Cartoon

Total Authority

Written by SK Ashby

(Cartoonist - Stuart Carlson)

In other news, Politico reports that officials didn't know Trump was going to make the announcement to withdraw funding from the World Health Organization (WHO). The announcement left the State Department unsure of what the hell they're suppose to do now.

Inside the State Department, officials scrambled to make sense of the White House’s decision. James L. Richardson, the director of U.S. foreign assistance resources, informed his staff in a brief email that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had instructed diplomats and aid officials “to identify and utilize alternative implementers for foreign assistance beyond the WHO.”

The order was just the latest example of officials seeking to fill in the details of a lurching policy shift by the president, who is prone to the bureaucratic equivalent of shooting first and asking questions later.

Meanwhile, the number of coronavirus cases identified worldwide has crossed 2 million with nearly 620,000 cases in the United States. The death toll in the U.S. crossed 30,000 today.

Finally, it looks like Florida's economy is completely fucked as their system for claiming unemployment benefits is virtually unusable.

“The system was broken from the very beginning and designed that way so you had fewer people making claims,” said Democratic state Representative Geraldine Thompson, who says hundreds of constituents in her Orlando district have told her they have been unable to file claims.

Florida has managed to answer only 2% of incoming phone calls, according to state records obtained by local media. [...]

The 553,000 jobless claims Florida has recorded over the past three weeks likely amount to a fraction of those trying to get in to the system, according to Thompson and other officials.

Neighboring Georgia, where the workforce is half as large, processed 644,000 claims over the same period. [...]

Florida’s problems date back to 2013, when a new computer system locked out thousands of recipients and delayed payments by weeks. Auditors last year found many problems had not been fixed.

Then-Governor Rick Scott also scaled back benefits. Florida’s maximum weekly payment of $275 is among the lowest in the nation, and benefits expire after 12 weeks — less than half the nationwide norm.

Only 11% of jobless workers in Florida received benefits last year. Massachusetts and New Jersey, by contrast, provided aid to more than half their unemployed before the crisis hit.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but stop voting for Republicans.

Don't vote for people who want you dead.