A Depressing Day, Start to Finish

~ Before most of the US had their coffee this morning, the House of Representatives passed the orange man's "Big Beautiful Bill" by a margin of one vote. Two Republicans voted with all Dems, one voted "Present" and two did not vote. I suspect the "Present" vote was a pre-planned deal. It now goes to the Senate and who knows what they will do to it. It has so many depressing things I cannot even begin to understand the effects. While the didn't touch Medicare directly, it will likely be cut to afford the bloated spending increases in defense and homeland security. Speaking of HS, in a congressional hearing this week, Secretart Noem was asked to define Habeus Corpus and bombed big time, then tried to talk over the member who explained what the concept really was, not what the administration believes it to be with regard to immigration. ~ Just this afternoon the administration notified Harvard University that it was no longer allowed to accept foreign students and that current foreign students would need to transfer to another institution. The reason given was that Harvard had not protected Jewish students during last year's demonstrations against the war in Gaza. Social media posts today revealed another possible reason - apparently Harvard rejected Baron Trump. I haven't verified this but offer yet another idea - it's more of this administration's attack on higher education they think will result in a less-informed citizenry so they can continue their dirty work of corruption, grift and authoritarianism. Per Thomas Jefferson - “A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.” ~ Yesterday the Defense Dept. accepted the Qatari gift of the golden 747 palace in the sky, which will fit right in with the Golden Dome defense system Trump has proposed. So no wonder the defense budget is so bloated given these two line items. I suspect this plane will never be ready for him to use while still in office and the thought that it will eventually be a gift to him, not the US, is beyond belief. I'm just waiting for karma to finally rear its ugly head and smack him so hard... ~ And Joe Biden announced over the weekend that he has been diagnosed with serious protate cancer. The was a very respectful social post from the current president (that I;m certain he did nor compose himself!!!) and a disrespectful one from his idiot son. And lots of people saying cancer got it wrong.