Jsyk, they say the second wave in the US is going to hit between September and November, most likely. Stay safe and keep washing your friggin’ hands!
Remember to stay aware of your local safety measures, which can be found on the official government sites for your states, provinces, or territories.
The report, published Thursday, found that Trump’s team owes a total of $1.82 million to 14 local municipalities for public safety-related costs incurred during the president’s “Make America Great Again” events.
That’s nearly double the amount of debt that the nonprofit investigative journalism organization found in June 2019. At that time, the president’s re-election effort owed at least $841,219 to 10 city governments.
Trump’s team has claimed that it’s not responsible for paying the bills, though the latest campaign finance data shows they have more than enough with a $100 million war chest.
That duty, they told the organization, was left to the Secret Service. The Secret Service pointed the finger at Congress, arguing that lawmakers haven’t set aside any funding that would allow agents to reimburse local governments for the public safety costs.
Newsweek reached out to Trump’s campaign for comment on the unpaid bills but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Trump’s not the only candidate who has ignored bills from local municipalities for costs incurred on the campaign trail. According to an invoice from the Burlington Police Department, President Barack Obama owed a few thousand dollars for a visit to Vermont in 2012. However, many 2020 Democratic candidates and several Republicans say they always repay local officials even though it’s not legally required, according to the Center for Public Integrity.
But now, amid the coronavirus pandemic, local governments are urging Trump to pay up. The COVID-19 outbreak has forced most of the country to shut down, with state officials issuing stay-at-home orders and forcing all nonessential businesses to close.
“Without this money, we cannot help our most vulnerable, and I guarantee we do not have enough money to prevent lives lost and homes lost,” Kate Burke, a city council member in Spokane, Washington, told the Center for Public Integrity. Burke said Trump owes the city more than $65,000 from an event hosted in 2016.
Trump, like all other political candidates, has been forced to stop in-person campaigning amid the global health crisis. The last rally the president was able to hold was on March 2 in North Carolina. At the time, he was still touting low unemployment numbers and other economic achievements as the key reasons voters should re-elect him to a second term in the White House.
But now, both the message and strategy have changed. Trump’s campaign has switched to an entirely digital campaign effort, holding virtual town halls and meetings. The president has also taken advantage of the previously unused White House press briefing room to deliver hours-long speeches daily on the coronavirus. And as the economy has taken a downturn—more than 20 million Americans have filed for unemployment in the past four weeks—Trump has made crisis leadership the focus of his campaign.
“When somebody’s president of the United States, the authority is total. And that’s the way it’s got to be. It’s total. It’s total,” Trump declared earlier this week.
In a letter to employees, the two executives opened by applauding government subsidies for the U.S. airline industry. They note that the bailout does not cover the airline’s full payroll expense, but this is misleading,
This government support does not cover our total payroll expense, but we’re keeping our promise that there will be no involuntary furloughs or pay rate cuts for U.S. employees before September 30.
The bail out more than covers the payroll expense for employees who would have otherwise been laid off. United isn’t denying that. All they’re actually claiming is that government grants don’t cover 100% of payroll for everyone from Munoz, the rest of the C-suite, and the most senior pilots down to rampers and gate agents. But it was never supposed to, since that wasn’t necessary to avoid layoffs.
Munoz and Kirby point out that even with payroll covered they still have to pay for “airport rent, supplies and infrastructure.” Travel is down 97% on United. They’ve cut the May schedule down to 10% of what was previously planned. They haven’t fully cut the June schedule yet, but they will – and they expect the level of cuts to be similar. This means employees will work fewer hours.
The airline doesn’t expect travel to return quickly. Travel will be depressed even into next year, which is a point I’ve been emphasizing over the last 6 weeks,
We believe that the health concerns about COVID-19 are likely to linger which means even when social distancing measures are relaxed, and businesses and schools start to reopen, life won’t necessarily return to normal. For example, not all states and cities are expected to re-open at the same time. Some international travel restrictions will remain in place. Meeting planners and tour operators will do their best to accommodate people looking to avoid large crowds
As a result they expect United’s “overall workforce, to be smaller than it is today, starting as early as October 1.” (Empahsis mine.)
If the point of the $25 billion in payroll grants was to keep people attached to their jobs until the crisis passed, it will not accomplish that.
What United is saying here is true and exactly what we should have expected, indeed because it’s consistent with what they were telling everyone to expect even before the airline bailout was passed.
The oldest Mexican cookbook in the University of Texas at San Antonio’s (UTSA) collection
was never meant for public consumption. Handwritten in 1789 by Doña
Ignacita, a woman who probably served as the kitchen manager for a
well-to-do family, the manuscript includes recipes for such specialties as “hidden vegetable stew,” or potaje escondido, and an orange-hued soup called zopa de naranja.
….
“I’ve had students in tears going through these, because it’s so
powerful to see that connection with how their family makes certain
dishes and where they originated,” UTSA Special Collections Librarian
Stephanie Noell tells Atlas Obscura. “I want anybody with an internet connection to be able to see these works.”
There is an Incarcerated Workers’ Organizing Committee action ongoing right now (April 17th) in front of the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee, Florida
One IWOC (Incarcerated Workers’ Organizing Committee) member has already been arrested. Keep an eye on this
situation, and please donate to support bail/legal fees if you can.
People are already dying in jails and prisons all over the country. Incarceration should not be an automatic death sentence!
At the demonstration an activist chained themself
to barrels reading “End the Massacre” and “Free Prisoners Now” beneath a
banner that read “Desantis and Inch, 1000s Will Die, COVID = Death, Act
Now!”
This protest comes
on the heels of news that for over a week the FDOC hid the deaths of two
prisoners from COVID-19 at Blackwater River Correctional Facility (My
Panhandle). Meanwhile, neither FDOC Secretary Mark Inch or Governor Ron
DeSantis have taken any substantive steps to release or protect
prisoners, indeed only hastening the guaranteed infection of tens of
thousands behind bars by reinstituting transfers of prisoners between
prisons within the last week.
Prisons and jails are unique in
their ability to rapidly spread COVID-19. New York City jails have
reported an infection rate nearly 10 times higher than New York State as
a whole, and 18 times higher than the rate in Italy. With this rate of
infection a projected 100,000 prisoners across the country will die from
COVID-19 if releases do not happen. In Florida alone we can expect to
see the deaths of over 7,500 people in prisons and jails (Business
Insider).
Friday’s protest comes as the latest in a series of
demonstrations across the State that started with car caravans engaging
in various “honk-out” protests against the inaction of county jails and
state prisons around COVID-19. On Monday, groups from across Florida
converged in Tallahassee and surrounded the Capitol building and the
FDOC building to bring these demands directly to DeSantis and Inch
(Tallahassee Democrat).
Everyday DeSantis and Inch fail to take
action guarantees an ever growing number of people behind bars will die.
Blood is already on their hands but they still have the power to
prevent, or perpetrate, a massacre. The choice is theirs.
There have already been arrests. Help with bail can be sent to:
