Let’s say you’re Sen. John Dough. You’re running for re-election. You need money. Often, you have to travel to where the money is to get it. Say, in Los Angeles. So you fly. But you wish to avoid flying commercial. Too much time wasted. Too many hassles, mingling among the proletariat in lines and in the damn crowded plane.

Back in the good ol’ days, you’d merely text your old pal I.B. Loaded, CEO of Amalgamated Rules Bender Inc. Loaded’s given you tons of cash over the years for your campaigns. He, his wife and children, his employees, his vendors — all have seen the wisdom of slipping dough to you, your official campaign committee, and, of course, your “Leadership PAC.”

And, of course, Loaded would have his Gulfstream V (I mean, rather, his corporate-owned private jet) fly into Reagan National to pick you up (after, of course, a taxpayer-paid car and driver deposited you, your luggage, and golf clubs there). Loaded himself would be on the plane to entertain you and see to your every need. After you’d both consumed a few hits from Loaded’s stash of 40-year-old Glen Garioch, he’d probably steer the conversation into an arcane tax-policy issue that would likely benefit Amalgamated Rules Bender Inc. to the tune of millions of dollars.

You’d be the only passenger on a sophisticated jet costing $59 million with an hourly operating cost of about $7,000. Yet, before 2007, you’d only pay the cost of first-class airfare to LA — maybe a grand or less, depending on discounts. Then Congress shut the door to corporate-provided air travel by passing the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act.

And this week, those idiots at the Federal Election Commission reopened the door.
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Former Rep. William J. Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat, is off to prison. In August, a jury told him that bribery, racketeering and money laundering were not acceptable behaviors for anyone, let alone a member of Congress.

As a felon, Jefferson has had equally despicable company: Rep. Andrew J. Hinshaw, R-Calif. (accepting a bribe); Rep. Charles Diggs Jr., D-Mich. (payroll kickback scheme); Rep. Michael Myers, D-Pa. (accepting bribes from FBI agents impersonating Arab businessmen); Reps. John Murphy, D-N.Y., Frank Thompson, D-N.J., John Jenrette, D-S.C., and Raymond Lederer, D-Pa. (Arab businessmen bribery scandal, a.k.a. Abscam).

And Rep. Mario Biaggi, D-N.Y. (extorting money from a defense contractor); Rep. Mel Reynolds, D-Ill. (sex with underage campaign worker, bank fraud); Rep. Walter Tucker III, D-Calif. (accepting and demanding bribes); Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill. (felony mail fraud); Rep. James A. Trafficant, D-Ohio (bribery, conspiracy and racketeering); Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (accepting bribes from defense contractors) and Robert W. Ney, R-Ohio (Abramoff scandal). I’m sure readers can name more. Full Story »

Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid, Senator Bennet, Senator Udall, Representative DeGette:

As we all know, the nation has been alive with discourse of all flavors over the current state of the health care system and the insurance industry. Recently, Senator Baucus has brought forth his proposal, dubbed by some critics (rightly so, in my opinion) the “Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act.”

Please listen: The very reason we need the government to intervene is because millions of us have a Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. Private industry has already proven that it cannot be trusted to look out for its bottom line and simultaneously safeguard and maintain the health of the American people, even if some of us are misguidedly rallying in the streets against our interests at the urgings of their preferred Chicken Littles of media and industry.

It is my belief that what needs to be accomplished is the affirmation of every American citizen’s right to a basic level of health, security and well-being above a private company’s right to make a profit, which it currently does in part by conveniently discounting and disregarding its customers’ human rights at its whims. Private insurers need to know, as my mother would say, that “your rights stop where another one’s starts.” Full Story »

My new Democratic congressman, who barely bested an entrenched Republican, has disappointed. Rep. Eric Massa, NY-29, has parted with his most cherished, pre-election promise. He has gained power; now, like all members of Congress, he wishes to keep it. Now he’ll take the “tainted” money other politicians do and fabricate a specious reason for doing so.

Flip, from 2007:

I promise that when I am elected to Congress, I will always put the American public above everything else. Unlike 99.9% of Congressional Candidates, I have never accepted a single cent of Corporate PAC money … [emphasis added]

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I don’t know what to make of the monstrosity that is the Waxman-Markey American Climate, Energy, and Security Act (ACES) that just passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee (E&C). It’s nearly 1000 pages long and initially faced at least 449 Republican amendments. It’s a mess.

After thinking about it for a while, I’ve concluded that it’s just not worth driving myself crazy trying to determine whether ACES is “better than nothing” or whether it “sucks so bad it must be killed.” We’re less than a week into a process that could make ACES unrecognizable by the time it’s done, and so tearing my hair out over whether it’s enough today is an exercise in futility. Full Story »

Let’s go back to one month after 9/11.  The country just suffered its worse terrorist attack in the nation’s history and was going through another.  Weaponized anthrax was being sent through the mail targeting politicians and the 4th estate. The intelligence agencies failed catastrophically and didn’t cooperate with each other. The nation panicked and didn’t know if it could protect itself.

The response? The USA PATRIOT Act. Full Story »

Perhaps because my middle name is “Gullible,” I’d like to trust my new representative in Congress to act wisely, unselfishly, and nobly on my behalf. I’d like to trust his 434 brethren and the 100 senators to do so as well. I’d like the lofty words they speak in the wells of the House and Senate to be accompanied by similarly lofty, well-thought-out actions designed solely to improve the lot in life of me and my 312 million fellow citizens.

But … I doubt it. An obstacle lies squarely in the path of politicians’ ability or willingness to act sensibly and selflessly. That obstacle is money. Or, rather, the pursuit of it to grasp and maintain power, prestige, and wealth.

Despite any number of outrageous conflations of influential wealth and influenced legislation, and despite the protestations of the masses with fewer dollars over the power of the few with many dollars, and despite the laughable “reforms” Congress attempts occasionally, money is not going to leave politics.
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Beginning in 2010, the number 722,000 will rule state-by-state congressional politics. When the Census Bureau finishes counting Americans, it’s expected to find that the U.S. population will have increased from about 281 million in 2000 to 315 million. Many states will face reapportionment based on about 722,000 residents per district — gaining or losing seats in the House of Representatives according to the states’ populations as determined by the 2010 census.

State populations in the South and Southwest will have grown appreciably more than in the Midwest and Northeast, reflecting immigration and migration trends that took root after World War II. Consequently, the shift of political power from the latter to the former will continue (see map). For example, the population of California, the most populous state in the union and larger than all but 34 nations, will grow nearly 8 percent from 2000 to 2010 — but California will lose a seat in the House.

Following redistricting is important because reapportionment and redistricting may shift power in the House of Representatives. How great a shift depends on an intricate political calculus involving party control of legislatures and governorships.

This decennial dance may determine which party is best positioned to retain or regain control of the House following 2012 elections. Full Story »

What is the meaning — or at least a meaning — of today’s election?

I asked the juniors and seniors in my opinion-writing course to consider that today by looking into:

• How many state legislatures have both chambers controlled by one party? Will that number increase for either party?
• Will governorships contested today change from one party to another?
• What is the party split in the House of Representatives today, and what might it be tomorrow?
• What is the makeup of the Senate today, and what might it be tomorrow?

It required only about half an hour of basic Web research to answer those questions. In other words, they found that the significance of today’s election might be this: How big are Sen. Barack Obama’s coattails, and what might that mean?
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Men who commanded other men in the age of close-order battle often wrote of the tell-tale signs of a rout. It seems that, in watching the battle from afar, one could often see a line of men waver as if wind were blowing through wheat, and when that happened, absent a rally or reinforcement, it was usually just a short while before those men would break and run.  A battlefield commander would have to make a determination when he saw the waver:  Should he send reserves to that part of the battlefield, reinforcing the weakness and hoping for a victory on another part of the field, or should he withdraw, using the reserves to cover the retreat in good order, keeping as much of his army intact as possible to fight another day? Full Story »

Link of the Week (as opposed to the Weakest Link):

From American Raj, a new book by Eric Margolis: Abdullah Azzam “ran a dingy little rooming house next to his office for Muslim mujahedin headed for Afghanistan that came to be known as ‘the base’ or ‘the centre,’ and in Arabic, ‘al-Qaida.’ Rarely in history has an international revolutionary movement sprung from such modest origins.” From humble beginnings, a little acorn grows.

From “Reversal of Fortune” by Joseph Stiglitz at Vanity Fair: “We learned from the Depression that markets are not self-adjusting — at least, not in a time frame that matters to living people.” There’s only so long you can put off your retirement because of a down market.  Full Story »

Republican Representative Candice Miller of Michigan has a truly marvelous idea for getting the economy back on track:  lie through your teeth.  I suppose this shouldn’t be surprising, since it seems to be the first option for Republican politicians everywhere.

So, let me explain what she wants to do.  Currently, accounting rules require banks to value assets (like mortgage-backed loans) at their current market value.  Miller wants to allow banks to … well … value them differently … somehow.  I mean, it’s not what you can actually sell those assets for, it’s what you can … ahm … pretend you can sell them for!  If you can pretend those assets are worth more than they are,  you can make the bank look as though it’s more solvent than it is.  Then, if the other lenders are butt stupid, they’ll lend money to you based on what you say about your bank’s solvency instead of what the situation really is.

What a great idea!  Let’s convince lenders to lend money based on underlying value that isn’t there.

Oh, hey, haven’t we done that already????

I am in my 50s.  In my lifetime, I have seen partisan politics become increasingly bitter, increasingly childish, and increasingly focused on personal, political wins at America’s expense.  When the chairman of the Federal Reserve and Warren Buffet tell me that the American financial system needs an influx of capital in order to keep from collapsing, I tend to believe they believe it, and if they believe it, given their level of expertise, I would generally take their advice.

Today, American politics passed a threshold.  If anyone thought that our politicians, especially in the GOP, still care more about America than their own re-election campaigns; if anyone thought they still had a core of political courage that could, in extremis, overcome their own, petty rivalries; if anyone thought there was still a kernel of greatness in an American political landscape that produced the likes of Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Abraham Lincoln, I doubt they still believe today.  Their OWN PRESIDENT, their PARTY LEADER, came to the House Republicans and told them that this is a grave crisis, and even then they scuttled the agreement. Full Story »

This could be a Very Bad Week for Sen. John McCain.

Last week, McCain attempted a stunt for the ages, announcing that he was “suspending his campaign” so that he could rush back to Washington, where he was apparently desperately needed in order to pull together an economic bailout package. He called on Sen. Barack Obama to stop stomping the shizzle out of him on the campaign trail join him in pursuing a non-partisan solution that would ease the suffering of his cronies on Wall Street the American people.

Needless to say, the plan fizzled, and for a variety of reasons.

• For starters, McCain has been absent from Washington for so much of this year (and most recent years, for that matter) that when he showed up, most people didn’t know who he was. Full Story »

Yesterday, Senator John McCain announced that he was suspending his campaign to return to Washington to provide leadership in the effort to save the American economy from what George W. Bush says will be a “long and painful recession.”  By yesterday afternoon, Senate leadership had announced that they were very close to a bipartisan agreement on the Bush Administration’s plan to buy up bad debt, thereby freeing capital markets to continue to provide crucial lending to businesses and consumers; lending that many call “the life’s blood of the economy.”

Senator McCain, Senator Obama, President Bush, and congressional leaders met yesterday afternoon with the congressional leaders thinking they were near a deal.  By the end of the meeting, there was no deal, participants were visibly upset, and an attempt by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to convene an evening meeting failed, as the House minority leadership refused to send a negotiator. Full Story »

Political polls give us joy or despair.  Rabid sports fans understand this.  They often subject themselves to emotional roller coaster rides, watching games where the score is too close even for desperate toilet breaks.  For those of us following this year’s presidential election closely, each morning can bring good or bad news as the latest national polls are posted.

In the fever sweats over which candidate has posted a 2% lead across the nation today, it’s all too easy to forget that presidential elections are won in the Electoral College.  Candidates must win states.  They can win most states by a single vote (theoretically) and take all its electoral votes.  They can lose the popular election count and win the White House, as George W. Bush did in 2000.  What really counts is how the polls add up to enough electoral votes to win.

So, today, I take a close look at what Obama and McCain must do to win sufficient electoral votes (270) to take the White House, some of the scenarios that can get them there, the odds, likely campaign strategies going forward, and who is really in the lead. Full Story »

As you ponder the possibilities of Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain as leaders of the free world, forget not the state legislators in your own backyard.

It’s their election season, too. And their taxpayer-funded mailings can be equally as murky as “I think — I’ll have my staff get to you,” as Sen. McCain told Politico about the number of homes he owns. “It’s condominiums where — I’ll have them get to you.”

My New York state Republican assemblyman, Joseph M. Giglio, has sent me and, presumably, the other 51,000 households of the 149th District his latest “Report to Constituents.” It’s filled with typographical bombast signifying nothing.

The “report” contains about 425 words spread over both sides of a two-color, tri-folded, franked, 11-inch by 17-inch piece of paper. The smallest type is actually my address. The remaining type shouts: The copy is 18 point; normal newspaper copy is 9 point. The headlines are 48 point. Apparently, bigger is better in the world of Assemblyman Giglio.

But the hype-size type cannot hide the vagueness of the “report” itself. It tells his constituents squat about what he’s actually done.
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If you live in America, undoubtedly you drive on roads and highways maintained by the state in which you reside. And, just as certainly, many miles of those byways are in poor repair. They’re not safe. The rutted, pot-holed macadam causes expensive damage to your vehicle. Don’t count on this changing any time soon.

Friday, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters asked the Senate to prop up the federal highway trust fund with $8 billion. The fund, established in 1956 as the national financial engine of road building and repair, has a deficit. The fund provides the money the federal government uses to reimburse states for up to 80 to 90 percent of highway construction and maintenance costs. The House has already approved the extra cash.

If the Senate fails to add its approval, at the end of this month the federal government will delay and occasionally reduce the payments it sends to the states for construction it has agreed to underwrite. That means you’ll keep on driving your vehicle over the same badly damaged, poorly maintained roads that you have been, probably for years.

What should anger you is that every time you fill your tank, you’re paying 18.4 cents a gallon into that fund (24.4 cents if you’re tanking with diesel).

Why has this deficit come to pass?
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Jack Abramoff was sentenced to four years in prison today, much less than the maximum time for his crimes.  You may remember him as the man who bribed, stole, and otherwise slimed his way to the top of the K Street lobbying establishment in Washington.  He also defrauded the Chippewas, an Amerind tribe, of tens of millions of dollars in a scheme with a PR firm he called the self-congratulatory name, “High Five!”  Yet, in a letter filed with US District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle, Abramoff insists:

I am not a bad man (although to read all the news articles one would think I was Osama Bin Laden), but I did many bad things. Full Story »

As entertaining a diversion from the demise of the American dream the presidential contest between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain has become, what with thousands of mass media hairpieces focused intently on their every vague utterance, let’s keep in sight this equally entertaining sideshow: A third of the seats in the U.S. Senate and all of the seats in the House of Representatives are available for the public’s inspection, validation or rejection in November.

The percentage of respondents in national polls who believe Congress is doing a good job is buried in the teens, even lower than approval ratings for President Bush, now trending in the mid- to high-20s. The re-election rate for House members in 2006 was 94 percent (down from 98 percent in ‘04); the rate for senators was 79 percent in 2006 (down from 96 percent in ‘04), according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Incumbency rules. Many voters might argue that collectively, members of Congress are greedheads mired in the trappings of power wrapped tightly around them by corporate lobbyists paid millions of dollars to either extract largesse from the Hill or prevent lawmaking or regulatory rule-writing that would be bad for business. But …
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