Summary

The Department of Transportation (DOT) has issued a memo prioritizing federal funding for communities with marriage and birth rates above the national average.

The directive, which applies to grants, loans, and contracts, also prioritizes projects benefiting families with young children.

A congressional aide criticized the policy, saying, “Considering fertility rates when prioritizing federal grants? We obviously have no idea what the full impact of that will be… It’s absolutely creepy. It’s a little ‘Chinese government.’”

The memo also blocks mask mandates and requires compliance with immigration enforcement.

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[–] 214 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Prioritize funding for places with higher birth rates, you say? So... Communities with loads of immigrants. Got it.

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  • [–] 124 points 2 years ago (1 child)
  • [–] 38 points 2 years ago

    They don’t even have to imply it!

    They can just define it with congressional districts or some arbitrary measure that clusters their desired groups and fragments their undesired groups.

    Even if this wasn’t the actual, real end to even the charade of U.S. democracy, it would take at least a generation or two to “prove” those policies are hurtful in the courts.
    What then? The damage is done. Infrastructure built. Certain groups given generational advantages, certain groups left behind.

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  • [–] 191 points 2 years ago (93 children)

    Remember how all the protest voters told us how Harris would have been the exact same? Something about the DNC not offering a candidate that would be any better than trump?

    Yeah… Don’t believe them when they try to tell you that they didn’t go out of their way to help make this happen.

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  • [–] 88 points 2 years ago (64 children)

    Yep. Quite a few of them have gone quiet, I've noticed. Not one of them has apologized for their cloying sanctimony before the election, no matter how wrong it was.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (18 children)

    I sincerely hope that each and every one of them is at least capable of feeling guilt. Because I so badly want them to suffer the guilt of having helped caused this. I don’t even care anymore that they refuse to admit it. They know it, I know it- them admitting it doesn’t make it better.

    Knowing they feel the full weight of guilt pressing on them for being partially responsible for everything that will happen as a result of their ignorance?

    Yeah… That does make it a little better.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    The trolls, etc., on places like Lemmy? I doubt many of them were even genuine in this kind of sentiment - I'm sure some were even foreign actors working to stir up division everywhere, most especially on the left. And if they really hold this position, I have no idea.

    It's the people I know IRL that are the ones I'd like to see wake the fuck up. And apologize for their useless bullshit and their tiresome lectures about gEnOcIdE and "bothsides" and just let it all burn down so we can rebuild America in some wholesome perfect way kind of dorm room talk. Yes, American foreign policy is shit and has been for decades before I was even fucking born, and yes, Democrats are often complicit in this. Gaza is hardly anything new, as shocking as it is. Yes, the Democrats are not offering up a perfect pretty pony for them on every single issue.

    But now we are going to be blasted with fucking sewage for the next four years, with actual harm coming to at-risk people (which is going to be nearly everyone if it gets bad enough) HERE and foreign policy is going to be much worse, and we can point at people like this and thank them for their part in making it happen.

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    [–] 98 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    Not gonna fix old broken roads unless y'all fucking and making babies like rabbits. Florida? NO ROADS FOR YOU! Texas? NO ROADS FOR YOU!

    The memos of this administration will go down in history as the dumbest shit ever penned. Even worse the nupties who wrote them will get cushy private sector jobs lobbying or something later.

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  • [–] 36 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    dumbest shit since Bush

    which was dumbest since Reagan

    which was dumbest since Nixon

    you'd better believe it can get worse.

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  • If Nixon had listened to his advisors about the potential impacts of climate change the state of the world could be in a completely different place. So many people know Exxon knew about the potential impacts of fossil fuels in the 70s, but what many over look is that the White House Science and Technology advisor who approved (and it never happened) of the monitoring of greenhouse gases caused by such was Edward E. David Jr. When he left the white House he went to work for Exxon as well and set up monitoring tools on vessels from within the company. That information of course would get blanketed and kept internal to the company, but they very existence of people knowing the real dangers, asking to monitor them and getting turned down by our government for what would amount to maybe about $150m-$200m in todays costs is absurd.

    Imagine those conversations, "Sir, this could impact all life and species on earth, global changes to ocean and weather patterns, and could end in mass starvation, floods, large hurricanes, droughts and more".

    "Yeah let's ignore that one for now" "That would cause it to get worse faster" "Yeah let's ignore that one for now"

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    [–] 80 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Wait until conservatives find out that communities with high birth rates are not white.

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    [–] 77 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    "I was told there would be a medal".

    Shamelessly clipped from History.com:

    This Day In History: December 16

    1938 Hitler establishes Mother’s Cross to encourage German women to procreate

    On December 16, 1938, Adolf Hitler institutes the Mother’s Cross, to encourage women of "pure" German origin to increase the size of their families and grow the population of the Third Reich.

    The Nazis started such encouragement early. When members the League of German Girls (a wing of of the Hitler Youth movement) turned 18, they became eligible for a branch called Faith and Beauty, which trained these girls in the art of becoming ideal mothers. One component of that ideal was fecundity. And so each year, gold medals were awarded to women with eight children or more, silver medals to women with six to seven, and bronze medals to women with five. The crosses were distributed between 1938 and 1944.

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    [–] 74 points 2 years ago (14 children)

    This is going to benefit communities with a lot of hispanic families, lmao.

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    [–] 71 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Creatives: produces warnings

    Conservatives: Hey check out this cool instruction manual I found!

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  • [–] 69 points 2 years ago (15 children)

    I feel like they've buried the lead.

    In addition to its directives related to marriage and babies, the Transportation Department’s memo blocks recipients of federal money from implementing “mask mandates,” a reference to requirements that transit agencies followed to limit the spread of infection during the height of COVID-19.

    The memo also requires recipients to comply with federal immigration enforcement in order to receive funding — the latest effort by the administration to target undocumented immigrants, conduct mass arrests and deportations, and deny federal transportation funds to so-called sanctuary cities.

    So (1) no ability for public transport systems to implement measures to stop pandemics (which will be important since avian flu is around the corner) and (2) no federal funding for transport to sanctuary cities (of which Washington D.C. is arguably one).

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  • [–] 46 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    (just fyi, it's "buried the lede")

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  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    Both spellings are correct and do not impact the meaning. “Lede” has only this one meaning whilst “Lead” can mean a few different things.

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    [–] 41 points 2 years ago (15 children)

    https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2069436850145993

    50 States, 50 Protests, 1day

    Feb 5 @ your downtown.

    Pass the word!

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    For all those asking, the Facebook link didn't even work for me, so I just searched and there looks to be an active r/50501 group.

    It doesn't seem like an organized thing, just be at your state capital. Here's a few posters from the reddit:

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    [–] 38 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Is there some problem with underpopulation? The qons were always saying "America is full" when it comes to refugees.

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    [–] 18 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Cheap labor. Meat for the grinder.

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    [–] 13 points 2 years ago

    It's not a surprise. The oligarchs are going to need more slaves after they send the army out to kill us.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago

    Me and my wife have been watching Handmaid's Tale over the years and we've been saying for some years now that America is way closer than what's comfortable to actually becoming that society. It's actually unreal to see it unfold.

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