Tag: $1.776 billion slush fund

Bees, Apps, and Service Animals

Now that I have your attention….

Bees and the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center

The Trump Administration is closing the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland.

When 1.6 million bee colonies collapsed between June 2024 and March 2025, the scientists working there immediately looked into the situation. In six months, they determined that the cause was a virus spread by pesticide-resistant mites.

Photo by Simon Kadula on Unsplash

Would someone please tell Trump that 80% of the crops in the U.S. are pollinated by bees? Please tell him that food does not originate in the kitchens manned by his chefs. It comes from farms.

This is a man who marveled recently over the “old-fashioned” word “groceries” and didn’t know what a “corner store” was.

The safeguards for our nation’s health are falling like dominoes at Trump’s command. I guess he was serious last week when he said he might run for Prime Minister of Israel when he is through here – I guess when there is nothing left to break or destroy.

And some of y’all thought I was being overly dramatic when I accused Trump of hating nature.

A White House App

Government phones will now have a White House app installed per White House mandate. It includes a feed of the President’s social media posts and a button with a pre-written text message: “Greatest President Ever” to be sent to Trump.

The app reportedly also includes “Stuck in line at La Guardia? Blame a Democrat.”

The Hatch Act of 1939 is not being enforced. Perhaps it will be again after the mid-term elections.

U.S. Government is asking for Volunteers

With fears that the Ebola virus will enter the United States on someone entering the country via one of four major airports, yesterday the government asked for volunteers to screen people.

What could possibly go wrong?

This is what happens when your alleged-businessman President decimates the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health.

Nondisclosure Agreements

The Trump Administration is laying plans for all federal employees to be required to sign a nondisclosure agreement.

Trump claims that his regime is the “most transparent” ever, so what is it that he does not want us to know?

The U.S. Government is not a business. People within the government who work with classified information already know that they are to never disclose state secrets, etc.

Trump wants to silence everyone who works in the government.

This is what you get when you elect a corrupt businessman.

The University of North Carolina (UNC) Board of Governors goes off the rails!

All the crazies aren’t in Washington, DC.

The 24 members of the UNC Board of Governors are appointed by the North Carolina General Assembly (our state legislature).

Peter Hans. the President of the UNC System oversees 16 universities, a specialized high school (The NC School of the Arts), the UNC Healthcare system, and a statewide public TV network.

He has a lot of responsibility and, for all I know, he is doing a fine job.

His annual salary is $600,000. Apparently, Mr. Han is having trouble making ends meet – even as each of the member institutions of higher learning in the system he oversees are constantly having to tighten their belts, layoff underpaid professors, eliminate some vice-chancellor positions, slashing some degree program, and the UNC-TV network is reeling from Trump taking an ax to public TV.

This week, the UNC Board of Governors gave Mr. Han a bonus of $493,500.

I don’t know of any printable words to say to that.

Support animals and HUD

The New York Times obtained a memo sent out by the U.S. Department of Housing and Development’s (HUD) Fair Housing Office last Friday.

HUD will immediately stop recognizing emotional support animals and will tighten its definition of what qualifies as a service animal for disable tenants.

Photo by Jeswin Thomas on Unsplash

The Trump Administration is hard at work protecting the American people… at least, that’s what Trump says.

We have a U.S. President who wants $1.776 billion for a slush fund to reward his minions who attempted a coup for him on January 6, 2021, and he wants $1 billion for a ballroom. He has gotten us into an endless war in Iran.

But the biggest problem we have in America today is apparently too many military veterans with PTSD are living in subsidized housing with a support dog?

Anything to draw our attention away from the Epstein Files.

How does anyone still defend and support this?

The Republican “talking heads” on TV still defend everything Trump says and everything he does.

They laugh when other guests on talk shows express concern over the demolition of the East Wing of the White House, the $1.4 billion ballroom, the 250-foot tall Trump Arch, the $1.775 billion Trump slush fund, Trump’s face to go on the proposed $250 bill – although it is against the law for a living person’s likeness to be put on our currency, his weekly flights on Air Force One to Florida to play golf, his falling asleep regularly during Cabinet meetings, his vulgar mouth, his sweet deal that he and his family are forever immune from Internal Revenue Service audits, his more than 3,700 personal stock trades in the first quarter of 2026, his desecrating the grounds of the White House for pugilists to perform for his birthday, the cementing over of the White House Rose Garden, the tackying-up of the entire White House with gaudy gold doo-dahs, directing his personal law firm (formerly known as the United States Department of Justice) to go after anyone and everyone who has ever hurt his feelings (such as E. Jean Carroll), and his inability to speak in a complete sentence.

I could go on. The things I have listed off the top of my head are the tip of the iceberg.

I feel like we are on a ship of fools heading straight for that iceberg.

It is baffling. I will never understand it. Never.

Janet

The government should be afraid of its citizens, not the other way around.

Public education is still under attack

The right-wing conservatives are hell-bent on destroying public education through conspiracy theories.

My “representative” in the U.S. House of Representatives sent out an email last week that demonstrated how he has bought into all the lies being spread about public education. On May 20 he took to the House floor and waxed poetic about the indoctrination of “kids” in our public schools.

Are we talking about baby goats?

I’m sorry, but my mother was an English teacher and one of her pet peeves was people referring to children as “kids.” A “kid” is a baby goat.

I’m splitting hairs here, but our command of the English language has deteriorated to the point that Acts of Congress now use “Kids” instead of “Children.”

Last Wednesday, my congressman spoke on the House floor in support of H.R. 2616, the Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act. SIAPKA for short, I guess? (I was just trying to figure out a possible reason why “Kids” was used instead of “Children,” but the formation of a catchy acronym does not appear to fit the bill. Sorry for the pun.)

I find the wording irritating and indicative of the overall deterioration of the U.S. Congress as an institution. Why must they use slang when they name a piece of legislation?

But that’s not the point of my rant today.

Photo by John Cardamone on Unsplash

My congressman’s speech on May 20 & weekly newsletter

In his remarks, my congressman made the following indictment of public education in America:

“For far too long, our education system has prioritized activism over fundamentals. Parents want their kids to learn how to read, write, solve math problems, and reach their God-given potential. Unfortunately, schools across the country have abandoned biological realities in favor of curriculum that’s infused with gender ideology, sexual education, and transgenderism. This is not education, this is indoctrination. What is equally concerning is the effort schools have put into leaving parents out of important discussions regarding their children. Parents have the right to know what their kids are being taught and what is happening to their children in schools. That’s why I am proud to stand against the indoctrination of our kids and for parents’ rights and I strongly urge my colleagues to do the same by joining me in supporting this bill.”

In his weekly e-newsletter on Saturday, he stated the following:

“Ahead of its passage this week, I spoke on the House floor in support of the Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act because our children deserve an education focused on academic excellence, not political indoctrination.

“This bill stands up for parents’ rights and reinforces a simple principle: classrooms should focus on teaching students how to read, write, think critically, and succeed in life—not pushing gender ideology, inappropriate sexual content, or radical left-wing activism.”

No doubt, Virginia Foxx will join him

Something I considered blogging about earlier this month but decided against is the written response U.S. Representative Virginia Foxx sent to a fourth grader in response to the essay he shared with her.

The boy’s mother, Emily Mango, of Greensboro, NC was furious about Ms. Foxx’s letter, so she went public with it. Her son’s school assignment was to write a persuasive essay about a topic of his choice. He wrote in favor of electric vehicles. He expressed his opinion that they were good for the environment.

In Ms. Foxx’s response to the ten-year-old, she wrote, in part, the following on May 9, 2026:

“Ask your teacher to explain propaganda to you. While I will never be able to know, my guess is that your teachers will not give you a good educational experience and help you learn to think as they are too interested in indoctrinating you. How sad.”

How dare she write that to a ten-year-old child!

My take

The right-wing conservations want to dictate what can and cannot be taught in our public schools. That’s what this comes down to. This proposed legislation falls in line with Trump’s Executive Orders 14168 and 14190 issued last year. That’s when he and his Department of Education went after schools and universities.

Federal grants disappeared if they supported DEI, science, or medical research. I won’t take time today to repeat those details.

It comes down to a few people who want to control what everyone studies and what everyone reads. They aren’t satisfied to control what their own children are exposed to. They want to control what your children are exposed to under the guise of “indoctrination” and “parental rights.”

Politicians who want to force their narrow-minded views on all of us? They scare me.

Politicians who were more interested in taking a couple of weeks away from Washington, DC on Friday than staying to address Trump’s $1.776 billion slush fund? They scare me.

I’ll tell you how I really feel tomorrow

Tune in for how I really feel about this and some related topics in my blog post tomorrow.

Janet

The government should be afraid of its citizens, not the other way around.