Nunes blocking constituent from personal Twitter feed

On May 23, 2018, Federal judge Naomi Reice Buchwald, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, ruled that as President, Donald Trump could not block individuals from his personal Twitter feed. “President Trump’s Twitter account is a public forum and blocking people who reply to his tweets with differing opinions constitutes viewpoint discrimination, which violates the First Amendment.”

One would expect that someone, oh, say a member of the House of  Representatives, and Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, would realize that what applies to the President in this case applies to them as well.

Devin Nunes does not.

I am a constituent of Nunes’, and have been blocked from his personal Twitter feed for quite some time now. I am not blocked from his “official” account, which he rarely uses. As of this writing, the most recent post there was made April 19, 2018. His personal account has a post made yesterday. This denies me, a constituent in his district, access to information being disseminated by my Congressman.

“Because no government official is above the law and because all government officials are presumed to follow the law once the judiciary has said what the law is, we must assume that the President and Scavino [and Nunes?] will remedy the blocking we have held to be unconstitutional,” Judge Buchwald wrote in her declaratory judgment.

Nunes has not responded to my inquiry, posted through is House of Representatives web page shortly after the court judgment, as to why I was blocked and when that block will be lifted.

An interesting observation – I was blocked before I even knew he had a personal account. My first visit there returned the ‘blocked’ status, so Nunes pro-actively moved to block me. I can only assume it was something I said, all first-amendmenty-like, about my representative.

I wonder if he thinks my blog has reached the exalted level of being “fake news”. CNN, the Fresno Bee, and me. Imagine that.

Nunes blames “radical environmentalists”, but immigration crackdown a bigger threat to ag

Devin Nunes loves to blame “radical environmentalists” for the problems facing the agricultural community in our region.

Of course, he’s flat-out wrong about that.

The real harm being done to farmers these days is his own party’s continued crack-down on immigrants.

President Trump Tweeted today –

“We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order. Most children come without parents…
8:02 AM – 24 Jun 2018”

“Build the wall” and promoting the idea that ICE should be able to simply grab someone up and deport them without judicial review is the real culprit.

Farmers are having difficulty finding people to work their crops. A trend from before the current administration continues and grows worse, with immigration crackdowns depleting the pool of workers willing to work the fields for low pay. Now, with Trump and his GOP cohorts ratcheting up their chants of “build the wall”, and by kidnapping children from their parents and holding them hostage to force through legislation, the crisis is deepening.

The Los Angeles Times has a good piece on the troubles being faced by agriculture in California. Farmers can’t get non-immigrants to work the fields, even at more than double minimum wage.

It does you no good to have all the water you need, when you can’t find anyone to work the fields. Mechanization is the only hope some in ag have now, but there are many crops that still cannot be tended to or harvested by machines.

How long can Tulare County maintain it’s position as the number one ag county in the United States, if our farmers and ranchers can’t harvest their crops?

Nunes needs to pay attention to the real problem, and it’s not his imaginary liberal, radical-environmentalist-and-Democratic-Party caused drought. A well thought-out plan to allow workers to enter the United States legally, and to provide a much less complicated and expensive route to citizenship, is something we’ve needed for a long time. Nunes and his Republican cohorts don’t seem interested in creating one.

Tulare County, and CA22 can begin working to solve this looming problem by voting for Andrew Janz this November.

 

FLOTUS visits stolen kids

“I REALLY DON’T CARE. DO U?”

That about sums it up for the Trump administration.

First Lady Melania Trump left Washington, D.C., for the southen border, wearing a green jacket with the writing “I REALLY DON’T CARE. DO U?” printed in large letters on the back.

I’m not sure for whom the message is intended.

You’ve got to wonder that some handler didn’t say, “oh, no girl, you are not stepping out wearing that!”

She flew down, visited some stolen kids, talked to some people charged with stealing them and keeping a lid on them until they can be shipped off in the middle of the night to some remote place across the country.  Her staff valiantly tried to dismiss questions with “It’s a jacket. There was no hidden message. After today’s important visit to Texas, I hope the media isn’t going to choose to focus on her wardrobe.” Well, they were right about that… the message certainly wasn’t hidden.

I’m a bit surprised a former fashion model would ever wear such a thing, reportedly a $39 Zara jacket from last season. The message must have been powerful for the First Lady.

Anyway, I’m sure those kids felt so much better for the visit. After all, they may never see their parents again, but at least they got a visit from the wife of the man who stole them away out of the deal.

Making America Great Again. (See the Trail of Tears and the Japanese Internment for two former “greats” for reference.)

 

Donny really doesn’t like Justin

Donny really doesn’t like Justin.

After being told by the adults in the room at the G7 that his sketchy friend Vladimir was not welcome, Donny has been acting out like a spoiled child.

Donny left the party early, refusing to sign the group card, telling the others they weren’t really his friends. You could almost see a tear in his eye.

In a scene reminiscent of a teenager in full meltdown, Donny grabbed his Twitter machine, and started venting:

Based on Justin’s false statements at his news conference, and the fact that Canada is charging massive Tariffs to our U.S. farmers, workers and companies, I have instructed our U.S. Reps not to endorse the Communique as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. Market! PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, “US Tariffs were kind of insulting” and he “will not be pushed around.” Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy! – Donald J. Trump, Twitter 6-10-2018

Now his minions have been on television bad-mouthing the leader of our closest* ally, accusing him of being weak and dishonest, parroting Donny’s words. Rumblings about tariffs on autos assembled in Canada have been mentioned. The Trump administration doesn’t seem to be aware that US car manufacturers often assemble vehicles in Canada and ship them back into the country. Americans would be paying higher prices for cars manufactured by American car companies. Donny seems to think trade wars are a good thing, especially with his ex-friends.

He’s doing Vladimir’s bidding, tearing apart decades-old associations of western nations, and trying to kow-tow to China, Russia**, and North Korea.

The leaders of the G6 know what it takes to manage the world, and they know Donny is not up to the task. Kim has got to wonder if his new buddy will dump him for the next sweet-talking despot to come along. Hard to see how you build a relationship with someone who is known as a serial cheater.

George Takei posted a great Tweet today: I’ve said it before. The transfer of power in democratic societies is a wondrous and startling thing. One minute, Barack Obama is leader of the free world. The next moment, it’s Angela Merkel.

The question is who will step up to restore the stature and leadership of the United States once we get this juvenile brat out of the White House?

Since Barack can’t return, maybe Michelle?

Perhaps Joe.

Sorry, I don’t think this is one we can turn over to Bernie.

Hurry up, Robert. We know we told you to take as long as you needed on that report, but it would be nice to have it ASAP. We’re practically holding our breath about it.

*Literally

**California has a larger economy than Russia.

Image: Evan Vucci/Associated Press

Nunes votes to de-fund Children’s Health Insurance program

In another “you have to wonder where his heart is” vote, Devin Nunes joined 209 other Republicans in the House, voting to pass H.R. 3, the euphemistically titled “Spending Cuts to Expired and Unnecessary Programs Act”.  Not a single Democrat voted in favor.

One of the programs to be defunded by this legislation is the Children’s Health Insurance program.

You have to wonder two things:  Who would want to have a vote to throw children off insurance rolls on their record, and who would want to stand and say they supported such a person?

We’ve really got to throw these heartless Republicans out of office in November.

I’m voting for Andrew Janz for CA22.

 

VUSD, I have a bone to pick with you!

Visalia Unified School District, we need to talk.

Most of my education was in your schools. From seventh grade onward, I attended VUSD schools. Mineral King, Divisidero, and Mt. Whitney (class of 1976 – Go Pioneers!).  On and off before then at Washington, Jefferson, Veva Blunt, and Crestwood, too.

During all those years, I was terribly misinformed. I’m quite sure I remember my civics classes, and never was it explained that a President could do this. Even during the height of the Watergate scandal, happening as I was in high school, nobody mentioned that Nixon had this option.

Now, in the age of the Internet, the President himself tells me this:

Really, VUSD, how could you let me graduate with such a complete misunderstanding of the U.S. Constitution, and the operating principles of our government?

Perhaps, in your defense, you didn’t know. Before yesterday, apparently nobody did.

I do know one thing, though. If we’ve decided a President can pardon himself, we’ve basically reverted to the monarchy. In that new reality, I’d prefer Elizabeth over Donald the First.

Oh, and if you’re reading this on June 5, 2018, be sure and vote today.