Category Archives: government

Make America—

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America.

Let us NOT make America great again—

—because it has never been what those who mouth the slogan promote.

The reality is starkly different.  We should not want the greatness that is being advocated by the slogan-sayers.

The poem, Let America be America captures what we have never been but can be yet.

Not “again,” but to be the America we erroneously think we have been.

The poem comes from a member of one of the many minority communities to whom America’s greatness is not what was, but what is yet to be, people who do not seem to be part of the Trumpian equation of future greatness.

THIS is what we should be striving for in the words of the great African-American poet Langston Hughes of Joplin, Missouri ninety years ago when the ideals of America seemed far, far away for the racially and economically dispossessed.

Let America Be America Again

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

 

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

 

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

 

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—

And finding only the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

 

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

 

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—

Hungry yet today despite the dream.

Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

 

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream

In the Old World while still a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That’s made America the land it has become.

O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas

In search of what I meant to be my home—

For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,

And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,

And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came

To build a “homeland of the free.”

 

The free?

Who said the free?  Not me?

Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?

The millions shot down when we strike?

The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams we’ve dreamed

And all the songs we’ve sung

And all the hopes we’ve held

And all the flags we’ve hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay—

Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

 

O, let America be America again—

The land that never has been yet—

And yet must be—the land where every man is free.

The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

 

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—

The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,

We must take back our land again,

America!

 

O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath—

America will be!

 

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain—

All, all the stretch of these great green states—

And make America again!

Langston Hughes died in 1967 while our country was locked into a great struggle to be what American could be.  We are locked in another great struggle today to make America again—-but, in truth, it is a struggle to degrade the greatness it already was and the greatness it must still try to become.

—-a greatness the great slogan-speaker will never understand.

 

I am glad I don’t drink coffee

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—And that I bought my new car last year.

—And that I bought the new televisions for our new home last month.

—And that I bought my new wardrobe (I’ve lost a lot of weight in the last couple of years) late last year and early this year.

—And that I do not need the latest technological tweak that comes in a cell phone.

—And that I was prudent in my younger years and set up a retirement program that will let me afford at least the two eggs I have each morning for breakfast.

—And that, although I am a descendant of farmers, I am not one.

—And that I went to a state university before the federal thought police dictated how I could learn by punishing how it taught.

—And that I worked for people to whom “fair” and “balanced” actually meant “fair” and “balanced.”

—And that I experienced the long fight for acceptance of DEI and witnessed the good that has come from its eventual and painful acceptance.

—And that my study of history shows acquiescence to the words and deeds of demagogues, dictators, and authoritarians is never the answer; that resistance, refusal, and an understanding of rights is essential to defending and enhancing freedom

—for all of us.

.AND

—that courage and boldness will have greater political rewards than cowardice and fear in the face of intimidation and threats.

In the early, dark, days of the American Revolution, with Washington’s army on the run and seeking safety by fleeing across the Delaware River to Pennsylvania, one among those retreating troops—born an Englishman but who had come to recognize tyranny as an evil—began to put his thoughts on paper, not about retreat but about the importance of resistance and counterattack.

His name was Thomas Paine and the pamphlet he wrote in those fearful days became a rallying point for the nation fighting to be born. It has been described as, “an important catalyst for the rise in popular support for the revolution” that Paine envisaged as the start of “a worldwide struggle against oppression and for the rights of the average man.”

His colleagues sometimes called him “Common Sense” Paine because of that pamphlet. As he and his fellow troops headed for Pennsylvania, he began writing a follow-up pamphlet.  He would call it, when published in November of 1776, The American Crisis No. 1.

This is a time to recall the opening words of that pamphlet:

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”

Four score and seven years later, also in November, Abraham Lincoln told a large crowd gathered at the cemetery near Gettysburg:

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Our national soul is under great trial and trying to appease a tyrant, as the world learned in Europe in the 1930s, is not the answer. This is no time for Paine’s “summer soldier and sunshine patriot.” It is time to remember Lincoln’s call that those who sacrificed so much before us “shall not have died in vain,” and that we must protect “that government of the people, by the people, for the people,” and make sure that “it shall not perish from the earth.”

For those who are greatly alarmed at the perilous direction of our country, we turn again to Paine who wrote, in part:

It is surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country. All nations and ages have been subject to them…Yet panics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows through them and acquires a firmer habit than before. But their peculiar advantage is that they are the touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered. In fact, they have the same effect on secret traitors which an imaginary apparition would upon a private murderer. They sift out the hidden thoughts of man, and hold them up in public to the world.

It is a comforting thought that things that most alarm many of us will not endure, and in the end will remind us that having seen them and survived or defeated them will leave us wiser if not stronger.

But we cannot wait them out.

Resistance is” the only choice for those who witness each day the efforts to make us less free. Our generations must never be found guilty of esteeming too lightly the benefits that we have accepted too cheaply,” as Paine said.

The United states has led the “worldwide struggle against oppression and for the rights of the average man ” but it cannot lead the world in that fight if it does not fight it within itself.

Acquiescence only leads to more loss. It is we the people who must fight for the defense of our freedoms that are based on a government of, by and for all of us.  We, not he, will make America great again.  And we must be unafraid to fight him who imperils everything we have become to ourselves and to the oppressed world through 250 years of struggle and achievement.

Anything less makes us traitors to ourselves.

 

 

Notes from a Quiet Hill (Annexing Columbia Edition)

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—-the latest version of a series of ponderings that began with “Notes from a Battered Royal” that we used to write in the Missourinet newsroom that became “Notes from the Front Lines,” and then “Notes from a Quiet Street.”  The changes denote changes of the writer’s primary location.

Why shouldn’t Jefferson City annex Columbia?  Or why shouldn’t Missouri unilaterally declare Iowa part of our state?

They’re our version of Canada. They’re north.

If the standard for annexation is coldness, maybe Iowa would be the better choice.  And once we have Iowa, nothing can stop us from annexing Minnesota so we can have something REALLY cold in winter, but a nice place to go to in the steaming and humid days of summer.

The Greatest, or at least the silliest, Geopolitician of our time wants Canada to become our 51st state. If he read a geography book, he no doubt would be stunned to know that Canada is not one big geographic blob but has ten provinces and three territories.*** That might please him because we could go from fifty states to 60, and add two territories to our worldwide collection.

Think of the electoral votes involved.

Here’s a map so you will know more than your President does about Canada.

We would like to be in the same room when he suggests or demands that King Charles allow the United States to annex a country that is 41 times larger than the United Kingdom, of which it is a part, seven times larger than our present largest state—Alaska, and 15 times larger than our second-largest state, Texas.

But if he’s thinking of a one-state addition, he might try currying the favor of those in Quebec who have long advocated independence from Canada.

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King Charles did not attend the inauguration in January and there are no plans for a state visit by the new/old President to the UK so there appears to be little immediate possibility that Mr. Trump will have a chance to try to bully the King about Canada. He DOES know, doesn’t he, that he can’t primary a king?

The Great Geopolitician did meet with Prince William, the heir to the throne, at the reopening of Notre Dame. Cathedral a few months ago. The report from the GP illustrates the depth of their discussion: “He’s a good-looking guy. He looked really, very handsome last night. Some people look better in person? He looked great. He looked really nice, and I told him that.”

We wonder what William told his dad about what an uplifting talk he had with he presumed leader of the free world. We wonder how much they laughed.

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Canada appears not to know what is good for it. Doug Ford, who is the premier of Ontario—the most populous province of the GG’s proposed annexation, has a counteroffer.  He suggests Canada should buy Alaska and Minnesota. As far as the USA taking over Canada: “Under my watch, that will never, ever happen.”

Canada’s Green Party leader Elizabth May, has another offer. Cascadia. She suggests British Columbia join with Oregon and Washington to form an independent nation.  She had suggested California join Canada, too, If not a sister independent nation bit as 11th province. She thinks it’s a great idea for another reason—the United States would be rid of three states that vote for Democrats.

And it would be rid of territory with annual potentials for major wildfires (more on that later).

Before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau quit, he put it more bluntly: “There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States.” And Canadians know a lot more about snowballs than the Baron of Mar-a-Lago knows. Trudeau’s successor has been equally uncooperative.

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Speaking of Texas, here’s something the GG might consider in re-shaping the world.  Split Texas into five states.  That would mean ten more Senators, most of which are likely to be Republicans under present circumstances.  And it would mean a lot more electoral college votes.  Congress approved a joint resolution allowing the split in 1845:

New States of convenient size not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas and having sufficient population, may, hereafter by the consent of said State, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution.

Opponents say that resolution has been rendered moot by later legislation. But from time to time in Texas, there is talk.

Wonder if he’s thought about how that might help fight the thundering hordes storming his wall.

Here’s another bonus: Five new states, each with its own state university that can be threatened with loss of funds if they reject DEI.  How do you suppose the SEC and the Big 12 would split them up.

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We also wonder what the GG’s reaction would be if his good friend Vlad were to decide Russia got a raw deal when it sold Alaska to the United States and demanded a renegotiation at the least and a return of the area at the worst.

Why not sell it back to the Russians?  The money received could be used to buy Greenland. What use is it anyway? It’s not connected to any of the other states. Only a few people want to live there year-around. And why send all of those American workers up there to drill, baby, drill when there is still a lot of undrilled national parks and historic sites in the lower 49 to keep the oil companies busy for decades. And the Great State of Canada has a lot of drillable area.

Let the Russians have the Elk and the Permafrost.

How about drilling, baby drilling at Mar-a-Lago?  Probably not worth it. There already are eighteen dry holes there.

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And finally, this addendum to our earlier meditation on the geopolitician’s plan to export people;

It’s either them or the homeless crowd,.  One or the other group should be forced to stay here and rake California’s forests. You recall that the nation’s leading forest expert, or so he claims to be,  theorized four years ago that California wildfires were caused by all of the dead leaves that had fallen from the soon-to-be scorched trees. The President could even get a gold-painted ceremonial rake to take the first stroke. Probably, somebody would have to show him how to do it. Raking leaves when you live on the 56th through 58th floor of your own New York skyscraper is not a talent you have much opportunity to develop.

And if neither the homeless nor the deportees want to do it, he has an entirely new talent pool made up of former federal employees, a veritable 21st century Civilian Conservation Corps—-watched over by all the Generals and Admirals he has fired who might still be good for something.

***Wonder how many provinces and territories he could name.  How about you? I confess, I had forgotten some until I looked at the map. But I could be excused because I have no interest in annexing all of those provinces.

Should he read this entry (which is doubtful given reports that his attention span is so short that he would have quit reading it after “why not”) and for our own edification, here is the list: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Newfoundland and Labrador (considered one).  Territories?  Yukon, Nunavut, Northwest Territories.

 

The Meaning of a Wisconsin Election

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When a people choose vindictive self-service over broader public concern, they make an eventually correctible mistake.

When Congress replaces responsibility for the many with loyalty to one, a nation is in trouble.

When courts replace justice with ideology, a nation might be lost.

We live in and often must endure our own humanness. But there are protections that we must trust within our political system that keep our mistake from becoming our destruction.

This is such a time.

The current administration has attacked the courts and the “unelected judges” who are overturning unconstitutional executive orders, preferring that the court system get out of the way. We can be grateful that our founders made the court a road block to injustice.

Elected? The dangers of an elected judiciary were on plain view in Wisconsin a few days ago where an effort was made to buy a seat on the state supreme court for someone designated as a Trump supporter who would tilt the court majority politically toward Trump.

It has become obvious to many within the last few days that they were mistaken when they accepted without question the promises given last year by Donald Trump.  Now, they must place their hope with a Congress in which some are beginning to question their loyalty to him and wonder if they have the courage to remember their responsibility.

In the end, though, it is the courts that have the ultimate responsibility for saving our nation.

The courts cannot completely nor immediately reverse the course set by the mistake. But the courts are our ultimate and final refuge—

—-which is why the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court election was so critical, not just for Wisconsin, but for all of us; not just because of WHO was elected but because of WHAT was rejected.

History has shown liberal or conservative-tilting courts are not always as clearly divided as the labels we attach to their individual members seem to indicate they will be. There is a middle ground that often is the resting place for compromise on carefully designed decisions. And it is that middle ground on the finest points of a case that might produce no major progress but will save us from any major regression.

Missouri originated a system that avoids the fight we recently saw in Wisconsin that featured a concerted effort to buy a seat on the Supreme Court. It is regrettable that we still allow people to try to buy part of our state constitution by financing multi-million dollar petition campaigns (last year’s sports wagering campaign in which the casino industry spent more than $40 million to get 3,000 more people to vote for sports wagering than voted against it after a misleading campaign is an example) and they can bankroll candidates for the legislature in an effort to buy laws.

But because our highest court judges are not elected, they cannot be bought.

Chief Justice Laura Denvir Smith, who also was the Chair of the Appellate Judicial Commission, told the Missouri Senate Rules Committee in 2007:

Judges are not intended to be politicians, choosing sides based on political considerations, or what the judge’s neighbors, fundraisers or special interest groups might think was best.  Deciding cases based on the judge’s or another’s perception of what is popular or politically expedient is inconsistent with one’s duty as a judge and is just plain wrong.  

The judicial branch of our democracy instead must be neutral, seeing that the laws are applied fairly, and providing stability in the law so that there is consistency in the rules by which people live their lives.  Although some court decisions are not popular, popularity is not the benchmark of quality in the judicial branch: The nature of our business is such that half the people are unhappy because they lost and some of the ones who won are unhappy because they don’t think they won enough.  

In every case, from a marital dissolution that only affects the couple and their children to an issue of constitutional validity, the role of the judicial branch is to resolve disputes neutrally and fairly based on the facts that are presented in court.  If they are doing their job correctly, judges decide based on the law and the facts, not based on the possible political ramifications of different results.

Sometimes the public, the parties and even the judges deciding a case are unhappy with its outcome, because the law may not produce a result that accords with our personal preferences. But if you ask those same people, when they have a case in court, whether they want a judge to pre-decide it based on the judge’s views of what will look good in the newspaper the next day, or, instead, whether they want a judge who will come to court with an open mind, listen to their side of the case, and reach a fair decision – they will pick the open mind and the fair decision – every time.

No one wants to worry that the case will be decided against them because the other side, or the other side’s lawyer, gave a large contribution to the judge’s election campaign, or to those politicians who appointed or nominated the judge for office.  Missourians learned long ago, before they adopted the nonpartisan plan, that is exactly what can and does happen when politics becomes a key factor in determining who will be a judge.

Missouri was the first state to adopt a non-partisan judicial selection process somce adopted by a majority of the states, although some states have added their own tweaks.

Although we adopted our plan in 1940 in an effort to take as much politics as possible out of the judicial selection process, the issue goes back to our first Constitution that was written in 1820 and had to be accepted by Congress before Missouri was allowed to become the 24th state.

That Constitution had the governor nominating judges at all levels and if the senate gave its consent to his nomination, the judges cold serve until they were 65 as long as they engaged in “good behavior.” But if the legislature found a judge having badly, it could by a two-thirds vote in each legislative chamber, ask the governor to remove a judge.

In the next couple of decades, though, Missourians began to doubt the wisdom of that latter point because it made the courts subservient to legislative politics and legislators were too influenced by special interests. Missouri became one of the states that decided the answer was judicial elections, legalized here in 1850.

By the start of the Twentieth Century and the machine politics of the time—the Pendergast family’s control of Democrat politics in its home town of Kansas City and in much of Missouri and the Butler machine in St. Louis, for example—the public became concerned that the judiciary’s independence was in doubt.

Beginning in 1903, when four state senators were indicted for taking bribes to vote on legislation specifying ingredients for Missouri-made baking powder and the supreme court overturned the first conviction and sentence and the other three cases never went to trial, there was suspicion that the supreme court had its own “boodle” scandal.

The Pendergast grip on Democratic politics statewide in the 1930s led to a push for adoption of a nonpartisan court plan known as “merit selection.” It was part of a national movement aimed at assuring our courts would be a true third branch of government.

When the legislature refused to hold an election on the proposal, an initiative petition forced a vote—and Missouri voters bought the idea in November, 1940.  When the legislature put a repeal of the plan on the 1942 ballot, voters strongly rejected it.

When our present state constitution was adopted in 1945, the plan was not touched.

The plan was limited to judges of the Missouri Supreme Court and courts of appeals. It also applied to some lower courts, including the probate courts, in the city of St. Louis and Jackson County. Other counties were given the option of adopting the plan.  But only six of our circuit courts have been put under the non-partisan plan, recognized nationally as The Missouri Plan.

Here is how it works:

A nonpartisan judicial commission, the Appellate Judicial Commission, solicits applications, interviews candidates and picks three finalists. The commission has three citizens appointed by the governor, three lawyers appointed by the Missouri Bar, with the chair being the chief justice of the Supreme Court. The commission picks three finalists whose names are made public, and the governor makes the final choice.

When a vacancy occurs, the commission seeks applicants and encourages the public to nominate well-qualified candidates for consideration. The commission reviews the applications of lawyers who wish to join the court and selects which applicants it will interview, then conducts those interviews in public. The commission then deliberates in a closed meeting to select a panel of three nominees for the governor’s consideration.

The governor has sixty days to announce his choice. If the governor fails to make a pick, the commission re-convenes and fills the vacancy. That has never been necessary.

The new judges then serve at least a year but then have to stand for retention in a statewide vote. The vote does not involve opposing candidates. It only asks citizens if the judge should be kept in office. There is no campaigning although the Missouri Bar’s Judicial Performance Evaluation Committee (made up of lawyers and non-lawyers) gives voters information about each of the judges up for retention so informed votes can be cast.

Although all counties can adopt this procedure, only a few use it. Only six jurisdictions do evaluations and hold non-partisan circuit judge elections—St. Louis city and county, Clay, Jackson, and Platte Counties in the Kansas City metro area, and Greene County (the Springfield area).

The plan is recognized as one that keeps politics out of judicial selection as much as possible. Unlike the federal system in which a President can reward friendly lawyers with juicy judicial appointments, this plan creates a process that sends up three people whose qualifications are based n their understanding of the law and the proper administration of it. There is no Senate approval of nominees, which would run the risk of politics being a major part of the process.

It does not keep those who want to degrade the legal system for their own protection or benefit from complaining about “unelected activist judges.”  But, having learned how it operates, this system might make it clear that some of the current attacks on the judiciary have no grounds, at least not here and not in our appellate court system.

The Missouri Non-Partisan Court Plan is the greatest protection we have against those who want to replace justice with ideology.

 

The King of the World

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The big black limousine pulls to the curb and out steps a man in a pin-stripe suit, his shiny dark hair slicked back, a bulge on the left side of his coat indicating there’s something behind the handkerchief poking up from the pocket.

He looks around, warily, the toothpick shifting to the other side of his mouth, as he swaggers inside.

His cold, piercing eyes underline his words:

“Nice little university you got here.  Be unfortunate if something happened to it.”  (The implication is clear that it better toe the organization line or something, perhaps several hundred million dollars worth of business, will disappear.)

Or:

“Nice little museum you got here.  We’d like you to change it for us.” (There is a “or else’’ understood in his request.”)

“Nice little law firm you got here.  You crossed the boss one too many times. We’re gonna shut you down.” (No reason for the boss to be subtle about it.)

With some strokes of his pen that produce an unreadable signature, the boss assumes powers to extort tribute from numerous targets, the congress, the law, and the courts be damned.

One of his biggest a few days ago asserts the power to cut off funding for the Smithsonian Institution if it continues exhibits that “degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with Federal law and policy.”

And who decides what those programs are?  Who decides what policies degrade shared American values—values apparently established by one man?

Does this mean closing the Museum of the American Indian? The African-American Museum?  The Holocaust Museum?  And the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art with all of its meaningless modernist stuff?

Maryland Governor Wes Moore, the third African American elected to a governorship in
our country calls the effort “disrespectful” and told an interviewer this weekend, “Loving your country does not mean dismantling those who have helped to make this country so powerful and make America so unique in world history in the first place.” Moore is the third black governor in American history, the first in Maryland.

Trump’s says, “Museums in our nation’s capital should be places where individuals go to learn instead of being “subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history”

That’s Boss Trump’s job.

He also wants to influence what we can read. He has ordered the Institution of Museum and Library Services to be eliminated. That organization provides support for libraries and museums in Missouri and the other 49 states. Can’t have “divisive” things in our libraries that serve diverse audiences.

He has set up the Federal Communications Commission to become a censor of news and entertainment programs.  One of the first targets is Disney and its ABC News unit and their diversity and inclusion practices.  Chairman Brendan Carr says he wants to make sure ABC “ends any and all discriminatory initiatives in substance, not just name,” and that he wants to make sure ABC has “complied at all times with applicable FCC regulations.”  And what about FOX and OAN, One America Network, that is known for its fawning over all things Trump while FOX has had the temerity from time to time to challenge him?  Don’t look for Trump’s FCC to censor OAN, but FOX is no longer above suspicion.

ABC has become just another target in his war on the diversity of voices available to Americans. And he has shut down the Voice of America, greatest international representation of American values, especially in countries under dictatorial governments.

We should be very frightened of his belief he can censor or shut down news organizations that don’t buy his lies.

He has taken over the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts so that the only acts it can host are those that fit his definition of “American values.”

He wants to rewrite our history, especially eliminating references to times that non-whites have achieved breakthroughs in a white male-dominated society.

His rabid dog-like attacks on DEI has intimidated NASA into dropping its commitment to flying  the first person of color and the first woman on the moon, had led the Defense Department to eliminate postings about Jackie Robinson’s service during WWII, Navajo Code Talkers, the Tuskegee Airmen, and Pima Indian Ira Hayes, who helped raise the flag at Iwo Jima.

The fact-checking website SNOPES got an email from Pentagon Press Secretary John Ullyot proclaiming, As Secretary Hegseth has said, DEI is dead at the Defense Department. Discriminatory Equity Ideology is a form of Woke cultural Marxism that has no place in our military. It Divides the force, Erodes unit cohesion and Interferes with the service’s core warfighting mission. The code-talkers website was later restored to the Pentagon website, as were the stories of Major General Charles Calvin Rogers, 1970 black Medal of Honor recipient and Ira Hayes, who was at Iwo Jima.

And don’t forget the silliness of the removal from the internet of the Enola Gay, the first plane to drop an atomic bomb on Japan===because the word “gay” was used in the plane’s name.

And now he thinks he can order European countries to follow this blatantly discriminatory cleansing of our history. He has sent a letter to some large European companies that supply services to our government threatening them unless they adopt his DEI strategy, says The Financial Times.

Like Jack Dawson standing against the railing on the bow of the Titanic and shouting, “I’m King of the World!” the Don, not content with being the Despot of the United States, is dedicated to running the world.

Give me a major segment of your economy to pay off what I consider loans, he has told Ukraine, and I will make peace—a demand and a boast that must include a willing third partner who is proclaimed as a good friend but who has no interest in a peace.

“Pay economic blackmail,” says the Don, not realizing countries don’t pay tariffs but his own citizens will, “and I will let you do business in this country,” while the other countries are beginning to grow closer together and are beginning to plan for themselves instead of bowing to his demands.

He wants Canada and he wants Greenland, the feelings of the people living there notwithstanding in his quest for domination.

However, the people of Greenland should be breathing easier now that “Little Me” Vance has told them the Don will not use the military, his national muscle, to take over their island. He has urged them to embrace “self determination,” apparently failing to understand the Greenlanders long ago determined for themselves that they want to be aligned with Denmark and they don’t want to be under the Don’s “protection,” when all he really cares about are the country’s mineral deposits. “We think we’re going to be able to cut a deal, Donald-Trump style, to ensure the security of this territory,” said Vance to people who think Denmark has done a pretty good job of protecting them from—-China? And Russia, which is far more interested in restoring the Soviet Union and absorbing all of Europe eventually with little apparent interests in little Greenland?

So there he is, the Don standing on the prow of our Ship of State proclaiming himself King of the World.

We know what happened to Jack Dawson and the ship that was once thought to be unsinkable.

Kind of like our Ship of State.

Others in the world can see the rip in the side of the hull caused by Executive Order icebergs.  Others in the world are seeing our great Ship of State going down by the bow.

Some Republicans are starting to wonder if there are lifeboats enough for them.

There aren’t.

And the water is growing colder.

Patrick and Volodymyr

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A country facing tyrannical control.  Enemy forces are at the gate. Should an effort be made for a cease fire or even full peace?  How great a price will be paid either way?

The other day I picked up a book containing a speech that might have been given 250 years ago. The style of public speaking has changed a lot in that time. But the situation and he sentiments of he remarks are appropriate for our time.

…The question before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free — if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending — if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained — we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable — and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

We don’t really know how accurate the account of this great American speech is. There was no transcript taken at the time in the Virginia House of Burgesses. .Author Willam Wirt reconstructed it in his 1817 biography of Patrick Henry, leading some historians to question its authenticity.

Whether these words were fully spoken 250 years ago, on March 23, 1775 or whether they were partially made up or completely made up by Wirt 208 years ago, the situation and the sentiment have a certain resonance as the President of Ukraine deals with Russia’s war on his country and the demands by Ukraine’s (former?) ally that it turn over a major part of its economy to the United States and a significant part of its territory to Russia.

We doubt that our president ever read the speech or, if he did, that he ever understood its importance to our nation’s attitude about ourselves or others who share our democratic vision.

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?”

What should be OUR answer in today’s world? We already know his answer. Chains and slavery.

The State of Trump Address

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This is going to be a long one—as are all of the ones we publish after a major Trump serving of word salad.

We watched most of President Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. I confess that the longer it went on being Trump instead of being a President, the more I thought of finding something better to watch. I finally gave up after the one-hour mark and found an old cowboy movie on another channel, coming back at the end of it just in time for the Democratic Party response.

A few initial impressions:

He is still campaigning.

He is still lying.

I am sure he had some solid ideas. I am sure he had some less-solid ideas that are open to respectful discussion and compromise. I am sure he floated some ideas just to test political waters.  But his preoccupation with the 2020 and 2024 election, Democrats, and the immediate past-President buried them under his typical bloviating.

Never have a I heard a President spend so much time taunting the minority party. Until recent years, never had I seen members of Congress disrespecting the speaking President as I did last night. But in recent years, both sides of the aisle should have been spanked and sent to bed without dinner for their infantile behavior during the State of the Union speeches.

The place is starting to sound like the British Parliament during question time—except its manners are far worse.

If Trump had set forth his domestic and international agenda without attaching lies and insults to his statements, he would have saved us at least 45 minutes of our lives.

This was not a State of the Union speech.  It was a State of Trump speech.  And he’s pretty satisfied with himself.

I kept waiting for him to suggest something Congress should do.  But he carried on as if Congress doesn’t matter. Come to think of it, it doesn’t, as long as he can use his Magic Marker to make marks on a page that look like a badly-defibrillating heart monitor.

As is our habit, we’re going to turn to Daniel Dale of CNN for a comprehensive straight-out fact check.

But first, let’s look at some other reactions, at least some of which indicate how difficult it is to figure out how to assess what we watched the other night.

Satirist Andy Borowitz, who also writes pretty serious stuff, said in his Borowitz Report the next morning: “In what is being called a historic performance, on Tuesday night Donald J. Trump set a new world record for delivering the longest speech that did not include a single fact. Congressional Republicans were awestruck by their leader’s ability, at the age of 78, to give such a sustained fact-free oration. (House Speaker Mike Johnson said,) ‘To stand up there for 99 minutes and not accidentally slip up even once by saying something true? He’s still got it.’ Republicans contrasted Trump’s address favorably with the Democratic response of Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who spoke only briefly but whose remarks were riddled with facts.”

The New York Times Editor John Guida offered a more balanced approach the next day by asking some columnists and other writers for their assessments.

—Binya Applebaum: The speech was a “medley of fabrications, provocations, and insults.” Michelle Goldberg described Trump as “an autocratic thug gloating about stripping America for parts.”

Josh Barro noted Trump’s line about reducing immigration only required a new President instead of new laws, as advocated by Preisdent Biden was “an effective line on his strongest issue.”

Frank Bruni agreed that Trump was “on solid ground and in his comfort zone “when he talks about cracking down on illegal immigration” although he uttered lies about the issue.

Michael Schmitz: “Trump’s recitation of improbable-sounding expenses he claimed to have cut was funny.”

Farah Stockman praised the President for deputizing a child with cancer as a member of the Secret Service and telling the mother of a dead daughter that a wildlife area had been named in her honor.

Michelle Cottle thought the recognition of the chid was “a heartwarming plug for the President’s Make America Healthy Again agenda—and a clever way to gloos over the problematic views of his health and human services chief.”

Katherine Mangu-Ward said she has longed for a President who would dedicate “a significant portion…to cuts in the federal government.” But she was dismayed that the cuts he mentioned are small “and unlikely to withstand scrutiny from the courts or (as isn the case of his promises to stop Social Security Payments to 129-year olds fictional.”

Daniel McCarthy thought Democrats “set themselves up for the worst moment of the night with their jeering and heckling.”

Bruni grew tired of Trump proclaiming things were “like nothing that has ever been seen before,” and called such comments “juvenile, narcissistic and “exhausting—like his speech.”

Republicans in the chamber appeared to love every statement, every denigration of Democrats, every false claim. Democrats did themselves no favors with juvenile reactions when they should have been composing constitutionally-loyal opposition positions.

Was there an adult in the room?

Now, here’s Daniel Dale and his CNN fact-checking staff:

President Donald Trump made numerous false and misleading claims…The falsehoods spanned a variety of topics, including the economy, climate, immigration and more.

In his speech, just under one hour and 40 minutes, Trump also made a number of false claims about his predecessor, Joe Biden. Here is a fact check of some of Trump’s statements:

DOGE savings: Trump claimed that the Department of Government Efficiency, the initiative led by Elon Musk, has “found hundreds of billions of dollars” in fraud.

This figure, which is uncorroborated, needs context.

As of the day of Trump’s address to Congress, DOGE claimed on its website that its work has saved an estimated $105 billion for taxpayers.

But it hasn’t provided evidence to corroborate a figure that high.

DOGE listed about 2,300 contracts it claimed to have canceled across the federal government for a total claimed savings of about $8.9 billion. It also listed nearly 3,500 grants it claimed to have canceled for a total claimed savings of about $10.3 billion, but it provided no links or documentation for those cuts. And it listed about $660 million in savings from canceled government leases.

DOGE’s public tally has been marred with errors, and it has been repeatedly changed in recent weeks to remove some contracts identified as flawed by CNN and other media outlets — including a previous claim that it had saved $8 billion by canceling a contract that was actually worth a maximum of $8 million. Its website’s so-called wall of receipts has included contracts that were canceled during previous presidential administrations.Enter your email to sign up for CNN’s “What Matters” Newsletter.

 

Bottom of Form

Musk and other Trump allies have claimed DOGE’s work is aimed at targeting waste, fraud and abuse. But DOGE has not released evidence that the contracts it has canceled were fraudulent. And at least some of the cuts have been reversed amid criticism.

From CNN’s Casey Tolan

DOGE and transgender mice: Trump falsely claimed that the Department of Government Efficiency identified government spending of “$8 million for making mice transgender.”

Between the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years, the National Institutes of Health awarded a total of $477,121 to three  projects that involved administering feminizing hormone therapy to monkeys to understand how it may affect their immune system and make them more susceptible to HIV. Feminizing hormone therapy is a gender-affirming treatment used to block the effects of the male hormone testosterone and promote feminine characteristics among transgender women.

Transgender women are nearly 50 times more likely to be infected with HIV than other adults, according to one study from 2013 across 15 countries, including the US. It’s not clear where the $8 million figure came from.

From CNN’s Deidre McPhillips

Trump on the economy

Trump’s tariffs: Trump, promoting his tariffs on imported foreign products, claimed that “we will take in trillions and trillions of dollars,” and he added that “I did it with China.” This is misleading at best. Tariffs are paid by US importers, not foreign exporters, and study after study, including  one from the federal government’s bipartisan US International Trade Commission, found that Americans bore almost the entire cost of Trump’s first-term tariffs on Chinese products. It’s easy to find specific examples of companies that passed along the cost of the tariffs to US consumers.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Tami Luhby

Small-business optimism: Trump said that “small-business optimism saw its single-largest one-month gain ever recorded — a 41-point jump.”

This claim needs context. If Trump was referring to the commonly cited NFIB Small Business Optimism Index (his spokespeople didn’t respond to a previous CNN request to clarify), his claim about a 41-point increase appears to be a reference to one component of the index — the percentage of small-business owners expecting the economy to improve — rather than the index as a whole. That measure did soar a  net 41 percentage points from pre-election October to post-election November.

And Trump didn’t mention that the total index then declined in January to a level that is still high but lower than it was under Trump in  September, 2020 and Octoger 2020 – less than five years ago.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale

Egg prices: Trump on Tuesday made the misleading claim that former President Joe Biden “let the price of eggs get out of control.”

The avian flu has caused egg prices to rise because the United States Department of Agriculture requires the culling of entire flocks to stop the spread if the virus is detected. It’s a practice that occurred during the Biden administration, but also one that is continuing under Trump as the virus continues to infect flocks nationwide.

When Biden took office, the average price of a carton of a dozen grade A eggs across US cities was $1.47, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. By January 2023, as avian flu spread to flocks nationwide, a dozen eggs rose to $4.82 on average, a 228% increase. By the time Biden left office in January, a carton of eggs cost $4.95 on average, a 2.7% increase from a year prior. Due to short supply,  egg prices are projected to increase by 41.1%  this year, according to the USDA’s food outlook as of February 25.

From CNN’s Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, Elisabeth Buchwald and Vanessa Yurkevich

Trump on efforts to fight climate change

Trump and “the Green New Scam”: Trump claimed that he terminated the “Green New Scam.”

This claim is inaccurate in various ways. Biden didn’t pass the original “Green New Deal,” a nonbinding resolution   introduced by progressive congressional Democrats in 2019 that was never turned into law. Trump hasn’t yet terminated the major environmental law Biden did pass, which is what Trump might be referring to as “the Green New Scam.” Trump has previously claimed the policy cost $9 trillion.

Biden signed a law in 2022 known as the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA,  containging $430 billion in climate and clean energy spending and tax credits.Independent estimates later raised the cost of that law to over $1 trillion by 2032, but the IRA actually saved the government $240 billion because of its increased tax enforcement and prescription drug savings, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. And importantly, the IRA’s tax credits spurred companies to build new factories and solar and wind farms in the US, creating jobs with it.

Trump and congressional Republicans haven’t killed the law, although they are aiming to take parts of it out later this year. Trump has effectively killed other climate policies Biden imposed through executive order, but it will take an act of Congress to reverse the former president’s signature climate bill.

From CNN’s Ella Nilsen

Paris climate agreement: Trump touted withdrawing a second time from the Paris climate agreement, claiming in his speech to Congress that the landmark climate deal was costing the US “trillions of dollars that other countries were not paying.”

This claim is inaccurate. Biden pledged to pay $11.4 billion per year toward international climate financing upon taking office. However, the US contribution to a global finance goal ended up being far lower because Congress appropriated far less money than Biden’s goal. Biden’s State Department  announced it had allocated $5.8 billion to international climate finance by 2022. US climate finance contributions have never reached trillions of dollars.

The US wasn’t the only laggard on its climate finance commitments; other nations have struggled to meet a collective $100 billion climate financing goal meant to help countries vulnerable to sea level rise and droughts.  China, the UK and the EU have all contributed. That goal  was tripled to $300 billion annually by 2035 at the most recent United Nations Climate Conference.

From CNN’s Ella Nilsen

Trump on border crossings and migrants

Illegal border crossings: Trump claimed that, since taking office again, he has already achieved the lowest number of illegal border crossings “ever recorded.” That’s false.

He could have accurately said the number of Border Patrol apprehensions at the southern border in February – the first full month of his second term – is the lowest in many decades, at least if it’s true that the number was 8,326, as he claimed on social media in early March. But  official  federal statistics show there were fewer Border Patrol encounters with migrants at the southwest border in various months of the early 1960s, as well as in various months of previous decades.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Devan Cole

Migrants coming from mental institutions: Trump repeated his familiar claim Tuesday night about how other countries have supposedly released people from their “mental institutions and insane asylums” into the US as migrants. There is no evidence for the president’s claim, which Trump’s own presidential campaign was unable to corroborate. (The campaign was unable to provide any evidence even for his narrower claim that South American countries in particular were emptying their mental health facilities to somehow dump patients upon the US.)

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Haley Britzky

Trump on former President Joe Biden

Weaponizing the Justice Department: Trump claimed that Biden used his office to “viciously” prosecute him. That’s false.

Trump’s two federal indictments were brought by a special counsel, Jack Smith. Smith was appointed in November 2022 by Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Biden appointee, but that is not proof that Biden was involved in the prosecution effort, much less that Biden personally ordered the indictments. Garland had said that he would resign if Biden ever asked him to act against Trump but that he was sure that would never happen. For Trump’s part, he has never provided any evidence that Biden was personally involved in the federal prosecutions.

The two cases were dropped by Smith after Trump was reelected.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Devan Cole

Inflation under Biden: Trump falsely claimed in his address to Congress that under the Biden administration America suffered the “worst inflation in 48 years, but perhaps even in the history of our country, they’re not sure.”

Trump could fairly say that the year-over-year US inflation rate hit a 40-year high in June 2022, when it was 9.1%, but that’s not “48 years” — and this 9.1% rate was not close to the all-time record of 23.7% set in 1920.. The rate in the last full month of the Biden administration, December 2024, was  2.9%. It was 3% in January, 2025, , a month partly under Biden and partly under Trump.

Trump did qualify the claim with the word “perhaps” and “they’re not sure,” but there is no basis for the claim regardless, and those numbers are certain: The Consumer Price Index data goes back to 1913.

Inflation’s rapid ascent which began in early 2021, was the result of a confluence of factors, including effects from the Covid-19 pandemic such as snarled supply chains and geopolitical fallout (specifically Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) that triggered food and energy price shocks. Heightened consumer demand boosted in part by fiscal stimulus from both the  Trump and Biden administrations also led to higher prices, as did the post-pandemic imbalance in the labor market.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Alicia Wallace

Undocumented immigrants: Trump falsely claimed Tuesday that 21 million undocumented immigrants came into the US during Biden’s tenure.

Through December 2024, the last full month of Biden’s presidency, the country had  recorded  under 11 million nationwide “encounters” with migrants during that administration, including millions who were rapidly expelled from the country; even adding in so-called gotaways who evaded detection, estimated by House Republicans as being roughly 2.2 million, there’s no way the total is “21 million.”

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Devan Cole

Agricultural purchases by China: Trump repeated a false claim that he got China to purchase $50 billion worth of agricultural goods during his first administration and that the Biden administration “didn’t enforce it.” That is misleading.

China agreed to increase agricultural purchases by $12.5 billion in 2020 and $19.5 billion in 2021, as part of a trade pact signed with the US in January 2020. That did occur in 2020 but not in 2021, when US agricultural exports to China increased by $6.4 billion compared with 2020, according to US Department of Agriculture data.

Nevertheless, the pact never specified that China would have to continue to keep up such purchase levels beyond 2021.

Rather, it said, “The Parties project that the trajectory of increases in the amounts of manufactured goods, agricultural goods, energy products, and services purchased and imported into China from the United States will continue in calendar years 2022 through 2025.”

Even still, 2022 surpassed 2021 levels of $33 billion, according to USDA data. However, by 2023, US agricultural exports to China declined by $9 billion.

From CNN’s Elisabeth Buchwald

Trump’s other claims

Autism rates: In his address to Congress on Tuesday, Trump spoke of the recent rise in autism prevalence in the US, saying that “not long ago, and you can’t even believe these numbers, one in 10,000 children had autism, one in 10,000, and now it’s one in 36.”

Some of the earliest studies on autism diagnosis from the 1960s and 1970s estimated reported autism prevalence to be in the range of 2 to 4 cases for every 10,000 children, but that was many decades ago. While the diagnosis rate has increased steadily in recent years, it was already 1 in 150 children in 2000, 25 years ago, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was indeed 1 in 36 children by age 8 in 2020.

Experts say significant improvement in identifying and diagnosing autism is a key driver behind the rise in reported rates.

From CNN’s Deidre McPhillips and Daniel Dale

Military recruitment: Trump claimed Tuesday that the US military is having “among the best recruiting results ever in the history of our services” and that the US Army had its “single-best recruiting month in 15 years” in January, adding that “just a few months ago” the US “couldn’t recruit anywhere.”

This needs context. According to  the Defense Department, military recruitment was already up over 10% in fiscal year 2024 compared with the year prior, and the delayed entry program for the active-duty military was up 10% in fiscal year 2025. The delayed entry program is a way for recruits to join the military but not ship out until a later date.

And looking specifically at the Army’s recruitment, former Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, who served until January 20, told FOX News that the uptick started before Trump was elected — and that the Army in fact started seeing increased numbers in February 2024.

From CNN’s Haley Britzky

Social Security benefits: In an extended claim, Trump said 4.7 million people who are at least 100 years old are still listed in the Social Security Administration’s database and that “money is being paid to many of them.” However, this claim needs context.

The vast majority of these people do not have dates of death listed in Social Security’s database. But that doesn’t mean they are actually receiving monthly benefits.

Public data from the Social Security Administration  shows that about 89,000 people age 99 or over were receiving Social Security benefits in December 2024, not even close to the millions Trump invoked.

The acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Leland Dudek, who was elevated to that post by the current Trump administration, tried to set the record straight in a February statement.

“The reported data are people in our records with a Social Security number who do not have a date of death associated with their record. These individuals are not necessarily receiving benefits,” Dudek said.

From CNN’s Tami Luhby and Daniel Dale

Aid to Ukraine: Trump repeated a regular false claim that the US has spent $350 billion, “like taking candy from a baby,” to support Ukraine’s defense while Europe has collectively provided just $100 billion in aid. That is not close to correct.

According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German think tank that closely tracks wartime aid to Ukraine, Europe – the European Union plus individual European countries – had collectively committed far more total wartime military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine through December 2024 (about $263 billion at current exchange rates) than the US committed (about $126 billion). Europe had also allocated more military, financial and humanitarian aid (about $140 billion) than the US allocated (about $121 billion).

The US did have a slim lead in one particular category, military aid allocated, providing about $68 billion compared with about $66 billion from Europe. But even that was nowhere close to the giant gulf Trump described.

It’s possible to arrive at different totals using different counting methodologies, but there is no apparent basis for Trump’s “$350 billion” figure. The US government inspector general overseeing the Ukraine response says on its website that the US had appropriated nearly $183 billion for the Ukraine response through December 2024, including about $83 billion actually disbursed – and that includes funding spent in the US or sent to  countries other than Ukraine.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Alicia Wallace

Panama Canal deaths: Trump delivered a slightly vaguer than usual version of his repeated false claim that 38,000 Americans died during the building of the Panama Canal. That figure is not even close to true, experts on the canal’s construction say.

Experts on the canal say it’s not even close to true that 38,000 Americans died during construction.

While the century-old records are imprecise, they show about 5,600 people died during the canal’s American construction phase between 1903 and 1914 – and “of those, the vast majority were Afro-Caribbeans,” such as workers from Barbados and Jamica, said  Julie Greene, , a history professor at the University of Maryland and author of the book “The Canal Builders: Making America’s Empire at the Panama Canal.”

The late historian David McCullough, author of another book on the building of the canal, found that “the number of white Americans who died was about 350.”Thousands of additional orkers, perhaps around 22,000, died during the French construction phase that preceded the American phase. But Trump strongly suggested he was talking about American deaths, as he has explicitly said on previous occasions.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale

Great? 

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We have a place at the end of these entries for people to respond to them. I hope the Trumpers will do that today—

And explain how last week’s disgusting performance in the meeting with Ukraine’s President in any way makes America Great.

To whom?

Well, Russia thinks America is great.  Donald Trump thinks browbeating and bullying the president of a country fighting off takeover from a cruel, controlling, all-powerful despotic leader of a gigantically larger country makes our America great, at least in his own self-dominated mind.

HERE’S how American can be great—–but Trump’s own cruel, controlling, all-powerful self-image won’t let him do it:

Persuade his good friend Vlad to stop the invasion of Ukraine. Withdraw.  Offer Russia security protections against invasion from Ukraine.

He won’t do it. He can’t do it. He’s already speaking from Vlad’s pocket when he accuses Ukraine of starting the war.

Imagine if Roosevelt in 1939 had accused Poland of invading Germany; England of launching a blitzkrieg against Germany in 1940, Hawaii of bombing Tokyo in ’41.  Imagine if Truman accused South Korea of starting a war in 1950 by invading North Korea.  Or if George H. W. Bush had charged Kuwait with invading Iraq in 1990.

Just think how much greater we would be now if those presidents hadn’t made the mistakes Trump refuses to make today.

The greatness of America on the world stage is gone and it is becoming smaller in the international rear-view mirror.  It’s even growing smaller in our own rear-view mirror with every day of crude butchery of our own government, with every day that the faceless bureaucrats who try to make our government work for US are threatened with the loss of their jobs by people who have little appreciation for laboring on behalf of other people.

So tell me, Trumpers, in the dialogue box at the end of this entry, just how Trump is making our country great by doing the things to his own people that he is doing.  Look ahead, and tell me how our lives will be better a year from now.

Don’t send me an email.  My name is on every one of these entries. I expect those with differing opinions to have enough courage to stand behind their words with their names.

Make me think how great my country is today.  Make me proud of my president.  Make me sufficiently grateful.

Eyes on the Prize; Blind to Freedom 

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Making a deal with the Devil puts the Devil in charge.  Chickens making agreements with foxes soon realize the fox in the hen house always is hungry.

Freedom is not a business proposition. Those who try to make it so are less concerned with freedom than with ownership and exploitation. Acceptance of a business proposition by a battle-scarred country will an an acceptance of less independence by the people of that country and acceptance of less independence can only bring about a loss of freedom.

Ukraine is not a hotel, a country club, a casino, a university that can be run into bankruptcy while the person behind it walks away unscathed.  It is not a commodity such as coins, tennis shoes, and Bibles never read.  Freedom cannot be bought, sold, or traded.  There are no international bankruptcy laws that protect the freedoms lost by a people who become victims of a loser business man with an extensive record of deals gone sour.

And when a United States President asserts that an innocent nation minding its own business caused its own invasion by a ruthless despot is unforgiveable.

The freedom of Ukraine must be protected. It is too precious to be considered something that can be  bought or traded for. Once freedom has been achieved, it is worth fighting for even against overwhelming odds. Ukraine does not deserve someone who would force a devastated country to sell a major part of its economy in return for a peace without security or reparations.

And it is even more repugnant than that.

Anyone who would proclaim that Ukraine started the war with Russia and is willing to deal away Ukraine’s freedom as a business investment is an international disgrace, especially when representing a country that has been the shining example of freedom to the rest of the world.

It is betrayal of what this country stands for.

Trump wants the Nobel Peace Prize. He envies Barack Obama for winning it. He thinks he can demand it for himself by forcing another nation to give up a large chunk of its independence to end an accused war criminal’s invasion.

To hear his incoherent and lying babbling about the victimization of Russia-–even his former media apologists at FOX News struggle to tolerate it—must raise questions about his mental state and the damage he is doing both internally and externally to   our country.

Yes, he won the election. But every day he demonstrates his disrespect for the history of the nation he leads and every day he sees himself less as a defender of freedom and more as a shady wheeler-dealer who cares only about power and possession.

Donald Trump is proving every day that he belongs in a padded room, not the oval office.

Contrary to the song, Freedom’s just another word for EVERYTHING left to lose. Too bad we have a President who doesn’t care who loses it whether it is the people of another country or people of his own.

The Gulf

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It’s the Gulf of Mexico. Period.

And calling it the Gulf of America is as silly as some people got after the September 2001 terrorist attacks when France opposed our invasion of Iraq by deciding to call French fries, Freedom Fries.

The pettiness and immaturity of a 78-year old man with a superiority complex was played out a few days ago when he threw a tantrum and banished an Associated Press reporter from an Oval Office press conference dominated not by the old man but by his  hatchet man. The reporters was not banned because he asked an impertinent question of either of the stars of the event.

He was barred from the event because the Associated Press won’t call the Gulf of Mexico the presidentially-designated Gulf of America.

To begin with, Trump’s executive order on the Gulf shows his usual ignorance of and respect for maritime/economic law and the authority of individuals as well as countries to keep calling it the Gulf of Mexico.

But never trouble Donald Trump with facts or with respecting any system, nations, and cultures that long-ago legally or at least culturally designated names of places.

Renaming Denali, for example, is disrespectful of the Koyukon Athabascan people who have lived in that area for centuries and have called it Denali. Not until 1896 was it called Mt. McKinley, and not by any official action or decision by an international naming agency but by a gold miner who started calling it McKinley to support a presidential candidate. President Wilson signed a bill in 1917 making McKinley the official name.

But the state of Alaska asked in 1975 that the United States Board on Geographical Place Names make the official name to the traditional Denali. Ohio Congressman Ralph Regula blocked it because McKinley’s hometown of Canton was in his district and he didn’t seem to care what generations of natives had called the mountain long before he came along. Canton is a long ways from Alaska and surely Regula (who died a few years ago) could have found something closer to home with which to make a headline.

The Board of Geographical Place Names?

The King of Renaming Puffery apparently does not know, or does not care about, the existence of such a body that was created in 1897 and assumed its present status by federal law in 1947. The board, part of the Department of the Interior, tries to allocate place names based on local custom “as well as principles, policies, and procedures governing the use of domestic names, foreign names, Antarctic names, and undersea feature names,” as one source puts it. More than fifty other nations have similar national bodies.

Such organizations are necessary to avoid confusion about what is what and where that what is.

Then there is the United Nations Economic and Social Council  and its nine-member Group of Experts on Geographical Names that has been reviews things every five years, beginning in 1960. Having a commonly-used name of a place is important in domestic and international trade.

But we are learning that this President has no regard for federal agencies or international programs, especially when he decides to show his power by ignoring them with executive orders. And woe be unto anyone who does not worship his impulses.

Here’s the deal about the Gulf of Whatever—

The United States does not OWN the Gulf of Mexico.  The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea grants countries control of waters about twelve nautical miles from the country’s shores. That’s the closest this country has to owning a gulf, a sea, or an ocean.

There also is an “Exclusive Economic Zone” that covers 200 miles of offshore water. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the zone allows this country to “explore, exploit, conserve and manage natural resources” in that area. That zone overlaps similar zones for Mexico and Cuba. But they don’t count in inner Trumpworld.

So the Great Geopolitician is asserting authority over Mexico and Cuba with his MAGA-pleasing proclamation, something outside his and his country’s authority. The solution to his situation should be easy for him: Make Mexico our 52nd state and Cuba our 53rd.

Canada already is in line to become number 51. And that brings us to another issue for our President and our takeover of Canada.

What’s with this St. Lawrence Seaway thing?

It allows oceangoing ships to travel from the Atlantic Ocean as far inland as Duluth, Minnesota.  It’s named for the St. Lawrence River that links Lake Ontario to the Atlantic. We expect an executive order soon renaming the thoroughfare the Duluth Seaway.

And while we’re at it, why is it the Missouri River when there are so many other states involved?  We can’t call it the Missouri-Kansas-Nebraska-Iowa-North Dakota-South Dakota, Montana River.  Let’s simplify it and just call it The Trump River and make it a symbol of his success at bringing the county together.

And then—

The administration’s new Interior Secretary, Doug Burgum says the department is considering redrawing boundaries of our national parks and historic sites so there’s more room to drill, baby, drill—even though we understand the major petroleum companies are less enthusiastic about the increased supply that will lower the pump prices of gas and oil.  But as long as we’re tinkering with those parks and historic sites—-

Let’s add the scowling Presidential visage to Mount Rushmore although rock experts have told the National Park Service the remaining rock is unstable.

It might be the perfect place for a Trump sculpture after all

(Actually, increased drilling should be welcomed by consumers who will pay less for the fuel it takes to buy their more-expensive groceries.)

And while we’re talking about the Gulf of Mexico, why don’t we annex the Caribbean?

Now back to the AP reporter. Trump’s action constitutes a punishment for a news agency that reports the news in a way he does not like.  That’s been illegal since John Peter Zenger was accused of libel by the Royal Governor of New York because Zenger’s New York Journal published an editorial critical of Governor William Cosby.

Cosby issued a proclamation condemning Zenger’s newspaper for “divers scandalous, virulent, false, and seditious reflections,” a crude eloquence we won’t find on (Un)Truth Social. It doesn’t even have an exclamation point, a misspelling, and a capitalized word.

Zenger’s lawyer, Andrew Hamilton—the father of Alexander—argued that truth is an absolute defense against libel. It took a jury only ten minutes to find Zenger not guilty, a judgment that established press freedom in this country.

Trump’s hissy fit because the AP recognizes the internationally-established name for the Gulf of Mexico, while not a libel, is an exercise of press freedom. The press is not obligated to print the party line or the individual declaration of anyone, including Presidents with a totalitarian attitude.

–or as the AP put it, “As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audience.”  The AP does agree to change the mountain to Mt. McKinley in its style book.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a First Amendment advocacy group, commented, “President Trump has the authority to change how the U. S. government refers to the Gulf. But he cannot punish a new organization for using another term.”

Well, he did.  And he’s moving to punish news organizations who dare question his bloviating about any issue that pops into his head.

Someday, perhaps, we’ll get into a discussion of “America,” another word about which Trump is, shall we say, extremely uneducated.