Some consider the Nation’s Capital as “Fantasyland on the Potomac”. Other outsiders are “Fed Up” with the Federal City. It's better to consider D.C. as “the District of Calamity” (sic).
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Chris Coons on Filibusters
Senator Coons may pine for the past -- alas "Dirty Harry" Reid change the Senate rules in 2013 and now confirmations can pass on just 51 votes.
Monday, January 9, 2017
Saturday, January 7, 2017
Friday, January 6, 2017
Anti-Cop Agiprop Artwork Exhibited on Capitol Hill
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| [L] Artist David Pulphus [R] Rep Lacy Clay |
This piece has stirred controversy as the adolescent's artwork depicts cops as pigs brutalizing blacks. It should be noted that a prominently depicted agitator is also depicted with lupine features giving the "Black Power" salute. Pulphus's piece also inserts a black man in graduation garb being crucified by the scales of justice.
Charitably this can be considered an allegory to the unrest unleashed in Ferguson, Missouri, the birth place of Black Lives Matter. But it seems more like an épater les bourgeois to defame cops as animals. It is ironic that the one business featured in the painting is a beauty shop, which was one of the businesses that black owned businesses in Ferguson that BLM rioters burned.
But Joe Patterson with spokesman for the St. Louis County Police Association noted: "[W]e are not about censorship, but good art and good taste are sometimes not the same thing.” Patterson characterized Pulphus's Untitled #1 as a "punch in the face" to law enforcement and commented: “This is an extraordinarily disrespectful piece at a minimum." There have been calls from Police Associations around the nation to take down the pig headed anti-cop artwork.
Representative Clay refused to take Pulphus' piece down since it won the contest and that he was not attempt to approve or disapprove of artistic expression, yet the Congressman also called the piece "the most creative work that he has seen in 16 years." Moreover, Rep. Clay claimed that he could not find anything offensive in the painting as: "I find it to be an expression of what one of my constituents is feeling about what he has experienced.”
The work had been exhibited since June 2016 in the tunnel that leads to the Longworth Building on Capitol Hill for several months before the controversy.
Post Scriptus 01/06/2017 15:00 EST: Representative Duncan D. Hunter (R-CA 50th) took down "Untitled #1" on his own accord. Hunter invited his House colleague Clay to put it back up if he wanted.
Update 01/09/2016 19:00 On National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) announced their intention to rehang Pulphus' Anti-Cop acrylic artwork. The CBC stated:
“The rehanging of this painting for public view represents more than just protecting the rights of a student artist, it is a proud statement in defense of the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which guarantees freedom of expression to every American."
Update 01/17/2017 The Architect for the Capitol has determined that Pulphus' anti-cop art violates contest rules about depicting controversial political subjects and will be taken down for good by January 18, 2017.
UPDATE 04/18/2017 DC Federal Court Judge John Bates denied issuing a preliminary injunction to restore display of the painting while the litigation continues. Rep. Rep. Clay and artist Pulphus plan on appealing the ruling.
Should Anti-Cop agiprop artwork be exhibited on Capitol Hill?
Thursday, January 5, 2017
The Legacy of Dirty Harry and the Reid Rule on Senate Filibusters
A legacy of former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was the effective elimination of the confirmation filibuster.
Under the Constitution, it is the Senate's duty to confirm Executive and Judicial Branch appointments. Senate rules allowed for confirmations with mere majorities, but needed to obtain 60 votes to cut off debate (Cloture) and preclude a filibuster. The Cloture vote was intended to prevent endless obstructionism while still giving the minority some say in the proceedings of the Upper Chamber of Congress.
Needing to get enough votes for cloture was an incentive for Republicans to select more moderate appointees which required Senate consent. But such Senate niceties stopped political steamrolling by Majorities who wished to exercise their unadulterated will.
When the Obama Administration sought to pack the Court of Appeals for DC (aka the DC Circuit), which is the court of authority for regulatory bodies, it ran into trouble when its candidates might not have received the requisite support for a Cloture Vote. So then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, exercised "The Nuclear Option". Exercising the Nuclear Option had been hotly debated in the preceding decade, but then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) opted not to circumvent tradition.
Through Parliamentary legerdemain, Reid established a precedent in which he said that all judicial nominees, save Justices of the Supreme Court, would be considered on majority votes and did not have to pass the Cloture Vote threshold.
The Reid Rule was great when one's party is in control of the Senate and the White House. But in 2017, President Donald Trump will occupy the White House and Republicans have a two seat majority in the Senate. Incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer thinks that he can stymie the Trump Administration through the advice and consent clause as well as any Supreme Court nominations which do not represent progressive Democrat values. However, Schumer may well rue the Reid rule legacy from Dirty Harry Reid.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Salem Radio host Hugh Hewitt had an informative colloquy on the Reid Rule.
Republicans may not moderate their choices for positions which need to be confirmed by the Senate. Despite Harry Reid's contention that the "Reid Rule" excludes Supreme Court nominees, it is contented that avoiding Cloture for a Supreme Court nomination would simply be a second application of the Reid Rule precedent.
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