Tag: tariffs

Just another week in America

It is heartbreaking to have to write about the state of things in the United States. If you are reading this in another country, it must be confusing. Trust me, most Americans are just as confused as you are.

U.S. Government Shutdown

The Republicans blame the Democrats. The Democrats blame the Republicans. But in 2011, Donald J. Trump said if the federal government shutdown, it would be the fault of the President of the United States.

Thousands of federal employees are in limbo. Thousands of others, like air traffic controllers, are expected to continue to work without pay. I seem to recall a Trump slogan: “Make America Safe Again.” Do you feel safe yet?

Trump’s tariffs have hung the American farmer out to dry. Between abruptly ending USAID and getting in a tariff war with China, the soybean market has all but disappeared.

Photo of letters on wooden blocks spelling out: USA Tarriffs.
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

No one in the White House or the U.S. Congress appears to care if thousands of farmers lose everything they have while the political games play out.

Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash

Every single American depends on the American farmers every single day. Where does Trump think we will get our food after all the farmers go bankrupt? They cannot bounce back from bankruptcy like he has. He does not have a clue what a farm is or how it functions.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi please the audience of one she was performing for yesterday before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, but I don’t think she impressed the nation.

If the majority of Americans thought she behaved professionally, then we are in deeper trouble than I thought.

It was a horrible display of sarcasm and dodging every question. She is the poster girl for RUDE.

The FBI, Southern Poverty Law Center, & Anti-Defamation League

Photo of the seal of the FBI
Photo by David Trinks on Unsplash

The Associated Press reported: “FBI Director Kash Patel says the bureau is cutting ties with two organizations that for decades have tracked domestic extremism and racial and religious bias, a move that follows complaints about the groups from some conservatives and prominent allies of President Donald Trump.

“Patel said Friday that the FBI would sever its relationship with the Southern Poverty Center, asserting that the organization had been turned into a “partisan smear machine” and criticizing it for its use of a “hate map” that documents alleged anti-government and hate groups inside the United States. A statement earlier in the week from Patel said the FBI would end ties with the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish advocacy organization that fights antisemitism.”

I found it odd that the Trump Administration is cutting ties with the Anti-Defamation League while simultaneously punishing universities it claims are discriminating against Jewish students. It appears that the U.S. Department of Justice can’t decide whether to help Jewish people or persecute them. As President Trump often says, “We’ll have to wait and see.”

The FBI has worked in partnership with prominent civil rights groups for decades, but I guess Kash Patel doesn’t want any part of it. Or, perhaps he’s just following Trump’s orders. The Southern Poverty Center and the Anti-Defamation League have provided research on hate crimes and domestic extremism to the FBI in the past, but it seems some conservatives think they are not fair.

Meanwhile… President Trump breaks the law by sending the Texas National Guard to Chicago, uninvited and unwanted

Trump is also talking about invoking the Insurrection Act. Funny how he did not invoke it or even call up the National Guard on January 6, 2021, when The Capitol was under siege by his angry mob.

In the last four days, Trump has called Democrats “gnats,” “low IQ people,” and “Somalians.” I guess he got tired calling us “the enemy of the people” and “left-wing lunatics.”

Students of history, can you name a dictator from Germany who used those same tactics in the 1930s to dehumanize the citizens?

Janet

Blog topics keep dropping in my lap

One of these days I hope to be able to enjoy reading fiction again. I miss the days when I wanted to read every historical novel that was published. I can’t remember the last one I read. I’m pretty sure it was before Inauguration Day 2025.

I miss not having books I’ve read to blog about the first Monday of each month. I read parts of several books in August, but I didn’t finish reading any of them.

I settled down at the computer on Friday evening after supper to look for that afternoon’s weekly update on the status of road repairs in western North Carolina since Hurricane Helene a full eleven months ago. I can’t imagine the stress the people who live or work along some of those roads must be under at this point.

For eleven months, I have tried to give an update on Mondays of the progress being made in repairing western North Carolina since the hurricane. Roads are not the most important things being repaired or needing to be repaired. People lost family members, their homes, their businesses, their friends, their communities, and their sense of security. But I don’t know how to report on how those losses are being coped with or healed. I report the progress being made in rebuilding roads and highways because that is something tangible that I can find statistics about. I hope in some way it reminds people in other parts of the United States that just because Hurricane Helene is no longer in the headlines, it doesn’t mean it is over.

On Friday evening, I didn’t know what I was going to blog about today, but I knew I needed to include my weekly update about the roads. I sat down at the computer to get that part of today’s blog written.

But before I could put anything in the search engine, a disturbing piece of breaking news popped up. Although the announcement was put online shortly before 6:30 p.m., the national news channel I watched at 6:30 did not mention it. I guess it was more important to talk about this being Labor Day weekend and how that would specifically bring in lots of business for a particular convenience store chain on steroids.

The free publicity the network gave that convenience store chain was bizarre. It was the kind of story one would expect on “a slow day for news.” But we have not had “a slow day for news” in this country in eight months.

Instead of reporting on how busy the franchises in that convenience store chain would be over the long holiday weekend, I wish that network had reported on what the U.S. Supreme Court did on Friday.

National Institutes of Health

Photo of a woman in a white lab coat looking into a microscope.

The piece of news that was not reported is devastating to a lot of people. In a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Trump Administration can indeed cut $783 million in National Institutes of Health grants connected to diversity programs. Thus, the injunction that a federal judge had put on the action has been lifted.

Too bad that 90,000-square foot ballroom that’s going to dwarf the White House isn’t in place. I’m sure lots of people in The White House would love to go dancing to celebrate this victory over medical research and diversity.

Voice of America

Photo of a silver microphone.
Photo by Jono Hirst on Unsplash

Another thing Trump could celebrate over the Labor Day weekend was the firing of more than 500 employees of Voice of America and its parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, on Friday night. It comes across as, “Happy Labor Day! You’re fired!”

Voice of America was founded by the United States in 1942 to combat Nazi propaganda. Every week for 83 years, it has delivered news to 420 million people in 63 languages in more than 100 countries.

But the Trump Administration does not see the need for it and has been working for eight months to destroy it. One of his Executive Orders in March placed more than 1,000 journalists on indefinite administrative leave.

Kari Lake, an Arizona politician, is tasked by Trump to dismantle Voice of America. She fired 500 contractors in May and tried to fire 600 federal employees in June.

Trump says the Voice of America is speaking for our adversaries and not for the American people. He has produced no evidence. By “our adversaries” does he mean North Korea, China, and Russia? Or does he mean his Democratic political adversaries? I tend to think he means the Democrats. He cannot tolerate people speaking the truth.

Some tariffs ruled illegal

Photo of letters on wooden blocks spelling out: USA Tarriffs.
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

A Federal Appeals Court has ruled that some of the tariffs ordered by the Trump Administration are illegal. We haven’t heard the last of this. Like a dog with a bone, Trump won’t let go without a fight.

Chicago prepares for Trump

Photo of a huge dome-like reflective sculpture in Chicago reflecting the sky and buildings
Photo by Sawyer Bengtson on Unsplash

The City of Chicago and the Governor of Illinois prepare for an invasion by Trump’s military this week. The mayor of Chicago vows to not roll over and play dead.

Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an order on Saturday stating that the Chicago police will not “collaborate with federal agents on joint law enforcement patrols, arrest operations, or other law enforcement duties including civil immigration enforcement.”

The mayor’s order “urges” federal officers in Chicago “to refrain from wearing masks, to wear and use body cameras and to identify themselves to members of the public with names and badge numbers.”

That is what local law enforcement officers do, so why shouldn’t federal officers be required to do the same? The argument that Trump’s thugs must wear masks because their lives are in danger doesn’t hold water. Every law enforcement officer’s life is in danger when they are on the job, but they don’t get to hide behind masks like Trump’s people or the Ku Klux Klan.

Hurricane Helene Update

As of Friday, of the 1,469 roads and highways that had to be closed in western North Carolina due to Hurricane Helene, 33 were still closed and 38 have partial access.

A temporary US-64/US-74 between Chimney Rock and Bat Cave opened last week.

Another section of the Blue Ridge Parkway reopened on Friday, meaning that the 85 miles from Asheville to the parkway’s southern terminus near Cherokee are now open! Work continues on various sections of the road north of Asheville.

It was announced last Thursday that the rebuilding of I-40 in the Pigeon River Gorge North Carolina at the Tennessee line is expected to be completed by the end of 2028. That’s not a typo. 2028.

The NC Department of Transportation is constructing a retaining wall along the Pigeon River below the highway, which will be 30 feet thick and 100 feet tall in some places.

A temporary wall now allows two lanes (one in each direction) to be open with a 35 mile-per-hour speed limit. Monitoring devices are in place to alert drivers to possible landslides.

The reconstruction of five miles of the interstate in the gorge is expected to cost $1.3 billion.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Alert Update

US-441/Newfound Gap Road in the Tennessee side of Great Smoky Mountains National Park is expected to be repaired and reopened by September 30. Earlier estimates were in October. Heavy rainfall caused the undercutting a section of the road between Mile Marker 12 and Mile Mark 13 during flooding on August 2.

Hurricane Erin Update

NC-12 on the north end of Ocracoke Island, NC reopened last Monday and ferry service to Hatteras Island resumed. By the end of last week, what was left of Hurricane Erin was lashing the Butt of Lewis on the northern tip of the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Erin did not give up easily.

Too much news

In less than 24 hours from Friday night until midday on Saturday, I went from not knowing what I could blog about today to having an abundance of topics vying for my attention. I miss the good old days of 2024 when there wasn’t much news on weekends.

Janet

14 highlights of how things are going in America

This is a long blog post. Don’t blame me, blame Trump. If not for him, I would still be blogging just one day a week or occasionally skipping a week.

  • I am horrified that yesterday the President of the United States of America and the President of El Salvador sat in the Oval Office of the White House and agreed that Kilmar Abrego Garcia CANNOT be returned to the United States even though he was sent to an El Salvador prison by mistake without due process. The Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees everyone in the US to due process. That’s not just citizens. That’s anyone. President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador said returning Mr. Garcia to the US would be the same as smuggling a terrorist into another country. As Bukele voiced this ridiculous excuse, Trump smiled and nodded his head in agreement. (Have you noticed that Trump only smiles when showing delight in someone else’s misery?) The White House (i.e., Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House Advisor Stephen Miller) chimed in saying no court in the US has the authority to conduct foreign policy, that only the President has that power. Last week, the US Supreme Court ordered Mr. Garcia’s return to the US because he was sent to a prison in El Salvador due to a clerical error, so this whole display of an egregious abuse of Presidential power was directly aimed at the US Supreme Court. What we have here is a Constitutional Crisis.

  • Furthermore, on a hot mic at that same news conference, Trump said to the El Salvador President/Dictator, “The homegrowns are next. You gotta build about five more places.” They were both enjoying the moment and laughing. “Home-grown” means US-born. And the US Vice President, the US Secretary of State, and the US Attorney General were complicit in their silence. No US President has ever voiced a desire to send American citizens to prisons in another country. The way Trump throws around threats that many individuals and groups should be “locked up,” we are left to understand that he now plans or at the least contemplates sending anyone he considers to be a criminal to a prison in another country. Make no mistake: Trump’s words were aimed at any American citizen who dares to disagree with him or criticize him. Don’t take Trump at his word, look into his intent. Don’t make excuses for him. Don’t kid yourself. We no longer have a normal Executive Branch in the US Government. Trump’s words yesterday were in direct conflict with the “cruel and unusual punishments inflicted” phrase in the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution and were chilling on multiple levels.
  • Do you know why Trump has found a new ally and friend in President Nayib Bukele? Bukele “is the iron-fisted president of El Salvador (2019– ), who has unabashedly styled himself as the “world’s coolest dictator” and the country’s “philosopher king.” (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nayib-Bukele)
  • On Sunday night, Trump jumped on social media and pretty much ordered the Federal Communications Commission to go after CBS because he did not like the news segments on “60 Minutes” that night about Ukraine and Greenland. Quoting from Trump’s post, “Hopefully, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as headed by its Highly Respected Chairman, Brendan Carr, will impose the maximum fines and punishment, which is substantial, for their unlawful and illegal behavior.” He said CBS should lose its license. I watched the segment about Ukraine. Scott Pelley, interviewed President Zelensky of Ukraine. As an American citizen, it looked like an excellent and honest interview in which Zelensky invited Trump to visit Ukraine and go wherever he wanted to in the country and see for himself the condition in which the country is. Zelensky said that Russia invaded Ukraine – which the whole world knows is true – but apparently, Trump can’t tolerate anyone saying anything negative about his buddy in Moscow. (And, no, Mr. Trump… Russia’s bombing of Sumy, Ukraine on Palm Sunday morning was not an accident.) Threats to revoke FCC broadcast licenses is Step One, my friends, of Donald Trump shutting down the free press in the United States of America. He ended his Sunday night social media rant with the words, “Make America Great Again!” in all caps. In yesterday’s press conference, Trump lashed out at CNN’s Kaitlin Collins as follows: “You said if the Supreme Court said someone needed to be returned, you’d abide by that,” Collins reminded him. Trump cut her off and it looked like he wasn’t going to address her question, but then he said, “Why don’t you just say, ‘Isn’t it wonderful that we’re keeping criminals out of our county? That’s why nobody watches you anymore.” You have no credibility.” The truth of the matter is that Kaitlin Collins is not afraid of Donald Trump. He is afraid of her because someone deep down he knows she does her research, she knows the US Constitution, and she will fight for freedom of the press with her last breath. His total disdain for the First Amendment to the US Constitution could not be more obvious. His total disdain for the First Amendment to the US Constitution could not be more obvious.
  • The Wall Street Journal reported on April 11, 2025, that the Trump Administration spent $154 billion more since the inauguration on January 20 than the Biden Administration spent in the same period last year.
  • Colonel Susannah Meyers, commander of the US Pituffik Space Base in Greenland was fired after not sharing Vice President J.D. Vance’s enthusiasm for the United States taking control of Greenland. She made the mistake of telling Vance that a US takeover did not reflect the community.
  • In my blog on Saturday, I wrote about my concerns about the Trump Administration declaring 6,100 living immigrants in the Social Security database as being dead. Another new bit of news about the Social Security Administration (SSA) is the announcement on Thursday that it will be making all announcements in the future on X instead of via press releases or announcements on its website. This, coupled with the recent announcement that many local SSA offices are closing and business cannot be conducted via phone means X is just one more roadblock for people needing SSA services. I’m going out on a limb, but I think most people on Social Security are not on X. Those of us who used to be on Twitter cancelled our accounts when Elon Musk bought Twitter and changed the name to X – and we aren’t going back!
  • The new image of Trump was hung in a prominent place in the White House – a place traditionally reserved for portraits of the immediate past President. President Obama’s portrait was taken down and hung elsewhere, but instead of a portrait of President Biden being hung in its place, a rendition of a campaign image of Trump was put up. It’s a defiant, angry image of Trump with his fist in the air. Can anyone say, “Petty?” Can anyone say, “Tacky” in the truest Southern US sense of the word?
  • Stocks and Bonds out-of-whack. Stocks were up a little on Friday, April 11, but US Treasury Bonds were down. With the stock market losing in general and causing investors to wonder what the future holds, one would think they would be turning to the more stable bond market. But that’s not what was happening on Friday. When investors and other countries are hesitant to purchase US Treasury Bonds, that sent up a red flag that economic instability might be worse than we thought, if that’s possible. However, on Friday afternoon as Trump flew to Florida for yet another golf weekend, the 27-year-old blond ever-cheerful and perky cross-necklace-wearing White House Pres Secretary Karoline Leavitt enthusiastically encouraged reporters in the White House Press Room to, “Trust President Trump. He knows what he’s doing.” You can’t make this stuff up.
  • US Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a memo to every US Embassy in the world instructing State Department employees to report their colleagues for any instances of “anti-Christian bias.” It is reported that accusations of such bias can be made anonymously, but they should be as detailed as possible. Trump created a task force by Executive Order in February to not only hunt down anti-religious bias in his Administration but also in the Biden Administration, so why did the Rubio memo specify “anti-Christian bias?” Call me a left-wing lunatic, but I think this smacks of fascism. Rubio is the son of immigrants from Cuba, and this is the way he thanks America?
  • The Associated Press reports that, “Some journalists are reporting that Trump Administration officials are refusing to engage with reporters who list their pronouns in their signature.” The New York Times reports that one reporter’s email received the following response from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt: “As a matter of policy, we do not respond to reporters with pronouns in their bios.”
  • On Thursday, April 10, 2025, the US House of Representatives passed the SAVE Act. That Act, if also passed by the Senate, will require proof of citizenship for voter registration. Republicans (and, apparently, four rogue Democrats in the US House) just cannot get it through their heads or hearts that millions of noncitizens are voting, so they had to come up with a hardnosed solution to a problem that does not exist. On the face of it, it does not sound that oppressive. One way to prove citizenship is to produce your birth certificate; however, that birth certificate must be in your current legal name. If you are a woman who took your husband’s surname when you got married, your birth certificate is no longer proof of your citizenship. Your only saving grace is your passport. You can’t afford $130 for a passport? Too bad! The Republicans want to take us back to “the good old days” prior to 1920 when women could not vote in the United States. One might not be able to prove that the SAVE Act is unconstitutional because it does not include words like “sex,” “women,” or “female,” but it is definitely in opposition to the spirit of the 19th Amendment. How can it be interpreted otherwise when it is women who traditionally take their husband’s surname in the US? Voter suppression, plain and simple, under the guise of preventing non-citizens from voting.
  • While we are on the topic of voting… President Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, voted in Hawaii last November even though she had sworn last June that her legal state of residence was Texas so she and her husband could take advantage of a homestead tax exemption in Texas. The excuse her office gave: she was trying to shield her address from public view for security reasons. Even if that is true, it did not make it legal for her to cast her vote in Hawaii. Can anyone say, “Voter Fraud?”
  • In my April 11, 2025, blog post, I expressed concern over the fact that 17 of the 300 student visas revoked by Secretary of State Marco Rubio were from four universities in North Carolina. It came to light on CNN on Saturday that the actual number is 525, but that number doesn’t make me feel any better. If the 525 figure is to be believed, that means three percent of them are from just four universities in North Carolina. Can that be possible? And if that is correct, why are North Carolina universities being targeted? Secretary Rubio sat in the Cabinet meeting on Friday and said they were only giving the boot to international students who came to America to “vandalize libraries,” but that couldn’t be further from the truth. First of all, the Trump Administration has already shown its disdain for libraries in his Executive Order a couple of weeks ago ordering the Institute of Museum and Library Services to be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.” Second of all, it looks like any international student is at risk of being sent back home, which short-term and long-term will be a brain-drain and tragedy for the United States and for those individual students. But then on Sunday I learned that a student at Appalachian State University has been added to the list of international students in North Carolina whose visas have been revoked. Counting the Duke University alumnus and an alumnus on Optional Practical Training that’s 18 students at five universities in NC alone. In a TV interview on Sunday, Congressman Robert Garcia of California, who serves on the Homeland Security Committee, said the total number now is more than 800. The Trump Administration needs to come clean about the numbers and the fact that most of these students are being kicked out of the United States for only one reason:  they are from another country. That is horrible, anti-education, and anti-American. It is also a hallmark of a Fascist regime. But any government that can declare living immigrants to be dead can kick foreign students out of the country for no reason – many of them just a couple of weeks before the end of a semester and graduation for some of them. That’s cruel, plain and simple. All under the guise of stamping out anti-semitism. Nothing could be further from the truth and anyone with common sense knows it. Thank you, Harvard University, for not caving in to the façade.

I will blog about more such happenings in America tomorrow.

Reminder: Go to https://speakupforjustice.law for more information and to register for the 12:00 Noon Eastern Time “Speak Up For Justice” event on Zoom. In part, the website states, “The Speak Up For Justice event seeks to bring the country together to voice support for the judiciary at a time when it is under unprecedented attack.”

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

An Historical & Current Look at “America First”

It is sad that many Americans do not know history. I blame the results of the 2024 US Presidential election on that along with today’s popular mindset that is only concerned with how something affects “me” instead of being concerned with “the common good.”

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

A policy of isolationism has never turned out well for the United States, and I doubt it will as we find ourselves in a true global economy in which no country can thrive in isolation.

Donald Trump campaigned for President on an America First agenda. That apparently sounded good to half the population. The picture he painted of America First did not include alienating the allies we’ve had for our entire 248-year history. It did not include turning our backs on Ukraine and embracing Vladimir Putin. Trump so successfully sold half the voters a bill of goods that they find themselves unable to admit they were hoodwinked. They cannot admit they made a grave mistake in the voting booth.

They interpreted “America First” as an idyllic country in which we would literally build walls instead of bridges, we would have cheap eggs and cheap gasoline, we would not be bothered by having under-paid migrants picking our fruits and vegetables, we would not be bothered with immigrants cleaning our hotel rooms or cutting our grass, and we would not have to compete with highly-qualified foreigners for jobs we have not prepared ourselves to assume.

It is a fact that Americans already have cheap gasoline compared to such places as Great Britain. As the “Bird Flu” continues to spread, we already look back on $4.00-a-dozen eggs as “the good old days.” And how many of us are lining up to make the beds and clean the toilets in hotels for $7.25-an-hour?

Much of America finds itself in an “us versus them” mentality. It is a mindset based in a belief that anyone who doesn’t look and talk like I do doesn’t have the right to live… not a right to live in the United States, at least. When I voiced my political views on social media in January, one commenter told me I should find another country to live in.

I was fortunate to have been born in the United States. I did nothing to deserve that. My immigrant ancestors came here in the 1700s and — fortunately for me — were not deported by the Native Americans who had been living here for thousands of years.

By merely being born in the United States I am the recipient of blessings and opportunities about which the majority of people in the world can only dream.

Photo of the Statue of Liberty with the New York City skyline in the background
Photo by Priyanka Puvvada on Unsplash

Don’t get me wrong… illegal immigration into the United States needs to be addressed, but the mistakes of the past have turned Americans into an “us versus them” mentality in which the “us” no longer view “them” as human beings. The dehumanization of people leads to hate and violence.

It is tragic that we now have a President who repeatedly tells us that we are victims, suckers, and losers being taken advantage of by other countries.

“What’s the history of “America First?” you may ask.

Former Secretary of State, the late Madeleine Korbel Albright, explained it well in her book, Fascism: A Warning, in 2018, so I will quote some of what she wrote:

“America First is a slogan with a past. Founded in 1940, the America First Committee (AFC) brought together pacifists, isolationists, and Nazi sympathizers to fight against the country’s prospective entry into World War II. The AFC opposed creation of the Selective Service and also a Roosevelt initiative known as Lend-Lease, to keep the British in food and arms as they struggled to survive the German onslaught. Within twelve months of its founding, the committee had built a membership of more than 800,000 and attracted support from across the political spectrum – corporate tycoons and Socialists alike.”

Photo of a barbed wire fence at a Nazi concentration camp during World War II
Fence at a Nazi concentration camp. (Photo by Darshan Gajara on Unsplash.)

Albright also wrote, “Four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler declared war on the United States. The AFC soon disbanded and, in the intervening decades, its name has carried a stigma of naivete and moral blindness. Now ‘America First’ is back – but what does it mean?”

Donald Trump stated at an assembly of the United Nations that every country should put its interests first. But Albright maintains, “What the assertion ignores is the stake that all countries have in the fates of others.”

My thoughts

I started Janet’s Writing Blog more than a decade ago. Until recently, I planned to basically blog about my journey as a writer and my journey as a reader. As time passed and I wanted to establish my credibility as a writer of history and historical fiction, I began to blog about historical events and documents, usually on anniversary dates.

I did not plan, intend, or want to turn my blog into a political platform. I still do not want to do that, but I find myself in a situation in which I cannot avoid it. I must live with myself. I cannot have this public platform and pretend that everything in our country and world are going well.

Writers are cautioned against being too political, but aren’t writers, teachers, and scientists the first groups and individuals fascist governments go after? I don’t want to turn my blog into nothing but a political sounding board; however, I will not sit idly by while our government is dismantled.

Until the day that I am silenced, I will continue to voice my opinions and speak out against injustices. I will come down on the side of the United States Constitution, and I will come down on the side of the downtrodden. My Presbyterian faith instructs me to do so.

The growing mindset in the United States is “us” versus “them.” I think the 2024 Presidential Election bears that out. In the words of Secretary Albright, “To reduce the sum of our existence to a competitive struggle for advantage among more than two hundred nations is not clear-eyed but myopic. People and nations compete, but that is not all that they do.”

Photo of a painting of the western hemisphere.
Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash

We have just experienced a week of whiplash caused by the policies, pronouncements, Executive Orders, and constantly changing mind of Donald Trump. One day we have tariffs, the next day we don’t, but the next day we do, and no one knows – apparently, not even Trump – whether they’re on or off later today, much less tomorrow.

The words of Trump supporters that “we need a businessman in the White House” echo in my head. Being a student of government and political science, I bristled at that mindset when it was first voiced and I continue to bristle and cringe at it today.

If this is the way businesses operate, I don’t think our democracy (or any democracy) can afford it. I know a democracy cannot afford this in a constitutional way – in a “this is what we stand for” way.

When facing excessive debt, do businesses fire all their employees only to try to locate and rehire the good ones later? Do businesses issue blanket lies in writing about the performance of the employees they fire or layoff in mass reorganizations in order to make it more difficult for them to find new jobs?

Oops! We didn’t mean to fire the air traffic controllers. We didn’t mean to fire the people who safeguard our nuclear stockpiles. We just meant to fire the scientists working on cures for cancer, the people who are trained to fight wildfires, the people who work at the Veterans Administration and the VA hospitals, and the people who make sure we have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and safe food to eat.

We just meant to cancel classes at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland, the premier fire academy in the US where firefighters from all over the nation come for special training. (Too bad for the firefighters who had already bought their plane tickets, etc. for the new round of classes that were scheduled to begin this week.)

We just meant to traumatize the millions of disabled and elderly citizens who rely on Social Security. After all, we must find the money somewhere to give the millionaires and billionaires more tax breaks.

To me, that’s a sign of insanity, but I did not major in business administration in college. I majored in political science and my graduate degree is in public administration.

The government is not supposed to be a profit-making entity. It is service oriented. The government does not manufacture things. It contracts with private companies (and billionaires like Elon Musk) for those things. If the federal government is “getting ripped off” as Trump says, perhaps someone needs to take a look at federal contracts with private companies and see where the waste is.

Photo of a contract marked with a "sign here" sticky note
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

When I worked in government, I was required to recommend to the elected governing body that a contract be given to the lowest bidder unless the lowest bidder was deemed unable to fulfill the contract and accomplish the work as specified. If we think the federal government is paying too much for water faucets or whatever, perhaps the fault likes with the private company selling us those faucets.

If contracts are being issued to the highest bidder because an elected official has a personal relationship or a financial relationship with that bidder, perhaps the elected official needs to be impeached. And the bidder attempting to defraud the government (i.e., the American people) needs to be exposed.

In the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln reminded us that in the United States of America we have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It is time for we, the people, to remind all three branches of the federal government of that.

Photo of the tops of three heads: a blonde, a brown, and a black haired and skinned group of people
Photo by Clarissa Watson on Unsplash

We are the government. We, the people, are not the enemy of the government. A free press is not the enemy of the people.

Until my next blog post

It is tempting during these uncertain and chaotic times to withdraw and stop listening to or reading the news; however, it is more important than ever that we pay attention. We need to stay as informed as possible about what is happening in and to our government. We need to get our information from a wide range of reliable sources.

I deleted my weekly western North Carolina Hurricane Helene Update today due to the length of my blog post. It should return next week.

I hope you have a good book to read. I have several going now, as usual. Regardless of your political leanings, I encourage you to read Fascism: A Warning, by Madeleine Korbel Albright.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet