NOVEMBER 5, 2014: Act to defeat the money monster in politics, end the perpetual political war, and fix a failed Congress in Washington.
FEBRUARY 8, 2020: Seeking to be Independent candidate in AL 6th Cong'l district.
CLICK on label "A. Current status" below right.
The Gettysburg Address, at its conclusion, resolves "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Do you believe the United States, in Washington DC, has "government of the people, by the people, and for the people"?
If you believe the United States does have government "of, by and for" the people, what is your explanation of the low (10%) approval rating of Congress?
Do our United States Senators and Representatives in Washington believe the United States has government "of, by and for" the people?
If the United States does not have "government of the people, by the people, and for the people," what should Congress and the American people do about it?
I believe government in the United States falls woefully short of being "of the people, by the people and for the people." I think this has resulted in Congressional failure to make decisions and pass laws properly for the people, and there should be a national and Congressional debate about this failure in connection with the 2014 elections.
The foregoing statements are extreme and call for elaboration.
If you are interested, you can start by reading Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig's short book (online) Lesterland: The Corruption of Congress And How To End It and watching his 20 minute companion video that is here. Those materials should only be a start of discussion and debate about how government in the United States falls short of being "of the people, by the people and for the people" and the primacy and urgency for the country to do something about it.
From: Rob Shattuck<rdshattuck@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 7:52 AM
Subject: Inquiry re candidacy in 6th Congressional district
To: algop@algop.org
Dear Sir:
I believe that the country's system of governance is broken and that Congress has become disabled from properly functioning and properly making decisions and passing laws on behalf of the citizens. This has become a widespread belief of others as well, and many persons are engaged in trying to diagnose the problem and make proposals about what should be done to try to fix it.
I believe this situation should be a subject of national and Congressional debate. I agree with Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig's contention that this should be the prime question before the American people at this time, because, unless and until it is addressed by the country, Congress will continue to be impaired in its proper functioning, and Congress will continue to fail to address in a proper way the numerous critical problems confronting the country.
I have endeavored to ask announced candidates for the House of Representatives in the 6th Congressional district about what they think about the foregoing. My letter to the candidates can be found here.
I have not received any reply, and I do not think that the announced candidates will give this matter the attention I think it deserves. As a result I would like to become a candidate myself.
I believe the deadline for filing to become a candidate in the Republican Party primary election is February 7th. I also note that the filing papers call for the declaration "I am a Republican and I endorse and will actively support the principles and policies of the Republican Party."
I would like to have a telephone conversation with the someone from the Republican Party to discuss whether I can be a candidate in the Republican primary election for the 6th Congressional district. If you would please provide me contact information for someone to talk with in the party organization, I would be thankful.
From: Rob Shattuck<rdshattuck@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 8:28 AM
Subject: Inquiry re candidacy in 6th Congressional district
Dear Sir:
I believe that the country's system of governance is broken and that Congress has become disabled from properly functioning and properly making decisions and passing laws on behalf of the citizens. This has become a widespread belief of others as well, and many persons are engaged in trying to diagnose the problem and make proposals about what should be done to try to fix it.
I believe this situation should be a subject of national and Congressional debate. I agree with Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig's contention that this should be the prime question before the American people at this time, because, unless and until it is addressed by the country, Congress will continue to be impaired in its proper functioning, and Congress will continue to fail to address in a proper way the numerous critical problems confronting the country.
I have endeavored to ask announced candidates for the House of Representatives in the 6th Congressional district about what they think about the foregoing. My letter to the candidates can be found here.
I have not received any reply, and I do not think that the announced candidates will give this matter the attention I think it deserves. As a result I would like to become a candidate myself.
I do not see on party website a deadline for filing to become a candidate in the Democratic Party primary election. Also, although I am not sure, I think I have voted in Republican primary elections in the past.
I would like to have a telephone conversation with the someone from the Democratic Party to discuss whether I can be a candidate in the Democratic primary election for the 6th Congressional district. If you would please provide me contact information for someone to talk with in the party organization, I would be thankful.
Please be advised that I have sent to the Alabama Republican Party an email similar to this email.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Rob Shattuck
3812 Spring Valley Circle
Birmingham (205) 967-5586
Of all the irritating things about Washington — the phoniness, the showy cars, the utter inability of a metropolitan area of 6.9 million people to produce a single decent slice of pizza or a passable submarine sandwich with oil and not mayonnaise — none is more infuriating than the local insider habit of referring to the place as “this town,” as in “He’s the most important power broker in this town” or, more likely (and worse), “The way to get ahead in this town is to seem not to be trying to get ahead.”
So when Mark Leibovich sketches a portrait of the nation’s capital — a phrase used only by people who don’t live there — and calls it “This Town,” you know he’s got a sharp ear, and a sharp eye to accompany it. You also know that he’s got the sharp knives out.
Here it is, Washington in all its splendid, sordid glory: the pols, the pundits, the Porsches. Plus the hangers-on, the strivers, the image makers and the sellouts, all comprising what Mr. Leibovich calls “a political herd that never dies or gets older, only jowlier, richer and more heavily made-up.”
He’s an insider, Mr. Leibovich is, first a reporter at The Washington Post, now the chief national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, yet he seems to wear those special glasses that allow you to X-ray the outside and see what’s really going on. An unusual parlor trick that, particularly in light of the A-list insiders jammed into his acknowledgments, not a single one of whom could have pulled off this book, even though half of them will e-mail me and say they could. (Memo to all of you: Don’t.)
He opens with an account of the 2008 funeral of the NBC Washington bureau chief and “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert, and as a quarter-century resident now in happy exile, I suppose I should stick to form and mention, hideously, that we — Tim and I — came to Washington at the same time and were friends, although mostly because I had a wife from Buffalo, and he delighted in teasing her about her bowling. The people at this funeral (and as I recall, this was an invitation-only rite) adhered to what Mr. Leibovich calls “the distinctive code of posture at the fancy-pants funeral: head bowed, conspicuously biting his lips, squinting extra hard for the full telegenic grief effect.”
The book is already generating buzz over Mr. Leibovich’s account of White House efforts to shape a profile in The New York Times of the first friend Valerie Jarrett and the administration’s apparent push to encourage Capitol reporters to disparage the conservative stalwart Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California.
Start to finish, this is a brilliant portrait — pointillist, you might say, or modern realist. So brilliant that once it lands on a front table at the Politics & Prose Bookstore on upper Connecticut Avenue, Mr. Leibovich will never be able to have lunch in This Town again, not that there is a respectable nonexpense-account lunch to be had in those precincts.
That said, this is a different Washington from the one I departed from a decade ago (Pittsburgh: what a relief!) and surely a different one from the era when, among the Washington royalty, only Alsop (and not Reston, Broder, Kraft, Evans or Novak) required a first name, and only because there were two of them (Stewart and Joseph).
The partisanship is worse, in part because the parties are different, with no liberal wing to the Republicans and hardly a conservative wing to the Democrats. And the rhetoric is mean, in part because it is less elegant.
All of which raises a separate point: Many of the Washington monuments most worthy of attention and praise, like the three Davids of capital journalism (Espo of The Associated Press, Rogers of Politico and Wessel of The Wall Street Journal), aren’t featured in this book and would be mortified beyond words if they were. They’re not at celebrity parties but at their battle stations, notebooks in hand. Nor is there a respectful bow, much deserved, to the thousands of unknown, selfless, deeply skilled bureaucrats who, since the Reagan years, have been pilloried but who, since the Franklin D. Roosevelt years, have made the country, or at least parts of its government, work.
In the old days, Washington — then as now a place where “disproportionate numbers of residents lie about reading The Economist” — was pretty much a bar where everyone knew your name, or in the case of John Paul Hammerschmidt, a former congressman from Arkansas, all three of them. Now it’s far less personal — but the personal matters far more.
So do personalities, which is why the book that Mr. Leibovich’s seems patterned after is Lytton Strachey’s 1918 “Eminent Victorians,” a classic of its time and all time, and the book it most resembles is “The Columnist,” Jeffrey Frank’s remorselessly hilarious work of fiction from 2001. As such, it is a wiseguy’s tour d’horizon of an entire city trying out for the role of Washington wise man.
So, striding self-importantly through these pages are the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid (“harshly judgmental of fat people”); Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican (“a blister on the leadership of both chambers, or sometimes something more dangerous”); Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York (“lens-happy, even by senatorial standards”); the lobbyist and former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour (“looks like a grown version of Spanky from the Little Rascals”); the former House minority leader Richard Gephardt (“whose willingness to reverse long-held positions in the service of paying clients was egregious even by D.C.’s standards”); and the modern super-flack Kurt Bardella (possessed of “a frantic vulnerability and desperation”).
And though much of this volume is a sendup of the capital of kissing up, there are some important insights tucked in among the barbs. Such as this: “Though Barack Obama won the 2008 election, Hillary Clinton won Obama’s first term.” And this: The political culture is full of “people who’ve been around the business forever, who never go away and can’t be killed.” And this one, about Representative Paul D. Ryan, that must have befuddled the publisher’s fact checkers: “Like most members of Congress with half a brain, Ryan had a pretty low opinion of many of his colleagues and had been thinking of how to escape.”
So here’s to all the big mouths, big egos, big shots, big machers and big jerks. In case you’re wondering, Mark Leibovich is on to every one of you, and his portrayal of “This Town” is spot on. Because Mr. Leibovich, perhaps alone among capital insiders, has realized that Washington, once an inside joke, now looks more and more like a bad joke.
David M. Shribman is the executive editor of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The Pittsburgh Press and a former Washington bureau chief of The Boston Globe.
A version of this review appears in print on July 8, 2013, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Hypocrisy, Thy Name Is (Duh!) Washington.
Email from Rick Staggenborg Re: Rootstrikers and Demand Progress announce their Pledge to Amend campaign Time is running out for those of us who want a strong amendment to be passed.
As you can see below, building on a small-scale project in 2012 UnPAC has joined with Rootstrikers in launching a campaign to call on Presidential candidates to advocate for an amendment to "overturn Citizens United." Obviously, that is not enough. They are also not targeting the right people, since Presidents have nothing to do with passing amendments. Targeting candidates for Congress would make more sense. We can start to do that now if we choose.
No other organizations working for a constitutional amendment have done anything to make it a campaign issue since Public Citizen called for pledges in 2010. If we continue to ignore this strategy, we risk having a weak amendment passed. If that happens, the Obamacare phenomenon will happen: A lot of people will assume that we won the fight and lose interest in the issue.
Some organizations are banking on a long-term strategy of educating the public about the need for an amendment that will both institute effective campaign finance reform and abolish corporate personhood before trying to force Congress to take a stand. They are risking the loss of the public's attention by waiting to make this a campaign issue.
I hope that local amendment advocacy groups will try to get whatever national organizations they are working with to discuss working with other groups on a pledge strategy that will bring out the issues that are not going to be discussed in a campaign to merely "overturn Citizens United."
Whatever local groups or national organizations decide, each of us can individually ask all the candidates running for Congress this year whether they will support a strong amendment and encourage others to do the same.
During the 2012 election, you joined with thousands of others to confront the corrosive influence of Big Money in our political system. Together, we crowd-funded ads in four states, inspired a nation-wide, corruption-focused art exhibition led by Shepard Fairey and pressured the president to publicly support an amendment to overturn Citizens United.
I am thrilled to announce that with the next election approaching, unPAC is joining forces with Rootstrikers and Demand Progress. To successfully take on the system of corruption in Washington, we all need to work side by side.
Our first campaign together will force presidential candidates during the 2016 election to answer one critical question: How will you, as president, end the system of corruption in Washington?
Candidates flock to New Hampshire early, before anyone knows (or cares) who they represent. By holding the first presidential primary, New Hampshire sets the tone for the national election. Our hope is that the New Hampshire Rebellion will make this issue central to the rest of the country throughout the 2016 election.
Rootstrikers and Demand Progress have been allies since unPAC launched. In case you haven't heard of them yet, I want to tell you just a bit about our new partners. Rootstrikers is organizing people across the nation to fix our democracy, led by Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law Professor and author of Republic, Lost. Demand Progress, co-founded by the late activist and technologist Aaron Swartz, is renowned for winning fights to prevent Internet censorship and is now turning its focus to the fundamental issue of systemic corruption in Washington, D.C.
Together, we will grow the movement across the country, deepen our roots at home and weed out the systems of corruption and injustice that afflict our democracy.
Onward,
Matt and the unPAC Team
PS: If you're in New England, find a NHRebellion event near you here.
Money plays a corrupting role in our political system, and unPAC, Rootstrikers, and Demand Progress have joined forces to build a mass-movement to fight it -- and to return control over our government to the people.
The Move to Amend Coalition is a national multiracial, cross-classed, trans-partisan movement of over 320,000 people and organizations whose goal is amending the U.S. Constitution to fight corporate rule.
Come get acquainted with some of those 320,000 folks in Tuscaloosa to meet, mingle, and mobilize to end corporate personhood. The agenda includes a viewing of the "Legalize Democracy" mini-doc, which provides a wonderful intro to Move to Amend, and a discussion of the potential formation of a Tuscaloosa Move to Amend "affiliate."
This organizational meeting in Tuscaloosa is happening next Thursday, January 16th, at 7:00pmat the:
46 million Americans live in poverty. National debt is the highest it’s ever been. Our jobs are gone. Our country is stuck in perpetual crisis. And what is Congress doing about it? Nothing. Because they can’t. They’ve pledged allegiance to the people who fund their campaigns. But they’re supposed to work for us. It’s time to force our representatives to once again represent us, the people.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
The problem is big, but we have a plan, and that plan depends on you. In the end, We The People still hold the ultimate power over our government, but most Americans have forgotten that. Never forget: We elected them to represent us. It’s time to hold them to it. We’re going to get clear about this once and for all: If Congress won’t represent us, Congress is corrupt. This is not about Democrats and Republicans, it’s not about right vs left. It’s about right vs wrong. And we’re here to make things right by ending corruption. Every American deserves to know if their US House Representative is “Corrupt” or “Anti-Corrupt.” Do they represent us or corrupt special interests? ENTER: PROJECT 435
Project 435 will get every member of the US House on the record for or against the American Anti-Corruption Act — Corrupt or Anti-corrupt…and if you’re Corrupt, you’re out! Let’s take our country back! We’ve created the tools and a plan. There are 5 steps: Lead, Recruit, Organize, Pressure, Win. You can use this timeline as a rough guide — but be sure to work at a comfortable pace. Here’s how you do it:
LEAD
Build a team of 3-5 leaders in your Congressional District. Together, you will drive your District Committee’s recruitment and actions up to the day you meet with your Representative and beyond. Here’s the catch: You’ve got to get at least one liberal and one conservative in on your team — it’ll increase your credibility and give you a real shot at winning.
Get started right now: Fill out this online form to register as a District Leader. RECRUIT
Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to get at least 1,000 people from your congressional district to add their name in support of the American Anti-Corruption Act. Start small. Hand out a basic flyer to coworkers, family, and friends, and ask them to join you in ending corruption. Hold meetings and invite the public. Then ramp it up: Flyer your neighborhood with your core team. Write letters to the editor. Table at local events. Create a Facebook page for your district. Get creative and get noticed.
Use the Citizen Co-Sponsor Sign-Up Sheet to collect signatures. And of course, use Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and every other social tool you can get your anti-corrupt hands on. ORGANIZE
You’re building a District Committee that will have the power to get your Representative on the record in support of the American Anti-Corruption Act. So reach out to groups who have already established their presence and remember to keep your focus cross-partisan. Neither side can win this alone. Go to local Tea Party meetings, occupy assemblies, and activist groups. Present and recruit at colleges & universities, senior communities, veterans associations and faith groups. Reach out to neighborhood groups, local political parties, and organized public interest groups. Show them how corruption affects their group. Ask them to join your coalition.
If your Representative is already supportive of the fight against Corruption, jump right to the next step and get them on the record. If you’re not sure where they stand, research and educate your team. If they’re going to be a tough sell, start with your city council, county commission, governor, selectmen, State Representatives — anyone in a position of power — to officially endorse the American Anti-Corruption Act. Partner with PTAs, church groups, local committees. Get them on board and get them on the record. Build momentum. Make your win inevitable. Anyone who holds public office in your district should be your target. Get them on the record. Document it and share it.
Anti-Corruption Agreement for other elected officials available here. Presentations and issue-briefs are available here. WIN
You’ve gotten thousands of everyday Americans in your district to support the Act and join the movement. You’ve organized a truly cross-partisan District Committee. You’ve got support from every public official and issue group you can think of. It’s time to go to your Representative with your diverse tapestry of support and show them they must support this law or we will not support them. Get them to sign the Anti-Corruption Agreement. If they’re Corrupt, they’re out. If they’re Anti-Corrupt, you’ve won, but the fight’s not over! Move on to other elected officials (see “pressure”) and keep growing the movement. Together, we can do this.
From: Lawrence Lessig<lessig@rootstrikers.org> Date: Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 3:17 PM Subject: a request for help To: Robert Shattuck rdshattuck@gmail.com
I'm writing to ask for some help with a project related to my work on corruption. You're getting this because at multiple times, your email address passed the transom of my inbox. If you might be willing to help, please read on. If not, read no more, and I apologize for the intrusion.
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In January, I will join others in a march across New Hampshire (the long way). The march will last two weeks. We will cover 185 miles. And along the way, we will be recruiting citizens from New Hampshire to join the #NHRebellion.
The #NHRebellion was inspired by the late Doris Haddock, aka, Granny D, a citizen of New Hampshire, and who, at the age of 88, walked across the country with a simple sign on her chest: "campaign finance reform."
Long before I came to the issue, Granny D was recruiting anyone she could to the critically important cause of changing the way campaigns are financed. She believed, as I do, that the current system is a kind of "corruption." And she believed, as I have come to believe, that unless we find a way to change it, our government will be incapable of addressing sensibly any of the critical issues that it must resolve. Granny D devoted the last part of her life to this fight. The #NHRebellion will continue her work.
The point of the January march is to focus the citizens of New Hampshire on this critical issue of corruption, so that they in turn will focus the candidates in 2016 on corruption too. We will be asking people from across the state to ask the candidates they will inevitably meet over the next two years: "How will you end this corruption?" And the hope is that if New Hampshire makes this an issue, it might well become an issue for the nation as well.
The #NHRebellion plans to walk the state three times between now and the primary in 2016. I've agreed to participate in at least the first. So on January 11 -- the day my friend Aaron Swartz died -- we will begin at the place the first ballots of the 2016 election will be cast. And on January 24 -- the day Granny D was born -- we will end with a party in Nashua. In between, we will have as many conversations with as many people as we can about the work Granny D started, and how we can now complete it.
I'm writing to ask for your help with this project.
Anything from simply sharing this email with people who you think might be interested, to helping to sponsor the walk, to actually walking with us, for part or the whole way — I'd be grateful for everything, as this will be a very difficult slog (not the walk, but to win this issue).
But why? Why would I walk for 2 weeks in the freezing winter of New Hampshire?
I've spent the last 6 years working on this question of corruption. Aaron Swartz convinced me to take it up. Since I did, I've spoken about it more than 250 speeches to thousands of people across the world. (Here's a mercifully short example: TED talk).
But as I've done this, I've been struck by the claim of almost every "expert" that "ordinary Americans don't care about this issue." Not the sort of people who turn up to a lecture by a law professor. But the rest of America, with a million other concerns, working hard to ignore all things political.
I want to understand how to make this issue compelling to these people too, and face to face. I want to learn how to talk about it so that it connects and is meaningful. Because I am absolutely convinced that we must find a way to rally America to this cause. And I am reluctantly convinced that more of us need to learn how better to talk to America about this cause.
So that's what I will be doing. We will have a number of events across the state. But the most important part for me will be the informal conversations and what it will teach me. I want to learn something from this about how to make this issue important. And I'd be grateful to you for your help in making it possible.
