How to get ahead on Capitol Hill: Use a leadership PAC to buy power

I’m in my second term in the U.S. House of Representatives. I’m a Republocrat. I like the job. It pays $174,000, has great medical benefits, provides a really nice private gym to use, and lots of people have to be nice to me. And there are those $110,000 in taxpayer-funded fringe benefits I get (including plush retirement plans, paid time off, and contributions to Social Security and Medicare taxes). I’ve got a staff to answer the phone and email, run my Twitter and Facebook stuff, and deal with those damned constituents. And I’m in a relatively safe district, thanks to that Republocrat-friendly redistricting bill passed in my state last year. Hey, sometimes people let me use their corporate jets! (Well, as long as I keep quiet about those trips and pay commercial airfare for it.)

Yeah. This is a sweet gig. I want to stay here. In fact, I want to … move up. Be in the leadership. Be a mover and shaker. Now how am I gonna do that beyond kissing the speaker’s ass (and those of his damn deputies, too) and voting however he (or she) tells me to?

It will take money for that Republocrat to ascend higher in the House’s toadying ladder of leadership. Lots of money. And as we know, House members (and senators) have a vehicle to collect and dispense money to other House members — the leadership political action committee. A principal reason for the existence of leadership PACs to is buy friends and influence on Capitol Hill. Apparently, hard work and intelligence are insufficient.

Deaths of millions of bats in U.S., Canada have ecological, economic impacts

I do not like bats. Once, as a college student living in a third-floor apartment with no air-conditioning, a bat landed on me during a hot summer night. I fled my room, shrieking. Even today, on summer nights at my rural home, when bats fly low over my deck, I instinctively duck.

Bats have a bad rep. Think bat and you likely think bat with rabies. Think bat and you likely think dirty bat or bat as vampiric bloodsucker. Think bat and you likely think evil harbinger of doom and destruction. (Okay, that last one’s a tad over the top … but you get the idea.) Bats have fewer defenders than fear-laden critics.

But bats, the only mammal structurally capable of sustained flight, are just creatures with significant ecological — and economic — roles. Hate mosquitoes and other insects? They’re on the nighttime menu for bats. Like bees, many bats pollinate plants and spread seeds. Bat shit (sorry; bat guano) is rich in nitrogen and is a profitable fertilizer. Bats’ ability to navigate in the dark (echolocation) is a subject of significant scientific study.

But in the past five years, up to 6.7 million bats are estimated to have died in 16 states and Canada, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. Three species face extinction — the little brown bat, the northern long-eared bat and the tricolored bat. A malady called white-nose syndrome is killing them.

University wrong to fire student paper adviser over photo of nude streaker

Paul Isom is looking for a new job today. He was the student media director at East Carolina University. Why was he canned?

On Nov. 8, the [student] newspaper published a full-frontal photo of a streaker who ran onto the field during that weekend’s home football game. The decision prompted outcry from some readers and from university administrators who said it was “in very poor taste.”

If this photo was so controversial and in “very poor taste,” why did the university require two months to decide to give Isom four hours to clean out his office and get outta Dodge?

No doubt lawyers were consulted. After the photo was published, the university’s vice chancellor for student affairs, Virginia Hardy, presaged what would come to pass:

We will be having conversations with those who were involved in this decision in an effort to make it a learning experience. The goal will be to further the students’ understanding that with the freedom of the press comes a certain level of responsibility about what is appropriate and effective in order to get their message across.

Learning experience my ass. The goal of the lesson being taught here is to warn student journalists and their advisers to not cross the university when it comes to maligning its image.

GAO: U.S. government’s checkbook still too screwed up to audit

Consider the continual political warfare among tea partiers, Democrats, Republicans, President Obama, members of Congress, and anyone else with a media megaphone over size of the deficit run up by the American government. You’d assume they were confident the government knew how much money it took in and how much it spent. You’d assume the government knew how to keep its checkbook in order.

And you’d be wrong. According to the fiscal 2011 financial report by the nation’s bookkeeper, the Government Accounting Office, some government agencies cannot soundly manage their fiscal affairs.

The GAO said in a press release today it cannot

render an opinion on the 2011 consolidated financial statements of the federal government, because of widespread material internal control weaknesses, significant uncertainties, and other limitations.

As was the case in 2010, the main obstacles to a GAO opinion on the accrual- based consolidated financial statements were: (1) serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense (DOD) that made its financial statements unauditable, (2) the federal government’s inability to adequately account for and reconcile intragovernmental activity and balances between federal agencies, and (3) the federal government’s ineffective process for preparing the consolidated financial statements.

Surely the feds have tackled this problem, right? They’re getting a handle on it, right?

In the era of terrorism, whom have we become?

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

When a Hellfire missile fired from a drone aircraft operated by the Central Intelligence Agency struck ground in Yemen last month, it killed two American citizens. One was New Mexico-born Anwar al-Awlaki, 40; the other was Samir Khan, 25, who publishes media for Al Qaeda promoting terrorism.

Al-Awlaki, says the American government, is a terrorist. Officials say he had crossed the line between propagandist and operations planner. That earned him a spot on a kill-or-capture list nearly two years ago. Is he a bad guy? Probably. Did he deserve to die? Perhaps. But neither “probably” nor “perhaps” is the standard for conviction in American criminal trials — beyond a reasonable doubt.

So, reports Charlie Savage of The New York Times, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel more than a year ago crafted a 50-page memorandum. It justified the killing of an American citizen without benefit of trial, reports Savage. According to the unnamed sources quoted by Savage, the document provided steps to bypass the Fourth and Fifth amendments regarding unreasonable seizure and due process of law. Such extralegal acts, coupled with the American military’s global reach, raise troubling questions few in power — or seeking power — are willing to address publicly.

End poverty. Attack it. Now.

You know someone who lives in poverty. You may not realize it, but you do. Given that one of every six Americans lives in poverty, someone you know suffers from one of the most punishing and oppressing of all human conditions.

Too many of us blithely consider poverty to be limited to certain geographical locations such as the “inner city.” Too many of us believe poverty is limited to, perhaps, mostly a certain skin color. Too many of us attribute poverty to the lack of an “appropriate” work ethic, a lack of ambition, or a desire to “cheat the system.” The poor live in cities, they’re not white, they’re lazy, and they’re sucking up my tax dollars unfairly.

Discard that attitude. It’s disgusting. Poverty privileges no race, no gender, no occupation, no geography.

Kerry grandstands; The Boston Globe cheerleads

Sen. John Kerry’s decision to not meet with “a whole bunch of lobbyists right now” and not fundraise while serving on Congress’ deficit-reduction “supercommittee” fails to impress. And the story by his hometown cheerleader, The Boston Globe,” equally fails to impress.

The Massachusetts Democrat may have scored a few points with voters. But his decision is really only inexpensive grandstanding. He said in August he’ll seek a sixth term in 2014. And he’s a shoo-in to win. He won his fifth term in 2008 with 66 percent of the vote and faced a primary opponent for only the first time in decades.

And who would want to face a sitting senator who has, thanks to his leadership PAC and campaign committee, $3 million in the bank and zero debt? And whose personal wealth, tops in the U.S. Senate, hit nearly $190 million entering 2010?

The tax break that didn’t create jobs, and now corporations want another one

Imagine corporations telling you they want to create American jobs in exchange for a tax break. Thanks to a compliant Congress, they get a cheap rate on billions of dollars of profits — and cut thousands of American jobs instead. (Pfizer and Hewlett-Packard come to mind.)

After the turn of the century, hundreds of multinationals, such as Pfizer and H-P, nominally headquartered in the United States had a problem. They had about $300 billion in profits parked overseas. They wanted to bring that money home — a process artfully called repatriation of funds.

Their opponent was the U.S. tax code: To repatriate profits, the code said they’d have to pay 35 cents on every dollar brought home. So they sweet-talked (that’s called lobbying) their friends in Congress (their hired elected minions) to fix the problem. Their congressional chums were glad to help out by lowering the tax bite to 5 cents for every dollar brought home. The lobbying effort was a good investment: For every buck the corporations spent, they got $220 back.

But the fix created an image problem for members of Congress. If they handed out a 5 percent tax rate on hundreds of billions of dollars, their constituents would label them corporate teat-sucking, barking gongbats. After all, the folks who voted these congressional miscreants into office paid up to five times that rate in income tax in 2010. In the past tax year, if your income was about a mere $8,500, you paid 15 percent in income tax. If you made about $35,000, you paid a 25 percent rate. So you see the political image problem your members of Congress faced.

Put down the phone: To write well, read more

I am in the room where I teach. You stop at the door and knock.

“Come in,” I say. You stride in and sit in the chair next to me. The phone in your hand chirps. You glance at it, then at me. I frown. You sigh and put your phone in your pack.

“What can I do for you?” I ask.

“I want to write well,” you say. “How do I do that?”

I nod. “How much do you read?” I ask.

“Not a lot,” you say.

“Why do you not read more?” I say.

“I do not like to read,” you say. “It takes too much time.”

“That is too bad,” I say.

“Why?” you ask.

Budweiser, politics, and style vs. substance

Anheuser-Busch InDev wants to sell more Budweiser. That’s because Bud’s market share in the United States has declined for two decades. American shipments fell 7 percent last year. Bud will likely fall from its No. 2 position in best-selling beers as Coors Light speeds past it.

A-B’s corporate response to slowing sales? Repackaging. The corporation has sunk 18 months and untold millions (it won’t say how many) into redesigning the can that contains the same beer. Says A-B executive Rob McCarthy:

The bow tie and the prominence of the bow tie came through both for current drinkers and for potential drinkers as just a powerful symbol of the quality and heritage and authenticity of the brand.

New package. Same beer. New style. Same substance. Well, so what?

If your substance is insufficient to attract attention, then you have a choice: Adopt a new style, or fix the substance. In America, the choice is often the former — in business as well as politics.