Ailantha - Blog

Sideshow Donald's Theater Of Cruelty

4/15/2025

Donald Trump, geriatric showbiz thimblerigger with ideations of self-grandeur, now President of incompetence and chaos,

...is putting on the spectacle of his life, a sensationalistic global extravaganza of economic calamity with his colossally foolish tariffs and the trade war he's declared on the world, a trade war which, according to political observers and historians, could well lead to a killing war.
And there is Donald Trump’s supporting cast of characters who've hitched their hopes for power and attainment to his star, making statements to the media in support of his economic insanity as if everything were going smooth as Jell-o and Dream Whip, as if his actions were ushering the world into a new era of prosperity and peace instead of setting the world on the brink of catastrophe.
Among these members of Trump's troupe are Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Scott Bessent,

...economist and former Trump advisor Peter Navarro, who went to prison rather than testify against Trump,

...Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins,

...Harvard PhD and Trump economic advisor Stephen, greatest of Trump's tariff cheerleaders.

...and others.
I’ve heard these people speak. Listening to them one would say they're serious people, Ivy League educated, highly intelligent and knowledgeable, top experts in their field, people to be believed and trusted.
And yet it's clear they're no more to be trusted or believed than the marionettes they are. I say this not because their opinions fly in the face of the opinions of every other reputable economist on the planet; after all, who knows, maybe they do in fact honestly believe in their own prognostications, and who's to say that it's one hundred percent outside the realm of possibility that Trump's tariffs and trade war just might turn out splendidly as they're telling us they will?
No, the problem is that while these Donald Trump's leading men and women are giving ovations and rave reviews to his performance on the economy, Trump is simultaneously producing and directing a horrific sideshow in which innocent people are suffering cruelly.
Under Donald Trump, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has turned into an American Gestapo whose officers have been using flagrant terror tactics against lawfully documented immigrants, trampling on their legal and human rights.
There was the incident on March 25 in which Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old Tufts PhD student in the U.S. on a Fulbright Scholarship,

...was jumped on the street by a group of ICE agents in black masks, seized,

...and whisked away to a detention center in Louisiana where she is still being held. Though she has not been charged with any crime or illegal activity, her visa has been terminated because last year she wrote a letter to the Tufts student newspaper sympathetic to the plight of the Gazans.
There is the shockingly shameful treatment of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent green card resident married to an American citizen, who was arrested on March 8 and also taken away to a Louisiana detention center for having led peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstrations last year. Khalil has not been charged with any crime or illegal activity, but his green card and legal status have been revoked and few days ago a Louisiana judge ruled that he could be deported, even though as a Palestinian refugee whose family fled to Syria then later from Syria to Lebanon he has no real homeland to go back to.

Then there is the cruelest, most heart-wrenching plight of them all, that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the 29-year old Salvadoran refugee with protected legal status, husband of a U.S. citizen and father of three, who was mistakenly targeted by Immigration as a Venezuelan gang member and seized on March 12 by ICE agents.

Abrego Garcia, who is guilty of no crime nor has broken any law, was sent to a notorious Salvadoran mega-prison crowded with violent gang members. And even though the Trump administration has admitted that Abrego Garcia was arrested and deported because of a clerical error, not the least effort has been made by Immigration or the State Department to have him released from that brutal prison and returned home to the United States. A judgement handed down by U.S. Federal Court has been flouted by Donald Trump.
In fact, yesterday Donald Trump hosted President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele, who calls himself the world’s coolest dictator, at the White House. The two dictators, who got along swimmingly,

...jovially agreed that Kilmer Abrego Garcia would not be returned to his home and family in the U.S., but would be kept incarcertated in the Salvadoran prison. Trump meanwhile floated the idea of paying El Salvador to build more prisons to which American criminals could be sent, "criminals" meaning anyone Donald Trump doesn't like, such as, for example, the former Department of Homeland Security official Miles Taylor,

...whom Trump has accused of treason for writing a letter during Trump's first term to the New York Times that was critical of Trump.
Nor has Trump's Republican Congress emitted a breath of protest against these outrages or similar outrages perpetrated against other innocent legal immigrants by Donald Trump's Departments of Immigration and Homeland Security.
And here are these Trumpian players on the world stage,

...singing Donald Trump's praises, delivering their lines as if Trump's economic show existed independent of his horror show of human rights abuse, as if the horror show didn't exist at all, as if his theater of cruelty were not intertwined with his theater of the economy, as if the two were not part of the same spectacle.
And as if these people didn't understand that a bad tree cannot bear good fruit any more than a good tree can produce bad. Or as if they never pondered what it profits them if they gain the whole world and forfeit their soul.

References

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/12/politics/trump-krebs-khalil-taylor-crackdown-dissent-what-matters/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/27/us/rumeysa-ozturk-detained-what-we-know

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/04/us/maryland-father-el-salvador-immigrants/index.html?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/13/us/mahmoud-khalil-deportation-ruling-appeals/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/10/us/immigration-detainees-trump-ice-students-visa/index.html?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc

https://www.msn.com/en-in/autos/photos/stephen-miran-the-harvard-trained-economist-behind-trumps-tariff-strategy/ar-AA1CEYQF

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-miles-taylor-treason-chris-krebs-doj-investigate_n_67f7024ce4b0148714528bcf

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-orders-probes-two-former-officials-defied-rcna200523

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Lug Stars To The Rescue!

4/8/2025

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Lug Stars To The Rescue!

...Continued from yesterday:
And so, not really knowing what else to do, I did as Matti, the hapless LG customer service worker who had the misfortune of picking up on my call, instructed me to do: I ate lunch. (see yesterday's post, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/abandon-hope-all-ye-who-order-an-lg-dryer-online).
In truth, I did not expect LG to call me back after lunch with an offer of compensation for me having to take care of the installation and haul away service LG had advertised (falsely) on its website,

...and had claimed (falsely) to have completed on the post-delivery paperwork I was given.

By that time I had ceased expecting a call or any compensation from LG (and to this day I have received neither).
Rather, I needed to turn my attention to the botheration of getting our old dryer hauled away so that Tom could install the new one himself.
We considered asking a big, muscular young do-it-your-selfer-type guy we knew and his big, muscular brother if they'd take the job.
"Don't ask the big, muscular do-it-your-selfer and his brother to do the job," said my daughter when she called me that evening for an update on my dryer drama.
"Why not?" I asked my daughter.
"Because," she sad, "if they're not bonded, if they don't have workman's comp and they get hurt..."
"Right," I said.
"But look," she said, "I'm sure there are lots places that haul things away. Just look on the internet."
So I took my daughter's advice and looked on the internet. I scrolled around and came upon a promising-looking outfit called Lug Stars.

I called the number on the website and talked to Dave, the friendly young guy who owns the business.

Being all talked-out on the subject of my dryer installation woes from having over the past week recounted it nine times to nine different LG customer service reps, I gave Dave just the bare bones of my story: that I needed the old dryer hauled away and the new one pushed against the wall so that it could be installed.
Dave then asked me if I'd like him to install my dryer, as before he started Lug Stars he used to install appliances. His offer was balm to my worn-out-from-b**tching brain, and I jumped on it.
Dave was able to schedule my old dryer haul-away and new dryer installation for the following day, Friday, March 28, at noon. However on Friday morning a thought that had been drifting around the back of my mind for a while drifted to the front of my mind: the thought of getting rid of an ancient vanity desk that had belonged to Tom's great aunt and had been bequeathed to us over 45 years ago.

I called Dave and asked him if his crew might also be able to haul away the old vanity desk. He said yes, they could do that, then he told me that as a matter of fact they were at that moment in the area of my neighborhood and he wondered if they could come over and do the job now. Like, in fifteen minutes.
For me, who had spent much of the past week on the phone on hold for far more than fifteen minutes waiting to be connected to a service rep, this felt like winning the lotto. "Yes!" I told him, "Yes, come now!"
Now, there was one hitch to the crew coming over now as opposed to the agreed upon time of noon, and that was that Tom wasn't home. He was out at a breakfast get-together of his old work friends. But to me this was only an itty-bitty hitch. True, Tom is savvy as can be when it comes to plumbing, electrical, heating, cooling, and all the household infrastructure and repair issues, and he knows how to talk the lingo with the maintenance people. I, on the other hand, tend to be in general ignorant as a mushroom about such things. Still, I figured that this would be a pretty straightforward undertaking which I could handle on my own. So I told Dave to send his crew over now. What could possibly go wrong?
I found out when I led Dave and his crew of four likewise friendly young guys down the basement to where the dryers were. "Ohhh..." said Dave when I showed him the old dyer. "This is a gas dryer. I assumed you meant you had an electric dryer."
Apparently I had neglected to mention when making the arrangements for haul away and installation that these were gas dryers. Apparently installing a gas dryer is akin to a federal project which Dave's crew was not equipped to undertake. I did not know that.
I asked Dave if he could just cap the gas line (I did know about capping the gas line; see yesterday's post) and haul away the old dryer, and Tom, who knew from gas dryers, could install it later. Dave gave me a definite maybe. Unless he was 100% sure that the gas cap I had would fit the gas line, he wouldn't disconnect it. And he wasn't 100% sure. For that matter, neither was I. He could, however, disconnect the line at the dryer...provided I was 100% sure that the gas shut-off valve was good and tight and he'd have to do a bubble test first. What did I think, he asked me. I thought I didn't know what he was talking about. And I was starting to sweat.
I absolutely hated calling Tom while he was at his work friends breakfast, but my inner lost three-year-old was now in ascendance and so I called him anyway and made the mistake of putting the phone on speaker.
What's going on? Why are they there now? Weren't they supposed to come at noon? Didn't they tell you they could do the installation? Let me talk to somebody! So barked my mate into the phone, unaware that Dave and his crew of young guys were right there listening. I sheepishly handed the phone over to Dave, who didn't look like he much wanted to take it, but did anyway.
Dave explained to Tom his hesitancy to disconnect the dryer, not being sure of the state of our gas line. They spent a few moments discussing some inscrutable gas line esoterica, then Dave handed the phone back to me.
"What should we do?" I asked Tom.
Tom let out a long sigh. "I'm coming home."
After I hung up Dave said, "Your husband sounds mad."
"Oh, no, ha, ha, no, he's not mad, ha, ha," I babbled on nervously. "See, he just, uh, he has a, you know, a big voice. But don't worry, he's a really nice guy, ha, ha. Why don't I show you where that vanity desk is?"
While Dave and his crew were upstairs taking apart the vanity desk I stayed downstairs and called Tom again. I asked him to please be nice to the Lug Star guys, as they were nice guys and young and it wasn't their fault I didn't tell them about the gas dryer and then told them they could come early. Tom laughed and told me not to worry, of course he was going to be nice to the Lug Star guys. I asked him what about his breakfast? He said he told his friends to watch his food for him, he'd be back.
By the time Dave's crew finished moving the vanity desk Tom still hadn't arrived home. At that point the Lug Stars would have been within their rights to be on their way; they had a busy schedule, and one of the workers was checking on the couch and refrigerator job that was next on their agenda. But they patiently waited until Tom returned in hopes that they might yet succeed in hauling away our old gas dryer.
While we were waiting Dave handed me a photograph his movers had found in the bottom of one of the drawers. It was an old forgotten picture of me (on the right, in the poncho and red slacks) with my Chinese Cambodian friend Sin, left, and my French friend Guenael, center, when we were in Granada, Spain during Easter of 1972.

"Looks like that was taken in Europe," said Dave.
"Yes, it was," I said. I asked Dave if he'd been to Europe.
Dave told me that he was stationed in Hanau, Germany when he was in the army. I then told him that Tom, also Army, was stationed in Babenhausen, Germany, and that I worked as a Department of Defense Civilian in Aschaffensburg, Germany. This got us to talking about Germany, which settled us into a nice spirit of gemütlichkeit.
When Tom arrived he and Dave in fact hit it off, chatting for a minute about their army days - Dave with Air Defense, Tom with the Field Artillery.
Here's Tom back in around 1973 on a field exercise in Grafenwöhr, Germany.

Then we all, Dave, Tom, the Lug Stars and myself, headed down to the basement to see if there was a fighting chance of resolving our dryer issue today.
Tom and Dave hovered over the dryer gas line conferring about caps, valves, bubble tests, exhaust vents, connections, tools, and such. Tom was sure that the gas cap he'd bought would fit over the pipe and, though Tom no longer had his pipe wrench, having lent it out sometime or other to someone or other who never returned it, he thought he could probably detach the old dryer from the gas line using a utility pliers I kept in a kitchen drawer for the purpose of getting a grip on recalcitrant soda bottle caps.
My soda bottle pliers did eventually do the trick, though it took Dave holding the gas pipe steady while Tom yanked and yanked at the nut that attached the dryer's flexible tube to the gas pipe. After much substantial steadying and yanking, the gas pipe finally separated form the dryer tube, all the while Dave's crew standing by like a group of attentive young medical residents gathered around to watch and learn from two experienced surgeons at work.
And so, with the gas line detached from the dryer and safely capped, the Lug Stars were at last able to do what they'd initially come to do, that is, haul away our old dryer and push our new one from where it had been left at the foot of the basement stairs over to its rightful spot next to the washer where it would soon be hooked up and fulfilling its intended purpose. Then Tom zipped off to rejoin his friends and his breakfast which, he later informed me, was waiting for him and still warm.
As for Dave and his helpful Lug Stars, far from being put out at having had to spend more time than allotted on the job I'd lassoed them into, Dave left me a coupon for $20 off my next haul away job.
And as he was leaving Dave turned back to me and said, "You're right. Tom is a nice guy."

Here's the Lug Stars website in case anybody in the Columbus, Ohio area needs some hauling: https://lugstars.com/
And here's their number: 614-816-5865

 Epilogue:
After he returned from his breakfast Tom got to work hooking up our new dryer to the gas outlet.

The job took him most of the day, including two trips to Home Depot due to this model of dryer requiring some special connectors.

Having now a better understanding (in theory, if not in practice) of what a gas dryer installation involves, it's become clearer to me why neither LG nor RXO wanted to touch installing my dryer. Of course, they were wrong to advertise that they would send someone out to install my dryer for free if they weren't intending to. Still, considering the know-how needed to remove and install a gas dryer, I'm grateful they didn't.

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Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Order An LG Dryer Online

4/6/2025

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Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Order An LG Dryer Online

On February 28, 2025, our 15-year-old gas dryer crossed over the bridge to wherever the souls of dead appliances go.

That same day Tom and I (below, in a considerably more carefree moment),

...girded our loins, so to speak, and immersed ourselves in the task buying a new dryer.
"Where should we go?" I asked Tom. "Lowe's? Menards? Home Depot?"
"Wherever you want," he replied.
I looked out the window at the bleak, wet February day and thought of an aptly descriptive quote from Sinclair Lewis's novel "It Can't Happen Here": a gray trickle of cold dishwater from Heaven's kitchen sink."*
"Say," I said, "what if we just stayed home and ordered the dryer online? People order appliances online all the time, right?"
"Whatever you want," said my accommodating mate.
So we spent the afternoon on an online dryer hunt and eventually bagged this LG 7.3 cu.ft. Rear Control Gas Energy Star Dryer with Sensor Dry.

In truth, the main draw of this particular model was the free delivery, installation, and haul away that came with the purchase.

I even read the small print, just to be sure:

As we didn't have any hardwiring, side venting, water line extension, propane conversion, or and other installation issues that we knew of, I figured we were good to go. Although in retrospect, mayhaps that last line, There may be some additional work or parts required that are not included in this service was meant as a broader umbrella statement than I imagined at the time.
But at the time all seemed in order. We placed our order for our new LG 7.3 Rear Control etc, etc, etc, Dryer on February 28 and were given a delivery date of March 19. Fine, we thought, we could go three weeks without a dryer. In fact we went into what I christened "Little House on the Prairie" mode, hanging up the laundry all around the house to dry on these cold, wet, winter days (see post from 3/18/2025, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/the-day-nothing-was-working).

About halfway through our wait time Tom received this assuring text from LG:

...with a drawing of the correct outlet needed for a gas dryer, which we had.

On Wednesday March 19, our dryer arrived as scheduled, delivered by the LG contract delivery service, an outfit called RXO. However, the RXO delivery kid, who looked to be in his 20's, informed us that he didn't have the gas hose in his truck that was necessary to install our dryer. Nor could he haul away our old dryer without putting a cap - which he also didn't have on him - over our gas outlet. He advised us to go to Home Depot and buy the necessary 6-foot hose and then call LG and tell them to call RXO again to arrange for an installer to come back out to our house.
Now, we probably should have realized on the spot the sketchiness of that directive. But alas, we were at the front end of the journey, and so Tom zipped out to Home Depot, bought the hose and, just to be safe, a gas outlet cap and a few other dryer installation supplies.
In fact, Tom knew how to install a gas dryer himself. He once replaced the gas valve and hose (whatever exactly that involved) on our old dryer. But what Tom couldn't do on his own - obviously - was haul away the old dryer and move the new dryer, which had been left at the bottom of the basement stairs, up against the wall where the connecting outlets were. Besides, Tom no longer had his pipe wrench - having once lent it out after which it was never returned - or the fittings needed for the installation. And better to leave the job to the professional. Who, per our agreement with LG, was going to come back and do it, anyway. Even though our post-delivery paperwork stated that the dryer had already been installed.

But we trusted. So on Wednesday, March 19, per the instructions of our RXO delivery kid, Tom contacted LG about rescheduling the hauling away of our old dryer and the installation of our new dryer. Tom was asked to please answer a survey afterwards.
The next night, Thursday night, March 20, Tom received a call from RXO, the delivery service, from someone with a foreign accent, informing him that RXO was not going to install our dryer and asking him to please answer a survey afterwards.
The next day, Friday, March 21, I called LG. I talked to a very nice lady with a foreign accent who told me - that is, after about a combined 45 minutes of waiting in line then waiting while she tried to sort out my situation - that RXO was not, in fact, going to install our dryer but that LG would reimburse us $50 for us to arrange and pay for on our own installation and haul away service.
To which I, normally a most non-confrontational soul, replied, "$50?! We already spent $33 on the gas hose! And besides, there's no way I could get someone to come to my house and do that job for under $200!"
The nice lady had me wait a while longer while she conveyed my response to...whoever...then returned to tell me that I would be hearing from RXO right away, and in any case to call back if I didn't hear from them in 48 hours. I was asked to please answer a survey afterwards.
48 hours - which would have been Sunday, March 23 - came and went. So did Monday, March 24. On Tuesday, March 25 I called LG back and got a nice guy with a foreign accent. After much waiting and back-and-forthing the nice LG guy with the foreign accent told me I needed to call RXO myself. I was asked to please answer a survey afterwards.
I called RXO, and after much waiting my called was picked up by a nice lady with a foreign accent to whom I schpieled my story. She told me to stay on the line, she'd transfer me to someone who could help.
The next person I talked to was - glory be - a hale, hearty, friendly guy who sounded like he was from right here in Columbus, Ohio. "Don't you worry," he boomed, "we're gonna fix you right up!" He told me to stay on the line, which I did, and I was transferred back to LG. I mean back to square one, "press one for this and two for that" square one. When a nice lady with a foreign accent finally answered I had to start my story all over.
This nice foreign lady had me hold the line while she checked with...whoever...and after a long hold she returned and she assured me that I would received a call from RXO before the end of the day to schedule the installation of my dryer. And could I please answer a survey afterwards. That was Tuesday, March 25.
It was on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 26, after nobody from RXO had called me back and my dryer had been sitting a week in my basement, still pre-born and uninstalled, that it hit me:

...This outfit is not going to install your dryer. Ever. You got baited and switched.
I was somewhere along in the five stages of aggravation - denial, anger, hair-pulling, b**ching and more b**chng, that one of my daughters called. I proceeded to bend her ear with my tale of dryer woe. My daughter was sympathetic and soothing. But she also pointed out something that had already occurred to me, that all these customer service workers, probably sitting in cubicles thousands of miles from me and from one another, didn't have a clue what to do, or the power to do anything anyway, about my dryer. And then she brought up something that hadn't at all occurred to me: maybe they were even slave or subjugated labor, forced to sit in those cubicles and field questions all day from Americans ticked off about their appliances.
I then wondered if the beleaguered workers would be fed if they didn't earn their quota of positive survey answers.
Anyway, I accepted that my dryer issue was not going to be taken care of by LG or their proxy, RXO. Still, I felt I needed closure. So the following day, Thursday, March 27, I decided to call one more time, this time to RXO, not to demand that they install my new dryer and haul away my old, but only to find if they are in fact strictly a delivery service, if installing and hauling is something they even do.
So on Thursday morning I called RXO, was put de rigueur on hold and eventually connected to a nice foreign lady who assured me that she couldn't discuss what I was asking her about, that I'd have to call LG. I repeated that I wasn't asking for service, that I only wanted to know if RXO did, in fact, ever do installations. She politely transferred me to LG, where I was connected to another nice foreign lady.
Well, as long I was on the line with LG I figured there was no harm in giving it one last shot. I started from the beginning and told the nice lady my long tale of dryer installation woe, from the promise of free installation and haul away that had initially lured me into buying an LG dryer which was still sitting uninstalled in my basement over a week after delivery, to the seven customer service reps I'd talked to so far, eight counting her, and everything in between.
After I'd finished my exhaustive jeremiad the nice foreign lady sympathetically informed me that she was parts and repair, but that she'd transfer me to online orders.
It was definitely not Matti's day, Matti being the nice young foreign guy to whom I was transferred (I changed his name, just in case, even though the name he gave me surely wasn't his, anyway). I was telling Matti my story for the third time that day, and my mood had definitely not mellowed. After I finished Matti politely told me I needed to call RXO.
Be kind, I told myself, don't take it out on Matti, who might be chained to his cubicle just trying to get a good survey so he gets fed that night. Anyway, I took a deep breath and told Matti that I'd already called RXO. That it was RXO that transferred me to him.
"Oh," said Matti. He then left me on the line whilst he went off into the ether to try and find the answer to what to do next with this livid, fat cat American lady and her dryer.
When Matti returned he told me he had someone from RXO on the line joining our conversation who would explain to me why my dryer couldn't be installed. I then found myself listening to someone who sounded just like Matti and, for all I knew, could have been Matti. Anyway, this RXO Matti sound-alike didn't really explain in any manner that I understood why RXO couldn't install or haul, just that they couldn't.
I'm sorry to say that I then went off on Matti Sound-Alike, telling him that this was fraud, that I'd been tricked into buying this dryer on the promise that it would be installed, that if I'd known it wouldn't be I'd have gone to Lowe's, that this was dishonest and wrong, and now what was I supposed to do?
Matti then informed me that Matti Sound-Alike had left the conversation. "Okay," I said, "so what am I supposed to do about my dryer?"
Matti sadly informed me that I'd have to take care of the situation myself, and he offered me some Byzantine logic to the effect that since the installation and haul-away services had been free, LG couldn't refund me anything. Because I hadn't paid anything for the service. Which they didn't provide.
I then did a repeat performance for Matti of the rant that I'd laid on Matti Sound-Alike, who might have been Matti. After I finished, poor shaken Matti told me to hold the line, probably needing a moment to himself to cry. He then came back and told me that LG would compensate me for the cost of taking care of my dryer situation on my own.
"Fine," I snapped (which I shouldn't have), but I don't want to be offered any $50. Tell...whoever...that I'll need at least $200 to have this dryer installed and the old one hauled away.
"Yes, yes," said Matti. "I'll tell them. Now," he crooned in the most dulcet and soothing tone, "you go and have some lunch, and after lunch you'll be contacted about your compensation."
Poor Matti. He was probably wishing he could go and have some lunch. I hope he did.
TO BE CONTINUED....
*I highly recommend that every American read "It Can't Happen Here," a novel by Sinclair Lewis written in 1936. In view of current events, it will, I promise, blow your mind.

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The U.S. Is Bombing Yemen Because...Why, Again?

3/30/2025

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Here's a quick quiz for you:
Where is Yemen?
Why are we bombing Yemen?
Who exactly are the Houthis and why are they our enemy?
Anybody know the answers?
I didn't, exactly. Like most of the country (I'm guessing), those questions weren't even on my radar until a few days ago when the SignalGate scandal broke after our country's top intelligence, security and military leaders and the Vice President used Signal, an unsecured phone app, to chat about - and leak about - secret plans for a bombing attack on Yemen (See previous post).
But after the initial question of How the heck could those guys be so dumb and careless?, I found myself wondering...But wait? Why exactly are we bombing Yemen? And where exactly is Yemen? Somewhere in the Middle East, I know, but where? Somewhere around Egypt, right? Or is it somewhere around Saudi Arabia? And who exactly are the Houthis? And why, exactly, are we trying to kill them all?
And so  I dove into trying to unravel and understand why the United States is bombing Yemen.
  After much trawling of the news sources,  here's what I've been able to more or less detangle:
1. Where is Yemen?
  Yemen, mountainous and war-torn, its people starving, it's economy, infrastructure, and food supply devastated by a decade of civil war so that it's now among the world's poorest countries, is located next to Saudi Arabia and Oman, two of the world's riches countries.

2. Who are the Houthis?
The Houthis are a Yemeni Islamist military rebel group formed in the 1990's for the purpose of overthrowing what they claimed was a corrupt puppet government whose strings were being pulled by Saudi Arabia. Over the years the Houthis were involved in civil unrest and government opposition and in the early 2000's the Houthis declared enmity with Israel and, because of our support of Israel, the United States.
In 2014 a coalition of Houthis and other Yemeni opposition groups succeeded in taking control of their country's government. However this coup was not the end of unrest or government dysfunction in Yemen, but rather the start of a civil war.
In 2015 Saudi Arabia joined the side of the ousted Yemeni leaders and launched a series of air strikes and other military interventions against the Iran-backed Houthis. And so began the Yemeni civil war that has been widely considered to be in fact an Iran-Saudi Arabia proxy war. Except that it's been the Yemeni civilians who've suffered, starved, and died.
3. Why Are We Bombing Yemen?
A few weeks after the October 7, 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel and the kidnapping of 250 Israelis and the subsequent death and destruction that Israel rained down on Gaza in retaliation, the Houthis, in a retaliation of their own, began launching missiles at merchant vessels in the Red Sea.

The Houthis vowed that the attacks against ships in the Red Sea would continue until Israel ceased their attacks on Gaza. This caused significant disruption of the global maritime commerce that cut from the Mediterranean sea through the Suez Canal to the Red Sea to Southeast Asia and vice versa.

In January of 2024 The United States and Great Britain began bombing raids on Yemen with the purpose of hitting Houthi targets, the stated goal being that the bombing would stop the Houthis from attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea and return maritime freedom to that waterway.
However, it appears that all the bombing has accomplished so far has been to instill in the Yemeni population, whose suffering has worsened with the bombings, a hatred of Americans.
Nonetheless, in the months since his return to the office of President of the United States, Donald Trump has greatly escalated the American bombings of Yemen. In fact, Trump blames the Biden administration for not wiping out the Houthis by not bombing Yemen enough.
Meanwhile, the Europeans have for the most part gotten used to rerouting their commercial vessels around the horn of Africa, finding that in the long run it's more economical than risking an attack while cutting through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, and that it's not worth getting involved militarily,

...leaving the military operations to the U.S. even though, according the information leaked by JD Vance, only 3% of U.S. trade ran through the Suez Canal/Red Sea route anyway.

And some of the Houthi missile strikes against ships have caused massive environmentally godawful oil spills in the Red Sea.
And Iran keeps arming the Houthis.
And Israel keeps killing the Gazans.
And the United States keeps arming Israel.
And the Houthis care about power; Iran cares about power via the Houthis; the U.S. cares about power, shipping lanes, empowering Israel, and de-powering Iran; and Europe doesn't much care about the whole mess anymore.
And nobody cares about the Yemenis.

Which brings us back to the original question: Why are we bombing Yemen, again?

But what's the message? And to who?

References:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/03/27/yemen-leaked-chat-vance-trump-waltz-bombing/

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/27/world/middleeast/houthis-yemen-us-strikes-reality.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67614911

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3WJ-C2gpDA

https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/yemen-war-anniversary-hope-end-suffering

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/yemen/overview

https://gfmag.com/data/richest-countries-in-the-world/

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Donald Trump: Secret U.S. War Plans Leaked? Eh, No Big Deal. An Unflattering Painting Of Me Hung On A Wall? HEADS WILL ROLL!

3/25/2025

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Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves - Donald Trump

I suppose there's no arguing with Donald Trump that nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves. But Donald Trump really flipped out - as by now we've come to expect him to do - in person and on his Truth Social website over what he felt was a bad painting of himself hanging in the Colorado State Capitol:

Of course, as we've also come to expect of Donald Trump, his facts are false. It was not Colorado Governor Jared Polis who put the painting of Donald Trump. Nor, as Trump appears to be asserting in his post, was it Governor Polis who put up the portraits of all the other Presidents that hang in the Colorado State Capitol.
It so happens that inside the Colorado Capitol building there is a collection of presidential portraits known as the Gallery of Presidents.

Funding for the paintings comes from private donations collected by a Colorado citizens' group who then commission the paintings. However, after Donald Trump was elected, not a single donation came to the group for a Trump portrait, and by 2018 the space above his name plate was still empty.
One time a member of a progressive activists' group snuck in a portrait of Vladimir Putin and put it on display beneath the empty spot where a President Trump portrait should have hung.

The prank embarrassed and angered Republicans and emphasized the fact that Donald Trump was the only President who did not have a portrait hung in the Colorado Gallery of Presidents. And so Colorado Republican State Senator Kevin Grantham started a GoFundMe to raise the $10,000 needed for a portrait of Trump.
The Republicans commissioned artist Sarah Boardman, who painted the portrait of Barak Obama that Donald Trump griped looked so much better than his,

...which, of course, it did.

But then, an artist can only work with the material she's got, right?
But here's the thing: that picture of Donald Trump has been hanging in the Colorado State Capitol Gallery of Presidents since 2019. Trump apparently somehow discovered its existence a few days ago. And, according to Kevin Grantham, and contrary to what Trump claims, there have been no complaints about the picture. People are not angry about it. People have other things to worry about in their lives. It's only Trump who has blown a gasket over his portrait. The same gasket he should have blown when he learned that his Secretary of Defense, National Security Director, Director of National Intelligence, CIA Director, Secretary of State, and Vice President not only discussed on Signal, an unsecured phone chat app, secret plans for a bombing attack on Yemen that should have been discussed nowhere other than in a person in a secured war room, but that the editor of The Atlantic magazine was included in the chat group.
And so now the whole world now gets to see it all, from the misgivings of Trump's military and intelligence team about carrying out the bombing at all, about their fears that the American public wouldn't buy why the bombing was necessary, about its real purpose being to send a message (but not to whom), about how to keep the public distracted by pushing the "Biden failed" message, about how to shake down Europe and Egypt after the bombing, about how these men, leaders of the strongest, richest country on the planet, congratulated themselves using kicky little emojis after bombing more buildings and killing more people in a tiny, starving, war-torn country that most Americans, if they've even heard of it, have no idea where it was or why we should be bombing it.
Here are some of the highlights (or rather lowlights) of the chat:

Did President Donald Trump, so bent out of shape over his portrait in the Colorado Gallery of Presidents, care that his top military and intelligence leaders managed to leak such sensitive material that not only could have sunk his bombing mission and caused the death of American pilots, but has caused an international scandal and made it appear that the United States is being run by a pack of incompetent dunderheads?
Eh, not really. Initially Trump made a few quips about technology not being perfect, about how good his Director of Intelligence is, about how almost nobody reads The Atlantic, anyway. He even brushed aside the whole incident with a joke, reposting a bon mot from a satiric online site called The Babylon Bee on his Truth Social page (though mayhaps not realizing that The Babylon Bee is satire):

But anyway, as for the bad painting of himself, Trump's Republican minions have, of course, already hopped to it to remove it from the Colorado State Capitol and they are raising money to commission a new painting that will hopefully be pleasing to Donald J. Trump.
In a functional Presidential administration the bad painting would be ignored and the bad cabinet removed. But a functional, capable Presidential administration is not what We Most of the People voted for. What they voted for was President Vanity Fair. And now that's what we have.

References:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/25/us/signal-group-chat-text-annotations.html

https://time.com/7271040/trump-portrait-colorado-state-capitol-polis-grantham-boardman-history-factcheck/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/03/24/trump-colorado-portrait-polis-capitol/82637703007/

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-s-baffling-response-to-group-chat-leak-raises-eyebrows-best-technology/ar-AA1BE66j

https://apnews.com/article/war-plans-trump-hegseth-atlantic-230718a984911dd8663d59edbcb86f2a

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/25/us/signal-group-chat-text-annotations.html

https://apnews.com/article/war-plans-trump-hegseth-atlantic-230718a984911dd8663d59edbcb86f2a

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/no-adult-supervision-concern-escalates-as-trump-increasingly-appears-out-of-touch-opinion/ar-AA1BMEMQ?cvid=6cbf3a98abce4e75b284b42f2533957a&ei=37

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Donald Trump Has Endangered The U.S. Baby Formula Supply

3/21/2025

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Donald Trump Has Endangered The U.S. Baby Formula Supply

 I first read about it two days ago on a Facebook post.

However I don't pay much attention to Facebook news, especially of the sensationalistic variety, unless it's referenced from a credible source.
And then yesterday I found that same alarming news from a highly credible source:

I then looked around the internet and found several more news articles on the subject of the risk to our food supply, most alarmingly infant formula, now that Donald Trump, in support of Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency,

... is cutting jobs and funds in the Food and Drug Administration's food safety division.
Among the cuts is a critical food safety committee that addresses microbial hazards in the food supply, including the bacteria that can live in powdered baby formula.
Or rather, that food safety committee used to address those hazards, until the recent email the scientists on the committee received stating, "Further work on your report and recommendations will be prohibited."
Meanwhile Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr., supposed safe guardian of our country's food supply,

...has started a government initiative called "Operation Stork Speed" to remove what he believes are unhealthy additives and "toxins" in baby formula. Except that from now on the far greater danger to baby formula will not be additives or toxins but the presence of undetected bacteria.
So R.F.K. Jr. is, in effect, making a great public ballyhoo over the ingredients in baby formula while ignoring the real and potentially deadly problem of the presence of dangerous bacteria.
All this is not to say that the rest of the American population will be any safer from food borne illness than formula-fed babies. The committee on meat and poultry inspection has also been dissolved along with the committee on microbial safety. And while in fact more food safety inspectors are at this moment needed in this country, Trump's F.D.A. budget cuts will mean even fewer inspectors.
Furthermore, scientists in the F.D.A. have been barred from using their government credit cards which, according the New York Times article, has slowed their investigation of the listeria bacterium in certain foods and "stopped some testing of grocery items for hazardous bacteria and monitoring of shellfish and food packaging," and "funding loss could slow the important work of taking bad food out of stores."
And so it appears that an unsafe food supply and more food-borne illness is on the horizon for us all, thanks to Donald Trump and Elon Musk. We should all be worried sick and mad as hell. Especially for the babies.

References
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/19/health/food-safety-trump-fda-cutbacks-deadly-outbreaks.html

https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2025/03/food-safety-leaders-express-concerns-about-recent-cuts-in-fda-workforce/

https://www.foodandwine.com/trump-administration-eliminates-usda-food-safety-committees-11693025

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The Day Nothing Was Working

3/18/2025

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The Day Nothing Was Working

It was just about a week and a half ago, in fact it was Saturday evening, March 8, that I took in the state of my domicile and cried out, "@#$%! Nothing is working!"
All right, that was mayhaps a bit of dramatic exaggeration on my part. Most things in my house were, in fact working. Except for the dryer,

...the refrigerator door,

...the WIFI,

...and the three new toilets we'd had installed earlier that day.

At the time it felt like a lot, though.
Everything didn't fall apart at once. Things kind of stopped functioning incrementally.
The first thing to go was our 15-year-old dryer. It crossed over the bridge of no return on Thursday, February 27. Though we got online and ordered a new one tout de suite, we were notified that it would be several weeks before our new dryer would arrive.
And so we went into what I christened Little House on the Prairie mode and started hanging laundry all around the house.

On the days when it was sunny and not too cold we hung the laundry out on our backyard clothesline. One day when it was too cold we hung some towels out anyway and when we took them down they were stiff as boards and frozen together where we'd clothespinned them to each other.

A few days later the refrigerator door broke. That is to say, the magnetic door-length strip that allows the door to close broke loose from the door.

Now the door won't close unless one carefully guides the strip by hand into the slot that grabs it shut. As this note on the refrigerator now reminds us to do.

On Thursday, March 6, our WIFI went out. Then it came back on. Then it went back out. And mostly stayed out. Tom called our internet provider Breezeline to see if there were internet outages in our area. The representative he spoke to assured him that all the internet connections in our area were functioning just fine. The helpful rep said he'd try clearing the flaps - or something like that - on our internet and that should take care of our problem.
Which it did. For a little while. But by the next day our WIFI had returned to on-again-off-again mode. Tom again called Breezeline and this time was told that the problem was our modem and that we needed to buy a new one with more bandwidth. Which explanation Tom found a weence sketchy (Me, I'd of probably bought just about any explanation anybody gave me, me being about as tech-savvy as a mushroom).
However, we had to put our WIFI woes on hold as the following day, Saturday, March 8, the plumber was coming to install the three new elongated, easy-clean water-saving state-of-the art American Standard toilets we'd bought to replace our old toilets.

By the end of the day we had three new cool-looking toilets in our bathrooms that hurt to sit on. It was definitely that ultra-thin, ultra-hard, ultra-flat toilet seat. It was quite stylish-looking and punishing.

We figured that new seats, those thick, soft, cushy ones, would fix the problem. So I zipped out to Meijer's, where there was a fine assortment of toilet seats,

...and I found just what we needed.

So I bought three at $32.99 a pop.

Soon my mate was at work taking off one of the old seats,

...only to find that the new one didn't fit. This high brow toilet that we'd bought was apparently too sui generis to accept a universal toilet seat bolt and would only tolerate being topped with its own sui generis seat. Which I couldn't tolerate sitting on and with which every toilet in the house was now topped.
That realization was the moment I had my existential mini-meltdown: "@#$%! Nothing is working!"
"I'll call the plumber," said my mate calmingly. "Maybe he'll have an idea on what we should do."
"Okay," I sighed. "And I'll call Randy about the internet." I'd recovered from my momentary meltdown and was now ready to take the next step in fixing a situation after whining.
"And then I'll go online and see if I can find a repair part for the refrigerator door," said Tom.
"And I'll go hang another load of wet laundry," I said.
The following morning, Sunday morning, our dedicated plumber returned and, wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, he was able to do some fancy drilling, converting, and adapting that made the soft, cushy toilet seats fit like a dream and solved our toilet seat crisis.

That afternoon our nephew Randy, an IT wizard, came over and informed us that the Breezline guy was full of hoggy, that we didn't need a new modem, just a modem reset (whatever that means), which he forthwith effectuated,

...and now our WIFI works like a charm.
The new magnetic strip for the refrigerator door arrived. (And Tom will no doubt get around to installing it soon).

And our new dryer is arriving tomorrow. Though, in truth, our current laundry situation has kind of grown on me. It's actually nice having the laundry hanging in the family room. It gives the room a pleasant, balmy humidity and a nice, clean, homey smell.
I may stay in Little House on the Prairie mode for a while yet.

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Making America Sober Again?

3/15/2025

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Making America Sober Again?

These are times that not only try men's and women's souls,

...but surely drive us to drink. I don't drink, but some days even I want to lose myself in the bottom of a bottle. (Though I usually end up settling for an old-movie binge).
But now, just when Americans most need a drink to steady their fraught nerves, the very cause of our national case of nerves,

...is throwing a wrench in the availability of alcohol to everyday Americans.
It started with Donald Trump imposing 25% or so tariffs on just about everything imported from just about anywhere in the world. For those who are still a weence foggy on what exactly a tariff is, it's a tax that a government imposes on imported goods. Exporters pass along the cost of the tariff by jacking up the price of their goods and therefore passing the expense onto the companies receiving their goods, who in turn jack up their prices to kick the expense of the tariff onto the consumers, who are the ones who ultimate pay for the tariffs. Make sense? Yeah, not to me, either. But in short: Trump imposes the tariffs, we pay the people pay for them.
(BTW, back in 1929 a couple of Republican legislators, Reed Smoot and Willis C. Hawley, introduced a bill that became the Smoot-Hawley Tariff when President Herbert Hoover signed it into law. It started with the U.S. slapping tariffs on foreign imports, which caused other countries to retaliate against American tariffs with tariffs of their own, and the next thing you know there's a trade war leading to that world wide catastrophic economic downturn known as The Great Depression).

But anyway, Donald Trump decided to imposed tariffs bigly (as he would say) on foreign imports because―well, I don't know why, exactly; seems it was just something else he wanted to do along with all the other attention-grabbing status quo-wrecking he's been doing. Europe then threatened to retaliate by imposing a 50% tariff on American whiskey, Europeans and Canadians apparently liking their Kentucky bourbon. However, many Europeans and Canadians, in a show of patriotic unity, are now boycotting American alcohol altogether while their liquor dealers are opting to keep it off their shelves.

Donald Trump's next shot in escalating this trade war that he started will be, he vows, slamming a 200% tariff on all alcohol products from the European Union. Which means that all the European beers, wines, and whiskeys that Americans love,
their Stellas and Heinekens,

...their Guinnesses and Jamesons,

...their Beaujolais and champagnes,

...their chiantis and proseccos,

...will cost Americans three times what they now cost. That is to say, a $15 bottle of wine will cost a whopping $45.
In response, American liquor dealers are predicting that Americans will have to cut back or cut out their purchases of foreign alcohol and some have said that they'll stop ordering products from overseas altogether.
The thing is, though, Americans drink a lot of imported alcohol, especially wine. Most of the wine we (we, meaning not me) drink comes from Italy and France, and can only be produced in Italy and France because we don't have the grapes or the climate.
Of course, the U.S. has its own wineries, but Trump's mass deportation of undocumented immigrants is threatening to devastate the American wine industry by taking away the migrant workers who pick the grapes.

And so, no grape harvesters, no wine.
Oh, and then there's tequila, that comes from Mexico,

...that has been hit by Trump with a 25% tariff. Tequila, which can only be produced in specific parts of Mexico where the blue agave plant grows, is the base for the margarita, the most popular cocktail in the U.S.

And then there's the 25% tariff that Trump has imposed on imported aluminum, which is putting a hurt on American beer producers, as this will up the price of beer cans to the point of possibly bankrupting smaller microbreweries.

And then, there are the American whiskey and bourbon distilleries, which are already feeling the pain - debilitating, according to the U.S. spirits industry - from the European and Canadian boycotts of their product, and some of whom fear they might not survive the fallout of Donald Trump's trade war.

The upshot of all this is that, if the European Union opts to retaliate against Trump's tariffs with its promised 50% tariff on American alcohol and Trump subsequently detonates his 200% tariff on European alcohol, the United States is on the cusp of a major trade war and a major alcohol shortage. There simply won't be nearly enough booze available for Americans. Which might usher in an unexpected (and unwanted) Golden Age of American Sobriety.
Or maybe just a return to bath tub gin.

References:
https://thehill.com/homenews/5193466-what-alcohol-would-cost-more-under-200-trump-tariff/

https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-wine-spirits-200-alcohol-dabead2d0e0fad64dc5e6250293ef016

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/12/business/spirits-bourbon-tariffs/index.html

https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/alcohol-cost-more-200-percent-trump-tariff/

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/upscale-napa-valley-wineries-fear-trumps-migrant-raids-could-end-them/ar-AA1y4j1G

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/us-spirits-industry-warns-of-debilitating-retaliatory-whiskey-tariffs-from-europe/ar-AA1AM9SI

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The Paradox Of Donald Trump And The Mean Non-Tipper

3/11/2025

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The Paradox Of Donald Trump And The Mean Non-Tipper

I expect by now most of the world has heard the story of the woman, a former Century 21 real estate agent, who took her family to a Mexican restaurant, ran up a bill for $87.84, then instead of leaving a tip left a jaw-droppingly mean note.

The server for whom the mean tipless note was left is an American citizen of Latino heritage named Ricardo. He works two jobs to make ends meet. He is well-liked by his co-workers and has a good customer service history.
The drama that subsequently unfolded was rife with unintended consequences, among which were one of the restaurant staff posting the crude receipt on Facebook, and the mean, non-tipping note-writer being not only publicly castigated big time, but also, as one social media wit put it, “deported” from Century 21.

As it turns out, the restaurant where this incident took place is here in Columbus, Ohio,

...about ten minutes from where I live. The mean diner lives in an upscale Columbus suburb. (Which I guess goes to prove that upscale doesn't go hand in hand with class).
But if one takes a moment to deconstruct the woman's note, there is something manifest in its contents that seems to go beyond her dissatisfaction with her dining experience. In fact, it remains unclear what, specifically, she was dissatisfied with: Slow service? That she couldn't use two coupons because of the restaurant's one-coupon-per-table policy? Those possibilities have been tossed around by the restaurant staff.
But I believe there's one thing - make that two things - that are pretty clear from the message that the woman left on her receipt: one, that she is - or at least was at the moment she left that note - an intensely angry person, a dynamite stick full of anger; and two, that it wasn't a what that lit her fuse, but a who.
The anger in the woman's note wasn't directed towards the service she received; it was directed towards the server on a personal level: You suck. I hope Trump deports you (followed by three exclamation points). And therein lies the message within her angry message: You are Latino. You are not one of us, you are one of them. It gives me satisfaction to demean you and deprive you of compensation for your service. You are the kind that Trump deports.
The key word here, of course, is "Trump." with his painting of Latino immigrants as rapists, murderers and criminals, with his push to strip away citizenship of those born in the United states of non-citizen parents, Donald Trump has by his own overblown and uncouth behavior set a tone in this country of meanness and incivility that has given people - or rather, some people - permission in their minds to do what that woman did to the worker in the Mexican restaurant.
But there's a paradox in this story. The American people elected Donald Trump as President, twice, giving by their vote implicit approval of his angry, resentful, insulting, in-your-face bullying. In truth, the woman in the restaurant was merely acting out the kind of mean racist behavior that the President of the United States, who won Ohio by a whopping 11 points, condones and exhibits every day.
And yet, after the story broke of the woman's meanness towards the server of Latino heritage, Ohioans were outraged by her behavior and rushed to support both the restaurant and the server. People felt so badly about how Ricardo was treated that a Go Fund Me was started to restore his lost tip on the $87.84 bill. Here's how much was raised:

I guess the happy, heart-warming, paradoxical ending to this story shows that most people, even those who will vote for a hate-monger like Donald Trump, aren't themselves hateful, have good hearts, and don't like to see others hurt. And I can't help hope that for the mean non-tipper this experience ends with a heart-changing epiphany. And maybe even leads to some kind of a happy ending, for her, too.

References:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/realtor-fired-after-leaving-hateful-message-instead-of-tip-on-restaurant-receipt/ar-AA1AgbE8

https://www.dispatch.com/story/entertainment/dining/2025/03/03/cazuelas-mexican-restaurant-targeted-by-racist-comment-from-customer/81163999007/

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Need To Do Something? Write A Letter To Your Senators And Representatives.

3/6/2025

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Need To Do Something? Write A Letter To Your Senators And Representatives.

The following is the content of a letter - a real, live letter on paper with an
envelope and stamp - that I wrote and sent the other day to my Ohio Senators.
That is to say, my sister wrote up the template for the letter that she sent to her Congressional representative and told me to go ahead and use it and share it with anyone else who'd like to write a letter but would appreciate having a sample letter to use.
Actually, I personalized my sister's original letter - for example I added that my husband was retired military and that I worked as a Department of Defense civilian. I also added the paragraph about Alaska being only 53 miles from Russia. You can feel free to personalize the letter or change it anyway you'd like, or use it as is. (Except for my introduction, of course, and you'll want to address the letter to your own Senators and/or Representative. And be sure to add your address, phone number and email below your signature).
Anyway, here's my letter:

The Honorable Jon Husted
SR-198 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

March 3, 2025

Dear Senator Husted,
My name is Patti Liszkay, I am a constituent of yours. My husband is a retired lieutenant colonel who served active duty in Germany and in the U.S. Army reserves stateside. I am a former Department of Defense civilian who also worked alongside our troops in Germany.

I am writing to you to express my concern over President Trump's unwillingness to support President Zelensky and pressuring him to surrender the freedom of his people to Russia. This is cruel and un-American behavior that is prolonging the suffering of the Ukrainian people. We should not be partnering with Putin to facilitate Russia's occupation of Ukraine.

We need to defend democracy and stand with our European allies in
support of Ukraine. If we side with Russia it will open the door for Putin to
continue to expand his domination throughout Europe. Is Poland next?

And don’t forget, Alaska is only 53 miles across the Bering Strait from Russia.

Thank you for your consideration, Senator Husted. Please send me a reply to let me know where you stand in support of Ukraine.

Sincerely,

(signed)

Patti Liszkay
(Address, telephone number and email)

Again, feel free to use this letter to write to your Senators and/or Representative. Or compose and send your own letter. It'll do you good.

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Sideshow Donald's Theater Of Cruelty

Lug Stars To The Rescue!

Lug Stars To The Rescue!

Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Order An LG Dryer Online

Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Order An LG Dryer Online

The U.S. Is Bombing Yemen Because...Why, Again?

Donald Trump: Secret U.S. War Plans Leaked? Eh, No Big Deal. An Unflattering Painting Of Me Hung On A Wall? HEADS WILL ROLL!

Donald Trump Has Endangered The U.S. Baby Formula Supply

Donald Trump Has Endangered The U.S. Baby Formula Supply

The Day Nothing Was Working

The Day Nothing Was Working

Making America Sober Again?

Making America Sober Again?

The Paradox Of Donald Trump And The Mean Non-Tipper

The Paradox Of Donald Trump And The Mean Non-Tipper

Need To Do Something? Write A Letter To Your Senators And Representatives.

Need To Do Something? Write A Letter To Your Senators And Representatives.

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​Lug Stars To The Rescue!

​Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Order An LG Dryer Online

​Donald Trump Has Endangered The U.S. Baby Formula Supply

​The Day Nothing Was Working

​Making America Sober Again?

​The Paradox Of Donald Trump And The Mean Non-Tipper

​Need To Do Something? Write A Letter To Your Senators And Representatives.

Archives

Categories

Lug Stars To The Rescue!

Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Order An LG Dryer Online

Donald Trump Has Endangered The U.S. Baby Formula Supply

The Day Nothing Was Working

Making America Sober Again?

The Paradox Of Donald Trump And The Mean Non-Tipper

Need To Do Something? Write A Letter To Your Senators And Representatives.