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Debut Post for Hard Right Turn

Welcome, readers.

   This new category of posts will profile those who are resisting the toxic politics of fear being imposed by the current president, abetted by his kowtowing flunkies and fanatical followers.

One story at a time, I’ll chronicle what moves people to protest and how.

This administration ranks as one of the most dangerous events in our history, along with the Civil War, the Great Depression and the insurrectionist assault on the U.S. Capitol.

   During those first two events, we had the blessing of being guided through them by extraordinary presidents. Now it is We the People who must achieve something extraordinary: prevent a plunge into dictatorship.

According to our Declaration of Independence, this is our duty.

Even though the poor and powerless always suffer first and most, everyone will be harmed. This includes those who voted for Trump and the rich and powerful who aid him, all reassuring themselves with the comforting lie, “He’d never do that to us.”

   Dissenters must choose whether to resist, leave the country, suffer in silence or feign approval. Fight, flight, freeze or fawn.

And when it’s over, we must learn how to reconcile with one another so we become, finally, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

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Gutting world health in favor of a gilded ballroom only Trump wanted

Until recently, the United States was the biggest funder to the World Health Organization. Ten months after Trump announced the U.S. was withdrawing its membership, WHO just announced it must let go of 2,371 workers, about one-quarter of its workforce.

Trump estimates a cost of $300 million for the ballroom that will replace his unauthorized demolition of the White House’s East Wing.

That is more than the $218 million the United States paid in the two years of 2022 and 2023 as its assessed member contribution to WHO. In addition, the U.S. voluntarily gave $47 million to WHO’s emergency fund. Those two figures add up to $265 million. Total voluntary contributions from the U.S. in those two years amounted to $1.02 billion.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation chipped in another $826 million.

China’s voluntary contribution in those years was $41 million.

We now have sunk below even that paltry sum.

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/19/world-health-organisation-to-cut-jobs-due-to-us-withdrawing-funding

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualized-who-funds-the-world-health-organization/

https://www.statista.com/chart/33800/top-contributors-to-the-world-health-organization/

The U.S. Government and the World Health Organization
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To America’s eight richest billionaires: Buy yourselves some goodwill.

The eight richest people in the country could fund SNAP, which provides food benefits to 42 million low-income families and individuals, for almost two months by donating 1 percent of their net worth. This would amount to $15.79 billion.

Elon Musk, net worth $342 billion; 1 percent: $3.42 billion
Mark Zuckerberg, net worth $216 billion; 1 percent: $2.16 billion
Jeff Bezos, net worth $215 billion; 1 percent: $2.15 billion
Larry Ellison, net worth $192 billion; 1 percent: $1.92 billion
Bernard Arnault and family, net worth $178 billion; 1 percent: $1.78 billion
Warren Buffet, net worth $154 billion; 1 percent: $1.54 billion
Larry Page, net worth $144 billion; 1 percent: $1.44 billion
Sergey Brin, net worth $138 billion; 1 percent: $1.38 billion

The average monthly SNAP benefit is $187 a month per person. Households can’t have more than $3,000 to $4,500 in available cash (a bank account) and net income that is at or below the poverty line to qualify. The 2025 poverty line varies from $15,650 for a single person to $67,710 for a family of eight in Alaska, the state where benefits are highest. Trump is cutting SNAP benefits in half.

Jimmy Chen of Brooklyn, N.Y. started a company called Propel that provides a free app to 5 million SNAP recipients, who use it to manage their benefits. He has partnered with the nonprofit GiveDirectly to raise money and funnel it to people on SNAP.

For what would be a pittance to them, America’s eight richest billionaires have an opportunity to help millions of the country’s poorest, many of them children and seniors. We don’t need a gilded ballroom at the White House. We need those who have benefited the most from our economy to step up.

Sources:

https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/

https://www.newsweek.com/snap-benefits-november-2025-payments-update-shutdown-trump-10990656

https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/a-quick-guide-to-snap-eligibility-and-benefits

https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines

https://www.npr.org/2025/11/04/nx-s1-5587728/snap-shutdown-propel-tech-startup-cash-donations

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Trump’s $300 million ballroom: What else could that money buy?

How about daycare for the children of single mothers? The average cost of it in this country is $343 per week, or $16,464 a year. Even with just one child, that would take a mighty bite out of the single mother’s average yearly earnings of $39,120. Instead of a gilded ballroom, that $300 million could provide a one-year $6000 daycare subsidy for 50,000 single moms. This could help change lives for the better.

Or, that $300 million could pay tuition at community colleges, which averages about $5200 a year. Another 57,692 lives changed for the better.

Or, that $300 million could be invested in CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or WIC, the Women, Infants and Children food program. Another 42 million lives changed for the better.

That would be a legacy any president could take pride in.

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Trump is creating his own Praetorian Guard

First, he ordered 2,000 National Guard troops from Republican-led states to patrol the streets of Washington D.C. to combat a non-existent crime wave. Now, Pete Hegseth has ordered them to be armed, as well. (1) Service-issued weapons to these troops include the M16 and M4 assault rifles, a shotgun, the M9 semiautomatic pistol, a 7.62 caliber sniper rifle and a .50 caliber sniper rifle. (2)

Trump, a self-proclaimed “genius,” doesn’t know enough about history to realize what he may have done – to himself. Here’s what historians say:

“Over the years, the guard would become a dangerous threat to imperial power and emperors were forced to gain its favour in order to ensure their reign. In the 1st and 2nd century CE many an emperor was murdered with Praetorian Guard involvement, and once one of their number, Macrinus, was even declared emperor. The body specifically created to protect the emperor’s person had become his greatest liability.” (3)

Sources

  1. https://www.theguardian.com, 8/22/25, “Trump targets Chicago and New York as Hegseth orders weapons for D.C. troops”

2. https://www.in.gov/indiana-national-guard/camp-atterbury/ground-ranges/weapons/

3. https://www.worldhistory.org/timeline/Praetorian_Guard/

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First the card, then the monument

Now that Donald Trump has launched a website to sell ultra-pricey visas to the fabulously wealthy, it’s time to replace the woke Statue of Liberty.

The Trump Monument would be gold-plated, 152 feet tall, (one foot taller than Lady Liberty), made in China (like the Trump Bible), and depict Trump hugging an American flag.

Its inscription:

“Give me your rich, your greedy,

Your superyacht billionaires yearning to be free of taxes,

The overprivileged unconstrained by common decency.

Send these, $5 million in their outstretched hands,

A Trump Card visa for their golden-door access.”

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Bringing God into a government office

“With God all things are possible.” That Bible quote (Matthew 19:26, New King James Version) hung two days ago on the door to the Recorder’s office in the Lake County (Indiana) Government Center. It’s visible to everyone entering or leaving the building through the main entrance.

Recorder Gina Pimentel, re-elected in 2024 for a second four-year term, has posted campaign photos on Facebook that show her family posing in front of a church, or in front of a giant wooden cross (from which I cropped her three young children) and a post celebrating the National Day of Prayer. This is not a problem.

Making a display of religious belief in a high-traffic area of a government office building is a problem.

It crosses a well-established legal line of long standing between religion and government. I hope she decides to tuck it into a private area of her work space in the office, where it can’t be taken as an attempt to proselytize a religious belief in a place of secular activities that should be welcoming to people without a reference to any faith.

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Watch out what you wish for

Newsmax

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If you think Trump’s brown-nosed minions, billionaire backers and Project 2025 blueprint won’t hurt you, read these books and view the video linked below:

“It Can’t happen Here,” by Sinclair Lewis, 1935;

“The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” by William L. Shire, 1960;

Illinois Gov. Jay Pritzker’s State of the State address, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS66O1C7Gp4

Your tax dollars at work
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Your tax dollars at work

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

Submitted online to endDEI.edu.gov, which encourages citizens to become snitches: “The U.S. Department of Education is committed to ensuring all students have access to meaningful learning free of divisive ideologies and indoctrination. This submission form is an outlet for students, parents, teachers, and the broader community to report illegal discriminatory practices at institutions of learning. The Department of Education will utilize community submissions to identify potential areas for investigation.

PLEASE DESCRIBE IN AS MUCH DETAIL AS POSSIBLE THE DISCRIMINATORY PRACTICE TAKING PLACE”

Thank you, President Trump, for this bold initiative!!! Black History month and Juneteenth are brainwashing Black children with propaganda that they deserve special privileges (“civil rights”) for not being White in a White country. And don’t get me started on MLK Day, for a womanizer investigated by the FBI for his ties to Communism. P.S. I can’t wait to replace that with Donald Trump Day!!! He can’t help it if women are overcome by his animal magnetism, and his sly cozying up to Vladimir Putin will save us from Communism!!! 

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At last: an honest statement from Trump

Being president of the United States isn’t good enough for DJT. He wants to be king, according to one of his posts on Truth Social, accompanied by a cheesy depiction of him wearing a crown.

Next, he’ll want an army of soldiers dedicated only to him, not to the Constitution. He’ll want to turn the White House into a tacky version of Versailles, with huge portraits of himself on every wall and liveried servants standing silently by to open a door or hand him toilet paper (wait: the king shouldn’t have to wipe his own ass!).

He’ll have so much fun designing the uniforms.

He’ll designate his youngest son, Barron, as the heir apparent. He and Melania also will get crowns. Should the taxpayers get obstreperous about this extravagance, while their medical benefits, food stamps and housing vouchers are slashed in the name of “government efficiency,” he’ll throw McNuggets at them much as he threw rolls of paper towels as “relief aid” to victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico while blocking $20 billion in recovery aid.

He’s not much acquainted with facts or history, so someone should remind him how things turned out for the last king of Versailles.