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यूपी चुनाव और राहुल गांधी की खाट सभा यूपी चुनाव और खाट सभा ,रैली का रोला .अब रैलियों में कोई खटिया तोडेगा, कोई खाट पकडेगा तो कोई किसी की खटिया ही खडी कर देगा. यूपी चुनाव और खाट सभा में आज अलग ही नजारा देखने को मिला. यूपी में राहुल गांधी ने देवरिया से शुरू की […]

The post यूपी चुनाव और खाट सभा appeared first on Monica Gupta.

  महात्मा गांधी और उनकी हत्या का रहस्य सात दशक पुराना गांधी हत्याकांड  Gandhi assassination आज फिर चर्चा में है. गांधी हत्या, आरएसएस और हे राम  ने नई बहस छेड दी है. राहुल गांधी के वकील कपिल सिब्बल ने गुरुवार को सुप्रीम कोर्ट में कहा कि राहुल अपने बयान, ”आरएसएस के लोगों ने गांधी को गोली मारी” […]

The post गांधी हत्या, आरएसएस और हे राम appeared first on Monica Gupta.

  Political Cartoon – Current Topics मेरा सिधु आएगा .. ! भाजपा हो, कांग्रेस हो या आम आदमी पार्टी सभी की नजरे नवजोत सिह सिधु पर है कि क्या फैसला लेते हैं  भिन्नता में एकता का साक्षात उदाहरण है कि पार्टी अलग अलग हो विचार धारा अलग अलग हो पर मंथन एक है और वो […]

The post Political Cartoon – Current Topics appeared first on Monica Gupta.

The primaries, the conventions, and the media have focused so much attention on the presidential candidates that it’s sometime easy to forget all the other federal elections being held this year, for 34 seats in the Senate and 435 in the House (plus five nonvoting delegates). The next president’s chances of success will depend largely on the congressional majorities this election will produce.

The post This year’s other elections appeared first on OUPblog.

चुनावी वादे और आप फिर बज उठा चुनावी बिगुल…चुनाव में चाहे आम आदमी शब्द का इस्तेमाल करना हो या “आप ” शब्द का …बहुत दिक्कत आती है क्योकि आम आदमी पार्टी जहन में आती है.. आज कांग्रेस ने भी बस यात्रा आरम्भ की और पढने में आया कि कांग्रेस की यात्रा “बस” अपने बडबोले बयानो […]

The post चुनावी वादे और आप appeared first on Monica Gupta.

प्रशांत किशोर की राजनीति और सलाह सुनने में आया है कि   चुनावी रणनीतिकार प्रशांत किशोर भी इस बात से सहमत हैं कि राहुल गांधी या प्रियंका में से किसी को मुख्‍यमंत्री पद के उम्‍मीदवार के तौर पर उतरना चाहिए. उनका मानना है कि इससे प्रदेश के ब्राह्मणों में अच्‍छा संकेत जाएगा… जबकि कुछ कांगेसी […]

The post प्रशांत किशोर की राजनीति और सलाह appeared first on Monica Gupta.

ये खबर आपको विचलित कर सकती है…. विवादित बयानों की राजनीति चाहे नेताजी के बडबोले बोल हों या  न्यूज चैनल पर दिखाई जाने वाली तरोडी मरोडी खबरें खबरे ना सिर्फ हमारी मानसिकता पर असर डालती है बल्कि हमारा नजरिया भी बदल देती हैं कल तीन खबरों ने मुझे तो हैरत में ही डाल दिया. सुबह […]

The post ये खबर आपको विचलित कर सकती है appeared first on Monica Gupta.

Over the next several weeks, Congress is working on a new federal education bill. Now is the time to activate your library friends and supporters and get them to speak up for school libraries! The last education bill, No Child Left Behind, did not specifically include school libraries, and as a result students suffered because schools closed libraries, cut library budgets, or eliminated staff positions. Right now we have a window of opportunity to right that wrong and help America’s youth. Congress needs to hear from as many people as possible about the importance of school libraries in supporting youth success. Provided below are two ready-to-use messages you can share out with your library supporters. Please do so today!

SAMPLE EMAIL, NEWSLETTER ITEM OR FACEBOOK POST

Studies show that strong school libraries drive student achievement. They help young people succeed in school and prepare for college, careers and life. Congress is currently working on a new education bill that would provide federal funding for the nation’s schools. They need to hear from you that it’s vital to include school libraries in this new bill.  Your calls, emails and Tweets will be the evidence Congress needs to take action for America’s youth and ensure school libraries adequately funded in the ESEA reauthorization.

Here’s how you can ensure that happens:

1. Go here: http://cqrcengage.com/ala/home
2. In the blue bar in the upper half of the page, choose how you want to contact your member of Congress: letter, Tweet, or phone call
3. Click on the option(s) you want, provide the required contact info, & submit.  The letter and Tweet are pre-written for you, so it’s super easy! (but you do have the option to customize them if you want)
4. Forward this message to library advocates in your community & encourage them to do take action, too
5. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done!

For more information, read this blog post from ALA. Thank you for speaking up for youth and libraries!

SAMPLE TWEET

kids need #SchoolLibraries! ow.ly/Sf4lT -contact Congress 2 ask 4 support 4 school libs via this easy site ow.ly/S0kdw

Thank you,

Beth Yoke

Last week we called on library staff and advocates to contact Congress to support school libraries, and many of you responded (yay!)!  So far, there have been 2,971 emails, 446 Tweets and 39 phone calls.  That’s great, but with over 98,000 school libraries and 17,000 public libraries in the U.S. we can do better!  ALA staff are meeting with key Congressional staff later this week to ask for support for school libraries.  Right now we need one final push from library staff and advocates so that when ALA meets with Congressional staff your grassroots support will be the evidence Congress needs to take action for school libraries and ensure they’re adequately funded in the ESEA reauthorization.

Here’s how you can make sure that happens:

1. Go here: http://cqrcengage.com/ala/home
2. In the blue bar in the upper half of the page, choose how you want to contact your members of Congress: letter, Tweet, or phone call
3. Click on the option(s) you want, provide the required contact info, & submit.  The letter and Tweet are pre-written for you, so it’s super easy! (but you do have the option to customize them if you want)
4. Forward this message to library advocates in your community & encourage them to do take action, too
5. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done!

For more information, read this blog post from ALA.

Thank you,

Beth Yoke

The Senate is working on a new education bill (aka ESEA reauthorization) right now, and it’s vital that they include school libraries!  You can help ensure that happens:

1. Go to this web page
2. In the blue bar in the upper half of the page, choose how you want to contact your members of Congress: letter, Tweet, or phone call
3. Click on the option(s) you want, provide the required contact info, & submit.  The letter and Tweet are pre-written for you, so it’s super easy! (but you do have the option to customize them if you want)
4. Forward this message to library advocates in your community & encourage them to do take action, too
5. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done!

For more information, read this blog post from ALA.  Thank you for supporting libraries!

-Beth Yoke

मानवीय आधार पर

मानवीय आधार पर …..

बेशक मानवीय आधार पर मदद की बात हो रही है पर अडवाणी जी का कुर्सी के प्रति प्रेम आज भी सच्चा है और मदद की आज भी दरकार है !!!

– www.bhaskar.com

भाजपा नेताओं की दलील है कि स्वराज ने ऐसा ‘मानवीय’ आधार पर किया, क्योंकि ललित मोदी की प|ी कैंसर पीड़ित हैं, पुर्तगाल में उनकी सर्जरी होनी थी और इस मौके पर मोदी की वहां आवश्यकता थी। मगर सामने आए दो तथ्यों ने इस तर्क को कमजोर किया है। पुर्तगाल में 14 वर्ष से अधिक उम्र के व्यक्ति के ऑपरेशन के लिए किसी बालिग परिजन द्वारा सहमति देने की अनिवार्यता नहीं है। फिर मोदी को यात्रा दस्तावेज दो साल के लिए मिले, जिसे आधार बनाकर उन्होंने दुनिया के विभिन्न हिस्सों की सैर की है। बहरहाल, बात यहीं तक होती तो इस प्रकरण को विदेश मंत्री की निर्णय संबंधी भूल मान लिया जाता। मगर उनके पति स्वराज कौशल की अतीत में ललित मोदी से निकटता और उनकी बेटी बांसुरी स्वराज के मोदी की लीगल टीम का हिस्सा रहने की बातें सामने आने से विपक्ष को ‘लाभ की अदला-बदली’ और राजनीतिक नैतिकता के उल्लंघन का आरोप लगाने का अवसर मिला है। यह केंद्र सरकार और भाजपा का दायित्व बनता है कि वे इन मुद्‌दों पर विश्वसनीय स्पष्टीकरण प्रस्तुत करें। ऐसा करने में वे विफल रहे, तो यही धारणा बनेगी कि सुषमा स्वराज ने अपने पद की गरिमा के अनुरूप आचरण नहीं किया। क्या ऐसी धारणा बनना भाजपा के हित में होगा? See more…

  LiveHindustan.com

विदेश मंत्री सुषमा स्वराज द्वारा आईपीएल के पूर्व प्रमुख ललित मोदी के देश छोड़कर बाहर जाने में मदद करने के आरोपों के बाद कांग्रेस ने रविवार को उनके इस्तीफे की मांग की। कांग्रेस नेता दिग्विजय सिंह ने कहा, ‘सुषमा स्वराज को नैतिकता के आधार पर इस्तीफा दे देना चाहिए।’ ब्रिटेन के एक समाचार पत्र में प्रकाशित रपट के मुताबिक, ब्रिटेन में भारतीय मूल के सांसद कीथ वाज ने ललित मोदी को यात्रा दस्तावेज उपलब्ध कराने के लिए सुषमा स्वराज के नाम का इस्तेमाल कर ब्रिटेन के शीर्ष आव्रजन अधिकारी पर दबाव बनाया था। दिग्विजय ने कहा, ‘मंत्री ने ललित मोदी जैसे एक व्यक्ति की मदद की, जिसके खिलाफ यहां लुकआउट नोटिस जारी किया गया था। यह बहुत गंभीर मामला है। विदेश मंत्री ऐसे व्यक्ति की मदद कर रही हैं, जो फरार है।’ उन्होंने कहा कि प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी को इस मामले पर स्पष्टीकरण देना चाहिए। कांग्रेस प्रवक्ता रणदीप सुरजेवाला ने भी इस मामले पर सुषमा और भाजपा पर निशाना साधा। सुरजेवाला ने कहा कि इससे एक मनी लॉड्रिंग और मैच फिक्सर ललित मोदी की भारतीय जनता पार्टी (भाजपा) के साथ घनिष्ठ संबंधों का पता चलता है। उन्होंने कहा, ‘क्या किसी भगोड़े की मदद करने के लिए नया नियम बनाया गया है? क्या उनकी भविष्य में भी मदद की जाएगी? यह तो राष्ट्र विरोधी है।’ उन्होंने कहा, ‘मैं प्रधानमंत्री, गृहमंत्री और भाजपा अध्यक्ष अमित शाह से पूछना चाहता हूं कि यदि कल दाऊद इब्राहिम मानवीय आधार पर मदद मांगे तो क्या उसकी भी मदद की जाएगी।’ बहुजन समाज पार्टी (बीएसपी) की अध्यक्ष मायावती ने कहा कि इस मुद्दे को संसद में उठाया जाएगा। मायावती ने कहा, ‘हमारी मांग है कि इस मामले की जांच हो। हम इसे संसद में उठाएंगे।’ इस बीच विदेश मंत्री ने ट्विटर पर स्पष्टीकरण दिया और कहा कि उन्होंने मानवीय आधार पर ललित मोदी को देश से बाहर जाने में मदद की थी, क्योंकि उनकी पत्नी कैंसर से जूझ रही थी। उन्होंने 2०13 में सर्जरी भी कराई थी। उन्होंने कहा कि यह घटना उनके मंत्री बनने से पहले की है। See more…

The post मानवीय आधार पर appeared first on Monica Gupta.

ये तो बस शुरुआत है

तोहफा

सेवा कर की दर में बढ़ोतरी पर खेद प्रकट हुए कांग्रेस ने सोमवार को मोदी सरकार पर जमकर निशाना साधा है. कांग्रेस ने इसे महंगाई बढ़ाने वाला कदम बताते हुए कहा कि भाजपा नीत एनडीए सरकार ने लोगों को वर्षगांठ पर यह तोहफा दिया है.

पार्टी प्रवक्ता राजीव गौडा ने कहा, मोदी सरकार को पिछले हफ्ते एक साल हुआ लेकिन भारत के लोगों को उनकी वर्षगांठ का तोहफा आज से मिलना शुरु हो रहा है. उन्होंने कहा कि हम सब बहुत बढ़े हुए और अवांछित 14 प्रतिशत सेवा कर का भुगतान करने जा रहे हैं और इसके अलावा उनके रास्ते में कई अन्य उपकर भी हैं. उन्होंने खेद व्यक्त किया कि सरकार मंहगाई कम होने के बारे में बातें करती है और सेवा कर में यह बढ़ोतरी महंगाई को और बढ़ायेगी. साथ ही अर्थव्यवस्था के हर पहलू पर इसका असर पड़ेगा, खासतौर पर सेवा क्षेत्र को जो पूरी अर्थव्यवस्था का 50 फीसदी से ज्यादा है.

See more…

विदेशमंत्री सुषमा स्वराज ने सरकार के एक साल पूरा होने पर विदेश नीति की दशा, दिशा और उपलब्धियों का ब्योरा देने के लिए एक संवाददाता सम्मेलन किया। उन्होंने कहा कि अब विदेश नीति तीन कसौटियों पर परखी जा रही है – संपर्क, संवाद और परिणाम। पिछले एक साल में 101 देशों से संपर्क-संवाद साधा गया है और नया मंत्र है – विकास के लिए कूटनीति का। इसके साथ ही विदेश नीति के मामले में पीएम मोदी की सक्रियता पर उन्होंने कहा कि ‘अतिसक्रिय’ प्रधानमंत्री होना कोई ‘चुनौती’ नहीं ….

See more…

खैर, पक्ष और विपक्ष के अपने अपने फंडे हैं पर सोच इस बात की है क्या वाकई में देश की आम जनता इससे प्रभावित हुई है क्या टैक्स महंगाई और भी कई बातों के चलते आम आदमी अपने सफर मे suffer  तो नही कर रहा …

The post ये तो बस शुरुआत है appeared first on Monica Gupta.

पार्टी कोई भी हो सभी नेता वोट की जुगाड मे हैं कि किसी तरह से वोट उन्हें ही मिले. दीवारो पर, सडकों पर , गलियों मे पोस्टर और बैनर लगे नेता हर छोटे बडे के  पास जाकर वोट देने की अपील कर रहे हैं. वही एक भिखारी भाजपा नेता को कह रहा है कि ईश्वर आप का भला करे… कहने का भाव यह है कि वो तो शायद भाजपा के बारे मे ही कह रहा है पर नेता जी का मन शायद AAP का सोच रहा है !!!

The post Cartoon- Vote Please appeared first on Monica Gupta.

Please email or phone your members of Congress and ask them to sign the "Dear Appropriator letter supporting library funding via these two programs: LSTA (Library Services Technology Act) and IAL (Innovative Approaches to Literacy)."  Then, ask all other library supporters you know to do the same by no later than March 20^th.  Contact information for Congress members is here: http://cqrcengage.com/ala/home (just put in your zip code in the box on the lower right side).

To see whether your Members of Congress signed these letters last year, view the FY 2015 Funding Letter Signees document (pdf). If so, please be sure to thank and remind them of that when you email or call!  More information can be found on ALA's blog, District Dispatch.  For more information about LSTA, check out this document LSTA Background and Ask (pdf).  For more information on IAL, view School Libraries Brief (pdf)

Thank you for taking this step to ensure that our nation's teens continue to have access to library staff and services that will help them succeed in school and prepare for college and careers!

-Beth Yoke

By Richard A. Baker

In a 1948 election contest to fill a US Senate seat, the wife of one of the candidates took a dim view of her husband’s opponent, Representative Margaret Chase Smith. Why, she wondered publicly, would the voters of Maine want to send “a woman to Washington when you can get a man?”

Margaret Chase Smith. From the US Senate Historical Office. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Well, indeed, the voters of one of Maine’s three congressional districts had already taken a chance on a woman, electing Margaret Smith on five occasions since the death in 1940 of her husband, Representative Clyde Smith, whose dutiful secretary she had once been. During her more than eight years in the House, Mrs. Smith—who never missed an opportunity to associate herself with the 1939 film classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington—initially built a record as an independent outsider, mirroring the Hollywood image of Jimmy Stewart’s “Senator Jefferson Smith.”

In 1948 the women of Maine, who constituted nearly two-thirds of that state’s registered voters, appreciated Smith’s efforts during World War II to bring equal status to women in the armed services. Some among them were particularly offended by her opponents’ questioning of women’s ability to hold public office.

With the campaign slogan, “Don’t trade a record for a promise,” Smith overwhelmingly won both the June Republican primary and the general election–at that time held in September. In that latter election, she benefitted from the cluelessness of her opponent, a dermatologist who argued that in a sick world, what the nation most needed were more physicians in government.

The first woman elected to both houses of Congress and the first woman to reach the Senate without previously having been appointed to an unexpired term, Mrs. Smith was the most nationally prominent Republican in her Senate freshmen class. Among her classmates were high-profile Democrats Lyndon Johnson of Texas and Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota.

It was customary for new senators of her day to remain quietly in the shadows. Not Senator Smith! In office less than a year-and-a-half, she delivered a blistering 15-minute floor speech against the anti-Communist demagoguery of Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. McCarthy responded predictably with a sneering reference to Smith and the co-signers of her “Declaration of Conscience” as “Snow White and the Six Dwarfs.”

Margaret Smith’s power in the Senate grew out of her independence—no party leader could take her vote for granted; her diligence—she made every roll-call vote for nearly twenty years until hip surgery broke that remarkable streak; her boundless energy; and her eventual seniority on the chamber’s influential committees on Appropriations and Armed Services. She dismissed efforts to brand her as a pioneering feminist. “I was treated fairly in the Senate not because of equal rights but because of seniority.”

From her Armed Services Committee perch, Smith adopted a hawkish approach to US military policy, supporting the war in Vietnam and criticizing the United States for not keeping ahead of the Soviet Union in stockpiling nuclear weapons. That stance provoked Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to denounce her as “the devil in disguise of a woman.”

“Maggie” (a commonly used reference that she disliked) Smith’s path-breaking Senate career ended in 1972 with her defeat by Democrat William Hathaway. His campaign played on her apparent physical frailty, noting that she used a motor scooter to shuttle between her Senate office building suite and the Capitol (she would live for another 23 years), and charges of her remoteness from her constituents. Her retirement left the Senate an all-male bastion for the next five years.

Twenty years after Smith’s departure, the 1992 Senate elections witnessed a major national backlash against the traditionally male Senate. The result was the so-called Year of the Woman. This came in no small degree because of the shabby treatment the men of the Senate Judiciary Committee accorded to Anita Hill, who testified at its hearings in opposition to the US Supreme Court appointment of Clarence Thomas. As a result of that pivotal election, by mid-1993 seven women sat in the Senate. Today, that number stands at 20, including 16 Democrats and 4 Republicans. Currently, in California, New Hampshire, and Washington State, both senators are women, a status held by Smith’s Maine from 1997 until 2013.

Perhaps the greatest legacy of Margaret Chase Smith’s 1948 Senate election is that these 20 women are no longer viewed with the condescending curiosity that greeted the Mrs. Smith who went to Washington 65 years ago. Today, they are not primarily “women” senators; they are just senators.

The Margaret Chase Library in her hometown of Skowhegan, Maine, now serves as a robust research facility for those who wish learn more about her life, her times, and a US Senate largely unrecognizable to her modern successors.

Richard A. Baker, Historian Emeritus of the US Senate, is coauthor of The American Senate: An Insider’s History.

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By Andrew T. Guzman

A few days ago, the President of the United States used the State of the Union address to call for action on climate change. The easy way to do so would have been to call on Congress to take action. Had President Obama framed his remarks in this way, he would have given a nod to those concerned about climate change, but nothing would happen because there is virtually no chance of Congressional action. What he actually did, however, was to put some of his own political capital on the line by promising executive action if Congress fails to address the issue. The President, assuming he meant what he said, has apparently accepted the need for a strong policy response to this threat.

Not everybody agrees. There has long been a political debate on the subject of climate change, even though the scientific debate has been settled for years. In recent months, perhaps in response to Hurricane Sandy, the national drought of 2012, and the fact that 2012 was the hottest year in the history of the United States, there seems to have been a shift in the political winds.

Oblique view of Grinnell Glacier taken from the summit of Mount Gould, Glacier National Park in 1938. The glacier has since largely receded. In addition to glacier melt, rising temperatures will lead to unprecedented pressures on our agricultural systems and social infrastructure, writes Andrew T. Guzman. Image by T.J. Hileman, courtesy of Glacier National Park Archives.

In 1969, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross described the “five stages” of acceptance:  denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. For many years, climate change discussions seemed to be about getting our politics past the “denial” stage. Over time, however, scientific inquiry made it obvious that climate change is happening and that it is the result of human activity. With more than 97% of climate scientists and every major scientific body of relevance in the United States in agreement that the threat is real, not to mention a similar consensus internationally, it became untenable to simply refuse to accept the reality of climate change.

The next stage was anger. Unable to stand on unvarnished denials, skeptics lashed out, alleging conspiracies and secret plots to propagate the myth of climate change. In 2003, Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma said, “Could it be that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? It sure sounds like it.” In 2009 we had “climategate.” More than a thousand private emails between climate scientists were stolen and used in an attempt (later debunked) to show a conspiracy to fool the world.

Now, from the right, come signs of a move to bargaining. On 13 February, Senator Marco Rubio reacted to the President’s call for action on climate change, but he did not do so by denying the phenomenon itself or accusing the President of having being duped by a grand hoax.  He stated instead, “The government can’t change the weather. There are other countries that are polluting in the atmosphere much greater than we are at this point. They are not going to stop.” Earlier this month he made even more promising statements: “There has to be a cost-benefit analysis [applied] to every one of these principles.” This is not anger or denial. This is bargaining. As long as others are not doing enough, he suggests, we get to ignore the problem.

It is, apparently, no longer credible for a presidential hopeful like Senator Rubio to deny the very existence of the problem. His response, instead, invites a discussion about what can be done. What if we could get the key players: Europe, China, India, the United States, and Russia to the table and find a way for all of them to lower their emissions? If the voices of restraint are concerned that our efforts will not be fruitful, we can talk about what kinds of actions can improve the climate.

To be fair, Senator Rubio has not totally abandoned denials. While engaging in what I have called “bargaining” above, he also threw in, almost in passing, “I know people said there’s a significant scientific consensus on that issue, but I’ve actually seen reasonable debate on that principle.” In December he declared himself “not qualified” to opine on whether climate change is real. These are denials, but they are issued without any passion; his heart is not in it. They seem more like pro forma statements, perhaps to satisfy those who have not yet made the step from denial and anger to bargaining.

If leaders on the right have reached the bargaining stage, the next stage is depression. What will that look like? One possibility is a full embrace of the science of climate change coupled with a fatalistic refusal to act. “It is too late, the planet is already cooked and nothing we can do will matter.”  When you start hearing these statements from those who oppose action, take heart; we will be close to where we need to get politically. Though it will be tempting to point out that past inaction was caused by the earlier stages of denial, anger, and bargaining, nothing will be gained by such recriminations. The path forward requires continuing to make the case not only for the existence of climate change, but also for strategies to combat it.

The final stage, of course, is acceptance. At that point, the country will be prepared to do something serious about climate change. At that point we can have a serious national (and international) conversation about how to respond. Climate change will affect us all, and we need to get to acceptance as soon as possible. In short, climate change will tear at the very fabric of our society. It will compromise our food production and distribution, our water supply, our transportation systems, our health care systems, and much more. The longer we wait to act, the more difficult it will be to do so.  All of this means that movement away from simple denial to something closer to acceptance is encouraging.  The sooner we get there, the better.

Andrew T. Guzman is Professor of Law and Associate Dean for International and Executive Education at the University of California, Berkeley. His books include Overheated: The Human Cost of Climate Change and How International Law Works, among others.

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By E. Tory Higgins

“Our country is divided.” “Congress is broken.” “Our politics are polarized.” Most Americans believe there is less political co-operation and compromise than there used to be. And we know who is to blame for this situation—it’s our political opponents. Democrats know that Republicans are to blame, and Republicans know that Democrats are to blame. Not only do we know that our political opponents are to blame, but we are suspicious of their motives, of why they take the positions they take. Bottom line: we can’t trust them.

This is a serious problem for our country. One source of the problem is a misperception of what really motivates people’s political opinions, judgments, and actions. People often assume such opinions are all about self-interest or all about “carrots and sticks.” As Romney recently put it, “What the president’s campaign did was focus on certain members of his base coalition, give them extraordinary financial gifts from the government, and then work very aggressively to turn them out to vote, and that strategy worked.” Plenty of commentators criticized the reference to minorities, the poor, and students as essentially being paid off for their votes, but few if any disputed the overall assumption that the “carrots” candidates offer voters determine the vote. Indeed, the field of ‘public choice’ in economics assumes just this, that voters are guided by their own self-interest and “vote their pocketbooks.”

What does it mean for our political conversation to assume that the opinions, judgments, and actions of our political opponents are motivated by self-interest? It means that their stands on political issues are selfish rather than being in the best interest of our country. We can’t trust them to be concerned about what is best for the rest of us because our interests are different than their interests. We assume that they do not have good will. But what if people are not primarily motivated by self-interest (by “carrots”) in the political domain or in any other domain of life? In fact, there is substantial evidence from research on human motivation that what people want goes well beyond attaining “carrots” (or “gifts”). What they want is to be effective.

Brian Deese, right, Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, and Economic Advisor Gene Sperling confer as President Barack Obama calls regional politicians to inform them of the next day’s announcement about General Motors filing for bankruptcy, Sunday night, May 31, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Yes, one way of being effective is to have desired outcomes, which can include attaining “carrots” (and avoiding “sticks”). But there is much more to being effective. People also want to be effective at establishing what’s real or right or correct (being effective in finding the truth), as when people want to hear the truth about themselves or what is happening in their lives even if “the truth hurts.” Indeed, people want to observe, discover, and learn about all kinds of things in the world that have nothing to do with their attaining “carrots” (or avoiding “sticks”). And people also want to manage what happens, to have an effect on the world (being effective in having control), as when children jump up and down in a puddle just to make a splash. Indeed, people will take on pain and even risk injury to feel in control of a difficult and challenging activity, as illustrated most vividly in extreme sports.

It is establishing what’s real (truth) and managing what happens (control) that often are our primary motivations — rather than self-interest — and this is both good news and bad news if we are to change the political conversation. The bad news is that humans, uniquely among animals, establish truth by sharing reality with others who agree with their beliefs (or with whom they can establish agreed-upon assumptions). And when they do create a shared reality with others, they experience their beliefs as objective — the whole truth and nothing but the truth. This means that when others disagree with these beliefs, as when Democrats and Republicans disagree with each other, each side is so certain that what they believe is reality, that they infer that those on the other side must either be lying about what they truly believe or they are too stupid to recognize the truth or they are simply crazy. These derogations of our political opponents don’t derive from our self-interests being in conflict with them. It is more serious than that. It derives from the establishment of a different shared reality to them, a shared reality that we are highly motivated to maintain because it gives us the truth about the how the world works.

This is bad news indeed. But if we understand that out political opponents just want to be effective in truth, there is a ‘good news’ silver lining. The good news is that we need not characterize our political opponents as being selfish, or liars, or stupid, or crazy. We need not question their good will. Instead, we can recognize that they, like us, want truth and control, and they want truth and control to work together effectively. They want to “go in the right direction.” They, like us, want our country to be strong. They want Americans to live in peace and prosperity. Yes, they have different ideas about what direction is the right one to make this happen, but this is something we can discuss. In order to establish what’s real, manage what happens, and go in the right direction — which are ways of being effective that we all want — we need to listen to one another and and learn from one another. This is a political conversation worth having. Let us have that respectful, serious conversation in the New Year and search for common ground. Good will to all.

E. Tory Higgins is the author of Beyond Pleasure and Pain: How Motivation Works. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He has received the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, the William James Fellow Award for Distinguished Achievements in Psychological Science (from the Association for Psychological Science), and the American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions. He is also a recipient of Columbia’s Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching.

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It began with John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008. The choice of this incompetent, unqualified, inexperienced, and stupid person as a vice presidential candidate called McCain’s judgment into serious question. Had the old war hero turned senile? How could he have put such a person a heartbeat from the Presidency? The mere thought of Palin in the White House was frightening. But McCain’s choice was far more than a scare—it insulted America and unleashed a wave of violence and racism that continues.

Never forget the crosshairs map Palin posted on her Facebook page. She urged her Twitter followers, “Don’t retreat, reload.” Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’ face was in one of the crosshairs. On January 8, 2011, Congresswoman Giffords was shot in the head outside a Tucson Safeway supermarket. Fortunately she survived and is making a remarkable recovery. But America is still coping with the incivility and insults initiated by Palin and taken up by the Tea Party and Congressional Republicans.

The insults continued after President Obama was elected and took office. With exhortations to “take back our country,” the Tea Party, overwhelmingly made up of whites, spread its unsubtle racist message. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that “take back our country” meant take it back from the black guy who’s President.

Four days before the President was inaugurated, the tone was set by radio talk show bloviator Rush Limbaugh. On January 16, 2010, Linbaugh said, “I hope Obama fails.”

During the President’s first term, Congressional Republicans took up Limbaugh’s mantra, deciding to do everything in their power to destroy the Obama presidency by holding up, blocking, weakening, misrepresenting, and voting against everything the President and Democrats wanted to accomplish.

Republican senator Mitch McConnell stated the Republicans’ position quite clearly: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” McConnell told Major Garrett in an interview published in the National Review in October 2010. A month later, in a speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation, he repeated his position: “Our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term.” In another time, such a call of opposition to a sitting President would have been considered treason. But over the past two years, Republicans have, like obedient little soldiers, followed McConnell’s marching orders, turning their backs on their country and the people who elected them and abandoning their responsibility to participate in government.

Despite repeated attempts by the President to work in a bipartisan fashion, Republicans refused, becoming the “Party of No.” No to health care for all Americans. No to the President’s job creation bill. No to restoring regulations of the banks whose fraudulent practices caused the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression. No to repealing the Bush tax cuts that added billions of dollars to the deficit. No to taxing millionaires and billionaires so they pay their fair share. Last summer, Republicans’ political brinksmanship with the debt ceiling resulted in the first downgrade in the national credit rating in U.S. history. In carrying out Rush Limbaugh and Mitch McConnell’s dictum to bring about failure of the Obama administration, Republicans have made Congress dysfunctional and the economic recovery slower than it might have been had they spent more time working with the President instead of working against him. That President Obama has been able to accomplish so much despite Republicans’ intransigence is a tribute to his political skill, patience and intelligence.

Now we come to this election year and the line-up of potential Republican presidential candidates who are as insultingly unqualified as Sarah Palin. All celebr

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By Edward Zelinsky

As they scramble for tax revenue in a challenging environment, the states increasingly turn to so-called “Amazon” laws to force out-of-state internet and mail order retailers to collect tax on their sales. The Illinois General Assembly is the most recent state legislature to pass an Amazon statute. New York, Colorado, Rhode Island, North Carolina and Oklahoma have already enacted such laws while Amazon acts are pending in other state legislatures.

While they differ in important respects, all of these proposed and enacted laws share the premise that goods which are taxed when purchased in a conventional, bricks-and-mortar store should also be taxed when bought from an online or mail order retailer. This premise is compelling.

It is neither fair nor efficient for a sales tax to discriminate between close economic substitutes, taxing one but not the other. A sales tax should not tax green apples while exempting red apples. Such discrimination is inequitable to growers of green apples and distorts consumer choice by artificially increasing the after-tax price of green apples relative to the competing (and tax-free) product, i.e., red apples.

This is in essence the sales tax status quo under the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota. Quill held that, under the U.S. Constitution’s dormant Commerce Clause, a state can require a retailer to collect and remit tax on its sales only if the retailer is physically present in the taxing state. Under this rule, firms like Amazon, Overstock.com and similar mail order firms need not collect tax on their sales since they lack physical presence in most states.

As a matter of law, when an electronic or mail order retailer does not withhold tax, the buyer of online or mail order merchandise is required to self-assess and pay the tax to his home state. In practice, it is virtually impossible for the states to enforce this obligation. Goods ordered over the internet or by mail order are thus effectively tax-free while the same goods are subject to sales tax when purchased in a conventional store physically present in the taxing state.

This de facto tax discrimination between conventional and electronic sales is no more fair or efficient than a sales tax which taxes green apples but not red apples.

The states (supported by bricks-and-mortar retailers) have asked Congress for federal legislation permitting the states to require out-of-state retailers to collect taxes on their electronic and mail order sales, even if such retailers lack in-state physical presence. So far, Amazon and its allies have successfully lobbied Congress to resist the states’ pleas.

Frustrated by Congress’ inaction, state Amazon laws are a form of self-help, designed to require out-of-state retailers to collect state taxes on their sales despite Quill. The Amazon laws of New York, North Carolina and Rhode Island create statutory presumptions that in-state affiliates create sales tax jurisdiction over the out-of-state internet firms with which such affiliates are associated. Taking a different approach, Colorado’s Amazon law requires internet retailers to report their Colorado sales both to the Colorado purchasers and to the Colorado Department of Revenue.

For two reasons, these state Amazon laws are neither a practical nor a legal solution to the problem of untaxed internet and mail order sales. Laws like Colorado’s, which require reporting by out-of-state firms, are unconstitutional under Quill, as the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado recently held. Laws like those of New York, Rhode Island and North Caroli

Before becoming a stay-at-home dad, I used to be in the business of helping non-profits spread the word about and raise funds for their mission. I think I was very good at what I did. In my last year of work for one non-profit I helped raise over $60,000 — all online. As good as I was at this, I don’t miss this work at all. The challenges for non-profits today are immense and here in the United States we seem to be in the midst of a culture which is touting the ills of a huge government spending deficit, yet seems to want to ignore the very apparent reasons why that deficit is out of control (i.e. funding two wars at the same time, defense spending, foreign aid, etc…). As such, our nation’s leaders (and I use that term very loosely mind you) keep seeing fit to attack the funding of domestic programs, many which have already been cut to the bone as it is. The latest target is Reading Is Fundamental.

Earlier this week, the House Appropriations Committee released its recommended spending cuts for the FY11 Continuing Resolution, which includes terminating funding for RIF’s nationwide services.

This means 4.4 million of the nation’s most vulnerable children would no longer receive free books to call their own. The significance of this cut is immense – the 15 million books RIF distributed last year across more than 17,000 sites all over the country would no longer reach the children most in need.

This is just insane. While some congressman seem content in “dumbing down America,” I really believe they are in the minority. I think a great many people truly would not support such a cut, yet here it is on the chopping block. However, unless we take action and declare to our representatives what are America’s REAL FUNDING PRIORITIES, this will happen. Will we be outraged then while we really should be outraged right now??

Please take a minute of your time and send a message to congressional representatives asking them to support RIF, and encourage your family, friends, and colleagues to do the same. Tell them what YOUR FUNDING PRIORITIES are and to leave wonderful programs making a real impact alone. Thanks for your time.

Parliament and Congress: Representation and Scrutiny in the Twenty-First Century offers an insiders’ comparative account of the procedures and practices of the British Parliament and the US Congress. In this original post, the authors – William McKay, who spent many years working at the House of Commons and is now an observer on the Council of the Law Society of Scotland, and Charles W. Johnson, who is a Consultant to the Parliamentarian of the US House of Representatives - discuss procedural and institutional developments in both countries over the last few months: in the UK, the new Parliament and coalition government, and in the US, the procedural complexities of the heath care reform bill.

Though the expenses scandal which dominated the parliamentary scene in the UK during 2009 is out of the headlines, it has not gone away.  Some of the consequences of the public’s loss of confidence in Parliament are still to be worked out. The new coalition government has brought forward fresh ideas, and parliamentary reform is one of them. Some of these notions are interesting, others more worrying.

The mainspring of the UK constitution is parliamentary democracy. Some recent suggestions seem to diminish the ‘parliamentary’ aspect. One of them, a hangover from the expenses affair, would permit 100 constituents to bring forward a petition which, if signed by 10 percent of a constituency electorate, would vacate the seat of a Member found guilty of wrongdoing, so precipitating a by-election. No one wishes corrupt legislators to retain their seats but existing law already provides that Members of the Commons who are imprisoned for more than a year – those guilty of really serious offences – lose their seats. Secondly, the appropriate way for a parliamentary democracy to deal with offending Members is not for their constituents to punish them but for the House in which the Member sits to do so. The Commons has ample power to expel a Member (the Lords is a more complex matter) though it would be wise to devise more even-handed machinery for doing so than presently exists. Finally, if such a change is to be made, the legislation will have to distinguish very clearly recall on grounds of proven misdoings from opportunist political attacks. It will not be easy.

A further diminution of the standing of Parliament is the proposal for fixed-term Parliaments. It is intended that a Prime Minister may seek a dissolution only when 55 percent of the Commons vote for one. Politically, such a provision would prevent a senior partner bolting a coalition to secure a mandate for itself alone. Constitutionally there are serious disadvantages. A successful vote of no-confidence where the majority against the government was less than 55 percent would not be enough to turn out a government. It might simply lead to frenzied coalition-building, out of sight of the electorate. Governments which had lost the confidence of the Commons could stagger on if they were skilful enough to build a new coalition – for which the country had not voted. During the latest election campaign, concern was expressed that every change of Prime Minister should trigger a General Election. The idea was not particularly well thought-out – how would Churchill have become Prime Minister in 1940? – but nothing could be more at odds with the proposed threshold. Untimely dissolutions happen in two circumstances – when a Prime Minister thinks he can improve his majority and when a government loses a vote of confidence. This proposal tries to restrict the first (which may be a good thing) but does so by interfering with the second, which certainly is not.

In America, the House Committee on Rules drew much attention during the prolonged health care debates in Congress. An understanding of its composition, authority and function

Donald A. Ritchie, historian of the U.S. Senate and author of the forthcoming The U.S. Congress: A Very Short History, as well as Our Constitution, and The Congress of the United States: A Student Companion, appeared on a panel about “The Uses and Abuses of New Deal History,” at the meeting of the Organization of American Historians in Washington, on April 8, 2010. Summarized here, his remarks dealt with common misperceptions about Roosevelt and Congress.

All presidents since the 1940s have been held to standards set by Franklin D. Roosevelt with regard to their relations with Congress. There is a common assumption that at least during Roosevelt’s first term, a compliant Congress gave him everything he wanted, and that the New Deal was exclusively an executive branch creation, with legislation written at the White House and promptly passed in Congress, sometimes without being read. This argument has been employed to promote the notion of presidential primacy in the federal government, from the “Imperial Presidency” to the “unitary executive.” While the image contains some truth, it is also clouded with inaccuracies.

The media has measured Presidents from Harry Truman to Barack Obama by what they accomplished in their first hundred days. This prospect was so troubling to John F. Kennedy that he added a disclaimer to his inaugural address that “All this will not be finished in the first 100 days.” Roosevelt’s First Hundred Days were unique. Republicans had lost 100 seats in the House (by comparison, the Democratic sweep in 1964 added 44 seats in the House; and the Republican victory in 1994 election brought a gain of 54). Those new members in 1933 looked to Roosevelt for leadership because the national economy had gone into free fall since the election, creating a sense of dire emergency that required extraordinary measures.

After Roosevelt called Congress into special session, he sent them a banking bill that the House passed that morning, the Senate that afternoon, and the president signed that night, the beginning of an unprecedented burst of legislative activity. But of all the bills Roosevelt signed during the Hundred Days, only two had fully originated with him: the Civilian Conservation Act and the Economy Act–which cut federal salaries and veterans’ pensions. Even the banking bill had been drafted by volunteers who stayed on from Hoover’s Treasury Department. Other ideas bubbled up from congressional sources. Commonly after there has been a change in party control of the White House, Congress will dust off measures that previous presidents vetoed. So Senator George Norris, a progressive Republican from Nebraska, revived the Tennessee Valley Authority, which Roosevelt now signed. Members of Congress also pressed on a skeptical Roosevelt the idea of federal deposit insurance, which today is counted as one of his smartest achievements. Other of Roosevelt’s proposals were designed to head off an activist

Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below he looks at political wrangling in D.C. See Lim’s previous OUPblogs here.

This week will be the most challenging week of Nancy Pelosi’s Speakership to date. With the President postponing his overseas trip and scheduled to give a healthcare speech in Ohio on Monday, one could be mistaken to think that it is the bully pulpit that could/would save the day for health-care reform.

It is not. Public opinion is very fluid in this moment, and in any case the presidential office is ill-suited toward convincing individual congressional districts and individual House members. At a time like this, votes in Congress and not votes in town halls are what count. More specifically, Nancy Pelosi cannot afford to lose more than 37 Democratic members of the House of Representatives assuming that every member votes and every Republican votes against the Senate’s $875 billion health-care bill passed on Christmas eve and coming up for consideration by the House next week. Right now, about 34 members (according to the Hill’s Whip ) are either on the firm or leaning “no” column.

Obama’s pulpit may at best change the national sentiment on healthcare reform, but he cannot change the majority opinion of individual districts with a public speech, much less an individual lawmaker’s mind. To do that, the Speaker and her whips operate behind the scene, conducting the business of what Ronald Reagan called the second oldest profession of the world, hoping that the magic she worked to get the 220 Democratic votes for the House version of the health-care bill in November will work again.

Obama, for his part, is not hanging around the country just to give public speeches. He knows (or should know) that styrofoam corinthian pillars aren’t going to be enough this time. His real challenge next week is to convince nearly every one of the 72 or so undecided or publicly unpledged Democratic representatives that the Senate will indeed live up to its promise to pass a reconciliation bill amending the provisions of the bill (such as the “Louisiana Purchase”) that House members find objectionable. When push comes to shove, the Constitution is quite clear that the public doesn’t matter, because only lawmakers have the vote to make law.

So who are these undecided or publicly unpledged members that Obama and Pelosi need to convince? The truth is the liberals who want a public option will ultimately come on board, and those who oppose the abortion language in the Senate bill have already been lost when the Speaker decided to go without most of them. (That the Speaker is no longer talking to Bart Stupak and his 11 colleagues suggests that Pelosi is either at the end of her tether with the abortion folks or confident that she can get her votes elsewhere.) So the biggest chunk of undecideds are the moderate Democrats who worry about the cost of the reform package. This is why all are awaiting the CBO scores on the cost of the health-care bill, which are expected on Monday afternoon. Expecting that more time will be needed to cajole the faint-hearted, the Speaker has provisioned three extra days from the original March 18 dea

Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below he looks at Congress. See Lim’s previous OUPblogs here.

On this Presidents Day, it would appear that everyone but the President’s rivals for public affection are doing well in the polls.

Hillary Clinton has shed the image that she is a soft liberal and she is well poised to say, “I told you so,” about her erstwhile charge that Barack Obama lacks experience and fortitude. Even Dick Cheney is doing well, with the public behind him and against civilian trials for terrorist suspects. And we just found out that Evan Bayh is bowing out, probably to escape the anti-incumbency wave on the horizon even though recent polls put him 20 points ahead of his competitors. Given that Bayh left his party less than a week to scramble to collect 4,500 signatures for a viable candidate for his Senate seat, he appears to be setting himself up for a future run as a centrist Democrat who stands up to party apparatchiks. (And here’s another clue: “I am an executive at heart,” Bayh told reporters on Monday.)

The only people doing worse than Obama are Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and the Democratic Congress as a whole. As Evan Bayh put it, “I do not love Congress.” The atmosphere now in Washington is toxic and the poison is leaking down Pennsylvania Avenue and inundating the White House. That is why I am wondering if White House strategists are secretly hoping to lose Democratic control of Congress this year.

The conventional wisdom is that whatever the President proposes, Congress delivers. But not only has this not happened, the failure of Congress to act collectively to pass legislation (especially on
healthcare reform) has tarnished the name of the Democratic Party of which the President is titular head. As a result of the seeming asset of unified Democratic control of all branches of government, Barack Obama could not do what Reagan did when he too suffered from bad poll numbers in his first years in office as a result of recession – blame the other branch. The American people love to hate Congress, and unified Democratic control of all the elected federal branches has merely reinforced the Americans’ instinctive fear of consolidated power as the Tea Party Movement most viscerally represents. The American Presidency thrives on blame avoidance and freedom from party ties, not single-party government.

Because Washington moves so slowly no matter who is in power and when it does it invariably creates a program so sullied with pork-barrel compromises, it is often better to be able to blame someone else for failing to deliver than to have delivered anything at all. Lyndon Johnson doesn’t get high marks from historians for creating Medicare. And FDR’s fame did not come from the Social Security Act. If we do not judge presidential success by legislative achievements, then presidents are better off when they act unilaterally against a recalcitrant Congress. Better still if this Congress is controlled by another party because presidential unilateralism can be executed without dilemma. Barack Obama would then be free to descend from the law professor’s lectern, as Sarah Palin put it, and move, as Publius recommended, wi

Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below he looks a President Obama. See Lim’s previous OUPblogs here.

Most Americans still like Barack Obama, just not what he’s doing, which is to say that while many still think he has good intentions, quite a few think that they are misdirected. And that is why the President waited to the second half of his State of the Union speech to address the issue of health-care reform which has dominated the airwaves in the last couple of months, because he wants his audience to understand that he now his list of priorities properly ordered – health-care reform after jobs.

All Presidents begin their terms in office liked and supported on their agenda - they score high on personal and job performance ratings. They then transition from being liked but not supported, and for those destined for one term, they tend to spend their fourth year in office disliked and unsupported. If President Obama wants a comeback, he first needs luck and in particular the business cycle to work in his favor in the coming months, and after that, he needs skill in managing fellow partisans in Congress.

The economy is so unchallengeably Issue Number One that no sooner after it brought a tidal wave of dissatisfaction against the Republicans in 2008, it is preparing a tsunami for Democrats in 2010. Democrats need job growth to begin in Spring and continue in earnest until November, because voters are not patient when they are in pain and they will thrash about to blame just about anyone in power. For politicians waiting in the wing, their posture will be one of impatience and disaffection. For incumbents in power, this has got to be a year of results (or short-term solutions).

That also means that the President must do more than hope for luck, for he must be seen to be doing something about creating jobs, and, so that it does not appear that he wasted all his political capital for nothing, he must also finish the race on health-care reform and produce something at least minimally worthy of the title “reform.”

But he must tread carefully. His biggest asset is also his biggest liability: Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress. That means he cannot blame the first branch of government for his failures (and perhaps that is why he took the unusual step of criticizing the third branch in his State of the Union address). Congress has been a favorite presidential punching bag at least since Andrew Jackson, but the ties of parties has made this tactic difficult to pursue with Barack Obama. Obama’s and the liberal media’s modified strategy thus far, as a result, has been to criticize not Congress as a whole but the Republican membership in Congress for being a “Party of No.” The problem, however, is that the President’s calls for bipartisanship have sounded empty and self-defeating as he has continued to chide congressional Republicans either for the failed policies of the past or their disagreement with his present proposals.

If the President hopes to be liked and supported, and in particular if he wants to get things done and to get some credit for it, he needs to solve the peculiar conundrum and mixed blessing of having one-party rule in DC. He needs to be his own person and act like a leader without al