donald-trump

NO MORE EXCUSES!

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For the last few years, my nail polish has been Kelly green. Curiously, during that time, I’ve received numerous compliments on the color. That is until, I tell folk why. On May 24, 2022, 19 children and two teachers were gunned down and 17 injured at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The dead were not readily identifiable given their massive wounds. Maite Rodriquez was identified by her Kelly green, Converse shoes.

As a fifty-year professional educator and former twenty-year veteran of a school board, I decided my nails would remain green until reasonable gun control laws were passed. Sadly, two more such shootings happened this week in Texas and Florida–over 80 shootings have occurred this year. Unforgivable. Damn, it’s only April! How many more of our kids will die?

When the President of the United States was notified of the shooting at Florida State University on Thursday, his response was: These things happen. WTF? These things don’t HAVE to happen. They happen because you bow down to the NRA. They happen because you pledged your allegiance to your twisted interpretation of the Constitution’s Second Amendment. Yet, King Donald, you defy the Constitution on due process, birthright citizenship, the balance of power, and the separation of church and state.

According to 2024 Pew Research Center, 64% of Americans support banning assault-type rifles, while 83% support background checks for ALL gun purchases, including private sales and gun shows. But once again, the will of the people is ignored and dismissed by our millionaire/billionaire legislators. Spare me the litany of excuses and protect our most precious resource–our children!

POTUS

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Though not a college history major, I bill myself as a “continuing student” of the subject. Unfortunately, schools tend to teach English, Art, Music, and History as separate subjects; it just makes so much more sense when all of them are taught together. For example, one can’t really grasp A Tale of Two Cities, nor Oliver Twist, without a knowledge of history at the time. However, this is an aside to my blog today, which concerns Executive Orders–those ordered by POTUS with a stroke of a pen.

Now I don’t know about you, but there’s a number of things about which I’m concerned–and it ain’t the price of eggs! It’s about the climate, the abject disregard for science and medicine, the abolishment of special education and school food service, the wipe-out of university research grants, the random firing of qualified professionals, the flip-flop tariffs, and the supposed declaration of martial law on 4/20. (An absurd “smoking idea.”)

Executive order: NO more paper straws! Frankly, I could care less about straws since they would be odd in beer bottles. However, paper straws are ecologically preferred over the plastic ones that kill off our wildlife.

Executive order: Gulf of America! Really? Who cares? I’m too old to change that tune.

Executive order: No more low pressure shower heads. A ludicrous, infantile mandate from a very obese Lothario who is unable to wash away his dalliances without copious amounts of water.

Executive orders: Dismantle departments, terminate any one who disagrees, tax penguins, etc.

To this “student of history,” it seems that The President of the United States has much more pressing issues than these inane executive orders. Issues like, “beautiful bag of groceries,” winning a golf tournament, or the superlative results of his health exam where he’s been declared the smartest, best, greatest, healthiest 78-year-old in the world. (Curious, when one of his professors at Wharton labeled him the “most stupid person he ever taught.” Think about it. Why else would he have threatened to sue UPenn if they released his college transcripts?)

Since none of us are infallible, we will stand in judgment in front of St. Peter and/or historians. Sadly, as future generations engage in their study of US Presidents, the monikers of Honest Abe, Father of our Country, and The Great Society, will pale when children read about the 47th President, dubbed PT Barnum and The Greatest, Golden American Liar.

The New Agenda for The New Year

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For months I heard ad infinitum about the poor, failing economy. America needed new leadership to turn things around. Now, on the cusp of the inauguration, the priorities have suddenly changed. Of utmost importance is: the flag at half-mast, the renaming of Mount Denali, seizing the Panama Canal, buying Greenland, making Canada the fifty-first state, and mandating the existence of two sexes. What happened to the economy?

Of course, the massive deportation of immigrants is festering in the background. I suspect some rational folk have calculated the cost and the consequences of the issue. Farmers, ranchers, and the service industries are wondering who will pick the strawberries in California, the lettuce in Arizona, the apples in Washington, or the citrus in Florida. Hotels are wondering who will do the daily housekeeping, tend to the grounds, and mow lawns. Who will man the kitchens, bus the tables, wash the dishes? The sermon has turned to “selective deportation” because the farmers and service industries need immigrants, and “selective importation” because Musk needs to import engineers. So much for that campaign promise.

The other agenda item that has paled is tariffs. Thirty-nine years ago, in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, his economics teacher(Ben Stein) railed, “Tariffs did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression.” Tariffs and mass deportation make for the classic double-edged sword. US produce rots in the fields without workers, and 90% of the produce America imports from Mexico is taxed with tariffs. Sure, gas may cost five cents a gallon less–a mere dollar a tankful, but we’ll pay $10 for a head of lettuce. What will happen to the economy?

Forty-nine per cent of America saw through the smoke and mirrors, the blustering, the outrageous lies of PT Barnum; sadly 49.5% of his faithful believed. My seat belt is fastened in anticipation of a most interesting ride.