Some argue that gridlock is simply a constant of American political life. Despite the first budget surplus in 30 years, Congress and the president remain deadlocked over numerous high-profile issues (including Social Security, Medicare, managed health care, and campaign finance reform), and they show few prospects of acting on these and other salient issues before the 2000 elections. How much do we have? How often do we get it? What drives it up and down? Such questions are particularly acute today, as Democrats and Republicans trade barbs over the do-nothing 106th Congress. What accounts for such uneven performance? Why is Congress sometimes remarkably successful and other times mired in stalemate? For all our attention to the minutiae of Congress, we know little about the dimensions and causes of gridlock. At other times, gridlock prevails, as when, in 1992, congressional efforts to cut the capital gains tax and to reform lobbying, campaign finance, banking, parental leave, and voter registration laws (to name a few) ended in deadlock. The Great Society Congress under Lyndon Johnson, for example, enacted landmark health care, environment, civil rights, transportation, and education statutes (to name a few). At times, congressional prowess is stunning. In many ways, gridlock is endemic to our national politics, the natural consequence of separated institutions sharing and competing for power.īut even casual observers of Washington recognize tremendous variation in Congress’s performance. Although the term is said to have entered the American political lexicon after the 1980 elections, Alexander Hamilton was complaining more than two centuries ago about the deadlock rooted in the design of the Continental Congress. Satire, humor, and opinion, names/locations are made up.Gridlock is not a modern legislative invention. The Facebook page’s “About” section states, “Delivering the Snews that doesn’t matter directly to your Snews feed. The claim seems to stem from a satirical 2017 post on the Facebook page Casper Planet. The butte is made up of igneous rock called phonolite porphyry, per National Geographic. While geologists do not know the exact process that took place, they agree that Devils Tower originated from magma beneath the Earth’s surface, according to the NPS. (RELATED: Were These Trees Cut Down To ‘Make Way For 5G’?) The alleged statement does not appear on the Wyoming State Parks, Historic Sites and Trails’ website or its social media posts. “The root system has been measured at 4 miles deep by 7 miles wide.”īut Check Your Fact found no credible media reports about such a discovery. “We have discovered, what looks like a giant root system stemming from the base of The Devils Tower,” reads the purported statement from the Wyoming State Parks Department. The NPS states on its website that Devils Tower receives roughly 500,000 visitors a year. It further alleges that the Wyoming State Parks Department put out a statement announcing the supposed discovery.ĭevils Tower, a natural formation located in Wyoming, was declared the U.S.’s first national monument in 1906, according to the National Park Service (NPS). The post claims that scientists discovered Devils Tower was originally a giant tree after “conducting photographic seismic readings” that allegedly revealed an “incredibly large petrified root system” underneath the butte. The claim appears to have originated on a satirical Facebook page. A viral Facebook post shared over 1,500 times claims scientists discovered that the Devils Tower rock formation in Wyoming was originally a giant tree.ĭevils Tower is made up of igneous rock.
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