Here There and Everywhere

Expat wanderer

Slight of Hand and Wires and Mirrors; No Accountability

Our leader announced a speech to the nation, which turned out to be nothing but repeats of “Truth” social posts and comments previously made. A boring, disjointed 19 minutes of nothing credible. Credibility is stating a mission and following through. Chaos is changing the mission and its achievements every ten minutes or so. If you don’t believe me, watch the stock market.

Meanwhile, behind the curtain, The Great Oz and his handlers are changing how our democracy operates. The failed military officer, Pete Hegseth is examining and removing African Americans, females, and especially African American Females from promotion lists. He is firing the top general who questions his judgement in toying with a time honored system where the military chooses its leaders based on performance and leadership abilities, not their gender nor their color.

Does Hegseth understand demographics? Does he understand that military recruitment is problematic these days days, that the pool of recruits has shrunk dramatically? Does he understand that brawn no longer wins wars, but fighter planes, drones, new ideas and weapon development are fighting a new kind of war, where every gender and color contributes the the nuances of creative strategies available to a commander in chief who genuinely understands how to function in the fog of war?

Today Heather Cox Richardson alerts us to another slight of hand, the kind of small change the controllers hope will go unnoticed: The challenge of ACCOUNTABILITY and how it impedes a sitting President. She quotes the following, and it quite takes my breath away:

Yesterday Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser, of the Office of Legal Counsel, published an opinion for the White House that claims the Presidential Records Act, which requires that presidents keep records of their official business and turn them over at the end of their term, is unconstitutional. Gaiser clerked for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

“The PRA is not a valid exercise of Congress’s Article I authority and unconstitutionally intrudes on the independence and autonomy of the President guaranteed by Article II. The Act establishes a permanent and burdensome regime of congressional regulation of the Presidency untethered from any valid and identifiable legislative purpose,” the memo reads. “For these reasons, the PRA is unconstitutional, and the President need not further comply with its dictates.”

(taking a moment to catch my breath)

We burden our elected president with the requirement that we know what he does and why he is doing it?

How can anyone believe this lunacy? Any person in a position of responsibility has to answer to his polity! Elected politicians all the more. He answers to us, the voters.

Our leader has a lot to answer for. We can’t trust anything he says, from minute to minute. Our treasury has been declared insolvent. He is sending our children off to war with unclear orders and insufficient leadership.

He has hired a confederacy of ignorant, greedy sycophants. He has gutted our diplomatic service. He has gutted Consumer Oversight. He has gutted the Environmental Protection Agency. He has corrupted the Department of Education.

He is terrified he cannot win and is attempting to take over national elections. Meanwhile, he is bankrupting our country with garish monuments and wars we never agreed to fight.

He is subjecting women to outdated standards and taken away their rights to make decisions for their own bodies.

He is corrupting our social system, taking medical care away from those who need it most, and callously neglecting the veterans who have served our country so loyally.

He has made agreements with other countries that we only learn about by accidental comments.

This can’t go on. Accountability. Oversight. Congressional Approval. Fair and Free Elections. Constitutional Restraints!

April 3, 2026 Posted by | Bureaucracy, Character, corruption, Counter-terrorism, Cultural, Free Speech, Interconnected, Iran, Law and Order, Leadership, Living Conditions, Middle East, Money Management, Political Issues, Scams, Social Issues, Stranger in a Strange Land, Uncategorized, Weather, Women's Issues, Work Related Issues | , , , , , | Leave a comment