Bill's Focus

America becomes a vengeful police state

The first three parts of our examination of Project 2025 revealed the Republican plan to make all government employees pass a political litmus test or be fired, establish a National Religion upon which laws would be based, and a plan to eliminate women’s rights to reproductive freedom and health. Scary. But it’s just the beginning of what any new MAGA inspired administration would impose.

Part four – DOJ becomes a “Gestapo”.

From Media Matters:
“In the eyes of pro-Trump Republicans and their right-wing media allies, the Department of Justice and the FBI have long been corrupted by left-wing ideology and the bureaucratic “deep state.” Now, Project 2025 seeks to radically reshape federal law enforcement for the benefit of a conservative strongman…”

Project 2025 claims that “the DOJ has become a bloated bureaucracy with a critical core of personnel who are infatuated with the perpetuation of a radical liberal agenda and the defeat of perceived political enemies.” Instead, the policy book states that “litigation decisions must be made consistent with the President’s agenda.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]

• Citing the FBI’s handling of “the Russia hoax of 2016, Big Tech collusion, and suppression of Hunter Biden’s laptop in 2020,” Project 2025 calls for a future GOP administration to immediately review all major FBI investigations “and terminate any that are unlawful or contrary to the national interest.” It also calls for prohibiting “the FBI from engaging, in general, in activities related to combating the spread of so-called misinformation and disinformation by Americans who are not tied to any plausible criminal activity,” referencing federal law enforcement’s response to January 6 insurrectionists and far-right domestic actors. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]

  

• Project 2025 also suggests eliminating the FBI director’s 10-year term limit established by Congress, claiming the position “must remain politically accountable to the President in the same manner as the head of any other federal department or agency.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]

  

• Complaining that federal law enforcement agencies spend too much time going after parents, Project 2025 calls for a renewal in the department’s focus on violent crime. Hamilton’s chapter claims: “The FBI harasses protesting parents (branded ‘domestic terrorists’ by some partisans) while working diligently to shut down politically disfavored speech on the pretext of its being ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation.’” The false talking point about the DOJ targeting parents was spearheaded by the conservative movement after the National School Boards Association issued a memo detailing “acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials” in response to false information about critical race theory and mask requirements. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023; Media Matters, 9/27/22]

  

• Project 2025 calls for initiating legal action against progressive prosecutors, citing local government officials who supposedly “deny American citizens the ‘equal protection of the laws’ by refusing to prosecute criminal offenses in their jurisdictions.” It adds, “This holds true particularly for jurisdictions that refuse to enforce the law against criminals based on the Left’s favored defining characteristics of the would-be offender (race, so-called gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.) or other political considerations (e.g., immigration status).” Heritage and its president, Kevin Roberts, have previously called for “crushing the rogue prosecutor movement.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023; The Heritage Foundation, The Kevin Roberts Show, 7/26/23]

  

• Project 2025 proposes the next conservative president should “enforce the death penalty where appropriate and applicable.” The policy book also euphemistically calls for “the next conservative Administration” to “do everything possible to obtain finality for the 44 prisoners currently on federal death row.” During the final months of his administration, Trump rushed 13 federal executions in 2020 — “an unprecedented clip” compared to the combined total of three federal executions in the preceding 60 years. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023; Rolling Stone, 1/27/23] 

  

• Project 2025 claims that the Biden administration “has enshrined affirmative discrimination in all aspects of its operations under the guise of ‘equity’” and vows to “reverse this trend” by attacking “so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices that have become the vehicles for this unlawful discrimination.” The Heritage policy book suggests that the DOJ’s “Civil Rights Division should spend its first year under the next Administration using the full force of federal prosecutorial resources to investigate and prosecute all state and local governments, institutions of higher education, corporations, and any other private employers who are engaged in discrimination in violation of constitutional and legal requirements.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]

  

• Project 2025 calls to reassign election-related offenses to the Criminal Division of the DOJ rather than the Civil Rights Division, claiming, “Otherwise, voter registration fraud and unlawful ballot correction will remain federal election offenses that are never appropriately investigated and prosecuted.” This change would allow a second Trump administration to provide more resources for investigations into bogus claims of voter fraud and bolster efforts to overturn future election results. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023; Mother Jones, 9/14/24; Media Matters, 3/5/24]

  ---

Project 2025 is a scheme to turn the United States into a totalitarian state. The Department of Justice was designed to operate independently from the Executive branch. It is not intended to be a tool of the president to exact revenge on his political opponents.

Ironically, the DOJ was originally established in 1870 to implement the protection of black voting rights from the systematic violence of the Ku Klux Klan. The KKK doesn’t hide under white outfits anymore. They run for Congress and win. And they will be employed by the DOJ – if Trump wins this year.

When asked during a Fox News interview on Wednesday if he plans to use the justice system to punish his political opponents, Trump said: “When this election is over, based on what they’ve done, I would have every right to go after them.”

https://www.mediamatters.org/heritage-foundation/guide-project-2025-extreme-right-wing-agenda-next-republican-administration

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence

https://fox59.com/news/republican-led-intel-committee-says-trump-campaigns-russian-contacts-posed-grave-threat/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/created-150-years-ago-justice-departments-first-mission-was-protect-black-rights-180975232/

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-06-07/trumps-latest-campaign-pledge-revenge

Project 2025 is “anti women” on steroids

Project 2025 is not a theory. It is a scheme to dismantle democracy. It is the playbook by which a Trump administration will replace democracy with servitude. Our nation will be governed by what I call the “American Taliban”.

Part one of our look at Project 2025 revealed how the Republican Party will fire thousands of experienced employees throughout the government – beginning on day one of Trump’s second administration. They will be replaced with loyalists who swear obedience to their king. Rolling back our nation to a time before our Revolution. Trump might as well be called King George VII.

Part two explained how Republicans will apply THEIR religious views to governing America. We will become a “Christian” nation – based on the ideas of a small minority of fringe believers. The Bible (as THEY read it) will reign supreme over the Constitution. A Founding Father’s nightmare – trashing the First Amendment, our Bill of Rights.

Part three of our examination of Project 2025 is chilling. Republicans believe they have a right to restrict women’s reproductive freedom and jeopardize the health of women and their progeny.

The first word that comes to my mind is audacity. The second is authoritarianism. The vast majority of Americans don’t want to be ruled by a vocal minority of bigoted misogynists.

From the Pew Research Center:
”While public support for legal abortion has fluctuated somewhat in two decades of polling, it has remained relatively stable over the past several years. Currently, 63% say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 36% say it should be illegal in all or most cases.”

From Media Matters:
”Project 2025 aims for the next conservative administration to attack reproductive rights from several angles, including by removing the term “abortion” from all federal laws and regulations, reversing abortion pill approval, punishing providers by withdrawing federal health funding, and restricting clinics that provide contraception and STD testing…

Project 2025 suggests the next conservative administration strike any mention of abortion from government laws, policies, and regulations. In the foreword of the Project 2025 policy book, Heritage President Kevin Roberts writes that a pro-life administration starts by removing the terms “abortion, reproductive health, [and] reproductive rights,” among others, “out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]”

Extremist Republicans want to wipe out women’s reproductive rights and the health care that accompanies it. The details in Project 2025 to that end are listed below. That could be the future. But here is what is happening NOW. Thanks to the Extreme Court’s Dobb’s decision that allowed states to deny women their reproductive rights, women and their babies are suffering and dying NOW.

From The Cut:
”A woman in Oklahoma was told to wait in a hospital parking lot until she was sick enough to qualify for an abortion. A Florida patient ended up on a ventilator after being turned away from the ER when her water broke early in her second trimester. A woman experiencing a miscarriage was filling diapers with blood and still was sent away from an Ohio hospital.

Please read this AP report:

Emergency rooms refused to treat pregnant women, leaving one to miscarry in a lobby restroom.

”One woman miscarried in the lobby restroom of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to check her in. Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room couldn’t offer an ultrasound. The baby later died.”

A woman was denied care in Texas. She was diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy. They sent her home. Pretty close to a death sentence. The doctors were afraid to treat her – due to insanely cruel Texas laws made largely by old white Republican MEN.

And yet it is FEDERAL LAW that treatment cannot be withheld. The audacity of states to violate that law is now before the Supreme Court. Will the court support Federal laws guaranteeing women their basic health care rights…or will they allow states to violate the Constitution (Article VI, section 2)?

Just in case we need more evidence that Republicans want to treat women as second class citizens – as chattel, we only need to understand that this week Senate Republicans refused to let a bill pass that would guarantee women’s rights to contraception. Senate Republicans can’t say that women have a legal right to employ the birth control pill. In the year 2024! How is this possible?

There are reasonable ways to disagree with Democrats and President Biden. I have my complaints.

But NOT VOTING BLUE on November 5th IS VOTING FOR CRUELTY to women and their families.

Below are the specifics of Project 2025’s mission to eliminate reproductive freedom.

Scroll past if you have read enough about how Republicans are attacking women – their rights and their health. It’s a lot to digest. Feel free to scroll down and share or comment. Thank you.

Media Matters report in some detail:

• Project 2025 suggests the next conservative administration reinstate the Comstock Act to ban and track and limit “mail-order abortions.”

• Project 2025 would have the next GOP administration restructure Medicaid to avoid providing reproductive health care and penalize providers who do. The policy book instructs the Department of Health and Human Services to “issue guidance reemphasizing that states are free to defund Planned Parenthood in their state Medicaid plans” and “propose rulemaking to interpret the Medicaid statute to disqualify providers of elective abortion…”

• Project 2025 also suggests restoring Trump-era “religious and moral exemptions to the contraceptive mandate” through the Affordable Care Act that would allow employers to deny coverage. The policy book also proposes requiring education on “fertility awareness-based” methods of contraception and family planning and suggests eliminating condoms from Health Resources & Service Administration guidelines…”

• The policy book directs the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to eliminate any programs or projects that are deemed pro-abortion. In a report detailing Project 2025’s proposed crackdown on reproductive and LGBTQ rights, The New Republic writes that Heritage recommends the next conservative administration direct the CDC to “eliminate programs and projects that do not respect human life and conscience rights and that undermine family formation…”

• Heritage directs the administration to roll back Biden-era policies that allowed abortion access “in some circumstances at VA hospitals.” In its chapter on the Department of Defense, the book recommends reversing policies that allow “the use of public monies … to facilitate abortion for service members…”

• Project 2025 intends to undo Title X protections for reproductive health care, which currently provide low-cost contraception, STD screenings, and prenatal care to low-income people. Though Title X funding has “never been used for abortion services,” restrictions sought by Project 2025 would prohibit “comprehensive counseling” on all of a pregnant person’s options…”

• The policy book subtly promotes anti-surrogacy positions, writing that “all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them.”

• Project 2025 aims to reinstate an expanded, Trump-era version of a longtime Republican presidential policy barring nongovernmental organizations receiving U.S. aid from providing abortion services or advocating for legal abortion.

• The policy book would reverse a Biden administration policy that requires hospitals to offer abortions in medical emergencies regardless of state bans.

• Project 2025 aims to end all fetal cell research and “ensure that abortion and embryo-destructive related research … become both fully obsolete and ethically unthinkable.”
  

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  https://youtu.be/JPbx1nCHLjo – The American Taliban in action
  
  https://www.project2025.org/ – Read the actual document, but brace yourself. They have told us who they are and what they will do.
  
  https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/
  
  https://www.mediamatters.org/heritage-foundation/guide-project-2025-extreme-right-wing-agenda-next-republican-administration
  
  https://www.instagram.com/thecut/p/C6LbyB-MWOw/
  
  https://apnews.com/article/pregnancy-emergency-care-abortion-supreme-court-roe-9ce6c87c8fc653c840654de1ae5f7a1c
  
  https://www.cms.gov/priorities/your-patient-rights/emergency-room-rights
  
  https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/supremacy_clause#:~:text=Article%20VI%2C%20Paragraph%202%20of,laws%2C%20and%20even%20state%20constitutions.
  
  https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/05/politics/senate-vote-contraception-access/index.html
  
  

reposting a “Christian ” statement

As a recovering Protestant and agnostic, I search for “church people” who haven’t been captured by the fascists. Last year I did a story called “A True Christian”. I like to applaud the good stuff.

A person I don’t know much about, Kellie Galarneau, posted the statement below on Facebook. I believe it was written by Chris Kratzer. Some would call them heretics or religious rebels. I call them “Originalists”. If you wish, view their profiles to learn more. My quick scan suggested that they thump their Bibles for the right reasons.

The statement below is the part of Sunday School that I remember fondly. I couldn’t buy all the supernatural stuff. The Bible seemed like some crazy historical novel. In retrospect, something like Ken Follett’s work. Long and tediously detailed fantasy.

But the lessons about how we should view others always resonated with me. It just makes sense to treat others as we would wish to be treated, doesn’t it? It just feels “right”. Anything other than that unleashes chaos and creates a brutal lawless society.

Anyway, this short burst of literary sanity really stands tall in a world of incredible hypocrisy. Please share it. If you do, give credit to the author. I just copied and pasted it. I did add bold to some of it for my emphasis.

“To the church of my youth,

What the hell did you expect me to do?

You told me to love my neighbors, to model the life of Jesus. To be kind and considerate, and to stand up for the bullied.

You told me to love people, consider others as more important than myself.

You taught me to sing “red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight.”

We sang it together, pressing the volume pedal and leaning our hearts into the chorus. You said that “He loved all the children of the world”.

You told me to love my enemies, to even do good to those who wish for bad things. You told me to never “hate” anyone and to always find ways to encourage people.

You told me it’s better to give than receive, to be last instead of first. To help the poor, the widow, the stranger at the gate.

You told me that Jesus looks at what I do for the least-of-these as the true depth of my faith. You told me to focus on my own sin and not to judge. You told me to be accepting and forgiving.

So I payed attention.

I took in every lesson.

And I did what you told me.

But now, you call me a libtard. A queer-lover. You call me “woke.” A backslider.

You call me a heretic. You make fun of my heart. You mock the people I’m trying to help.

You say I’m a child of the devil.

You call me soft. A snowflake. A socialist. You shun the very people you told me to help.

What the hell did you expect me to do?

I thought you were serious, but apparently not.

You hate nearly all the people I love. You stand against nearly all the things I stand for. I’m trying to see a way forward, but it’s hard when I survey all the hurt, harm, and darkness that comes in the wake of your beliefs and presence.

What the hell did you expect me to do?

I believed it all the way.

I’m still believing it all the way.

Which leaves me wondering, what happened to you?”

Chris and Kellie are addressing the “Christians” who embraced the paranoia and hate of MAGA. They are calling out bigots who claim they are faithful. But faithful to what?

The American Taliban has a plan

On October 2, 1789, President Washington sent copies of the 12 amendments [to the US Constitution] adopted by Congress to the states. By December 15, 1791, three-fourths of the states had ratified 10 of these, now known as the “Bill of Rights.”

This is Amendment I:
”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Welcome to Part Two in the exploration of Project 2025 – a carefully planned coup funded by and created by the Heritage Foundation. If you are a “Christian” who believes that your way is the only way, you will like this. If you believe in White Supremacy and believe in GRT (Great Replacement Theory) – principles that have twisted the words and intent of Jesus of Nazareth into a misogynistic, bigoted and fascistic attempt to control all Americans…you will love Project 2025.

If you are a traditional Christian of tolerance and love… be afraid. If you have any other faith or belief system, be very afraid.

From Media Matters:
“Project 2025 aims to put Christianity at the center of American government and society by turning a biblical worldview into federal law, often employing Christian nationalist talking points and narratives to support its right-wing policy proposals. In his foreword to the book, for instance, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts claims that “the Left is threatening the tax-exempt status of churches and charities that reject woke progressivism,” adding that “they will soon turn to Christian schools and clubs with the same totalitarian intent.” Project 2025 is partnered with the Center for Renewing America, the primary Christian nationalist political organization in the U.S., led by former Trump official and Heritage alumnus Russ Vought.”

“Vought wants to create an “army” of activists ready and waiting to serve in government who can be trusted to carry out a Christian nationalist agenda. And as former director of OMB, Vought has a unique insight into how to implement a whole-of-government approach to enacting a presidential directive, which is what he did with Trump’s initiative against so-called “critical race theory.”

From Wiki:
”As the leader of the Center for Renewing America, Project 2025 contributor Russell Vought has spearheaded an effort to instill precepts of Christian nationalism into government and public life should Trump win a second term. In a 2021 opinion piece, Vought wrote Christian nationalism “recognizes America as a Christian nation” but makes “a commitment to an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society.”

”For Vought, “Christians are under assault” and he sought to use his regular contacts with Trump to “elevate Christian nationalism as a focal point” should Trump be re-elected as President of the United States. Vought has close ties with another former Trump administration official, Christian nationalist William Wolfe, who, in an online manifesto, seeks to implement a Bible-based system of government whereby “Christ-ordained civil magistrates” exercise authority over the American public.^[58]

The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) is a theological belief and movement that combines elements of Pentecostalism, evangelicalism and the Seven Mountain Mandate to advocate for spiritual warfare to bring about Christian dominion over all aspects of society, and end or weaken the separation of church and state.

From Slate:
”The spread of this symbol among various political conservatives shows just how much the Appeal to Heaven flag has caught on with Christian nationalists, defined as those who abide by the (ahistorical) belief that the United States was founded as an explicitly Christian nation and needs to be reclaimed as one. (A Christian nation can mean many things, but at its core, it means a government that operates by Christian values, with an explicit privileging of the Christian faith above other religions.)”

“The American states have gone far in assisting the progress of truth; but they have stopped short of perfection. They ought to have given every honest citizen an equal right to enjoy his religion and an equal title to all civil emoluments, without obliging him to tell his religion. Every interference of the civil power in regulating opinion, is an impious attempt to take the business of the Deity out of his own hands; and every preference given to any religious denomination, is so far slavery and bigotry.”
~Noah Webster calling for no religious tests to serve in public office, Sketches of American Policy, 1785

This much is clear. Rabidly religious Republicans are the American Taliban. Of all the freedoms that we have in this national experiment in self rule, Amendment Number One is among the most important. The complete separation of church and state must be inviolate. Line in the sand, steel wall between…completely separate.

I am thinking about starting a new religion. It is called “MAKA”.

Bonus Reading: “The right’s Project 2025 wants to make faith the government’s job”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025

https://www.counterextremism.com/content/great-replacement-theory?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwpNuyBhCuARIsANJqL9Nq_WFZM4YYtHzbAGZhp6OXgEglCVabEjne_7tWVp3BzmfGl_vzLfIaAt3NEALw_wcB

https://www.mediamatters.org/heritage-foundation/guide-project-2025-extreme-right-wing-agenda-next-republican-administration

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/05/alito-flag-appeal-to-heaven-supreme-court-christian-nationalism-jan-6.html

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/project-2025-heritage-foundation-christian-nationalism-rcna103510

from a far away state

Last nights PBS NewsHour included another segment in the series called “America at a Crossroads” by Judy Woodruff.

The whole hour was important. There is a thread through it that speaks to the abuses of Native American children and a culture trying to maintain its traditions while participating in the great experiment called the United States.

There is also an interview with former Republican House Representative Joe Walsh. He was part of the “Tea Party” crew that brought more extremism to Congress. He admits that they ushered in the MAGA movement. But he nails it when he says that the Tea Party was about policy. MAGA is about Donald Trump running to be a dictator. I think Walsh regrets his role in this chain of events. But I digress from the primary purpose of this short post (pun intended).

Our primary system is throwing gasoline on the fires of extremism in our times. Alaska has recently employed “Open Primaries” and “Ranked Choice Voting” to open the field to campaigners who tack more to the middle – people who are more concerned about serving their constituencies than preaching and pontificating about political idealism.

Here’s the show. The whole thing is a good watch. But the segment I am referring to starts at about 37 minutes. Judy’s profile of the election process in Alaska was inspiring to me. Please watch.

Project 2025 – an introduction

You are a 53 year old mid-level scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency. You work to develop mitigation processes for Climate Change. Most of your co-workers are like you – long time career government employees – experts in their fields of study. Some of them had left during the Trump administration in the “purge”. Politics had made the job impossible. Once Biden was elected, many were called back to work – to do essential planning for the inevitable changes under way as the Earth’s warming wreaks havoc on the planet.

January 30, 2025. Your phone blings with a text notification from your employer. It simply says: “You’re Fired!” You think it is a sick joke in that the new president had used that term infamously on his TV show. But you also find an emailed termination letter. It is not a joke. Don’t bother coming to work. The letter is not signed by your boss or the Director of the EPA.

The firing letter is signed by Russ Vought, “Director of Personnel for the United States”.

Recently, I wrote a letter about reasons to be optimistic and how the Biden/Harris ticket is offering positive change for the next four years. It was about their good work. It was about doing even better starting next year. The message is “Dems Make Life Better”.

While Democrats are working to help ALL of us, Republicans want to dominate, exclude and completely remake America into a White Nationalist Fascist Nation. Am I ringing an alarm? Yes. Am I yelling fire in a theater? Yes. Republicans want to burn down the nation as we know it.

I shopped around for “explainers” of Project 2025. Media Matters for America has an excellent review of exactly what Project 2025 hopes to accomplish in the next Republican administration. Project 2025 is breathtaking in its scope. It is a vision of America that excludes, unprotects, and persecutes Americans.

Project 2025 is the dystopian movie you never wanted to watch.

You can find the actual document here.
Project 2025 producers and partners have made clear their goals and specific plans – to be executed in the first 180 days of another Trump presidency. The fascists are ready to complete the takeover – quickly and efficiently.

Here is a preview of Project 2025 from a member of the House of Representatives – Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. Double click to view.

Here is the introduction from Media Matters in an article titled:

A guide to Project 2025, the extreme right-wing agenda for the next Republican administration

Project 2025 aims to roll back civil rights and destroy the federal government, among other proposals.

“Project 2025, a comprehensive transition plan organized by right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation to guide the next GOP presidential administration, is the conservative movement’s most robust policy and staffing proposal for a potential second Trump White House — and its extreme agenda represents a threat to democracy, civil rights, the climate, and more. 

Project 2025 focuses on packing the next GOP administration with extreme loyalists to former President Donald Trump.”

The plan aims to reinstate Schedule F, a Trump-era executive order that makes federal employees fireable at-will, stripping tens of thousands of employees of civil service protections. Both Trump and others in the conservative movement have said they will clear out the federal government if he is reelected. The project has even set up online trainings and loyalty tests to narrow down potential hires to those who will commit to follow Trump without question. As Project 2025 senior adviser John McEntee has said, “The number one thing you’re looking for is people that are aligned with the agenda.”

Put simply, Trump would fire the career professionals who have expertise in science, budgeting, emergency management, health care, education and environmental protection. They would be replaced by sycophants – Trump loyalists who would do the bidding of business interests – the average American be damned. New employees who had signed oaths of allegiance – yet have no experience.

The Department of Justice and the FBI, no longer independent, would become enforcement agencies like the Gestapo.

From an ABC News report:
“In other words, Trump’s response when criticized for using Hitler’s language was to acknowledge the criticism and then to use it again. Whether he is telling the truth about not ever reading “Mein Kampf,” there have been multiple reports of Trump privately admiring Hitler.”

Today’s letter is written to terrify you. The times we are experiencing bear striking similarities to Europe in the 1930’s. We need to be afraid. Very afraid. We need to get up off our couches and vote. We need to find traditional non-voters and explain that despite their reservations about Joe Biden, the alternative is the loss of a functioning democracy.

Successful coups of governments and fascist takeovers don’t happen in a flash. They are slowly developed in the background. And all of a sudden, they are real and unstoppable.

Project 2025 is a brainchild of the Heritage Foundation – heavily funded by Charles Koch. This is oligarchy ascending. This is fascism on steroids. For a list of other ultra right wing organizations that align with and support this coup, read here.

Are you frightened yet? Are you ready to resist the Coup? If so, please share this with as many people as you can.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/20/donald-trump-allies-christian-nationalism-00142086

https://billalstrom.substack.com/p/dems-make-life-better – a positive outlook

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/conservatives-aim-to-restructure-u-s-government-and-replace-it-with-trumps-vision – “freedom is defined by God, not man.”

https://www.project2025.org/ – from the authors

https://www.heritage.org/press/project-2025-reaches-100-coalition-partners-continues-grow-preparation-next-president – a list of organizations that are partners in the coup

https://www.mediamatters.org/project-2025 – an analysis of Project 2025

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/conservatives-aim-to-restructure-u-s-government-and-replace-it-with-trumps-vision – “schedule F” flushes the entire government of professionals and replaces them with Trump loyalists

https://www.project2025.org/training/presidential-administration-academy/ – Administration Academy – Preparing Political Appointees to be Ready on Day One

https://www.axios.com/2023/11/13/trump-loyalists-2024-presidential-election – Behind the Curtain: Trump allies pre-screen loyalists for unprecedented power grab

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trumps-history-adolf-hitler-nazi-writings-analysis/story?id=105810745 – listen to Trumps own words

Geothermal Energy is Happening.

STOP THE PRESSES! I have some good news. There is an energy revolution happening right now – right here in Massachusetts. Turn off the news about the horrors of courtrooms and battlefields for a few minutes and join me in some overdue excitement and optimism! This is a two part story.

One of my greatest frustrations is that our news feeds are filled with all the battles of human competition – for land, for resources, for money. And add to that the efforts of the “American Taliban” to establish a religious dictatorship (that would be THEIR version of religion, of course) and we are swamped with scary depressing news.

Today, you have a chance to read about real progress. Read how major fossil fuel utilities have joined with a non-profit and a city to pioneer a whole new approach to providing one of the basics of our civilization.

Not long ago I wrote about a hope for a clean source of energy. Fusion promises to alter the way the world operates in a monumental way. But it’s still a long way from being refined and made available. When Fusion is deployed, the world could be transformed. But for now, it’s a hope – not a happening.

Our journey towards sustainable Earth friendly energy production won’t be solved by one amazing all encompassing technology. It will happen as we knit together multiple solutions. Solar, wind and hydro have been at the center of this shift away from fossil fuels. Huge gains have been made. But the drawbacks are real. The sun doesn’t shine at night and the wind can simply stop blowing. And a new grid of expensive transmission lines is required to keep up with all that new “clean” power.

Part One:
Geothermal energy can be the perfect compliment to those technologies and it is happening! A recent Guardian article explains: “In February, the Biden administration announced $74m for up to seven pilot projects to develop enhanced geothermal systems that, the government said, hold the potential for powering 65m American homes.”

“A limitless supply of heat exists beneath our feet within the Earth’s crust, but harnessing it at scale has proved challenging. Now, a combination of new techniques, government support and the pressing need to secure continuous clean power in an era of climate crisis means that geothermal energy is finally having its moment in the US.”

Geothermal capacity could increase 20-fold by 2050, generating 10% of the US’s electricity, according to a recent road map released by the US Department of Energy. Joe Biden’s administration has also funded new projects aimed at pushing forward the next generation of geothermal that aim to make the energy source available anywhere on America’s landmass, not just easy-to-reach hot springs.

”Ironically, enhanced geothermal uses similar fracking techniques currently used to extract oil and gas, which must be phased out if the world is to avoid climate disaster. In the geothermal version of fracking, fluid is injected deep underground, causing fractures to open up, with the liquid becoming hot as it circulates. The hot water is then pumped to the surface, where it can generate electricity for the grid.”

More electricity using sustainable sources! Great! But we still need to build out a grid that can handle the growing load of electricity coming from new locations.

Part Two:
However, there is another project happening in a few states like ours that is a bit different. It is still tapping the heat below our feet but not to produce electricity. “Networked Geothermal” uses the same drilling technology that is used to install gas lines. In fact, it is a gas utility company executing the project. The beauty and irony of that is stunning to me. Networked Geothermal is a system that can heat and cool a neighborhood of residences and businesses. No more furnaces. No more AC units in the the windows. No strain on the electric grid.

A project in Framingham, Massachusetts is scheduled to go online next month. Read about it here. A school, several commercial enterprises and 37 residences will be provided with heating and cooling via a shared system of pipes filled with water that tap the Earth’s year round temperature of 55 degrees. Think of it as a giant heat pump.

Here is a video that explains the Networked Geothermal concept.

I think America is at its best when governments, nonprofits and businesses join in solving problems and advance a future that benefits us all. Tonight I will raise a glass to Massachusetts (and other states) that passed legislation allowing gas companies to embark on clean energy projects. I’ll toast the staff of HEET who have worked tirelessly to facilitate this progress. And I will actually clink a glass to the two gas utilities that recognize that gas is not their future. Cheers.

“Eversource is really footing the bill,” Shawn Luz, sustainability manager of Framingham, said on Boston Public Radio. “They’re covering the costs both on the city side for the residents, and businesses that are participating.”

A second pilot installation is to be developed by another gas utility (heart be still). National Grid will drill to install similar water pipes at a public housing project called Franklin Field in Boston. Read about it here. Another reason to be proud of our state.

Note that both of these geothermal systems employ similar drilling techniques as those required for drilling oil and gas wells as well as installing gas line infrastructure. That means jobs. Lot’s of new jobs using already attained skills – working to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. “Drill baby, drill” is now a green motto. Win, win, win.

The system in Framingham is scheduled to go online in June. I’ll report back when they “flip the switch” 🙂

https://billalstrom.substack.com/p/the-great-distractions

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/02/geothermal-energy-electricity

https://dandelionenergy.com/see-if-your-home-qualifies/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/is-geothermal-power-heating-up-as-an-energy-source-180984202/

https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/03/08/networked-geothermal-eversource-framingham-pilot-project-decarbonization

https://www.eversource.com/content/residential/save-money-energy/clean-energy-options/geothermal-energy

https://commonwealthbeacon.org/energy/utilities-dig-into-geothermal-systems-in-race-to-decarbonize/

https://www.heet.org/

is showing up

Polling over the last few months have shown Biden “in trouble”. That his popularity is lacking. People whined about his age and lack of speaking agility. Biden has been struggling to find the balance between supporting the only democracy in the Middle East and condemning the horrors of their war on terrorists. Whatever he does or says about that will make enemies.

The “Border Crisis” also haunts whoever occupies the White House. Republicans in the House shot down the bipartisan bill that funded some solutions – the very bill Republicans demanded. Still, a president gets the blame for everything. Not logical, but forever true.

The last NYT poll showed some distressing numbers – with Trump ahead in key “battleground” states. I suggest we take all that with a large grain of salt. Why? Because it was a poll of registered voters – a large percentage of whom will not vote. Historically about a third of eligible voters will moan and groan, but won’t participate.

Some other recent polls show Biden ahead. Why? Because they surveyed “likely voters“. The general populace loves to grumble. But it’s all about who shows up to actually vote – to participate. Who is really passionate.

The Republican National Committee is in a state of chaos. A high school political club could do better. The DNC and Biden campaign have deployed thousands of workers and opened many offices across the country. The RNC has not. They are firing professionals and hiring sycophants with little experience. And…Republican money will be drained to Trump’s legal expenses.

Add the fact that Trump’s image is hardly enhanced as the media is fascinated by Trump’s behavior in court. Now it’s “Sleepy Don”. Felony charges and farts. Not exactly inspiring.

Yes, all the news feeds are filled with Trump’s travails and the horrors of conflict around the world. Which are real. But for most, not that personal.

Women are being denied health care and their reproductive rights. Rights that are extremely personal and states are passing laws worthy of dystopian novels. Since the Dobbs decision reversed Roe v Wade, EVERY time that issue has been on the ballot (even in red states) Democrats have prevailed.

And, the Main Stream Media is FINALLY calling out Trump and the Heritage Foundation about Project 2025. The threat of his potential dictatorship is gaining traction. Prison camps for millions? Firing career government employees to be replaced with mini clones of Betsy DeVos and Ben Carson? Using the National Guard to “clean up” cities in Democratic states? A Federal registry of pregnant women?

(This is the section where you thank me for not including a picture of Trump.)

We have every reason to be hopeful, but not to be complacent. If everyone of us convinced two or three non-voters to vote, we would be victorious.

Read on if you would like an analogy that involves issue passion and participation – who shows up controls the future.

In our recent town election, the ballot results for a large budget override funding the school system passed by just 33 votes – of about 6000 voters. The town was divided between ardent supporters of education and those who are legitimately worried about high real estate taxes.

Two items are big drivers of the budget increases. One is the explosion of health care costs for town employees. I have deleted my rant about the corruption of our health care systems. Later.

The second big item is the cost of special needs students. The good news is that modern science, medicine and education are recognizing the range of possible conditions that students may have. I have watched this happen. It is wonderful.

I am grateful to live in a state that requires by law that those unique needs be addressed. This is a good thing. But it is expensive.

Then the total budget had to go to “Town Meeting”. It is an old fashioned, you have to show up to vote, New England tradition. My thought is that we should be able to vote by phone for everything. The technology is there. The companies are there to provide it. And it would ensure the most participation. Let the majority rule.

The budget in question, if approved, would mean we are all going to pay a real estate override tax. Not small money. On balance, we have one of the best school systems in the state and the country. People flock here to buy homes or rent because of the schools. The result is ever more expensive housing but there is also a nice bonus.

Our kids are growing up in a very diverse environment. “White” kids are close to being a minority. Our grandchildren (5 and 7) hang out with peers who hail from China, India, Peru – it is their “normal”. This also costs more money as a large proportion of the kids know English as a second language. They need extra help. It is an American tradition to provide that help and assist in their assimilation.

Growing up in diversity is a huge advantage for young people. But it costs more money. I say well invested money. Diversity is American vibrancy.

At last Monday’s Town Meeting, a record breaking 2500 people actually showed up to vote. The auditorium, two gyms and the cafeteria were packed. It was a measure of passion about a specific issue.

The big school budget passed with 72% support. These were the “likely voters” who were passionate about education and view life from a “we” vs a “me” perspective. A large majority were willing to pay more in taxes to maintain a world class school system.

The ballot question (voting by mail is common here), which was actually a “poll”, was evenly split. The Town Meeting represented the people who felt so strongly, they were willing to show up for an hours long procedure.

Democrats have two big issues worth showing up for. Women’s reproductive rights and subsequent healthcare. And the looming threat of a dystopian dictatorship guided by Project 2025 – to be led by a sociopathic misogynistic bigot who doesn’t read and falls asleep during important events and meetings.

I think people are going to show up. Don’t you?

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/07/12/voter-turnout-2018-2022/

https://news.gallup.com/poll/110287/what-difference-between-registered-voters-likely-voters.aspx

https://apnews.com/article/republican-national-committee-trump-staffing-cuts-46bc8afcc152aecfd471161a59b74005

https://votem.com/

https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/23/politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-presidential-polls/index.html

Bonus pics:

It CAN happen with NEW LEADERS

I have several subjects I would prefer to present this week. There are enormous issues of global importance that need discussing. But the situation in Gaza and the protests on campuses have taken the oxygen out of the room.

This week’s post is a long one. But it would be irresponsible for me to shorten it. These are not my words to edit. I promise that future posts will be much shorter.

The following is a letter my wife found on Facebook. It is wise and thoughtful. I believe it was originally shared by her cousin who lives in Israel. Her cousin is an advocate for dialog between Muslims and Jews. She has worked for many years to help young people of both cultures understand each other.

Credit to Rodger Kamenetz (I do not know who he is) who posted the following. If you are understandably short of time, I put into bold the key phrases.

”I want to share this letter from a long time Israeli Peace Activist Rabbi Havivah Ner-David addressed to student activists and really all of us who have strong feelings about Gaza. The question she raises for me and us all: am I helping to foster peace or am I promoting violence?”

Rabbi Ner-David writes:

As a graduate of Columbia College (Class of 1991) and a peace activist who lives in Israel, I am watching videos and reports from my alma mater’s campus and wondering what I would have done if I were a student there now.

I am an activist and have been all my life. I believe strongly in the ability of grassroots movements and peaceful protest to change the world.

When I first moved to Israel, my activism was focused on feminism and religious pluralism. Today, however, I strongly believe the most pressing issue in Israel-Palestine today is solving the conflict.

Since well before the current extremist right-wing Israeli government was elected, I have been demonstrating against the occupation (later also the Nation-State Law declaring Israel officially a Jewish state) and working for Jewish-Palestinian partnership within Israel’s borders. My debut novel, “Hope Valley,” is about the friendship between a Palestinian Israeli woman and a Jewish Israeli woman in the Galilee.

I am a very active member of Standing Together, a movement of Palestinian-Israelis and Jewish-Israelis working in complete partnership towards an end to the occupation, Palestinian self-determination and a more equal, just and peaceful society within Israel. I am involved in a variety of groups and organizations committed to a vision of peace, justice and equality for all people on the land from the “River to the Sea.”

I remain active in these groups even after Hamas’ brutal attack on Oct. 7. I am even out on the streets now calling for a mutual ceasefire and a return of all the hostages (many of whom it seems are tragically no longer alive), as well as for the resignation of government officials and early elections.

And so, if I were studying at Columbia today, I would ask myself: Should I join your protests? After all, I, too, am pro-Palestinian.

But I am also pro-Jew.

And when you chant, “There is only one solution, intifada revolution!” and “From the Sea to the River, Palestine will live forever!” you are not calling, as I and my Palestinian-Israeli friends are, for peace, justice and equality for all humans within those borders. You are calling for the violent destruction of the country where we live, and the murder of its citizens — including the Palestinian ones. As we saw on Oct. 7, Hamas has no more sympathy for other-than-Jewish Israelis — not even for Muslim ones — than it does for Jewish Israelis.

When you say, “I am Hamas!” you are not identifying with innocent civilians, including children, women and seniors who were massacred and kidnapped or the women raped in captivity (according to eyewitness accounts from hostages who were freed). Even my Palestinian Israeli activist friends strongly condemned Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7 and say Hamas is terrible for the Palestinian people.

And when you call out, “Say it loud and say it clear, we don’t want no Zionists here!” you are fomenting violence against and silencing other Columbia students. You may disagree with them, but does that mean they have no right to inhabit your shared campus — or even live? Do you think I, an activist in the struggle for peace and equality for all in Israel-Palestine, have a right to live?

Make no mistake; I have no problem with the keffiyehs you wear or the Palestinian flags you wave. But why is nationalist self-determination good for Palestinians and not Jews? Why is living in the Diaspora good for Jews and not Palestinians? And why do Palestinians have a right to live in security, but Jews do not? Unlike you, I do not even consider myself a nationalist. But I do believe in people’s right to live in safety, and I do not believe in double standards.

While I am an activist advocating for Palestinian rights, I also advocate for Jewish rights. While I march for a ceasefire, I also march with the families of the hostages and am volunteering to translate into English testimony from the Oct. 7 massacre — which is absolutely horrifying, even if there are those who deny it happened.

While I protest many of my government’s policies now and in the past, I do not think Jews have a moral obligation to commit suicide rather than enter sometimes tragic gray areas that are part of defending a country. Turning the other cheek is not expected of anyone anywhere. Why expect it only of Jews?

While you in the United States demand that we be sacrificial lambs, you inhabit and benefit from a country unequivocally acquired through colonialism and grown through slavery. This is not the case with Jews in Israel (although the British may have had colonialist aspirations by being here), even if agenda-driven pseudo-historians try to convince ignorant students that it is.

Israel is far from perfect. I am outraged at the Jewish-supremacist, messianic, theocratic, anti-democratic direction in which the country is currently headed. But the answer is to try and change that direction, not call for the country’s destruction.

I understand and relate to your show of solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. The situation there is heartbreaking and devastating. But so is the situation here in Israel. The scale is just different, for a variety of reasons that are just as much the fault of Palestinian leadership as Israeli.

Our political leadership on both sides are using us all as pawns in this bloody conflict. It must end. They must agree on a political solution, and we, the grassroots from both nations, must demand this.

If you from abroad want to demand something, demand a resolution of the conflict and peace in the region, not the annihilation of one side. As has been often stated – there was a ceasefire in place on Oct. 6. What there wasn’t was a political direction from either the Israeli or Palestinian leadership to achieve long-lasting peace.

The situation here is so much more complex than you care to understand. There is a bloody conflict going on, with people suffering and dying on both sides in brutal ways, not just in the past months but for the past century. One who studies the history and present will know that both sides are culpable and responsible for the conflict and its resolution.

Student activists, I too question the Zionist project. I grew up on the Zionist narrative. But when I discovered I had been told only part of the story, my answer was not to believe the Palestinian narrative over the Zionist one — because it, too, is only part of the story. The answer is to acknowledge both stories and both people’s suffering and try to find a way to hold it all and everyone’s humanity.

My ideal is for us to all live in peace and dignity on this land from the River to the Sea. That means two states, with perhaps down the line more open borders and cooperation — if we do the work to reconcile and heal. That is what my Zionism is about. Not Jewish supremacy or theocracy or even having a Jewish state; it is about having a safe place for Jews to live. But not at the expense of another nation. And so, my vision for this place would have to be safe for everyone.

And so, if I were at Columbia today, I would not join your protests. Because now I know I do not have to choose sides. I do not even have to buy into the idea of “sides.” This is a battle between those who support violence and an all-or-nothing approach to this conflict, and those who want to find a way for us to all win out by sharing this land. It saddens me deeply that you are choosing — perhaps out of latent Jew-hatred — the way of violence and hate instead of cooperation and mutual understanding.

There are people living here in this very real place. We are not a theoretical idea. And some of us are Palestinians and Jews who are working together tirelessly to make our vision of peace and equality a reality. If you want to promote peace on this land, please support our work. What you are doing now undermines it.”

That was a lot to read. But it takes work and patience to understand that both sides of this endless, hopeless conflict have a point of view that must be heard.

Aren’t we tired of feeling hopeless?

My wife has another cousin (she has many) who has devoted most of her life to helping others to find peace within. She provided us with another example of an effort at peace. What follows is a very powerful video of a Ted Talk that also speaks of peace – by two men who under different circumstances could kill each other.

or a Hard Heart?

I have often heard people describe others with “He or she has a good heart.” or “He made a mistake, but he has a good heart.” or “He did what he had to do, but his heart was in the right place.”

When we say someone has a “good heart” we are issuing a verdict on his or her character. It is a statement of ultimate approval. It is often a forgiveness. It is a description that redeems an imperfect person.

Would you vote for a leader who doesn’t have a “good heart”?

Last week was infuriating and encouraging. Yup, I am writing about mixed emotions again. But how can you feel otherwise after a week like this?

The Supreme Court decided to legislate from the bench by actually hearing a case about “presidential immunity” – a concept that doesn’t exist in the U.S. Constitution – for a very good reason. The lawyers for “45” argue that a president can do anything he wants while in office and be immune from accountability – even order the killing of a political opponent. Doesn’t it sound like the court wants a monarchy? There was absolutely no reason to hear this case. It should have been dismissed as nonsense – validating the decision by the appeals court. And very oddly, there was no reference to Trump or his alleged deeds by any of the justices. They just babbled about philosophical concepts and worried about issues that had nothing to do with the case they had accepted! Argh!!!

But on the bright side of life, we were treated to Trump being forced to sit quietly as he is tried in a criminal court. He was forced to sit and listen as a judge looked down at him. A judge who had the ability to tell him to shut up. Trump was sitting, falling asleep and farting. Remember, every minute the wannabe dictator is in a courtroom, he is not playing golf or campaigning. There are only so many hours in a day.

And also remember that Al Capone was imprisoned not for murder (and there were plenty) but for tax evasion. Pundits poo poo the Election Interference (Hush Money) trial, but it may be the one where justice is actually served. A jail cell is still a jail cell – no matter how you get there.

By the way, I believe Judge Merchan will hold a hearing on Thursday about Trump’s continuous violations of the gag order. What do you think the punishment should be or will be?

For a really complete and professional recap and assessment of anything Trump trial related, I refer you to Joyce Vance and her substack analysis. Joyce is a former U.S. Attorney and is currently a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at the University of Alabama. If you are a TV news watcher, you may recognize her as a “legal contributor”.

And most of you who read Bill’s Focus, know Robert Hubbell. But in the odd chance that one of you doesn’t, it is worth posting this referral. Last week in particular, Robert helped me with my emotional swings from extreme anger to thoughtful appreciation. I highly recommend this edition of “Today’s Edition Newsletter”.

And now for my mental health and maintaining a balanced life, some notes on growing food and enjoying canine companionship. Here is what our organic vegetable garden is looking like at the end of April. The beginning!

Maeve’s DNA results:
83% Australian Cattle Dog (aka Heeler)
6% Border Collie
4% Australian Shepherd
3% German Shepherd
2% Miniature American Shepherd
2% Chow Chow

The family is preparing to be herded. Affectionately, of course.