President Donald Trump is doing to the U.S. government what a wild boar on angel dust would do to a Waterford crystal shop, smashing everything from scientific research funding to Meals on Wheels, and likely breaking the law in the process.
It’s the kind of behavior his supporters believe is “tough” right up until they lose their jobs or can’t get a hot meal, at which point I assume they blame the trouble on Democrats and not on the chaos agent they elected president.
The government devolved into confusion Tuesday in the wake of a vague Trump administration order that froze all federal grants and loans. Because the new president and his lackeys think things like “details” and “specifics” and “facts” are hallmarks of radical Marxism, nobody quite understood what the hell the initial order meant.
Since Trump’s people specialize in not knowing what they’re talking about, it took a federal judge to swoop in late Tuesday and put the confounding and possibly illegal order on hold until next Monday.
Georgetown University law professor Steve Vladeck told USA TODAY that Trump’s memo appeared to be in “flagrant violation” of the Impoundment Control Act, and by late Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan had blocked the order.
A spokesperson for Meals on Wheels, the national program that provides meals to seniors, told The Huffington Post: “And the uncertainty right now is creating chaos for local Meals on Wheels providers not knowing whether they should be serving meals today. Which unfortunately means seniors will panic not knowing where their next meals will come from.”
NBC News reported that nonprofits across the country were unable to access a federal system that allows them to withdraw federal money that has already been awarded.
Opinion:Why is the price of eggs so high? Trump can’t lower it – and doesn’t care to.
Yasmina Vinci, executive director of the National Head Start Association, told the network: “While we understand that this is an evolving story, this disruption, at best, will slow down Head Start agencies’ ability to pay hundreds of thousands of staff, contractors, and small businesses who support Head Start operations in every corner of the country. At worst, this means that hundreds of thousands of families will not be able to depend on the critical services and likely will not be able to work.”