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Chad Pergram
@ChadPergram 5 years, 9 months ago 832 views

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A) This is “Capitol Crunch.” Congress often faces an avalanche of activity in December as lawmakers try to wrap up for the year. And the challenges this year are particularly acute.

B) Talks go on behind the scenes about a potential coronavirus relief package. We truly don’t know the size of the final product. But we keep hearing that the bipartisan “baseline” will be a little more than $900 billion.

C) But there are still major sticking points over liability protections and money for state and local governments.

D) It appears that the only way to advance any sort of coronavirus bill will be to latch it to the big, $1.4 trillion, omnibus spending bill which leaders and appropriators have been working on for weeks. But that’s far from settled, too.

E) Issues still remain regarding migrant detention policy and money for the wall.

Frankly, it’s going to take until at least early next week to get a coronavirus bill which can jell – let alone, the bill to avoid a government shutdown at 11:59:59 pm et on December 11.

F) So, expect lawmakers to craft a short-term, one-week, interim spending bill (known as a CR, short for “Continuing Resolution”) to keep the government open past Friday night. This bill will simply renew all funding at existing levels.

G) That said, we do expect the House and Senate to move the final version of the defense bill early this week. President Trump is threatening to veto the package. He opposes a provision in the bill to drop the names of military bases named after Confederates.

H) Moreover, The President re-upped his veto threat after lawmakers didn’t include a provision in the bill to terminate “Section 230.” That’s short-hand for a portion of telecommunications policy which grants big tech firms liability protections.

I) Any potential override attempt would likely have to come next week – depending on how fast Congress can approve the new bill and if the President vetoes the bill quickly and returns it to Capitol Hill.

J) What this means is that lawmakers hoped for a one-week sprint. They are now staring at a two-week sprint.

Expect a lot of machinations behind the scenes this week. This week will likely be the prelude to the true crunch week: next week.

More from Chad Pergram

Chad Pergram
@ChadPergram

1) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the New Congress Starting Today and the Election for Speaker.

2) Starting the new Congress is inherently messy in a pandemic. The House of Representatives implemented “remote voting” in the spring.

3) That’s where the House permitted members who were at high risk, quarantining, tested positive or caring for someone who is ill could “phone in” their vote. The Hse will vote on Monday on a new “rules package” to begin the new Congress which will include a remote voting option

4) But in the House, you can’t carry over rules from the 116th Congress to the 117thCongress.

That’s why everyone has to show up at noon today.

This poses an interesting, ethical question:

5) Is it appropriate for members who have tested positive, have been in quarantine or been exposed, be present today?

Here’s what to expect in the House today.

Chad Pergram
@ChadPergram

1) Washington is staring at the potential of a government shutdown Monday night. This is grim. Congress has approved four temporary spending bills since the end of the government’s fiscal year in September to prevent a shutdown.

2) The most recent stopgap measure was a seven day plan this week. Mbrs knew that the COVID/coronavirus bill was so large, it would take several days to send to the White House. Yes, that bill funds the government until next fall. But it isn’t law until the President signs it.

3) So, the most recent Band-Aid measure was the equivalent of fiscal grout. The House will approve another emergency measure on Monday. But there's doubt the Senate will do anything before then. And, it’s unclear if President Trump would sign anything. That means a shutdown.

4) A shutdown is always dangerous. It could be more dangerous during a pandemic. And it’s unclear if a shutdown could have devastating impacts on distributing the vaccine.

5) It takes a two-thirds vote of both the House and Senate to override a presidential veto. With 359 House yeas and 92 Senate yeas on the COVID/omnibus bill, both bodies have way more than a supermajority to override a presidential veto.

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Chad Pergram
@ChadPergram

1) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Senate Trial today

What is expected to be the final day of President Trump’s second impeachment trial will begin at 10 am et today. We anticipate a final vote on the guilt or innocence of the former President as early as midday.

Chad Pergram
@ChadPergram

1) The Hitchhiker's Guide to a 2nd impeachment of President Trump: The House can impeach someone twice. And the Senate can even launch an impeachment trial after the President vacates his office.

Chad Pergram
@ChadPergram

1) A LOT of balls in the air today on Capitol Hill, as is per usual here in December.

The House is expected to vote on a short-term spending bill today to avoid a government shutdown this weekend. Remember, this was supposed to be the easy part of the puzzle.

2) There are dozens of unresolved issues. So the new deadline for government funding will be 11:59:59 pm on December 18.

It’s possible the Senate could take up the stopgap funding bill today. But unclear. That may have to wait until tomorrow.

3) The Senate could also vote today to align with the House and pass the final version of the defense bill. But that could wait until tomorrow or even next week.

A veto override fight is brewing on this with President Trump.

4) The House scored WELL above the two-thirds necessary to override Mr. Trump’s threatened veto. In fact, the vote total last night went well above what the House had to approve the initial version of the legislation in the summer.

5) Based on the Senate’s vote total on the original version (86 yeas), senators should have the necessary votes to sync with the House and override the President later this month.

Congress has never overriden one of President Trump’s eight vetoes.

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Rich Weinstein
@phillyrich1

For a few weeks I’ve been wondering about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and just how she emerged as a politico. Her path to Washington is shocking, at the very least. My first question was: What were her campaign positions BEFORE she became a national figure?

1/

So I went to her campaign website and took that web address and looked through the internet archive. When I went back to 2017, it was not her website, it belonged to the group "Brand New Congress."

2/

Here's what the web address https://t.co/Uhz2q4Dpll looks like now:

3/

Here's what the same web address looked like in late 2017:

4/

What's “Brand New Congress?” BNC is a group of Bernie Sanders staffers who got together, decided to make the 2018 midterms all about Bernie policies by taking his ideas & finding 400 Bernie carbon copies to dump into Congressional & other races, creating a 400 headed Bernie.

5/

David Burney
@jdburney1

What does "patriots in control" mean?
What would that "look like" in reality?

So a massive adult film star in all his glory is included in an official FBI government filing

Perhaps the explanation is that Patriots are in control.

\U0001f923\U0001f923\U0001f923\U0001f923 https://t.co/W3S8TgeY74
— David Burney (@jdburney1) February 6, 2021

Hunter Biden's book is categorized as "Chinese

Patriots in control?
\U0001f923\U0001f923\U0001f923\U0001f923 https://t.co/p0rEyfd2DW
— David Burney (@jdburney1) February 6, 2021

TIME admits to "conspiracy" to "not rig, rather

TIME admits stolen election, with spin!

"They weren't rigging the election, they were fortifying it."

Recognize the Ministry of Truth? How many things in the last few years have been redefined to be the opposite of reality?

Google the definition of "bigot" if you doubt me. https://t.co/CNU888fxr4 pic.twitter.com/UEhRBOtUB6
— David Burney (@jdburney1) February 6, 2021

A "pillow guy" has military-grade intercepts detailing the IP addresses and device MAC IDs of EVERY incursion into every county in the

God bless the pillow manufacturer.

The last 30 minutes details where every single incursion is recorded including IP and MAC addresses. 100% proof. pic.twitter.com/P5MVb1xGNC
— David Burney (@jdburney1) February 6, 2021

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Chuck Wendig
@ChuckWendig

TRUMP: "I've decided to eat babies."

PEOPLE: "He can't eat babies, that's super illegal."

TRUMP, on TV, eating babies, not even cooking them first: "People are saying that I really am the best baby-eater, folks."

NYT: "Trump Vs. Babies: The Rhetoric On Both Sides Must Stop"

Jeff Flake tweets: "It is a sad day in America when this callous man can eat babies live on TV"

Jeff Flake, 10 seconds later, votes to help him install a series of 4,000 new judges that are very, very pro-babyphagia.

Judge Kavanaugh, found drunk in a Capitol Hill closet: "I LIKE BEER. OKAY? I LIKE BEER AND I LIKE BABIES AND THAT'S NOT SO WRONG. THAT'S RIGHT. I LIKE BABIES DIPPED IN BEER. I JUST DIP EM. IN THE BEER. THE BABIES. THE BABIES I EAT. OKAY? THAT'S AMERICA."

Mike Pence, wringing his hands about the baby-eating: "We must take care of our children. Our youngest must be protected on this troubling day."

Mike Pence then invites a Baby Chef to say a prayer.

Twitter Users: "It's a distraction technique! Trump eating babies is trying to DISTRACT YOU from ALL THE OTHER HORRORS, which are themselves distractions from the BABY-EATING. It's DISTRACTIONS ALL THE WAY DOWN."

Trump: *eats tons of babies at a rally*

*literal tons of babies*

Jean-Michel Connard
@torriangray

so my eldest brother, who is a moron, has been playing soldier with his moron friends in the deserts of texas for the last year preparing for the collapse of civilization if biden won (lol). they were burying food and ammo stashes out in the desert, running drills, crazy stuff

this included getting a cb license so he could be their lifeline to other groups of white idiots when the cell towers all went offline. wouldn't want to violate federal law while communicating with your resistance groups after the fall of the federal government i guess.

anyways, you would assume given that they've been prepping for the end of the world for at least a year they're well situated to ride out the rolling blackouts right?

wellll

their plan for cooking and heating during an extended power outage was natural gas, but like a lot of homes their gas service is out. the food in their freezer and fridge is already toast due to the power outrages, so they're down to canned stuff, but there's a catch.

they can get into the pull top cans just fine, but the ones that require an opener? their only can opener is electric. so a good 3/4 of his canned food store is inaccessible to him unless he goes after it with a knife, which i sincerely hope he does.

Matt Taibbi
@mtaibbi

Thread. 1) Thirty or forty years ago, supporting free speech was understood to be a non-negotiable core value of the liberal left.

2) Pop culture endlessly celebrated liberalism’s uncompromising support of speech rights — from The People Vs. Larry Flynt to Field of Dreams to The American President.

3) Think of “President Shepard’s” speech in “The American President” about how “America isn’t easy” and citizenship requires we “acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil.”

4) That started to change long before Trump. As “The American President” came out, Bill Clinton was pushing the first Internet censorship laws.

When the PATRIOT Act passed, every Democrat but one in both houses voted yes. Russ Feingold, Independent Bernie Sanders, and three Republicans voted no.

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Patrick McKenzie
@patio11

So the cryptocurrency industry has basically two products, one which is relatively benign and doesn't have product market fit, and one which is malignant and does. The industry has a weird superposition of understanding this fact and (strategically?) not understanding it.

If everyone was holding bitcoin on the old x86 in their parents basement, we would be finding a price bottom. The problem is the risk is all pooled at a few brokerages and a network of rotten exchanges with counter party risk that makes AIG circa 2008 look like a good credit.
— Greg Wester (@gwestr) November 25, 2018

The benign product is sovereign programmable money, which is historically a niche interest of folks with a relatively clustered set of beliefs about the state, the literary merit of Snow Crash, and the utility of gold to the modern economy.

This product has narrow appeal and, accordingly, is worth about as much as everything else on a 486 sitting in someone's basement is worth.

The other product is investment scams, which have approximately the best product market fit of anything produced by humans. In no age, in no country, in no city, at no level of sophistication do people consistently say "Actually I would prefer not to get money for nothing."

This product needs the exchanges like they need oxygen, because the value of it is directly tied to having payment rails to move real currency into the ecosystem and some jurisdictional and regulatory legerdemain to stay one step ahead of the banhammer.

Amit Schandillia
@Schandillia

[THREAD: HISTORY OF THE HINDU TEMPLE]
1/102
Four hours south of Aswan in Lower Nubia, right by the Nile, is a region dotted with temple complexes built more than 3,000 years ago. Some like the temples of Amada, Derr, and Beit el-Wali go as far back as 1500 BC.

2/102
A little further south, not far from the border with Sudan, is another complex dedicated to Ramses II, Hathor, and Nefertari in the village of Ipsambul, better known locally as Abu Sunbul and internationally as Abu Simbel. These go back to the 13th century BC.

3/102
Djeser-Djeseru, also known as the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut in Upper Egypt also dates to 1400 BC. Over 500 years older is the nearby Mentuhotep II, also a mortuary temple. Both were dedicated to the cult of Amun Ra, besides their respective pharaohs.

4/102
Far older is the Ġgantija complex of Malta. Going as far back as 3600 BC, this one comprises of two temples entirely made of stone and enclosed in a stone wall. From the figures therein, it's understood to be a site of some kind of a fertility cult worship.

5/102
Dating from the same period are the limestone megaliths of Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra, both said to have once hosted ritualistic sacrifices as part of the same fertility cult worship as found in the Ġgantija complex. Malta has some of the oldest temple complexes in Europe.

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Patrick McKenzie
@patio11

A thing which I unironically and enthusiastically believe which is unpopular among smart people of my acquaintance: financial engineering has in the recent past and present contributed substantially to human welfare. We should hope to see more of it.

Maybe more geeks need to meet someone who says “My job is teleporting value across time and space.”

Financial engineering is sort of a squishy term. I don’t primarily mean payments infrastructure or financial rails, although both of those involve substantial engineering.

I mean more “We took a thing and performed some alchemy, and now have a new thing.”

Except instead of alchemy it is generally quite a bit of math, a huge amount of contract law and due diligence, often an impressive amount of ops work, and a dusting of technology that web devs would recognize as such.

Aneesh Philomina Anton...
@ProdigalTrader

If u are looking to enter a scrip just before the breakout
what would u look for?
How would u identify scrips just before breakout?

Here are a few pointers
Carefully understand the them and use at ur own discretion
(All comments r compiled from a question i posed)

1/23

Price is testing the same resistance repeatedly since long.
But now in recent times it's forming multiple candles near the same resistance with low volume.
Observe it and see for opposite move.
As soon as u get a positive candle, get in to it.

2/23

1. Volume buildup (vol > when resistance point created) along with, increase in OI, increase in delivery % on HTF
2. On LTF, price stalling around breakout area for at least 1-2hr.
3. No major events.

3/23

Stock reaching breakout LVL with HL-HH
Contraction of price and volume near it especially near 20 days ma.
If there is any breach of the latest HL it should be followed by a bullish candle with good volume.
Left side of the chart has a rally with a very steep slope of ma.

4/23

Number of wide range green bars with high volumes.
If stock is at its ATH then it adds more conviction bcz there wont b supply after that point

Consolidation below the resistance, volume of the candles & strong bullish candle closing at near highs just below the resistance

5/23

$Tinker \u274e$

Tinker ❎
@TinkerSec

Singing the Blues:
Taking Down an Insider Threat

"I had all of the advantages. I was already inside the network. No one suspected me. But they found my hack, kicked me off the network...

...and physically hunted me down."

Many pentests start from the outside, wanting to see how the perimeter might be breached.

This pentest started from the inside. My client wanted to assume they had already been breached, and, if breached, how far could an attacker go.

Could they stop me once I was inside?

So they snuck me in. Disguised me as a new employee. Gave me a work computer, an ID badge, an account in their system... hell, I even had a cubicle w/my assumed name on it.

The only person who knew who I really was was their CISO. Everyone else thought I was Jeremy in Marketing.

During most of the first morning, I completed onboarding, made introductions, and completed menial tasks.

But I had to act quick. I only had a week onsite. I had to hack their network while not raising suspicion.

So I set about it.

You have to understand... most "Internal Pentests" are straight forward. The hard part is breaching the network, but once you're inside, it's a target rich environment. End of Life computers, default passwords, everyone a Local Administrator...