Octopus Overlords

LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Jan 27, 2025 1:41 pm

IceBear wrote: Mon Jan 27, 2025 9:26 am The fact that Columbia so quickly caved to the tariffs means Trump is going to be emboldened to use them more...give me Greenland or tariffs, become the 51st state or tariffs, etc

The rest of the Americas, particularly South American nations, are going to snuggle up with China to fight off Trump's "dealmaking." Bullies eventually run into resistance.

It will shock Trump/admin but when you wipe out your diplomatic corps and purge anyone who knows anything, everything comes as a surprise.

IceBear wrote: Mon Jan 27, 2025 9:26 am The fact that Columbia so quickly caved to the tariffs means Trump is going to be emboldened to use them more...give me Greenland or tariffs, become the 51st state or tariffs, etc

Enough wrote: Mon Jan 27, 2025 7:53 pm Emails from uni admin letting us know they have received stop-work orders from the Department of the Interior, NASA, Department of Labor and of course are expecting more to come.

President Donald Trump, speaking at the House Republican Retreat in Doral, Florida, suggested Monday that he wanted to fly American criminals to other countries who will incarcerate them for "a small fee."

"I don't want these violent repeat offenders in our country anymore. If they've been arrested many, many times, I want them out of our country," Trump said. Let them be brought to a foreign land and maintained by others for a very small fee as opposed to be maintained in our jails for massive amounts of money including the private prison companies that charge us a fortune. Let them be brought out of our country and let them live there for a while and see how they like it. You'll see crime all over the country dry up."

Smoove_B wrote: Mon Jan 27, 2025 9:19 pm Things are evolving fast:

President Donald Trump, speaking at the House Republican Retreat in Doral, Florida, suggested Monday that he wanted to fly American criminals to other countries who will incarcerate them for "a small fee."

"I don't want these violent repeat offenders in our country anymore. If they've been arrested many, many times, I want them out of our country," Trump said. Let them be brought to a foreign land and maintained by others for a very small fee as opposed to be maintained in our jails for massive amounts of money including the private prison companies that charge us a fortune. Let them be brought out of our country and let them live there for a while and see how they like it. You'll see crime all over the country dry up."

Sure hope you don't end up being declared a criminal, citizen.

President Donald Trump’s budget office on Monday ordered all federal agencies to temporarily block disbursement of grants and loans — other than for Social Security, Medicare and other programs providing direct aid to individuals.

The memo says the temporary pause, effective starting at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, is intended to ensure agencies are complying with Trump’s executive orders to root out “Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies” from programs within their purview.

It’s not immediately clear how wide-ranging the pause will be in practice, due to the Office of Management and Budget’s ability to grant exceptions on a “case-by-case basis,” language exempting direct aid to individuals and a clause that states the pause is subject to what’s “permissible under applicable law.”

At face value, the memo represents a major halt to the flow of funds from programs that could equal around 20 percent of all federal spending, not including interest on the debt. The memo said total spending on programs meeting the definition of “federal financial assistance” that could be impacted reached $3 trillion in fiscal 2024, though exemptions are likely to reduce that figure.

Still, as written the pause could affect a big swath of programs that aid lower-income households, including: Medicaid; school breakfast and lunch programs; Section 8 rental assistance; Title I education grants; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families; state grants for child care; Head Start; and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant Program and EPA grants to states and localities for clean water infrastructure — both of which fund a large chunk of congressional earmarks each year — could also be impacted.

Foreign aid grants are likely to be put on hold as well as clean energy projects, as those are specifically named in earlier executive orders.

State highway reimbursements, while technically part of the federal financial assistance category, could get an early exemption based on the reaction last week to Trump’s executive order halting outlays from the 2021 infrastructure package.

Reports from each agency on all accounts subject to the pause are due back to OMB on Feb. 10.

President Trump signed multiple executive orders Monday night that could reshape the management and composition of the military, with provisions addressing diversity measures, transgender service members, and troops who were discharged for refusing COVID vaccinations.

He also signed an executive order to establish a process to develop what the administration is calling an American Iron Dome — a missile defense shield for the homeland. (Iron Dome is the name often used for Israel's system for intercepting rockets, which was developed with U.S. support.)

Mr. Trump signed the four orders aboard Air Force One as he flew back to Washington from a stop in Florida.

One of the orders would reinstate members of the military who were discharged for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine. About 8,200 service members were discharged for refusing to comply with the Pentagon's COVID-19 vaccine mandate, according to data provided by the service branches. However, the mandate was rescinded in January 2023 by the Biden administration, and since then, about 110 service members have rejoined the military.

The president also signed an executive order directing the Pentagon to determine a policy for transgender service members based on readiness, a White House official said. The action does not immediately ban transgender service members.

...

Another order addresses diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the military, banning the use of race- or sex-based preferences in the armed forces, the Defense Department and the Homeland Security Department.

"I ordered the end to all of the lawless diversity, equity and inclusion nonsense policies across the government and all across the private sector and the military," Mr. Trump said at the House GOP retreat. "We're getting it out and we've gotten it out pretty much. We did that in one week, and it wasn't that easy, but everybody wanted it."

Victoria Raverna wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 12:49 am So Trump is likely to destroy the economy and that'll affect everyone including his Maga supporters?

Smoove_B wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 12:19 am Realistically it's going to likely lead to lawsuits that will presumably end up in front of the Supreme Court. How long that takes and how long they take to decide...I'm not hopeful we survive it.

Victoria Raverna wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 12:49 am So Trump is likely to destroy the economy and that'll affect everyone including his Maga supporters?

Octavious wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 12:09 am My father can fuck off I'm done with people that support this asshole.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 12:07 pm All the social stuff is a smokescreen. Anti-trans laws, ICE roundups, Musk constantly clowning....endless distractions while they loot to palace.

Smoove_B wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 12:19 am I am honestly not sure how we survive as a nation when he just "paused" a significant amount of money - funds that likely impact quite a few Americans more than they realize. I'm still trying to process just ordering something north of a trillion dollars to just stop.

I guess we'll see what starts happening tomorrow when news media catches up and starts to (hopefully) detail out all the impacts - both intentional and unintentional he just kicked off.

Realistically it's going to likely lead to lawsuits that will presumably end up in front of the Supreme Court. How long that takes and how long they take to decide...I'm not hopeful we survive it.

Right now I'm guessing there are colleges and universities around the nation looking at their budgets and scrambling to see if they can keep academic staff on or they're just going to need to let them go.

Enough wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 1:28 pm Welp, depending how it's interpreted he's going to potentially cause a stupid amount of harm to me and my coworkers for awards we won from competitive RFPs that we invested a lot time and funds in applying to get. During the summers we get upwards of 100 people and collapse down after field season to maybe 35-50. We and the uni are running around like chickens with our heads cut off this week trying to figure out how to prepare, what it means, etc., instead of you know doing our normal jobs. It's already having significant ripples on our productivity. But if this edict is what it seems to be, we might be seriously boned.

Skinypupy wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 1:47 pm

Enough wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 1:28 pm Welp, depending how it's interpreted he's going to potentially cause a stupid amount of harm to me and my coworkers for awards we won from competitive RFPs that we invested a lot time and funds in applying to get. During the summers we get upwards of 100 people and collapse down after field season to maybe 35-50. We and the uni are running around like chickens with our heads cut off this week trying to figure out how to prepare, what it means, etc., instead of you know doing our normal jobs. It's already having significant ripples on our productivity. But if this edict is what it seems to be, we might be seriously boned.

I'm so sorry man. Nothing worse than being force to be completely reactive like that. Same boat here.

Will be interesting to see if/how much of an unemployment spike we see from all of this. I know MAGA views all these actions as only affecting those damn liberals, but it's going to leave a pretty massive economic wake for everyone.

Not that Trump and MAGA actually give a shit about whether it causes people to suffer, of course. I'm sure they're actively rooting for it so they can say they were STIGGINIT.

Skinypupy wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 1:47 pm Will be interesting to see if/how much of an unemployment spike we see from all of this.