Kingdom of Knuffel

(sigh) I cannot keep up anymore.

Well, I'm still trying to process the health care repeal, but Trump announced a new budget today and he's planning to eliminate all arts funding, for one thing. If you combine all the agencies they only cost $300 million, which seems like a lot but is really just a tiny portion of the federal budget and a lot of communities, especially poor and rural communities, depend on the National Endowment for the Arts for all kinds of community projects. It could be simple things like an arts class, or it could be something like helping a local museum digitize their collection of local historical documents, or it could be fixing up a graveyard, repairing a historical theater in a shuttered main street so that it can help reinvigorate the area, there are just so many important things the National Endowment helps people do.

(It also means I won't be getting paid for a really REALLY REALLY long time. My boss depends on arts grants, and no one's been giving us any because they were worried this was going to happen, and now that it's actually been proposed they're DEFINITELY not going to be giving us any money. And yet there are still community planning meetings and foreclosure resistances to document, people to interview, transcriptions to make)

They're also talking about eliminating a lot of regional development boards in places like Appalachia. They're eliminating the funding for NASA's Earth Sciences and Climate Sciences department because they're too "Earth-centric"

They're getting rid of funding for projects taking care of the Great Lakes and the Chesapeake Bay (I don't know much about the Great Lakes project, but the Chesapeake Bay is huge. It's one of the most vital ecosystems on the East coast, especially since so many migratory birds rest there so whatever problems are happening there end up impacting everyone else)

Let's see, what else...apparently they want to privatize air traffic control. Which I'm not...comfortable with. I'm never comfortable leaving safety matters in the hands of corporations. Placing people over profit just isn't how corporations operate.

Here's a (possibly incomplete) list of the agencies/programs that Trump wants to get rid of:

African Development Foundation
Appalachian Regional Commission
Chemical Safety Board
Corporation for National and Community Service
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Delta Regional Authority
Denali Commission
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Inter-American Foundation
U.S. Trade and Development Agency
Legal Services Corporation
National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation
Northern Border Regional Commission
Overseas Private Investment Corporation
United States Institute of Peace
United States Interagency Council on Homelessness
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Aren't most of those listed really important for the safety and well being of Americans? Because that list... is a little sad. That is not going to help the country. He is truly making this a corporation and a country shouldn't be that.

What does the Corporation for National and Community Service do?

It's AmeriCorps. They're shutting down AmeriCorps.

So a group that helps alot of people... Ya this makes alot of sense...

Yup. Because they don't want to help people, I suppose. That's the only explanation I've got right now. Nothing is gained from these changes.

Ugh...

And that's on top of slashing the EPA, the State Department, the Department of Agriculture, FEMA, even the Coast Guard for some unknown reason.

I mean, I get that Trump objects to the environment, and that FEMA mostly helps poor people and is therefore not something he considers important, and the State Department is a potential threat to Trump's power so that's why he's attacking it, I'm not sure about the Department of Agriculture but maybe they just don't understand agriculture, but the Coast Guard? I thought Trump LIKED the military.

None of those changes make sense at all. Not unless he's more stupid than people actually thought he was. Coast Guard.... Ok that made me think he's beyond help with his lack of IQ and he's a massive baby. More so than I already thought he was. None of this makes sense. I don't even think we will ever find out either.

I just watched the daily White House Press Briefing live on youtube and Spicer tried to argue that they weren't actually cutting the budget for the National Institute of Health to research rare diseases because "There's this assumption in Washington that if you get less money, that's a cut." He was arguing that just because they're taking money away from the agency, the agency shouldn't spend less on research.

Yeah, that's not how that worked.

They also said they weren't going to spend any money on climate change.

Well, of course that's not true. Seems like they're very happy to spend lots of money CAUSING climate change, just not on slowing the process down or reducing causes or adapting to changing environmental conditions...

So goodbye beach front property! There goes all the federal money that was shoring up rich people's homes...and preserving below-sea-level golf courses...you gotta love the irony......

lol He might not even realize the impact it's going to have on his crap that he owns. One of these days or years or whatever he might realize the impact that stuff actually has. Then he would for sure do something about it because it's affecting him big time. And he's a baby so ... nuff said lol.

Oh dear...

Yesterday when I was watching the White House press briefing Spicer went on a really long rant. Reporters were asking him to respond to the House Intelligence Committee stating that there was no evidence of Trump's claims that Obama wiretapped Trump Towers during the campaign (there isn't evidence because it didn't happen)

Personally, I think Trump is harping on this ridiculous claim in an attempt to discredit any evidence that might emerge. The President of the United States doesn't have the authority to order surveillance on American citizens, and they REALLY don't have the authority to wiretap anybody (they made sure of that after Watergate) so Obama couldn't have wiretapped Trump Tower at all. The Department of Justice/FBI would have needed a warrant from a FISA court, which would have meant that there was reasonable evidence that Trump really was conspiring with foreign powers. So if there was a wiretap it would actually mean Trump was in much bigger trouble. But there most likely wasn't any wiretap.

However, the FBI doesn't need a warrant to tap the phones of people who aren't US citizens. So if they were listening to someone else's phones, the Russian ambassador for example, and someone called that phone from Trump Tower the FBI would have that conversation recorded. If any of that kind of evidence exists, and it emerged at this point, a lot of people would be convinced that it was proof of Trump's claims.

That's my theory, at least. It's all rubbish, but by muddying the waters Trump is making it harder to get to the truth. Anyway...

Reporters were pressuring Spicer about this yesterday and he went on this really long rant reading a ton of different news articles from random sources that talked about the possibility of surveillance and speculated about things. One of the articles he read from speculated that Obama had been secretly working with British intelligence services.

It wasn't really an article even...it was something that a talking head said on Fox News.
Turns out, the Brits did not appreciate the accusation. And now there's an international scandal as a result.

Oh, Spicey. You never fail to screw everything up.

Also, this is the second time we've had to deal with an international scandal because Trump believes everything stupid people say on Fox. The last time was Sweden.

I just don't understand how that stupid moronic baby is still in office. By now there is more than enough proof to say he is not qualified to run an entire country of actual people; not paper used to buy objects made of gold that look horrendous. I hate how that idiot is still there making everything worse, screwing so many important things up just because he thinks he's all that from his so called money and nothing can be done about it.

Sorry for the rant. >.>