There's battle lines being drawn.
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong.
Young people speaking their minds
getting so much resistance from behind

Wednesday, September 16, 2020

Linkee-poo Wednesday Sept 16

Sorry, not able to read much this morning, so a short one for now.

"The Federal Emergency Management Agency fails to help tens of thousands of people whose homes have repeatedly flooded, according to a report by the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security… A 2004 law requires FEMA to keep a list of homes that have repeatedly flooded, and prioritize those homes for federal assistance. But the new report finds that FEMA's list is rife with errors and that nothing has been done to reduce the flood risk for most of the nearly 38,000 homes on the list." Breaking government.

"First Oaxaca's state legislature passed a ban on selling or giving out high-calorie packaged foods and sugar-sweetened drinks to minors on Aug. 5. Less than two weeks later, Tabasco state approved a prohibition, too. Now at least a dozen other states are considering similar legislation." Now they need to make sure there are "healthy" alternatives available and affordable.

"In fact, Wards Intelligence, an automotive research and analytics firm, found that vehicle production in North America has returned nearly to pre-virus levels — a remarkable recovery… But staffing levels within most plants, according to Orbital Insight's data, have not fully recovered… One challenge is absenteeism — a word that might bring to mind people playing hooky, but which actually covers all the reasons someone might not show up for work… And during a pandemic, there are lots of reasons workers might not show up, from not having child care to waiting for a COVID-19 test result, or even being quarantined after a positive result." Again, the economic shock of COVID didn't create these fault lines in the economy, it's just exposing them.

"The top communications official at the powerful cabinet department in charge of combating the coronavirus made outlandish and false accusations on Sunday that career government scientists were engaging in 'sedition' in their handling of the pandemic and that left-wing hit squads were preparing for armed insurrection after the election." Paranoia strikes deep… I would say this is someone in need of a "break", but I'm worried that's not the case here (or not entirely the case). Later news is Caputo is taking a "leave of absense." Governing is actually pretty hard and if you're not all that stable to begin with, the cracks appear quickly.

Such as… "Citing widely debunked claims of fraud around early voting, absentee balloting and voting by mail, (Roger) Stone told Jones Trump should consider invoking the Insurrection Act and arresting the Clintons, former Senate majority leader Harry Reid, Zuckerberg, Tim Cook of Apple and 'anybody else who can be proven to be involved in illegal activity'."

And… "Michael Scheuer calls Black Lives Matter a 'terrorist organization' and a 'semi-human mob.' On his blog and his podcast, Scheuer rages against a widespread, treasonous conspiracy targeting not only President Trump but the fundamental character of the American republic. It deserves 'punishment... we’ve not seen before in this country.'"

"Six members of a post-Soviet security bloc led by Russia will hold joint military drills in Belarus from Oct. 12-16, the Russian defense ministry said on Tuesday." That's, um, worrying.

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