In the News

[TTG4]

And suddenly, Republicans everywhere.

Say goodbye to any legislation whatsoever being passed for the next two years, America! Oh, and good luck even getting budgets passed, which now may not even happen. 

I may be mistaken, but as far as I understand it, the president has a veto, but congress can table and pass legislation since it's now completely red. If I remember rightly the budget didn't pass because the House blocked it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I can't say I know a huge amount about the situation.

[Glaurung]

TTG4: I think you're right. Based on the BBC reports at least, the Republicans now have a majority in both the House and the Senate. Their Senate majority is not big enough to prevent filibustering, but I think they now have a fairly free hand at legislating. The question now is whether and how much Obama will use the presidential veto.

I suppose there is a separate question of whether the Tea Party will allow Congress to spend any money on anything...

[Jubal]

I'm surprised the Libertarians haven't been able to capitalise on this at all - presumably just a matter of weak organisation and lack of funds, but you'd have thought they'd be at least pushing in more at a state representation level even if not in congress.

[comrade_general]

They try for too much at once. It's got to be subtle and from the bottom.

I also read that a Libertarian candidate died before the election. Believe he was murdered by Republicrats.

[Jubal]

They try for too much at once. It's got to be subtle and from the bottom.

I think this is the core of the matter - they need to be pushing to get a few seats in state legislatures in Libertarian-leaning states (Colorado, Maine, possibly New Mexico Nebraska). They can then use that local government base as a springboard to get seats in Congress, if they can become popular by have ground gains. Instead they seem to be blowing their funds on the presidency or the senate which are much more distant goals, it's all about building up the ground game. That's what worked for the Liberals in the UK, though they've screwed things up since getting into coalition.

[Glaurung]

Today is the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. To my regret, now, I wasn't paying much attention to the news at the time - there were other, more immediate, things going on in my life. Nevertheless, the pictures are remarkable: the destruction of a physical barrier, and perhaps more importantly of a mental barrier, that had divided Europe for at least a generation.

Only two months before, I had been travelling around Europe by train, with friends. Going from Vienna to Copenhagen, it didn't cross our minds that the shortest route was via Prague and Berlin - these were both the other side of the Iron Curtain. Instead we went the long (and admittedly rather scenic) way round, via Salzburg, Munich and Cologne. Now, I've probably travelled almost as widely east of that frontier as west of it.

[Jubal]

I also feel it's a pity I wasn't paying much attention to the news at the time, but I at least have the excuse of nonexistence...

[comrade_general]

[Jubal]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/18/neo-nazis-tricked-into-raising-10000-for-charity

Nazis tricked into being sponsored for a walkathon. This amuses me

[comrade_general]

I wouldn't be surprised if this backfires into explosive violence.

[Jubal]

Nazis in Germany are now too rare and frowned upon to be able to risk explosive violence, to be honest.

[comrade_general]

They are here too but then Timothy Mcveigh.

[Othko97]

Here in the UK they usually band together and form political parties.

[TTG4]

On another topic, Sweden have upheld their arrest warrant for Assange.

The way I see it, if he's innocent then why doesn't he defend himself against the allegations? I highly doubt they're fabricated as I see some people suggesting. By hiding from the law I feel like he increases suspicion.

[joek]

On another topic, Sweden have upheld their arrest warrant for Assange.

The way I see it, if he's innocent then why doesn't he defend himself against the allegations?

His reasoning behind staying in the UK rather than going to Sweden to face charges initially was bloody stupid. He claimed to believe that he was safer from extradition to the US staying in a country with a formal extradition treaty, which is ridiculously one sided, with the US, and has a history of helping the CIA with extraordinary renditions, than he was in a country which had given him a formal promise that he wouldn't be extradited, and didn't have an extradition treaty with the US in the first place.

Either he genuinely believed this, in which case he's so stupid that he's actively harmful and I don't want to be associated with him, or he didn't believe this, and he's a lying scumbag who knows that he's likely to be convicted of rape in Sweden, and I don't want to be associated with him.