Boundaries look rude to people who benefit from you having none

April Fools was yesterday.

Can you, the people, “vote your way out of this?” Honestly, not if you get your news from these folks. The swamp has tricks for deceiving the public, and most even work on congressmen. Here’s an example of how Laura and Greg played along as happy tools of the swamp. Please ask yourself why your own congressman has never talked about this. He either hasn’t gotten this far in the game (80% chance), or he likes the way the swamp obscures what’s going on (10% chance), or he dislikes the system but the price he’d pay for telling you is too high (10% chance). If a congressman sees this post and wants to debate me, I accept! The House has rules we adopt at the beginning of each Congress. Honestly we should just use those - some go all the way back to Thomas Jefferson. Some are like Robert’s Rules of Order which branched from House rules a century ago. But we have a rules committee that modifies the rules every week. I served on the rules committee for two years. When I was on the committee, I refused to vote for rules changes if the purpose was to mislead or obscure. Every week, the rules committee bends the rules to suit the Speaker, but you can’t place the blame just on the committee or the Speaker. Every rules change must be approved by the whole House with a majority vote. Rank and file congressmen are told to vote for these rules modifications each week for the sake of party loyalty because the rules are temporarily modified by the majority to keep the minority from using the permanent rules against us. This is partly true, so most congressmen never question beyond this. Typically, every week the rules committee meets before other committees and writes a rules package to protect bills that will come to the floor that week. Then the whole house votes on this rules package early in the week before significant legislation comes to the floor. The vote is typically on party lines. Sometimes a block of congressmen in the majority will take the rules package hostage and withhold their vote to get something else that has nothing to do with the rules. I’m not a big fan of this, but after 13 years, my hands aren’t completely clean of this tactic. The high-road position that I try to maintain is that if the rules package is bad, you shouldn’t vote for the rules package, and in general you shouldn’t withhold your vote from a rules package if there’s nothing wrong with the rules package… even if you disagree with the policy that is enabled to come to the floor by the rules package. There are more details, but that’s all you need to know to understand what I’m going to explain next. This week the Speaker wanted to do two things outside of our base rules, so he put those inside of the rules package that also had the rules for bringing bills like the popular SAVE Act to the floor, knowing members would be afraid to vote against something associated with SAVE. THIS IS INTENTIONAL. The Speaker wanted to circumvent the National Emergencies Act of 1976 to avoid voting on tariffs and he wanted to turn off the ban on bringing a spending bill to the floor the same day it’s introduced. The first rules package that came to the floor this week failed because myself and other republicans objected to it. The rules committee met again, wrote a new rules package without the tariff-trick, and we voted on the second rules package. I voted no but internet goons, like clockwork, characterized this as a vote against the SAVE Act. The swamp used that second rules package to give them authority to pass a bill before anyone could read it. They hid that authority inside the rule for the SAVE act because they knew people like Laura and Greg would help them disparage anyone who didn’t go along. If you fell for Laura and Greg’s slop you were cheering for the Pelosi doctrine that we should pass bills to see what’s in them. If the rules package had failed, the rules committee would have written a better one and SAVE Act would have still come to the floor.

Yes, US democracy indices show decline since 2010. Freedom House score: 94/100 (2010) to 84/100 (2025). EIU Democracy Index: 8.18 (2010) to 7.85 (2023). V-Dem Liberal Democracy Index: ~0.85 (2010) to ~0.74 (2023). On the 1-10 scale, it'd be ~3 in 2010 vs 5 now, per similar metrics. Sources: Freedom House, EIU, V-Dem reports.

THE REFS HAVE BEEN AWFUL TONIGHT. A GEORGIA PLAYER GOT EJECTED FOR TARGETING BECAUSE OF A CLEAN HIT. UGA QB GUNNER STOCKTON GOT ILLEGALLY CRUSHED, AND NO PENALTY WAS CALLED. These two plays compared on video: x.com/Fatslob1123/status/200…

Way to go, son. You played football. As a reward, you are not allowed to play more football.

Tennessee fans got Cheez-Its for Christmas. This smart young man opted out of “Rocky Top” and is headed to New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl. Choose wisely. #GoDawgs | #SugarBowl

Great to see that Devon Gales graduated from UGA today! DGD! #GoDawgs

"My kid came home from school talking about the weird lunch lady. "Mom, she's so strange. She memorizes everyone's name by the third day. Like, all 600 kids." I figured she was exaggerating. Teenagers do that. Then parent-teacher night happened. I was running late, hadn't eaten, saw the cafeteria was open. Grabbed a sandwich. The lunch lady, older woman with gray hair in a hairnet, was cleaning tables. "You're Zoe's mom," she said without looking up. I stopped. "How'd you know?" "Same eyes. She sits table seven, always picks the apples nobody wants because they're bruised. Drinks chocolate milk even though she's lactose intolerant. Hurts herself rather than waste food." I stood there, stunned. "You know this about my daughter?" "I know it about all of them." She kept wiping tables. Started talking, not to me exactly, just... talking. "Marcus, table three, his dad left last year. Always takes double servings on Fridays because there's less food at home on weekends. Jennifer counts calories out loud to punish herself. Brett throws away lunches his mom packs because kids make fun of the ethnic food, but he's starving by sixth period. Ashley's parents are divorcing, she stress-eats in the bathroom." "Why are you telling me this?" She finally looked at me. "Because you're all at parent-teacher conferences talking about grades. Nobody's talking about this. About who's eating, who's not, who's hurting." "What do you do about it?" "What can I do? I'm the lunch lady. I make sure Marcus gets those extra servings without asking. I tell Jennifer the calorie counts are wrong, lower than they are. I pack Brett containers of his mom's food labeled as 'cafeteria leftovers' so he can eat it without shame. I bought Zoe lactose-free chocolate milk with my own money, tell her we're trying a new brand." I felt like I'd been punched. "Does anyone know you do this?" "The kids who need to know, know. That's enough." I went home and couldn't stop thinking about it. Started asking Zoe questions. She confirmed everything. "Yeah, Mrs. Chen just... sees people. She stopped my friend from... she helped when nobody else noticed." Turns out, Mrs. Chen had worked at that school for 22 years. Made $14 an hour. Knew the story of every struggling kid who came through her lunch line. Never reported it, never made it official, just adjusted portions, swapped items, paid for things quietly. Teachers didn't know the extent. Administrators had no idea. She just showed up, served food, and saved kids in ways nobody measured. Last year, Mrs. Chen had a stroke. Had to retire. The school hired someone new. Efficient. Fast. Didn't learn names. Within three months, the guidance counselor's office was flooded. Kids breaking down. Nobody could figure out why. Until one kid finally said it: "Mrs. Chen knew when we were drowning. She threw life preservers disguised as extra tater tots. Now nobody's watching." The school brought Mrs. Chen back. Part-time. Not to serve food. Just to be there. They called her position "Student Wellness Observer." She's 68 now, walks with a cane, can't lift heavy trays anymore. But she still memorizes all 600 names by the third day. Still knows who needs what. Still saves kids during lunch periods when everyone else is just serving food. My daughter graduated last month. In her speech, she thanked Mrs. Chen. "Some people teach math. Some teach history. Mrs. Chen taught us that being seen is sometimes the only thing standing between surviving and giving up." The whole cafeteria stood up. Turns out, weird lunch ladies who memorize names? They're the most important people in the building." . Let this story reach more hearts.... . Ai image is for demonstration purpose only. . By Grace Jenkins

It's great to be a GEORGIA BULLDOG!!!! #Damngooddawgs #SECchamps #UGAtree

My son's wallet fell out of his pocket when he was getting gas the day before Thanksgiving. They pulled the tapes and saw a woman pick it up, hesitated to turn it in, and walked away. This arrived in the mail 5 days later. Good people still exist. ❤️ #GoodDeeds #KindnessMatters

LFG!!!

Who else is a struggling parent? 🤣👇

Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox was the subject of a scathing letter sent to Mayor Michelle Wu from Karen Read’s defense attorney, Alan Jackson, who demanded that the BPD head be placed on Boston’s “Brady List” for officers with credibility issues. Read more: boston25news.com/news/local/…

100% wise words from America's best emotional support Attorney (best label by the queen Nurse Kim!)

We 💙 fall break. #redrocks #west

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