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  • the document says programs affected are “including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”

    Dear lord. Forget drinking it, these people drowned in the koolaid.

    • Accelerationists are gonna be so smug when the USA becomes a smoking heap of shit by the end of the year with this pace

    • When you're so obsessed with your brainwormed culture wars that it leads you to your own destruction.

    • you recognise the bodies in the coolaid

    • Conservatives went from understanding how to manipulate public perception of issues and their causes in order to alter the structure of the country however they wanted, to having their chairs filled by those they hoodwinked decades ago

      I hope Nixon and Kissinger are watching this from Hell while screaming

  • including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal

    what green new deal?! who the fuck is doing the green new deal right now? "hello please direct me to your green new deal adherence offices"

    • in a similar vein, Trump's gotta reimburse all police forces for the massive budget cuts (that never actually happened)

    • the green new deal is when I go to Home Depot and they have battery powered mowers on the shelves instead of God-fearing, gas powered gas mowers like Briggs & Stratton!

      they still have gas mowers, but, as a red-blooded and wife-breeding Christian man, I should not even have to see these woke electrical gizmos that my stolen taxes paid for.

  • It's the top of the hour right now - and neither CNN nor MSNBC is covering this totally insane and astronomical Trump power grab. I shouldn't be shocked but holy fuck.

    • I've only watched little of CNN and MSNBC but it seems like their function is to soften everything Trump does to avoid public panic

      • And WaPo, the NYT, etc too. By tomorrow there will any number of horrible "Who's winning - Trump or the dems?" op-eds or opinion pieces in newspapers, on websites (like MSNBC), Substack articles, etc. It's like the media showing up after a building is set on fire by an arsonist and asking "Gee, who's winning? The arsonist?"

  • I think this is a mafioso style shakedown. Trump is the don and he's telling the owner of a notable business in the state, Mr. Dems, that a large portion of Mr. Dems' profits need to go to him immediately.

    Mr. Dems says "Look, Don Trump, right now I can give you - I don't know the numbers - half of one percent but—"

    And Trump says "What? Half of one percent? Listen you worthless fuck. You give me half starting right now or I burn it all down. With you and your family in it."

    And - of course - Mr. Dems pays up.

    --

    In real life - I can imagine the dems quickly acquiesce "for the good of the country" to stop the widespread panic and to stop the chaos and they give Trump - I dunno - $300 billion for his racist deportation program. And Chuck Schumer puts up an weirdly oddly upbeat tweet that the dems talked Trump down from a half a trillion so everything isn't a total loss.

    [Edit - I used much better numbers.]

  • It's a two page memo that goes into effect tomorrow and it's causing "widespread panic".

    In a two-page document, Matthew J. Vaeth, the acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, instructs federal agencies to "temporarily pause all activities related to obligations or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance." [...] The memo goes into effect Tuesday.

    [...]

    Donald Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, said the language in the memo is confusing, making its specific effects unclear. There will be widespread panic, Kettl said, as state and local governments as well as the people most reliant on federal-funded grants scramble to figure out if and when their cash flow will stop.

    Look at this milquetoast shit when trillions are on the line...

    "They say this is only temporary, but no one should believe that," Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) said in a statement. "Donald Trump must direct his Administration to reverse course immediately and the taxpayers' money should be distributed to the people. Congress approved these investments and they are not optional; they are the law."

    --

  • i'm not USian, what is the actual practical effects of this likely to be? who does this hurt?

    • There must be millions of Americans who have jobs that are at least partially funded by the government, but aren't directly working for the federal government. It may also apply to literally every employee of a state government that relies on federal grants. It's highly, highly illegal to do what he's doing. Not to mention the people who rely on the services those workers provide. Healthcare, case management, funding for food assistance, the way it's worded, there is no industry that doesn't touch.

      All currently ongoing medical and scientific studies will grind to a halt. Possibly subsidies to industries that have lobbied for those. It's just a truly mind-bogglingly large change. 3 trillion dollars per year. Arts grants. Maybe federal student loan disbursements? Those would be exempt because they go to individuals, I guess?

      There are people whose full-time job is grant writing, which means applying for grants from the government for their non-profit organizations.

      The other problem is it's very vague.

      • jesus fucking christ.

        it astounds me that the forces of capital are allowing him to do half the shit he's pulled this week. he's planting landmines under every inch of the US economy and they're just fucking letting him?? i know party discipline doesn't really exist in the US but i thought the bourgeoisie filled that void (both as private actors and through shit like the CIA)

      • not sure how it's gonna go exactly, but there is some resiliency built into systems where the state / organization reliant on the federal grant is operating in good faith.

        while federal grants fund all sorts of activities actually provided by state governments, those state governments basically front the money for salary and materials based on the agreement, then yearly bill the feds via reporting and invoicing.

        so what this really is, in my analysis, is a signal to bad faith actors in state governments to come down hard on federally funded projects by insisting the bill won't be paid in the future, so they need to furlough state workers on whatever federally funded projects they don't want to happen.

        so you'll have some states that will continue to do the work and then bill the feds and take them to court if they don't pay, because the agreement to pay (the grant award) is a legal contract. and you'll have some states that let some local politicians take a wrecking ball to the place and gut whatever capacity they feel like targeting.

        this move is basically trump giving the statehouse jackals some free shots to fuck with state government.

      • Nah it can’t be any of that stuff, it says they’re just getting rid of the woke stuff!

      • Does this also include agriculture? Are the farmers gonna stop receiving subsidies?

    • who does this hurt?

      Most public scientific research institutions (and those carrying out or otherwise supporting the research at all levels)

    • Hromadske (Ukrainian pro-Western media) is already crying that they stopped getting money from USAID and is begging for donations, so there is a silver lining.

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