DJT critics may find it's too late to protect selves

(the new yorker image)

DJT is out in the open practicing retribution. Maybe we the public are experiencing the "boiling frog" thing. The worst fears that many of us harbored about Trump long ago, are being borne out in reality. The media tells us this. Well it's just another day, yawn. 

You mean there's consequences with Federalist Society types filling the Supreme Court? Women losing their right to choose? That's just one example. 

"Judge Cannon" isn't even on the Supreme Court but she has been as impactful as anyone. I mean, where would we be today if she had not tossed the "docs" case on specious grounds? And then the dug-in Trump people started looking for blood after that. Can't you see this is the real danger? Retribution? 

And why must that drive be satiated? Well, rhetorical question: autocratic aims. And our society now is the boiling frog. We no longer have Dan Rather to turn the fire hose on the most extreme right-wingers. 

Rather could be "rather" a pain sometimes. But I'd prefer living in an America with someone like him having a check on power. 

I should refrain from making comments like this if I know what's good for me. But I began making such comments a long time ago, really since DJT "came down the escalator." I have been wise to his system of gathering power for himself. He has a true gift with rhetoric. But then that's a common trait for autocrats like the most notorious one of the 20th Century. 

Michelle Fischbach

I established a track record long ago. So if retribution is in the works for someone like me, I would have no cover. I'm vulnerable. You would think that our own congressperson out here, Michelle Fischbach, would want her own constituents protected from such a thing. She should put our welfare first. That was the ideal in the "old" America of pre-Donald Trump. 

The old ideal would have been to let the citizens of Texas vote in a conventional way without the hasty gerrymandering that we now see. People who believe in basic ethics should be crying out about this. Texas officeholders were initially hesitant about the re-districting move. DJT changed the equation when he muscled in.

The motive was naked. 

Our basic sense of fair play and decency should be tugging at us. It would have been, in the America I grew up in. 

Today we see the increasingly crass and abrasive president of the U.S. - at age 79 on shaky ground with his health and cognitive state - do extreme things with retribution and partisan arm-twisting. In the case of the Federal Reserve, it may not even be partisan politics. 

 

Don't bludgeon the Fed 

Of course I learned as a young person that the president is supposed to be hands-off with the Fed. I probably did not learn this in the classroom, rather it was from esteemed commentators on the news. One of my traits has been to digest the news since I was a little kid. Maybe I assume too much about other people's knowledge. Don't most people understand that incumbent office-holders need to leave the Fed alone? 

The fundamental principle is this: The Fed is called upon to make decisions sometimes that are bad in the short term but good in the long term. And what happens if we allow our long-term best interests to be ignored, to be vetoed actually? Do we really want to find out? Do you care, really? Well I know of a lot of people who I think wouldn't care at all. 

Look how DJT is trying to bludgeon Lisa Cook of the Fed. 

 

The news is out there 

We learn now that DJT has personal self-interest involved with what the Fed does. Good grief he's almost 80 years old. Why be obsessed with such objectives? A normal person would want to do well by the American people. Doesn't his legacy for the American people matter at all? Well no, it doesn't. 

So what is the essence of his motivation? Is it the devil? At the same time this charlatan has worked for years to get insecure Christians eating right out of his hand? 

Today is Sunday and I'm not even going to church. I know people who'd say "we don't care." Or they might say "we don't give a f--k" because this is how they have become. 

No, Michelle Fischbach would not care if she were to learn that I personally have come to suffer from DJT's retribution. She puts aside her normal impulses to show absolute fealty to Trump. If you are on her email communications list you certainly know that. Does anyone try to talk back to her?

  

Higher prices? 

A whole string of interest rate cuts will exacerbate inflation. So will the deportation of cheap labor thanks to the "goon squads" of ICE and the handiwork of the exhibitionist Kristi Noem, the former South Dakota governor. Boy, "Minnesota nice" never rubbed off on her. She totes a machine gun and looks like she has had plastic surgery. She was a naturally attractive woman when she first entered politics. 

John Bolton: target of retribution

Many people are simply attracted to power. This includes otherwise good people, shall we say people who were not born to do these terrible things. Look at a picture of Martin Bormann of Germany - looks like he could be your local State Farm agent. Had this man grown up in America, he might have been quite straight-laced. But what's the old saying? "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." 

So many of us have been parties to this. Maybe I won't be around to see how it all turns out. 

John Bolton is a fresh target for retribution. We read the news articles about such things, then it looks like we just shrug and move on. This must be how it happened in Germany.

I sigh. "Mongo just pawn in game of life." 

 

Addendum: Here's a comment that I posted to Yahoo! News over the weekend:

 

Pretty soon all critics of Trump will learn to be quiet if they just want to live a normal life.

 

"Another Way" responded:

There goes the First Amendment, the most precious in a democracy. Yes, autocracy rules through fear, certainly not good policy. 

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com 

No doubt now that UMN-Morris faces headwinds

Here's an email I sent to our State Senator Torrey Westrom on March 4. I did not receive a response.

 

Hello Torrey, it finally dawned on me I should contact you. I'm concerned about the welfare and future of the U of M campus in Morris. The campus has become almost defined by this thing called "DEI." Obviously this prompts concern because our Federal government from the top wants to absolutely wipe out DEI in schools. A Federal judge had to knock down one effort. So what does this bode for the Morris campus? And will the central U of M administration become fearful of what the Morris campus could do to the system as a whole, if we stick so strongly to DEI? 

My own opinion of DEI is that it's not terrible but maybe it has gotten overdone here. But my own opinion is secondary. You might want to respect my opinion because I speak for the family fund within the University of Minnesota Foundation. The Williams name is important in UMM history. I guess we're called "UMN-Morris" now. It gets confusing. 

The Morris campus appears to be under considerable stress. I recently contacted the Twin Cities campus to inquire about the possibility of having my family fund transferred so that it supports music at the Twin Cities campus instead of music at Morris. Morris people got wind of that and so I backed off. Maybe you should know that UMM music has been restructured so that the ensembles are a combo of students and COMMUNITY. And I question the appropriateness of that. UMM assets should not be used to support what amounts to a community band. We no longer have "symphonic winds" which was the student group. It has been canceled. You can verify all this. 

Anyway, if you have consumed this whole email I do thank you. I have met you on several occasions in the past and you have always been friendly. I worked for the Morris newspaper for many years. Last time I saw you it was at Good Shepherd Church in Morris. 

I think your Republican Party as a whole needs to "soften" a little. Just my opinion. Take care.

 

- Brian R. Williams, Morris MN

 

Maybe one thing is for certain after the Sunday Star Tribune came out: We won't ever see a strike by UMN-Morris employees again. How many years since the last one? At age 70 I'm having a harder time estimating such things. I might not even be close. But I remember the irritating sight of those clusters of people with their typical placards for such things. I'm not sure if any of them said "unfair." 

The Sunday Star Tribune sure sets the table in a certain way for tonight's (Monday) "welcome picnic" to usher in the new UMM school year. 

School days! My generation was told in such strong terms that it was important to go to college. I'm sure it was more important in pre-digital times when information was scarce. Scarce? Today it's a flood. And as with all sweeping changes affecting society, we take for granted the new norm. So easy to forget the "retro" ways. 

Easy to forget when we'd leave "coins" on a table as the tip for a restaurant server. We called them "waitresses" then. Might just leave a quarter! 

Information and knowledge? Boy we sure leaned on our libraries. Their importance was self-evident. Today we've come to take for granted that we're one or two "clicks" away from learning about anything, anything at all. 

The Star Tribune tells us that enrollment is stressed at our "jewel in the crown" the University of Minnesota-Morris. It's "UMN-Morris" now. Well, we still have sports teams. I miss the days when our teams played the state universities. Seemed neat when our little Morris could defeat the more well-known places like St. Cloud. 

Our chancellor likes how we're in a different conference now. She has her reasons. So this is not a rebuttal. But I'll just say I miss the days when I'd see buses with the names of state universities on the side. "Bemidji State" et al. And if we were playing the "Beavers" of Bemidji State in basketball, I'd go inside and see Dave Holman along the concourse. The late Holman was a Bemidji State alum. He was on our public school faculty. He was kind of an acquired taste to have as a friend. All would agree he was an interesting person. 

There was a problem in those days: for a certain element of the UMM student population, it wasn't enough for our Cougars to win. The students could be disrespectful toward the visiting players and fans. It brimmed with arrogance. As I have written before, I think our one-time chancellor Jack Imholte actually liked that attitude. Part of his way of "selling" UMM was to frankly suggest that our students were "smarter." Believe me I know this. 

It's fine to be proud of your institution of higher learning. UMM could justifiably be proud, I think. Oh here I go being contrarian. Today in 2025 I strongly doubt that UMM exudes that kind of sense of superiority. I think we're happy to blend in with all institutions, all of which should feel proud of what they're doing for kids. Obviously the missions differ. Shall we refrain from making value judgments about those missions? 

The private schools can present a problem. If religion enters in, that can be a big problem for me. The Cougars today have a non-conference opponent in basketball in "Oak Hills Christian" from way the heck up north in Minnesota. Sometimes I'm bothered by the sheer amount of travel undertaken by school sports teams. 

Do some cursory research on "Oak Hills Christian." It is the most anti-gay college in the U.S. And while I am discouraged by UMM's history of embracing gay rights with effusive zealousness, I'm not sure we really ought to be scheduling Oak Hills Christian. What irony in this matchup of teams: UMM and Oak Hills Christian!

Some of the teams in our UMAC Conference have always struck me as rather cult-like. At the very least mysterious. There was nothing mysterious about the state universities. 

When we played Winona State, we knew a certain local wrestling coach would take interest. That's Spencer Yohe, who I guess has been gone from here for a rather long time now. The WSU alum was a miracle-worker at tiny Hancock in the sport of wrestling. Eventually he joined the UMM staff. 

I described Holman as having an offbeat nature. That mantle was carried perfectly by Mr. Yohe also. Don't knock him, he beat cancer. As a newspaper writer I rather enjoyed the colorful or eccentric folks. 

Perry Ford

 

The UMM coach with whom I worked most closely was Perry Ford. Sad to say, Perry has left this life. He worked hard to keep the Cougar men's program viable when the bricks started falling off. The bricks fell off at a faster pace when poor Jim Severson came here. 

 

Two pizza slices! 

I haven't been to a UMM basketball game since I left the Morris paper. I used to have my "evening meal" of two pizza slices there. I'm sure there has been price inflation since, probably considerable. 

Donnie Eich

Let's remember the late Donnie Eich as a loyal supporter of the UMM women's basketball program. He'd sit up at the top of the bleachers and take notes on his program. He could be very frank in his views. So he said to me one day that "all a degree from UMM proves is that you can read some books and then answer some questions about them." 

 

The Fourth Estate 

So, the UMM welcome picnic is tonight (Monday) at East Side Park. UMM sets sail on this new year with turbulence. That's guaranteed by the Sunday Star Tribune article. In the state/metro section I'm told. (Willie's was sold out this morning.) 

Our chancellor sent out a rebuttal to the article. But I'd be shocked if the Strib's writers were anything but exhaustive and thorough. Maybe the chancellor is not considering the "retention" issue enough. Are enough students staying to get their full four-year degrees? I know it's been an issue in the past. 

Free education for the Native Americans! Everyone knows about this. The UMM administration (or its lawyers) must have cooked up some way to keep this going even with the U.S. Supreme Court having banned affirmative action. Oh, those lawyers. And what about DEI? Well I certainly brought up the subject in my email to State Senator Westrom. 

Is Stephen Miller aware of UMM? 

Well let's just hope for the best in this coming school year. As for the Star Tribune, they followed the press instinct of looking for a problem somewhere. As Chuck Todd has said, "the media does not go out to the airport to cover all the successful takeoffs and landings." The media sure converged on Morris at the time of the 2005 goalpost incident at UMM.

 

Pining for band 

Is the hope all gone for ever seeing a real UMM band at the graduation again? A band with essentially all students? It was the norm for so long. How wonderful if we could hear the "UMM Hymn" again, from UMM's earliest heady days. I was there, circa 1960-61. And I was present at UMM's first graduation in 1964.

UMM's first year coincided with "Camelot," the JFK administration. Unfortunately the Cold War was rearing its ugly head.

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com 

Have we no decency anymore?

What was the point? I mean, for the son of the president to post his "meme" the other day? In normal times we would expect a Trump family member to disown what Donald Trump Jr. did. 

And DJT was up on the roof of the White House for what reason? To be cute? Or, because he knew the media would do cartwheels giving attention to this? Don't you know this is a prime instinct of his? You haven't recognized that yet? 

The son of the president went on this platform called Instagram to commit his mischief. If only it had been harmless mischief. It still would not have warranted serious media attention. But we're in the age of being saturated with media. It comes at us from all directions. We can sift through this and find our favorite "podcast" in the middle of the night if we want. 

When I was a kid, KCMT TV of Alexandria would reach the end of its "broadcast day." And we'd see stock footage of Air Force planes on a carrier while the National Anthem played. Yes, always vigilant about supporting a new war. Very strange that it took a disgusting president like DJT to at least open our eyes to how the U.S. needn't commit itself to a foreign military engagement every few years. 

"Everything Trump" has dragged the nation into the gutter. And we hardly seem conscious of it. My attempts at opening people's eyes are met by incredulousness and then insults. "You're a Trump hater." I hardly care about the Trumps on a personal level because I will never have a personal relationship with any of them. The problem with DJT now is that he has the power to affect our lives. He got three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton in 2016. He ascended to the presidency anyway. 

Oh, the time I spent watching MSNBC news shows about it all. I'd hate to realize the number of hours. Everything was laid out for us to appreciate. But the president had high-powered lawyers at the ready at every juncture. Ready to appeal (endlessly) and obfuscate to stretch things out and eventually prevail, or at least survive. 

So we're in another morning of all this, Monday in August 2025, right after our county fair. I obviously check the news because it's my nature to be aware and educated. I don't need to go to church to be told how to think and how it's essential for Trump to rule. 

I didn't attend church at all yesterday. It's discouraging because even though I attend an ELCA church which tries to be reasonable amid all that's going on, I have to live with the reality that my church of First Lutheran in Morris has fallen into very hard times, precisely because we're in the "liberal" or "progressive" ELCA. 

And I know at least one family in my church that had "Trump" signs on their yard. So the phenomenon is everywhere. This while Trump is quite out in the open wanting to establish an autocracy. He crosses lines that were carefully drawn in the past. Most significantly, the line that calls for the Federal Reserve to be left alone. Violate that dictum and the country could fall apart. And it may well be on the verge of falling apart. 

Fire an agency head who is responsible for collecting accurate data like for jobs and inflation. Make sure agency heads only deliver numbers that the president feels will make him look good. All this is happening right out in the open. 

I try sharing cautionary notes. But even my measured and well-thought-out statements are met with crude and insulting responses. How can I even respect the Christian faith anymore? Can you tell me why I should? 

MAGA supports what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. As a person of conscience I cannot countenance that even for a moment. Many of the Palestinians are Christian, in case anyone cares. 

We may soon be seeing "indictments" for Barack Obama, James Comey and others. MAGA will passively observe, register no objection. These people fill our Stevens County churches. FLC is an outlier and FLC appears to be going extinct along with Federated Church. Yes the two churches can "pair" for a time as they are doing now. It's a prelude to dissolution. Nothing can stop DJT. 

My own personal welfare may start to be affected. Well I'm 70 years old and have had a good life. Michelle Fischbach will not respond to me. Torrey Westrom will not respond to me. I emailed Westrom with my concern about what the total anti-DEI push from the Federal government might mean for UMN-Morris. I told him I was actually a stakeholder in UMM. Then I wondered: Is Westrom even capable of reading emails? It's well-known that his vision is limited. 

Maybe you missed the news about what the son of DJT did the other day. I won't score any points for pointing this out but I'll do it anyway. The son of the president posted a "meme" of his father throwing a green dildo from the White House roof. The photoshopped image merged the roof appearance with the scene of a basketball court with women players on it. So that's where he was tossing the sex toy. 

Can someone explain to me the point of this? There was a time when such behavior would have brought howls of disapproval from all over. But in 2025? Our U.S. environment is so fundamentally different. And "Christians" are the worst offenders. 

Maybe I can privately show homage to the faith in the way that my late mother would approve. But the organized Christian faith appears to be on the verge of destroying America.

 

Addendum: Was the son of the president trying to make a statement about women's basketball as opposed to men's? Was he trying to diss the women, to poke fun at them? To suggest maybe that women should not be playing basketball at a high level? Would we have ever achieved full equality of boys and girls sports if Republicans had been in charge all along? Of course not.

Will Republicans with their considerable power at present try to diminish girls and women's sports? We have a congressperson here in western Minnesota who would not disagree with a single thing that the Trumps put forth. Not a whimper. Is that really who we are? Well I guess "yes."

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Looks like WNBA will be dragged down after all

Uncertain future in WNBA?

We had to be suspicious when Caitlin Clark missed the first game of the pre-season due to injury. Who misses the first game of the pre-season? You've had an extended time to rest. 

Caitlin's body was signaling something. First it was the "quad" thing, happened twice. Her team tried telling us it was two separate and unrelated injuries. When she came back to play, I really think we were all holding our breath - all Caitlin's fans. We were apprehensive for a reason, as it turned out, because now her "groin" came into play. 

Many fans think this is a mysterious injury situation. Some conspiracy theorists began to be heard: the league realized that Caitlin was getting "beat up" so bad by opponents, she had to be withdrawn, I guess for the sake of the league's image. 

The league's image? My, the WNBA has been small-time for so long. It's sad because there have been so many outstanding players. Look at Maya Moore. Great as Moore was, her name was not a household word among people outside of the real WNBA followers. Caitlin comes along and turns into a phenomenon. Not just a playing phenomenon but a cultural one. 

We have to attribute part of this to her image and personality. She took to the "light" of stardom very well. Lindsay Whalen never had this kind of image. Janel McCarville did not excite fans based on her image. Well, athletes are entertainers. The more they can endear themselves to the fans and the population as a whole, the better. 

Caitlin simply had the gift. Oh, there I go referring to the woman in the past tense. Is it all over with Caitlin now, with her body increasingly looking so brittle? This was the WNBA's big chance to break out of obscurity. 

As I sit here today in mid-August, I'm wondering if the league is in a rapid plunge back to where it used to be. We hear talk of resentment against Caitlin within the league. Overly-aggressive defensive play against the "girl from West Des Moines." Gets described as thuggery sometimes. We are forced to ponder why this is. And I think our immediate reaction is, or ought to be, "it's not so simple." 

Jealousy just based on how talented CC is? There's one theory, but it probably springs from naivete. There is a suspicion with some justification that resentment comes from the fact that CC springs from a quite specific template. And it is not the template that characterizes the league, not at all. I think the professional commentators hate to get in this line of thinking very much if at all. Some of them do put their toe in the water, though. 

  

Just play the game 

There is so much at stake because if the league and its fans could just accept Caitlin as a talented player worthy of the usual, expected defensive attention on the court, she'd be in better shape now. She'd be out on the court which would be a boon for all the stakeholders. Shouldn't monetary gains for the league be No. 1? That is what common sense would demand. What could trump that? 

Well, CC's "template" is as a white openly heterosexual Midwest girl from a white bread background. Anglo name and all. Maybe we could equate this to Norman Rockwell? Rockwell's whole world has dissolved. We live in a rainbow culture now and this includes categories of people and/or sexual preferences. 

Let's be honest: there has been a widely-held perception of the WNBA as being a lesbians' club or hangout. Sex is at the periphery of our minds, and just look at how the recent prank or stunt of throwing a dildo out on the court has become a "thing." We all know who CC's male fiance is. 

And I haven't even gotten into the subject of race yet. Race still hangs over so much of America. Hasn't CC done all she can to be a sister to the non-white players on her own team and other teams? I'm not aware of any evidence suggesting otherwise. But I guess that's not the point. Players of color could well think that the fame of CC is due in no small extent to her whiteness. And is this theory valid? To be honest I think it is, unfortunately. I am commenting on the real world here. Is it fair? No it is not. 

 

Can't escape race 

Race is a specter that has hung over America since the 19th Century. You might argue that it's human nature to "like your own kind," like for white bread Upper Midwesterners to be attracted to this "girl from West Des Moines" with the name so easy to pronounce. 

I go out of my way to root for all of Caitlin's teammates. I cannot deny that I have my own little affinity for someone like Caitlin. But if the lesbian players are picking on Caitlin, assaulting her, they are no better than people like me who admit to a little subconscious preference. Make that affinity, not preference. Human beings simply cannot throw off their shackles of bias. We are the sinful creations of God. 

I frankly think Caitlin may be done in the WNBA. For a while I thought the WNBA could actually displace baseball as our preferred sport of summer. My opinion about that has dimmed considerably. A league with a lesbian image is not going to cut it. The league's legacy weakness is going to drag it down again.

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com