Thoughts for the Day: February 24, 2025: We can never forget.

We can never forget.

Every day members of law enforcement leave the house not knowing if they will be coming home at the end of the shift. We can never forget that they put their lives on the line for our protection.

Per the NY Times, A Pennsylvania police officer was killed while responding to a shooting on Saturday at a hospital in York County, Pa., in which the gunman, who held hospital staff members as hostages and restrained one with a zip tie, was killed by the police, the authorities said.

The officer, Andrew Duarte, who served in the West Borough Police Department, had responded to a call to the hospital, UPMC Memorial, the borough said on Facebook.

“Our hearts break at the innocent loss of life,” the statement said, adding that the West Borough Police Department had “lost a comrade and friend.”

Officer Duarte was one of three police officers struck by the gunman, who officials later identified as Diogenes Archangel-Ortiz, 49. The other two officers were in stable condition.

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Our Law-and-Order President

President Trump made a triumphant return to the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, gleefully recounting his acts of retribution against the Biden administration to a crowd of loyal supporters that included people he had pardoned for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Mr. Trump took a victory lap amid his wide-reaching efforts to reshape the federal government in his image…

We have escorted the radical-left bureaucrats out of the building and have locked the doors behind them,” Mr. Trump said. “We’ve gotten rid of thousands.” Mr. Trump later added, “I ended Joe Biden’s weaponization as soon as I got in. I said, ‘I’m going to hit him with the same stuff.’

A group of pardoned Jan. 6 participants stood at the back of the ballroom in which Mr. Trump spoke, cheering boisterously and holding up records from their imprisonment, chanting “J6! J6!” One woman shouted to the president, “Thank you for the pardon!”

“Thanks to that man right there, I’m no longer a felon,” Gregory Yetman, a former military policeman from Helmetta, N.J., said as Mr. Trump spoke. Mr. Yetman, 48, who had pleaded guilty to assaulting an officer at the Capitol, was serving his sentence at a federal prison in western Pennsylvania when he was released last month. Watching Mr. Trump’s speech, Mr. Yetman wore his old prison identification card on the lapel of his suit jacket

From the NY Times on July 23, 2024: Mr. Yetman, former Army National Guard police officer was sentenced to two and a half years in prison on after admitting that he pepper-sprayed law enforcement officers while a mob of former President Donald J. Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The sentencing of the former Guard member, Gregory C. Yetman, 47, of Helmetta, N.J., came eight months after he set off a manhunt in the central New Jersey suburbs by fleeing into the woods when law enforcement authorities sought to arrest him.

He surrendered two days later, and in April he pleaded guilty to assaulting, resisting or impeding officers during the Capitol riot, federal prosecutors said.

In entering his plea, Mr. Yetman said he had traveled to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, had attended Mr. Trump’s rally at the Ellipse and had then walked to the west side of the Capitol, where he climbed a platform on the building’s West Terrace, according to court documents. There, he acknowledged joining a mob of rioters that was encircling a group of police officers who were trying to defend the Capitol. The rioters quickly surrounded, overwhelmed and assaulted the officers from all sides, prosecutors said.

As the assault continued, prosecutors said, Mr. Yetman grabbed a canister of pepper spray, held it under his arm and, at close enough range to do damage, sprayed at the officers for 12 to 14 seconds, causing them to retreat and leave the area.

He then dropped the canister and, while retracing his steps, used his cellphone to take pictures and videos of the riot, as he made his way to another part of the building.

Later, prosecutors said, Mr. Yetman posted on Facebook about what he had seen at the Capitol. He blamed the riot on Antifa and referred to the police officers defending the building as “modern brown shirts” who had caused the violence, according to a court filing.

Shortly before he was to honor emergency workers at a Super Bowl ceremony in New Orleans this month, the president was pointedly asked why he had pardoned people who had assaulted police officers at the Capitol. His response defied the overwhelming evidence.

Quote of the Day: “I pardoned J6 people who were assaulted by our government. They didn’t assault. They were assaulted, and what I did was a great thing for humanity.” President Trump.

Our country is destined for trouble when one convicted felon can pardon other convicted felons and then be glorified by politicians for doing so. God help the U.S.A

The above is from multiple NY Times articles.

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Is there a pattern here?

The Musk/Trump presidency has no place for people who may hold them accountable for their actions. Consider the following.

· The I.R.S. fired about 6,700 employees — more than 5,000 of whom worked for teams that handle auditing and collections.

· Trump/Musk have eliminated 17 inspector generals and an unknown amount of solicitor generals.

· Trump/Musk have eliminated 6,700 IRS agents, over 5,000 were auditors and collection staff.

· Dozens of prosecutors have been let go from the U.S. Justice Department, as President Donald Trump's administration follows through on promises to retaliate against those involved in investigations into the Jan. 6, 2020, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

· Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth indicated he intends to fire the judge advocates general, or JAGs—the military lawyers who administer the military code of justice—for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. “Among many other things it’s the military lawyers who determine what is a legal order and what’s not.

The Musk/Trump presidency is intent on getting rid of those in government who have the responsibility of providing guardrails for the executive branch. Their message is loud and clear, “If you stand in the way of what we want to do, you will be fired”. Straight from the Orwell playbook and copied by Project 2025.

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This is as bureaucratic as it gets. It is not efficiency.

President Musk, via a late Saturday night email, has ordered all federal employees to take time from their overworked schedules and document in writing on a weekly basis what they did in the last week to earn their pay, or they will be fired. In his post on X, Mr. Musk said employees who failed to answer the message would lose their jobs. However, that threat was not stated in the email itself

For this to accomplish its objective, a whole bunch of other employees must take time to read it and determine if the employee is earning their pay or whether their job should be eliminated. Unless they decide to feed all the responses into AI and then have AI identify those who have no value. Even that takes additional staff.

Or do we take Musk for his word. If you summarize what you did no matter how worthwhile or how useless it is, you get to keep your job. If you didn’t complete the assignment regardless of the reasons, you are fired.

After much pushback from Trump’s cabinet members, supposedly this request has been rescinded, or has it? Here is the latest clarification as reported by the NY Times.

Federal personnel officials walked back Elon Musk’s demand that government workers justify their jobs in an email or face termination, saying that his request had been “voluntary.” The update from the Office of Personnel Management came after Trump-appointed officials at some agencies — including the F.B.I. — told employees not to respond. But confusion persisted: President Trump said workers who did not comply would be fired or “sort of semi-fired,” while Mr. Musk wrote on social media that employees would be given a second chance to comply or they would be terminated.

Based on my nearly fifty years of experience, creating mass confusion in the workforce doesn’t improve efficiency. FUBAR.

I wonder if Trump and Vance must file this weekly report to President Musk. Maybe they will forget, and President Musk will fire them.

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Is the Military next in turning a blind eye to the Musk/Trump presidency?

On Friday I made a statement that I believed the military will prevent a Trump/Musk overthrow of our U.S. democracy. I had confidence that the military leaders would honor their oath of office to The Constitution. After Friday night, I am not so sure.

Per multiple media sources, including Joyce Vance, Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the African American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an advocate of anti-racism training in the armed forces, has been replaced by Dan “Razin’” Caine. Caine is a retired Air Force lieutenant general, with none of the traditional qualifications for this permission and whose return to active duty from retirement will require a legal exemption. Trump made it clear that Caine possessed the key quality he looks for in all of his top-level appointees: personal loyalty. In announcing the selection he recounted the story of meeting Caine in 2018, when Caine supposedly said, “‘I love you, sir. I think you’re great, sir. I’ll kill for you, sir.” Trump claims he then put on a Make America Great Again hat. Laughing, Trump said, “You’re not allowed to do that, but they did it.”

Members of the military take an oath to the Constitution, not a loyalty oath to the president. The idea of loyalty to the Constitution is deeply ingrained in the officer corps and among senior enlisted soldiers. But principles can be undercut, and the concern is that is what Trump and Hegseth are putting into motion.

Hegseth is now making good on the opinions that likely got him the job in the first place. On November 7, 2024, in a podcast interview, he said, “First of all, you got to fire the chairman [of the] Joint Chiefs. But any general that was involved—general, admiral, whatever—… in any of the DEI woke shit has got to go.” Hegseth criticized chief of naval operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to serve as the Navy’s top combat officer, in his 2024 book, where he dismissed her as “another inexperienced first.” Hegseth’s baseless insistence that Black people and women can only achieve high rank by scoring what he characterizes as “DEI points” is despicable. And it’s belied by the fact, that Brown and Franchetti both have military experience that far exceeds Hegseth’s. They also have demonstrated commitment to the Constitution and our national security.

There was no legitimate reason for the Friday Night Massacre in the military. It was the slaughter of our integrity, our values, and our security.

We’ve watched the Supreme Court cave to Trump. Congress has folded, at least for now. The press is still trying to appease Trump at the margins to maintain access. But in each of those institutions, there are brave people who continue to try and hold the line until we can get to the point where the country can regain itself. We know that courage can be contagious. Now the question is, what will the military do?

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I cannot imagine how people of color in this country are feeling since January 20, 2025.

People of color are under attack by the Musk/Trump presidency like it is the late 1950’s.

From the UPI News, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has suspended its scholarship program for students at historically Black colleges and universities while reviewing the program.

Meanwhile, the American Bar Association has suspended its diversity, equity and inclusion accreditation requirement for law schools through Aug. 31.

The USDA web page for the program says, "The 1890 Scholars Program has been suspended pending further review."

No other information is provided and the USDA did not respond to a request for comment made Saturday.

The program "seeks to increase the number of minorities studying agriculture, food, natural resource sciences and related disciplines and provides recipients with full tuition, employment, employee benefits, fees, books, and room and board every year for up to four years," according to the USDA.

The scholarship program is intended for 19 of the nation's designated 1890s land-grant universities and Tuskegee University, and in 2024 supported 94 students at a cost of $19 million, WTVF in Nashville, Tenn., reported.

No information is available regarding the exact date that the USDA suspended the scholarship program or when the review period might end.

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Speak Up and Speak Out

This goes out as a challenge to those who voted for Trump in 2024 and to those who chose not to vote for president in 2024.

The Musk/Trump presidency has been in place for one month. If you voted for Trump in 2024 and his actions do not reflect who you are or what you stand for, I challenge you to speak up and speak out. I challenge you to write or call your congressional members with your concerns. I challenge you to speak out on social media that his actions and policies are not what you support. To remain silent means you support his actions. To remain silent means you share the Trump/Musk view for the United States. To remain silent means you agree with the following.

· Through their action Musk/Trump believe that people of color or women did not earn their leadership positions. They were put there because of DEI and affirmative action programs. They are not as qualified as white male leaders.

· Through their action Musk/Trump believe they can control the legislative branch by threatening each Republican member of congress with a “primary candidate” if the member of congress does to get in line with the Musk/Trump agenda.

· Through their action Musk/Trump believe that NATO and Ukraine are the enemy, and that supporting Russia is the key to peace in Europe.

· Through their action Musk/Trump believe that the people who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, where innocent of any crimes and their attacks on the police were in self-defense.

· Through their action Musk/Trump believe the U.S. has no responsibility to provide aide to other countries for humanitarian reasons. Aid from the U.S is contingent upon there being something in it for the U.S.

· Through their action Musk/Trump do not respect Canada’s sovereignty, and Canada should be taken over by the U.S.

· Through their action Musk/Trump believe that weaponizing the Justice Department is justified providing it is used to attack those who do not agree with Musk/Trump

· Trump claimed to be the law-and-order candidate, yet he pardoned over 1500 people were found guilty of participating in the attack on our Capitol on January 6, 2021, including those who injured over 140 law enforcement officers during the attack.

· Through their nomination of Secretary of Defense, Trump/Musk believe that our military can be run by a person with no background in military leadership positions. Nixon did the same with Robert McNamara. How did that work out?

· Through their nomination of Secretary of Health and Human Services, Trump/Musk believe that HHS can be run by a lawyer with no healthcare background. His only qualification is that he is a vaccine skeptic.

If the above represents the reason you voted for Trump do nothing. You are getting what you want.

If the above does not represent why you voted for Trump, you should be speaking up and speaking out to your congressman and elected officials. If you do not speak up or speak out, then your silence is your endorsement of the Trump/Musk presidency and the direction they are taking our country.

Please call your members of Congress today. The U.S. Capitol switchboard is 202-224-3121. Tell the operator where you’re from and the operator will connect you to your representatives and senators. I tested this out today. It is very simple. They will ask for the congress member you want to contact. They will then switch you to that office.

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Quote of the Day: “I pardoned J6 people who were assaulted by our government. They didn’t assault. They were assaulted, and what I did was a great thing for humanity.” President Trump.

Second Quote of the Day: "You can't take our country, and you can't take our game.” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after Canada’s thrilling 3-2 overtime win over the U.S in the Four Nations tournament on Thursday

Orchid of the Day: MSU men’s basketball team for their victory over U of M on Friday. The victory moved the Spartans into a ½ game lead over U of M for first place as the B1G season starts down the home stretch.

Onion of the Day: Elon Musk for his Saturday night email to all federal employees. Someone needs to put him in his place.

Lyrics of the Day: I don't know where I'm goin' But I sure know where I've been. Hangin' on the promises in songs of yesterday And I've made up my mind I ain't wastin' no more time

If you think you know the answer, send me your answer in the comments section of the blog.

Answer to Lyrics of the Day for February 20, 2025: House at Pooh Corner, by Kenny Logins

“Question of the Day: Last week President Trump called President Zelensky of Ukraine a dictator. When asked today if Trump views Russia President Vladimir Putin as a dictator, he responded by saying “I don’t use those words lightly.”

Do you agree with Trump that Zelensky is a dictator?

Video of the Day: Roberta Flack, may she Rest in Peace.

Roberta Flack - First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (1975) (HQ • HD • 4K)

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