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Cake day: June 1st, 2023

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  • Aside about Rwanda - not only are they another dictatorial country, but they are also heavily backing the M23 militia in the DRC who have been committing some pretty horrible war crimes. Rwanda claims they aren’t tied to M23 at all, yet things have been happening like Rwanda suddenly exporting resources that it doesn’t have (that do exist within the DRC)

    The war in the DRC has substantially less attention in the west than that of Ukraine and Gaza, but is still pretty horrifying








  • Musk will likely control elections going forward

    Elections are run by the states themselves even for federal office. Notable race in particular for Musk was the Wisconsin Supreme Court race earlier this month. Musk poured millions to try to make it go the other way and tried to bribe voters with $1 million lotteries if they “signed a petition against activist judges”. The Musk backed candidate still lost by 10 points

    Don’t do his dirty work for him and suppress the vote before anything happens. The fight ain’t over till it’s over










  • Strange indeed, but this has been part of a long push. Didn’t happen by magic

    Edit: On a closer reading, it looks like it might actually mean “if you use AI/other non-animal methods we’ll let you skip some safety testing” (“”“streamlined review”“”). Less animal murder so still good ofc, but :/

    Their 11 page roadmap document does not read that way at all. Looking the FDA press documents look very different than the implementation details documents. I mean part of their roadmap is actually to encourage people - if already doing animal studies - to perform additional non-animal studies at the same time and submit that along side to get better data about accuracy and such

    https://www.fda.gov/media/186092/download?attachment




  • I think it’s unlikely they will do so directly given their other actions. Senate Majority Leader Thune has been pretty adamant about keeping it even stating he wanted to keep it in his very first speech this year as the new senate majority leader. I think the bigger threat to the filibuster at the moment is Republicans abusing reconciliation beyond what is supposed to be in there. Republicans appear likely to test the waters with bending the rules in the near future. This would be one of those piece by piece kinds of things, so more of a medium-term to longer-term issue

    Reconciliation is supposed to be strictly for budget related policies and allows a strict majority vote without going through the filibuster and is only allowed to be used a limited number of times among other restrictions. The senate parliamentarian is the one who is supposed to interprets the senate rules and procedures including what’s allowed in reconciliation. One of the requirements the Byrd Rule gives to reconciliation is that the bill passed through the senate it may not add to the deficit overall.

    Republicans appear likely to ignore the senate parliamentarian and declare by themselves that extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the rich that will expire are “current policy” and not counted in deficit computations. By itself that doesn’t sound that interesting, but the reason that’s a little concerning is that the senate parliamentarian is also the one who decides if the bills are strictly budget related. For instance, in 2021 the senate parliamentarian was the one who frustratingly ruled that a minimum wage increase to $15/hr couldn’t be included via reconciliation. If ignoring the senate parliamentarian becomes the norm, they could stuff non-budget thing into these massive reconciliation spending packages without anyone to say no

    (It’s also possible the Senate parliamentarian rules in their favor and they don’t override what they say)

    it


  • Before we preemptively doom about it, it also needs to pass the senate filibuster meaning 7 senate dems need to vote in favor. Call your senators and tell them to vote against it

    The bill appears to face long odds in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to overcome an expected Democratic filibuster.

    […]

    “I am leading the fight in the Senate to push back against this effort to disrupt our already safe and secure elections. This bill cannot pass the Senate — and I will fight every step of the way to block it,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said in a statement.

    […]

    Last year, the House passed a similar bill but it stalled in the Senate and then-President Joe Biden vowed to veto it




  • Full quote of what he said was

    “We are all Canadians, but we all have different identities and distinctions, and one of the great strengths of this country is recognizing that people can be who they are, they can love who they love, they can live where they are, and it’s fundamentally important that the federal government is the defender of those rights, defender of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and access to health care in Canada is a fundamental right for all Canadians without exception.”

    Was asked in the context of Alberta’s anti-trans bills/legislation