May 22, 2022

If passed, this measure will put Trump’s wish list into law. Although this is technically a budget bill, items in it from that wish list include a significant restriction on “the authority of federal courts to hold government officials in contempt when they violate court orders,” as Dean of Berkeley Law School Erwin Chemerinsky explained in Just Security Monday. “Without the contempt power,” he writes, “judicial orders are meaningless and can be ignored.”

Three judges are currently considering whether the administration is in contempt of court over its apparent disregard for court orders over its rendition of undocumented immigrants to third countries.

But the center of the bill is indeed related to money: it is the $3.8 trillion extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which disproportionately benefit the wealthy and corporations. Yesterday the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that Americans in the lowest tenth of earners will lose money under the measure while people in the top five percent of earners will see a tax cut of $117.2 billion, more than 20% of the tax cuts in the bill.

Poorer Americans take a hit from the bill because it cuts federal healthcare and food assistance programs to partially offset the costs of the tax cuts. Cuts to Medicaid are expected to leave at least 9 million people without healthcare coverage. Cuts of about 30% to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program would be “the biggest cut in the program’s history,” Ty Jones Cox, vice president for food assistance policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told Lorie Konish of CNBC. They would cut about $300 billion from the program through 2034. More than 40 million people, including children, seniors, and adults with disabilities, receive food assistance.

Yesterday the CBO reported that the measure will add $2.3 trillion to the deficit over ten years, and noted that when a budget adds too much to the federal deficit, it triggers cuts to Medicare (not a typo) under the Pay-As-You-Go law. The CBO explains that those cuts are limited by law to 4% but would still total about $490 billion from 2027 through 2034. Heather Cox Richardson

Rep. Melanie Stansbury 

Sdnooptrset7f67a160ha7ahiut281h96t49u9f4i12g87791t596mc545ft  · 

Breaking

Republicans rejected every single one of the more than 500 Democratic amendments we offered on Reconciliation— but then dropped a huge “manager’s amendment” at the last moment they’ve been negotiating all day behind closed doors. Here’s what’s in their big compromise (it’s a real doozy):

-Ups the start date for Medicaid repeals to start December 2026 (increasing suffering by two years)

-Increases healthcare premiums

(for hundreds of thousands of MORE people likely to lose healthcare)

-Zeros out taxes for the transfer of silencers on guns (why!?!?)

-Extends a permitting pay-to-play scheme to natural gas pipelines (another oil and gas giveaway)

-Repeals clean energy incentives and expedites nuclear energy

-And renames accounts for newborns to “Trump” accounts (because there’s nothing weird about that)…

All re

The "Big Beautiful Bill"

From twitter we learn The Big Beautiful Bill which is moving through congress does the following, in addition to taking healthcare away from 14 million people.  It's way more than a budget bill, it's an end to the world as we know it bill.

- Closure of the U.S. Department of Education 

- 25% expansion of logging in national forests, bypassing environmental reviews and fast-tracking timber production 

 - Rollbacks on clean energy incentives, cutting tax credits for EVs and renewables, gutting key climate provisions

 - More public lands opened up for drilling, mining, and logging, with royalty breaks for fossil fuel companies 

- Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, ending U.S. participation in global climate efforts  

- Executive Order 14215, forcing independent federal agencies to follow White House legal interpretations and centralizing authority under the presidency  

 - Pension changes for federal workers hired before 2014, cutting take-home pay by raising required contributions, reducing future payouts, and eliminating early retirement supplements

 - REINS Act-style regulation repeal, where major federal rules expire unless Congress re-approves them every 5 years allowing Trump to quietly erase protections without rewriting laws  

- Expanded executive control over agency budgets, allowing the White House to move federal funds internally without explicit congressional approval

 - Restoration of impoundment powers, giving Trump the ability to block or delay spending already passed by Congress reviving powers stripped after Watergate  

 - Creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), placing White House–aligned teams inside every federal agency with access to internal systems and influence over hiring and daily operations 

 - Sharp cuts in regulatory enforcement, with agencies like the EPA, CFPB, and Labor and Transportation Departments halting enforcement of key safety, environmental, and anti-discrimination rules  

 - Trump’s personal control over economic policy, strengthening his power to direct tariffs, pressure private companies, and dictate pricing with little resistance treating the U.S. economy like his own business

Happy May Day

Happy Earth Day--- April 22, 2025

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

Messenger
by Mary Oliver

Happy Easter April 20, 2025

 

                                                ('borrowed' from Boardwalk Barb's blog)

I boiled my dozen of eggs yesterday, had the dye pack ready to open, and company showed up.  Almost three hours later, said company left, and I was exhausted.  My eggs remain colorless, and as of this morning, Easter morning, I've made the decision to save my dye for next year and go ahead and make egg salad with my boiled eggs.  ☺️. I have had a lot of exhaustion this week, and have spent more time on my bed the last few days than I have in who knows how long.  I think the surgery, etc, is finally catching up with me.  My friend that helped me get through the surgery and the 2 weeks post surgery, left on Friday to go back to her home.  What would we do without friends that step into the trenches with us when our family has aged out?  LOL. Eternally grateful to this particular friend.  She's now done one extreme open heart surgery with me and was with me over a month for that ordeal, and now the cervical decompression surgery.  And then there are the friends and neighbors that have spoiled me rotten the last few weeks here at home.  :). 

I have recovered from the surgery itself really quickly, and some of the immediate results of getting the bone off of the spinal cord were quite startling.  My eyes opened up again, and almost immediately I could breathe again, as well as walk, talk and breathe at the same time.  I can't even begin to tell you how much of the life had literally drained out of me prior to this surgery.  So many many benefits that I'm so grateful for.  There may be residual damage but we won't know what or if for a long time.  Unfortunately, I had a couple of episodes with v-tach with my heart while I was in the hospital, and the last week has progressively gotten worse with my heart rates.  So I'm sure that I will end up with a heart monitor this coming week, and who knows what will be the next heart issue.  To say that I'm hugely disappointed by this heart thing is an understatement.  But what can you do?  My body decided to do major break downs and so far they are big ones.  I can only try to roll with the punches, do what I can to repair what crops up, and try to learn to live with the handicaps that I may have after all of that.

I hope everyone has had a lovely Easter week/Sunday.  It's been a beautiful day here, and I've spent part of it outside on the deck with the lovely pansies, and part of it on the bed.  LOL

Post Surgery Update

 I had my L4 ACDF cervical fusion surgery last Tuesday, April 1, 2025,  at Duke Hospital.  It went as the doctor had hoped but was a little more difficult than some due to my neck being 'twisted' from birth defect and scholiosis.  I'm home and back to being able to swallow small bites of almost everything.  I am still having to take my meds with applesauce or yogurt because of swelling in my throat, but that is much better too.  Overall, I did great!  Am so so grateful to have the surgery behind me, and so grateful for all of the love and support that surrounds me.  ☺️

March 19, 2025

March 14, 2025

From Cottage Whimsy on Facebook

March 12, 2025 Counting the Days until Surgery

 

March 11, 2025. How's This Working Out for Everyone?

March 6, 2025

 My cervical decompression surgery is now scheduled for April 1, 2025.  

March 3, 2025