Are we great? Are you proud?

Life in America, 2026

A friend who lives in subsidized, rent-controlled housing tells me that crippled elderly residents in her building who had been receiving $200/month in food stamp benefits (SNAP) have now seen their monthly benefits cut down to $24/month. How would anyone buy groceries to last an entire month—what could you buy?—with $24?

On the other hand, there is plenty of money in Washington to be spent on erasing dignity and history and replacing it with glaring white and gold and monuments to vanity. The travesty of the new decor in the Oval Office wasn’t enough, even with the expensive fiasco of the reflecting pool “renovation” and subsequent damage, which was preceded by the outright destruction of the East Wing of the White House. Now it is the turn of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, its grey granite to be painted white. Whatever we are told it is going to cost, we can be pretty sure the eventual price will be a multiple of the first number announced. The gift plane from Qatar? That “free” plane? How much are we taxpayers now on the hook for?

And now a certain member of the Cabinet wants how much more money to pursue a war that we were told was “won” after the first week? Ninety billion more, not ninety million more. He must need a few bucks to test soldiers' testosterone levels, too, since that's one of his big priorities. I mean, gender-affirming care like that costs money, too.

But elderly, disabled people living in poverty—why should our taxes to go helping fellow Americans in need, when so many wealthy individuals and corporations have not yet reached the trillionaire level? If the poor were deserving, they wouldn’t be poor, would they? It’s all a matter of priorities and values, isn’t it? Each of us shows our priorities and values by which politicians and policies we support.

Want more? How about this? There is plenty of money for tracking down law-abiding, tax-paying immigrants and slapping them into tax-sucking private prisons. But not enough money, the Department of Homeland Security thinks. They want a lot more. 

And the ARCH???!!! There is no way I can add anything to that without profanity, so I’ll stop.

Oh, wait! I forgot data centers! You think you can keep them out of your community? You think local control means anything to the current administration? Read this. 

And How About Those Tariffs?

There are emails I don’t read but delete as soon as I see the subject heading. One such group are the messages offering me tens of thousands of dollars to use in my business. No, not loans, just “quick cash!” I’m lucky but also hard-working, and neither desperate nor stupid.

It turns out (I heard this ghastly story on NPR while in my car, the only time I listen to radio news) that there is a whole new “industry” offering quick cash to small business owners who don’t have time to wait for approval on a bank loan or don’t qualify for a bank loan because they have no track record. I put “industry” in scare quotes because predatory financial schemes like this are exactly that: predatory rather than industrious. The people create nothing for others but poverty, and such mob-like operations should be seen as outright criminal, but at present they are within the letter of the law. 

I repeat: The money offered is not technically considered a loan—for whatever bizarre, legal labyrinthine rationalization that provided that loophole—and so there is no limit to the interest that can be charged or how often payments are demanded. 

Not technically loans, they are called Merchant Cash Advances, and they function for businesses similar to the way “payday” loans function for individuals. You need money now! Today! You don’t have it! You’re desperate! Here it is, yours for the taking!

How does this relate to tariffs?

Many small businesses import products or parts from overseas, and tariffs on these goods must be paid at the port of entry before the goods are released to the business owner, so what can you do if you have orders to fill and need to get your hands on the products to deliver orders to your customers? In one instance, three cash advances totaling $950,000 somehow turned into a debt of $1.2 million. Read the full story for yourself. It’s the nightmare behind today’s tariffs, the horror story no one wants to admit being sucked into.

Now, the $64,000 Question (though with inflation, the dollar amount needs to be multiplied): 

Which of the above is the worst story? 

What Happened to Republican Opposition to Big Government?

Paul Revere spreading the alarm, prior to
composition of the U.S. Constitution

Federalism does not give exclusive political power to a central government but divides power between national and state governments. The United States of America was designed as a federalist system. The 20th-century Republican Party (not to be confused with the 19th-century Republican Party), and especially its right wing, used to be very strong for noninterference by the federal government. Twentieth-century Republicans were against the Feds most of the time. They were all "Don't Tread On Me!" Funny (not really), but now that they are (I don’t say “firmly”) in the seat of federal power, they have changed their tune big-time and seem more than willing to go along with a L'état c'est moi! executive.

 

Look no further than the president’s war against “sanctuary cities” and his sending National Guard troops into cities with democratically elected Democratic mayors, against the wishes of both city mayors and state governors, even where Republican governors say the troops aren’t needed. Without search warrants, without probable cause, ICE troops—and make no mistake, they are definitely “troops,” too—are seizing individuals off the streets, out of their homes, from school and store parking lots, even from courthouses where they, the individuals seized, were showing up for court appointments in the legal pursuance of their paths to citizenship. The people thus abducted are not arrested, only “detained,” without lawyers, without court dates, in prison-like facilities often far from their homes (there is one in Baldwin, Michigan), where visits from family members are difficult when not impossible.  

 

It doesn’t stop with the deployment of the National Guard and with ICE seizures, either. Many states with reasonable questions about the role of so-called Artificial Intelligence are looking for ways to control that genie before it is completely out of the bottle (too late?), and now the president is raging against state attempts at control and has signed an order to override and invalidate states’ laws controlling AI. It's an issue that is only going to get larger, state by state, with big companies angling for land for huge data centers, e.g., 280 acres in Wayne County’s Van Buren Township; 172 acres in Ionia County’s Lyon Township; 250 acres in  Saline Township south of Ann Arbor; and more.

Water, energy, noise and light pollution are the immediate concerns as data centers “flock” to Michigan communities (and what protection do these communities have from billionaire-owned corporations backed by federal executive power?), but that doesn’t even begin to address the large possibility that these data centers constitute the largest financial investment bubble our country has ever seen. If you didn’t follow the link to watch this podcast in my recent Books in Northport post, please follow and watch and listen now. You don’t have to go through my blog. Here is the direct link. Know what’s at stake before you take a position, please, but don't wait to find out what's at stake!

 

Finally (and I say “finally” only because I’m stopping today with this item, not because it exhausts the list), the right-wing Heritage Foundation is now targeting ranked-choice voting as something to be shot down. The idea of increasing voter choice has been gaining momentum in Michigan through a petition drive, but eliminating ranked-choice voting is among the priorities for the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a wish list of policies with the overall goal of taking power from individual voters and from states and handing it to a federal government with strong right-wing goals.  

 

(Was our federal system designed with states as incubators, so-called “laboratories of democracy,” or is that only myth? It's the rationale I've always heard for the limited independence of state governments. I found an interesting article online that argues against states as laboratories for democracy, but the argument seems to be that it is third-party groups within states that shake things up, not the state governments themselves, so how strong an argument is that? After all, those third-party groups are working through the state governments. What do you think?)

 

Washington is not dictating every single state law (yet), so when does the current administration think it’s okay for states to take an initiative? Banning abortion or restricting voting rights on a state-by-state basis seem permissible to Heritage-Washington. (I can only wish those vitally concerned with the lives of zygotes had at least equal concern for the lives of air-breathing children and adults.) Otherwise? The Great Father in Washington will decide for you. 

Are you on board with that? What kind of freedom is possible without community control and with state power overpowered?

For Crying Out Loud!

When confronted with the character flaws of the person she supported for president in the 2024 election, one person I know replied that we are all sinners, all flawed. Equally flawed? Does character not matter then in elected officials? Do past acts committed not matter? Then anyone might as well be considered “qualified,” and we might as well draw names at random to fill government offices. Why bother with campaigns and voting? 

Several months into the administration led by one of us flawed sinners, we now have unidentified men, masked and armed, abducting people off the streets in the name of the United States government and transporting them to prisons and/or detention facilities without due process. We are told that these men must be masked to protect their identities because threats have been made against their lives. By this logic, state governors, members of Congress, governors of states, judges in courtrooms, journalists—there is no end to the people whose identities should be hidden because threats have been made against their lives! 

People who go into law enforcement or into the military choose careers that involve risk. If we are to know and trust them, we need to know who they are. We need to be able to see them--as fellow human beings. And they need to see others as fellow human beings, also. Do they? 

A friend retired from law enforcement downstate says he cannot imagine how the public would have reacted if he and fellow police officers had initiated traffic stops wearing face masks rather than badges. A certain public person objecting to the new practice (and sorry, I can’t remember who it was) said the ICE officers looked as if they were setting out to rob liquor stores. Sure does! And it makes sense that people doing that want to hide their faces. 

Bank robberies, liquor store robberies, etc. are “traditionally” performed with faces hidden. Are these government employees and their bosses all too well aware that they are the serious law-breakers?