President Trump held a National Prayer Day event in what is left of the rose garden at the White House on Thursday, May 1. It was a bizarre thing to watch on NPR on my tablet, since the man demonstrates no faith in God in his words and actions. That aside, it came just three days after North Carolina’s Rev. William Barber II (who has for years been an activist for the rights of poor people and teachers) and another pastor were arrested for praying aloud in the Rotunda of the US Capitol.
It turns out it is technically against the law to do that. Under a Washington, DC law, they were charged with “crowding, obstructing, or incommoding.” It seems they were warned, about 20 law enforcement officers of several levels were summoned with zip ties (which seems excessive), then everyone else was cleared from the Rotunda (including reporters who could have recorded what was about to happen), the doors were locked, and the two pastors were arrested.
My confusion arises because it was apparently only weeks after Conservative activist Sean Feucht led a group singing while playing an electric guitar in the Capitol Rotunda with Republican US Representative and gun rights activist Lauren Boebert in attendance on her knees waving her arms to the music.
I wasn’t there for either incident, and I don’t have all the facts. On the face of it, there seems to be a double standard. Perhaps Mr. Feucht had permission to do what he did, and Rev. Barber apparently did not. Perhaps making prior arrangements or obtaining some type of permission is the difference in the two cases. But lesson learned: don’t pray out loud in the US Capitol Rotunda.
We’ve lost federal funding for mental health grants to public schools. When Trump and Elon Musk brag about the billions of dollars they have saved the American taxpayer, just remember that $1 billion was cut last week from the School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program, which was established in response to the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas in which 19 students and two teachers were murdered. These grants were used to pay for more mental health counselors and therapists in our schools. School systems were notified on April 29 that the grants they had been awarded to use over the next five years have been cancelled.
On May 1, 2025, the same day US President Donald Trump made a big show of having a National Prayer Day event at the White House in which he spoke for the better part of an hour about how miserable his life has been and how the 2020 election was rigged and how “they” tried to rig the 2024 election but “they” failed… he also signed an Executive Order titled, “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media” in which he unilaterally stopped all federal funding support for National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
Although most of programming on NPR and PBS are funded by corporate and individual contributions, they do receive some federal dollars through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). It is reported that NPR gets 10% of its funding from the federal government. Losing that could spell doom for the radio stations in small markets… where it is needed the most.
The Order stops all current and future federal funding to the CPB.
Here is a link to the full text of this the Order: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/ending-taxpayer-subsidization-of-biased-media/.
I watch PBS every day and listen to NPR all the time I’m in the car. There is programming on both that is not available anywhere else. Trump would know that if he had ever listened to NPR or watched the wealth of educational programs on PBS.
PBS offers theatrical and musical productions, documentaries, worldwide travel shows, and numerous educational programs for children and adults. This programming is just not available on commercial TV networks. And there is not comparable radio programming to what NPR offers.
You have to be pretty low to attack “NOVA,” “Nature,” Ken Burns’ highly-acclaimed documentaries, Big Bird, Kermit, Ernie, The Cookie Monster, and Miss Piggy. I don’t recall ever hearing that any of them told the audience for whom to vote.
Trump is already threatening to force the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to cancel the broadcast licenses of the TV networks he doesn’t like. That’s any network that has programming on which anyone criticizes Trump. He started threatening CBS weeks ago. He belittles ABC, NBC, and CNN to their reporters’ faces in interviews and press conferences. Fortunately, none of them are backing down. He tells them their questions are “stupid.” He tells them what they should be asking. Then he usually launches into whining about losing the 2020 election. People of a certain age will understand when I say he is a broken record.
We’ve lost college students believing that they have the right to protest. Since the Trump Administration has come down hard on protests on university campuses by deporting international students suspected of participating in an anti-Israel war in Gaza protest at Columbia University, students hesitate to use their First Amendment right to assembly and free speech. Since Trump is financially punishing universities that allow student protests, students are getting mixed messages about how their school administrators will react if they dare to protest. Dakota State University in South Dakota invited US Secretary of Homeland Security and former South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to give the commencement address on May 10. Students and faculty members there are hesitant to voice their displeasure with the decision and most refused to speak to the Associated Press reporter doing a story about the invitation. A university where students and professors are afraid to even verbally protest has lost the essence of what university is.
Two US Representatives plan to introduce articles of impeachment against Trump, so he is calling them childish names and calling for their expulsion from Congress. He says that have committed “real crimes,” I guess opposed to the 34 felonies he was convicted of before the last election.
We’ve lost Veterans Day. On May 1, Trump declared that May 8 will now be “Victory in World War II Day” because that’s the date in 1945 that Germany surrendered. That was a telling theory, since the war continued in the Pacific until Japan surrendered on August 6, 1945. But worse than that was his declaration that November 11 will now be “Victory in World War I Day” instead of Veterans Day. I just want to know how many more times he is going to insult veterans and still have their support.
Lee Zeldin, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on Friday that he is reorganizing the agency to save $300 million. He plans to accomplish that by creating a new unit within the agency “to align research and put science at the forefront of the agency’s rulemakings.” Time will tell what happens to the EPA in an Administration that is openly anti-environment.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi is cracking down on journalists who obtain “privileged and other sensitive information,” not just classified material, “that undermine President [Donald] Trump’s policies.” The editorial board at The Washington Post is concerned about the future of the Justice Department’s regulation that limited the government’s ability to see journalists’ phone and email records. If we lose our free press, we lose our democracy.
We’ve lost common sense. Attorney General Bondi announced in last Thursday’s Cabinet Meeting that the fentanyl seized by the Trump Administration since January 20 has saved 258 million lives. I’m not good at math, but that would be 79% of the 326 million people who live in the United States. In other words, 79% of Americans would have died from taking fentanyl since inauguration day if not for President Trump? This is the kind of information the Trump Administration is putting out as facts.
We’ve lost the 120 portraits of victims of gun violence in the atrium of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Washington, DC. Justice Department spokesperson Chad Gilmartin said the decision to remove “The Faces of Gun Violence” was not political. That’s good to know.
We thought we had lost the Alcatraz Federal Prison on Alcatraz Island off San Francisco when it was closed in 1963 due to staffing problems and physical deterioration. It wasn’t cost effective in 1963 to repair it. Fast forward 62 years: Trump to the rescue! He announced on social media on Sunday that he has ordered the dilapidated prison to be expanded and reopened for our worst criminals.
We no longer have a US President who respects other nations’ sovereignty, so we’ve lost that internationally held principle in our Executive Branch of the federal government. In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, he said he would not rule out using military force to take Greenland. WHAT?
We’ve lost our confidence that the person holding the office of President of the United States will uphold our Constitution. Donald J. Trump demonstrates through his Executive Orders that he has little regard for the US Constitution, but now we have his actual words. He has taken the oath of office twice, and yet in the “Meet the Press” interview on Sunday, he admitted that he doesn’t know if he has to uphold the Constitution. We don’t know if he has no recollection of that oath or if he is willfully choosing to question the validity of the oath. If he cannot remember the oath he took 15 weeks ago, perhaps Section 4 of the 25th Amendment needs to kick in. If he does not understand the words of the oath… perhaps Section 4 of the 25th Amendment needs to kick in. (Of course, the prospects of Vice President J.D. Vance assuming the office of President is also daunting!)
Trump said he will have to ask his lawyers if he has to uphold the Constitution. The oath is short and straightforward: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
We no longer have a US President who knows what the Declaration of Independence is. In a much-anticipated ABC News interview with the President on his 100th day in office, Trump made a point to show a copy of the Declaration of Independence on the wall in the Oval Office. ABC’s Terry Moran asked, “What does the Declaration of Independence mean to you?” Trump’s response was classic Trump: “Well, it means uhh exactly what it says. It’s a declaration of unity, love and respect.” That is the most bizarre description of the Declaration of Independence I’ve ever heard. He makes it sound like it was a love letter to King George. The look on Terry Moran’s face said it all.
Another thing we’ve lost is any sense of decorum or appropriateness. Trump posting an AI-generated image of him in full Pope attire over the weekend was in the very least in poor taste. I’m not Roman Catholic, but I found it repulsive.
That image of the Wizard near the end of the Wizard of Oz movie from 1939 comes to mind… the one when Toto pulls back the curtain and the Wizard of Oz is discovered to be just an ordinary man who is projecting a far different image of himself.
Is my country being run by a 12-year-old boy who has no knowledge of or interest in learning history and takes nothing seriously? That’s what is being projected for all the world to see.
Until my next blog post
I hope you have a good book to read.
Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.
Janet
Janet's Writing Blog 