Not sure if anyone has seen this news, though in the coming days the Senate parliamentary will make a decision on if $15 an hour federal minimum wage can be included in COVID 19 stimulus bill.

The only reason the parliamentary must make a decision is b/c Dems are trying to pass through budget reconciliation which only requires 51 votes instead of the normal 60 votes (w cloture) in the Senate. The caveat to using this method is that the parts included in these budget reconciliation bills must have substantial budgetary impact.

Here’s a bit from the MarketWatch article about the process:

Senate rules require that items in such a bill must have a substantial budget impact that is not “merely incidental” to the language’s main intended purpose.

MacDonough has been meeting with Democrats who have tried convincing her that their minimum wage provision meets that test and with Republicans who have told her it doesn’t. Democrats want to raise the federal floor, fixed at $7.25 hourly since 2009, to $15 over five years.

What do ya folks think about the fate of this portion of the bill being left to a non partisan appointed member of the Senate

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fate-of-federal-15-minimum-wage-rests-in-hands-of-senate-parliamentarian-elizabeth-macdonough-01614276142

As we all know, Donald Trump is no longer the President of the United States and will slowly lose his grip over the party over the next few years. Not a guarantee, though I personally do not think that the Trumps will remain super powerful in the GOP. They will be a valuable endorsement, totally, but not the leaders of the party.

With that said, the Republican party is going to have new people rise up to the top. Going to use this thread for all of us to talk about who we think these people are going to be.

I’ll lay out mine - Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Mike Pence (he’s older but is totally a frontrunner in 2024)

Article out of the WSJ - https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-city-renters-owe-more-than-1-billion-in-unpaid-rent-survey-finds-11610622000

Pretty astounding figure to think about, though it makes sense given the amount of people in NYC that aren’t able to work due to restrictions placed around ensuring that the spread of COVID is lessened. Shows that even though there is tons of money coming from Fed unemploymnet, stimulus payments, and so on and so forth — it’s not enough to get people to handle everything and pay their rent.

Officials from the city are seeking another $1-2B to handle rental assistance for all of these people. Curious on what people think about all of this

Donald Trump has been formally impeached by the House of Representatives for the 2nd time during his Presidency. 10 Republicans crossed over partisan lines and voted with Dems to impeach him.

News reports are saying that Trump is having a hard time finding lawyers to represent him in the next impeachment trial - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-14/trump-struggles-to-build-legal-team-as-impeachment-trial-nears - Lawyers that Republicans typically rely on are privately saying that they’d tarnish themselves by taking on this indefensible action of trying to overturn a democratic election.

SML Mitch McConnell has stated that he will not reconvene the Senate early to bring impeachment to the Senate side. We’ll see what the next session looks like in with Schumer as the majority leader.

Donald Trump now represents half of the total impeachments for all US Presidents.

Some breaking news out of today that I assume everyone has already seen: Hunter Biden, President-Elect Joe Bidens son, is under federal tax investigation relating to his international consulting / business dealings.

We're not really sure exactly how long this investigation has been ongoing, I've heard some reports that it's been open since 2018 but this is the first time the DOJ has said something to the Bidens'.

I'm not a legal expert, though I'm pretty sure that this case was probably open prior to the election. There was no leaks for this particular investigation, and I think if there was it would've been another attack avenue for the whole Hunter Biden corruption thing that the Trump campaign was trying to do.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/09/hunter-biden-under-federal-investigation-over-taxes.html

Thought that the Supreme Courts latest case regarding New York Coronavirus restrictions was important for everyone to hear about:

In a 5-4 decision, decided by ACB (Trumps newest nominee), in a decision favorable to both the Catholic Church and Orthodox Jewish Synagogues. The case surrounds Governor Cuomos order relating to places of worship where he placed a 10 and 25 person occupancy limit. The court said that this violated the first amendment and the majority stated that there was no evidence saying that the applicants contributed to the spread of COVID and that less restrictive rules could have been adopted to minimize the risk to those attending religious services.

John Roberts, the Chief Justice, dissented and voted with the liberal members of the court.

https://www.axios.com/supreme-court-blocks-new-york-covid-restrictions-7d101314-0a06-48c2-ba62-c4fa2e8297bd.html

Emily Murphy, the head of the GSA for the Trump administration, has given the okay to Biden to begin the transition process into the next administration. This clears the way for money and other resources to be given to the Biden campaign to begin filling posts and getting access to intelligence briefings / COVID distributions plans.

Pretty important for Biden to have the info on intelligence and COVID stuff so he isn't learning stuff on the first day.

Donald Trump continues to talk about the fact that he will fight this until the end as he has said that "people love a fighter"

https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-pressure-gsa-to-name-biden-winner-start-transition-11606172086?mod=hp_lead_pos1

Axios put out a great piece today talking about the little bit of a scandal that Trump created last night when he wouldn't straight out say that he condemns White Supremacist groups. Totally a softball question the he should've just nailed, but he was too combative and simply didn't do so.

I'll be summing up some stuff that the article says, will source below. First off, Congressional Republicans have begun pressing Trump to correct the record, and the only thing he has done so far is to say that he doesn't know who the Proud Boys are, though they should stand down. Which is a start, but not enough to heed off the attacks.

In my own personal opinion - How hard is it to say the word "I condemn White Supremacists" -- if you want to go after Biden in another part of the debate then do so, but don't just say that Biden is the only person that does wrong and you are totally in the clear. Clean up the record and then put Biden on the defensive.

I'm personally not very sure on why Chris Wallace decided to ask this question, though what's done is done.

https://www.axios.com/trump-debate-cleanup-proud-boys-9493d9df-5765-41b7-82c3-4232e73ec757.html

Just read this on the WSJ, which is one of the reasons that I'm coming here to talk about this. I think that most people know the case surrounding Taylor, but what's newsworthy about today is that one office was indicted though they weren't indicted on charges directly relating to killiong Taylor. B/c of this, protests and violence has engulfed the city.

Two police officers in Louisville have been shot and are getting treatment in the hospital. Totally not the reaction you'd want to see, though in this day and age I think it's (sadly) expected for this sort of thing to turn to violence.

Thoughts on the situation?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/breonna-taylor-decision-expected-wednesday-11600880814?mod=hp_lead_pos4

Ever since Biden picked Harris to be his VP candidate for the Democrat ticket, there's been two questions in the back of my mind:

Will Kamala satisfy the progressives of the party? Will a Biden/Harris ticket bring out the progressives of the party?

I think yes. I think that the progressives of the party learned their mistake in 2016 by not voting for Clinton. They may have not liked her, but they HATE TRUMP. They may not like Biden and Harris but the progressives of the party HATE TRUMP.

I personally think she won't satisfy the progressives, neither will Biden, but they will swallow their pride and accept them cause they're not Trump.

Any thoughts?

New York state has been probing into the NRA and just announced a lawsuit against the organization. They've cited that the NRA has diveted tens of millions of funds, mismanaged funds, and that they've overall violated their nonprofit status. They've alleged that they've broken a multitude of both state and federal laws. Here are some quotes from the artcle, link will be below.

Among the allegations against the 70-year-old Mr. LaPierre, a national figure who has run the NRA for three decades: That he spent $3.6 million of NRA funds over the last two years on unwarranted travel consultants, flew family members on NRA-paid private jets when he wasn’t aboard and secured a $17 million post-employment contract for himself without board approval.

He also allegedly took eight trips to the Bahamas by private air charter, costing the NRA more than $500,000, according to the press release. Once there, he allegedly often was given the use of a 107-foot yacht owned by an NRA vendor, the release said.

In the lawsuit, the attorney general’s office is seeking restitution from the individual defendants, removal of Mr. LaPierre and the group’s general counsel from their positions, and to have the defendants barred from ever serving again as directors of a New York-registered charity.

The response by the NRA is as follows:

The NRA has strongly defended its governance practices in previous interviews with The Wall Street Journal. NRA attorney William A. Brewer III, at the time the attorney general’s investigation became public in April 2019, said the group “has full confidence in its accounting practices and commitment to good governance.”]

Many know that due to the NRA's influence and partisanship (obviously), this is going to cause a partisan uproar. The President had already chimed in when it was announced and said that it was a terrible thing to hear that this was happening. Some have warned (from the article linked above) that due to the NY AG doing this other states may end up doing the same thing to liberal charities.

Obviously this is politically motivated and the AG cares more about taking down someone as big as the NRA for their own ambition, but I do think that rooting out this sort of bullshit in charities is a good idea. I'd just like to see it done for ALL charities, not just political ones as attacks on the other side.

Most K-12 schools (elementary, middle, and high) and colleges plan to partially reopen in the fall. Students will be moving in the next 2 weeks or so. Schools across the US are instituting STRICT rules relating to how campus life will look in the fall.

These rules include but are not limited to: Not being allowed to leave your dorm, Groups have to be limited to less then 10, Wearing a mask at all times when outside of your room, Dining halls will only allow takeout, no eating inside of the dining hall, and so on and so forth.

Personally -- I think that college students will still party and things along those lines and there will still be outbreaks on campuses. I don't see this as something that will work out as everyone is expecting it to. You can make sure academically that students are forced to social distance, but they're not going to social distance when it comes to the social side of college.

What does everyone think the fall school year is going to bring us in regards to COVID?

Didn't want to go into the spamfest that JackG's thread about masks has turned into -- nothing against ya JackG, just not a fan of posting news/update about something on the 10th page of the thread itself.

But yesterday Donald Trump wore a mask in public for the first time when he was visiting a military hospital regarding the Coronavirus. He hasn't been seen in a mask publicity yet, so this is the first time since the Coronavirus started ravaging the nation that we saw him wearing a mask.

Obviously it was a bit of a media spectacle. But I personally think this is a common tactic used by Trump, which is to divert from the issues that he is currently facing. But if this does get more people to wear masks then so be it.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53378439

Congress and the President have both signaled that they're going to be bringing forth another stimulus package. Yep, that means the money printer is going to be brrrring again.

But in all seriousness, I do want to see what people on this forum/P&S community think about a stimulus package and where they think money should be appropriated.

I'd rather this money go directly to Americans that need this money the most, so I'd much rather direct payments for individuals (under the same thresholds as before) and an expansion of PPL (Paycheck Protection Loans) for small businesses.

What does everyone else think about this?

PS: I think that it is important to talk about the debt and the deficit when it comes to all of this as well. It's crazy to think that just through this Pandemic we've pushed forward a few trillion in stimulus packages that are going to just speed up the expansion of the debt.

[Require all uniformed federal police officers to wear body cameras]

Once I read through a the Democrat plan to reform the police, it does seem like there are some good ideas present there that will help policing. I'll list some of them out below, and explain my thoughts on it.

Require all uniformed federal police officers to wear body cameras  - Nothing wrong here, helps good cops show that some complaints on them are bs and makes sure that bad cops are dealt with swiftly.

Create a National Registry to track police misconduct and use of force - Sounds fine with me, not sure who is going to be able to see this (the public, internal government watchdog, etc) but it sounds fine from an accountability standpoint.

Make it easier to prosecute police misconduct - Yet again, sounds fine, not sure on what the actually legalese ill be for this -- but on the surface it is fine.

I think a major roadblock that we're going to see here is that state and local governments have most of the control when it comes to the law enforcement officials that are typically scrutinized, mostly b/c of the fact that these are the officers that most people are going to interact with at some point. They could use federal funds to incentivize change, though I'm not sure if the constitution allows for the government to mandate the use of bodycams.

There is more to this bill --https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/08/us/politics/democrats-police-misconduct-bill-protests.html -- but I do want to hear what others think about it and what they think should be added, removed, etc.

Before I start on this story, I'd like to address one point that has come up time and time again - While I know that James Mattis (otherwise known as Mad Dog Mattis), Trumps former Secretary of Defense, is thought to have been fired by Trump by many. That isn't true Mattis offered his resignation to Trump and then all Trump did was expedite his departure. Maybe that is a technical firing, but the guy was resigning at first. I don't think this should have anything to do with his criticism of the President though.

Most of Mattis' statement revolved around the fact that he was accusing Trump of not even trying to unite the country together, and was happier with dividing the country against one another during a time of protest. He didn't agree with the way that Trump is using non peaceful means to breakup peaceful protesters. All in all, he pretty much said that Trumps leadership isn't mature, and that it is important for us AS A COUNTRY to unite back together as one or we're going to have issues. Here's some quotes from his speech / statement:

“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,” Mattis writes. “We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.”

“When I joined the military, some 50 years ago,” he writes, “I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.”

Lisa Murkowski offered her support of Mattis' criticism and hinted at the fact that she may not vote for Trump come Novemeber. Crazy, crazy times.

Not surprising to most people, but Anthony Fauci (and some other medical experts) testified remotely in front of the Senate panel for the Coronavirus and stated that they think that a slow reopening of the economy should occur, instead of rushing this. They warned that if we are to reopen too quickly, we're going to face death and illness that is unnecessary.

It's important to point out that when medical experts come to the Senate - and any body - to testify, the information they're going to provide is from a medical point of view. There is no reason for Fauci (or anyone in the medical community) to talk about the effects of this virus on the economy, they shouldn't change their opinion based on the economy. They should inform the public of what they think should be done from a medical point of view, and then we make a decision based on all of the other variables.

I understand the fact that people want the economy to come back, but I think there is going to be a lot of infections and deaths if we go about this too fast.

Another piece of news: California State Colleges/Universities (23 California State Schools) have said that they're going to be online for the fall semester. I'm expecting places that were hit hard like NY to do the same.


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/us/coronavirus-live-news-updates.html

As always: Use this to get around paywalls (https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome)

I've posted about this before on the forums, though it would be helpful to those that are going from website to website finding the newest news on the Coronavirus. Been a few updates on the extension that blocks paywalls on most major news sites. Extension works on both Firefox (through their regular extensions page) and chrome (through developer mode, explained on github)

Great program to use, just updated it recently and it seems to work again on all the sites that I use (WSJ, Ny Times, etc) Here's the link to it - https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome - I'm not the person who created this, the guy on github (Iamadamdev) is. Direct all support and questions to him.

Maybe the title is a bit misleading, but NY Gov Cuomo has ordered that everyone in NY when in public (when unable to follow social distancing guidelines) must wear a mask. This is going to be pretty common on public transportation, grocery stores, some work environments, etc.

NY is getting stricter and stricter with their measures, for good reason, as they're the state that has been hit the hardest when it comes to the coronavirus. Let me know what you guys think about this.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/nyregion/coronavirus-face-masks-andrew-cuomo.html

Just reported on the NY Times first, Bernie Sanders is dropping out of the Democratic primary for President. That leaves Joe Biden to be the presumptive nominee and to begin to unify the party around him. Crazy to think that we've seen Biden become the front runner, then Bernie, and now back to Biden ending up as the nominee. Could've made some good money betting on Biden when he was beginning his downfall!

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/08/politics/bernie-sanders-drops-out/index.html sorry about fake news CNN