R.I.P. PBS, American Aid, And The United States Congress

     It's upsetting enough that the Republican Congress has cut a billion dollars in funding for the Public Broadcasting Service, our country's non-profit, publicly-funded educational television network, and eight billion more in American overseas humanitarian aid.
       The Americans who will be most hurt by the defunding of PBS will be those living in rural areas with poor internet and cell service, where publicly funded radio and TV stations provide a lifeline to local news, information, and emergency broadcasts. Also cut off to these more remote populations will be the quality television shows for  adults,  

...and educational programs for children made available through public broadcasting.

          Likewise gone will be the dollars that up until now have provided food, water, shelter, and healthcare for our poorest brothers and sisters on the planet.

       But, in truth, even worse than the above outcomes is the fact that the money cut by the Republicans, both in the House and the Senate, was money that had already been appropriated by them, had already been voted on by bipartisan legislation to be spent on things that that both Congressional Democrats and Congressional Republicans had determined to be necessary for the well being of Americans and in line with our American world view.
         It is Congress that has control over government spending, "the power of the purse," as it's called. And once Congress has allocated money for a purpose, not even the President has any say over the matter of the money or what it is to be spent for. 
         Or rather, that was the case until the Republican majority surrendered its power, control and independence to Donald Trump.
          The funding for PBS and for the humanitarian aid had been agreed upon by both sides and earmarked  for those purposes. And once funds have been appropriated in that way they can only be unappropriated  by a deliberate process of revocation called recission. But all it took for Congressional Republicans to initiate a recission and revoke the funding they themselves had voted for was a command to do so from Donald Trump.
             Just a word from Donald Trump and both John Thune, Senate Majority Leader and Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House,​

...abdicated their independence and their duty and performed like Trump's trained dogs.

     Nor did it take more than a threat from Trump to set loose a primary opponent on any legislator who crossed his wishes for almost every Republican in Congress to turn into one of  Trump's performing dogs, to betray their constituents and their consciences and vote to take back the money they had earlier allotted to fund PBS and overseas aid.
           And that is the real tragedy here, that the United States of America no longer has a Congress. Only Donald Trump and his troupe of trained dogs.