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.

National Cancer Institute Appears to be in Limbo

I wish I had included this in my “Some things we’ve lost, like …” blog post on May 6, 2025.

The National Cancer Institute is one of the 27 components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

A couple of weeks ago, the National Cancer Institute had 28 Scientific Advisors. Today it has none. I copied the following from the National Cancer Institute’s website (National Cancer Institute (NCI) | National Institutes of Health (NIH) on May 7, 2025, because it will probably disappear soon:

“The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is the federal government’s principal agency for cancer research and training. Established under the National Cancer Institute Act of 1937, NCI is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), one of 11 agencies that make up the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

NCI’s mission is to lead, conduct, and support cancer research across the nation to advance scientific knowledge and help all people live longer, healthier lives.

“As the leader of the cancer research enterprise, collectively known as the National Cancer Program, and the largest funder of cancer research in the world, NCI manages a broad range of research, training, and information dissemination activities that reach across the entire country, meeting the needs of all demographics—rich and poor, urban and rural, and all racial/ethnic populations. Specifically, NCI focuses on two broad roles:

“Cancer Research

  • Leads the nation’s research efforts to improve cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, and survivorship
  • Supports 72 NCI-Designated Cancer Centers and more than 5,000 grantees
  • Coordinates and supports all phases of clinical trials across 2,500 clinical trial sites nationwide, seeking the development of new and improved cancer treatments
  • Supports intramural research scientists in our own laboratories and clinics
  • Partners with industry, private philanthropic organizations, other federal agencies, and other national and foreign institutions to engage in cancer research and training opportunities that otherwise might not be possible because of their complexity and cost
  • Collaborates with private-sector life sciences companies to advance promising innovative technologies that fuel improvements in detection, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer
  • Supports the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, the only federally funded research and development center dedicated exclusively to biomedical research
  • Maintains long-term storage of publicly available cancer genomic and clinical data
  • Supports construction of laboratories, clinics, and related facilities for cancer research

“Training and Support for Cancer Researchers

  • Strives to attract, train, and retain the best minds to become the next generation of cancer researchers
  • Provides support to scientists and their institutions to create outstanding environments for researchers to train, conduct basic and clinical research, and care for cancer patients
  • Funds training and career development opportunities across a broad spectrum of cancer research disciplines through training grants, fellowships, research career development awards, and research education grants
  • Supports targeted cancer research training for individuals from backgrounds underrepresented in the biomedical and behavioral sciences to achieve and sustain a diverse workforce
  • Provides comprehensive training programs that support the needs of qualified individuals at all stages of their career development, ranging from middle-school students to independent researchers
  • Offers training opportunities centered in hospitals and research institutions across the nation, in addition to intramural training programs offered at NCI laboratories and offices in Maryland

“As a federal agency, NCI receives its funds from Congress. The bulk of our budget supports extramural grants and cooperative agreements to facilitate research conducted at universities, medical schools, hospitals, cancer centers, research laboratories, and private firms in the United States and abroad. These funds also support intramural research at NCI’s laboratories and offices in Bethesda, Rockville, and Frederick, MD.

“Our investments have led to declines in the rates of new cancer cases and cancer deaths overall in the last few decades in the United States. In line with this improvement, the number of cancer survivors in the United States has more than doubled from 7 million in 1992 to more than 15 million in 2016—and is expected to rise to more than 26 million by 2040. These trends reflect advances in cancer detection, diagnosis, and patient care that have resulted in people living longer, healthier lives than ever before.”

I copied the following paragraph from http://Grants & Funding | National Institutes of Health (NIH): “The National Institutes of Health is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world. The NIH invests most of its nearly $48 billion budget in medical research seeking to enhance life and to reduce illness and disability. NIH-funded research has led to breakthroughs and new treatments helping people live longer, healthier lives, and building the research foundation that drives discovery.”

So how does the National Cancer Institute continue that work without any scientific advisors?

After reading online that the National Cancer Institute was looking for candidates to apply for the position of Advisor in Bioinformatics in the Surveillance Research Program, Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, I copied the following from https://www.cancer.gov/about-nci/careers:

“The largest of the institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) is a premier research center that offers research, programmatic support, and training opportunities at its laboratories and offices in Maryland. 

“In accordance with the https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/hiring-freeze/ dated January 20, 2025, which is effective immediately, we have been informed that all recruitment activities must cease.”

If you voted for Trump and you did not want this to happen, it is time for you to let President Trump, your two US Senators, and your US Representative know you don’t like this. That power rests with you.

The Trump Administration should be afraid of YOU now. It should be afraid of the people who elected them. Please, please show them that they should be afraid of you!

When you write or call their offices, be sure to tell them you voted for them and you voted for Trump. They need to know that their base is not happy with this decision

If, like me, you didn’t vote for Trump, either of your US Senators, or your US Representative, you should contact them anyway and let them know your displeasure. Just don’t count on hearing back from any of them.


We need a businessman in the White House?

What really irritates me with my public administration background is that we keep being told the government needs to be run like a business. “We need a businessman in the White House.”

If this is the way business works, thank goodness businessmen (of course, they are all men!) weren’t in charge of our government for its first 248 years. If they had been, we wouldn’t have lasted into the 18th century, much less until 2025.

No wonder Trump has bankrupted so many companies. It must take a certain level of business acumen to bankrupt a casino.


Trump’s embarrassing remarks in Qatar

Speaking to US military personnel at the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar this week, President Trump mocked France for celebrating the Allied victory in World War II on May 8.

I watched the video. Trump said, “We love France, right. But I think we did a little more to win the war than France did, do we agree?”

How dare he!

He continued, “You know. I don’t want to be a wise guy. But when Hitler made his speech at the Eiffel Tower, I would say that wasn’t exactly ideal.”

Trump went on to repeat a supposed conversation he had with French President Emmanuel Macron, mimicking Macron’s voice.

Trump said, “Russia was celebrating, France was celebrating, everybody was celebrating but us. And we’re the ones that won the war. We won the war.”

Someone needs to remind Trump that it was European countries like France that were bombed and occupied by German troops.

Someone needs to remind Trump that it was a joint effort by Allied troops from many countries that won the war. The United States of America did not single-handedly win World War II!

This was a pathetic show of ignorance of history by President Trump in front of a captive audience of American troops.


Until my next blog post

I sincerely hope you have a good novel to read. I hope you are not in the doldrums like I’ve been in since Inauguration Day, unable to enjoy a novel.

But I do hope you are disgusted with how our country is being run.

Support small local businesses and restaurants. They need your business.

Support your local public library system! They are always operating under tight budget restraints. If you don’t darken the door or ever check out a book, music CD, or other resource, it makes it difficult for them to justify their very existence. It makes it difficult for them to justify their budget requests for the next fiscal year. Did you not know that?

In North Carolina, at least, local governments’ fiscal years begin on July 1. May and June are when county commissions are studying budget requests and deciding where to make cuts. Public libraries are often a target of those cuts. This is a critical time to let your local elected officials know that libraries are important. Sadly, many of them never use a public library and are ignorant of the resources they hold.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet