The House on Saturday passed a $95 billion aid package that includes two long-awaited bills with $60.8 billion of Ukraine aid and $26 billion in aid to Israel.
The Ukraine bill, which passed with 311 votes in favor, 112 votes against, and one present, will now head to the Senate alongside the Israel aid bill and two others — one with aid for Taiwan and another that forces Tiktok’s parent company to sell it.
And at the same time if you preach so much free market economics then you should just learn to live with it and don’t buy the product if you don’t like it
That’s not true at all. China has state owned businesses and private owned businesses. You think the Boeing and Microsoft locations in China are owned by the CCP?
In the last several years, particularly under Xi Jinping’s rule, there has been an even greater attempt by the political leadership to increase their control over the private sector, reduce its political influence, and ensure its loyalty to the system. This has included expanding the reach of national security policies and regulations. For example, the adoption of the National Intelligence Law in 2017 requires all firms in China to accede to government demands to provide information and data as authorities deem necessary to protect China’s national security. It has also meant using carrots, such as providing industrial policy opportunities to private firms, and sticks, such as the regulatory crackdown on private Internet firms that started in late 2018 and recently concluded. Finally, the CCP has also stepped up efforts to directly influence the corporate governance of private firms, in some cases taking “golden shares” in companies, pushing private firms to form CCP branches (see Figure 3), and integrating firms into the burgeoning “corporate social credit system” (CSCS).
Okay, here’s a real article from Stanford actually explaining the breakdown of state owned vs private owned equity in China. And this is a “China bad” article, so you know I’m not cherry picking data from some bullshit website. …stanford.edu/…/rise-state-connected-private-sect…
It will never cease to amaze me that people can have the full power of the Internet at their fingertips and have the wherewithal to not look something up before saying something stupid.
In the last several years, particularly under Xi Jinping’s rule, there has been an even greater attempt by the political leadership to increase their control over the private sector, reduce its political influence, and ensure its loyalty to the system. This has included expanding the reach of national security policies and regulations. For example, the adoption of the National Intelligence Law in 2017 requires all firms in China to accede to government demands to provide information and data as authorities deem necessary to protect China’s national security. It has also meant using carrots, such as providing industrial policy opportunities to private firms, and sticks, such as the regulatory crackdown on private Internet firms that started in late 2018 and recently concluded. Finally, the CCP has also stepped up efforts to directly influence the corporate governance of private firms, in some cases taking “golden shares” in companies, pushing private firms to form CCP branches (see Figure 3), and integrating firms into the burgeoning “corporate social credit system” (CSCS).
Sucks for the rich, but I, the average consumer do not care about what some rich guy’s stocks are doing. I will always go for the cheaper, more accessible, better product.
Nah. I don’t think Bytedance sells. The big enchilada is the source code and that’s not getting sold because there’s 6 Billion more people they can get on the app.
Yes, because killing Russian military saves lives. Russia is shelling cities in Ukraine, killing civilians. Your problems are valid, but are nothing compared to getting killed in your sleep by a Russian rocket
I’m sure 90% of the actual value of that money won’t go to killing. It’s gonna be going to military contractor profits. So 10% is going to production and transport of the killing tools. The rest is shareholder pool parties and yachts. It’s still not healthcare. It’s still pretty bad. But hey, at least a small part of it will stop some people getting raped by Russian invaders.
Oh don’t get me wrong, we should be doing far more to help Ukraine. It’s just frustrating to hear about all the things we “can’t” afford and how we can’t raise the debt, yet have some magical well full of unlimited money when it comes to military spending.
It’s not about affordability at all. The people that are willing to loan the US money are only willing to loan the US money for guns and bullets to go to Israel, money to Ukraine is good as long as its for more guns and bullets because weapons have a great ROI. Healthcare for all in the US has poor ROI so there is no point t to it. People are replaceable here in the US. That’s why they’re trying to push through AI way too early on us all.
With the coming Grant’s Pass Supreme Court decision to legalize slavery against homeless people coming soon, who needs regular employees. Just CCI Prison Slaves for all your manual labor needs. Also, all the former abolitionist states have now passed total gun control legislation so people will no longer be able to break out their slave family members from their prison worksites.
I never wanted to actually live in the Cyberpunk 2020 world. I was just hoping for some of the bonuses instead of all of the negatives.
The US government spends more per capita in healthcare than any country with universal healthcare and then a big chunk of the population also pays for private health insurance over that.
It’s not about not being able to afford it, it would even be cheaper.
That’s why I put can’t in quotes. We obviously can (because, as you pointed out, we already do) but there’s a minority of Americans wielding outsized amounts of power keeping it from happening.
Does being a citizen of a country make you responsible for the actions of its government? Especially, not for people whose votes almost never result in the candidate of their choice being elected, which for me is from local elections all the way up to national. I did vote for several local school board members who won, two elections ago, so I’ll accept some responsibility for what they’ve done as 3 out of 7 voting members of that board.
I guess shells are in high demand, currently. I don’t expect much but I hope the Senate votes it down or removes the majority of the Israel aid package. Currently it’s about 12 Billion USD worth of various support in addition to 14 Billion “Unconditional Military Support” while dealing with Iran.
If I had to rationalize it, I expect they simply want to give the bare minimum to avoid requiring sending soldiers to invade Iran directly. In my opinion, we’d be justified to “invade” Israel and oust the Netanyahu administration, solving the entire problem a lot cheaper.
The realpolitik answer is that they’re the only country in the region with highly functioning western-style market economy. That is valuable to other functioning western style market economies. Its a system trying to help itself propagate.
Ahead of the vote, former President Donald Trump issued a confusing statement that sympathized with both the pro- and anti-Ukraine aid factions of the GOP without taking a clear position.
We really need laws against these laws where they just bundle a bunch of good things with a bunch of fucking terrible things, just to get it passed.
Tiktok and Ukraine Aid are entirely different issues, and they really shouldn’t be in the same fucking bill.
Further, “banning” Tiktok is going to just about as well as those “Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics” did in the fucking 90’s. A lot of time, effort, and wasted money for barely any real-world impact.
Tiktok is already becoming unpopular, because just like with Facebook, everyone’s parents want to stay cool and hip and know what the youth are up to. Now its filled with millennials like myself who are pushing out Gen Z because they don’t want us shitting up their spaces. Just like we didn’t want our parents/adults invading our spaces and why millennials bailed on Facebook when it became Boomer central.
While I do agree on including “unrelated” things together, these all sound like they are separate bills in this case.
Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan are all separate bills for “foreign aid”. The article isn’t 100% clear, but TikTok sounds like there is some separation. The reason I think they’re separate is that the article mentioned that they voted on each item, meaning that there’s at least 3-4 different votes.
It’s all the game of politics. “Shake my hand and I’ll shake yours” stuff, and Johnson, regardless of his overall beliefs, seems like he’s well-versed in the game.
If banning TikTok, as inane as that is, ensures we continue to aid Ukraine, then fine, ban it. eye roll
Israel, however, is the matter of getting enough of Rs to vote Yea to outweigh the Maggots. I don’t like it, but the feds spend billions of dollars on tons of stuff I dislike. If allowing a continued genocide in one country means that the same won’t happen in two others…(sigh)
Israel, however, is the matter of getting enough of Rs to vote Yea to outweigh the Maggots. I don’t like it, but the feds spend billions of dollars on tons of stuff I dislike. If allowing a continued genocide in one country means that the same won’t happen in two others…(sigh)
And it's not as if a lack of funding would stop them anyway. It's largely symbolic and to ensure Israel keeps buying American.
Israel, however, is the matter of getting enough of Rs to vote Yea to outweigh the Maggots. I don’t like it, but the feds spend billions of dollars on tons of stuff I dislike. If allowing a continued genocide in one country means that the same won’t happen in two others…(sigh)
Thank you for actually understanding that there is nuance to all of this. The people screeching about it are rightfully upset, but they seem to completely miss the point that all of these aid packages have to make it through a highly dysfunctional congress.
This passed the Senate weeks ago and stalled in the House. The only reason this is even passing is because republicans began drafting an independent bill to fund Israel after the Iran attack, and Biden said he’d veto it if it didn’t include funding for Ukraine and Taiwan.
TikTok and Ukraine aid were voted on and passed separately; furthermore, the vote wasn’t for an outright ban, but rather a threat of banning if TikTok does not divest from China.
At the very least, we need a way to bring popular legislation to the floor without party gatekeepers holding it back. Ukraine arguably could have passed with ease - if a standalone bill made it to the floor.
It would get passed with ease together too, as the hangups were because of Ukraine which the speaker and his orange handler had problems with.
The only reason this was brought to a vote is because two Republicans threatened to resign, which would give Democrats control of the house, which would be a much better outcome, as Republicans essentially are freezing the Congress.
To your last point, the bill is targeted at any app owned by a foreign adversary, so whether or not kids move away from tiktok, it will accomplish the same objective.
millennials bailed on Facebook when it became Boomer central
I get your point, but it wasn’t everyone’s reason for leaving. For example, I enjoyed having my family members on the same platform as me, but I actually left because of the shit moderation team that punishes the good people and praises the terrible ones. Resentment grows when you’re punished over some bullshit arbitrary reason because a mod with an agenda got some bullshit report.
Sorry for the tangent to your main points, but social media has bigger problems than one group invading another.
You’ve got many good points, and I’m not defending the Tiktok ban (or whatever technical thing it is), but counterpoint your last one:
Look what Facebook did to the boomers. Do we want to go through that again but with Millennials and Tiktok? Our generation has more experience with social media, granted. Still, that’s part joke and part something I think about as an older, non-Tiktok millennial.
Do we want to go through that again but with Millennials and Tiktok?
No, but I don’t think banning an app will solve the problem, just like banning drugs doesn’t solve that issue. We need good education so people have critical thinking skills and can make good decisions for themselves. Even if a legal method was used to address the issue, banning a specific app will do little. I think you’d have to address the algorithmic delivery of content altogether to do this.
Can I ask what the problem is? I was of the understanding that the problem with TikTok was that they basically lied under oath to congress and were actively sending personal user data to China. Not sure anything but an outright ban will achieve any sort of remedy.
Yes, Tik Tok is as bad as any other social media PLUS it’s directly controlled by a hostile nation state to the US. It should absolutely be banned and/or completely divested from China.
Anyone saying this is unfair, go to China and see what their blocks look like for Western companies.
Tik Tok is a terrible platform allowing such direct access to US citizens to a foreign government.
I agree on keeping bills separate, but you seem to be confused. Tiktok wasn’t in the same bill, the help for Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel was bundled together.
The reason for it was that the current speaker actually wanted help for Israel and Taiwan but was holding the bill because of Ukraine, which his orange friend doesn’t support.
This is why it was held. Why the speaker had a sudden change of heart?
It was because two Republicans threatened to resign, leaving Democrats in majority and getting speakership (I wish that outcome would actually happened).
So he brought those bills to vote, but he split the bills. Because of it, now they have to go back to Senate, adding another unnecessary delay.
This is why it was held. Why the speaker had a sudden change of heart?
nah, it was:
Mr. Johnson attributed his turnabout in part to the intelligence briefings he received, a striking assertion from a leader of a party that has embraced former President Donald J. Trump’s deep mistrust of the intelligence community. Source: www.nytimes.com/…/mike-johnson-turnaround.html
In some ways, a bit scary that what they told him really convinced him so readily. On the other hand I’m glad he was able to turn down local US politics (something I don’t feel Republicans have been doing recently) and focus on external politics.
There was one bill that included help for Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel. Republicans only had problems with the former.
If Ukraine was so important why did Mike split the bill. By splitting it, he made a change and because of that the bill needs to be voted on yet again in the Senate. If he didn’t split it, Biden could just sign it immediately.
Sorry, I saw similar comments and people saying that finally understands how urgent it is based on CIA briefing (as he said).
The thing is that I don’t buy it. If he really thought it was as important and urgent, he would not split the bill and Biden likely would sign it on the same day, but instead it went back to the Senate.
My belief is that his position was threatened, and if he get replaced (especially if it is true that two Republicans threatened to resign) he won’t be able to block other bills for Biden, because Democrats would control the house.
While I agree with you in general, this is not what happened in this case.
The House voted on the four bills in succession, one day after a rare and extraordinary bipartisan coalition teed up the votes, with more Democrats (165) than Republicans (151) voting for the “rule” to proceed to the measures.
There was roughly speaking the Ukraine bill, the Israel bill, the Taiwan and other aid bill, and the tik tok bill. All separately passed. Ukraine funding was not on the same bill passed as the TikTok thing today.
Combining issues in bills isn’t always bad and can be a vehicle toward compromise too. Separating things can even be a way of killing a bill. There are pros and cons, really depends on the situation.
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