Current or modern politics in the United States

[Arturo2nd]

The Resolution repudiating Trump's border emergency declaration has passed the House, but with enough Republicans voting against it to ensure that a Trump veto will stand up. The courts that have been packed with Republican judges recruited from firms representing corporate interests are the lone hope of reasserting Congress's constitutionally defined power. FDR and Nixon would have loved to have claimed the powers seized by Donald Trump.

We must now reluctantly accept the fact that the Republican party has become a corrupt and treasonous organization. It is tragic that the Republicans are so devoted to maintaining political power that they are willing to embrace a complete charlatan who may be in thrall to a foreign power and who will now use the nearly two years remaining of his term to further damage and weaken the United States.

Time will tell if we are able to endure this time and later rebound to repair the damage and improve as a nation. We are swimming against the historical tides. Democracies and republics rarely manage to avoid collapse within three centuries.

Putin's recent threats about long range supersonic missiles strike me as a bluff. His recently ignored exhortations to stop imprisoning foreign investors are a clue that his power is far less extensive that we previously imagined. Is it possible that the government of Russia has little control of its courts, economy, police, and military?

Xi Jinping is engaged in the most intense effort to reform China and extend its power and influence since Mao Zedong. Is it possible that the military, provinces, and other Chinese institutions are following the centuries old tradition of agreeing in conclaves and meetings while actually doing as they damn well please? There are many reports of China's banks and government owned industries being grossly overextended and in very real danger of collapse as the nation's demographic crisis intensifies. There are also many reports that Chinese nationals are even better at alienating the natives in foreign countries than Americans are.

[dill99]

Originally Posted by Brian249x

The Resolution repudiating Trump's border emergency declaration has passed the House, but with enough Republicans voting against it to ensure that a Trump veto will stand up. The courts that have been packed with Republican judges recruited from firms representing corporate interests are the lone hope of reasserting Congress's constitutionally defined power. FDR and Nixon would have loved to have claimed the powers seized by Donald Trump.

We must now reluctantly accept the fact that the Republican party has become a corrupt and treasonous organization. It is tragic that the Republicans are so devoted to maintaining political power that they are willing to embrace a complete charlatan who may be in thrall to a foreign power and who will now use the nearly two years remaining of his term to further damage and weaken the United States.

Time will tell if we are able to endure this time and later rebound to repair the damage and improve as a nation. We are swimming against the historical tides. Democracies and republics rarely manage to avoid collapse within three centuries.

Putin's recent threats about long range supersonic missiles strike me as a bluff. His recently ignored exhortations to stop imprisoning foreign investors are a clue that his power is far less extensive that we previously imagined. Is it possible that the government of Russia has little control of its courts, economy, police, and military?

Xi Jinping is engaged in the most intense effort to reform China and extend its power and influence since Mao Zedong. Is it possible that the military, provinces, and other Chinese institutions are following the centuries old tradition of agreeing in conclaves and meetings while actually doing as they damn well please? There are many reports of China's banks and government owned industries being grossly overextended and in very real danger of collapse as the nation's demographic crisis intensifies. There are also many reports that Chinese nationals are even better at alienating the natives in foreign countries than Americans are.

Challenging points brought here indeed, but there is one aspect of the American experience that I am most confident in. Now, while it's true that as a nation we're butterflying upstream against a historical current whose backwash is littered with the floating remains of democratic republics gone by we do have in our favor one of the most powerfully American ideals that will indeed distinguish our legacy from those that fell- innovation. We have the ability and strength of belief to adapt and create new opportunities for democracy to overcome during times of strife and seemingly insurmountable conflict. This conman, this traitorous wannabe wiseguy who currently inhabits the Oval Office is nothing more than the last gasp of the villainous AltRight white systemic underpinning of our society that is now seeing it's days as clandestine overlords numbered in the face of the new progressively led majority as it begins to bristle and roar to life, energized by righteousness and fortified with the will to do what is good and what is right. This is truly American democracy's finest hour and WE WILL OVERCOME. #unite #resist #destroyaltright #ByAnyMeansNecessary

[diamelsx]

House Republicans on Tuesday claimed a small victory over the Democrats' climate change agenda by holding a rare successful vote as the minority to end an oversight hearing, saying that the subject of global warming was outside the committee's jurisdiction.


The Republicans in the Natural Resources Committee's oversight panel won in a 4-2 vote to end the hearing, simply because there weren't more than two Democrats present.

Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, the top Republican on the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee, called for the vote after laying out the case that climate change was not within the jurisdiction of the committee, based on its charter and bylaws.

Gohmert called for a vote to adjourn following his opening remarks, and a roll call vote was held. Witnesses at the hearing were not introduced before the Republicans left the hearing room.

With the Republicans in adjournment, the Democrats were forced to change the proceedings from a hearing to a "forum," which Rep. T.J. Cox of California, the chairman of the oversight panel, opened by introducing the speakers.


The full committee's top Republican, Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah, had raised the jurisdiction issues at the beginning of the month when the Democratic leadership launched its sweeping series of hearings on climate change. Bishop also said the Democrats were not properly giving notice to Republican members on the topics of the hearing.


So the house Democrats are going to hold a hearing on climate change and more than half of their committee doesn't show up and you wonder why people don't turn out during elections ...

[diamelsx]

Published: 11 hours ago
(Politico) House Democrats held an emotional debate behind closed doors Thursday over how to stop losing embarrassing procedural battles with Republicans — a clash that exposed the divide between moderates and progressives.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) took a hard line at the caucus meeting, saying that being a member of Congress sometimes requires taking tough votes.

“This is not a day at the beach. This is the Congress of the United States,” Pelosi said, according to two sources.

Read the full story

Read more at https://mobile.wnd.com/2019/02/pelos...4EBUOCY6ZeF.99

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by diamelsx

So the house Democrats are going to hold a hearing on climate change and more than half of their committee doesn't show up and you wonder why people don't turn out during elections ...

Observations from Will Rogers:

"I'm not a member of any organized political party.... I'm a Democrat."

"Democrats never agree on anything, that's why they're Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they'd be Republicans."

"If you ever injected truth into politics you have no politics"

"The Democrats and the Republicans are equally corrupt where money is concerned. It's only in the amount where the Republicans excel."

"I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts."

Will Rogers was an American humorist who was killed in an August 1935 plane crash.

[diamelsx]

Nick Martin
Today 1:35pmFiled to: ILHAN OMAR
16.8K
170
2

Photo: J. Scott Applewhite (AP Photo)
It’s been a busy week for Rep. Ilhan Omar, but she’s not done just yet.

After criticizing the influence of the pro-Israel lobby in Congress, Omar spent the last five days being constantly browbeaten by a bevy of confused establishment Democrats and bad-faith Republicans. It was a fucking mess the whole way through, and Omar was the only one to come out looking competent. But while it seems a little early to Go In all over again, Omar was still willing to end the week the same way she started it—by speaking the damn truth.




On Friday, Politico Magazine published a hefty feature detailing the differing politics of Omar and Rep. Dean Phillips, a first-year moderate from a swing district in the same state. There’s some good stuff breaking down the demographics of their two Minnesota districts in there that’s worth reading, but the real gold isn’t found in some astute electoral analysis.

The headline moment came when Omar critiqued the promises made by former President Barack Obama in the run-up to his presidency, as well as the inability of he and his administration to ever reconcile their “hope and change” message with blatantly harmful neoliberal policies. Omar specifically cited Obama’s “caging of kids” at the U.S.-Mexico border and his administration’s policy of “droning of countries around the world” as vastly limiting his ability to improve upon the work of his conservative war-hawk of a predecessor. She brought it home with the following quote, per Politico Magazine:

“We can’t be only upset with Trump. … His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was,” Omar says. “And that’s not what we should be looking for anymore. We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile.”




Because these kind of leftward critiques have been cordoned off from the realm of national politics for basically the entirety of Obama’s presidency and the preceding three decades, it naturally feels weird to hear and read a politician on the left be so unrepentant in her commitment to saying what is obviously true. But damn if isn’t refreshing as hell to know that, despite all the racist and xenophobic bullshit Omar’s had to endure in the face of her AIPAC criticism, there’s finally someone in Congress—a registered Democrat, no less—who refuses to be shamed out of calling it like she sees it.

[Arturo2nd]

My mom's people hailed from Ireland, which has given me empathy for the Palestinian cause. I believe that I have mentioned the interesting conversation had with a Punjabi Indian and an Irishman about the British Empire handing Palestine over to European Jews and the British Empire's habit of giving away lands that were in the possession of people that had lived there for centuries.

The American press has given us a very distorted view of the Middle East. This is not to make light of the fact that the Palestinians did a really shitty job of defending themselves from Jewish encroachment and have been routinely betrayed by their Arab "allies" who also fielded pitifully inept military forces.

Of course, the mammoth forces of Zionist propaganda are going to jump all over Rep. Omar's effort to offer another perspective. It's about time we began to discuss what the real interests of the United States are and what policies are best implemented. But, is often the case, "justice" is determined by military victory. Lose a war; lose your rights.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by Brian249x

My mom's people hailed from Ireland, which has given me empathy for the Palestinian cause. I believe that I have mentioned the interesting conversation had with a Punjabi Indian and an Irishman about the British Empire handing Palestine over to European Jews and the British Empire's habit of giving away lands that were in the possession of people that had lived there for centuries.

The American press has given us a very distorted view of the Middle East. This is not to make light of the fact that the Palestinians did a really shitty job of defending themselves from Jewish encroachment and have been routinely betrayed by their Arab "allies" who also fielded pitifully inept military forces.

Of course, the mammoth forces of Zionist propaganda are going to jump all over Rep. Omar's effort to offer another perspective. It's about time we began to discuss what the real interests of the United States are and what policies are best implemented. But, is often the case, "justice" is determined by military victory. Lose a war; lose your rights.

Actually, after 1945 Britain was the only western nation which opposed and tried to resist Zionism. All the others, including Ireland, were gung-ho in favour of the foundation of Israel and very hostile to Britain for using force to try to prevent the foundation of Israel. There was a reason for the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946. British forces and palestinian police under British command and control were very actively operating to suppress the Jewish insurgency and the Irgun carried out this atrocity as an act of revenge. 91 people were murdered, some of whom were fellow Jews and Zionists.

One should not forget the depredations of other terrorists in these events, particularly the notorious Stern Gang, at whose hand British forces suffered very unpleasant losses.

British forces did not "hand Palestine over to European Jews" in the way that you seem to have been told, Brian. Israel was founded against Britain's bitter opposition and because Britain was not strong enough in 1946-48 to be able to tell America and all the rest of the world to fuck off, as we certainly would have done if we could have.

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

British forces did not "hand Palestine over to European Jews" in the way that you seem to have been told, Brian. Israel was founded against Britain's bitter opposition and because Britain was not strong enough in 1946-48 to be able to tell America and all the rest of the world to fuck off, as we certainly would have done if we could have.

Ah, but the 1917 Balfour Declaration kicked off a wave of Zionist settlement in Palestine. As you note the British government changed course later, but too many nations, especially the United States, had already adopted the creation of Israel as their policy.

I am pretty sure that the British government would wish to change the settlements in Ulster if that were possible now.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by Brian249x

Ah, but the 1917 Balfour Declaration kicked off a wave of Zionist settlement in Palestine. As you note the British government changed course later, but too many nations, especially the United States, had already adopted the creation of Israel as their policy.

I am pretty sure that the British government would wish to change the settlements in Ulster if that were possible now.

I would rather like to rescind the triangular slave trade of the 17th and 18th centuries, but of course some things can't merely be rewound to the front of the tape.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

However, Britain was the second western nation to abolish and criminalise the transatlantic slave trade. Denmark was the first, banning the trade in 1803 - Britain banned it in 1807. America was next after Britain, believe it or not, banning the trade in 1808. You see, what often happens is that the generation following sees the errors of their predecessors and takes correcting action.

Britain took correcting action against Zionism in the 1940s after WW2. I regret that we did not succeed but we were right to try, as events since the foundation of Israel have shown. However, once a thing is done, it is very hard to undo it and rarely worthwhile even to consider trying. Israel exists, and she ain't going anywhere, so that's that. Incidentally, it's very hard to feel a single atom of sympathy for the Palestinians in view of their track record in the years afterwards.

You can't undo the past. You can only try to start a new and better path going into the future.