Bambam goes to Congress

I picked these three, out of ten, because I felt they were the most representative of what’s going on today in similarity to what went on in our past. If we don’t remember the past, we’re doomed to repeat it. Lately, it seems we all have a touch of Alzheimer’s. #1 & #3 are fairly straight forward. #2 is an attempt to explain the “electoral college”; something nobody these days seem to have clue about, but they keep trying to explain it and tell us we don’t need it anymore. The latter I fully agree with. 

 

Top 10 Government Showdowns

As President Obama and the Democrats square off against the Republicans, led by Speaker of the House, John Boehner, TIME takes a look at historic federal standoffs
#1- Truman vs. Steel Industry, 1952
By Erin Skarda Wednesday, July 27, 2011    GEORGE SKADDING / Time Life Pictures




Harry S. Truman made his fair share of missteps throughout his presidency, but his decision to seize control of the steel industry during the Korean War forever marred his presidential legacy. Concerned over wartime inflation, the Truman Administration imposed wage-price controls for industries that were considered necessary for national defense. These controls led to an ongoing contract dispute between the Wage Stabilization Board and the United Steel Workers Union, which wanted to raise both wages and the price of steel to keep up with increased demand. Truman personally requested an end to the impasse, but terms could not be met by the deadline so the steel companies moved to strike. To prevent a delay in the production of weapons that were needed overseas, Truman ordered his Secretary of Commerce to seize the mills. The seizure angered the steel companies, which claimed that the move was illegal. The Supreme Court agreed. In the 1952 case of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer — known as The Steel Seizure Case — the court made a landmark decision to limit the president's power to seize private property. As for the steelworkers, they went on strike anyway, and after 53 days, agreed to similar terms that the union had proposed almost four months earlier.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2085383_2085381_2085430,00.html #ixzz1Zg5Wx0B8
#2 - Big States vs. Small States, 1787
By Frances Romero Wednesday, July 27, 2011     Universal History Archive / Getty Images






Thanks to — or sometimes no thanks to — the Connecticut Compromise, reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the U.S. government has both a House of Representatives and a Senate. But it was a bit of a slog to reach the agreement. Under the proposed Virginia Plan, members of the House were to be nominated and elected by the people of the state. Members of the Senate, however, were to be nominated by state legislatures and elected by the lower house. That didn't sit well with less populous states like Delaware, which were afraid that they would be overshadowed by states with larger populations. Another plan, this time from New Jersey, proposed a legislature with a single house. That was also a no go. Finally, Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth of the Connecticut delegation came up with a plan that melded the two earlier ideas. Members of the House would be allocated according to state population and elected by the people. Membership to the Senate would be limited to two per state, regardless of population, and state legislatures would choose Senators. After 11 days of voting, the compromise passed. But in 1913 the Seventeenth Amendmen made it so that Senators would also be elected by the people.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2085383_2085381_2085398,00.html #ixzz1Zg6UbXsr
#3 - Andrew Johnson vs. Congress, 1868
By Everett Rosenfeld Wednesday, July 27,2011Library of Congress / Getty








Andrew Johnson took the reigns of a nation still wounded and divided from the Civil War, following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. He had big shoes to fill, but in the eyes of Congress seemed to make all the wrong moves. Though he was on the side of the Union during the war, the former Tennessee governor's Reconstruction policies were seen as conciliatory to the South and in his hurry to reincorporate the former Confederate states into the union he found himself in a bitter battle with the Radical Republicans. Those same Radicals took Johnson to court, making him the first president in the history of the U.S. to be impeached. Charged with eleven high crimes and misdemeanors by the Republican congressmen, after nearly three months of tense proceedings, Johnson narrowly escaped conviction by one vote.
Read more:
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2085383_2085381_2085353,00.html #ixzz1Zg7bLC80
source credit: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2085383_2085381_2085430,00.html