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[Anslol]

TBH, get rid of the politics...and DC isn't that bad. 495's a perpetual pain to drive, but I like Adam's Morgan, the National Mall, the Cherry Blossoms, and even a lot of the people are really cool. DC's just shite because :gubment:

EDIT: Wow when the heck did I hit 900 posts?

EDIT2: Also I can't find any mention of this on other major news outlets. Wat.

[Arnulf Ogunkoya]

I thought DC was shit because some idiot built it on top of a swamp?

About the truck protest. How is this any different from some huge regular protest march? If they can get permission to run (and they do) I can't see why this wouldn't. Unless there is something about the geography of this particular highway that I am missing.

[Victoria Stecker]

I thought DC was shit because some idiot built it on top of a swamp?

About the truck protest. How is this any different from some huge regular protest march? If they can get permission to run (and they do) I can't see why this wouldn't. Unless there is something about the geography of this particular highway that I am missing.

Yeah, it's built on a swamp. It fucking sucks.

As for the highway, it handles such a massive amount of traffic that blocking it (even a little bit, let alone 3 lanes wide) is unbelievably disruptive and will bring traffic to a halt for miles in  every direction. This will impact everything from people getting to work to emergency vehicles trying to do their job. I'd be surprised if no one died as a result of this protest.

Additionally, I believe it's illegal to block certain roads during protests. IIRC, back during the OWS protests, one of the ways they would get away with arresting protesters was to funnel them on to bridges which are illegal to block.

So I have no idea whether it would be legal to block up I-495 with such a protest. I'm betting that it would not.

[Nmaro Makari]

Wow.

How often does the govt shut down, and is it always like this?

[Morwen Lagann]

The last time it did was 16-17 years ago, I believe.

It's not an everyday thing. It's just when we have people who'd rather play brinkmanship games than do their fucking jobs like they were elected to do.

[Anslol]

Grapevine from the hill indicating that default may occur because :teaparty. No, this is not a joke. They're actually willing to force a default and moderate Republicans are too afraid of the Tea Party to stand up to them.

What.

[Victoria Stecker]

Government shutdowns have happened a dozen times or so when congress has gotten it's knickers in a sufficient twist. It's inconvenient, and it leads to all sorts of obnoxious headlines, but it's really not the end of the world.

The default that would come from a failure to raise the debt limit, however, has never occurred and could have catastrophic results. The Teaparty's willingness to use this as "Leverage" (read: extortion) is absurd.

[orange]

And in 2006 then Senator Obama opposed raising the debt limit.

While I disagree with the target (ACA), I could see tying the debt limit to passing a balanced budget.  That is however not the objective.

In addition, in July President Obama unilaterally delayed enforcement of ACA for businesses.  There was little broad media fanfare regarding this use of executive power to violate the law that the 2010 Congress passed and President signed into law.

How often does the govt shut down, and is it always like this?

The government has had "shut downs" in all the past presidencies except the Bush '43.  They have not always been like this, for example the restriction of access to National Parks & Memorials was not a feature of previous shut downs from my understanding (the monitors went home because they weren't getting paid).

Grapevine from the hill indicating that default may occur because :teaparty. No, this is not a joke. They're actually willing to force a default and moderate Republicans are too afraid of the Tea Party to stand up to them.

What.

The President was correct in stating gerrymandering is the cause of a lot of these problems.  Regardless of political party, Representatives are essentially chosen in the primaries, where the most radical of the candidates tends to get the most backing.  Thus a moderate facing primaries in March for a November election has a more radical opponent in their home district right now.

[Lyn Farel]

If they could sort that out pretty quick so that I can access back again to public websites like USGS at work it would be rather nice...

[Victoria Stecker]

And in 2006 then Senator Obama opposed raising the debt limit.

This gets brought up a lot, but the reality is that votes against raising the debt ceiling have been used for decades a way to voice protest to whatever is going on. In every case, however, it's been a single person voting against something that was guaranteed to pass in order to voice their objection to [X], where X may be the Iraq War, or whatever. To compare such individual votes to an actual, legitimate threat to block the raising of the debt ceiling is... silly.

While I disagree with the target (ACA), I could see tying the debt limit to passing a balanced budget.  That is however not the objective.

I'd be down with that. It will never happen, however - certain folks have decided that they are entitled to unaffordably low tax rates, and certain politicians have been happy to tell them that they are in order to get ellected. We haven't seen a balanced budget since the Bush tax cuts, and until they are repealed, we never will. *sigh*

Grapevine from the hill indicating that default may occur because :teaparty. No, this is not a joke. They're actually willing to force a default and moderate Republicans are too afraid of the Tea Party to stand up to them.

What.

The President was correct in stating gerrymandering is the cause of a lot of these problems.  Regardless of political party, Representatives are essentially chosen in the primaries, where the most radical of the candidates tends to get the most backing.  Thus a moderate facing primaries in March for a November election has a more radical opponent in their home district right now.

I have a lot of problems with the Tea Party, but this ends up being the biggest. They preach patriotism and democracy, and we've watched them do everything they can to undermine democracy whenever it looks like the voters won't vote for them. They made history in 2012, first time that the party receiving fewer votes ended up with more seats in the House. Mandate my ass, they have a Gerrymandate.

There are the blatant voter suppresion efforts (Voter ID laws, restricting voting hours, etc), but there have been some slightly less obvious ones too. Most recently, they moved the Republican primary for VA Governor's race to a convention. Why? Because it looked like most VA republicans weren't going to vote for their guy. So they made sure they didn't get to vote. Now VA republicans have to choose between the Democrat and the Teaparty guy they didn't want.

I hope to God that they get punished for it when the election comes along, because that shit pisses me off.

/rant

[Anslol]

I don't get the convention thing...

[kalaratiri]

Also this.



(Belgium went without government for 535 days)

[Victoria Stecker]

I don't get the convention thing...

There are different ways to nominate candidates for elections. In the last few decades, we've moved to mostly using primary elections, where republican voters decide who they want their candidate to be, and the democrats do the same. Another option is to use a convention, where fewer people are involved, to nominate a candidate. Conventions are favorable to more extreme candidates, because average folks are less likely to waste the time attending.

So, Virginia has an election for governor coming up. There were two big republican candidates: Ken Cuccinelli, the state Atorney General and Tea Party favorite, and Bill Bolling, the mainstream candidate and lieutenant governor. Bill Bolling is looking strong in the polls, so the Tea Party folks come up with some bullshit reasons to move to a convention. Bolling knows he has no hope of winning at a convention and withdraws.

Cuccinelli is now trailing Terry McAullif (sp) in an ugly campaign, because they are both terrible candidates. Bolling would probably be a lot stronger.

[orange]

Also this.

(Belgium went without government for 535 days)

Thank you.

[Iwan Terpalen]

Interesting analogy, very different situation. Note that Belgium managed to pay its bills and keep its government services running without an actual democratically elected government, while the USA can't seem to manage it with one now.