We get the next wave of visitors today at the Socal house. About 18 people, mostly family, will join us for BBQ and pool fun this afternoon. Big crew. After that we’ll have 5 of them stay with us for another 3-5 days. We’ve moved a lot of food from Costco to our pantries, so we’re ready.
But before all that fun, one last look at what Convict Donny and his team of fools are doing to the country. SCOTUS had a field day yesterday, ruling that immigrants seeking asylum, following all our rules and laws, can now be immediately deported. Laws be damned, we (MAGA/SCOTUS) don’t need to follow them. And that no new asylum seekers will be allowed. America, via MAGA, has decided that immigrants are evil and we want them out. Especially the non-white ones. This head line says it all: Stephen Miller says ‘America’s doors are closed fully to asylum seekers’ after Supreme Court rulings. So much for the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
That ship has sailed.
SCOTUS also decided that Bayer shall have no financial responsibility for damage done by Roundup. And that Hawaii’s attempt to get some control over handguns was illegal – Second Amendment “trumps” what a state’s citizens want, it seems. So much for all that “states rights” noise that the GOP made for years.
If that’s not bad enough, Donnie’s OMB Director Russell Vought wants to control every federal dollar based on MAGA priorities. That’ll be a disaster. From The Nation:
This is how things are supposed to work: We pay our taxes. The IRS collects them, and they are deposited into the US General Fund. These dollars from the General Fund are then disbursed to agencies according to what is authorized and appropriated to them under law by Congress. Agencies then dole this money out to state and local governments, or to community organizations and other partners, through grants or contracts. Some agency allocations decisions are formula-based (e.g., based on population or other criteria), while others depend on expert advice to make these adjudications.
But if Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought gets his way, this long-standing process will be put in the dustbin. Under proposed revisions to the Uniform Guidance that governs the expenditure of federal funds, decisions on all grants will now be in the hands of political commissars rather than subject-matter experts. The new proposed rule is over 400 pages long, and there are many other terrible provisions within it.
The new rule affects everything from healthcare, transportation, education, and food assistance to, of course, scientific research. This means grants to rural hospitals, for mass transit and road and bridge repair, for special education programs and Head Start, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and cancer research would now be subject to the whims of Russell Vought and his cronies.
Little by little, Convict Donnie’s team is reshaping how things work, attempting to leave MAGA hooks in every aspect of the federal government. We may never get a rationally functioning government back in place.
Not to be left out of the destruction, NY Democrats just elevated an absolutely crazed person to be their next US Representative. Darializa Avila Chevalier is as batshit crazy as Marjorie Taylor Greene ever was – just in a different direction. She will supply Faux News with headlines about crazy Democrats for the next few years. I can’t accept ANY of her stances – you’ll have to look them up; it’s too painful for me to list them – so we’ll have to find a way to distance her from any mainstream liberal messaging. It doesn’t help to have a lunatic like that as part of our brand.
All in all, it’s a grim picture. Congress and SCOTUS have enabled a malignant narcissist, a power-mad sociopath, to carve his way into the world’s biggest budget and take what he wants. The corruption and destruction is mind-blowing.
When will the sheep wake up?