Who could blame you for staying in bed this morning

Upstate Model Railroaders diorama of downtown Glens Falls is almost complete

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After two weeks, there is good reason not to get out of bed this morning.

Pull those sheets and blankets over your head and go back to sleep, and if you do decide to face the day, whatever you do don't turn on the television where I'm sure we'll hear about layoffs at suicide hotlines just when they are needed most.

While the ostrich defense is understandable, we really need to be more engaged than ever.

This is not a bump in the road, this is a cataclysmic head-on collision.

The FBI and Justice Department are being gutted and promises of retribution are being carried out as we speak. The bad guys are stopping the weaponization of law enforcement by weaponizing law enforcement. The only difference is that they actually - and continue to - break the law.

Last week was a dizzying assault of bad news from the Trump White House that continued over the weekend.

"The first two weeks into his second tour in the White House have seen so many lines crossed in the pursuit of his agenda that anyone who believes in the Constitution and honest governance should be worried," the New York Times wrote in a Sunday editorial.

It may be the understatement of the century.

The parade of unqualified candidates paraded before the U.S. Senate has been matched only by the failure of half the senators to be serious about their role of advise and consent.

Cabinet nominees are routinely asked if they would carry out an illegal presidential order, but The Washington Post pointed out that that at least seven of Trump's nominees have sidestepped the question.

Those of us here in the Adirondacks should be concerned that Lee Zeldin, a former new York congressman from Long Island, was approved by a 56-42 vote last week to be the head of the Environmental Protection Agency even though he has little background in environmental regulations and voted against an Inflation Reduction Act that included the most sweeping green energy policies to date.

During his first week on the job, 1,100 EPA employees - about one-eighth of the total workforce - received an email telling them they would be fired because of their probationary status. Consumers who had made deals for solar energy were told that the money appropriated for those programs was no longer available.

If you remember anything from Woodward and Bernstein and Watergate, it should be we need to follow the money, but maybe more importantly here, who controls it.

That makes Russell Vought the most dangerous man in Washington, D.C.

Vought, a principle of Project 2025, is the nominee to run the Office of Management and Budget. He would control federal spending.

Foundational to our checks and balances in the federal government is the Constitutional guarantee that Congress must approve all spending.

They are our our representatives in spending our tax dollars wisely.

Vought told the Senate Budget Committee he believes the president has the power to restrict funding approved by Congress and believes the law that says he doesn't - the Impoundment Control Act - is unconstitutional.

Committee Democrats were so incensed by Republicans support of this view they boycotted the final committee vote as 11 Republicans voted to advance Vought's nomination to the full Senate.

While that was discouraging, it was frightening to learn aides to Elon Musk had taken control of the computer systems at the Office of Personnel Management containing personal data of millions of federal employees and blocked career civil servants from access.

"Since taking office 11 days ago, President Donald Trump has embarked on a massive government makeover, firing and sidelining hundreds of civil servants in his first steps toward downsizing the bureaucracy and installing more loyalists," Reuters wrote Saturday.

The New York Times called it an attempt to choke off federal funding.

It also means that Musk and Trump can stop or start funding anytime they want because they control the checkbook.

A week ago, the administration attempted to stop billions of dollars in funding and almost brought the government and many essential local programs to a stop before a federal judge blocked the efforts.

It followed up by offering thousands of federal employees buyouts if they resign even though no money has been appropriated by Congress.

The message to employees that was shared with the New York Times did not cast them in a good light and read in part, “The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.”

There was so many nefarious things going on at once, we were still learning about them on Sunday morning.

The head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau - which protects consumer interests such as its investments on Wall Street and was created after the financial collapse in 2008 - was fired on Friday.

If you are not worried about your 401k, maybe you should be.

Two Democrats on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the chair of the National Labor Relations Board were also fired.

In an extraordinary Sunday editorial, the New York Times wrote:

"These officials, who would almost certainly be strong critics of the administration’s attempts to reduce civil rights and labor protections, do not work for Mr. Trump; they are board members of independent agencies, approved by the Senate, and their terms are not up. The Supreme Court ruled in 1935 that presidents cannot dismiss members of independent agencies like these simply over policy differences, and the court declined a chance to overrule that precedent last year."

The administration did not care. They fired them anyway.

And that's just last week.

If you are still in bed, stay there, but you will eventually have to face the music.

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The Upstate Model Railroaders diorama of downtown Glens Falls - circa 1890-1900 - is almost complete. Stay tuned for the unveiling in March.

Update on train

For more than six months I've been keeping you updated on the progress of a Chapman Museum/Upstate Model Railroaders project to create a diorama depicting downtown Glens Falls circa 1890-1900 with a trolley line running up and down Glen Street.

While we hoped to have it finished by Christmas, we are excited to announce that Upstate Model Railroader club is almost there.

Many of you donated to the cause and we appreciate that.

We are hoping to schedule an evening event to unveil the diorama sometime in March.

Details are still being worked out, but we are thinking sometime in the middle of March.

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Journalism and truth

I stumbled on this quote in The Guardian newspaper and it resonated with me. It was from CNN's Christiane Amanpour:

“Our job is to be truthful not neutral.”

You still want to give both sides to tell you their side, but in the end you have to write or broadcast the truth.

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Tariff on newspapers

Two of my former colleagues at The Post-Star - Thom Randall and Maury Thompson - reminded me that the tariffs imposed on Canada Saturday could also have a signifiant impact on newspapers since Canada is the prime source of newsprint.

Maury went a little further saying that Canada was the only source of newsprint for American newspapers.

Thom pointed out that local newspapers laid off employees after a couple local newspaper laid off employees after a 10 percent increase in paper prices. He wondered if a 25 percent increase would close them down.

Another gloomy thought.

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Great atmosphere at little Devlin Field House as Tulane almost pulled off an upste of 19th ranked Memphis State Tuesday night.

How am I doing?

Here's the update from the New Orleans bureau after a full month here.

There is a lot to do here.

Last Thursday, Joseph and I had an early dinner at a local pub, then walked to the trolley car line on St. Charles to enjoy a leisurely ride to Tulane University where nationally-ranked Memphis State was taking on Tulane.

Devlin Field House is a tiny little bandbox of a gymnasium - by today's college standards - and the place was rocking Thursday night with Tulane matching Memphis basket for basket until the last three minutes when Tulane faded.

As we braced to go outside and face the cold, we were pleasantly reminded it was still about 65 degrees outside on this January evening.

And while I'm missing seeing Glens Falls High play, seeing Division I college basketball in a cool little arena is helping to make up for it.

I considered going to the Pelicans - the NBA - game against the Celtics Friday night, but I figured I needed at least one night off, especially with the Super Bowl coming up Sunday.

And as a bonus, the Tulane baseball team starts playing in two weeks.

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Over-coaching

Here's one of the things you probably don't see watching a college basketball game on television.

Memphis State, which is ranked 19th in the country, showed up with almost as many coaches as players. I really wanted to know if each player had a personal coach.

During one time out near the end of the game - and this was something I had never seen before - Memphis State coach and NBA Hall of Famer Penny Hardaway gathered all those coaches together in a separate management huddle before addressing the team personally.

I guess he wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page.

It worked. Memphis State pulled away in those closing minutes to win by 12.

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Focus on Louisiana

Sen. Bill Cassidy, a doctor for 30 years and U.S. senator for the past 16, finds himself as the lynchpin in the confirmation process with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

From the coverage in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, it is clear that Cassidy is trying to walk the line between being a good Republican and his responsibility as a doctor.

Republican leaders in Louisiana, including Gov. Jeff. Landry, have made it clear that if Cassidy votes the wrong way, he will be challenged in the next election. Considering that Donald Trump won the state with 60 percent of the vote, it would most likely mean the end of Cassidy's political career.

Cassidy is just the latest politician confronted with doing the right thing or the best thing for his career.

There is also some concern in Louisiana over Trump's push to eliminate federal jobs. The Times-Picayune pointed out that there are 19,000 federal employees in Louisiana.

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Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.