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2021-01-21

This article details the $19 million dollars in aid Arkansas' capital received from the federal government. As part of the American Rescue Plan, many larger cities are receiving direct aid from the federal government and Little Rock previously received $18.8 million in May of 2021. The city has decided to allocate much of the funds to improving public works, renovations, and policing. It is interesting to see just how excessively covid impacted cities and the extreme necessity of federal aid. It is particularly beneficial when state legislatures have failed to provide money for needed refurbishment. However, payouts such as this begs the question: who will pay?

This is a collage of pictures which relate to various notable events during the COVID-19 Pandemic: the inauguration of Joe Biden, The Capital Riots, and the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. There is also a picture of a Gamestop building in the collage.

2021-01-29

Four Wensdays in January

This is a meme my friend shared in our discord, it recounts the absolute insanity that was January of 2021. The first image is of the failed coup attempt by enraged Trump supporters, white supremacists and fascists; who all stormed the capitol building with little to no resistance. While inside, they defaced the building, broke into offices and hunted for Vice President Mike Pence to hang for ‘betraying’ Donald Trump. The second photo came in response, depicting speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi holding the article of impeachment for Donald Trump. While it was argued that this was a pointless endeavor as Trump was virtually leaving office in a week, the main goal for impeachment was to prohibit Donald Trump from holding office ever again. The third image is the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States, this event was made possible by the presence of the national guard, where 21,000 soldiers were deployed to make sure nothing as similar as January 6th could occur. The streets were empty as roadblocks and military utility trucks cordoned off the area, massive fences were erected surrounding the structure and soldiers patrolled the area. Largely, it was believed there was going to be nationwide attacks on several capitol structures throughout the nation in response – yet nothing of substance happened. The final image, and my favorite, would be the assault on Wall Street. This is an insane story, so I’m going to be a little less formal but this is an incredibly significant event, it is an instance of effective class-warfare. I’m not going to explain stocks, but essentially what happened is hedge fund investors made a bet that GameStop would fail, they took several ‘shorts’ out on this company to profit from this bet – however, redditors on r/wallstreetbets caught wind of this and thought “what would happen if their bet was wrong,” they began investing heavily into the company, raising its value, and as a result, costing the hedge fund billionaires thousands. These thousands in losses became millions, then billions, as more and more working class and middle class people threw themselves onto the market, to eat the rich. It wasn’t about profit, about making a return, it was a message. Eventually, this fiasco showed Americans that there essentially is no such thing as the ‘free-market,’ as these large hedge funds began blocking people from purchasing stock, forcibly selling peoples stock, using their own funds to facilitate an artificial ‘scare.’ People lost so much after the initial manipulation, but it proved that the market was only free for the rich, that once anyone else began to emulate the fraudulent strategies of the wealthy elite, they would be struck down. This is currently on going, but I cannot stress enough – it is not about money, it’s about sending a message that people are done. It’d be funny if the federal government intervened on behalf of wall-street by bailing them out, before sending out those measly 2k stimulus cheques. For the archive, this photo represents the pace in which everything moved in 2021, and the absolute absurdity of where we are today. To think, when this began we were planning on a few weeks at home, we’d make sour dough bread, then we began missing our friends and family’s – then we were in the streets marching for civil rights, and the ability for people not to be murdered by police because of the colour of their skin, fascists stormed the government, the ex-president is being impeached, again, now we’re trying to destroy Wall Street, this pandemic is absolutely wild.

2020-11-02

Wooing Senior Citizens During an Election

Trump and Biden are fighting for the senior citizen vote in swing states. It’s an interesting story about senior citizens playing a major role in the 2020 election during a pandemic.

2020-11-04

Election stealing shenanigans

I made this meme in reference to the 138,000 fraudulent ballots that the Democratic Party dumped into Detroit, Michigan at 3:30 AM on November 4th, giving Joe Biden his “victory” in the state. This represents their carelessness in not releasing the votes slowly and instead dumping them all at once, alerting everyone to the obvious fraud at play.

2020-10-13

New Economic Relief Bill in the Works?

After months of talks about a second economic stimulus bill, one might finally make it to the senate floor. Democrats and Republicans have been fighting for months about the specific goal of this second stimulus. More economically conservative Republicans want a smaller, more targeted relief focused on helping small businesses. Both Democrats and President Trump have said that they want more relief, however Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats worry that a second stimulus bill could give President Trump an edge in the upcoming election. A second bill is unlikely to come until either after election day or after the Presidential Inauguration in January 2021 if Joe Biden is victorious.

2020-10-12

HERMIT HERALD VOL 1 ISSUE 69

World's a stage

2020-10-06

Approaching another Civil War?

A friend took this picture of her neighbors’ house. It’s a duplex shared by two families- one that supports Trump and one that supports Biden. It’s hard to ignore the feeling of impending civil war here in the US these days. The political polarization only continues to get worse. It’s starting to seem like no matter what the result of the Nov 2020 election is, this division will not be remedied. Perhaps the worst part is that preserving the union doesn’t even seem as important as escaping “the other half.” The only thing that makes me want to work to keep the country together (not that I can make much difference) is the fact that there are vulnerable folks living in Red states who would be made even more vulnerable if the Blue states left the union or joined Canada or whatever other flippant solutions are bandied about.

2020-10-05

Joe Biden says Trump bears responsibility for Covid-19 Infection

The article talks about how during the presidential debate, how Donald Trump refused to wear a mask and not just during the debate, but other instances where he didn’t use a mask because he didn’t find it necessary. Some people believe that Trump is to blame for some of the infection of Covid-19 because of the example he set, not wearing a mask. The article is pretty neutral between both parties, but leans more to the left. The article reveals that because of President Trump not always wearing a mask, he has given people a mindset that a mask isn’t always needed, which caused controversy between the two parties. It also reveals that since Trump being diagnosed with Covid-19 as well as the First Lady, proves that a mask is beneficial for the spread of the virus. It is important because it shows both parties beliefs about wearing a mask. It was shared that President Trump only sometimes chooses to wear a mask, and Joe Biden finds it more important and beneficial to take that step. The responsibility of the media during the pandemic is to inform the people of what decisions need to be made by the government, for the benefit of the citizens. It is important for the government to be transparent and honest with the people of the United States, and they should be responsible for the communication between the Leaders and the citizens of the US.

2020-10-01

President Donald Trump Confirmed to have COVID

Just a few days after the presidential debate with Joe Biden, President Donald Trump has coronavirus. This is a screenshot of my twitter feed.

2020-09-27

Hermit HERALD VOL 1 ISSUE 66

Bloomberg $100MM to Florida

2020-10-01

President Gets Covid

The President of the United States gets covid. As an old man this is tense, but we all know he gets the best medical treatment. I wonder how this will develop over the next few days and week!

2020-07-04

2020: A lifetime in a year... and we aren't even done yet...

2020 could have an entire history book unto itself. So much has happened this year... Obviously, the big stories everyone is familiar with; BLM protests, Covid19, Wildfires literally EVERYWHERE, but what about the smaller, but just as important stories that get overshadowed? For example, on Feb 6th, Christina Koch, a NASA astronaut, returned to Earth after 328 days in space, the most days completed by any woman ever, and I bet you don't even remember hearing about it. Thats why I though this time line would be a good addition to the archive. It helps put the events of the year (as of July 4th) in an easy to read format to help us all remember everything that happened this year. Hopefully, the back half of the year is much less eventful, but I doubt it.

2020-08-10

Explore the Archives

De-Stressing Options

Mutations

HERMIT HERALD, ISSUE 146

Little Rock and Relief