Editorial

Welcome to AmeriKKKa, the home of White mass shooters and land of “No black lives matter.” We have been taught that America is the land of the free and the home of the brave, but I’m having a hard time believing that statement in light of what happened to pro-Palestinian student activists Mahmoud Khalil of Columbia University and Liu Lijun, a grad student at University of California, Los Angeles, CLA- Mahmoud is a green cardholder and Miss Lijun is on a student visa. These are dark days in America.

Two days ago, petition demanding the immediate release of Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil has garnered nearly 900,000 signatures after his detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on Saturday.

Many prominent and otherwise admired people in this country live off fear. They promote it widely in official communiqués and through a compliant media. Sometimes the fears have a basis in reality, sometimes not. Even when they are real, those involved exaggerate them for public consumption. These practices have gone on for so long now that fear has come to dominate the public square. And this has been done and continues to be done because frightened people yearn for guidance and protection and will yield personal decision making, prerogatives, and power to elites and experts who claim to have answers for their anxieties. Accordingly, elites in government, business, and intellectual circles have for decades gathered around a range of issues to frighten the public enough to allow these elite elements to jointly wield power.

Pearl River President Trump engaged the country in 90-minutes of “me-time” in a rant before Congress, but that’s hardly news. While the Republican side of the House rose in applause, the rest of the room, and world, continues to recoil in horror. In the wide, wild world,
some of the reaction is more personal than the handwringing of politicians and businesses over the damage that is being wrought.

I saw a Facebook post of a friend, a labor lawyer in DC, who is housing federal employees suddenly thrown out of work. A book reviewing organizer for Social Policy missed the issue deadline, because he was dealing with so many federal workers in chaos over the loss
of livelihood.

Returning to type, “As a measles outbreak expands in West Texas, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary, …cheered several unconventional treatments, including cod liver oil, but again did not urge Americans to get vaccinated.” What children
dying, me worry?

Elon Musk's remarks on Muslim are preposterous!

As a retired NCO, I am appalled by Co-President Elon Musk who recently questioned the loyalty of Muslim-American organizations and equate them with terrorism without producing any shred of evidence.

Muslims are part of the fabric that makes our country great. They have served in every war and conflict since the Revolutionary War.

I should note here that the 'Tweet Machine' never served a day in the U.S. Armed Forces.

Elon Musk's remarks on Muslims are preposterous.

Israel is reneging on the ceasefire agreement

 A high-ranking Israeli official said, "Israel will not withdraw from the Philadelphia Corridor, which is the border separating Egypt and Gaza, despite the ceasefire agreement stipulating otherwise."

Last Sunday, Prime Minister Netanyahu said Israel is imposing a blockade on all humanitarian aid heading into Gaza, following the expiration of phase one of the ceasefire deal. 

That is a clear violation of the agreement. In other words, Israel is reneging on the ceasefire agreement. Fish swim, birds fly, and Israelis lie!

I think that no head of state visiting the White House ever got treated as badly as Ukrainian president Zelenskyy did recently. Trump and VP Vance attacked and insulted him mercilessly. They acted more like gangsters "making someone a deal he couldn't refuse" rather then acting with diplomacy and respect. They needlessly sabotaged the meeting and did everything they could to blame others for their own ignorance and incompetence. They wanted Zelenskyy to sign an agreement he would never approve.

Keep in mind that English was not Zelenskyy's first language and I'm sure he was unprepared for the level of contempt and betrayal he received from America's misleaders.

Trump and Vance have spread numerous lies about the issue. They blamed Zelenskyy for starting the war! They even blamed our European allies and Biden for causing the conflict.  

They did not blame who is truly responsible - Vladimir Putin. Instead, they called Zelenskyy a dictator for trying to save his country from Russian aggression.  

Among the flurry of actions by the Trump administration, it could be easy to miss one that poses a grave danger to public health and our planet: a no-holds-barred attack on science.

In a series of disturbing moves, the administration has censored scientific research, slashed resources for public health and the environment, and advanced fossil fuel industry propaganda. These moves only serve corporate interests — at the expense of ordinary people and the planet.

During his campaign for president, Donald Trump claimed that he could win the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours. Yeah, right! Now that he's president, he says it might take six months.

A spokesperson for Trump said that only he could get a peace deal to end the war.  That is not true!  The only person who could end the war is the same person who started it - Vladimir Putin!  Of course, Putin doesn't want to end the war if a peace agreement involves retreating out of Ukraine and Crimea, paying war reparations, possibly handing over war criminal suspects for trials, and accepting several hundred thousand ethnic Russian refugees who once lived in Ukraine but are not welcome there anymore.

U.S. President Donald Trump is at it again. He made another bombastic Hamas last Monday threat to cancel the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage release deal when he declared that if Hamas does not release all remaining hostages by noon on Saturday, the ceasefire should be canceled and the war in Gaza renewed.

To begin with, Trump has nothing to do with the ceasefire deal, even though he claimed credit for brokering the ceasefire. However, the deal was reached:

* Before Trump took office

* After more than year of negotiation. 

* Heroic resistance by Palestinian factions.

* Gazans instance to rather die from bombs and starvation than leaving. 

Netanyahu does not care about the hostages. He only cares about his coalition, staying in power, and not going to jail. He threatened war and his sidekick Trump irresponsibly followed suit. Trump was misled by Netanyahu that most of the hostages held in Gaza were dead. 

Neither before or after Trump has taken office did he express interest about the safety and welfare of the hostages, whether they were Palestinians or Israeli or even Americans to that effect. 

The cognitive status of federal officials needs to be addressed. Too many of them manifest some degree of impairment and are not fit to serve in government. There is little question that our last president, Joe Biden, was intellectually diminished, and may have been suffering from a neurologic disorder. His speech was hesitant and slow when he wasn’t reading, he had difficulty answering questions, and his gait was abnormal. When he ran for president in 2020, he was more intact and deteriorated over the four-year course of his term. Biden is now 82 years old.

Our current president, Donald Trump, is 78 and will be 82 when he finishes his term. Trump at times misnames people and places when speaking and uses the wrong words occasionally. Some of his actions are impulsive, like his idea to take over Gaza, and some appear contradictory. It is unclear at this point whether he is mildly cognitively impaired, has a personality disorder, or possibly both. As people age, personality quirks, present when younger, tend to become more pronounced, particularly if cognitive difficulties have emerged.

The Trump administration is engineering the most extensive dismantling of the federal workforce in modern history—not through mass firings, but by incentivizing resignations. A new Office of Personnel Management (OPM) program offers federal employees full pay and benefits until September 30, 2025, while exempting them from in-person work. This isn’t just an incentive—it’s a slow-motion purge designed to drain the government of talent without triggering the backlash of forced layoffs.

Many will take this deal, viewing it as a lucrative early retirement with no strings attached. The most likely to leave? The most experienced, skilled employees—the backbone of the federal government. These are the workers with institutional knowledge, those best positioned to find opportunities elsewhere.

For now, the damage will be masked. These employees will technically remain on payroll, but they’ll be ghost workers—paid but absent. This illusion of stability will persist until October 2025, when their exits become official and the full impact takes hold.