1. United States
2. Ohio
3. Letter

Does anyone else feel like the United States has a crazy captain at the helm of a rudderless ship? Any rational person, regardless of political persuasion, should be looking at what is happening in the Trump administration and be very concerned. The crazy is accelerating. Whistleblowers with new revelations daily. Career officials and lawyers leaving daily because they cannot put up with being ordered to do things that they know are wrong. Bad for their country and citizenry. The president is becoming more erratic every day. And if that is as supporters like to believe, ‘Just Trump being Trump,’ it is still incredibly inappropriate and damaging to the world at large. Recently: The NYT reported that six months ago Trump loyalists running the Kennedy Center cancelled plans to fix the leaking roof they now claim is so dangerous the center must be closed and repaired. Those repairs, they now say, will require the addition of Trump’s name to the building. Or here comes the wrecking ball? They report that the center’s board put the $1.4M that had been allocated to fix the roof toward Trump’s repainting of the building’s columns, which cost $4.4M. The WSJ reported that Trump has told aides that he is planning to start bombing Iran again after the midterm elections. Iran has offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and reopen talks about nuclear weapons if the US ends blockade of Iranian ports. But Trump rejected the offer. Again. At the UN General Assembly, Trump told the assembled leaders that his administration is “seeking a fundamental change” in the government of Cuba. CBS News reported that the US Army Reserve is considering whether it can provide support units, including police forces and medical personnel, to the US Southern Command. They cover Latin America south of Mexico, the waters around Central and South America, and the Caribbean, including Cuba. The info CBS reviewed doesn’t say for what operation the troops would be needed “in 90 to 120 days,” but does report that “multiple U.S. officials” said the planning is for a potential operation aimed at Cuba. Trump has invited Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit in December in Miami. With this offer, Trump is welcoming Putin back into global legitimacy without ending his invasion of Ukraine. This continues their trend of giving Putin legitimacy without changing his behavior. Which includes continued bombing of Ukrainian citizens. The WaPo reported that earlier this month, the US and Russia worked together to weaken a UN plan to regulate AI weapons. They stripped out a provision to make sure humans review the targets AI has selected for a military strike. A provision that would likely have avoided the US strike on an Iranian school that killed children. And took out requirements that AI systems must act in a “predictable” and “reliable” manner. They also removed a requirement that those using the systems take “ethical considerations” into account. And for some counter-productive rationale, in the midst of a global oil shortage, Trump announced he was getting rid of vehicle fuel economy standards. No doubt because they were established by Biden. Then the icing on the cake of efforts to make you guys even more obsolete, the administration announced it is refusing to spend $810M Congress appropriated to fund research for HHS and for programs that serve immigrants and minority groups, calling it “wasteful and harmful government spending that does not benefit American citizens.” Yanked this funding even though the Government Accountability Office, that watches over how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars, is very clear that such “pocket rescissions” are illegal. The Constitution places the power of the purse in Congress alone. It requires the president to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” But if the president can decide not to fund programs Congress has appropriated funding for, he effectively takes over the power of the purse. So now, the director of the OMB, Russell Vought, has claimed the right to such power. Power taken from you. Are you okay with the administration taking taxpayer money away because they say they can? As one senator suggested… “Russ Vought’s message to Congress is that your votes don’t count, and your laws are optional.” “It is now time for my Republican colleagues who said they would never let this happen to stand up and join us to stop this, and remind this administration this is not how this works.” But this is how it works now and you and yours made it so by completely abdicating your duties. The damage you caused and enabled will last generations.