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congress

Thursday 9 February 2012
We hate Congress (except that we don't)

The public opinion polls on Congress have become a joke. The latest by Gallup indicates that Congress has received its lowest approval rating ever – 10 percent.

We hate them.

Except that we don’t.

We hate all members of Congress who are not from OUR particular district. At least, that’s how it must be since most of us send the same people back to Washington again and again.

Privacy Death Stars Approved By Congress
Tuesday 9 August 2011

…Congress is more polarized than ever before. A National Journal study shows that, for the first time since the publication began tracking the divide 30 years ago, the most left-wing Republican is more conservative than the most right-wing Democrat. There is no overlapping set of moderates, who used to engineer congressional compromises. This polarization has resulted in paralysis. More than two years into the Obama Administration, hundreds of key positions in government remain vacant for lack of Senate confirmation. The Treasury Department had to handle the global financial crisis, recession, bank stress tests and automaker bailouts, as well as its usual duties, with about a dozen of its senior positions—almost its entire top management—vacant. Senate rules have been used, abused and twisted to allow constant delay and blockage. The filibuster, historically employed about once a decade, is now a routine procedure that allows the minority to thwart the will of the majority. In 2009, Senate Republicans filibustered a stunning 80% of major legislation. Given how the chamber is composed—two Senators per state, no matter how thinly populated—people representing just 10% of the country can block all legislation. Is that how a democracy should function? Fareed Zakaria

Saturday 4 June 2011
Jeff Danziger

Jeff Danziger

Tuesday 22 March 2011
Congress Considers "In God We Trust"... But Who Is This God?

The agenda for the House of Representatives contains a bill, recently reported out of the Judiciary Committee, that asks our elected officials to reaffirm “In God We Trust” as our national motto. News reports indicate the bill’s supporters appear particularly keen on having public school classrooms display the motto, so that children can spend their days gazing upon it.

Granted, “In God We Trust” has a long public record, dating back to 1864, when the government first started engraving it on our coinage. It became the national motto when Congress voted it as such in 1956. Think those two years might have shared anything? In each case, the nation perceived itself in a life-or-death struggle — the Civil War in the first instance, the Cold War in the second. And given that the principal enemy the second time around was the Soviet Union, the idea of adopting “In God We Trust” as our national motto must have seemed a pretty clear way to distinguish Americans from the godless Commies in Moscow.

An obvious question to ask is why our public servants think now would be a good time to throw the spotlight back on the motto? To be sure, we’re again at war and have very recently enlarged the field of battle to include Libya.

But a more pertinent question — and an enduring one for the country — is, who is this God in whom we are called to place our trust? (I’m not talking about religious pluralism here, the important theological differences among the believing population, whose members call themselves Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, etc.)

Tuesday 1 March 2011
Mitch Daniels' Disappearing Felony

More important, Daniels’ assertion that “justice was served” obscures what a huge break he got. Under current New Jersey law, possessing more than 50 grams (about 1.8 ounces) of marijuana is a felony punishable by up to 18 months in prison. Given the amount of pot Daniels had (enough to fill two shoeboxes), he easily could have been charged with intent to distribute, which under current law triggers a penalty of three to five years (for less than five pounds). And at the time of Daniels’ arrest in May 1970, New Jersey’s marijuana penalties were even more severe. Six months after his arrest, the New Jersey Supreme Court decided a case involving an 18-year-old who was caught with a tiny amount of pot (clearly just for personal use) and got a sentence of two to three years in prison. Concluding that “the sentence was entirely too harsh,” the court noted that state law set a minimum sentence of two years but allowed it to be suspended for a first offense. The court ruled that “a suspended sentence with an appropriate term of probation is sufficient penalty for a person who is convicted for the first time of possessing marihuana for his own use.” Given the legal situation prior to this ruling, Daniels was incredibly lucky to get off with a $350 fine, and he was able to do so only because he did not actually plead guilty to marijuana possession—only to the lesser offense of “maintaining a common nuisance.”

Monday 11 January 2010

But the Senate, as it now operates, really has become unconstitutional: as we saw during the recent health care debacle, a 60-vote majority is required to overcome a filibuster and pass any contested bill. The founders, though, were dead set against supermajorities as a general rule, and the ever-present filibuster threat has made the Senate a more extreme check on the popular will than they ever intended. Thomas Geoghegan

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