Trump has made no secret of the fact that he’s vindictive, and recent events continue to illustrate that, but they also suggest that he’s also biased and sexist.

In firing the Chief of Naval Operations (Admiral Lisa Franchetti), the U.S. Coast Guard Commandant (Admiral Linda Fagan) U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield, Trump removed the most senior women in the U.S. Military. He also removed General C.Q. Brown, Jr. (who is black) as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Trump then fired General Tim Haugh, commander of U.S. Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency, as well as Haugh’s civilian deputy, Wendy Noble.

The way matters are going, it appears likely that all will be replaced by white males.

Trump has also renewed his attacks on Chris Krebs, former Director of the government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), because Krebs had the temerity to say that the 2020 election was fair and free and not stolen. Trump’s latest attack on Krebs consists of removing his security clearance – as well as the clearances of all the employees at SentinelOne, where Krebs is now the CIO — and then issuing an executive order launching an investigation of Krebs.

This follows Trump’s removal of Secret Service protection for Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, former high officials in his first term, for being insufficiently supportive of him, i.e., failing to applaud his every move.

Yet Trumpists follow their Fuhrer like sheep, seemingly unaware that sheep always get shorn or slaughtered.

There’s been a great deal of furor and discussion about the case of Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil Kahlil, whom the Justice Department is trying to deport because he spoke out for the rights of Palestinians in Gaza. The Justice Department has so far been unable to find that Kahlil committed anything even resembling a crime, but the head of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, has declared that Kahlil should be deported because he spoke out, even though he is in the United States legally.

Then there’s the case Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly arrested and deported to a Salvadoran prison, again for no reason. Unlike Kahlil, Garcia not only did nothing illegal, but made no public statements, and was working as a sheet metal apprentice. And now, Trump’s DOJ is claiming that the President’s prerogatives as implementer of foreign policy outweigh civic protections stated in the Constitution and that Trump can effectively ignore those inconvenient rights.

Unhappily, the furor over those cases is overshadowing the far greater harm that the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security are creating with their handling of student visas. My wife the university professor has several foreign students studying voice and opera. Just because they’re on student visas, they’ve received notice that their visas may be revoked, as have all the other foreign students at the university.

This makes no sense. So far as anyone can tell, none of these students have been involved in even speaking out publicly, but they don’t know if they’ll be deported just because they’re on student visas. They don’t know whether, if they go home to spend the summer with their parents, they’ll be allowed to re-enter the United States to continue their studies. They’re all students who’ve complied fully with the law, yet the Justice Department is going after them, rather than concentrating on illegal immigrants and immigrants who’ve broken the law.

And, on a more practical level, foreign students pay the university more than in-state students, and they spend money to live here, which definitely helps the U.S. trade balance. There’s also the fact that by threatening deportation or actually deporting students who’ve done nothing wrong, the United States is undermining its own image as a land of laws and freedom.

This approach is likely illegal, at least according to the Constitution that the Trumpists are doing their best to ignore, not to mention both wrong-headed and counterproductive, and yet neither DOJ nor Homeland Security seems to see or understand that.

Recent research suggests that science fiction is less improbable than many scientists and those outside the genre think.

First, astronomical observations have discovered the existence of chemical compounds in deep space that are the precursors of amino acids, which suggests a greater likelihood of a wider spread of organic life throughout the universe.

Second, observations here on earth have discovered a range of animal behaviors that resemble transmissible cultures, and even examples of “shared” culture/relations between differing species.

Third, exploratory ventures and observations have discovered water in places that were once thought improbable for having water.

Fourth, astronomers are finding more and more planetoids in the Oort Cloud.

All of this suggests that there is life elsewhere, especially given the size of the universe.

But… getting there is another question.

For humans to travel anywhere outside the expanded Solar System (or even to send probes that can return in any useful time period) is looking less and less practical, given the time and massive energy costs required. The fastest-moving object ever built by humans is the Parker Solar Probe, which reached a speed of 394,736 miles per hour (or 110 miles per second) on its dash to the sun in 2023.

Even to reach Pluto from Earth at the maximum speed of the Parker Solar Probe would take 386 days – not counting the time to decelerate.

The nearest star to earth is Proxima Centauri, a small, red dwarf star about 4.24 light-years away. A spaceship traveling at the speed of the Parker Solar Probe would take roughly 7,200 years to reach Proxima Centauri.

But that offers an upside of sorts. Aliens, friendly or unfriendly, aren’t likely to be arriving any time soon, either to destroy and/or enslave us… or to rescue us from ourselves.

Is that glass half-empty, or half-full?

The other day, while reading a decent but not great SF novel written more than a decade ago, I got to thinking about plotting and plots.

While there are exceptions, I tend to write “straight-line” plots, in the sense that the protagonist is attempting to get from point A to point B. Sometimes, he or she gets there. Sometimes, they get to another end that they didn’t anticipate. There are obstacles, from nature, social and government structures, and from others with conflicting or hostile objectives. Some of those obstacles the protagonist doesn’t even think about until having to confront them, but the obstacles are part of the world or worlds the protagonist must negotiate. It’s not easy, sometimes almost impossible, and the cost is never negligible.

But that’s certainly not the only way to plot. There’s the daisy chain plot, where one thing leads to another, and the protagonist is led and/or misled until he or she figures the way out. Or “the universe is against me” plot, where the protagonist has to smash everything in order to merely survive. Or “the chosen one” plot, featuring generally a less obstacle-ridden version of the hero’s journey.

Whatever the basic plot structure, an accomplished writer can generally make it work out in a believable fashion, but the more elaborate the underlying plot structure, the greater the possibility that a less accomplished author will undermine the believability of the story and the world. But then, in certain types of books or movies, particularly those featuring “massive” superheroes, the plot isn’t the point at all – displaying the powers and skills of the hero is the primary goal of the movie/book.

One thing I have noticed in real life is that there’s almost always someone smarter, stronger, faster, and more capable – and when there’s not, people band together to keep powerful people in line… or become their slaves.

For every George Washington or Cincinnatus, who gave up power willingly, there are scores of would-be dictators who can’t or won’t – and that’s another plot.

After more than fifty years of writing professionally, I find it interesting and amusing to read reviews of my books and others, especially when I see readers and reviewers disputing how good or how “realistic” a novel is.

Part of the sense of reality perceived by readers lies in the ability of the writer to convey actions, images, allusions, illusions, and facts in a way that effectively creates a believable world and narrative, but part lies in the knowledge and perceptions of the individual reader.

We all have our bête noires, those factual errors or internal irreconcilable inconsistencies perpetrated by an author that degrade or destroy our enjoyment of the work. Years ago, I wrote a review of a moderately successful SF novel, set in the then-present in the Washington, D.C., area. I wrote that the book was decent and moderately entertaining, but that the numerous factual errors kept it from being better, and I gave examples. The editor begged to differ and said he wouldn’t publish the review unless I removed the examples. I demurred, and the review was never published. The book was a moderate bestseller and was adapted into a movie, which received mixed reviews.

I wasn’t wrong about the errors, but readers unfamiliar with the Washington, D.C., area and culture wouldn’t have known the difference, although some other errors were factual. For some readers, those kinds of errors can destroy the enjoyment of a novel. For others, the errors don’t even register. My father was an attorney and an avid reader, but he couldn’t stand most legal representations in movies, television, or novels, which he found not only unrealistic, but totally unbelievable.

As a writer, I do my best to avoid such errors and inconsistencies, but some authors dismiss any “reality” that gets in the way of the action or blood and gore, and they’re likely correct that too much “reality” can kill the story for those who don’t know the facts or don’t care.

In 2015, Tor published my very hard SF novel, Solar Express, which, as a “semi-joint” project with NASA, was read by several NASA scientists who agreed that I handled the science accurately. There were quite a number of one star reader reviews, with comments about it being too technical and dull, as well as five-star reviews from readers citing the accuracy, with a lot of reviews in the middle saying that they liked my other work better.

The bottom line, from what I’ve seen, is that every reader has his or her view of what’s realistic in fiction, and fiction that’s “excessively” realistic appeals to comparatively few readers, and that’s been true as far back as Jane Austen, few of whose female protagonists would have snared their male in any truly accurate portrayal of the reality of that time in history.

Where the U.S. government and some state governments are concerned, too many things take too long and cost too much.

Court proceedings, both civil and criminal, take too long, with the practical results that those with financial resources are far more likely to escape the consequences of their actions and those without such resources will spend more time behind bars, either by accepting disadvantageous plea bargains or awaiting trial, while prisons become more and more crowded.

Dealing with the legal and regulatory actions for construction or federal contracts often consumes more time than it actually takes to build something, partly because Americans argue too much, partly because the courts are understaffed, and partly because too often the regulations and the laws are used as tools of obstruction.

The immigration process is so clogged up and procedure-hampered that we’re not effectively dealing with illegal immigrants while turning away highly trained and talented immigrants.

Military procurement takes longer and longer and costs more and more.

Almost everywhere you look in the United States, things are bogged down and not working as well as they should. People know this, and they’re angry – which is why so many voted for Trump.

The problem is that the methods Trump and Musk are using won’t work, because they don’t address the heart of the problem.

We’re in this pickle because no government can regulate everything to be perfectly safe… or perfectly fair… or perfectly equal. When you try that, you get California, where it can take years to get permission to install solar power, where you can’t build enough homes because it’s too costly and too many are homeless.

There’s no effective and perfect way to IMMEDIATIATELY reduce global warming without destroying current societies and cultures, but replacing coal-burning power plants with natural gas would reduce emissions and pollution and make great steps, even though it’s not ideal. So would building more nuclear plants in the right locales.

It’s been said more than once that seeking perfection is the enemy of accomplishment, and that’s too often true because perfection is exceedingly expensive and often unobtainable, and those who seek perfection too often oppose anything less.

In short, we need a compromise which results in more good, and less insistence on perfection.

Earlier this week Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and National Security advisor Mike Waltz conducted a group chat with eighteen people on the Signal platform about a military operation involving the Houthi. There was nothing inherently wrong with having a chat.

What was wrong – and stupid – was: (1) revealing in advance classified operational military plans; (2) using the Signal system, which is not rated for classified information; (3) including, if inadvertently, a reporter from The Atlantic; and (4) subsequently lying about the contents of the meeting, which led to The Atlantic releasing some of that classified information to prove the lies made by Hegseth and others.

Subsequently, Trump declared that nothing of import was released and that no one reads The Atlantic anyway, while Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, initially claimed that “no classified information” had been revealed before later saying that she didn’t recall what had been discussed.

Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, said of the leak, “I don’t think most Americans care one way or another.”

Although the Trump administration is looking stupider by the week, other Republicans offered support and voiced sentiments along the lines that the administration would fix the problem.

From what I’ve observed over the years, you can sometimes remedy honest ignorance, but stupidity usually occurs in those who cannot or will not learn – and for that reason, as an old saying goes, “You can’t fix stupid.”

As far as Trump appointees go…we’ll see.

Both Elon Musk and Donald Trump have taken Mark Zuckerberg’s early mantra – “Move fast and break things” – to heart in their efforts to reshape and downsize the federal bureaucracy.

This is already presenting at least three major problems. First, like Humpty Dumpty, some of those things they’re breaking shouldn’t have been broken in the first place and may not be easily repaired or replaced.

Second, one of the things they’re trying to break is the concept that the United States is a land of laws, and that the laws are superior to the desires of those who lead government. Trump, of course, has nothing but contempt for any law that thwarts or restricts anything he wants to accomplish, regardless of either existing law or the future consequences of his acts.

Third, they really don’t know what they’re doing, beginning with firing the federal employees in charge with the nuclear weapons stockpile and reducing the number of FAA and IRS employees at a time when both agencies are understaffed. Firing the Forest Service and National Parks employees will only increase the severity of fire damage and turn the parks into trash heaps, especially now, given the backlog of infrastructure maintenance at the parks and the increasing number of visitors.

Blaming Canada for the fentanyl epidemic is also absurd, since less than one percent comes from Canada, and imposing tariffs on Canada will hurt the U.S. far more than it will impact Canada, particularly U.S. auto manufacturing. It also won’t do anything to reduce drug trafficking.

Trump and Musk also haven’t targeted the most obvious sources of waste, especially the U.S. military/industrial complex. There are so many U.S. military bases/facilities both in the U.S. and worldwide that there’s not even a consensus on how many there are. Reputable estimates range from 800 to 1,200, and the military has been trying to consolidate and close a number of those installations for years, but for some reason, Congress doesn’t like the idea when it comes to reducing bases in the districts of individual members.

Regardless of critics, moving fast will continue, at least for a while, and civil liberties will be further eroded; prices will increase; productive federal employees will be fired, while unproductive ones will be retained; and Trump will proclaim how wonderful everything is.

As most of my readers know, there’s an element of romance in most of the books I’ve written, and sometimes even more than that, but I tend to present sex in what I call “thirties movies sex,” where a chapter ends in an embrace, suggestive language, or some similar fashion, and then the two reappear together either later or in the next morning.

The latest furor in the publishing world appears to be “romantasy.” From sales figures and from conversations with editors I know, romantasy appears to be taking over the speculative fiction field. Good hard science fiction is getting more and more difficult to find, and fewer major houses are purchasing and releasing it. Fewer and fewer straight fantasy novels, those that are being published, contain a freshness of view and style, and more than a few portray magic systems that, shall I say, lack any semblance of internal consistency.

Romantasy is supposedly a fusion of romance and fantasy, but in many so-called romantasies that fusion is more like fantasy, romance, and graphic erotica.

Some romantasy authors write very well, and more than once I’ve been engrossed in an interesting and intriguing book, only to have it come to a dead stop while the protagonists engage in detailed and fiery, possibly physically improbable, sexual gymnastics. I don’t mind a certain limited amount of that, but, as one deceased F&SF author noted, at some point sexual gymnastics become the mechanics of plumbing, at least for me.

In this respect, I’m definitely old-school, because I tend to favor writing about accomplishments, either single or joint, over endless rhapsodizing on the peaks of sexual consummation. But it’s also clear that such rhapsodizing sells – really sells. I recently read that one romantasy author’s latest book sold over 2.7 million copies in less than a week, but then it mixes that sex and romance with military dragon riders. I don’t know whether Anne McCaffrey is turning over in her grave or laughing her head off in the great beyond.

Why are lies so abundant today, especially in politics?

There are likely as many reasons to explain that prevalence as there are those commenting on the abundance of falsehoods. There’s also the possibility that lies aren’t any more prevalent , but that modern communications have made their spread easier and broader.

Personally, I’ve certainly seen more lies in current politics than I did when I began as a political staffer more than fifty years ago.

My own rationale for the growth of lies is based on the growing political and technological complexity of modern societies. Explaining almost anything today accurately isn’t simple. People want simple.

Even forty years ago, when I was at EPA, both Congressmen and their constituents wanted simple, straight-forward answers to complex issues. Everyone wanted yes or no answers to issues and questions to which the accurate answer was “It depends on the circumstances.”

Today science, technology, and politics are even more complex. So are taxes, for that matter.

But people want direct and simple answers, especially simple answers that appeal to their beliefs and prejudices.

Contrary to popular beliefs, lies are simple and believable; accurate statements require knowledge and understanding.

It’s much easier to blame government overspending on “fraud and waste” or diversity programs than upon the bureaucracy necessary to handle hundreds of billions in salaries and procurement, or for that matter, upon the 535 members of Congress, each trying to get government to make matters or the economy better in their individual districts and states, or to recognize the billions spent on lobbying to influence Congress and high-level bureaucrats.

Also, a great deal of that “waste” occurs because large organizations require checks and balances, standardized procedures, compatible systems, personnel checks on new hires, pay scales, and a whole raft of other requirements, including requirements for procurement to prohibit sweetheart contracts, bribes, conflicts of interest, etc.

It’s easier to blame the excess of immigrants on drug cartels than to address the shortage of agricultural and less-skilled labor in the U.S., or the internal urban and rural social conditions that fuel drug abuse, or the U.S. past federal and corporate meddling in the internal politics of Central and Latin American nations (as well as other contributing factors).

It’s easier to claim that the U.S. trade deficit is because other countries are “ripping off” the U.S. than to address the differential in wage costs between onshore and offshore, the American tax system that benefits corporate CEOs excessively while penalizing workers, an emigration system that allows more poor and less educated immigrants than highly educated ones, etc.

And, of course, there’s also the very real problem that American education has moved away from developing critical thinking and toward teaching to the [supposedly]objective tests, and that lack of critical thinking results in greater success for liars.

According to the dictionary, virtue is “behavior showing high moral standards.”

These days people don’t talk much about moral standards. The President talks about making America great again, but he never says much about morals. His talk is all about power and forcing others, both persons and nations, to do his will, and to get revenge on those who’ve opposed or thwarted him.

Trump has said little said about truth and honesty, and his words are merely tools of personal power. He can and has slandered people and then flattered them, or vice versa. He claims he’s out “to make America great again,” even as he attacks every foundation laid by the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

With each tariff, decree, and chain-saw slash, he’s undermining public trust, both within the United States and among our (former [?]) allies. In addition, DOGE and Trump are now creating lists of “undesirable” individuals and “persons of interest,” the principal criterion of which is often based only on a person’s speaking out against Trump. Those actions reflect more of a secret police mindset and indicate a President determined to be a dictator.

Workable and lasting human societies are based on a combination of trust and power. Too much power and too little trust results in autocracy, and too much trust and too little power leads to anarchy. There has to be a balance.

What’s being forgotten or ignored these days is that trust is based on virtues – where people can see and know that what leaders say is truthful and that their actions support their words; that they treat all members of society fairly and equally, and apply laws even-handedly; that they exhibit compassion for the less fortunate; that they respect others who do not share all their views.

Societies held together by raw and absolute power do exist, and they’re comparatively poor and inefficient. That’s because too many resources are required to police and control society. To this day, Russia cannot mass produce large numbers of high technology weapons and a range of complex durable consumer goods at prices affordable for most of its people. North Korea is even poorer. China has been forced to allow more freedom in order to be competitive.

A number of political scientists have claimed that Trump supporters take Trump seriously, but not what he says as that serious. This is likely true, but those supporters bespelled by his charisma are misguided in their belief that Trump won’t do all the awful things he’s promised… because he’s already doing them.

Virtues are important, especially in leaders, because lack of virtue results eventually in a lack of trust and political instability. Trump isn’t so much a cause of corruption, but the most prominent symptom of an increasingly dysfunctional political structure, and a society, that rewards the most charismatic of liars, while largely ignoring those who stick to the facts, an ignorance based on an increasing lack of virtue on all levels of society.

This past week, the mainstream media has suggested strongly that the Democratic Party has lost its way and doesn’t have a leader. That’s been more than obvious ever since the fall election and raises a simple question – Why?

I think the answer to that question lies in a line of a country song – “Let’s get back to the basics of living.”

The Democratic Party has been far too concerned about issues that aren’t important to the vast majority of the American people, while the Republican Party has been immensely successful in reframing basic issues in ways that avoid the underlying problems and appeal to negative stereotypes, often involving issues that get people upset and fearful, but really don’t affect all that many people.

The furor over transgender athletes is a good example. People are worried about the unfair physical advantage possessed by biological males transitioned to women and how such transitioned individuals shouldn’t be allowed in women’s lavatories. According to the NCAA, out of 510,000 athletes competing at the collegiate level, there are fewer than ten who identify as transgender. As a practical matter, I seriously doubt that biologically-born males would go to all the trouble and difficulty of transitioning to women merely to obtain a possible advantage in athletics.

In addition, no one seems to be making a furor about the size and weight disparities among male athletes or female athletes. That’s just accepted. Some sixty years ago, I swam competitively on the collegiate level. Except for the divers, I was the smallest and shortest man on a team that won the New England championships year after year. Today, that physical discrepancy is even greater, but no one even considers it, even in football where 180-pound receivers and running backs are routinely tackled by 300 pound plus muscular behemoths. I have a granddaughter who’s six feet tall and who played volleyball. Of course, she had an advantage over shorter women.

Likewise, has anyone really considered the actual construction of women’s public restrooms? They have individual stalls, with latches/locks. Yes, theoretically there’s always a possibility of an assault, but it’s minuscule, compared to the altercations among women.

Yet a few trans women in academic/school sports are considered a national political issue, while few politicians are seriously addressing the decline in the academic achievements of students? Except to bewail it, or act as though money alone will solve the problem.

And, then there’s the federal deficit. The Republicans have capitalized on the “waste and fraud” issue, citing comparatively minor – and highly unpopular — federal programs. All governments have programs that partisans can claim as waste and/or fraud, but truly wasteful programs don’t constitute a significant fraction of federal spending.

But by claiming massive fraud and indiscriminately cutting federal employees in all agencies while also cutting programs unpopular with the far tight, Republicans have shifted attention from the basic question of what programs are truly unnecessary and how to fund government responsibly. Fundamental questions are largely, if not totally, avoided, particularly why corporations and massively wealthy individuals get away with paying minimal or no taxes to support the governmental structure that allows them to amass their billions.

According to a study by Pro Publica, American billionaires, on average, pay between one and four percent on their actual income in taxes. Some have paid less than one percent for years. In addition, the bulk of their actual income is hidden and/or deferred.

The average middle-class family pays 14% of their income in federal taxes and five percent in state income taxes (except in a handful of states with no income tax).

The Republican/billionaire strategy is effectively based on blaming the federal deficit and increasing federal debt on Democrats (despite the fact that much of it was incurred in GOP administrations) and upon “wasteful” programs. The Republicans have also successfully cut funding to the Internal Revenue Service so that the agency has been unable to pursuit wealthy tax cheats and avoiders.

The basic issues are simple. What federal programs do we need to assure better lives for all Americans? How do we fix immigration so that we get the best of the would-be immigrants?
How do we ensure internal and external security? What is the most effective, fair, and practical way to pay for those programs?

Right now, the Republicans are defining the issues to suit the ultra-rich, while blaming all the financial woes on admittedly liberal excesses, but not bothering to mention that those excesses comprise a tiny fraction of total spending.

The Democrats continue to spread themselves too thin, especially on issues irrelevant or distasteful to the majority of Americans, while failing to come up with a strategy to address basic concerns.

And most of the United States is suffering from the failings of both parties, failings that will continue unless and until the Democrats come up with leadership that addresses the real problems and effectively calls out the billionaires’ game plan – because the Republicans will continue what they’re doing until stopped.

Just as the so-enlightened voters of Utah have fallen for the tax cut scam, so it appears will the MAGA masses following the lead of Trump and his sycophantic followers in the U.S. House and Senate.

As I pointed out in an earlier blog, the Republican-dominated Utah state legislature has passed minuscule tax cuts (1/10 of one percent) each year for the past five years and appears likely to do so again this year. The poorest families would receive a tax cut of $24 a year, middle class families $174, while millionaires would get thousands in tax cuts. At the same time, the legislature increased tuition rates at all state colleges and universities roughly $300 per student per year and cut university and college budgets by tens of millions of dollars while student enrollment in Utah is still increasing.

Also, following the lead of Elon Musk, the legislature has, in the last few weeks, also mandated a further cut of $60 million in higher education for the 2025-26 school year and created a committee charged with further reducing college and university budgets.

While Utah’s rate of sexual assault is the ninth in the U.S. (only eight states have higher rates), legislators cut back funding dealing with that problem, and only made minimal increases for primary and secondary education, despite the fact that Utah has on average the largest class sizes in the nation.

On the federal level, Trump and Musk are pursuing the same sort of policies. They’re destroying middle class jobs, both among federal workers and in the civilian economy, to pay for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, and justifying those cuts by saying that private industry will create more jobs.

Really? Musk’s takeover of Twitter (or X) resulted in mass layoffs. Trump still delights in firing people, and Bezos’s policies don’t give workers time to eat and go to the bathroom.

There are a few old sayings that apply, such as “leopards don’t change their spots,” or “if it sounds too good to be true, it isn’t,” or “look before you leap,” but the Republicans don’t seem to recall any of them, preferring to glory in insignificant tax cuts for the masses, and major handouts to the rich.

Last Friday, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance browbeat Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the oval office and and attacked him for being ungrateful, as well as blamed him for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

What Trump, Vance, and the MAGA Republicans (who all fell into line behind Trump like the good little sycophants they are) seemingly forget is that the Russia/Ukraine conflict has never required the U.S. to put troops in the field, unlike all the other wars in which we’ve been involved. Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians have never asked for troops, only for weapons and equipment.

Trump (et al) also ignored the horrific acts continuously perpetrated by Russian troops, not to mention the prolonged drone attacks on civilian populations, and kept claiming that Zelenskyy wasn’t properly grateful. Shortly after that, CNN aired a montage of more than thirty separate occasions over the past three years in which Zelenskyy offered lengthy public thanks.

As usual, Trump made a raft of lies and misstatements, as is his wont, but when Zelenskyy attempted to set the record straight, that apparently offended Vance. No matter that both the British Prime Minister and the French President had to correct Trump as well when they met with him.

To date, Ukraine has lost 46,000 soldiers in combat, with 380,000 wounded, and suffered 40,000 civilian casualties, including 12,000 documented deaths, of which at least were 600 murdered children. In addition, Russia has illegally kidnapped nearly 20,000 children.

Russian military death claims total 85,000, and the Russian casualty figures are at least 500,000 and could be as high as 875,000. If I wanted to be purely mercenary about it, I could point out that we made a very good investment in supporting Ukraine, just because of the military and economic burden our aid imposed on Putin, all without costing an American life.

All Trump and the Republicans are concerned about are dollars, but the total of U.S. military aid sent (as opposed to that appropriated for possible use) to Ukraine amounts to some $120 billion, while European governments have supplied $140 billion – figures very much at variance with those incorrectly claimed by Trump.

But Zelenskyy clearly wasn’t subservient enough to Emperor Trump. But why should he be? He’s speaking on behalf of a nation that’s suffered roughly 60,000 deaths and half a million casualties from a Russian invasion, while Trump is demanding that Ukraine surrender to a despot so that the U.S. can save less money than it wastes annually (according to Trump), while claiming the U.S. is sending far more assistance that it actually has.

All this suggests that we’ve got an ignorant bully in the bully pulpit.

Governments owe certain services and infrastructure to their people, such as highways, impartial laws and courts, civic order, defense against invaders, and open and affordable communications systems.

Historically, the United States was one of the first nations to emphasize a national postal system. Among our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin was firm in his determination that the United States should have a postal service. He even served as Postmaster General before there was a United States.

Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution mandates that Congress establish post offices and post roads. One of long-standing aspects of the Post Office and its successor, the Postal Service, has been the mission to provide mail access to all Americans, not just to people in cities or people who are physically or economically convenient to serve, but the vast majority of Americans.

While the Postal Service should be as cost-efficient as possible, cost-efficiency shouldn’t be its primary mission. Maintaining service to all Americans should be. That was why the post office and post roads were an essential part of the Constitution.

This background seems to have been forgotten. Amazon can use the Postal Service on Sundays to deliver packages for what I suspect is below the actual cost, using cost structures that I’ve critiqued previously for their unreality, and now Trump is talking about privatizing the Postal Service, enabling that “private” successor to gouge the public and provide less service.

We can run huge deficits for national defense and all manner of other “necessary” services, but comparatively small deficits for postal service are apparently taboo… which says a great deal about people and politicians, particularly about Republicans.

With all of the headlines about the actions of Trump and DOGE trying to cut out “wasteful” jobs with a chainsaw, so far, at least so far as I can tell, no one seems to have given much thought to the secondary and tertiary impacts of those cuts.

A relative of mine was let go last week. He wasn’t a federal employee, nor was he a lobbyist. He was a technical writer for a publishing services company, and he was laid off because one of the company’s larger clients was the Veterans Administration.

What Musk, DOGE, and Trump clearly fail to understand is that, in a great many instances, contrary to popular belief, it’s cheaper for government agencies to contract out services than to do them with government employees.

And even if it’s not, adding additional workloads on agency personnel to accomplish tasks previously contracted out is either going to slow down everything, actually increase costs, or reduce the amount of work done, if not some combination of all three, particularly if the agency is also cutting back on personnel.

Not only that, but the savings from cutting federal employees are limited. In 1960, federal employees were 4.3% of all US workers; today, they amount to only 1.4%. Zeroing out the entire federal payroll would save $271 billion a year, a mere 4% of the federal budget.

I’ve run a Congressional office, and several offices at EPA. I’ve also been a consultant working for some of the largest corporations in the United States, and the greatest waste I’ve seen has largely come from unwise Congressional mandates and laws.

First off, there’s the practice of “earmarking” where Representatives and Senators add or direct appropriations to pet projects in their state or district. A number of organizations and members of Congress have documented such earmarks, and those documented over the last ten years that I’ve been able to total amount to more than 10,000, costing more than $50 billion. And those were the ones I could easily find.

Far more serious are the instances of manipulation of defense funding for local economic development. I can remember the F-7 [The gutless Cutlass] mess from when I was a Navy pilot, because older pilots were still talking about the fact that Congressman Jim Wright (later Speaker of the House) dragged out production of the F-7 so that Chance-Vought would be able to deliver the far superior F-8, which massively increased the cost of the last F-7s, just in time for them to be retired.

More recently, in 2023 the Navy discovered that the so-called advanced littoral combat ships built in Wisconsin by Fincantieri Marinette Marine in partnership with Lockheed Martin, suffered a series of humiliating breakdowns, including repeated engine failures and technical shortcomings in an anti-submarine system intended to counter China’s growing naval capacity. The Navy decided to retire nine out of the ten ships built, because of the astronomical repair costs, telling Congress that would save $4.3 billion that could be used on other ships and systems. Various congressmen got involved, citing the 2,000 jobs that would be lost. In the end the Navy was only allowed to retire four ships and $3 billion more was allocated for repairs. – for ships originally budgeted to cost $220 million each and which eventually cost over $500 million each – before the $3 billion in repair costs.

Then there are the massive cost overruns associated with the F-35, and the Ford class of aircraft carriers, not to mention the cost of maintaining 750 military bases around the world, a number of which in the U.S. could likely be closed without adversely affecting military readiness – except they won’t be closed because various members of Congress will oppose closings in their states and districts.

But Trump and Musk want to funnel more funds to the armed services, while cutting the civilian logistical base, at a time when the military is having trouble retaining personnel.

None of this makes much sense.

The original idea behind insurance was to provide financial protection for infrequent, but catastrophic and unexpected events that a reasonable and prudent person could not expect to be able to pay, such as dying young, major damage to or destruction of a house or building, injury to others in an automobile accident, loss of an entire merchant ship and cargo… and similar events.

Insurance started out essentially as a form of mutual risk sharing for events that didn’t happen that often but which, when they did, could devastate an individual or a business. At that time, people were (theoretically) supposed to save for smaller adverse “rainy day” occurrences.

Yet now, rainy-day-savings seem to have vanished, replaced by what seems like insurance for everything. Not only do we have health insurance (which has become a necessity, given the high cost of medical care), but dental insurance, and nursing home insurance. The latest insurance bombarding the media is car repair insurance, but there’s now also appliance repair and replacement insurance, as well as pet insurance (possibly because veterinary medical costs have also skyrocketed). That doesn’t include roughly twenty other types of insurance, such as boat or ATV insurance and identity protection insurance and personal liability coverage.

The fact that so many types of coverage exist might just go hand in hand with the fact that the U.S. has a surfeit of attorneys, but the attorneys could easily counter with the fact that Americans tend to argue over everything.

Add to that the technological and legal complexity of our modern world and the increasing costs of everything, and the failure of working-class wages to keep up with the cost of living… and, unfortunately, because people have trouble in making ends meet in paying for the basics, insurance for everything becomes the default, because few Americans can save enough to pay for all possible adverse eventualities, particularly in a litigious society.

While Trump is “carrying out his promises” with a vengeance, what he’s doing is also carefully orchestrated political sleight of hand, spearheaded by Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The majority of Americans (and particularly the far right and Trump supporters) has always been skeptical of foreign aid and federal intrusion into state and local schools (in the south especially). So how does Trump begin his second term?

By trying to abolish USAID and the Department of Education, of course, whose combined annual operating budgets are roughly $110 billion. Last year, from what I can determine, total federal outlays were $7 trillion, and the deficit was $711 billion. But eliminating USAID and the Department of Education won’t save $110 billion, because, for example, one of the Department of Education’s primary tasks is dealing with the $1.7 trillion student-loan portfolio and 40 million student-loan borrowers. So those administrative costs have to go somewhere else.

Most of the Department of Education’s budget funds federal student aid for higher education, subsidies for elementary and secondary schools with large shares of students from low-income families, and special education programs for children with special needs. States set broad rules that schools have to follow in return for those funds, but individual districts implement them, and they set the curriculum. The Department of Education is not controlling education. It is providing supplemental funds and requiring compliance with civil rights laws for using those funds. But eliminating the Department of Education would not “return” education to the states and would reduce the overall funding of primary and secondary education by an average of twenty percent, the greatest funding losses coming from schools in the poorest communities.

Other programs DOGE has marked for elimination are medical care for veterans, housing-assistance vouchers for low-income renters, college Pell Grants, the National Institutes of Health, the FBI, and NASA’s major initiatives.

In the meantime,last Friday, Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, resigned after Justice Department leadership instructed her to drop the criminal corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams, in order to obtain Adams’s “cooperation” with Trump immigration policies. In short, the Trump-controlled DOJ wants to offer Adams a literal get-out-of-jail card for doing what Trump wants on immigration in New York City. Legal bribery, in effect, that Sassoon refused to be any part of, despite being a Trump appointee and a member of the extremely conservative Federalist Society. Within days, at least six more senior career DOJ officials resigned in protest. The mass resignation appears to be the largest in DOJ since Watergate. The mass resignation appears to be the largest in DOJ since Watergate.

The latest DOGE target is the Federal Aviation Administration, where apparently all recently hired employees working to maintain the hardware and computer systems dealing with aviation safety have been informed that they will be fired. The FAA operates an antiquated system that needs desperately to be updated, but Congress has refused to fund such modernization. Instead, Trump and Musk, in a single stroke, are making it even harder for the Air Traffic Control system to operate safely.

DOGE is now also trying to gain access to the IRS data on all American taxpayers, while reducing personnel and making it even more difficult to track down tax evaders.

What we’re already seeing isn’t a real attempt to reduce inefficiency and waste, but the beginning of an all-out attack on every aspect of government Donald Trump and Elon Musk dislike, and especially on any aspect of government that might hold them accountable.

Over recent years and even decades, idealists have been holding up the idea of the meritocracy as the most ideal way to get to a “fairer” and more egalitarian U.S. society. They point out that everyone should be judged on their abilities and that will take care of the problem.

The problem with this idea is that we’re fairly close to that right now (that is, in the sense that in hiring for more and more jobs most people are judged on their credentials), and the current semi-meritocracy hasn’t created a fair and more egalitarian workplace, and that won’t happen so long as the system remains as it’s presently structured or as long as such concepts as “personal freedom,” self-determination, and market economy are part of the legal/social framework (and I’m definitely opposed to removing any of those).

One of the problems with the current “meritocracy” is that poorer or disadvantaged children of equal raw talent/native intelligence to those more advantaged (and thus better credentialed) don’t have anywhere near equal opportunity to refine their raw ability into usable and valuable skills that will allow them to benefit from higher education or advanced technical training.

In addition, the students able to benefit the most from college education are those individuals with the most resources, whose families can provide better nutrition, better economic and educational support (such as college and post-graduate degrees, as well as housing and living expenses) so that they enter the workforce with extensive credentials (since we are a society where success requires credentials for most people), with more developed contacts, and without debt. Unless society is going to strip away all income inequality (effectively destroying freedom), offspring of the well-off will always have an advantage in showing “merit.”.

The upper middle class can provide a certain amount of support for their offspring, but many of them will leave higher education with a certain amount of debt and sometimes a great deal more, without any certainty that they’ll be able to pay it off. And for the vast majority of offspring of less affluent or poor families, higher education means crippling debt, if they can even get into higher education.

Then, too, like it or not, studies show that standardized tests measure fairly accurately a student’s ability to handle college level work. The problem is that they don’t measure as well the ability to handle many post-education jobs, because too many college curricula don’t teach students to think or to persevere, and that’s yet another area where the children of the well-off have an advantage because more of them are taught the social codes of the elite and to think by their families.

So… unless one either destroys the elites and the upper middle class, which means total loss of freedom and rigid socialism, or provides more aid for the children of the working poor, we’ll remain an unequal semi-meritocracy

From what I can tell, Phase I of the second Trump presidency is where Trump issues executive orders on every campaign promise Trump made, whether or not those promises can legally be accomplished through executive orders. Some, such as eliminating cabinet-level departments, legally require action by Congress, although Trump will certainly attempt to accomplish as much as he can without Congressional authorization, and the Republicans in Congress would prefer that, for the most part, because it absolves them of responsibility.

Trump has now begun the process of impounding funds, i.e., refusing to spend money on programs he doesn’t like, even though Congress has authorized and appropriated the funds. Richard Nixon tried this in the early 1970s, which resulted in Congress passing the Impoundment and Control Act (ICA), and the U.S. Supreme Court telling the President that he couldn’t withhold funds already authorized and appropriated. Trump is apparently ignoring both the law and the Supreme Court ruling, and it’s likely that even the present Supreme Court will rule against him – but that process will take time, and in the interim, federal employees and programs will be hurt and disrupted. This could prove deadly this summer, if another hot, dry, and windy summer engulfs the western U.S., because more than 15,000 federal firefighters are seasonally employed.

Trump is also proposing firing rank-and-file federal employees in large numbers from long-established federal departments without Congressional approval, something equally against the law, although some “flexibility” is not beyond the realm of possibility, given the makeup of the current Supreme Court.

But if the legal restraints on Trump largely hold, what happens in Phase II? Will Trump continue the barrage of executive orders, attempting to overwhelm the legal system? Will he be able to pressure Congress as a whole to enact what he wants? Or will he attack and or pressure key Republicans and vulnerable Democrats?

If all that fails, will he then attempt to corrode/corrupt the legal system further in order to obtain what he wants? Or will he claim victory? [While that’s possible, in my opinion it’s more likely that he’ll attempt to destroy anything that thwarts his imperial desires.]

How effective will he be when wide-scale price increases begin to erode personal income and family budgets? Will people be smart enough to see that his token tax cuts for working and middle class earners don’t compensate for the increasing consumer prices? Or that getting rid of air traffic controllers, VA doctors and support staff, Forest Service firefighters, and other “excess” federal employees only makes life harder for Americans who aren’t billionaires?

Or will they cheer on Dictator/Emperor Trump?