Americans want to work for companies with vaccine requirements

Yesterday I reported that Moscow Mitch agreed to not filibuster the bill to raise the debt ceiling. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos reported that he didn’t explain that well to his fellow Republicans and had a bit of trouble getting the ten votes needed to end the filibuster. He did, with a vote to spare. Those who voted against it accused Mitch of caving to the Democrats (some Democrats gleefully saying the same thing). They were encouraged to hold firm by the nasty guy. So maybe Mitch doesn’t have all that much control over his party. The actual bill passed 50-48 and goes on to the house. As I mentioned yesterday, this bill gives the Treasury enough borrowing power to last until early December. Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, has several interesting quotes, all in this block. First is a tweet from Kate Irby.

So after a pileup of deadlines in September, Congress has punted: - the debt cliff until December - a government shutdown until December - infrastructure/reconciliation until the end of the month

In response to a story of Biden making another push for vaccine mandates, a tweet by Ben Wakana:

Incredible nugget in this story. United Airlines received 20,000 applications for 2,000 flight attendant positions – a ratio HIGHER THAN BEFORE THE PANDEMIC. Americans *want* to work for companies with vaccine requirements.

A tweet from Brad Heath:

New from @reuters: One America News, the right-wing cable network that peddled 2020 election conspiracies, gets nearly all of its revenue from AT&T.

Alas, various phone companies hold monopolies on land lines in an area. From Nieman Reports:

The Cleveland Plain Dealer recently declared they would be taking a fairly radical approach going forward. Editor Chris Quinn stated the paper would ignore false statements from U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel that the paper believed were ploys for attention. Mandel has promoted the conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen and advocated rescinding Ohio’s mask mandate earlier in the pandemic. Publishing outright false claims by politicians only serves the politicians’ agenda, argues Quinn, and his newsroom would not be complicit.

And from the Washington Post:

Who believes in conspiracy theories? Statistically speaking: almost everyone. A team of researchers recently showed several thousand Americans a list of 20 common conspiracy theories and asked if they believed them. These included false conspiracy theories about the John F. Kennedy assassination, 5G cellular wireless technology, Barack Obama’s birth certificate, covid-19 and climate change. The result: Nine in 10 Americans believed in at least one conspiracy theory.

Laura Clawson of Kos reported Federal District Judge Robert Ptiman ordered the new Texas abortion law be suspended. Texas will appeal to the highly conservative 5th district. That may not matter because the Supreme Court is already scheduled to hear a case to end Roe v. Wade. That threat has prompted several reproductive rights groups to change their stance and now favor the elimination of the filibuster. I’ve heard women’s health clinics in Texas have not resumed offering abortions, even though this ruling says they can. There’s a little detail in the bill that says if it isn’t struck down it is retroactive through the time it is suspended. Boatsie of the Climate Brief, part of the Kos community wrote that a big part, perhaps enough of a part, of our climate change problem can be solved though Nature. There are an estimated 4.4 billion acres not used for agriculture or urban development that could be reforested. Wetlands and grasslands can be protected and improved. The practice of agroecology can create sustainable food systems and help end inequality. All of this can pull a significant amount of carbon from the air (and I’ll let you read the numbers) which will significantly reduce climate change. Commenter Mercy Ormont believes the numbers in the story are correct. Some people make money from cutting down trees (both for lumber and for clearing the land for crops – see Brazil’s rainforest). So until they can make at least as much money preserving trees and planting more it won’t happen. Grasslands and wetlands won’t be preserved and strengthened as long as more money can be made by destroying them. Without big policy changes, strengthening Nature ain’t gonna happen. Which is why it hasn’t happened yet. In another comment the author linked to an article listing ways Biden, through executive orders, can take significant action on climate change. Hundreds of environmental groups have made sure knows about what he can do. Yet, he hasn’t. Alec Luhn, a former Russia correspondent and now working for Scripps in environmental journalism, tweeted:

Russia says its forests absorb so much CO2 that it can *increase* emissions thru 2050 & even start selling carbon credits. Meanwhile wildfires here have released more CO2 in 3 months than Germany does in a year...

Luhn then reviewed the fire situation in the Russian Taiga, the world’s largest forest. Fires are now burning hotter, longer, and more often. Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist, tweeted about the results of a study by Alexander Bor and Michael Bang Peterson:

The internet doesn't turn people into trolls. It just makes their trolling more visible. 8 studies, over 8k people: if you're an asshole online, you're probably an asshole in person too. Trolls choose aggression to get attention. It's better to ignore them than feed them.

I didn’t know – The National Center for Lesbian Rights tweeted that today is International Lesbian Day. The tweet includes the slogan “A day without lesbians is like a day without sunshine.” Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos shared some late night commentary. Here are a couple.

The infrastructure bill has been delayed indefinitely. So I guess we'll just cross that bridge when it collapses on top of us. —Colin Jost, SNL This should be a no-brainer: just get rid of the filibuster. It's an old rule historically used to preserve racist policies, it's not in the Constitution, and yet it's blocking the United States' ability to stay solvent. Keeping the filibuster would be like an E.M.T. trying to defibrillate someone and going, 'You know, I'd love to save his life but I can't—he's wearing white after Labor Day. He'll be missed…but not in those pants. —Stephen Colbert