Capitol Hill Quotes

Should I stay in Greenville, teach my students, or work for Mike Espy (in Washington, DC)….Capitol Hill had many more men than women walking the halls, whether they were members of Congress or congressional and committee staff or lobbyists. The receptionist was usually a woman, and the chief of staff, a man. Sometimes I wondered why anyone in Washington would want to listen to what a girl from Soso, Mississippi, had to say.

We can gain a lot more striving for harmonious coexistence than we can by giving in to hate-filled rage and fear-driven ignorance.

He believed there was nothing essentially unAmerican about greed or lust—hey, those qualities were encouraged everywhere from Wall Street to Capitol Hill.

And the banks - hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created - are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.

Geeks are not the world’s rowdiest people. We’re quiet and introspective, and usually more comfortable communing with our keyboards or a good book than each other. Our idea of how to paint the Emerald City red involves light liquor, heavy munchies, and marathon sessions of video games of the ‘giant robots shooting each other and everything else in sight’ variety. We debate competing lines of software or gaming consoles with passion, and dissect every movie, television show, and novel in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres. With as many of us as there are in this town, people inevitably find ways to cater to us when we get in the mood to spend our hard-earned dollars. Downtown Seattle boasts grandiose geek magnets, like the Experience Music Project and the Experience Science Fiction museum, but it has much humbler and far more obscure attractions too, like the place we all went to for our ship party that evening: a hole-in-the-wall bar called the Electric Penguin on Capitol Hill.

I guided my heap into the heart of Capitol Hill wondering for the first time in fourteen years what I could do to get money besides drive cabs or rob banks. Both occupations had their pros and cons. For instance, bank robbery isn't quite as dangerous as cab driving, but it pays better.

From the White House to Capitol Hill, from the diplomatic corps to the national security establishment to the executive suites of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, American elites have sold the rope that will hang us to Beijing.

Once Lola Pierotti earned $24,000 a year and worked long hours as an administrative assistant on Capitol Hill. Now she works longer hours and has even more responsibility- but no pay. What happened? Was she demoted? No, she just married the boss. Her bridegroom, of four years this month, was the senior Republican Senator from Vermont- George D. Aiken. "All he expects of me is that I drive his car, cook his meals, do his laundry and run his office," she enumerated, with a grin.

Since January 6, we had met privately several times in a town house near Capitol Hill, along with a small group of experts on authoritarianism and the rise of antidemocratic movements. We agreed that the threat posed by Donald Trump might well imperil the existence of American democracy.

*Poem: Washington D.C. (The District)* I love it In this square of columns and obelisks… and monuments designed to align with constellations: To symbolize our protection. Serius. Virgo. Sun. Washington, Here where Virginia and Maryland meet, and greet. Streets and corner-stones laid In the glorious shapes of Pentagrams and Christian crosses And cubes and pyramids, And the Blazing Star set on a ley line, And the temple in the eye. Homes, made of red-brick, and granite Stones. Laus Deo! Answers May be somewhere Off the shores Of the Potomac; Where my father Once baptized me, And the waters Of the district Touched my skin. And the consciousness of America Was rebirthed in me.

Since the early 1990s, a shadow government has taken root along K Street, the Washington corridor that is home to block after stately block of law firms and lobbying offices. Over the years, this army of influence peddlers has gone well beyond the hunt for votes on Capitol Hill. Smart lobbyists know that it is not just the final vote on a bill that counts, but every step along the way. Business enjoys huge political advantages by having its lobbying agents meet day in and day out with key legislators and their staffs, either to kill bills or provisions in them that business considers hostile or to insert arcane subparagraphs that its lobbyists have drafted and tailored to specific corporate interests.

The Capitol is not a building, it's a symbol of our democracy, and an assault on it is an assault on everything that we've achieved as a civilized people.

Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries (government bureaucrats) ready to believe and to act without asking questions.” — Primo Levi

As she sat in the House Committee anteroom waiting to testify, she looked out the window and was startled by the contrast between Capitol Hill’s marble government buildings, surrounded by manicured grounds, and the rows of tumbledown houses occupied by the city’s Negro population. The children were barefoot and dressed in rags. “They all looked rachitic and most seemed undernourished. All they had to play with was junk they found in the street.

Meanwhile, back in Rome, the victory of Antony’s conqueror had been Apollo’s triumph as well. The patching-up of Jupiter’s ancient temple on the Capitol had been as nothing compared to the stupefying redevelopment of the hill on the facing side of the Forum. In 36 BC, shortly after the defeat of Sextus Pompey, lightning had struck the Palatine. A god had spoken – but which god? Augurers sponsored by Rome’s most eminent devotee of Apollo had dutifully served up the answer. For almost a decade, in obedience to their ruling, cranes and scaffolding had crowded the summit of the Palatine. Only by October 28 had the work finally been completed.

Nixon was finding enemies everywhere: among liberals, the bureaucracy, on Capitol Hill, and in the press. “We can have peace. We can have prosperity. We can have all the blacks screwing the whites,” and still not get credit from the liberal establishment, he complained. His orders sometimes sounded like the mutterings of a paranoid. He had his staff comb through the microfilm at the D.C. public library and compile every Drew Pearson column dating back to 1946 that mentioned his name. “Agnew must be warned,” Nixon had told Haldeman and others, back during the campaign. “A candidate has no friends in the press—they are all enemies.” He underlined the word no four times.

MASSOUD DISPATCHED his foreign policy adviser, Abdullah, to Washington in August. Their Northern Alliance lobbyist, Otilie English, scratched together a few appointments on Capitol Hill. It was difficult to get anyone’s attention. They had to compete with Pakistan’s well-heeled, high-paid professional lobbyists and advocates, such as the former congressman Charlie Wilson, who had raised so much money for Pakistan’s government in Congress during the anti-Soviet jihad. Abdullah and English tried to link their lobbying effort with Hamid Karzai and his brother, Qayum, to show that Massoud was fighting the Taliban with multiethnic allies. But the members they met with could barely manage politeness. Guns or financial aid were out of the question. Some barely knew who Osama bin Laden was. With the Democrats they tried to press the issue of women’s rights in Afghanistan, but even that seemed to be a dying cause now that the Clintons were gone. Both Massoud’s group and the Karzais were “so disappointed, so demoralized” after a week of meetings on the Hill and at the State Department, Karzai’s lobbyist recalled.37

On Sunday, November 10, Kaiser Wilhelm II was dethroned, and he fled to Holland for his life. Britain’s King George V, who was his cousin, told his diary that Wilhelm was “the greatest criminal known for having plunged the world into this ghastly war,” having “utterly ruined his country and himself.” Keeping vigil at the White House, the President and First Lady learned by telephone, at three o’clock that morning, that the Germans had signed an armistice. As Edith later recalled, “We stood mute—unable to grasp the significance of the words.” From Paris, Colonel House, who had bargained for the armistice as Wilson’s envoy, wired the President, “Autocracy is dead. Long live democracy and its immortal leader. In this great hour my heart goes out to you in pride, admiration and love.” At 1:00 p.m., wearing a cutaway and gray trousers, Wilson faced a Joint Session of Congress, where he read out Germany’s surrender terms. He told the members that “this tragical war, whose consuming flames swept from one nation to another until all the world was on fire, is at an end,” and “it was the privilege of our own people to enter it at its most critical juncture.” He added that the war’s object, “upon which all free men had set their hearts,” had been achieved “with a sweeping completeness which even now we do not realize,” and Germany’s “illicit ambitions engulfed in black disaster.” This time, Senator La Follette clapped. Theodore Roosevelt and Senator Lodge complained that Wilson should have held out for unconditional German surrender. Driven down Capitol Hill, Wilson was cheered by joyous crowds on the streets. Eleanor Roosevelt recorded that Washington “went completely mad” as “bells rang, whistles blew, and people went up and down the streets throwing confetti.” Including those who had perished in theaters of conflict from influenza and other diseases, the nation’s nineteen-month intervention in the world war had levied a military death toll of more than 116,000 Americans, out of a total perhaps exceeding 8 million. There were rumors that Wilson planned to sail for France and horse-trade at the peace conference himself. No previous President had left the Americas during his term of office. The Boston Herald called this tradition “unwritten law.” Senator Key Pittman, Democrat from Nevada, told reporters that Wilson should go to Paris “because there is no man who is qualified to represent him.” The Knickerbocker Press of Albany, New York, was disturbed by the “evident desire of the President’s adulators to make this war his personal property.” The Free Press of Burlington, Vermont, said that Wilson’s presence in Paris would “not be seemly,” especially if the talks degenerated into “bitter controversies.” The Chattanooga Times called on Wilson to stay home, “where he could keep his own hand on the pulse of his own people” and “translate their wishes” into action by wireless and cable to his bargainers in Paris.

While these tactics were aggressive and crude, they confirmed that our legislation had touched a nerve. I wasn’t the only one who recognized this. Many other victims of human rights abuses in Russia saw the same thing. After the bill was introduced they came to Washington or wrote letters to the Magnitsky Act’s cosponsors with the same basic message: “You have found the Achilles’ heel of the Putin regime.” Then, one by one, they would ask, “Can you add the people who killed my brother to the Magnitsky Act?” “Can you add the people who tortured my mother?” “How about the people who kidnapped my husband?” And on and on. The senators quickly realized that they’d stumbled onto something much bigger than one horrific case. They had inadvertently discovered a new method for fighting human rights abuses in authoritarian regimes in the twenty-first century: targeted visa sanctions and asset freezes. After a dozen or so of these visits and letters, Senator Cardin and his cosponsors conferred and decided to expand the law, adding sixty-five words to the Magnitsky Act. Those new words said that in addition to sanctioning Sergei’s tormentors, the Magnitsky Act would sanction all other gross human rights abusers in Russia. With those extra sixty-five words, my personal fight for justice had become everyone’s fight. The revised bill was officially introduced on May 19, 2011, less than a month after we posted the Olga Stepanova YouTube video. Following its introduction, a small army of Russian activists descended on Capitol Hill, pushing for the bill’s passage. They pressed every senator who would talk to them to sign on. There was Garry Kasparov, the famous chess grand master and human rights activist; there was Alexei Navalny, the most popular Russian opposition leader; and there was Evgenia Chirikova, a well-known Russian environmental activist. I didn’t have to recruit any of these people. They just showed up by themselves. This uncoordinated initiative worked beautifully. The number of Senate cosponsors grew quickly, with three or four new senators signing on every month. It was an easy sell. There wasn’t a pro-Russian-torture-and-murder lobby in Washington to oppose it. No senator, whether the most liberal Democrat or the most conservative Republican, would lose a single vote for banning Russian torturers and murderers from coming to America. The Magnitsky Act was gathering so much momentum that it appeared it might be unstoppable. From the day that Kyle Scott at the State Department stonewalled me, I knew that the administration was dead set against this, but now they were in a tough spot. If they openly opposed the law, it would look as if they were siding with the Russians. However, if they publicly supported it, it would threaten Obama’s “reset” with Russia. They needed to come up with some other solution. On July 20, 2011, the State Department showed its cards. They sent a memo to the Senate entitled “Administration Comments on S.1039 Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law.” Though not meant to be made public, within a day it was leaked.

Well,that was fun," she said lightly as he maneuvered out of the lot. "I'm really glad you talked me into going out. My day was a blank page until seven." That long, quiet moment lingered in his mind even as it lingered in Shelby's. Alan shifted, hoping to ease the thudding in the pit of his stomach. "Always happy to help someone fill in a few empty spaces." Alan controlled the speed of the car through force of will. Holding her hadn't soothed him but rather had only served to remind him how much time had passed since he had last held her. "Actually you're an easy man to be with, Alan, for a politician." Easy? Shelby repeated to herself as she pressed the button to lower her window. Her blood was still throbbing from a meeting of eyes that had lasted less than ten seconds. If he was any easier, she'd be head over heels in love with him and headed for disaster. "I mean,you're not really pompous." He shot her a look, long and cool, that boosted her confidence. "No?" he murmured after a humming silence. "Hardly at all." Shelby sent him a smile. "Why,I'd probably vote for you myself." Alan paused at a red light, studying it thoughtfully before he turned to her. "Your insults aren't as subtle today, Shelby." "Insults?" Shelby gave him a bland stare. "Odd,I thought it was more flattery.Isn't a vote what it all comes down to? Votes, and that all-encompassing need to win." The light stayed green for five full seconds before he cruised through it. "Be careful." A nerve,she thought,hating herself more than a little. "You're a little touchy. That's all right." She brushed at the thigh of her jeans. "I don't mind a little oversensitivity." "The subject of my sensitivity isn't the issue,but you're succeeding in being obnoxious." "My,my,aren't we all Capitol Hill all of a sudden.

the headline death and disaster atop the latest dispatch from Homestead. “Capital and labor have met once more on a bloody field,” the article stated. “Never in the history of strikes and riots, since the railroad riots of 1877, have there been so many lives sacrificed, and such fighting between the representatives of the two great social divisions.” Members of the Pennsylvania National Guard were on their way to restore order, the dispatch reported. He and Goldman had been right. It was clear that Frick would soon vanquish the strikers. Exiting the station, Berkman looked to the east. Above him, perched on what locals still called Jenkins Hill, the Capitol dome was bathed in a flood of golden light from the deep red sun rising behind it. “Like a living thing the light palpitates,” Berkman recalled, “trembling with passion to kiss the uppermost peak, striking it with blinding brilliancy, and then spreading in a broadening embrace down the shoulders of the towering giant.

So here we are in the Capitol of the United States of America on Capitol Hill, the acropolis of our nation. It is a building like no other in the land, wherein the highest aspirations of a free and open society have been written into law, generation after generation, where, time and again, brave and eloquent words have changed history, and where the best and some of the worst of human motivations have been plainly on display.

After gaming out various scenarios, I sent Joe up to Capitol Hill to negotiate with McConnell. We would support a two-year extension of all the Bush tax cuts—but only if Republicans agreed to extend emergency unemployment benefits, the Recovery Act’s lower- to middle-class tax credit (Making Work Pay), and another package of refundable tax credits benefiting the working poor for an equivalent period. McConnell immediately balked. Having previously declared that “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” he was apparently loath to let me claim that I’d cut taxes for the majority of Americans without Republicans having forced me to do it. I couldn’t say I was surprised; one of the reasons I’d chosen Joe to act as an intermediary—in addition to his Senate experience and legislative acumen—was my awareness that in McConnell’s mind, negotiations with the vice president didn’t inflame the Republican base in quite the same way that any appearance of cooperating with (Black, Muslim socialist) Obama was bound to do.

To his eternal delight, the Chicago Daily Tribune printed its front page before the polls had closed, with the blazing headline: DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN. In one of the most famous photographs in American political history, a beaming Truman holds up the paper in triumph. He had reason to rejoice: Not only had he won a miraculous political victory, but the Democrats had retaken both houses of Congress. The Republican reign on Capitol Hill was over after two short years, and the Democrats reasserted their longstanding dominance in Washington.

The most lasting critiques of the president, and of his enablers, will extend far beyond policy. From the moment Trump took office, Republicans on Capitol Hill and throughout the administration would offer a common refrain: “Focus on what he does, not on what he says.” For all Trump’s bizarre behavior and inflammatory rhetoric, they explained, he was delivering on many policies for which the party had long hungered. But this argument conveniently obscured a self-evident reality about the role of the presidency. Trump, as the American chief executive, is both the head of government and the head of state. His behavior and his rhetoric, therefore, were every bit as relevant as his policies. In certain instances, what the president said was actually more meaningful than what he did.

Some in the room agreed. Others felt it was too early to give up. After reviewing his conversations on Capitol Hill, Phil Schiliro said he thought there was still a path to passing a comprehensive law with only Democratic votes, but he admitted that it was no sure thing. “I guess the question for you, Mr. President, is, Do you feel lucky?” I looked at him and smiled. “Where are we, Phil?” Phil hesitated, wondering if it was a trick question. “The Oval Office?” “And what’s my name?” “Barack Obama.” I smiled. “Barack Hussein Obama. And I’m here with you in the Oval Office. Brother, I always feel lucky.

These days, anyone who supports my father is a target. Just as the anti-Trump revolution was beginning, Senator Rand Paul, one of my father’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, was brutally attacked by his neighbor, an avowed lefty. The man ran down a steep hill to gain momentum and then blindsided Senator Paul, who had headphones on and his back turned. He never knew the man was coming. The senator had six broken ribs and blood in his lungs. Doctors who examined him said that the injuries sustained were more consistent with a car accident than a sucker punch. As he was recovering, the left celebrated. The celebration continues among some of the most callous and idiotic people on the left.

thunderstorm grounded flights into the city. Schumer delayed the CHIPS vote for a day as he waited for senators to return. That meant two of the momentous accomplishments in his career were crammed into a single afternoon. At lunchtime on July 27, the Senate passed CHIPS, with seventeen Republican votes. It passed because Schumer and Manchin, two of the biggest kibitzers on Capitol Hill, restrained themselves.

The Dark Cloud Is a protest on Capitol Hill that does not defend justice fully Is a school policy that makes a bullying victim apologize to their bully Is willing to take on anything because domination is its goal Is ready to destroy your heart, mind, dreams, love, and soul

I guess the floors and doors and wars were somehow complicit in stealing the election." Harry Dunn in "Standing My Ground" after describing some of the 2 million dollars worth of damage done to the Capitol building on J6th.

Biden should have said, “Trump is what happens when you don’t have enough Washington experience. Trump is what happens when you don’t know your way around Capitol Hill like I do. For those of you who miss the Obama years, I’m your guy.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are the first Jack and Jill in US history to go up the Capitol Hill to fetch a pail of power.

In a longer process that continued through the 1950s and early 1960s, the Zionist lobby succeeded in sidelining the State Department’s experts on the Arab world and left American Middle Eastern policy in the hands of Capitol Hill and the White House, where the Zionists wielded considerable influence.

I was alerted to the meeting when Machalagh Carr forwarded me a tweet by a Capitol Hill reporter: “SPOTTED in the West Wing today: GOP members like @mtgreenee,

Love you, too. No matter how strong a woman is, we still need the words, baby. Don't forget that," she said against his mouth.

There is an expression here on Capitol Hill,” Issa told me. “‘Don’t ever get between a member and a camera.’” That can be particularly harrowing in the case of Issa, who had purchased a T-shirt for Bardella that said: “It’s all about me.

As lawmakers consider environmental policy on Capitol Hill, for example, those on the progressive side, out of respect for religion, never simply state the obvious: that their opponents are fools who think the world is only 6,000 years old.

More than one-third of congressional staffers turn to a career in lobbying after leaving Capitol Hill. It’s clear the staffer-turned-lobbyist’s value to special interests depends on the robustness of his or her network on Capitol Hill. According to an August 2010 study, when a lobbyist’s former boss on Capitol Hill left office, the lobbyist’s salary declined by an average of 50 percent in the six months following the departure.27 Moving from Capitol Hill to K Street isn’t limited to staffers: In 2010, 37 percent of the newly out-of-office members of Congress went to work for lobbying firms or clients. After losing his run for Senate in 2006, Tennessee Democrat Harold Ford Jr. moved to New York to take a job with Merrill Lynch with a guaranteed annual compensation of $2 million. At the time he had no experience in finance. What he was paid for were his networks:

the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, DeVos defended the unlimited contributions. “Soft money,” she wrote, was just “hard-earned American dollars that Big Brother has yet to find a way to control. That is all it is, nothing more.” She added, “I know a little something about soft money, as my family is the largest single contributor of soft money to the national Republican Party.” She said, “I have decided, however, to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence. Now I simply concede the point. They are right. We do expect some things in return. We expect to foster a conservative governing philosophy consisting of limited government and respect for traditional American virtues. We expect a return on our investment; we expect a good and honest government. Furthermore, we expect the Republican Party to use the money to promote these policies, and yes, to win elections. People like us,” she concluded archly, “must surely be stopped.

Obama nonetheless continued to seek bipartisan support. His experience with what Hillary Clinton labeled the “vast right-wing conspiracy” was limited. He had vaulted in only five years from the Illinois State Senate to the White House. He turned out to be unrealistically confident that he could transcend partisan rancor as he had while editing the Harvard Law Review. So when he received an invitation from Boehner and the others in the House Republican caucus to come up to Capitol Hill to consult with them about the stimulus package, Obama accepted, with much fanfare.

When I was in high school, I would drive into Seattle to see bands and sip coffee late into the night, and I always ended up taking the long way home. I'd be a little anxious about stalling my Datsun on one of the hills around the city, so when I saw Denny Way, I always turned onto it, even though it led away from my home to Seattle's Capitol Hill district. From there I navigated winding hills and eventually ended up at home. A quick look at a map would have revealed the freeway that heads straight to my house, but since my circuitous route was familiar, I stuck to it. I should have known better, but I was just a kid. What excuse does the richest nation on earth have for driving around in the dark like an adolescent? Just because our familiar arguments over how best to help families and the economy lead us along well-trod paths doesn't make them the best ones we could be taking.

We are led by very, very stupid people,” Trump declared at a September 9 rally on Capitol Hill. But it didn’t have to be that way. “We will have so much winning if I get elected,” he vowed, “that you may get bored with the winning.

Bannon and Kushner were therefore more than a little irritated to discover that the unimposing Priebus had an agenda of his own: heeding Senate leader Mitch McConnell’s prescription that “this president will sign whatever is put in front of him,” while also taking advantage of the White House’s lack of political and legislative experience and outsourcing as much policy as possible to Capitol Hill.

Racism is not always white hoods and burning crosses. It is on Wall Street and on Capitol Hill. It’s in public policies and financial systems that keep us from getting ahead. You shoot the gun at the start of the race of life, but some of us can’t even take our first step because we’re chained to a pole.

Priebus had an agenda of his own: heeding Senate leader Mitch McConnell’s prescription that “this president will sign whatever is put in front of him,” while also taking advantage of the White House’s lack of political and legislative experience and outsourcing as much policy as possible to Capitol Hill.

All my life, I have binge-watched crime dramas and love movies with cops being the heroes, but this wasn’t a movie. This was real life and it was happening in real time. At the conclusion of the two-hour meeting, I wanted to tell the taxi driver not to take us back to the DNC but right to the Pentagon. This was a war, clearly, but waged on a different kind of battlefield. During that twelve-block ride up Capitol Hill, we didn’t say a thing. Henry looked left, Ray looked right, Tom was checking his phone, and I was in suspended disbelief looking straight up at the dome of the U.S. Capitol. As soon as we got back into the building, we sat numb and silent on the couches in Debbie’s office. I am not one to tremble, because I am my daddy’s girl and I do not scare easily.

greatest natural disaster in America’s history. The storm’s supermassive fetch, hurling the already-swollen ocean onto land. High winds and twenty inches of rain shredding Capitol Hill and Foggy Bottom. The President in a secure location.

Right now, looking out my kitchen window on a summer day on Capitol Hill, I see a complex, shifting scene composed of about 50 percent brick and 50 percent trees. It’s lovely, a riot of organic forms bouncing in the wind. The brick is festooned with lichen, ivy, and moss, its rigid geometry softened and blemished by hundreds of years of wind, rain, and life, and illuminated by splintered sunlight refracted through blowing branches and leaves. A squirrel skitters along a power line, balanced, at ease, “natural,” as if he’s been evolving to do this for a hundred thousand years. The trees are diverse, some deciduous and some evergreen. They look happy, at home, healthy, and strong. They are permanent residents, compared to any people. The birds and rodents that nest, chase, chatter, and squeal among them seem at home as well.

The two of us have no interest in the tired old debate that is still playing out on Capitol Hill. Our interest is not in winning an argument or an election. It’s in saving lives, promoting prosperity, and stopping global warming.

Carleton took issue with Steck’s advocacy on behalf of Natives and embarked on a campaign with military leaders on Capitol Hill that eventually forced Steck out of his job.

The nation would have been puzzled by some of the cultural treasures meant to be preserved during a nuclear attack: When the Pentagon was asked what valuable documents and artifacts should be preserved, it included a list of the oil painting portraits of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Chapter 15 DESIGNATED SURVIVOR Terrel Bell, Ronald Reagan’s new education secretary, was already en route to Capitol Hill on February 18, 1981, when he got the telephone call from White House chief of staff James Baker.

Capitol Hill testimony represents the most important business meeting you’re ever going to have.

Their affair had been three of the most intense, reckless, terrifying, happy, alive months of his life. Like how he imagined being on heroin felt if the high never ended, if every syringe didn’t also contain the possibility of death. They’d been partners at the time, and there had been one week when they’d been on the road together in northern California. Every night, they rented two rooms. Every night, for five days, he stayed with her. They barely slept that week. Couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Couldn’t stop talking when they weren’t making love, and the daylight hours when they had to pretend to be professionals made it all the more beautifully excruciating. He had never felt such a complete lack of self-consciousness around anyone. Even Theresa. Unconditional acceptance. Not just of his body and mind, but also of something more, of something indefinably him. Ethan had never connected with anyone on this level. The most generous blessing and life-destroying curse all wrapped up in the same woman, and despite the pain of the guilt and the knowledge of how it would crush his wife, whom he still loved, the idea of turning away from Kate seemed like a betrayal of his soul. So she had done it for him. On a cold and rainy night in Capitol Hill. In a booth over glasses of Belgian beer in a loud dark bar called the Stumbling Monk. He was ready to leave Theresa. To throw everything away. He had asked Kate there to tell her that and instead she had reached across the scuffed wood of a table worn smooth by ten thousand pint glasses and broken his heart. Kate wasn’t married, had no children. She wasn’t ready to jump off the cliff with him when he had so much pulling him back from the ledge. Two weeks later, she was in Boise, pursuant to her own transfer request. One year later, she was missing in a town in Idaho in the middle of nowhere called Wayward Pines, with Ethan off to find her. Eighteen hundred years later, after almost everything they had known had turned to dust or eroded out of existence, here they stood, facing each other in a toy shop in the last town on earth. For a moment, staring into her face at close range blanked Ethan’s mind. Kate spoke first. “I was wondering if you’d ever drop in.” “I was wondering that myself.” “Congratulations.” “For?” She reached over the counter and tapped his shiny brass star. “Your promotion. Nice to see a familiar face running the show. How are you adjusting to the new job?” She was good. In this short exchange, it was obvious that Kate had mastered the superficial conversational flow that the best of Wayward Pines could achieve without straining. “It’s going well,” he said. “Good to have something steady and challenging, I bet.” Kate smiled, and Ethan couldn’t help hearing the subtext, wondered if everyone did. If it ever went silent. As opposed to running half naked through town while we all try to kill you. “The job’s a good fit,” he said. “That’s great. Really happy for you. So, to what do I owe the pleasure?” “I just wanted to pop in and say hi.” “Well, that was nice of you. How’s your son?” “Ben’s great,” Ethan said.

2012 the Pentagon said it wanted to buy fewer F-35 Joint Strike Fighter planes than had been planned—the single-engine fighter has been plagued by cost overruns and technical glitches—but the contractors and their friends on Capitol Hill vowed to fight the decision.

The Monocle restaurant—a well-known watering hole for the denizens of Capitol Hill—was only a few blocks from the Dirksen Building and it was too nice a day to take a cab, so they walked.

Chris Krueger, long-time Capitol Hill watcher for Guggenheim Securities, says the people expecting this kind of kumbaya moment are “Pollyannas”. He said: “My reading of the White House is that they already feel pretty good about their legacy, having done what no administration since Harry Truman has done and extended access to healthcare.” These are the facts on the ground, which bode ill for investors, but there is a conundrum: history suggests we are at a point in the political cycle when markets usually do well. After some volatility around the midterms, the stock market has historically settled into a very strong year in the third year of the presidential cycle, according to an analysis by Jeff Hirsch, editor of the Stock Trader’s Almanac. Sweeping in 180 years of data on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and predecessor indices, he calculates the average Year 3 gain to be 10.4 per cent, almost double the next best year, the presidential election year itself.

On my first Sunday morning visiting Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC, my family and I sat in front of a lovely family in the church balcony. I first noticed them because their young children sat attentively and patiently as they participated in the service. I then noticed their lovely, vigorous singing. But they really grabbed my attention when they greeted us warmly immediately after the service. The man of the family took me around and introduced me to many of the men in the church, and after about fifteen minutes or so invited my family to join his family at their home for lunch—right then. Honestly, the experience made me feel a little weirded out. First of all, his name was Jim, and literally the first three men he introduced me to were all named Jim. Strange, I thought. What kind of church is this? Will I have to change my name again? Then the quick invitation to lunch about knocked me down. It happened too fast. And with my Southern upbringing, it might have even been considered impolite. So I gave him my best polite Southern way of saying no: “That is mighty nice of you. Perhaps some other time.” Everybody down South knows that a sentence like that means no. Southerners know that that is how you must say no because saying no itself is impolite. Southerners are nothing if not polite. So I had clearly said no to this man’s kind but hasty offer of lunch. And wouldn’t you know it? The very next week, when we went to this strange church again, he insisted that we join them for lunch. I was North Carolina. He was New Jersey. There was a failure to communicate. He didn’t understand the rules of the South, but Washington, DC, apparently was too close to the Mason-Dixon Line to clearly establish which “Rome” we were in and what we should do. But I was wrong, and Jim was right. He was the godlier man. He was more hospitable than anyone I had ever met and remains more hospitable than I am today. He embodied Paul’s insistence that hospitable men lead Christ’s church. And rightly, he was a church elder.

MENS REA”: On January 16, 1944, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., and one of his deputies, Randolph Paul, personally visited the President Franklin D. Roosevelt in order to coerce him to finally act and do something to help refugees escaping The Holocaust. More diplomatic efforts had failed, so Morgenthau's approach strengthened. The report brought to the President reveals a desperate and necessary act to coerce a response from an administration that was systematically and overtly preventing both private and official help for the victims escaping Hitler. The report documents a pattern of attempts by the State Department to obstruct rescue opportunities and block the flow of Holocaust information to the United States. Morgenthau warned that the refugee issue had become “a boiling pot on [Capitol] Hill,” and Congress was likely to pass the rescue resolution if faced with a White House unwilling to act. Roosevelt understood the deep implications and pre-empted Congress by establishing the War Refugee Board. The result was “Executive Order 9417” creating the War Refugee Board, issued on January 22, 1944.

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Smith worked so tirelessly over one span of eight months that he forgot about his light blue Peugeot station wagon that he’d parked near his apartment in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. The fate of the car would later be revealed in the piles of mail that stacked up inside his front door. When he finally opened the mail in that pile, Smith found, in succession, several parking tickets, a notice that the car had been towed, a few warnings from the towing company, and finally a letter informing him that the vehicle had been sold at auction for seven hundred dollars.

Looking back at that belief during hearings this fall on Capitol Hill, Alan Greenspan said out loud, “I have found a flaw.” Congressman Henry Waxman pushed him, responding, “In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right; it wasn’t working.” “Absolutely, precisely,” Greenspan said.

Do you remember the days that followed 9/11?” he asked. “Of course,” I answered. “No one had to say it. It was as if almost everyone had some sort of sense about it, even if they couldn’t put it into words. It was as if the nation had unconsciously heard a silent voice calling it to be still and to return to the foundation.” “The voice of God?” “Yes, and for a moment, America appeared to be responding. The rush and clamor of its culture were stilled. Wall Street came to a standstill. Hollywood grew silent. Throughout the nation there was a noticeable and massive turning away from the superficial and to the spiritual. Even the name of God was taken out of the closet and publicly proclaimed from Capitol Hill to New York City. Multitudes sang “God Bless America” and gathered for prayer. America’s houses of worship overflowed with throngs of people seeking to find solace. In those first few days and weeks after 9/11, it seemed as if there might be a true national turning, a changing of course, an awakening—even a spiritual revival.” “But then America was turning back to God?” “No. America was not turning back to God. It was a spiritual revival that never came. And even the appearance of turning back was short-lived. It had no real root. There was no real change of heart or course, no searching of ways, no questioning if something could be wrong, no repentance. So it couldn’t last. And it wasn’t long before the moment was lost and things began to return to a form of normalcy. The calls for prayer would fade away, the rush and clamor of daily life would resume, the spiritual searching would be abandoned, and the superficial again embraced. The name of God would again be withdrawn from the public square, and most of those who had suddenly flocked to houses of worship would cease their flocking. The nation would resume its departure from God and its rejection of His ways, only now with increased speed.

Where L’Enfant dreamed of a monumental city for the new capital, as grand as any in Europe, Jefferson saw a simple one, as small in scale as the center of Philadelphia. Where L’Enfant pictured the Congress House high above the Potomac on the summit of Jenkins Hill, connected to the President’s Palace by a wide avenue, Jefferson saw the Capitol, a word he had drawn from the Temple of Jupiter on Rome’s Capitoline Hill, and a President’s House on the flat land hard by the Potomac and the Tiber, connected by a short public walk. Where L’Enfant envisioned a city worthy of the empire that he believed America would become, Jefferson saw a town where republican principles might prosper.

The last day of March was the first at work for Mark Meadows as Trump’s fourth chief of staff, tied for the most a president had had in a single term. Meadows, as a leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, had been one of Trump’s most committed champions on Capitol Hill. As chief of staff, Meadows was intent on pleasing Trump in a way none of his predecessors had been, hoping to establish himself not only as the White House’s internal manager but Trump’s most important adviser. Meadows became the latest chief to try to show Trump he could root out press leaks just as Trump wanted, going at it with distinct vigor.

From his perspective on Capitol Hill, Miles Taylor saw the impact of the order on the Republican caucus: “The House Republican leadership were, of course, furious. Furious that the White House hadn’t consulted us.

As a Capitol Hill staffer for Texas representative Michael McCaul, Miles Taylor saw Trump from the perspective of a committed Republican. Later, after serving in senior positions in the administration, Taylor became so disaffected with Trump that he wrote the famous “Anonymous” critique of the president that ran on the op-ed page of the New York Times. But long before Trump was even a candidate, he had an inkling there would be trouble: “In the middle of the 2016 race, I was working on Capitol Hill at the time, on the House side, as the policy director on the House Homeland Security Committee. Michael McCaul was chairman, Paul Ryan was Speaker. And we were in the midst of developing something for Paul Ryan called the Better Way agenda. Ryan wanted to put out an optimistic center-right vision for America’s future. Very policy oriented, but also a brand that Republicans could run on for years. He wanted this to be enduring. And I think, frankly, and had it been successful, he would have seen it as the centerpiece of his time as Speaker.

did an excellent job of discussing how Speaker Paul Ryan used his position to force additional votes for the PROMESA legislation. Forcing legislation that would cause innocent bond holders to take massive losses while the rating agencies and banks walked away from this

According to the FBI’s website; The Securities and Financial Fraud Unit (“SFF”) focuses on the prosecution of complex and sophisticated securities, commodities, and other financial fraud cases. Working closely with regulatory partners at the SEC, CFTC, and other agencies, SFF has tackled some of the largest frauds in the financial services industry and a wide mix of market manipulation and insider trading cases. The SFF Unit also focuses on a broader array of financial fraud, including mortgage fraud, bank fraud, and government procurement fraud. Fraud Section, Criminal Division U.S. Department of Justice ATTN: Chief, Securities and Financial Fraud Unit 950 Constitution Ave., NW Washington, DC 20530

Shortly after that article appears, the editor at the Caribbean News Now, News Agency used his resources to speak with a completely unrelated Intelligence official within the United States Intelligence Community and wrote the following: Caribbean News Now! April 2016

don’t throw praise around lightly but Senator Schumer’s apparent contributions to this alleged criminal organization make me think of him as the Godfather

putting Preet Bharara in this key position, Senator Schumer was able to deliver for his Wall Street friends. I guess it is possible that Preet Bharara and the dozens of other political appointees that Senator Schumer recommended and supported, all independently decided that Wall Street executives should not be investigated or prosecuted? Or, were they following the instructions of their political benefactor, Senator Schumer?

Charles Schumer (D-N .Y.) Terms: 2 (9 in House) Total raised: $62.2 million Top donors: A major defender of Wall Street interests before the crash, Schumer has netted more big-bank money than any member of Congress who hasn’t run for President. Over one-hundred-million dollars was given to Chuck Schumer over the past decade!

Then President Obama puts in Eric Holder as Attorney General and Robert Mueller as FBI Director. The two of them were swimming in evidence regarding Wall Street. How disingenuous was our President? It takes a special kind of person to present himself as a Wall Street Crusader and then appoint people with apparent instructions to protect Wall Street.

big reason this criminal enterprise has been so successful is that it would require the press and the voters to “agree” both parties are thoroughly corrupt. Honest reporting about this “Criminal Underground

Nancy Patricia Pelosi salary is $193,000 In 2009, Nancy Pelosi’s net worth was about $20 Million; in 2018 it was about $140 Million. Any questions?

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‘Present’ or ‘Not Guilty’.” — Theodore Roosevelt This is a famous quote that has been widely reprinted;

as well as the engineering reports issued in accordance with the 1974 Trust Agreement, as amended, (from here on “Trust Agreement”) which regulates PREPA and its relationship with the representatives of the bondholders and, of course, with the

sent evidence of all this to the Wall Street Journal over a dozen times. I sent it to their executive editors, their news editors and their most well-known reporters. They all refused to report on this alleged criminal organization. A financial newspaper that will not report the theft of trillions of dollars by Wall Street firms! I sent this information to the New York Times at least a dozen times. I contacted their news editors and public editors. I sent this information to the Bond Buyer, the largest municipal bond publication I am aware of. I also called them and emailed them. They did touch superficially on this in some articles but never told the whole story.

Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said in a CNN interview that investors shouldn’t take Trump “word for word.” He promised that there would be no Washington bailout of Puerto Rico. Hedge funds

The real reasons for the deplorable response to conditions in Puerto Rico are clear: the island’s lack of political muscle and the mainland’s lack of political will. As a U.S. territory, Puerto Rico has no U.S. senator, no vote in the House and no electoral votes in presidential elections — and so it is all too easy for the White House and Congress to turn a blind eye to the needs of its vulnerable population.

wrote the editors at the Boston Globe and told them that Elizabeth Warren was likely fully aware that the fraud on Wall Street caused the collapse of Puerto Rico. Rather than run to the aid of the victims,

The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also, a collective organizer of the masses.” Vladimir Lenin This is a famous quote that can be found reprinted in many places; you can find it at answers.yahoo.com

As I was researching the criminal act’s I noticed that there was a Securities and Exchange (SEC) Whistleblower Program. The SEC claims that their function as a government agency is the following: “The mission of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation. As more and more first-time investors turn to the markets to help secure their futures, pay for homes, and send children to college, our investor protection mission is more compelling than ever. As our nation’s securities exchanges mature into global for-profit competitors, there is even greater need for sound market regulation.

Even powerful politicians, like New York Senator Chuck Schumer (much more later on this) were not enough to protect Mr. Madoff when the news about his fraud became a “national event.” Although Bernie contributed money to the New York Congressmen and Senators, he made relatively few contributions (payoffs) to national

New York City has 8.4 million people living in its boroughs. But when it comes to defending those charged with financial crimes, it’s a very small, clubby world of people who are either related to each other or have worked together in the past. And this clubby group has one more thing in common: most of its members seem to be lavishing huge campaign contributions on U.S. Senator Charles (Chuck) Schumer of New York – a man who is in a position to recommend Federal Judge appointments and the Justice Department’s U.S. Attorney who will prosecute the financial crimes – or not.

House of Representative’s Bill - H.R 4900 – April 12th, 2016 The new legislation known as “PROMESA” says the following: The Oversight Board shall consist of 7 members appointed by the President who meet the qualifications described in subsection (e), except that the Oversight Board may take any action under this Act (or any amendments made by this Act) at any time after the President has appointed 3 of its members. The Oversight Board, its members, and its employees may not be liable for any obligation of or claim against the Oversight Board or its members or employees or the territorial government resulting from actions taken to carry out this Act. There shall be no jurisdiction in any United States district court to review challenges to the Oversight Board’s certification determinations under this Act. AUTOMATIC STAY UPON ENACTMENT. (No civil Lawsuits) For a Time to be Specified by the appointed Board. Even before this Bill was passed politician’s like Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal and Harry Reed moved quickly to cash in. They were among the first to propose a ban on civil lawsuits relating to the Puerto Rico financial meltdown. If you follow the money, it paid off terrifically for all four of them but not so well for millions of honest Americans.

United States Attorney’s Office New Haven Office Connecticut Financial Center 157 Church Street, Floor 25 New Haven, CT 06510 Attention: John H. Durham - United States Attorney

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” --H. L. Mencken

We know who they are; we can name them; we can look at their pictures. But unfortunately, our government has made sure we cannot hold them accountable; they are untouchable unless you are willing to take the law into your own hands. Yes, we know them: Robert Mueller and James Comey, FBI Directors, Mary L. Schapiro and Mary Jo White, SEC Commissioners, Eric Holder and Lorretta Lynch, Attorney Generals, Senator Chuck Schumer, Congressmen Paul Ryan and all the directors and executives at a dozen Wall Street firms. We can see them;

Today I received a letter from the IRS. It appears they are notifying the State Department that I owe substantial taxes and that my passport should not be renewed!

deaf president now Most of you have probably seen the phrase, but what do you know about the “Deaf President Now” movement? Despite being the first Deaf university in the world, Gallaudet had never had a Deaf president before, and in March 1988 that was finally about to change. The Board of Trustees was slated to choose the next president from a list of three finalist candidates, two Deaf, one hearing. In the lead-up to the board meeting, students and faculty had been campaigning and rallying in support of a Deaf president. THE CANDIDATES DR. ELIZABETH ZINSER, hearing, Vice-Chancellor of Academic Affairs at University of North Carolina DR. HARVEY CORSON, Deaf, Superintendent of the Louisiana School for the Deaf DR. I. KING JORDAN, Deaf, Dean of College of Arts and Sciences at Gallaudet On March 6th, the board selected Zinser. No announcement was made. Students found out only after visiting the school’s PR office to extract the information. Students marched to the Mayflower hotel to confront the Board. Chair Jane Spilman defended the selection to the crowd, reportedly saying, “deaf people can’t function in the hearing world.” WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? MARCH 7TH: Students hot-wire buses to barricade campus gates, only allowing certain people on campus. Students meet with Board, no concessions made. Protesters march to the Capitol. MARCH 8TH: Students burn effigies, form a 16-member council of students, faculty, and staff to organize the movement. THE FOUR DEMANDS: Zinser’s resignation and the selection of a Deaf president Resignation of Jane Spilman A 51% Deaf majority on the Board of Trustees No reprisals against protesters WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? MARCH 9TH: Movement grows, gains widespread national support. Protest is featured on ABC’s Nightline. MARCH 10TH: Jordan, who’d previously conceded to Zinser’s appointment, joins the protests, saying “the four demands are justified.” Protests receive endorsements from national unions and politicians. DEAF PRESIDENT NOW! MARCH 10TH: Zinser resigns. MARCH 11TH: 2,500 march on Capitol Hill, bearing a banner that says “We still have a dream.” MARCH 13: Spilman resigns, Jordan is announced president. Protesters receive no punishments, DPN is hailed as a success and one of the precursors to the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

And there’s another really big “if,” one that seems to implicate the top Democrats themselves in this plot. As we’ve seen, video footage is essential to help sort out what really happened on Capitol Hill that day. Nancy Pelosi refuses to allow the release of over fourteen thousand hours of video footage taken at the Capitol that day.

In an interview years later, I asked Anita Hill whether and when it was appropriate to give up on the legal system, to walk away and claim that it was a force for more harm than good. So many of the women in this book shrugged and told me that the law is an imperfect solution at best, but Anita Hill recoiled when I suggested as much: “Without law it’s chaos, right? Because we will lose. We will lose with chaos. We will always lose.” Perhaps more than anyone else she articulated the special relationship that exists by necessity between vulnerable communities and the legal system. “Chaos,” she told me, “allows for behavior you could not anticipate. With institutions, if you understand an institution, you know how things work. They may not work perfectly for you, but you know how they work. Chaos, you don’t know how it works, and it’s survival of the fittest. And people can really act on their worst instincts. That may be true, to some extent, in institutions. But there is something that you can navigate.” Women have a special relationship with the law, because the next best alternative is violence. Women have a special relationship with the justice system, Hill believes, because it is something we can navigate. But for the law, she told me, January 6, 2021, the day on which rioters stormed the US Capitol seeking to halt the certification of the 2020 presidential election, “could have been passed off as just like any other day in the White House or in the Capitol.” So we rely upon the law, she explained, because without it we have far less. And perhaps because we are so vulnerable to its failures, we tend to be especially vigilant, maybe even hypervigilant, when it feels as if it were sliding away.

and by using the media and lobbying on Capitol Hill, she persuaded (mostly Democratic) legislators to endorse her plan

The cement-paved market is a straight shot from end to end, lined on either side by butchers, cheesemongers, and grocers selling everything from chicken feet to lettuce. The steep, hipped roof rises nearly fifty feet, traversed by white metal scaffolding, and what little sunlight there is today pours through the skylights and windows lining the walls. The air carries a funky mustiness, the combination of aged cheese mixed with fresh fish and bread hot from the oven. A crowd is gathered at the far end of the market in front of the Market Lunch, which serves some of the best blueberry pancakes and crab cakes in town.

This notion—that for most of humankind, concern about the environment came only after their basic material needs were met—stuck with me. Years later, as a community organizer, I helped mobilize public housing residents to press for the cleanup of asbestos in their neighborhood; in the state legislature, I was a reliable enough “green” vote that the League of Conservation Voters endorsed me when I ran for the U.S. Senate. Once on Capitol Hill, I criticized the Bush administration’s efforts to weaken various anti-pollution laws and championed efforts to preserve the Great Lakes. But at no stage in my political career had I made environmental issues my calling card. Not because I didn’t consider them important but because for my constituents, many of whom were working-class, poor air quality or industrial runoff took a backseat to the need for better housing, education, healthcare, and jobs.

This Republican takeback of Capitol Hill would immediately

Baker had a talent for connection. He could be whatever he needed to be at the moment it was necessary. The young man who slid back and forth from Texas to Princeton, from the Ivy Club in the spring to the wildcatter's rig in the summer, now applied the same skills on Capitol Hill.

Every bad habit of the Right was on display in the Capitol riot that left five dead, $30 million in damage, close to three hundred arrested, and Capitol Hill an armed camp.

there are individuals who by virtue of their genes or upbringing or psychological set, or maybe all three, have a frighteningly enhanced capacity to be brainwashed.