Pope Francis

By Bob Gaydos

  While millions of Americans marched to protest Trump policies on Saturday, millions more paused and prayed around the world on Easter Sunday, gathering with family and, perhaps, pondering the meaning of life.

   The weekend over, Monday brought some sad news and “Can you believe it?” news featuring familiar names.

    — Pope Francis died Monday of a cerebral stroke. The 88-year-old pontiff had recently been released from a hospital and had just avoided a meeting with J.D. Vance, the putative vice president, who apparently wanted to try to convince the pope on Easter weekend that the way America was treating immigrants was, well, what Jesus would do.

      Francis wasn’t buying it. An Argentinian, who in his 12 years as pope spoke out relentlessly in support of migrants and marginalized people, he altered the focus of the Catholic Church, not to the liking of many conservative Catholics, including bishops and cardinals. How that will affect the selection of a new pope is uncertain. There is no doubt, however, that his voice of courage, compassion and humility will not be easy to replace. And no, that’s not something that can be said about all popes. Francis asked that his tomb be inscribed simply with: “Franciscus.”

     — Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem, taking a break from posing as an ICE agent, took her family out for Easter dinner at a restaurant in downtown Washington, D.C. While she and her family were eating dinner, a thief stole her purse, which contained Noem’s driver’s license, medication, apartment keys, passport, DHS access badge, makeup bag, blank checks, and about $3,000 in cash.

    The Secret Service, which provides security for Noem, reviewed security camera footage at the Capital Burger restaurant and saw an unknown white male wearing a medical mask steal her bag. The key words here are “National Security Director” and “Secret Service.” Don’t you feel more secure? Noem said the cash was to pay for dinner and Easter gifts. Really? A burger restaurant? Easter dinner? Nobody’s watching her purse? You’re not in Wyoming anymore, Madam Secretary.

    — Pete Hegseth (yup, him again), was reported to have shared details of that surprise March 15 military strike against Houthis in Yemen on a second group chat on Signal, a group including his wife, brother and personal lawyer. The details were reportedly the same as those contained in another group chat on the same day over the same unsecure site. This group, unlike the first group, which was created by the White House security advisor and mistakenly included the editor of the Atlantic magazine, was created by Hegseth himself. In addition to his wife, it included about a dozen other people from his personal and professional inner circle in January, before his confirmation as defense secretary and was named “Defense | Team Huddle,” according to a report in The New York Times.

     The Defense Secretary reportedly used his private phone to set up the chat. No, his wife, a former producer for Fox News who has also accompanied Hegseth in meetings with foreign officials, does not work for the Defense Department. His brother and lawyer do, but not in jobs that require them to know about surprise attacks against Houthis in Yemen.

   Trump, of course, immediately attacked the source of the information. Not denying it, or expressing concern about a possible security leak that could jeopardize a military operation, just railing about leaks. However, there were some reports that Trump was wearying of mistakes by his fun-loving Defense Secretary. And Trump is well-known to be only too happy to tell those who cause him embarrassment or require him to do his actual job, “You’re fired.“ Hegseth’s career may soon be where he apparently likes it — on the rocks.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

Kristi Noem, Homeland Security secretary, posing as an ICE agent.

  Item: Sept. 9, 2016. “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. (Applause. Laughter.) Right? They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people – now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks – they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America.” — Statement by Hillary Clinton, Democratic Party candidate for president. Thought by many to have cost Clinton the presidency.

  Item: March 27, 2025. Kristi Noem, Trump’s secretary of Homeland Security, wearing long hair extensions and a $50,000 watch, delivers a video declaring how tough the U.S. will be on immigrants while standing in front of imprisoned immigrants rounded up and shipped to a hellhole prison in El Salvador without any charges being placed against them or any due process offered as required under the law. She says they should “stay there forever.”

   Item: April 7, 2025. Wearing full combat gear and carelessly pointing a rifle at the head of an ICE agent standing next to her, Noem declares she’s joining an immigrant roundup in Arizona. Boem is not an ICE agent, she is a government bureaucrat. When she was governor of South Dakota she shot and killed her dog just because.

    Item: Attorney General Pam Bondi fires a Justice Department lawyer because he couldn’t provide a federal judge some legal justification for the U.S. mistakenly deporting an El Salvadoran immigrant legally here to a hellhole prison in El Salvador or evidence of steps being taken to return the man to the U.S., as ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court. This, even though she admits the man’s deportation was a “bureaucratic  error” and no one in the Justice Department has yet to provide any proof of attempts made to return the man that a Justice Department lawyer could actually present in court in response to the judge’s order.

    Item: Bondi accuses another federal judge, presiding over the case challenging whether any of the several hundred Venezuelan immigrants sent to that prison in El Salvador received due process (you know, proof of crimes, etc.), of “meddling in our government” because the judge asked for proof.

     Item: Too many to list. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt merely lies or makes stuff up at every press briefing in defense of her boss. Leavitt, 27, is married to Nicholas Riccio, a 59-year-old multi-millionaire real estate developer who helped finance her unsuccessful campaign for Congress in New Hampshire in 2022. They have a nine-month-old son. Riccio also is a contributor to the Project 2025 manual for expanding presidential power. Leavitt still has not paid back more than a quarter million dollars in campaign contributions that were ruled to have exceeded legal limits. She is alleged to have altered every filing with the Federal Elections Commission. 

     Item: Laura Loomer, right-wing conspiracy theorist, has a 30-minute meeting with Trump in the Oval Office in which she bad mouths six officials of the National Security Council, by name, accusing them of being disloyal to Trump. Trump fires all six after the meeting. Trump later says the meeting had nothing to do with the firings and calls Loomer a “great patriot.”

       … So, I’ve often said that when one writes editorials or columns on various issues, a primary function is to help readers connect the dots. Anybody want to help me connect these?

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PS: I deny ever saying anything about bad nose jobs.