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.
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.
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.
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 think the US government is worth being hostile towards.
TikTok is banned in China too. lol
Again, wasn’t defending the ban. Just addressing the other elephant in the room. :)
But yes, agreed. Critical thinking and media literacy skills are key.
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)
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.
They just do not understand political capital. Very common problem with populists.
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.
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.
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.
nah, it was:
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.
If it was so urgent, why did he split it so it now the bill has to go through the Senate again?
What do you mean?
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.
I’m confused where the aspect of urgency is coming from. I never asserted that Johnson was doing things urgently.
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.
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.
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.
This is how politics gets done at this level. I give you something, you give me something.
Even if bills were separated, there’d just be back room agreements to combine them informally.
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.
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.
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.
Well, technically this isn’t a law until it’s passed in the Senate and signed by the POTUS.
It will cause TikTok to be sold, not banned