Trinity Episcopal church was located at 3rd, Indiana, and C Streets, NW. Designed by James Renwick, the church, built in 1849, was torn down in 1936.
NB ideas
3 years ago
Showing posts with label Capitol. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Capitol. Show all posts
21 April 2009
How the corrupt in Congress pad their nests
*PAPER: Senator's husband cashes in on crisis;Feinstein sought $25B for agency...
*TARP INSPECTOR GENERAL WARNS OF 'CATASTROPHIC FRAUD' POTENTIAL...
The nation has heard about Diane Feinstein and her husband, Pelosi and her husband and Harry Reid and his entire family, but they are only the ugly tip of the iceberg. The iceberg gets uglier and much bigger under the surface.
There are stories on Jenkins Hill, it can't be Capitol Hill until cleansed, of members of Congress, administration officials and bureaucrats that have side businesses selling their power to alter, add, delete and influence legislation, appointments and existing law.
They are the unseen and unknown lobbyists with the ultimate inside track as they seek the help of unaware fellow members in quid pro quo legislative support.
Here is a quick sampling:
Congress: The Harman bombshell
A quid pro quo on card check bill?
Computer Spies Infiltrate the Pentagon
Is the House Swamp Drained Yet?
A young man in Akron, Ohio was a numbers runner in the 1920's and was often beaten because the unions didn't like competition. He turned against the unions because, as he said, "at least I'm honest about my crime" and got a job as a security man in Youngstown at a steel plant. In the 1930's he was savagely beaten again by strikers during the "Little Steel" strike. The doctor trying to sew him up made a comment about stupid "Micks" and the man spoke up, "Son, shut up and do your work." The doctor was the first in his family to attend college and the man gave everything he had to make that possible. They were my father and grandfather.
Why is this relevant? They both believed that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I don't know that either read Lord Acton, but they knew the truth whatever their attained level of education.
Just as unions, at their beginning, were necessary in business, government can be a good in its necessity. At its height of power unions had become corrupt. In government it is an ongoing battle, especially as the size of government grows beyond all rational thinking and engorges itself with ever more power.
In 1792 Alexander Hamilton couldn't stop government officials from profiting from insider information concerning the purchase of government debt and Hamilton was speaking of political and bureaucratic corruption when he stated, "Corruption is the enemy of good government." Hamilton's nemesis, Thomas Jefferson, is attributed with saying, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Our vigilance is what allows us to see through the smoke of lies into the dark corners and closed doors of power.
As then, now politicians seek to divert attention away from their corruption. Unlike then, the media, knowing full well the tales of corruption, now look the other way. The sense of decency and honor in the halls of Congress and the bureaucracy has turned to cynicism.
The ultimate cynicism is a Pelosi playing the part of the centuries old Br'er Rabbit stating, as she feeds the swamp, that she will drain, or clean, the GOP swamp, knowing she and her compatriots are right at home in their well self-feathered nest right smack dab in the middle of our governmental swamp of profligate spending.
Pull the plug.
*TARP INSPECTOR GENERAL WARNS OF 'CATASTROPHIC FRAUD' POTENTIAL...
The nation has heard about Diane Feinstein and her husband, Pelosi and her husband and Harry Reid and his entire family, but they are only the ugly tip of the iceberg. The iceberg gets uglier and much bigger under the surface.
There are stories on Jenkins Hill, it can't be Capitol Hill until cleansed, of members of Congress, administration officials and bureaucrats that have side businesses selling their power to alter, add, delete and influence legislation, appointments and existing law.
They are the unseen and unknown lobbyists with the ultimate inside track as they seek the help of unaware fellow members in quid pro quo legislative support.
Here is a quick sampling:
Congress: The Harman bombshell
A quid pro quo on card check bill?
Computer Spies Infiltrate the Pentagon
Is the House Swamp Drained Yet?
A young man in Akron, Ohio was a numbers runner in the 1920's and was often beaten because the unions didn't like competition. He turned against the unions because, as he said, "at least I'm honest about my crime" and got a job as a security man in Youngstown at a steel plant. In the 1930's he was savagely beaten again by strikers during the "Little Steel" strike. The doctor trying to sew him up made a comment about stupid "Micks" and the man spoke up, "Son, shut up and do your work." The doctor was the first in his family to attend college and the man gave everything he had to make that possible. They were my father and grandfather.
Why is this relevant? They both believed that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I don't know that either read Lord Acton, but they knew the truth whatever their attained level of education.
Just as unions, at their beginning, were necessary in business, government can be a good in its necessity. At its height of power unions had become corrupt. In government it is an ongoing battle, especially as the size of government grows beyond all rational thinking and engorges itself with ever more power.
In 1792 Alexander Hamilton couldn't stop government officials from profiting from insider information concerning the purchase of government debt and Hamilton was speaking of political and bureaucratic corruption when he stated, "Corruption is the enemy of good government." Hamilton's nemesis, Thomas Jefferson, is attributed with saying, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Our vigilance is what allows us to see through the smoke of lies into the dark corners and closed doors of power.
As then, now politicians seek to divert attention away from their corruption. Unlike then, the media, knowing full well the tales of corruption, now look the other way. The sense of decency and honor in the halls of Congress and the bureaucracy has turned to cynicism.
The ultimate cynicism is a Pelosi playing the part of the centuries old Br'er Rabbit stating, as she feeds the swamp, that she will drain, or clean, the GOP swamp, knowing she and her compatriots are right at home in their well self-feathered nest right smack dab in the middle of our governmental swamp of profligate spending.
Pull the plug.
19 March 2009
Library of Congress Construction
Construction of the Thomas Jefferson Building, from July 8, 1888 to May 15, 1894.
The Library of Congress was established on April 24, 1800, when President John Adams signed an act of Congress providing for the transfer of the seat of government from Philadelphia to the new capital city of Washington.
The legislation appropriated $5,000 "for the purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress ..., and for fitting up a suitable apartment for containing them...." The original library was housed in the new Capitol until August 1814, when invading British troops set fire to the Capitol building, destroying the contents of the small library (3,000 volumes).
Within a month, former President Thomas Jefferson offered his personal library as a replacement. Jefferson had spent 50 years accumulating books, "putting by everything which related to America, and indeed whatever was rare and valuable in every science"; his library was considered to be one of the finest in the United States. Jefferson, who was heavily indebted, sought to use the proceeds of the sale of his books to satisfy his creditors. He anticipated controversy over the nature of his collection, which included books in foreign languages and volumes of philosophy, science, literature, and other topics not normally viewed as part of a legislative library, such as cookbooks. To satisfy any objections as to the suitability of his collection for Congress' use, he wrote, "I do not know that it contains any branch of science which Congress would wish to exclude from their collection; there is, in fact, no subject to which a Member of Congress may not have occasion to refer."
In January 1815, Congress accepted Jefferson's offer, appropriating $23,950 for his 6,487 books, and the foundation was laid for a great national library. The Jeffersonian concept of universality, the belief that all subjects are important to the library of the American legislature, is the philosophy and rationale behind the comprehensive collecting policies of today's Library of Congress.
On December 24, 1851, a fire destroyed 35,000 books, an original portrait of Christopher Columbus, portraits of the first five US Presidents by Gilbert Stuart, and statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette.
18 March 2009
Carter Obama; How incredibly appropriate
One economic trainwreck learning (teaching?) from another.
Where are the fiscally responsible, ie. conservative, in Washington, DC?
Do they no longer exist or have they just lost their voice?
13 March 2009
William Thornton's Capitol 1793
The site for the United States Capitol chosen by Pierre Charles L'Enfant was Jenkins Hill, which rose 88 feet (27 m) above the Potomac River.[3] The site is one mile (1.6 km) from the White House. Pierre-Charles L'Enfant secured the lease of quarries at Wigginton Island and along Aquia Creek in Virginia for use in the foundations and outer walls of the Capitol in November 1791.[4]
In 1792, a contest was announced by Commissioners of the Federal City seeking designs for both the Congress House and the President's House.[3] The contest deadline was July 15, 1792, with rewards including $500 and a lot in the city.[5] All the drawings submitted were considered inadequate and rejected.[6] The most promising of the submissions was by Stephen Hallet.[7] However, a late entry by amateur architect William Thornton was submitted on January 31, 1793 to much praise by President George Washington and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. Thornton was inspired by east front of the Louvre, as well as the Pantheon for the center portion of the design.[8] Thornton's design was officially approved in a letter, dated April 5, 1793, from George Washington.[9] In effort to console Hallet, the commissioners appointed him to review Thornton's plans, develop cost estimates, and serve as superintendent of construction. Hallet proceeded to pick apart and make drastic changes to Thornton's design, which he saw as amateur with numerous problems and high costs to build.[10] Jefferson appointed a five-member commission, including Hallet and James Hoban, to address problems with and revise Thornton's plan. Except for some details in Thornton's plan that specified an open recess in the center of the East front, the revised plan was accepted.
11 March 2009
March 11th In DC History
11th March, 1977 : 130 hostages held in Washington, D.C., by Hanafi Muslims are freed.
The time was the best of times and the worst of times. Marion Barry may have actually been drug free, but James Earl Carter was president.
The time was the best of times and the worst of times. Marion Barry may have actually been drug free, but James Earl Carter was president.
10 March 2009
"Two Wings With No Body"
U.S. Capitol and Pennsylvania Avenue before 1814. Ink, wash, and gouache drawing. Unattributed (formerly attributed to Benjamin Henry Latrobe; "B.H.L." appears on drawing), ca. 1819.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
