> totalling almost $2 billion. The LAPD's budget for one fiscal year is larger than most country's GDPs
In case anyone was curious, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... suggests that ~17 countries have a GDP of less than $2 billion per year. Seeing as how there are 193+ countries, this means that the LAPD budget exceeds the GDP of fewer than 10% of countries. (The median country GDP is ~$50 billion per year.)
For some extra context: while these 17 countries include some very poor countries, the primary reason that they have such small GDPs is their small population. Their combined population is approximately the same as the city of Los Angeles.
> Moreover, there's no good-faith way to call [Medicare] "welfare".
For some context, Wikipedia says:
> In the United States, depending on the context, the term "welfare" ... can also include social insurance programs such as unemployment insurance, Social Security, and Medicare.
In case anyone is curious, the $1 is the increase in the maximum SNAP benefit per month for an individual, from $291/month to $292/month. (The increases for larger households are similarly small.)
This is not the actual increase of the benefit amount. In particular, it appears the cost of living adjustment this year is 2.5%. I have been unable to find statistics on how many people/households actually receive the maximum amount, but I don't have a particular reason to believe it is large. (The average benefit amounts are significantly below the maxima.)
Tldr: the average SNAP benefit amount received by people has increased and will increase by significantly more than $1/month.
In case anyone was curious, the following text is from the section of the article discussing "violent crime":
> Burglary is generally considered a property crime, but an array of state and federal laws classify burglary as a violent crime in certain situations, such as when it occurs at night, in a residence, or with a weapon present. So even if the building was unoccupied, someone convicted of burglary could be punished for a violent crime and end up with a long prison sentence and “violent” record.
The article does not state this explicitly, but it suggests that someone who burgles a residence at night with a weapon should not have a long prison sentence, if the residence turned out to be unoccupied. (Perhaps even if it was occupied but the occupants were not "physically harmed"?)
> There were millions of years without ice caps even
In case anyone was curious, this is a significant understatement. It is currently believed that the Earth had no ice caps for its first 2 billion years, before the Huronian glaciation, and then again no ice caps for another ~1.5 billion years.
During the 111th Congress, from the appointment of Al Franken until the death of Ted Kennedy, as well as during the term of his appointed successor Paul G. Kirk, the Democratic party held 58 seats in the Senate and caucused together with 2 more senators.
There were conservative democrats such as Manchin and leiberman who beleived their constituents weren't in favor of abortion rights. A straight party line vote on abortion rights wasn't going to happen. There were also republicans in more urban states that knew the majority of their constituents favored abortion, but because they were worried about being primaried they wouldn't vote for abortion rights.
Sure but the possibility of getting dem senators from red states to vote for abortion was extremely, extremely unlikely. Republicans tend to stick together but Democrats do not on these slim "majorities". Check out Manchin and Senema, they are essentially moderate republicans despite their party affiliation. They are heavily sponsored by right wing corps and PACS.
Please do not consider this comment to be commentary on the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, especially considering the situation at the nursing home in Washington state.
Out of curiosity, I tried to find examples where many people died of a flu outbreak in nursing homes. Here are some articles I found:
I guess one thing would be, this was likely the first acute care nursing home hit which may be closer to taking a random sample of what it would do to any given one (though community spread wasn't known about yet, and later ones may have rapid tests available to limit spread and enforce quarantine). Whereas those are probably the worst hit of many. This one seems to be possibly 20 or so of 140 as well (testing not done yet), but the 9/60 case would still be worse.
For some context in case anyone was curious, it seems that approximately 1 in 30 of people worldwide live outside the country of their birth. (Of these, approximately 1 in 10 are forcibly displaced.) Also, "the largest international migratory flow from a single country of origin to a single country of destination is the 12.7 million Mexicans living in the United States"; this flow alone is approximately 1 in 600 people worldwide.
In case anyone was curious, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... suggests that ~17 countries have a GDP of less than $2 billion per year. Seeing as how there are 193+ countries, this means that the LAPD budget exceeds the GDP of fewer than 10% of countries. (The median country GDP is ~$50 billion per year.)
For some extra context: while these 17 countries include some very poor countries, the primary reason that they have such small GDPs is their small population. Their combined population is approximately the same as the city of Los Angeles.
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