"But the #Intelligence appointments, & the naming of Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), a Freedom Caucus member, to the House Armed Services Committee, have greatly rankled the faction of #Republicans who want the #House to function better, known as the governing wing. Many fear that the inclusion of hard-line perspectives could block key legislation from reaching the floor for a vote, causing the House to grind to a halt, as the far-right has done before"
Sen #JDVance (R-OH) said Saturday night that a fight over #aid to #Ukraine is still looming. “My sense is my colleagues in the #House are much more skeptical of limitless Ukraine funding than my colleagues in the #Senate,” #Vance said. “And what that means is any Ukraine funding package is going to be dead on arrival in the House.”
(Jackass)
#HouseRepublicans #Republicans #GOP #Obstructionism #NationalSecurity #democracy
#GovernmentShutdown just hours away as #Congress can’t agree on deal
At 11 AM, the House has not reconvened. The chamber was scheduled to meet at 10 AM.
#HouseRepublicans #Republicans #GOP #Extremism #Obstructionism #Dysfunction #PublicDisservice
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/30/government-shutdown-updates/
"Tuberville, a former college football coach... has showed few signs of letting up.
Democrats have repeatedly gone to the Senate floor to try and call up the nominations. But Tuberville has objected each time.
Tuberville... hasn’t introduced legislation to overturn [the policy] and insists that... Democrats should introduce their own bill on the policy and hold a vote."
https://apnews.com/article/tuberville-military-holds-senate-officers-45c4230a8aee5222bf32b43823e29acc
#Republicans #GOP #Obstructionism #Idiocy #Politics #USA #News
Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville is waging an unprecedented campaign to try to change Pentagon abortion policy by holding up hundreds of military nominations and promotions. That's leaving key positions unfilled and raising concerns at the Pentagon about military readiness. Senators in both parties have pushed back on Tuberville’s blockade. But Tuberville is dug in. He says he won’t drop the holds unless majority Democrats allow a vote on the policy. For now, the issue is at a stalemate. Democrats say that if they were to try to get around the blockages and hold a vote on every single nominee, the Senate floor could be tied up for months.
McCarthy "is an embodiment of officialdom that can serve as a point of attack for those who orient their politics around battling entrenched power. McCarthy’s opponents are happy to discuss ways in which they can get more power in the legislating process...
But many of them would also be happy with toppling him, claiming an establishment casualty that can be discussed on Twitter and Fox News."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/06/mccarthy-speaker-house-republicans/
"McCarthy and his allies hold power, so attacking their use of power makes sense as an oppositional strategy....
For many on the right, particularly those most vocal in opposition to McCarthy, opposition is the core political strategy. Opposition to how things are done. To Washington. To their colleagues."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/06/mccarthy-speaker-house-republicans/
#GOP #Obstructionism #USPolitics #Republicans #Speaker #McCarthy #Fail
"The pattern repeated on Thursday. McCarthy’s allies talked about what they wanted to do (recognizing, at times, the limits imposed by a Democratic president and Senate). His opponents argued for upending the system.
And that, in a nutshell, is the distinction."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/06/mccarthy-speaker-house-republicans/
#USPolitics #Congress #Speaker
#GOP #Republicans #Obstructionism #KevinMcCarthy #Fail
In looking at various forms of power, one point that's increassingly clear to me is that in a mature and multipolar society what exists are multiple power centres, each often with the effective capability to say "no". The word veto comes directly from the Latin, for "I forbid", and comes from that culture's multipolar power structure, the Senate.
There's also a lesson from warfare and combat, which is that the ability to induce damage or cost on an enemy whilst avoiding it oneself is also powerful. This is the difference between melee and ranged weapons (hand-to-hand, or tooth-and-claw, vs. ballistic or projectile weapons, see also "time-ranged" weapons in the form of traps and snares). "You don't have to be there for it".
Camouflage and armour afford similar capabilities.
The dynamics enabling NIMBY attacks are that stalling tactics don't incure consts or liabilities for those engaging in them. Sometimes this has merits, it very often does not, e.g., the delay of a bike-lanes project which sees scores of additional cycling and pedestrian deaths due to street traffic.
#MoneyIsPower #TimeIsMoney #VetoPower #Obstructionism #NEPA #NIMBY #constructionCosts #construction #housing #UCLALewisCenter
Why does it cost so much to build things in America?
Researchers have ruled out some of the more obvious potential explanations for why these projects cost more in the US.
As transit researcher Alon Levy writes in a report for the Niskanen Center, “This is not about our wealth: there is no correlation between a country’s GDP per capita and its subway construction costs. Nor is it about geological factors: the biggest factor behind a project’s cost is what country it is in, and costs are fairly consistent even across different geologies ... This is purely institutional.”
And when it comes to roads and the bulk of the high costs — “the new construction bit” — Turner says even though he has “no idea why those prices are increasing,” he can “eliminate a lot of things.” Turner explains that common theories like unions or the way we’re building roads or where we’re building them (for example, in more urban areas) are not supported by statistical evidence.
Time is money, money is power, power is delaying transportation projects
https://www.vox.com/22534714/rail-roads-infrastructure-costs-america
h/t Shane D. Phillips / #UCLALewisCenter
#housing #construction #constructionCosts #NIMBY #NEPA #Obstructionism #VetoPower #TimeIsMoney #MoneyIsPower
Zhi Zhu 🕸️
Nonilex
Christof Maupin, Glass Artist
Doc Edward Morbius ⭕