Covid, the "lockdowns" etc.

[Pat]

It's not two bills passed together, it's just one bill. And that does make them the same bill. It needs just one signature, not two. And my source is the source used by all your sources, which makes it more authoritative. Consider all your rebuttals debutted.

Not to mention this is Civics 101. They used to teach this in Saturday morning commercials.

You presented the $900 billion for coronavirus relief as a separate thing, and then incorrectly stated that the $900 billion included foreign aid that was part of the $1.4 trillion dollars. That the two pieces of legislation were merged is not relevant. I have pointed out your mistake repeatedly and how you have misrepresented my comments repeatedly, and you continue to do so. Per Pat, this now proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that you are deliberately lying.

But let's get to the important question: Is it one bill, or two?

It's an easy mistake, given the weight of tradition, so it's no surprise people were initially confused, and it took a while to work out the details. But at this point, Pat has had plenty of time to look it over, correct themselves, and admit their error and deception. Since they've chosen not to, that means they're deliberately lying.

Yes, that's about right.

If you'll deliberately lie about something like that, nobody can trust your own characterization of your political stance; the appropriate rule is to trust what people reveal through their actions over what they claim about themselves. And you show right-wing a lot. I don't blame you from wanting to dissociate yourself from the idiot right-wingers on this site; I don't blame you for fantasizing that your politics are more respectable than that of the political allies you despise even when you agree with them, but I do blame you for lying about me.

They learned the correct answer, and decided to go with the false one. That's lying.

One bill or two?

[rawma]

It's not two bills passed together, it's just one bill. And that does make them the same bill. It needs just one signature, not two. And my source is the source used by all your sources, which makes it more authoritative. Consider all your rebuttals debutted.

Not to mention this is Civics 101. They used to teach this in Saturday morning commercials.

You presented the $900 billion for coronavirus relief as a separate thing, and then incorrectly stated that the $900 billion included foreign aid that was part of the $1.4 trillion dollars. That the two pieces of legislation were merged is not relevant. I have pointed out your mistake repeatedly and how you have misrepresented my comments repeatedly, and you continue to do so. Per Pat, this now proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that you are deliberately lying.

But let's get to the important question:

Liars often think that their lying is unimportant.

It's an easy mistake, given the weight of tradition, so it's no surprise people were initially confused, and it took a while to work out the details. But at this point, Pat has had plenty of time to look it over, correct themselves, and admit their error and deception. Since they've chosen not to, that means they're deliberately lying.

Yes, that's about right.

If you'll deliberately lie about something like that, nobody can trust your own characterization of your political stance; the appropriate rule is to trust what people reveal through their actions over what they claim about themselves. And you show right-wing a lot. I don't blame you from wanting to dissociate yourself from the idiot right-wingers on this site; I don't blame you for fantasizing that your politics are more respectable than that of the political allies you despise even when you agree with them, but I do blame you for lying about me.

They learned the correct answer, and decided to go with the false one. That's lying.

They went with their own criteria which disagreed with Pat's. More likely that Pat was wrong, or that media ranging from mainstream (AP, networks, major newspapers) to right-wing (like Fox News and OANN) were all uniformly wrong? In any case, being wrong is not lying.

But Pat is lying about what he said in this thread.

One bill or two?

I have repeatedly said that it is one bill for purposes of the President's signing or vetoing it. That Congress merged two pieces of legislation is not particularly relevant; it is relevant that Pat said that the foreign aid was part of coronavirus relief (specifically, that it was part of the $900 billion) and thus treated that as a separate bill. Nothing I said depended on the two being separate bills.

Why would Pat separate out the $900 billion for coronavirus relief rather than using the entire cost of $2.3 trillion? Well, that Pat is a deliberate liar is a sufficient explanation, of course, but why wouldn't Pat divide the entire cost of the bill when that would make a stronger point against the $600 checks as costing more than twice as much? Could it be that Pat was thinking of them as separate bills and may not even have known they were one bill? Well, we can never know, since the only source for that information would be Pat, who is a deliberate liar.

[Snowman0147]

It is one bill.  One bill so full of pork and with barely any time to read that even AOC bitched about it in twitter and yet still voted yes for it.  Tulsi was the only one that I know among the democrats that voted against the bill out of basic decency.  You don't vote yes on bills if you don't know what is in it.  Bills are like the devil contracts, but everyone suffers instead of the politicians that sign it.

[Pat]

They went with their own criteria which disagreed with Pat's. More likely that Pat was wrong, or that media ranging from mainstream (AP, networks, major newspapers) to right-wing (like Fox News and OANN) were all uniformly wrong? In any case, being wrong is not lying.

But Pat is lying about what he said in this thread.

If someone points out a third party lied, "no you're the liar!" isn't a very mature response. If you think the evidence suggests otherwise, you should make your case. You tried to do that once, and I wasn't convinced.

One bill or two?

I have repeatedly said that it is one bill for purposes of the President's signing or vetoing it. That Congress merged two pieces of legislation is not particularly relevant; it is relevant that Pat said that the foreign aid was part of coronavirus relief (specifically, that it was part of the $900 billion) and thus treated that as a separate bill. Nothing I said depended on the two being separate bills.

Obvious reply: It's not one bill under certain circumstances. It's one bill, period. Under all circumstances.

See what you're doing? You made a false statement. You haven't really conceded, and you're still trying to weasel out of that mistake. Making a mistake isn't really a big deal, but by replying like this, you're only augmenting the mistake, because you're just asking for the other person to correct you again (example in italics), which drags it out even further.

One thing you could have done is drop it. I'm perfectly fine with that. Most people don't like publicly admitting their mistakes, and demanding they do so tends to make them double down, which is a conversation killer. That creates bad will and leads to an endless cycle of "no you"s (like you're doing right now), and all for what? An ego trip? No thanks.

You've made some other mistakes in the thread, I've corrected them, and then dropped it. That's how I normally operate. I'm not going to badger someone just to stroke my own ego. So if it's exactly what I just said I don't normally do, why did I keep harping on the one bill? I was hoping you'd notice I was mimicking you. I was throwing your own rhetorical techniques back at you in an attempt to point out you were doing exactly the same thing, without explicitly calling you out. That didn't work, so I'm coming out and stating it.

Let's start here: The part about the foreign aid not being part of the $900 intended for coronavirus relief? You're right, and I was wrong. I could link the sources I used, which said the same thing I said, but they're wrong too. Just like the sources you used that talk about the coronavirus package being a separate bill. They're both easy mistakes, and ones that have also been made by people who are supposed to be experts (as evidenced by our sources).

I don't have any problem admitting my mistakes, which seems to make me a bit of an oddball. And I was going to come out and say I was wrong in a post, but you weren't just being petty about it, you had also made the same kind of mistake. So I tried to show you what you were doing by mirroring your behavior.

You're right that the one/two bill thing isn't terribly vital, but it is a useful correction. The same is true about whether the foreign aid spending is part of the coronavirus package or not. My point is and always has been that they're using an emergency and a high publicity items ($600!) as cover to throw all their pet projects into the bill. Whether it's part of the $900 billion or part of the greater $2+ trillion isn't terribly important.

[SHARK]

They went with their own criteria which disagreed with Pat's. More likely that Pat was wrong, or that media ranging from mainstream (AP, networks, major newspapers) to right-wing (like Fox News and OANN) were all uniformly wrong? In any case, being wrong is not lying.

But Pat is lying about what he said in this thread.

If someone points out a third party lied, "no you're the liar!" isn't a very mature response. If you think the evidence suggests otherwise, you should make your case. You tried to do that once, and I wasn't convinced.

One bill or two?

I have repeatedly said that it is one bill for purposes of the President's signing or vetoing it. That Congress merged two pieces of legislation is not particularly relevant; it is relevant that Pat said that the foreign aid was part of coronavirus relief (specifically, that it was part of the $900 billion) and thus treated that as a separate bill. Nothing I said depended on the two being separate bills.

Obvious reply: It's not one bill under certain circumstances. It's one bill, period. Under all circumstances.

See what you're doing? You made a false statement. You haven't really conceded, and you're still trying to weasel out of that mistake. Making a mistake isn't really a big deal, but by replying like this, you're only augmenting the mistake, because you're just asking for the other person to correct you again (example in italics), which drags it out even further.

One thing you could have done is drop it. I'm perfectly fine with that. Most people don't like publicly admitting their mistakes, and demanding they do so tends to make them double down, which is a conversation killer. That creates bad will and leads to an endless cycle of "no you"s (like you're doing right now), and all for what? An ego trip? No thanks.

You've made some other mistakes in the thread, I've corrected them, and then dropped it. That's how I normally operate. I'm not going to badger someone just to stroke my own ego. So if it's exactly what I just said I don't normally do, why did I keep harping on the one bill? I was hoping you'd notice I was mimicking you. I was throwing your own rhetorical techniques back at you in an attempt to point out you were doing exactly the same thing, without explicitly calling you out. That didn't work, so I'm coming out and stating it.

Let's start here: The part about the foreign aid not being part of the $900 intended for coronavirus relief? You're right, and I was wrong. I could link the sources I used, which said the same thing I said, but they're wrong too. Just like the sources you used that talk about the coronavirus package being a separate bill. They're both easy mistakes, and ones that have also been made by people who are supposed to be experts (as evidenced by our sources).

I don't have any problem admitting my mistakes, which seems to make me a bit of an oddball. And I was going to come out and say I was wrong in a post, but you weren't just being petty about it, you had also made the same kind of mistake. So I tried to show you what you were doing by mirroring your behavior.

You're right that the one/two bill thing isn't terribly vital, but it is a useful correction. The same is true about whether the foreign aid spending is part of the coronavirus package or not. My point is and always has been that they're using an emergency and a high publicity items ($600!) as cover to throw all their pet projects into the bill. Whether it's part of the $900 billion or part of the greater $2+ trillion isn't terribly important.

Greetings!

Well said, Pat. I very much agree.

Your point about "My point is and always has been that they're using an emergency and a high publicity items (600!) as cover to throw all their pet projects into the bill. Whether it' part of the $900 billion or part of the greater $2+trillion isn't terribly important." *Laughing* This is *exactly* what was going through my head!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

[Kiero]

Are people buying the "mutant strain" bullshit, that coincidentally allows the UK government to prolong the utterly unnecessary restrictions?

[Snowman0147]

Are people buying the "mutant strain" bullshit, that coincidentally allows the UK government to prolong the utterly unnecessary restrictions?

I heard they found another strain in either South America, or South Africa.  All it proves is that the vaccines will be useless.  The silverlining is that these strains are weaker.

[Pat]

Are people buying the "mutant strain" bullshit, that coincidentally allows the UK government to prolong the utterly unnecessary restrictions?

I heard they found another strain in either South America, or South Africa.  All it proves is that the vaccines will be useless.  The silverlining is that these strains are weaker.

South Africa.

There are dozens of strains of COVID-19. They can track them, and trace their phylogeny (family tree). They've clustered them in 6 general groups. This is normal, viruses mutate constantly. But most of the variants are the result of one or two mutations. The version first identified in Kent has 17 significant mutations, an abnormally large number. Some of the mutations affect the proteins on the spikes, which may be why it's more infectious. None of the mutations should make the vaccines ineffective. All the vaccines are targeting a wide number of areas, and relatively stable ones, so it's unlikely, at least in the short term, that they'll stop working.

[jhkim]

It is one bill.  One bill so full of pork and with barely any time to read that even AOC bitched about it in twitter and yet still voted yes for it.  Tulsi was the only one that I know among the democrats that voted against the bill out of basic decency.  You don't vote yes on bills if you don't know what is in it.  Bills are like the devil contracts, but everyone suffers instead of the politicians that sign it.

Do you have a source on this? The big spending bill was HR 133. From what I see here:

https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2020250?Page=1

There were 41 Democratic Nay votes and 43 Republican Nay votes, and AOC was one of the Nay votes. So it was passed by a majority of both parties, but with roughly equal opposition.

[rawma]

They went with their own criteria which disagreed with Pat's. More likely that Pat was wrong, or that media ranging from mainstream (AP, networks, major newspapers) to right-wing (like Fox News and OANN) were all uniformly wrong? In any case, being wrong is not lying.

But Pat is lying about what he said in this thread.

If someone points out a third party lied, "no you're the liar!" isn't a very mature response. If you think the evidence suggests otherwise, you should make your case. You tried to do that once, and I wasn't convinced.

You didn't point out a third party lied; you claimed that all the media who disagreed with your definition must therefore be lying. If someone says "Everyone else is a liar!" then you should look closely at that person. I was simply applying your standard (knows better but doesn't correct and therefore deliberate lying) to you, and I've even explained that to you repeatedly.

One bill or two?

I have repeatedly said that it is one bill for purposes of the President's signing or vetoing it. That Congress merged two pieces of legislation is not particularly relevant; it is relevant that Pat said that the foreign aid was part of coronavirus relief (specifically, that it was part of the $900 billion) and thus treated that as a separate bill. Nothing I said depended on the two being separate bills.

Obvious reply: It's not one bill under certain circumstances. It's one bill, period. Under all circumstances.

See what you're doing? You made a false statement. You haven't really conceded, and you're still trying to weasel out of that mistake. Making a mistake isn't really a big deal, but by replying like this, you're only augmenting the mistake, because you're just asking for the other person to correct you again (example in italics), which drags it out even further.

I did not make a false statement, although the sources I linked described the two as separate but still had correct information; my statement did not hinge on them being separate, as you had separated them out by only considering the cost of one part of the bill. You incorrectly attributed the foreign aid to the $900 billion coronavirus relief; pointing out that there was foreign aid (pretty much as requested by the President's budget) in an omnibus spending bill would have been not even a "dog bites man" story but more like "dog wags tail".

I understand that you were trying to drop it without admitting your mistake, but as long as you keep attacking me for something I didn't do, you're not really dropping it and, unlike you, I don't have the luxury here of someone else like SHARK posting in support of me, so I will defend myself.

I was hoping you'd notice I was mimicking you. I was throwing your own rhetorical techniques back at you in an attempt to point out you were doing exactly the same thing, without explicitly calling you out.

It would have worked better if you had found a mistake that completely undercut any entire post of mine, as I did with yours. It just looked like you were quibbling over an irrelevant point to avoid an admission of error that was the entire basis of your reply.

The part about the foreign aid not being part of the $900 intended for coronavirus relief? You're right, and I was wrong.

I will in turn concede that I did not consider whether the two parts of the bill were passed together; they were widely reported as separate entities and had very different paths of negotiation, and it was not important except to change the possible issues from a presidential veto. But you incorrectly attributing foreign aid to stimulus/relief completely demolishes your point in this post:

Trumpbux Mark 2.0 adds up to $166 billion, and expanded unemployment another $120 billion. What part of the $634 billion left over adds up to helping those were more negatively affected? The money to monitor climate change in Tibet? Paying for investigating a race riot in 1908? Hundreds of millions to help another country (the Sudan) pay down it's own debt?

Calling this either a stimulus or a disaster relief bill is a joke. It's pork, with a minor bribe attached.

You're right that the one/two bill thing isn't terribly vital, but it is a useful correction. The same is true about whether the foreign aid spending is part of the coronavirus package or not. My point is and always has been that they're using an emergency and a high publicity items ($600!) as cover to throw all their pet projects into the bill. Whether it's part of the $900 billion or part of the greater $2+ trillion isn't terribly important.

Again, you say after many, many posts that this was what you did all along, but you never mentioned the omnibus spending bill. This is an ongoing issue in conversation with you; you either hold back your real intent or invent it later, and pretend you were explicitly saying it all along. I corrected the obvious and immediate errors in your early post and you slowly slid into claiming you always said something you didn't and which would have undercut your point entirely if you had.

I'm willing to let it go now, assuming you don't jump back in. Our discussion of aerosolization in the mask mandate thread is a much better model for future interaction.

[Mistwell]

It is one bill.  One bill so full of pork and with barely any time to read that even AOC bitched about it in twitter and yet still voted yes for it.  Tulsi was the only one that I know among the democrats that voted against the bill out of basic decency.  You don't vote yes on bills if you don't know what is in it.  Bills are like the devil contracts, but everyone suffers instead of the politicians that sign it.

It was two.

He signed the Covid Relief bill, and vetoed the Defense bill.

[Mistwell]

I heard they found another strain in either South America, or South Africa.  All it proves is that the vaccines will be useless.  The silverlining is that these strains are weaker.

It does not, in any way, prove the vaccines will be useless. They are fairly broad spectrum vaccines due to the nature of this type of vaccine.

[Pat]

They went with their own criteria which disagreed with Pat's. More likely that Pat was wrong, or that media ranging from mainstream (AP, networks, major newspapers) to right-wing (like Fox News and OANN) were all uniformly wrong? In any case, being wrong is not lying.

But Pat is lying about what he said in this thread.

If someone points out a third party lied, "no you're the liar!" isn't a very mature response. If you think the evidence suggests otherwise, you should make your case. You tried to do that once, and I wasn't convinced.

You didn't point out a third party lied; you claimed that all the media who disagreed with your definition must therefore be lying. If someone says "Everyone else is a liar!" then you should look closely at that person. I was simply applying your standard (knows better but doesn't correct and therefore deliberate lying) to you, and I've even explained that to you repeatedly.

The news organizations aren't you, and aren't me, therefore they're third parties. That's the literal definition of the phrase. And I explained, in detail, why calling Biden the president-elect, without using a qualifier like "presumptive", was incorrect until the states were certified or the electors cast their votes. Since there was no reasonable argument supporting their position, and the nature of the election meant the electoral process was covered in great detail, they had to actively choose to keep using the incorrect term, after they learned better. That makes them liars. Your attempt to claim I'm really the liar, without even explaining how it applies to me, is just an irrational "no you" response.

You're trying to be pedantic, but you're not very good at it.

I did not make a false statement, although the sources I linked described the two as separate but still had correct information; my statement did not hinge on them being separate, as you had separated them out by only considering the cost of one part of the bill. You incorrectly attributed the foreign aid to the $900 billion coronavirus relief; pointing out that there was foreign aid (pretty much as requested by the President's budget) in an omnibus spending bill would have been not even a "dog bites man" story but more like "dog wags tail".

You claimed it was one bill. That was a false statement.

I understand that you were trying to drop it without admitting your mistake, but as long as you keep attacking me for something I didn't do, you're not really dropping it and, unlike you, I don't have the luxury here of someone else like SHARK posting in support of me, so I will defend myself.

Then you fail at reading comprehension, because I quite literally said I was going to post a correction, like I almost always do. I was offering you the chance to bow out without admitting your mistake.

And SHARK didn't support either of us in this stupid little dispute. He just supported a general statement about the bill's nature, and he's attacked me in the past.

It would have worked better if you had found a mistake that completely undercut any entire post of mine, as I did with yours. It just looked like you were quibbling over an irrelevant point to avoid an admission of error that was the entire basis of your reply.

Nonsense. My thesis is they were using the coronavirus to slide in all the crap they couldn't get passed when there isn't an emergency. That they were attaching crap like funding for the Sudan supports my thesis.

The part about the foreign aid not being part of the $900 intended for coronavirus relief? You're right, and I was wrong.

I will in turn concede that I did not consider whether the two parts of the bill were passed together; they were widely reported as separate entities and had very different paths of negotiation, and it was not important except to change the possible issues from a presidential veto. But you incorrectly attributing foreign aid to stimulus/relief completely demolishes your point in this post:

Trumpbux Mark 2.0 adds up to $166 billion, and expanded unemployment another $120 billion. What part of the $634 billion left over adds up to helping those were more negatively affected? The money to monitor climate change in Tibet? Paying for investigating a race riot in 1908? Hundreds of millions to help another country (the Sudan) pay down it's own debt?

Calling this either a stimulus or a disaster relief bill is a joke. It's pork, with a minor bribe attached.

That quite literally supports my position.

You're right that the one/two bill thing isn't terribly vital, but it is a useful correction. The same is true about whether the foreign aid spending is part of the coronavirus package or not. My point is and always has been that they're using an emergency and a high publicity items ($600!) as cover to throw all their pet projects into the bill. Whether it's part of the $900 billion or part of the greater $2+ trillion isn't terribly important.

Again, you say after many, many posts that this was what you did all along, but you never mentioned the omnibus spending bill. This is an ongoing issue in conversation with you; you either hold back your real intent or invent it later, and pretend you were explicitly saying it all along. I corrected the obvious and immediate errors in your early post and you slowly slid into claiming you always said something you didn't and which would have undercut your point entirely if you had.

You pointed out one error, I pointed out many of yours. And I literally referred to items from the omnibus. You have no case.

I'm willing to let it go now, assuming you don't jump back in. Our discussion of aerosolization in the mask mandate thread is a much better model for future interaction.

I was trying to give you a graceful out. Acting condescending and making demands is not an appropriate response.

The discussion of aerosolization is more positive because you behaved better. I never start fights.

[rawma]

They went with their own criteria which disagreed with Pat's. More likely that Pat was wrong, or that media ranging from mainstream (AP, networks, major newspapers) to right-wing (like Fox News and OANN) were all uniformly wrong? In any case, being wrong is not lying.

But Pat is lying about what he said in this thread.

If someone points out a third party lied, "no you're the liar!" isn't a very mature response. If you think the evidence suggests otherwise, you should make your case. You tried to do that once, and I wasn't convinced.

You didn't point out a third party lied; you claimed that all the media who disagreed with your definition must therefore be lying. If someone says "Everyone else is a liar!" then you should look closely at that person. I was simply applying your standard (knows better but doesn't correct and therefore deliberate lying) to you, and I've even explained that to you repeatedly.

The news organizations aren't you, and aren't me, therefore they're third parties. That's the literal definition of the phrase. And I explained, in detail, why calling Biden the president-elect, without using a qualifier like "presumptive", was incorrect until the states were certified or the electors cast their votes. Since there was no reasonable argument supporting their position, and the nature of the election meant the electoral process was covered in great detail, they had to actively choose to keep using the incorrect term, after they learned better. That makes them liars. Your attempt to claim I'm really the liar, without even explaining how it applies to me, is just an irrational "no you" response.

You are the only one who doesn't find the provisions of the Presidential Transition Act to be a reasonable argument; the term "president elect" is defined in federal law, and anyone claiming the benefits attached to that designation without being the president elect would be violating the law; are you asserting that Joe Biden and the head of the GSA (who authorized that funding) are violating federal law?

When I said you did not name a third party, the intended emphasis was on "a" and would have been better represented as "did not name a third party"; sorry for not emphasizing it but it seemed obvious. Instead you named a whole bunch of third parties, and when one person who has no real basis for his opinion, just his own pedantry, names an enormous number of competing third parties with very different agendas as uniformly, deliberately lying because they disagree with him, then there is more reason to doubt the person making that claim, rather than the third parties.

And in the current situation I applied your standard to you. I demonstrated that you were wrong (you later conceded the error, so my demonstration was correct) and you continued to say the same thing, which must mean, by your standard, that you were deliberately lying.

You're trying to be pedantic, but you're not very good at it.

I could never hope to approach your level of pedantry.

I did not make a false statement, although the sources I linked described the two as separate but still had correct information; my statement did not hinge on them being separate, as you had separated them out by only considering the cost of one part of the bill. You incorrectly attributed the foreign aid to the $900 billion coronavirus relief; pointing out that there was foreign aid (pretty much as requested by the President's budget) in an omnibus spending bill would have been not even a "dog bites man" story but more like "dog wags tail".

You claimed it was one bill. That was a false statement.

You are confused; you were arguing that it is one bill (as passed by Congress, giving the President only the option of vetoing the entire thing or signing the entire thing, although the timing and a pocket veto could affect the exact outcome for that one bill); you have criticized me for referencing the coronavirus relief and the omnibus spending as if separate, even though it has no bearing on the correctness of my post, since the foreign aid was not intended as relief or stimulus.

I understand that you were trying to drop it without admitting your mistake, but as long as you keep attacking me for something I didn't do, you're not really dropping it and, unlike you, I don't have the luxury here of someone else like SHARK posting in support of me, so I will defend myself.

Then you fail at reading comprehension, because I quite literally said I was going to post a correction, like I almost always do. I was offering you the chance to bow out without admitting your mistake.

My statement was about what you were previously doing, in the past, not what you said you were going to do. It seems that dropping it would be better achieved by making the correction and not by posting additional criticism. Since you seem to want to continue to attack me, I will continue to point out your error and dishonesty. Given that you have already conceded your error, are you now backtracking from that concession?

As you note later, "making demands is not an appropriate response" and yet you apparently were demanding that I not respond, despite the continued misrepresentations you have made.

And SHARK didn't support either of us in this stupid little dispute. He just supported a general statement about the bill's nature, and he's attacked me in the past.

He agreed that your statement was correct; that is support that I rarely get. You can look back through the thread for Shasarak and consolcwby who were critical of me and not of you.

It would have worked better if you had found a mistake that completely undercut any entire post of mine, as I did with yours. It just looked like you were quibbling over an irrelevant point to avoid an admission of error that was the entire basis of your reply.

Nonsense. My thesis is they were using the coronavirus to slide in all the crap they couldn't get passed when there isn't an emergency. That they were attaching crap like funding for the Sudan supports my thesis.

Your thesis at the time was that the bill was for "helping those were more negatively affected" [sic] and that "Calling this either a stimulus or a disaster relief bill is a joke. . It's pork, with a minor bribe attached". This suggests you did not understand the full scope of the bill, which was not just the coronavirus relief. As usual, you want to pretend that the point you pivoted to much later was what you claimed all along.

The part about the foreign aid not being part of the $900 intended for coronavirus relief? You're right, and I was wrong.

This appears to have been inadvertently left in, but I'll take it as repeating your concession.

I will in turn concede that I did not consider whether the two parts of the bill were passed together; they were widely reported as separate entities and had very different paths of negotiation, and it was not important except to change the possible issues from a presidential veto. But you incorrectly attributing foreign aid to stimulus/relief completely demolishes your point in this post:

Trumpbux Mark 2.0 adds up to $166 billion, and expanded unemployment another $120 billion. What part of the $634 billion left over adds up to helping those were more negatively affected? The money to monitor climate change in Tibet? Paying for investigating a race riot in 1908? Hundreds of millions to help another country (the Sudan) pay down it's own debt?

Calling this either a stimulus or a disaster relief bill is a joke. It's pork, with a minor bribe attached.

That quite literally supports my position.

The total amount you listed adds up to $920 billion: that's not the cost of the entire bill that includes the foreign aid provisions you listed as being part of that cost; those provisions were part of the $1.4 trillion omnibus spending bill. If anything, it just looks more and more like you were confused over one versus two bills.

You're right that the one/two bill thing isn't terribly vital, but it is a useful correction. The same is true about whether the foreign aid spending is part of the coronavirus package or not. My point is and always has been that they're using an emergency and a high publicity items ($600!) as cover to throw all their pet projects into the bill. Whether it's part of the $900 billion or part of the greater $2+ trillion isn't terribly important.

Again, you say after many, many posts that this was what you did all along, but you never mentioned the omnibus spending bill. This is an ongoing issue in conversation with you; you either hold back your real intent or invent it later, and pretend you were explicitly saying it all along. I corrected the obvious and immediate errors in your early post and you slowly slid into claiming you always said something you didn't and which would have undercut your point entirely if you had.

You pointed out one error, I pointed out many of yours. And I literally referred to items from the omnibus. You have no case.

You have not pointed out any error of mine that affected my post. I have repeatedly pointed out the one error that you conceded after so many posts, and apparently now want to contest again, which made your post nonsense.

I'm willing to let it go now, assuming you don't jump back in. Our discussion of aerosolization in the mask mandate thread is a much better model for future interaction.

I was trying to give you a graceful out. Acting condescending and making demands is not an appropriate response.

The discussion of aerosolization is more positive because you behaved better. I never start fights.

I made no demands, only pointed out what I would do in response to what you might do.

The part about the foreign aid not being part of the $900 intended for coronavirus relief? You're right, and I was wrong.

That pretty much says it all. The correction invalidates the post where you made this error.

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Well, I do agree with Pat's assessment. The funding of this bill--filled with a trainload of bullshit, with a "lollypop" of $600 attached within to mollify the masses--is ridiculous and terrible. Beyond that, I also don't care about how the bill is diced up; one bill for 900 billion; two bills for 2.4 trillion--or any other charlatanry that the slug politicians present it as--whatever. It's all terrible and pathetic, greedy, sniveling bullshit. I am not an expert in economics--and do not pretend to be. Everything I have read about it sounds mind-bogglingly corrupt and smarmy.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK