Tag: US border security

Another Roundup of Odds & Ends

I seem to be falling into a routine of writing a Friday roundup of happenings in the U.S. Government. Since I have some good and exciting news to blog about tomorrow, I’ll get this week’s roundup of Washington, DC happenings out of the way on Thursday.

It might seem petty for me to comment on the “little” things Trump does, but when you look at them all together you can’t help but see a pattern. All the “little” distractions are intended to make us not see the big picture.

Here we go…

Painting the wall black

Photo of vertical streaks of black paint on the white background
Photo by Kilian Seiler on Unsplash

Trump not only appoints and hires the best people. He also gives them the best jobs to do. A case in point is that he has ordered his “big, beautiful wall” that separates part of the United States from part of Mexico black to make it hotter.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has been unable to report how much all that black paint is costing the American taxpayers, much less people being paid to do the painting.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Where is the Department of Government Efficiency? DOGE has gone quiet.

More White House redecorating?

Apparently, destroying Jackie Kennedy’s beautiful rose garden and replacing it with a concrete patio replete with gutters made in the image of the U.S. flag was not enough.

Building a 90,000-square foot $200 million ballroom on the White House lawn will not be enough.

It appears that the West Colonnade – the iconic walkway that connects the residence quarters of the White House with the West Wing presidential offices – is Trump’s next target.

White House West Colonnade. Photo from the Library of Congress.

With the help of Jeanine Pirro, a former TV personality who Trump appointed to be U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, it looks like the beautiful colonnade is being transformed into another picture frame gallery since every inch of the Oval Office wall is now covered in picture frames and there’s not room for one more gaudy gold frame.

Trump must own stock in a company that makes gaudy gold picture frames.

Since the West Colonnade walkway is open to the elements of nature, it doesn’t seem to me to be an ideal place to hang pictures, but nobody asked me.

This is wrong on many levels, and it begs the question: “Why do the President of the United States and the new U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia have time to redecorate the White House?

It’s almost as if Trump plans to never leave.

Did Trump forget the name of the Pacific Ocean?

I do not watch Trump’s favorite TV network. Never have. Never would. Never will. I prefer to get my news from reliable sources and not from puppets of the Trump Regime.

That being said, I saw a quote from Trump’s conversation on that network on Tuesday morning where he appeared to forget the name of the Pacific Ocean. He has a clever way of covering up his gaffes. He does that by never speaking in complete sentences.

Here’s what Trump was quoted as saying on Tuesday after he called in to his favorite TV network’s early morning show:  “You know we have an ocean that’s separating us, right? A thing called…. an ocean. A big, beautiful ocean. And, uh, they don’t, they’re right there. So it’s a different kind of a thing for them.”

It is embarrassing that all other world leaders have a better command of the English language than the President of the United States.

It reminds me of the time during his first term when Trump discovered that Puerto Rico is surrounded by water.

Trump proclaims himself “a war hero”

Donald Trump, who dodged the draft during the Vietnam War by paying a doctor to claim he had bone spurs, has proclaimed himself to be “a war hero” because he sent planes to help Israel bomb Iran.

On a TV show on Tuesday night, Trump started out talking about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but his attention quickly turned to himself, as it usually does. Trump said, “[Netanyahu is] a war hero because we work together. He’s a war hero. I guess I am too. Nobody cares, but I am, too. I mean, I sent theses planes.”

I’ll just leave it at that.

Continuing war on renewable power

Photo of the top of a modern windmill
Photo by Tom Arran on Unsplash

As the rest of the world pursues a future using renewable energy, on Wednesday Trump vowed that his administration will not issue permits for any solar or wind power projects.

Trump said that wind and solar energy are a scam. He wrote, “The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!”

I guess the days of the United States leading the way into new and better sources of power are over.

(I can’t let this go without quoting my high school senior English teacher, Mrs. Cline, saying, “One exclamation point is sufficient.” Maybe Trump never took an English class. There’s certainly no evidence that he did.)

Mail-in ballots, anyone?

After taking Vladimir Putin’s advice on how to run an honest election, on Monday, Trump said he would issue an Executive Order to stop all mail-in voting in the United States.

Photo of part of a mail-in voting envelope
Photo by Obi on Unsplash

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to walk that back on Tuesday by saying that what Trump meant to say was that he would work through Congress to make such a change.

My first thought on Monday was that Trump’s plan/threat would mean our military personnel deployed outside the United States would no longer be able to vote. Is that really what Trump wants? He claims to love the military when he’s not calling them suckers and losers.

Congressman Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey threw himself into the fray on Tuesday when he said, “Other times, people who are passed away—these are real people I spoke to, large numbers of them, and it’s indicative of what happened around the country.” This brings to mind that famous quote from a movie, “I see dead people walking.” New Jersey has a U.S. Representative who talks to them.

I hate to beat a dead horse, but public education in Oklahoma has taken another turn

Photo of the alphabet on a dark background
Photo by Jessicah Hast on Unsplash

Most of us can be glad we don’t live in Oklahoma or have children attending the public schools there. You may recall that I paid my respects to Oklahoma State School Superintendent Ryan Walters in my August 13, 2025, blog post, We can only hope other states don’t follow Oklahoma!.

Walters continues to make the news as he has now put in place what he called an “America First” Test for teachers moving to Oklahoma from predominantly Democratic states.

You read that correctly. Only teachers moving into Oklahoma from states that voted for Kamala Harris instead of for Donald Trump in the 2024 election are required to take this test.

You can’t make this stuff up!

The test is based on Walters’ assumption that everyone who lives in a “red state” supports everything Trump says and does and everyone who lives in a “blue state” disagrees with everything Trump says and does. At least he’s only in charge of public education in Oklahoma and not the entire country!

I understand there were 50 questions on the test ranging from which chromosomes determine a baby’s sex to how many United States Senators there are, to one about freedom of religion being important to a nation’s identity.

That’s bizarre, considering it is the Republican Party that seems hell bent on making all Americans conservative right-wing Democrat-hating Christians.

Under the U.S. Constitution, we currently have freedom of religion, which also means we have freedom from religion. The government cannot dictate which religion I practice and I am free to practice no religion at all.

Walters was quoted as saying this about the test: “You’re not going to come in here and teach that there’s 27 genders. There’s boys and girls. That’s in our science standards. You’re going to come in, and you’re not going to undermine American exceptionalism by teaching anti-American, anti-Semitic hate.” 

Where do these Republicans get off accusing “woke” people as being anti-Semitic? It has been my experience that Trump supporters are more likely to be anti-Semitic than anyone else, but maybe my personal observations are wrong.

The most bizarre part of all this is that Donald Trump shows no signs of believing in God or any power higher than himself. Why conservative right-wing Christians have fallen under his spell will forever baffle me.

Back to the “woke” test in Oklahoma… Is it not important for Republican teachers to know about chromosomes, the US Senate, and freedom of religion? I guess not.

The objective in Oklahoma is clear. It is not to attract good teachers. It is to attract narrow-minded, easily-influenced teachers who are willing to profess they only vote for Republicans.

Another issue we hoped was dead, but it isn’t

Trump has vowed to double down on all museums in the United States because he thinks they are “too woke” and they spend too much space and time talking about “how bad slavery was.”

Does this mean that museums will now have to tell us how good slavery was?

Photo of a black person's fist with a rope tied around it
Photo credit: Tasha Jolley on unsplash.com

If nothing else, this points to two things: (1) Donald Trump is a racist and (2) he can only view slavery as being good for the economy. How else can anyone human being see slavery as a good thing?

He says he is going to send lawyers into the museums to get rid of all the “woke” exhibits. He says he will start with the Smithsonian Institution.

This is either insanity, dementia, or pure evil.

Regardless of the root of Trump’s problem, it is the rewriting and literal white-washing of American history.

If we cannot depend on the Smithsonian Institution to present our history – the good, the bad, and the ugly – then there is nothing we can depend on.

Can’t someone make him stop?

Janet

These 13 things bring me hope

You will see from today’s list that it doesn’t take much to make me happy these days. I will take little victories for democracy any time I can find them.

Writing blog post after blog post about bad and unjust things going on in America lately, I was determined to blog about things that bring me hope.

Today’s post is, unfortunately, not as long as any of my posts about the things that worry and frighten me, but today is dedicated to things that bring me hope.

It serves as a reminder that, just like the seven recipients of the 2025 Goldman Environmental Prize that I blogged about yesterday, Environmental Justice, sometimes it just takes one person to take a stand and make a difference.

Photo of a stack of books
Photo by Claudia Wolff on Unsplash
  • Twelve children of active-duty US military personnel in the US, Japan, and Italy are suing US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for removing books about race and gender from Pentagon schools.
  • At 1:00 a.m. (ET) on Saturday, April 19, the US Supreme Court issued a ruling that blocks the Trump Administration from sending any more migrants to El Salvador under further notice. Not that a US Supreme Court ruling will stop him.
  • On April 18, Judge Amy Berman Jackson held an emergency hearing about the impending firings of 1,483 employees of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. She halted the employees’ access to their computers until an evidentiary hearing can be held on April 28 with witness testimony.
  • Under the lame guise of fighting antisemitism, the Trump Administration continues to attack universities every day. BUT… the faculty senates of the universities in the “Big 10 Conference” are creating a Mutual Academic Defense Compact (MADC). It’s sort of a mini-NATO. Under the agreement, if the Trump Administration attacks one of the member universities, it will be considered an attack on all member universities. The resolution is in response to the Trump Administration’s “legal, financial and political” attacks on academic freedom and universities’ missions. Yes, folks, it has come to this! This give me hope that other conferences throughout the US will create Mutual Academic Defense Compacts.
  • Millions of Americans held peaceful protests across the country on Saturday.
  • CBS News reports that District of Columbia US District Judge Royce Lamberth has ordered the Trump Administration to rehire all Voice of America, Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Network staff at least for the time being. He also ordered all Congressional funding must resume to those outlets. A Voice of America journalist and her colleagues filled a suit against Kari Lake, the acting CEO of the US Agency for Global Media – a supposedly independent federal agency that oversees public service media networks. With Kari Lake in charge, thought, there’s no chance for it to act independently of Trump. The judge granted a preliminary injunction. A preliminary injunction was not granted to Radio Free Europe because it filed a separate lawsuit. 
  • The April 20 deadline for US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and US Secretary of Homeland Security to give President Trump a joint report about border security was extended. In that report, they are supposed to state whether or not they think the President should invoke the Insurrection Act. That Act would give him the authority to declare martial law. The extended deadline for the report gave us a breather! We just don’t know what the new deadline is… or if Pete Hegseth will still be Secretary of Defense long enough to participate.
  • Three students in the Rutherford County, Tennessee School District and PEN America (a writers’ organization) are suing the school board for removing more than 150 books from school libraries. The lawsuit was filed with the US District Court Middle District of Tennessee at Nashville. The removals were based on a list circulated by Moms for Liberty instead of school board members or apparently anyone connected with the school district reading the books themselves. Moms for Liberty is known for pushing book bans based on their belief that reading a book will contaminate a child’s mind. They believe they have the right to dictate what all children should not read. Bizarrely, one of its chapters in Indiana quoted Hitler’s “He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future” statement from a 1935 Nazi rally.
  • On April 17, four members (sadly, but predictably all Democrats) of the US House of Representatives Committee on House Administration signed a letter addressed to Vice President J.D. Vance asking him to reject possible changes made in the 21 museums, 14 libraries and research centers, and the National Zoo – all part of the Smithsonian Institution. As Vice President, Vance is a member of the Smithsonian’s board of regents. In a March 27, 2025, Executive Order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” and prompted by Lindsey Halligan, Esq. of Colorado beauty pageant fame, Trump wants to eliminate “divisive” and “anti-American” content from the Smithsonian and restore “monuments, memorials, statues, and markers” that have been removed from public spaces since 2020. The Executive Order gives Vance the authority to determine what content is “improper.”
  • An indigenous woman has been named the new president of Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. Dr. Heather Shotton is Wichita and Affiliated Tribes and a Kiowa and Cheyenne descendant. What makes this especially notable is the fact that Fort Lewis College started out as a military fort from 1878 until 1891. Ironically, the fort was built to protect white settlers from Indian raids. In 1892, it was turned into a federal Indian boarding school and served in that capacity until 1909. Approximately 1,100 children attended the Fort Lewis Indian Boarding School, and at least 31 of them died there. Here’s a link to an article that gives more information about the dark days of the boarding school: https://www.cpr.org/2023/10/03/state-investigation-report-released-indian-boarding-schools/.
  • CBS and other news outlets reported that an article documenting the career of Nicole Malachowski, the first female US Air Force Thunderbird pilot, is back online. That gives me a fraction of an ounce of hope, but it should never have been removed! Women and ethnic minorities who have served with honor in the US military should not have to go through the humiliation and disappointment of seeing records of their accomplishments removed from government website. They or others on their behalf should not have to raise cane and make such a stink that the government finally caves in and puts the information back online. What we have here is much larger than one person’s military record being trashed. What we have is an attack on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion because apparently some white men are so insecure they just cannot tolerate a woman or a person of color being recognized for accomplishments that they themselves did not attain. It especially stinks coming from a US President who did not serve in the military. One person’s record being put back on a website is not sufficient. Some of the pages still cannot be opened. And what about all the people whose records were taken down and have not been restored to a place of honor?
  • This one might surprise you, but I found hope on Wednesday when Ukrainian President Zelensky rejected the peace agreement that Trump thought he could force on Ukraine. Trump thought Zelensky would roll over and play dead and agree to giving Russia everything. Trump has no understanding of Zelensky’s love of country. He cannot identify with that concept. Trump’s claim that Russia’s “concession” is not taking all of Ukraine is reprehensible.
  • And last, but not least, there are rumblings that Pete Hegseth might be on his way out as Defense Secretary! He must have one of those “Friends & Family” Plans so he can share real-time bombing details with his wife, brother, and his personal lawyer on his cell phone. Even a child knows when to keep a secret.

Until my next blog post… tomorrow

I hope you are reading a good book that you don’t want to put down long enough to read my blog.

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

Janet