Two Weeks Down, An Infinty to Go?

If I had to choose five key words to describe the way I feel after lurching through Trump's first two weeks as president, I would go with:

1. Tired
2. Achy
3. Demoralized
4. Nauseous
5. Irritable

Welcome back to my public journal of Life in Trump's America! Sorry to begin with such an odious tone, but I vowed to be honest with you. I wish I could say that my 5 key words these past two weeks were motivated, self-empowered, powerful, excited, and successful, but that would be a lie and I think we both know it.

The hardest part for me (and maybe also for you) is trying to strike a workable balance between keeping up with my regular day-to-day responsibilities and staying on top of--and trying to fight--every single awful development in the Trump administration. 

So many horrendous changes happen every single day. From sunup to sundown, I'm hit with periodic waves of terrified nausea.

The good in all this, if there is any good, is the tremendous backlash Trump's administration is receiving from the American people. I am so proud of my country for not rolling over.

Congress, on the other hand...

Anyway. Just this morning it came to my attention that the USDA has removed a bunch of information about animal safety from its website. (Click here to read). The information is from the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. From the Associated Press article: 

The information is used by advocacy groups and other members of the public to look up information on commercial dog and horse breeders, some of whom have had a history of abuse. The reports included lists of animal welfare violations at those facilities and also at animal testing labs, and whether those violations have been corrected.

Nowhere does it say that the Trump administration forced USDA to do this, but that does seem in line with actions taken by the Trump administration since assuming office. 

Why do I care? My daughter is studying chemistry in college, with the goal of first working for and then (hopefully) running her own cruelty-free cosmetics company. If the government is no longer going to provide the public information on which companies are abusing animals, how can we make informed decisions? Also, it follows that if the government stops reporting on companies who abuse animals, it will likely stop (if it hasn't already) inspecting those companies to make sure animal rights laws are followed. 

And then guess what? Those laws aren't going to be followed anymore.

USDA says the public can still access the revoked information through Freedom of Information Act requests. Oh, really? I decided to test that by making a request.

Aaaaaaaannnnnnnnndddd ran into a brick wall. I will have to return to that later. I am in a considerable amount of pain and this isn't helping.

Now to go analyze the President's tweets, because that's the world we live in now.

See you next time. #Resist