uncle Sam Needs You!” posters that were used in the 1940s, but that was during World War II. “Uncle Sam” needed every American to sacrifice and serve in some way to defeat Nazi Germany and Japan.

Uncle Sam "I want you U.S. Army" poster
Photo from the Library of Congress

For a government agency to use that image today to target immigrants minimizes the importance of the country’s need in the 1940s. To conflate the immigration problems of 2025 with a World War is a slap in the face to my parents’ generation who survived The Great Depression and World War II.

But the DHS website only got worse.

Under the red, white, and blue banner of Uncle Sam pleading for your help is a photograph of Secretary Kristi Noem all decked out like a cowboy atop a horse. She is surrounded by more cowboys on horses like a posse tracking down the bad guys in a B-grade movie set in the 1800s out in the mythical “wild West.

The photo brings back memories of the “Gunsmoke” TV series from the 1950s. Not what I want to see in the United States in the 21st century – not even in a movie or TV program – much less in real life.

I suppose it is all part of the Trump Administration and MAGA’s fascination with guns.

Too many meaningless slogans

Under that bizarre photograph it says, “Making America Safe Again.” Just what we needed: one more “Make America _____ Again!” This has turned into a multiple-choice exercise in which you can fill in just about any adjective that comes to mind.

I would say this “Make America _____ Again” is a broken record, but there’s a whole generation of people out there who wouldn’t have a clue what that means.

I consider it a privilege of birth that I was born and have lived my entire life in the United States of America. I didn’t do anything to deserve that, and I have considered it a blessing.

But I have apparently been living under the misconception that America was a great country. Now, at the ripe old age of 72, I find out it was all a hoax!

This land of opportunity and freedom I have happily lived in all these years which afforded me a free public education and an affordable public university education and gave me the opportunity to earn a living as I chose was all smoke and mirrors! What a shock!

My entire life has apparently been a joke. I only thought I was happy. I only thought I was free. Little did I know all this time I’ve been living in a hell hole, according to President Trump.

Make America Great Again. Make America Healthy Again. Make America Safe Again. For about 24 hours back on July 20, we even had Make Indians Great Again because Trump wanted the Cleveland Guardians baseball team to revert to being the Cleveland Indians.

Frankly, I’m sick of every bit of this. All of these bombastic slogans being made by a failed but somehow famous convicted felon businessman who is running roughshod over the United States of America ring hollow.

What does “great” mean?

Trump’s idea of “great” is equivalent to money, lies, a façade. It’s all a house of cards and it will collapse.

Money does not equate with greatness, to my way of thinking. Greatness is found in how you treat other human beings – how you treat all human beings.

Greatness is not found in calling people stupid, idiots, lunatics, scum, criminals, etc.

Building yourself up by making all manner of false claims about your intellect and accomplishments is not greatness; it’s a sign of weakness and insecurity.

Here we are.

Janet