News roundup, 19 Nov 2025

- Both houses of Congress have now passed a bill forcing the release of the Epstein files; every member of the House except one voted in favour. However, there's a catch - the bill as passed allows the DOJ to withhold or redact any records that "would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution". This is relevant because Donald Trump has ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to open an investigation into three prominent Democrats, including former president Bill Clinton, and their connections to Epstein. This just might provide the pretext Trump needs to keep the files out of public view.

- A new poll gives the Democrats a significant advantage in next year's midterms. That's assuming, of course, that the midterms are free and fair, which may be doubtful.

- Denmark held municipal elections across the country yesterday. The governing Social Democrats have lost control of Copenhagen's council; fortunately the beneficiaries there were other leftwing parties rather than the far right.

- Germany's government, a coalition between the centre-right Christian Democrats and the centre-left Social Democrats, is deeply divided over the future of pensions in the country. The coalition agreement calls for pensions to be propped up at least until 2031; the Social Democrats are trying to extend it further. The Christian Democrats' youth wing is not keen on the additional expenditures that the Social Democrats are calling for, though, and the pension legislation is not guaranteed to pass.

- The Manitoba government has presented its throne speech for the new legislative session. Highlights include the opening of a supervised consumption site as well as an overpass for the intersection near Carberry where 17 seniors died in a bus crash and a new emergency room at Victoria General Hospital. More problematically it calls for the construction of a new natural gas power plant for Manitoba Hydro; it is hoped that it will eventually run on renewable fuels but there's no plans for that in the near future.

- The City of Winnipeg has cleared two homeless encampments on Monday, the first day when new restrictions were in effect. The restrictions prohibit encampments within 50 metres of schools, playgrounds, daycares and skating rinks, and within 30 metres of transit shelters, bridges, docks and similar public facilities.

- The cycling magazine Momentum has published its annual list of the 30 most bike-friendly cities around the world. 24 of the 30 cities listed are in the European Union; the only other countries with cities on the list are Canada (represented by Montreal, Quebec City, and Vancouver), Switzerland (Zurich and Bern), and Norway (Oslo).

- The Brazilian government is proposing that brazilwood, an endangered tree, be given the highest level of protection by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). This is a source of alarm to many musicians, due to the wood's widespread use in bows for stringed instruments - it would force musicians to register their bows in order to travel internationally.

More notes on the US midterms

As expected, the Republicans have gained control of the House, but not the Senate. Happily Dennis Kucinich, the House's token social democrat, has retained his seat in Ohio, and as noted last night it's also good to see the defeat of Christine O'Donnell and Ilario Pantano, not to mention Sharron Angle who failed to unseat the Democrats' Senate leader in Nevada.

In California, Proposition 19, the bold referendum question on legalizing marijuana, was defeated yesterday, which is a disappointment, but my disappointment by that vote is outweighed by my relief at the defeat of Proposition 23, which would have rolled back the state's measures to control greenhouse gas emissions.

What does all this mean? For the most part, it means of two years of sound and fury signifying nothing. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans will be able to pass legislation without the other party's co-operation, and co-operation is one thing that will be in very short supply in this Congress.

Even North Carolina voters have their limits

Ilario Pantano, the Tea Party endorsed candidate for North Carolina's 7th Congressional district, has conceded defeat. Perhaps his mysterious acquittal on war crimes charges failed to convince voters. Christine O'Donnell, star of this entry, has been defeated in Delaware as well.

On the other hand, it looks like Rand Paul has been elected, along with some other pretty far-out individuals. It doesn't look like they'll gain control of the Senate, though.

Teabagger doesn't understand the Constitution

You'd think people who are constantly ranting about the importance of upholding the Constitution would have bothered to read it. Apparently not:

The US constitution has its quirks but it is crystal clear on one issue: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," begins the first amendment, adopted in 1791. But more than 200 years later, its meaning appears to be lost on Christine O'Donnell, the Tea Party favourite running for a US Senate seat.

At a debate today for the Delaware Senate seat once occupied by Vice President Joe Biden, O'Donnell appeared to be nonplussed by the wording of the first amendment, repeatedly returning to the subject and sounding incredulous after her Democratic opponent Chris Coons attempted to explain it to her.

When Coons told her the text of the constitution prohibited government from establishing any religion, O'Donnell replied in apparent bewilderment: "You're telling me that's in the first amendment?"

From the Guardian. Rather strange. It gets better, though, because the teabaggers, for the most part, subscribe to a school of constitutional thought known as originalism, the idea that when interpreting the Constitution, every effort should be made to see what the Founding Fathers intended when they wrote it. Well, in this case we have some good evidence for the intention:

Not only is the first amendment perhaps the most famous part of the constitution but the "establishment clause", as it is known, is the subject of legal precedent stretching back into the 19th century. No less an authority than Thomas Jefferson, one of the constitution's authors, declared the clause's aim to build "a wall of separation between church and state".

My emphasis. Things are going to get rather interesting for some of these people when they find themselves actually getting elected (and I suspect far to many of them will for my liking). Gwynne Dyer thinks, though, that this might not be the disaster that some fear:

If all of the retired white people vote, and only the usual midterm proportion of all the other demographics does, then the Democrats will lose both houses of Congress.

So why isn’t Obama more worried about it?

He will certainly regret that so many long-serving Democratic senators and congressmen are going to lose their seats this autumn, but it really does not much matter to him who controls the Congress for the next two years.

He can’t hope to get any more legislation even through the current Congress since the Democrats lost their “super-majority” of 60 seats in the Senate last January, so what’s the difference?

Nor does Obama actually have to get more legislation through Congress right now. It would be nice to have a tough climate-change bill, no doubt, but from a political point of view, there is no new law that he simply must pass before he faces reelection himself in 2012.

Indeed, he stands a very good chance of winning a second term in 2012, in large part because of what is going to happen this November.

From the Georgia Straight. Essentially, Dyer thinks that the teabaggers will show their true colours, yet be unable to actually accomplish anything:

Getting majorities in both houses of Congress will leave the Republicans nowhere to hide on the critical issue of cutting the huge federal deficit. They have already said that they will not raise taxes—even for those earning more than $250,000 a year—and they have pledged not to cut defence spending.

What’s left? The only other big-ticket items in the budget are entitlements: health care and pensions.

The United States has not yet gone through the painful debate about how to tame the deficit that has already happened in most European countries, but it will have to do so soon.

That poses a particular problem for Republicans, because if they will not raise taxes on the rich or cut defence spending, then they have to support brutal cuts in health care and pensions or lose all credibility as deficit-cutters.

But cutting entitlements would alienate the Republicans’ own most important demographic: older white people. They will not risk that.

Dyer also points out that any ridiculous piece of legislation that they come up with, even if it passes both houses of Congress, is subject to presidential veto. The one thing he does not mention is that if the Republicans get supermajorities in both houses, they will be able to override his veto. Hopefully -- and probably -- that won't happen.

How will the US midterm elections play out?

They're going to be interesting, that's for sure.

On the surface, things look very bad for the Democrats. The Guardian cites a poll showing the Republicans having the support of 51% of registered voters, compared to the Democrats at 41%. And the Democrats' base is rather demoralized, because a lot of the hopes that led to Obama's election are being dashed. Certainly this could be a good thing, but not if the troops are simply shipped over to Afghanistan... And the healthcare initiative, while perhaps a slight improvement on what there was before, has been pretty mediocre, to say the least. (We'll make you buy health insurance, but won't pay for it unless you're really poor. None of that Canuck crap for you!) And we'll have to see what gets done on the climate front; on a diplomatic level it looks rather mediocre as well (uh... we'll sign an agreement that says we think we should probably do something about this, but not actually commit to anything). But with the grip they've had on the levers of government you'd think the Democrats would have accomplished far more than they have...

The funny thing is, though, in situations like this your enemy can be your best friend. The Republicans are actually in a rather bad state right now. David Neiwert at Crooks and Liars (h/t jblaque via Twitter) has pointed out that when teabaggers contest Republican nominations, it's become common for the loser to refuse to endorse the winner. Not to mention, when teabaggers are running in swing districts, they're less likely to win over the moderates. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of polling numbers change in the US once the summer's over. Hopefully that will change in Canada, too, before the likes of Harper, Ford et. al. win any more elections.