Impeachment story told by john f. Kennedy in his 1957 book profiles in courage. This event was part of a symposium on reconstruction hosted by the u. S. Capitol historical vosociety. Brook thomas is a professor in the English Department at the university of california at irvine. I think you just took emeritus status, which means he has more time to write and more time to talk and more time to educate all of us. Im honored that he has come here again. He was here a couple years ago. Im honored that he is back today. Thank you. I have about 25 minutes so i hope we have time for question and answer. But were moving towards the end. Reconstruction stayed alive in the popular memory largely through its portrayal in popular media. I want to look at the politics of the portrayals of Andrew Johnsons impeachment. My primary works are the clansman, the film tennessee johns johnson. My thesis is that these works portrayal radical reconstruction as misrule reenforced highly held belief that althou
Life, being in the drivers seat. This civil act of disobedience. Wash sunday night at 8 00 eastern on cspans q a. House oversight subcommittee on operations held a hearing on federal agencies compliance with congressional information request. Some members of the subcommittee said the Trump Administration has withheld documents that have been requested. Subcommittee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare recess to the committee at any time. The subcommittee is convening a hearing on the document production efforts on the office of personnel management, the federal bureau of investigation and the General Services administration in response to various committees and subcommittee document request. I now recognize myself for an Opening Statement. I want to thank the witnesses for being here. Although i know there could be more comfortable hearings to attend. I regret we need to have this hearing. Were here because they have not substantially complied with
The hearing will come to order. Without objection the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. Today is the third panel of the oversight investigation subcommittee hearing spielgtsed learning from v. A. Whistleblowers. On june 25th, the subcommittee began this hearing to discuss the importance of va whistle bloergs we heard testimony from people inside the va raising Major Concerns questions and kwerns critical problems affecting the health and well being of veterans. These witnesses were willing to below the whistle even when at risk their livelihood and careers. Unfortunately we learned the va continuing to struggle with the culture of retaliation against whistleblowers. In too many instances leadership and supervisor turned a blind eye in those in v. A. Worker frs pointed out sowers problems or pointing out bad actors ace abuseding positions or broken laws. Even worse the whistleblowers are target of active retaliation one striking example dpram dr. Catherine mitchells t
So i said, a colleague and i conducted a survey of washington officials. Because everyone is always surveying americans to see what they think of washington, we said, lets survey washington to see what it thinks of america. So we surveyed officials and what i will call members of the policy community, that is the contractors, who often are interchangeable with officials, people who work in think tanks, everyone involved in developing rules and regulations. So i said, we want to see what they thought of americans. In fact, my original title for this book was what the government thinks of the people. But publishers never like my titles, they always say my titles are no good. All right. So at any rate, i sent out so we wanted to find out what officials thought of us ordinary americans. She said, well, thats kind of interesting, but she said, Everybody Knows that ordinary americans are a bunch of idiots. Why do you need to do a survey to find that out . Well, to me, that confirmed everythi
Sailors, and marines, had criticized the commander of the u. S. Navy. Including criticizing him for mistreating british prisoners. This is embarrassing to the u. S. Government, but think about it. The Founding Fathers put everything on the line. This was not an election or paul. If they lost the revolution, they would get hung for treason. In the middle of thats revolution, they paused, and they said every inhabitant of the United States should report waste, fraud, and corruption to congress and appropriate authorities, even if it barest the new government it embarrassed the new government. They passed the law and voted money for the lawyers for the whistleblowers who had been thrown in jail. And they released all of the ,apers that were controversial that were embarrassing to the government. The whistleblowers won the case. 1778, so this30, is not some token day. This is a day for every american to sit back and say, whoa, whistleblowers have been with us for a long time and they have