The first one hundred days of the second Trump administration are over. While his cabinet sycophanticly praises him, here’s where we really are:

Thousands of government employees have been fired from their jobs leaving many agencies and departments severely understaffed. Trump’s reach has even extended into places where he constitutionally has no authority, like the Library of Congress.

Services to the neediest Americans (veterans, poor people, children, the elderly) have been eliminated. Agencies affected include Veterans Affairs, the Social Security Administration and the Department of Education.

Prices have not dropped as Trump promised they would on day one. In many instances they have increased. Instead of the price of eggs going down, Trump has proposed that little girls only need two dolls instead of thirty.

The wars in Ukraine and Gaza are still going on way past the date (again on his first day) that Trump promised they would be ended.

The stock market has been a roller coaster ride caused by tariffs being imposed and rescinded willy nilly with no obvious plan.

Our safety has been put in jeopardy due to changes at the Federal Aviation Administration, cuts to testing of the food we eat and the products we buy, elimination of programs that treat deadly diseases, and wanton disregard for secrecy at the highest levels by appointees that are severely unqualified.

Hundreds of people, including natural born citizens, have been rounded up and sent to detention centers or deported to foreign gulags without their right to due process. The next step in this area is revoking habeas corpus so that more rights are stripped from those residing on American soil.

Trump has sucked power out of the other branches of the government to the point where there are no limits on what he can do. The Republican controlled Congress has abdicated their power to him. The Supreme Court ruled early on that basically Nixon was right when he said that when the president does it, it’s not illegal. Ruling after ruling of lower courts have gone against Trump’s actions but he has not complied with any of their mandates because there is really nothing they can do to enforce their decisions.

The White House is being redecorated, not by the first lady as is usually the case, but by the president who obviously has nothing better to do when he’s not playing golf. Gold is now the accent of choice in the Oval Office. The Rose Garden is going to be paved over. A new ballroom is planned. The people’s house is rapidly becoming Mar-a-Lago II. Oh, and by the way, where is Melania anyway?

Trump has weaponized the Justice Department targeting law firms, universities, broadcast networks, entire industries and specific individuals.

The Trump family has made roughly $1 billion per month since he came into power. He has brazenly sold bitcoin and invited the top 220 buyers of his $Trump cryptocurrency to have dinner with him. Democrats and government ethics groups have alleged that foreign entities could purchase access to the President using this means. A new club is being opened in DC where guests can have ready access to cabinet members and other administration officials.

Qatar is gifting Trump a plane valued at $400 million that would replace Air Force One and would be given to the Trump Library Foundation upon his leaving office. So it’s a present for him personally. There are so many problems with this that I don’t know where to start. 1. It violates the Hatch Act. 2. There are myriad ways that the plane could be technologically compromised. So the government would have to spend millions (possibly over a billion) just to make sure that it was secure. 3. The plane doesn’t have a lot of the things that Air Force One has, like a fully functional operating theater. 4. Even Ted Cruz thinks it’s a bad idea. 5. It’s just plain wrong!

There’s more, but alas, I’ve run out of space. Do any of these things anger you? If they do, do something about it. We the people are the last line of defense against the corruption of the Trump administration and the dissolution of the American experiment.

Verna Caruso is a native of Muncy, who now resides in Williamsport.  She is a former staff member at Inc. magazine and former Chair of the Lycoming County Democratic Committee.