Yeah... our legal team is working HARD to figure that shit out right now, as the wording of the Executive Order is very plain, and we have zero doubt the Dept. of Commerce will do anything other than adhere to the plain and clear language of that Exec Order. We've been digging through the connections and implications, and, among other things, they've effectively banned Fortnite. lol What a cluster fuck.
I have a very shallow understanding of this, but isn't this type of order normally reserved for like...sanctions? Or companies doing business with North Korea or some shit? Like, companies implicated in crimes against humanity and it can't wait for an investigation to conclude? Well, as if 2020 wasn't enough of a farce, the President has it out for Fortnite? If you're writing the news, you'd probably be better off just getting drunk and doing mad libs. "In Trumps latest tweet, he states: "We're going to ban (Blank) and slap a tariff on Canadian (blank)" "I'd go with nipple pasties and Roots clothing" "Non-alcoholic beer, decaf coffee and gravy, because fuck their delicious poutine" "Fortnite, the floss dance, dabbing, and Canadian bacon" "Ooh....I'll second Fortnite, and go Canadian aluminum" "The fuck, Brian? Aluminum?" "Fuck it, go with that" It sounds like a REALLY shitty game of Cards Against Humanity.
I think it comes down to some people on TikTok were pissing off Trump so he is lashing out against what he sees as a Chinese company because they won't do anything about it. He's also lashing out at Canada today with more sanctions. Dude is doing everything he can to distract from the shitstorm that has been brewing... between the Axiom interview, and his failing rallies, and the other COVID shit, he's pissed and is reacting the only way he knows how... by being a bully.
Imagine grossly exceeding executive authority in order to do something that the legislature already did ten years ago, and then heralding it as some breakthrough victory at the same time your administration is in court trying to have that very thing declared unconstitutional. There literally aren't words to describe how fucking stupid we are as a country and a people.
from the "what the FUCK is he thinking?!?" realm comes this: trump plans to defund medicare and social security if re-elected
my crazy ass uncle has already started with the “he said payroll tax, not anything about social security or Medicare” bullshit. Guess what funds both of those programs? Also he is retired and currently relies on both of those things to survive. The mental gymnastics is something that just astounds me on a daily basis with some of these idiots.
I can do you one better. When I told my mother in law, she responded "he said Biden is going to defund them"
You all don't get it... he's going to defund Black and Hippy social security and medicate, not THEIR medicare. Just like they abolished Obamacare... not the Affordable Care Act. Part of me wants to see him get re-elected so we can see how this simulation ends... it's like one of those social training bots that starts devolving rapidly to calling everyone faggots.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presiden...eclarations-related-coronavirus-disease-2019/ Fuck fuck fuck Fuck fuck Fuck fuck fuck fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck "The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) (Public Law 116-136) included $150 billion appropriated directly to State, territorial, tribal, and some local governments through the Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF) to cover costs incurred due to the COVID-19 emergency. As of the latest report from the Treasury Inspector General regarding State expenditures, more than $80 billion of CRF dollars remain available, to supplement the billions of dollars States have received in other Federal assistance, such as the $8.8 billion in emergency assistance provided under the Stafford Act (42 U.S.C. 5121 et seq.). In addition, the Department of Homeland Security’s Disaster Relief Fund (DRF), has more than $70 billion in emergency assistance funding available. I am hereby directing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to assist in providing benefits from the DRF, and am calling upon the States to use their CRF allocation, to bring continued financial relief to Americans who are suffering from unemployment due to the COVID-19 outbreak." If I had to count the ways this is a bad idea, it would take a lifetime. Chiefly: the Stafford Act imposes limitations on assistance, such as a cap, and penalties for duplication of benefits. Also, FEMA's systems were overwhelmed in 2017, with a few thousands of applicants a day. One state's unemployment traffic is enough to derail FEMA's systems, not to mention the fraud that FEMA got hit with in 2017 and still hasn't completely fixed. The other problem is the $80b in the DRF right now isn't there for fun: most of that is earmarked for spending on the variety of disasters. Keeping with the 2017 disaster season: Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria and the California wildfires combined to cost over $250b. So, that $150b isn't sitting there idly, it is expected to be allocated and spent in the next year or so. Finally, FEMA funding is an entitlement with some restrictions attached, NONE of which are contingent on state requirements, aside from a cost share (usually 75/25). State unemployment programs have different requirements, none of which FEMA is equipped to support. My former staff right now is at a loss as to how the FUCK they pull this off. This is part of the issue with Trump's "leadership": these solutions are cocked up out of the gate, because he's not tasking the right part of the government with the right job.
I guess you're lucky that they've been going down in frequency and intensity over the last few years... /s
NOAA is predicting so many fucking hurricanes, we are going to run out of names... Better explanation of Trump's Executive Order: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...d-people-dollar400-a-week-with-one-huge-catch "We have a system where we can do 100% or we can do 75%, they pay 25, and it will depend on the state," he told reporters. “And they will make an application. We will look at it, and we'll make a decision.” And what a fair and balanced system it will be.... For the record, Puerto Rico got 100% federal, and some FEMA programs are 100% financed by the feds. The 75/25 split is a problem, because cities will come to FEMA (cough cough Houston), make demands (including us getting angry calls from mayors and Congress critters), and forget to let the state know they are asking for stuff that they will have to pay 25% back on. Lots of FEMA decisions are decided by Total Taxable Revenue (TTR) for a state, and...well, they go by the TTR for the year prior. Maybe, sometimes, they look at a 5 year average. So, we're estimating a state's ability to pay in the worst drop in GDP in history, based on last year's numbers, with the lowest unemployment and strongest economy in a decade. Seems problematic, when the very thing we're looking it is how much aid to give them in the current quagmire causing the revenue drop. Also, in some cases, we don't ask for 25% cash. Payment "in kind" is a thing, where a state will donate warehouse space for us to house generators, for example. Finally, for some grants...we don't exactly ask for a check. We give them 75% of the money, and then make them show us stuff as work gets completed. There's no way we could get them to hold 25% cash for this kind of thing. Some states will happily say "$400/week at 75/25? So, what I'm hearing you say is $300/week!". FEMA funding is generally split between response, individual assistance (ie homeowners) and public assistance (anything the state wants to claim as a public utility within a broad definition and then pony up the cost share to fix). The vast majority of dollars go to Public Assistance, because it takes a lot more money to fix a bridge or an electrical grid than a roof. It takes a lot longer too. That's why we don't ask for 25% in cash: some projects take decades to unfold, and these tend to be the largest projects with the big price tags (think Katrina levees, Sandy updates to the grid or even 9/11 reconstruction). So, imagine a blue state in a financial crisis that Trump has expressed low opinions of, say...Illinois? Asking for the kind of aid that they are entitled to, and then having Trump determine if it comes at a 25% vig or less. I'm willing to bet dicks in donut holes that if a swing state asks for 100% they get it, wouldn't you? This, kids, is textbook on how corruption unfolds. It's also exactly why this was supposed to come from Congress not Executive Order.
Idk, I just know that the immediate short sightedness of making a huge public announcement that is doomed to fail just to get your approval numbers up will probably make them fall more. Fucking with people in a real way; promising them money that could keep them from going tits up, and then realizing it wasn’t really a promise and that the money has to come from FEMA right as hurricane season is ramping up is just so on-brand for this administration. No strategy, all impulse. Meanwhile, we probably have about 200,000 people dead in under 6 months.
https://jbhandleyblog.com/home/2020/7/27/lockdownlunacythree my friend just sent me this and it says we’ll top out under 170k deaths. Seems optimistic.
I got an update this morning with 161,284 deaths, 1064 of those being within the last 24 hours, and 54,590 new cases in the last 24 hours. So, if he means we'll top out at under 170k dead by like next Thursday, he might be right? 2% fatality rate suggests that of those 54,590, 1091 of them will die.
So for the US, we'll end up at about 0.08% of the population. It's been mentioned a few times through this thread, but does anybody have an positive balance data that's been caused by the pandemic? Like with less travel, are automotive deaths down? With fewer surgeries, are accidental operating deaths down? With more people at home, domestic violence deaths may be up.