Obama's Christmas Congress success

Despite it looking like Obama was going to end 2010 with little success after the November elections, Obama has managed to pull the START treaty out of the bag and the law allowing gays to serve openly in the military. The former should enhance his reputation abroad to get things done and the latter reassure his own party that he still wants to achieve the radical agenda promised in the 2008 election.
Happy Christmas everyone!

American political update

Lots to keep American politics students busy on a snow day... Another selection of interesting articles from the Economist - on the virtues and talents of Sarah Palin, on a Pentagon report leaving the way clear for gays to serve openly in the military, and on the Wikileaks fiasco. On the latter issue, Mike Huckabee (a 2008 Republican presidential hopeful) sees execution as the only option for dealing with those who leaked the information to Wikileaks and many other politicians are lining up to condemn those involved. Washington Post is concentrating on Congress and Obama's attempt to cut a deal with the Republicans over the Bush-era tax cut and whether to renew it as a whole or only for the middle class. Great topics for discussion and examples for your political analysis - and possible questions for Wednesday's current affairs test.

"Uncle Joe" Cannon, Speaker of the House

These days, watching Nancy Pelosi and her bloodied, defeated Democrats in the US Congress prepare to surrender power to presumptive Speaker John Boehner and his new Republican majority, I can't help but think of Joseph G. Cannon.

Joe Cannon (R-Illinois) -- everyone called him "Uncle Joe" -- presided as Speaker from 1903 to 1911, the height of Theodore Roosevelt’s era. When he left Congress in March 1923, he had served almost fifty years and been elected twenty-two times, a record back then. Time Magazine that month put his face on the cover of its first-ever edition. Tall, lanky, and outgoing, always a cigar in his teeth, quick with an off-color joke, a back-slapping poker player, Cannon received 58 votes for president of the United States at the 1908 Republican Convention and had his picture on two different brands of chewing tobacco. Above is a newspaper sketch of him from his glory days.

In most history books, Cannon is cast usually as villain, the arch-conservative on Capitol Hill who routinely blocked TR’s progressive ideas, “the vulgar old man who rules the National house” by one Chicago newspaper.

But Joe Cannon, the most autocratic leader ever to assume a chokehold over the National Legislature, also has the distinction of being the only House Speaker ever to be overthrown by his own members in open revolt, to his face, in public session. It was a rare public rebuke, and a signature victory for the then-rising Progressive Movement. Their anti-Cannon revolt, launched in March 1910 and led by young Nebraska congressman and future senator George W. Norris, played out in full public view, an unprecedented spectacle on the floor of Congress, a three-day parliamentary seige during which Cannon had to filibuster from the Speaker's chair just to be heard. In the end, Norris and his Progressives succeeded in bringing down not just Cannon but also Republican President Willam Howard Taft and a generation of Washington oligarchs. (The snapshot below shows Cannon and Taft, in top hat, shortly before their respective defeats.)

The lesson for Nancy Pelosi and company, however, is not in Cannon's defeat, but in his comeback. Joe Cannon was 74 years old at the time he was outsted from the Speaker's chair in 1910. But rather then stewing in bitterness or self-doubt, he jumped right back into action. Cannon's Illinois neighbors voted him back into Congress in 1914 where Cannon quickly rebuilt his friendships and reputation. He reinvented himself as elder statesman. And when time came for Congress to put names on its three House Office Buildings in Washington, D.C., they picked Cannon's immediately.

So don't fret, Democrats. Yes, there are second acts in American life, thanks in part to Uncle Joe. The pendulum will swing back. There will be another day.


Click here for a few more cartoons and images of Uncle Joe. 

Pledge to America

The Republicans in the House are trying to replicate the success they had in 1994 with a new 'Pledge to America'. Then, they put forward a 'Contract with America' which proposed new legislation in a short time period. Many Republicans credit this document with their winning back Congress in 1994. They hope for a similar success in November ie winning back Congress from the Democrats. This is much more likely in the House than in the Senate, where only a third of members are up for election. See here for more information and some of the conservative measures advocated such as a ban on federal funding for abortion.

Obama's domestic agenda gains momentum

The Senate last night passed a bill which claims to be the most sweeping reform of financial regulation since the 1930s. Obama used the vote to show success in combatting the power and influence of lobbyists as well as ensuring that there is not another financial crisis on the scale of the recent one and that the banks cannot cause one. This is certainly a success for Obama (although not yet legislation - it will need to be agreed with the House's version) and he will hope that this will help Democrats across the country in the mid-term elections. He also managed to win over a few key Republicans including one of our favourites, Olympia Snowe of Maine. See here for the BBC report and here for the Washington Post story. What do you think? Will this ensure Obama's success as a President or is it shoring up trouble with conservatives?

Healthcare passed!

Is this the end of the healthcare saga? It looks like it. A 219-212 vote in last night's House followed by a likely 51 vote majority in the Senate and a certain signing by the President means that after over a year of wrangling the USA has finally enacted extended healthcare insurance for its citizens - approximately 32 million people. However, that is not the end of the story entirely as there will be court challenges and the Republicans will want to keep the issue in the public eye until the mid-term elections this November. See here for Mark Mardell from the BBC's comments and here for the story from Channel 4.

Stop the gag order. Lobbyists are protected by the First Amendment.

Free speech would be easy if it only applied to popular people saying popular things. But that's not the case. Our First Amendment protections are most urgent and fragile when they apply to the unpopular, the dissident, and the public villain of the day. Which brings me to lobbyists.

It's easy to dislike lobbyists. (Full disclosure: I happen to be one. Here's a link to my public registration.) Politicians vilify them, blame them for lots that is wrong in Washington, many times justified. Crooks like Jack Abramoff and the occasional bribe-taking Congressman smear the profession. The public hates inside influence-peddling, sees the potential for abuse, and insists on limits. So, as a lobbyist, I am happy to be regulated, and I'm ready to comply with all the disclosures of clients, contacts, and interests, and don't even mind the political pokes.

But the latest missive from President Obama's White House, a Memorandum dated March 20, 2009 on "Ensuring Responsible Spending of Recovery Act Funds," is a literal gag order to be carried out by Federal agency officials. It truly crosses the line.

Let's be clear. Lobbying is not a social evil. It is a public good protected by the First Amendment -- both as "freedom of speech" and as the right of the people "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." By recent count, there are over 50,000 registered lobbyists representing a dizzying range of causes and interests, from good government and safe drugs to individual corporations and local governments. Bad actors aside (see Joseph Keppler's classic view, "The Bosses of the Senate," above), they keep Congress informed, give groups around the country an effective voice, and engage in public discourse essential to decision-making in a democracy.

In modern Washington, a competent lobbyist is as essential to navigating the complex maze of bureaucracy and politics as a competent lawyer or accountant is to any individual trying to run a business, buy a home, or file their taxes. Denying people access to a lobbyist amounts to stripping them of their voice.

And that's precisely what the new Obama memo does. In so many words, it requres agency officials, in any meeting or phone call regarding the Stimulus Package, to tell any lobbyist in the room or on the call to get out, hang up, or shut up -- "the lobbyist may not attend [the meeting] or participate in the telephonic or in-person contact, but may submit a communication in writing." (See Section 3(b))


Message to the public? When it comes to seeking Stimulus Package funds, you are on your own. You are denied representation. You have no right to have someone speak for you. The impact? Big corporations, with high-paid, experienced advocates on their payrolls as officers or in-house staff (not subject to any rules on lobbying), will easily roll over any small business that gets in the way.


This is overkill, taking a popular concept and extending it to a destructive conclusion. I hope the Obama White House will re-think it. To my mind, even speaking as a lobbyist, change is still good.

An AIG contest: How do you spell LYNCH MOB?

For any legal eagles out there today (especially any like me who are kicking yourself for not getting your NCAA tournament office pool bracket card in on time), here's a contest putting your fine skills to the test:

Just answer the following question: How many reasons can you find to argue that the attached bill, which passed the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., today by a vote of 328 to 93, is UNconstitutional? You get extra credit for violations of the Bill of Rights in particular.

The bill is called: "A Bill to Impose an Additional Tax on Bonuses Received from Certain TARP Recipients." Here's the link: Click Here for the text and Here for the official summary. It's just five short pages, but with lots to pick from. The bill was introduced by Congressman Charles Rangel, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee joined by a long list of co-sponsors, proud patriots all. It's aimed at an insurance company called AIG that's taken lots of money from the government during the past few months. Maybe you've heard of them?

Have fun. I'll post some of the best entries that come in over the next few days. (And, yes, anonymous is fine. Send to me at kackerman@cox.net.)

All the best. --KenA

Who on Earth let this happen?

In case anyone missed it, this past weekend, our United States Congress -- led by Democrats, no less -- caved in to pressure from the Bush White House and passed a bill essentially allowing Alberto Gonzalez, the most discredited Attorney General in our lifetimes, almost unilaterally to suspend the Bill of Right's Fourth Amendment and allow warrantless surveillance of Americans by the NSA up to six months at a time, so long as a "significant purpose" of the intrusion involves obtaining foreign intelligence and the AG, Gonzalez, makes a finding that "reasonable procedures [are] in place" to determine that the intrusion involves "persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States."

Make no mistake. This bill -- already signed into law by President Bush as I write this on Sunday night -- allows Bush to continue the worst abuses of the NSA secret surveillance program, continue to ignore oversight by any tribunal of law, and do it now under cover of a mealy-mouthed statute. Think I'm exaggerating? Here's a link to the text of the bill, S. 1927, titled the Protect America Act of 2007: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:2:./temp/~c1105W4v7x:: Don't take my word for it!! Read it yourselves!!

How did this happen? After all the talk and promises about protecting civil liberties? In the Senate, only 28 Democrats voted No on the proposal. That means all the rest caved in and went along for the ride -- apparently intimidated by threats from the Bushites of being called unpatriotic or terrorist lovers so some such. And worst of all was the fact that the Democratic leadership agreed to bring up the bill at all -- knowing they would lose the vote -- in the final hours before leaving Washington on a month long August recess, rather than refusing and forcing the Bush White House to negotiate seriously for a responsible compromise that protects the country without sacrificing civil libeties -- even if it meant that Senators and Congressmen might lose a few days at the beach, on a foreign trip, or back home. They had allowed the Bushites to out maneuver them, force them into a corner.

I hate to throw stones, but someone fell down on the job here.

For more details, here a link to the New York Times article on the story, posted by the Dandelion Salad blog. http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2007/08/05/house-passes-changes-in-eavesdropping-program-by-carl-hulse-and-edmund-l-andrews/
And here's another link to an excellent speech on the subject by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tx), posted by the Fold/Spindle/Mutilate 2.0 blog: http://freddevan.com/wordpress/2007/08/05/rep-sheila-jackson-lee-d-tx-says-it-all-it%E2%80%99s-official-george-bush-and-alberto-gonzales-now-have-the-legal-authority-to-spy-on-you-and-i-without-a-warrant-at-any-time/
And here's still another from the LeftWord blog (that mentions my book Young J. Edgar: http://leftword.blogdig.net/archives/articles/August2007/04/SENATE_DEMOCRATS_BEND_OVER__HAND_BUSH_THE_K_Y_AND_VOTE_FOR_WARRANTLESS_WIRETAPS_FOR_NO_REASON_OTHER_THAN_CRAVEN_COWARDICE.html

Please let me know if you think I'm overreacting or being unfair. I don't think so.
Grumble grumble grumble. I need more cofffee.