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BREAKING: Trump pulls funds for disinfecting NYC subways and schools.

What could possibly go wrong?

Via New York Daily News:

‘A downright dirty plan’: Trump admin quietly pulls funding for disinfecting N.Y. subways, schools

Transit systems, schools and other public spaces in New York could soon become a whole lot dirtier because of a policy change enacted by the Trump administration that will strip the state of millions of dollars in critical coronavirus aid, the Daily News has learned.

Since the outset of the pandemic, the Federal Emergency Management Administration has helped New York and other states cover the costs of coronavirus-related expenses like deep-cleaning government buildings and stocking up on personal protective equipment for public employees.

However, FEMA quietly updated its rules this week to say that “the operation of schools and other public facilities” are no longer considered “emergency protective measures eligible for reimbursement.”

“These are not immediate actions necessary to protect public health and safety,” states the new policy, which takes effect Sept. 15.

I’d post it here, but my giant eyeroll emoji already worked too hard today and needs to take a nap.

According to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.),

I’ll alert the editors to the typo: obviously that should read “(D-Goldman Sachs).”

this means that city and state governments will no longer be able to receive FEMA reimbursements for sanitizing buses, subway cars, schools and courthouses, among other public spaces.

City and state governments also won’t be able to use FEMA cash to purchase temperature scanners or PPE for non-medical professionals like MTA workers and teachers, Schumer said.

“An absurd change like this one — that actually takes money away from New York that’s now being used to clean the subways or prepare schools for classes — is a slap in the face to frontline workers and kids,” Schumer told The News. “This is a downright dirty plan just when we need to keep sanitizing and PPE a federal priority.”

…

The FEMA rule shakeup comes as President Trump is threatening to withhold federal cash from what he in a Wednesday memo called “anarchist jurisdictions.”

Where is that giant eyeroll emoji when I really need it? Fine. I’ll hire giant laugh-cry-emoji instead, just for “anarchist jurisdictions.” laugh cry emoji

The Trump memo, which is all but certain to draw legal challenges, specifically names New York as one of the cities that the president wants to pull funds from in retaliation for local leaders refusing to let his administration send in federal law enforcement to crack down on racial justice protests.

Fascist toddler is fascist: news at 11.

A White House spokesman did not respond to emailed questions about whether the FEMA rule shift was part of Trump’s effort to defund New York and other Democrat-run cities.

…

FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor, who was handpicked to his post by President Trump last year, provided “no clear answers” for enacting the new policy during a phone call with Schumer on Thursday afternoon, according to Angelo Roefaro, a spokesman for the senator.

WAKE UP, GIANT EYEROLL EMOJI. THIS POST NEEDS YOU.

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Comments

  1. blf says

    (Perhaps not entirely on topic, other than involving hair furor, wannabe-daleks, and squirrels (not necessarily in that order, albeit how to order those three is not very obvious), cross-posted from poopyhead’s current [Pandemic and] Political Madness All the Time thread here at FtB… my added emboldening)

    Trump is in a corner and he’ll do anything to get out:

    The president’s [sic] desperation could be dangerous and it’s in his interest to fuel the panic

    The end of the summer is in sight, and with it come thoughts on America’s turn towards fascism. “Fascism” is an over-used word, with a ring of the playground to it, but with the presidential election less than two months away and Trump defending violence from ersatz white militias, it doesn’t, for once, seem misplaced. Until now, there has been a broad assumption that the president [sic] is too lazy and stupid to seriously threaten American democracy, but this might underestimate what he’ll do when he’s desperate. Like the squirrel you trap in a corner of your attic, Trump is liable to chew through anything — including you — to get out.

    [… I]t is in Trump’s political interests to fuel panic and the sense of a country on the brink — not of the real dystopia we face, in which private interests gut public life for personal gain, but the phony threat posted by “antifa”, Black Lives Matter and what Trump calls the domestic terrorism of those protesting against him. Straight from the authoritarianism play book, he is stoking instability and civil unrest, then presenting himself as the only candidate who can bring the country to order. It doesn’t matter that it’s a fiction. To his supporters, Trump’s job as president [sic] is neither a question of policies or governance, but of expressing their emotions — anger, fear, insecurity, resentment. It is a paradox of this kind of approach that the greater the scope of Trump’s failure, the more broken the country and, potentially, the greater his popularity becomes.

    […]

  3. says

    blf: Thanks for sharing that. It is a documented phenomena that economic stress and uncertainty, natural disasters – i.e. fear – cause people and populations to move politically rightward. To that extent, I agree with the author’s argument: it turns out we really do need to fear fear itself.

    However, Trump is nothing like a squirrel. He is one of Dick Cheney’s Lizard People, and therefore a reptile. The Squirrel People, on the other hand, are all mammalian: Democrats who believe (and/or pretend) they are liberals. In the same way the Sciuridae enemy deploys its alleged cuteness to mask its foul and vile nature, the Squirrel People sport an adorable “D” after their names to hide their own.

    Don Dueed:

    does this policy change also affect funding for sanitizing polling places?

    Sanitizing polling places will only be funded in Republican-leaning districts, and that’s only IF these districs request it, because as everybody knows preventing the spread of a deadly virus during a pandemic is Un-American. No need to worry about sanitizing polling places in predominately BIPOC districts, though, since there won’t be any.