Weeks after hurricanes Helene and Milton, Florida businesses and their employees are still paying a staggering toll, reports Tampa Bay Times. According to claims business owners have voluntarily filed with the state, $350 million in damages have been reported statewide. More than half was concentrated in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, covering nearly 2,000 businesses, making them the hardest hit in Florida. As of Nov. 1, damages had forced about 2,300 people across those counties out of work temporarily. Another 700 had lost their jobs permanently.
Word is that Kash Patel is a MAGA-mad, vindictive kook,
And getting him confirmed is going to be a real donnybrook.
But kids might be safer to have the guy
Running a vengeance campaign at the FBI
Than sitting down to write another children’s picture book.
“As President-elect Donald Trump fills out his Cabinet and chooses his closet advisers ahead of Inauguration Day, many African American leaders are asking why more Black people haven’t been appointed to key positions.”
“If you defended the 34x felon, who committed sexual assault, stole national security documents, and tried running a coup on his country… you can sit out the Hunter Biden pardon discussion.”
“The only reason to nominate someone like Patel to run the FBI is to commit impeachable abuses of power. Trump makes no secret that this is, in fact, his purpose. Patel is similarly explicit on the point. Yet the Senate might very well confirm the man once Trump removes the incumbent FBI director and nominates Patel to replace him. … If it actually does so, would that constitute ‘consent’ to impeachable offenses?”
Trump has nominated at least 10 billionaires (or billionaire spouses) to cabinet positions and other top roles, making the incoming presidential team the wealthiest in history. Just his cabinet nominees are collectively worth more than $9 billion, according to New York Magazine. Though Biden’s cabinet is also a moneyed persons club, its wealth amounted to just $118 million in 2021, per Forbes.
“If you want to rub elbows with President-elect Donald Trump and his incoming administration during inaugural celebrations, it’ll cost you — between half a million and $2 million, specifically,” USA Today reports.
America’s job market rebounded in November, adding 227,000 workers in a solid recovery from the previous month, when the effects of strikes and hurricanes had sharply diminished employers’ payrolls, reported the Associated Press. Last month’s hiring growth was up considerably from a meager gain of 36,000 jobs in October. The government also revised up its estimate of job growth in September and October by a combined 56,000.
“Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, spent over a quarter of a billion dollars in the final months of this year’s election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, federal filings revealed on Thursday,” the New York Times reports. “The sum is a fraction of Mr. Musk’s wealth. But it is nonetheless a staggering amount from a single donor, who poured the cash into allied groups and is now playing a role in helping shape the next administration.”
“Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun invested $30 million in President-elect Donald Trump’s crypto project three weeks after the election, helping Trump make a potentially hefty profit,” the Washington Post reports. “Sun, who recently made headlines for buying, then eating, a $6 million banana art piece, is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission on charges of fraud, market manipulation and other alleged violations.”