Tag: Pete Hegseth

Another Trump Nail in the Coffin of the CDC?

The advisory committee on vaccinations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were hand-picked by notorious vaccine-denier Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He just happens to be Trump’s pick for U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. He received the blessings of and confirmation by the U.S. Senate to serve in that capacity.

Photo of gloved hands holding a hypodermic needle
Photo by Mufid Majnun on Unsplash

There are things I would like to say to and about the Senators who voted to approve Kennedy for that Cabinet position, but I will temper my remarks here. To give a person who for decades has promoted conspiracy theories about vaccines to Secretary of Health and Human Services was a travesty.

When the U.S. Senate approved the likes of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, and Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security… we get what they voted for: dangerous incompetence.

When people held their noses and voted for the likes of Donald J. Trump for U.S. President, we got what they voted for: dangerous incompetence and a colossal hatred for anyone who isn’t a rich, white male.

What we have now is a growing avalanche of physicians and other medical professions telling us not to trust anything that comes out of the CDC, the Federal Drug Administration, or Health and Human Services. Let that sink in!

On December 5, Trump said he supported the recommendations of the CDC vaccine advisory committee (many of whom are known vaccine deniers) in their recommendation that we abandon the 1991 CDC recommendation that all newborn babies in the U.S. receive the hepatitis B vaccine.

Apparently, Trump knows just as much about immunology as the quacks and Republicans on the advisory committee. Having a medical or any level of a health degree was not a prerequisite to be on the committee. Let’s just let any person off the street who supports Trump form new vaccinations policies and schedules for all Americans. What could possibly go wrong?

The hepatitis B vaccine decision flies in the face of medical data. In 1990, approximately 20,000 infants in the U.S. got hepatitis B. In 2020, twenty infants in the U.S. got hepatitis B. The vaccine not only prevents the liver damage caused by hepatitis B. It also prevents the liver cancer that can result from that liver damage.

It remains to be seen how this ill-advised new CDC policy will play out over the coming years. Will pharmaceutical companies limit production of the hepatitis B vaccine? Will parents who want their newborns to be protected from this highly-contagious disease be able to get the vaccine for their children? No one knows the answers to those questions.

A memo that Trump signed on Friday praised the new CDC recommendation and went on to endorse the new policy that instead of leading the world in health science, the CDC will now follow the lead of “peer, developed countries.”

I guess it’s fortunate that Trump’s children and grandchildren were all vaccinated as newborns before this 34-year-old mandate got scrapped last week. His future grandchildren and great-grandchildren might not be so fortunate.

When Trump promised to “drain the swamp,” we didn’t know he thought the CDC was part of the swamp.

We are left to wonder if the CDC will survive three more years of attacks by Trump and Kennedy.

Meanwhile, in Washington, DC last week…

In a move that is so blatantly racist and narcissistic, the Trump Administration removed Martin Luther King Day and Juneteenth as days that all our national parks could be visited for free and replaced them with… you are not going to believe this… Trump’s Birthday!

This is not a joke. This is the truth. You can’t make this stuff up!

Janet

Running out of blog post titles

It is getting more difficult by the week to blog about the things going on in our federal government. I have just about run out of words.

I know I’m “preaching to the choir” because people who read my blog either already agree with me or I’m “spitting in the wind” if they don’t. None of you are going to change your minds at this point. You either acknowledge what has happened to our country or you don’t.

If you have not seen and heard enough since January 20, 2025, to join the Resistance, you never will.

Photo of brown wooden anagram letters spelling out Choose Your Words
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Violent rhetoric

In case you thought all the nasty people were “on the left,” I will just take a moment to point out that it was John Gillette, a Republican Arizona State Representative who posted a threatening statement on X in response to an old YouTube video clip from March in which Democrat U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal talked about preparations for street protests against the Trump administration.

Gillette’s post: “Until people like this, that advocate for the overthrow of the American government are tried, convicted and hanged … it will continue.”

Congress member Jayapal in no way advocated for the overthrow of the American government. As far as I know, peaceful protests are still protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

No rule of law on international waters

Trump has put U.S. military personnel in violation of criminal and military law by ordering them to kill 17 people in boats in international waters. Just because Trump says those 17 people were smuggling drugs into the United States doesn’t make it true.

Traditionally, drug smugglers who are caught in the act are arrested and tried in a court of law. Trump’s tactic this year of ordering the military to blow up boats, the boats’ occupants, and all possible evidence of a crime is reckless and wrong.

What the meeting at Quantico cost us

It was a meeting that could have been securely held via Zoom. In an apparent show of power, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth summoned hundreds of Generals and Admirals to Quantico, Virginia, for a meeting yesterday.

They had to leave their command posts from all over the world with one week’s notice for what was reported to be a 71-minute meeting. Or, maybe that was how many minutes Trump rambled on about how he loves his signature, about President Obama and President Biden, and about the multitude of wars no one can identify that Trump claims to have ended this year.

The parts of his talk that I heard were incoherent ramblings. If anything, they were worse than his usual “weavings.”

I heard the cost of the meeting for taxpayers was $6 million, which is pocket change for Trump and his ilk. No big deal.

But the monetary cost of the meeting is the least of our worries.

If I get started writing about the remarks Secretary of Defense Hegseth said about women in the military, social justice, and climate change, I will say some things I should not put in print. I know some women in the military who could fight just as hard and effectively as Hegseth. Just sayin’.

Every American should be horrified by the words of Hegseth and Trump. When the Secretary of Defense of the United States of America announces to the world that we will no longer abide by “the rules of engagement,” it is indeed a dark day in our country and the world at large.

If the United States military is no longer going to abide by the international laws and norms for the conduct of war, then no one in the world is safe.

When a United States President thinks it is a good idea to send troops into our cities to train, it is a dark day for our country.

When a United States President cannot tell the difference between a live news report (i.e., reality) and an old video clip of a civil unrest and declares war on Portland, Oregon, we should all be very, very afraid.

When the United States President posts an AI-generated racially-doctored and derogatory meme of the Minority Leader of the United States Senate and the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives on social media, one is led to ask if he is 79 years old or 12 years old. (I apologize to all the 12-year-olds of the world. That was unfair to you.)

All this from this week, folks. And it was only Tuesday evening as I wrote this.

The Federal Government Shutdown

Here we go again. The United States Congress cannot figure out a budget for more than three months at a time. Regular people should be so lucky!

It is sad that so many of the members of Congress think this is a game. They are playing with peoples’ lives and livelihood. Trump glibly said he will just fire a lot of federal government employees. That’s a great attitude, isn’t it?

As if the National Park Service employees remaining in the mountains of North Carolina haven’t already taken it on the chin since Hurricane Helene twelve months ago… as if the basket weavers, glass blowers, quilters and other textile artists, potters, furniture makers, wood crafts persons, and jewelry artisans of the Southern Highland Craft Guild haven’t already nearly gone bankrupt… the United States Congress just shut down the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Asheville as part of the federal government shutdown. At least, that’s what has happened during prior shutdowns.

So, Senators and Representatives, why did you choose to kick the people of western North Carolina when they were already down?

It is the very beginning of the fall tourist season in those mountains. Countless people have worked to reopen and reconstruction roads and businesses to serve tourists and residents alike. They have pinned their hopes on the 2025 fall tourist season to help them hang onto the businesses they lost or nearly lost to the hurricane.

Members of the Southern Highland Craft Guild greatly depend on selling their unique creations at the Folk Art Center. To say it is a shame that it will be closed for the duration of the government shutdown would be the understatement of the year.

The Folk Art Center is also the home of the 20,000-volume Robert W. Gray Library of “books, exhibition catalogs, video, and more relating to craft from around the world.”  (https://southernhighlandguild.org/folkartcenter/)

And this, America, is just one small victim of the federal government shutdown – all because Republicans and Democrats no longer talk to each other – and most of them on both sides of the aisle apparently couldn’t care less about you and me. They have forgotten who they work for, and they have forgotten their oaths of office.

In closing…

I think most of us in the United States are weary. The reckless attacks on our democracy are taking a toll on many of us. It’s like trying to stand up to the unrelenting force of a fire hose.

I am so old that I remember the decades when women and people of color almost had equal rights.

I remember when members of our military could be proud of their service and could have respect for their Commander-in-Chief and the Secretary of Defense, even if they did not agree with some of the decisions made and orders issued.

I remember when we could depend on the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Supreme Court to protect us.

I remember when politicians had the skill and desire to compromise to make our 249-year-old experiment in democracy work.

It’s sad to feel like the best years of the United States America are behind us.

Janet

Just because I’m not blogging every day about politics…

Just because I’m not blogging every day about politics, don’t assume I’m no longer paying attention to current events and government actions in the United States. I suppose my post last Thursday night proved that, though. I can only hold it in for so long, folks!

After spending an inordinate amount of time taking notes, checking sources, and writing blog posts for the last six months, I have now made time for what I prefer to do with my time: getting my devotional book published and marketed, and getting my historical novel and historical short stories written so they can be published. Those works in progress are near and dear to my heart.

For what it’s worth, I continue to let my US Senators and US Representative know where I stand on the issues. Sometimes they respond. I almost wish they wouldn’t, because their responses just make me angrier.

I wrote about politics in my July 3 blog post, but I did not address specific Congressional votes, US Supreme Court rulings, or Presidential Executive Orders. Here are a few of the matters that have been on my radar lately. One or two of them might be news to you because, other than Alligator Alcatraz, they did not get a lot of press coverage.

Teaching reading: “radical left agenda”

This news came to light last Thursday: The White House wants to slash funding to states for literacy programs, English language instruction, and after-school programs because “they promote a radical left agenda”. If that is approved, it will cost North Carolina $168 million in lost funds.

Photo of a young boy reading a book in silouette with a beautiful sunset in the background
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

This “radical left agenda” broken record is wearing thin with me. If teaching someone to read or teaching an immigrant English is “radical left agenda,” then call me a radical leftist! I’ll wear that badge proudly! Since when is teaching someone to read a radical idea? If it is, I guess I was radicalized in Mrs. Caldwell’s first grade classroom in 1959.

When did reading become “radical left agenda?” One of my college friends in the early 1970s had a 30-year career as a reading teacher. I don’t know where she stands politically now, but in the 1970s she supported Jesse Helms. You couldn’t get any more “right” on the political spectrum than that!

I’m glad I learned to read when I did, before teaching reading was outlawed.

Trump v. Casa

I am terribly upset by the US Supreme Court 6-3 decision in Trump v. Casa on June 27, 2025. It gives President Trump the freedom to issue thousands more Executive Orders without having to worry that a US District Court judge will issue any injunctions. It is an alarming green light for Presidential power and abuse of power.

Job Corps

There are at least 21,000 students currently doing coursework and hands-on training through Job Corps. It was started as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty in the 1960s as a career training program for low-income and at-risk youth.

Everyone does not need a college degree to prepare for a chosen job. Job Corps is a program that helps fill in the gap so low-income youth can get the training they need to get a better job.

Even though Job Corps directly puts young people on track to qualify for manufacturing and other jobs, the Trump Administration has “paused” the program because somebody up there thinks the program’s results are poor and we need to do something about budget deficits. (After all, Congress just added $3 trillion to our national debt last week and cuts have to be made somewhere. We certainly can’t make billionaires pay their fair share in taxes!)

The Job Corps program was abruptly stopped, as is typical of the Trump Administration. They didn’t take time to assess the program and to look at changes that could enhance it. And all this was done while the same Trump Administration is crying for trained workers to work all the “beautiful” factories the Trump Administration says it is bringing back to America.

Common sense would tell me as a former public administrator that if a program isn’t showing positive results, you need to look at it and see what needs to be fixed. Make those changes and try to get the program back on a positive note. If all that fails, then scrap the program.

It feels like we’re returning to “the good old days” of the 1950s and 1960s when in the southern piedmont of North Carolina, 16-year-old couldn’t wait to quit high school and go to work for Cannon Mills for minimum wage. With Trump attacking every level of education, is this the deja vu we have to look forward to?

Natasha Bertrand of CNN

A few days ago White House Press Secretary launched a barrage of verbal attacks on CNN reporter Natasha Bertrand. Criticizing reporters for reporting the “facts” manufactured by the Trump Administration which she represents was not becoming or professional.

But the Trump Administration is like a dog with a bone. Once they latch onto a person or a group of people to attack, they just can’t help themselves. They continue to go for the jugular.

Trump went off the rails in his Cabinet meeting on Monday as he, unprompted, dragged Natasha Bertrand’s name through the mud.  As with Karoline Leavitt’s unprofessional and purely political attacks on the reporter last week, Trump followed suit in his Cabinet meeting and said Bertrand should be fired. It is beside the point that she reported an assessment made by the Trump Administration. He went on to attack the media in general and threatened that “I think changes are gonna be made to the media.” Since he oversees the Federal Communications Commission – which grants and renews (or does not renew) broadcast TV licenses, I think we can safely see that his words qualify as a threat to TV networks that do not report the news with the slant he wants.

Trump especially delights in criticizing intelligent and professional women. They intimidate him because he can’t do what they do. For one thing, they speak in complete sentences.

“Alligator Alcatraz”

The development of the so-called Alligator Alcatraz Detention Center in the Everglades would have been bad enough without President Trump and Secretary of Defense Hegseth joking about the detainees needing to learn how to run in a zipzag motion while being chased by alligators. Not to mention the pythons.

Photo of an alligator
Photo by Kyaw Tun on Unsplash

These are human beings, and I don’t see anything funny about the entire immigration situation.

Over the last two or three days there have been reports of inhumane conditions at the facility, but I will withhold details until they are substantiated.

(A piece of advice for Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem: Women who refuse to dress in proper business attire will never be taken seriously by their male colleagues. Just sayin’.)

Jackie Kennedy’s White House Rose Garden is Gone

The iconic White House Rose Garden established in 1961 by First Lady Jacquelyn Kennedy is no more. Trump said the grass was always wet and wreaked havoc with high-heel shoes. (Don’t you just hate it when nature does that to you!)

Close-up photo of a red rose
Photo by Reanimated Man X on Unsplash

Trump had the entire rose garden and that stretch of lush, green lawn at the White House dug up and paved over.

For someone who calls random things like legislation “beautiful,” the man clearly doesn’t know beauty when he sees it. To him, only money, oil rigs, military tanks, detention centers, other man-made things, masked ICE agents, and an occasional nude model or porn star is beautiful.

Chickens in California

Photo of chickens in the grass
Photo by Thomas Iversen on Unsplash

Since Trump puts no value on life – human, animal, or plant – on Wednesday his administration sued California over its regulation of eggs and chicken farms. The reason? According to Reuters, because “the state’s anti-animal cruelty laws created ‘unnecessary red tape’ that had raised egg prices throughout the U.S.”

Let’s just blackmail another country

President Trump is clamping tariffs on Brazil, although Brazilians purchased $3 billion more in goods from the US in the first five months of 2025 than Americans bought from Brazil. There’s that, so we must look deeper into Trump’s “reasoning” for issuing this tariff. And, if you haven’t heard about it, you’re not going to believe it.

Instead of sending Brazil his usual tariff form letter, Trump sent a letter explaining that he is placing a 50% tariff on imported Brazilian goods because he thinks former president, Jair Bolsonaro, is being treated unfairly. Bolsonaro has been indicted for trying to overturn the 2022 election in Brazil.

I guess for Trump it just felt like “déjà vu all over again” and he feels compelled to come to his friend’s aid. In his tariff letter, Trump stated, “This Trial should not be taking place. It is a Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY!”

One headline I saw said that the letter looked like it was written by a fifth grader, but I think that’s unfair to fifth graders.

By the way, they speak English in Liberia

In one of a long line of embarrassing things Donald Trump has said, yesterday he put on his condescending voice and complimented President Joseph Boakai of Liberia for speaking such beautiful English. He asked President Boakai if he was educated. He asked him where he learned to speak such beautiful English. He told President Boakai that he spoke better English than some of the people around the table where they were sitting.

That last sentence was definitely true, for President Boakai speaks in complete sentences and President Trump does not.

By the way, President Trump, English is the official language of Liberia.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Ridiculous distractions in June

With the Sean “Diddy” Combs trial and the Jeff Bezos wedding over with, maybe journalists can get back to real life and reporting the news we need.

Until my next rant blog post

I’m glad I have more years behind me than I have in front of me.

I hope you have a good book to read.

Don’t take freedom for granted.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

(I have not forgotten and I’m not ignoring the flood victims in Texas; however, I will leave it to bloggers in that state to blog about the recovery in the coming months. Since I live in North Carolina, I will continue to give updates on the recovery in my state.)

Janet

No more contempt of court? (& other concerns)

Today I will touch on a variety of things going on within the Trump Administration. None of the news organization can cover everything, so I try to gather items from reputable sources across the board.

No more contempt of court for people like US Presidents?

Photo of a gavel
Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash

Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” which was passed in the US House of Representatives by a whopping ONE vote, is being hashed out in the US Senate. Various aspects of it get picked up by the broadcast news, but one item that is getting almost no publicity is perhaps the worst slam on our democracy yet: It will eliminate the power of courts to hold officials in contempt for disregarding court orders!

That bears repeating: As it was passed by the US House of Representatives, it will eliminate the power of courts to hold officials in contempt for disregarding court orders.

Trump is already ignoring court orders and no court has had the guts to hold him in contempt, so the remedy appears to be for us to strip the courts of any power they could hold over an elected official.

As a regular citizen, if I am called up for jury duty and I don’t show up, I will be held in contempt of court. The judge will order officers of the law to come to my house and transport me in the back seat of a police car to the courthouse where I must appear before the judge who is already unhappy with me. That’s the law. There are consequences when regular citizens break the law.

If this tiny part of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is passed by the Senate, he will sign it into law, thereby making himself untouchable by the Department of Justice.

The last guardrail will be gone.

You have 215 Republicans in the US House of Representatives to thank, but they don’t need your thanks. They have already been thanked by Donald Trump.

Now, we wait to see what the US Senate will do with that 1,000-page “big, beautiful bill.” Will they have the guts to remove the part that strips the judicial branch of our government from its power of checks and balances? Or will they see it as their own way out of being held accountable by the justice system?

Suppose they pass it as it is written. How happy they will be if we have another presidential election someday and a Democrat is elected President? (I did not use the word “if” by mistake. I intentionally used it.)

Be careful, legislators, over what you codify into law. It might come back to bite you.

And that, my friends, is how a 249-year-old democracy is dismantled.

Harvard University

Photo of a red Harvard graduate school banner hung on a pole on the side of a building
Photo by Manu Ros on Unsplash

Another way a democracy is dismantled is to attack and take control of its institutions of higher learning.

It was great that a judge placed a temporary injunction against Trump’s order that he would prevent Harvard University from enrolling any international students, but the damage has been done.

Even if Harvard wins in court, Trump has done irreparable damage to higher education in the United States because there is now a level of fear among students from abroad who will, no doubt, think long and hard before coming to our country to study.

And will students who are American citizens now think twice before they participate in a peaceful protest? Will Trump sign an Executive Order to prevent them from finishing their education? If he can do it to foreign students who are here legally to study, what is to stop him from doing it to American citizens?

And if the courts rule that he cannot do that? Nothing will happen to him. In 2024, the US Supreme Court ruled that the sitting US President cannot be charged with a crime. In May 2025, the US House of Representatives voted 215 to 214 that an elected official cannot be held in contempt of court. Will the US Senators agree?

The irony in Trump’s order that Harvard can no longer admit an international student is that his order would eliminate foreign Jewish students from Harvard all in the name of ridding the university of antisemitism.

Trump is like a dog with a bone. Over the weekend, he took to social media to demand the names of the international students at Harvard along with the names of the countries from which they came. He wants those countries to now pay. Since those students already pay for their education, I’m not sure what their countries are supposed to pay for… or who gets the money. Probably not Harvard.

His governance via social media and Executive Order are really getting old. Since Trump rules by Executive Order, the “big, beautiful bill” passed y the House of Representatives last week was one of the only things they’ve had to do since January 20.

Let’s be clear. This is not an attack on Harvard University. It is an attack on and a threat against every college and university in the United States. Harvard is just the test case to see how far he can push back on academia.

After all, he did say, “I love the uneducated,” when he was campaigning for office.

In an oddly-related story, the Pentagon promotes Kingsley Wilson

I didn’t know her name either, so don’t feel bad. She has been promoted to the position of Press Secretary for the Department of Defense. She is an interesting pick, in light of President Trump’s outrage over antisemitism at Harvard.

It is reported that Wilson has repeated antisemitic comments regarding conspiracy theories against a Jewish lynching victim whose cause helped found the Anti-Defamation League. It’s so bad that some Republicans have criticized Wilson’s employment in any position at the Pentagon.

The Trump Administration is consistently inconsistent.

Speaking of the Pentagon, while I still can

Brian Stelter of CNN reported that more restrictions have been placed on journalists covering the US military. New credentialing constraints were issued by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last Friday night. Also, key parts of the Pentagon that journalists have had access to in the past will now require them to be accompanied by an official escort.

The Pentagon Press Association’s statement said it has tried to communicate with Hegseth “to keep in place a professional working relationship that as persisted for decades,” to no avail.

Stelter reported, “The association said it is ‘puzzled’ about why the Defense Department ‘is devoting such attention to restricting Pentagon media instead of engaging with it as senior leaders have long done.’ Hegseth’s public comments indicate that he views the media as the opposition. He has denounced what he called the ‘hoax press’ and promoted himself by appearing on Fox opinion shows hosted by his friends.”

Hegseth used to be a Fox News personality, like many of the other members of the Trump Administration.

Can someone please tell him to lose the red baseball cap?

First of all, the MAGA campaign caps are baseball caps. They aren’t “MAGA hats.” I know “hat” sounds more high class than “baseball cap,” but that’s not what they are. A man’s hat has a brim all the way around. A baseball cap has a bill on the front.

It was embarrassing enough that the graduating cadets at the US Military Academy at West Point had to listen to a political speech from Trump as their commencement speaker on Saturday, but did he have to wear his bright red MAGA baseball cap?

I have a hunch that he had to wear it because the event was held outside and there are some major issues with Trump’s balding head and his dyed blond locks of hair having to be swept in all directions. What if the wind picked up? What if his hair couldn’t be controlled with grease like it appeared during his Oval Office ambush of South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa earlier in the week?

Too bad he couldn’t just rent a cap and gown and dress like a normal college-level commencement speaker. And what was the pink necktie about?

A video clip that I saw on TV showed Trump saluting while wearing his campaign cap. I tried to find out what he was saluting, but I couldn’t find it. I hope he wasn’t saluting our flag! Whatever he was saluting, it was a ridiculous and embarrassing image of a US President.

In a world where President Barack Obama was heavily criticized by Republicans for wearing a tan suit once, how is it now acceptable for President Donald Trump to wear a baseball cap everywhere he goes? Asking for a friend.

If a man wears a cap to a baseball game, he automatically removes it for the playing of our national anthem. I imagine the national anthem was played at the West Point commencement ceremony. I wonder if Trump removed his cap for it. We’ll probably never know.

Before I leave Trump’s speech at West Point, I will quote one line from it that sent a chill down my spine. He said, “The job of the U.S. Armed Forces is not to host drag shows, to transform foreign cultures, but to spread democracy to everybody around the world at the point of a gun.”

What a bizarre statement! That sounds like we’re going to force democracy on people “at the point of a gun” whether they want it or not. All the while, he is working every day to destroy our democracy. I don’t think another country wants his brand of democracy!

Photo of a building at West Point with a statue in front of a George Washington on a horse
Statue of George Washington on a horse in front of a building at the US Military Academy at West Point.
Photo by Dave Lowe on Unsplash

That was not the most bizarre thing Trump said in his nearly hour long “speech.” In addition to drag shows, he talked about trophy wives. (That must have made the female cadets uncomfortable… and that was probably why he brought up the subject.) He talked about boats and yachts.

His mind wonders and his words tend to follow his mind when he strays from reading the teleprompter. It has become one of his trademarks. He refers to it as “weaving” and justifies it as something he does by intention.

If any other US President had almost daily gone off the rails and rambled about sundry topics in every speech or other public remarks, the 25th Amendment would have been enforced and the Vice President would have replaced him.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read and time to read it.

Value time with family and friends. Tomorrow is promised to no one.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet

The Importance of Looking Good to Hide Ineptitude

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

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

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

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

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

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

But it doesn’t stop with the blond women.

Make-up room at the Pentagon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hope you have a good book to read.

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

Janet

Abrego Garcia, Student Visas, DOJ Weaponization, & What Else Happened This Week

As we near the end of another week of governmental and stock market chaos, today I’m writing about various things happening in the United States. As I finished drafting this blog post at 7:45 last night, I hoped we would have an uneventful news evening so I wouldn’t have to edit it.

We didn’t. I could have added to it, but I chose not to. It will be published at 5:00 a.m. on April 10 without any more additions or edits. I’m sorry it is 2,400 words long. Keeping up with what the Trump Administration is doing is now a full-time job and it is exhausting.

President Trump wants $92 million four-mile long military parade from the Pentagon to the White House on his 79th birthday on June 14. It just happens to also be the 250th anniversary of the US Army and Flag Day, but we all know the real reason for the parade. He begged for one during his first term until people who had some sense told him the city streets of Washington, DC would buckle under the weight of missile launchers and such. He really, really wanted a military parade like they have in Beijing. I don’t know what will happen when he finds out his birthday falls on a Saturday this year. He’s usually in Florida playing golf every Saturday.

How many little blunders will the Executive Branch make before they get their act together? On April 3, Ukrainians who have sought legal safety here during the war in their homeland were told by the US Department of Homeland Security that they had seven days to get out of the United States. The next day they received emails telling them to disregard the earlier notice. Can you imagine the anguish they experienced overnight thinking they had to return to a war zone this week?

In US Senate hearings for her nomination to be US Attorney General, Pam Bondi firmly answered, “No, Senator, not unless they change the Constitution” when asked if President Trump could run for a third term; however, Forbes quoted her as saying in a Fox News interview on April 5, 2025, “We’d have to look at the Constitution” and “it would be a “heavy lift.” I’m not a Constitutional scholar and I know it is possible to repeal an Amendment (i.e. 18th Amendment about prohibition), but it seems clear to me…

Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, the U.S. military representative to the NATO Military Committee in Brussels, was fired last weekend. She is at least the ninth senior US military officer to be fired by the Trump Administration, four of them being women.

After slashing National Park Service personnel numbers, Secretary of the US Interior Department Doug Burgum has ordered all national parks to remain open regardless of severe staffing shortages this summer. That’s good news for those of us hoping to visit a national park this summer and support small businesses outside the park that have had a horrible time getting back on their feet since Hurricane Helene, but not such good news for the remaining park rangers and support personnel.

With promises of selling off the timber in our national parks, I don’t know what will be left of any of them if Trump clear cuts them. Maybe he won’t, but there is no one stepping up so far to stop him. Would someone please tell him that the lumber from the northern forests in Canada is stronger wood and less likely to warp than our pine trees? That’s why we buy lumber for construction from Canada. It takes the fir trees in Canada longer to grow than in most of the US. The slower a tree grows, the stronger the wood.

And would someone please tell him how many decades it takes to grow a pine tree or a hardwood tree? He probably doesn’t know, but the worst part is that he doesn’t care. He only sees dollars signs when he sees a tree. I feel sorry for people who have no sense of a forest’s true worth. It’s not measured in dollars.

Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, was awarded a $5.92 billion contract by the Pentagon to conduct Space Force rocket launches. No conflict of interest there!

Yesterday afternoon, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer learned about the 90-day pause in all tariffs except those against China while he was appearing before a Congressional committee. In other words, while he was on Capitol Hill to explain his president’s tariff policies, he learned about Trump’s about-face at the same time the rest of us did.

Anyone who agreed to work for Trump should have known from history, though, exactly what level of chaos they were signing up for. All they needed to do was see how he went through top officials during his first term. To work for Trump is to have your desk anchored to a revolving door.

The National Weather Service (NWS) will no longer provide any weather alerts in any language other than English although nearly 68 million people living in the US speak a language other than English in their homes. Of course, with so many firings in the NWS, extreme weather alerts will probably soon be a thing of the past. Who needs tornado warnings anyway?

The president now takes his human resources advice from Linda Loomer, a conspiracy theorist who says the attack on the US on September 11, 2001, was “an inside job.” After a meeting with Loomer, Trump fired two top national security advisors because they weren’t loyal enough to him. He said she didn’t tell him who to fire – she just told him who to hire.

US Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he might cut US military personnel by 90,000 because we’re turning our attention to Asia and away from Europe and we’ll rely more on technology than people in uniform.

Trump talked again about Gaza on Monday, calling it “real estate,” and casually saying “we’re” going to “own it” and the Palestinians will just be moved into other countries… other countries that are going to welcome them. Does that sound like a good plan to anybody? Just shove the people around like you’re playing chess but, if you were playing chess, you would give more thought to your moves. In Trump’s eyes, these aren’t human beings. Plain and simple.

What kind of person refers to part of another State (in this case, part of the State of Palestine) as “real estate” as if it is a parcel of land that’s for sale on the open market? Only a person who is up to no good and only looking out for himself.

In the midst of the stock market jumping all over the place and retirees seeing the value of their 401K accounts being jerked around yesterday, it was reassuring that President Trump was signing an Executive Order that removed limitation on water pressure from shower heads and household appliances. We each have priorities.

Trump saw on Monday how the stock market reacted from a rumor that he was going to lift tariffs. The market shot up for a few minutes until the Trump Administration denied that tariffs were going to be paused. On Tuesday he said a tariff pause was not being considered. Wednesday morning, he got on social media and told people to buy stock, but not just any stock. He ended his advice with “DJT.” He never does that. Those are his initials, but “DJT” is also the ticker symbol or stock symbol for his Trump Media & Technology Group Corporation. That stock opened at $15.52 per share Wednesday morning. A few hours later Trump suddenly paused all the tariffs except the 125% tariff on goods from China. DJT closed at $20.27.

On Tuesday, Trump said, “We’re making a fortune with tariffs. $2 billion a day, do you believe it? I was told $2 billion a day.” Who told him that? Probably one of his “yes men.”

As this week progressed, Trump has played with tariffs like a yo-yo. No one knows from one hour to the next where any of the tariffs stand. It’s just a game for him to play and he delights in the power he has. Americans and everyone around the world are left not being able to trust the President of the United States. There is no credibility. There is nothing to trust. There is nothing to rely on.

Irreparable damage has been done to America’s standing in the world.

As I write this at 3:15 (ET) on Wednesday afternoon, April 9, Trump is taking questions from reporters on live TV. His responses to questions go seamlessly from tariffs to gangs cutting off the fingers of people who call the police to Liberation Day to the various geniuses who work in his Administration to Joe Biden’s incompetence to other countries sending us their prisoners to the “good old days” when Trump was young and already thinking about tariffs to the need for flexibility to walls to NASCAR and Indy race “champions” to China ripping us off to people “getting yippy”….

We’re left to wonder if the people “getting yippy” are the same people he called “panicans” earlier in the week. My dictionary is inadequate.

Trump’s press conferences and speeches are “word salads” (Trump calls it “weaving”) of endless incomplete sentences and nonsensical trains of thought in which no rail car is connected to another rail car and there is no locomotive leading the way. No one knows where the train is going or why it left the station.

Update on Abrego Garcia

On April 4, a district court judge gave the Trump Administration until 11:59 p.m., Monday, April 7 to return Abrego Garcia to the US after he was mistakenly shipped off to a prison in El Salvador. Trump was so concerned about this “administrative error” that he had to fly to Florida and play golf to deal with his stress. (Forgive my sarcasm.)

The White House line maintains that Mr. Garcia is now in the custody of El Salvador and the US must honor that diplomatic principle. That seems like a lame excuse to me while at the same time Trump is literally threatening to take Greenland away from Denmark by force if he has to. Where is the diplomacy?

On April 5, the immigration lawyer fighting for Mr. Garcia was fired by Attorney General Pam Bondi because he wasn’t toeing the Trump line. In other words, he argued that there was a court order allowing Mr. Garcia to stay in the United States and he should not have been deported to a prison in El Salvador.

Later Monday afternoon, April 7, the US Supreme Court “paused” the Monday night deadline so they could take more time to consider the case.

As far as I have been able to find, that’s where Mr. Garcia’s case sits. Why does everything have to get so complicated? He was sent to El Salvador in error, and he should be returned to his wife and son in Maryland.

Trump’s Treatment of Universities & Student Visas

Add Brown, Cornell, and Northwestern to the list of universities being threatened with loss of funds if they don’t cease the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio bragged that he had revoked the student visa for 300 international students in the United States. He said they were “lunatics” and that they had come to our country under false pretenses. He said they planned to do us harm. We were led to believe it was because 300 specific international students had either broken US law or posed a threat to US security

Now, we’re learning that student visas are being revoked to punish the governments of their home countries. How sad is that? How cruel to the students! For the most part, these young people have excelled in their studies and wanted the opportunity to pursue university degrees from some of the most respected institutions of higher learning in the world.

I’m beginning to wonder about the numbers. At least six visas have been revoked from students at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, at least two from North Carolina State University at Raleigh, at least six from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and two Duke University graduate student and an alumnus on Optional Practical Training.

That’s 17 revoked student visas at just four universities in North Carolina. Why would six percent of the 300 revoked student visas target four campuses in North Carolina? Or is the total more than 300?

Weaponization of the US Justice Department

Late yesterday afternoon, Trump ordered the US Justice Department to investigate Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor. Investigate them for what? For using words? For having the audacity of thinking they had freedom to criticize the US President under the First Amendment to the US Constitution?

Chris Krebs was the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency during the first Trump Administration. Trump is accusing Krebs of being part of an effort to steal the 2020 election for Joe Biden just because Krebs repeatedly said he could find no evidence of election fraud.

Miles Taylor was chief-of-staff at the US Department of Homeland Security when he wrote an op-ed for the New York Times about the resistance he was witnessing within Trump’s first term as President. Taylor wrote that op-ed anonymously but later revealed in 2020 that he had written it. He had resigned from the Trump Administration the year before. He has written two books and has a podcast, “The Whistleblowers.” Trump is accusing Taylor of treason.

What will US Attorney General Pam Bondi do with this order? In her hearings before Congress, she said in no uncertain terms that she would not weaponize the Justice Department against Trump’s political enemies.

Two months in, what will Pam Bondi do? Will she stick by her words or will she make a farce out of her earlier words? Will she cave in to Trump’s rein of tyranny? What will the US Congress do?

What we have here is a Constitutional Crisis. It’s time for members of the US Congress and the American people to stop looking the other way. Stop thinking or saying anything about this is normal.

Who is Trump’s next target?

Until my next blog post

I apologize if I didn’t catch all my typos.

My planned blog post for tomorrow is an open letter to Trump supporters, but you’re welcome to read it, too.

I hope you have a good book to read.

Keep paying attention.

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

Janet