WHO IS QUALIFIED?  ANYONE?

By Ruth A. Sheets

A member of Heather Cox Richardson’s Substack thread asked on May 20^th if anyone in Trump’s cabinet were qualified.  I had to take a crack at an answer.  This was my response. 

As you and most of us know, the answer to cabinet members being qualified is none are qualified, which is why they were shoved through our Senate with little to no honest thought.  Trump may have recommended a couple of them, but the Project 2025ers came up with the slate.  I am sure Kristi Noem was considered when the 2025ers heard she had killed her dog and thrown her into a quarry, proud of it enough to write about it.  That is the temperament for Homeland Security, of course. 

Then, RFK,Jr.'s brain worm made him the perfect nominee for HHS because, well, he knew he had a brain somewhere and it had a dead worm in it and . . .   And, there's Hegseth, he could do crappy interviews for Fox whose only standards involve their "hosts" being ignorant, basically incompetent and somewhat attractive so they could repeat lies and do gaslighting without questioning it, the perfect set of skills to head our Department of Defense!  The rest of the team is just like that, each in their own way pathetic and unqualified but somehow, worthy of Republican support. 

Even some Democrats went along with the BS, all of them voting for Marco Rubio with no evidence that he could really fairly represent this nation abroad (he is a white wannabee who despises anyone not white and will buy into the BS of any country that will give him and Baby Donnie some kind of money, promise, or something which Rubio should know is illegal according to our Constitution.  Oh yes, I forgot to mention that Rubio and the rest of the cabinet don't care about our ?Constitution either.  Amazing! 

So, I responded the best I could in a short readable paragraph, but it does not really begin to address the challenges we will be facing, possibly indefinitely.  Republicans have saddled us with an incredibly incompetent crew and a House of Representatives and Senate that will do Donald Trump’s bidding and that of folks like Musk, Vought, Theil, and the rest of the superrich because they are being threatened with something really powerful or promised something unbelievable for their efforts, no matter how illegal or improper.  

When questioned about any of their positions or what is happening in their department, they do one or more of 3 things.  These were offered by a member of Prof. Robert Reich’s thread on May 22^{nd and also presented by Jay Kuo in his column}.  They are the Three C method of avoiding answering truthfully, “gaslighting.”

#1...Cluelessness: "I don't know... I wasn't aware of that...I only just heard about this... I don't have the numbers, etc. and so on and so forth. They do this ALL THE TIME and it's infuriating, also usually a lie.

#2...Chaos: the deliberately created chaos within their departments cause those people they are supposed to be helping or serving to get frustrated with the mistakes wait times, etc. the end result is people just end up giving up and accepting the absence of real help and then the Republicans can claim that the department should be eradicated since it isn't doing what it is supposed to.  This is an old fall-back trick for the Republicans in power who want to see the government destroyed.

#3...Contempt: This is a tactic of answering with arrogance or twisting the answer and using it to attack the questioner. Again a frequent tactic of Republicans, it was particularly evident in Rubio's arrogant answer to Senator Van Hollen, "If you regret your confirmation of me, I must be doing my job..." said with contemptuous twist, arrogant and rude, but certainly just what Trump expects of his minions."  The members of the committees, Democrats alone if Republicans won’t participate must at the very least, continue to ask good relevant questions, When the questioned person talks over the questioner, that persons should say, “Mr. (Ms.) Chair Person, stop my time here until he/she is finished bamboozling us, then I will resume my time at this point.”  If the chair won’t agree, then the questioner must stand up and tell the questioned person to shut up and just answer the question yes or no unless asked for  clarification. 

We all need to review our Constitution and start calling out the current insanity for what it is, an insurrection by the rich and powerful with Trump as the figurehead for a bunch of scared greedy privileged white boys and their female surrogates with the task of wrecking our democracy, our government so they will just HAVE to take over.  We must find every way possible to stop them.  They are trampling our rights, denying the services we are entitled to, and throwing their money into elections they have no right to influence, despite what Johnny Roberts and his Supreme Court cons said about 15 years ago, their decision made out of their own greed and desire to do harm to the American people, well, at least the middle and working classes.  We don’t have to take it and should not!  We must stay involved!

Mother’s Day 2025

Mother’s Day 2025

By Ruth A. Sheets

Today, Mother’s Day, Joyce Vance, lawyer, commentator, mother wrote about her mother and grandmother who were independent activist women at a time when that was not only not appreciated but discouraged.  The following is my response to her Substack piece, also, a tribute to my own mother.

Joyce, your mother and grandmother were of that group of women who were standing against the insanity of male domination when few women had the ability to say anything. Their courage and that of the other women who chose to act has made it possible for so many spectacular women to now be in the leadership of the people who are keeping our world going: researchers, teachers, mothers, medical workers, entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, athletes, clergy, lawyers, judges, legislators, activists, scientists, often holding more than one of those roles, who care about our world and are determined to make it a better place for everyone.

I honor all women today and will push us to do even more to serve our world: raise up all children, call out men and women who abuse positions of authority, and keep right on standing and fighting for what is right for all, not just for the few men and fewer women who live by or because of vengeance, anger, resentments, and hatreds, the way of death and destruction.  

My own mother was a remarkable woman who was extremely talented at many things.  I believe she saw herself as a less than excellent mother even though she enabled her 5 children to excel at nearly everything we tried.  She was definitely not a helicopter mom or anything close to it, (and probably could have kept better track of some of us).  I honestly don’t know how she managed five independent, mouthy children/teens. 

Some of my best memories of my mom include her playing the organ after dinner while we, the whole family sang and harmonized.  I also remember Mom singing in our church choir next to me and realizing what a good singer she was, an alto always on the right notes and harmonizing with my soprano line.  I also remember her coming to Nashville while I was in college, to be with me after I had eye surgery and that she went to classes with my roommate and loved it.  She was in the group of women who were relegated to the roles of secretary, teacher, or nurse, the latter two only if one could afford college; she couldn’t.  She was a skilled knitter, crocheter, embroiderer, and general craftswoman.  We often wore the clothes she made for us.

Here's to our mothers, women who do their best then learn to do better, women who have given birth to us and set us on a path toward adulthood.  Those paths are not always positive, caring, joyful, but it is our choice whether we will walk good paths or take routs that are harmful to ourselves or others. 

I thank my mother for sharing her talent with the world:  her competence, her music, her trust that my sisters and I could make it, and we have.  Happy Mother’s Day to all our mothers and other women in our lives who have helped shape who we are and will choose to become.