U.S. Congress Insider, A Personal Account – Page 3 – education and deconstruction.com

Frank

The Book of the Week is “Frank, A Life in Politics From the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage” by Barney Frank, published in 2015.

Born in 1940, Frank grew up in New Jersey. By the early 1970’s, he found himself becoming a career politician. Along the way, he earned a law degree and realized that he possessed the kinds of skills required for leadership in government.

Frank learned many lessons, including that “…[Republican president Richard] Nixon proposed policy changes in health care and welfare that Congressional Democrats rejected as too conservative, only to settle for less years later.” In other words, a partial victory that arises through compromise and playing well with others is better than no victory at all via an attempt to pass comprehensive legislation.

Frank considered himself a civil libertarian in that he favored pornography and prostitution in limited circumstances, and legalizing marijuana and abortion. Yet, he also argued for gun control, strong environmental laws, unions, gay rights and racial integration.

In previous decades, the Republicans were better than Democrats at pressuring their Congresspeople to adopt their political agenda. They continue to accomplish this with front groups which appear to be grass-roots movements secretly funded by special-interest, big-money campaign donors.

Those groups of “concerned voters” flood the media and Internet with misleading, emotionally charged stories and ads– persuasive messages which have been screamed louder and longer than the Democrats’. These smear campaigns have used angry, mean, petty people to target political enemies such as Frank.

The Democratic voters (people who are actual members of grass-roots movements) have historically attended rallies, marches and protests. Usually, to no avail. But the Democrats have caught up and learned to use those sleazy (yet successful) tactics, and have been just as retaliatory of late.

Politics (on BOTH sides) has become one big, abusive hierarchy of vengeful cliques with a few troublemakers– the leaders– acting like teenagers, or sometimes even kindergarteners; this, characterized by social manipulation, bullying, poor impulse control, shameless hypocrisy and narcissistic attention whoredom.

The media are their accomplices, egging them on, and behaving just as immaturely. Some media outlets would have their audiences believe there are an alarming number of morons and nutcases everywhere spreading stupidity. Yes, and it takes one to know one. Lots of pots calling kettles black out there. More airtime than ever is wasted on cutting people down and blaming them for the collapse of modern civilization.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. All parties have to relearn that two wrongs don’t make a right, and an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

In 1989, Frank fought fire with fire when childish Republicans put out a vicious rumor that he was gay. The point was– this is what angry, mean, petty people do to take a swipe at an easy target, sow dissent– regardless of whether it was true or not. He told the press that he would reveal the names of all Republicans who were closeted gays if they ever tried that again. They apologized, because, fortunately, Frank had sufficient power to strike back at them.

In the early 1990’s, Frank pushed for equal rights for gays in the military in a proposal. President Bill Clinton modified it in a way that created a double standard, and it was named “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT). Under DADT, if gay servicemen were caught off-duty engaging in any activity indicating their sexual orientation– from electronic communications to sodomy to same-sex dating to simply entering a gay bar– they would be in trouble. When DADT took effect, members of the LGBT community were spied on and punished.

Read the book to learn how the (preventable) 2008 subprime mortgage crisis was spawned by specific people in power such as John Hawke, Sue Kelly, Alan Greenspan, Tom DeLay, Newt Gingrich, the House GOP leadership, and most of the GOP– in an excellent, concise, specific explanation for laypeople; and other difficulties Frank faced in doing his job.

The Long Game

The Book of the Week is “The Long Game” by (Senator) Mitch McConnell, published in 2016. This is the autobiography of a Republeral (Republican Liberal).

Born in 1942 in Alabama, McConnell survived polio when he was a toddler, thanks to his mother’s endless patience in treating him with prescribed exercises. His father fought in WWII. He spent his later formative years in Georgia and Kentucky.

Although he acquired a law degree, McConnell disliked practicing law. Aspiring to a political career, he had already been elected to leadership positions in high school and college. In 1997 in Louisville, Kentucky, when he ran for a Jefferson County judgeship, he promised to eliminate corruption and patronage among the Democrats.

Instead of elaborating on whether he actually fulfilled those promises, the author admitted that he glad-handed every voter in Kentucky in order to prepare to run for a higher elected office– Republican U.S. Senator. This book had zero about what he did in his two terms as a judge.

In 1984, during McConnell’s Senate race, he hired Roger Ailes, who produced ads that humorously cast aspersions on his opponent. When the opponent ran radio ads, he responded in kind with equal air time. Money was no object. His miraculous comeback resulted in a victory by 5,100 votes– 1 vote per district. The recount took two weeks.

McConnell’s stances on numerous issues were incongruous with his party (Republican). He took a Liberal stance when he voted in favor of economic sanctions against South Africa and in favor of free speech issues, even when it came to flag-burning.

McConnell opposed campaign finance reform, but offered an invalid argument against it. He reasoned that the (illusory) Liberal media bias was so strong that limiting “soft” money political donations would limit a candidate’s ability to purchase equal media time for issue ads appearing in a liberal media outlet. However, soft money donations are fungible— not always spent on ads.

The author’s second wife was a Chinese overachiever. In the summer of 2000, she delivered a speech about her experience as an immigrant, and agreed with “… [George W.] Bush’s belief that immigration is not a problem to be solved, but a sign of the continuing appeal of the American dream.” This viewpoint is not usually held by Republicans.

McConnell could not have been clearer about his hero-worship for George W. Bush. One line went, “I think George W. Bush was an outstanding wartime president.” To push the point, the author made outrageously, ridiculously dishonest statements about the war the president started in Iraq; two included: “Morale was very high– among both our troops and the citizens of Iraq.” and “There was simply no question that on the military and tactical levels, the [General David] Petraeus plan had been a tremendous success…” According to most Americans and even government officials, the war actually turned out to be another Vietnam.

Senator McConnell could not get enough of George W. Bush’s Republican Conservative cronyism. He resoundingly voted yea for the president’s alleged deficit reduction bill that imposed austerity on Medicaid, Medicare and farm subsidies, an energy bill, and legislation relating to the Alternative Minimum Tax. The senator wrote that when the economy crashed in 2008, prompting bailouts for only the financial institutions with friends in the Treasury Department– “We had saved the economy from complete peril (and in fact the money given away through TARP has since been repaid with interest).” Was the money a loan or was it given away?

Yet one more head-shaker in McConnell’s book mentioned how, in 2008, when the nation chose Obama as its next president, the author was thrilled that it had elected an African American. Yet he also characterized the new leader as a great speaker, but a poor negotiator, condescending, and a critical lecturer in meetings. Vice President Joe Biden, on the other hand, was honest in expressing his side’s goals and was willing to compromise without offending his counterpart.

The legislation that eventually became Obamacare needed to contain a vast quantity of “pork” or else the Democrats couldn’t have gotten even a sufficient number of their own Congress members to vote for it. Further, McConnell complained bitterly that in 2014, Harry Reid had changed the rules of the Senate to favor the Democrats. In the mid-1990’s, Republicans owned Congress and treated it as their personal fiefdom. Excuse the cliche, but “Turnabout is fair play.”

Read the book to learn of McConnell’s scholarship program at the University of Louisville, and how he finally reached the peak of his career (with the help of two traits– patience and perseverance), despite other crazy contradictions in his words and actions.

Fire-Breathing Liberal

The Book of the Week is “Fire-Breathing Liberal” by Rep. Robert Wexler With David Fisher, published in 2008. This is a political career memoir that failed to list the sources of its facts and figures.

Nevertheless, Wexler credibly wrote mostly about how he eventually got elected to the House of Representatives as a Democrat from Florida. He was an attorney, but in 1987, decided to run for the office of Palm Beach County Commissioner in Florida. A lawyer in West Palm Beach offered his firm’s support to Wexler at a fund raiser at Mar-a-Lago– Donald Trump’s country club (but of course the implication was that Wexler would pass legislation favorable to the firm’s interests). Wexler’s opponent engaged in mudslinging by saying that Wexler was Donald Trump’s puppet. With that, the opponent won the election.

Two years later, older and wiser, Wexler ran for Florida state senator. He gave out pot holders as a promotional gift and won that election. He had learned that he needed to hire people with specialized skills sets and experience, such as a professional fund raiser, a pollster, a media adviser, a direct mail expert, a TV commercial producer, a campaign manager, etc.

The author also wrote about how the Republicans, especially Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay in 1994, were mean of spirit, petty and vengeful when they achieved a majority in Congress. They abused their considerable power by bullying fellow Representatives with whom they disagreed.

In 1996, even two years before Gingrich had sworn in Wexler as a Representative, Democrats had filed 76 ethics claims against Gingrich with the Ethics Committee. He was fined $300,000 for violations– the largest fine ever against a Speaker of the House.

After 9/11, the Democrats were tricked into initially favoring invading Iraq because reputable officials such as Colin Powell told them that it was necessary, implying that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction. Wexler, too, was fooled.

In September 2003, about six months into the war, Wexler asked Paul Bremer, Ambassador supervising the provisional government in Iraq at a hearing of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Congress, how many Iraqis, civilians and soldiers had died since the president had declared the war. Bremer said he himself didn’t know. “Bremer’s complete disinterest in the human cost of the war on the Iraq side was telling… anyone who dared question or criticize the administration’s policy was attacked and smeared.”

According to Wexler, in 2003, the Republicans labeled a budget bill an “emergency measure.” This allowed them to reduce the time allotted to House members to read the bill, from 48 hours to 1 hour. The bill was 3,000 pages, and it involved the spending of $1 trillion.

As is well known, in 1998, former investigator Ken Starr spent more than a year poring over the intimate details of former President Bill Clinton’s sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky “like a desperate reporter for a tabloid newspaper.” Wexler argued vociferously against impeaching Clinton, saying, “Unlike Bill Clinton, George Bush and Dick Cheney have betrayed the country, not their wives.”

Another point in Wexler’s rant was the fact that during his public service career, Republicans had “… misused the political and legal systems for a decade… it was a vendetta. It was about gaining a political advantage no matter what the cost to the nation.”

Read the book to learn of numerous other instances of the immature, power-hungry behavior of Republicans and the nasty business of politics in general during the Bush administration, in which Wexler participated (he wasn’t just an observer, and he himself wasn’t entirely innocent of hypocrisy).

SIDENOTE: In connection with vendetta, it appears that, as payback against the Republicans for the 1990’s witch-hunts against Bill Clinton, the Democrats “investigated” Hillary’s actions, and decided she did nothing criminally wrong. Case closed. The media are spewing the usual tabloid gossip, opinions and trivia on the overall political circus.

There is nothing new under the sun. Such tit-for-tat kindergarten nonsense has been the norm for CENTURIES in this nation. Pox on everyone’s houses.

The Conscience of a Conservative

The Book of the Week is “The Conscience of a Conservative” by Barry Goldwater, published in 1960. This slim volume lays out the political opinions of the late conservative Senator from Arizona.

Goldwater believed that Conservatives considered the spiritual as well as economic needs of their constituents; Liberals, only the economic needs. There was a conflict between freedom and order, but the Conservatives wanted to maximize freedom.

“Throughout history, government has proved to be the chief instrument for thwarting man’s liberty.” He thought that government power grew with allowing people to live their lives as they saw fit.

Goldwater was a big advocate of limiting the power of the federal government not just because the people deserved the most freedom possible, but because their local governments knew better how to take care of them.

The Senator lamented that federal programs were being imposed on the states in the guise of States’ Rights. And the programs were conditional– the Fed was using both the carrot and the stick to achieve its aims while having the states do its bidding. Of course, there is nothing new under the sun. A recent example of this was the 2009 “Race to the Top” education dollars that rained down on the states that changed their policies to get with the program. It emphasized standardized testing, teacher evaluations, other easily manipulated statistical measures and common standards whose results were questionable with regard to actual education improvement.

The Senator took issue with a few other areas besides education that he thought the states, not the federal government, should control: welfare, public power, farming, public housing and urban renewal.

Goldwater also related his views on labor unions. He felt that membership should have been voluntary, and that their political activities should have been banned. For, only unions’ top leadership had a say in their affiliations and funding with member dues, and the workers were forced to comply. He thought that the purpose of the union should have been solely to give workers the ability of collective bargaining. He made many generalizations and did not differentiate between government unions and private-sector unions.

This blogger thinks that current unions in the private sector should be allowed to continue their activities, but they are unnecessary with the way things are in the United States today.

Economics 101 says that a nation requires a healthy, well-educated workforce. Unions in the private sector discourage upward mobility– why should workers want to acquire more training and edification in their careers if they’re making a decent living and their jobs are protected? Unions in low-skilled positions especially, foster complacency. This blogger thinks that private-sector unions foster a lazy, poorly educated nation of low-skilled employees who go to work to collect a paycheck.

Non-union employees need no protection in the private sector. Employee satisfaction gets the same score as customer service. Free-market competition usually keeps employers in line.

If employees walk off the job en masse, other employers will gladly accept employees and business lost by the wayward employer. Customers and employees can go over to Wendy’s if McDonald’s is unsatisfactory, or to Target if Walmart doesn’t deliver. Low pay and difficult working conditions should encourage fry cooks and greeters to go to school to get a better job.

In the early 20th century, there was a need to protect workers– who were easily subjected to exploitation because many workers were poorly skilled, poorly educated new immigrants. There was limited opportunity for education, and limited transportation options even if workers were willing to relocate to find a job. Today, workers have more resources than ever to find work or engage in professional improvement if they want to.

Unions are needed in civil service, and a few monopolistic industries (such as couriers, transportation, education and healthcare services), because they are exceptional. They are providing essential services (health, education and welfare), or else the work they provide is a matter of life and death. Government employees who are providing essential services deserve due process, in exchange for not striking.

Striking is illegal, and rightly so. There would be massive economic and/or societal disruption, and possible deaths, if they were to walk off the job en masse. Therefore, civil service unions are a necessary evil.

Read Goldwater’s book to learn more about his take on government, and American foreign policy. Here’s a hint: “… if all nuclear weapons suddenly ceased to exist, much of the world would immediately be laid open to conquest by the masses of Russian and Chinese manpower.”

The Waxman Report

The Book of the Week is “The Waxman Report” by Henry Waxman with Joshua Green, published in 2009. This is a political memoir that discusses the major issues the U.S. Congress faced during the four decades of Waxman’s career.

The author, a liberal Democrat, was first elected a Representative in the fall of 1974. He talks about the steps required for making laws with regard to containing an epidemic, such as AIDS in the 1980’s: generate publicity, raise funds for studies on the subject, and, further along the learning curve– implement measures on prevention and treatment. Waxman remarks that involvement of celebrities generated publicity for not just AIDS issues, but also for getting the big pharmaceutical companies to research and manufacture drugs to treat ailments whose sufferers are too few in number for profitability. Waxman participated in helping pass a Congressional bill that contained a creative compromise for both the medical business and patients.

The author dealt with a slew of other political issues to which the aforementioned steps can be applied, too. However, he wrote that the government must be careful not to grant too many allowances to the entities it is regulating in order to pass legislation, because once a bill becomes law, those allowances will not be lessened.

Another point Waxman makes is that politicians sometimes need to partner with their ideological enemies if they want to pass a law. This is where “pork barrel” legislation can be advantageous for both sides. If the opponent’s district is horribly polluted and in danger of being fined, for instance, he might want to help draft an amendment to an anti-pollution law, as was the case with the 1977 Clean Air Act in the early 1980’s.

Read the book to learn the details of how Waxman paints Republicans as evil– their deregulation of various industries has harmed Americans’ health and financial well-being. Nevertheless, the author is optimistic because American politics, although a dirty business, is cyclical. Government and the people work together to adapt to the changing times.

Promises to Keep

The Book of the Week is “Promises to Keep” by Joseph Biden, published in 2007. This is the autobiography of Joe Biden, who is America’s Vice President at the moment.

Biden has a reputation for putting his foot in his mouth by being overly honest. In addition, he does not let his personal beliefs interfere with the enforcement of the law. For instance, although he, as a Catholic, disagrees with the doctrine behind Roe v. Wade, he understands it is the law and does not dispute its enforcement.

Read the book to learn about his senatorial career and his run for president; plus his personal life, which included a family tragedy and his bout with a life-threatening medical condition.

The Cost of Courage

The Book of the Week is “The Cost of Courage” by Carl Elliott, Sr., published in 1992. This autobiography describes an American politician who acted on controversial matters in a morally correct way, making him unpopular with Southerners and Conservatives. In so doing, he hurt his career.

In 1930, Elliott had an easy time getting accepted to college. For, there was no admissions paperwork at the University of Alabama. Anyone who had a pulse and could pay the tuition in that early-Great-Depression year, was in. Most of the coed school’s students were upper-crust residents of the Black Belt and Birmingham. Freshmen were required to wear beanies so that they were easily identifiable.

Elliott became an eight-term Alabama Congressman who fought for the civil rights of African Americans. Another politician whose career was harmed by doing the right thing, was Alabama governor Jim Folsom. In 1954, he invited African American Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. to the governor’s mansion in Montgomery for a drink. In 1962, Folsom was pushed out of office by people who voted for (racist) George Wallace.

Read the book to learn the details of Elliott’s heroic but unwise career moves.