I wonder if the sit-in resulted indirectly from the problems of gerrymandering. Nation-wide, between 3 and 5 million more people voted for democrats than for republicans for Congress. Yet the House is overwhelmingly republican due to Gerrymandered districts. This allows for a very wide delta between what the majority of voters may want versus what the House actually does.
On a less serious note, I loved the tweet last night where someone said the world is turning upside down, with Cleveland winning championships and C-SPAN the most compelling channel on tv.
Why is there even a discussion of marriage equality on here?
Marriages between two men or women or any combination of trans and cis individuals do not in any way, shape, or form put your right to life in jeopardy. The same cannot be said for unrestricted gun purchases. The two issues shouldn’t even be in the same universe of discussion.
I left the hospital at 5 AM (same timezone as DC) and couldn’t believe they were still going strong.
So proud to see my rep taking part in the sit-in. Diana DeGette, Denver. I’m not on Twitter, but just sent her a thank you email.
For those of you complaining this is anarchy and a political stunt – well, so was the Boston Tea Party. And ACT-UP members storming Congress demanding federal AIDS research funds. And suffragettes chaining themselves to the rails outside Buckingham Palace. It’s called… activism.
@TatinG - the Zika bill will be vetoed. It defunds the ACA and the President had already said he would veto it before the vote came up. More legislative BS if you ask me.
romani, the fight will be carried out to the various districts for the next two weeks, where every Congressman who was too cowardly to vote last night will have to face his voters.
Not sure about this. There really is no danger at all that these privileged people are going to be arrested (or beaten, or lynched).
I fully support gun control – it’s crazy that “a well-regulated militia” somehow gives people the right to walk in to a gun store and walk out with a semi-automatic rifle. And I appreciate that the Congressional reps took an unusual step to call attention to the issue. But to me, it does seem more of a political tactic (which is not to say they shouldn’t have done it) than civil disobedience.
Nobody asked me but…why not dump the House and the Senate and just have the 9-member Supreme Court discuss and vote on issues the country faces. Saves a lot of money and they will get the job done without all of this childish behavior.
*There have been several reports complaining that this thread is political and therefore not allowed. I don’t have time to go into a more nuanced explanation of how we look at these things, but we have numerous threads that are about political topics. To some degree, almost everything has some political component. Some are extreme like gun control, affirmative action, welfare benefits, and health care, to name a few. Some are certainly political but perhaps less “hot”, like Pell Grant funding, college funding in general, colleges and athletics, etc. These are all allowed to be discussed. Where we had a problem with the gun control discussion in the Orlando shooting thread was that gun control is not the topic there, the shooting and the shooter were; i.e. the event itself and whatever motivations surrounded it, the follow-up investigation, etc. In other words, specifics about that event. Once it veers off to gun control, the original discussion is lost forever. Same on many threads once someone brings up affirmative action, when it wasn’t anywhere in the OP’s post.
This thread clearly involves a spirited discussion of the political process and while I have not read every post, I have read a lot of them and it seems like a great discussion. If some feel the opinion is falling more to one side of the argument than another, then so be it. Where we draw the line, besides what I said above, is when people make sweeping statements like “All Republicans right-wing zealots are this” or “left-wing liberal kooks all believe that”. Depending on context, bringing up a particular politician might or might not be an overtly political statement. It can also simply be a statement of fact, such as “George W. Bush was an owner of a baseball team”. If that was said on a thread about previous jobs of US Presidents, that would be fine. If it was said on another thread in a way that was clearly meant to be related to his presidency and his decisions therein, it would not be. It’s a tough line to draw sometimes, for sure.
Bottom line, one can argue a “political” issue without being political in their comment per se. Just stating you do or do not believe in gun control is not really a political statement in the sense we mean it. It’s simply an opinion. It is when that kind of statement gets expanded to overly generalizing about certain “camps” or gets disparaging about what people believe that it gets easy to say it is off limits.
I hope that helps a little. I know it isn’t simple, but when you look at hundreds and hundreds of posts over time you just kind of know it when you see it, and context really can be key. Context and being on/off-topic.
Whomever we choose. Maybe by the year 3000 we will have figured out a better system of government. Reading “Alexander Hamilton” is making me wonder if politics has changed very much in 230 years.