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[chibininja]

I am tired of people complaining about bipartisan political gridlock. The Democrats have 59 votes in the Senate, and about (not just of exact numbers) 257 votes in the House. The Republicans have 41 and about 178 respectively, meaning that they can might as well just not show up if the Democrats actually had their crap together.  They effectively

Comments

[canemex]

They don't matter... except that they do matter, and regularly prevent Democrats from accomplishing anything, because the Democrats cannot keep their own house in order. Neither can anyone else, it seems, but it's most visible here since, after all, they had a supermajority.

Anyway, it's equally silly to say they don't matter, because they exercise far more influence than just 41 votes. So bipartisan political gridlock is still a problem and it's still screwing everything up and we can't pretend that it doesn't exist. A good example of political gridlock would be the recent blanket hold, which to me, is best translated 'Hi, I'm an asshat who would rather completely lock up the legislative approval process even when we desperately need a competent TSA chief because I'm not getting the pork I want'.

[chibininja]

Actually, I think the TSA guy got held up over unionization concerns; the candidate may have been for unionizing airport security. While I am all for the workers having a voice at the bargaining table, I'm not so sure that unionizing airport security would be a good idea.

[canemex]

Yes, he did, and he retracted his nomination, but any future TSA candidate will be blocked by the hold.

Honestly, I have no opinion on this. But cops have unions and we don't have Escape from New York level problems yet, so...

[chibininja]

No, just massive financial issues due to budget-busting pensions and benefits that the unions are able to secure for their members. I'm not against having a retirement plan in place for people, especially folks who put their lives on the line for their fellow citizens. However, when you put in about 100k and get about 3 million back (especially when the 3 million ain't there), there is a bit of a concern.