Tag: USAID

Trump’s National Security Strategy – The Western Hemisphere

What we have here in the United States is obviously a Wizard of Oz situation.

The White House quietly released the November 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) and posted it on the White House website. Since it is the announcement of the official U.S. foreign policy, there is usually a bit of fanfare with its release, but not this year.

Most Americans will never hear about it, much less read it.

It begins with a letter signed by Trump but obviously written by someone else. Probably Stephen Miller. Why do I say that? Simple. It is written in complete sentences.

The letter

That letter is enlightening because it does list the “eight raging conflicts” Trump claims to have put an end to in “just eight months” this year. In case you’re having trouble keeping up with the wars Trump has ended, here’s the list as found in this letter: Cambodia & Thailand, Kosovo & Serbia, the Democratic Republic of Congo & Rwanda, Pakistan & India, Israel & Iran, Egypt & Ethiopia, Armenia & Azerbaijan, and Israel & Gaza, although Israel is not named in the letter. (He wouldn’t want to show the government of Israel in a bad light, would he?)

The letter is full of bluster and boasts of all the amazing things Trump has done and all the “weakness, extremism, and deadly failures” of the Biden Administration. As only Trump can boast, the letter states, “Over the past nine months, we have brought our nation — and the world – back from the brink of catastrophe and disaster.”

The NSS document

The NSS document itself contains 29 pages of details of what the United States wants and what the United States wants from the world.

Some of the introductory remarks would be laughable if they weren’t so sad. For instance, “We want to maintain the United States’ unrivaled ‘soft power’ through which we exercise positive influence throughout the world that furthers our interests” rings hollow considering the Trump Administration obliterated USAID.

The sudden obliteration of USAID not only resulted in the starvation of hundreds of thousands of children but also their preventable deaths by the withholding of medical treatments – not to mention how the cessation of the food aid programs hurt the American farmer terribly.

The paragraph that really made me gag, though, was this one:

“Finally, we want the restoration and reinvigoration of American spiritual and cultural health, without which long-term security is impossible. We want an America that cherishes its past glories and its heroes, and that looks forward to a new golden age. We want a people who are proud, happy, and optimistic that they will leave their country to the next generation better than they found it. We want a gainfully employed citizenry – with no one sitting on the sidelines – who take satisfaction from knowing that their work is essential to the prosperity of our nation and to the well-being of individuals and families. This cannot be accomplished without growing numbers of strong, traditional families that raise healthy children.” (Notice the subtle reference to “traditional families.”)

Dear Leader Kim Jong Un of North Korea couldn’t have written that paragraph better! Delete the words “American spiritual” and I would swear I was reading a translation of a statement by Kim or Xi.

A paragraph that sent chills down my spine, though, was this one: “We want to ensure that the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States; …we want …; we want … ; and we want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations. In other words, we will assert and enforce a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine;….”

It was “Trump Corollary” that got to me. Why does his name have to go on every cotton-picking thing?

The document goes on to delineate U.S. policy by region: The Western Hemisphere, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Introductory remarks that preface the regional details include, “The United States is by every measure the most generous nation in history – yet we cannot afford to be equally attentive to every region and every problem in the world.”

The Western Hemisphere

Photo of an Old World drawing of the western hemisphere
Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash

The so-called “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine involves making new partners and reconsidering our military presence in the Western Hemisphere. This seems to involve beefing up our Coast Guard and Navy presence “to control se lanes, to thwart illegal and other unwanted migration, to reduce human and drug trafficking, and to control key transit routes in a crisis.” It also includes “targeted deployments to secure the border and defeat cartels, including where necessary the use of lethal force to replace the failed law enforcement-only strategy of the last several decades.”

Also, “…as we prioritize commercial diplomacy, we will work to strengthen our security partnerships – from weapons sales to intelligence sharing to joint exercises.” This is in response to non-Western Hemisphere nations’ incursions of influence in recent years.

But the National Security Strategy goes on from there and seems to concentrate on the economy and what’s in it for United States companies. As a student of political science, it reads to me as a complete overhaul of the U.S. State Department and the responsibilities of our diplomats and State Department employees out in the field. This makes me cringe.

The U.S. “will reform our own system to expedite approvals and licensing – again, to make ourselves the partner of first choice. The choice all countries should face is whether they want to live in an American-led world of sovereign countries and free economies or in a parallel one in which they are influenced by countries on the other side of the world….

“All our embassies must be aware of major business opportunities in their country, especially major government contracts. Every U.S. Government official that interacts with these countries should understand that part of their job is to help American companies compete and succeed.

“The U.S. Government will identify strategic acquisition and investment opportunities for American companies in the region and present these opportunities for assessment by every U.S. Government financing program, including but not limited to those within the Departments of State, War, and Energy; the Small Business Administration; the International Development Finance Corporation; the Export-Import Bank; and the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

“We should also partner with regional governments and businesses to build scalable and resilient energy infrastructure, invest in critical mineral access, and harden existing and future cyber communications networks that take full advantage of American encryption and security potential.

“The aforementioned U.S. Government entities should be used to finance some of the costs of purchasing U.S. goods abroad. The United States must also resist and reverse measures such as targeted taxation, unfair regulation, and expropriation that disadvantage U.S. businesses. The terms of our agreements, especially with those countries that depend on us most and therefore over which we have the most leverage, must be sole-source contracts for our companies. At the same time, we should make every effort to push out foreign companies that build infrastructure in the region.”

The part about U.S. State Department – or any other U.S. Government employee – who interacts with countries in the Western Hemisphere to understand that it is “part of their job to help American companies compete and succeed” is a 180-degree change in the purpose U.S. Government employees. It is not part of the job of a State Department employee to promote American companies! At least, it wasn’t part of their job until last Friday. That is absolutely not the job of the U.S. diplomatic corps!

I suppose this being put in writing by the Trump Administration should come as no surprise. After all, the U.S. State Department no longer makes “peace agreements;” it makes “deals” because Trump has an overwhelming lack of understanding or appreciation for the traditional functions of government in a democracy.

Western Hemisphere Command

It was not a coincidence that we learned on Thursday or Friday that two U.S. military command centers will be moving to Fort Bragg here in North Carolina over the next year as a new “Western Hemisphere Command” has been announced.

Possible blog post tomorrow

If I can recover from reading the Western Hemisphere portion of the National Security Strategy, I will blog tomorrow about how it addresses Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

I invite and encourage you to read the complete NSS document for yourself and not to take my word for it at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf.

Janet

I’m back!

When I blogged on November 7, I had no idea I would not blog again until November 22. My sister is recovering nicely from her surgery. The jury is still out on the condition of her sole caregiver. (LOL!) The main reason I haven’t blogged in 15 days is that my desktop computer went rogue on November 11. I did not have time to call for help for it until late yesterday. My new best friend/computer guy came today and I am now back in business as a blogger and a writer.

The timing couldn’t have been worse for computer problems with my new book, Traveling Through History: A Collection of Historical Short Stories, just being released. All the publicity memes and ads I created in advance on Bookbrush.com (I love Bookbrush!) could not be accessed and posted on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, or Bluesky. I can still use them, of course, but the dates I labeled many of them with have now passed. I’m living in a time warp of sorts.

Photo of the paperback of Traveling Through History: A Collection of Historical Short Stories, by Janet Morrison
Traveling Through History: A Collection of Historical Short Stories, by Janet Morrison

I have not been able to mail 85 book publicity postcards in the metro area because the local independent bookstore has not received her shipment from IngramSpark yet. Another case of hurry up and wait.

I’m not one to always look for the silver lining in a black cloud, but (1) my sister is improving each day and (2) I’ve gotten some much-needed exercise putting ice packs on her wound every 20 minutes all day every day. I’ve averaged walking more than three miles-a-day, which is probably 2.5 miles more than my usual.

All of this came at an inopportune time. Some of you have, no doubt, missed my daily political rants. Others of you have probably thanked God for the absence of them.

“Let them eat cake!”

During my absence from the blogosphere this month, President Marie Antoinette ordered the U.S. Border Patrol to leave Chicago and descend upon us here Charlotte. I watched local and national news programs as the masked and heavily armed Border Patrol Agents roamed Mecklenburg County and beyond (including very small mountain towns more than 100 miles to the west) and randomly round up anyone who looked or sounded Hispanic — regardless of their citizenship status.

They came without coordinating or communicating with the Sheriff of Mecklenburg County or the Charlotte Chief of Police. Standard protocol is that a federal law enforcement agency alerts local law enforcement of their operations so local police do not interfere with the operations. It just helps for local police to be aware of what the feds are doing, but that’s not how U.S. Border Patrol works.

They pointed high-powered weapons at unarmed men, women, and children, broke out car windows, and detained people for days without their families knowing where they had been taken. I understand some were taken hundreds of miles away to Georgia.

Photograph of Charlotte skyline at dawn or sunset with light shining yellow and purple through clouds
Skyline of Charlotte, North Carolina. Photo by Daniel Weiss on unsplash.com.

The general terrorism in sections of Charlotte with high Hispanic populations resulted in Hispanic- and Latino- owned businesses closing shop all week in an effort to keep their customers safe. Grocery stores and other businesses offered home deliveries to customers who were afraid to leave their homes.

Some 30,000 Charlotte-Mecklenburg school students stayed home from school out of fear of either being picked up in transit or out of fear that if they went to school their parents would be arrested and taken away before they got home from school that afternoon.

A teacher at East Mecklenburg High School was interviewed. She eloquently described what last week was like in the school system with 21 percent of the students being afraid to go to school. She did not use the word “terrorized” lightly. She spoke of teachers making home visits to their scared students to reassure them and to deliver food and toiletries to their homes.

What we have now in America is students not only having to worry that a shooter is going to come into their school and murder students and teachers, they also have to worry that the United States Government is going to send men in unmarked vehicles and wearing full military garb plus masks and sunglasses that completely hide their identities to harass them and possibly zip tie them and haul them away to parts unknown as they just attempt to attend school.

It did not help the situation for Assistant White House Chief-of-Staff Stephen Miller to announce that those 30,000 school students stayed home this week because they were all illegal aliens. Stop lying, Mr. Miller! Most of those students are American citizens. They just don’t have a white face like you have, Mr. Miller. That’s all they are guilty of. Since you don’t appear to be Native American of indigenous ancestry, Mr. Miller, I assume that you have immigrants in your family tree. Most Americans do.

When all was said and done in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, in less than a week, more than 370 individuals were arrested out of a population of 1.2 million. President Antoinette enjoyed his Great Gatsby-themed party in Florida as he sent Border Patrol Agents here under the guise of arresting “the worst of the worst.” The final report isn’t out yet, but the last I heard only two gang members were arrested. Of the first 170 people arrested, only 44 had police records (including such things are parking tickets and speeding tickets.)

At least one U.S. citizen’s truck window was broken out by Border Patrol. He was taken miles away. Border Patrol kept his truck keys. At least two women from Puerto Rico were accosted, questioned, zip-tied, and led away to an unmarked vehicle. The Trump Administration hasn’t learned yet that Puerto Rico is a U.S. Territory. Its residents are U.S. citizens. I can’t un-see the video of Trump throwing paper towels at Puerto Ricans after Hurricane Maria in October 2017. It was when Hurricane Maria hit that Trump told us that Puerto Rico is an island surrounded by water. Duh!

Before I close, I want to emphasize how the U.S. Border Patrol Agents are dressed. The word “mask” is woefully inadequate to describe what they are wearing. These so-called masks are heavy knit fabric. It reaches from their throats to their eyes and encircles their heads. Dark sunglasses cover their eyes. They wear hats. (I can’t help but compare them to the Ku Klux Klan… cowardly white people afraid to show their faces.)

They are dressed in fatigues with bullet-proof vests. Wads of zip ties hanging from their belts or one of their numerous pockets. They are heavily armed. They appear to be very short on patience and totally void of empathy for their fellow American citizens. They have been filmed stopping in the street in a residential neighborhood, jumping out and accosting two Hispanic-looking men who were hired to put lights on a resident’s outdoor Christmas tree.

It has come to this: random racial terrorism being practiced by the United States Government at the direction of the United States President.

They seem to have left Charlotte, although the website of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security indicated they would be here until December 4. Is that a trick?

New Orleans, apparently you are next on Trump’s hit list. Remain calm and vigilant. Remain calm and vigilant. Be on the lookout for unmarked SUVs bearing Illinois license plates.

Update from Chicago

Marimar Martinez, the teacher in Chicago who was shot five times by U.S. Border Patrol, is recovering from her injuries and is returning to the classroom. She had been called a “domestic terrorist” by Border Patrol after she blew her vehicle’s horn to warn residents that the agents were in the neighborhood, but all charges against her were suddenly dropped this week.

Border Patrol accused her of ramming their vehicle, but video of the incident proved it was their vehicle that sideswiped her care. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security continues to publish falsehoods about her though, even as the department has dropped all charges after their case fell apart in a hearing.

Trump calls for execution of lawmakers

In other news here in America, when six Democrat lawmakers dared to make a video to remind all U.S. citizens that members of the U.S. military are not required to obey an illegal order, Trump called for the six to be arrested and executed.

Republicans told us that Trump did not mean it, and that’s supposed to make it okay.

As a writer, I know that words are more powerful than the sword. It is frightening and embarrassing that we have a U.S. President who is reckless with his language. It is also frightening that no one in a position of authority is holding him accountable for anything he says or does.

Resignation of U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene

Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia surprised everyone last night when she announced her resignation from the U.S. Congress as of January 5, 2026. Trump calling her a “traitor” was a bridge too far for this staunch ex-supporter of him and his administration. Perhaps other politicians who have sold their souls to the devil should take note. When he turns on you, you are dead to him.

This gives me a glimmer of hope that there are cracks in Trump’s armor.

Mozambique

It is being reported that ISIS has quickly gone into Mozambique since USAID has halted. ISIS is not filling the gap in aid. They’re filling the gap of influence. They’re recruiting the young men. They are beheading people who don’t comply with their demands.

People with decades of experience in the U.S. State Department warned us that in addition to millions of people starving to death, the halting of USAID would result in radical terrorist groups rushing in to take our place. It appears those decades of government service meant they knew a lot more about international relations than Trump and his minions will ever know.

All Trump could see was we were spending money to help Third World countries and he detested that policy. He couldn’t be bothered to understand that much of that food aid was a product of American agriculture. Even in his second term in office, Trump doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.

All those people who thought it was not in our national interest to ship American grain and other agricultural products to other countries, how do you like the prospect of ISIS spreading its hate for America among “the least of these.”

Most Trump supporters pride themselves in being Christians. This continues to baffle me. What version of the Bible tells you to hate the foreigner? I’ve never read that version.

In closing

That’s my rant for today. Maybe it’s a good thing I haven’t been able to watch or listen to as much news this month as my usual! I hope to blog about my new book in a couple of days.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog.

When you have a minute, please look for my books on Amazon.

Remember the brave people of Ukraine, as it appears Trump has been played like a fiddle by Putin.

I am fortunate that the U.S. Constitution protects my right to criticize the U.S. President.

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America

Janet

The Immigration Debacle in the United States

I couldn’t say all I wanted to say in yesterday’s blog post. Ready or not, here comes more….

Photo of a paper with "Immigration" printed in bold capital letters
Photo by Metin Ozer on Unsplash

Immigration was not handled well during the first Trump Administration (i.e. people put in cages and children separated from their parents without a means of identification). Immigration was mishandled by the Biden Administration (i.e. too lax about enforcing border security). But immigration is a disaster during the second Trump Administration.

Where is the voice of reason? Where is common sense?

Deployment of California National Guard

A full month after the major protests against ICE in a Los Angeles neighborhood, Trump decided it was finally time to let thousands of California National Guard members return to their families and their jobs. Some of them have started speaking out about that experience.

The New York Times is reporting that some of the National Guard personnel have voiced serious concern over being deployed by President Trump. They are calling it a “fake mission.”

The New York Times reported, “Six member of the Guard – including infantrymen, officers and two officials in leadership roles – spoke of low morale and deep concern that the deployment may hurt recruitment for the state-based military force for years to come.”

There are reports of some members of the California National Guard voicing misgivings from the beginning about the deployment.

For Trump to keep them in warehouses in Los Angeles for a full four weeks after all threat of civil violence was over, is the icing on the cake.

It is still beside the point that Trump did not have the authority to deploy a state’s National Guard under the existing circumstances. That authority rests with the state’s governor.

“The moral injuries of this operation, I think, will be enduring. This is not what the military of our country was designed to do, at all,” one member of the Guard told The Times.”

The piece reported that National Guard personnel of Hispanic heritage were especially uncomfortable being deployed to assist ICE in rounding up illegal aliens.

Just one more instance of the chipping away of our democracy and rule of law.

“Take the rest of ‘those people,’ but don’t take my neighbor”

Nicholas Kristof wrote an op-ed in The New York Times last Saturday. Here’s the link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/19/opinion/immigrants-ice-deportation.html.

The situation he wrote about is a case-in-point of how people voted for Trump because he promised to get the violent immigrants out of the United States. They claim now that they didn’t think he meant ALL immigrants.

(My question to them is, “Why did you believe anything he said?”)

Kristof lives in a farming community in Oregon where the majority of people voted for Trump for president all three times. But now that community is upset because Trump is deporting immigrants they know. He wasn’t supposed to deport local immigrants like Moises Sotelo.

Mr. Sotelo has lived in the community for 31 years, established a vineyard, and employed 10 people. He is a pillar in his church. He is a respected businessman.

But ICE picked up Mr. Sotelo and deported him to Mexico. Kristof says the community is now up in arms. They have raised $150,000 to help with Mr. Soleto’s legal expenses. Good luck with that.

Photo of a man's hands grasping the wire fence he is being held behind.
Photo by Mitchel Lensink on Unsplash

The way I see it, many people voted for Trump because he voiced a hatred for immigrants and that appealed to his base. They hate immigrants, too, so Trump is their man. Trump called immigrants names, and that appealed to his base.

Trump said immigrants were a drain on our economy, that they didn’t pay taxes, and – worst of all – they are all violent criminals. He convinced his base that those things were true, even though they are all false.

Trump’s base refuses to accept the fact that immigrants – illegal as well as legal — pay income and sales tax. If they get a paycheck, income and Social Security taxes are deducted from that paycheck. When they purchase anything, they pay state and local sales tax — just like Americans. Who knew?

After Trump and his ICE thugs remove all the immigrants from the United States, the people in Trump’s base are going to be surprised that most crimes in America are committed by Americans. Many of them have white skin, and that’s going to be the biggest surprise of all for them.

The Case of George Retes, U.S. citizen, U.S. Army Veteran

George Retes is a United States citizen and a veteran of the United States Army. When he drove up to the Glass House Farms in Camarillo, California, to report for work, his car was approached by ICE agents. They broke a car window, sprayed him with pepper spray, and dragged him out of his car – all while he was telling them that he was a U.S. citizen and veteran just reporting for work.

ICE detained him for three days.

Photo of a U.S. Army soldier in full combat uniform from behind
Photo by Oleg Ivanov on Unsplash

I saw Mr. Retes interviewed on TV, and this is what the Associated Press reported:

“Retes was taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, where he said he was put in a special cell on suicide watch and checked on each day after he became emotionally distraught over his ordeal and missing his 3-year-old daughter’s birthday party Saturday.

“He said federal agents never told him why he was arrested or allowed him to contact a lawyer or his family during his three-day detention. Authorities never let him shower or change clothes despite being covered in tear gas and pepper spray, Retes said, adding that his hands burned throughout the first night he spent in custody.”

I am embarrassed for the United States of America. Such federal police action is not “Making America Great Again.”

This is even worse

Eighty-two-year-old Luis Leon from Allentown, Pennsylvania had been in the United States LEGALLY for 38 years since being granted asylum from the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship in Chili in 1987. He was a victim of torture by the Pinochet regime.

Unfortunately, in June Mr. Leon lost his wallet which contained his green card.

Thinking all he had to do was request a replacement green card, Mr. Leon and his wife made an appointment to get that taken care of.

But when he arrived for his appointment, Mr. Leon was handcuffed and taken away. His wife was held for 10 hours until a granddaughter could pick her up.

For a month, Mr. Leon’s family had no idea where he was. His name never showed up on the immigration tracker list. ICE had no answers for them. The family looked for him in local prisons, hospitals, and morgues, but they could not find him.

A relative in Chile found him in a hospital in Guatemala and called his family in Pennsylvania on Friday. Mr. Leon had never been to Guatemala before the United States Government decided to disappear him to that country. ICE still won’t confirm their thugs had anything to do with this. ICE claims they are “investigating” the case.

Black-and-white photo of the back of an older man in a wheelchair beside a hospital-type bed.
Photo by Annabel Podevyn on Unsplash

In conclusion

I am at a loss for words to describe how angry I am and how embarrassed I am today to be an American – even though I did not vote for Trump.

Trump campaigned on the promise to deport illegal aliens who were criminals, but now Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) snatches people off the street, from their homes, from their places of employment, and occasionally (what seems like daily) they make egregious mistakes and kidnap the wrong person.

ICE agents are under pressure to arrest 3,000 immigrates every day. So what if they nab a few legal citizens or immigrants who are guilty of nothing more than a traffic ticket?

It is un-American for ICE agents to cover their faces, wear no badges, and not identify themselves. The excuse that they have to cover their faces because they are scared of retribution doesn’t hold water. Local police officers might fear retribution, too, but they don’t wear face masks.

If you voted for Trump, you voted for this. You knew he was a horrible man and you voted for him anyway. I don’t know how you sleep at night.

At least I don’t have to live with the shame of having voted for any of this.

Until my next blog post

Keep up with reliable news reports

Keep reading good fiction and nonfiction books.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet

This and That Out of Washington, DC This Week

It continues to feel like news items are coming out of Washington, DC like water from a fire hose. I can’t keep up. For my mental health, that’s a good thing.

Some things get more coverage by the media than others, so I try to include some things in my blog posts that might have missed your attention.

I thought about listing the following items in order of outrageousness or evilness, but I gave up. Here they are in random order.

I believe God is weeping

The Trump Administration Regime has ordered nearly 500 metric tons of emergency food that was intended for distribution in Africa and the Middle East through USAID to be burned. Let that sink in.

Photo of a fire
Photo by Caleb Kim on Unsplash

The $800,000 (You read that right: that’s $800 thousand) worth of food was specifically intended for children under five years old in war-torn and disaster-stricken countries. It would have fed 1.5 million children for a week. By the way, it will cost $130,000 to incinerate the food.

Since the Trump Regime shut down USAID, there was apparently no one in the Trump Government that had the authority, capability, or the moral courage to get the food distributed to anyone – not even here in the United States.

Another 60 metric tons of food already paid for by the American taxpayer sits in warehouses around the world. Without USAID workers, it is doubtful any of it will be distributed. Therefore, it will eventually have to be destroyed.

It seems to me on the political level alone this is a slap in the face of the American farmer. You know – that American farmer that Trump and MAGA folks claim to love so much. That farmer grew that food.

How dare Donald Trump accuse USAID or any current or former U.S. Government agency of being wasteful!

More deportations to third-world countries

CBS News reports that the Trump Regime admitted on Tuesday that a group of violent criminals had been deported to Eswatini. Eswatini used to be known as Swaziland. It is a tiny country in Africa.

Photo of a jet plan in the sky
Photo by John McArthur on Unsplash

The deportees were not from Eswatini. They were from Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Vietnam, and Yemen.

The Trump Regime says they were deported to Eswatini because they were such violent people that their home countries refused to take them.

It has not been disclosed what Eswatini gets out of the deal. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security claims that the countries accepting our deportees promise not to persecute or torture them.

I suppose we can take them at their word on that. (By “them” I mean the United States and the countries accepting our deportees.)

The irony is that Trump has maintained for years that other countries were sending us their criminals and the worst scumbags of society. It appears he has learned from those countries, and now the United States is doing it. We’re just proudly announcing that we’re doing it. Somehow, this is supposedly making America great again.

Corn farmers will have to take one on the chin for Trump

Trump has decided he’d rather his Coca-Cola be sweetened with cane sugar (mostly imported, by the way) than from corn syrup made from corn grown in Iowa. I understand that’s the difference between the Coca-Cola recipe in Mexico and the one used in the U.S. Who knew Trump preferred Mexican Coca-Cola to American Coca-Cola?

Photo of corn growing in a field
Photo by Katherine Volkovski on Unsplash

The American Medical Association says there’s not much difference in the “nutritional” value of a Coke sweetened with corn syrup and a Coke sweetened with cane sugar. When you’re dealing with a beverage that has no nutritional redeeming value….

Anyway, Coca-Cola appears to be just the latest private corporation that Trump wants to strong-arm into submission to his whims. Some of us remember the last time Coca-Cola tried to tinker with its recipe in America things did not go well.

FICA Club World Cup Trophy

It was embarrassing enough that President Trump refused to get off the stage so the Chelsea 2025 FIFA Club World Cup tournament champions could celebrate their win on July 13, but he didn’t stop there. The 24-carat gold trophy designed by Tiffany and Company and valued at $230,000 is now in the Oval Office. The Chelsea team got to take home a replica.

You simply cannot make this stuff up. I thought it couldn’t be true – not even for Trump – but I verified it on snopes.com.

I saw online that the Chelsea team photoshopped Trump out of the picture of them receiving the trophy and celebrating on stage.

I shudder to think how much gold Trump will take from the 2028 Summer Olympics!

Covid-19

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has dropped a case against a doctor in Utah who was accused of falsifying Covid-19 vaccination certificates and destroying $28,000 worth of government-provided Covid-19 vaccines.

Decrease in workforce at State Department

More than 1,300 employees of the U.S. State Department were let go last week. Waste, I guess?

Don’t you just hate it when diplomacy, time-honored relationship, goodwill, and mutual understanding get in the way of hate and war?

Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship threatened

President Trump threatened to take Rosie O’Donnell’s U.S. citizenship away from her because she spoke out against his policies.

I had no idea the President of the United States could take away someone’s citizenship. (I’m being facetious… He can’t.)

The Federal Reserve

Trump continues to be critical of Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve. One day he’s going to fire him. The next day he isn’t going to fire him. On Wednesday he said he was surprised that Powell was appointed to the position.

Well, duh! Trump appointed him in 2017. Now he says Powell is a terrible person and claims that he was appointed by President Biden.

Firings at Department of Justice

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi fired 20 employees of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). The 20 people worked on investigations into Donald Trump and his first administration while Joe Biden was U.S. President. In Trump’s 2024 campaign and in Bondi’s confirmation hearings, they both vowed to get rid of everyone at the DOJ who participated in investigations against Trump. The political firings at DOJ last week were made to get rid of the weaponization of the Justice Department. (You can’t make this stuff up.)

Photo on Unsplash

She also fired Joseph Tirrell, the Justice Department’s senior ethics attorney. He is a military veteran and has served his country in one way or another for nearly 20 years.

It is a sad day when the U.S. Department of Justice fires the top person looking out for ethics.

The IRS and the Johnson Amendment

The IRS announced on Monday that churches can now endorse politicians and not lose their tax-free status as a religious organization. My Baptist preacher Congressman sees this as a tremendous victory for our First Amendment rights of free speech.

Photo of a government building with the words "Internal Revenue Service engraved in the stone
Photo by Sean Lee on Unsplash

I don’t see it as a victory for anyone except pastors and churches that want to dictate how their congregants vote. It’s a shame their church members cannot be trusted to think for themselves.

I heard a audio clip of President Trump saying he didn’t see anything wrong with it if there is a candidate they like whose beliefs align with theirs. That shows how little he knows about religious organizations or Christianity. This is a slippery slope.

The Johnson Amendment was named for then U.S. Senator Lyndon B. Johnson. It became part of the U.S. Tax Code in 1954. It prohibits all 501(c)(3) non-profit organization from endorsing or opposing political candidates.

I’m a little puzzled over how the Internal Revenue Service can just wipe part of the U.S. Tax Code off the books, but apparently in the land of Trump it can.

Recission Bill – Cuts to Public Broadcasting Corporation & USAID

The U.S. Senate gave Trump a huge gift yesterday morning when they voted 51-48 (one Senator was in the hospital and missed the vote) to cut $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $8 billion from foreign aid programs, including what little was left of USAID.

Although Senators Collins and Murkowski voted with the Democrats, Thom Tillis of North Carolina chose to vote for the cuts while at the same time making a speech on the Senate floor in which he said passing the bill was a mistake that the Senate would have to fix later.

What?

The bill was then sent back to the House of Representatives for that Republican-dominated body to rubber stamp it by today.

I am going to miss “NOVA,” “Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates,” “Nature,” “BBC News America,” “Amanpour and Company,” “BBC News,” “PBS News Hour,” “North Carolina Weekend,” “Cook’s Country,” “Antiques Roadshow,” “Burt Wolf: Travels & Traditions,” “Rick Steves’ Europe,” “Doc Martin,” “My Music With Rhiannon Giddens,” every one of the Ken Burns documentaries, “Somewhere South,” “America’s Test Kitchen,” and “Lidia’s Kitchen.”

My sister will miss “Midsomer Murders” and “Death in Paradise.”

I’m sure others will miss “Sesame Street” and other children’s programming.

Photo by Meg von Haartman on Unsplash

Others will miss “This Old House,” “Woodwright Shop,” “Austin City Limits,” “Grantchester on Masterpiece,” “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries,” and “Sit and Be Fit.”

I could go on, but you get the picture. I hope you took time to let your Senators and Representatives know that you did not want the federal government to end its support of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I did. It just fell on their six deaf ears.

Hearing U.S. Representative Randy Fine, a Republican from Florida, interviewed yesterday, it became clear that some of the members of Congress don’t know what they are voting on. Fine justified the elimination of money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Corporation (CPB) from the federal budget because “we have broadband and streaming now.”

First of all, if the public television stations don’t have the money to produce programming, no amount of broadband internet service or streaming capabilities will make non-existent programming available to people with broadband and/or streaming. In order to stream a TV program, it is my understanding that the program has to exist. However, I’m just a citizen, so what do I know?

Second of all, Mr. Fine, everyone does not have broadband internet service and everyone does not have internet service that is strong enough to enable streaming. I know that, because I’m one of them. I don’t live in a remote area; however, I do live on a road that does not have a high enough population for Windstream to upgrade our service. I can barely get so-called high-speed internet. Streaming? Forget about it.

Trump doesn’t like the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) – “public TV” or National Public Radio (NPR). Therefore, Republicans in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate cannot like them. Congressman Fine repeated the Republican Party line yesterday about PBS and NPR: They are “woke left-wing radical propaganda.”

That’s what this week’s email from my Congressman, Mark Harris, said, too. I guess Trump, Fine, and Harris nailed it. After all, when I watch “Antiques Roadshow” or “This Old House,” all I see is “woke left-wing radical propaganda.”

Margaret Taylor Green’s new concern

I couldn’t help but laugh when I read that U.S. Representative Margaret Taylor Green of Georgia is afraid that passage of the GENIUS Act – a crypto currency bill pushed by Trump – could be a sign of the “End Times” referenced in the Book of Revelation in the Bible (Revelation 13:16-17).

Photo of a loose pile of bitcoins
Photo by Traxer on Unsplash

She fears it will be “the sign of the beast.”

That’s hilarious! I thought the red MAGA baseball caps might already serve that purpose as “a mark on their foreheads.”

Just a few things we’ve lost since January 20, 2025

We won’t fully grasp what we’ve lost due to Executive Orders and legislation in the United States since January 20 until next year and the years thereafter.

We’ve lost the sanctity of our national parks to name just one.

We’ve lost an estimated 90,000 children in Third World countries who have died of starvation or disease since January 20 because the Trump Administration halted food and medical aid programs.

We’ve lost medical insurance coverage for millions of our fellow citizens.

We’ve lost after-school literacy programs for millions of our children.

We’re rapidly losing the separation of church and state that was so very important to the people who fought in the American Revolutionary War.

We’ve lost much of our civility and respect for our fellow Americans.

We’ve lost the simple elegance of the Oval Office and seen it turned into a gaudy gold frame shop.

We’ve lost the beauty of the White House Rose Garden.

We’ve lost our position of diplomatic influence in the world and replaced it with a stance of bullying, intimidation, black-mailing, and strong-arming.

Just a few things we’ve gained since January 20, 2025

Oh… but we’ve gained the disrespect of the rest of the world.

We’ve gained a para-military masked national police force.

We’ve gained a concentration camp in the Everglades.

We’ve gained an ability to disappear people.

We’ve gained an ability to deport immigrants to remote war-torn countries of questionable motives.

We’ve gained two obscenely gigantic U.S. flags on the White House lawn. They block the view of the beautiful White House, but Trump says they are the most beautiful flag poles in the world. Those new flags at the White House remind me of the one at a huge RV park near the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

By cutting $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, that $1 billion saved can be used to start renovating the dilapidated prison on Alcatraz Island off the coast of California. To use Trump’s favorite adjective, what a beautiful use of that $1 billion instead of using it to support educational TV and non-commercial radio and the national and local emergency alerts those PBS and NPR stations send out – especially in the rural areas of the country!

We’ve gained the realization that our American democracy was as fragile as the paper the U.S. Constitution was written on almost 250 years ago.

Until my next blog post

Keep reading that book you checked out from the public library or purchased from an independent bookstore!

Remember the people of Ukraine, western North Carolina, and the Hill Country of Texas.

Janet

That’s pretty much all I wanted

I majored in political science and minored in history in college. My Master’s degree is in public administration. I can’t just turn all that off, even though I graduated 50 years ago.

I used to not be a political person. I just wanted government on all levels to work at their highest and best purposes. I wanted honesty and transparency in government. I wanted the politicians to have as little influence as possible over the actual daily operations of the government.

I wanted government employees to be left alone by the politicians to guarantee the water was safe to drink.

I wanted government employees left alone by the politicians to make sure building permits were issued and followed up by trained and certified building inspectors to make sure houses and commercial buildings were built to meet construction standards and codes.

Photo of construction workers on a high-rise building
Photo credit: Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

I wanted government employees left alone by the politicians to register the deeds for all real estate transactions within the county.

I wanted professional librarians left alone by the politicians to use their years of training to purchase age-appropriate materials to benefit all citizens.

Photo of a bookcase with a woman's hand reaching up to the books
Photo credit: Guzel Maksutova on Unsplash

I wanted the archivists at the State and National Archives to be left alone by the politicians and trusted to gather and preserve the articles of history for future generations.

I wanted governing licensing boards to be left alone by the politicians so that I could trust that a person with M.D. or R.N after their name had the knowledge and skill to treat me when I am sick or hurt.

I wanted government employees to be left alone by the politicians so they can regulate the insurance industry and speak up for a citizen when they believe they have been mistreated by an insurance company.

I wanted medical researches to be left alone by the politicians so they can work tirelessly to find causes and cures for diseases.

Photo of a man looking into a microscope
Photo credit: Lucas Vasques on Unsplash

I wanted university professors to be left alone by the politicians so they can teach from their knowledge of their chosen field without fear that they might say something that offends someone.

I wanted college and university students to be left alone by the politicians so they can take any course they want to take, read any book they want to read, and non-violently protest anything they want to protest without fear of being kicked out of school, arrested, or deported.

Photo of peaceful protestors
Photo by Duncan Shaffer on Unsplash

I wanted public school teachers to be left alone by the politicians so they can teach what their grade-level students need to learn so they can progress through the education system and be free thinkers.

I wanted park rangers to be left alone by the politicians who have absolutely no understanding of or appreciation for the natural world.

I wanted government employees to be left alone by the politicians so they can monitor air quality and prevent us from returning to the smog of the 1950s and 1960s.

Photo of a city enshrouded in smog
Photo by Nick van den Berg on Unsplash

I wanted our system of elections to be left alone by the politicians who are determined to make it more and more difficult for a person to vote… all in the name of preventing voter fraud, when fraud by politicians is a much bigger problem than voter fraud. (Case in point, my current US Representative, Mark Harris, who used to be a Baptist preacher, hired someone to go around marking absentee ballots for people in his 2018 run for the US House. His own son even testified against him. His operative was charged with several counts of obstructing justice and possession of absentee ballots, but he died before the case went to trial. Mr. Harris escaped being criminally charged, brushed the dirt off himself, and successfully ran from NC’s 8th District in 2024. In another case, Mark Meadows, who served as Chief of Staff for Trump in his first administration, claimed a home address in a remote area of the mountains and cast his vote in North Carolina in 2020. The address he gave as his residence was a dilapidated, vacant mobile home which he had probably never laid eyes on.) But somehow, it is the everyday citizens who cannot be trusted to vote.

I wanted the United States to continue the USAID program of distributing food and medical aid to the poorest people in the world.

Photo by Andrej Nihil on Unsplash

I wanted the United States to not only maintain but to strengthen its decades old (and in some cases, centuries old) international alliances.

I wanted to be allowed to be a Presbyterian and not have some right-wing conservative evangelical dogma forced on the public at-large that paints all American Christians with a broadbrush of misinformation.

I wanted the separation of church and state to remain a valued principle. I did not want a Presidential Administration to parade under the guise of being Christian while openly, as well as under the cover of darkness and behind closed doors, attacking everything from science to education to medical research to food safety to immigrants to museums to clean air to the arts to clean water to libraries to national parks to habeas corpus to national forests to the United States Constitution to our very sense of security.

I wanted a United States Government that did not operate through intimidation and threats to individuals, groups of people, and institutions.

I wanted our system of government, though flawed, to continue to generally work for the good of the whole.

Photo credit: Anthony Garand on unsplash.com

I wanted every citizen to have an equal opportunity to follow their dreams and be allowed to live in peace.

I wanted a President who did not embarrass me every time he opened his mouth.

That’s pretty much all I wanted.

I miss that America.

Janet

Two US Supreme Court Rulings in 1898 and 2025

There is so much we can learn from history! Today’s headlines often mirror events that happened years ago.

You get a bonus blog post from me this week. As I explained yesterday, what I wanted to say this week amounted to more than anyone wants to read in one sitting.

Today’s post is about a couple of US Supreme Court rulings. Tomorrow’s post is about Hurricane Helene recovery in western North Carolina six months after the storm

United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 1898

My sister made me aware of the United States v. Wong Kim Ark US Supreme Court case. This ruling about American birthright came down in 1898.

The 14th Amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868 – 30 years before the Wong Kim Ark case. The wording of the 14th Amendment seems straightforward, but our current US President wants to do away with it.

The first clause of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution reads as follows: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Let’s take a step back and see what prompted Mr. Wong Kim Ark to take his complaint all the way to the US Supreme Court.

Who was Wong Kim Ark and what was this Court Case about?

Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco, California in 1873. His parents were subjects of the Emperor of China but were permanently residing in the United States. The family still lived in San Francisco in 1890 when Wong Kim Ark took a trip to China.

He returned to his home in San Francisco on July 26, 1890. He lived there and worked as a laborer as a US citizen. In 1894 he took another trip to China but, when he returned to the US in August 1895, he was denied entry on the grounds that he was not a US citizen.

A lower court ordered him to be released because he was a US citizen. The United States appealed the lower court’s decision, and the case went to the US Supreme Court.

Justice Horace Gray delivered for the majority in the 6-2 ruling by the US Supreme Court. In his statement he indicated that the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 had no relevance in this case.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first law of any significance that limited immigration into the United States. The Act was the result of violent acts committed against Chinese workers. It prohibited Chinese laborers from entering the US for ten years. Exceptions included merchants, teachers, students, travelers, and diplomats.

Justice Gray wrote, “It is conceded that, if he is a citizen of the United States, the acts of Congress, known as the Chinese Exclusion Acts, prohibiting persons of the Chinese race, and especially Chinese laborers, from coming into the United States, do not and cannot apply to him.”

As in most cases that reach the level of the US Supreme Court, there is more here than meets the eye. Having taken one Constitutional Law course in college does not qualify me as a Constitutional scholar, so I’ll just leave it at that.

If you wish to delve more deeply into the United States v. Wong Kim Ark decision, you may do so. I just found it serendipitous that the anniversary of this case fell during a time when the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution is under fire.

Why is the 14th Amendment under attack by Trump?

It is obvious that the president does not want children of undocumented Hispanic immigrants who are born in the US to automatically have US citizenship as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

The White House appears to be arguing its case on https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-meaning-and-value-of-american-citizenship/. It seems short-sighted to me for Trump to “show his hand” on this matter since it is destined to go before the US Supreme Court if he insists on pursuing his contempt for the 14th Amendment.

We have not heard the last of this.

A March 5, 2025 US Supreme Court ruling to consider

On March 5, 2025, we saw only five of the nine US Supreme Court Justices vote that the United States should be required to honor its promises of $2 billion in foreign aid through the now-possibly-defunct United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The slim majority decision gave me a sigh of relief but immediately angered me because the vote should have been 9-0.

Photo by Isak Engström on Unsplash

What is it in the life experiences of Associate Justices Alito, Kavanaugh, Thomas, and Gorsuch that influenced them to vote in the negative? What made those four men believe that funds authorized by the US Congress and promised to other countries and organizations should not be honored? Should not be paid?

What makes those four men think the United States should not be a country of its word? I really want to know.

Justice Alito argued in an eight-page dissent that resembled a pro-MAGA social media post that a US District Court Judge could not compel the US Government to spend money authorized by Congress. He essentially went after Judge Amir Ali, the lower court judge who had ruled in the case.

From what I have read, I think his anger is misplaced. It is the US Constitution that gives Congress the authority to allocate money. If Mr. Alito has a problem with that, perhaps he should have stated his disfavor with the Constitution instead of against Judge Amir Ali.

I certainly hope Justice Alito was not lashing out at Judge Ali because Judge Ali was born in Canada. I hope he wasn’t lashing out at Judge Ali because he was appointed by President Joe Biden. And I certainly hope he wasn’t lashing out at Judge Ali because he is a Muslim.

Perhaps I’m looking for a “there” when there’s no “there” there, but the current US Supreme Court in general seems to be in Trump’s pocket. This is the same group of Justices that ruled in 2024 that nothing a US President does is illegal.

I pray we haven’t heard the last of this!

Arlington National Cemetery

With so much going on, and a couple of long blog posts in March, I waited until today to mention how the US Department of Defense is erasing history specifically on the Arlington National Cemetery website. US history seems to be in Trump’s cross-hairs.

Under the heading, “Arlington National Cemetery removed links to webpages about Black, Hispanic and female veterans,” Snopes.com (published March 14, 2025; updated March 15, 2025) verified that the following links have been removed from the Arlington National Cemetery website:

          African American History, removed from the Notable Graves subsection;

          Hispanic American History, removed from the Notable Graves subsection;

          Women’s History, removed from the Notable Graves subsection;

          African American History, removed from the Themes drop-down menu of the Education section; and

          Civil War, removed from the Themes drop-down menu of the Education section.

This should be no surprise, since Trump has called veterans suckers and losers.

The latest US Department of Defense blunder

It seems to me that our Department of Defense (DoD) needs to spend less time erasing history and more time holding top secret war plans in a secure location (which until the Trump Administration was the policy) and much less time holding top secret war plan meetings via text messages.

Thank you, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, for being a true patriot and not leaking the plans for the United States bombing the Houthis in Yemen last week. Leaking the plans that you were texted would have put US military personnel is grave danger. Were you included on the text list by mistake, or is there someone in the DoD who wanted this information leaked to a journalist?

I wonder who DoD Secretary Hegseth will text top secret information to next.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read.

Hold your family close.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet

“First they came for the…”

Every week I think I’ll write a shorter blog post, but every week there’s something in the news about which I’m compelled to comment. Every week I think I’ll get back to work on the novel I’m writing.

The original blog post I wrote for today came in at more than 3,000 words. No one wants to read a 3,000-word blog post, so I’ve divided it into three posts.

Tomorrow I will blog about a couple of US Supreme Court rulings made in 1898 and 2025 that I initially was going to blog about today.

Wednesday’s post will include a breakdown of the $524 million bill passed by the NC General Assembly and signed by Governor Josh Stein las week as well as highlights from the National Hurricane Center’s final report about Hurricane Helene.

And you know me… if something else happens before I post tomorrow and Wednesday, I’m liable to go off on another tangent. While we still have a modicum of free speech in America, I will take advantage of every opportunity to speak out about injustice and actions that run counter to the US Constitution.

A blog post update

Last week I reblogged Tangie T. Woods’ post from her “Mrs. T’s Corner” blog about Lt. Col. Charles Calvin Rogers’ information being taken down from the Department of Defense (DoD) website.

The DoD seemed to get confused about exactly what on its website qualified as the “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) that the Trump Administration wants eradicated from all federal government departments and resources.

Under the Trump Administration, the online record of the Medal of Honor that Lt. Col. Rogers received on May 14, 1970 was changed to read, “dei-medal-of-honor.” There is no such medal and there was no such thing as DEI in 1970.

Of course, the teenagers working for Elon Musk would not know that. They wouldn’t care that Lt. Col. Rogers served in the war in Vietnam. They probably could not find Vietnam on a map if their lives depended on it.

And, since Elon Musk is from South Africa, he probably doesn’t know anything about the war in Vietnam either.

The last I heard, Lt. Col. Rogers’ information has been corrected, but the bigger problem still exists as every single day something else is erased from history by the computer geeks working for Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency.

According to the Associated Press on Saturday, March 22, 2025: “The restoration process has been so hit or miss that even groups that the administration has said are protected, like the Tuskegee Airmen, the first Black military pilots who served in a segregated World War II unit, still have deleted pages that as of Saturday had not been restored.”

Would someone please explain to me what the online removal of the records of the Tuskegee Airmen and military Medal of Honor recipients has to do with “Efficiency” because I’m having trouble understanding it?  

Last week, Principal Chief Mitchell Hicks of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians issued a statement about how indigenous peoples on the North American continent have been marginalized by the government since European settlers arrived here.

Chief Hicks pointed out in his statement that even though the US Government tried to wipe out the Cherokee language, during World War I it was the Cherokee who developed a secret code based on their language for the US military to use. He said in his statement that the Cherokee people will make sure their military history is not erased.

Thank goodness the Cherokee people are doing this, because we cannot depend on the United States Government to preserve it.

We are not stupid. We all know exactly what is behind all these anti-DEI actions. White men have dominated politics and business in the US since the country’s formation, and many of them cannot accept the fact even in the 21st century that women and people whose skin is all shades of brown and black have brains.

Many of them claim to be Christians, but they reject the essence of the teachings of Jesus Christ. Their words and actions fly in the face of the teachings of Jesus Christ.

As a Presbyterian, I believe that in the eyes of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, all people – women and men – of every shade of skin hold equal value. It is offensive when someone claims to be a Christian but they endorse political leaders who demean women and disrespect people of color.

If some of those old white men in the White House, the US Congress, and the US Supreme Court are not getting that message at their churches, maybe they need to find another church.

If you think I’m being disrespectful to the US President and other old white men, my words don’t hold a candle to the disrespect they are showing me and my fellow citizens every day through their words, their actions, and their inactions.

DEI was about making sure everyone had an opportunity to get into the college they were academically-qualified to attend. It did not guarantee that they would pass the courses and graduate. It was about everyone having the opportunity to apply for a job. It did not guarantee them the job. It was about making sure everyone had a chance to sit at the proverbial table.

When I was a little girl in the 1950s, it wasn’t like that. In fact, when I was a teenager in the late 1960s, things were just beginning to change. I pray our country never goes back to the dark days of racial segregation and gender discrimination.

The Republican Party (i.e., Donald Trump, for he is the Republican Party now) has twisted the opportunities that DEI offered into something ominous, vile, and discriminatory. Through Project 2025 that his friends wrote, he is attempting to erase opportunity and history.

But some of us were entering the workforce in the 1970s and we know from personal experience how it was. It makes me sick to my stomach to know that my four great-nieces who are in their early twenties will not have the same opportunities their mothers had in the 1990s.

You see, the problem wasn’t solved when Lt. Col. Rogers’ military record was restored to a website. That was accomplished only after a public outcry. But the evil, hate, ignorance, small-mindedness, and fear (yes, fear!) that resulted in his record being mislabeled and removed is very much still with us.

If you think I’m reckless in my use of the word “evil,” according to Merriam-Webster, evil is defined as “morally reprehensible,” “arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct,” “causing harm,” and “something that brings sorrow, distress, or calamity.”

The Trump Administration and his Department of Government Efficiency is all about evil, hate, ignorance, small-mindedness, and fear (yes, fear!). They work from a place of evil. They set out to hurt everyone they hate, don’t understand, and fear. They fear that white people will soon be in the minority in the United States. They fear that since women are going to colleges and universities in greater number than men, that eventually more women will attain positions of leadership in government and business.

Elon Musk has been quoted as saying that the biggest weakness of “the West” is empathy. I beg to differ. I think empathy has been one of our strengths. We showed empathy through the work of the USAID. Through the Voice of America radio broadcasts we showed empathy toward people who were trapped in authoritarian governments.

Trump and Musk have ended USAID and stopped the Voice of America. Being from South Africa, though, Mr. Musk has little experience with empathy. The word “empathy” is not in Trump’s vocabulary.

That takes us to “ignorance.” The people who took down the photograph of the Enola Gay airplane took it down because it had the word “Gay” in it. Well, duh! “Gay” just happens to be a woman’s name.

If you don’t believe me, look it up. And if you don’t know what the Enola Gay was, by all means, look it up if you still can.

While we’re on the topic of Government Efficiency…

US Department of Agriculture has halted $500 million in deliveries to food banks nationwide that the Biden administration announced last year. Even The Washington Post has reported this. One more slam at farmers and people who need a little help putting food on the table.

And even though under 26 U.S. Code 7213 it is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, a $5,000 fine, and mandatory termination of employment for a federal employee to give anyone access to a taxpayer’s tax return information, the US Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is working on an agreement with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to gain access to private tax records.

ICE claims to only be going after the tax records of undocumented immigrants, but this is a slippery slope.

If you aren’t careful, Mr. Trump, someone outside the IRS could someday gain access to your tax records! We all know how much you don’t want that to happen, even though every US President for decades before your first term made their tax records public. You promised to follow suit as soon as your 2015 tax audit was completed. We’re still waiting….

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read.

Hold your family close.

Remember the people of Ukraine.

And remember the people of western North Carolina where a half-dozen wildfires were still burning out-of-control yesterday afternoon. Three of them are in Polk County, which was hit hard by Hurricane Helene last September.

Look for my next blog post tomorrow!

Janet