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The year is 1810 and Henry Clay of Kentucky is elected to the House of Representatives.  He has just finished serving two terms in the Senate.  He is also immediately elected Speaker of the House which is unheard of these days... a newly elected Congressmen to hold such a high office.  At that time, there were ongoing problems with Great Britain and war hawks were beginning to circle.  Clay formed a close-knit circle of allies.  The issues of the time were impressment of US sailors, seizing US s

With diesel and gas prices climbing steeply, farmers have warned that food prices will inflate as a consequence. But more than just hike prices at the grocery store, rising production costs could burst what some economists speculate to be the newest market bubble. The cost of diesel is directly tied to every facet of commodity farming and distribution. Drastic fuel and fertilizer price increases over the last several weeks have helped push up grain, meat and farmland prices to new, record highs

Politico February 9: On the campaign trail... Newt Gingrich (Republican): Yesterday, Newt Gingrich finished up his Ohio bus tour, with his next appearance tomorrow at the CPAC convention in Washington D.C. He has big plans for next week, as he already has eight fundraisers planned in California. Gingrich's strategy departs from his Republican rivals, in that he ignored the trio of states that voted on Tuesday and has been directing his focus to Super Tuesday. He has been keeping quiet and opte

As a 22-year-old young man in a denim jacket, with long, dark hair down to the middle of my back, and a big sign that said something against the banks, you might have guessed that I was an Occupy Wall Street protester-- but this was the summer of 2009 and the Occupy Wall Street protests wouldn't happen for another couple years. I was protesting at a Tea Party, and I was proud to be there. Before Occupy Wall Street, there was the Tea Party, and we didn't like big Wall Street banks much either. I

A new poll finds that a third-party bid by presidential hopeful Ron Paul would help re-elect president Obama, but not before taking away 9% of the President's independent support and 17% of independent voters from Romney. In a separate poll, Paul was found to be competitive against Obama in a head-to-head contest as the GOP nominee. In a hypothetical three-way race, the Pew Research Center found that Obama would garner support from 44% of registered voters, Mitt Romney would get 32% support, an

Beginning with the Iowa caucuses on January 3, 2012, more than half of the states in the nation will hold their presidential primary and caucus elections over the course of the next three months. In the coming years, however, we may well see a significant change in the way the nation chooses its president if the movement for the national popular vote compact continues to gain momentum. And it appears that supporters of the compact public opinion on their side. As many Americans discovered for t

The U.S. Senate defeated an amendment on Tuesday that would have stripped the pending defense spending bill of language that critics charge would allow the U.S. military to make arrests of American citizens on U.S. soil and detain them indefinitely without charges or trial. The amendment which was defeated on a vote of 37-61, would have struck the following controversial provision, authored by Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), from the defense bill: Section 1031 The amendment's author, Sen. Mark Udall

There is an age old lesson in American politics that both political party loyalist just can't seem to get in their heads. Americans are fundamentally fair minded, skeptical of philosophers, and wish death on zealots and bullies. The Democrats took it on the chin in 2010 after Democrats ran rough shod over Republicans in Congress. Tuesday night was the first hint that Republicans may pay the price for over reaching, some might argue "radical" agendas embraced in the euphoria of those wins. Acros

Sylvia Longmire's new book Cartel: The Coming Invasion of Mexico's Drug Wars has just been released and is available in bookstores today. She is a retired Air Force captain and Special Agent with extensive experience investigating Mexico Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO). She now consults and writes about southwest border violence issues and blogs at Mexico's Drug War. I interviewed her last month. Your book implies the violence and corruption of the drug wars will be spilling across the bor

Is there anyone less popular today than a sitting politician?  Well, yes.  Someone else’s politician.  Today’s generalized numbers about Congress, the President, Democrats and Republicans go out the window when it comes to your local guy or gal. Despite numbers so low they are threatening to crack the crust of the earth, parties are not threatened with replacement by Independents because people don’t vote for parties.  They vote for individuals.  And almost to a person, those individuals are s