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Congress

Friday 8th of May 2026

2014 midterm elections Obama's the reason Congress can't do shit Republican campaign theme © 2015 Kwiple.com
2016 Presidential election Regrettably, it appears that the platforms may have misrepresented or evaded in some of their statements to Congress. From a report published by the Senate Intelligence Committee about the responses submitted by Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms to its requests for data about Russia's attempts to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election © 2018 Kwiple.com
Aging In 2014 the US elected the oldest Congress in its history. The record did not last long: It was broken in 2016. And then again in 2018. And yet again in 2020, when — remarkably — the majority of the incumbents who lost their seats were replaced by someone even older. In the 2022 midterms, the House did become  slightly younger (the mean age of representa- tives dropped by a year, from fifty-nine to fifty-eight), but the mean age of senators continued to rise and is now over sixty-five. … The presidency is following the same trend. Fintan O'Toole, NY Rev. of Books, Jan. 18, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Estimated number of additional congressional seats Republicans won last year because of gerrymandering: 22 Harper's Index, September 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage change since 1961 in the portion of U.S. residents who are Christian: −24 In the portion of congresspeople who are: −4 Harper's Index, March 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Class Policy-makers from blue-collar backgrounds change classes when they enter politics, but they do not appear to change their policy perspectives. Neither do business owners, technical professionals, or legislators from other lines of work. The proceses that give rise to class-based differences in legislative voting continue to operate long after lawmakers enter public life. Nicholas Carnes, White-Collar Government © 2019 Kwiple.com
Congress Across the board, white-collar government is good for white-collar Americans and bad for the less fortunate. Nicholas Carnes, White-Collar Government © 2019 Kwiple.com
Congress Although women and minorities were still underrepresented [in Congress] at the end of the twentieth century, both groups gained considerable ground during the postwar period. In sharp contrast, working-class Americans — who have made up more than 50 percent of the labor force for at least the last hundred years — have never made up more than 2 percent of Congress. Nicholas Carnes, White-Collar Government [2013] © 2019 Kwiple.com
Congress Ambition will counteract ambition only until ambition discovers that conformity serves its goals better. At that time, Congress, the body expected to check presidential power, may become the president's most potent enabler. David Frum, “How to Build an Autocracy” © 2017 Kwiple.com
Congress As politics has become polarized, Congress has increasingly become a check only on presidents of the opposite party. David Frum, “How to Build an Autocracy” © 2017 Kwiple.com
Congress As such, white Protestants are overrepresented in government, and are disproportionately represented in Congress. Currently 77 percent of Congress is made up of whites, compared with 60 percent of the general population, and 55 percent of Congress identify as some kind of Protestant, compared with 43 percent nationally. Mary Trump, The Reckoning  [2021] © 2021 Kwiple.com
Congress  The House sits, not for serious discussion, but to sanction the conclusions of its Committees as rapidly as possible. It legislates in its committee rooms; not by the determination of majorities, but by the resolutions of specially-commissioned minorities; so that it is not far from the truth to say that Congress in session is Congress on special exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee rooms is Congress at work. Woodrow Wilson, Congressional Government © 2021 Kwiple.com
Congress If PRO is the opposite of CON is PROgress the opposite of CONgress? Billboard outside a liquor store on Church Street in Manhattan  September 7, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Congress No matter what the sequence of action among the three departments, if the process is played out to the end, Congress always gets the last say (if it wants it). Garry Wills © 2019 Kwiple.com
Congress Some people think, Congress? You mean we should ask Congress to do something that may be politically hard because a relatively small, intense minority doesn't like it? Yeah, that's exactly what I mean. Elizabeth Warren, Persist © 2021 Kwiple.com
Corporate welfare Congress grills flak clatchers from Facebook, Google and Twitter about subverting American democracy by enabling trolling by Russians in the 2016 presidential election and, shortly afterwards, plans to cut corporate tax rates nearly in half © 2017 Kwiple.com
Dead-in-the-heads say Congress could pass a law tomorrow requiring that all aliens from Arabic countries leave. … We should require passports to fly domestically. Passports can be forged, but they can also be checked with the home country in case of any suspicious-looking swarthy males. Ann Coulter, within two weeks after 9/11 © 2015 Kwiple.com
Dead-in-the-heads say I call on Congress today to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed officers in every single school in this nation. Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President, National Rifle Association  © 2015 Kwiple.com
Dysfunction in government There is the assumption  – pioneered by Newt Gingrich himself, as early as the 1970s – that the minority wins when Congress accomplishes less. Steny Hoyer © 2018 Kwiple.com
Foreign relations The hard-liners [in Reagan's administration] felt that foreign policy and covert operations were an exclusively presidential domain. ““The business of Congress is to stay the [expletive] out of my business” is how Reagan's first C.I.A. director, William Casey, put it in an interview with the political scientist Loch K. Johnson. Mattathias Schwartz, New York Times Magazine, June 7, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Gerrymandering In many states, the partisan composition  of the US Congress is effectively determined by state legislative elections that occur once a decade, before redistricting. This arrangement means that state governments have expanded their reach  into national affairs in ways that undermine  the design of the House of Representatives to be responsive to public opinion and unsettle the balance of power between state and federal government that has been settled for many decades. Alex Keena, Michael Latner, Anthony J. McGann, Charles Anthony Smith, Gerrymandering the States   © 2021 Kwiple.com
House of Representatives The House Rules Committee is perhaps the free world's outstanding bureaucratic abomination – a tiny, airless closet deep in the labyrinth of the Capital where some of the very meanest people on earth spend their days skinning democracy like a fish. The official function of the committee is to decide which bills and amendments will be voted on by Congress and also to schedule the parameters of debate. If Rules votes against your amendment, your amendment dies. If you control the Rules Committee, you control Congress. Matt Taibbi, “Four Amendments and a Funeral” © 2017 Kwiple.com
Kwiple dictionary Congress (kong'gris), n. Playing field and farm team for lobbyists. © 2015 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Amend the Constitution to elect one Senator from each state and all Representatives from all states in presidential election years © 2015 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Amend the Constitution to prevent gerrymandering by requiring Congressional districts in each state to represent populations within a maximum of 3% of each other, to be bordered within the state by as few straight lines as possible, and to have population densities inversely proportional to their size © 2015 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Amend the Constitution to require members of Congress to be elected by a majority of voters in their constituencies © 2015 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Amend the Constitution to require a simple majority of both Houses of Congress to propose amendments to the Constitution, not two-thirds of both © 2015 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Count votes in Congress by: 1. Calculating a Member's Proportional Vote (MPV) for each member, as follows: MPV = SPNP / NLRS where: SPNP = State's Percentage of the National Population NLRS = Number of Legislators Representing the State (in that legislature) 2. Totaling “yes” MPVs and “no” MPVs 3. Passing if total MPV is more than 50 OTHERWISE Abolish the Senate © 2019 Kwiple.com
Lobbyists The number of workers in the Congressional Research Service, Congressional Budget Office and Government Accountability Office, the internal information services that provide unbiased reports to members, has dropped by 40% since 1979 even as legislation has grown more complex. Paid influencers, including those without the word “lobbyist” on their business cards, fill the gap. The Economist, September 2, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Political inequality According to research by David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, an electoral-analysis site, even if Democrats won the national vote by six percentage points over a six-year cycle, they would probably still be a minority in both houses. Economist, July 12, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Presidential immunity from criminal prosecution It follows that an Act of Congress — either a specific one targeted at the President or a generally applicable one —  may not criminalize the President’s actions within his exclusive constitutional power. Neither may the courts adjudicate a criminal prosecution that examines such Presidential actions. Trump v. United States © 2024 Kwiple.com
Presidential immunity from criminal prosecution With its adoption of a paradigm that sometimes exempts the President from the dictates of the law (when the Court says so), this Court has effectively snatched from the Legislature the authority to bind the  President (or not) to Congress’s mandates, and it has also thereby substantially augmented the power of both the Office of the Presidency and itself. Katanji Brown Jackson, dissent, Trump v. United States © 2024 Kwiple.com
Republican congressmen The average Republican congressman is in a safe seat with an electorate he chose himself and he's only scared of only two things; a primary opponent with more guns on his Christmas card and getting a nickname from Trump. Bill Maher, Real Time with Bill Maher, January 26, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Republicans say Voting on unwritten bills and bills for which there have been no hearings is change we believe in © 2017 Kwiple.com
Sleepers at the wheel say The gun lobby may hold Congress hostage, but they cannot hold America hostage. Barack Obama © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Brian Pannebecker, a 58-year-old autoworker with a presidential inauguration coffee mug and T-shirt, says President Trump is “a flawed human being, a narcissist, an egomaniac, he exaggerates, embellishes, but we true Trump supporters don't care, we just don't care, because . . . they are all liars and perverts and sex maniacs, Congress is full of them”. Financial Times, December 30, 2017, reporting on Macomb County, Michigan, voters who helped make Trump president © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union The delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. Bill Moyers, 2005 © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union The “people” Congress represents AbbVie Allergan Altria Amazon Amgen Annheuser-Busch Apple Bank of America Berkshire Hathaway BP CEMEX Chevron China Mobile Cisco Citigroup Coca Cola Comcast CVS Caremark Exxon Mobil Facebook General Electric Gilead Sciences Home Depot IBM Intel Johnson & Johnson JPMorganChase Medtronic Merck Microsoft Novartis Oracle Pepsico PetroChina Pfizer Philip Morris Proctor & Gamble Royal Dutch Shell Taiwan Semiconductor Total Unilever UnitedHealth Group Verizon Visa Wal-Mart Walt Disney Wells Fargo Thanks, Citizens United © 2015 Kwiple.com
Surely you jest “Congress”  is from the Latin “congressŭs,” meaning “coming together” © 2017 Kwiple.com
Taxes The Senate's three richest members – Democrats Mark Warner (VA), Richard Blumenthal (CT) and Diane Feinstein (CA) – voted against the 2017 tax bill. The Senate's three richest Republicans – Jim Risch (ID), Bob Corker (TN) and John Hoeven (ND) – voted for it. The House's three richest Democrats – John Delaney (MD), Jared Polis (CO) and Scott Peters (CA) – voted against the 2017 tax bill. 2 of the 3 richest House Republicans – Greg Gianforte (MT, richest)  and Michael McCaul (TX, 3rd richest) – voted for it. © 2017 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say [T]he evidence developed during the special counsel's investigation is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction-of-justice offense. William “Whitewash Willie” Barr, Trump's self-proclaimed Exonerator General  and Republican-proclaimed Attorney General, superseding Congress's authority to decide the issue left unresolved by special counsel Mueller's investigation © 2019 Kwiple.com
 
Working class If even just half a percent of working-class Americans had what it takes to govern, there would be there would be enough qualified blue-collar workers to fill every seat in Congress and every seat on every state legislature more than forty times over  — with enough savvy workers left over to run a few thousand city councils. Nicholas Carnes,White-Collar Government © 2019 Kwiple.com