Explain the "bird rule" to me

In essence, the Larry Bird exception allows teams to exceed the salary cap to re-sign their own free agents, at an amount up to the maximum salary. To qualify as a Bird free agent, a player must have played three seasons without being waived or changing teams as a free agent.

If I shoot you the bird, it doesn't give you the right to physically harm me. The bird is part of my right of speech (or expression)

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In essence, the Larry Bird exception allows teams to exceed the salary cap to re-sign their own free agents, at an amount up to the maximum salary. To qualify as a Bird free agent, a player must have played three seasons without being waived or changing teams as a free agent.

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nicely done...

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The Byrd Rule is a United States Senate rule that amends the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 to allow Senators during the Reconciliation Process to block legislation if it possibly would increase significantly the federal deficit beyond a ten-year term or is otherwise an "extraneous matter" as set forth in the Budget Act.[1] It is named after West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd.

Reconciliation generally involves legislation that changes the Federal budget deficit (or conceivably, the surplus). The "Byrd Rule" (2 U.S.C. § 644) was adopted in 1985 and amended in 1990 to outline which provisions reconciliation can and cannot be used for. The Byrd Rule defines a provision to be "extraneous" and therefore ineligible for reconciliation in six cases:

if it does not produce a change in outlays or revenues;
if it produces an outlay increase or revenue decrease when the instructed committee is not in compliance with its instructions;
if it is outside the jurisdiction of the committee that submitted the title or provision for inclusion in the reconciliation measure;
if it produces a change in outlays or revenues which is merely incidental to the non-budgetary components of the provision;
if it would increase the deficit for a fiscal year beyond those covered by the reconciliation measure, though the provisions in question may receive an exception if they in total in a Title of the measure net to a reduction in the deficit; and
if it recommends changes in Social Security.

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That's from wiki.

This just means that Repubs can't use the "Byrd" racism or any racist thing that they did from the last 40 years against them. Basically Byrd was a KKK member and from the South. He was a Dem. Which wan't a surprise because the south was all Dems. in the 40's 50' 60's. They are just embarrassed that happened because they are supposed to be all inclusive and all by today's standards. So they deny that anything happened . The Dems say, "We own the press. Stupid Americans will buy it. What we say goes. To anyone else, suck it. If you disagree then the Repubs did it."