The happenings withing the current administration….all the silliness that should have no place in a rational government.

Donny and his escort went to Rome where all the photographers were….as they say ‘all roads lead to Rome’ or in Donny’s case all Roman roads lead to the year’s biggest photo-op.

Protocol was that attendees to the funeral wear black in respect….Donny wore blue (was it a faux pas, a statement, or just outright disrespect for the man and the religion?)…..he did have a front row seat (that should have made him happy)….but if you need more….https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-gets-called-out-in-front-of-millions-at-popes-funeral/

At least he was not allowed to ramble on….the biggest story was his quick meeting with Zelenskyy before the funeral.

But Wait!  There is more!

Then there is the new episode of the “Magic Sharpie”….as it guts our society….

President Trump issued new executive orders Wednesday targeting US colleges and the accrediting organizations that oversee them, part of his campaign against “wokeness” and DEI efforts in higher education. One order calls for tougher enforcement of Section 117 of the Higher Education Act. This federal law, passed in the 1980s, requires colleges to disclose foreign gifts and contracts of $250,000 or more. The White House claims Harvard and other universities have violated this law, which has been “unevenly enforced,” per the AP. A second order aims to shake up the bodies responsible for accrediting colleges, which then allows them to accept federal financial aid; Trump has referred to this move as his “secret weapon” to remake higher education, the Wall Street Journal reports.

• One order directs the Education Department and the attorney general to increase enforcement and possibly withhold federal money from institutions that violate disclosure rules. The administration aims to “end the secrecy surrounding foreign funds in American educational institutions” and protect against “foreign exploitation.” Concerns over financial ties between higher education institutions and foreign countries, especially China, have been persistent among Republicans and have been reignited during the recent dispute between the White House and Harvard University. One Republican representative says he believes China uses academic ties to “indoctrinate students” and steal US research.
• Another order focuses on organizations known as accreditors, which set the standards colleges must meet to access federal financial aid. Trump has criticized the current system, calling it “dominated by Marxist Maniacs and lunatics.” The new order instructs the government to suspend or terminate accreditors that, in the administration’s view, discriminate against colleges due to DEI requirements. Some accreditors have already dropped or stopped enforcing DEI criteria following previous pressure from Trump. “Revoking accreditation is an existential threat for these universities,” explains one research fellow. “If you lose Pell grants and lose student loans, for most colleges that means you’re done.”
• Other executive orders focused on K-12 schools, CNN reports. One aims to ensure students are taught how to use artificial intelligence. Another, per NPR, addresses discipline in schools and promises to issue new guidance “ensuring school discipline policies are based on objective behavior, not DEI.” Obama- and Biden-era discipline policies aimed to reduce racial disparities in disciplinary measures such as suspensions and expulsions, but the Trump executive order says “racially preferential discipline practices” will be prohibited under the new guidance.

Then there is ‘fix’ for the lower birth rate….

President Trump’s policy moves may revolve around tariffs, slashing the size of the federal government, and deportations, but sources tell the New York Times there’s one other issue gaining steam in the background: increasing the US birthrate, which has been declining since 2007. Those sources—four people who have been privy to some of these White House discussions—say the Trump administration has been on the receiving end of multiple proposed policies to encourage Americans to get married and have more children. The closeness of pronatalist proponents like Vice President JD Vance and Elon Musk to the Oval Office is giving things a boost, they say.

The Congressional Budget Office expects an average 1.6 births per woman over the next three decades, reports Newsweek, a good deal below the 2.1 births per woman needed to maintain a stable population absent immigration. The administration has heard proposals that range from reserving 30% of Fulbright scholarships for married applicants or applicants with children to offering a $5,000 “baby bonus” to new mothers. Another proposal would fund education programs to teach women about their menstrual cycles and fertility. Activists Simone and Malcolm Collins say they’ve provided the White House with a number of draft executive orders, among them one that would award a “National Medal of Motherhood” to mothers with six or more children.

Other ideas are coming from within: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who has nine children, issued a memo in which he vowed to give priority to transportation funding for areas with higher birth and marriage rates. And White House aides are working on a report, expected within the next month, on how to improve the affordability and accessibility of IVF. As the Times puts it, “The behind-the-scenes discussions about family policy suggest Mr. Trump is quietly building an ambitious plan to promote the issue.” He indicated he might do as much at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2023: “I want a baby boom,” he said.

There seems to be a program that I recall from the years before WW2….

The Magic Sharpie further attacks Civil Rights Act…..

“With the swipe of his pen, Donald Trump has just made an attempt to re-segregate America by repealing and deprioritizing landmark civil rights regulations and laws,” legislative researcher Allison Chapman told Truthout.

The order instructs federal agencies to stop enforcing laws and regulations based on disparate impact — a legal theory that identifies policies with discriminatory effects, even if they appear facially neutral. It also directs the attorney general to revise or repeal any Title VI racial nondiscrimination regulations that rely on this theory, and calls on agencies to review and possibly withdraw from ongoing cases or settlements involving disparate impact claims.

Trump Guts Key Civil Rights Protections With New Executive Order

A possible EO waiting in the wings for Social Security….

The Trump administration is planning to further cripple the Social Security Administration by making it easier to fire thousands of the agency’s employees.

The agency’s acting commissioner, Leland Dudek, told SSA staff earlier this month that many of their jobs would be converted to Schedule F positions, a new classification that would strip these workers of civil service protections. The move has prompted litigation from one of the unions representing SSA employees, the American Federation of Government Employees, who argue that the new classification is misplaced.

https://newrepublic.com/post/194362/trump-plan-social-security-administration-layoffs

Moving past the ‘Magic Sharpie….these are the idiotic situations coming from the office Little Donny….

His admin has denied disaster aide for Arkansas….

Donald Trump has denied federal disaster relief funds to the people of Arkansas, which saw dozens of people die from a series of deadly tornadoes last month, as legislators plead for him to reconsider.

More than 40 people have been found dead after a series of tornadoes and severe storms hit Arkansas and neighboring states Mississippi and Missouri in March, according to CNN.

Given the scale of the disaster, the state’s Republican governor, Sarah Huckabee, requested federal disaster aid as a part of an emergency declaration. That request was later denied by the Trump administration.

Huckabee and other Arkansas lawmakers have since publicly asked Trump to reconsider his decision. Huckabee sent an appeal of the decision on 18 April.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/24/trump-denies-aid-arkansas-tornados

Donny tells Veterans how lucky they were….

While speaking to a group of injured American veterans on Wednesday, April 23, the president claimed what happened to the wounded soldiers was “amazing” as he looked around at all of the men with prosthetic limbs.

“So you guys got hit, huh? Pretty good. You got hit. Amazing,” Trump muttered to the individuals, as one of the veterans admitted they were stationed at a “pretty tough area in the Arghandab River Valley” of Afghanistan.

A woman accompanying the group informed the president more than 50 percent of their unit received a purple heart, which is a heroic medal awarded to service members wounded, killed or who may die from wounds received while fighting against a U.S. enemy.

https://okmagazine.com/p/donald-trump-backlash-wounded-soldiers-amazing-hit-hopeless-empathy/

This from a president that could not take time off from golf to show some respect for soldiers death in Lithuania.

Income tax could be replaced with tariffs revenue…..

President Donald Trump has high aspirations for his tariffs, going so far as to suggest increased taxes on imports could replace income taxes.

“There’s a real chance,” he told Fox Noticias on April 15. “There is a chance that the money from tariffs could be so great that it would replace (the income tax).”

The idea may sound appealing, but economists who spoke to USA TODAY say Trump’s tariffs would struggle to raise enough money to eliminate income taxes in full.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/04/22/trump-tariffs-replace-income-taxes-economists/83196923007/

One more time!  Tariffs are paid by the importer not the country of origin and the costs will be passed onto the consumer (that is YOU)…in essence it is just another tax only much worse.

Finally, Donny has told the country a bunch of lies about the price of eggs and gas and etc.

Gas. Groceries. Eggs. Over the last week, President Donald Trump has lied about the price of all of them — using this repeated deception to try to minimize widespread concerns that his tariffs will fuel inflation.

Here is a fact check.

Gas

Trump claimed last Thursday that gas prices “hit $1.98 yesterday in a couple of states.” That wasn’t true. No state had an average gas price below $2.70 per gallon on Wednesday, according to data from AAA, which reported a national average of about $3.17 per gallon. And the lowest individual Wednesday price found by the firm GasBuddy, which tracks tens of thousands of gas stations across the country, was $2.19 at a station in Texas.

(there is more)

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/23/politics/price-of-eggs-gas-trump-fact-check/index.html

I feel his support is waning….but that is just my feeling….we will see in the coming months.

That was the week that was in the hallowed halls of the king in waiting….

Have a wonderful Sunday and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”