Presidential Character: Week Ten, Hating Tyler Too

I mentioned last time that I felt this week's President under character review was the worst ever.

I admit part of this desire to rank John Tyler as the Worst Ever is to go against the status quo of the standard opinions of the established order.  I mean, everybody goes for the usual suspects like James Buchanan or Andrew Johnson or Herbert Hoover or Richard Nixon.  You'll ALWAYS see those guys somewhere near the Worst Ever.  You'll get the occasional crazy listing Chester A. Arthur as Worst Ever but it's usually some idiot who believes the Moon landings were faked.

So I focus on the lesser-known "mediocre" President types who didn't make much of a blip on the historical radar, into which you'll find the likes of Tyler.  One of the many "One-Termers", even though he's historically important by establishing a key Constitutional Precedent.

Tyler was the first Vice President to become President upon the death or departure of the sitting President.

This is a huge thing.  The Constitution does establish that a Vice President shall take on the duties of a President Who Has Passed On And Joined the Choir Invisible, but it didn't really clarify that the Veep becomes fully a President with all executive powers.  Nobody was really sure what do to when Harrison died in office.  There were suggestions - from the Cabinet Tyler inherited no less - that he be "Acting President" in title... which could have affected some of the official duties a President was/is expected to perform.

Tyler insisted that he was President.  The Cabinet - after consulting the Chief Justice - noted that by taking the Oath of Office Tyler could be accepted as President, so he did and they accepted and that established the precedent.  (It wasn't really legal, believe it or not, until the Twenty-Fifth Amendment passed almost 120 years later)

So that's pretty much the one good thing Tyler did in office.  Because from there on he turned out to be a disaster.

Let's pull back a bit to Andrew Jackson.  Arguably one of the most personally hated men to serve as President.  He was so hated that a political party formed in opposition to him: The Whigs.  I'm only half-joking here: while the Whigs were the successors to the Federalist Party's belief structure and geographic leanings - forming around naturally-shared beliefs about Unionism, business, and sport - they were mostly made up of politicians who had run-ins with Jackson and who realized that while bullets were useless against him (I AM NOT JOKING) rallying party opposition was still legal and possibly effective.

When Jackson's successor Van Buren felt the aftermath of Jackson's tenure - the Panic of 1837 - the Whigs had their chance, taking control of Congress by 1838 and then by 1840 running a popular figure like Harrison to a landslide victory over the Jackson Democrats.  Problem was this whole Vice President thing: by this point in American history it was necessary to balance "the ticket" between the chosen vote-getter (President) by adding a figure from the party's minority yet vital wing to fill the other half (Vice President).  For the most part a Vice Presidency is a thankless honor: you're not popular with the majority faction of your own party, you're probably personally hated by the Guy Above You, and your duties don't mesh with what the President gets out of his Cabinet buddies.

But sometimes this deal comes back to bite the party leaders in the ass: when the President dies/resigns/goes off to tour as an Elvis Impersonator, the Vice President gets promoted.  And the Veep is a guy coming from the faction of the party who's NOT in control: you're getting someone who barely supports the party line, and quite possibly someone who would go extremist on you in the worst way.

Tyler was the type who barely supported the Whig party line.  When he got into the White House it quickly became apparent that Tyler wasn't really a Whig at heart, he still thought very much like a Jacksonian Democrat.  It turned out that the one reason Tyler wasn't a Democrat was because he hated Jackson on a personal level: he liked the politics very much, thank you, he just hated the guy (in most respects I don't blame him).  Tyler hated Jackson... but wanted to BE Jackson.  A decent psychiatrist/historian would have a best-seller on their hands if they ever wrote a definitive book on this guy.

In fact, looking at Tyler's track record you'll find someone who was the antithesis to Whig ideology.  Where the Whigs were pro-Union, Tyler was pro-Secession/Nullification.  Where the Whigs were pro-National Bank, Tyler opposed it like Jackson would have.  Where the Whigs wanted tariffs to keep the Treasury solvent, Tyler would veto.

What happened was that the Whig party leadership - Henry Clay especially - thought two things: Tyler was one of them and that Tyler would be weak and malleable due to the circumstances surrounding his promotion.  The fact that he was viewed as "His Accidency" and not a full President.  But Tyler truly believed he was President and would not be cowed by Clay.  He was also, considering how much he mirrored Jackson in temperament and beliefs, very much an Active-Negative President.

The first veto - which came with the first bill, Clay's attempt to re-institute the National Bank - caught everyone off-guard.  When Tyler vetoed the same bill a second time, almost all of his Whig Cabinet resigned and he became the first President expelled from his own party.  None of that changed Tyler's Uncompromising nature.  That he failed to make deals with an opposition Congress should be no surprise.  That he became hated enough in his own right to be the first President to undergo an Impeachment vote in the House shouldn't be much of a surprise either: the vote didn't pass a simple majority anyway so the "honor" of being truly Impeached would have to wait a while longer.

I list Tyler as the Worst President for a few reasons, not a lot of them to do with his actual Presidency.  It has to do with his political stances on things like nullification and secession.  I'm also not a huge fan of his position on the annexation of Texas - a then-formed Republic out of its' rebellion against Mexico - because it became one more step and a pretty big step it was towards our Civil War.  Other politicians may have had a stronger hand in that effort - like the next guy on the list - but Tyler was a big proponent and it was in the final days of his administration that Texas merged with the United States... and that the issues with the Texas-Mexico border became an issue with the United States-Mexico border.  Thanks a bunch, Tyler, thanks a whole bunch.

One last thing: Tyler was a long-lived sonofabitch.  He lived long enough to support his home state of Virginia's decision to secede from the United States on the eve of Civil War.  And lived long enough to get voted into the Confederate Congress.  Of the histories of ex-Presidential behavior, few are as bitter and broken as Tyler's.  And there's my bias for you.

Next up: The Most Successful (Of Quantity But Not Much Quality) One-Termer Of All Time.

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Also, I Think The New Pope Never Watched Bill Murray Movies

I mean, seriously.  Who goes and gets himself elected Pope and then names himself Francis?

Because now every time this guy's gotta visit the United States, he's gonna get this:

And it's not like this guy had any tradition to follow.  There's no previous Popes by this name: there's been a ton of Gregorys, an army of Johns, enough Benedicts to feed a breakfast buffet, a surprising number of Clements, not enough Innocents, seriously not enough Eugenes (CAREFUL WITH THAT AXE)...  no, this guy's gotta go with a new name ready for mockery.  He could have gone with Urban, that's hip right now, or Lucius... no, he's gotta go with a name that's gonna be on Zazzle and CafePress t-shirts with "Lighten Up" right above the "Francis".

On the other hand, it's bound to give the actor playing Francis a boost in popularity on the IMDB website.

On a serious note, I'm not sure the Catholic Church did themselves any favors promoting a Cardinal opposed to same-sex couples adopting, considering that promoting adoptions overall promotes a pro-life message.

But what do I know.  I'm Unitarian: I didn't have a vote in the matter.

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Schadenfreude Update: It's Been Awhile Since I Griped About Florida Politics, So Enjoy

So here I was all wrapped up in the Bucs' Free Agency period (we still need a Cornerback, Dom!), when news comes out this morning about this:

The Lieutenant Governor of Florida (akin to a Veep) Jennifer Carroll resigned from office this morning.

Apparently it was a pretty sudden move.  There was reportedly a state-wide gathering of Chamber of Commerce leaders she had to cancel out on (although her staff reported she had nothing on her calendar for today).

This has been an ongoing investigation, although it hadn't been dominating the local news much.  She'd been embroiled in a reported charity program that operated Internet Cafes: that Tampa Bay Times article goes into better detail:

Carroll's connections to Allied Veterans of the World, a Florida nonprofit that operates a chain of Internet sweepstakes cafes as a pseudo-charity for veterans.  The cafes sell Internet time for entries into sweepstakes on devices that resemble slot machines.
This week, close to 60 people associated with the company were arrested on various charges, including illegal gambling, racketeering and money laundering.
Carroll owned a public relations firm that represented Allied Veterans, and while a member of the Florida House of Representatives, did work for the company.  (Personal Note: it is legal for state legislators to have outside jobs, as the legislature is deemed part-time and paid as such.  Whether or not conflicts of interest arise from those jobs is another matter...) She later filmed an advertisement promoting Allied Veterans while serving as lieutenant governor...

You might notice a few keywords in that report: calling the nonprofit a "pseudo-charity" is one, another is selling sweepstakes via machines "resembling slot machines".  The big keyword is "racketeering": that's a heavy-hitting criminal charge, something only the Feds can break out as a prosecutorial weapon.

The investigation into Allied Veterans started in 2009, law enforcement officials said Wednesday.  Investigators said that Allied Veterans tried to scheme and defraud the public and governmental agencies by misrepresenting how much of its proceeds were donated to charities affiliated with Veterans Administration...
While serving in the state House in 2010, Carroll introduced legislation to legalize sweepstakes games such as those in cafes operated by Allied Veterans.  Carroll later withdrew the proposed law, saying it was filed erroneously (Personal Note: she also has a bridge near around Brooklyn she'd like to sell you) and that she wasn't interested in legalizing Internet cafes, which operate in a legal gray area...

This is mostly a delicious slice of schadenfreude, I admit it.  I'm no fan of Rick Scott (did you ever notice?), so anything that embarrasses his administration is a big win in my raging biased opinion.

For Carroll to quit a relatively meaningless job - like most Veeps, the Lt. Gov just kinda sits there - is still a big deal: as a woman and African-American (she was the first Lt. Governor African-American for Florida, the closest to the governorship ever), she was a prominent part of a Republican Party having serious problems getting Blacks and women to vote for the party.

It's not my place to speculate on an ongoing criminal investigation... but what the hell, I will.  That Carroll resigned pretty much right after state law enforcement officials interviewed her for a few hours is a big sign that the investigators had something serious on her.  That she was tied to a potentially criminal enterprise really isn't enough to force a resignation: there have been politicians at every level tied to even scuzzier elements working in "gray areas" of business that never resigned simply because of associating with the "wrong" people.  Until actual charges are filed, if ever, we might not know just what it was that convinced Carroll she needed to leave office.

That said, I am curious as to what kind of deal Carroll's lawyers are going to try to get for her.  Which is where the fun stuff can happen: if Carroll is tied in deep with Allied Veterans and that pseudo-charity is involved in massive fraud, Carroll's going to need some red meat to trade out a harsh jail time for a few months of community service and a 50 dollar fine.  Having been inside Rick Scott's circle for a few years... having been inside the Florida Lege for a few years, dominated by a self-serving pack of Republicans enjoying gerrymandered safe seats... Carroll's bound to have picked up on a few juicy goings-on behind office doors... hehehehehehehh...

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There Are Three Reasons This Should Be Illegal

This is NOT something I wanna be seeing this year or any other year, to be honest:

Everybody's talking up Jeb Bush for President 2016.

Already.

/headdesk

I've got Three Reasons This Should Be Illegal:

1) For the simple fact that NOBODY should be campaigning for an elected office so far down the calendar. I've railed a bit about this earlier, but I don't think I've gone into deeper discourse on it.  Campaigning outside of the particular year of election is one of the reasons why campaigning costs have gone up: effort requires revenue, so the longer the effort the more money is needed.  The more money is needed, the earlier candidates start with their fund-raising efforts to afford it all.  It's a vicious cycle in a way, especially for House congresspersons who have only two years of office and are nowadays spending more time and effort campaigning for the next election cycle than focusing on actual governance.  I've argued before there needs to be a time cap on this: all campaigning and fund-raising should only take place in the actual year of election for that office - in the case of Presidents, that fourth year of that cycle - which could go a long way to reduce the costs and thus the amount of money needed.  (It might also have the added bonus of forcing state primaries for the Presidency to be within a shorter time-frame, hopefully to just one nationwide day)

2) This is distracting from the fact we've got a President NOW who's fighting with Congress over God-Knows-Everything to get a) our economy on track b) sanity back into our taxing/revenue system and c) actually getting sh-t done for once (I swear Congress has gotten lazier than a husband getting ordered to take out the trash).   This game of "Who's Campaigning Now" seems to be a sad sick habit of our media who's more obsessed with personalities (aka "the buddies in our small circle of friends we'd like to see run the country because GOSH all Americans would LOVE our buddies!") than with policy (one word: too dry).  Even during 2016's campaign we should expect the talking head pundits to start gushing over a buddy they'd love to see run in 2020.  /headdesking times infinity  THIS HAS GOT TO END.

3) Nobody nowhere and at no time should ever discuss any member of the Bush dynasty for ANY political office.  NEVER EVER IN A MILLION GODDAMN YEARS.

I'm not a huge fan of Jeb Bush to begin with, I'll admit to that.  Having lived here in Florida, I've seen his handiwork - the push for vouchers (bad idea), the push for charter schools (proving to be a bad idea), the purging of voter rolls, the sick campaigning stance on the death penalty (this one hit close to home, though it wasn't as personal for me as it was and still is for the people who were directly affected... it's not something I think I have a right to talk about, not right now... anyway I digress), and about 50 other reasons why I'm horrified Jeb is even talked as a serious candidate.  

This is where Problem 2) becomes a problem again: these pundits have a personal connection to politicos like Jeb Bush, and so they can't see outside of their own circles why people could or would hate someone who's so "chummy".  These pundits think "oh, Jeb's a serious guy on education" when his track record has been destructive to Florida's educational system and to the kids.  They think Jeb can reach out to minority voters - especially Hispanics - but fail to realize that speaking Spanish and marrying a Latina is not outreach... and Jeb's track record on restricting voters' rights will turn off many Hispanics who see their own voting rights threatened by the current GOP.

Just being Jeb alone is a big reason why I hate him.  What will really hurt Jeb Bush's potential campaign is that last name.  His older brother George W. turned the name Bush into Mud.  Even five years after leaving office, Dubya remains a hideously unpopular ex-President (even Nixon wasn't this hated five years later).  All a candidate has to do is come up with a video ad using a picture of Jeb morphing into a picture of George W.  That's all.  And that would kill Jeb's campaign.  I'm talking a REPUBLICAN Primary candidate has to create this ad: even the GOP base would be turned off by having yet another Bush anywhere near the White House.  If a Republican opponent doesn't make that ad, you can be damned sure the Democratic candidate in the general election will: Hoover was the Democrats' whipping boy for two whole decades, for God's sake, and it worked because voters do have longer memories than the pundits realize.

So there.  Three Reasons.  If anyone starts talking up Jeb for 2016, you have my permission to arrest them.  I think you'll have permission from 185 million fellow Americans too.

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Income Inequality

This is something that has been posted a few months back but only now is circulating the blogosphere:

The problem of income inequality in the United States has been with us for a long time: for at least the last ten years (if not the last thirty or more) wages have been frozen for most American workers, while the top one percent of the employment bracket (the CEO level) continued getting raises and bonuses and comp packages and Golden Parachutes (even when those CEOs were screwing up their companies: SEE the Twinkies company going down in flames while the executives paid themselves off).

Just to note: it used to be as recent as 1978 that executive (CEO) pay was only 35 times that of the average employee.  Today it's roughly 380 times, partly because average employee wages haven't grown but mostly because executives have been paying themselves (via friendly boards or manipulated systems) more and more without consequence (politicians are bought, media are bought, unions are crushed).

The argument for high wages for high-level jobs (like CEO, or high-priced attorney, or esteemed doctor) is that it motivates people to work and empower themselves to achieve great things: the carrot rather than the stick as it were.  While that is a valid argument, there's a question of "how much is really enough?"  At what point does GREED become too much of a motivating factor rather than equitable compensation for good effort?  Where's the sense of proportion when it comes to taking a $5 million bonus while 2,000 other employees of your company gets a wooden nickel each for working as hard or even harder than that CEO?

There ought to be a way to fix this in a fair and equitable manner.  I'd argue for a wage cap on CEOs tied to their employees: that CEOs of large companies be paid no more than 35 times (like in 1978) than their average non-administrative employees.  Said cap to be phased into action over a five-year period, dropping from 380 times to 150 times in Year One, to 98 times in Year Two, all the way down to that 35 times by Year Five.  In the meantime, require that the average wage of those non-admin employees to go up, as a way of making that "35 times more" deal for the upper management less painful (so that it would make the CEOs more like 50 times paid more if those employees hadn't gotten raises).

The math might not be there, I know.  But somehow we've got to raise the wages for a majority of working Americans out there.  And we've got to make CEOs less greedy (based on that video's report, that One Percent of the populus has got 40 PERCENT of the nation's money.  THE F-CK?!)

This isn't communism (something for nothing).  It might be socialism: forcing the richest to take less so that the poor can get more.  Except for the fact we're talking about improving the wages of poor WORKING Americans, not some "handouts" to a nebulous "moochers and takers" society.  But what's the alternative?  Doing nothing, sitting back and basking in the "It's all Capitalism baby learn to love it" belief system is not the solution... The current system is broken: there's no judge, no force of accountability against the GREED that's corrupted our financial institutions.

Seriously, what is the alternative to capping CEO wages?

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Presidential Character: Week Nine, He Won In One Respect

We simply cannot forget the man who served the shortest tenure as President of the United States.

William Henry Harrison.  "I died in 30 days!"

He's basically one of the easiest Presidents to remember in case of trivia games.

There are some historians who won't even review his Presidency much less put him on the unavoidable Best/Worst lists (Garfield, whose Presidency lasted at best six months, also gets excluded because the thought is he lacked impact).

Mind you, Harrison was still President long enough to physically kick Henry Clay out of the White House when Clay came calling about Spoils  - Jackson's legacy - and filling of government posts with his lackeys.  So that had to count towards SOMETHING when considering what kind of character Harrison would have used serving as President.

From what could be determined from his long inaugural speech given in wet cold early March weather - the source of the prolonged illness that developed into a deadly case of pneumonia - Harrison would have been something of an Active-Negative.  He had an agenda but felt the powers of the Presidency were - or at best should be - limited.  He argued, for example, that an amendment be added limiting a President to just one term fearing a Two-Termer aspires to monarchical powers (anti-Jacksonians accused Jackson of wanting to serve a third term and viewed Van Buren's tenure in such a light).  His refusal to bow to Clay and other Whig partisans seeking jobs via Spoils suggests he wouldn't have been Passive - malleable towards others - in his role.

But past that, there is honestly little else to say about William Henry Harrison as President.  Only that, with every new President sworn in, there's roughly 32 days that Harrison is no longer the shortest-serving.  Also that Harrison's death created a constitutional crisis that wouldn't be fully resolved until the passing of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment more than 100 years later.

Next up: This blogger's personal vote-getter for Worst President Ever.  Partly because everyone votes for Buchanan because he's too easy a target.

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The Simplest Reason Why Republicans Get the Blame For the Sequester

So why would Republicans get blamed by a majority of Americans if the Sequester comes to fruition?

My theory is that it's because the Sequester is exactly what the Republican wingnuts have been screaming about every time there's a Democrat in the White House.  Because it's large-scale spending cuts.  And the Republicans are on record for wanting large-scale spending cuts ("shrinking government down to where we can drown it in Grover's bathtub", remember?).

It may also have a bit to do with a majority of Americans thinking the deficits can be fixed with a combination of spending cuts AND tax increases on the uber-rich, something that Obama is pitching as his alternative to the Sequester whereas the Republicans insist on cuts ONLY.

So that's my thought on the Sequestration Crisis of 2013.  After this gets resolved, we should be ready for the Bad Budget Crisis of May 2013... then the Let's Force Obama To Veto a Crazy-Ass Bill and Impeach Him For It Crisis of July 2013... and then...

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