A Bob's Life: Monday Musings

Monday, August 25, 2025

Monday Musings - August 25, 2025

1. Happy Monday! Today is the final Monday of August. Labor Day is celebrated next Monday which will be the 1st of September. It is later than you think. There are only 18 Mondays remaining in the year.

Around the Pool
Weston Lakes, TX
August 24, 2025

2. Chris and I have been enjoying the hospitality of my sister and her family. We enjoyed a fun afternoon around the pool after visiting Dad in the morning. It was a very enjoyable afternoon and I doubled as the margarita bartended. Frankly, I lost track of the number of margaritas I made, but I do know we had to Door Dash additional mixer!

3. Wow, things are happening in the country. I am concerned, that Lincoln's "government of the people, by the people, and for the people . . . " has become the government of the $, by the $, and for the $. I am very uncomfortable with the U.S. government having control of, getting money other than taxes from, and/or stock in significant companies. At least three, Intel, USSteel, and Nvidia have already succumbed. Government is not a business designed to turn a profit at the expense of the shareholders. Who are the shareholders? We the People!

4. As the administration of President Donald Trump is using loopholes in the nation’s laws to claim the right to use the military against American citizens, Democratic governors are pushing back.

The administration has taken control of the Washington, D.C., police under the 1973 Home Rule Act, which permits that takeover if “special conditions of an emergency nature exist.” Although the Department of Justice itself reported that crime in the city is at a 30-year low, Trump declared a crime emergency in the District of Columbia on August 11 to take control of the police.
The Home Rule Act limits the president’s takeover to 30 days unless the House and Senate pass a joint resolution to extend that time. On Friday, Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ) introduced a bill to extend the takeover for about six months and to make that time the default for all future “emergencies.” (Letters from an American)

5. Has anyone else noticed that the current administration does not tolerate dissent or disagreement? Remember back to the Biden administration, just 9 short months ago, how it seemed everything that the administration desired was met with disagreement by the opposition and yet no one went to jail, they were not vilified, nor did they have their houses searched by the FBI.

6. As we head into the Artificial Intelligence (AI) age is anyone else concerned that rewriting history and news will threaten the accuracy of the responses? We really do not need biased AI results.

7. Today in History. On August 25, 1944, after more than four years of Nazi occupation, Paris is liberated by the French 2nd Armored Division and the U.S. 4th Infantry Division. German resistance was light, and General Dietrich von Choltitz, commander of the German garrison, defied an order by Adolf Hitler to blow up Paris’ landmarks and burn the city to the ground before its liberation. Choltitz signed a formal surrender that afternoon, and on August 26, Free French General Charles de Gaulle led a joyous liberation march down the Champs d’Elysees.

Paris fell to Nazi Germany on June 14, 1940, one month after the German Wehrmachtstormed into France. Eight days later, France signed an armistice with the Germans, and a puppet French state was set up with its capital at Vichy. Elsewhere, however, General Charles de Gaulle and the Free French kept fighting, and the Resistance sprang up in occupied France to resist Nazi and Vichy rule.