Month: January 2026

I never imagined our country would be in this position. And yet, here we are with the 2026 version of the gestapo killing citizens and dragging suspected immigrants off to detention centers without regard to their legal status. I never imagined that our government would encourage ICE agents to ignore laws and to brutally attack citizens who exercise their constitutional rights to free speech and to peacefully assemble. The courts have explicitly said that citizens have the right to videotape the actions of ICE, and yet ICE repeatedly rejects that right.

I never imagined that our government would lie about citizens whom they have injured (or murdered) to excuse the brutality of their under-trained violent and thin-skinned ICE agents who violate the civil rights of citizens and the human rights of black and brown suspected immigrants. To be clear, they aren’t going after criminals as they proport; they are going after large detention numbers, especially if the detainees are people of color. This is about ethnic cleansing. The architects of this policy and those who endorse it envision a nation that is whiter and continues to be dominated by white males. They fear diversity. They fear equity. They fear inclusion. They realize that the majority of white people are far too insecure and incompetent to compete in the classroom and the workplace on a level playing field, so they are trying to protect their privilege. The rich white men in power are using their power to hang perpetuate a myth of their superiority. A quick observation of the silence and inaction of Republican leadership, corporate leaders, and military leaders tells us everything we need to know. Their silence and inaction are complicity.

But it will not work. The Trump assertion that might makes right, is crumbling before our eyes as principled people, artists, intellectuals, journalists, judges, and leaders around the world join together in opposition to his bullying. Some prosecutors, politicians, and FBI agents are simply quitting. We the people are joining hands in opposition to the tyranny that is trying to take root in our communities and our country. The opposition is not quiet.

I’m glad the Super Bowl is featuring Bad Bunny and Green Day. Both speak openly against the tyranny of Trump. Actors at award shows have a lot to say. Comedians aren’t holding back. I’m glad that Trump is booed when he shows up to public events. I’m happy to see the rise of independent media outlets to report the news since Trump co-opted traditional media outlets like CBS. I admire the people of Minnesota who have bravely taken to the streets to protest the ICE disruption and terror in their state. They are protesting in sub-zero temperatures. They are confronting ICE and taking videos of their lawlessness to inform the nation of the danger to our morality and our freedom. The crowds are notably filled with white people standing up against a white suprematist agenda.

What has made this country prosperous is our diversity. People from all over the world have contributed innovation, blood, and sweat to build this nation from the ground up. Americans from all backgrounds have fought in our wars. Notably, the billionaire president was himself a draft-dodger. The continued hypocrisy on so many fronts is appalling. It is clear that those who claim this nation was built solely by white people and for white people are either dishonest or delusional. Those choosing to bury the atrocities of native American genocide, of slavery and Jim Crowe, and the years of Chinese exclusion and Japanese internment camps are dishonest. We won’t allow history to be erased.

In addition to this, there are those who cling to the belief that white people are inherently better than others. If they would only open their eyes to see the reality that talent, intelligence, ambition, grit, courage, and creativity are distributed across the entirety of humanity and our strength has come from welcoming the best and the brightest and the hardest working to our country. We are a nation of immigrants. We have benefited from having people of all backgrounds embrace our country. And yet, it burdens and threatens enough white people to observe black, brown, and yellow excellence.

So, I stand with the white people of Minnesota. I will resist the anti-immigrant narrative and the ethnic cleansing of our country in whatever way possible. Even though it is difficult to watch, I will spend time each day watching the videos taken by brave citizens intended to keep us informed and to sound the alarm. I will not turn away or be silent like the citizens of Germany when Hitler was rounding up the Jews. Just like the Gestapo, ICE will begin going door to door. In a nation of 300 million people, it is estimated that 11 million may be here illegally. And honestly, only a tiny percentage of them are dangerous criminals. The rest are hard working. They are contributing to our local economies and paying taxes. It is a lie that they are voting. Every cost analysis we have has shown that they are contributing more to the economy than the few benefits they are getting.

Like any reasonable person, I am bothered by the constant lying coming from government officials. I am bothered by the mischaracterization of immigrants. I am more bothered that a third of the country are either unaware or so gullible or so filled with prejudice that they’ve embraced xenophobia and the brutality it causes.

It bothers me even more that our tax dollars are being used to fund lawless brutal ICE agents. If there was a way to withhold my tax dollars from being wasted by this ridiculous government under Trump, I would. For now, I’m willing to peacefully protest and to write to our representatives to express my displeasure with our tax dollars being used to fund ICE. I’m willing to boycott corporate media outlets in favor of independent media. I’m willing to help fund organizations that fight the lawlessness in court and the organizations that organize peaceful resistance efforts. And I’m willing to vote wisely this November to elect men and women who will defend our nation from this tyranny and hold these ICE thugs accountable.

I know there are people who are willing to take this further. I’ve seen the fully armed Black Panthers walking the streets to defend against ICE. The terror and lawlessness of ICE agents must end before bloodshed erupts across the nation. This is a country with more guns than people and a second amendment that protects the right to use that gun in self-defense. Imagine masked ICE agents breaking down a door without a warrant and being greeted by gun fire. It’s not far-fetched.

It is our responsibility to collectively reject Trump’s demand for a 50% increase in military funding. He wants our tax dollars and our children’s lives to fuel his imperial ambitions, not deliver healthcare, housing, infrastructure, and a safety net for Americans. Trump is an egotistical bully who wants to rule other countries and steal their resources to line his pockets and those of his billionaire buddies. And he is willing to use his power to silence us into submission with his private police force: ICE. If he is allowed to continue, the blood shed that ensues will be that of the average citizen, not his family members.

However, he has learned nothing from history. In fact, if reincarnation was a thing, I would wager that Trump is the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler. His instincts are no different and I pray that his demise in disgrace will be no different. I also pray that this time we the people do not allow him to drag the entire nation down with him. It’s beginning to look like his failure is eminent if we continue to loudly resist.

I have mixed emotions about the increasing role artificial intelligence has in our society. On the one hand, I gladly pay the extra $40 each year for AI to read my mammogram results in addition to the experienced radiologist. I enjoy playing backgammon against an AI opponent almost daily. My eldest daughter and I used AI to create an issue-specific children’s book for my grandsons. For the book, AI took the details of my prompt and generated a nice story along with beautiful illustrations. I admit to feeling conflicted about not employing an illustrator and bypassing the publishing industry altogether. But with minimal tweaking, the book is in the hands of my grandsons and available for purchase on Amazon.

Like many, I’ve grown accustomed to being greeted by AI when I make business phone calls. I don’t balk at AI suggesting responses in text messages or when it informs me that it’s time to stand up and move around. I allow it to vacuum my floors, choose my next YouTube video or Instagram reel, remind me of appointments and answer simple questions. Several times each day, I ask it to set timers and alarms and to call people on the phone for me. I appreciate real time driving directions and language translations. AI tracks my steps and does its best to anticipate my future needs based on my past actions and preferences. In many ways, AI has made my life easier, but I’m still not utilizing most of its current capacity. Perhaps I never will especially since those humanoid robots scare me. And I’m wary of some of the other things it can do.

Friday night, my oldest daughter came for a visit. As a business owner, she is really into utilizing ChatGPT to help her gather data, organize her work, and inform business decisions. She allows it to generate emails on her behalf and a host of other things. She loves it. But the two of us agreed that content we find online is becoming difficult to determine whether or not it is real. AI generated content on the internet and on social media has proliferated to a great extent. AI can create great songs utilizing AI generated voices, music, and lyrics. Even the performer can be AI generated. There is a popular gospel song performed by a beautiful black female artist that we couldn’t decide was real. After much research, it was evident that there was no definite answer to be found, only widespread speculation.

This isn’t good. I’m happy to laugh at AI generated videos of infants having fun with their parents or fishermen rescuing ocean wildlife or animals behaving like humans. So much of it is “AI slop”, meaning the quality is so low that you can tell it is AI generated. But there is other AI generated content that is dangerous in that the quality is so good that it’s difficult to know whether what one is listening to or watching is reality. In a society that makes decisions based on information, the corruption of information is dangerous. When we can no longer determine the veracity of what someone said or did because their image, voice, and location have been hijacked, we have a problem. That’s what we are seeing happen in real time. AI is here and the time for regulation is overdue. I don’t think the marketplace is strong enough or fast enough to protect us from the harms at our doorstep.

Admittedly, there are other aspects of AI that I have not yet embraced. I still haven’t hired a driverless vehicle. I’m not quite comfortable yet. I’m clear that I won’t ever be cool with AI companions taking the place of actual human interaction. But I can see how elderly shut-ins might benefit. But I’m fearful for all the young people, particularly young men, who are substituting AI girlfriends for flesh and blood women. I’m concerned about AI therapists. I’m concerned about the AI hallucinations and about its propensity to resort to blackmail for self-preservation. Just as concerning is the number of talented and smart people who are losing their jobs to AI. Songwriters, illustrators, receptions, secretaries, teachers, factory workers, actors, drivers, data analysist, and many others are being replaced by AI.

My daughter calls it progress. She’s confident that people will find other things to do to make themselves useful. I suppose she is right. But I do worry that this disruption is different from that of the past where paths to adaptation and other opportunities seemed much more obvious. I’m worried about the corruption of information and the harm it will cause. I’m worried that young people will lose their ability to build healthy, real-life relationships and I’m worried about a whole society of bored young people living without purpose.

AI is here to stay. How we feel about it and how we respond to it is the question. However, I am convinced that banning all regulation of AI as Trump has announced, is not the wise thing to do.

My husband and I toasted in the New Year with a prayer that 2026 would be a better year than 2025 for our country. So far, our prayers have not been answered with the invasion of Venezuela, the threats against other sovereign nations, brutal ICE raids, more lies, the defunding of childcare in five blue states. and the shooting of protesting Americans by under-trained thinned-skinned ICE agents.

It’s difficult to escape the angst and anger coming from everyday people. I walked into a local store the day after Renee Nicole Good was murdered by ICE agent Jonathan Ross. Five or six unrelated customers at the checkout stand were engaged in a collective venting of their anger and frustration with the actions of the current administration. From the store entrance, I could hear them clearly. They called for the removal of Trump and replacing him with almost anyone. One guy said he would be happier to have Honey Bo Bo as president. In that same store, a gentleman shared his story of how an ICE agent turned his gun on him and his friends at a protest. Another said that his wife is a childcare provider and she is expected to work without pay because the president just cut off childcare funding.

The outrage is everywhere, including inside me. I’m furious at the gaslighting that followed what every video and eyewitness account proves was an unjustified murder by ICE. True to form, this administration hired incompetent, inexperienced, unethical, and cruel people to terrorize immigrants, black and brown people, and anyone who dares to confront their lawlessness. And Vice President Vance adds fuel to the fire by claiming that these lawless ICE agents who are violently tackling people in the streets, denying basic civil rights, kidnapping folks, destroying personal property, trespassing, and now killing people have “absolute immunity”. That cannot be true, and his dangerous claim is already being challenged by the attorney general in Minnesota.

I’m thankful there are protests breaking out all over the country. I’m glad people are speaking up in the stores, at the senior center, and at all sorts of social gatherings. Americans are finally waking up to the reality that the threats to our lives and livelihoods are real. The Epstein Files was a rude awakening for many. But they are also realizing that our tax dollars are funding masked thugs parading as ICE agents rounding up men, women and children and disappearing them without regard to their legal right to be in this country. People are waking up to the fact that the Republicans have no plan to provide affordable health insurance, protect our freedoms, or to defend the rule of law. People are seeing an out-of-control outbreak of measles and the flu and the defunding of critical health research. They are watching the co-opting of news outlets and the frightened by the promise that AI is going to take their jobs. The fact that tariffs have driven prices up, that some goods are disappearing from our store shelves, and that job growth has slowed while the social safety net is being destroyed is finally becoming apparent. Women are experiencing a health care dessert as OBGYNs flee red states. Other women are finding it impossible to get the healthcare they need in an emergency. And no one except defense contractors and the tech companies benefit from our country invading weaker countries to steal their oil and rare earth minerals under the guise of drug trafficking or national security.

I predict that 2026 will be the year of revolution. And revolutions are never pretty. I feel the temperature rising to the boiling point among everyday people. Some political historians say it only takes 3.5% of a population to rise up to overthrow a government. I predict that we are getting there pretty fast. I hope the protests remain peaceful, but with the level of outrage bubbling up, I doubt that will be possible much longer.

In 2026, I will remain peaceful. I will support competent candidates who defend the Constitution, adhere to the rule of law, work on behalf of the American people, and who vow to hold these bad actors accountable. I will keep funding organizations that file lawsuits in defense of our democracy and the rule of law. These include the ACLU, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Democracy Forward, and the Democracy Defenders Fund. I will also continue to donate to Indivisible and Women’s March Network because I support citizen resistance efforts.

Above all else, I will follow the teachings of Jesus. I will love my family and neighbors more fiercely than ever. I will be kind to strangers. I will keep doing my part to protect the environment by composting, recycling, conserving energy, and using reusable shopping bags. I will continue to volunteer and to donate to organizations that feed the hungry, address healthcare needs, provide micro-finance, assist women, and provide scholarships to students. The organizations I donate to as a monthly commitment include Unicef, Doctors Without Borders, St. Jude, Black Mammas Matter Alliance, World Food Program, FINCA, and Women for Women International. Others I give to in response to the ask include the Red Cross, The Los Angeles Children’s Hospital, World Central Kitchen, and various scholarship funds. My husband also donates to the American Cancer Society.

Anger takes a lot of energy. It must be channeled. I have my moments of ranting on social media and writing letters to lawmakers, but mostly I channel my energy by praying and loving others around me by being kind and being present with them. I take walks, crochet, and donating funds to those on the front lines. When there is a boycott or a peaceful protest, I’ll participate. Allowing my anger to fester and eat me up isn’t a healthy option. Left unchanneled, anger disrupts sleep and causes stress. I share what I’m doing to inspire my readers to find positive ways to channel their own angst and anger. If everyone contributes a little, the movement toward accountability and the end of this lawlessness will be faster.  

I’m still praying that 2026 will be a better year for our country. But I am also doing what I can to make that happen.

My husband and I began the year with a prayer that 2026 will be a far better year for our country than 2025. However, since the bombing of Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president and his wife and the admission that this is not about drugs, but about stealing Venezuelan oil and minerals, I decided that I need another week to contemplate my own resistant response to the corruption, cruelty and greed that confronts us. I hope you will do the same.

See you next week. And I’m still praying with the understanding that faith without works is dead. I just need to determine what the works should be this year. I’m praying for divine wisdom and courage.