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CAVEAT EMPEROR: Yet another of Elon Musk’s intergalactic spermatozoa shot conspicuously across the Santa Barbara sky this Monday evening at 6:09 p.m. No sonic boom was heard this time, but celestial exhaust tailings could be seen from Musk’s sixth SpaceX rocket launch from Vandenberg since the New Year.
Many of you are sick of Musk and have told me to shut up on the subject. But now that he is playing Darth Vader to Donald Trump’s Emperor Palpatine, Musk has expanded the outer reaches of his personae beyond even Howard Hughes — a previous generation’s world-shaking eccentric genius.
Trump and Musk, as we have witnessed, aren’t content merely to shake things up. They want to smash everything in their flight paths. To smithereens.
Given that Musk plans to launch 100 SpaceX rockets from Vandenberg this year — up from 12 a year ago — that’s a lot of flight paths. And a lot of smithereens.
I can’t shut up.
It’s worth noting that $22 million in federal green energy infrastructure grants — approved by Congress — that had been slated for Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties are now in limbo based on Trump’s executive order to freeze spending the federal dollars already approved by Congress. That number comes courtesy of Congressmember Salud Carbajal’s office.
The total amount of federal dollars in jeopardy here is, no doubt, much higher, but the final figures remain far from final. And yes, some of that money goes for office furniture and administrative overhead. But real people and real programs — not just office furniture — stand to be seriously hurt.
Understandably, recipient agencies who’ve had their funding frozen don’t relish getting in a public food fight with the guy who might one day re-sign their checks. Usually not an effective survival strategy.
We do know, however, that a $2 million grant to the Community Environmental Council to help augment electric vehicle charging stations is on the kill list.
UCSB is reportedly still bracing for the impact of Trump’s executive order to reduce funding formulas for National Institute of Health grants — already approved by Congress — for research projects here. Programs like Head Start and the American Indian Health and Services clinic are waiting for the other shoe to drop. Rumors have circulated that the Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics experienced a sharp spike in the number of no-shows and canceled appointments because of fear of detention and deportation among their undocumented patients. Clinic staff are offering undocumented patients tele-health visits to help address any trepidation they may be feeling.
As a handful of judges have ruled, these spending freezes are illegal and unconstitutional. The Constitution gives Congress — not the president — the power of the purse. This is not a trifling detail. It’s foundational. It’s akin to reengineering the country’s DNA.
Trump is hardly the first president to find Congress’s independence irksome and not the first to try to block that money from being spent. In fact, Congress felt compelled to pass a law in 1974 to prevent presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford from short-stopping congressionally approved funds from being spent on what Congress voted to spend them on.
In other words, it ain’t nothing.
At the risk of getting screechy and preachy, this is all part of the system of checks and balances designed 300 years ago to keep presidents from morphing into monarchs. A few judges have accused Trump of blowing them off and ignoring their rulings. They told him to knock it off. None so far, however, have held the president in contempt. All this is giving rise to much talk of an impending “constitutional crisis.” No hyperbole is required. All in the first month.
What if Trump simply ignores the judges?
That’s the really big question, said Congressmember Carbajal. Then what? Don’t worry whether he might invade Greenland, Carbajal told a crowd of about 1,000 at the Unitarian church last Saturday. Worry about what happens when he ignores the judges.
Another handful of judges have also now ruled Trump’s edict revoking the 14th Amendment — that’s the one that grants citizenship to anyone born on American soil — was also unconstitutional. They have likewise issued restraining orders: “Persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they reside.” That’s the totality of 14th.
Like our dreams, short and sweet.
Of the four judges, the most outspokenly appalled was an appointee of President Ronald Reagan. This judge called Trump’s action “blatantly unconstitutional” in his written opinion. In person, he asked Trump’s attorneys how they had the gall to stand in his courtroom and make these arguments.
One potential argument at Trump’s disposal holds the children of “foreign invaders” would not be covered by the 14th. This might explain Trump’s insistence upon describing immigrants at the border as “an invasion.” The number of people trying to cross the border this past year dropped by 90 percent from the one before.
That’s an invasion?
The argument that Trump likes holds that immigrants are not subject to our laws and jurisdiction. This has been tried several times before and only failed once. In that case — tried in 1884 — the Supreme Court used it to deny citizenship to children of Native Americans.
Yes, the original occupants of this land.
I can’t shut up. But I will try not to repeat myself.
Hey, did I tell you about the giant sperm in the sky… ?
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