Are you as tired of hearing this stuff as I am? That’s part of their plan. Just wear us out and wear us down. They want us to get so tired of being bombarded every day by more Executive Orders and lies that we will eventually tune it out.

We are faced with pure evil in America today.

I’m tired, but I’m not tuning any of it out. The following list is in no particular order.

• Virtually every family has been touched by Alzheimer’s Disease. There were 35 research centers in the US that were studying Alzheimer’s Disease, many of them conducting drug trials. The Trump Administration stopped the funding for 14 of the 35. Some of them ran out of money three weeks ago. Let that sink in… drug trials for Alzheimer’s Disease suddenly stopped. If you voted for Donald Trump, this is what you voted for and I think it’s time for you admit it. I think it is time for all y’all who voted for him to tell him to stop. To stop everything he is doing. Every single thing. You put him in the White House, and you have the power to remove him from the White House. All you have to do is flood the White House and the offices of your Republican Senators and Representatives with phone calls, emails, and letters. Y’all are the ones with the power to stop every bit of this. Don’t say you didn’t vote for “this.” Yes, you did. You knew you were voting for a convicted felon who lies about everything. You knew he had no empathy for anyone, and if ending the funding for Alzheimer’s research doesn’t prove that, I don’t know what would.

• Continued assault on universities. CBS reported on April 23 that President Trump signed an executive order to change the college accreditation process so colleges are accredited based on “results,” with the president wondering aloud about looking into the math capabilities of students admitted to Harvard University and Yale University. In his campaign in 2024, he said the accreditation organizations were “dominated by Marxist Maniacs and lunatics.” He, of course, never offered any evidence to back that up. The problem is… the accreditation of institutions of higher education is, by law, controlled by third-party entities and not the federal government – much less the US President. The report quoted White Houe staff secretary Will Scharf as saying that Trump thinks the accrediting entities are focused on “woke ideology” instead of results. This Executive Order affects law schools and graduate program as well. First, Trump tried blackmailing universities by threatening to end their federal funding if they continued to admit students based on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). That worked at Columbia University, but it didn’t work at Harvard or Princeton. Next, he said he would weaponize the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) that all international students must process through in order to be admitted to a college or university in the US. Now, he’s threatening all colleges and universities by saying he will take control of the accrediting entities. Attacking the intellectual freedoms of colleges and universities is right out of the fascist playbook. If you voted for Trump, you voted for this. If you didn’t know he was going to attack institutions of higher education, you didn’t read Project 2025.

• On Friday, April 25, US District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty in Monroe, Louisiana, issued an order for a hearing to be held at 9:00 a.m. CT at the Federal Courthouse in Monroe regarding “In the interest of dispelling our strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.” The two-year-old daughter of a woman was deported to Honduras after the child’s father’s lawyer informed the US Department of Justice that the child was a US citizen. Judge Doughty stated, “The Government contends that this is all okay because the mother wishes that the child be deported with her. But the Court doesn’t know that.” At 1:06pm CT, the Court was informed that a phone call to the mother could not be placed “because she (and presumably VML) [the child’s initial’s in Court documents] had just been released in Honduras.” ABC News reported that the child “was initially detained with her undocumented mother at a routine immigration check-in in New Orleans earlier this week. My first question is, Why couldn’t the US Government postpone the mother’s deportation until a judge could hear the facts in the case? My second question is, At what age does the US Government believe it is okay to deport an American citizen?  My third question is, Will the US Government only deport American citizens who are minors, or should all of us be ready to be snatched up and shipped off to another country at any time?

• In a similar case, a mother and her two minor children were deported to Honduras. Her four-year-old daughter who was deported is being treated in the US for Stage 4 metastatic cancer. The child was deported without access to her medications or medical care. I defy anyone to tell me what about that makes “America Great Again.” Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar” whose official job title is White Houe Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations (his business card must have to be the size of a poster!), maintains that this mother wanted her children to be deported with her. Of course, a mother does not want to be separated from her children. Of course, a mother does not want to be separated from her child who is going through cancer treatment. BUT… this case could have been handled in a more humane way. From everything I’ve heard and read, there was no pressing need for that mother and her children to be deported on April 25, 2025. The mother was not a dangerous criminal. The mother had merely missed an appointment with immigration officials due to circumstances beyond her control. If the case could have been reviewed by a US District judge, I’m sure a postponement in deportation could have been worked out. But when deportation planes take off in the hours before daylight and deportees are detained in isolation without access to legal counsel, the court system is eliminated from the process.

• In 2021, President Joe Biden issued a proclamation making the traditional Columbus Day holiday in October also Indigenous Peoples Day. Finally, the indigenous peoples in the US were getting a little bit of respect and recognition. On April 27, 2025, Trump made clear his disdain for indigenous peoples as he said we will no longer have Indigenous Peoples Day. He delighted in announcing that he is restoring Columbus Day as just Columbus Day. The point of his doing this can only be interpreted as a punch in the gut to every person in this country who has indigenous DNA. There is absolutely nothing constructive that can come out of this.

• Last Thursday, Trump claimed that gasoline was down to $1.98 per gallon “in some states.” Of course, he couldn’t name which states because it wasn’t true. According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), no state had an average price below $2.70 per gallon, and the national average price is $3.17. Why can’t he just tell the truth? Plus, Americans aren’t going to get any sympathy from the people in England or Scotland for our $3 to $4 petrol.

• Last Thursday, Trump said that grocery prices have come down. According to the Consumer Price Index, grocery prices in March were 0.49% higher than in February, the biggest month-to-month jump since October 2022. Average grocer prices in March 2025 were up 2.41% over March 2024, the biggest year-over-year increase since August 2023. What can’t he just tell the truth?

• Last Tuesday, Trump said, “as you know, the cost of eggs has come down like 93, 94% since we took office.” On Thursday, he said eggs prices had dropped by 87%. Actually, the average price of a dozen large Grade A eggs in January was $4.95. If the price had dropped by 93 or 94% since January 20, eggs should be selling now for less than 38 cents-a-dozen. The average price nationally in March was $6.23 per dozen. I paid $4.96 last Wednesday, which is about what I’ve been paying for a couple of months because I’m fortunate to live in a major egg-producing state. Why can’t Trump just tell the truth? Plus, the reason the price of eggs skyrocketed this winter was because chicken flocks were hit with the bird flu and infected flocks had to be slaughtered. It was a crisis of supply and demand, but the Trump Administration has maintained from the beginning that (1) chickens were unnecessarily slaughtered or (2) they have completely ignored the fact that there is a bird flu and chickens were slaughtered. It was convenient to just blame the Biden Administration for the price of eggs.

• Last Thursday, the US Department of Justice stopped the funding of more than 350 grants for such things as hot-lines for drug addicts to call for help, programs for violence prevention and juvenile justice, crime victims, and the fight against opioid abuse. The reason? To protect Americans against “toxic DEI policies.”

• KTVX in Salt Lake City reported that Carlos Trujillo, a naturalized US citizen working as an immigration attorney in that city received an order on April 11 to self-deport within seven days. “I know the laws of this country,” Trujillo told Nexstar’s KTVX. “I am not leaving. I am not deportable. But I do want everybody to know that these kinds of things are happening.” The report continued, “Trujillo said the ‘threatening language’ of the email bothered him. Trujillo encouraged the immigrant community to be aware of the changes in the laws and to know their rights. He said many people who received the email are in the country under legal circumstances. Trujillo isn’t the only one receiving a letter from the Department of Homeland Security saying it’s time to leave – a similar email was sent to hundreds of thousands of people across the United States…. However, Trujillo came to the U.S. about 24 years ago, and has been a naturalized U.S. citizen for roughly a decade.” I was born and have lived my entire life in the US, but I’m thinking about applying for a passport so I can prove that I am a US citizen. I realized my driver’s license does not prove citizenship.

• CNN reported on April 24 that the court document that migrants are handed gives them 12 hours to say if they will challenge their deportation under the Alien Act of 1798, which gave the government the authority to deport people during wartime. (We are not at war, folks! Just sayin’.) The form is in English only. If they wish to challenge their removal, they have 24 hours to hire an attorney and file their challenge. During World War II, immigrants were given 30 days to do so.
• It was reported on CNN on April 24, that more than 1,500 student visas have been revoked by the US State Department since January 20.

• Reuters reported that US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy has told states that they must ensure personnel practices are merit-based in order to receive federal funds. The Trump Administration said on Thursday that states could lose federal funds if they don’t cooperate with federal immigration efforts or if they continue DEI programs. Duffy had earlier announced that he will favor giving states priority for transportation funds for locations that have high birthrates. Transportation funding has traditionally been political, but this is the first time I remember the US Government announcing that as an official policy.

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Until my next blog post tomorrow

It’s difficult, but don’t give up on American democracy. (I’m saying that to myself. I need to hear it every day.)

Remember the people of Ukraine, Myanmar, and western North Carolina. They do not have the luxury of worrying about every little thing the Trump Administration does. They’re just trying to survive and put their lives back together.

Janet