My First Thought When Hearing of the Air Traffic Grounding Was That This Was the Start of the Second Trump Coup Attempt.

by Rod Williams, Nov. 14, 2022 - Yesterday, when I learned that the FAA had implemented a grounding of all air traffic in America, it had already been in place for a couple of hours. I had immediate concern. This is not normal, I thought; this could be nefarious activity of some sort. While I was still absorbing the news, an announcement was made that the National Weather Service had gone dark. I further thought that this could be the start of something big. I immediately asked myself if this was the start of Donald Trump's second coup attempt. I did not panic. I did not think that was the most likely cause for the grounding of air traffic in the US, but it was my first thought. 

I know some will immediately say I have a bad case of TDS. I don't think so. I think I am a realist and see Donald Trump clearly. I think suspecting Donald Trump of a second coup attempt is a normal and rational thought. On January 6, he sent a mob to attack the Capitol, and his minions rampaged through the Capitol building, searching for Vice President Mike Pence to hang him. The President of the United States allowed this to go on for hours before calling it off. Since that time, Donald Trump has repeated over and over again the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. He and his allies filed roughly 62 lawsuits challenging the 2020 election, and courts rejected all but one, and that one win was on a narrow procedural issue that did not affect the election results. Despite a total failure to prove any attempt by Democrats to steal the 2020 election, he keeps the narrative alive that the opposition is evil and is the enemy to be combated. 

Leading up to this midterm election, Trump attempted to meddle in the election in various ways. These included pressuring states to conduct mid-decade redistricting to benefit Republicans, directing federal agencies to change mail‑balloting rules, banning the Post Office from mailing ballots to people not on Trump's approved list, seeking access to state voter rolls, and pressuring officials to pursue unfounded fraud claims.

Democrats won by such huge margins that it looked like efforts to stop the vote count, seize the voting machines and declare martial law, or refuse to seat the newly elected representatives and senators would be futile and it appeared Trump was ready to accept the results of the election. 

That seemed true until a few days later, when Trump posted a "Truth" saying, "Does anyone really believe this 'election' was honest?" He said some voting "dumps" were so large that Republicans could not win, no matter how many people voted. And then, in what I assume was an organized effort by either Trump cultists or Russian bots, lies started appearing about the election. One was that Democrats received more midterm votes in several states than there were voters. I must have seen this one a dozen times in my Facebook feed. Also, Trump did not start acting like a subdued president ready to deal with the reality of having received a humiliating defeat in the midterms. 

The tone of Trump's supporters was belligerent also. It saddens me to see it, but I have seen people who were long-time well-informed conservatives, including a member of my own family, rationalize Trump's authoritarianism, his betrayal of Western democracy, his kleptomania, his brand of socialism, his insane tariff policy, and his cruelty. They defend his ICE thugs killing citizens in the streets of our cities and searching homes without warrants, and the killing of suspected drug traffickers in international waters. I have no doubt that if Trump declared martial law, this family member and others like him would approve and accept without question Trump's reason for the necessity of such action and would think Trump had just saved our country from the crazy left-wing lunatics, socialists, and Muslims.  Unfortunately, I think people who think like this make up about 20%, maybe up to 35%, of the voters of this nation.  

After thinking that this grounding of airline traffic could be the start of a Trump coup, I then thought that the more likely thing that was happening was that we were experiencing a cyberattack.  Multiple coordinated cyberattacks in late October and early November 2026 targeted refrigeration and freezer systems in hospitals, supermarkets, and other facilities across Europe, disrupting cold storage and forcing massive amounts of food to be thrown out.

On November the first and second, attacks hit refrigeration systems in at least nine EU countries, including Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, Estonia, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, and Finland. Attackers switched cooling units into defrost mode, causing temperatures to rise. In France, hackers compromised cold storage monitoring and control systems at three regional French blood banks. No one has taken responsibility for the attacks, but the prime suspect is Russia, since Russia has been engaging in incursions into European airspace and other threatening actions and has been threatening EU countries for their support of Ukraine. 

Letting my mind run wild, I could envision, following the grounding of air traffic, the failure of city traffic lights across the nation and the shutting down of water systems and ATM failures and the internet coming down and gas station fuel pumps failing to work. I joked to a friend that I was not going to get in a Waymo, that it might lock the doors and take me directly to the Gulag. 

Luckily, what happened with the grounding of air traffic was not the start of a Trump coup, nor a cyberattack; still, I think both fears are not irrational. According to FAA and Department of Transportation officials, the outage was traced to overloaded and outdated network infrastructure, and the administration is seeking $50 billion to fix the problem. 

Upon hearing of the air traffic grounding, did anyone else have the same thought as I did? 

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Stop or I Will Shoot Myself in the Foot Yet Again

by Rod Williams, Nov. 11, 2026- When I read the Trump Truth social post this morning saying a caravan of immigrants was working its way through Mexico headed to the United States, I had to do a Google search to see if it is true. It is. 

Trump lies so much that my default position is to not believe anything he says unless otherwise verified. I remember a time when if a president had said a caravan of immigrants was heading to our southern border, I would have automatically believed him. I am not naive, and sometimes presidents or people in the administration do spin facts or interpret events in a way to support a narrative. However, on most simple statements of fact, I did not think most presidents or administrative spokesmen just made stuff up.

Ever since the claim that the 2020 election was stolen and the resulting coup attempt based on that lie, I have not trusted anything the President says. The claim that Haitian refugees were eating the cats and dogs further reinforced my default position that anything the President says is suspect for truthfulness and that he just makes stuff up. In this case, however, the President is telling the truth. A caravan is heading north, made up of about 1000 people.  As far as immigrant caravans go, this is a modest one. The peak period for immigrant caravans was 2018, when one caravan had an estimated 7,000 people.

Apparently, the Republican defeat in the midterms gave impetus to the immigrants to make the journey, thinking that with Democrats to take control of Congress, they might be granted entry. The midterm flip to Democrats controlling the legislative branch will not, of course, change border policy. The immigrants will not be granted entry, and they should not be. We need to control our borders and we will.

If this were a normal president, this news of a caravan heading north would barely be newsworthy. It would be reported as this one is, but it would not be amplified. This would be handled diplomatically with Mexico, and if Mexico failed to turn the caravan back, then Mexico would have the problem of dealing with immigrants stuck in Mexico huddled on the border. I suspect President Trump is seeking anything to deflect from his ass-kicking defeat in the midterm elections, and he wants to keep his base riled up. A thousand unarmed men, women, and children seeking entry into America with nothing but the clothes on their backs is hardly an "invasion," but that is the kind of language Trumpinistas like to hear. 

The President's response to this attempted "invasion" is to impose an additional tax on the American people and suppress economic activity. One of the President's favorite lies is that other nations pay for tariffs. He has said it so much that many of his supporters believe it. The tariff is paid by the importer, and the importer passes on that increase in the cost of doing business to the consumer, which results in an increase in prices, which most people think of as inflation. Also, since some inputs in American manufactured goods come from Mexico, a doubling of tariffs can suppress American production. Additionally, Mexico is likely to impose retaliatory tariffs, reducing American exports. This is not smart; of course, I have never thought of Donald J. Trump as smart. 

To put it mildly, the President's response to a caravan heading toward our border is to punish the American people. The Toddler-in-Chief is going to hold his breath until his face turns blue, and you will pay more for avocados. 

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Brentwood-based Core Civic Urges ICE to Buy Detention Facilities Now, Before Dems Take Office

by Rod Williams, Nov. 11, 2026 - Brentwood-based CoreCivic's CEO, Lucibeth Mayberry, has urged ICE to finalize detention-center contracts quickly before a newly elected Democratic majority in Congress takes office. She said ICE needs detention capacity and CoreCivic has facilities available.

As all know by now, Republicans got an historical ass-kicking in the midterms. There were multiple reasons for it, but the election was a referendum on Donald Trump. People voted as if he were on the ballot. While exit polls showed corruption and the cost of living as the two main factors motivating people to vote the way they did, it appears there was a general revulsion toward Donald Trump. Part of that was his immigration policy.  Once the issue generated the most favorable ratings for Donald Trump. Recent polling data shows public disapproval. The RealClearPolitics polling average from late October 2026 showed 43.1% approval and 54.2% disapproval of his handling of immigration. 

The murder by ICE agents of Alex Pettie and Renea Good in Minneapolis in January 2026 drew widespread public revulsion and became a defining moment in the public’s reaction to Trump's immigration policy and concerns about federal use of force and accountability. Also, the separation of families and deporting immigrants to hell-hole countries that were not the immigrants' country of origin, the rounding up of one's neighbors, co-workers, service people with whom one did business, and the general cruelty of the mass deportation process, and the demonizing of immigrants caused people to view Trump's immigration policy less favorably. 

President Trump has sent mixed signals since the election, suggesting at one point that detention and deportation policies may have been "too tough," while simultaneously promoting immigration-policy architect Stephen Miller and retaining officials who say deportations will continue.

CoreCivic has done well under Trump's deportation regime. It made a lot of money, including about $1.3 billion in the most recent quarter from selling four detention centers to the Department of Homeland Security as immigrant detention expanded nationwide. The company is seeking additional sales of detention facilities to ICE and said discussions about further acquisitions are underway, though still preliminary.

Democrats have campaigned on increased oversight of ICE and have pledged investigations and scrutiny of detention practices and immigration enforcement. CoreCivic and ICE have faced criticism over detention conditions and enforcement policies. There have been allegations involving poor or unsafe conditions at detention centers and controversy surrounding facility purchases.  An example, cited in a Tennessee Lookout article, highlighted a Minnesota detention facility that CoreCivic reportedly offered to sell to the state for $75 million in 2025, but which ICE later purchased for $485.6 million. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has called for a congressional investigation into the transaction.

I look forward to the investigation of ICE, and I also want to know if any of Trump's family and friends are lining their own pockets by the imprisonment of immigrants. There will be investigations into the functioning of ICE. I would not be surprised if some do not go to jail. If CoreCivic has made kickbacks, either directly or under the table by buying meme coins or through contributions to build the ballroom or whatever, it will likely be exposed. A last-ditch effort by ICE to shovel money out the door will likely not help anyone avoid accountability. 

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Trump Says No One Can Believe 2026 Election Was Honest

by Rod Williams, Nov. 11, 2026- In his final days, Adolf Hitler huddled in his bunker with his closest
advisors, persisting in giving impossible military orders and refusing to acknowledge defeat. He ordered non‑existent divisions to counterattack, denied the Soviet advance, and insisted on staying in Berlin even as its fall was inevitable. I think we are seeing the same kind of reaction from Trump. Not that I think Trump is as evil as Hitler or as crazy as Hitler was in his final days, but then again there is not as much at stake for Trump as there was for Hitler. I think we are seeing a similar type of delusion. 

If the Hitler comparison is too strong, recall the gentler story of the young boy who pointed out the king was not wearing clothes. In the story, the emperor is obsessed with new, flashy clothing and spends his treasury on them. Two impostors claim to weave fabric invisible to anyone who is “simple in the head” or unfit for their job. The emperor orders the “clothes” woven, and the weavers pretend to create the clothing. Ministers and officials, afraid to be seen as foolish, pretend to admire the “clothes,” and the emperor himself, also vain, pretends to be dressed, then parades through the city. The townspeople go along, afraid to appear incompetent, and then a small child, free from fear of judgment, shouts that the emperor is wearing nothing at all. The crowd realizes the truth, and the emperor tries to maintain dignity by continuing the procession despite being naked.

For at least ten years, maybe for his whole life, people have sucked up to Trump and stroked his ego and worked to flatter and please him. He has had bankruptcies and business failures but was never forced to face his own limitations and the possibility that he was not the greatest of all time. I don't know that one can accurately diagnose someone from a distance, but Trump is clearly not normal. Many psychologists and commentators have suggested that Donald Trump displays behaviors consistent with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), including grandiosity, a need for admiration, and limited empathy. 

I don't think anyone thought that Trump would graciously accept the midterm results if he lost. Before the election, he tried to put his fingers on the scales, first by mid-decade redistricting, then by trying to force states to use his voter ID list, then by trying to pass the SAVE Act, and then by trying to get the US Postal Service to not deliver mail-in ballots, and various other ways. Most of what he attempted failed, and some, like redistricting, actually backfired. 

I am so glad that Trump lost the midterms by such a large margin. If the loss had been by only ten or fifteen votes in the House and Republicans had held the Senate, I fully expected Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act in places and to seize ballots and voting machines and for the House to refuse to seat the newly elected representatives. I do not expect that chaos now. Democrats won by a margin too large to deny. Trump is still in denial, however.

This morning Trump posted on Truth Social, "Does anyone really believe this "Election" was honest?" He said some voting "dumps" were so large that Republicans could not win no matter how many people voted.

I know there are some Trump cultists who will believe him. We should not be surprised that some will. Some people believe chemtrails are a real thing, that 9-11 was an inside job, that Katrina was a government-engineered disaster to kill Black folks, that the true assassin of JFK has never been revealed, that the French Foreign Legion somehow in cahoots with Israel really killed Charlie Kirk, and that the moon landing was faked. Some people are somehow wired to believe the craziest things, and the more bizarre they are, the more strongly they believe them.

For those in touch with reality, the claim by Trump that this midterm election was rigged is just bizarre.  I know Trump could still do something to blow up the world, and a cornered animal can be dangerous. However, Trump is the lamest of lame ducks. Once hearings start on the Trump corruption and his malfeasance in office, I expect more and more people to abandon Trump. People can turn on a bully mighty quickly when his power starts to wane. While I detest Trump and want his crimes to see the light of day, at this point he is almost to be pitied, much the same way you might pity Hitler moving imaginary division around on a map of Europe. 

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Metro Nashville Budget Woes Again. It's a Spending Problem.

by Councilmember Courtney Johnson, Facebook, Nov. 9, 2026- We raised property taxes 27%. And we’re STILL talking about potential layoffs to make next year’s budget work?

You can’t make this stuff up!!

Metro is preparing to offer employees a voluntary retirement incentive of $1,000 per year of service, hoping to save approximately $10 MILLION in next year’s budget.

Why? Because according to Metro Finance, FY2028 is expected to be even tighter than FY2027, and they’re trying to avoid layoffs.

Let that sink in.

After a 27% property tax increase, we’re already discussing how to cut personnel costs to make ends meet.

At what point do we acknowledge that Nashville doesn’t just have a revenue problem? We have a SPENDING problem.

Our taxpayers cannot continue to be the solution to every budget shortfall.

We need to get serious about how we’re spending their money.

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But I Want to Storm the Capitol

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Sooner or Later God'll Cut You Down

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Trump to Conservatives: We Are Watching you.

by Rod Williams, Nov. 6, 2026 - Voters took Trump's words to heart and voted as if he were on the ballot, resulting in a historic loss for Republicans. Now, many Trumpinista politicians and pundits are questioning what went wrong. Even J. D. Vance, who was never really on board with the Iraq War, is saying it was the war. It's unusual for a vice president to throw the president under the bus. Normally, the vice president would want to stay in the good graces of the president and inherit the mantle. I guess Vance sees there is no mantle to inherit. I think it is too late for a break with Trump to help J. D. Vance. I think we can stick a fork in him; he's done. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who unsuccessfully challenged Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, blamed Trump for the midterm losses. “This midterm, no question, was a rebuke of the president and the Congress by Democrats, independents and some Republicans that crossed over,” he told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz described the losses as “a Watergate-level repudiation” in a social-media post, writing Trump’s "tariffs have made everything too expensive” while “the Iran war has dragged on too long.”

Other pundits are saying it was the quality of the candidates. You think so? Darleen Graham was obviously not ready for prime time, and other Republican candidates were pretty weak. The best example of a bad candidate is Ken Paxton in Texas. Republicans had an incumbent candidate of quality in John Cornyn, but due to a personal vendetta, a good person was jettisoned by a vindictive president to be replaced by a corrupt candidate that Trump liked. 

Paxton had been indicted in 2015 on felony securities fraud charges for allegedly misleading investors about his financial relationship with a technology company. In a plea deal, those charges were dropped after restitution and community service. That was just the tip of the iceberg. There were credible charges of bribery, self-enrichment, and misuse of his office. Paxton was impeached by the Texas House in 2023 but acquitted by the Senate after a two‑week trial.  I would say candidate quality matters, and the person responsible for promoting bad candidates was Donald J. Trump. 

To question what went wrong is to question Trump, and he doesn't like to be questioned; he wants devotion and adoration. He wants supplicants, sycophants, and loyal followers. Trump will always have those. Years from now, when Trump is long gone, there will still be people who think our greatest hour was the Trump presidency.  I think the cult of Trump is much like the cult of Peron in Argentina. Over 50 years since he last served in office, Peron still has defenders. 

So, while Trump has his loyalists who will never abandon him, I think we will see the MAGA movement splinter, and many will abandon MAGA altogether, and others argue over who is the real MAGA (or America First). Even before this election debacle, we saw it happening with the split off of people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson. 

With the election defeat, more people will abandon Trump. I expect to see more and more people to begin leaving the administration, and when Democrats start investigating the Trump corruption, I expect to see people abandoning Trump like rats abandoning a sinking ship. The only thing that will keep some on board is the Trump bargaining chip of a pardon for loyalists. 

Donald J. Trump is the lamest of lame ducks. I don't know how much power to keep in line or intimidate he has left. Following such a humiliating defeat, he can't have a lot. However, he didn't seem to get the memo. 

On Thursday, a memo from the White House Office of Public Liaison was sent to about 3,000 conservative organizations, listing a series of Trump accomplishments and vowing that a Democratic Congress wouldn’t reverse them.  The memo ended with one sentence highlighted in yellow: “As always, we are monitoring statements, press releases, and media engagements from your organizations.”

(link)

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Tim Burchett Plans to Run for U.S. Senate Regardless of Blackburn Successor Choice

 by Jonathan Mattise, The Tennessee Journal, Nov 5, 2026- U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett says he is “absolutely”
going to begin campaigning for a 2028 Senate run should incumbent Marsha Blackburn appoint someone else if she’s elected governor.

“We’ve got a very good, positive network throughout the state of grassroots people,” Burchett told ....

Blackburn, who entered the increasingly testy gubernatorial race as the frontrunner, has indicated that she plans to make the Senate appointment rather than allowing Republican Gov. Bill Lee to do so before leaving office in January.

Burchett, former Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs, U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and former CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger have come up in conversations as potential candidates. When asked whether he would seek the appointment, Lee himself said he has no intention to run for the Senate, without specifically talking about the possibility of being appointed. 

... interim replacement would be in office until a 2028 election ... Blackburn would have to resign her Senate seat before she could be sworn in as governor. ... (read more)

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Voters Voted as if Trump were on the Ballot. My Commentary.

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TN Supreme Court Upholds the State Law Capping Metro Council at 20 Members and the State Takeover of the Airport

by The Pamphleteer, Nov. 2, 2026 - The justices unanimously rejected Metro’s argument that the state constitution’s Exemption Clause protects its 40-member council, and tossed its local-legislation challenge as moot after lawmakers amended the law this spring. In a companion ruling, the court also dismissed Metro’s lawsuit over the 2023 state takeover of the airport authority board, which had handed six of eight seats to the governor and the House and Senate speakers. That case became moot after the legislature rewrote the law to cover all metro airport authorities, and the ruling wipes out Metro’s wins in the lower courts. 

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To read the Metro Council opinion, follow this link

To read the airport opinion, follow this link. 

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