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Trump will cook the jobs books?

Someone will have to help me understand how this will work, so bear with me.

Donald Trump received some grim jobs numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. His reaction was to fire the individual who ran the BLS, the same person who was approved by the Senate in 2024 with 86 “yes” votes. Trump shot the messenger, the individual who merely was reporting jobs data that reflects a slowing of the economy and the withering job market.

Trump said he doesn’t believe the numbers. They should be better than the 73,000 jobs added to the non-farm payrolls in the past month. Or so he said while firing the BLS chief.

Hmmm. What happens now?

Is Trump going to find an individual who will deliberately cook these jobs outlooks to make him look good? Will he tell the next BLS boss to lie to the public?

The numbskull in chief is off his rocker. This firing of someone whose job was to report jobs figures fairly and without favoritism tells us all just what we have in charge of our government’s executive branch.

We have elected a madman!

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How did she escape blame?

I want to revisit one of the darker chapters in our nation’s glorious story, the 9/11 terror attack that killed 3,000 or so innocent victims.

Netflix has produced a three-part documentary that chronicles the effort to hunt down Osama bin Laden, mastermind behind the 9/11 attack. It’s more than four hours of really gripping TV. It takes the viewer through all the pre-9/11 attempts to hit the United States. There are interviews with key officials from the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations.

We remember what happened that day. It was a gorgeous September morning in New York. A jetliner crashed into one of the Twin Towers. Then a second plane tore into the other Tower. A third plane smashed into the Pentagon. A fourth jet crashed into a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought with hijackers for control of the doomed craft.

The documentary sought to assess responsibilty for the catastrophic intelligence failures that produced the tragedy. I didn’t hear one time the name of an individual at the center of the intelligence network, nor did I hear a single reference made to anything she did or didn’t do: Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser for President Bush.

It has been a major puzzle to me how in the world she has escaped any recrimination for the failure to detect or act on any clue that might have materialized prior to the events of that horrifying day. I recall at the time as the nation endured the shock of what happened that no one seemed to mention Rice’s name publicly. My goodness, she was at center of our nation’s intelligence-gathering network.

President Bush selected Rice to be his national security adviser because she is known to be a deep thinker, a critical analyst, one who studies her craft thoroughly … and for my money, someone who should be held accountable for whatever failings occurred on her watch that led to the mass murders and destruction of the World Trade Center.

The series concludes with a detailed look at the planning that went into the eventual killing of bin Laden by the SEALs. I was struck by this nugget as well. President Obama was told that his national security team had less evidence of bin Laden’s presence in that Pakisani compound than what was used to persuade Americans that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He didn’t have the WMD and we went to war in March 2003. All Obama had was purely circumstantial evidence that bin Laden was in the compound.

I am still waiting to learn, though, whether Condoleezza Rice ever will be asked to answer this question: Did you do all you could have done to prevent 9/11?

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Trump makes startling admission

The Donald Trump-Elon Musk bromance is a goner, but left virtually untouched has been a startling admission that Trump made while denigrating the character of the world’s richest human being.

Musk has called Trump’s “big beautiful bill” an “abomination” and said Trump should be impeached. Trump’s response? He called Musk a man with a serious drug problem. I forget the exact words he used, but he said that Musk has been battling drug addiction.

OK. Here’s what is so remarkable. Trump hired a drug addict to remake the federal government, allegedly. He hired a guy he said couldn’t be trusted to remain sober long enough to make intelligent decisions about the future of government programs upon which millions of Americans depend.

What the f***?

Of course, Trump didn’t offer a single shred of proof of the allegation he has made about Musk’s alleged drug habit. The point, though, is that Trump has said time and again how he relies on hiring the “best people” to do the work on his behalf.

Which is it, dude?

Moreover, where is the media on all this? No one has explored the substance of what Trump has alleged about Mr. Tesla/SpaceX and the things he says drives this world’s richest human.

This idiot, the president, needs to be held accountable for the recklessness of his rhetoric.

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Standing by the Constitution

My belief in our system of government is as strong as ever, despite the myriad challenges being mounted against it by the likes of Donald J. Trump, the MAGA morons, DOGE and Elon Musk.

I feel it’s important to make that declaration now as we enter the summer months. Trump will continue to push our system to its limit. He will seek greater executive power than the U.S. Constitution allows. He will continue to scrawl that signature of his on executive orders. He will seek to undermine the checks and balances written into the nation’s governing document.

However, I am going to maintain my faith that the judicial system the founders created will rise to the occasion and determine that the “rule of law” is more vital to our nation’s well-being than the machinations of a tinhorn tyrant.

How do I come to that conclusion? We are beginning to see evidence of Trump appointees to the federal bench relying more on their fealty to the Constitution than to the nitwit who placed them into their lifetime jobs. Why, even a member or two of the nation’s highest court appear willing to administer what could be the death knell to the liar in chief’s tariff tantrum.

I have held a longstanding belief in the founders’ wisdom when they crafted the Constitution after winning independence from the British Crown in 1781. They built a foundation with the intention of expecting it to be challenged. Indeed, we have gone through four presidential impeachments, four Senate trials of presidents, the Great Depression, two world wars, a civil war, and myriad crises of varying significance over the span of 250 years. We have amended the document 27 times in an effort to create a “more perfect Union.”

The Constitution has withstood all of that. It remains the pillar of our nation.

I am going to rely on the Constitution to do its job as Americans challenge what passes for the wisdom of the current president and his cabal of sycophants.

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A positive result to report

I want to report to you some astounding news I received this week from my primary care physician … and it appears to be a result of the nutrition class I attended at home offered by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

My doctor has removed my daily dose of cholesterol medication from my routine. She told me my lab results are so positive that she doesn’t see the need to continue taking the pills each day.

I looked at her and said, plainly and simply, “Wow!”

I sought professional help from the VA because I had gained a lot of weight in the two years since I lost my bride, Kathy Anne, to an aggressive form of brain cancer … glioblastoma. I had been taking the anti-cholesterol meds for many years prior to that tragic event. The meds had done their job, reeling in my cholesterol and triglycerides to within range of normal. Indeed, when I first saw a doctor in Amarillo way back when, he told me the substance they drew from my arm “didn’t even look like blood.” My lab numbers were off the charts. He declared that I was fortunate to have avoided serious impairment or death by a stroke.

The VA nutrition program was intended to jump-start a weight loss effort. That didn’t happen. Although I have peeled a few pounds off this overfed old man’s body. What did happen was a change of lifestyle. I can state with clear honesty that I have changed my eating habits. I forgo the junk food that would formerly entice me.

This week, I got some hard numbers that told me my efforts have paid off. I want to share that with you because of the support I have gotten from Blogger Land from those who tell me they want me to stay in the game of commenting on world affairs.

So … there you have it. Life is good. I intend to keep living it for a while longer.

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‘MAGA’ takes root in vernacular

When an acronym becomes a word is when you know that the term has become ingrained in our skulls, even the noggins of those who abhor the meaning of the word.

The term “MAGA” appears to be the latest such term to have been given a sort of new life. When you simpy say “MAGA,” the rest of us know about whom you are referring … it is the cadre of individuals who believe in Donald Trump’s vow to “Make America Great Again.”

I long have considered that to be a preposterous notion, as the United States has been the world’s pre-eminent power since the end of World War II.

We now refer to issues as “MAGA policy,” or “MAGA ideas,” or the “MAGA crowd.” No need to insert the explanation of what “MAGA” means. I need to state that Trump isn’t the first politician to vow to “make America great again.” Bill Clinton did so, too, while running for president in 1992. Clinton’s followers, though, weren’t fervent or rabid enough to keep repeating or even to form the words into an acronym.

Did you know that “TEA Party,” one of MAGA’s predecessors, is an acronym that also became a word? The “TEA” in the party stands for “Taxed Enough Already.” TEA Party faithful formed the coalition because they were tired of paying what they believe is too much in taxes to the federal government. Hence, TEA Party was born about 20 years ago.

I also capitalize “SCUBA” when referring to divers wearing on their backs what stands for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. I don’t know when the terms “SCUBA divers” or “SCUBA gear” became part of our language. It just did … a long time ago!

The language is full of such examples. Too many of them to delineate here. Because I’m a bit of a rhetorical perfectionist, I am going to continue to capitalize these acronomyical terms as a show of respect to their origins.

 

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Founders were right about secularism

Our nation’s founders were by and large brilliant men who gathered to craft a government from scratch at the end of our revolution.

They didn’t craft a perfect document, as it made white men the only inhabitants of a new republic with full rights of citizenship. We would amend our nation’s Constitution later to fix many of those shortcomings.

However, the founders got it exactly right on this point: They wanted to create a secular government that would not be governed by a particular religious belief. I wrote a blog item recently about concerns expressed in one North Texas community that Muslims in that city might want to legalize teaching of Sharia law in public school classrooms. That cannot happen. Why? Because the founders ensured the secular nature of our government.

You won’t see the word “Christian” anywhere in the Constitution. You won’t see “Muslim” there, either. Or “Judaism” or “Hindu” or “Buddhist.” The First Amendment to our Bill of Rights states clearly that “Congress shall make no law” that establishes a state religion or prohibits “the free excercise” of it.

The founders were direct descendants of those who fled European religious tyranny. They came across the ocean to start a new country that would be allow people to worship God as they chose, but did not mandate which god they would worship. They also left the door open for those who chose not to worship any deity.

So, when I caution against getting too worked up over the imposition of Sharia law in our public school classrooms, I also want to wave the ol’ red flag against placing Bibles in classrooms, which is what governors in many states want to do.

The founders weren’t perfect. No human being is. However, they got it spot-on correct when they said the government of the nation they created would be free of religious dictates.

Let’s just leave religion where it belongs … in houses of worship.

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You serve to protect rights you surrender

Dakota Meyer is a Medal of Honor recipient who earned the medal in 2009 for saving his fellow warriors from Taliban fire in Afghanistan.

President Obama presented the medal to the U.S. Marine Corps sergeant in a White House ceremony. Meyer then left the Marine Corps for 15 years.

Now, though, he is returning to the Corps as a reservist. He had become highly critical of President Biden’s decision to withdraw our forces from Afghanistan. He was married for a time to the daughter of former Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin. He says now he will return to service, but plans to “stay out of politics.”

Good call. It’s also a prudent decision on his part. Why? Because even though he is serving to protect the rights of all Americans to speak their minds, men and women in uniform actually surrender that very right the moment they don the uniform.

The First Amendment guarantees the right of Americans to seek “redress of grievances.” Except that those on duty in the military cannot criticize the commander in chief, who is their commanding officer, so to speak. If the president issues a lawful order, then those under his command are obligated to follow those orders without bitching out loud about it.

There can be “redress of grievances” for those in the military, be they active duty, or reservists.

A member of my family retired from the Army not long ago after serving for 20 years on active duty. He served tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. He also was highly critical of President Biden. He sought a promotion in rank, but was routinely passed over. My belief? His commanding officer knew of his social media rants aganst the commander in chief and nixed his promotion.

I am delighted Sgt. Meyer has decided to return to the Marine Corps. I am equally delighted he understands the folly of bellowing out loud his discontent over political matters made by those who serve far above his pay grade.

 

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LBJ would have none of this

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Lyndon Baines Johnson would be appalled and aghast at the state of American politics today … of that I am absolutely certain.

The nation’s 36th president took office in a time of national grief. A madman with a rifle shot his presidential predecessor to death in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. LBJ, a long, tall Texan, took the oath of office aboard a crowded Air Force One jetliner.

Then he commenced to finish the work started by President John F. Kennedy. He had asked the nation for its prayers as he took the reins of power.

President Johnson knew a fundamental truth about politics, about governance and about the government he inherited. It was that to get anything across the finish line, he needed help from those on the other side of the aisle. Johnson was a true-blue Democrat but he had plenty of Republican friends on whom he could count.

His first legislative task was to get the Civil Rights Act approved. Democrats were led by Southern segregationists who adhered to Jim Crow beliefs about racial separation. What did LBJ — himself a Southern Democrat — do? He sought the help of GOP senators such as Everett Dirksen of Illinois and Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania. Johnson, a former Senate majority leader before he became VP in 1961, knew how to work the system.

The Civil Rights Act passed. Then came the Votng Rights Act. LBJ needed the same cast of friends to help him enact legislation guaranteeing the civil rights of all Americans, especially Black Americans.  The Civil Rights Act came into being in 1965.

LBJ also shephered Medicare into existence that year, again gathering GOP help.

I mention all this because Lyndon Johnson would be horrified to see the denigration of alliances he helped build at the hands of Donald Trump and the cabal of MAGA morons who run things in D.C. these days.

Trump is governing only to appease the base of what used to be the Republican Party. The one-time party of Abraham Lincoln, which reached out to minority Americans, and the one-time party of Ronald Reagan, which preached fiscal restraint, has been taken over by an ignorant authoritarian. Donald Trump has plunged the world into a global recession, has cost many millions of Americans billions of dollars in retirement funds and has declared economic war on our most faithful allies.

How? Because he is enamored of the term “tariff” and has enacted a measure that only is going to harm Americans … and no one else.

Would Lyndon Baines Johnson stand for that? Never!

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Farewell sis … what a ride!

PORTLAND — I came back to the city of my birth — and my sisters’ birth — to bid farewell to the older of my two sisters.

Georgianne surrendered to the physical demons that had plagued her for years, succumbing Feb. 24 to complications brought on by COPD.  She was 14 months younger than me.

We had two services. One was to celebrate sis’s amazing life. She lived just short of 74 years. Her trip in this life was a wild one, to be sure. She had her issues growing up. Sis got through them and went on to lead a productive life. The other service was at the crypt where her ashes are interred next to Mom and Dad.

Sis never really shook herself completely free of the difficulties that followed her into teenhood and early young adulthood.

However, she was full of love and that love came back to blanket her during the celebrations we had of the life she led. I am grateful for that and I know she is, too.

I will return home late tomorrow to North Texas, where I have established my own life. Perhaps I should say where I am rebuilding my life. Many of you who have read this blog know about the circumstances there. It’s coming along.

This trip to where I came into this world, though, is about Georgianne Duback. She would tell me while seeking a favor from me that “I’ll love you forever.”

Well, sis, know that I truly will love you forever.