OMNI
U. S. CONGRESS,the MONEY/CORPORATE/CONGRESSIONAL/MEDIA
NEWSLETTER #1. April 5, 2015. COMPILED
FOR A CULTURE OF PEACE AND JUSTICE by Dick Bennett.
Here is the link to all OMNI newsletters:
http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/ For a knowledge-based peace, justice, and
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Index:
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Contents
HISTORY
Zephyr Teachout,
Corruption in America
US NATIONAL POLITICS IN THE 21ST
CENTURY
Jeff Connaughton,
The Payoff
Leibovitch, This Town, the Bipartisan Congressional/Media
Money Game
Money Game
Lee Fang, “Congress Incorporated”
Moyers and Winship, Do-Nothing
Congress
Abramoff on Legislative Corruption
Earmarks
Arkansas Chamber of Commerce
In the Meantime, Presidential Power
has Increased
CHANGING CONGRESS
Buffet Recommendations
Four Pledges
Feingold, Stop Insider Trading
Congressional Reform Act of 2011
and 2014
Congress and Peace—Pentagon Budget
Reduction,
Abolish Nuclear Weapons
Zephyr Teachout’s ‘Corruption in America’
Reviewed by THOMAS FRANK,
SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW, New York Times, OCT. 16, 2014
Photo
A reproduction of an 1871
Thomas Nast cartoon about a Tammany Hall scandal.CreditNorth Wind Picture Archives, via Associated Press
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The language of political
corruption is the default invective of our jaded age. For all our disposition
to believe the worst, however, Beltway knavery has only rarely been the object
of sustained historical consideration. Most corruption writing, for reasons of
journalistic necessity, focuses on particular scandals or individual rogues. TV
shows on the subject, meanwhile, assure us that vice is simply a Washington
constant; that it saunters along the streets of the capital today with the same
easy, untroubled gait as it always has.
The true student of
misgovernment knows that the story is grander and more complicated than that.
Washington isn’t simply a Place of Wickedness, throbbing with sin at all times
and always in the same way. The misdeeds of Iran-contra did not much resemble
the turpitude of, say, the Crédit Mobilier episode, even if they did have a
great deal in common with the screw-ups of the George W. Bush years. And so the
most ambitious chronicler of political misbehavior looks for something higher:
a theory, a dialectic, a telos of scandal.
Surprisingly few have
been able to pull this off. There was the muckraker Lincoln Steffens, who
called himself a “graft philosopher” as he traveled from city to city studying
political machines at the turn of the last century. There was the historian
Matthew Josephson, whose 1938 masterpiece, “The Politicos,” traced the marriage
of money with politics from its dalliances during the Grant administration
until its final, grotesque consummation in William McKinley’s electoral triumph
of 1896.
And now comes Zephyr Teachout, a professor at Fordham
University Law School and a candidate in this year’s Democratic primary for
governor of New York. Her entry into the field, “Corruption in America,” includes plenty of the juicy stories that make the genre so
much fun to read. We learn, for example, about a diamond-studded snuffbox that
Louis XVI gave Benjamin Franklin, then our ambassador to France, and how the
Revolutionary generation regarded this gift — the result of a noncontroversial
custom in Europe — as a possible threat to republican virtue. We read about an
officer of the Turkish government in the 1870s who agreed to sell the products
of an American arms manufacturer to his government in exchange for a small
consideration, and who then, having duly moved the units, went to court to have
the deal enforced. Good stuff, all of it. You have probably heard pundits say
we are living in an age of “legalized bribery”; “Corruption in America” is the
book that makes their case in careful detail.
As you might have
guessed, Teachout’s main target is the currently reigning money-in-politics
doctrine of the Supreme Court, as defined mainly by Citizens United, the 2010 decision that struck down certain
restrictions on political spending by corporations. Today’s court understands
“corruption” as a remarkably rare malady, a straight-up exchange of money for
official acts. Any definition broader than that, the justices say, transgresses
the all-important First Amendment. Besides, as Justice Anthony Kennedy
announced in the Citizens United
decision, the court now knows that “independent expenditures, including those
made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of
corruption” — a statement that I guess makes sense somehow in law-land but
sounds to the layman’s ear like the patter of a man who has come unzipped from
reality.
The first few American
generations, Teachout reminds us, saw things very differently; for them,
corruption was a “national fixation.” Drawing on Montesquieu and their
understanding of ancient history, the founders fretted about the countless ways
a republic might be undone from within. “They saw their task this way,”
Teachout writes: “How could they create a system that would be most likely to
be filled with men of civic virtue but avoid creating temptations that might corrode
that virtue?” Their answer was to build structural barriers keeping public and
personal interests separated, without getting lost in considerations of whether
a forbidden activity did or did not amount to what our current court calls a
“quid pro quo.”
The dings and the dents
in their grand design started appearing almost immediately. In 1795, it was
discovered that members of the Georgia Legislature had been bribed to hand over
enormous stretches of land to speculators. The guilty were promptly booted from
office, but then things got complicated. Was it possible for a state to take
back land that a corrupt but duly elected legislature had given away? The
Supreme Court eventually decided it wasn’t — corruption was just too hard to
define.
And so have the debates
gone, right down to our own day. We think of all the laws passed over the years
to restrict money in politics — and of all the ways the money has flowed under
and around those restrictions. And finally, it seems to me, we just gave up out
of sheer exhaustion.
According to Teachout,
however, it’s much worse than this. Our current Supreme Court, in Citizens United, “took that which had
been named corrupt for over 200 years” — which is to say, gifts to politicians
— “and renamed it legitimate.” Teachout does not exaggerate. Here is Justice
Kennedy again, in the Citizens United
decision: “The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach. The government
has ‘muffle[d] the voices that best represent the most significant segments of
the economy.’ ”
You read that right:
The economy needs to be represented in democratic politics, or
at least the economy’s “most significant segments,” whatever those are, and
therefore corporate “speech,” meaning gifts, ought not to be censored.
Corporations now possess the rights that the founders reserved for citizens,
and as Teachout explains, what used to be called “corruption becomes democratic
responsiveness.”
Let me pause here to take
note of another recurring peculiarity in corruption literature: an eerie
overlap between theory and practice. If you go back to that “censorship”
quotation from Kennedy, you will notice he quotes someone else: his colleague
Antonin Scalia, in an opinion from 2003. Google the quote and one place you’ll
find it is in a book of Scalia’s opinions that was edited in 2004 by none other
than the lobbyist Kevin Ring, an associate of Jack Abramoff who would later be
convicted of corrupting public officials.
As it happens, Teachout
gives us a long and savory chapter on the legal history of lobbying. Once upon a time, lobbying was regarded as obviously
perfidious; in California it was a felony; and contracts to lobby were regarded
as reprehensible by the Supreme Court. Here is a justice of that body in the
year 1854, delivering the court’s decision in a case concerning lobbyists and
lobbying contracts:
“The use of such means
and such agents will have the effect to subject the state governments to the
combined capital of wealthy corporations, and produce universal corruption,
commencing with the representative and ending with the elector. Speculators in
legislation, public and private, a compact corps of venal solicitors, vending
their secret influences, will infest the capital of the Union and of every
state, till corruption shall become the normal condition of the body politic,
and it will be said of us as of Rome — omne Romae venale.”
Well, folks, it happened
all right, just as predicted. State governments subject to wealthy
corporations? Check. Speculators in legislation, infesting the capital? They
call it K Street. And that fancy Latin remark about Rome? They do say that of
us today. Just turn on your TV sometime and let the cynicism flow.
And all of it has
happened, Teachout admonishes, because the founders’ understanding of
corruption has been methodically taken apart by a Supreme Court that cynically
pretends to worship the founders’ every word. “We could lose our democracy in
the process,” Teachout warns, a bit of hyperbole that maybe it’s time to start
taking seriously.
CORRUPTION IN AMERICA
From
Benjamin Franklin’s Snuff Box to Citizens United
By Zephyr Teachout
376 pp. Harvard University Press. $29.95.
Thomas Frank is a
columnist for Salon and the author, most recently, of “Pity the Billionaire.”
Jeff
Connaughton's "The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins" A
Book Review
Follow Comments
Jeff Connaughton has a new job: truth teller.
The Payoff: Why Wall Street
Always Wins is a memoir and more, covering
Connaughton’s twenty-plus years working, one way or another, for Senator, and
now Vice President, Joe Biden. He’s a “Professional Democrat” turned Washingtonlobbyist who sought answers, and pushed
for reforms, as Chief of Staff for Senator Ted Kaufman.
The Payoff is a must read if you’re
interested in the corrupting influence of lobbyists, the revolving door
between Wall Street and those that govern and regulate
the financial services industry, and how huge, and ultimately untraceable,
amounts of money grease the wheels of government at every step.
Connaughton
knows what he’s done by writing this book.
It’s time people understand why – and how – Wall Street always
wins. It’s not a tale of bags filled with cash and quid pro quos. It’s more
subtle than that, and in some ways best told by my own personal story and the
compromises I made along the way. Party cohesion and the desire to make a
munificent living in DC go a long way to enforce silence. Yet I’m willing to
burn every bridge.
The
author’s profound disillusionment with the political process set in long before
he decided to tell these tales. I wonder, though, would Connaughton be an exile
if, rather than being banished on a technicality – his lobbyist past
- he’d finally gotten “the payoff” after all those years working for
Biden? Would Connaughton still be playing the good soldier if he was in the
White House?
Jeff Connaughton joined
Joe Biden’s first presidential campaign in 1987 as Deputy National Finance
Director. He became his Special Assistant when Biden chaired the Senate
Judiciary Committee. After graduating from StanfordLaw School,
Connaughton clerked for Chief Judge Abner Mikva of the United States Court of
Appeals for the DC Circuit, then followed Mikva to the White House when Mikva
was appointed Counsel to President Bill Clinton. In 2000, Connaughton founded Quinn
Gillespie & Associates, a bi-partisan lobbying firm with Jack Quinn
(Democrat) and Ed Gillespie (Republican).
Connaughton’s
book is full of revealing quotes and anecdotes that describe a messy, self-serving,
and sometimes ruthless, political process. As right-hand to Kaufman after Biden
became VP, he was intimately involved in the legislative process that resulted
in the Dodd-Frank Act. Connaughton does not paint a very pretty picture of
democracy.
For two years, Senator Kaufman and I kicked Wall Street in the
groin every day. We loudly advocated the prosecution of financial fraudsters,
prodded the SEC to do something – anything – about high-frequency trading and
the vertiginous market swings it was causing, and pushed for meaningful
financial regulatory reform. Despite our nearly fanatical dedication, we and
other reformers failed.
Jeff Connaughton first met Joe Biden in 1979 when he invited the
Senator to speak at an event at his college, the University of Alabama. The young Connaughton was
hooked in by Biden’s mastery of the crowd, an extemporaneous ninety-minute
speech, his tragic personal story, and a very personal touch. In the car on the
way to the airport, the young student organizer asked the Senator for a memento
of the occasion:
I
wanted Biden to sign something, but all I had with me was a spiral notebook
with me. He wrote on the back of it:
To
Jeff and the APU,
Please
stay involved in politics. We need you all.
Joe
Biden, USS 1979
I did for the next 31 years, with that piece of cardboard framed
and hanging on the wall of wherever I lived. Sometimes I eyed it with disdain,
sometimes with admiration. Ultimately, I saw it as my meal ticket…
I met Jeff Connaughton in early 2010, in the midst of the debate over
financial reform and the Dodd-Frank Act. A profile of Senator Ted
Kaufman in BusinessWeek by Paul Barrett where I was
generously quoted led to a meeting with Kaufman and his
staff in Washington DC. I had thirty-minutes to pitch my
concerns about how the sins of the audit industry during the crisis were
being ignored in the post-crisis
reforms.
I was also interested in a bill co-sponsored by Kaufman with
Senator Arlen Specter to counteract the Stoneridge decision and bring
back the right to private litigation
for aiding and abetting by auditors, lawyers and other
professional in securities class actions. I wrote after the meeting with
Kaufman:
Most
regulators and legislators avoid talking about wholesale change to the
structure of the accounting/audit industry. It seems too big a task and
untenable. The refrain I hear most often both when attending conferences and
events is, “We can’t get rid of the audit opinion. It’s required.”
Lack of vision and loads of
cash. These are the fundamental obstacles to serving investors
and other stakeholders with financial reporting that can be trusted.
I’ve also written about the strong and steady political
contributions the accounting industry makes,
party-agnostic, dictated primarily by the politician’s position and influence
over the audit firms’ interests.
·
Page 1 / 2
·
Continue
This Town: Two Parties and a
Funeral--Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!--in America
The #1 New
York Times and Washington Post bestseller
Tim Russert is dead.
But the room was alive.
Big Ticket Washington Funerals can make such great networking opportunities. Power mourners keep stampeding down the red carpets of theKennedy
Center
Washington—This Town—might be loathed from every corner of the nation, yet these are fun and busy days at this nexus of big politics, big money, big media, and big vanity. There are no Democrats and Republicans anymore in the nation’s capital, just millionaires. That is the grubby secret of the place in the twenty-first century. You will always have lunch in This Town again. No matter how many elections you lose, apologies you make, or scandals you endure.
In This Town, Mark Leibovich, chief national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, presents a blistering, stunning—and often hysterically funny—examination of our ruling class’s incestuous “media industrial complex.” Through his eyes, we discover how the funeral for a beloved newsman becomes the social event of the year. How political reporters are fetishized for their ability to get their names into the predawn e-mail sent out by the city’s most powerful and puzzled-over journalist. How a disgraced Hill aide can overcome ignominy and maybe emerge with a more potent “brand” than many elected members of Congress. And how an administration bent on “changing Washington” can be sucked into the ways of This Town with the same ease with which Tea Party insurgents can, once elected, settle into it like a warm bath.
Outrageous, fascinating, and destined to win Leibovich a whole host of, er, new friends, This Town is must reading, whether you’re inside the Beltway—or just trying to get there.
Tim Russert is dead.
But the room was alive.
Big Ticket Washington Funerals can make such great networking opportunities. Power mourners keep stampeding down the red carpets of the
Washington—This Town—might be loathed from every corner of the nation, yet these are fun and busy days at this nexus of big politics, big money, big media, and big vanity. There are no Democrats and Republicans anymore in the nation’s capital, just millionaires. That is the grubby secret of the place in the twenty-first century. You will always have lunch in This Town again. No matter how many elections you lose, apologies you make, or scandals you endure.
In This Town, Mark Leibovich, chief national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, presents a blistering, stunning—and often hysterically funny—examination of our ruling class’s incestuous “media industrial complex.” Through his eyes, we discover how the funeral for a beloved newsman becomes the social event of the year. How political reporters are fetishized for their ability to get their names into the predawn e-mail sent out by the city’s most powerful and puzzled-over journalist. How a disgraced Hill aide can overcome ignominy and maybe emerge with a more potent “brand” than many elected members of Congress. And how an administration bent on “changing Washington” can be sucked into the ways of This Town with the same ease with which Tea Party insurgents can, once elected, settle into it like a warm bath.
Outrageous, fascinating, and destined to win Leibovich a whole host of, er, new friends, This Town is must reading, whether you’re inside the Beltway—or just trying to get there.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“In
addition to his reporting talents, Leibovich is a writer of excellent zest. At
times his book is laugh-out-loud (as well as weep-out-loud). He is an exuberant
writer, even as his reporting leaves one reaching for Xanax…[This Town]
is vastly entertaining and deeply troubling.”—Christopher Buckley, The New York Times Book Review
“Here it is, Washington in all its splendid, sordid glory…[Leibovich] seems to wear those special glasses that allow you to x-ray the outside and see what’s really going on. Start to finish, this is a brilliant portrait – pointillist, you might say, or modern realist. So brilliant that once it lands on a front table at Politics & Prose Leibovich will never be able to have lunch in this town again. There are also important insights tucked in among the barbs…So here’s to all the big mouths, big shots, big machers, and big jerks. In case you’re wondering, Mark Leibovich is on to every one of you, and his portrayal of This Town is spot on.” -David Shribman, TheNew York Times
“In his new book This Town, Mark Leibovich commits an act of treason against theWashington
“This Town is a frothy Beltway insider tell-all …rollicking fun and sharply written. A big, sprawling fun beach read of a book—snappy and well-crafted.”—Susan Gardner, The Daily Kos
“This Town is as entertaining for the broader picture it paints of a capital that corrupts even the most incorruptible as it is for the salacious gossip that dominated early reviews. Books like Leibovich’s are important resources for historians who, a century from now, will use This Town as a trove of background information for a pivotal period when our politics became poisonous.”—Reid Wilson, The National Journal
“Leibovich delivers the reportorial goods. He is in all the parties, and supplies a wildly entertaining anthrolopogical tour.”—Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine
“Leibovich has written a very funny book about how horrible his industry can be… Uncommonly honest.” -David Weigel, Slate
“[Leibovich] is a master of the political profile… This Town is as insidery as Game Change” -CarlosLozada , Washington
“Intensely anticipated…. [Leibovich] has a real affection for many of his characters… [and] also throws a few unapologetically hard punches.” -Ben Smith, Buzzfeed
“Witty, entertaining….the book is enlightening on how journalism is practiced in Washington…This Town could also be source material for your book about what’s wrong with these horrible people and – more importantly, but also much more difficult – how to fix the culture that led to their ascendance….This Town is a funny book, but it should probably make you as angry and depressed as “Two American Families.” -Alex Pareene, Salon.com
“Here it is, Washington in all its splendid, sordid glory…[Leibovich] seems to wear those special glasses that allow you to x-ray the outside and see what’s really going on. Start to finish, this is a brilliant portrait – pointillist, you might say, or modern realist. So brilliant that once it lands on a front table at Politics & Prose Leibovich will never be able to have lunch in this town again. There are also important insights tucked in among the barbs…So here’s to all the big mouths, big shots, big machers, and big jerks. In case you’re wondering, Mark Leibovich is on to every one of you, and his portrayal of This Town is spot on.” -David Shribman, The
“In his new book This Town, Mark Leibovich commits an act of treason against the
“This Town is a frothy Beltway insider tell-all …rollicking fun and sharply written. A big, sprawling fun beach read of a book—snappy and well-crafted.”—Susan Gardner, The Daily Kos
“This Town is as entertaining for the broader picture it paints of a capital that corrupts even the most incorruptible as it is for the salacious gossip that dominated early reviews. Books like Leibovich’s are important resources for historians who, a century from now, will use This Town as a trove of background information for a pivotal period when our politics became poisonous.”—Reid Wilson, The National Journal
“Leibovich delivers the reportorial goods. He is in all the parties, and supplies a wildly entertaining anthrolopogical tour.”—Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine
“Leibovich has written a very funny book about how horrible his industry can be… Uncommonly honest.” -David Weigel, Slate
“[Leibovich] is a master of the political profile… This Town is as insidery as Game Change” -Carlos
“Intensely anticipated…. [Leibovich] has a real affection for many of his characters… [and] also throws a few unapologetically hard punches.” -Ben Smith, Buzzfeed
“Witty, entertaining….the book is enlightening on how journalism is practiced in Washington…This Town could also be source material for your book about what’s wrong with these horrible people and – more importantly, but also much more difficult – how to fix the culture that led to their ascendance….This Town is a funny book, but it should probably make you as angry and depressed as “Two American Families.” -Alex Pareene, Salon.com
About the Author
Mark
Leibovich is The New York
Times Magazine chief national
correspondent, based in Washington ,
D.C. Washington Washington
Post, The San Jose Washington
·
BLOG
·
ABOUT
Congress
Incorporated
·
BY LEE FANG
·
FEBRUARY
11, 2015
·
A wave of lobbyists has
arrived on Capitol Hill. But this time, they're occupying top staff positions
in the new Congress. [I read this in The Nation March 2/9, 2015. –Dick]
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Until a few weeks ago, Joel Leftwich was a senior lobbyist for
the largest food and beverage company in the United States. During his tenure
at PepsiCo — maker of Cheetos, Lay's potato chips and, of course, Pepsi-Cola —
the company had played a leading role in efforts to beat back local soda taxes
and ensure that junk food remained available in schools. But PepsiCo also faced
new challenges at the federal level. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act,
championed by Michelle Obama, had placed new nutrition standards on school
lunches. PepsiCo sent teams of lobbyists to Capitol Hill, deluged political
candidates with donations, and fired off letters to regulators asking them to
weaken the new rules. One such PepsiCo letter requested the redefinition of a "school
day" so the company could continue to sell its sugary sports drinks at
"early morning sports practices." Leftwich, a former congressional
liaison for the Department of Agriculture, was well positioned to help PepsiCo
shore up its allies in the House and Senate.
Last April, Leftwich paid a visit to one such friend, Democratic
Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, then chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture
Committee, to thank her for opposing nutrition guidelines for food stamp
purchases.
Now Leftwich will have far more access to such friends. As the
newly appointed staff director of the Senate Agriculture Committee, now under
GOP control, Leftwich will have wide sway over the law that funds school
lunches, which is up for reauthorization this year. PepsiCo can rest easier,
confident that the guidelines already in place are unlikely to be strengthened
— and may be weakened instead. Leftwich's new boss, Republican Senator Pat
Roberts of Kansas, who took over the Agriculture Committee gavel in January,
has set his sights on dialing back school lunch nutrition requirements, which
he has called "Big Brother government that's out of control."
While all eyes were on the changing of the guard in Congress as
Republicans seized control of the US Senate in January, there was an equally
profound change taking place among Capitol Hill staff, as many GOP lawmakers
handed over the keys to corporate lobbyists like Leftwich.
"We've seen a dramatic uptick in K Street moving into
congressional staff positions since theCitizens United decision,"
says Craig Holman, Public Citizen's expert on lobbying and ethics. House
Speaker John Boehner, he notes, has "encouraged new members to employ
lobbyists on their personal and committee staff."
On almost any big issue coming up for debate during the final
two years of the Obama administration — surveillance, trade, healthcare,
entitlements, tax reform, climate change — corporate lobbyists will now be
attempting to influence their own former colleagues, whose salaries are now
covered by US taxpayers.
The new staff director of the House Intelligence Committee, Jeff
Shockey, comes to the Hill after working as a lobbyist for many of the
country's leading intelligence-agency contractors, including General Dynamics,
Boeing and, just last year, Academi, the firm formerly known as Blackwater. The
House Oversight Committee, a key investigative body, will now have a staff
director named Sean McLaughlin, a former corporate lobbyist who spent the past
three years as a principal at the Podesta Group. Tom Chapman, who earned
compensation worth $1,531,453 in 2014 as vice president of government affairs
for US Airways, will now earn considerably less as part of the counsel staff
for the Senate Aviation Subcommittee, which oversees his former employer. And
as Congress takes up tax reform, one of the latest hires to the Joint Committee
on Taxation is Ben Gross, who spent more than a decade as international tax
director for PricewaterhouseCoopers, a firm that specializes in helping
corporations avoid American taxes.
Lobbyists have been hired to help the offices of the most
controversial addition to the GOP leadership team, Louisiana Representative
Steve Scalise, now House majority whip. Scalise came under fire in December
following the revelation that as a state lawmaker, over a decade ago, he had
addressed a white supremacist organization founded by former Klansman David
Duke. But Scalise's return to Capitol Hill in January was hardly dampened by
the scandal. In a party at the posh Capitol Hill Club, a private meeting ground
for Republicans that has been sued by its employees for alleged racial
discrimination, nearly 300 lobbyists cheered the embattled lawmaker as he laid
out his agenda for the coming session, according to Politico.
Scalise was flanked by one of his newest staffers, Bill Hughes, formerly a
lobbyist for the Retail Industry Leaders Association, a powerful trade group
that has pressured lawmakers to drop efforts to raise the minimum wage.
And why not celebrate? Scalise is beloved by Washington's army
of influence-peddlers for his loyalty to the Beltway's lobbyist elite. In his
previous position as chair of the Republican Study Committee, Scalise welcomed
the "K Street community" at special business-outreach events attended
by representatives of such major firms as Halliburton, MasterCard, General
Dynamics and Northrop Grumman. The news that Scalise would move up the
leadership ladder was celebrated by Koch Industries lobbyists, who threw a tony
wine-tasting party featuring "pinots from Oregon and the central coast of
California." Soon after ascending to his new post, Scalise shocked many by
having a registered lobbyist, John Feehery, sit in as applicants interviewed
for jobs.
·
·
Lee Fang is a reporting
fellow with The Investigative Fund and a contributing writer at The
Nation magazine. He previously covered lobbying and conservative
movements as a blogger with ThinkProgress.org.
Moyers
and Winship | Do-Nothing Congress Gives
Inertia a Bad Name
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, Moyers & Company
Moyers and Winship write: "Sadly, such is the way of Washington, home of the scheme and the fraud, where the unbreakable chain between money and governance weighs heavy and drags us ever deeper into a sinkhole of inaction and mediocrity."
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, Moyers & Company
Moyers and Winship write: "Sadly, such is the way of Washington, home of the scheme and the fraud, where the unbreakable chain between money and governance weighs heavy and drags us ever deeper into a sinkhole of inaction and mediocrity."
How
else to explain a Congress that still adamantly refuses to do anything, despite
some 90 percent of the American public being in favor of background checks for
gun purchases and a healthy majority favoring other gun control measures? Last
week, they ignored the pleas of Newtown families
and the siege of violence in Boston
And
how else to explain why corporate tax breaks have more than doubled in the last
25 years? Or why the Senate and House recently gutted the STOCK Act requiring
disclosure of financial transactions by White House staff and members of
Congress and their staffs and prohibiting them from insider trading? It was
passed into law and signed by President Obama last year - an election year -
with great self-congratulation from all involved. But fears allegedly arose
that there might be security risks for some in the executive branch if their
financial business was known.
READ MORE http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/270-37/17195-do-nothing-congress-gives-inertia-a-bad-name
Jack
Abramoff, CAPITOL PUNISHMENT, WND
Books, 2012.
Rev.
Public Citizen (Jan/Feb 2012). Not only reveals his own corrupt and illegal
behavior but gives details of how he spent $1 million a year in
influence-peddling. Also offers
proposals for cleaning up the profession of lobbying. --Dick
Nov 23, 2011 – Before being convicted of committing fraud in 2006, Jack Abramoff was widely considered to be the most powerful lobbyist in Washington
Amazon.com: Heist: Superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, His Republican Allies, and the Buying of Washington
www.npr.org/.../jack-abramoff-from-corrupt-lobbyist-to-washington...
Nov 18, 2011 – Through his interview with Tell Me More's Michel Martin and his new book,
former lobbyist Jack
Abramoff is obviously hoping his
past makes ...
The Republic - 16 hours ago
AP RALEIGH, NC —
Disgraced Washington influence-peddler Jack
Abramoff is telling a North ... He's recently written a book about corruption in
Washington.
NPR (blog) - 147 related articles
FILM
about Abramaoff
“Casino
Jack and the United States
EARMARKS
Taxpayers for Common Sense
http://taxpayer.net/
( How many earmarks and for what amounts did your Senator
Congressman sponsor?)
ENDING THE EARMARK ATM
http://taxpayer.net/budget/fy08earmarks/report.html
(Good read)
http://taxpayer.net/
( How many earmarks and for what amounts did your Senator
Congressman sponsor?)
ENDING THE EARMARK ATM
http://taxpayer.net/budget/fy08earmarks/report.html
(Good read)
ARKANSAS
BUSINESS/CONGRESSIONAL COMPLEX: HOW BUSINESS INFLUENCES CONGRESS
The Morning News (5-4-08), “Couple Regulars
For Washington Fly-In” tells about a Fayetteville’s Jack and Jane Meadows who
have attended “about 42 or 44 annual congressional dinners” put on by the
Arkansas Chamber of Commerce. Meadows
is quoted: “I think it’s a very good thing for the business community to have a
good relationship with the congressmen, and especially the staffers.” --Dick
Meanwhile, over at the
White House
RISE
OF THE UNITARY EXECUTIVE, DECLINE OF BALANCE OF POWERS
“Truman Transformed Office
of President” by George Will, TMN
(5-4-08), an excellent thumbnail history of the how Truman’s 1947 creation of
the National Security State (Pentagon from Dept. of War to Dept. of Defense,
CIA, NSC, and much more) led to concentration of power in the presidency, the
present US empire, and fundamental change in the GOP from a party opposed to
unchecked power to one that embraces a strong president and empire.
CHANGING CONGRESS
The
Buffet Rule
From: jrs1936@cox.net
Sent: 10/18/2014
Sent: 10/18/2014
We must support this...pass
it on and let us see if these idiots understand what people pressure is all
about.
Salary of retired US
Presidents . . . . . . .$180,000 FOR LIFE
Salary of House/Senate
members . . . . .$174,000 FOR LIFE This is stupid
Salary of Speaker of the
House . . . . . . $223,500 FOR LIFE This is really stupid
Salary of Majority/Minority
Leaders . . $193,400 FOR LIFE Ditto last line
Average Salary of a teacher
. . . . . . . . . $40,065
Average Salary of a
deployed Soldier . .$38,000
I think we found where the
cuts should be made! If you agree pass it on, I just did.
Warren Buffet, in a recent
interview with CNBC, offers one of the best quotes about the debt ceiling:
"I could end the
deficit in 5 minutes," he told CNBC. "You just pass a law that says
that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of
Congress are ineligible for re-election.”
The 26th amendment
(granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days
to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971 - before
computers, e-mail, cell phones, etc.
Of the 27 amendments to the
Constitution, seven (7) took one (1) year or less to become the law of the land
- all because of public pressure.
Warren Buffet is asking
each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their
address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.
In three days, most people
in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that
really should be passed around.
Congressional Reform Act of 2014
1. No Tenure / No Pension.
A Congressman/woman
collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they're out of
office.
2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.
All funds in the
Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately.
All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress
participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other
purpose.
3. Congress can purchase
their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.
4. Congress will no longer vote
themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
5. Congress loses their
current health care system and participates in the same health care system as
the American people.
6. Congress must equally
abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
7. All contracts with past
and present Congressmen/women are void effective 12/1/14. The American
people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women.
Congress made all these
contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The
Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their
term(s), then go home and back to work.
If each person contacts a
minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in
the U.S. ) to receive the message. Don't you think it's time?
THIS IS HOW YOU FIX
CONGRESS!
If you agree, pass it on.
If not, delete.
Congressional Reform Act of 2011
Mon,
7 Mar 2011
The 26th amendment (granting the
right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified!
Why? Simple! The people demanded it.
That was in 1971...before
computers, before e-mail, before cell phones, etc.
Of the 27 amendments to the
Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land...all
because of public pressure.
I'm asking each addressee to
forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn
ask each of those to do likewise.
In three days, most people in The
United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really
should be passed around
Congressional Reform Act of 2011
1. Term Limits. 12 years only, one
of the possible options below.
A. Two Six-year Senate terms
B. Six Two-year House terms
C. One Six-year Senate term and
three Two-Year House terms
2. No Tenure / No Pension. A
Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are
out of office.
3. Congress (past, present &
future) participates in Social Security.
All funds in the Congressional
retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future
funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the
American people.
4. Congress can purchase their own
retirement plan, just as all Americans do.
5. Congress will no longer vote
themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
6. Congress loses their current health
care system and participates in the same health care system as the American
people.
7. Congress must equally abide by
all laws they impose on the American people.
8. All contracts with past and
present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/11.
The American people did not make
this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for
themselves . Serving in Congress is an
honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so
ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.
If each person contacts a minimum
of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to
receive the message. Maybe it is time .
THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS
Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig Bets 'Wikipedia'
Approach Will Transform Congress
By Sarah Lai Stirland 
March 20, 2008 | 3:39:25 PMCategories: Politics
March 20, 2008 | 3:39:25 PMCategories: Politics
Stanford law professor Larry
Lessig plans to use collaborative software to change Congress.
Courtesy Larry Lessig
Courtesy Larry Lessig
A prominent Stanford law
professor on Thursday launched an ambitious
project that aims to use collaborative software to harness the
extraordinary levels of pent-up political energy and dissatisfaction that
voters have shown over the past two years with their members of congress.
The Change Congress project's first mission is to diminish the influence of money in the legislative body by influencing the outcome of the 2008 election campaigns of 67 members of congress which are up for grabs. As the Change Congress project founder Larry Lessig noted in the project's launch Thursday afternoon, there haven't been so many seats open up for challenge in more than a decade.
Lessig, known for his decade-long role in trying to loosen the entertainment industry's vise-like grip on popular culture by shaping copyright law, is betting that the energy and dissatisfaction exhibited by voters against the status-quo in Washington DC, and the emergence of collaborative software that enables vast numbers of geographically-dispersed citizens to become politically active on their own schedule, will enable a new kind of transparency and accountability in political campaigns.
"The problem we face is ... the problem of crony capitalism using money to capture government," he said on Monday during the launch of his project inWashington , DC
Lessig and Joe Trippi hope that their project will bring the beginnings of this change by getting voters to challenge their members of congress to commit to Change Congress' four pledges. The project will rely on engaged voters to record and map both the responses by, and the positions of candidates who are running for open seats. The idea is to make what seems like an abstract idea visually tangible through a Google mash-up.
The Change Congress project's first mission is to diminish the influence of money in the legislative body by influencing the outcome of the 2008 election campaigns of 67 members of congress which are up for grabs. As the Change Congress project founder Larry Lessig noted in the project's launch Thursday afternoon, there haven't been so many seats open up for challenge in more than a decade.
Lessig, known for his decade-long role in trying to loosen the entertainment industry's vise-like grip on popular culture by shaping copyright law, is betting that the energy and dissatisfaction exhibited by voters against the status-quo in Washington DC, and the emergence of collaborative software that enables vast numbers of geographically-dispersed citizens to become politically active on their own schedule, will enable a new kind of transparency and accountability in political campaigns.
"The problem we face is ... the problem of crony capitalism using money to capture government," he said on Monday during the launch of his project in
Lessig and Joe Trippi hope that their project will bring the beginnings of this change by getting voters to challenge their members of congress to commit to Change Congress' four pledges. The project will rely on engaged voters to record and map both the responses by, and the positions of candidates who are running for open seats. The idea is to make what seems like an abstract idea visually tangible through a Google mash-up.
The professor wants legislators to promise to do four things which
he says will reduce the influence of money on policymaking: To promise not to
accept money from lobbyists and political action committees; support public
financing of elections; commit to passing legislation to permanently ban the
funneling of money to their districts' projects of questionable worth; and to
commit to "compel transparency in the functioning of congress."
Candidates can signal their
intentions to take any one or all of the pledges by filling out a form at the
organization's web site, which then formulates code that provides a graphic
that the candidates can then place on their election campaign web sites.
The Change Congress project
hopes that citizens will track congressional candidates' positions on these
issues by reporting on them at the web site. The project will then map these
results onto a Google map. Writing
in The Huffington Post this morning, Lessig explained:
... once this wiki-army has
tracked the positions of all Members of Congress, we will display a map of
reform, circa 2008: Each Congressional district will be colored in either (1)
dark red, or dark blue, reflecting Republicans or Democrats who have taken a
pledge, (2) light red or light blue, tracking Republicans and Democrats who have
not taken our pledge, but who have signaled support for planks in the
Change-Congress platform, or (3) for those not taking the pledge and not
signaling support for a platform of reform, varying shades of sludge,
representing the percentage of the Member's campaign contributions that come
from PACs or lobbyists.
...
What this map will reveal,
we believe, is something that not many now actually realize: That the support
for fundamental reform is broad and deep. That recognition in turn will
encourage more to see both the need for reform and the opportunity that this
election gives us to achieve it. Apathy is driven by the feeling that nothing
can be done. This Change Congress map will demonstrate that in fact, something
substantial can be done. Now.
Lessig says that the
project will, down the road, model itself on Emily's List in that it will recruit
contributors to finance candidates who make reforming congress a central part
of their campaign.
When the Democrats re-took
congress in 2006, they won on a platform built by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's
mantra of being against the Republicans' culture of corruption.
Yet the Democratic-led
congress' current job approval
rating is in the low twenties. This apparent dissatisfaction suggests that
a large body of people might be ready and interested in volunteering for the
Change Congress project.
So far, senator Barack
Obama's campaign for the Democratic nomination for president has surged on this
theme of bringing change to Washington ,
DC
The question facing the
Change Congress campaign is whether Lessig and his colleagues at the Sunlight Foundation can motivate
a bi-partisan electorate to become similarly engaged without -- at first at
least -- the funds and advertising budget that's powering the Obama campaign.
In an interview, Lessig
says that for now, he's going to focus on motivating people to volunteer their
time to research members of congress' positions on transparency, accountability
and public financing of campaigns.
"If you give them a
big vision, and talk about all the good things that will come out of it, then I
think a lot of people will be willing to do the wiki work [at home] in their
pajamas," he says. "The hard thing is getting them to go to rallies
and getting them to call their congressman."
Lessig says that his goal
is to raise $500,000 to fund the project for the year by May 1. He hopes to
hire a couple of staffers in the San
Francisco
The project has bipartisan
appeal -- Republicans took over congress in 1994 with similar promises of
sweeping change. As National
Journal has thoroughly documented, many of those promises were not
fulfilled.
This time, it could be
different -- now that an engaged electorate has software and an open
reporting system to hold their members' feet to the fire.
Update: In answer to the reader below's question on what happens if a
member of congress takes a pledge and doesn't follow through, Lessig says that
he anticipates that each district will have voters who will monitor their
members' activities and report on them.
"If you violate the
pledge, you've created a huge opportunity for people to attack you," he
says.
Update: The Sunlight
Foundation has posted footage of the lecture up on Google Video:
See Also:
·
PASS
THE STOCK ACT
From: Russ Feingold,
ProgressivesUnited.org [mailto:info@progressivesunited.org]
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2012 1:08
PM
To: suesactivism@mchsi.com
Subject: Prevent insider trading Join me and
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and prevent insider trading. Share this
Email on Facebook
Sue,
It's a no-brainer: Insider trading
should be forbidden for members of Congress.That's why friend and former
colleague Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand introduced the STOCK Act in November after a "60 Minutes" report
first exposed the issue of insider trading in Congress. Her bill would stop it
once and for all, because no member of Congress should unfairly benefit from
information they gain from their work as lawmakers. Americans have a right to
know that their elected officials are playing by the same rules that they
are.Fortunately, this important bill has gained significant momentum since
President Obama endorsed it in last Tuesday's State of the Union address -- and
now we need to do everything we can to get it passed.Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid is bringing this important bill for a cloture vote tonight. If it
passes, it will get a final up-or-down vote. I'm urging you to make your voice
heard now so members of Congress know that you’re watching and expecting them
to do the right thing. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and I are working together to
make sure as many people are heard as possible.Click here http://www.democratsenators.org/o/44/t/11885/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=422&track=PU&tag=PU
to join me, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and thousands of people across the
country who are urging lawmakers to pass
the STOCK Act so we can make sure no insider trading occurs in the halls of
Congress.We need clear laws on the books forbidding insider trading by members
of Congress. It's one more part of Progressives United's mission to create a
government that's more transparent and accountable to the American people. And
to further promote accountability and transparency, the STOCK Act would require
members to disclose major transactions within 30 days and make this information
available online.The American people have a serious lack of trust in their
representatives in Washington .
They need to believe -- without a shadow of a doubt -- that lawmakers are
acting in the best interest of our country, not for their own financial gain.If
you agree, then please sign this petition now, before the big vote tonight. If
members of Congress see that this law has overwhelming support among their
constituents, they’ll have a hard time arguing that there’s no need for
it.Click here to make your voice heard. Join the thousands of Americans who are
demanding that lawmakers play by the rules and don’t benefit from insider
information.Thanks to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and President Obama, we’re
closer than ever to getting the STOCK Act passed. Let’s seize the moment and
begin the process of restoring Americans’ trust in Congress.Sincerely,
Russ Feingold
Founder
Progressives United
ELECTING SENATORS AND
REPRESENTATIVES WHO SUPPORT PEACEMAKING 2014
Hello Bonnie,
Sr Dems might be interested in
organizations that support Democratic congressional candidates. One is the Council for a Livable World.
During every election CLW raises money and lobbies for two or more liberal
candidates. This year they have chosen
Senatorial candidates in Maine and West Virginia
Here are CLW’s assumptions: “The only institutions left to protect the
legislative gains of the last 80 years are the Democratic majority in the
Senate and the veto pen in the White House. . . .We must keep a Democratic
majority in the Senate.” And because the
Koch brothers and other rich Republicans and corporations are pouring so much
money into campaigns, small groups like CLW seek ways to make their money
count. Two small states, Maine and West
Virginia, “do not require massive amounts of TV money, where grassroots support
and ‘showing up’ are key,” and two outstanding young women are running for the
Senate, both have deep roots in their state, are pro-choice, support
arms-control, and have a chance.
Natalie Tennant, West Virginia
Some
of us might want to support these Senatorial candidates to help ensure a
Democratic majority in the Senate.
Dick
Bennett
END CONGRESS NEWSLETTER #1
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