“Everybody ready to google
Who did Trump put in charge of FEMA?
and find out it’s like
El Debarge or a dog”
—Gin and Tacos
“Please only serious responses:
Jared Kushner reportedly looked to a
Facebook group to crowdsource ideas
to stop the coronavirus”
—Aaron Holmes, Business Insider, 13 March 2020
“Pence is in charge of the coronavirus response because he’s a disaster capitalist. He cut his teeth managing the eradication of public schools in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and was heavily involved in other aspects of privatizing and corporatising rebuilding.
“When I volunteered there months after the hurricane, our jobs were supposed to be rebuilding homes. The organization we’d volunteered with couldn’t do that. The city had declared that homes with vegetation above a certain height would be fined. Of course, a hurricane brings in rich mud and soil. Plants shoot up swiftly afterwards.
“You had a city full of people displaced, not getting their mail because they’d evacuated in an emergency, being fined monthly without even knowing it. When the fines exceeded the value of the property (as assessed by the city), the city got to seize it. People came back not even knowing their homes had been seized due to fines no one had told them about.
“So instead of rebuilding homes, the people in charge of volunteering were tracking down contact information for people, and the volunteers ourselves were going to homes simply to cut down trees and shoots so the homeowners wouldn’t get needlessly fined.
“This approach and so many others were designed to chase people living in poorer sections of the city out. The more property the city seized, the more they could gentrify a neighborhood, sell it off to developers. The goal was not to help the people under threat, or to help them bridge the long-term impacts of the emergency. The goal was to see them essentially eradicated in order to create room for corporate opportunity.
“Mike Pence is one of the primary designers of modern disaster capitalism. His history isn’t one of taking care of people. His history is that of finding financial opportunity for the rich in the midst of disaster. His history is identifying massive policy shifts that can be made during large-scale shock, when people are too concerned with survival to fight it.
“Luckily, we have a state system. We have governors to whom the White House is answerable. We have state legislatures to whom governors are answerable. If your state doesn’t have a plan or is dragging its heels in response, get on the phone and change that. Governors offices are not used to receiving public pressure to the extent that legislative offices are. Governors can override many federal shortcomings and place demands on federal offices regardless of what the White House says. They can accept testing the administration won’t. They can implement mitigation the federal government won’t pass.
“The White House’s goal will not be to help people. It will be to capitalize on disaster. Want to stop the spread of coronavirus? Want to ensure proper testing? Want to limit the extent hospitals will be overwhelmed? Want to nip disaster capitalism in the bud for once? Want to help the people who will be most impacted by this? Learn your governor’s phone number, and the numbers of your representative and senator in the state house.
“Many of us will be stuck at home with more free time. May as well use it for something productive, and nothing is more productive than making elected officials do the jobs they asked us to give them.
But fear not,
Trump is on the case and will find a way for your landlord to write the cost of evicting you off his taxes. Solved!
The Trump Administration Will Move Ahead With Their Plan To Kick People Off Of Food Stamps Despite Coronavirus Outbreakhttps://t.co/NBCiSDowWH pic.twitter.com/cCDfaSjK9z
— Paul McLeod (@pdmcleod) March 12, 2020
The Trump era has shown unequivocally what Republicans are.
When McConnell and Senate Republicans were trying to pass tax cuts for the rich, they worked through the night, bent the rules, and rammed it through.
When the country is facing a pandemic that threatens the lives of millions, they’re not even in town.
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) March 14, 2020
The
weird thing is
if Covid–19
was the planet
fumigating
us pests off
I’d feel sorta ok
about dying
from it.
Like,
“ok I get it.”
This right here:
Someone should save all of these stupid tweets from elected officials.
They won’t age well. https://t.co/8svqqZYCTm
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) March 15, 2020
In a Seven. Minute. Prepared. Speech. Read. From. A. Teleprompter. https://t.co/6yjpMcmM0F
— George Conway (@gtconway3d) March 12, 2020
We are all right now experiencing what happens when selfish Libertarian Republicans with their self-centered “taxation is theft” (while living in far flung suburbs subsidized by the rest of us) horseshit force the rest of us to live by their narcissism.
Again, make ZERO mistake: Selfish MAGA America did this.
“If you think it’s unethical to price gouge hand sanitizer when people need it most, you better sit down before I tell you about insulin prices”
—Gin and Tacos
This story in Die Welt is absolutely incredible.
Apparently Donald Trump’s administration tried to hire German scientists who are working on a #COVIDー19 vaccine and offered them a lot of money so it would be exclusive to the US https://t.co/Y3Crw63xD4
— Shehab Khan (@ShehabKhan) March 15, 2020
Here’s a song for this moment in time.
—jason malmberg
Flommist Jason Malmberg is a simple man who believes in brown liquor and small dogs. He also makes art sometimes. Copyright © 2020 Jason Malmberg. Pictured up top: George Grosz, John the Murderer (cropped), 1918, shown for very historical significance.
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