Welcome the 113th Congress

++This past week Barack Hussein Obama was re-elected President as Vice President Biden looked on as the electoral votes were counted.

++The 112th Congress is no more, boasting the worst record of accomplishment in our nation's history and goes out with a sizzling 12% approval rating, the lowest since polling began.

++The new Congress was sworn in and went promptly on recess until the end of the month.

++Congratulations to all the new members. Especially pleasing was to see now Senator Elizabeth Warren, Heidi Heitkampf and the large number of women Senators and House members. 

++President Obama is gearing up to introduce new gun control legislation when he returns to Washington today. Mitch McConnell has vowed that this must take back seat to the debt. 

++President Obama has vowed not to negotiate over raising the debt ceiling this time. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are falling in line. During W's presidency, Congress raised the debt ceiling 19 times without quarrel. Republicans are now split over this maneuver, some fearing a public backlash.

++David Frum commented this week that House Republicans talking about entitlement reform are aiming at their base, which is seniors, and the rest of the Caucus appear like desperadoes,whom you could never trust with government.

++Barney Frank spent the week lobbying for the post of interim Senator from Massachusetts. Frank argues the next two months will be the most important in our  country's financial future with the debt ceiling row,the entitlement/sequestration argument and the budget flap. The US government has not had a budget since 1996.

++President Obama stated he would finalize the nominees for the national security posts this coming week. The spotlight is on Chuck Hagel, who has drawn the fire of the gay community for his attitudes expressed in the 1990s and the neocons and the pro-Israeli hawks. 

++Charles Krauthammer had a column yesterday in the Washington Post arguing that the Fiscal Cliff debate revealed the true Obama as a social democrat. Only a few weeks earlier President Obama said that he would be considered a moderate Republican. Expect the pundit puzzle over Obama's true identity to play out over the next four years.

++Republicans are beginning to wise up to the fact that the Fiscal Cliff agreement ended the days of supply side economics. 

++The kindler, gentler GOP has not surfaced. Hurricane Sandy aid barely passed the new congress with the Slave state Republicans voting against it. Washington Monthly did an analysis of the Fiscal Cliff vote and found almost an identical regional breakdown to the Civil War states,including Republicans from the Union states voting for it.

++Before the Hurricane Sandy vote, Michelle Bachmann introduced the first bill in the House--the Repeal of Obamacare,making this almost three dozen times this has been introduced.

++Steven King of Iowa introduced a bill to outlaw anchor babies, the most pressing issue facing the country. He was joined by Louis Gohlmart on this important legislation, which violates the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

++Progressives have noticed that the cuts in sequestration protect the big three-Social Security,Medicare and Medicaid. House Republicans have introduced a new bill that would "restore" the $780 million the Romney-Ryan campaign said that Obama cut from the program. It seems a bit bizarre when the House is screaming about entitlement cuts that the GOP is considering this.

++Senators Cornyn,Graham and McCain are vowing to destroy the country's credit-rating on the debt ceiling debate unless dramatic cuts are made to the social welfare net. Veterans of the Clinton Administration have commented that these people believe that the national debt is that of the Obama family and not accrued by Congress. The advice is to hold fire. Nancy Pelosi now urges President Obama to invoke the 14th Amendment to avoid the debt ceiling fiasco. The White House continues to put out the word that are against this. But the President can authorize Treasury to pay the bills.

++It is likely the 113th Congress will be even more polarized that the departing one. Now the idea is to make President Obama a premature lame duck. The GOP strategy hasn't changed from obstructionism since the last election. 

++Knowing they needed to patch up relations with women, the GOP has gone full ahead with their anti-abortion agenda, passing restrictive laws in Michigan and introducing them in Virginia. Planned Parenthood is being de-funded in Texas and Oklahoma. More anti-abortion and contraception bills are being introduced in the House. 

++The Senate may or may not pass a filibuster reform bill. Observers thought Mitch McConnell bought some time with his approval of scores of Obama nominees that had been held up for the 2012 Congress.

++The White House plans an early blitz on gun control to take the NRA off-guard. I believe it could pass the Senate but never the House.

++Denny Hastert--not Haskert as I mentioned in the previous blog--warned John Boehner not to avoid the Hastert rule unless he wanted to lose control of the House. The Fiscal Cliff vote was a perfect example of how a popular law could pass with only a small Republican vote and a large Democratic vote.

++The final votes for the House races are in and the Democrats won by over 1 million votes. The House GOP keep saying this was a status quo election. In fact if they had not so severely gerrymandered the House districts, the Democrats would have won control. As it is, Democrats can not win control of the House unless they beat Republicans by over 6%. Very tough to do.

Bring Back Joe Camel

Mobil's Pegasus, Sinclair's Dinosaur, RCA Victor's His Master's Voice and Tony The Tiger. Robert Bruce incorporated, trademark pending reporting. We do have some conservative responses. The Heritage Foundation said the Supreme Court's decision was a triumph of the First Amendment and Newt Gingrich said it was needed to counter Obama's ability to raise huge funds through groups like MoveOn.org. Oh please. John McCain's old strategist Mark MacKinnon wrote in the Daily Beast the decision was a disaster, which his old boss agreed with.

If you don't buy my warnings about fascism, you might want to saunder down history's lane to our First Gilded Age. Remember the first laws curbing corporations involvement in American politics was in 1907 because of massive abuses and the corruption caused by corporate money. And there is a reason that Karl Rove's hero was Mark Hanna, the Republican boss who made William McKinley president. Corporations fueled the McKinley campaign providing it with $16 million against William Jennings Bryan's $600,000. Newspapers under control of the Republicans printed articles by psychologists who said that Bryan was insane, suffering from monomania. The banks kicked in one-quarter of 1% of their capital holdings to the election campaigns around the country.Reaper-maker Cyrus McCormick sent his 7,500 agents around to farmers and merchants every week to warn them about the dire effects of a Democratic election. Insurance companies warned all their customers that Bryan's silver platform would dramatically lessen the value of their policies.

When someone suggested Williams Jennings Bryan might win, "Dollar Mark" Hanna sneered,"Do you think we'd let that damned lunatic get into the White House? You know you can hire half of the people of the United States to shoot down the other half if necessary, and we've got the money to hire them."

Rutherford B. Hayes coined the phrase--so appropriately today--" a government of the corporations,by the corporations and for the corporations." Or the cartoon slogan,"Kill the Goose,Get All The Eggs at once."

Historian Allen Nevins claims we have been too tough on the " robber barons" saying that American could not have developed as fast without their investments and commitment to industrialization. In a way, he's right compared to today's corporations. Robber barons at least invested significant parts of their fortune in developing their own businesses here in America. Today's corporations do not and the bankers make their money by moving money.

But if you want to see what unfettered corporate money can do to American politics, read Jack Beatty's Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900,Vintage paperback,2008. If you remember my past posts about the 14th Amendment Movement, which has been heralded by the American Enterprise Institute, this book will show you how in that age, the robber barons used the 14th amendment to escape regulation and to enlarge their monopolies. Today, they used the First Amendment.

Because the shadows of the unitary executive linger on in the Obama Administration and the theocratic strains dominate the Republican party and our Pentagon, I tend toward the fascist interpretation. But hope springs eternal. We did escape the First Gilded Age with a period of progressive reforms. But remember we had a period of intensely violent labor disputes and the rise of radical fringes which acted out with political assassinations. Besides, we like films about the Gilded Age. Maybe we'll get good visuals this time around.