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[tybutler]

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[sluttywonwoo]

arm's-length || y.jh

pairing: yoon jeonghan x female reader

summary: you wake up sick the night before you're supposed to join your boyfriend on his work trip. you don't want to get him sick but he still wants you to go. a compromise is made.

warnings: swearing, mentions of covid (the reader does not have it though!!!!), suggestive content (mdni;18+)

word count: 4.4k

a/n: this was originally posted (years ago) on my main/tom holland account. but since i'm sick right now, i thought i might post it here too

notes: fans aren't (as) weird about k-pop idols dating in this au, seventeen also doesn't fly privately in this au... just suspend your disbelief for me

When you woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, throat burning, you assumed the worst. The shrill beeping of the thermometer in your mouth only confirmed what you already knew. You sighed, washed the thermometer and put it back in the medicine cabinet, trading it for a rapid COVID test. You still had a few a stacked underneath the sink for cases like these. You opened the package, swabbed yourself, and reached into the medicine cabinet bottle of ibuprofen. You shook two pills into your palm and used your other hand to cup water from the faucet to swallow them with. Wiping your mouth with the back of your hand, you took a moment to look back up into the mirror at your bleak appearance. Even in the darkness you could see glassy, tired eyes staring back at you and a fine sheen of sweat that had broken out on your forehead. 

It felt like the minutes were dragging by, but your phone’s timer was going off before you knew it. You checked the test- negative, thank god, and then took a seat on the cold tile of the bathroom floor, trying to decide what to do. Jeonghan was leaving to go to Paris tomorrow morning for an UNESCO event, and you were supposed to be going with him. But you couldn’t get him sick too. You wouldn’t.

Resolving to spend the rest of the night on the couch, you tiptoed back into the bedroom to grab your pillow and a blanket.

Jeonghan turned over towards you as you attempted to quietly gather everything in your arms at your side of the bed without dropping anything and you bit back a curse.

“Baby?” he asked groggily, voice raspy. You saw him blinking hard, trying to get his eyes to adjust so he could see you, but you took a step back into the darkness, knowing that if he saw the state you were in he’d never fall back to sleep, and he needed it desperately.

“Go back to sleep, Hannie, I’ll be right back,” you lied, biting your lip as you did so, but you saw him relax back into the mattress and breathed a sigh of relief.

In the living room you sprawled out on the couch, but your aching muscles prevented you from getting comfortable. The thin blanket you’d dragged from the bedroom didn’t do much for your chill, but you wrapped it around you tightly anyway, hoping it would subside once the medicine kicked in.

“Baby?” you awoke to Jeonghan’s concerned voice above you.

You sat up with a groan and immediately shut your eyes tightly, willing the splitting headache that must’ve developed overnight to go away.  

“Why’re you out here?” he asked. “Did we have a fight I’m not remembering?”

You smiled weakly. “No, baby, I’m just not feeling that good so I moved to the couch. Didn’t want to get you sick.”

“What?”

“I just have a little fever, it’s not a big deal.”

Jeonghan looked appalled. “How little?”

You pressed your lips together, not answering. His soft brown eyes hardened just the tiniest bit and he leaned over the couch to feel your forehead. You ducked him initially, and he chuckled at your stubbornness, putting his hand on your shoulder gently to steady you and you surrendered. His cool fingers on your warm skin felt nice and you let yourself relax slightly back into him as he gauged your temperature for himself.

“You’re burning up, love. Why didn’t you wake me up?” he asked, trying not to sound hurt.

“You needed sleep,” you explained, voice barely audible.

“And you didn’t?” 

You shrugged. “You have all that important stuff starting today, I just didn’t want-”

“I’m canceling it,”

“No, Jeonghan, you’re not.”

“You’re sick!”

“You can’t cancel on the UN,” you repeated in a measured tone. 

“What are they going to do, fire me?”

“I don’t know, maybe? I’d go as far as to say they’d murder you.” You took a deep breath. “I’m an adult. I can take care of myself.”

Jeonghan let out a frustrated sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “But you shouldn’t have to!”

“It’s fine, babe, really. I do it all the time, my immune system is a bitch.” You laughed lightly.

“Because I’m gone all the time,” he murmured in realization.

You frowned because that’s not what you’d been trying to get at, but you knew Jeonghan was already beating himself up for it anyway. “You know that’s not your fault. Your job…” you trailed off. 

“I just want to be able to take care of you.”

“And I don’t want to get you sick during the most important season of your career.”

Jeonghan pinched the bridge of his nose. “I-I can’t just leave you like this!”

“Fine, what about a compromise?” you asked with a cough. Jeonghan narrowed his eyes, but was listening. “I go with you, but you can’t touch me.”

“What? I can’t-” he sputtered.

“Not until I’m better! Do you know how much of an earful I’d get from your managers if I gave you what I have?”

“That’s a terrible compromise.”

“It’s the best I’ve got.”

“You realize how ridiculous that sounds? I can’t touch my fucking girlfriend?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“That you’ll let me take care of you.”

“You can. From an arm’s length.”

“An arm’s length?! Like literally?”

“Yep.” You held your arm out in front of you to demonstrate. “That should be good.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

You were not kidding. And you were nothing if not stubborn. At the airport,  you were able to exchange your first class ticket for an economy seat in a row that wasn’t completely full when Jeonghan was taking pictures with some fans. You felt a little guilty about stranding him and going behind his back, but you told yourself it was for his own good. 

“Ready, babe?” you asked with as bright a smile as you could manage, hoping you didn’t look as sweaty as you felt.

The girls Jeonghan was surrounded by glanced up at you and gave you polite smiles. They backed off to give you guys some space, but still watched on curiously as the two of you interacted.

Jeonghan reached out for your hand and you didn’t pull away, knowing how bitchy it would look in front of the fans. He smirked as he interlaced his fingers with yours and waved goodbye to the girls. As soon as you got to the security line you yanked your hand out of his grasp, pulling out a bottle of hand sanitizer and squirting a bit into his hands. 

“You’re paranoid,” Jeonghan said with a chuckle, rubbing his hands together nonetheless.

“I’m trying to save my own ass,” you muttered coughing into your sleeve a couple of times. A few people in line gave you wary looks, but you ignored them.

You sat two seats apart from Jeonghan at the gate while you were waiting for the plane to arrive and Jeonghan didn’t protest, talking to you softly as you rested your eyes. You liked to listen to his voice, and he didn’t understand it, but indulged you anyway. He talked about different people around the terminal, describing them in detail. He talked about his sister, gossiped about his members like they weren’t sitting a few feet away. He talked about how beautiful you looked, making you laugh. You were wearing his clothes, the ones you’d gone to sleep in, and your eyes were bright red. Your entire face was flushed and you were still sweaty.

“It’s time for more medicine, my love,” Jeonghan reminded you softly and you opened your eyes again. You sat up and held your palm open so that your boyfriend could shake the pills from the bottle into your hand. You swallowed them with a sip of sprite. The bubbles felt good on your throat. 

An announcement was made for first class to start boarding and Jeonghan stood with a stretch, cracking his knuckles. 

“That’s us, baby,” he said when you didn’t stand, beckoning you to join him.

“About that…”

“About what?”

-

“Mr. Yoon, I’m really sorry, but you need to board, sir.” The flight attendant was young and nervous. You felt bad about holding everyone up, and even worse for making this woman’s job harder than it had to be.

“Please just give me another moment,” he pleaded impatiently. 

You’d been arguing with him for about ten minutes. The rest of first class had already boarded and business class was on standby, the only one holding them up being Jeonghan. In any other circumstance they would’ve gone ahead and started boarding business class anyway, but because Jeonghan was a priority passenger, they had to wait for him to be seated before they could continue. 

“It makes no sense. Why the fuck would you switch you tickets?”

“Jeonghan, we’re making a scene,” you said tiredly, noticing some of the passengers waiting had their phones out. It wasn’t anything you weren’t used to, but you knew this wasn’t going to turn out well for either of you. 

“I don’t care.”

“I’m sorry, okay?” you apologized, your voice coming out weak. “Can we talk about this later?”

He hesitated, but ultimately gave in with a curt nod. 

“Now get your ass on that plane. I’ll see you when we land.”

Jeonghan gave you a tight smile and a kiss on the cheek that made you freeze. “I love you.”

“Love you.” Bastard. 

And then you watched him go, shoulders tense, expression guarded as he handed the scanned his ticket and walked into the tunnel.

You were one of the last to board, lagging behind the other passengers as not to draw more attention to yourself. Though in hindsight, it had the opposite effect. You could feel everyone watching you out of the corner of their eyes as you walked to the back of the plane and took your seat.

The only other person in your row was an older businesswoman which left the middle seat open. She gave you a nod before turning back to her kindle. You settled into your seat for the flight and shut your eyes. You just wanted to spend the next eight hours asleep and not thinking about how Jeonghan was probably fuming in his own seat right now, but you knew your chances were slim. 

By the time the plane landed, you hadn’t even slept for an hour, despite how hard you tried. It only added to how miserable and exhausted you already were. You caught a glimpse of yourself in the reflection of your phone screen and winced at how wrecked you looked. You were already dreading getting off the plane. Not only was Jeonghan probably still mad at you, but you knew people would be taking pictures of the two of you in the airport and you looked like shit. But there wasn’t much you could do about it aside from trying to comb through your hair with your fingers, which did little to nothing. 

Jeonghan was waiting for you on the jet bridge when you got off the plane, but he didn’t speak to you. You followed him off the ramp and into the airport where he slowed a little bit so you could grab his hand.

It was a routine you were used to, but tired of. Pretending like everything was okay in public when it wasn’t. You knew it was necessary, but you didn’t like how natural it had become for you. You and Jeonghan fought like any other couple, only you had to hide it. Putting on a happy face had become second nature, even when you felt shitty. And Jeonghan giving you the silent treatment right now made you feel shitty. 

You knew you couldn’t blame him either, you had lied to him, but you already felt like you were dying and his anger wasn’t helping. 

The airport seemed a million miles long and your hand felt sweaty in Jeonghan’s. He smiled and nodded at the fans who were waiting over by baggage claim and the entrance and you tried to do the same, but your cheeks hurt after just a few minutes and you knew the pictures posted online later were going to be rough. 

You were almost out the door and in an Uber, when you began coughing and doubled over in the middle of the walkway. It was all way more dramatic than it should’ve been. It wasn’t really a big deal, it happened whenever you got sick because your asthma was a bitch. You just needed a moment to catch your breath, but in a second Jeonghan had a hand on your shoulder, standing in front of you to block you from onlookers and cameras.

“Baby, are you alright?” he asked, voice laced with concern. 

“Now you talk to me?” you shot back, smirking when a brief shade of bitterness crossed over Jeonghan’s features. You straightened up and brushed yourself off like nothing had happened. “I’m fine, Jeonghan. Let’s get to the hotel, yeah?”

He sighed, and gave you a once-over like he wasn’t sure if you were telling the truth, but relented and grabbed your hand- the one you’d accidentally coughed into before switching to the crook of your elbow (like you were supposed to do to avoid spreading germs) and you rolled your eyes. He was impossible.

Jeonghan rubbed your head in the Uber on the way to the hotel and you didn’t protest. You weren’t being very good about enforcing the whole “arm’s length” rule, but you gave yourself a pass for this one. 

-

Once at the hotel, you tried to carry some of the luggage up to your room and nearly gave Jeonghan a heart attack in the process. The way his eyes bugged out of his head when you picked up the biggest duffel bag in the pile and slung it over your shoulder while he was trying to check in was comical. You saw him curse and apologize to the receptionist before jogging over to where you were standing, leaving his credit card and wallet on the counter. 

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” he hissed, and took the duffel bag from you, promptly dropping it on the floor. 

You grinned at him sheepishly. “Sorry?”

He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose, something he’d been doing a lot in the past twelve hours. “Just- stay here, okay? And don’t do any more weightlifting.”

You shook your head at him as he walked back over to the check-in desk, while keeping his eyes on you and nearly tripping over a side table on the way there. You stood there for a second while he finished up the paperwork and the security deposit, too out of it to do anything with yourself.

“Let’s go, hot stuff,” Jeonghan called out from across the lobby, flashing a pair of keycards at you.

He grabbed the bags this time and handed you the keys in return. As soon as you were in the room and the door clicked shut behind you, you flopped down onto the bed like a starfish, and groaned in pain.

“I’m so sorry you’re sick, baby,” Jeonghan said sweetly as he kneeled on the carpet beside you.

“And I’m sorry I went behind your back and changed my seat on the plane without telling you.”

“It’s okay. I understand why you did it. I would’ve liked to sit next to you, though.” 

“I would’ve liked that too, but I refuse to get you sick, Jeonghan. And I got like two hundred airline points when I downgraded my seat!” 

You smiled triumphantly and Jeonghan chuckled. He propped himself up on the edge of the bed on his elbows and leaned forward to kiss your forehead. He frowned.

“When was the last time you took medicine, y/n?”

You tried to recall it, but you couldn’t remember. Your brain felt too fuzzy. “I dunno.”

“Did you take anything on the plane?”

“Um…” you winced, knowing you were about to get an earful. 

“‘I can take care of myself’ absolute bullshit,” Jeonghan scoffed and reached for the backpack next to him. “I’m never leaving you home sick again.”

“Hannieee,” you whined.

He parroted your name back in the exact same tone of voice. “Here, let’s take your temperature.”

He held the thermometer out to you and you put it under your tongue lazily, already knowing it wasn’t going to be pretty. It beeped loudly only a few seconds later and Jeonghan snatched it out of your mouth before you could look at it. 

“Fuck.”

“What’s the damage, doc?”

He cracked a small smile and sighed. “One hundred point six.” He checked his watch. “Okay, it’s about six-thirty now, you can take some ibuprofen now and then some tylenol at nine-thirty.”

“Are you really supposed to swap them out like that so much?” you asked, taking the pills Jeonghan offered you.

“The managers always did it for me and the members, we turned out fine.”

“Define ‘fine’,” you teased, earning a glare from your boyfriend. 

“Please just take your medicine,” Jeonghan begged. “You haven’t had any in your system for hours.”

“I’m usually good about this stuff,” you insisted and threw the medicine back with a gulp of water. 

He slid the bottle of pills back into the backpack along with the thermometer and crossed his arms. “Yeah, something tells me that when you get sick you keep going to work even though you tell me you’re staying home, you sleep on your breaks, take ibuprofen every ten hours or so, don’t really use your inhaler- even when you’re coughing up a lung, and eat mmm once a day? That sound about right?”

He’d only really half nailed it. Well… maybe seventy percent nailed it. Eighty at best. You gave him an amused look and smiled smugly. “You don’t have any proof.”

Jeonghan raised an eyebrow at you. “I have your best friend.”

“Son of a bitch, I’m going to kill her.” You sat up and reached for your phone that you’d set up to charge on the bedside table. 

“Hey,” Jeonghan grabbed your wrist gently. “She was just trying to help, love. I asked her what you usually did when you’re sick so that I could know what you like and take care of you, and she told me the truth. She worries about you, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know that actually,” you admitted.

“Well she does.”

“I know those are all bad habits and stuff, but I’m not completely incompetent. I make myself tea and soup when I’m sick. I take hot baths, 

“Do you want me to draw you a bath?”

“That’d be really nice at home, but… I don’t know, I’m just weird about hotel baths.”

He nodded in understanding. “I get it, let’s just shower instead.”

“Both of us?” you asked hesitantly.

“I was thinking so?” He scrunched his face up in confusion. “Why?”

“Because,” you paused to cough, “I’m sick. I don’t want to get you sick. Arm’s length and all that.”

“I know, but it’ll help you feel better.” Jeonghan held his hand out to you. “Come on, baby,” he coaxed and led you into the bathroom. 

He managed to get you and himself undressed and in the shower without further argument from you. Truthfully, you were too tired to fight about it. You could barely stay awake and upright as Jeonghan worked shampoo through your hair, let alone form a comprehensible sentence. You moaned a bit as his strong hands rubbed soap down your torso, not being able to help your body’s reaction to his touch.

“You okay, baby?” he asked. “Am I hurting you?”

“No,” you said and shook your head, immediately regretting it when the room started spinning around you. “Sorry, just kind of out of it.”

“Don’t worry, my love.” Jeonghan smiled at you and leaned in to kiss you. You came to your senses and pushed yourself away from him. He didn’t even try to hide a frown this time.

“Can you at least try to stay healthy?” you sighed and stepped out of the shower.

Jeonghan wasn’t far behind you and wrapped a towel around your shoulders. “I’m sorry, but it’s not my fault you’re so fucking irresistible.”

You glared at him. “Smooth.”

He looked amused. “Wow you must be really sick, not even my pickup lines are working on you.”

“I’m going to bed,” you said, ignoring him.

You climbed into bed in a sweatshirt, pajama pants, and socks while Jeonghan came to bed in just his boxers. You looked at him in disbelief. 

“You’ll freeze, Hannie. It’s cold as fuck in here.”

“No it’s not,” he replied and bit his lip. “You’ve got a fever, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

“No need to apologize, baby. I can warm you up,” he offered and rolled over to hold you, only to be smacked with a pillow. 

“Keep your hands to yourself, Yoon.”

You made a small barrier of pillows between you so neither of you would accidentally (or purposely, ahem Jeonghan) roll over and touch the other in the middle of the night. 

“Are you serious?” Jeonghan pouted. “Baby-”

“Nuh-uh we had a deal. You need to be feeling your best for... whatever it is you’re doing tomorrow. You’re the interim leader, after all.” 

“Whatever,” he huffed and rolled over onto his other side.

“You’ll be thanking me whenever you don’t catch what I have,” you said and coughed a few more times. 

You rolled over to turn off the lamp on the table next to you before pulling the covers all the way up to your chin and finally, finally getting some sleep. 

You dreamt about him. About Jeonghan. About his hands on your body while being buried deep inside you. His mouth was on your neck, your shoulders, your collarbone. You arched your back when he moaned softly in your ear, gripping the sheets tightly with one hand, using the other to pull at his hair. You felt yourself getting close when he began thrusting into you harder than before and you gasped at the sensation, only getting closer to the edge when he called out your name. 

“Y/n,” at first whispered and then more firmly. “Y/n. Y/n!”

Your eyes snapped open and you searched the dark room frantically, looking for Jeonghan. He was right next to you, gazing at you in concern. His hair was sticking up all over the place from where he’d moved around in his sleep and he was looking at you expectantly. 

“You were calling out for me, are you okay?”

Your face was burning with embarrassment and you wondered if he could tell. You were still breathing hard, and you were a little sweaty, but you couldn’t tell if it was from your fever or from your dream. “I’m fine, sorry to wake you.” 

“Were you… dreaming about me?” he pressed, leaning over the pillow barrier to look at you closely. 

You hesitated. “Uh, yeah.”

“What was the dream about?”

“Nothing important, we were, um…in a corn maze! We were in a corn maze and I couldn’t find you and that’s why I was calling out for you.”

“A corn maze?” He didn’t look convinced.

“Mhm.”

“Baby?” he asked again. 

“Yeah?”

“Was it a sex dream?”

“…maybe.”

Jeonghan’s face lit up and he lifted himself up onto his arms to climb on top of you. “Here let me help-”

You held out and arm to stop him. “I’m, I’m fine Jeonghan,” you lied, clenching your thighs together. 

He flopped back down onto his stomach on top of the pillow barrier. “So if I reached into your panties right now, you wouldn’t be wet?”

You swallowed. “Nope.”

“Liar.”

“I’m fine, Jeonghan! Sex is literally the last thing we should be doing right now! Do you know how much bacteria-”

“I never said anything about sex,” he countered.

“What are you talking about?”

“I was just going to eat you out! I want you to feel better, baby.”

“I think that’s somehow worse?”

“No way, I don’t think I can catch anything from eating you out.”

“I’m almost positive you can, Hannie. I’m fine.”

“I’m googling it!” He announced and rolled back over. Before you could protest the light from his phone was shining over his face as he typed. “Can you catch a contagious virus from eating pussy?”

“That’s going to be in your search history forever.”

“The internet doesn’t say anything against it,” he declared victoriously.

“Does it say anything about it at all?”

“Uh… yeah. It says it’s fine”

“Who’s the liar now, Jeonghan?” He grinned sheepishly. “Go back to sleep, I’m fine. I’m not even horny anymore.”

He looked at you like he didn’t believe you, but ultimately put his phone back on the table and closed his eyes again. In no time he was breathing deeply and you could relax. Why was common sense so lacking in your boyfriend? What part of the no touching deal did he not understand? The answer was all of it and it was a pain in the ass. He was a pain in the ass. A pain in the ass that you loved very much, but a pain in the ass nonetheless. 

You closed your eyes, but couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t that you weren’t tired, you were still completely exhausted, but Jeonghan had been right. You were still insanely turned on from your dream and you weren’t sure what to do about it. You waited a few minutes for the urge to subside, but it didn’t. 

“You were about to cum, weren’t you?” Jeonghan piped up out of nowhere, scaring the shit out of you.

“Fuck, I thought you were asleep.”

“Just answer the question,” Jeonghan growled, not helping your current situation whatsoever. “In your dream, you were about to, right? You were biting your lip like you do when you’re going to cum.”

You sighed. “Yeah. Yeah I was.”

“But you didn’t?”

“Unfortunately not.”

“Let me help you finish, baby. It’ll help you sleep,” Jeonghan insisted. “You need rest.”

You sniffled and groaned. “Ugh, you’re impossible, you know that?”

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s a yes,” you surrendered and pushed the blankets down below your hips. “But the rule still applies. Arm’s length.”

He smirked. “I think I can work with that.”

#seventeen x reader #svt x reader #jeonghan x reader #yoon jeonghan x reader #seventeen smut #svt smut #jeonghan smut #yoon jeonghan smut #seventeen x female reader #jeonghan x female reader

[qqueenofhades]

So it looks like Sinema, having gotten her requisite pound of flesh for her billionaire hedge fund buddies (basically, they agreed to keep the carried-interest tax loophole and replace it with an excise tax on stock buybacks), has finally agreed to support the Inflation Reduction Act, otherwise known as the $740 billion "pretty much Build Back Better but we are calling it something different" bill that Manchin and Schumer came out with. If/when it passes, which could be as soon as this weekend, the Democrats will have achieved -- with a 50-50 Senate with two habitual Manchurian candidates, a four-seat House majority, a rampantly fascist opposing party, a Supreme Court openly bent on destroying democracy and personal liberty, and an active criminal investigation into the previous administration -- at least the following:

The American Rescue Plan, aka the first post-inauguration $1.9 trillion Covid relief package, which was the largest investment in the working class since the New Deal;

The bipartisan infrastructure bill, which is the first major structural and transportation modernization and systemic overhaul for the country since the 1970s;

The first significant gun safety legislation in 30 years and since at least the Clinton administration;

Multiple executive orders now signed on protecting abortion rights and access to reproductive care, including travel out of state if necessary;

A bill in the works to officially codify same-sex marriage and thus protect it from SCOTUS;

Reauthorization and improvement of the Violence Against Women Act, including strong new protections for LGBTQ+ and Native American victims of domestic abuse or sexual assault, including the ability for Native courts to prosecute non-Native offenders for sex crimes for the first time in history;

Finally (FINALLY) making lynching a federal hate crime;

The largest climate legislation ever passed in America (this bill), which also establishes a federal minimum 15% corporate tax rate and lowers healthcare costs, including for essential medications like insulin, by, like, a lot;

Passage of the PACT Act, aka expanding healthcare for disabled veterans exposed to burn pits, also the biggest expansion in this field for a generation despite Republicans briefly killing it in an outburst of pettiness;

Consistent big packages of support for Ukraine, rebuilding of foreign alliances, huge bipartisan support for including Sweden and Finland in NATO (hahahaha fuck you Josh Hawley);

The CHIPS act, which creates tech and manufacturing jobs in America and was made even sweeter by how thoroughly they fucked over McTurtle to do it (since oh boy does he deserve a taste of his own medicine);

Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on SCOTUS, and not an awful white supremacist stand-in like Clarence Thomas, but a genuinely progressive and thoughtful jurist;

Cancellation of almost $6 billion in student loans for the poorest and most defrauded borrowers, such as those who attended scam for-profit "colleges";

And so on and so forth!!!

So like. Please tell me more about how the Democrats are incompetent, their leadership is bad, they are in Disarray TM, you are a terrible person if you support Biden or give them any credit at all, and you're just not excited to vote because they haven't done anything. Like yes! There is a lot more to do! Despite them suddenly deciding to play ball on this particular occasion, Manchin and Sinema still need to be made irrelevant as soon as possible! But as I said, this is happening with the thinnest of imaginable Congressional control, as the other party is literally trying to destroy democracy in real time before our faces. That is not irrelevant.

Also: ruby-red Kansas curb-stomped an attempt to outlaw abortion rights, and approximately 77% of the entire country supports this current bill. The generic Congressional ballots have all shown major movement toward Democrats, and frankly, I have a feeling that we have only just started to see the full impact of post-Roe fallout. So if you get off your asses, quit whining, and put the work in, we could actually win the midterms and then do EVEN MORE!

So yeah. Uh. Food for thought.

#hilary for ts #politics for ts #'but biden didn't give me a pony!!!' #'sTudEnT lOaNs!!!' #oh like the ones you have not paid a single penny on since he took office #the legislative agenda enacted thus far represents progress in every single left wing issue #and in utterly terrible circumstances #so yeah if you are still saying this #please stfu forever

[1americanconservative]

The real Bidenomics

🔴 Jan 2021 Biden inauguration, cancels the Keystone XL pipeline. Inflation rate 1.4%

🔴 March 2021 Biden signs $1.9 Trillion Covid relief bill Inflation rate 2.6%

🔴 July 2021 Democrats propose $3.9 Trillion budget plan. Inflation rate 5.4%

🔴 November 2021 Biden signs $1 Trillion infrastructure package. Inflation rate 6.8%

🔴 March 2022 Biden delivers his first SOFU. Inflation rate 7.9%

🔴 April 2022 Announces student loan forgiveness. Inflation rate 8.3%

🔴 May 2022 acknowledges baby formula supply problem Inflation rate 8.6%

🔴 June 2022 gas prices surge. Inflation rate 9.1% We can't afford any more "building back better"

[questionablemargot]

so, little story time.

i’m really sick right now, it’s not covid but with the conglomeration of chronic illnesses i have, the illness is being a little bitch.

basically long story short, my stomach doesn’t want to work, like ever. have you ever had a package that said they’d deliver in 5-10 days? and you’re like oh five to ten days, that’s just a week or so, not bad. and then a week passes and you’re like, okay where’s my package? so you check the website, and you realize it said 5-10 business days? so now you’re waiting for a package that instead of taking a week to deliver, it’s going to take a month and a half?

yeah, that’s my stomach, but also add in that because of my stomach not working, if i’m not careful i will throw up everything i eat and not truly consume anything for months on end. anyways, because of this and a bunch of other things, my immune system is constantly in a state of that one meme with the dog sitting in the middle of a fire saying this is fine.

so i have some sort of cold, or something of the like. no big deal, i’ll just be sniffly and coughing for a few days. hey remember how my immune system is total shit?

my symptoms have been as follows. coughing fits, repeated dry heaving with no actual throwing up, just the painful feeling of retching with no relief, a sniffly nose so bad i can’t taste anything but mucus, extreme nausea, stomach pain, scratchy throat, headaches that turn into migraines, and fatigue.

y’know what you do when you’re fatigued? you rest, obviously. i don’t have the energy to walk down the stairs more than once a day, so i’m limited to my bed and two or three bathroom trips a day. i’ve been in bed all week. all. week.

now when you’re restricted to your bed for a week, feeling like utter shit with very little motivation to talk to anyone, you get bored very easily.

now what’s a good thing to do when you can’t move, but are really bored? read. i have been consuming fanfictions at a rate i haven’t done since i was in middle school. i’m in the middle of churning through dark matter on ao3 like it’s the last thing i’ll ever read.

hey. hey guess what happened. you’ll never guess. you’ll never guess what happened.

ao3 is down for maintenance. now that’s fine, i can be without fanfic for five minutes or so, so i go to scroll tiktok and get lost in a rabbit hole of frogs and mushrooms. thirty minutes go by. i think, oh well ao3 has got to be up by now!

it’s not. i check ao3’s tumblr. nothing. i get so desperate, i even check *shudder* twitter. and you know what i find? ao3’s been having trouble lately. too many 500 errors are randomly appearing. they have the site down to fix it. they have the site down for maintenance.

so i’m here, fuming in my bed, incredibly sick, and ready to throw hands. i’m so ready to throw down, i spend a good twenty minutes writing out this tumblr post.

long story short — im sick, and i’m feral, and i need my fanfiction

#ao3 #ao3 down #im feral #sickposting #disabled #lgbtqia #therian #about to throw down with electricity rn istg #give me back my fanfiction #im big mad #as well as super sniffly #so the picture i paint isn’t exactly threatening

[robin-hood-for-freedom]

"Trump never locked down. That was democrat governors"

I mean sure, thats technically true. But what Trump DID:

-declare a state of emergency over COVID

-Authorize the use of federal resources to provide equipment like ventilators to states

-Openly attack and insult places like Sweden for NOT locking down

-Put fucking Fauci in charge of his covid task force, and keep him there for the entirety of 2020

-passed the covid relief package, and bragged about it was the biggest spending bill ever.

-Authorize operation 'warp speed' to bring the covid vaccine to market quickly,

Or to put it another way: He provided cover and support for lockdown governors. And btw he to this day stands by that lockdowns were necessary and the vaccine was great.

Look, you can like Trump for other reasons. Or think hes preferable to Biden(I'd probably be inclined to agree with you there). But his record on COVID was terrible no matter how you slice it.

#Also I could point out that it wasnt just democrat goveners #every single republican state locked down as well #Except for I think South Dakota #I give Desantis a pass because his was short and he seems to genuinely recognize it was a mistake #But nobody else afaict seems to regret doing it

[darcyfangirlsfrequently]

My list of things i have to do now that i am covid-free and have to actually have a life again

(credit to @bacchicly for the idea)

Shower and eat something (still don't have all my taste buds)

Alert family and friends that i am in fact not sick anymore, wahoo!

Start my laundry

Clean up my "fever relief station"/all my stuff i kept within arms reach that i needed when i was sick

Start my assignment that's due on Thursday

Put ink in the printer

Put clothes on once laundry is done

Print out my return label and return my amazon package

Maybe also pick up some snacks from the grovery store to bring to school and test my taste buds

Eat dinner (at some point) (may not be in this order)

Prepare all my things for going back to school tomorrow

Say hi to @lklvz when she wakes up and chat a bit before she goes to work

Write some fic. I haven't done that all week. I'm gonna write some fic.

Figure out if anyone else is going to a Taylor Swift event in february. Buy a ticket if yes

Maybe watch the first epsiode of that new Disney+ show with Mandy Patinkin

Sleep

#Snippets from Darcy's life

[workersolidarity]

🇵🇸 🌏🏦 🚨

WORLD BANK ANNOUNCES $20 MILLION IN NEW FINANCING FOR EMERGENCY RELIEF AND AID TO GAZA

The World Bank today approved $20 million in new financing for emergency relief and aid to Gaza as part of an overall $35 million package for the besieged territory.

The package includes $10 million in new financing for food vouchers and parcels, which was approved by the World Bank's Board of Directors. It is estimated the new funding will effect 377'000 Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip.

The assistance is badly needed as Gaza teters on the edge of catastrophe, according to a multitude of sources and aid organizations on the ground in Gaza, and is expected to be delivered through the World Food Programme.

The additional financing will come from the Emergency Social Protection and Jobs Covid-19 Response Project.

In addition to this new source of funding, the World Bank's Health Emergency & Preparedness Trust Fund Program has also allocated an additional $10 million, to be provided by Japan and Germany, for medical care and humanitarian supplies.

The additional $10 million in aid will be delivered through UNICEF and the World Health Organization through the Gaza Health Emergency Response Project, and is expected to provide 10% of Gaza's population with emergency medical care.

The approvals are part of a $35 million aid package being allocated by the World Bank through grant programs on an emergency basis to provide relief to the affected Palestinian population in Gaza.

$15 million in aid for emergency relief has already been delivered, according to reporting.

#source

@WorkerSolidarityNews

#world bank #gaza #gaza strip #gaza news #gaza war #palestine #palestine news #occupied palestine #palestinians #world food programme #politics #geopolitics #news #world news #war #wars #war news #global news #global politics #international news #international affairs #politics news #conflict #israel palestine conflict #israeli occupation #occupation #international organizations #humanitarian aid #humanitarian relief #medical care

[theculturedmarxist]

In their February paper, “US Dollar Primacy in an Age of Economic Warfare,” presented at the West Point Symposium on “Order, Counter-Order, Disorder” Michael Kao and Michael St. Pierre argue for using a stronger US dollar as geopolitical leverage:

Not only are the effects of interest rates hikes magnified in other countries due to a myriad of structural and idiosyncratic economic fragilities previously discussed, the confluence of wide USD adoption with cyclical USD strength … make the USD a potent geopolitical lever masquerading as a domestic fight against inflation. National Power lends the USD dominance in adoption, while an opportunistic fight against inflation lends the USD cyclical strength for geopolitical leverage.

The US and US-led institutions are already trying to sideline China in countries struggling to make debt payments. And these efforts are likely to continue as interest rates rise and more countries in the Global South are unable to repay loans. A recent UNDP paper stated that 52 developing countries are suffering from severe debt problems.

China is the world’s largest bilateral creditor, and this is especially true for countries that are part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative and/or for countries that possess strategically important natural resources. Washington estimates that Chinese lending ranges from $350 billion to a trillion dollars.

In recent years, western officials and media have ratcheted up criticism of China’s lending practices, claiming Beijing is putting its boot on the neck of countries, holding back their development, and is seizing assets offered as collateral.

Deborah Bräutigam, the Director of the China Africa Research Initiative at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, has written that this is “ a lie, and a powerful one.” She wrote, “our research shows that Chinese banks are willing to restructure the terms of existing loans and have never actually seized an asset from any country.”

Even researchers at Chatham House admit there’s nothing nefarious about China’s lending, explaining that it has instead created a debt trap for China. That is becoming more evident as nations are unable to repay, largely due to the economic fallout from the pandemic, the Nato proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, inflation, and rising interest rates.

These confluence of events hitting developing countries are entangling China  in multilateral talks that include US-backed institutions like the IMF. Beijing’s preference has always been to try and tackle debt repayment issues at a bilateral level, typically by extending maturities rather than accepting write-downs on loans.

But US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and company continue to parrot the talking point that China’s lending is harming countries, and in countries unable to repay their international debts, the West and China are increasingly at odds.

Back in 2020, the G-20 countries created the Common Framework for Debt Treatments to provide relief to indebted countries, which included “fair burden sharing” among all creditors. Beijing’s reluctance to agree to such burden sharing is illustrated by the case of Zambia.

Zambia became the first African country to default on some of its dollar-denominated bonds during the Covid-19 pandemic when it failed to make a $42.5 million bond payment in November 2020.

More than a third of the country’s $17 billion in debt is owed to Chinese lenders. Zambia worked out a deal with the IMF for a $1.3 billion bailout package but can’t access the relief until its underlying debt is restructured – including Chinese debts. But the IMF prescription for Zambia is a blow to Beijing. Here are some details of the arrangement from The Diplomat:

Zambia will shift its spending priorities from investment in public infrastructure – typically financed by Chinese stakeholders – to recurrent expenditures. Specifically, Zambia has announced it will totally cancel 12 planned projects, half of which were due to be financed by China EXIM Bank, alongside one by ICBC for a university and another by Jiangxi Corporation for a dual highway from the capital. The government has also canceled 20 undistributed loan balances – some of which were for the new projects but others for existing projects. While such cancellations are not unusual on Zambia’s part, Chinese partners account for the main bulk of these loans…

While some of these cancellations may have been initiated by Chinese lenders themselves, especially those in arrears, Zambia may not have needed to cancel so many projects. Since 2000, China has canceled more of Zambia’s bilateral debt than any sovereign creditor, standing at $259 million to date.

Nevertheless, the IMF team justified the shift because they – and presumably Zambia’s government – believe that spending on public infrastructure in Zambia has not returned sufficient economic growth or fiscal revenues. However, no evidence is presented for this in the IMF’s report.

Zambia will also cut fuel and agriculture subsidies. So instead of infrastructure investment and social spending, the country gets austerity. The IMF deal also relegates China to the backseat, as it allows for 62 concessional loan projects to continue, only two of which will involve China. The vast majority of the projects will be administered by multilateral institutions and involve recurrent expenditure rather than infrastructure-focused projects.

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Yellen on a trip to Zambia in February warned that Chinese lending “can leave countries with a legacy of debt, diverted resources, and environmental destruction” and called out Beijing for being a “barrier” to ending the major copper producer’s debt crisis and noted that it had “taken far too long already to resolve.”

The US effort to sideline China in Zambia comes at the same time that Washington is trying to tighten control over resources in the region. Note that back in December the US signed deals with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia (the world’s sixth-largest copper producer and second-largest cobalt producer in Africa) that will see the US support the two countries in developing an electric vehicle value chain.

Beijing is insisting that multilateral lenders also accept haircuts on loans rather than just China being expected to do so. This is a position that most debtor nations agree with. On the other side, the IMF and its partners are worried that its bailout money would merely go to Chinese creditors – many of which are state banks that are increasingly troubled by bad debts.

Gong Chen, founder of Beijing-based think tank Anbound, says that if countries are unwilling or unable to repay their debts to China, it would be devastating:

Widespread debt evasion and avoidance would have a significant impact on China’s financial stability,” he said, “and we are concerned that some countries may try to avoid paying back their debt by utilizing geopolitics and the ideological competition between East and West.

Yellen and company tried to apply more pressure on Beijing at the recent G20 meeting of finance officials in India, but that fell flat on its face much like the West’s efforts to hijack the meeting and turn it into a roundtable on Russian sanctions.

Meanwhile, Zambia has halted work on several Chinese-funded infrastructure projects, including the Lusaka-Ndola road, and canceled undisbursed loans in line with the IMF prescription for its debt problem.

Chinese companies are now attempting to work around these roadblocks by shifting more toward public-private partnerships. For example, a Chinese consortium is now planning to build a $650 million toll road from the Zambian capital to the mineral-rich Copperbelt province and the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The situation in Zambia does not bode well for other nations needing debt relief, as the delays while the West and China clash mean more pressure on government finances, companies and populations.

And if the West’s primary goal in offering debt relief is to sideline Beijing, as it appeared in Zambia, then that will mean a drastic scaling back of infrastructure projects replaced by austerity. From Sovdebt Oddities:

More broadly, as noted by Mark Sobel, the current international financial architecture is ill-equiped to deal with a major recalcitrant creditor benefiting from outsized (geo)political leverage. While it remains illusional to insulate sovereign restructurings from geopolitical considerations, there is a risk that they would turn into a game of chicken between China on the one hand and the IMF and Paris Club on the other hand. The problem being that if none of the players yields, it will just mean more economic and social hardship for the debtor country stuck in the middle.

Sure enough, the same situation is playing out in two nations that are key points on China’s Belt and Road project: Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Here is Islamabad’s debt situation, courtesy of Pakistani economist Murtaza Syed at The International News:

For each of the next five years, Pakistan owes the world $25 billion in principal repayments. It will also need at least $10 billion to finance the current account deficit, bringing total external financing needs to $35 billion a year between now and 2027. We have foreign exchange reserves of just $3 billion. For each of the next five years, the government needs to pay 5 percent of GDP to service the debt it owes to residents and foreigners. Our total tax take is only 10 percent of GDP.

Around fourth-fifths of this external debt is owed to the official sector, split roughly evenly between multilaterals (like the IMF, World Bank and ADB) and bilaterals (countries like China, Saudi Arabia and the United States). The remaining one-fifth is commercial, again roughly evenly split between Eurobond/Sukuk issuances and borrowing from Chinese and Middle Eastern banks. By region, we owe roughly one-third of our external debt to China and 10 percent to the old-boys network of the Paris Club, which includes Europe and the US.

Additionally, last year, the Pakistan rupee plunged nearly 30 percent compared to the US dollar. All indications are that the IMF is using bailout negotiations to pressure Pakistan to move away from China and revive its partnership with the US. Some background from WSWS:

Former prime minister Imran Khan’s government was promptly removed in April 2022 after he reversed IMF-demanded subsidy cuts in the face of country-wide protests. Khan had previously implemented two rounds of some of the toughest austerity in the country’s history. In the final year of his government, Khan shifted the country’s foreign policy towards a closer alliance with Russia and deepened ties with China, prompting concern and anger in Washington.

Sharif’s Muslim League (PML-N) and the People’s Party (PPP) assumed power in a coalition with the approval of the military, long the most powerful political actor in the country and the linchpin of the alliance between the Pakistani bourgeoisie and US imperialism. The express aim of the new government was to implement IMF austerity, which it has done.

The IMF-prescribed austerity imposed by Pakistani elites also targets Beijing.  China is Pakistan’s largest single creditor as the country is perhaps the most important country in China’s Belt and Road plans because it would provide China with a potential corridor to the seaport at Gwadar on the Indian Ocean. The supply line would reduce the distance between China and the Middle East by thousands of miles via insecure sea lanes to a shorter and more secure distance by land. Beijing’s spending in Pakistan reflects this, as the $53 billion China has spent on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the country is tops of all BRI countries.

Yet many of the BRI plans are unrealized, and Pakistan’s current economic situation makes it unlikely they’ll be finished anytime soon. China has dramatically scaled back investment, which fits with its more cautious approach to BRI projects. Meanwhile, decades-high inflation, economic mismanagement, and last year’s biblical floods have led to Islamabad burning through its foreign exchange reserves in order to make debt payments. The US blames China.

“We have been very clear about our concerns not just here in Pakistan, but elsewhere all around the world about Chinese debt, or debt owed to China,” US State Department Counselor Derek Chollet told journalists at the US Embassy in Islamabad after he met with Pakistani officials in February.

Additionally, Cholett said Washington is warning Islamabad about the “perils” of a closer relationship with Beijing.

According to the Times of India, many Pakistani officials have come around to the US way of thinking and are also blaming the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Project (CPEC), a $65 billion network of roads, railways, pipelines, and ports connecting China to the Arabian Sea,  for worsening the country’s debt crisis. From Indian Express:

Pakistan expanded its electricity generation capacity under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Programme (CPEC) but the expansion came at a high cost both in terms of high returns guaranteed to the Chinese independent power producers (IPPs) and the expensive foreign currency debt. Pakistan has been unable to make the capacity payments to IPPs under the long-term power purchase agreements with the electricity sector debt rising to a staggering $ 8.5 billion.

Last December, the government agreed to repay this debt in installments. However, this may have displeased the IMF, which had expected the government, in August 2022, to renegotiate the purchase power agreements. Pakistan tried to renegotiate but the Chinese refused.

The IMF extended the current program on the condition that it would not go to the Chinese IPPs. More from Nikkei Asia:

Observers say Pakistan’s handling of the electricity issue is likely to irk China, noting that Sharif’s government committed to the IMF to reopen power contracts without taking the Chinese companies into confidence. Pakistan has also reneged on a promise to set up an escrow account to ensure smooth payments to Chinese IPPs.

The IMF is demanding that Pakistan rationalize payments to the Chinese IPPs in line with earlier concessions extracted from local private power producers…

The IMF now wants Pakistan to negotiate an increase in the duration of bank loans from 10 years to 20 years, or to reduce the markup on arrears owed to Chinese IPPs from 4.5% to 2%.

Notably, the IMF appears to have been less willing to make concessions than the previous 22 times Pakistan has sought its support since 1959. Oddly enough Beijing is pushing for a deal between Islamabad and the IMF, and China recently extended a $2 billion loan to Pakistan. From the Middle East Institute:

It is interesting to note, for example, that Chinese officials reportedly urged Islamabad to repair ties with the IMF — if true, an indication that Beijing regards resumption of the Fund’s lending program as key to mitigating Pakistan’s risk of default.

It is also revealing that Pakistan seems keener to take on new financing from China than China may be to furnish it. Even as the economy wobbles under a heavy debt burden and other acute challenges, Pakistani officials have sought support from China to upgrade the Main Line 1 (ML-1) railroad, a project which, if not undertaken, they claim could result in the breakdown of the entire railway system.Yet, the IMF wants Pakistan to rein in CPEC activity. And China’s own domestic economic challenges and priorities might make it hesitant to respond to Islamabad’s appeals. On the other hand, the ML-1 project might meet Beijing’s more exacting standards and increasing emphasis on “high quality” BRI infrastructure projects.

The recent rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia could leave Pakistan out in the cold and even more reliant upon the US. From Andrew Korybko:

With the Kingdom likely to focus more on mutually beneficial Iranian investments than on dumping billions into seemingly never-ending Pakistani bailouts that haven’t ever brought it anything in return, Islamabad will predictably become more dependent on the US-controlled IMF. China will always provide the bare minimum required to keep Pakistan afloat in the worst-case scenario, but even it seems to be getting cold feet nowadays for a variety of reasons, thus meaning that US influence might further grow.

About that, last year’s post-modern coup restored American suzerainty over Pakistan to a large degree, which now makes that country a regional anomaly in the geopolitical sense considering the broader region’s drift away from that declining unipolar hegemon. The very fact that previously US-aligned Saudi Arabia patched up its seemingly irreconcilable problems with Iran as a result of Chinese mediation reinforces this factual observation. Pakistan now stands alone as the broader region’s only US vassal.

Pakistan is not only the most highly indebted to China of its BRI partners, but along with Sri Lanka, is also among the largest recipients of Chinese rescue lending. The ruling elite Pakistan is increasingly concerned that the social crisis could spiral out of control and result in something similar to what happened in Sri Lanka last year when a popular uprising toppled the government.

Due to haggling between the West and China, Sri Lanka has been waiting since September to finalize a bailout after a $2.9 billion September staff level IMF deal. And yet many of the recommendations in the agreement have already been implemented—to disastrous effect.

The country is dealing with its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948, including a shortage of reserves and essential items. In February, the IMF said Sri Lanka’s bailout package was set to be approved as soon as the country obtained adequate assurances from bilateral creditors, i.e., China.

Beijing now appears ready to meet more of the IMF’s demands, although details have yet to be released. In a letter in January, the Export-Import Bank of China offered a two-year debt moratorium, but the IMF said that wasn’t enough. According to Reuters, total Sri Lankan debt to Chinese lenders totals roughly 20 percent of the country’s total debt.

Sri Lanka is another focal point of the BRI due to its geographical position in the middle of the Indian Ocean. China’s goal was to transform the country into a transportation hub as much of its energy imports from the Middle East and mineral imports from Africa pass through Sri Lanka. Beijing has already achieved much of these goals. For example, in 2017 a 70 percent stake of the Hambantota port was leased to China Merchants Port Holdings Company Limited for 99 years for $1.12 billion.

The West blames China’s BRI initiative in Sri Lanka for saddling the country with unsustainable debt, but is that really the case? Political economists Devaka Gunawardena , Niyanthini Kadirgamar, and Ahilan Kadirgamar write at Phenomenal World:

The problems associated with the IMF’s policy package have been caught in geopolitical rhetoric. The US alleges that Sri Lanka is the victim of a Chinese debt trap. In fact, Sri Lanka is in an IMF trap. The structural consequences of over four decades of neoliberal policies have exploded into view with the receding welfare state, a ballooning import bill, and investment in infrastructure without returns, all of which relied on inflows of speculative capital. Framing Sri Lanka’s crisis within a narrative of geopolitical competition obscures the core dilemmas of the global economy. Will the evident breakdown force a reckoning with the present order, or will it be used as an excuse to inflict more suffering?

Thus far, it looks like the latter.

#economics #china #zambia #sri lanka #pakistan #international monetary fund #world bank #capitalism #belt and road initiative #new silk road #us imperialism #china-pakistan economic corridor program #chinese investment in africa

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The Biden administration announced a series of measures Thursday to track down and punish fraudsters who scammed billions of taxpayer dollars that were supposed to provide relief to Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Biden is pledging $1.6 billion to bolster law enforcement manpower and new programs that will be used to prosecute scammers, prevent fraud, and provide assistance to victims of identity theft.

“We want to not only capture them and get their funds, we want to send a signal to them that you can run, but you cannot hide,” said Gene Sperling, a Biden senior adviser who is overseeing the implementation of the COVID-relief plan.

THE LATEST

• The administration’s plans call for creating 10 Department of Justice “strike forces” that will include U.S. attorneys and other law enforcement officials to investigate COVID-relief fraud and help recover stolen tax dollars. The teams will target criminal syndicates and other major fraudsters. Three strike forces already are in place and have recovered millions of dollars in stolen relief funds, officials said.

• The administration also will propose increasing the statute of limitations to 10 years for fraud involving the pandemic Unemployment Insurance program, which has been hit especially hard by scammers.

• Some $300 million will be distributed to inspectors general at the Small Business Administration, the Department of Labor and the staff of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, a government watchdog over pandemic spending. The money would be used to hire investigators and make sure they have the resources needed to pursue specialized cases of pandemic fraud.

• In his proposed budget to be released next week, Biden will offer a package of legislative reforms to prevent, detect and recover payments made improperly through the Unemployment Insurance program.

• Federal grants would be made to states to help modernize their information technology systems to enable them to respond more quickly to fraud, decrease erroneous payments and provide more efficient claims processing.

• New initiatives also would be put in place to identify victims of identity theft, including an early warning system to stop potentially fraudulent transactions before they occur and a one-stop shop to report identity crimes.

WHY IT MATTERS

The federal government distributed more than $5 trillion in pandemic relief under programs approved by Biden and former President Donald Trump. The money was distributed quickly, leading to an increase in fraud and other improper payments, such as those that shouldn’t have been made or were made in the wrong amount.

The Government Accountability Office reported last month that the extent of fraud in COVID-relief programs is not yet known but that the Unemployment Insurance program alone was believed to have made more than $60 billion in fraudulent payments.

From March 2020 to last January, at least 1,044 people pleaded guilty or were convicted of defrauding COVID relief programs, the GAO report said. Federal charges were pending against another 609 individuals or entities for attempting to defraud COVID-relief programs.

Also, the federal government gave $5.4 billion in COVID aid to small businesses with “questionable” Social Security numbers, the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee reported in January. The watchdog identified nearly 70,000 questionable Social Security numbers used to obtain pandemic aid from two programs run by the Small Business Administration.

WHAT'S NEXT?

The Republican-led House Oversight and Accountability Committee has opened an investigation into fraud in COVID-relief programs. The committee held its first hearing on the subject last month.

Sperling, however, said the administration’s anti-fraud package isn’t a direct response to the GOP investigations. Most of the proposals were being prepared before last November’s election, he said.

#us politics #news #usa today #2023 #president joe biden #biden administration #ppp loans #stimulus checks #pandemic response #covid relief #fraud #Gene Sperling #identity theft #Department of Justice #Unemployment Insurance #Small Business Administration #Department of Labor #Pandemic Response Accountability Committee #Government Accountability Office

[ivygorgon]

AN OPEN LETTER to THE U.S. CONGRESS

Fund the Affordable Connectivity Program NOW!

130 so far! Help us get to 250 signers!

I’m a concerned constituent writing to urge you to fund the Affordable Connectivity Program or ACP. Digital connectivity is a basic necessity in our modern world and the internet must be treated as a public utility. We use the internet to apply for jobs, perform our jobs, receive telehealth medical treatment, and pay bills, and students use it to complete homework assignments. But for millions of people in rural and urban areas, and Tribal communities, the internet is a luxury they cannot afford. Failure by Congress to fund this program will force millions of households already on tight budgets to choose between being able to stay online or potentially losing access to this essential service. If Congress doesn’t act fast, funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program will run out and more than 22 million Americans -- 1 in 6 households -- will lose this vital service. The implications of this will be devastating. In 2019, 18% of Native people living on Tribal land had no internet access; 33% relied on cell phone service for the internet; and 39% had spotty or no connection to the internet at home on their smart phone. The ACP has enrolled 320,000 households on Tribal lands -- important progress. The largest percentage gains in broadband access are in rural areas. Nearly half of military families are enrolled in ACP, as are one in four African American and Latino households. Losing access and training on using computers and the internet will have devastating impacts on all these communities as technology becomes increasingly integral to work, education, health, and our everyday lives. Without moves to address tech inequality, low-income communities and communities of color are heading towards an “unemployment abyss.” The Affordable Connectivity Program has broad bipartisan support because it is working. As your constituent, I am urging you to push for renewed funding for the ACP before it runs out in the coming weeks.

▶ Created on April 11 by Jess Craven

📱 Text SIGN PJXULY to 50409

🤯 Liked it? Text FOLLOW JESSCRAVEN101 to 50409

#JESSCRAVEN101 #PJXULY #resistbot #petition #Affordable Connectivity Program #Digital Divide #Internet Access #Broadband Access #ACP Funding #Congress Funding #Public Utility #Internet Equality #Telehealth #Telemedicine #Internet Inequality #Digital Inclusion #Internet For All #Rural Connectivity #Bipartisan Support #Internet Infrastructure #FCC #ACP Support #Digital Navigation #Online Education #Remote Work #Job Access #Telecommunications #Internet Service #Internet Affordability #Digital Equity

[cyberladydream]

cw: tentacles, cnc, undernegotiated kink, exhibitionism You would tell people that you didn't know what the monster panties were before you put them on if they hadn't turned you into such an incorrigible slut. The truth was you did know. You'd spent all that time browsing tentacle porn, reading manga. You weren't very well versed in sex yourself, at least practically speaking, but you had built a treasure trove of kinks in your private horny world.

And so when you actually found a pair of tentacle panties that promised you would never have control of your pussy again, well. You went a little feral.

The first time you put them on you were a little underwhelmed. Nothing happened at first, just a thick tendril tentatively running over your thighs, moving this way and that but without apparent interest. You tried to take them off, however, and realized just how permanent your situation was. Reading the instructions you carelessly discarded in your need you found the problem, "panties will automatically disengage whenever the monster is satisfied."

This was what made you wettest of all and that was precisely what the tendrils needed. They weren't tentative anymore, not gentle in the slightest. One moment you held the package, reading as your skin went cold and the next a tentacle was halfway inside of you, thick, spreading you wide open. It would have went further if it hadn't encountered a change in resistance, sliding out and gathering more of your juices before plunging in deeper and taking you to your knees. What proceeded was a marathon.

The tentacles did not feel satisfied, it seemed, for you still were unable to get the panties off. They seemed dormant, at least, so with legs made of jelly and knees that threatened to buckle you made your way to your computer, trying to get a few quick words in with your friends to establish some sort of normalcy, something for your burgeoning anxiety. Your mistake, however, as you heard your old friend's voice, was to imagine how hot it would be for the tentacles to start again right then.

Reacting to your arousal, it slid all the way inside of you before you could stop your moan. You slammed mute and immediately heard your friend start to ask questions. Are you okay? Do they need to send someone over? You typed back as the tentacle thrashed inside of you, finding your g spot and attacking it with far too much pressure. The idea that it was milking you of your juices came to you and you came your brains out.

"No," you replied to your friend hastily, fingers barely obeying you at this point. "I'm okay."

"Unmute then," your friend said and you swallowed.

"I'm busy hold on," you replied, groaning low in your throat as a second tentacle began to push into your ass. There was no relief this time, your mildly lubed hole making a constant resistance as it forced its way inside. It hurt, everything throbbed. You were being used.

"That was a slutty moan," your friend replied, shattering the safe persona they'd had in your mind for close to a decade. "If you can be filthy here I want to benefit too." The tentacle in your pussy and the one in your ass pressed together through your body, emphasizing how full they made you. The dual reinforcement of your arousal activating it and it chasing your arousal combined into a single force and you imagined the tentacles urging you on, forcing you deeper into your depravity. You unmuted.

And then the pizza delivery, the stuff of such common exhibitionist fantasy it had become cliche. You intended to circumvent it. You just needed delivery and not to think, so you ordered a pepperoni online. Thanks to covid, everywhere offered contactless delivery. It was perfect. You didn't need to bring your filth into your daily life. The ramifications of that were... far more tangible. It had been seventy-eight hours since you put the tentacle panties on and every moment of downtime you rushed to gulp down water. You were so sore but the soreness was delicious too and you were learning to live with it.

The doorbell rang. You frowned. That wasn't correct. You opened your phone to see that the pizza delivery person tried to call you twice. Or a coincidental spam caller, but probably the former. Swallowing, you slowly inched your way to the door, trying desperately to hold onto your composure as you grabbed your wallet and opened it.

The guy on the other side was hot. Tall, looking like he'd probably fuck you behind the pizza shop if you answered his slimy comments correctly--the tentacle teased into you and you swallowed a whimper, feeling your face go hot.

"Sorry, was there a p-problem?" You asked, shivering as the tentacle lightly caressed your inner walls. So sore. So sensitive.

"Yeah, actually your card was declined? I don't know if--are you okay? I guess it's cold out here," he looked behind him, as if the street with trees that didn't change could show signs of autumn. You hated him. The tentacle thrust into you as you clenched around it and you yelped softly, covering your mouth. He snapped his head back to you. "You okay?" The gentleness caught you off guard and you felt a momentary pang of guilt for sexualizing this stranger.

"Sorry, yeah I'm fine, what do I owe you? Twenty covers it?"

"It's twenty-five, actually." God. You didn't have change and this man was just looking at you while a thick tentacle languidly slid into your pussy. Was it your imagination or was it bigger this time? He was three feet away and you were so goddamn deviant--the tentacle slid out and in rapidly once, twice, and on the third you couldn't hold back a moan anymore, holding the door frame.

"Am I being filmed or something?" The delivery driver asked and you shook your head, eyes rolling back as the tentacle found your favorite rhythm. You could smell yourself, hear the wet squishing of your nasty pussy being fucked. "Hey, are you...?"

"Sorry," You whimpered, embarrassed and ashamed and so fucking horny about it. You stepped aside, gesturing in. You told yourself it was to avoid anyone else seeing, to try and figure out how to handle it. The way you moaned when he looked beihnd him and entered told you all anyone needed to know.

"What's going on?" He asked. "I mean, I'm not complaining, you're really cute..." he was a pervert, thank god. You tried to consider the next move when the tentacles pulled your sweatpants down for you. "Oh fuck," he said, noting the tentacles, intuiting the rest. "You're one of those tentacle sluts." That was the term you so joyfully tagged your posts and setup alerts for. "Shit, sorry I didn't mean to offend--" he stopped when you sank to your knees and then trembled on the floor, bucking into your insatiable partner as it fucked into you endlessly. "Oh," he said, finally understanding the scope. "Nevermind, I did mean it. You're just a tentacle slut, aren't you?" He asked and you whimpered desperately.

You weren't sure what to do from here. It was too far, but it was also well beyond a point of no return. You had given yourself to the tentacles, they had given you to this man. It was so difficult to think through the haze, but you needn't have thought at all as you felt more tentacles slide out from the sides of your panties, the portal within glowing as the squirming mass grew until they took up more mass than your couch.

The panties themselves were moved aside and your body raised up into the air. You had the barest moment's recognition before you were positioned in the air at waist height, legs pulled wide as the thick tentacle withdrew.

"No," you pleaded with the tentacle as the man jerked himself off inside of his pants, stopping when he finally caught on.

"Oh fuck yes," he said, undoing his pants and slipping them down. He was big. Not tentacle stretching you as much as it wanted big, but you were definitely going to feel him.

"Wait," you murmured, but a tentacle slid into your mouth and you didn't even try to resist, only sucked on it like it was candy. You believed there would be an aphrodisiac, but all the tentacles ever did was reinforce who you were. What you needed.

The stranger before you didn't hesitate, only rubbed your pussy once reverently as two smaller tendrils held your lips apart for him and then he slid himself in to the hilt.

"Fuck," he hissed, slamming into you. He clearly no longer saw you as a person, which was probably fair play for objectifying him earlier. He pounded you mercilessly without any regard for you or your needs or your limits. You were his toy. "Fuck, you're already broken so I don't have to be gentle." He said and he barely pulled out as you came and began to milk his cock. He came on your tits and you felt your body maneuvered by the tentacles, the one in your mouth withdrawing as they essentially used your mouth as a toy to clean him off before returning you to position. He entered again immediately.

"I'm going to be here every day," he promised. "I'll bring free pizza," he added, as if remembering belatedly you were a person. "I need to tell the others about this house, fuck." That did it. You came one final time, so hard that your neighbors would probably come by for a noise complaint. You came again knowing that they would probably fuck you too.

You woke hours later on your bed, gross from sweat and cum but with your panties beside you. Neither the driver nor the tentacle creature bothered to clothe you, leaving your pussy fully out. You moaned and felt the loss of tentacles. You reached instinctively for the panties but paused. You needed a shower and to actually eat the pizza.

But after that...

#my posts

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 3, 2023

Heather Cox Richardson

On Saturday, April 1, the emergency measures Congress put in place to extend medical coverage at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic expired. This means that states can end Medicaid coverage for people who do not meet the pre-pandemic eligibility requirements, which are based primarily on income. As many as 15 million of the 85 million people covered by Medicaid could lose coverage, although most will be eligible for other coverage either through employers or through the Affordable Care Act. The 383,000 who will fall through the cracks are in the 10 states that have refused to expand Medicaid.

The pandemic prompted the United States to reverse 40 years of cutbacks to the social safety net. These cuts were prescribed by Republican politicians who argued that concentrating money upward would promote economic growth by enabling private investment in the economy. That “supply side” economic policy, they said, would expand the economy so effectively that everyone would prosper. In 2017, Republicans passed yet another tax cut, primarily for the wealthy and for corporations, to advance this policy.

As the economy fell apart during the coronavirus pandemic, though, it was clear the government must do something to shore up the tattered social safety net, and even Republicans got on board fast. On March 6, 2020, Trump signed the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, allocating $8.3 billion to fund vaccine research and give money to states and local governments to try to stop the spread of the virus. On March 18, he signed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which provided food assistance, sick leave, $1 billion in unemployment insurance, and Covid testing. On the same day, the Federal Housing Administration put moratoriums on foreclosure and eviction for people with government-backed loans.

On March 27, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES), which appropriated $2.3 trillion, including $500 billion for companies, $349 billion for small businesses, $175 billion for hospitals, $150 billion to state and local government, $30.75 billion for schools and universities, individual one-time cash payments, and expanded unemployment benefits.

Trump signed another stimulus package on April 24, 2020, which appropriated another $484 billion. And on December 27, 2020, he signed another $900 billion stimulus and relief package.

When he took office, President Joe Biden promised to rebuild the American middle class. He and the Democratic Congress began to shift the government’s investment from shoring up the social safety net to repairing the economy. On March 19, 2021, he signed the American Rescue Plan into law, putting $1.9 trillion behind economic stimulus and relief proposals.

Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Law, also known as the Bipartisan infrastructure Act, on November 15, 2021, putting $1.2 trillion into so-called hard infrastructure projects: roads and bridges and broadband.

On August 9, 2022, he signed the CHIPS and Science Act, putting about $280 billion in new funding behind scientific research and the manufacturing of semiconductors. And days later, on August 16, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Law, putting billions behind addressing climate change and energy security while also raising money to pay for new policies and to reduce the deficit by raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy, funding the Internal Revenue Service to stop cheating, and permitting Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies over drug prices.

This dramatic investment in the demand side, rather than the supply side, of the economy helped to spark record inflation, compounded by supply chain issues that created shortages and encouraged price gouging. To combat that inflation, the Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates. Numbers released Friday show that inflation cooled in February, suggesting that the Federal Reserve is seeing the downward trend it has been hoping for, although there is concern that the sudden decision of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) this weekend to slash production of crude oil might drive the price of oil back up, dragging prices with it.

That investment in the demand side of the economy also meant that the child poverty rate in the U.S. fell almost 30%, while food insufficiency fell by 26% in households that received the expanded child tax credit. The U.S. economy recovered faster than that of any other G7 nation after the worst of the pandemic. Wages for low-paid workers grew at their fastest rate in 40 years, with real income growing by 9%. MIddle-income workers’ wages grew by only between 2.4% and 3.9% after inflation, but that, too, was the biggest jump in 40 years. Unemployment has fallen to its lowest level since 1969, and a record 10 million people have applied to start small businesses.

This public investment in the economy has attracted billions in private-sector investment—chipmakers have planned almost $200 billion of investments in 17 states—while it has also pressured certain companies to act in the public interest: the three major insulin producers in the U.S., making up 90% of the market, have all capped prices at $35 a month.  

As the economy begins to smooth out, Biden and members of his administration are touting the benefits of investing in the economy “from the bottom up and the middle out.” They have emphasized that they are working to support unions and the rights of consumers, taking on “junk fees,” noncompete agreements, and nondisparagement clauses. After the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank, the administration has suggested that deregulation of banking institutions went too far, and Biden has continued to push increased support for child care and health care.

A recent Associated Press–NORC poll shows that while 60% of Americans say the federal government spends too much money, they actually want increased investment in specific programs: 65% want more on education (12% want less); 63% want more on health care (16% want less); 62% want more on Social Security (7% want less); 58% want more spending on Medicare (10% want less); 53% want more on border security (23% want less); and 35% want more spending on the military (29% want less).

This puts the political parties in an odd spot. A week ago, Biden and members of the administration began barnstorming the country to highlight how their policy of “Investing in America” has been building the economy: “unleashing a manufacturing boom, helping rebuild our infrastructure and bring back supply chains, lowering costs for hardworking families, and creating jobs that don’t require a four-year degree across the country,” as the White House puts it.

Meanwhile,  the Republicans are doubling down on the idea that such investments are a waste of money, and are forcing a fight over the debt ceiling to try to slash the very programs that the administration is celebrating. Ignoring that the 2017 Trump tax cuts and spending under Trump added about 25% to the debt, they are focusing on Biden’s policies and demanding  that the government balance the budget in 10 years without raising taxes and without cutting defense, veterans benefits, Social Security, or Medicare, which would require slashing everything else by an impossible 85%, at least (some estimates say even 100% cuts wouldn’t do it).

As David Firestone put it today in the New York Times: “Cutting spending…might sound attractive to many voters until you explain what you’re actually cutting and what effect it would have.” Republicans cut taxes and then complain about deficits “but don’t want to discuss how many veterans won’t get care or whose damaged homes won’t get rebuilt or which dangerous products won’t get recalled.” Firestone noted that this disconnect is why the House Republicans cannot come up with a budget. “The details of austerity are unpopular,” Firestone notes, “and it’s easier to just issue fiery news releases.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#kookaid #Republican Kool-Ade #budget #Federal Government spending #pandemic #medicare #medicaid #income inequality #Corrupt GOP

[madamspeaker]

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The film goes behind the headlines as it tracks Pelosi’s life in public office from her election to Congress in 1987 and becoming the first female Speaker of the House in 2007 through the 2020 election and President Biden’s inauguration. Following Pelosi at both work and home in real time during consequential political moments in the country’s recent history, the film offers a unique look at American politics through her efforts on the Affordable Care Act, the COVID-19 relief package, two impeachments as well as a record of the events of January 6, 2021, following Pelosi and other lawmakers at a secure location as the crisis unfolded.

#nancy pelosi #madam speaker

[ausetkmt]

ASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s White House is giving its support to studying reparations for Black Americans, boosting Democratic lawmakers who are renewing efforts to create a commission on the issue amid the stark racial disparities highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

A House panel heard testimony Wednesday on legislation that would create a commission to examine the history of slavery in the U.S. as well as the discriminatory government policies that affected former slaves and their descendants. The commission would recommend ways to educate the American public of its findings and suggest appropriate remedies, including financial payments from the government to compensate descendants of slaves for years of unpaid labor by their ancestors.

Biden backs the idea of studying the issue, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday, though she stopped short of saying he would sign the bill if it clears Congress.

“He certainly would support a study of reparations,” Psaki said at the White House briefing. “He understands we don’t need a study to take action right now on systemic racism, so he wants to take actions within his own government in the meantime.”

Biden captured the Democratic presidential nomination and ultimately the White House with the strong support of Black voters. As he campaigned against the backdrop of the biggest reckoning on racism in a generation in the wake of George Floyd’s killing, Biden backed the idea of studying reparations for the descendants of slaves. But now, as he tries to win congressional support for other agenda items including a massive coronavirus relief package, he faces a choice of how aggressively to push the idea.

Even with Democrats controlling both chambers of Congress and the White House, passing a reparations bill could prove difficult. The proposal has languished in Congress for more than three decades, winning fresh attention in 2019 only after Democrats won control of the House.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, who has 173 co-sponsors for her bill, said the descendants of slaves continue to suffer from the legacy of that brutal system and the enduring racial inequality it spawned, pointing to COVID-19 as an example. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that Black people are nearly three times as likely to be hospitalized because of COVID-19 as white people and nearly twice as likely to die from the illness. She offered up her bill as a way to bring the country together.

“The government sanctioned slavery,” Jackson Lee said. “And that is what we need, a reckoning, a healing reparative justice.”

But polling has found long-standing resistance in the U.S. to reparations to descendants of slaves, divided along racial lines. Only 29% of Americans voiced support for paying cash reparations, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll taken in the fall of 2019. Most Black Americans favored reparations, 74%, compared with 15% of white Americans.

Rep. Burgess Owens, a first-term Republican from Utah, argued against a reparations commission. He noted that his great-great-grandfather arrived in America in the belly of a slave ship but went on to escape slavery through the Underground Railroad and become a successful entrepreneur. He criticized the “redistribution of wealth” as a failed government policy.

“Though it is impractical and a nonstarter for the United States government to pay reparations, it is also unfair and heartless to give Black Americans the hope that this is a reality,” Owens said.

Jackson Lee’s bill calls for the commission to examine the practice of slavery as well as forms of discrimination that federal and state governments inflicted on former slaves and their descendants. The commission would then recommend ways to educate the American public of its findings and appropriate remedies.

Kamm Howard, the co-chair of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, called the commission long overdue and said that “many years have been wasted, many lives lost,” since the legislation was first introduced by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., in 1989.

“The goal here is restoration. Where would we as a people be if it were not for 246 years of stolen labor and accompanying horrors, if not for the multiple periods of multibillion-dollar plunder post-enslavement?” Howard said. “We must be made whole.”

Larry Elder, a Black conservative talk radio host, said that African Americans have made tremendous progress economically and socially, noting that Barack Obama was elected twice to the presidency. He claimed that racism has never been less of a significant problem in America than it is now and that reparations would represent one of the greatest transfers of wealth in history. “Figuring out who owes what is going to be a hell of an achievement,” Elder said.

Former NFL star Herschel Walker also spoke in opposition to the commission, saying reparations would create separation and division.

“I feel it continues to let us know we’re still African American rather than just American,” Walker said.

#Biden backs studying reparations as Congress considers bill #Reparations #Biden #Black Freedmen