Pres. Joe Biden visited an immigrant-owned Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C., announcing to the taqueria the amount of their grant through the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, which provides relief for restaurants hit hard by the pandemic. https://t.co/9BdXae5qsl pic.twitter.com/kfMDGU6QD7
— ABC News (@ABC) May 5, 2021
Give the man credit, he loves being a politician, in the best old-fashioned sense. From AP, “Biden touts $28.6B restaurant relief program, orders tacos”:
Setting foot in a restaurant for his first time as president, Joe Biden made a Cinco de Mayo taco and enchilada run to highlight his administration’s $28.6 billion program to help eateries that lost business because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The president went to Taqueria Las Gemelas in Washington on Wednesday and ordered lunch. The restaurant, owned in part by Mexican immigrants, was a beneficiary of a pilot version of the restaurant relief program. It went from 55 employees to seven during the pandemic, though it was able to rehire some workers through the Paycheck Protection Program that predates the Biden administration…
The White House said that 186,200 restaurants, bars and other eligible businesses had applied for the program over its first two days of accepting applications. More than half of the applicants are owned by women, veterans or people from historically disadvantaged backgrounds. The aid for eateries was part of the Biden administration’s broader $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package.
The coronavirus outbreak was especially brutal for restaurants. America lost nearly 2,700 dining establishments through last summer, according to the Labor Department. About 1.8 million food service jobs also have been lost, though the sector has been gradually returning jobs since last May…
Under the Biden relief program, which started accepting applications on Monday, restaurants and bars can qualify for grants equal to their pandemic-related revenue losses, with a cap of $10 million per business and $5 million per location.
The program has set aside $9.5 billion for the smallest restaurants and bars, and a third of the applications were filed by businesses with annual pre-pandemic revenues of less than $500,000. For the program’s first 21 days, applications from women, veterans and socially and economically disadvantaged people will have priority for being reviewed and funded…
Or, as the sad Breitbart luzers see it:
Restaurants owned by white men will be last in line for federal relief under President Joe Biden's "Restaurants Revitalization Fund." https://t.co/s8kKcSTP4V
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) May 5, 2021
186,200 restaurants, bars and eligible businesses applied for help from a $28.6 bil federal aid program in the first two days it accepted applications.
The Restaurant Revitalization Fund was created by Democrats as part of the relief bill passed in March. https://t.co/6QKhTKVRMP
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 5, 2021
different-church-lady
FUCK. YOU. RACISTS.
(DCL, +. Just +.)
?BillinGlendaleCA
Breitbart, still dead.
trollhattan
Isn’t the real message here, “Can’t figure out how to /be bothered to fill out forms?
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Baud
I would like to start hearing some restaurant owners attack the GOP and credit Dems. I sympathize with their situation, but all the media has been one sided.
Spanky
Did they drop a zero or two here? That number seems way low.
Mary G
I love to see this. People who look like people I know, instead of a lineup of old, pudgy, stupid, and smug white male criminals TFG surrounded himself with.
BruceFromOhio
@trollhattan:
That is almost EXACTLY what I said out loud – can’t figure out how to fill out the forms, eh?
Claim your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours.
Keith P
“Boat Owner Tears for sale! Cures 1001 maladies from cankers to cancer! Just 1 dollahhhhh!!”
glory b
And let’s not forget that Kevin McCarthy tweeted about it to his constituents, urging the restaurants in his district to apply for the funds.
He didn’t mention that he voted against it.
As Nancy Pelosi said, “They vote no, then take the dough.”
Also, I think I won the prize as living in the deepest bubble on Balloon Juice. Yay!!
The “b” is for bubble.
debbie
@different-church-lady:
FUCK. YOU. RACIST
S.INCELS. Why else specify “men”?sdhays
@glory b: Deepest blue or red?
Baud
I looked it up, and this is not a new Biden classification. The SBA has been using it for years.
Rocks
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: is Peggy Noonan still alive?
Baud
I hope Biden gives priority to taco trucks.
Ken
@glory b: I can’t help but imagine a an unwritten policy in whatever Federal bureaucracy is administering the program, to slow-walk applications from McCarthy’s district. Or even from all Republican districts.
And I smile.
(Won’t happen, obviously. Professionalism.)
debbie
@Baud:
Huh, wouldn’t you have thought Breitbart would have mentioned that? // ??♀️
Mary G
TFG’s desk lost its Twitter account already:
glory b
@sdhays: Oh, blue! 97%!
Brachiator
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
Sounds like Peggy Noonan wants a hug.
Baud
@Brachiator:
Fixed.
Jeffro
Liz Cheney just dropped her bombshell in the WaPo: it’s truth and the rule of law, or the whiny, lying orange moron. Choose, GOP.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Heh, that would be a day ending in ‘y’.
RandomMonster
@glory b: I looked at that bubble map for my part of Baltimore. Let’s just say that Republicans AND Independents couldn’t crack even 20% of our neighborhood.
dmsilev
@Jeffro: I’m guessing they’re, by and large, going to go with the orange pustule.
narya
I wonder how much the Recovery Plan will help in the midterms. Because the straight-up argument–to everyone, regardless of party affiliation–is that the help is only available because of the Democratic majority. If you vote for the treasonists, gridlock will reign supreme once again and your assistance will be whittled away.
Jeffro
@dmsilev: we don’t need too many of them to give up on the GQP in disgust to win for several cycles. And think what’ll happen if/when the dam breaks.
I like our chances ;)
Martin
@Spanky: Yeah, really. Seems like my city alone loses around 3 figures in a normal year.
Brachiator
@narya:
I would hope that the Democrats would easily win. But I recall seeing some poll where some Republican voters believed that the GOP supported some of these programs despite the facts.
It’s a crazy world.
debbie
@Jeffro:
Can she possibly think she’ll win?
germy
Makes sense.
Jeffro
@debbie: I think she knows if the GOP doesn’t get started on its Trump disinfecting process, it’s just going to take longer (or never happen) and both the party and the country will suffer.
you do the right thing, and then you keep on going.
JPL
@Jeffro: Asa Hutchinson is on CNN spouting cowardly nonsense. So tired of these cowards.
debbie
@germy:
I wish someone would rush up, rip off T****’s face, and expose the real lizard person.
These people are nuts!
Brachiator
A Thought for Cinco de Mayo
When I was a school kid, I was taught a little bit about Cinco de Mayo, and the French attempt to rule Mexico, but nothing deep and nothing about what led up to this. But in reading a bit more, I came to understand how a nation can willingly try to give itself to a foreign power, for example, Trump and the Republicans doing Putin’s bidding.
Some background about Meixo’s Reform War (1857-1860:
In short, the liberal forces won and Benito Juarez became president. But resentments simmered, and in the end many of the Mexican elite welcomed the French, because they preferred having a foreign nation rule over them than sharing power with indigenous and “lower class” Mexicans.
And so today it is much the same with some in the US who stew in their fears and resentments. How little times have changed.
mrmoshpotato
@Mary G: Awww the Kremlin’s orange shitstain is banned again! SAD!
JPL
@Jeffro: It’s possible that she is really concerned about our democracy, but the cynic in me thinks she is hedging her bets.
germy
mrmoshpotato
@germy: Oh Arizona GTrashP… This shit is just pathetic. You! Lost! Get over it! And fuck your feelings!
Baud
@germy:
Now I feel bad not thanking Bob for ghost writing my comments.
MomSense
@Mary G:
SAD!
Jay
How the sausage is made, endless repetition.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: You use Microsoft Bob?
artem1s
@Jeffro:
she’s in the bag for blaming Dems for the out of control deficits perpetrated by the GOP. She is a con job just like the LP. Her aim is to keep the Defense contracts flowing into the Cheney family coffers. Cult45 will probably seize her seat in WY. But she will alway have a seat at the table as long as Daddy’s stolen heart is beating. I think she is setting the table for a run at the WH in 2024. unfortunately she doesn’t have the right ‘equipment’ and likely will never be in serious contention for anything except a token cabinet position in the next Bush Crime Family puppet WH administration. Jenna has a better chance to win the WH nomination than Liz could ever hope for.
MagdaInBlack
@JPL: She ( and dad) are concerned about the Republican party, not the country.
Another Scott
@dmsilev: But, but, …
WaPo in 2017:
(Emphasis added.)
Yeah, they’ll stick with TFG until he’s buried or institutionalized. They were with him before he was even elected…
Cheers,
Scott.
Darkrose
@glory b: Wow! I thought I was in a bubble at 88% blue!
Gin & Tonic
From an article I just read about a “giant wood moth” found in Australia:
Kind of curious how that first year lasts three years, but I suppose we should just be grateful this moth isn’t venomous, like half the insects and reptiles that live there.
sdhays
@Baud: Don’t be. You wouldn’t believe the things he has you saying.
Bill Arnold
@Mary G:
Don’t know who was running that account but it violated the rules.
Should be fairly easy to write some automation that scrapes that DJT blog and searches twitter for the text in new posts, and maybe even automatically reports tweets with DJT text.
Jay
Rooting for fatalities.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
If you real much in classical history, this is a constant refrain. Most Greek and Italian city states had aristocratic and populist factions, and the big political alliances were largely based on which faction was in control of which cities. The vast majority of the time when a city was conquered by its neighbors, it was because one of the factions opened the gates in hopes of being put in control when the city was conquered. The biggest thing the Romans had going for them through most of the Republican era was that they refused to do this; whatever their internal disputes, they never betrayed the city to gain domestic advantage.
Of course there are plenty of more recent examples. The Fascist collaborators during WWII spring immediately to mind. This was also a dominant theme of the Cold War, with both sides trying to set up friendly governments throughout the developing world.
Jinchi
@debbie:
I’m not usually a big Cheney fan, but I understand the concept. If she loses, she loses on the right side of history and looks like a rare example of a courageous pol.
If she wins, she redefines the game.
Jeffro
@Another Scott:
“The truth is about to set Liz Cheney free”, says an NYT headline. May it be so with all of them, once the dam breaks…
Jay
Roger Moore
@Gin & Tonic:
I think they’re saying the larval stage lasts 3 years, and they don’t know very much about the first year of that.
One of the things that people don’t get about a lot of insects is that they spend vastly more time as larva than adults. We tend to focus on the adult form, treating it as the true form of the species, but in many cases this is wrong. The larva is the main form, and the adult form is only there to reproduce. That’s why you’ll see weird adult forms that only live for a day or don’t even have mouths; they only have to survive as adults for long enough to mate.
Jinchi
@Bill Arnold:
No need for anything complicated. Just search for any tweets including the words “Many people are saying” or references to big men, crying, followed by a quote beginning “Sir…”
TS (the original)
@Mary G:
lol – Wonderful time scale measurement
Jay
@Jinchi:
Liz is also making a side bet that the GQP alliance is going to be torn apart over TFG and all the crimeing, and that she will wind up in charge of the Corporate/Conservative rump, while the Nazis, Qfreaks and Christofacists form their own party.
Bill in Section 147
I saw that Brietbart headline and thought, About time,” but the article they referred to did not actually say white men had to be at the back of the line. They lie about the good things too.
Jeffro
here is the value of what Liz Cheney is doing: she is about to (for some indeterminate period of time) force the GQP leadership to quit. having. it. both. ways. with. regards. to. trumpov.
McConnell blamed trumpov for the 1/6 assault…then voted to acquit him during his 2nd impeachment trial.
McCarthy was screaming at trumpov to call off his goons…and then went down to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring a couple weeks later.
trumpov knows that many/most of these GQP pols have been getting laundered Russian money (and possibly other assistance) for their campaigns for years, just like he has. He holds it over their heads and tells them, “we’re all in this together”.
So they keep playing ball with him (even after he sent his mob to kill Congressmen in the performance of their official duties!) They think they can ride it out, especially now that he’s reduced to open mic night duties at the Mar-a-Lago ballroom. He’ll keel over, or people will stop listening to him, or or or.
Liz knows; as long as the Big Lie continues to be GQP orthodoxy, the rot will only grow. A majority of their party is off the hook with conspiracy theories and with using violence to stay in power. THAT doesn’t end well.
So, brava to her for speaking up and drawing the bright line here. If the GQP had done that 5-6 years ago, it’d still be the GOP.
Gin & Tonic
@Roger Moore: You’re no fun at all.
MisterForkbeard
@Spanky: They dropped a zero. According to my very quickly gathered info, over 10k US restaurants closed in 2017.
If it’s only 2,700 in 2020, that’s actually pretty great.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
And so today it is much the same with some in the US who stew in their fears and resentments. How little times have changed.
Yep, but in Mexico the added animus came from the racism of the Euro-identifying elite. You also see this most recently in Brazil, Venezuela and Bolivia. In Bolivia after Evo Morales was toppled, there was an especially vicious attempt to root out every policy and public observation that recognized the humanity and value of the indigenous peoples of the country.
In Mexico in the 1860s, the elite were outraged that a man with indigenous heritage was president and their leader. This was intolerable.
You see some of this same madness in the current Republican flirtation with white nationalism.
craigie
@Jeffro: Here is another, scarier way to look at what she is doing.
Uncle Cosmo
@RandomMonster:
Piker. I did the same for my part of Baltimore and it showed the neighborhood Republican percentage at 3%. Three. Frackin’. Percent. Among other things, Thuglicans cannot possibly comprise more than a small minority of my non-POC neighbors..
Brachiator
@craigie:
The Vox article is useless.
The Republican leadership is trying to thread the needle by weakly standing up for democracy while simultaneously continuing to indulge the fantasy of Trump’s base that the election was stolen.
But it is hard to see this crowd hiding in plain sight to save a future election when red states are passing voter suppression laws and taking power away from honest election officials.
Honest Republicans will be squeezed out even if they try to downplay criticism of the “stolen election” zealots.
CapnMubbers
@glory b: I’m in a bubble—Nine percent of my neighbors are Democrats here in southwestern Utah. Never thought I would live here, but after Paradise burned down I chose to live relatively close to my daughter (she’s in the middle of the desert about an hour away). Now that I think about it, I’m in the middle of a red desert in more than one sense.
Ken
They mean the whole larval stage lasts three years, and they know about the second and third, but not the first. That’s probably the period when the larva is living undetectably inside the bone, consuming marrow, before it breaks out.
J R in WV
@germy:
Actually, every store that sells anything in Maricopa County sells bamboo sheets, or bamboo flooring, or bamboo towels or washcothes. Bamboo based fabric has been a big new fashion thing for at least 5 or 6 years … so this is as much a fantasy as the little children in PingPong Pizza’s non-existent basement.
These guy need to ask their wives which set of their linens are bamboo before they make bigger asses of themselves…
Anonymous
@Baud:
That’s OK Baud, I don’t mind!
Bob
J R in WV
@Anonymous:
What a great guy you are, Bob! Helping Baud make no sense like that!
;~)
Paul
@Baud: Totally