10 votes

Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of February 5

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Tags: usa, politics, recurring.weekly

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

9 comments

  2. [2]
    KapteinB
    Link
    Trump Encourages Putin to Attack NATO Members (The Atlantic)

    Trump Encourages Putin to Attack NATO Members (The Atlantic)

    At a rally on Saturday, the former president announced he would tell the Russians “to do whatever the hell they want” to states delinquent in their bills.

    5 votes
    1. psi
      Link Parent
      Related article from a few months back: "Trump will abandon NATO." The Atlantic. Sorry for lazily extracting paragraphs from an article, but it underscores an important point: it doesn't matter...

      Related article from a few months back:

      Sorry for lazily extracting paragraphs from an article, but it underscores an important point: it doesn't matter that Trump can't unilaterally withdraw from NATO; his mere commitment to leaving would defang the entire alliance.

      Institutionally, and maybe even politically, leaving NATO could be difficult for Trump. As soon as he announced his intentions, a constitutional crisis would ensue. Senate approval is required for U.S. treaties—but the Constitution says nothing about congressional approval for withdrawal from treaties. Recognizing this gap in the law, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine and Republican Senator Marco Rubio introduced legislation, which has already passed the Senate, designed to block any U.S. president from withdrawing from NATO without two-thirds Senate approval or an act of Congress. Kaine told me he feels “confident that the courts would uphold us on that and would not allow a president to unilaterally withdraw,” but there would certainly be a struggle. A public-relations crisis would unfold too. A wide range of people—former supreme allied commanders, former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, former presidents, foreign heads of state—will surely rally to make the case for NATO, and very loudly.

      But none of that would necessarily matter, because long before Congress convenes to discuss the treaty, the damage will have been done. That’s because NATO’s most important source of influence is not legal or institutional, but psychological: It creates an expectation of collective defense that exists in the mind of anyone who would threaten a member of the alliance. If the Soviet Union never attacked West Germany between 1949 and 1989, that was not because it feared a German response. If Russia has not attacked Poland, the Baltic states, or Romania over the past 18 months, that’s not because Russia fears Poland, the Baltic states, or Romania. The Soviet Union held back, and Russia continues to do so now, because of their firm belief in the American commitment to the defense of those countries.

      This deterrent effect doesn’t come just from the NATO treaty, a bare-bones document whose signatories simply agree in Article 5 that “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” Deterrence comes from the Kremlin’s conviction that Americans really believe in collective defense, that the U.S. military really is prepared for collective defense, and that the U.S. president really is committed to act if collective security is challenged. Trump could end that conviction with a single speech, a single comment, even a single Truth Social post, and it won’t matter if Congress, the media, and the Republican Party are still arguing about the legality of withdrawing from NATO. Once the commander in chief says “I will not come to an ally’s aid if attacked,” why would anyone fear NATO, regardless of what obligations still exist on paper? And once the Russians, or anyone else, no longer fear a U.S. response to an attack, then the chances that they will carry one out grow higher. If such a scenario seems unlikely, it shouldn’t. Before February 2022, many refused to believe there could ever be a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

      5 votes
  3. KapteinB
    Link
    The GOP dog caught the car. Again. (Washington Post) Already posted in ~misc, so the link is to the comment section rather than directly to the article.

    The GOP dog caught the car. Again. (Washington Post)

    Welp, the dog caught the car again. After months — decades? — of running on tightening the border, House Republicans are suddenly paralyzed when offered the chance to do so.

    Already posted in ~misc, so the link is to the comment section rather than directly to the article.

    3 votes
  4. PantsEnvy
    Link
    Hawaii top court upholds gun laws, criticizes US Supreme Court Hawaii's supreme court absolutely destroyed the federal supreme courts arguments that gun legislation is unconstitutional. It's...

    Hawaii top court upholds gun laws, criticizes US Supreme Court

    Hawaii's supreme court absolutely destroyed the federal supreme courts arguments that gun legislation is unconstitutional.

    It's probably going to be overruled on the point of law, but the criticism is utterly damning.

    I wonder if the Supreme Court will care.

    3 votes
  5. KapteinB
    Link
    Joe Biden’s chances of US re-election are better than they appear (The Economist) Already posted in ~misc, so I'm linking to the comment section instead of directly to the article.

    Joe Biden’s chances of US re-election are better than they appear (The Economist)

    The economy is providing a headwind at present. That could soon change
    A cartoon drawing of an injured donkey floating just above the ground, lifted by some balloons featuring smiley faces.

    Already posted in ~misc, so I'm linking to the comment section instead of directly to the article.

    2 votes
  7. skybrian
    (edited )
    Link
    Migrants in Chicago are on edge as evictions from temporary shelters loom (NBC News) …

    Migrants in Chicago are on edge as evictions from temporary shelters loom (NBC News)

    As of Thursday, more than 13,200 migrants were living in 28 shelters run by the city [of Chicago] and state, according to a city census of new arrivals. Most of them have arrived since June 2023 as part of a busing campaign by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, who is seeking stricter security at the southern border. Last month, Abbott said he has sent more than 100,000 migrants to so-called sanctuary cities since April 2022, about 35,000 of them to Chicago.

    Chicago, along with New York City and Denver, have struggled to keep up with the demand for housing and social services brought on by the influx. And in response, Chicago’s Mayor Brandon Johnson put a 60-day cap on how long people can stay in city-operated migrant shelters. The first wave of evictions will come in mid-March, with 5,673 people expected to be removed from their current shelters by the end of April.

    …

    About 7,000 people, roughly half of the migrants in shelters, do not have access to rental assistance because they arrived after the state cut the program, Cristina Pacione-Zayas, the mayor’s deputy chief of staff, said. That means that they are under even greater pressure to find work to be able to afford rent.

    But migrants who arrived in Chicago and elsewhere after July 31 are not eligible for an extension of what’s known as “temporary protected status,” which offers temporary relief from deportation and the right to obtain work authorization.

    Without that protection, most migrants who qualify have to wait about six months after filing their complete asylum applications before they can receive work permits.

    A majority of the migrants coming to Chicago are escaping political and economic strife in Venezuela and do not have family or friends in the U.S. to help them.

    1 vote
  8. skybrian
    Link
    Waymo driverless car vandalized, set on fire in San Francisco's Chinatown (NBC Bay Area)

    Waymo driverless car vandalized, set on fire in San Francisco's Chinatown (NBC Bay Area)

    A Waymo spokesperson said the group of people surrounded the car and started attacking it. The group tagged the car, broke the windows and Waymo told NBC Bay Area that someone set off a firework inside the driverless vehicle.

    Waymo added that the car was not transporting any passengers and no injuries were reported.

    In a statement to NBC Bay Area Sunday, the San Francisco Police Department said that it was investigating the fire.

    1 vote