Paycheck Guarantee Act – Current Democrat Caucus Talks

(note: no bill name on record, after details finalized, might be entered as amendment to HR 268 or HR 2740 which had passed the House and “inactive”)

Pelosi signals support for massive new payroll subsidies as small-business loan fund nears expiration

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/pelosi-signals-support-for-massive-new-payroll-subsidies-as-small-business-loan-fund-nears-expiration-2020-05-05?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a virtual roundtable with small-business owners and advocacy organizations Tuesday afternoon as the federal government’s program for supporting businesses with fewer than 500 employees was well on its way to exhausting the roughly $640 billion Congress has allocated to it so far.

The speaker said that she was working closely with fellow Democrats on efforts to reform the Paycheck Protection Program to ensure greater transparency and greater access by the smallest of small businesses, but she also stressed that Congress should be “expanding support beyond PPP to provide more resources” to the tens of millions of small businesses impacted by the COVID-19 epidemic, urging small-business owners to support a sweeping Paycheck Guarantee Act that would reimburse employers of all types and sizes for payroll and benefit costs.

The Paycheck Protection Program offers small businesses low-interest loans to cover two months of payroll and other expenses that can be forgiven in proportion to the level of pre-crisis employment maintained as of June 30. The loans are backed by the Small Business Administration, but originated by private banks, and the program has been dogged by accusations that banks were serving their largest and longest-standing clients first, leaving the smallest businesses and those most in need without access to aid.

Data from the Small Business Administration shows the average loan size has fallen to $79,000 after Congress authorized a second round of funding for the program late last month, down from $206,000 in the first.

Nevertheless, if new loan issuance maintains last week’s pace, the SBA will be set to exhaust new funding by Friday, when it will have issued roughly 5.6 million loans, which may not be nearly enough to meet the need for the 30 million small businesses operating across the country. A poll released Tuesday by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce showed that 47% of small business, or 14 million firms, say a PPP loan is critical to keeping their businesses open.

“There is an obvious need for continued financial support,” Neil Bradley, executive vice president and chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told MarketWatch.

Whether small businesses can expect more support of any kind remains an open question. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has expressed wariness over enacting new spending measures after Congress has already allocated nearly $3 trillion, and he and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy put out a joint statement Friday that they would not support another coronavirus bill unless it provided liability protection for businesses hoping to operate amid the coronavirus epidemic, a measure Democrats have said they would oppose.

Pelosi appears set to organize her caucus around a new bill that champions Democratic priorities, including a proposal by Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington that would authorize the Treasury Department to reimburse employers for 100% of their payroll and benefit costs up to $100,000 per employee as an incentive for all businesses, states and localities to maintain their pre-crisis levels of employment. A similar proposal in the Senate has been championed by Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, and others.

Pelosi urged small-business leaders on the call to make their voices heard if they “believe the Jayapal-Warner idea is a good one, because the road from 3 million to 30 million is a long one,” referring to the gap between PPP loans issued and the potential need on the part of small businesses.

There were still glimmers of bipartisanship Tuesday, with Democratic Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado and Republican Senator Todd Young of Indiana proposing a new initiative called the RESTART program aimed at providing longer-term support to small businesses.

>>9047523

Vegans Have Poorer Mental Health

(sputniknews often has a good article_

Vegans, Vegetarians Tend to Have Poorer Mental Health Than Meat Eaters, Study Finds

https://sputniknews.com/society/202005051079207929-those-with-vegan-vegetarian-diets-tend-to-have-poorer-mental-health-than-meat-eaters—study/

A new meta-analysis examining the link between the consumption or avoidance of meat and psychological health and well-being has found that a majority of studies observed showed an association between abstention from eating meat and poorer psychological health.

“Dietary choices have been a powerful indicator of social class and subsequent mate selection (e.g., whom we marry) since antiquity. Consequently, ‘what we eat’ and ‘how we eat’ are integral parts of our identity and directly influence our health via physiological, social, and psychological pathways,” Dr. Urska Dobersek, author of the study and an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Southern Indiana, told PsyPost.

“Therefore, given the dramatic surge in veganism and mental illness over the past two decades, a rigorous systematic review was a necessary first step in examining the relations between meat and mental health.”

The systematic review, published in the journal Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition on April 20, included an analysis of 18 studies, with a total of 160,257 participants represented from “multiple geographic regions.” Of the 85,843 women and 73,232 men examined, 149,559 were identified as meat-consumers, and 8,584 were meat-abstainers.

According to research findings, 11 of the 18 studies showed an association between meat abstention and poorer psychological health. Four of the studies analyzed exhibited an equivocal association, and the remaining three studies showed that those who abstained from meat had better psychological health.

Researchers contended that their findings show there is “clear evidence” that meat-abstainers tended to have greater rates of depression, self-harm and anxiety than their meat-eating counterparts.

Dobersek stressed to PsyPost that “correlation does not imply a causal relation” and went on to provide a number of examples to make sense of the findings, such as “individuals struggling with mental illness may alter their diets as a form of self-treatment; vegan and strict vegetarian diets may lead to nutrient deficiencies that increase the risk of mental illness; and many individuals with eating disorders use veganism and vegetarianism as a ‘cover’ to hide their illness.”

Overall, the analysis did not support the idea that avoiding meat was a good strategy to improve one’s psychological health.

> > > Gates is an Idiot

S Korean National Intelligence Service Says 'No Signs' Kim Jong-un Received Heart Surgery

https://sputniknews.com/asia/202005061079209332-s-korean-national-intelligence-service-says-no-signs-kim-jong-un-received-heart-surgery—yonhap/

After weeks of Kim Jong Un's absence that caused speculations on his health, the North Korean leader reappeared in public on 1 May alive and well.

The National Intelligence Service of South Korea rejected the suggestions that Kim Jong-un had undergone heart surgery, saying that "Kim Jong-un's health abnormality is absurd" and there are "no signs of heart surgery", according to South Korean state-run news agency Yonhap.

Earlier on 1 May, Kim Jong-un appeared in public for the opening ceremony of a new fertilizer plant in Sunchon, finishing his almost month-long absence that caused speculations on his health.

The rumours about Kim's "heart surgery" emerged in early April when the leader failed to attend the anniversary of his grandfather's birthday, fueled by the reports that he had undergone a heart surgery that put him in "grave danger".

At the time, a senior official at the South Korean presidency was cited by Yonhap as saying that Seoul believed that there was no evidence to suggest that the North Korean leader had undergone heart surgery, regardless of what media reports said.

>>9047576

>>9047848

The Junkyard News is a great SoCal Patriot, striving to keep law enforcement accountable for their conduct. He shares clips such as this as well as his own First Amendment Audit work.

God Bless and Protect all those working toward fair and equal treatment under the law, and no one is above the law.

>>9047595

C_A rehersal for the Democratic National Convention

one of the twitter replies

https://twitter.com/lolafra23730685/status/1257892129923190786