America - The Official Thread

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McLaren
Typical Conservative; "If I don't see it, it doesn't exist. If it doesn't affect me, it's not a big deal". Only issues within' Chrunch's life time count.

You have spectacularly displayed your US history sucks in the last page and a half. No wonder our state is in the bottom half of education.
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Typical Liberal; "If I don't have an argument, I'll just attack him personally."



The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has temporarily blocked the mandate.
 
Chrunch Houston
Since when did an un-elected government agency like OSHA get the power to tell companies, they have to fire people? Where are the elected law makers? They should be the ones making that kind of decision.
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Since 1946 with the Administrative Procedure Act. OSHA and NIOSH have been around since the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, and they've come up with all sorts of administrative laws regarding what can or cannot be done in the workplace.

As for the mandate, I'm not really sure on its legal grounds, but it seems like it's solid enough to hold in some cases. I don't think it'll hold up with private companies, but it absolutely can and should hold up among federal employees and contractors. Also, any business wishing to take contracts from the US should need to abide by it too or else forfeit the contract.

With healthcare, it was never not going to be enforced. Every healthcare system I've ever worked for spells out clear as day that if you aren't up to date on your vaccinations and don't have a medical exemption, you're going to lose your job. You even sign something stating you agree to this as a condition of employment. So I have zero sympathies for these nurses losing their job because they knew what the policy was. As for CMS denying reimbursement for hospitals that don't comply, this is nothing new and has been going on for years. They're always doing something where if you don't comply, you lose your Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement.

So with federal employees, federal contractors, all healthcare workers, and a smattering of others, it will hold. For Mojo's A-Go-Go Neon Nights Strip Club though? Ya, probably not.

None of this would be an issue though if people didn't have their head so far up their ass that they thought COVID wasn't serious. Honestly, if you're unvaccinated, get COVID, and need to go to the hospital you should be denied care if care rationing is in place. While vaccination still means you could get COVID, there's some pretty compelling data that shows you're likely not going to die or even need to be hospitalized. It still boggles my mind that people are so adamant against vaccination when the data is there to show that it's safe, effective, and, judging by my crappy mobile reception, not impregnated with 5G microchips.
 
McLaren
You're trying to play semantics and somehow, you're still wrong.

This vaccine is in no way, any more authoritarian than what's been done in the past.
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But if it's OSHA requiring vaccination OR testing for SOME employers, it's definitely more authoritarian than states requiring every single person to get a far more dangerous vaccine! [/s]

Somehow, and this is beyond me as well, the same exact regulation is not authoritarian if it's legislative rather than administrative.

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One of the big things @Chrunch Houston is missing about the admin law argument, is that it really only matters when the unelected officials are making law that does not tie to elected officials. The problem with administrative law (and this is settled, and part of America at this point, I'm just whining here), is that your administrators can make law which is unpopular, disconnected from any election, and remain unaccountable because of the small impact of the law.

So let's say that your last name is Nissan, and you want a trademark for your business. You're going to have to work with some administrative official which is going to rely on the CFR (code of federal regulations), which are the agency procedures for carving out a legal right to your trademark, to determine whether you'll get it and what you can get, in relation to, for example, the Nissan motor company. This is effectively law, and it directly impacts your life with the force of law, but it's laid out through federal code, which is administrative law not laid out by elected officials. The problem with admin law is that it doesn't run directly from someone who is elected, it has little pockets, subtleties, and special provisions that fly under the radar. They started with an administrative official that thought they were a good idea, and they persist because not enough people are directly impacted to care.

That's not what's going on here.

The OSHA regulation came straight from the US President, who was duly elected (because Trump lost). So if one wishes to pick on administrative law, the OSHA vaccinate or testing mandate is exactly NOT the place to pick that fight. Because it has direct political accountability and comes straight from an elected representative of the people. Basically, if you're hearing about it on Fox News, and you blame the President, it's NOT part of the reason why administrative law can be problematic.

That being said, admin law is here to stay, and it has been for a long time.

Edit:

Ok, a better example of a place where admin law really does cause a problem, and to highlight the difference, is in CDC approval of the Pfizer vaccine. We just had to wait months to get the FDA and CDC (full of administrators which are not directly elected), to decide whether it was legal to get our kids vaccinated. That's fairly unaccountable administrative law. If you're upset that it took an extra month to get Pfizer for kids, how exactly do you go about sending that signal at the voting booth? It's damned near impossible. Vote against Biden? The guy encouraging vaccination? That makes no sense. For for Biden? Doesn't send the signal either. This is law, and it's NOT coming straight from an elected official, and it's very difficult to offer input to.

The OSHA thing comes straight from the President, it's the exact opposite situation.
 
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Famine
Well, on the liberalism/authoritarianism axis, we are :D

One thing I'm a little confused about at this point is why 1793 isn't considered "the past". Isn't that how linear time works?
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We had to roll back the clocks today.

/s
 
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If you had "the right loses its **** over Big Bird getting vaccinated" on your 2021 Bingo card, you got a square.

...
Chrunch Houston
Typical Liberal; "If I don't have an argument, I'll just attack him personally."
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This you?
Chrunch Houston
You feign stupidity so well, sometimes it makes me wonder.
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I'll jog your memory.

You said it wasn't Republicans telling private businesses what they can and can't do.

I (and I wasn't alone, or even first) proved that to be false, because Republicans definitely were and are telling private businesses that they can't refuse service to individuals who don't provide proof that they've been vaccinated against COVID-19 or make said proof a condition of employment.

You then got your panties in a bunch because what you said was proven to be false and instead of offering a cogent argument in response, you employed the personal attack quoted above and proceeded to shift the goalposts.
 
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Months ago when Democrats first tried to forcefeed the vaguely-defined-besides-being-a-blank check reconciliation bill down the throats of everyone who wanted the infrastructure bill by holding the latter hostage in the House, big names in the party openly stated that they were doing so to try and dare Democrats outside of the AOC to come out against the infrastructure bill; basically trying to give people in their own party a poison pill until they could get as much grift from the former as they can. Republicans even threatened to tank the infrastructure bill over it in the Senate since they knew that's what the Democrats were going to do. And I read more than a few articles suggesting that if Democrats were ever so incompetent/stupid so as to split the bills up again after stating their intention and pissing away months of time they don't to waste and pissing everyone off in the process that the GOP should immediately make sure it passes just so the reconciliation bill will almost certainly lose all political will behind it to pass.



And then, like a gift from heaven, the Democrats indeed were so stupid/incompetent as to split the bills up again after going out of their way to taunt the GOP over the matter; showing that they held the actually-popular package hostage for half the year for no reason and futzed about with it so long that they lost a big political race that they wanted to use the bills to shore up support for in the party and directly contributed to the new hostility being directed at the party as a whole.

R.d54a54449b2f14625886223b2890d6f9


GOP members in the House immediately worked to pass it, of course.

















And yet, still the GOP in the House specifically is so quick to cut off their nose to spite their face if their face looks at something Trump doesn't like that it doesn't even realize that peeling off just enough votes for something with wide bipartisan support is a grade-school-level politically savvy move against an opponent who thinks they are a chess master when they are actually playing backgammon.
 
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TexRex
If you had "the right loses its **** over Big Bird getting vaccinated" on your 2021 Bingo card, you got a square.
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It's mad how "A Very Special Episode" is such a staple of US children's TV yet this one is the one to get worked up about. The idea is:

"How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand vaccination? How dare they push their agenda?"

But it's so dumb if you compare it with other episodes of Sesame Street that have addresses specific social and personal issues:

How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand a death in the family?
How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand teenage pregnancy?
How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand adoption?
How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand deafness?
How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand Down syndrome?
How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand 9/11?
How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand Hurricane Katrina?

How dare they tell them what to think?

Each of these things are things researchers of the show find that children have very little understanding of and very little material for children on said subject exists. With vaccination, clearly a lot of adults have very little understanding of it too.
 
Liquid
It's mad how "A Very Special Episode" is such a staple of US children's TV yet this one is the one to get worked up about. The idea is:

"How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand vaccination? How dare they push their agenda?"

But it's so dumb if you compare it with other episodes of Sesame Street that have addresses specific social and personal issues:

How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand a death in the family?
How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand teenage pregnancy?
How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand adoption?
How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand deafness?
How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand Down syndrome?
How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand 9/11?
How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand Hurricane Katrina?

How dare they tell them what to think?

Each of these things are things researchers of the show find that children have very little understanding of and very little material for children on said subject exists. With vaccination, clearly a lot of adults have very little understanding of it too.
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To be fair there was also similar hoopla when Sesame Street dared to tell kids about The Gays.
 
Liquid
It's mad how "A Very Special Episode" is such a staple of US children's TV yet this one is the one to get worked up about. The idea is:

"How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand vaccination? How dare they push their agenda?"

But it's so dumb if you compare it with other episodes of Sesame Street that have addresses specific social and personal issues:

How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand a death in the family?
How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand teenage pregnancy?
How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand adoption?
How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand deafness?
How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand Down syndrome?
How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand 9/11?
How dare Sesame Street tell my kids how to understand Hurricane Katrina?

How dare they tell them what to think?

Each of these things are things researchers of the show find that children have very little understanding of and very little material for children on said subject exists. With vaccination, clearly a lot of adults have very little understanding of it too.
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It's culture conservative victimhood. It's supposed to be irrational.

This isn't the first time Big Bird talked about vaccination, either.

 
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TexRex
It's culture conservative victimhood. It's supposed to be irrational.

This isn't the first time Big Bird talked about vaccination, either.
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Most of these people didn't give a rat's behind about this issue in 2019, let alone the 1970s. Suddenly they're all up in arms over medicine for no apparent reason*.

*I know there is a reason
 
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TexRex
It's culture conservative victimhood. It's supposed to be irrational.

This isn't the first time Big Bird talked about vaccination, either.
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Someone posted this video under the original tweet you quoted and the antis were all "oh that's different, the polio vaccine was tested and the mRNA vaccine is experimental" and went on to quote some bullcrap VAERS entries about Guillem-Barre syndrome.
 
Mittens Romney has been a pretty vocal opponent to eliminating the filibuster. I think that's partly because the filibuster is something of an illusion, and he likes the illusion for the same reason Manchin does. The filibuster doesn't actually prevent the majority from doing what it wants, because a strict majority can eliminate the filibuster. But if the filibuster is in place, someone on the edge of the party can effectively use the other party to prevent them from having to publicly break from the party and vote something down.

Imagine if there were no filibuster. Manchin would have to vote down a voting rights bill. Manchin would have to vote down DC statehood. Instead, Manchin just refuses to vote down the filibuster, and then the republicans block voting rights, statehood, and climate packages, by using the filibuster.

The opposite works for the republicans as well. Imagine a situation where Trump is in office and the republicans have a majority in congress (something Romney is dreading). At that point, it's Romney who has to stop the various insane measures that the republicans might try to adopt. Granted, he's not as far left as Manchin, he'd let some stuff through. But Romney would like to just refuse to vote down the filibuster, and let the democrats filibuster those things.

The filibuster is just being used a shield for people who want to break with their party. They can pretend that they're doing it for America, and patriotism, and biparisanship... wholesome reasons. This is the fiction they want to present. The reality is that they don't want to vote for the same packages the rest of their party wants to vote for, and they want something to hide behind.

Makes sense then that Romney would be eyeballing the Manchin strategy for himself.
 
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Tornado
To be fair there was also similar hoopla when Sesame Street dared to tell kids about The Gays.
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Reminds me of a muppet I read about recently someone referenced named Kami; she was a muppet that had contracted HIV because of a blood transfusion, but was only shown in African versions of Sesame Street. Conservatives threw a fit over her b/c they claimed HIV/aids is primarily spread through gays and bisexuals, therefore, Kami would be used to teach acceptance of gays and normalize homosexuality which apparently, was completely unacceptable at the time. Sesame Street however, had never shown any intention of bringing her to the states.

This was unsurprisingly, 20 years ago, but the general feeling is that Kami would be met with the exact same homophobia even today by conservatives.
 
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reason.com

Amy Klobuchar and Tom Cotton's Big Tech Anti-Monopoly Bill Exempts Their Preferred Firms

Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D–Minn.) and Tom Cotton (R–Ark.) introduced the Platform Competition and Opportunity Act on Friday, which would prevent so-called Big
reason.com reason.com
Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D–Minn.) and Tom Cotton (R–Ark.) introduced the Platform Competition and Opportunity Act on Friday, which would prevent so-called Big Tech companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Google from acquiring rival firms unless they can prove to the government that the merger would not constitute one platform swallowing up a competitor.

"Big tech firms have bought up rivals to crush their competition, expand their market share, and to harm working Americans," said Cotton in a statement. "Sen. Amy Klobuchar and I have a bipartisan bill to block these killer acquisitions."

The legislation aims to prevent tech companies from buying up rivals, and is clearly concerned about Facebook's previous business practices. The social media site's acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram, which were approved by the Obama-era Federal Trade Commission with little fanfare, are now widely reviled by anti-tech crusaders on both the left and right. Under current law, the onus is on the government to prove that a merger will harm consumers; the Cotton/Klobuchar proposal would shift the burden of proof to the company making the acquisition.

There are all sorts of principled reasons to oppose this sort of government meddling in the affairs of private businesses. Whatever the problems with social media, it can hardly be said that Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp have hurt consumers or put the company in some sort of monopoly position: The company competes for social media engagement with Twitter, for political advertising with Google, and for people's attention in general with a million different things. Moreover, the dominance of firms like Apple and Amazon has not harmed consumers; these companies are widely beloved because they efficiently meet market demand.

But there's one odiously crooked provision of the Platform Competition and Opportunity Act that deserves special mention. The law would only apply to companies of a certain size—i.e., firms that have a "net annual sales of $600,000,000,000 in the prior calendar year or with a market capitalization of greater than $600,000,000,000." Facebook and Amazon, for instance, both have market caps well over $600 billion, so the law would apply to them.

Note, however, the bill stipulates that it only covers firms that are over the $600 billion line "as of the date of enactment." In other words, if a company has a market cap under $600 billion on the day the bill becomes law, then that company is permanently exempt—even if it later crosses the threshold.

Two companies that are currently under the $600 billion line and thus exempt from the bill are mega-retailers Target and Walmart. These companies are both worth hundreds of billions of dollars, and their e-commerce platforms are growing at a faster rate than Amazon's. But under the Klobuchar/Cotton law, it wouldn't matter if Target and Walmart overtake Amazon—they would be immune from this new antitrust action, as long as they are small enough on the day the bill is signed.

Readers may be interested to note that Target is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Walmart is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. Isn't that interesting? It's probably just a coincidence that the $600-billion-at-date-of-enactment provision would shield the two most important companies in Klobuchar and Cotton's home states.

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dd0.png
 
The worrying thing there is that a company is immune as long "as it is small enough on the day the bill is signed". So any future company that exceeds the arbitrary $600 billion threshold will never be subject to it. It defeats the whole point of the bill, whether you agree with it or not.
 
McLaren
Reminds me of a muppet I read about recently someone referenced named Kami; she was a muppet that had contracted HIV because of a blood transfusion, but was only shown in African versions of Sesame Street. Conservatives threw a fit over her b/c they claimed HIV/aids is primarily spread through gays and bisexuals, therefore, Kami would be used to teach acceptance of gays and normalize homosexuality which apparently, was completely unacceptable at the time. Sesame Street however, had never shown any intention of bringing her to the states.

This was unsurprisingly, 20 years ago, but the general feeling is that Kami would be met with the exact same homophobia even today by conservatives.
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It would probably be less severe today than 20 years ago, but it would still not be good. My reasoning being that with marriage being more equitable now, many of those that had an issue have moved on.
 
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New guidelines for veterans day this year. Don't just thank any vet you find for their service, ask them where they were on Jan. 6th first.

Also, thank a capitol police officer if you can find one.
 
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Danoff
New guidelines for veterans day this year. Don't just thank any vet you find for their service, ask them where they were on Jan. 6th first.

Also, thank a capitol police officer if you can find one.
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Not a worry for me. The only veterans in my family that I am thankful for (and would honor today) are my grandfather and great uncle, who both died years ago.
 
Biggles
It's crazy how everything in the US has becoming so politicized. I notice that the Fox/Maga crew hate Aaron Rodgers ... because he's an intelligent, articulate, independent-minded football player & therefore (presumably) suspect of Un-Americanism. Of course, the Packers are also the most communist professional sports team in America, so there's that too.
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For some reason, I remembered this and all I can think of is...goddamn did this post aged like milk.

And if you ever needed more evidence that Aaron Rodgers and the Packers are cheaters and that the NFL gives them preferential treatment, just look at the slap on the wrist he got over lying, cheating, and skirting the rules over the vaccine. Seriously, $300k fine and that's it? No loss of draft picks? No forfeiture of games? I guess the Packers did have to endure seeing Jordan Love, so there's that. They also might be getting the headcase that is OBJ so there's that too.

Still, I enjoy seeing the shade being thrown at Rodgers right now because it's completely deserved. It almost makes me forget about how painful the Lions' season has been...almost. And seeing Rodger's wife and/or fiancee (I don't know what she is) try to redirect the conversation by talking about Rodger's big penis was cringy, but was a gift since it allowed people to throw even more shade at the QB who can't win playoff games.
 
Joey D
For some reason, I remembered this and all I can think of is...goddamn did this post aged like milk.
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To be fair, @Biggles actually did address that post as the news was breaking.

I can't remember where I saw it, but someone pointed out how the right is lifting Rodgers up over his being an "independent thinker" when they'd previously vilified Kaepernick over kneeling for the anthem and bringing politics into sports.
 
TexRex
To be fair, @Biggles actually did address that post as the news was breaking.

I can't remember where I saw it, but someone pointed out how the right is lifting Rodgers up over his being an "independent thinker" when they'd previously vilified Kaepernick over kneeling for the anthem and bringing politics into sports.
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I should add that I don't fault Biggles for the initial post since, at the time, it was a correct thing to say and was something that was happening regarding the MAGA faithful. I just thought it was amusing more than anything with how much it aged like milk.

And ya, it's weird to see how much the MAGA/Qcumbers are now celebrating Rodgers for his decision. I wonder if they're going to boycott football now like they boycotted football over Kaepernick? I suspect the NFL will continue to have excellent ratings this year.
 

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