So the CPAC went as you would expect, Trump in full authoritarian mode calling out his enemies (Repulicans who voted for impeachment) by name and telling his supporters to go after them in the primaries.

But this is something new:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/trump-sent-cease-desist-letters-gop-campaign-committees-n1259824


RNC finally decided to grow a spine and stand up to the reality TV superstar:

https://news.yahoo.com/rnc-maintains-trumps-name-fundraising-235125299.html


Nah I'm just kidding. They'll just funnel more money to his properties to appease him:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/542206-rnc-to-hold-part-of-donor-retreat-at-mar-a-lago


Trump seems to be determined to take over as much of the GOP fundraising as he can, which I think is his main goal over the next 4 years, and I don't think he cares much about the actual election results. If anything, having Democrats in power probably works better for that purpose.

There so many pages here but if you're still keeping track of this, in March for the past 5 years 8000-12000 people die a week. A high number of them are likely old people so many people may have had the vaccine and subsequently died of something unrelated (because that's what happens when you give a vaccine to someone with a 1 in 3 chance of dying per year they're alive - in their 90s).

@badecker, as someone who's had covid, that can also fuck up a lot of shit. How do we know the vaccine isn't safer than the virus with infection likely being inevitable for most people? Both the virus and the vaccine infect everyone with a very similar thing, the difference is one doesn't multiply rapidly (or at all).

From the looks of it, $15 minimum wage is simply not happening, at least a government-mandated $15 minimum wage (a market-based $15 minimum wage is already in effect for many labor markets).

I also believe that Pelosi is much better at whipping votes than Schemer is. Part of this is due to the fact that there are very few "safe" senate seats for either party, and part of this is the 6-year terms Senators have -- leadership today may be different from leadership in 6 years, which makes it more difficult to bully Senators, even if they will be facing a primary in the coming election season.

So how does it work, do you ask for a birth certificate before engaging into any kind of coupling?

Trump did exactly one strike, and that was in response to a gas attack in April 2017. Trump also ordered a drone strike to kill an Iranian general.

To be fair to Biden, Iranian forces (and proxy forces) have been attacking US troops and assets recently.

Seems a bit aggressive when Biden isn't too deep into his Presidency. It's hard to remember all the strikes that Trump did but I doubt he did one this early. The group they targeted was an Iranian backed militia group, allegedly. If Biden continues Obama's foreign policy, then you can expect fighting proxy wars in Syria (and more drone strikes), keeping Bashar al-Assad in power, and giving more cash to Iran.

"laboratories of democracy"---if only we approached it this way

Newsom is up for re-election next year, the recall is a political angle that has been successful in the past. The Davis recall created a  bit of a free for all gubernatorial race in 2003
there are probably better articles but Hoover is in my favorites bar
 https://www.hoover.org/research/newsom-recall-lets-first-recall-how-it-happened-gray-davis

As for a permanent state level UBI? Alaska makes more sense in that it has a "hard resource".
Our agriculture wouldn't be a viable source and our tech economy is being put to the test right now, as in: do companies have to be in (expensive) Silicon Valley?
We couldn't even agree on allocating water resources (water wars---still happening and corrupt AF)

Also for real life perspective:
The mortgage on my duplex in South Carolina is less than $600 a month
The space for my RV in California (Silicon Valley adjacent) is $1100. a month

hawley plan
1. anyone working for a billion dollar revenue company to get $15min wage from corporation
2. those working for 'cheaper' companies will be subsidised by a Universal Basic Income funded by government

biden plan
1. raise minimum wage to $15 for anyone working in the US. .. by 2025

bidens plan seems empty as its not a campaign promise for this presidency but a promise for the next presidency.
hawleys plan is to get things started sooner. but at the cost of losing the trust of the anti-gov supporters(trumpettes) that hate paying taxes/having taxes to support people
im guessing he is trying to appease the socialist democrats onto his side while pushing out the trumpette folk that supported trump ideals(bait and switch)

There are so many different mutations out there already, in Brazil, UK, South Africa. It will be hard for the vaccines to cover all the possible mutations from the start. My bet is that we will see new vaccines coming out at the end of this year, so that there will a need for everybody to get another vaccine. Also we still don't know the long term immunity of the vaccines yet. It could be the case that the vaccines will be recurring event every year.

Evidence so far suggests that the two Covid-19 vaccines authorized in the U.S., from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, appear to offer good protection against new variants.

Right!

It's like 99% of the people get no Covid symptoms, or mild symptoms.

It's like 99% of the people who get the vaccine get mild to intense symptoms of something, and some die.

And if you are in the hospital with some dangerous comorbidity, your chances of dying from the vaccine greatly increase.

I'd stay away from the vaccine. I'll take my chances with the 99% who get no or mild Covid symptoms.

Aside from being tied to the CPI, sounds unnecessarily complicated. And I don't know if it's shoddy reporting or Hawley being incompetent, but SSN doesn't imply citizenship. A person legally working in the US gets an SSN so this just sounds like red meat for the base and is either a possibly unconstitutional requirement or a lie.

The article does correctly note that this would basically shovel federal tax money into states that didn't raise the minimum wage.

The free market is already effectively making the minimum wage at something around $15/hour. Many major companies that require little/no experience have starting wages at or about $15/hour. If you are an employer and try to pay your employees something less than $15/hour, you will have difficulty finding and retaining employees.

---

Raising the statutory minimum wage is not possible via budget reconciliation. Senate rules are clear on this. If Democrats want to raise the minimum wage, they will need to negotiate with Republicans. With that being said, Republicans agreeing to raise the minimum wage after receiving some concessions is not entirely unrealistic due to my statement above.

It was useful and good like 10 years ago. Now they are not better than some other apps like viber, signal, telegram. I have stopped using it like 3 years ago.

This is becoming a bit ridiculous for Democrats. The $15 is mostly symbolic, with many large employers already paying that much or close to it, so it's just going to squeeze smaller employers in some low cost-of-living areas and won't do shit for their constituents in large blue cities. OTOH, it should be a no-brainer instead of a fixed amount to make it indexed on inflation like it's done in... you know... sane countries.

The bill: Hawley is proposing a three-year program that would increase worker wages in 2021, paid by taxpayers rather than employers.

Hawley told Axios he also would support a $15 minimum wage for workers of large corporations that generate at least $1 billion in annual revenue.

Those making below $16.50 per hour would receive a refundable tax credit worth 50% of the difference, paid out in quarterly installments. The $16.50 could increase over time, as it would be tied to the Consumer Price Index.
The credit would only apply to 40 hours or less of weekly work.
Only American workers with valid Social Security numbers would be eligible, meaning non-U.S. citizens and undocumented immigrants would be excluded.
Between the lines: Hawley's plan would immediately be implemented in the 2021 tax year, expiring in 2024.

I'll take that bet


There is a big difference between being dumb and having opinions that you don't like. I don't like AOC, and I don't like McConnel (or rather their political positions; I don't really know them personally) but I think both are quite intelligent. I think MTG is genuinely crazy or acts crazy to pander to the base, same thing. I've noticed that AOC is a favorite villain for right wing media but when you dig into what she's actually saying - there is nothing on the level of Jews using space lasers to start wildfires. There are some fabricated quotes being attributed to her, maybe that's what's confusing you.

snip

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.

Well, if you look at it this way, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. "Lefties" can talk shit about Limbaugh's death because they think "righties" would do the same if AOC passed away and vice versa. Still that's wrong all the same.

Not talking about vile dictators or other people who may have conceivably deserved to die for their crimes, death is the end of any grievances one might have had with the deceased and if I malign a dead person - I'm the asshole, not the dead person. Even from a purely practical standpoint, it makes no sense to expend any energy to fight a dead "enemy".

But yeah I know people who genuinely seem to want Trump to croak while at the same time claiming some moral high ground over him... go figure.

My main concern is that she's going to be anti-Bitcoin to the point where she can regulate the hell out of it driving the price down. Imagine if she pushed for taxing P2P crypto transactions (not that it's feasible ofc but for the sake of discussion), she could single handedly derail BTC and other cryptos. If she started to push for regulation of US based exchanges, that would also have an effect.

Her comments are not too consequential alone, but it's enough to make me be cautious of the Biden administration in regards to crypto currency.

Maybe Gavin Newsom thinks it will help him against his impending recall? ----though the recall effort began right after he was elected so it will likely happen anyways.

One of the articles (that won't hit a paywall)

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-02-22/california-600-stimulus-checks-low-income-residents-grants-small-business-legislature-approves.

Funding UBI (universal basic income) at state level? Interesting concept although it seems as if there are businesses moving out of California because of high cost of living, environmental regs  + taxes.


Andrew Yang talked about Alaska in reference to a state currently adopting a form of UBI

https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/andrew-yang-2638970046

"The Alaska Permanent Fund directs oil revenue into a fund that pays Alaskans a yearly dividend, usually between $1,000 and $2,000.
Andrew Yang points to this and other experiments to support the efficacy of a universal basic income.
However, Alaska's model leaves several important questions unanswered."

Of course. You wouldn't want to feel dizzy for a few hours! How barbaric! I know I'd much rather have respiratory failure and a 20% chance of death than feel a bit dizzy.