I’m having some serious eye problems that I’m being treated for. I can’t see that well on the computer, but I’m going to do my best to post a few stories along with some lovely watercolor cat art.
#5. TODD BLANCHE. Most of the worst abuses in multiple areas by DOJ are orchestrated by Blanche. While Bondi and Patel have gotten most of the public blame and scrutiny, Blanche is the architect of it all. Blanche was Trump’s criminal defense lawyer before he became president, and has acted as his criminal defense lawyer while running DOJ. He met privately with Ghislaine Maxwell in prison, then had her moved to a minimum security Club Fed. He has repeated lies about the contents of the Epstein files and is the point person for covering them up with delays and redactions. He ended investigations and dropped charges against some of America’s worst criminals for political reasons. While Bondi and Patel are bad, Blanche is even worse.
#4. RUSS VOUGHT. The man who orchestrated the comprehensive right-wing policy blueprint for this admin called ‘Project 2025’, this zealot keeps a lower profile than others – preferring tangible results with ruthless efficiency behind the scenes as OMB Director. Vought is the brains behind Stephen Miller’s evil bombast, organizing the policy agenda that controls the administration. During the 4 years Trump was out of office, Vought organized and drafted 350 different executive orders and regulations to implement if Trump got a second term – most of the ones he issued came from Vought – including the plan to invoke emergency powers and national security to justify bypassing Congress in a variety of areas. In fact, most of the agenda Vought devised was specifically intended to find ways an authoritarian-minded president could implements things while ignoring Congress, or reversing legislative acts by executive order.
#3. PETE HEGSETH. Chaos ensuedalmost immediately after the drunken fool former Fox host took over an office that he was unfit and unqualified for. He divulged war plans and classified info in a Signal chat which included a reporter, but then tried to cover himself by claiming he declassified it. He fired his own senior advisors because of his paranoia over press leaks, then ousted the Pentagon press corps with onerous rules that abused their first amendment rights. He gleefully released videos of nearly 100 people on boats he has murdered, without providing any evidence of their guilt or due process. He alienated allies with an insane speech in Europe that resulted in the admin sidelining him from giving any more. He ousted seasoned career officers and made it clear he has no use for women serving in the military in any role other than support positions, or for rules of engagement designed to minimize collateral damage and civilian casualties. He summoned hundred of Generals and Admirals from their commands around the world to DC so he could give them a deranged speech they found utterly ridiculous and juvenile. He constantly gives partisan political speeches to active-duty troops in violation of laws and regulations, which he mixes with a healthy dose of christian nationalism. It is hard to imagine how Trump could have found a worse person for one of the most important jobs on the planet.
Cat’s Promenade Yuliya Podlinnova
#2. HOWARD LUTNICK. The architect of so many corrupt, shady and misguided policies of the Trump admin while serving as Commerce Secretary – including tariffs and selling citizenship in the form of ‘Trump Gold Cards’. Lutnick is a shameless habitual liar and flip-flam huckster, constantly hyping his policies with fantastical claims while moving the goalposts weekly on his predictions. In a different century he’d be selling miracle cures out of tent at a carnival. In this century, he’s a billionaire. Lutnick is the prime mover behind the admin’s embrace of data centers, AI, and Stalinist moves like the government ownership of companies. Even Trump has grumbled behind the scenes to aides that Lutnick is a “manipulator”, but despite that he continues to adopt each of his worst ideas. Trump constantly had to reverse himself on catastrophic tariff announcements after disastrous consequences ensued – which resulted in the moniker ‘TACO’ for caving so much. All of those disastrous announcements came directly from Lutnick, with Bessent, Musk and others seeking reversal from Trump.
Note – I fully realize Bessent should probably be in this Top 25 somewhere, but I left him off simply because there is a lot of reporting that he has reversed some of the worst ideas behind the scenes despite his repugnant public persona. Go ahead and yell at me if you want – I personally can’t stand the guy either. But I have read comments from a lot of people I respect who say that without Bessent pushing back on some things behind the scenes we would be far worse off economically than we already are because everyone else is much worse. I guess I will buy that he might be the voice of reason behind the scenes, but time will tell.
#1. STEPHEN MILLER. This was the easiest selection, and there was probably never any doubt from most of you that he would be first. He is the WH policy director who is really running the US govt while Trump plays golf, receives awards, puts gold of everything, trolls social media, and builds his ballroom. Most of the policies aren’t Miller’s original ideas because he really isn’t that smart, but he knows how to implement them with a ruthlessness not seen since 1930s Germany. He has made the 2nd most TV appearances this year after Homan, much to the chagrin of Republicans running for election in swing districts. We know all the things that make Miller the worst person to ever serve in a senior position in US history, so there is no point in cataloguing them or this column would go on forever. The hate, the racism and bigotry, the phobias – he’s the personification of political evil. Trump is the only person who would even consider putting this twisted misfit in a position of authority. But he has, and as dementia takes hold and the old man plays with this trophies, ballrooms and golden baubles, Stephen Miller is running the country. Trump is President In Name Only.
God help us.
Check out the rest at the Meidas+ Substack.
Filipkowski’s next project: “Tomorrow, I will begin my list of the ‘500 Worst Things Trump Did in 2025’, with my first 100 in chronological order beginning with things he did in January 2025 and continuing to present.”
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital with missiles and drones early Saturday morning, killing one person and wounding 27, a day before talks between Ukraine and the U.S., authorities said.
Porter and Sully, by Dora Hathazi Mendes
Explosions boomed across Kyiv for hours as ballistic missiles and drones hit the city. The attack began in the early morning hours Saturday and was continuing as day broke.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepared to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday for further talks on ending the nearly 4-year-old war. Zelenskyy told reporters he was on a plane en route to Florida on Saturday afternoon, and would stop in Canada on the way to meet Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Zelenskyy said he and Trump plan to discuss issues including security guarantees and territorial issues in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions….
Poland scrambled fighter jets and closed airports in Lublin and Rzeszow near the border with Ukraine for several hours during the Russian attacks, the country’s armed forces command said on X. There was no violation of Polish airspace, it said. Civil aviation authority Pansa said the two airports had since resumed operations. It was unclear what caused the alert in Poland when the Russian attacks were focused on Kyiv, which is far from the border.
As President Trump prepares for an expected meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Sunday, he is facing some pressure from within his party to take a tough approach to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
Three Republican senators joined five of their Democratic colleagues in issuing a statement on Thursday that described Mr. Putin as a “ruthless murderer who has no interest in peace” and who “cannot be trusted.” It decried Russian attacks on Ukraine that continued over the Christmas holiday.
The statement was signed by the Republican senators John Barrasso of Wyoming, Jerry Moran of Kansas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. It did not criticize Mr. Trump’s handling of the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, and it was not joined by the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Jim Risch, Republican of Idaho and a close Trump ally, nor by most of the G.O.P. members on that committee. (Mr. Risch’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.) Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the committee, led the statement.
Still, the statement took a harsher tone toward Mr. Putin than Mr. Trump has often used. Although Mr. Trump has at times berated Mr. Putin on social media, urging him to stop his military assault on Ukraine, he has also boasted about their positive relationship, saying he gets along well with the Russian leader. He has repeatedly threatened severe sanctions on the Russians to urge them to make peace, but he has followed through only occasionally.
“It bears repeating that President Zelensky agreed to a Christmas truce, but Putin declined, yet he directs soldiers to continue to commit brutal crimes of aggression on one of Christianity’s holiest days,” said the statement, which was also signed by Senator Angus King, a Maine independent, and by Senators Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Chris Coons of Delaware, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, all Democrats.
Abuja, Nigeria — A day after part of a missile fired by the United States hit their village, landing just meters from its only medical facility, the people of Jabo in northwestern Nigeria are in a state of shock and confusion.
Suleiman Kagara, a resident of this quiet and predominantly Muslim farming community in Tambuwal district of Sokoto state, told CNN he heard a loud blast and saw flames as a projectile flew overhead at around 10 p.m. on Thursday.
Soon after, it came crashing down, exploding on impact with the ground and sending the villagers fleeing in fear.
“We couldn’t sleep last night,” Kagara said. “We’ve never seen anything like this before.”
White Liza, by Roman Franta
Kagara did not realize it at the time, but what he was witnessing was part of a US strike that President Donald Trump would later refer to as a “Christmas present” for terrorists.
Not long after the impact in Jabo, Trump declared on Thursday that the US had carried out a “powerful and deadly strike” against ISIS militants in the region, who he accused of “targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even centuries!”
According to US Africa Command, the operation neutralized multiple ISIS militants.
But Trump’s explanation has left Kagara and his fellow villagers scratching their heads.
While parts of Sokoto face challenges with banditry, kidnappings and attacks by armed groups including Lakurawa – which Nigeria classifies as a terrorist organization due to suspected affiliations with Islamic State – villagers say Jabo is not known for terrorist activity and that local Christians coexist peacefully with the Muslim majority.
But Trump is supposedly the “peace president.”
Trump’s plan to build giant battleships is being panned by folks who actually know what they are talking about.
President Donald Trump announced Monday the Navy will build a new class of battleships called the Trump class, with the first ship to be named USS Defiant (BBG-1).
The ship will displace more than 35,000 tons and be capable of speeds exceeding 30 knots, according to the Navy. The battleship will carry nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles, hypersonic weapons, electromagnetic railguns and directed energy weapons. Navy Secretary John Phelan said Trump plans to begin with two ships and eventually build 20 to 25 battleships.
The announcement marks the first battleship construction plan since 1944, when the USS Missouri was delivered to the Navy. The Missouri was the last active battleship in U.S. service before it was decommissioned in 1992.
Trump claimed the new battleships will be “the fastest, the biggest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built.” The claim is factually incorrect. In fact, the American Iowa-class battleships of World War II were larger by 15,000 to 20,000 tons.
Japan’s battleship Yamato, launched in 1940, displaced 72,000 tons and remains the largest warship ever constructed and put to sea. Trump’s proposed battleship is less than half Yamato’s size. American carrier aircraft sank Yamato in 1945, proving bigger is not better.
Historically speaking, battleships have been obsolete since at least 1921, when a simple bombing demonstration off Virginia’s coast proved the large warships are vulnerable to air attack. That vulnerability has been validated repeatedly through World War II and ever since as aircraft, submarines and cruise missiles systematically demonstrated that bigger and more expensive warships are easier to sink.
Once symbols of naval might with their massive guns, battleships have long since been eclipsed by aircraft carriers and modern destroyers armed with long-range missiles.
While labeling the new surface combatants as “battleships” could be a misnomer, defense experts say that there remain several gaps between Trump’s vision and modern naval warfare.
Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, dismissed the idea, writing in a Dec. 23 commentary that “there is little need for said discussion because this ship will never sail.”
Cats and Fruit by Mary Fedden, 1990
He contended the program would take too long to design, cost far too much and run counter to the Navy’s current strategy of distributed firepower.
“A future administration will cancel the program before the first ship hits the water,” Cancian said.
Bernard Loo, senior fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, described the proposal as “a prestige project more than anything else.”
He compared it to Japan’s World War II super-battleships Yamato and Musashi — the largest ever built — which were sunk by carrier-borne aircraft before playing a significant role in combat….
He added that the size of the proposed battleship — displacing more than 35,000 tons and measuring more than 840 feet, or a little over two football fields long — would make it a “bomb magnet.”
“The size and the prestige value of it all make it an even more tempting target, potentially for your adversary,” Loo said.
The “president” is a moron. But we already knew that.
Trump apparently thinks his economy will win the 2026 midterms for Republicans.
President Donald Trump says he believes the 2026 midterm elections will center on “pricing” as Republicans head into a critical period with control of Congress on the line.
And he told POLITICO Friday night that he is confident Americans will be receptive to his economic message: that his administration is cleaning up the mess he inherited from former President Joe Biden.
“I think it’s going to be about the success of our country. It’ll be about pricing,” Trump said in an exclusive interview. “Because, you know, they gave us high pricing, and we’re bringing it down. Energy’s way down. Gasoline is way down.”
Trump’s comments follow a string of favorable economic reports over the last two weeks showing inflation is cooling and the economy is hotter than expected. The White House is keen to tout the latest data as it confronts cost-of-living concerns that have underpinned a string of Democratic overperformances across the country.
Still, polls show Americans are struggling. Nearly half of respondents said they find groceries, utility bills, health care, housing and transportation difficult to afford, according to The POLITICO Poll conducted last month by Public First.
Trump’s acknowledgment that 2026 will focus on “pricing” underscores the administration’s concern that the Democrats have, for the moment, a popular message. After insisting that affordability was a Democratic “con job”, Trump over the last few weeks has repeatedly sought to reframe the issue, arguing that it was the Democrats under Biden who caused prices to increase and that he is bringing them down.
Corporate bankruptcies surged in 2025, rivaling levels not seen since the immediate aftermath of the Great Recession, as import-dependent businesses absorbed the highest tariffs in decades.
At least 717 companies filed for bankruptcy through November, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. That’s roughly 14 percent more than the same 11 months of 2024, and the highest tally since 2010.
Companies cited inflation and interest rates among the factors contributing to their financial challenges, as well as Trump administration trade policies that have disrupted supply chains and pushed up costs.
But in a shift from previous years, the rise in filings is most apparent among industrials — companies tied to manufacturing, construction and transportation. The sector has been hit hard by President Donald Trump’s ever-fluid tariff policies — which he’s long insisted would revive American manufacturing. The manufacturing sector lost more than 70,000 jobs in the one-year period ending in November, federal data shows.
By Hiroki Takeda
Consumer-oriented businesses with “discretionary” products or services, such as fashion or home furnishings, represented the second-largest group. This contingent usually tops the list and includes many retailers, and its retrenchment is a signal that inflation-weary consumers are prioritizing essentials….
Economists and business experts say the trade wars have pressured import-heavy businesses, which are reluctant to raise prices by too much for fear of alienating consumers. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Though inflation is currently lower than many economists expected — prices climbed at an annual pace of 2.7 percent in November — many businesses still are eating new costs themselves to hold the line on prices for buyers, experts say. That’s leading to a certain culling of the herd as already-fragile companies struggle to keep up.
“These companies are acutely aware of the affordability crisis confronting the average American,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at Yale University’s school of management. “They are doing their best to offset the cost of tariffs and higher interest rates but can only do so much. Those with pricing power will pass on the costs over time … others will fold.”
Not content with completing his takeover of the Kennedy Center by slapping his own name on the building, President Donald Trump has revealed the next phase of his current redesign obsession.
The 79-year-old president hinted on Truth Social that the ’60s modernist building in Washington, D.C., would be getting the Mar-a-Lago special with a gold and marble interior refit, starting, of course, with the theater’s armrests.
“Potential Marble armrests for the seating at The Trump Kennedy Center. Unlike anything ever done or seen before!” Trump announced on Friday evening.
Accompanying images show the hard-stone armrest examples that Trump apparently wants to install in the chairs of the center’s three main theaters.
It’s just the latest round in the president’s ongoing commandeering of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a “living memorial” to the 35th president, who was assassinated in 1963.
See photos of the ugly proposed armrests at the link.
That’s it for me today. I hope you found something worthwhile to read here.
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“Rob Reiner was right about everything.” John Buss. @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I’m really late today! I started the first day of Winter Break. Additionally, I’ve been watching movies mostly over the last few days because the news has been too stressful to handle lately. So, let’s catch up on the week so we can all have a peaceful weekend. The latest revolting development from the rotter in the White House and his appointed stooges is the renaming of the Kennedy Center, which is actually against the law.
This is from the New York Times. “As Trump Puts His Brand on Washington, the Kennedy Center Gets a New Name. The board for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced that it would now be named the Trump-Kennedy Center, although a formal change may have to be approved by Congress.” The story is reported by White House Correspondent Shawn McCreesh.
President Trump’s takeover of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts reached its inevitable apogee on Thursday afternoon when it was announced that the center’s board of trustees had voted to rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center.
Even though Mr. Trump had already been calling it that for months in trollish posts online, he acted shocked that his handpicked board had thought to do this for him.
“I was honored by it,” he told reporters at the White House. “The board is a very distinguished board, most distinguished people in the country, and I was surprised by it. I was honored by it.”
Earlier that day, he had called into a meeting of the board, which is now made up almost entirely of people who are loyal to him. (By law, there are a handful of members of Congress from both parties who sit on the board, as well.)
Unusually, the meeting was taking place not at the Kennedy Center but at the Palm Beach home of the casino magnate Steve Wynn, whose wife, Andrea, sits on the board.
Richard Grenell, the center’s Trump-appointed president, was there, and so was Lee Greenwood, who performed “God Bless the USA” at the meeting.
Another member who was in Palm Beach for it was Sergio Gor, a longtime aide to the president who was recently nominated to be the ambassador to India. It was Mr. Gor who proposed the name change.
But there was at least one person who was not down with the idea: Representative Joyce Beatty, Democrat of Ohio, who had called in to the meeting.
“It was such a surprise to me when they said we’re going to rename it,” she recounted in a phone interview. “I said, ‘Oh my gosh,’ and pushed my button. But then I was muted.”
She added: “Everything was cut off, and then they immediately said, ‘Well, it’s unanimous. Everybody is for it.’”
Ms. Wynn claimed in a phone interview that she was not aware that Ms. Beatty had been muted, and that she did not know who was responsible for it. As for how the president reacted to the name change?
“I think he was very happy,” she said.
Ms. Beatty described the meeting this way: “Everything was regurgitated about how awful anything with the center was, how run down it was, how everything was humiliating, and now they had come in as the great saviors of it.”
She added that the other members took turns praising Mr. Trump, who then pretended to be surprised when they voted to rename the joint after him. “He said, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you all were going to name it after me!’” she said.
There is a law that actually has very strict rules about things like renaming the center. It was signed by LBJ. The Center opened in 1971 featuring Leonard Bernstein’s composition Mass. My cousin Mary Bracken Phillips was one of the soloists. I remember all this very well. We were all musicians at the time. It was a very exciting time and performance. I’ve linked to her solo, and you can hear more of the original performances at the link.
This is from the AP. “Trump’s handpicked board votes to rename Washington performing arts center the Trump Kennedy Center.
Congress named the center after President John F. Kennedy in 1964, after his assassination. Donald A. Ritchie, who served as Senate historian from 2009-2015, said that because Congress had first named the center it would be up to Congress to “amend the law.”
Ritchie said that while Trump and others can “informally” refer to the center by a different name, they couldn’t do it in a way “that would (legally) stick.”
But the board did not wait for that debate to play out, immediately changing the branding on its website to reflect the new name.
Since returning to office in January, Trump has made the center a touchstone in a broader attack against what he has lambasted as “woke” anti-American culture.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters that a name change requires legislative action.
“Only Congress can rename the Kennedy Center,” said the New York Democrat, who serves on the board as an ex officio member because of his position in Congress.
This is the headline from the Washington Post. “Kennedy Center adds Trump’s name to building. The new signage follows a vote by the board of trustees to rename the arts complex the “Trump Kennedy Center,” a dramatic change for the presidential memorial.
The Kennedy Center installed President Donald Trump’s name on its exterior Friday morning, a dramatic change to a building
On Thursday, the center’s board, made up of loyalists with Trump as chair,voted to rename the institution “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”
A blue tarp was stretched across a portion of the building the next morningas a small team on scaffolding started the work. Loud drilling could be heard nearby. Inside the building, large letters spelling “Trump” could be seen on the floor of the entry hall, according to a photograph obtained by The Washington Post. Signage elsewhere around the exterior of the institution remained unchanged.
This is an affront on so many levels that it’s hard for me to put it into words. First and foremost, it disrespects the legacy of the late President Kennedy, whose name is relegated to an afterthought behind Trump’s. It disrespects all those involved in making the Kennedy Center a reality, including the artists who performed there and those honored there. It disrespects the goals of the Center and those who have worked to keep it as a shining beacon of American creative excellence. We have already seen the crap that happens there now that Trump has his vulgar fingers in it. It disrespects the best of our culture. The vulgar should not get these honors.
During his legendary tenure at the New York Philharmonic from 1958 to 1969, Leonard Bernstein composed only two works, Symphony No. 3: Kaddish (1963) and Chichester Psalms (1965). He had dedicated Kaddish to the memory of John F. Kennedy shortly after his assassination, and when Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis asked Bernstein to compose a piece for the 1971 inauguration of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., he was eager to honor the occasion with a new, large-scale work because he knew he had always wanted “to compose a service of one sort or another.” The son of Russian-Jewish parents, a social liberal, and lifelong activist, Bernstein made a surprising choice: the Roman Catholic Mass. But instead of a straightforward, purely musical setting of the Latin liturgy, he created a broadly eclectic theatrical event by placing the 400-year-old religious rite into a tense, dramatic dialog with music and lyrics of the 20th century vernacular, using this dialectic to explore the crisis in faith and cultural breakdown of the post-Kennedy era.
There’s some good news coming from the Justice System today. Let’s shift to the latest on that. First, we have this headline from The Hill. “Trump’s win streak on Supreme Court emergency docket breaks.” This is reported by Zach Schonfeld. It’s a significant headline, given the current composition of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court refused to intervene Friday in a battle concerning immigration judges’ speech restrictions, for now, snapping the Trump administration’s months-long winning streak on the court’s emergency docket.
It marks the first time since the spring that the court has rejected one of the administration’s emergency appeals. No justice publicly dissented, but the order left the door open for the government to try again once the case progresses further.
“At this stage, the Government has not demonstrated that it will suffer irreparable harm without a stay,” the one-paragraph order reads.
The case stems from restrictions on what immigration judges can say publicly. The restrictions require the judges, who are part of the executive branch, to obtain prior approval for speeches when the subject directly relates to their official duties.
The National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ) claims the policy violates the First Amendment.
Those free speech issues weren’t yet before the justices, however.
The Trump administration went to the Supreme Court to try to halt an order allowing the lawsuit to proceed before a federal district judge. The administration argues it must go before the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), a specialty body that oversees certain federal employee disputes.
That question poses wider implications for other federal workers’ cases, too. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices the lower ruling would “indefinitely thwart the MSPB.”
“The answer to such prolific contravention of the Court’s precedents should not be to wait and see just how much instability will ensue,” Sauer wrote in court filings.
The lower court had acknowledged the MSPB’s purview. But in allowing the lawsuit to proceed, it pointed to President Trump’s firing at the board that left it for some time without a quorum, saying it raises “serious questions” about whether the MSPB “continues to function as intended.”
This also happened. “Federal judge temporarily blocks HUD permanent housing cuts for homeless. The U.S. district judge questioned whether “chaos” is the point in homelessness funding overhaul.” This article is from Politico. It is reported by Cassandra Dumay.
HUD had withdrawn the new, transitional housing-focused notice before a court hearing last week, but the department said at the time it was “fully committed” to making reforms to the program and would reissue another version with “technical corrections.”
A HUD spokesperson said in a statement after the hearing that the department “remains committed to program reforms intended to assist our nation’s most vulnerable citizens and will continue to do so in accordance with the law.”
McElroy’s decision requires HUD to maintain the status quo in its funding for the Continuum of Care program, which partners with local organizations to connect people experiencing homelessness to housing and resources, until a new notice is released following a process that fits congressional statutes. The judge found that the plaintiffs, a coalition of 20 states as well as 11 local governments and nonprofits that sued HUD, had demonstrated they’re likely to succeed in challenging the department’s procedure for the policy change.
McElroy said HUD’s November decision to revoke the previous notice of funding and issue a new one that dramatically cut permanent housing grants likely conflicted with requirements under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. She said the law reflected Congress’ “prioritization of permanent housing and renewal stability and the formula based allocation scheme.” She also said HUD’s action last month likely conflicted with the statutory deadline for the issuance of a notice of funding.
One last thing. We have yet another reason to think Bernie Sanders is a punk. This is from The Bulwark. It’s written by Sam Stein. “A Milestone Pediatric Cancer Bill Fails at the Hands of Bernie. The Vermont senator is holding out for a bigger health care package. Advocates are asking: Is the price worth it?” Why on earth would any one punk kids with Cancer whose name isn’t Trump?
FOR YEARS, THE PEDIATRIC CANCER COMMUNITY has tried to pass a single piece of legislation that would allow for more comprehensive drug treatments to be given to young patients.
The process has involved agonizing setbacks, intense private negotiations, and a sudden, unexpected change in fortune thanks to the advocacy of a dying child.
On Wednesday night, this long, laborious journey appeared close to ending with what advocates anticipated would be a triumph. The Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act (named after that dying child) was heading to the Senate floor, where it was expected to be passed by unanimous consent. Having already passed the House, it would then head to Donald Trump’s desk. And there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the president would sign the measure and—as is his wont—take personal credit for it.
Pediatric cancer advocates scrambled to get to the Senate to watch the moment. Reporters who had covered the issue, including this one, were given the heads-up about its imminent passage. At least three kids who are bereaved siblings of cancer victims and one pediatric cancer survivor sat in the Senate gallery.
And then, it failed. A single senator stood in the way. It was Bernie Sanders.
In a dramatic, heated exchange on the Senate floor—caught by the C-SPAN cameras but largely missed by the news-consuming public—Sanders announced his opposition to quick passage for the bill. He did so not because he disagreed with its objective—which is to give the FDA the authority to push pharmaceutical companies to study combination drug therapies—but because he worried that extraneous provisions attached to it would make it harder to achieve other priorities. He argued that the Senate ought to be passing similarly important, bipartisan-supported health care measures along with it. His staff insisted to me that they would revisit the bill soon, and they seemed confident it would all get done in the new year.
But that’s not at all clear to the pediatric cancer community, which was left stunned by the vote.
“Everyone was just so exhausted and deflated and sad when we exited the gallery,” one member of the community told me. “It was a feeling of abandonment and confusion.”
The entire episode has raised a larger question about the motivations of lawmakers: What are their political and moral obligations in moments like these? Put another way: When is incremental legislative progress worth more than the continued pursuit of a bigger goal?
Read more at the Link about that last question.
So, I’m going to try to spend my Winter Break getting my house in order. I hope you have a peaceful, warm, and gentle weekend.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Suprise he did do the Trump part in tacky gold lettering or neon. Still makes me want to throw up, though.
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You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
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This is an affront on so many levels that it’s hard for me to put it into words. First and foremost, it disrespects the legacy of the late President Kennedy, whose name is relegated to an afterthought behind Trump’s. It disrespects all those involved in making the Kennedy Center a reality, including the artists who performed there and those honored there. It disrespects the goals of the Center and those who have worked to keep it as a shining beacon of American creative excellence. We have already seen the crap that happens there now that Trump has his vulgar fingers in it. It disrespects the best of our culture. The vulgar should not get these honors.
There’s some good news coming from the Justice System today. Let’s shift to the latest on that. First, we have this headline from 
This also happened. “Federal judge temporarily blocks HUD permanent housing cuts for homeless. The U.S. district judge questioned whether “chaos” is the point in homelessness funding overhaul.” This article is from 
One last thing. We have yet another reason to think Bernie Sanders is a punk. This is from The Bulwark. It’s written by Sam Stein. “A Milestone Pediatric Cancer Bill Fails at the Hands of Bernie. The Vermont senator is holding out for a bigger health care package. Advocates are asking: Is the price worth it?” Why on earth would any one punk kids with Cancer whose name isn’t Trump?
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