Cruelty Personified. For Shame

To read this compilation from The New York Times of international aid programs Donald Trump has stopped funding is a litany of acts of extreme cruelty. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/health/usaid-contract-terminations.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

If he is aware of the impact it is beyond belief he could sleep peacefully. If he is ignorant of the impact it is beyond shamefully irresponsible. Either way, he has disgrace the good name of the United States of America. We should all feel ashamed. 

Ostensibly, Trump acted to terminate fraud in the programs. But even if half of the money was stolen, the lives saved were worth the investment, then and going forward.. 

For shame, Donald Trump. For shame, America. 

U.S. Future: A Battle of Competing Values

As Donald Trump and his Kool-Aid intoxicated minions led by Elon Musk rip apart the progressive democratic values of the last 90 years, it would be instructional to ponder the values of the prior 90 years, from 1843-1933, and how they serve as a template for events in 2025.

Twin original sins darkened our history: slavery and the near annihilation of Indigenous Peoples, their culture and their major sustenance, buffalo. Even after the Civil War “freed” Blacks slaves, Jim Crow laws kept them segregated and deprived of basic rights enjoyed by White Americans. Meanwhile, treaties that protected Indigenous Peoples were ignored, their land usurped, their relocation forced.

Discrimination was not confined to African-Americans and Indigenous Peoples. Each successive wave of destitute immigrants seeking a better life than in their homelands—the Irish, Italian, Chinese, southern and eastern Europeans, and Jews—faced bias in housing, employment, education and the ability to attain citizenship. 

The forceful taking of land extended beyond the legal acquisition of the Louisiana Territory from France, Florida from Spain, Alaska from Russia, the Virgin Islands from Denmark, the Gadsden Purchase from Mexico. Texas violently broke away from Mexico and was later annexed by the United States. The Mexican-American War ended with the U.S. gaining territory that included all of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and parts of Colorado, Kansas and Wyoming. 

The 19th century was a period of industrialization brought about by the rapid expansion of the railroad, communication through the telegraph and telephone, and electricity. It was an age of Robber Barons accumulating wealth beyond the dreams of the masses who worked at the pleasure of their employer, with no minimum wage, no union protecting them, no safety standards and no funds set aside for their retirement. 

Pollution of the air, waterways and land, few if any public health standards, little compulsory education, and no national parks until Teddy Roosevelt was president at the turn of the 20th century, characterized the era. 

Trump is aggressively wiping away the legacies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal and subsequent legislation passed by Democratic and even Republican administrations to safeguard our planet and its inhabitants. Under Trump, America no longer will be the champion of good versus evil, philanthropy versus selfishness and greed, democracy versus autocracy and oligarchy, community versus isolation. 

We have two 90-year eras showcasing a dichotomy of bygone values. Despite Trump’s actions, which era we will live under for the next 90 years has not yet been decided. 

Fenster: A Recurring Story

My brother Bernie turns 80 today. Over this past weekend Gilda and I drove to his home in Rockville, MD, to celebrate with him. Our sister Lee flew in from Los Angeles. 

Saturday we went to synagogue. Ritual confirmation. Aside from Bernie having an honor reading from the Torah and having an aliyah, Gilda and I were given an aliyah, as well. 

That’s when the bizarre took over. Reading the Torah for an aliyah while we were standing on the bimah was a man we had never met before, Jeff Fenster. 

Fenster. In two previous blogs I recounted how an Israeli high school teacher misread the Delaney attendance card on which I had spelled out my name in Hebrew. Instead of Forseter he called me Fenster. Throughout my junior year he called me Fenster. It became my nickname among my classmates. That was in the 1965-66 academic year.

Fast forward to 2010. A notice from our temple said a man from Riverdale—Matt Fenster—was seeking bone marrow donors to treat his acute myelogenous leukemia. I knew nothing about him except his name and medical need. I felt a kinship with Matt Fenster. 

Gilda and I drove to the testing site the next day, only to be turned away because we were 61, one year older than the donor age limit. We gave a donation but were bummed out we couldn’t do more. 

A year later we learned Matt Fenster passed away, leaving four young children.

Fast forward again to June 2022. Our high school class scribe who keeps us abreast of happy and sad news of fellow alumni and their families sent a note relating that Leah Fenster of Riverdale, daughter of Matt Fenster, had become engaged to Gabriel Miller, the grandson of one of our classmates. 

Standing on the bimah Saturday I couldn’t ask Jeff Fenster if he was related to Matt Fenster. To no avail I couldn’t find him during the kiddish after services. 

Will Harriet Tubman Be Trump's Next Target?

Donald Trump made news when he ordered the U. S. Treasury to stop minting pennies. But I’m wondering how long it will be before he quashes the planned makeover of the $20 bill that is to feature abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the front of the bill, moving slaveowner/president Andrew Jackson to the back side? The new $20 bill is not expected to be circulated until 2030. 

Trump is, after all, not only trying to erase all aspects of diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) initiated by prior Democratic administrations, he also is a big fan of Jackson who, folklore says, notoriously disregarded a Supreme Court ruling that rejected Georgia’s attempt to control activities on Native American soil. The court ruled Cherokees possessed sovereignty over their land. 

Eventually the Cherokee Nation sold its land and the tribe was forcibly relocated to Oklahoma Territory in a post-Jackson presidency action known as the “Trail of Tears” that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Cherokee (https://search.app/Zdft3AC4tjYRKERT6). 

Much like Marie Antoinette’s maligned but never spoken comment concerning starving French peasantry—“Let them eat cake”—Jackson’s reaction to the Supreme Court is probably apocryphal. He is often quoted as saying, “John Marshall (chief justice of the Supreme Court) has made his decision, now let him enforce it.” But the first citation of this admonition “appeared 20 years after Jackson’s death in newspaper publisher Horace Greeley’s 1865 history of the Civil War, The American Conflict,” according to Wikipedia. 

In earlier currency action upon taking office again, Trump partially cast aside the likeness of the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, by directing the U. S. Treasury to stop minting pennies because their value is significantly less than it costs to produce them. 

Lincoln’s visage has been on the penny since 1909, the centennial of his birth. Honest Abe remains on the $5 bill. The initiative to honor Tubman began during Barack Obama’s presidency. And we all know how fond Trump is of anything Obama-related, DEI-related or not. 

Eggspectations, Expectations & Prognostications

Heard Wednesday night on CBS Evening News that if only one hen is found to have avian flu the whole flock must be euthanized and it would take eight months for replacement chicks to mature to egg-laying status. So, don’t expect the egg shortage with its resulting price escalation to go away soon. 

Unless … Dr. Trump brushes off his non-existent biology/medical degrees and decrees amnesty for chickens sentenced to death if only one sister is tainted. After all, you can trust his medical judgment. Recall Trump’s enthusiasm for swigging hydroxychloroquine and other pseudo remedies to combat Covid 19. 

According to CBS, “since the current strain of bird flu, H5N1, reached the United States in 2022, over 148 million birds have been ordered euthanized.” Here’s a look at how the bird flu has affected one family’s poultry business—https://www.cbsnews.com/news/as-bird-flu-ravages-poultry-industry-the-damage-spreads/.

Drug Cartels Are Terrorists: I wonder how long after drug cartels are designated as terrorist organizations will they be targeted by American military strikes? Trump has already attacked terrorists in Somalia.

Cartels are based in Mexico, Colombia and other countries south of our border (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/12/us/politics/state-dept-terrorist-designation.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare).

Don’t expect Trump to honor Mexican or Colombian sovereignty. With or without local government agreement, expect missile or air force attacks on suspected cartel strongholds. Ground troops would not be employed.

Hostage Release: Vladimir Putin couldn’t be happier. His useful idiot has returned to the White House. 

In exchange for releasing Americans innocent-but-found-guilty-in-Russian-courts on trumped up charges, Putin has secured the release of a Russian cybercrime kingpin. More importantly, he has suckered Trump into negotiating with him the future of Ukraine, with little if any interference from Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have signaled Ukraine would have to cede territory to Russia and not be a candidate for inclusion in NATO. It’s a win-win for Putin. With such a deal Trump is setting a precedent for a U.S. Big Power takeover of the Panama Canal, Greenland, and the Gaza Strip. 

 

Teach Your Children Well: As any Israeli, or student of the Israeli-Palestinian/Arab conflict, would tell you if asked, rapprochement between the two sides will be a loooong time coming as long as Arab schools continue to teach Jews are bogeymen. Without a sea change in curriculum there will be no hope for lasting coexistence, much less peace. 

Closer to home, we in America are about to embark on an educational journey backward to a time when our ancestors could do no wrong. They could kill native people and their cultures with impunity and take their land. Blacks could be enslaved, for after all, their lives here would be better than in “uncivilized” Africa. And when they were freed, it was okay to keep them in squalor, for, again, they lacked the intelligence necessary for a civilized citizenry. 

Under Trump, education curricula and library literature will be wiped clean of any inference that America is anything less than God’s Manifest Destiny gift to humanity. That is, gifted to straight white men and, perhaps, straight white women. 

Charging Ahead: Elon Musk is about to get a payback windfall for the $250 million he spent to support Trump’s election. The State Department has plans to spend $400 million on Musk’s armored Tesla vehicles (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/12/us/politics/trump-tesla-musk-cybertruck.html?unlocked_article_code=1.wk4.bQB1.yzF5URbn-dKX&smid=url-share). 

Aside from the obvious conflict of interest, the purchase is quizzical because Trump is negative on electric vehicles. Is he ok with spending taxpayer dollars on a fleet of electric cars? Are there enough recharging stations worldwide that accommodate Teslas? 

Breaking News: The State Dept. has suspended the plan to buy the armored Teslas.

The GOP Needs a Name Change

 It’s time to stop calling them Republicans.

They do not stand for traditional Republican values of the last 80 years. Ronald Reagan would not qualify as a MAGA mate. 

Correction. Actually, the Grand Old Party no longer reflects the even older values of Teddy Roosevelt at the turn of the 20th century, nor the values of Abraham Lincoln during the prior most extreme time of contention among Americans.

So let’s stop the illusion and call their cult allegiance by a new, more accurate party name: The Trumped. Or maybe The Trumpster Party. We’ll call its adherents Trumpists. Or Trumpers. Or Trumpsters.

 

The Trumped share none of the values and achievements of past Republican presidents—Reagan, Bush I, Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln. Even Nixon left a positive policy legacy by creating the EPA, engaging China and the Soviet Union. 

I wonder how today’s Trumped U.S. senators sleep at night? Because they surely were sleeping through the nomination hearings. Sleepwalking through their responsibilities as U.S. senators to searchingly evaluate a president’s nominees. 

The Constitution empowers the Senate to “advise and consent” on all nominations (plus treaties and declarations of war), but as a New York Times headline recently blared,  “G.O.P. Senators Choose Consent.” 

“The party-line committee votes to send both nominees to the floor for confirmation next week provided the clearest evidence yet that Mr. Trump’s pressure tactics and the threat of a barrage of abuse by his allies against would-be defectors had sapped whatever remained of a G.O.P. impulse to balk. And they suggested a broader impulse among Republicans on Capitol Hill — even the few who have maintained some degree of independence from Mr. Trump — to shrink from confrontation with him and allow him to have his way at the dawn of his second term,” The Times wrote.

Trumped legislators are remaining silent about the massive butcher knife Elon Musk and his youthful posse are wielding upon workers at departments as diverse as the FBI, USAID, and the CIA.

Perhaps they are keeping quiet because as long as they toe the Trump/Musk line they can feel comfortable they will not be primaried and, perhaps more importantly, they will continue to rake in their annual federal salaries, benefits, pensions, and speaking fees even as thousands of dedicated civil servants lose their paychecks and millions of needy across America and the world lose sustenance and hope that the United States has provided for six decades. 

So much for caring about others as long as “I get mine.” 

It’s almost impossible to read all the commentary analyzing the impact Trump’s assault on federal programs will have on ordinary Americans, in blue states and red ones. My desire to keep my sanity limits my reading. 

Let’s consider the effects of cutting healthcare benefits and neutering clean energy project funding. 

As Aaron Carroll, president of the health policy organization AcademyHealth, wrote in The Times, it would be foolish for Republicans to gut programs that help their constituents find medical solutions. 

“We should be honest about these trade-offs: Families lose health insurance if we cut Medicaid or slash A.C.A. (Affordable Care Act) premium credits.” Children go without care. Clinics and hospitals in rural areas close. People suffer (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/opinion/medicaid-tax-cuts-republicans.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare).

Cutbacks in Biden-related projects have “put Republicans in the tricky position of defending a White House that deems money for clean energy a “waste of taxpayer dollars” while working behind the scenes to protect their towns from the loss of new manufacturing jobs, The Times reported.

“This is where we get a test of whether the Republican Party is a real political party serving its constituents, or a personality cult,” said Jason Walsh, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of labor unions and environmental advocacy groups.

“I expect thousands of people to be laid off, I expect workers to be furloughed, and I expect construction projects to halt,” Mr. Walsh said.

Sadly, we have repeatedly witnessed Trumped legislators opt to bend their knees before their master rather than protect the best interests of their constituents and country. 

Almost eight years ago, on February 27, 2017, I deplored Republican legislators for being unwilling to challenge Trump’s nominees. History is repeating itself. So I will end with a paragraph from from that blog eight years ago:

“The bottom line is the public should not count on Republicans to counter any Trump initiative no matter how shameful it is, how obvious a conflict of interest it may be or how any nominee might lack the experience or credentials to effectively manage the people’s interests.”

Four More, or Even More, Years

 I took a two week vacation with Gilda to visit her sister in Tucson. Anything of interest happen during my silence? 

In advocating the absorption of Canada as our 51st state, the reoccupation and annexation of the Panama Canal, the forced takeover of Greenland and the seizure and development of Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” including the permanent muscular displacement of its Palestinian residents, Trump is telegraphing his intention to be more than a two-term president. 

These musings-turned-into-must-have policies are not turn-of-a-switch realities. They will take years to fulfill. Doubtful Trump the Magnificent would relinquish control of these projects despite a constitutional limit on his legal, electoral ability to serve beyond January 20, 2029. I recently wrote I thought Trump would designate his son Don Jr., not Vice President JD Vance, as his preferred, designated successor. Based on his recent pronouncements, I’m amending my prediction.

Don’t rely on the Supreme Court to muzzle Trump’s trumpeting. His presidential power enhanced by the Court during his hiatus from the Oval Office, Trump acts now with knowledge he cannot be chained by precedent or public outcry or legislative prohibition. Even if the Court rules against him there is no enforcement power to make Trump bend his knee to its judgement. 

Trump is immune from prosecution. Only an impeachment and Senate trial with a guilty verdict could unseat him. But don’t count on that happening anytime in the next few years.

The only recourse to stop his gutting of the American government may be to sue acolytes who carry out his directives as they would have no immunity from court orders. But these would be drawn out processes during which time programs affected would shrivel while federal workers and recipients of aid would have to make do for months, if not years, without federal funds. And besides, Trump would pardon them, so they have nothing to fear.

It’s a bleak picture, one that politicians and media are talking about (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/us/politics/trump-third-term.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare). 

No doubt, Trump’s opponents would demonstrate against any third term campaign. And that, dear friends, would play directly into Trump’s trump card—his ability to declare a national emergency to institute martial law. 

“Martial law,” according to Wikipedia, “is the replacement of civilian government by military rule and the suspension of civilian legal processes for military powers. Martial law can continue for a specified amount of time, or indefinitely, and standard civil liberties may be suspended for as long as martial law continues.”

“Or indefinitely.”

Oy!