Aftermath
Today was day 45 of the first 100 days…. The dump has just begun. The perpetrators can say, “don’t blame us. You were warned”. But the first reaction is like being dumped on by an avalanche, or mud slide, or hit by a tsunami, earthquake or wildfire. Until it happens, you don’t really expect it, and when it hits, panic sets in and nobody knows what to do. Those who voted for this, or didn’t vote at all, were fools. And we’re all stuck with the results.
This is the unfortunate reality. The fortunate part of that is that the vast majority of those in the path of this looming catastrophe are survivors thus far, and we can react and we can respond, and the only question is, will we get off our duffs and attack this head on as long as we need to. The time for sitting back is over.
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I watched the entirety of the “show” in Congress on Mardi Gras evening, and the 10 minutes response by Michigan U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin afterwards. Then the snow began, and we were snowed in all of Ash Wednesday, not plowed out till Wednesday night.
I have one recommendation: Give Senator Slotkin 10 minutes of your time. Here is the YouTube link as recorded by Associated Press. Here’s the link to two earlier posts on this topic. [March 7, 2025: here is a crucial post received this morning, Thinking About by Timothy Snyder, “Antisemitism in the Oval Office”].
Here’s how I saw the speech, at least through the doodle on my note pad, which had scarcely any notes of the verbiage – there was nothing new. Some psychologist can uncover some deep meaning – have at it. Suffice to say I did not leave the speech feeling any optimism for the future, if this holds.
9-11-01 marked my entrance into the then-mysterious world of e-networks. This post is 24 1/2 years after the first group e-mail, and over 4,000 posts at this space in this tiny corner of the internet. I’m aware of the potential and largely unrealized ability of the 75 million of us who sought a different result on Nov. 5, 2024.
Here are the responses following the March 3 post. Feel welcome to add yours.
from Flo: We watched the program from begining to end. Trump is a total jerk! Wish the DFL [Democrats] would have been more visible.
from Mary: I am so in awe of those of you who had the stomach to watch from beginning to end. 24/7 TV and Radio being what they are I doubt that I will miss anything and that much exposure to highness would surely send me to a therapist.
from Carlo: We do not need to act like frightened children. We have the power to stop this Chaos. It is time to ask our representatives to do their jobs.
Following are the things that a president can and cannot do:
The Constitution limits what a president can do in several ways, including:
Making laws:
Congress has the power to make laws, not the president.
Declaring war: Congress has the power to declare war, not the president.
Overturning laws: Congress has the power to overturn laws, not the president.
Taking over powers from other branches:
The president cannot take over powers from other branches, such as Congress or the courts.
Sidestepping checks and balances:
The president cannot use executive orders to sidestep checks and balances.
The Constitution also limits the president in other ways, including:
The president can veto specific legislative acts, but Congress can override vetoes with a two-thirds majority.
The Senate advises and consents on key executive and judicial appointments.
The Senate approves or ratifies treaties.
The president can be removed from office through impeachment and conviction for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Please share.
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Republicans are again upsetting the American people with their Save ACT, where married women are going to be going to be required to produce their birth certificate to vote. THAT IS ABSOLUTE NONSENSE.
The 19th Amendment, passed on June 4, 1919, gave women the right to vote. No ifs, ands or buts, no conditions.
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Mr. Trump’s discussion about Canada becoming the 51st State is nonsense. The conditions regarding statehood are spelled out in the Admissions Clause of the US Constitution. Those conditions do not exist and are highly unlikely to exist anytime in the future.
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One thing I do not understand is why our representatives didn’t start the process of amending the constitution regarding qualifications for a person to run for president in 2020. The constitution states that a person must be a natural-born citizen, at least 35 years of age, and have lived in the United States for 14 years. That’s it! I feel some additional requirements are needed. For example, a person cannot be a felon, convicted of fraud, have bankruptcies, be indicted, participate in an insurrection, etc.
Amending the Constitution is not an easy process. It takes a 2/3 vote of the United States House of Representatives, a 2/3 vote of the US Senate, and a 3/4 vote of the states to ratify an amendment. The president is not involved at all except to sign it into law.
I remember debating whether 18-year-olds should have the right to vote when I was in the eighth grade, and I believe that was in 1958. It took until July 1, 1971, for the ratification of the 26th Amendment, when 18-year-olds gained the right to vote. I was told that that was the fastest-passing amendment in our history. I haven’t verified that, but that’s what I was told.
In my opinion, it’s time for us to update the constitution, and this is as good a time as any.
And I would like to state that we shouldn’t be afraid; we have the tools and just have to use them.
from John: You guys are made of sterner stuff than I am. I watched exactly 0 minutes of it – I didn’t wanna watch another campaign rally diatribe– turns out it was apparently an hour and a half of disjointed discourse.
from Jeff: “To the Great Farmers of the United States: Get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product to be sold INSIDE of the United States. Tariffs will go on external product on April 2nd. Have fun!” Trump said Monday on social media.
Trump, and I suspect many of his advisors have no idea whatsoever how the markets
from Dick: Am I disappointed that only a few people shared responses? Not at all. I’m very much aware of how numbers work, from long experience. If you didn’t respond, you know how you feel, and how you feel can be transplanted into action, which was the essence of Senator Slatkin’s 10 minute response to Tuesday night.
I’ve had a long-time analogy about our body politic – all of us – generally, which increasingly been intentionally divided into ever more polarized appearing left and right ‘wings’. I compare our body to a magnificent American Eagle, which to function at all has to have an entire functioning body. An Eagle with only a right wing, is not an eagle in any sense of the word, regardless of the strength of the rest of the body and control of the head. Eliminate or minimize the other wing or any of other parts or their effect, and the Eagle is dead.
Eagle at the Mississippi River near Hastings MN (at old Nininger) April 6, 2021 photo Dick Bernard
Even more important, now, is the fantasy of the bubble of, for instance, a divided Congress, executive and judicial such as we witness every day. Using the same body analogy, let’s say the body has a serious malady of any sort invading other organs – a cancer as it were. It is a fantasy world that, in the political example, a stronger Right (the winning body) can eliminate an apparently minority Left (cancer) (or vice versa), when there is a left wing everywhere in this nation and world.
We are all stuck in the world and country and state and town and neighborhood together. What are we to do when faced with an endless array of issues clumped together to get a ‘shock and awe’ effect – far too much to handle? My suggestion, which I’m trying to follow myself, pick the issues closest to you and do everything you can to make policy makers and others aware of them. There are 75 million of us…an immense reserve of power IF we choose to exercise the power for good.
The earlier those who seek to control the other learn this, the better for all of us. Will they learn? The rest of us have to teach them the hard lesson by not acquiescing.
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A single example: a narrative is that Social Security is at risk. Musk called it, recently and falsely, a “Ponzi scheme”. Social Security is financed by withholding (paying premiums, in effect) by withholding a portion of earned income for Social Security and Medicare. There is a ceiling on the obligation to pay premiums, which is very low for the very rich. Here is the explanation of the obligation to the benefit by the rich.
This fits in with the obsession with “Woke”, term endlessly and worthlessly thrown around. I had occasion to come across a brief definition of “woke” not long ago. It is presented here.Woke from Barbara Holmes. Dr. Holmes is a person with credentials. Read a bit about her here.
UPDATE March 9, 2025: Five years ago, mid-March, 2020, my ‘world’ changed: I think it was March 18, 2020, that public functions in Minnesota closed by state order. (I had planned to meet a friend for breakfast on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, but the restaurant closed early, and unexpectedly, the previous day.) As any of us around at that time in history know, mid-February to mid-March, 2020, was the time of reckoning about Covid-19, for even the most skeptical. Death was loose among us. It wasn’t until more than a year later, about May, 2021, that there was some confidence that we were past the worst of the pandemic and life slowly returned to normal.
This morning, March 9, 2025, I feel the same as I felt in mid-February, 2020. Something ominous seems to be on the horizon, and slowly but surely the warning signals are being sent. Will we listen, is the question I have. Are we facing a self-imposed political and financial pandemic which will claim lots of victims? I don’t know, neither do you, but I’m certainly paying attention.
Below is an opportunity to consider what we’re facing at this moment in our history.
Yesterday, a good friend of long-standing, a retired Professor, forwarded a post that came her way from Facebook about what I would call the “Musk faction” presently dominating the American government conversation.
The ‘meat’ of the post, begins at the paragraph which begins “Finally…”. I have made it more easily readable in pdf form: Follow the Money Feb 9 2025. I urge you to read this. Make up your own mind. Of course, your comments public or private are welcome.
(If you have a Facebook account the entire post from Feb 9, 2025 – one month ago – is likely still accessible here.)
So much bad Trump/Musk news makes it easy to turn away from the destruction of our US Government. It gets worse everyday. Remember the evening news at dinner time showing dead bodies during the Vietnam war? At what point do Americans rise up and say “enough” and resist? I don’t yet see this happening other than some protests at Tesla showrooms. Will live protests keep up with MAGA insanity? When will we realize that firing Veterans, Scientists, Doctors, etc., is as bad as losing soldiers to a useless war? Everyone loses.
So relieved to see multiple Trump protests yesterday around SF Bay Area and across the US. The Women’s March, and the “Stand-Up for Science” marches drew large crowds.
Good op/ed in the Strib yesterday about the boycott of Target and suggestions for better tactics by the author which are in line with the CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) from the 1960s. Do read. Also a few good letters, one specifically described how media gives “power” to one side or the other by its reporting, alot of headlines and coverage gives power , whereas in this case lack of coverage of the resistance removes power from it. Good point. My latest understanding is to every time tell people to ask: Who Benefits, Who loses? In regard to the Musk/Trump moves. I think people will find that in almost every case the beneficiaries are the oligarchy at the top who control wealth and corporate and investment power, the losers are lower and middle class people who rely on services. Cutting services or the people and institutions that distribute those services, creates a market for the lost services. The private sector is then called upon to handle those services. The controllers of the private sector then benefit, the users of the services lose because especially at the lowest level (they pay little or no income taxes) they get them essentially for free. You also see quite clearly a shift to consumption taxes, such as tariffs most recently that are plain and simple import taxes, that fall most heavily on the least well endowed of the population. I am sure this is all in Project 2025, and it is the mantra of Grover Norquist…what Trump brings is venality and crony capitalism in.