• 3 Posts
  • 11 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 1st, 2023

help-circle
  • If the filibuster is removed, it is also possible to get through with 50+VP as tie breaker or 51. The filibuster being removed is not as unlikely as you may think since Republicans right now are getting closer and closer towards defacto removing the filibuster. There currently are narrow ways around the filibuster (reconsideration is one big one) that are supposed to have a bunch of limitations, but they are testing the waters in ignoring violations of those limitations. The senate parliamentarian is the one who makes rulings about if something violates their clauses, but their opinion can be ignored by a strict majority via the “nuclear option”

    A month ago, Republicans used the nuclear option to ignore the senate parliamentarian ruling that the Congressional Review Act would not allow them to skip the filibuster to remove California’s EPA waivers (see here).

    As I write this Republicans are currently trying to play another different a different trick about some of the stuff in the Big Beautiful Bill. Dems have been challenging a bunch of provisions and getting the parliamentarian to most of the time rule they are in violation of the Byrd rule. But they are also trying to challenge the whole bill as violating the Byrd rule’s limit that a bill passed via reconsecration cannot increase the deficit over a ten-year period. Republicans are playing an accounting trick to claim it doesn’t. They know the parliamentarian is unlikely to agree with them, so they are currently trying to prevent dems from even being able to ask the parliamentarian about it





  • Glad to hear my posts are going noticed. Indeed, there are lot more than you might think. I’ll repost one of my long comments with details about protests here. Wrote this five days ago so mentally subtract 5 days from all the times


    They are being suppressed in media coverage, but there are people protesting. Media coverage paints a false picture that no one in the US is fighting back

    Here’s one from today [meaning five days ago] with 1000 people in Boise, Idaho

    Here’s a super incomplete timeline with just a handful of the nationwide protests. I’m missing a lot, I’m just showing your the photos I had from recent memory


    8 days ago there were national protest for science funding cuts. Here’s the main one in DC


    11 days ago there were nationwide protests in all 50 US state capitols + DC + Many cities within those states. This was part of the 50501 movement

    Portland, Oregon

    Monroe, Wisconsin

    San Fransisco, California

    Albany, New York

    Raleigh, North Carolina

    Richmond, Virginia

    Austin, Texas

    Protests Outside Fox News in New York City


    16 days ago there were large protest in the Iowa Statehouse


    19 days ago, a protest in Cherry Hill, New Jersy outside Tesla Showroom as part of a nationwide movement protesting Telsas. There have been tons more than just this one and these happen basically every day


    21 days ago, large protests in DC for Ukraine aid


    And so on. There’s a lot more going on than just this


  • Protests are a starting point not an ending one. Many of the groups involved in this like Indivisible are also recruiting people from theses protests to do the less flashy work of fighting back in other ways

    They also are quite the lighting rod to get people to feel engaged more broadly. If you’ve never gone to a mass protest, it’s hard to describe how they reignite you to fight back. Seeing all those people there makes you realize you are not alone. That you are not the only one who doesn’t think this is okay

    These most recent protests were also much larger than the media is describing it. The media is saying thousands nationwide, but there were multiple cities that each had 1000+ people. Many smaller cities had hundreds protesting




  • The good news is that some progress has been made in the US. The semi-recent (2022) FDA modernization act 2.0 removes mandates for animal testing in law and allows other testing methods to be used instead

    There’s another bill (FDA modernization act 3.0) that was just reintroduced a few days ago to not just allow the FDA to use non-animal testing, but to require that the FDA start actually working to allow it and setup pathways, rules, requirements, etc. And prioritize the review of drugs done via approved non-animal testing

    It includes various reporting, safety, etc. requirements laid out so it wouldn’t just be handing it blindly to the current admin

    The 2.0 act was suprisingly bipartisan, so it’s not a given that the 3.0 act would be doomed. Call your house representative and senators to make sure it gets through!