5 posts tagged with politics by Sleeper.
Displaying 1 through 5 of 5.
How to stop an autocracy
The danger isn’t that Trump will build an autocracy. It’s that congressional Republicans will let him. "If Congress, tomorrow, wanted to compel Trump to release his tax returns, they could. If Congress, tomorrow, wanted to impeach Trump unless he agreed to turn his assets over to a blind trust, they could. If Congress, tomorrow, wanted to take Trump’s power to choose who can and cannot enter the country, they could." The problem is that the different branches of government, instead of balancing things out by being important checks on each other's power, have instead become simply different manifestations of one of two major parties. Our granfalloons are out of alignment. [more inside]
The Trump roundup
"Yes, all this happened." NPR's good, brief summary of the events of each day of Trump's first two weeks in office. There's a flurry of news and discussion about the new president, and I appreciate efforts to streamline and make sense of it. So here's three. #2: On Reddit, there is a good overview of how critics would respond to the question, "What's so bad about Donald Trump?"--broken down by category. #3: The Summary section of Indivisible is the best overview I've seen of methods for concerned US citizens to become politically active in this new era. [more inside]
Bannon now on National Sec. Council; professionals demoted to make room
Steve Bannon has been elevated to a position on the National Security Council, while the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence have been demoted. They will attend NSC meetings only when "issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed." Bannon is an radical ideologue; his position in a place where decisions about war and peace are made could be the beginning of something major.
House GOP votes to gut independent ethics office
House Republicans voted in a closed-door meeting Monday night to strip the independent Office of Congressional Ethics of its powers to speak publicly, report crimes, get anonymous tips, and act independently. If this amendment is passed, the Office will now be under the control of the House Ethics Committee. The Ethics Committee is run by members of the House, the body that the Office was intended to investigate. [more inside]
Joe Biden is officially not running for President.
This closes the door on one of the biggest potential challenges to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s second attempt at capturing the Democratic nomination. Back in August, Mr. Biden was already running for president in the invisible primary. Like most candidates who test the waters, he didn’t find enough support to justify entering the race.
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