Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 376: Pigs in Space

(+) Yeah! (+)

TotallyNotMI posted...

Were Sinema/Manchin involved with this or are they going to kill it?

They're agnostic.

Specifically, I think Manchin has just repeated his stock, "I'm not saying no to anything; looking forward to working with my colleagues."

Sinema complained about $3.5t being too much which is the biggest thorn atm but I'm hoping she's just being difficult for attention's sake and they can just make it like $3.4t so she can act like she ~fiscally responsible~ or something.

On the other hand, Pelosi has said the House won't pass the ~bipartisan~ Senate deal until they hold up their end on reconciliation. Biden initially took this position as well, but Republicans whined at "preconditions" and he walked it back but I'm hoping he still means it in reality. In theory, the progressive caucus in the House could put teeth in Pelosi's threat to not pass the bipartisan one without the companion reconciliation package... if enough House Republicans aren't savvy enough to support it to make up for their ability to deny a majority. Though I'm less worried about that than I am on pressure on the House to pass the bipartisan bill (again, Senate expected to pass it early Tuesday morning, they filed cloture yesterday to limit debate so we're literally just waiting out a 30 hour clock since then for the final vote) compelling them to vote on it before the reconciliation bill is fully passed in the Senate which may take upwards of a month. (Schumer wants them to take the initial vote okaying the topline value of $3.5t with Sanders's instructions to the committees but it's then the individual committees who draft the language to make it all work so it takes time so if you're extremely cynical they could start the reconciliation process then knife the final bill at the last moment way down the line and make it all pointless.)

tl;dr: who knows lol? I think it's likely they'll agree to start the process but the real test could be a month+ away.

As a matter of pragmatism though, I do doubt that Sanders/Schumer would introduce this so formally if they didn't have private assurances from the two that they'll vote to approve the resolution to start things in the very first (of many) vote but while I would believe Manchin on that... Sinema seems to relish being a wild card so idk.

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Down to The Wire: Its Not Over Yet - Computing Forever Archive & Sources

This is rich. How exactly do you fake a global pandemic?

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Dancedreamer posted...

And of course he's a "doctor" which will give him credibility, as if any of the pro-covid people listen to any other doctors saying the exact opposite.

You probably know this based on the air quotes but I can almost never let mention of this go without reminding everyone of the insane fact that Rand Paul is a "doctor" who dropped out of undergrad without completing his degree, got into Duke's School of Medicine (his father attended Duke so lol family admissions) because they didn't require you to have an undergrad degree at the time.

Then he created his own board, named his own family to the board of directors, and had it certify him.

I guess to be totally fair I'll mention he was, at one point, certified by a legit board (he got mad at them and split off to make his own board that was never recognized by anyone credible) but let it lapse a long time ago and KY doesn't actually require you to be board certified to practice so it didn't affect him.

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Well here's an answer to "how will you get people on board with things"

https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/1424798455973695491?s=19

Turns out it's just coercion! Lmao

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https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/09/politics/defense-department-vaccine-mandate/index.html

Should be sooner, but great!

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https://twitter.com/tylerdinucci/status/1424886861986635797?s=21

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hot senate crytpo update

Both amendments failed and so the original language of the bill that hyperbolically "accidentally bans crypto" is what will be in the bill (which had its final passage time moved from 3 AM to 11 AM Tuesday)

But the real reason I'm giving you this update? The reason why that is.

Senator Shelby (R-AL) tanked it because the rest of the Senate wouldn't agree to his amendment to add additional military spending to the bill so he took the crypto amendments down with him:

https://twitter.com/tysonbrody/status/1424836170425511938

what a twist

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Just to be clear on what I'm reading, Tony.

Both of those are instances where someone tried to sockpuppet, but forgot to log out of their primary Twitter account?

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~Bipartisan~ Infrastructure Bill passes the Senate 69-30

also lmao update on that shelby crypto thing. He straight up admitted it! He was for the crypto amendment he blocked - he was just throwing a tantrum because they wouldn't give him his more military spending amendment so if he wasn't getting his he didn't want them to get theirs!

https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1425119367826661377

"greatest deliberative body in the world" at work

Edit: Oh wow, Schumer literally wasting no time moving to reconciliation. Literally a sentence acknowledging the result of that vote before immediately calling for the vote to start the reconciliation process. Harris in the chamber.

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Cuomo resigns as Governor of New York.

Well, I guess I have to eat my words on that. I was convinced his ego would keep him from doing so and would force the legislature to impeach and remove him.

Took far too long, but good riddance.

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so what exacty does the bill do that bans crypto?


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masterplum posted...

so what exacty does the bill do that bans crypto?

Probably best to wait for those who are better informed on crypto than I but my understanding is that the original language of the bill (which just passed the Senate) identifies miners (and others in crypto) as "brokers" and therefore subject to tax reporting requirements. Because they are now required by law to submit a 1099 they find themselves in a position where, lacking customers, they lack access to the information necessary to actually complete the form.

FWIW, the Biden administration says they don't intend to impose the reporting requirements on miners but yeah.

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masterplum posted...

so what exacty does the bill do that bans crypto?

Makes it impossible to run stake pools "legally" in the United States because you're responsible for reporting everyone else's contributions to it among other obnoxious things.

I don't expect this to stick because the people responsible for it are going to be out of their jobs soon but it's disgusting that this was thrown into an infrastructure bill by the unelected corporate bank shill Janet Yellin who was appointed by Joe Biden.

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The fact that literally Ted Cruz is the only one who said something prescient and intelligent about the crypto provision should tell you all you need to know about those who support it.

I can't imagine getting out-dueled by fucking Ted Cruz on any issue. Should be immediate grounds for losing your job

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xp1337 posted...

~Bipartisan~ Infrastructure Bill passes the Senate 69-30

Nice.

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Senate votes 50-49 to begin debate on the $3.5t reconciliation package (or to be technical to begin debate on the budget resolution - as I've said previously this isn't a fast process there's a bunch of annoying steps to go through but this is Step 1)

Rounds is the R Senator who was absent and missed the vote (and infrastructure week) but Harris was around just in case I guess?

Well, technically they haven't gavelled the vote but it's been at 50-49 for like 20 minutes and on C-SPAN the room is like totally vacant except for the staffers at the center table.

Edit: Voted officially passed. Sanders talking now but sounds like technical stuff like having to ask for unanimous consent to allow use of calculators on the Senate floor lmfao how is this a real place. Okay, now he's talking policy.

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So despite doing everything in his power to spread covid in his state, Abbott is now asking for out of state help at hospitals because of the surge.

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FFDragon posted...

So despite doing everything in his power to spread covid in his state, Abbott is now asking for out of state help at hospitals because of the surge.

And still doubling down on executive orders banning schools and localities from implementing a mask mandate.

...while requiring anyone at the governor's mansion to get a temperature check and "strongly recommending" a mask.

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More evidence for my crypto is a cult hypothesis

https://twitter.com/ne0liberal/status/1425097406245388298?s=21

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opinions about crypto itself aside, people who make crypto currency their identity are just the biggest bummer people on the internet

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LordoftheMorons posted...

More evidence for my crypto is a cult hypothesis

https://twitter.com/ne0liberal/status/1425097406245388298?s=21

I'm as pro-crypto as you can possibly get and I had to double-take there

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... the fuck

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altho having read the entire thread it's actually v reminiscent of the "everything Trump's doing is Hitler" crowd we had to listen to for the last four years lol

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Thats crazy as hell, but is it REALLY that much crazier than this shit?

https://twitter.com/jack/status/1424854924194729984?s=21

This is likewhat the fuck are you talking about?

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It's basically larping.

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So last month a bunch of Texas Dems went to Washington to prevent Republicans from passing a voter suppression law and get the federal government to do something. Wonder how that's going.

https://twitter.com/ben_c_rowen/status/1425129417383219203?s=19

Ah.

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Crypto should be banned before more low-IQ morons lose their life savings in what is ultimately a legal pyramid scheme. It's telling that not a single intelligent person I know IRL has drank the crypto kool-aid. Crypto bros are the same people that all lost money "investing in weed" when Canada legalized it.

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No intelligent people would ever keep you in their circle, BT.

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Well, fuck. This is not encouraging for how the reconciliation bill will proceed.

https://twitter.com/burgessev/status/1425185231930380293

Sinema joins the GOP to defeat (49-50) an amendment to the reconciliation package to "establish a reserve fund relating to protecting family farms, ranches, and small businesses while ensuring the wealthy pay their fair share."

Like... why would you even? Tester is cool with it. Manchin is cool with it. But no.

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There is never ever an excuse for any democratic senator to be to the right of fucking Joe Manchin.

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Sinema already said that she is fine with the reconciliation bill, as long as they drop the 3.5T price.

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It's beyond baffling to me that being against protecting family farms and ranches would be a right-wing opinion

You would think farmers and rural voters would be unhappy with that vote

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Dave Cullen is still convinced the whole pandemic is a ploy by globalists to force people to obey big government. Um, okay. He also cites how people were told in March of last year how it would take just two weeks to flatten the curve.

Surely there's only so much world governments could pretend there's a pandemic before people find out it's not real right?

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Friend on facebook is blaming the vaccine for the Delta variant and saying that people should not get the vaccine or we will just get deadlier mutations.

Also insists the FDA will never approve the vaccines and are hiding serious side effects

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It still blows my mind how mentally deficient anti-vaxxers can be so uninformed/misinformed as to the very basic facts of how a virus operates.

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Maniac64 posted...

Friend on facebook is blaming the vaccine for the Delta variant and saying that people should not get the vaccine or we will just get deadlier mutations.

Also insists the FDA will never approve the vaccines and are hiding serious side effects

The idea that the FDA could be hiding serious side effects is pretty funny.

Like half of the country has this thing, if there were serious side effects it would be pretty visible to everyone.

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Oh yeah Dave Cullen also cited how the vaccine "doesn't work like a vaccine". I don't know, it seems to be working fairly like a vaccine to me, at least given how contagious the virus apparently is.

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The ratio of unvaccinated deaths to vaccinated deaths seems like it has an impact.

But like, even if you believe "the vaccine causes the delta variant", which is crazy...the Delta Variant is killing unvaccinated people. So like, get the damn vaccine to save yourself anyways?

Either it's a real vaccine with real positive effects, in which case you should get it.
Or it's a false vaccine that is causing an illness that kills people who don't get it... in which case you should get it.

For the record that theory is completely insane and I do not support it in the slightest. But even allowing myself to suspend the enormous amount of disbelief, I can't find the logic behind their anti vaccine stance.

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Forceful_Dragon posted...

The ratio of unvaccinated deaths to vaccinated deaths seems like it has an impact.

But like, even if you believe "the vaccine causes the delta variant", which is crazy...the Delta Variant is killing unvaccinated people. So like, get the damn vaccine to save yourself anyways?

Either it's a real vaccine with real positive effects, in which case you should get it.
Or it's a false vaccine that is causing an illness that kills people who don't get it... in which case you should get it.

For the record that theory is completely insane and I do not support it in the slightest. But even allowing myself to suspend the enormous amount of disbelief, I can't find the logic behind their anti vaccine stance.

There is some logic behind it, but the conclusion is stupid. The vaccines are doing a very good job of killing the non-Delta variants. Thus, they are giving an evolutionary advantage to Delta over the earlier variants. Delta has major evolutionary advantages over the earlier variants whether or not vaccines exist (and started in a country with very low vaccination rates at the time) so it would in all likelihood have displaced them eventually anyway, but the vaccines have accelerated this process by killing the earlier variants.

But the problem is, even if we accept the premise that the vaccines don't work against Delta at all (and the evidence is they do reduce the transmission rate a lot and they reduce the risk of serious illness almost to zero), would you rather have (a) X cases with 90% of them being Delta or would you rather have (b) 2X cases with 45% of them being Delta? (a) is obviously better, but the people expressing this view are going to be ignoring that.

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From what I gathered his argument was basically:
A) we dont even know what the FDA hasn't disclosed that is preventing it from getting approved so its risky to get it.

But more importantly
B) the mutations happen because people get vaccinated and the virus wants to survive. Therefore the more vaccinations the more likely it will evolve into something that completely defeats the vaccine and is way more deadly. So we are better off not getting vaccinated and trying to survive the current less deadly version of COVID rather than getting vaccinated and later getting the way more deadly super COVID that ignores the vaccine.

This all started because Facebook fact checked a video he posted sayi ng masks and vaccines dont work. He super anti-fact checkers

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Senate passes the $3.5t budget resolution 50-49. (Once the House passes this, it means the work of drafting the actual package goes to the committees so we're still like over a month out from final passage but we'll be getting something then - just a matter of how much Manchin/Sinema (or the parliamentarian) trim it down)

There were a bunch more of silly Manchin/Sinema defection votes on amendments leading up to it, but - and I probably should have stressed it earlier - those amendments are non-binding so in theory they don't matter at all. I just couldn't even fathom Sinema's objection on the farm one which is why I posted it.

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Maniac64 posted...

From what I gathered his argument was basically:
A) we dont even know what the FDA hasn't disclosed that is preventing it from getting approved so its risky to get it.

But more importantly
B) the mutations happen because people get vaccinated and the virus wants to survive. Therefore the more vaccinations the more likely it will evolve into something that completely defeats the vaccine and is way more deadly. So we are better off not getting vaccinated and trying to survive the current less deadly version of COVID rather than getting vaccinated and later getting the way more deadly super COVID that ignores the vaccine.

This all started because Facebook fact checked a video he posted sayi ng masks and vaccines dont work. He super anti-fact checkers

This argument presumes that variants that are more vaccine-resistant are also more deadly to unvaccinated people. Obviously variants that are more vaccine-resistant are more deadly to vaccinated people, but that's precisely because they resist vaccines. If the solution is to not use vaccines, that won't be relevant.

I would agree that a stable equilibrium would be something like where the flu has gotten over the last 100 years - very high case counts but low mortality. This is an equilibrium that works for both humans and the flu. And flu vaccines do not appear to have caused the flu virus to evolve to be deadlier - to evade the vaccines, yes, but not to be deadlier for the unvaccinated.

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Regarding the reconciliation bill, has anyone heard if any of the climate provisions survived the Senate? I think there was a clean energy standard in there with fines for having less renewable energy and tax credits for clean energy but it's pretty tough to find info. But I'll keep an eye out since it's an ongoing process.

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Regarding the reconciliation bill, has anyone heard if any of the climate provisions survived the Senate? I think there was a clean energy standard in there with fines for having less renewable energy and tax credits for clean energy but it's pretty tough to find info. But I'll keep an eye out since it's an ongoing process.

\()/

Impossible to know, the bill hasn't been drafted yet.

Quick rundown of how budget reconciliation works:

1. The Senate (or House) introduces a budget resolution that essentially allocates x number of dollars to various committees and gives them "instructions" on how it wants them to use it.
2. Then there's an absolute fuck ton of amendments offered, usually by the minority party because this is a rare instance where they must be voted on and can't be killed with procedural motions so they can offer up troll amendments that must be voted on. There was one about condemning defund the police offered here, for instance. These amendments are non-binding in almost all cases and this process goes on until literally Senators stop offering them up.
3. Senate has a final vote on the budget resolution.
4. It goes to the House (or vice versa if it started there) <-- We are here
5. Once it has passed both chambers the various committees draft the actual language of the bill based on their domain and the instructions they were given. (So I'm making up numbers here but maybe Judiciary gets $100b and is told to spend it in such a way to provide a path to citizenship, environment is given $400b and told to find a way to promote clean energy, penalize polluters, and idk improve fuel efficiency standards. I'm making this stuff up for this example you can check the actual text to see what instructions they were given) The sum of all this allocated money is the topline of the $3.5t we talk about
6. When they're all done it gets rolled into the overall reconciliation package
7. The Senate has the Byrd rule where the only things that can pass by a 50+VP vote are matters that "directly affect the budget." If the parliamentarian rules a provision does not do so, it requires 60 votes again or else it is struck from the bill (barring an override of the parliamentarian of course. In this bill, I know some observers think the immigration directions in the package might fall prey to this.)
8. Once that is all done with the bill is finalized and the Senate votes and needs only 50+VP to pass. There might be some last minute amendments offered here if votes need to be corralled because, say, Manchin or Sinema don't like what one of the committees did. Sometimes they work this out in the drafting stage, sometimes they only start hand-wringing here at the end.
9. Then the House votes on it (technically they have their own version and if they find the Senate version has been unacceptably altered they can try and fight it out here but because the Senate is the fucking worst they usually have to accept what they've been given at this point or risk blowing the whole bill up and nothing passing)
10. Once both chambers pass it, it goes to Biden.

AFAIK the climate provisions are intact but even if some weird amendments passed in yesterday's vote-a-rama about them, they should be non-binding regardless. We won't know what actual climate stuff is being done and how until the legislation is drafted... which probably won't happen until September I think.

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Maniac64 posted...

B) the mutations happen because people get vaccinated and the virus wants to survive.

I know the people in here know this, but thats not how evolution works

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Im not even entirely sure what hes asking for here? Mob justice against the cop? We know who he is sure sounds like a threat

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The fact that pretty much every single variant of concern can be traced back to a third world country with low sanitation and low levels of vaccination should be proof enough that the vaccines prevent new variants. A virus will mutate when it is allowed to replicate unchecked through a large population

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Jakyl25 posted...

I know the people in here know this, but thats not how evolution works

well, that segment is fine, anthroporphism aside. Vaccines add selective pressure towards developing a strain that resists the vaccine, similar (but I suppose not identical) to how antibiotic resistant bacteria emerge. That doesn't at all imply that the new strains would be more deadly or contagious, which is where the argument entirely fails. And of course that consequence is only relevant to people who actually take the vaccine, it's unlikely that the virus would mutate enough core features to largely evade the vaccine in the near future, it wouldn't be difficult to develop a new vaccine for strains with new features, and decreasing infected biomass (by the population taking vaccines, for example) decreases the opportunities it has to mutate at all, for the benefit of everyone

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