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The Hill
Top 10
political stories of 2014
By Niall Stanage
12/30/14
In a year when Congress all but ground to a halt, the real political
action took place elsewhere: on the other side of the world, on the
streets of Ferguson, Mo., and New York, or in polling booths in
battleground states across the nation.
Here is The Hill’s selection of the top 10 political news stories of
2014.
1. Midterms: GOP gains, Democratic pain
The midterms were a triumph for Republicans, as they routed Democrats
in battleground states to reclaim the Senate majority.
2014 dawned with Democrats believing they had a fighting chance to keep
the Senate and perhaps even narrow the GOP majority in the House.
Things turned out very differently. Republicans took eight Senate seats
on election night and added another when Rep. Bill Cassidy trounced
Sen. Mary Landrieu in Louisiana’s December runoff election. They also
gained 13 House seats, giving them their largest majority in decades.
Reacting to the results, President Obama took solace in the fact that
voter turnout was 36.4 percent, the lowest since 1942. But that was
cold comfort for his party colleagues who will now be the minority in
both chambers of Congress.
2. The police and the protesters
The deaths of two unarmed black men — 18-year-old Michael Brown in
Ferguson, Mo., and 43-year-old Eric Garner in New York — at the hands
of police officers roiled the nation.
The Aug. 9 killing of Brown by police officer Darren Wilson sparked
protests that lasted several days. There was also much debate over
whether the initial police reaction to those demonstrations escalated
the situation.
Further protests erupted in late November after a grand jury announced
it would not indict Wilson in Brown’s death.
In early December, a grand jury in New York announced that it, too,
would bring no charges against NYPD officers in the killing of Garner,
who died after being placed in a chokehold. The incident had been
captured on video, as had Garner’s dying words — “I can’t breathe” —
which became a rallying cry for protestors.
Liberals and conservatives alike were perplexed by the Garner decision.
Former President George W. Bush declared it “hard to understand.”
Deepening tensions, two NYPD officers — 32-year-old Wenjian Liu and
40-year-old Rafael Ramos — were shot dead in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Dec.
20. The gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, committed suicide immediately
afterward. Social media posts suggested Brinsley harbored anger against
police, in part because of the Brown and Garner cases.
3. The rise of ISIS
The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) expanded its territorial
reach, committed widespread human rights violations and executed at
least five Western hostages. Those who were killed included three
Americans and two Britons.
Obama began the year by invoking a comparison that came back to haunt
him. Referring to the relationship between ISIS and al Qaeda, Obama
told The New Yorker, “if a JV team puts on Lakers uniforms, that
doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.”
In August, Obama dug himself a new hole by acknowledging, “we don’t
have a strategy yet” about military action against ISIS targets in
Syria.
That same month, the US had begun airstrikes against ISIS positions in
Iraq.
By November, the administration was boosting US troop levels in Iraq to
around 3,000. Those troops are not to be used in a combat role, a point
that the Obama administration has stressed as it vows to put no “boots
on the ground.”
4. Immigration: Inaction, then action
Obama postponed executive action on immigration for much of the year,
at the behest of red-state Democrats who were struggling to hold their
seats in the midterm elections.
Two weeks after Election Day, Obama announced expansive steps.
Under the terms of his action, up to 5 million illegal immigrants are
to have the threat of deportation lifted from them and become eligible
to work legally.
Republicans reacted with fury to Obama’s announcement. Sen. Ted Cruz
(R-Texas) told “Fox News Sunday” that Obama had “essentially … gotten
in the job of counterfeiting immigration papers.”
Obama’s executive action came as the other immigration-related story of
the year — the border crisis involving an influx of children, primarily
from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — receded from the headlines.
5. Ebola comes to America
The outbreak of Ebola was first reported by the World Health
Organization in West Africa in March. But it flew under the radar in
the United States until the first case crossed the Atlantic Ocean this
fall.
Thomas Eric Duncan was confirmed to have the virus at a Dallas hospital
on Sept. 30. The 42-year-old Liberian, who had been visiting relatives,
died on Oct. 8.
The first U.S. case created an Ebola panic that subsided approximately
one month later, when Craig Spencer, a New York City doctor who had
contracted the virus, was declared fully recovered. Between those
times, two nurses who had treated Duncan tested positive for the virus
(both later recovered) and false alarms rang around the country...
Read the rest of The Hill's picks here
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