Trump's Signature to be Added to U.S. Dollars

by Rod Williams, March 27, 2026- Donald Trump does some very awful things, some unconstitutional things, cruel things, infuriating things, selfish things, offensive things, corrupt things, and stupid things. And then, there are some things he does that are so petty and cringe-worthy, so illustrative of a person with a super-inflated ego that they are embarrassing and downright funny

This one didn't make me mad; it amused me. This one is right up there with renaming the Kennedy Center after himself, accepting someone else's peace prize, or naming a navy battleship after himself, or having the U. S. mint produce a commemorative gold coin with Trump's image on it, or wanting to build a big Trump Arch in Washington. 

Trump’s signature is to be added to U.S. dollars, a first for a sitting president.  The only thing that makes this not simply amusing is that this is the kind of thing dictators do all over the world and at all times. This is the kind of thing you expect from a Kim Jong Un, not the president of a democracy.

Here is the press release from the Treasury Department:

Treasury Announces President Donald J. Trump’s Signature to Appear on Future U.S. Paper Currency

March 26, 2026

WASHINGTON – In honor of the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, President Donald J. Trump’s signature will appear on future U.S. paper currency along with the Secretary of the Treasury, marking the first time in history for a sitting president.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are on a path toward unprecedented economic growth, lasting dollar dominance, and fiscal strength and stability,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “There is no more powerful way to recognize the historic achievements of our great country and President Donald J. Trump than U.S dollar bills bearing his name, and it is only appropriate that this historic currency be issued at the Semiquincentennial.”

“As the 250th anniversary of our great nation approaches, American currency will continue to stand as a symbol of prosperity, strength, and the unshakable spirit of the American people under President Trump’s leadership,” said Treasurer Brandon Beach. “The President’s mark on history as the architect of America’s Golden Age economic revival is undeniable. Printing his signature on the American currency is not only appropriate, but also well deserved.”

Wow! What an ego! What a brat! What a clown!  

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Ten Bad Bills Bite the Dust in the Senate Judiciary Committee

Sen. Todd Gardenhire

by Rod Williams, March 26, 2026- In every session of the State legislature, there are a bunch of silly, pandering, or performative pieces of legislation introduced. Thankfully, most never become law.

Sometimes I think a legislator introduces a bill in response to something a constituent says to him, and he thinks it sounds like a good idea at the time, but when the bill is researched, it is discovered that what the legislator would like to accomplish has a lot of consequences the legislator did not foresee, or would be much more costly than foreseen or would be unconstitutional. In that case, the bill is often killed in Committee.

I imagine that is the case with the bill to ban Pride flags in State public buildings. If this had been restricted to classrooms, the bill might have made sense, but it applied to all buildings and workspaces. When applied to college dorms, this could violate First Amendment protections. And, if one cannot have a small Pride flag in one's work cubicle, can one have a UT pendant in one's work cubicle?

In a single procedural move on Monday, the Tennessee Senate Judiciary Committee effectively killed 10 controversial bills by deferring them to February 2027. Because the 2027 date falls within a new legislative term, these bills cannot be carried over and must be reintroduced from scratch to move forward. 

The maneuver to kill these ten bills was led by Committee Chairman Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga). The ten bills included a couple related to gay rights. SB1745 sponsored by Senator Janice Bowling and in the House by Representative Gino Bulso said that a law of this state that prohibits sex discrimination must not be construed to prohibit

• Discrimination against a person for being homosexual or transgender.
• Discrimination on account of or because of sexual orientation, sexual behavior, gender identity, or gender non-conforming behavior.
• The establishment or enforcement of sex-segregated restrooms, locker rooms, shower facilities, changing areas, dormitories, or sports teams.
• The establishment or enforcement of sex-specific dress or grooming codes.
• Discrimination on account of or because of any conduct related to abortion.

Wow! That is pretty extreme. This would likely have been found unconstitutional and cost the State a lot of money defending it in Court. It is now dead!

SB 1746 also by Senator Rollings and Representative Bulso said that private citizens and organizations are not bound by the Fourteenth Amendment or the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges to recognize a marriage between individuals of the same sex and it would have prohibited the board of professional responsibility from disciplining or sanctioning an attorney for declining to officiate a marriage between two persons of the same sex. That was bound to be costly to defend and indefensible in Court. 

There were seven bills to loosen gun regulations in Tennessee or expand the legal use of deadly force. I have not looked at each of them, but if interested, the bill numbers are SB 2467, SB 1227, SB 824, SB 2478, SB 993, SB 1851, and SB 1405. They are all now dead.

As long as we have people like Senator Rollings and Rep. Bulso in the State legislature, we can be thankful for people like Senator Todd Gardenhire, who keeps the Legislature from passing costly, embarrassing, and stupid bills. 

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Nashville Growth Still Driven By Immigration

From Davis Hunt, The Pamphleteer, March 26, 2026 - The US Census Bureau released new data last night. The headline grabber is that population growth slowed due to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts. In short, fewer immigrants are coming into the country.

The decline hit urban areas the hardest. Every single Metro area in the country saw net immigration fall. In most areas, it fell over 50 percent. In Nashville, it fell by 33 percent, but the lion’s share of the city’s growth continues to come from immigrants.

Nashville gained an additional 9,281 residents between July 1, 2024 and July 1, 2025 driven entirely by births and immigration to the city. Immigrants accounted for 63 percent of that growth. The year prior, they accounted for 84 percent of the city's growth.

The pattern of American citizens leaving Davidson County and immigrants moving in is still the best way to frame the city’s growth. Nashville lost 925 citizens last year and 2,741 the year before, a pattern that’s held for over ten years now.

Nashville inherits the bulk of the state’s immigrants. In total 17,990 people moved into the state from another country, 33 percent of whom moved to Davidson County and 20 percent of whom moved to another county in the Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area which includes surrounding counties.

As American citizens continued to leave the city proper, 16,967 moved into the MSA. Like everywhere else, immigration to the MSA fell compared to last year, but domestic migration actually increased by 15 percent showing the enduring appeal of the ring counties.

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Vanderbilt Poll: Nashvillians Less Optimistic About the City, Mayor O’Connell Approval Drops

• More Nashvillians (56 percent) think the city is on the wrong track than just a year ago (42 percent), which may reflect reactions to the recent ice storm, which affected 76 percent of the respondents.   
• Approval for Mayor Freddie O’Connell drops from 67 percent in 2025 to 54 percent in 2026, which also can be attributed, in part, to the impact of January’s ice storm. The same pattern holds for public’s approval of Metro Council.   
• The public’s approval of NES stands at 39 percent. 
• Nashvillians view affordable housing as their top and growing priority (73 percent), and they don’t think neighborhoods are being prioritized by the city (71 percent).  

“By a 2-to-1 margin, residents feel that recent changes in Nashville have not been good for the city—from traffic concerns to the pace of population growth,” 

... Nearly half (48 percent) said recent changes have made their day-to-day lives worse, compared with only 24 percent. 

A vast majority (71 percent) of residents surveyed believe the city government spends too little time addressing problems in neighborhoods generally.   who said they have made it better. 

A majority (79 percent) of residents believe Nashville’s population is growing too quickly—a pattern that has been true for more than five years. These numbers are congruent with “heavy traffic to and from downtown” emerging as the top reason (cited by 32 percent) that Nashville residents avoid the city’s center.  

...there is limited support for bringing NASCAR to the racetrack. Twenty-six percent are in favor of the move, but 36 percent call for eliminating the racetrack.  

For more on the Vanderbilt survey, follow this link. 

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Educators Oppose School Immigration Data Bill

by Kim Jarrett, The Center Square, March 25, 2026-  A group of educators says they oppose a bill that would require Tennessee schools to collect data on students' immigration status.

House Bill 793 was amended from its Senate version, which would have allowed school districts to charge tuition to students not legally in the country.

The bill could have put the state's $1.1 billion federal allocation from the Senate at risk if it were found to violate a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision establishing the right to education for all students, regardless of immigration status, according to the bill's fiscal note.

House Majority Leader William Lamberth, R-Portland, said the threat of losing the federal funding led to the amendment.

"There's no way I want to bring a bill forward that would endanger $1.1 billion while we are trying to add additional funds in K-12 public education," Lamberth said previously. "If you look at the new fiscal that is on the amendment, fiscal impact 'is not significant.’"

The progressive group Tennessee Progress said more than 100 Hamilton County educators oppose the bill, originally sponsored by Hixson Republican Sen. Bo Watson. Hixson is in Hamilton County.

"Children should not carry the weight of adult policy decisions when they walk through our doors," said Dr. Jill Levine, Principal at Chattanooga High Center for Creative Arts, and vice president of the Hamilton County Principal's Association, in a statement provided by Tennessee Progress. "Our job is to protect them, teach them and support them, without conditions that could create fear or uncertainty in their daily school experience."

The Knox County Board of Education included opposition to the bill as part of its legislative agenda for the 2026 session.

The House of Representatives passed the amended bill 70-25 on Monday, with three Republicans joining Democrats in opposing it. The bill is on Thursday's Senate message calendar for consideration.

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Useful Idiots Visit Cuba

Communism has impoverished the island. American leftists only care now because they can
blame Trump.

Editorial Board, The Washington Post, March 24, 2026 - Leftists from around the world descended on Cuba over the weekend for a “humanitarian” trip aimed at protesting the United States’ oil blockade, and they played the role of useful idiots perfectly. Nothing says solidarity like going to an impoverished country and staying at a five-star hotel.

Hundreds of delegates from dozens of countries brought several tons of food, medicine and other supplies to the island, which is struggling through an energy crisis.

The best way to help the Cuban people, of course, would be to free them from a dictatorship that has failed to meet their needs for more than half a century. Yet the roster of attendees was more interested in bashing America. ....

The reality is that the U.S. has not hurt Cuba nearly as much as the communist dictatorship has. State Department rules “generally prohibit persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction” from staying at properties owned or controlled by the Cuban government or its officials. And for good reason: Cuba is a state sponsor of terrorism that squelches political dissent.

More than a million Cubans have fled since 2021 .... (read more)

Lefty activists mocked for luxury Cuba trip as island plunges into blackout

Also see:

• National Review: Lefty Influencers Embrace Poverty Tourism on Havana Junket
• New York Post: Lefty hypocrites’ revolting Cuba vacation is par for the communist course
• Daily Wire: Left-Wing Activists Descend On Crisis-Stricken Cuba, Enjoy Luxury Hotels, Ride AC Buses

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Pentagon Press Policy Ruled Unconstitutional

by Rod Williams, March 23, 2026- As we watch President Trump trample all over the Constitution, it is easy to get discouraged, and I do. However, it seems our institutions are still strong, and Trump loses his skirmishes to remake our democratic republic into an authoritarian strongman state more often than he wins.

One recent win for democracy and constitutional governance was realized when a court ruled that the Pentagon’s restrictions on reporters were unconstitutional in a case brought by New York Times. The policy stated that the Pentagon could revoke the credentials of any journalist who solicited information that the department did not explicitly authorize for release — even if that information was unclassified. A federal judge found that it violated the First and Fifth Amendments. 

All is not lost. I suspect that as Trump's popularity drops, more Republican members of Congress will rediscover some backbone and will dust off some discarded values and principles. Also, the clock is ticking down to the mid-term, and it looks like Democrats may retake the House, in which case Trump will be trumped. 

Be of good cheer. Keep the faith. All is not lost.

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ICE Insists Liberia Is the Only Place It Can Deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia

The administration insists it can only deport him to Africa. It's not clear why, other than to be vindictive.

by Joe Lancaster, Reason, March 23, 2026 - One year after it improperly arrested and deported a Salvadoran man, the Trump administration is in court trying to remove him again—not to his home country, this time, but to a completely separate continent. It's not clear why, other than simply to be vindictive.

In March 2025, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents arrested Kilmar Abrego Garcia and deported him back to El Salvador. The problem was that although he had entered the country illegally, an immigration judge had previously granted him "withholding of removal" to El Salvador, meaning that was the only country where he couldn't be sent. ...

According to Abrego Garcia's attorneys, the government offered to send him to Costa Rica, but if he declined, he would instead be sent somewhere in Africa, like Uganda, Ghana, or Eswatini. As it turns out, none of those three African countries agreed to take him, but Costa Rica did, and he agreed to go.

But the Trump administration then refused, arguing he should instead be sent to Liberia. (read more)

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Why I Would Shake Hands With Donald Trump?

by Rod Williams, March 23, 2026 - I am going to surprise some people. If you know how much I detest Donald Trump and how I view him as an authoritarian committed to destroying our democracy, and what a disgusting human being I think he is, you may be surprised to hear that if I met Donald Trump in person, I would shake his hand. 

On my Facebook feed, the meme on this page has appeared, and a lot of people have been opining as to whether or not they would shake Donald Trump's hand. 

I view shaking hands as a formality and simple politeness. I think it is beneficial to be polite up until the point you exchange blows. 

In a council race many years ago, my opponent ran a very dirty campaign and engaged in a campaign of smears and lies.  Nevertheless, when I encountered him at a later date, we shook hands.  I went through a very bitter divorce once upon a time, but when I met my wife's lawyer, I shook his hand. I don't understand not shaking hands.  I don't understand not being polite. It is just what civilized people do. It seems people have been shaking hands since about the 9th century, and it developed as a way to prove one was not holding weapons and as a symbolic gesture of trust and sealing agreements. I see it simply as being polite and don't attach too much meaning to it. 

I doubt I would ever be in a situation where I would be faced with the dilemma of whether or not to shake Donald Trump's hand. I don't travel in the circles where I would be introduced to him. I might attend a Trump rally if Donald Trump appeared in my hometown.  I am a student of politics and would like to experience a Trump rally in the flesh to observe. Attending a rally would not indicate an endorsement. If he were shaking hands on the way to the podium, I would not be one pushing my way to the aisle to shake his hand, so I would not be faced with the dilemma of shaking his hand. I would not seek him out to shake his hand. If, however, I found myself somehow at a Trump reception rather than creating an awkward moment, I would shake his hand and mumble something pleasant like, "Nice to meet you, Mr. President." Does that make me a hypocrite? 

I have not fully developed it, but I have this thesis in mind called, The virtue of Hypocrisy. Good manners and civility toward someone you do not like is hypocritical, but I think it a virtue. Good manners keep us from hitting people we don’t like. Good manners mean less violence. It is not that I am always opposed to violence; violence often solves problems and violence has its place but good manners keeps us from engaging in unnecessary nonproductive violence. In addition to reducing violence, good manners just makes life more pleasant, if not for you then for those around you. In Congress, people of opposing views often address each other as, “the distinguished gentleman from the great state of …” That is much better than saying, the SOB from ….”

Below are pictures of some famous people who probably don't like each other, shaking hands. I approve.

President Ronald Reagan shakes hands with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev

Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat

President Richard M Nixon shakes hand with Chairman Mao Zedong

 Neville Chamberlain shakes hands with Adolf Hitler


General Robert E. Lee shakes hands with General Ulysses S. Grant

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Nashville Journalist Released on Bond from ICE Custody; a Legal Challenge to Her Arrest Continues

by Anita Wadhwani, Tennessee Lookout, March 23, 2026 - Estefany Rodríguez, a Nashville journalist who reported on local immigration enforcement arrests before she herself was detained, was released Thursday from a Louisiana detention center, according to the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition, which is providing legal representation.

Rodríguez spent 16 days in detention, where she was subject to “inhumane and difficult treatment,” her attorneys wrote in court filings earlier this week. 

A legal challenge to Rodríguez’ March 4 arrest remains ongoing in federal court. Her attorneys allege Rodríguez was detained without a warrant and in retaliation for her reporting on local Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests for the Spanish-language news outlet Nashville Noticias. 

“We are grateful that Estefany is able to walk away with her freedom to be with her family as she continues to fight for her right to remain in her community and in the US,” read a statement Thursday by Mike Holley, an attorney with the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition who is representing Rodríguez in federal court. Rodríguez is married and has a seven-year-old daughter.

“Through that petition, we are seeking not only her complete release, but an order prohibiting ICE from mistreating her in a similar way in the future,” the statement said. 

Government attorneys allege Rodríguez, 35, overstayed a tourist visa five years ago and has remained in the country illegally since.

Rodríguez flew to Miami from her native Colombia on a tourist visa in 2021, then petitioned for political asylum before the visa expired, her attorneys wrote in court filings. 

Rodríguez’ asylum petition is based on threats she experienced in Colombia reporting on political corruption, her attorneys said. Separately, Rodríguez in January applied for legal permanent residency through her marriage to a U.S. citizen. 

Rodríguez was released on $10,000 bond Thursday. 

Information on other conditions of her’ release, such as whether she is required to wear an ankle monitor or report to immigration officials, wasn’t immediately available Thursday. 

On Tuesday, national and international media groups filed a legal brief in support of Rodríguez, writing the detention of a journalist who had reported critically on ICE activities had a chilling effect on free expression.

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Pro-Nazi Group Gives Andy Ogles A+

WTVF.March 20, 2026 -  GOP Congressman Andy Ogles proudly boasted last week on social media of his A+ “remigration score” awarded by a previously unknown group.                                                                                                           Now, an exclusive NewsChannel 5 investigation has linked that group – the so-called Providence Society – to an X account that celebrates the “successes” of Adolf Hitler, urges the development of “something resembling” the Nazi’s 25-point party platform for Western countries and suggests deporting Black American citizens to Africa.

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