Aiding Others in Need

Posted on February 3, 2025 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, February 3, 2025

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the United States government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $50 billion, USAID is one of the largest official aid agencies in the world and accounts for more than half of all U.S. foreign assistance…Congress authorizes USAID’s programs in the Foreign Assistance Act.

Yesterday, Donald Trump said USAID is run by “a bunch of radical lunatics.” His new best bud, Elon Musk, said USAID is nothing but a ball of worms. That’s the MAGA/Project 2025 point of view Trump disavowed throughout the 2024 election campaign. Here’s another. 

On January 31st, I received a letter from a young cousin, a desperate call for aid, for her, her colleagues, and the people they have spent their careers trying to help. She’s a wife and mom who has spent her twenty-year professional life meeting the health care and nutritional needs of millions of people around the world.

What is at stake is the future, not only of her clients, but of the existence of the foreign aid apparatus of our federal government. The latter includes thousands of Americans employed by both the private and public sectors, who dedicated their lives to making the world a safer, healthier place. What most struck me about her letter was that although she has been furloughed along with thousands of others by Trump’s Executive Orders, it focused not on her job or loss of income, but on the harm Trump is causing to America and people who might die or suffer serious harm from them.

Canceling America’s aid to other nations is part of Trump’s massive plan to remake America in his own image – our narcissistic president whose only motivations in life are his own greed and lust for power, wants the world to perceive the United States in the same terms. To Trump, America First means Trump and his wealthy friends first, and the hell with everyone else. We’re all collateral damage.

While Trump views aid to others as a waste of resources, my dear cousin sees such aid as the true meaning of America First. She sees it as a bridge between peoples, of the Haves reaching out to the Have Nots. But it’s not just charity. By relieving hunger, curbing the spread of AIDS, and improving the general level of health in poverty-stricken countries, she believes we create a bond that enhances our national security and eliminates the main causes of wars, revolutions, and terrorism.

Thousands of Americans are employed in our foreign aid program, which Trump is attempting to eliminate with the stroke of a pen. That means thousands of American families will have their livelihoods stripped away without warning, this from a president who has promised jobs and prosperity for everyone. Personally, I have a problem understanding how this fits any rational definition of America First.

Aside from caring deeply about the people she serves and works with, the thing that motivated my cousin to reach out was the way Trump has chosen to govern in his first two weeks. It’s typical of the way he has approached things all his life. He starts hundreds of fires, sowing chaos and confusion everywhere, knowing that his opponents only have sufficient resources to fight a small fraction of them. They have no choice but to triage their defenses. Consequently, only the hottest fires with the loudest, most numerous victims have any chance of garnering support and defending their interests.

It’s classic Trump, Blitzkrieg politics, designed to overwhelm and smother all opposition. It’s what the MAGA movement has tried to do since Trump inspired it, and it’s the only way a small, determined minority of zealots can impose their will on 350 million Americans. It’s also the polar opposite of what our Constitution and Declaration of Independence from Britain intended. Democracy and majority rule are a sloppy, inefficient way to run a country, but they defined America for 240 years until Trump came along.

Thus, dedicated people like my cousin, who care deeply about their country, their jobs, and the people they serve must reach out and make us hear their voices. Their base of support isn’t large enough to survive triage. This is a prime example of Trump’s sledgehammer approach to governing. If we don’t speak up to counter it, he will be successful in dismantling most of what we built in the years since World War 2.

My cousin wants people to study our foreign aid program and see for themselves that preserving it is very much in America’s interest. If we agree with her values, the next step is contacting our federal Representatives and Senators. Otherwise, these programs will die.

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Responsible Governing

Posted on January 23, 2025 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, January 23, 2025

It has been responsibly reported that Trump’s decision to pardon or commute the sentences of all the January 6th perpetrators who were convicted of crimes was not analyzed or deliberated over, but was an impulsive decision made by him alone, designed close the issue. It was a terrible decision, as hundreds of very dangerous and well-armed people who openly threaten civil war are back in their communities angrier than ever. Worse, Trump’s action has clearly inspired them to keep up their fight to overthrow the government with even bolder actions.

I have to ask: what’s worse, a president who makes bad decisions because either he is not competent or unwilling to listen to expert advisors, or one who acts irrationally without regard to consequences? This is an urgent matter for all Americans. People guilty of insurrection, murder, and assault will be freed because an angry narcissist who is unable to control himself wants the support of these extremist militias. We’ve seen what they are capable of. Imagine if they attack the Capitol again, but this time they have more allies than adversaries within the Trump administration.

It’s appalling to me that my country could have placed its future in Trump’s hands again after seeing what he did during his first term. In 2016, people frustrated with the government could be forgiven for being taken in by his lies and delusions. It was also not unreasonable for them to hope that President Trump would behave differently than either candidate Trump or businessman Trump, but that hope is no longer credible. As President, he showed the same disdain for laws, rules, and appropriate behavior that he always had in the past. And he proved that George Orwell had been correct when he predicted that the more outrageous the lie, and the more often it’s repeated, the more likely people are to believe it.

The truth that the world witnessed with its own eyes and ears is that Trump was willing to put the entire nation at risk because his ego couldn’t accept defeat in the election. Anyone who thinks the radical right-wing militias he pardoned aren’t serious about their threats of revolution and civil war needs to wake up and smell the roses. They are dangerous and they are angry as hell. If you’re not convinced, ask why state and federal law enforcement won’t enter places like the northern Idaho panhandle or the Siskyou mountains along the western border of California and Oregon. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and it’s real.

Given the callous disregard Trump displayed in forgiving the crimes of the insurrectionists, why would anyone expect any of his other present and future actions to be different? He knows perfectly well that America became great on the backs of immigrants, and the overwhelming majority of them are hard-working honest people who are grateful to be Americans. For every drug dealer who slips through our border there are thousands of decent people just trying to raise their families in peace.

So, why slander them? Why tell America that they’re all murderers and rapists, as he famously did on his escalator? I’m not a fan of undocumented people entering our country, but the reality is that the economies of at least half our states depend on them. If our immigration system is broken, and it is, it’s because of greed and corruption within our own borders. Too many people profit from the work done by undocumented workers, including Trump’s own family, for them to change the system. The reason Trump slandered and degraded immigrants is simply because his lies resonated with his base.

Now it’s the turn of scientists, health care researchers, teachers, and every Democrat. Trump is angry because he seriously mismanaged COVID and cost the lives of at least a half million Americans. President Biden, before leaving office, thought it necessary to issue pre-emptive pardons to people like Anthony Fauci and the entire Centers for Disease Control, because they spoke the truth in the face of Trump’s lies.

The strangest irony in all this is that Trump has surrounded himself with some of the smartest, wealthiest and most successful people in the world because he has always believed that wealth and power are the only things that matter, which actually boils down to just wealth, since power can be bought. But all is not well in Trump’s fantasy oligarchy. It’s clear that his billionaire supporters like Elon Musk have little or no respect for him, but he promised them all the one thing he’s sure to deliver with a Republican Congress. They’ll never have to be burdened with taxes again.

So far, this administration is looking like a bunch of loose cannons all firing at random, as often as not at each other. Only 1,458 days to go.

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Trump 2’s First Two Days

Posted on January 22, 2025 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, January 22, 2025

A presidential term lasts 1,461 days. If, like me, you’re concerned that Donald Trump is capable of permanently harming our country, knowing there are 1,459 days left in his term isn’t reassuring. But realistically, he only has about 600 days to solidify his agenda before the mid-term Congressional races heat up in 2026.

Ever since then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced, the day after Barrack Obama was inaugurated, that his mission was to assure Obama was a one-term president, the role of Congress has changed from seeking common ground to obstructionism. To be fair, though, the credit for that change should go to Newt Gingrich. Even with Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, 600 days is not a huge amount of time, and we’re already seeing Democrats and Democrat-controlled states attempting to slow down the Trump train.

The Trump administration’s strategy is to hit the ground running and start so many fires in week one, the opposition won’t have the resources to fight them all. Thus, an aggressive release of Executive Actions on day one, followed immediately by lawsuits from most of the blue states. Trump demonstrated the power of delaying tactics over the past four years, tying up criminal and civil cases that stalled prosecutions for his most serious alleged crimes. Those tactics are now fair game to try to prevent Trump from making harmful permanent changes before voters have a chance to weigh in in the midterms.

The first thing Trump did supports the claim that his two main reasons for running for president again were to kill the criminal indictments he was facing and once elected, to use the presidency to enrich himself. He began that process with a bang that will be difficult or impossible to counter. He launched his own cryptocurrency, which means that anyone who wants something from Trump can get his attention by making deposits into his crypto account. Such deposits are not tracked by any regulating agency and are not required to be disclosed under current ethics rules. Some critics view this as a massive billion dollar bribe machine. Trump was reported to have increased his net worth by $60 billion on the launch of his cryptocurrency.

Trump’s cryptocurrency neutralizes the emoluments clause of the Constitution, which prohibits a sitting president from receiving gifts from foreign governments. Walter Schaub, who headed the Office of Government Ethics during Trump’s first term described the whole thing as corruption and naked profiteering. But while the crypto launch seemed to fit into a gray area of law with few precedents, the slew of Executive Actions released immediately after Trump took office are clearly aimed at undermining present laws and regulations and challenging critical guarantees in our Constitution.

If you’re all in on MAGA, the Executive Actions are exactly what you wanted Trump to do. Pardoning and commuting the sentences of people convicted in connection with the January 6th, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol, especially those who assaulted law enforcement, offended 70% of people polled, but Trump understands that pumping up those in his base like The Proud Boys has a more lasting impact than whatever negative reaction he gets. We know from experience, that feeble retorts by people like Susan Collins (R, ME) are largely for show. She’s probably forgotten about it by now.

Trump wasted no time withdrawing us from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Accords, two actions that are unpopular with well-informed Americans, but they reveal much about Trump’s real agenda. They make no logical sense, but both of Trump’s targets offended him by being smarter and obviously more in touch with the needs of people than he is, so in typical Trump fashion, he declares them bad for America and moves on.

One of his Executive Actions directly challenges the validity of the Fourteenth Amendment, which grants American citizenship to anyone born in the United States. Whether he’s serious about this isn’t clear. Trump loves to fire up salvos of missiles, most of which are chaff designed to distract from things he really wants done. With Democrats controlling half the states, deleting an amendment is a monumental effort, and one that entirely affects Dreamers, who have the support of a majority of Americans. It’s likely that this is just noise, surely not something that can be done before the midterms. Likewise, his absurd promise to deport millions of undocumented aliens. (Does he think we’ve been invaded by Martians?) Now, it’s clear that all he intends to do is deport illegals who’ve been incarcerated for committing crimes. After the low hanging fruit is gone, this too will pass.

Perhaps the scariest thing about the new administration is that Trump now claims he’s a messenger from God, who wants America to change to a Christian Nationalism form of government. Normally, I’d assume that’s another of Trump’s lies, but it’s entirely possible that his narcissistic personality disorder and his obviously declining cognitive functions have made him delusional enough to believe it.

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Will Trump 2 Be Softer and Gentler Than Trump 1?

Posted on January 9, 2025 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, January 9, 2024

There has been much speculation about what a second Trump term would be like. His ardent MAGA supporters fervently believe in Project 2025, the extreme right-wing manifesto to transform America into a “Christian Democracy,” which of course, would be neither.

Rather, it would be a white-male-dominated society in which humans come in only two flavors, people of the same gender may not love each other, and the nation’s wealth is concentrated even more than it already is in less than one percent of the population. Every government program perceived as an entitlement would be stripped to its bare bones, and health care benefits would be chipped away one piece at a time. There would be no restrictions on gun ownership, America would withdraw from its alliances and international commitments to become an isolationist nation, immigration would be limited to people with necessary skills, and the Constitution would be stripped of its protection against autocratic rule as checks and balances are ignored or eliminated.

Throughout the election campaign, Trump distanced himself from Project 2025, muddying the waters for anyone who wanted to know how he intended to govern. It was clear that the MAGA base had bought into it hook, line, and sinker. But did Trump really support all that fascist-sounding rhetoric or was Project 2025 just a masterstroke of political tactics designed to win the election? Conventional wisdom had it that Trump’s primary goal was to stay out of prison, and that having won the election, all he really cared about was getting even with everyone who opposed him. After almost ten years of Trump’s politics, do you really have to ask?

The only thing about which Trump has been consistent is always acting in his own self-interest. We can be certain he will stop short of destroying the country completely because that would bankrupt him along with everyone else. Similarly, he will bend the Constitution to his will, but not break it completely. He will make a loud splash, raiding a few workplaces to round up undocumented workers, but he knows America’s economy depends on those desperate foreigners, so mass deportations are out of the question. And prices? Anyone who thinks Trump gives a damn how much eggs cost is beyond reasoning with.

He will do his best to undermine NATO and Europe, but there are enough real Conservatives in Congress to stop that from happening. He’ll rattle his saber at Canada and Mexico, but neither neighbor will be intimidated, and Mexico won’t pay a dime toward extending the border wall. He will deny what every sensible scientist warns us about climate change and polluting our environment, but storms will get worse, fires will ravage entire communities, and countless plant and animal species will continue their trek toward extinction.

Anyone who expects Trump 2 to be kinder or gentler than Trump 1 is deluding themself. He demonstrated that yesterday, as fires ravaged Los Angeles County, destroying whole neighborhoods indiscriminately. Nature doesn’t play favorites, so stars and celebrities lost their homes along with thousands of average Californians. President Biden stood with Governor Newsom and promised whatever aid the state needs to recover. President Elect Trump took the opportunity to invent an absurd scenario in which Newsom’s lack of support for pumping water southward hundreds of miles from northern California was responsible for the out-of-control fires. That’s idiotic, but it gave us a look at Trump 2’s priorities.

He couldn’t care less about the loss of thousands of homes and countless billions in small businesses, incomes, and commerce. The only thing that mattered was attacking Newsom who strongly opposed him politically. And Californians? They mostly voted for Harris, so to Hell with all of them. Trump had an opportunity to appear magnanimous and demonstrate that he intends to govern the entire country even-handedly. What he actually demonstrated was that he has no interest in governing at all. He told us his second term would be a revenge tour, and now he’s showing us he meant it.

People like Trump never change their stripes, and at 78 years old, he’s likely to get even meaner and more self-absorbed than ever – that’s how aging and cognitive decline work. Now that it’s no longer an election issue, get ready. We’re going to see more of it every time Trump opens his mouth.

We’ve seen presidents evolve into their jobs in the past. Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson took office as Conservative Republicans, but each turned out to be as progressive as the FDR Democrats in meeting the needs of a rapidly growing nation, while Democrat Bill Clinton passed a remarkable welfare reform bill and balanced the federal budget. Are we likely to see any change in Trump 2? Don’t bet your mortgage on it. My guess is that he’ll be worse until a bipartisan coalition forms to stop him.

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Something Feels Off

Posted on January 8, 2025 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, January 8, 2024,

This isn’t about politics. We’re way past the point where politics is the issue.

It’s fair to say that Donald Trump has profoundly changed America’s norms and values, or at least shined a light on changes that had brewing beneath the surface for decades. Change is natural, and normally I would try to embrace it and find a way to grow from it. But this feels different. This doesn’t feel like growth. It feels like decadence, dissolution, and decay, what it feels like when we’ve ignored all the slippery slope warnings and finally begun an irrevocable slide downhill.

MAGA  began as a cult consisting of a small number of ambitious people who believed they could benefit from other people’s gullibility and misfortune, and grew as millions of malcontents and poorly informed people were drawn in. The thing about cults is, they never last, but they can do terrible damage while they function. MAGA will ultimately fade into history, either because people suddenly wake up and realize how destructive it is to our society or because it will actually destroy us.

Look what it has brought us so far. The thing I most notice and fear is the corruption of truth. Kellianne Conway defended that as considering “alternate facts, but that is utter nonsense. A fact is a fact, and a lie is a lie. It’s really that simple. A democratic society cannot function that way for long before it dissembles into chaos. A Constitution cannot be disregarded and undermined without rendering it useless. An autocratic society, however, thrives on malleable facts, fear, lawlessness, and divisiveness.

In twelve days, we will have a president who was convicted of thirty-four felonies and indicted for very serious crimes, including an attempt to overturn a legal, fair election, incite an insurrection at the Capitol, and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. But his money and an army of MAGA lawyers demonstrated that no matter how serious the crime, it’s possible to avoid accountability if you’re sufficiently wealthy, venal, and immoral. We will have a president who promotes misogyny, xenophobia, racism, and white supremacy.

Some MAGA supporters I know dismiss this as either purely hypothetical or simple showmanship. How many times during the 2024 election campaign did we hear a Trump supporter say, “He doesn’t really mean all that stuff he says?” That’s mind-boggling. If they see Trump as nothing more than a reality television show, what the hell were they voting for? My favorite post-election interview with a Trump voter had a reporter ask if Trump’s clear desire to govern like an autocrat troubled him. The voter’s answer was, “What’s an autocrat?”

Has our education system really declined that much? Have Americans become so intellectually lazy that they let influencers do their thinking for them? The mere fact that MAGA influencers have been able to establish the idea that influencing is a respectable profession is horrifying. It goes hand in hand with Kellianne Conway’s justification of corrupting truth. When VP-elect J. D. Vance was accused of lying about immigrants eating their neighbors’ pets, he said – of course I lied, but I made my point and people believed me.

An objective observer might easily look at the results of the election and conclude that Americans find sexual assault acceptable, they are racists, they have no respect for science, and they believe that crimes of business fraud and acts that smack of treason are not disqualifying for the highest office in the country. They might also conclude that we’re pretty damn stupid, and by extension, that America is not to be either respected or feared. They would surely conclude that the American dream is on life support.

Almost out of thin air, we will soon have a president who considers Canada our enemy and is willing to threaten a NATO ally, Denmark, because he decided we should control Greenland. He also has no problem ignoring Panama’s sovereignty and taking back the Panama Canal based on some unproven notion that such an action is vital for America’s economic security, regardless of the 1977 Panama Canal Treaty which guaranteed that full control of the canal would revert to Panama at the end of 1999. That shouldn’t surprise anyone, because it’s the same twisted logic Vladimir Putin uses to justify his war in Ukraine.

And now, the piece de resistance! We’re going to rename the Gulf of Mexico and call it the Gulf of America. That should solve all the world’s problems. But wait – do we have the right or authority to rename anything outside our borders? Next, Trump will want to build a hotel in Antarctica and rename the South Pole a tropical paradise. And this is the most powerful leader in the world!

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The Ultimate Cost of Pandering

Posted on December 28, 2024 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, December 28, 2024

Donald Trump has spent his professional life making promises to people to get what he wants, with little or no regard to whether he intended to keep them. Doing so got him elected President twice. The effectiveness of his pandering, his willingness to string everyone along while having neither the intention nor the ability to make good on his promises has been shocking. But like most indulgences, too much of a good thing can backfire.

Trump is now finding out that it’s one thing to pander to poorly educated rural Americans, to enthralled evangelists, to people who work hard and get little to show for it and convince them that they’re being screwed by their government, and to play into every dark prejudice and repressed hatred in his base; but it’s quite another to make false promises to billionaire supporters who have egos as large as his. You can promise lambs that they’ll be safe from predators and wolves that they’ll always be well fed. But try to get them to live peacefully under one big tent, and their basic natures take over.

Trump’s MAGA base has generally been very obedient. They drink his Kool Aid and cheer his outrageous behavior. They buy into his misogyny, bigotry, and xenophobia making the MAGA movement seem like a cult. It’s really been remarkable that he’s been able to mold his movement into a monolithic entity that appears to speak with one voice, always loyal to their leader – no matter that he has never kept a single promise that benefits the bottom ninety percent of his base.

Trump’s apparently Teflon-like hold on his base has been what made it so intimidating to opponents. Imagine having the power to silence an opponent by merely threatening to have his gangster-like friends stage a primary fight before the next election. That worked for him for nearly ten years, and like any committed, power-crazed narcissist, he believed it always would. But Trump’s disdain for science and technology, and his fantasy that America is better off without immigrants caused him to cozy up to the real oligarchs who run our biggest corporations. They’re turning out not to be the easy marks the rest of his base are.

The most recognizable of the group is Elon Musk. He is an unquestioned genius, and a businessman who knows how to get things done without cheating and cutting corners. He is reputed to be the richest person in the world, ruthless, and completely lacking empathy, compassion, boundaries, or filters. In that, he mirrors much of Trump’s image of himself. And therein lies the problem that threatens to splinter the Trump administration into ineffective warring factions even before it gets off the ground.

Trump might have been able to buy Musk’s loyalty by erasing all government control over the information and technology sectors of our corporate economy and by clearing the way for him to take over the privatization of government functions that could yield profits greater than many national economies. But that loyalty will always be transactional, and Musk has shown that he will never bend the ideological knee to Trump or anyone else. Like Trump, Musk has his own following – of tech billionaires who, together, can wield as much power and influence as most nations.

Now that Trump’s coalition of MAGA loyalists and convenient allies who stood to profit hugely from his victory have one, we’re seeing signs that the two factions sharply disagree on much of Trump’s platform. Musk and his allies, for example, believe in science and support huge investments in education, especially math, science, and engineering. They also recognize that without a constant influx of immigrants and foreign workers, much of our economy would collapse, and the industries that survived would never be able to stand up to competition from China.

While Trump seems to have no interest in governing responsibly, Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and others like them believe in getting things accomplished. They may have as little regard for the average American as Trump does, but when they succeed, their success positively affects millions of us. They have already thrown down the gauntlet against much of Trump’s MAGA philosophy whose only strength lay in getting him elected, and which, if somehow translated into policy, would do great harm to our economy and international standing, both of which would be extremely costly to the oligarchs who supported him.

Trump’s pandering has resulted in the same kind of chaos and disruption within the party he commandeered that he created among his opponents. Keep in mind that in today’s politics a president has only twenty-two months to achieve his goals before the voters weigh in to choose a new Congress. It shouldn’t take nearly that long for the MAGA base to realize that Trump has no clue how to reduce the price of groceries. That should make the next six months a lot more entertaining than many of us expected.

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I Love Donald Trump, but…

Posted on December 20, 2024 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, December 20, 2024

…I love my country more. Those were the words of a right-wing extremist in the House of Representatives, explaining why he voted against Trump’s insistence on suspending the debt ceiling for two years, as the price of keeping the government operating. That’s as positive a development as we could have hoped for, given Trump’s loud rhetoric about having absolute power and undermining the protections in the Constitution.

The debt ceiling, which for decades has been treated like a formality without real substance, is the maximum amount of debt the federal government can incur. It is set each year by Congress, although the White House usually makes its views on the subject clear. Why does Trump want to suspend it? In fact, he wants far more than to suspend it for two years – he wants to abolish it.

With no debt limit, the government could spend as much as it wished, without regard to how the debt would be paid off or how the interest on the debt would affect other discretionary spending on things like social security and health care. If our leaders always prioritized responsible spending and stabilizing the economy at all income levels, the question of doing away with the debt ceiling would never arise. In reality, however, most presidents have their own ideologies or agendas, and Trump’s depends on being completely unfettered in how he dispenses trillions of dollars, to whom, and for what.

Using Trump’s own promises, it’s perfectly clear that his top priority is renewing the 2017 tax cuts, 85% of which, according to most sources, benefitted the extremely wealthy. Trump believes in an oligarchal form of government, in which the wealthiest Americans have all the power, and almost all of the nation’s wealth. The clearest sign of this is the proposed Department of Government Efficiency, which would be headed by two billionaires, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswami, who heavily financed Trump’s campaign and stand to profit hugely if the debt ceiling goes away.

The primary reason they want the debt limited suspended for two years until they can make it permanent is that the 2017 tax cuts added more than 3 trillion dollars to the national debt, and the cuts Trump would like to make to benefit the wealthy now would have a similar effect. The way the right wing plays the game, they would use the lack of a debt ceiling to borrow whatever they need to fund their government takeover, including passing additional tax cuts, raising the national debt so high that the interest on the debt alone would overwhelm most discretionary spending in the federal budget. According to Trump’s plan, when the Right started screaming about the size of the debt, Trump’s team would respond, claiming it was the only way they could, by killing off departments they don’t like (Education, Environmental Protection) and starving everything they consider entitlements (welfare, health care, child nutrition) by drastically slashing their budgets.

Had Congress caved on Trump’s demand, it would have been viewed as the first step in a successful dissolution of our representative government. The gloves would have instantly come off concerning Trump’s real intentions for the future of America. In my view, it would have resulted in a shockingly quick slide down the slippery slope into economic chaos and the death of the democracy we all grew up under.

My followers have noticed that I’ve been silent since a couple of weeks after the election. Like everyone else, I needed to take a step back, and there was so much was in flux, there wasn’t anything of substance to comment on. The one thing I was waiting to see was whether there was enough integrity left among Republicans in Congress for them to stand up for the Constitution every time Trump tried to weaken it. Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who despite his protestations, did more than anyone to enable Trump by stacking the federal courts with right-wing judges, uttered some unconvincing words about how being out of the leadership liberated him from having to support Trump. Senators John Thune and John Cronyn, who now lead the Senate Republicans, also took positive action to slow the Trump juggernaut by refusing to allow him to seat his Cabinet with recess appointments. One of the principal functions granted to the Senate by the Constitution was Advice and Consent on major presidential appointments.

I greeted the actions by the House and Senate with a cautious sigh of relief. It’s been clear since Election Day that the only defense against Trump consolidating more power than the Constitution allows was the courage and integrity of Congressional Republicans, despite the fact that all of them supported Trump. I’ve been waiting to hear the words, “I love Donald Trump but I love my country more.” Without them, I’d have found nothing worth writing about.

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Creative Reawakening

Posted on December 12, 2024 by alanpzendell

A guest post by Ed Carter, December 12, 2024

Ignite Your Imagination: Strategies for a Creative Reawakening

Recharging your creativity is like resetting your internal compass, guiding you back to your imaginative roots. As you rekindle your creative spark, you’ll rediscover the joy and passion that first drew you to your creative pursuits. It’s about stepping back to leap forward, invigorated and inspired.

Embrace Playfulness to Open Your Mind

Introducing play into your routine isn’t just for kids—it’s a fantastic strategy for adults to unwind and discover new creative avenues. Engage in enjoyable activities like games, arts, or spontaneous fun to let your brain roam freely without constraints. This unstructured play encourages your mind to form innovative connections, free from the pressure of results. Adopting this playful approach can dismantle creative barriers, enabling expansive and original thinking.

Create Time for Uninterrupted Creativity

The modern world’s hustle can overshadow your creative impulses, making it crucial to carve out dedicated time for creativity. Establish blocks of time devoid of distractions such as calls or notifications, fostering a space where your imagination can thrive. This commitment to uninterrupted creativity ensures your ideas fully blossom, allowing for a richer exploration of your creative landscape. As you habituate to this scheduled solitude, you’ll notice a more spontaneous flow of inspiration.

Reconnect with Childhood Joys

One of the most effective ways to tap back into your creativity is by engaging in activities you loved as a child. Childhood is a time when our imaginations were limitless, and we were driven by curiosity and wonder. Whether it’s drawing, building with blocks, or immersing yourself in a good book, revisiting these activities can bring back that sense of joy and playfulness. These moments of nostalgia can remind you of the endless possibilities that exist, helping to rekindle your creativity.

Expand Creativity by Starting Your Own Business

Embarking on the entrepreneurial path unleashes your creative potential, as starting your own business demands innovation and strategic thinking. This journey not only hones your problem-solving skills but also enriches your professional growth. Identify your idea, develop a business plan, register your business, and secure financing. Opting to form an LLC can shield your personal assets and streamline your tax obligations. Registering your LLC with ZenBusiness simplifies the setup process, letting you focus more on the creative flourish of your business adventure.

Unlock Your Emotions with Art 

Art serves as a profound therapeutic mechanism, allowing you to express feelings that words sometimes cannot. Engaging in artistic endeavors such as painting, sketching, or sculpting can tap into deep-seated emotions, unveiling layers of creativity. Concentrating on the artistic process rather than the outcome helps explore your innermost thoughts and feelings. This non-judgmental expression liberates your creativity, leading to the discovery of innovative ideas and viewpoints.

Use Dreams as a Source of Inspiration

Dreams are a rich wellspring of creativity, with your subconscious weaving complex tales even as you sleep. Maintaining a dream journal helps preserve these ephemeral insights, capturing them before they fade at dawn. Analyzing your dreams can reveal unexpected creative insights and narratives that can enrich your waking thoughts. This practice offers a unique window into your subconscious, tapping into the raw and unedited streams of your imagination.

Step Away from Screens to Clear Your Mind

The omnipresence of screens in daily life can overwhelm and suppress your creative faculties. Regularly disconnecting from digital devices is vital for mental rejuvenation and fostering creativity. Engaging in screen-free activities like walks in nature or quiet reflection provides the mental space necessary for daydreaming and idea generation. This detachment from digital distractions is essential for cultivating a fertile ground for new thoughts and innovations.

Write Without Structure

Writing is one of the most powerful tools for releasing creativity. However, overthinking grammar and structure can hold you back from expressing spontaneous thoughts. Set aside time to write without editing or censoring yourself. Let your words flow without judgment, knowing that there’s no need for perfection. This kind of free writing can help you tap into unexpected ideas and unleash your imagination in ways you hadn’t anticipated.

Revitalizing your creativity is an ongoing journey that requires curiosity, patience, and a bit of courage. Each step you take to rejuvenate your imaginative spirit enriches your life, infusing it with new colors and perspectives. Embrace this process, and watch as your world expands with endless creative possibilities.

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The Silent Battle for Our Country’s Future

Posted on November 21, 2024 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, November 21, 2024

Sixteen days after the election of Donald Trump, I was still doing what half of America is doing, avoiding looking at any kind of media coverage except an occasional peek to be sure it wasn’t time to be running for our bomb shelters. Today, I boldly went where many people I know fear to tread: the CNN website. Why CNN? Because they seem to be the least extreme of the major broadcast news services.

What I saw was a virtual horror show. Ukraine has been launching British long-range missiles into Russia, while Ukraine is accusing Russia of firing an ICBM at Dnipro, a city of more than a million inhabitants. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and high-ranking Hamas official, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri. Using the Trump playbook, Netanyahu called the warrant absurd and antisemitic. At least he didn’t scream, “Witch hunt!”

Closer to home, the deadly game of chicken known as the Trump transition agenda continued. We don’t need pundits to explain it. Trump is proving that while he lies about almost everything when in it’s in his interest to do so, he was telling the absolute truth when he described what his administration would be like.

Four things emerged from today’s headlines. Trump intends to fill his cabinet with people who have demonstrated undying loyalty to him, rather than the Constitution. Trump has no interest in the qualifications or competence of the people he’s nominating. He seems to have a special soft spot for people accused of sex crimes, and he’s thrown down the gauntlet demanding that the Congress waive its role in setting up the new administration.

Trump’s pick for Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, the co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment who became rich turning wrestling into a media empire, has been sued for enabling the sexual exploitation of 13-15 year-old children. The suit is as yet unresolved, but seriously? Matt Gaetz, whose only qualification for being Attorney General was an unbroken record of being a vicious attack dog for Trump, realized there was so much damaging evidence against him for his own alleged sex crimes, including sex with minors, even Trump couldn’t save him. He withdrew his name from consideration.

More information keeps emerging about the worm-eaten mind of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Trump’s pick to head the Department of Health and Human Services. In addition to being a virulent anti-vaxer, Kennedy promoted the theory, in 2020, that COVID was staged by the federal government. After a decade of blasting Trump for his fascist tendencies – he said the only difference between Trump and Hitler was that Hitler cared about policy – he now regrets that he was taken in by the liberal media, and wishes he’d never said those things.

Wait – there’s more. Trump’s choice for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, whose only qualification for being in charge of the most lethal military in the world is sucking up to Trump on The Fox News Channel, has also been accused of sexual assault, in his case, against a woman. He denies the charge, although his attorney acknowledged that he settled the case with his accuser by paying her off and getting her to sign a confidentiality agreement. I always preach caution using statistics to infer trends, but I’d say there’s a creepy pattern here. Trump seems strongly attracted to sex offenders.

Everything I saw today says Trump intends, AS HE REPEATEDLY TOLD US, to be the worst possible version of himself for the next four years. What I did not see was a reminder that our Founders anticipated this when they created three co-equal branches of government for the sole purpose of preventing a president from becoming a dictator. Trump believes his Supreme Court picks neutralized the Judiciary. As always, loyalty to him was all-important, but I wouldn’t be certain that his ultra-conservative justices will be willing to tear up the Constitution.

More importantly, the Congress, specifically the Senate, has the constitutional responsibility to Advise and Consent. The new Republican Senate majority has a choice. They can do their duty and uphold their oath to the Constitution, or fold under pressure like the rest of their spineless colleagues. That silent struggle may be what determines the future of our country. Senators John Cornyn (R, TX) and newly elected Majority Leader John Thune (R, ND) represent the first real challenge to Trump. He demanded that Senate Republicans elect Rick Scott (R, FL) Majority Leader, and their selection of Thune was widely interpreted as a signal that integrity still lived in the Senate.

This couldn’t be more critical. Trump is pressuring the Senate to allow him to fill his Cabinet with recess appointments which would bypass them. If Thune backs down, there will not be a single guardrail left in government to stop Trump’s stampede to autocracy.

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Deporting 11 Million Migrants

Posted on November 13, 2024 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, November 13, 2024

Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s designated pick for Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Immigration thinks deporting 11 million migrants is easy. I heard him speak about rounding people up, putting them on buses, driving them to an airport staging area and loading them onto waiting planes. He sounded like a corporate rancher describing taking his herd of cattle to a slaughterhouse. Not an ounce of compassion or understanding that almost all of the people he’s trying to exile are hard-working, decent people who came here because they couldn’t support their families in their home countries.

Even if Stephen Miller were a decent person who cared, his over-simplification of the deportation process has serious problems associated with it. It’s no secret to anyone involved with immigration or migrants that the reason we do not have a workable border and immigration policy is that except for politicians, no one has really wanted one. Too many Americans benefit from our current, relatively unregulated system. This was once true only in the border states, California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, but it’s now the case throughout the country.

Four major industries depend on those migrants for their survival. Agriculture, restaurants (the hospitality industry in general,) landscaping, and domestic services could not exist in the form they do today without them. Migrants are a source of cheap labor that cannot be replaced. Migrants’ wages are whatever an employer is willing to pay because there is a virtually endless supply of labor, and migrants don’t get leave or health care benefits, although they pay billions in taxes.

The 2024 election established new minimum wage levels in several states. In California, for example, the corporate minimum wage in 2025 will be either $17 or $18 per hour depending on the size of the business, and locally, minimum wages can exceed $20 per hour. For restaurants, that will mean a culling out of all but the most successful venues with clienteles who can afford to pay the bills. It’s a principal reason that fast food chains like McDonald’s are struggling financially and losing customers. And mid-range, everyday places you take your family to will be hurt most.

Inflation has already caused a nationwide crisis in the restaurant industry with sales far below previous years and many small business owners having had to close their doors. Add in the loss of cheap labor, and the scarcity of Americans willing to work those jobs at all, and politicians, particularly Republicans from whom Trump expects unquestioned loyalty who have built their careers claiming to support small businesses will have some difficult choices to make.

The most noticeable problems will be in agriculture. Can you imagine what will happen to food prices without migrant workers? Paying $18 an hour plus benefits to farm workers will result in an instant inflationary spike that makes 2021 look like a walk in the park. Add to that the scarcity of American citizens available to work those jobs if the migrants are deported. How will farmers plant, harvest, and market their crops? Beyond that, all the people who mow your lawns, repair your appliances, work as orderlies and janitors, and are always available when you need a handyman will not be there anymore.

There are also legal considerations, about which I am hardly an expert, but I’m not sure anyone is when discussing a subject that has few legal precedents. There are human rights issues, conflicts between states and between state and federal policy. Trump expects his hand-picked Supreme Court Justices to abrogate their responsibility to the Constitution and climb aboard the train of loyalists. But he may be in for a surprise. He chose three judges he knew would vote to annul Roe v Wade, but it’s just possible with that issue behind them, Trump may find that his justices, Amy Coney Barrett in particular, actually care about Justice as it is defined in the Constitution.

Trump knows he has to get his big acts done in eighteen months, before the 2026 midterms. The only way he can do that is to find a way to bypass both the Congress and the Courts, in other words, to undermine all the checks and balances in our Constitution. He will undoubtedly try. If there are any responsible Republicans left in Congress, he will not be able to steamroller them into submission. I’m less sanguine about the courts, however. With no accountability to voters, Supreme Court justices hold the most powerful and influential positions in the government.

We can only hope our elected officials and their appointees who swore oaths to uphold the Constitution are up to the task of preserving our democracy.

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