To my surprise, hits to my blog exceeded 7400 for February. Easily the highest total in years. Thanks to those who continue to read my words, and perhaps, share them with others.
I am continually shocked at how cruel the policies of the current president and his co-president billionaire have been in these first couple of months. Certainly, I never expected a pro-humanity tenure to be the guiding inspiration of the new administration. But at least in that first term, blatant cruelty was saved for illegal immigrant children and their parents. Not to mention people who made the mistake of being born in a country where the population chose to worship a religion which differs from most of America.
So it was no surprise when I saw a story on last night's 11:00 news about a Muslim couple who have been in America for many years, who run a well respected business in a community in the area, and who were rounded up last week by ICE. Apparently the husband came here on a religious Visa but whose application for citizenship has not been advanced. While the community has rallied around them, and while their local federal representative has contacted the administration for details, the author of the faith based executive order which was ostensibly created to combat religious persecution, demonstrates his own sense of which religion he defends, and which he condemns.
Perhaps we took his stated intention of only going after those illegal immigrants who were the worst criminals a bit too literally.
Now, however, it seems that even American citizens are targets.
It didn't take very long for the new president to declare, through executive order, that transgender Americans should be persecuted, legally. Already gender affirming care is being denied to this community, in blue as well as red states, while a certain odious attorney general continues to seek the medical records of these individuals who were forced to seek health care in other states.
Now, the Pentagon has been directed to identify those transgender soldiers in our military, and remove them in the next few months. Can you imagine the hurt, and yes perhaps, hatred, that someone who has committed their near term future to serve our country, must now feel? Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness has never been shown to be just words on an old out-of-date piece of paper, as this directive demonstrates.
Another set of Americans that are bearing the brunt of abject cruelty are those in the federal workforce. Notwithstanding the fact that upwards of 30% of federal workers are veterans (I guess Trump is doubling down on his opinion that those who died in service are losers and suckers by extending it to those that served and lived), the attack against the "deep" state is resulting in tens of thousands of everyday Americans losing their jobs because they had the temerity to think that public service is important.
Further, the new president is actively violating the law by removing federal workers from their jobs without due process, let alone for any good reason. And just yesterday, Trump made it clear that union contracts signed in the recent past would not be honored. I guess for someone who doesn't honor agreements and contracts he makes in his personal life wouldn't give a crap about such contracts signed by our former president or the union members who approved that contract, whether they be just regular Americans or veterans.
Certainly Trump and Musk don't value public service, neither of them having spent a minute doing something for the common good that didn't result in their making gobs of money. If it isn't already obvious, jettisoning our federal workforce like so much garbage is perfectly tenable, and of course, will result in the privatization of many of these services, which will generate profits for "businessmen" like Trump and Musk while the actual services for those in need will suffer, or just be eliminated all together.
And then there are the children who had the lack of foresight to be born to an illegal immigrant. The nerve of those babies and infants! While I don't know for sure if the pro-fetus movement has been reevaluating its literature to distinguish and separate out those fetuses that were conceived by illegal immigrants, it certainly does seem disingenuous that they march to prevent their being aborted then advocate for policies that will strip them of their citizenship. And then summarily kick them out of America.
Finally, lets not forget that in the name if extending tax cuts to the richest people in our nation, Trump and his immoral band of budget cutters have no qualms with slashing monies for the poor, the least advantaged, the sick. Not to mention gutting the very government departments that protect our water, air, the safety of our food supply and transportation systems, all of which will effect those with the least, the most.
Cruelty.
I know that there are many in the MAGA cult who welcome cruelty to those from other countries who came to America looking for opportunity and freedom, and to those that choose to love differently, worship differently, look different, but I would like to think that the millions of Americans who voted for Trump because of inflation and the slow response by the Biden Administration to slow the flow of illegal immigrants, are a bit taken aback by the disrespect being shown to our public workforce.
And I would like to think that they value the sacrifice being demonstrated by the people of Ukraine against the brutality of Russian aggression. To see the president and vice president berate the Ukrainian president because he wouldn't suck their male appendages in front of the news media is one thing, but to read that the American bully is pausing military aid and intelligence to Ukraine is beyond cruel.
I certainly knew that this second term would be horrible. I even expected that the new president and his party of sycophants would tie additional aid to Ukraine to some form of payback, Trump being the epitome of a transactional person, but I guess I was naive not to think that he would actually take the side of Russia. The side of a dictator who is sending his citizens to their death on the battlefield and ruining his own country's economy. A leader Trump idolizes because he is strong, despite the incredible suffering Putin is causing Ukrainians as well as the Russian citizenry.
Trump, Putin, Musk seem to think they represent some type of renaissance for masculinity. Strongmen who do what needs to be done without consulting those who might disagree. What a sad definition of what a real man should be when compared to how ex-president Carter conducted himself after leaving office, not to mention the founder of the movement that allegedly labels itself as Christian.
Putin has ruined his country while sending hundreds of thousands of its citizens to their death, not to mention the tens of thousands of Ukrainians that have died defending their land, and Trump admires him for his strength, and trusts him to honor his word. How revealing when one considers that Trump doesn't honor his own words, as his on again, off again tariff threats against the two countries with which he negotiated and signed an agreement, testifies. And they are our neighbors. Is that really how MAGA people treat their own neighbors, or would want to be treated by them?
Two liars, Trump and Putin, side by side, cementing the new global world order, might makes right, while Elon Musk fashions his own world vision of maximizing the wealth of fellow money changers at the expense of the poor, the suffering, and those in need.
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Quite a while ago, I wrote the following paragraph in a post written about the upcoming presidential election between then President Obama and Mitt Romney. At the time, I questioned whether Obama had the guts to see through his ideas, his vision, for improving America. If he had the fortitude to push on despite losing some of his popularity. At the end I wrote the following, which was meant to be tongue in cheek, but sent chills through me today when I read them.
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But perhaps, pure evil aside, we need
less morality and more Machiavelli. We need leaders to focus on policies that can make us great, and forget those that hold us back. Leaders who
can funnel our shared resources to those that know how to make money
and pay less taxes. Laws that protect profit rather than the sick and
old. Policies that throw the flora and fauna of our planet under the
bus so that we can have more shopping malls. Regulations that allow
more digging in the earth and more smokestacks to belch so that we can
have cheap energy to get us to those malls. Decision makers that can
look past the hardships of the few and make sure that those with the
most continue to see green lights ahead so we can return America to its
rightful place on the world stage.
Certainly Ayn Rand would be happy.
--
If I thought that then, of Romney, no wonder that I am aghast at the state of America today. Everything I sarcastically wish for is coming to fruition under the guise of MAGA and Project 2025. Even worse, America is now siding with a war criminal over the leader of the country that was attacked, in the name of some potential access to minerals as payback for defending democracy in the world. As I recently said to a few people, I am ashamed to be an American at this juncture.
Hopefully, at least the whole "Christian nation" rhetoric can be laid aside since we now side with a dictator, are arresting illegal immigrants at their kids schools, and are cutting social safety net programs to give the super rich tax breaks.
I have a relative who ends all his texts with God Bless America, followed by a little American flag. Not sure how any of the above actions by our current president reflects God, but if so, it is certainly not a god I respect, certainly not a god with whom I want to spend eternity.
Finally, in the last two weeks I have had numerous conversations with people in which we have acknowledged how uneasy we feel about not liking America in these moments. About how we actually found ourselves cheering for Canada in the 4Nations hockey final. Along those lines, I found the following post which I wrote in 2010 when I first started this blog.
https://wurdsfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2010/05/tender-hearts-wider-perspective.html
