Rep. Frank asks to bring beau on House floor
By Betsy Rothstein of The Hill

Even if House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) had access to spousal privileges, he would not be allowed to bring the man known as his boyfriend, Jim Ready, 39, a surfing enthusiast, to the House floor. Last week Frank approached the Speaker’s Lobby with Ready, who was spotted wearing a green blazer and the traditional congressional spouse pin, and asked to bring him into the Chamber. He was told no.

The rules are that no spouse or life partner — gay, straight, male, female — is allowed on the floor. Only a lawmaker’s children are allowed to accompany a parent into the chamber. Frank took the news in stride and didn’t make any trouble. After being told why he could not bring Ready onto the floor, he reacted amiably, saying he understood the reasoning. Why such stringent rules? Envisioning the sheer number of spouses who would convene on the floor makes many Capitol employees roll their eyes. “Spouses aren’t allowed in here,” remarked a Capitol employee, explaining, “Kids aren’t a pain in the a-- on the floor.”

Frank has given the spouse pin to his partners before. He said in the mid-’90s he gave it to his then-partner Herb Moses. He said other gay lawmakers also have given pins to significant others such as Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.)’s domestic partner, Lauren Azar. It’s “up to you,” Frank said, explaining that he gets to decide to whom to give his spouse pin. “In much of the country there is no way for a same sex couple to do anything officially,” he said. He added, it “isn’t any of your business” if he and Ready will have a commitment ceremony.

While House rules have extended the spouse pin to domestic partners, House Sergeant at Arms Bill Livingood stresses to new members at the beginning of each Congress that the pin be given out with great care for security precautions. He also asks that spouses request the spouse ID card for secondary security. “It’s got to be a serious relationship,” said a spokeswoman for the House Sgt. at Arms office. “If something goes bad then we lost a pin. We’re not in a process of supplying pins for every girlfriend or boyfriend a member has. He wants to make sure it’s a serious, committed relationship.”

After this item was published, Frank's office released this statement to ITK: "Rep. Frank strongly disagrees with The Hill's 'sources' that he was trying to bring his partner onto the House floor, which Rep. Frank knows is not allowed. The unnamed source that incorrectly reported the interaction between Rep. Frank and the Sergeant of Arms personnel -- who was not a party in the conversation -- was wrong. The truth is that Rep. Frank was asking for clarification from the staff of the rules for access to the Speaker's Lobby, which is located behind the chamber."

Cherokee councilors not aware of

$50,000 donation

by Clifton Adcockof The Tulsa World

Published: 12/30/2008 2:01 PM

A $50,000 donation made by the business arm of the Cherokee Nation to the inauguration fund of President-elect Barack Obama did not receive authorization by the tribe’s council and many council members were unaware of the donation until seeing news accounts of it or after receiving phone calls from constituents, the Tulsa World has learned.The donation is the maximum amount, and the largest donation from an Oklahoma entity, records show. It was contributed to the fund by Cherokee Nation Businesses.

Most donations of a political nature go through the Tribal Council’s PAC Committee, which consists of tribal council members and determines the amount of money to be given before sending the measures on to the full council where, if passed, the measure goes to the principal chief to sign or veto. Councilman Bill John Baker told the Tulsa World that the PAC Committee was set up a few years ago after a similar action happened with Cherokee Nation Enterprises donating money. Baker said the donation did not come before the PAC Committee or the full council. “I read it in the paper and council people started getting phone calls asking why would we do this?,” Baker said. “Well, we didn’t. I wish the council would have been made aware of it.” Cherokee Nation spokesman Mike Miller said the donation was authorized by Cherokee Nation Businesses CEO Brad Carson from a fund designed for such donations, and that CNB officials had attempted to alert council members to the donation, but there had been a breakdown in communication.

Carson, a former two-term Democratic congressman, left his position as CEO just before Christmas after giving the donation. He was called up as an armed forces reservist, reportedly the U.S. Navy Reserve, for out of state deployment. The donation was different than those given during a political race because it was to the inauguration fund and not to a political campaign, Miller said.“This is not supporting one side over another side,” Miller said.

Weekly Opinion/Editorial

BE IT RESOLVED!
by Steve Fair

The popular tradition of making new years resolutions has origins in Ancient Babylon and Rome. The Babylonians would typically return farm equipment that they had borrowed during the year, while in Caesar's time Janus, a mythical god, became the symbol for resolutions because he had two faces that could look to the past and into the future. Today we make New Years Resolutions to try to improve some aspect of ourselves in the coming year. Popular resolutions include quitting smoking, losing weight and getting out of debt. This sounds good but the sad truth is that most of us break them well before the year is out. In fact, Pew Research found that 22% of people give up on their resolution in the first week and by the end of March more than half of New Years resolvers have fallen off the bandwagon.

That was not the case for Jonathan Edwards, the first President of Princeton University. Edwards, who was a Presbyterian minister and the grandfather of Vice President Aaron Burr, is famous for preaching a sermon entitled “Sinners in the hands of an angry God.” The sermon was preached on July 8, 1741 in Enfield, Connecticut and continues to be the leading example of a Great Awakening sermon. It is still used in religious and academic settings today. But Edwards was a man who made resolutions and kept them.

For Edwards, resolutions were neither pious hopes, romantic dreams, nor legalistic rules. They were instructions for life, tenets to be followed in all respects. Edwards depended on the sustaining strength of God to enable him to live up to them. Edwards laid out the resolutions in a matter-of-fact style, treating them much like scientific principles. At the ripe old age of nineteen, he made seventy resolutions, the first one written on December 18, 1722, amd the last on August 17, 1723. You can read them at http://www.apuritansmind.com/ChristianWalk/ResolutionsOfJonathanEdwards.htm
Drawing up resolutions was a standard practice for educated people in the eighteenth century. Scholars have long compared Edwards’ and Benjamin Franklin’s resolutions.
Around 1730, while in his late 20s, Benjamin Franklin listed thirteen virtues that he felt were an important guide for living. These virtues consisted of temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility. Franklin divided the virtues into two categories—personal behavior and those related to social character traits. Franklin tried to follow these guides in his life, although he often went astray. You can read Franklin’s resolutions at http://www.school-for-champions.com/character/franklin_virtues.htm

Franklin’s resolutions stand in interesting comparison with Edwards’. Both men agreed on the value of making resolutions, evaluating their effectiveness and making a lifelong commitment to keeping resolutions, but Edwards were more dependent upon a sovereign Creator whereas Franklins’ were dependent upon the present world and the preparation of a good citizen. Both sets of resolutions merit study and consideration.

How do you make good resolutions? According to Alexander Harlamov, there are a few practical ways to set resolutions and follow them. He lists three simple steps: identifying the right goals, adding action to the goal, and reminding yourself regularly of the resolutions as a way to set and accomplish resolutions.

Business management guru Stephen Covey says about resolutions. “The start of a new year is often accompanied by a renewed energy around self-improvement and goal-setting in the form of resolutions.” “Resolutions are only important if accompanied by a deep personal sense of mission.” “People often make resolutions, break them, and allow this to become their habit pattern until the process itself eventually becomes rather meaningless.” “Until people think really deeply about what is truly most important to them, this rather discouraging pattern is likely to continue.”

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, says the most effective New Year resolutions list is the “stop doing” list. Collins says, "The "stop doing" list became an enduring cornerstone of my annual New Year resolutions—a mechanism for disciplined thought about how to allocate the most precious of all resources: time.”

Whether one resolves to start or stop doing something, New Year is a traditional time for introspection and reflection. May our goals be ones reflective of Edwards’ first two resolutions- Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will. Have a safe and happy New Year!

I HEARD THE BELLS ON CHRISTMAS DAY!

The date was July 10, 1861. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, his wife Fanny, and their five children lived in the historic Craigie House in Cambridge, Massachusetts, overlooking the Charles River. The day before, Fanny had recorded in her journal, "We are all sighing for a good sea breeze instead of this stifling land one filled with dust."

Seven-year-old Edith complained of her long hair and Fanny decided to cut off some of her curls and to preserve them in sealing wax. As she melted a bar of sealing wax with a candle, a few drops fell unnoticed on her light summer dress. The sea breeze they longed for suddenly gusted through the open window, billowing her dress into the flame and immediately wrapping her in fire. Henry frantically tried to extinguish the flames with a nearby undersized throw-rug. When that did not work to smother the flames, he threw his arms around his wife and was severely burned on his face, arms, and hands. Fanny died the next morning. And too ill from his burns and his grief, Henry did not attend her funeral.

Earlier in 1861, on April 10, Confederate General Pierre G. T. Beauregard fired the opening shots of the American Civil War, and Charles, the son of Henry and Fanny Longfellow, enlisted in the Army of the Potomac. Then in 1863 Charles was seriously wounded with a bullet passing under his shoulder blades.

The war, Fanny's death, then Charles' severe injuries. The first Christmas after Fanny's death, Longfellow wrote in his journal, "How inexpressibly sad are all holidays." A year later he wrote, "I can make no record of these days. Better leave them wrapped in silence. Perhaps someday God will give me peace." And on Christmas Day 1862 he wrote, "A merry Christmas say the children, but that is no more for me."

After Charles was wounded in war, the Christmas of 1863 was silent in Longfellow's journal. But finally on Christmas Day in 1864 he wrote the words of the poem "Christmas Bells" – a poem about the Civil War but also about faith in the midst of tragedy. The fives stanzas of the poem without reference to the war became the text of the familiar carol, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day." Listen to the words and think about the theology wrapped in them:

I heard the bells on Christmas DayTheir old familiar carols play,And wild and sweet the words repeatOf peace on earth, good will to men.

And thought how, as the day had come,The belfries of all ChristendomHad rolled along the unbroken songOf peace on earth, good will to men.

Till ringing, singing on its wayThe world revolved from night to day,A voice, a chime, a chant sublimeOf peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head,"There is no peace on earth," I said,"For hate is strong and mocks the songOf peace on earth, good will to men."

Then peeled the bells more loud and deep:"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;The wrong shall fail; the right prevailWith peace on earth, good will to men."

Originally aired on Discover the Word radio December 19, 2008. Full transcript and MP3 at http://www.rbc.org/radio-tv/discover-the-word/2008/12/19/program.aspx

Weekly Opinion/Editorial

FISHING FOR TORT REFORM!
by Steve Fair

The American Tort Reform Association released their annual report this week and Oklahoma is on the “watch” list. The ATRA has been around since 1986, and is dedicated to reforming the civil justice system through tort reform. This is the fifth year Oklahoma has been cited as a state that needs lawsuit reform. ATRA acknowledges that Oklahoma has a “bright side,” because more supporters (Republicans) of true tort reform were elected to the state legislature last month.

When Republicans took control of the State Senate for the first time in state history last month, it gave rise to the possibility we will finally get true lawsuit reform in the Sooner state. A lot however will depend on whether Governor Henry will sign what he says he wants in tort reform. Last year, he vetoed a bill with most of the provisions he said he supported on tort reform. Then five months later, he took a fishing trip to Brazil with several trial lawyers, including three past Presidents of the Oklahoma Trial Lawyers Association. When questioned about it, Henry said, “They were old family friends.”

The Trial lawyer lobby did all they could to keep the GOP from taking the State Senate this year. They contributed thousand of dollars to political candidates with three of every four dollars going to Democrats. Most of the money contributed to Keith Erwin and Daisy Lawler’s failed races against GOP incumbents in southwest Oklahoma—Don Barrington and Dennis Johnson—came from the trial lawyer lobby. Seventy percent of the money contributed to Nancy Riley’s race came from trial lawyers. Riley was the Democrat Senator who switched parties in the middle of her term because she lost the Lt. Governor’s GOP primary race. A staggering $865,000 was spent by the two candidates in that Senate race, with most of it coming from outside the Senate district. Riley’s contributions were slightly more than Dan Newberrry, who beat her easily.

A PAC known as the Working Oklahomans Alliance PAC has contributed over one million dollars in the past decade to dozens of House and Senate members and candidates—mostly Democrats. In August, The Oklahoman ran a story that stated many of the “working Oklahomans” were unaware they were contributing to a political action committee. According to Elsa Tewolde, who is listed as giving $80 to the WOA PAC, “They didn’t tell me.” “It makes me very upset because it’s deceptive.” Another client Rose Smith of Oklahoma City said she got a Working Oklahomans Alliance card after her attorney took a political donation out of her workers' comp settlement. "I didn't know about it until I got there,” she said. "I didn't like it.” Reportedly, the State Ethics Commission is investigating the WOA PAC.

Our country’s $246 billion civil justice system is the most expensive in the industrialized world. Aggressive personal injury lawyers target certain professions, industries, and individual companies as profit centers. They systematically recruit clients who may never have suffered a real illness or injury and use scare tactics, combined with the promise of awards, to bring these people into massive class action suits. They effectively tap the media to rally sentiment for multi-million-dollar punitive damage awards. This leads many companies to settle questionable lawsuits just to stay out of court.

These lawsuits are bad for business; they are also bad for society. They compromise access to affordable health care, punish consumers by raising the cost of goods and services, chill innovation, and undermine the notion of personal responsibility. The personal injury lawyers who benefit from the status quo use their fees to perpetuate the cycle of lawsuit abuse. They have reinvested millions of dollars into the political process and in more litigation that acts as a drag on our economy. Some have compared the political and judicial influence of the personal injury lobby to a fourth branch of government.

Opponents of Tort Reform say the issue is a very elaborate, and successful, propaganda war being financed by those who maim and kill others and yet do not want to be held responsible for their actions. They say there is no evidence that tort reform helps the average person. That is simply not true. Tort reform directly results in decreased insurance premiums for both health care professionals and individuals. Tort reform is not a release from liability, but a common sense approach to accountability. Tort reform will not benefit ambulance chasing trial lawyers and that is the primary reason they are fighting tooth and nail to stop it in Oklahoma. If we plan to move Oklahoma forward, we must have meaningful tort reform and soon.

The key will be Governor Henry and his stance on this important issue. Contact Governor Henry by phone at 405.521.2342 or by email through his website at http://www.governor.state.ok.us/message.php. Urge him to stop fishing and start helping Oklahoma by working with Republicans on meaningful tort reform.

Clinton Foundation releases list of donors
By Kevin Bogardus from The Hill
Posted: 12/18/08 01:04 PM [ET]

Former President Bill Clinton has raised millions of dollars for his foundation from foreign governments across the Middle East and Europe that his wife may end up negotiating with as the next secretary of state.The Clinton Foundation released a list of its donors Thursday as part of its agreement surrounding the nomination of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to President-elect Obama's Cabinet. The ex-president agreed to disclose the donors due to the potential of his expansive foundation work conflicting with his wife’s new role in the incoming Obama administration.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia gave at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. Kuwait and Qatar have given at least $1 million to the group, along with the sultanate of Oman and the government of Brunei.European countries have also pitched in. Norway donated at least $5 million to the foundation while Italy’s Ministry for Environment and Territory gave at least $500,000.Beyond foreign governments, the list is heavy with well-known Democratic donors and major corporations.

For example, the Wal-Mart Foundation and the foundation of the retail giant’s founder, Sam Walton, gave at least $1 million each to the foundation. Sen. Clinton sat on the company’s board from 1986 to 1992 when her husband was governor of Arkansas. The corporation is based in Bentonville, Ark.Other companies that have donated to the foundation include Duke Energy, Hewlett Packard and the Citi Foundation, affiliated with Citigroup, one of several financial services firms that have received rescue funds from the federal government this year.

Big contributors to the Democratic Party are also littered throughout the list. For example, movie producer Stephen Bing and media mogul Fred Eychaner both gave at least $10 million. Robert Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television, donated at least $1 million. In addition, George Soros’s Open Society Institute also gave $1 million.Disclosing the foundation’s donors is part of a tough ethics regime for the former president. Clinton will have to disclose future donors as well as submit his paid speeches and foundation activities to ethics officials at the State Department for review while his wife is at Foggy Bottom.

Obama’s presidential campaign often pushed Clinton to disclose donors to her husband’s foundation during their Democratic primary battle this year. Founded in 1997, this is the first time the Clinton Foundation has released its donors publicly, which is not required by law.Funds raised by the former president have financed several different foundation initiatives around the world, such as supplying medicine to those living with AIDS and developing programs for child nutrition in Latin America.“I want to personally express my deepest appreciation to our many contributors, who remain steadfast partners in our work to impact the lives of so many around the world in measurable and meaningful ways,” said former President Clinton in a statement Thursday.The full list of donors is available on the Clinton Foundation's website,

http://www.clintonfoundation.org/contributors/

Red-State Army?

By Danielle Allen

The Washington Post

Monday, December 15, 2008; Page A21

In Hopewell Township, N.J., the veterans of American Legion Post 339 have put their building up for sale. "Today's vets don't come out," 82-year old Jim Hall told The Times of Trenton last month. The post is down from 425 paying members in the 1960s and '70s to 202 this year; only about a dozen regularly attend. But it's America that has changed, not vets.

Since 1970, the population of the United States has grown by about 50 percent, from roughly 200 million to 300 million. Over the same period, the number of active-duty armed forces has fallen approximately 50 percent, from 3 million to 1.4 million. A far smaller percentage of the citizenry now serves in the military. Whereas in 1969 13 percent of Americans were veterans, in 2007 only 8 percent of us were.

Even more important than these general demographic shifts is the change wrought by the end of the draft in 1973. Until then, military service was distributed pretty evenly across regions. But that is no longer true. The residential patterns for current veterans and the patterns of state-level contributions of new recruits to the all-volunteer military have a distinct geographic tilt. And tellingly, the map of military service since 1973 aligns closely with electoral maps distinguishing red from blue states.

In 1969, the 10 states with the highest percentage of veterans were, in order: Wyoming, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, California, Oregon, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio, Connecticut and Illinois.

In 2007, the 10 states with the highest percentage of post-Vietnam-era veterans were, in order: Alaska, Virginia, Hawaii, Washington, Wyoming, Maine, South Carolina, Montana, Maryland and Georgia.

Over the past four decades, which states have disappeared from the top 10? California, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Illinois, all big blue states that have voted Democratic in the past five presidential elections. These states and another blue state, New York, which ranked 12th in 1969, are among the 10 states with the lowest number of post-Vietnam vets per capita. New Jersey comes in 50th of the 50 states; just 1 percent of current residents have served in the military since Vietnam. Little wonder Jim Hall's American Legion post is fading away.

This is not simply an issue of people retiring to warm states such as Florida, Georgia and Texas. A 2005 Heritage Foundation analysis of Defense Department and census data on enlistments found that Montana, Alaska, Florida, Wyoming, Maine and Texas send the most young people per capita to the military. The states with the lowest contribution rates? Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York.
What's clear from the data is that a major national institution, the U.S. military, now has tighter connections to some regions of the country than others.

And we can't simply treat the uneven pattern of military service as an insignificant reflection of the cultural differences that characterize different regions of this diverse country. Military institutions across nations and throughout time have always been important creators of culture. They strive to develop unbreakable bonds of solidarity among their members based on shared values, experiences and outlooks. In this country, the military's leadership role in racial integration has been understood in just this way.

The issue now is not racial integration but cultural separation. If young people from different regions and social backgrounds either enter or steer clear of the armed forces, military service will become, over time, an experience that doesn't ease but exacerbates preexisting cultural differences. Is the all-volunteer military already having this effect?

I spotted the link between military service and regional partisan divisions when I was researching not military history but Internet political communication. After spending time on political Web sites of the right and left, I noticed that posts on right-leaning sites often employed military lingo -- habits of developing monikers and jingles and of using the vocabulary of military tactics and strategy. Left-leaning sites, in contrast, mostly lacked any easily recognizable features of military language.

This is one sign that our public sphere already suffers from a division between military and non-military cultures. The division is not trivial, and without institutional change it is likely to be durable.
During the recent presidential campaign, bothBarack Obama and John McCain called for restoring idealism and rededicating citizenship to service. Doing so would require paying attention to the fact that the all-volunteer military has dramatically segmented American experience.

It is time to think seriously about a structure for national service -- both military and non-military -- that could successfully integrate young people from different regions of the country so that they will come, at least, to understand each other. We need to weave a fabric of shared citizenship anew.

The writer is the UPS Foundation Professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.