2015 American Politics Thread: The 114th Congress Is in the House!

well there goes that plan

those kids'll grow up to be spineless

hey, at least we're still ahead of Israel

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/12/u-s-drops-49th-world-press-freedom-rankings-second-lowest-ever/

pobrecitos:

A month into their newfound control of both chambers of Congress, it wasn't supposed to be like this for Republicans. Instead of advancing a conservative agenda and showing voters they can govern, they are confronting the very real possibility of a shutdown of the Homeland Security Department later this month.

That's because they can't overcome Senate Democrats' stalling tactics in a dispute over immigration.

"I suppose elections have consequences except in the United States Senate," complained GOP Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, summing up the frustration for many House Republicans. "Tell me how it would be different if Harry Reid were still running the place," he added, naming the Senate Democratic leader who was booted into the minority in November's midterm elections.

Although their party is now setting the floor schedule and calling hearings, Republicans are finding to their chagrin that important things haven't changed from when they were in the Senate minority.

Republicans are six votes short of the 60 needed to advance most legislation, and Senate rules grant numerous rights to the minority party. That means if Democrats remain united, they have the ability to block GOP bills just as they did while in the majority

govt doing nothing, the best-case scenario for the rest of my shabby lifetime

I hope not. I'd like to get SOMEthing done in the next 25 years.

Move your house inland, preferably a red state.

Yeah brownback got a ton of shit done in kansas

Then there's Tom Cotton, Republican from Arkansas

Tom Cotton is Ted Cruz with a war record, Sarah Palin with a Harvard degree, Chris Christie with a Southern accent — a force to be reckoned with. He may sound like he’s speaking gibberish to you or to me when he asks why there were no prisoners in Guantánamo before the prison existed, but to the Republican base he’s speaking their language as clear as day and it will fit nicely on a bumper sticker: “Let ‘em rot.”

http://www.salon.com/2015/02/12/sarah_palin_with_a_harvard_degree_why_new_senator_tom_cotton_is_so_frightening/

nothing new out in the red states either, more of the same:

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/02/republicans-are-cutting-taxes-rich-and-raising-them-poor

I have to say this Oregon guv who just resigned puts me in mind of Dabney Coleman:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/13/john-kitzhaber-resigns_n_6679800.html

congrats on your new bisexual governor, Orrrgun!

Damn! I hadn't heard about the resignation. He's correct when he says he was more or less railroaded out of office.

I'm not buying the idea that he conspired with his live-in partner to enrich her via the power of his office. It was more or less a big mess, mainly driven by her adamant insistence that he trust her and not interfere with her freedom to pursue her own ambitions, coupled with her very, very bad judgment and insensitivity to the ethics of her position. afaict, he did nothing worse than letting her have her head.

dunno where wolfers got this diagram

https://twitter.com/JustinWolfers/status/568180577314201600

looks like jeb is getting the band back together

but he's not here to talk about the past, see

Colin Powell notably absent

Why are the economically downtrodden not pissed off enough to march?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/02/inequality_and_american_protest_history_why_are_no_movements_rising_up_against.html

off-hand I'd say because marching doesn't accomplish anything

see 1910-73

Christ, you are in true fucking vintage form today

"he said to the mirror"

street demonstrations lost their effectiveness as soon as centers of power figured out how to render them meaningless - ie, don't give news organizations footage of cops shooting protestors etc. Without that, media coverage declines, nothing "exciting" is going on, no one pays attention, rinse and repeat.

don't get me wrong I think the whole history of protest movement tactics is really fascinating. marching in the street itself was originally an explicit threat of violence, meant to convey the appearance of an army ready for battle. (and often there *were* actual battles). Then that tactic lost its utility - it was too dangerous, and it ceded victory to the side that had the most weapons/muscle, which was invariably the authorities. So then non-violent marching developed as a viable tactic, one that was successful because it was predicated on forcing the authorities to overplay their hand - the protestors could elicity sympathy by exposing the violence inherent in the system, which could then be converted into public pressure in favor specific policies. But then another shift occurred - the authorities realized protests wouldn't be successful if nothing newsworthy (ie, violence) happened, so they conspired to either a) render all protests non-newsworthy by refusing to be goaded into violence or b) made sure that any acts of violence that were perpetrated were the fault of the protestors, essentially making the protest backfire. And then people realized that marching in the street no longer accomplished anything, so they stopped doing it. the end.

an ever increasing number of poor people live in places where there really isn't any great place to march

this was a thing w/ occupy wall st local, a bunch of them were in parking lots or whatever

mind numbing debt maybe has demoralized lots of folks too. back in the day people may have been poor as dirt but at least they weren't in indentured hock for astronomical medical bills / tuition /car payments/ mortgages. but prosperity trickles down, you see . . .

i would say the post-ferguson demos show that the authorities are still paranoid about marches, and also, what helped galvanize the movement was independent media on webcams. people could definitely march, and it would prob help, if the goals were right. street-taking still works around the world. i loved the film Maidan, which showed how powerful it can be, but also the mind-numbing amount of work needed to get it to function. people need to be interested enough not just to show up, but also to organize, and get suplies.

people are paranoid about riots not marches nobody cares about marches

(in america)

there been hella marches here since afghanistan, but when ppl marched down the interstate, well, i saw THAT shit on the news

No need for marching:

Walmart, the United States’ largest employer, said Thursday that it would increase wages for a half-million employees as it reported its first rise in shopper traffic in more than two years.

The retail giant, which has been criticized for continuing to pay some employees the bare legal minimum, said that all of its United States workers would earn at least $9 an hour by April

I don't think the reality of "Walmart, the United States’ largest employer" had ever registered with me until this moment.

wonder how many staff they'll lay off to cover the increased wage bill

finally replacing the greeters w/ robots who can greet at 2x the speed

op piece by Cornell guvmint prof in the NYT yesterday: people w/ economic insecurity don't go activist on economic issues because they do a brutal mental calculus and conclude nah can't afford money or time. "In short, political messages based on insecurity can backfire precisely because they remind people of their difficult circumstances. I call this self-undermining rhetoric — rhetoric that brings to mind considerations that undermine the very goals the rhetoric aims to achieve."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/18/opinion/dont-talk-about-those-unpaid-bills.html

btw the Slate piece was talking about "in the streets" as movements, not just marches, for the scant few of you who did not read it.

not to glorify the civil rights movement / 50s/60s / hippies too much but i wonder if there's a study correlating the decline of student protests/marches with the post-reagan explosion in college tuition. campuses are calm calm places and it might have something to do with how expensive school is (not just that there's no draft)

it's true, uni education was coming to be regarded as a people's right in those days. Now community college is the only option for what, 45% of HS graduates?

I'd say slacktivism coupled with post-y2k cynicism is responsible. When Occupy Wall Street started up I met just as many people who thought it was a joke and used the old talking points about people with iphones being hypocrites. Everyone is out-smarting everyone else, and the Occupy thing was made out by the media to be a joke and something that people (especially 20-somethings who would otherwise be involved w it) should look down on.

Not to understate police violence and the super confrontational nature of state power recently...

http://www.npr.org/2015/02/17/386976209/have-the-rich-really-gotten-richer

Also check out this story from leftist radicals NPR on how the rich don't get social safety nets and are actually hurting more than you think.

and in the case of people in their 30s and 40s (and beyond) who find their wages stagnating or shrinking, people that old just don't do such things, right? xp

I marched in middle age. Against the then-immanent Iraq War. Knew it was futile in terms of stopping the war, but thought it worthwhile in terms of making anti-war sentiment visible.

yeah, me too; i was being ol' sardonic Dr M

Obama vetoed Keystone

Despite their majority in the Senate, Republicans are four votes short of being able to override Obama's veto.

They have vowed to attach language approving the pipeline in a spending bill or other legislation later in the year that the president would find difficult to reject.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/24/us-usa-keystone-idUSKBN0LS2FH20150224

boehner's response:

"The president’s veto of the Keystone jobs bill is a national embarrassment," he said, adding: "The president is just too close to environmental extremists to stand up for America’s workers. He’s too invested in left-fringe politics to do what presidents are called on to do, and that’s put the national interest first."

probably a lot easier move for Obama when we have an oil glut

put the national interest first.

Canada's?

O did not really "veto Keystone." He may leave the final decision to the next prez.

Now the environmentalists are "fringe" and "extremist". I swear these people at this point just want to choke us to death - environmentally and economically. Was a time - in the 70's - when even Republicans at least paid lip service to environmentalism. Promoting the corporate-introduced notion that environmentalism is "fringe" and "extreme" is even worse.

So is our environmental situation. Again, I swear these corporate assholes want the rest of us dead so they don't have to compete with us.

that's always been the plan

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vKuslG3BxAw/TROr5hOzKLI/AAAAAAAAA_o/yjixs3MTiq0/s1600/Capitalism1280x800.png

This stuff about Obama *is* racist, and I'm sick and tired of Republicans being bullies about it. First Giuliani calls him a "communist" and far left, now Boehner says he's extreme and fringe.

No one calls them on it, but it's part of a history of suspicion of black politics as extreme, sentimental and irrational. The RW has for years libeled black politicians as too "far left" and " anti-colonial" in their literature.

People should call them racist - straight up, and not back down. Fuck these earth-killers.