Plants and Stupid

This morning I had the thought that it was a beautiful day, the sun was out, the birds were chirping, and perhaps I would write a cheerful post that did not include anything about that man.  Hah.  Hah Hah Hah.

I'll start with the pretty photos.  Parts of our back yard, and the neighbor's to the south of us do not have irrigation.  Only the hardy plants survive.  Yesterday I noticed a large swath of these plants.  Google Lens identifies it as a Kalanchoe, but I don't know what kind.  It amazes me that something this fleshy can grow back there with no water.

This is a tall cactus that grows in the front yard.  If you look at the top, you can see flower buds emerging.

At the base, you can see four new arms growing.  The one on the right is hard to see, but he's there.

The cheerful Brittle Bush is blooming.   He's on irrigation, he's happy.

So, that was the nice stuff.  

47 is a firm believer in the unitary executive theory, meaning that he alone controls the executive branch.  He can hire and fire at will.  We're starting to see him manifest this.  DeJoy has stepped down from running USPS.  47 is planning to dissolve the board of directors, and fold USPS into the Commerce Department.  What could go wrong?  All of the people who actually know something will be fired, service will suffer.  This will really impact the people who live in small rural towns.  It will hurt e-commerce, drugs by mail, and the mailing of baby chicks.  Vote by mail will no longer be reliable.  This is bad.  Here is a short article, and here is a WAPO article which is better, but is pay walled. 

Park Service employees are being laid off in staggering numbers. Wait times at the Grand Canyon are awful, and it's still cold up there.  Wait until summer.  Alec McGillis on twitter reports that at California’s Yosemite National Park, the Trump administration fired the only locksmith on staff on Friday. He was the sole employee with the keys and the institutional knowledge needed to rescue visitors from locked restrooms.  Lines to get in Arches are going to be horrendous.  Forget ranger led hikes, that's over.

There there is this from the Wall Street Journal.

47 has said that Ukraine started the war with Russia, they should have "taken the deal" and let Russia take what they wanted.  Treasury Secretary Bessent took a contract to Zelensky to sign that would have given the US 50% of their mineral wealth.  He gave him an hour to think about it, Zelensky said no.  47 has decided that he wants the money that Biden spent on Ukraine back.  So, Putin and 47 will concoct some horrendous future for Ukraine.  Europe needs to stand up right now.

Housing and Urban Development has always been a mystery to me as to what they do.  One of the things they do is rebuilding after disasters.  This is from a Housing Wire article.  They're paywalled, and this is all of the text I could get, but it lays it out pretty well.

The Office of Community Planning and Development inside the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is poised to be drastically reduced in size through cuts to a vast majority of its staff, according to a report published Thursday by The New York Times.

Citing a document obtained by the outlet, the office that helps communities rebuild following natural disasters — most recently and visibly observed in the federal response to hurricanes Helene and Milton in North Carolina and Florida, respectively — would see its headcount shrink to about 150 workers, down from 936 immediately prior to Donald Trump’s transition to the White House last month. This equates to a staff reduction of 84%, the Times reported.

This is so bad, Helene left so much damage, and now there will not be money to rebuild.

Finally, here is an article from The Bulwark, about how bad things are and how much
worse they will get. 

Blogger is doing something weird with text wrapping and spacing, so I am now giving up. 
Sorry about all the white space at the bottom.  I don't seem to be able to delete it.