Still Cold and Wet and The Big Bad Bill

Another wretched weather day.  It rained off and on all day, and was cold.  I guess May is not spring anymore.  The first year we were here in May it was delightful, but that appears to be over.  The guys that cut the grass come today, they're schedule driven.  Hopefully it won't be too hard on the grass.

Yesterday we went for a hike starting from the parking lot we've been parking in to ride, since the trail is still closed.  It is not a repeater, at all.  Much of it is full of baby heads, I hate walking on them.  A baby head is a mountain bike term to describe rocks that resemble babies buried in the ground so that only the top couple of inches of their heads are exposed.  Plus there were mosquitoes.

The rhodies have started to bloom.  We need to cut those back this year.

Here is the walkway with the new boxwood, and the terrible Rose of Sharon gone. 

With any luck, that's the last tree we'll be removing.

Today, the White House took down all of the transcripts of things 47 has said.  All they're putting up now is edited video clips.  Clips where he's not mangling the language and grammar.  Seems like this would violate the Presidential Records Act.  Of course, laws have no meaning in this country.  They're trying to disguise his disordered speech patterns.

The was today from Trump: "It’s going to be massive numbers… it's going to have a huge impact. So big that nobody can calculate it. So it will affect everything. It will affect your whole life. The amount of money you're going to be saving is going to be incalculable. Nobody can believe I had the courage to do it. I think it would have been courage not to do it."

He's talking about reducing pharmaceutical prices by threatening other countries.   This is a big problem for other countries who order transcripts and translate them into their languages.  

This morning the administration removed Harvard's ability to host foreign students.  Their visas will be revoked unless they transfer to another school.  Ten minutes later a federal judge put a hold on that.  Also blocked today, 47's plans to do away with the Department of Education.

Lawrence H. Summers, who is a big deal in the finance commentary space had this to say,  "The U.S. country risk trade is back as bonds, stocks and the dollar all fell sharply today. A few more days like today and recession will be likely. And financial accident risk is rising as well. President Trump needs to retreat on taxes just as he did on tariffs."  Mortgage rates are up to 7% or so, which is as high as they've been in years.

The House passed the Big Bad Bill by one vote..  If Gerry Connolly, Raul Grijalva, and Slyvester Turner had not died while in office, we wouldn't be here.  Instead we will have terrible things put in place, and huge cuts to food subsidies, Medicare and Medicaid.  Such a deal.

So that's it, another great day in the US of A.