Blip

[bodysong]

If I had been born a porcupine-human hybrid, my quills might have been a bristle of pointed up,
and ready-

Adults should wear a mask in crowded public places- there is no one there to enforce the rules

Of all people, the Flaming Lips seem to have hit on a solution

Earlier this month, Wayne posted a picture of an Oklahoma City venue where deflated space balls were positioned out on the floor, and The Flaming Lips put it into action on Monday night. The venue was The Criterion and it was primarily to shoot a new video, but also served as a test run for how space bubble concerts might play out. Wayne posted video of him atop a sea of space-bubbled audience members at the venue as a dance remix of American Head track "Assassins of Youth" pumped in the background. He also posted a floor decal the band made that read "The Flaming Lips ask you to please wear masks when not in the space bubble."

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/the-flaming-lips-tested-out-space-bubble-concerts-in-oklahoma-city/

 

[bodysong]

Covid: Remdesivir 'has little or no effect' on survival, says WHO

Anti-viral drug remdesivir has little to no effect on Covid patients' chances of survival,
a study from the World Health Organization (WHO) has found.


WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said on Wednesday that their trials on hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir/ritonavir were stopped in June because they had already proven ineffective. However, the other trials continued.

The WHO's results appear to contradict a previous study from earlier this month, conducted by Gilead, which concluded that treatment with remdesivir cut Covid recovery time by five days compared to patients given a placebo. About 1,000 patients took part in that trial.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-54566730

 

[bodysong]

Daniel Dale ✓
Twitter › ddale8

What’s striking to me about Trump’s “85%” claim is that the CDC study is being
misrepresented in some conservative media...but Trump is wildly misrepresenting
even the misrepresented version. It’s like a step and then a giant leap removed
from the truth.

(link to CNN)

29 minutes ago

Trump is totally wrong in claiming the CDC found 85% of mask-wearers get the virus.
The CDC study didn’t even *try* to find out what percentage of mask-wearers get
the virus. I explain here:

(link to CNN)

31 minutes ago

 

[bodysong]

White House Killed CDC Order Requiring Masks on Public and Commercial Transportation:
NYT (New York Times)

White House Blocked C.D.C. From Requiring Masks on Public Transportation

October 9, 2020

Olivia Troye, former aide to Mike Pence on the White House Coronavirus Task Force,
affirms New York Times reporting that the CDC had intended to require everyone on
public and commercial transportation to wear a mask, but the Trump White House
blocked the order.

The order would have mandated that both passengers and employees wear face coverings
on planes, trains, buses and subways.

The White House Barred CDC From Making Masks Mandatory

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-w...-masks-mandatory-on-public-transportation-nyt

The New York Times reports the White House last month blocked an order from
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requiring face masks on all forms
of public and commercial transportation across the U.S.

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1...rtation_as_us_covid_19_cases_continue_to_rise

Dr Robert Redfield

The Director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Robert Redfield
renewed an order this week that gives border agents the authority to summarily expel
migrants, including asylum seekers, at US land borders. Although the order purports
to be a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the CDC’s own doctors reportedly found
the original decision to halt asylum processes to have no basis in public health.

Joshua Sharfstein
@drJoshS

These court decisions upend precedent and threaten lives.

(link)

4:47 PM UTC - 15 Oct 2020

 

[butters]

Daniel Dale ✓
Twitter › ddale8

What’s striking to me about Trump’s “85%” claim is that the CDC study is being
misrepresented in some conservative media...but Trump is wildly misrepresenting
even the misrepresented version. It’s like a step and then a giant leap removed
from the truth.

(link to CNN)

29 minutes ago

Trump is totally wrong in claiming the CDC found 85% of mask-wearers get the virus.
The CDC study didn’t even *try* to find out what percentage of mask-wearers get
the virus. I explain here:

(link to CNN)

31 minutes ago

he doesn't care

he showboats and tosses these bits of red meat out for his base who can't tell they're being fed reconstituted shit. he gives them what he knows they want to hear, what they'll lap up and beg for more. truth doesn't even come into his considerations.

 

[bodysong]

The news is out- Trump warned his wealthy paying patrons, the lobbyists for industry,
the wealthy lawyers that are his hiring pool for administration, and his campaign donors,
and Wall St,.that coronavirus was dangerous, and could cause trouble, back in February.

Meanwhile, he endangers the health of his rally crowd, by attempting to convince them
that there is no danger.

 

[bodysong]

cartoonist G.B. Trudeau gives the musicians and vocalists a voice on the opinion pages- read the Doonesburg comic strip ? Jimmy Thudpucker is the fictional 1970s musician, on page, and he has a Big Idea.

Who Are You: Did Keith Moon play drums on a 1976 ‘Doonesbury’ novelty record? https://dangerousminds.net/comments...lay_drums_on_a_1976_doonesbury_novelty_record

Here is Jimmy Thudpucker's idea- All of the popular musicians, vocalists, band members, of bands that Trump disrespects, by using their music at his rallies, fight back! By staging concerts and collecting donations- (just like "Live Aid' ?) and give the money to Joe Biden's election campaign. Trump's lawyers get cease and desist orders for using their music aginst their will, and without their permission. Trump ignores them, and continues to abuse them. Trump has his rally audience waiting for hours, and he gives them piped-in music. Trump has abused-

Queen The Village People Elton John Rihanna Prince Adele Pharrell R.E.M Aerosmith Journey Eddy Grant Oasis ? Linkin Park Bruce Springsteen Luciano Pavarotti Andrea Bocelli The Beatles Neil Young Tina Turner The Rolling Stones Led Zeppelin Neil Young Tommy Petty Guns & Roses From The Olden Days “All Right Now” old 1970s band, Free Celine Dion’s theme song from Titanic Music from popular Broadway musicals Twisted Sister (Prostituting our Democracy, Dee Snider said. “I don’t think he’s the man to run our country,” he said. Creedence Clearwater Revival- John Fogerty said that, given the lyrics, it's "confusing"

 

[bodysong]

Philly PPP Loans Went to Some … Peculiar Recipients

10/14/2020

Rhynhart’s office listed some of the industries that were most affected by the pandemic:
retail, restaurants, arts and entertainment, education, health care and transportation.
Not on the list: law firms. And yet in Philly, the single largest recipient of PPP loans was —
wait for it — the legal industry, with at least $110 million in government aid. Yes, law firms,
which can operate pretty well remotely, unlike basically every industry on the list above,
received the most money.

Rhynhart’s report explains that there are some obvious reasons for those results.
For one: Law firms have big staffs — and big staffs mean big payrolls, which
mean big PPP loans. But that just reveals the clear structural flaw in the PPP’s
design.

According to data from Yelp, there were nearly 100,000 permanent business closures
nationally from March to September.

When the PPP program was first announced, there were numerous reports of Black business
owners unable to secure loans, in stark contrast to their white counterparts.

A national survey of Black and Latino business owners also found that just 10 percent of
them received the loan amounts they’d requested from the Small Business Administration.

In zip codes with above-average numbers of residents of color, businesses received
$7,200 less per loan compared to businesses in whiter-than-average zip codes.

Compared to peer cities like New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles, Philly has
the largest such zip-code disparity in loans.

Nationally, as of July, more than 26 percent of Black-owned businesses had closed due
the pandemic, compared to just 11 percent of white-owned businesses. A report on
WHYY found a similar situation on the ground in Philly.

https://www.phillymag.com/news/2020/10/14/ppp-loan-philadelphia-failure-controller-report/

 

[bodysong]

The Six Grandfathers Before It Was Known as Mount Rushmore

The Six Grandfathers (Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe) was named by Lakota medicine man,
Nicolas Black Elk after a vision. “The vision was of the six sacred directions:
west, east, north, south, above, and below. The directions were said to represent
kindness and love, full of years and wisdom, like human grandfathers.”
The granite bluff that towered above the Hills remained carved only by
the wind and the rain until 1927 when Gutzon Borglum began his assault
on the mountain.

When the Sioux and their allies defeated Custer and members of the 7th Cavalry,
there was a call for swift retaliation. Two months later in August of 1876, the U.S.
enacted “Sell or Starve” which withheld promised food rations from the tribes that
defeated Custer and his men. The U.S. wanted the Black Hills—its gold and other
resources. After suffering and starving, the Lakota relinquished their claim to their
sacred lands: the Black Hills [Paha Sapa]. The Act of 1877 was another breach of
the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. A Congressional Act forced Indians onto reservations
and the U.S. federal government took ownership of the Black Hills.

Lakota and neighboring tribes faced the genocide of their culture, traditions, land—
everything was gone. Sacred places like Wind Cave, Devil’s Tower, Black Elk Peak,
and Six Grandfathers Mountain (now Mount Rushmore—named after a wealthy NY
lawyer in 1885) were now in the hands of the Euro-Americans. This was devastating.

Gerard Baker became the first Native American superintendent of Mount Rushmore
in 2004 (2004-2010).

He erected a teepee at the monument.

The simple placement of the teepee started what today is the Heritage Village
where the traditions and customs of the Native people are highlighted.

https://blog.nativehope.org/six-grandfathers-before-it-was-known-as-mount-rushmore

Today, as superintendent of Mount Rushmore, Gerard Baker continues to act as an agent for change. He has again brought an Indian perspective into the park's interpretive program, telling a more complex – and complete – story of the site. At Rushmore, he has expanded his vision to embrace the vast diversity of cultural traditions and stories that make up our national heritage.

"It's not just a teepee here," Baker says. "We're promoting all cultures of America. That's what this place is. This is Mount Rushmore! It's America! Everybody's something different here; we're all different. And just maybe that gets us talking again as human beings, as Americans."

http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/people/nps/baker/

 

[bodysong]

Obstreperous Oaf, soon to be removed.

 

[bodysong]

NY Times sometimes blows it, in various ways-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/25/lauren-wolfe-tweet-nyt-dismissal/

 

[bodysong]

John Fetterman ✓
Twitter › JohnFetterman

Democracy for me, but not for thee.
2 dead moms voting for Trump in my state and
the PAGOP is raging that THEIR OWN Vote by Mail law
<<checks notes>> uh- worked?
So pissed, in fact, they’re now attempting
to gerrymander the PA Supreme Court.

(link to Politico)

3 days ago

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman is raising money to run for the state’s open
Senate seat next year, making him the first prominent Democrat to step forward
the party’s most promising pickup opportunity in 2022.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/08/fetterman-pennsylvania-senate-seat-456515

 

[bodysong]

As more homicide cases go unsolved, the backlog of unsolved murders
grows and serial killers are free to kill again. Too few police departments
are effectively deploying their resources to stop them.

- Lise Olsen

February 8, 2021

Dallas police failed to follow standard death and homicide investigation procedures
published by the U.S. Department of Justice and other organizations. Both national
and international guidelines recommend that forensic tests are appropriate when
there are indications of criminal activity at a death scene, like the theft of jewelry
or other signs of foul play.

"...officials assigned to review those cases initially considered them natural deaths
and failed to take photos or videos of bodies, as investigation guidelines recommend,
or to collect samples to test for blood or fingerprints potentially left by an intruder.

The Dallas County Medical Examiner also did not immediately order autopsies
on most victims whose deaths were later tied to Chemirmir.

The cases connected to Chemirmir had gone cold. Victims’ bodies had been cremated
or buried, and their apartments cleared. And all those previously undetected homicides
had become part of a larger national problem: a backlog of more than 250,000 unsolved
murder cases, a number that increases by about 6,000, nationwide each year.

https://www.texasobserver.org/undetected/

 

[bodysong]

America did not get a den mother for the nation.

We were given our first Presiderp by Rush Limbaugh and his ditto heads.

Imagine if we had a real President, when American intelligence warned us about coronavirus!

Rush added Feminazi to the English language - A hypocrite, women were sluts, he announced.

This attitude nursed the idea that men should be allowed to rape women- They rejected Hillary.

Trump laughed at his fans when they screamed about killing Hillary Clinton.

(Did Trump laugh when they said they would kill Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence ?)

Rush Limbaugh was deaf. He shouted and screamed, but he did not have conversations.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...ng-loss/b9d23aeb-2e34-4982-b819-814629baa8e9/

His employees helped him to read what his fans had asked him.

He had surgery in his left and right ear for implants.

Screaming, and taking large amounts of pain killers.

Not good for your ears.

Rush Limbaugh had no pity and no compassion for anyone.

I have no compassion for Rush. He sold America out for cash.

 

[bodysong]

That’s not the Texas I grew up in.

Colorado City wasn’t always so mean-spirited and reactionary

- Brenda Bell

Brenda Bell is a former reporter and editor at the Austin American-Statesman.
She left Colorado City in 1963, the year she graduated from high school.

article from Feb. 18, 2021

"In the 1950s and ’60s, my father ran the local newspaper in C-City, as it’s called.
My brother and I grew up there. Those were the years the state began its inexorable
shift toward the Republican Party..."

"Mitchell County was among the last of the counties on the High Plains to abandon
the Democratic Party,..."

"...memory of how the New Deal saved rural Texans from starvation was still fresh. (1934)"

"What I miss the most about a small town — the only thing, really — is the sense
of us all being in something together."

"Ironically, every county in Texas is in something together now, with essential services
in disarray and our so-called rugged individualism a national joke."

"When this is all over, my former classmate and his friends and I will resume
our vehement disagreements on Facebook, which will soon include who and what
are to blame for this catastrophe, and my estrangement from my hometown will remain
as unsettling as before. I don’t know how to undo that, or the dispiriting way that
Mayor Boyd made our little town famous.

My father would have hated that and written an editorial demanding
the mayor’s resignation. He was always a town booster. But he also chafed
against smallness and meanness, and in the end, he and my mother moved
away, too.

None of us looked back.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...as-mayor-boyd/

Mayor Tim Boyd, of C- City

Colorado City, in west-central Texas, has a population of about 4,000.

In his original post, now deleted, Mayor Boyd starts by saying:
"Let me hurt some feelings while I have a minute."
"No one owes you or your family anything; nor is it the local government's
responsibility to support you during trying times like this!"
"This is sadly a product of a socialist government where they feed people
to believe that the few will work and others will become dependent for handouts."

Entire rant -

"No one owes you or your family anything; nor is it the local governments responsibility
to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim, it’s your choice!
The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING!

I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn hand out! If you don’t have electricity
you step up and come up with a game plan to keep your family warm and safe.
If you have no water you deal with out and think outside of the box to survive
and supply water to your family. If you were sitting at home in the cold because
you have no power and are sitting there waiting for someone to come rescue you
because your lazy is direct result of your raising!

Only the strong will survive and the week will perish.

Folks, God Has given us the tools to support ourselves in times like this.
This is sadly a product of a socialist government where they feed people
to believe that the FEW work and others will become dependent for handouts.

Am I sorry that you have been dealing without electricity and water; yes!
But I’ll be damned if I’m going to provide for anyone that is capable
of doing it themselves! We have lost sight of those in need and those
that take advantage of the system and mesh them into one group!!
Bottom line, quit crying and looking for a handout!
Get off your ass and take care of your own family!


Bottom line – DON’T BE A PART OF A PROBLEM, BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION!

Meanwhile, far from being off line, wind generators are enjoying a fat payday.
Thanks to the way power prices fluctuate in Texas, Bloomberg reports that a
100Mw windfarm that could normally expect to clear $40,000 on any two days
in February, instead racked up over $9.5 million on Monday and Tuesday thanks
to record spikes in Texas power market.

Daily Kos

AOC providing emergency money, and Beto O'Rourke providing information and help.

Doing your job, and helping voters to survive, is socialist ?

 

[RobDownSouth]

Decades of Rush Limbaugh has poisoned the American heartland.

...that's how we got AJ, the RWCJ and Colorado City.

 

[bodysong]

Republican, State Representaive Gary Gates took a jet to Florida
during the crisis-

"Rep. Gary Gates facing backlash after taking private jet to Florida amid outages"

Houston Chronicle

Daily Beast

The Daily Beast ✓
Twitter › thedailybeast

Texas state lawmaker Gary Gates lost power at his Fort Bend County home
on Tuesday evening, and on Wednesday morning he hopped on his private jet
to the magical land of Orlando, Florida.

8 minutes ago

AOC Flies to Texas to Help at a Food Bank – Mother Jones

 

[bodysong]

Lies kill.

Putin is smiling. America is sick at heart, sick in mind, and sick in body.
Trump infected America with lies, and Trump Loyalists continue to spread them.
Trump looked to coronavirus as just another way to steal more money, and spread
more corruption. It takes money to build a power base, and there are plenty of deep
pockets that insured that Trump's base and Trump's alliance were well supplied.

January 6th proved the strength of Trump's lies. People died.
Mitch McConnell pretends, but his lies have sickened the very courts of law.

This did not have to happen.

Are we having an argument about both sides stamping on the flag?
Trump Loyalists covered our country's flag with blood and scribbled lies.
The flag is covered with corpses.

500,000 American coronavirus deaths

February 19, 2021

All the pleading and arguments of pandemic politics did not alter the variables of
Lawler’s* computation; too little was done to slow the spread or lessen the lethality.
As a result, the forecast came fatally true.

So from the rock of arithmetic comes another meaning. The number 500,000 represents
a choice — though people might disagree over exactly what was chosen. Some chose not
to believe in the number. The belief that covid-19 deaths are exaggerated is sufficiently
widespread to be the Lie of the Year for the publication PolitiFact.

Lawler* and others provided projections that came true again and again, bringing us
to the half-million mark like clockwork. Despite these warnings, some number of
employers did not make their workplaces safe; some number of families refused
to defer their reunions; some number of revelers chose not to keep a safe distance
or wear masks. On some level, some number of Americans looked at the forecast
of half a million fatalities in a year’s time and embraced it, rather than change their
routines to alter the arithmetic.

*James Lawler, an epidemiologist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center
in Omaha — one of the centers of U.S. Ebola response — had run the numbers
and projected that the novel coronavirus could kill some 480,000 or more Americans
in the coming year.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...92c9b0-72e1-11eb-b8a9-b9467510f0fe_story.html

His Lights Stayed on During Texas' Storm. Now He Owes $16,752.

(It takes much more fuel to produce energy, when temps drop below freezing.)

NY Times

"In Texas, for-profit energy companies have no incentive to prepare for extreme weather..."

 

[bodysong]

Jim Hightower ✓
Twitter › JimHightower

Beware the black-robed partisan. Justice Thomas claimed, falsely,
that mail voting is inherently suspect and rife with fraud.

(link to Slate )

48 minutes ago

 

[bodysong]

Found the third entitled Texas politician, that "skipped town"
during Frozen Week in Texas -

Texas AG Ken Paxton left Austin for Utah during power outages.
Democrats say he ‘couldn’t care less about the people.’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/02/23/ken-paxton-utah-texas-storm/

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), and wife, Senator Angela, nearly 1,300 miles away
in Salt Lake City

They don’t believe in governance, and couldn’t care less about the people they’re
supposed to represent,” tweeted Julián Castro (D), the former mayor of San Antonio
and housing secretary under President Barack Obama, referring to Paxton and Cruz.

Paxton “joins Greg Abbott and Ted Cruz in either fleeing their responsibilities for Texans
or fleeing the state entirely,” Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said
in a statement. “This is a pattern.”

He added, “Texas Republicans do not give a damn about the people they were elected
represent, and they continue to focus on issues that don’t affect the lives of everyday
Texans to gaslight them into thinking they are doing their jobs.”

 

[bodysong]

Why now ?

February 23 2021

Last fall, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas opened the Supreme Court’s term
by calling for the overturning of its 2015 ruling that established marriage equality nationwide.

They’re now part of a 6-3 conservative majority on the court since Donald Trump got
three nominees confirmed by the Senate. The situation gives LGBTQ+ Americans cause
for concern, even amid optimism brought on by the election of a Democratic president
who has majority support in the House and Senate.

https://www.advocate.com/exclusives/2021/2/23/justices-thomas-and-alito-and-threat-lgbtq-equality

Republicans chipped away at women's rights to have good reproductive health care.
In Trump Country, there is not much left for women that are not wealthy and white.

With coronavirus killing people in the US, and everyone's circle getting smaller,
it seems cruel to take marriage and sharing away. Really cruel, if they are trying
to make sure the person they love is well cared for.

 

[bodysong]

Joe Manchin is acting out a personal grudge against Biden's Neera Tanden
Manchin's daughter, Heather Manchin married Mr. Jeffrey Bresch, and resumed
her career- she raised the price of Mylan's Epi-Pen from $100.00
to $600.00 and moved Mylan headquarters to the Netherlands.
No stinky American taxes, to mess with profits.
Heather's "compensation" skyrocketed.

Neera Tanden called attention to Heather's reward - was $20 million dollars,
(2015) and that the employees that had no such reward.

By the time the EpiPen's list price reached $300 per auto-injector in 2016,
its manufacturer, Mylan, had made more than a dozen price hikes in just
six years.

Not fucking Mylan's property-

After insulin was discovered nearly 100 years ago, the rights to it were transferred
to the University of Toronto for $1 so that insulin could be made widely available
at a low cost.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health...8/a-decade-marked-by-outrage-over-drug-prices

Remember that greedy Pharma-bro, Martin Shkreli ?
Turing Pharmaceuticals, run by former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli —
bought the rights to the drug and raised its list price more than 5,000% overnight.

Soon after that, he went to prison for committing fraud.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health...8/a-decade-marked-by-outrage-over-drug-prices

Life-threatening greed.

 

[bodysong]

Igor Bobic ✓
Twitter › igorbobic

Warren says the White House should stick by Tanden.
"The idea that the Republicans are going to complain over someone
who has sharp elbows on Twitter is pretty outrageous."

4 hours ago

 

[bodysong]

Trump Loyalist has sent writer on Wonkette, on a tear...

Marjorie Taylor Greene: CHRIST, What A Vile, Bigoted A**hole

February 25, 2021

- Liz Dye

"Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is filth. There's simply no way to sugarcoat it,
the woman is disgusting.First, this vile congresswoman led the GOP's opposition
to the LGBTQ Equality Act in Congress yesterday."

more on Ms. Greene

- Michael Kruse

02/25/2021

Marjorie Taylor Greene, Donald Trump’s outrage-bait heir, is back at it.

Just a few weeks after she was stripped of her committee assignments by her
colleagues in the House for her lengthy record of bigoted comments and
confrontational tactics, the freshman Republican lawmaker from northwest
Georgia has reinjected herself into the lowlight limelight. In the wake of debate
about the Equality Act, Democratic Rep. Marie Newman of Illinois, who has
a transgender daughter, put up a flag expressing transgender pride outside her
office. Greene responded by putting an affront of a sign on her wall across the hall
from Newman. “There are TWO genders,” it said. “MALE & FEMALE.”
Peers from both parties were appalled. And the fray that played out on Twitter
quickly and obviously went viral.

The reality is that Greene is in Congress not in spite of stunts like this
but because of them.

Greene, as I say in the piece, literally wears her grievance on her face.
And there she was today on the House floor.
“The Equality Act is not about stopping discrimination. It’s about causing discrimination
— against women and religious freedoms,” she said.

“THIS MASK IS AS USELESS AS JOE BIDEN,” blared her black mask.

https://www.politico.com/newsletter.../how-marjorie-taylor-greene-became-mtg-491906

more -

the friday cover

‘Nobody Listened To Me’: The Quest to Be MTG

- MICHAEL KRUSE

She’s a next-gen version of Trump—produced in his image in a fraction of the time.
Other Hill freshmen, too, have emerged out of almost nowhere by parroting the playbook
—Lauren Boebert and Madison Cawthorn, to name two.

Both are on this weekend’s CPAC speakers’ list while Greene is not.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/02/25/marjorie-taylor-greene-471481

Today, Trump Loyalists seem to be having a hate festival.

 

[bodysong]

8 Democrats defect on $15 minimum wage hike

The Senate parliamentarian had ruled that the wage increase could not be added
to the bill and approved by a simple majority of senators despite House passage
of the provision last week.

After Senate Democrats stripped it from the Covid package, a group of progressive
senators led by Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) forced a vote on the policy change anyway.

Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Sen. Jon Tester of Montana,
Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona
and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire voted against proceeding,
though the tally remains open.

So did two close Biden allies, Chris Coons and Tom Carper of Delaware.
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with the Senate Democrats,
also opposed it.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/05/democrats-15-minimum-wage-hike-473875