Bill. But ultimately Democratic Leaders secured manchins support to clear the way for the legislation after biden himself got involved. That is because manchin agreed to a compromise on Unemployment Benefits that satisfied some of the lawmakers on both sides. I say good for joe manchin. To see such a raw exercise of independent power is so rare and refreshing. Imagine how different washington would be if more members of congress would be willing to similarly go against their party based on policy. We could take back power from the fringes. Manchin is a throwback to the 1960s when according to congressional quarterly, a typical member of congress voted with his or her party only 60 of the time. Typical was text congressman voted with the Johnson Administration as much as he did with the nixon administration. His name was george h. W. Bush. But by 2010, it was 89 of the time. Independent thinking was gone. Most legislative votes become a rote exercise, members just vote with colleagues.
With you. It feels kind of like if this were espn andwere talking football, going back to talking about the key formation, its written literally a mark your marks not been a subject of discussion in the halls of congress for a decade. Tell rkus. What is a congressional your . And earmarked bill is a line item provision that is inserted into legislation that is going to certain project and is inserted by the lawmaker. So it could be, it could be in some cases a museum in sparta north carolina. Also the bridge to nowhere was that was named as a bridge to nowhere that alaska so is this right provision into a variety of legislation and is something that wasnt very three until really in the 90s, it just exploded through the mid2000 and after some reforms, the publicans took control in 2011. Decide moratorium that you are. And mark strand, ask you this was their only a animus towards this spending. These congressional earmarks . You heard people say this is somehow important spending. Port i
You but out of the Congress Business for a couple of years what is your take on the evolution of congress from your perch out there in Washington State . I have to say congress is not what it used to be i started covering congress in 1974 and it was pretty continual in america is on a nice edge of political parity and its also a huge goal separating two very large significant fashions of american politics and if you put those things together you will get a lot of turmoil and a lot of nasty politics and thats what were experiencing today. Why do you think that change . I think a lot of it has to do with the nature of the issues, i think if you look at American History you will find in politics were always the most intense throughout our time throughout her history when the issues facing america are definitional and in nature of america who we are, where were going, what is our connection to our past, our heritage, all those kinds of things and whether we knew it or not were one of those
Have with us Frank Figliuzzi for the launch of his newest book United States. Frank served as as a specialt with the fbi for 25 years rising to become assistant director charged with leaving the bureaus feigned counterintelligence division. He has held senior fbi leadership positions major American City and was appointed the fbis chief inspector to oversee sensitive internal inquiries. He is a graduate of Fairfield University and uconn school of law and hold certificates from harvard, john f. Kennedy school of government and northwestern kellogg school. Today is National Security analyst for nbc news and hes a soughtafter speaker and and instructor on the leadership of risk management. Joining franking conversation is natasha bertrand. She is National Security correspondent with politico and was a staff writer for the atlantic. Covering National Security and politics. She worked as a politics reported for Business Insider after graduating Ambassador College with a degree in clinical si
But by my esteemed colleague doctor susan schoelwer, mount vernon estate executive director of the stork preservation and collections and the robert smith curator. We will hand things off you and excited to watch to watch this and learn more about this. Ill put everything in advance. Take care, have a great evening everyone. I will see you another time. Susan, thanks so much. Thank you, kevin, and thank you to all of those who are joining us. Gene, its wonderful to have you with us tonight. Thank you. Im really excited about this. I think Benjamin Henry latrobe is one of those important figure some early america that i have really know that much about and perhaps thats true of many of our audience as well. Kevin mentioned several of the previous books you have written on a variety of topics and they dont necessarily seem to lead to latrobe, so it always curious about how authors come to find the subjects. How did you get interested in latrobe . Well, its been a long road. I live in bal