WHEN WILL ENOUGH BE ENOUGH?

By Ruth A. Sheets

I keep wondering when Republicans who claim to be patriotic Americans, are going to say "enough." 

• - It wasn’t enough when Trump pardoned all the January 6^th insurrectionists, people who threatened their own lives.  Trump and his handlers were just too lazy to determine who were the ones who had actually done the most violence, although that information was readily available.
• It clearly wasn't when Musk and his wrecking crew fired (without permission from anyone but Trump), thousands of the government workers who actually know how to make our government work and keep this nation safe. 
• It wasn't enough when Musk/Trump dismantled the USAID that helps protect the people of the world, including us from horrific diseases and to help people deal with war and poverty. 
• - It wasn't enough when the concept of a free public education for all children was maligned by Musk/Trump getting rid of about 50% of the Department of Education that provides funding and services for children with learning and functioning differences as well as scholarship money for college. 
• - It wasn't enough when Trump/Vance in tandem insulted President Zelensky of Ukraine and lied that Ukraine began the war, clearly started by Russia. 
• - It wasn't enough when the FAA was undermined and air travel was put at risk, now supposedly to be under the rule of Musk's Starlink or whatever other BS entity the ignorant greedy Musk illegally comes up with for his own benefit. 
• - It wasn't enough when Musk and his toddler troop began messing with Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, programs that have worked tremendously well for nearly 90 years for Social Security and 60 for Medicare and Medicaid, programs we pay for from our first jobs onward.  They are closing local offices so people can't go directly to get help, while requiring them to go to local offices to register.  Then they started taking some people off the roles, claiming the people are actually dead when they are not. Musk, a super-rich recent citizen knows nothing about Social Security or any of the programs he is working to destroy for the benefit of himself and rich white people and corporations. 
• - It isn't enough now when our military under a rapist, misogynist, racist incompetent, Hegseth removes the courage of people of color and women from their websites, pretending only white men did anything to protect America, a massive lie, of course. 
• - It wasn’t enough when immigrants were grabbed off the street, people who hold green cards and have done nothing illegal, unlike Musk and Trump and disappeared, 200+ of them sent to a torture prison in El Salvador, others to countries they have not lived in since infancy, not knowing anyone or speaking the language.
• It wasn’t enough when Trump declared there is no climate crisis, global warming isn’t real, and that “drill baby drill” will be the chant instead.  That is happening while Republicans and their constituents are dealing with terrible storms, floods, and wildfires made far worse by global warming.  The Republican states are being hit worst with little to no way to manage without government help.  Yep, those people voted for this to happen to them because their racism and misogyny couldn’t let them do anything else.
• It wasn’t enough when Trump and his clown show threatened judges and our courts, you know, the ones that oppose the illegal things Trump and Kump are doing. 
•  
  
• It is truly shameful that I hear no Republicans and few Democrats standing up and yelling "stop."  It must be something pretty powerful that Trump is holding over Republicans in Congress these days to keep them either mouthing just what Trump’s handlers want them to say or remaining silent.  They need to stand up. 
•  
• At this point, it seems to me that it should not matter what Donald Trump and his Goon Troops have on anyone in Congress because the harms being done to this country will overshadow anything else Trump can make up about them.  It seems living without a spine or moral compass works for Republicans, MAGAs, and some Democrats and Independents too.  Shame on them all.  I do wish there were a way to remove Trump/Vance/Musk from office without violence because none of them should be in charge of anything and may only be in power because they found a way to cheat in this past election using secret cheating algorithms, in the "{swing states" of course, somehow just barely taking every single one of them.  That really does stretch credibility.

OPTIMISM? WELL MAYBE

By Ruth A. Sheets

I appreciate the need for optimism as we watch our nation sinking under the BS of the Republican Party, led by the "would-be-king/deity" Toddler-Trump and his goons, but it’s hard, and maybe they’re evil. 

Senate Republicans voted for some pretty despicable people to run our critical departments and agencies.  They supposedly interviewed and questioned each candidate, but clearly they didn’t care about the nominee’s past, biases, personal vendettas, lack of competence or qualifications.  One can’t help but wonder why.  I suspect it has something to do with Toddler-Trump’s desire to be a MAFIA Don who collects information on everyone around him to use against them, blackmail, you know.  In addition, those in office will owe their toddler-boss for a job they clearly didn’t deserve.  Among the worst:  

• - an absolute fool, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to run our department of health and human services - he knows nothing about medicine, research, or just about anything else, but he does have a lot of ridiculous ideas about vaccines, medicine in general, and how the Department should be run, all without knowledge or experience;
• - a personal lawyer for Toddler-Trump, Pam Bondi,  as Attorney General - a woman who has her own “hit list” to nurse, mostly people who legally opposed Trump;
• - an accused rapist, incompetent manager, you know, criminal, Pete Hegseth, with minimal experience of the Department of Defense, but a lot of vengeance in his heart and hatred for anyone who is not rich, white, “straight,” and male, a minority in our military;
• - a Putin "mole," Tulsi Gabbard in charge of our intelligence service – enough said;
• - an empty suit, Marco Rubio, to be our Secretary of State – He has traveled a bit, so knows what he needs to do, right;
• - an ignoramus, Sean Duffy at Transportation– already 7 aircraft “accidents” since Toddler-Trump took office;
• A hateful vindictive sycophant of ?Toddler-Trump, Kash Patel to run the FBI – he maintains an “enemies list of people he plans to go after.

  Then there's Toddler-Musk and his child-hackers tearing through our government's tech to see how much damage the richest man in the world, supposedly, can do to many of the poorest.  The Senate didn’t even get to vote on these kids - They were not vetted or even required to fill out an employment application, but can steal our personal information and fire people whose jobs they neither understand nor care about.

Toddler-Trump moving deeper into dementia has now decided to betray an ally and turn his love toward Putin of Russia.  That should be seen as treason since he is betraying an ally for an adversary while that adversary is conducting a war it began for its own purposes. Trump now lies that Ukraine started the war which was actually a Putin/Russian invasion to annex Ukraine.  Is it Trump’s dementia or Putin conducting some blackmail on our current president?  Hmmm!

I am working on staying at least somewhat optimistic.  I think one must be optimistic if a teacher and if I believe in our nation and working toward making it a more perfect union. 

Optimism comes from people using their courage to stand up and say “no.”  The most recent example was Governor Mills of Maine who told Trump trans athletes would be able to play sports in Maine because they have rights in the Maine Constitution.  Trump threatened to cut off funding for the state of Maine if they did let those athletes compete.  She said “then, I’ll see you in court.”  I was hoping the other governors would have stood up to support her, but nope.  She did show people how to stand up to a toddler-man who thinks he can control everything and everyone because all his life, the people around him regularly bow and kiss something for him on request.  Not everyone will do that.  That is where I have optimism, real hope!

In any case, we need to stand together against this coup mastermind by The Heritage Foundation and corporate America, a right-wing collection of white supremacists and pseudo-christians who want to stop anyone and anything that does not promote rich white maledom.  Well, they are a minority and we need to let them know that as often as possible. 

We can do something.  Don’t forget the 24-hour boycott over February 27-28^th, and the Amazon boycott from March 7-14.  If you need to buy something, go local!

WHAT IS THEIR GOAL? PART 2

Ruth A. Sheets

It has been a really hard 16 days since Toddler-Trump returned to office.  This time, he has brought with him an even deeper  bench of misfits, anti-American slobs, trouble-makers (and not the good kind), and just plain toddler-adults who care only for themselves and what they can rob the American people of.

So far, they have invaded the US Treasury to steal private information from  the American people, halted the USAID program which provides masses of aid to poor and struggling peoples around the world, and gotten approved a bunch of incompetent losers whose task as far as anyone can tell is to wreck our government while they steal from us our money, our dignity as a nation, and our will to stop them (or at least they are trying to do the latter.

I still have the question, what is their goal?  I have been reading books about the Supreme Court and “Republican” attempts and success in taking over the SC, but in all of that, I have seen no overarching goal.  They let corporations contribute as much money as they want to candidates (essentially buying them) with “Citizens United”; killed much of the unanimously-passed by Congress, Voting Rights Act of 1965; overturned Roe v. Wade, essentially turning women’s right to choose over to states run by old white men who will never be pregnant; and have given an incompetent president near complete immunity for the things he does as president.  What is their end game? 

The Supreme Court “conservatives” clearly love corporations and have been richly rewarded for their patronage, but besides their personal corporate gifts, what?  When corporations have destroyed the planet, what will they do?  When women figure out how to perform abortions for their friends and neighbors with hoarded medications and medical skill, who will care about Roe? 

It is true Toddler-Trump wants to keep from going to jail, but he is now so wrapped up in his own megalomania, that is no longer on his radar.  He wants to put hotels in an ethnically cleansed Gaza, paid for with funds stolen from the American people supervised by Toddler-Musk who is about as ignorant at most things as Toddler-Trump himself is.  He also wants to steal other people’s lands like the Panama Canal, Greenland, and Canada.  Insanity would be anyone’s diagnosis, but a third of our population knew something was wrong with Toddler-Trump but voted for him anyway.

I still don’t know the extent of the goals of “Republicans” and their handlers, but suspect those goals will change as they take over more of our government operations for the purposes of corporate owners and CEOs.  I do wonder what will happen though when the American people can’t or don’t want to afford their products and services anymore.

We the People  can do things to let “Republicans,” Democrats, and people in positions of authority know of our dissatisfaction.  We can, of course sign petitions and email our representatives at every level.  Probably more effective might be calling our Representatives as well as senators and making demands of them as they are still our employees. 

• The main Congressional switchboard is 202-224-3121.  
• - The Line for comments at the White House is 202-456-1111

I have called about important issues to all of them.  I am hoping that if a lot of people call, they will clog the phone lines and emails to make a difference for the people around the world who are now suffering because a bunch of toddlers have invaded our government under the guise of an elected president and what should be qualified government employees.

Then we must support independent media that are not owned by those same corporate entities who are OK with the destruction that is now being perpetrated on the American people.  Local newspapers and news sources are a good start as are online services that have a strong reputation for honest reporting.  We all need to work together to stop this or, as Ben Franklin once supposedly said, “We must all hang together or most assuredly we will all hang separately.”