Two-faced

Posted on July 28, 2025 by bpriddy

Our Missouri Republican delegates in Washington, House members and Senators, have supported the Trump administration’s major legislative effort to control the information Americans—and, in particular, their constituents—can receive.

In the case of Congressman Mark Alford, whose district stretches from Kansas City and the western border to Columbia and almost to Springfield, his support of the crippling recission of funds from public broadcasting might not be as hypocritical as you can get but it’s close.

On March 20, Alford and two other members of the House formed the Broadcasters Caucus. He said THEN, “As a longtime TV news reporter, including anchoring Kansas City’s top morning news show for nearly twenty-five years, I’m proud to help lead the Broadcaster’s Caucus this Congress. Our time in the media gave us a front row seat to the stories that impact our constituents’ lives, as well as insight into how misguided public policy can harm the local radio and TV stations Missourians rely on. I look forward to working with Co-chairs Flood, Soto, and Boyle to educate our colleagues, bridge the partisan divide, and solve the issues that matter to the broadcasting community.”

“Broadcast journalism is the cornerstone of how Middle America receives its news,” said Congressman Flood (NE-01). “The significance of local radio and television stations cannot be overstated—they help connect communities to the news that shapes our way of life. As someone who grew up in the broadcasting world before coming to Congress, I know firsthand how critical this kind of advocacy is for broadcasters. I’m pleased to be joined by Congressmen Alford, Boyle, and Soto as co-chairs as we continue the caucus’ mission in the 119th Congress.”

“I helped start the Broadcasters Caucus five years ago to support the important work of our local radio and television stations, and I’m excited to continue the Caucus’ bipartisan mission in the 119th Congress. Both as a student broadcaster and as the Representative for the people of Pennsylvania’s 2nd district, I have seen firsthand how many Americans rely on our local broadcasters for the news they need about our communities and the world. I look forward to working alongside Congressmen Alford, Flood, and Soto to support the vital work of our local broadcasters,” said Congressman Brendan Boyle (PA-02).

Congressman Darren Soto chimed in, “Helping lead the Broadcaster’s Caucus this Congress has been a privilege, especially as we work to amplify the voices of Central Florida. Our region’s diverse communities and dynamic growth demand that we stand together to ensure fair representation, and I’m proud to be part of this effort to strengthen the future of broadcasting for all.”

(I added the bold face emphasis)

Noble words then. The National Association of Broadcasters was thrilled. Association CEO Curtis LeGeyt commended this bunch for recognizing “the vital role local TV and radio stations play in every community across the country.” He pledged the NAB would help these four “advance bipartisan policies that allow local stations to continue serving their audiences with the trusted news, sports, weather and emergency updates they depend on every day.”

But a few days ago, Alford was singing the Trump song about the media that seems to be strikingly different from what he said in March: “NPR and PBS have gotten funding from the taxpayers and they’ve gone way too far to the Left. The taxpayer dollar should not be funding propaganda.”

No, it’s best to only circulate Trump propaganda. And it’s easy to throw around a vague accusation without showing that TV shows on quilting and painting and teaching kids how to respect each other and their elders are somehow dangerously socialistic or woke.

Columbia television station KMIZ (Columbia has two publicly supported radio stations including NPR affiliate KBIA that operates satellite transmitters in Mexico and Kirksville) got a statement from Alford praising the cuts.

Alford continued, “With the proliferation of free, high-quality education content across the internet, NPR and PBS have outlived their usefulness. In addition, these outlets — especially at the national level — routinely show a clear left-wing bias, which should not be subsidized by taxpayers. For more than 25 years as a television news anchor, I competed against these taxpayer-subsidized entities. NPR and PBS should compete in the marketplace for advertising dollars just like ABC 17. It’s time for Big Bird to leave the nest.”

The Big Bird nest thing has been around for a long time. Surely he could have found a more original way to demonstrate he really didn’t mean all the good things he was saying about broadcasters, no exceptions, in March.

In truth, Alford probably didn’t compete much against PBS and NPR because PBS and NPR focus on national and international news and he was more locally-focused. Plus, it’s hard to believe that the underwriters of public broadcasting would be significant sponsors on his commercial station.

And just where does he think Big Bird will find a home in today’s commercial TV world—because that is what the cut off in public funding will force the welcome world of commercial-free information, entertainment, and creative educational programming to go. And if public broadcasting has to start doing the kinds of advertising we hear on commercial stations, wont that increase competition for the already-limited advertising dollars that support traditional commercial media?

Big Bird is a big problem to the Trumpers. Sesame Street has been teaching children about tolerance and respect for others as well as counting and learning the alphabet for decades. Big Bird never cultivates fear or disrespect of other creatures, all of which are concepts Trump and his toadies love to promote on commercial stations.

KBIA’s general manager told KMIZ, “As publicly funded organizations, NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service are legally required to follow principles of fairness, balance and objectivity in their programming, according to the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. The use of these guidelines by public and private news media has come under question during both Trump terms with the President coining the phrase ‘fake news.’”

I’ve got news, real news, for these members of Congress and their presidential bed partner. Alford’s comment that, “With the proliferation of free, high-quality education content across the internet, NPR and PBS have outlived their usefulness,” is a pretty blatant reversal from his comments about broadcasters in March.

Listenership and viewership of NPR and PBS programming give lie to his claim that the internet has made both of them no longer useful. If they are no longer useful, then his commercial broadcasters are just passengers in the other end of the boat. His real problem, and Trump’s real problem, is that the PBS Newshour is not the evening news on the One America Network and that NPR’s Morning Edition is not Newsmax’s “Wake Up America.”

Big corporations own commercial radio stations these days and few of them want to invest in much local programming, if any at all. Spending money on people reporting on city councils, school boards, county commissions, local weather (they don’t even have their own announcer giving weather forecasts) doesn’t help dividends to stockholders. In the Jefferson City/Fulton/Columbia market, it’s hard to find a radio news person who actually covers local news in person or a station that sets aside time for reporting it. A search of their webpages for “local news” turn up nothing or next to nothing—except KBIA.

Radio might be a dying medium and if it is, it is a self-inflicted wound because corporations give listeners no reason to listen and Alford and his companions, despite their March words, are doing nothing to change that system.Without local voices talking about local issues, why should people listen, especially if the program schedule is more focused on influencing public opinion rather than informing it and the same programs or kinds of programs can be found all up and down the dial.

The story is similar throughout the United States including a tragic development in Missouri. Recently, the stations founded by radio pioneer Jerrell Shepherd of Moberly in the late 40s and early 50s have been sold to a company that told staff members showing up for work one day earlier this year that were fired at the end of their shifts. And these were stations widely known for “owning” their markets because of their local news coverage.

The decline in local news coverage is infecting some television markets, too. One major TV conglomerate owner has replaced most local reporting with its own reporters in Washington and other places. Some time is allotted to local weather and local sports (very little to sports) but viewers don’t get much local or regional information anymore.

And newspapers. The internet has sucked huge amounts of revenue from newspapers. Look at the classified ad pages of today’s newspapers and recall when there used to be several. Look for grocery advertisers or car dealer ads; you won’t find them. Real estate sections are long gone.

Too many small-market weekly newspapers have been cornered by a limited number of larger companies that see them only as a profit center, not part of a community. One person with a camera and a computer is the editor/reporter and the newspaper is filled with material from other towns under the same company ownership. It’s happening in a lot of larger markets, too.

If newspapers and commercial radio stations struggle to find revenues to continue fulfilling their vitally important traditional roles in our communities, then we—as responsible citizens—need NPR and PBS. And if we have a country that believes in an educated, intelligent citizenry, then our country owes it to all of us to make sure public radio and television can flourish independent of government dictation or censorship, an independence President Trump and his loyalists do not want to exist.

At a time when it is critical to have more eyes on government, the number is shrinking badly. Local news deserts are increasing all across the country thanks to corporations that find it cheaper to bring in talk shows from outside, forget about offering anything that actually serves local audiences with information about local agencies and organizations are doing. Automate everything and dump news staffs.

Public radio stations not only are, in too many places, the only places on the dial where you will hear local voices, where you will hear local news AND where you will hear a variety of programs that are well above politics. Intelligent discussions of issues are running counter to the desire of some elements to have only one view on the air.

I have watched and listened to public broadcasting for decades. Our household has memberships at KBIA and at the PBS Station in Warrensburg, KMOS-TV. We are enriched because we get a variety of information programs that apparently are objectionable because they do not advocate the line of the party in power, particularly the leader of such a party who wants to control the narrative American people are allowed to hear. If it’s not some lie from his mouth, it’s fake news.

To that point (and I’ve said this before): I have never indulged in reporting fake news but I have done news about fakes. If I were still an active reporter and on the national level, I would be swimming in the latter pool.

And I’d be asking some pretty severe questions about those such as Alford who mouthed about support of a caucus that provides insight into how misguided public policy can harm the local radio and TV stations Missourians rely on but who then turn around and get in bed with a president who prefers nobody offer any such insight, and who is quick to punish those who question his statements, his policies, and his morals.

This entry has gone on long enough. I dare not get into the CBS sellout except this note:

I dearly hope that Rupert Murdoch and The Wall Street Journal do not wilt in the face of a big revenge lawsuit filed by President Trump against them for reporting on a cartoon he reportedly sent to his close buddy, Jeffrey Epstein. He has put himself in the crosshairs of a more comprehensive investigation by filing this suit. Who knows what will crawl out from under the rocks that are lifted in the discovery process.

All the Wall Street Journal has to do is put that drawing on the internet and the heat will greatly increase under the cooking goose.

The Disaster

Posted on July 23, 2025 by bpriddy

We pause today to pay tribute to the humble and often-maligned FEMA trailer, the refuge for those who have watched all that they have wash away, be blown away, burned away in a natural disaster. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has given hundreds of thousand of victims of fires, floods, earthquakes, and windstorms places to live while they begin to reassemble their lives.

FEMA Trailers often are criticized for their condition or their environmental problems. But they also are symbols of a nation that believes all of us must help some of us in times of disaster.

That concept is strange to the people in charge in Washington, led by a person who has never known and has no sympathy for those socially and mentally beneath him. And that is why the trailers and the federal agency that provides these crucial shelters are endangered.

The administration in Washington is reacting poorly to reports that the emergency management system locally and federally was broken when more than 150 people lost their lives in the July 6 Texas flash flood.

The New York Times has described some of the dimensions of the disaster that the administration has inflicted on the nation’s disaster agency:

“On July 5, as floodwaters were starting to recede, FEMA received 3,027 calls from disaster survivors and answered 3,018, or roughly 99.7 percent, the documents show. Contractors with four call center companies answered the vast majority of the calls.

“The next day, July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or roughly 35.8 percent, according to the documents. And on Monday, July 7, the agency fielded 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, or around 15.9 percent, the documents show.”

Unbelievably, a statement from FEMA claimed, “When a natural disaster strikes, phone calls surge, and wait times can subsequently increase. Despite this expected influx, FEMA’s disaster call center responded to every caller swiftly and efficiently, ensuring no one was left without assistance.”

And what one person appears to be behind that totally untrue statement, delivered to the newspaper through an unsigned email?

On that very day, July 5, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem failed to renew or extend the agreements with the contract operators of those call centers leading to layoffs of thousands of employees. She has to approve any expenses of more than $100,000 and she didn’t do it for five days.

Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee also say Noem did not authorize deployment of search and rescue teams until three days after the flooding began.

Earlier this year, President Trump called for elimination of the entire agency and in June, FEMA stopped going door to door in disaster areas to find those needing help.

The Times identified the acting administrator of FEMA as David Richardson, “who has no background in emergency management.” He took the position May 8 and a week later, according to The Wall Street Journal, admitted privately that he did not have a plan for the spring Atlantic hurricane season. Reuters reported on June 2 that he had told the staff he didn’t know there was such a thing—a comment the agency claimed later was a joke. CNN has reported he went to Kerrville, Texas on July 12 but refused to answer any questions from reporters.

The President has said often he wants to transfer much of the responsibility for disaster response to the states that already are facing struggles because of large cuts in federal funds going to them for various programs.

If you are old enough to recall the great 103-day1993 flood, you are likely to remember the thousands of FEMA trailers brought to Missouri from numerous other states to be temporary homes for our people. Imagine the state having to find—and pay for—those trailers while also dealing with the costs of fixing destroyed roads, bridges, and public buildings and paying for the massive extra personnel costs of first responders, National Guard sandbaggers, and healthcare givers among thousands of other expenses. The Weather Service estimated the damages totaled twelve to sixteen billion 1993 dollars.

Or more recently:

Sure, the state of Missouri can handle something like this. Easily. The amateurs and idealogues in Washington know it can. Without doing any research.

These things are permanent parts of our lives. There were 27 disasters causing at least one billion dollars damage reported last year alone.

The Times has reported FEMA grants totaling $3.6 billion dollars already have been revoked. The money was earmarked for protection of communities from wildfires, hurricanes, and other disasters. One in five agency staff members are likely to be gone by the end of the year.

Trump wants to shut down ten NOAA laboratories in the next fiscal year that research changes in weather patterns. The studies are based on global warming, something the President doesn’t believe in. One of the targeted labs is the one that sends hurricane hunter airplanes into storms to collect important forecasting data and other information.

Another cut that’s important to us in Missouri would cut programs that use river gauges to forecast floods. Those gauges check river levels every fifteen seconds and are used to issue flood alerts. They showed the sudden rise of the river in Texas July 5^th. They measured the weeks of Missouri and Mississippi River floodwaters in 1993. Trum wants to eliminate more than twenty percent of the budget of that program.

Times reporters say the Weather service did issue appropriate warnings for the area flooded in Texas but staff cutbacks had left the San Antonio office without a warning coordination meteorologist. That’s the person that works with local emergency managers to warn people of floods and helps them get to safe ground.

From gutting the national weather service to hamstringing the call centers and other response entities and reducing abilities to forecast hurricanes and floods and to crippling disaster responses, the administration is once again acknowledging that the word “humane” is not in its dictionary.

The real disaster is not wind, fire, and water.

(Photo credits: Trailers–Magnolia Reporter; Joplin Tornado–National Standards for Technology; Flood–USGS)

Inspiration

Posted on July 21, 2025 by bpriddy

We need a break from the heavy and depressing things we have been addressing lately. We need some inspiration. Unconventional inspiration.

Journalists sometimes seem to have a warped sense of humor. It’s a contrariness that good reporters have to have because we must deal with so much righteousness, often self-righteousness (especially when we deal with politics). We also have to deal with some things that are so incredibly serious that, as Abraham Lincoln once remarked, “Gentlemen, why do you not laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me day and night, if I did not laugh, I should die.”

None of us often has a “fearful strain” upon us, although our times present great opportunities for it. But all of us at some time have broken a dark scenario with a joke.

Think of the last memorial service or celebration of life you attended. The ones I have attended have been more light-hearted than mournful.

Your faithful correspondent has never been impressed by companies that post beautiful pictures on walls or in offices, the pictures accompanied by some drivel that is supposed to be uplifting. That is why he had a series of counter-uplifting posters at his desk that did a different kind of uplifting.

This one is from a company called Despair Incorporated. Its website informs visitors:

“No industry has inflicted more suffering than the Motivational Industry. Motivational books, speakers and posters have made billions of dollars selling shortcuts to success and tools for unleashing our unlimited potential. At Despair, we know such products only raise hopes to dash them. That’s why our products go straight to the dashing.”

For many years, I secretly harbored but never carried out the ambition to steal into my company headquarters under the cover of darkness and replace motivational posters with Demotivational posters from the folks at Despair—such as this one which goes to the very heart of the issue:

One of the founders of this company is E. L Kirsten, who has a Ph.D., (which might stand for perverse humor director) and once was a professor of organizational communication. He got his degree from Southern Cal,

He has a book:

The book, like the company products, satirizes the motivational poster industry. A promotion for it says:

Motivation. The Futile Quest.

Motivation has become a multi-billion dollar industry, courtesy of the patronage of corporations and the noble intentions of Executives who lead them. At the heart of this colossal confederation of inspirational speakers, platitudinous posters, parable-filled management books, and increasingly complicated incentive programs lies an alluring promise: that with enough encouragement, empowerment, and esteem, employees will become productive and loyal, to the benefit of both their employers and themselves.

Yet, in spite of the staggering expenditures on packaged esteem, polls show that worker morale has reached critical lows, with a majority of employees even claiming to hate their jobs. How is this possible? And more importantly, what can Executives do about this crisis of employee dissatisfaction?

In this revolutionary new management book, Despair, Inc.® founder Dr. E. L. Kersten plumbs the depths of employee discontent to find its root cause. Though most live lackluster lives filled with wasted opportunities and trivial accomplishments, employees grow ever more certain of their enormous worth and glorious destinies. Why is this so? Because most are the products of a narcissistic age, the spiritual casualties of a grand social experiment gone terribly awry.

Ironically, managers attempting to motivate employees by increasing their self-esteem only compound the very problem they seek to solve. Reinforcing employee delusions of grandeur only increases their irrational sense of entitlement to the wealth, stature and privilege that justice dictates be reserved for the truly accomplished and inarguably worthy: namely, Executives.

With The Art of Demotivation former professor and current executive Kersten offers not only a comprehensive analysis of the problem but a prescriptive solution; one grounded not in the fantasies of infinite human potential so often advanced by the motivation industry, but in the grim realities of a broken world. Managers who seek a productive, loyal workforce must first liberate employees from the prison cells of their narcissism by forcing them to confront that which they expend enormous energy to avoid:
their true selves.

There are three editions of the book. One, the Chairman edition, goes for almost $1200—actually at the bargain price of $1,195, a price fully in keeping with the company, uh, philosophy.

We mention all of this NOT to be giving this company a lot of free advertising. We’re just doing it to keep from being hit with a copyright violation.

But we do think these posters perform a valuable service to some places that take themselves far too seriously. These are some of those days when, as a friend of mine once observed, “The people in Washington have it backwards. They take themselves seriously but not their jobs.” These posters would make great billboards there.

It’s sold out. Why are we not surprised?

And for those who like the Disney theme song—-the first three notes of which are a big part of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind:”

I love these things.

Let’s wrap this up with a couple of others that I don’t recall seeing among the Despair products. There are other internet sites that have their own offerings. They lack the sophistication of Despair but that doesn’t mean they can’t provoke a smile or a snort or even a laugh.

I think we have arrived there today.

The Pious Silence

Posted on July 18, 2025 by bpriddy

“With gratitude and humility, we pray for President Trump. You assigned him, you appointed him, you anointed him for such a time as this. We ask You to cover him with the blood of Jesus, empowering him to advance an agenda of righteousness and justice, truth and love.

Protect him from all evil as he undergirds our nation with the firewall of our Judeo-Christian value system. Fulfill Your purpose in his life.”

—Prayer given in the oval office, March 23, 2025, by Rev. Samuel Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, one of several evangelical pastors who laid hands on President Trump, a repeat of a ceremony at the start of his first term. The President appeared to be earnestly participating.

Shortly after, podcaster Todd Starnes attacked those who question Trump’s Christianity and the motives of those who regard him as a national savior: “The ‘Christians’ complaining about Christians praying over President Trump in the Oval Office are not Christians.”

Last year, just before the Iowa caucuses, a television add proclaimed: “And on 14 June 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said: ‘I need a caretaker.’ So God gave us Trump,

“God said I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, fix this country, work all day, fight the Marxists, eat supper, then go to the Oval Office and stay past midnight at a meeting of the heads of state. So God made Trump,”

When the similar group of Christian Nationalist preachers held a laying-on of hands ceremony in 2017, the Reverend Robert Jeffress, a Texas Southern Baptist preacher, told Trump, “Mr. President, we’re going to be your most loyal friends.”

Among all the voices protesting Medicaid Cuts, using government agencies to punish opponents, indiscriminate roundups of immigrants, the dismantling of government agencies and programs helping the poor with food and medicines, and—most recently—the burning of hundreds of thousands of pounds of food that could have kept thousands of African children alive, where are these preachers?

The silence of these pious ministers is thunderous.

Is THIS a President whose words and actions show he wants “to advance an agenda of righteousness and justice, truth and love?”

Is this President—who has jerked everybody around on the Epstein matter, who has deported people to nations far away from their own, who reportedly is jamming people into Florida cages, and who has cut Medicaid payments—undergirding the nation “with the firewall of our Judeo-Christian value system?”

Is he fulfilling God’s purpose?

Let’s hear it, preachers. Tell us, God, that what we are seeing and getting—of which we have only scratched the surface in the lists above—fulfilling your purpose?

Tell us, most loyal friends, why you aren’t saying anything about all of this? Do you believe a loving God is rooting for Trump to do all of the mean, cruel, unfeeling, un-loving things to others?

Can you watch what has happened since you prayed for him and still believe God “assigned him…appointed him (and) anointed him for such a time as this?”

Do you really believe his acts and statements truly represent our Judeo-Christian value system? Was Jesus a lying bully?

Is not Donald Trump exposing the falseness of the proclamations of pious faith leaders such as yourselves?

And what is it you have faith in?

Who’s not a Christian, Mr. Starnes—those who seek to serve others or those who seek power to serve themselves?

A lot of us are praying these days but not for Trump; for our country.

I lost a good friend this week, a gentle man who celebrated sixty years in the ministry just a few weeks ago with what became his last sermon. The Reverend John Bennett dedicated his life to social justice and told an interviewer a few years ago, “My guideposts as I move forward in my life and ministry are Micah, Chapter 6, verse 8. ‘Do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God,’ which is to walk in solidarity with all who hurt.”

And how did he hope others would remember him?

“He was a gentle and passionate man, on fire for social justice, rooted in his deep faith.”

I will take one John Bennett for 500 of those who would lay hands on Donald Trump.

(photo credit–Facebook)

6:30 a.m., Longmont, Colorado, July 5, 2025

Posted on July 14, 2025 by bpriddy

It was a beautiful, clear morning in this city of 120,000 just a half hour from Rocky Mountain National Park when I took my morning walk.

Sixty degrees headed for the mid-eighties, the morning after Nancy and I watched our granddaughters celebrate Independence Day with fireworks in the driveway and in the Cul de sac of the subdivision where our son and his family live.

I started the day reflecting on July 4 in Longmont deeply worried about the nation into which those girls will grow up. I was out and about quite a bit on Independence Day in this city where one in four people is Latino, beginning the long walk through his and the adjoining neighborhood, much of it along a shady sidewalk on a street called Mountain View.

Later I did a brief prowl in the business district, checked on a bookstore I like, visited a big strip mall, got a hot dog at Sam’s Club and lunched on a bowl of chili at Wendy’s.

Not once did any of the Latino people I mingled with, did business with, or bought food from offer to sell me any Fentanyl. I saw no tattoos signifying gang membership. None of them appeared to be former mental patients, killers, rapists or other criminals supposedly released from jails so they could “invade” our country and practice their hobbies on us.

All I saw were ordinary people, and I wondered how they feel in today’s American political climate that indiscriminately lumps them in with the few criminals who cross the border. Could I have been mistaken? Shouldn’t I realize that people such as them are lesser people in the eyes of the country’s leader who is advocating a form of ethnic cleansing?

I started wondering about those who subscribe to the idea that citizenship is arbitrary and can be taken away at the whim of a leader who acknowledges no limits on his authority, typified by obsessively targeting one man jailed and tortured in a strange land by mistake—his tortures described in contemporary news accounts—who, having finally been returned to this country is targeted again on suspicious charges that only now will involve due process denied him earlier and still denied to many others caught up in a cruel system.

It has become a country where its leader speaks with pride of a detention camp called “Alligator Alcatraz,” where five thousand people of Latin origin can be imprisoned without due process.

He thinks it is funny to say, “We’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator, OK? If they escape prison, how to run away. Don’t run in a straight line…And you know what? Your chances go up about 1%.”

His press secretary amplified the tragic absurdity of the whole idea, saying, “When you have illegal murderers and rapists and heinous criminals in a detention facility surrounded by alligators, yes, I do think that’s a deterrent for them to try to escape.” Neither of them wants to address how they know all of these people are “illegal murderers and rapists and heinous criminals.” (Illegal murderers?)

The Republican Party in Florida adds an additional flair to “appalling” by selling Alligator Alcatraz merchandise. Imagine seeing a baby in an Alligator Alcatraz onesie. The Florida GOP will sell you one. They come in several colors and only cost twenty-five dollars.

Hilarious.

The President has caused some serious whiplash by calling for expulsion of migrant farm workers (without indicating how his zealous ICE agents will differentiate the legal ones from the illegal ones when they swoop down on agriculture facilities) then saying he’ll give them a pass, then his Secretary of Agriculture say there will “no amnesty” for those workers—-

—-and then Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins brushed aside industry concerns that mass deportations would have severe consequences on American farming by making the completely bonkers suggestion that 34-million able-bodied people on Medicaid could replace those migrant workers “quickly” because of the work requirements for Medicaid recipients in the Big Ugly Bill.

He also recently said he’s looking into taking over Washington, D. C. and New York. And his obsession with punishing Harvard University because it has resisted his intimidating demand to shape education in his image further confirms his limited toleration of “freedom.”

The idea that Trump would want to “take a look” at denaturalizing Elon Musk because Musk dared criticize his proposed big policy legislation, or that he would consider denaturalizing the legally-elected Democratic candidate for Mayor of New York on specious, if not spurious, reasons is an indication that this president is even more dangerous to all of us in one way or another.

Today’s children and grandchildren are going to inherit from this generation that which it refuses to reject. It will not be a good legacy that we give them.

I felt pretty good when I started that walk. By the end of the day, after watching innocent youngsters celebrate the founding of this now deeply-troubled country, I feared for them.

And I remembered that on that morning stroll, that I walked past a young brown girl sitting on a shady curb and talking to a friend, in Spanish, on her cell phone. A block later, I passed a house with a July 4^th yard decoration.

God, Guns, and Trump.

A lady saw me take the picture and shouted out her window, “Happy July 4^th.” I wished her the same as I continued the walk. And I wondered if she would have said the same thing to the brown girl I had seen a block away if she walked past that sign.

Independence Day isn’t as much fun as it should be anymore.

(photo credits: onesie—markayshop.com; Lake and Mountains—shutterstock; Mountain View and the yard decoration: Bob Priddy.)

Thy Liberty in Law

Posted on June 23, 2025 by bpriddy

One of the things we should do on July 4, other than to read the Declaration of Independence in a way that is more than a thoughtless flow of words, is to ponder a song written many years later for the occasion, and reflect on whether the current administration gives a damn about any of it.

Let’s go back to a Wellesley College English professor who took a train trip to Colorado Springs. The year was 1893 and the things she experienced during her trip were more than sights she had seen. They became impressions. The white buildings of the World’s Fair in Chicago, the World’s Columbian Exposition that celebrated the 400^th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in this hemisphere, the horizon-reaching wheat fields under the wide sky as the train crossed Kansas, and at the end the breathtaking view from the top of Pike’s Peak.

Professor Katherine Lee Bates started to think of a poem as she stood on top of that mountain and when she went back to her hotel she started to write. Two years later The Congregationalist published her poem, “Pikes Peak,” to commemorate July 4. Through the years, the poem has been revised, with the version that we know best done in 1911. The last line is especially meaningful in our times when thousands of people are not granted due process.

O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet, whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat across the wilderness!
America! America! God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved and mercy more than life!
America! America! May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness, and every gain divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam Undimmed by human tears!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!

Several composers found the poem would make a good song. There were at least 75 different melodies attached to it by 1900. One of them was the treatment of the poem as a hymn by the organist and choir director at Grace Church in Newark, NJ. Samuel A. Ward, who was inspired during a ferryboat ride back home to New York from Coney Island to adapt the words to a hymn he had composed in 1882, “O Mother Dear, Jerusalem.” Her words and music were first published together in 1910, seven years after his death. By the time Bates died in 1929, the hymn was in the hymn books of many denominations.

From time to time, someone suggests it should replace “The Star Spangled Banner” as our national anthem or be considered the national hymn.

What started as a poem called “Pikes Peak” is now “America the Beautiful.”

This July 4^th in a good time to ask ourselves if America is still “America the beautiful.”

It seems to become harder by the day to see it.

POLITICO last year published fifty instances in which President Trump used the word “beautiful” to describe, among other things, beautiful Christians, his beautiful phones, a beautiful note from President Xi, a beautiful (and perfect) phone call with Vladymir Zelenskyy, the Supreme court that he once described as “a beautiful thing to watch,” and—of course—himself: “If I took this shirt off, you’d see a beautiful, beautiful person.”

There was a time when he out “beautifuled” himself and actually lavished the word on somebody else—Taylor Swift. “I think she’s beautiful — very beautiful! I find her very beautiful. I think she’s liberal. She probably doesn’t like Trump. I hear she’s very talented. I think she’s very beautiful, actually — unusually beautiful!” |

Trump’s ‘Beautiful’ World – POLITICO

But Trump’s America is no longer beautiful. The ugliness of the ICE deportation teams, the ugliness of unfeeling meat-axe budget cuts, the ugliness of constant name calling when intelligent conversation is beyond capability, the ugliness of……

The list is endless.

But let’s focus on two things today. Actually, four.

On his birthday, Trump celebrated the creation of the U.S. Army with a $45 million parade for himself after his DOGE cut thousands of people from the Veterans Affairs Department a move that, among other things, ended a program that is helping about 80,000 veterans make their house payments. Other cutbacks threaten services at Veterans’ Hospitals.

O beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved and mercy more than life!

Trump undoubtedly never pondered that thought from that great hymn.

Then there’s the holiday business.

A few months ago, Trump proudly told Americans that he wans Christopher Columbus to have a “major comeback,” and have Columbus Day be a major holiday. He issued one of his executive orders “reinstating Columbus Day under the same rules, dates, and locations as it has hand for all the many decades before!” as he put it on his internet page. Many government workers get the day off each year now and he sees no problem with that.

What we suspect really gets his goat about that day is that it’s also Indigenous People’s Day, celebrated by those whose culture is not Trump’s.

We suspect that because of his reaction to Juneteenth. On his social media page he complained, “ Too many non-working holidays in America. It is costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all these businesses closed. The workers don’t want it either…It must change if we are going to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

The Associated Press has found several instances in which Trump praised the African-American contribution to “enrich every facet of American Life.”

But he sees a holiday marking the freeing of American slaves as less important than honoring an explorer who never reached the American mainland who offered to provide Ferdinand and Isabella with “slaves as many they shall order to be shipped” if the royal couple gave him resources for a second trip to the New World.

God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!

Recognizing “brotherhood from sea to shining sea” is what will make America great again, not budget cuts that damage our veterans or saying Juneteenth is one holiday too many, or ICE raids that trash

But don’t expect Donald Trump to ever think deeply enough, or even think at all, of Making America Beautiful Again. Don’t ever expect him to understand that ugliness and greatness will never go hand-in-hand.

America! America! God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law!
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Two Speeches, Speech One

Posted on May 29, 2025 by bpriddy

This week, we take the unusual step of publishing two contrasting speeches. One is from the President of the United States, the Commander in Chief of our nation’s military forces, speaking to men and women who soon will be under his command. The other is from a well-known journalist who warns of the country the Commander is creating.

The contrast could not be greater in terms of personal and national character. One of these speeches is a disgrace. The other is distinguished.

It will take you about three times longer to read the first speech than to read the second one.

We begin with President Trump, who wore his red “Make America Great Again” cap throughout his speech at West Point, where reports say there were awkward pauses for applause, which was tepid.

TRUMP: Well, I want to thank you very much. This is a beautiful place. I’ve been here many times going to high school, not so far away. Good, a good place. Also, a military academy. Not quite of this distinction, but it was a lot of fun for me. And I just wanna say hello cadets and on behalf of our entire nation, let me begin by saying congratulations to the West Point class of 2025, you are winners, every single one of you.

Thank you. And now we want you to relax and I’m supposed to say, “At ease.” But you’re already at ease. You’re at ease because you’ve made a great choice in what you’re doing. Your choices in life has been really amazing. So this is a celebration and let’s have a little fun. I want to thank your highly respected superintendent, General Stephen Glenn, and he is really, uh, something, I got to know him backstage with his beautiful family and his reputation — His wife is just incredible, his reputation is unbelievable.

And thank you very much. And your daughter is a winner also. Just like everybody out there, real winner. Thank you. Thank you. I also want to thank your [Inaudible] General RJ Garcia, Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, Army Chief of Staff, General Randy George, Senator Ashley Moody, Representatives Steve Womack, Bill Huizenga, Pat Ryan, Mark Green, Keith Self.

Acting US attorney, Alina Habba. And very much, uh, just all of the friends. We have a lot of friends in the audience today. And I just want to thank ’em all for being here. We have a tremendous amount of my friends. They wanted to come up and they wanted to watch this ceremony and they wanted to watch you much more so than me. So I just want to thank so many people are here.

Over the past four years, an extraordinary group of professors, teachers, coaches, leaders, and warriors have transformed this class of cadets into an exceptional group of scholars and soldiers. And so let’s give the entire group, the entire West Point faculty, the staff, for their incredible love of you and outstanding devotion to the corps.

Let’s give them a little hand. And importantly, we can’t forget all of those people beaming with pride, look at them in the audience, oh, they’re so proud. They’re in the stands. So thank your parents, your grandparents and family members who made this all possible for you. Thank you. And I think they must have done something right based on what I’m looking at. America loves our military moms and dads.

Nearly one-third of the cadets graduating today are themselves the children of veterans. So to everyone with us this morning who served America in uniform, no matter your age, please stand so we can salute your service, we’d like to see who you are. Congratulations. Great job. Every cadet on the field before me should savor this morning. ’cause this is a day that you will never, ever forget.

In a few moments, you’ll become graduates of the most elite and storied military academy in human history. And you’ll become officers in the greatest and most powerful army the world has ever known. And I know because I rebuilt that army and I rebuilt the military. And we rebuilt it like nobody has ever rebuilt it before in my first term.

Your experience here at West Point has been anything but easy. — came for duty. You came to serve your country and you came to show yourselves, your family, and the world that you are among the smartest, toughest, strongest, most lethal warriors ever to walk on this planet. Looking out at all of you today, I can proudly say, mission accomplished.

Great job. But now you have to go on. You have to forget that ’cause now you have another. It’s a sad thing, isn’t it? You know, you can’t rest on your laurels no matter what. You just have to keep going. You take it, you take a little day off and you go on to the rest. ’cause you have to have victory, after victory, after victory.

And that’s what you’re gonna have as you receive your commissions as second lieutenants, each of you continues down the same hallowed path, walked by Titans and legends of US, military law. Giants like Ulysses S. Grant, John Black Jack Pershing, Dwight David Eisenhower, the one and only Douglas MacArthur, old blood and guts, George Patton and Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf, all great.

So many more. They and countless other patriots before you have walked out of these halls and straight into history. And today, you officially join those immortal heroes in proud ranks of the long gray line. You know that term. So beautiful. The long gray line. Among the 1,000 cadets graduating today, 26 of you wear the prestigious Star Wreath, signifying the highest level of academic achievement.

Please stand up. 26. Let’s see if somebody stands who shouldn’t be standing. Congratulations. That’s a big honor. This class includes an incredible four Rhodes Scholars. Stand up, please. Four. Wow. That’s tied for the most of any West Point class since 1959. That’s great. Four. Congratulations. Boy, oh boy, oh boy.

I wanna bring them right to the Oval Office. I don’t wanna have them go too far away from me. Eight cadets here today took on the challenge of designing their own hypersonic rocket. Oh, we can use you. We’re building them right now. You know, we, uh, we had ours stolen. We had — We are the designer of it. We had it stolen during the Obama administration.

They stole it. You know who stole it? The Russians stole it. Something bad happened. But we’re now — We’re the designer of it and we’re now building them and lots of them. And earlier this year, they launched it into space, setting a world record for amateur rocketry. Can’t get you in there fast enough.

This class excelled not only mentally but also physically last January when more than 1,000 cadets volunteered for an 18-and-a-half mile march on a freezing winter night. Cadet Chris Verdugo completed the task in 2 hours and 30 minutes flat, smashing the international record for the competition by 13 minutes.

Where is he? Where is he? Come up here. Come up here, Chris. Get up here, Chris. Wow. Come here. That’s — By 13 minutes. Come here, Chris. I wanna see this guy. Say something. Come here. Come here.

VERDUGO: [Laughs] It’s been a long five years, but I couldn’t have done it without any of these guys. Love you guys all. Thank you. Thank you.

TRUMP: Wow. That’s great. Keep it going, Chris. That really is the definition of Army strong, isn’t it? International. International. This class includes 513 graduates who completed Air Assault School, 70 who completed Airborne School, eight who made it through the ultra-elite Army Diver School, among the most difficult and grueling programs anywhere on Earth.

That includes the first two women in West Point history to complete Diver School; cadets Megan Cooper and Clara Sebu. Where are you? Stand up. Where are they? Wow. Great job. That is not easy. Congratulations, Megan, Clara. That’s a job well done. Fantastic. Thank you very much. Some of you achieved a different kind of distinction here at the academy, including seven

No. Don’t tell me I’m doing this. Oh, I’m so sorry. Would you like to stand up? (laughs) I don’t know. I think I saw Chris standing up. Chris, what, what’s going on here? Well, you had one good, one not so good. Right, Chris? Can’t believe Chris is standing up. But we want everyone to leave here today, Chris, so you’re gonna be okay because I’m gonna do something with a clean slate.

So in keeping with tradition, I hereby pardon all cadets on restriction for minor conduct offenses effective immediately. So you’re all okay. You’re all okay. The class of 2025 is a lot to be proud of, including your first-rate athletes and athletics. You are something. I’ve been watching too. I watch. I love the sports stuff.

What you’ve done is pretty amazing. Last year, for the first time ever, army lacrosse became the number one ranked men’s lacrosse team in the entire country. Look at that. Those of you on the team, stand. That’s a big honor. Stand. Great. That’s a tough sport too. That’s number one in the country. Your sophomore year, Army football beat Navy 20-17. And the you did it again, beating Navy 17 to 11 and dominating Air Force 23 to three.

But, this year, the Black Knights fought your way into the top 20 nationally and racked up your longest winning streak since 1949 with the help of graduating quarterback Cadet Bryson Daily or, as you call him, Captain America. Captain America. Stand up, Bryson. Where is Bryson? We gotta get him up here, right?

Come on, Bryson. Come on up. Man, oh, man, I heard — I heard he’s, uh — well, I came to a game, and he was — I said, “Yeah, he can get into the NFL, can’t he?” But he chose this life and, you know what, I think he made a good choice. Come on up here, Bryson. Come on up. Wow.

BRYSON: All right. Go, Army football. Shout out to Hogs, H4. Um, can’t wait to graduate. Love you, guys. Thank you. It’s nice to meet you, sir.

TRUMP: If there anything we can do, just let me know. Okay? It’s a great honor.

What a great guy. Well, I just tapped his shoulders like I hit a piece of steel. The guy’s in good shape. There’s a reason, you know, there’s always a reason for success. Thank you, Bryson. At a time when other top college quarterbacks were thinking about going pro, Bryson’s mind was on something else. As he told an interviewer earlier this year, “I’m focused on my career as an infantry officer.” That’s what he wants to do. So, Bryson, you did the right thing, and that’s service at its finest.

Thanks, Bryson. That’s amazing. He’s an amazing guy with an amazing team. Each of you on the field today is among the most talented members of your generation. You could have done anything you wanted. You could have gone anywhere. You could have gone to any school. This is one of the hardest schools to get into.

And writing your own ticket to top jobs on Wall Street or Silicon Valley wouldn’t be bad, but I think what you’re doing is better. Instead of sports teams and spreadsheets and software, you chose a life of service, very important service, instead of stock options. And I do that stuff. It’s sort of boring, honestly.

Compared to what you’re doing, it’s real boring. You chose honor and you chose sacrifice. And, instead of business suits and dress shoes, you chose muddy boots and fatigues, keeping yourself in shape, because West Point cadets don’t just have the brightest minds, you also have the bravest hearts and the noblest souls.

You’re amazing people. I could not be more proud to serve you as your commander-in-chief. And our country is doing well. We’ve turned it around. Very quickly, we’ve turned it around. I just got back from the Middle East, and I was at, as you know, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE. And, I will tell you, they said, all three leaders, great leaders of those three nations, they all said the same thing.

The United States of America is hotter now than we’ve ever seen it and, a year ago, it was as cold as it gets. And it’s true. It’s true. We have the hottest country in the world, and the whole world is talking about it. And that’s an honor for all of us. I cannot wait to see the glory that is still ahead.

However, for the West Point Class of 2025, and we’re gonna help you a lot because we’re gonna give you a nation as good or better than it ever was. That’s what I promise you. All the victories that you’ve had together on these grounds will soon pale in comparison to the momentous deeds that you’ll perform on the mission you’re accepting today and as, uh, future leader of America’s Army.

And we have that Army geared up. We have ordered, you know, we just want $1 trillion military budget, general. Do you know that? 1 trillion? Some people say, “Could you cut it back?” I said, “I’m not cutting 10 cents.” There’s another thing we can cut. We can cut plenty of others, right, Dan? We can cut plenty of other things.

And you have a good man in Dan, too, general. I think you’re gonna find that it’s a very different, uh, warfare out there today. Now, they’ve introduced a thing called drone. A drone is a little bit different. It makes — You have to go back and learn a whole new form of warfare, and you’re gonna do it better than anybody else.

There won’t be anybody close. Generation after generation, the men and women of the Army have done whatever it takes to defend our flag, pouring out their blood onto the fields of battle all over the world. And, all over the world, you’re respected like nobody is respected. Our soldiers have sprinted through storms of bullets, clouds of shrapnel, slogged through miles of dirt and oceans of sand, scaled towering cliffs of jagged rock.

And, time and time again, the American soldier is charged into the fires of hell and sent the devil racing in full retreat. No task has ever been too tough for America’s Army. And now that 250-year legacy of glory and triumph belongs to you, the 1,000 newest officers of the greatest fighting force in the history of the world.

And that’s what you are, and that’s what you’re being thought of. Again, you are the first West Point graduates of the Golden Age of America. This is the golden age, I tell you. Promise. We’re in a new age. This is the Golden Age, and you are the going to lead the Army to summits of greatness that has never reached before.

And you see that. And you see what’s happening. You see what’s going on in the world. Each of you is entering the Officer Corps at a defining moment in the Army’s history. For at least two decades, political leaders from both parties have dragged our military into missions, it was never meant to be. It wasn’t meant to be. People would say, “Why are we doing this? Why are we wasting our time, money, and souls,” in some case. They said to our warriors on nation-building crusades to nations that wanted nothing to do with us, led by leaders that didn’t have a clue in distant lands, while abusing our soldiers with absurd ideological experiments here and at home. All of that’s ended.

You know that. All of it’s ended. It’s ended, strongly ended. They’re not even allowed to think about it anymore. They subjected the Armed Forces to all manner of social projects and political causes while leaving our borders undefended and depleting our arsenals to fight other countries’ wars. We fought for other countries’ borders, but we didn’t fight for our own border.

But now we do, like we have never fought before, by the way. But under the Trump administration, those days are over. We’re getting rid of the distractions and we’re focusing our military on its core mission, crushing America’s adversaries, killing America’s enemies, and defending our great American flag like it has never been defended before.

The job of the US Armed Forces is not to host drag shows, to transform foreign cultures, but to spread democracy to everybody around the world at the point of a gun. The military’s job is to dominate any foe and annihilate any threat to America, anywhere, anytime, in any place. A big part of that job is to be respected again.

And you are, as of right now, respected more than any army anywhere in the world. And that’s happening. And I can tell you, you are respected like nobody can believe. As president, I am laser-focused on our core national interests. My preference will always be to make peace and to seek partnership, even with countries where our differences may be profound.

As you know, we’re working on a lot of things right now. When I left office four years ago, we had no wars, we had no problems, we had nothing but success. We had the most incredible economy, the greatest, single greatest economy for a president in history. I think we’re gonna beat it this time by a lot, if you want to know the truth.

But we had something going on very special. But if the United States or its allies are ever threatened or attacked, the Army will obliterate our opponents with overwhelming strength and devastating force. That’s why my administration has begun a colossal buildup of the United States Armed Forces, a buildup like we’ve never had before.

Peace through strength. You know the term, I’ve used it a lot. Because as much as you wanna fight, I’d rather do it without having to fight. I just wanna look at them and have them fold. And that’s happening. That’s happening. And I’ve approved a one-trillion-dollar investment. And that will be, again, the largest ever in the history of our country.

And we are buying you new airplanes, brand-new, beautiful planes, redesigned planes, brand-new planes, totally stealth planes. I hope they’re stealth. I don’t know, that whole stealth thing, I’m sorta wondering. You mean if we shape a wing this way, they don’t see it, but the other way they see it? I’m not so sure.

But that’s what they tell me. We have the best tanks anywhere in the world. We’re gonna start shipbuilding again. We’re gonna start ship. We used to build a ship a day. Now we don’t build them anymore. We had a lot of people that didn’t know much about getting things built. But that’s all I’ve done in my life, is build.

We’re gonna have the best missiles, we already do, drones and much, much more. And earlier this week, I think you’ll like this, I announced that we are officially building all in America, made in America, designed in America. We’re the only ones that could do it, because we’re the only ones that, with the great technology, we’re building the Golden Dome Missile Defense Shield to protect our homeland and to protect West Point from attack.

And it will be completed before I leave office. And you know, you wouldn’t think this, but our enemies are very unhappy about it. You’ve been hearing, you’ve been reading, “Why are they doing that? Why?” Well, we’re doing it because we wanna be around for a long time. That’s why we’re doing it. We’re also restoring the fundamental principle that a central purpose of our military is to protect our own borders from invasion.

Our country was invaded for the last four years, and they’ve allowed people to come into our country that shouldn’t be, that shouldn’t be here. Criminals walk in, no vetting, no check-in, no nothing. Where are they coming from? And they were taking people outta prisons. They were taking gang members. They were taking the mentally insane and allowing them to come in. And we’re getting them out of our country.

We have no choice. We’re getting them out and bringing them back where they came from.

Have no choice. And it’s not easy. It’s not easy. But hopefully the courts will allow us to continue. You know, we had the greatest election victory. This was, uh, November 5th was we won the popular vote by millions of votes. We won all seven swing states. We won everything. We won 2,750 districts against 505, 2,750 against 505. We had a great mandate and it gives us the right to do what we wanna do to make our country great again.

And that’s what we’re going to do. And on day one, I deployed our military to the southern border, and since that day we’ve reduced the number of illegal border crossings where there used to be hundreds of thousands of people coming into our country a day, we had nobody come in in the last week and a half.

We were at 99.999%, 99.999. Think of that. That was with the help of our military. We had one person come in. One. You know why? He got very sick, and we brought him through to have him brought to a hospital. One person. And for that, please don’t hold me responsible, but that’s okay. They did the right thing.

Gone are the days where defending every nation but our own was the primary thought. We are putting America first. We have to put America first. We have to rebuild and defend our nation. And very shortly you’re going to see a nation better than it’s ever been. And you see that with the trade. For years, we’ve been ripped off by every nation in the world on trade.

We’ve been ripped off at the NATO level. We’ve been ripped off like no country has ever been ripped off. But they don’t rip us off anymore. They’re not gonna rip us off anymore. And you’re seeing it. You have to watch what we’re doing on trade. I know it’s not your primary thing, but it’s quite important in all fairness.

But watch. You’ll see what’s going on. You’ve been reading about it over the last few days. We’re making deals with other nations that were not even — Nobody thought it would be even possible. And uh, the reason is very simple. They respect us again. They’re respecting our country again. That’s what you want.

And everything we do, we are bringing common sense back to America. It’s all about common sense. We can say we’re liberal, we’re conservative. The new word is progressive. They don’t like using the word liberal anymore. That’s why I call them liberal. But, but, uh, whatever you are, you know, most importantly, you have to have common sense because most of it’s — General, most of it’s about common sense when you get right down to it. And uh, we have a lotta people with a lotta, lotta very smart people, but they have to have common sense.

And we’ve liberated our troops from divisive and demeaning political trainings. There will be no more critical race theory or transgender for everybody forced onto our brave men and women in uniform or on anybody else for that matter in this country. And we will not have men playing in women’s sports if that’s okay.

I mean, I wouldn’t wanna have to tackle as an example Bryson as a man, but I don’t think a lotta women wanna tackle him. I don’t think so. How crazy is it, men playing in women’s sports? How crazy is it? So ridiculous. So demeaning. So demeaning to women. And it’s over. That’s over. We’ve ended it. And promotions and appointments will not be based on politics or identity.

They’ll be based on merit. We won that case in the Supreme Court of the United States. We’re allowed to go back to a system of merit. We’re a merit-based country again. Today, morale in the armed forces is soaring to the highest levels in many decades after years of recruiting shortfalls. And we had years and years of recruiting shortfalls, and just last year was the worst of all, the last year of the Biden administration.

We couldn’t get anybody to join our military. We couldn’t get anybody to join our police or firefighters. We couldn’t get anybody to join anything. And right now, just less than a year later, we just set a brand new peacetime recruiting record. The most, most people joined. And we are brimming — In fact, be careful.

There’s somebody gonna try and take your job. Be careful. You better be good. We are brimming with confidence and we’re brimming with people. We had the most, best recruiting month that we’ve had in memory. Nobody remembers anything like it. And that’s all because they have spirit now. They have spirit. They have a spirit for our country.

And now everybody wants to be doing what you’re doing. Think of that. So, it’s really a great honor, I will say. And I’m pleased to report that by next week, the army is expected to surpass its recruiting targets for the entire year. Something that hasn’t happened in 28 years where we’ve had that. So that’s pretty good.

And it’s nice to know that you’re doing something that everybody wants to do. Isn’t it really nice? Wasn’t — I hated to hear that. During the campaign, I was hearing that, the, you couldn’t get people to enlist. But now we’re getting people, and it’s sad because we’re telling so many people, “I’m sorry, we can’t do it.” My administration is doing everything possible to forge the most powerful military ever built.

But ultimately, the task of keeping America strong and safe in the years ahead is going to belong to you. Among you are the lieutenants, majors, colonels, and generals who’ll lead the army for the next 10, 20, 30, and even 40 years. So as commander-in-chief, let me offer a few words of advice as you begin your army careers.

And I thought I’d do this, and I can make this to a civilian audience or to a military audience. It’s pretty much the same. And, uh, I did this recently at uh, Ohio State, and they really liked it. I gave them a little advice as to what I see for what you wanna do and some tips. And first of all, and you’ve already done it different from civilians.

They’re making their decision right now. You’ve already made your decision. I love your decision. You have to do what you love. You have to do what you love. If you don’t love it, you’ll never be successful at it. And you’ve done this, and you really, many of you in the audience, many of you that are graduating, uh, you come from military backgrounds or you love the military, it’s what you want to do, it’s what you want to talk about.

One thing I see about people that love the military, that’s all they want to talk about. I’ll be out to dinner, and generals if they, if they love their job, usually the only good ones are the ones that want to talk about it all the time. But if they talk, that’s what they want to talk about. I rarely, really very rarely see somebody who’s successful that doesn’t love what he or she does.

You have to love what you do. In your case, the military is what you chose. And I’ll tell you what; you cannot go wrong. You’re gonna see it too. You’re gonna love it more and more with time. You know, I work all the time. That’s all I do is I work, whether it’s politically. Or before that, I did — I was a very good businessman in case you haven’t heard, really good.

But I was good ’cause I loved it, I loved it. I learned from my father a little bit of — My father was a happy guy and all he did was work. He’d work Saturdays, Sundays. He’d work all the time. And he was a happy guy. He just loved life. And I learned that. I say, “You know, it makes him happy.” I’ve seen other people that never work and they’re not happy.

But you gotta love it, otherwise you won’t be successful. In the army, there are a lot of different paths you can take, so follow your instincts and make sure that you take the path that you love, that you’re doing something that you love within your military. You will be happier and the army will be far stronger for it. Second is to think big.

Always think big. If you’re going to do something, you might as well think big, do it big because it’s just as tough, and sometimes it’s a lot easier thinking big than doing a small task that’s more difficult. One of your greatest graduates, General Eisenhower used to say, “Whenever I run into a problem that I can’t solve, I always like to make it bigger to solve it and solve more of it.” If you go in to solve a problem, and it might as well be a big problem as opposed to a small problem that lots of people can take advantage of and solve.

So you can achieve something really amazing. Think big. Third though, you gotta do this. Uh, brainpower you have to have, potential you have to have, but to be really successful, you’re always going to have to work hard. An example is a great athlete, Gary Player. Great golfer. He wasn’t as big as the other men that were playing against him; great, big, strong guys.

Gary was a smaller guy. I don’t want to say too small. He is a friend of mine. He gets a little angry at people because he hits the ball just as far. He said, “I hit the ball further than them. Why am I small?” But he worked very, very hard. He was always doing exercise, he was always — He was well ahead of his time.

He never stopped. He won 168 golf tournaments. He won 18 majors, nine regular, and nine on the senior tour. 18 with 168. That’s the most tournaments, internationally the most tournaments anybody’s ever won. But he made a statement years ago, and I heard it, I heard it. He’s the first one. I think I’ve heard it a couple of times since, but he was the first.

He said, “It’s funny, the harder I work, the luckier I get.” And think of that, the harder I work, the luckier I get. And he worked hard, and you’re working hard, and the harder you work, the luckier you’re gonna get. Fourth is don’t lose your momentum. Momentum’s an amazing thing. Keep it going. I tell a story sometimes about a man who was a great, great real estate man.

He was a man who was admired for real estate all over the world, actually, but all over the country. He built Levittowns. He started as a man who built one house, then he built two, then he built five, then he built 20, then he built 1,000, then he built 2,000 and 3,000 a year. And he got very big, very big.

He was great at what he did. You see them all over the country still, Levittowns, so a long time ago. But he was, uh, the first of the really, really big home builders. And he became very rich, became a very rich man, and then he decided to sell. He was offered a lot of money by a big conglomerate, Gulf and Western, big conglomerate.

They didn’t do real estate, they didn’t know anything about it, but they saw the money he was making; they wanted to take it to a public company. And they gave him a lot of money, tremendous amount of money. More money than he ever thought he’d get. And he sold this company and he had nothing to do. He ended up getting a divorce, found a new wife.

Could you say a trophy wife? I guess we can say a trophy wife. It didn’t work out too well. But it doesn’t — And that doesn’t work out too well, I must tell you. A lot of trophy wives doesn’t work out, but it made him happy for a little while at least. But he found a new wife. He sold his little boat and he got a big yacht.

He had one of the biggest yachts anywhere in the world. He moved for a time to Monte Carlo and he led the good life. And time went by and he got bored. And 15 years later, the company that he sold to called him and they said, “The housing business is not for us.” You have to understand, when Bill Levitt was hot, when he had momentum, he’d go to the job sites every night.

He’d pick up every loose nail, he’d pick up every scrap of wood. If there was a bolt or a screw laying on the ground, he’d pick it up and he’d use it the next day and putting together a house. But now he was spoiled and he was rich, he was really rich. And they called and they said, “This isn’t for us, this business.

We need to do other things. Would you like to buy it back? We’ll sell it back to you cheap.” And they did. He bought it, he bought it. He thought he made a great deal and he was all excited. But it was 15 years later, he lost a lot of momentum. Remember the word momentum, and he lost everything, it just didn’t work, he lost everything.

And I was sitting at a party on Fifth Avenue one night a long time ago, and you had the biggest people in New York, the biggest people in the country, all in that party, and they were all saluting each other, how great they were, they were all telling each other, “I’m greater than you.” It gets to be really, gives you a headache sometimes, but they had all these people telling their own stories about how fantastic.

A cocktail party, and I looked over, and I was doing well, I was, I don’t know, I was invited to the party, so I had to be doing well. I was very, very young, but I made a name in real estate. And I looked over, and at the party sitting in a corner all by himself, nobody was talking to him, was Mr. Levitt.

He had just gone bankrupt, lost everything, he had lost everything, his home, everything. And I went over and talked to him because he was in the real estate business and I loved real estate, and I said, “Hello, Mr. Levitt, how are you?” He said, “Hello, Donald, it’s nice to meet you.” He knew me from being in the business.

I said, “Uh, so how’s it going?” He goes, “Not well. It’s really not going well, as you’ve probably read, it’s been a very, very tough period for me, son.” And I said, “So what happened? it’s just, anything you can do?” He goes, “No, there’s not a thing I can do.” He said, I’ll never forget, he said, “I’ve lost my momentum, I just didn’t have it. I used to have it but I lost my momentum.” So it’s a story I tell, and you have to know when you have the momentum, but sometimes you have to also know when you’ve lost the momentum and leaving a field, sometimes leaving what you’re doing sometimes is okay, but you gotta have momentum, but you have to know if that momentum’s gone, you have to know when to say it’s time to get out.

And it’s a very sad story, I remember that story so well like it was yesterday. Fifth, you have to have the courage to take risks and to do things differently. Eisenhower, again, was threatened with court martials as a young officer for advocating a new doctrine of tank warfare. Billy Mitchell was thrown out of the army for pioneering the use of air power.

They said, “What do you mean air power, don’t be ridiculous?” People willing to try and do things differently, it’s never gonna be easy for them, but they’re the ones that are gonna really do the important things, they’re the ones who are gonna make history. So don’t be ashamed and don’t be afraid, this is a time of incredible change and we do not need an officer Corps of careerists, and yes-men, and people that want to keep it going the way it’s been because it changes rapidly, especially what you’re doing.

Because believe it or not, you’re in a, a business and profession where things change as rapidly like warfare, the type of warfare. Unfortunately we’re getting to see it with Russia and Ukraine, and we’re studying it and it’s a very terrible thing to study. But we’re seeing the different forms of warfare.

We’re seeing the drones that are coming down at angles and with speed and with precision. We’ve never seen anything like it, we’ve never seen anything like it, and we’re learning from it, but your profession changes very rapidly, you’ve gotta keep, you’ve gotta be at the top of it, you’ve gotta be right at the head of the needle.

We need Patriots with guts, and vision, and backbone who take personal risks to ensure that America wins every single time, we wanna win our battles. You know, I defeated ISIS in three weeks. They told me it would take five years, and the general that did it, you know that story, was named Razin Caine. His name is Dan Caine, but his nickname was Razin Caine.

I said, “Your name is Razin Caine, I love that, is that a nickname?” “That’s what they call me, sir.” “I love you General, I think you’re the guy I am looking for, I want to know a guy named Razin Caine.” And he is now the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and he’s a highly respected man, and we defeated, think of it, ISIS, they said, they said, “How long in Washington?” “Sir, it will take four years to defeat them, maybe five, and maybe we won’t because they’re all over the place.” And then I met a man that said we can do it in three weeks, and he did it three weeks, and that’s, uh, why he’s the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff right now.

And, uh, we did things that nobody thought were possible. We’ve had great military success, when you have the right leader and you have the right people, and we have the right people, you’re gonna have tremendous succ- — success. Six, never lose your faith in America and the American people because they’re always gonna be there for you.

I went through a very tough time with some very radicalized sick people, and I say, I was investigated more than the great late Alphonse Capone. Alphonse Capone was a monster, he was a very hardened criminal. I went through more investigations than Alphonse Capone, and now I’m talking to you as president, can you believe this?

Can you believe it? So you gotta fight hard, and you gotta never give up and don’t let bad people take you down. You gotta let them, you gotta take them down. Got a lot of bad people out there and those people, you have to figure it out, but you also have a lot of great people. Finally, hold on to your culture and your traditions, because that’s what makes something really great, and that’s what’s made the army great, the culture and the tradition.

Whether we’re talking about a battalion, a business, a sports team, or even a nation, history has shown that in many ways culture is destiny. So do not let anyone destroy the culture of winning, you have to win. Winning is a beautiful thing, losing not for us, it’s not for us, not for anybody here. If it was, you wouldn’t be here.

From the earliest days of our nation, this supreme tradition of American military service has been passed down from soldier to soldier and generation to generation, and it’s a beautiful thing to watch. Graduating today is Cadet Ricky McMahon. Ricky’s great-grandfather, stand up wherever you are, Ricky, because you’re gonna like this.

Ricky’s great-grandfather served in World War I. His grandfather served in World War II, and his uncle, father and mother all graduated from West Point. Where is Ricky? In 2004, when Ricky was just a little, little tiny boy, who would think about that Ricky, a little tiny boy? His dad, Lieutenant Colonel Michael McMahon, made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation in Afghanistan.

Today, Lieutenant Colonel McMahon rests not far from here in the West Point Cemetery. Last year, two decades after losing his father, Ricky placed a gold chip from his dad’s 1985 class ring into a crucible along 87 other rings were with it of past West Point grads that were melted down to forge those now worn by the class of 2025. Do you all know that?

Do you know that, what you’re wearing? I want one. Ricky, I want one. Each of you will carry Michael’s memory with you always as you continue the legacy he gave you. It gave you something that would be so proud, he would be so proud, he is proud as he looks down. To Ricky and his mom, Jeanette, you embody what this place is all about, and I know Michael, he’s up there, he’s smiling broadly.

So proud. He’s so proud of you today, you know that. And, uh, he’s a man that couldn’t be, and he is a man that couldn’t be more proud. And I want to just, uh, I just love that story. And everybody’s ring, they’re gonna remember you, they’re gonna remember your family, and most importantly, you’re gonna remember a great tradition.

It’s a great tradition of West Point and of winners. Thank you very much. It’s great to meet you. Thank you. You can sit down. You want to come up? If you want to come up, come up. Come on up. Come on up here. That’s nice. A handsome guy. They’re all good-looking here. I don’t know what’s going on. Uh, whole crowd is beautiful. Thank you very much.

MCMAHON: I’d like to thank my mother, I’d like to thank my family, and I’d like to thank G-3. Go Gophers.

TRUMP: These are good-looking people, I’ll tell you General, what’s going on over [Inaudible]? Look like all a bunch of male models, I can’t stand it. (laughs) For two and a half centuries, our republic has endured because of heroes like Michael. They’ve laid down their lives for America, and because young people like all of you have picked up the banner of service and carried forward the flag of freedom from Lexington to Yorktown, from Gettysburg to Sicily, and from Inchon to Fallujah, America has been won and saved by an unbroken chain of soldiers and patriots who ran to the sound of the guns, leapt into the maw of battle and charged into the crucible of fire to seize the crown of victory no matter the odds, no matter the cost, no matter the danger.

All over the world, our soldiers have made sacred the ground where they shed their blood and showed their valor. From Seminary Ridge to San Juan Hill, Belleau Wood, Omaha Beach, Leyte Gulf, and Ardennes Forest, Chosin Reservoir, all over. And even a place called Pork Chop Hill. And in all of those battles and so many more, some of the best, brightest and bravest have come from right here at the US Military Academy at West Point, one of the great enabled places anywhere in the world.

America’s army has never failed us, and with leaders like the West Point class of 2025, the Army will never fail. We will never let you down. And over the last week, I had the honor of speaking to the heads of many countries and they would say, two weeks ago they say — The 8th, they said, “Sir, we’re celebrating the victory today of World War II.” And I said, “Wow, that’s nice.” Then I’d call another one, unrelated. “Sir, we’re celebrating the victory of World War II.” Then I called up President of France on something also unrelated.

He said, “Sir, we’re celebrating our victory over World War II.” I said, “Well, whoa. What have we here?” We help them a lot. And I- I had this Russia, I talked to Putin about ending that terrible war that’s going on. And he said they’re having a big victory march. And they did lose, in all fairness, 51 million people.

But they were all celebrating. The only country that wasn’t celebrating was the United States of America. And I said, isn’t it amazing? We were the ones that won the war. And we were helped. We were helped. In some cases we had to help them, but we were helped by some of the nations, and we were strongly helped by a couple of them.

But every one of them was celebrating. They had Victory Day, they called it Victory Day in Europe, Victory Day all over. And we weren’t even thought about, nobody had a Victory Day, and so I named that special day and another special day from now on as a holiday, but a holiday where we work because we don’t have enough days.

We’re going to be having so many holidays, we’re not going to be able to work anymore. But I named it for World War II, and a separate day in November, as you know, for World War I. I said, you know, all of these countries that participated in the war are celebrating, but the greatest country of them all, and the country that won the war, nobody even talked about.

And so, we’re going to be talking about it too from now on, and I think you’ll appreciate it. We won the First World War. We won the Second World War, and you know where we won them from? Right here at West Point. West Point won the war. You won two world wars, and plenty of other things, but you want to think of it. We don’t want to have a third world war, but we won the First World War.

We won the Second World War right here from West Point. And that’s something, and we’re gonna be talking about it. You know, they can talk about it, and in some cases, as you know, they didn’t do too much to help. They were ground down, but they were celebrating victory. No, we’re gonna celebrate victory because we’re the ones that won that war.

Standing before you today, I know that you will never stop. You will never quit. You will never yield. You will never tire. You will never, ever, ever surrender. Never give up. Remember that. Never give up. That’s another little factor I could have added. Never, ever give up. Raise your right hand. I pledge I will never, ever give up. You can never give up. You can never give up. If you do, you’re not gonna be successful because you’ll go through things that will be bad.

You’re gonna have great moments, you’re gonna have bad moments. You can never give up. Through every challenge and every battle, you’ll stand strong, you’ll work hard, you’ll stay tough, and you will fight, fight, fight, and win, win, win. So, I wanna just congratulate you all. I’m going back now to deal with Russia, to deal with China. [Laughs] What’s that- what’s that all about?

Trump critics attacked the speech. Many of them probably prefer the speech we’ll have tomorrow.

Make America—

Posted on April 30, 2025 by bpriddy

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

Posted on April 21, 2025 by bpriddy

—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)

Posted on April 16, 2025 by bpriddy

—-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 51^st 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.

0-0

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.

-0-

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 11^th 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.

-0-

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.

-0-

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.

-0-

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 56^th through 58^th 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 21^st 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.

Bob Priddy

A journalist's random observations

Category Archives: government

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The Disaster

Inspiration

The Pious Silence

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Two Speeches, Speech One

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I am glad I don’t drink coffee

Notes from a Quiet Hill (Annexing Columbia Edition)

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