Tortilla Coast

From "Politico"

-- SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TEXAS), the architect of the government shutdown, was spotted Monday night at Tortilla Coast, huddling with 15 to 20 House conservatives devising a strategy on how to respond to a Senate deal, Roll Call's Matt Fuller reports. Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, also dining in the restaurant, appeared interested in what the group was discussing. http://bit.ly/15DdPZ3

Tortilla Coast is my favourite eating place on the Hill. (see my post from October 2009); I tasted my first margarita there - and it is where I celebrated my 50th birthday with a meal.

It is very close to the House Offices on Capitol Hill - to get there one passes the capitol South metro station - and it's on the right hand corner of the road.

 

I'm not very keen on receiving messages from Senator Cruz and his buddies at the moment (they've taken the US & the world to a very dangerous place for the sake of their ideology) - but I would accept a "wish you were here" message from them. 

New Troy

Many of the histories and guides to Capitol Hill say that it is built upon land once known as "Jenkins Hill". L'Enfant certainly described it as such - and many followed him. However the stories of the site of the Capitol being where Thomas Jenkins pastured his animals are.sadly, pure myth. I will give more of the real story in a forthcoming post.

The land on which the Capitol stands was in fact owned by Daniel Carroll of Duddington (who was a relative of Commissioner Daniel Carroll of Rock Creek). The land was marked on maps as "New Troy". Many local places were given Roman and Greek names. The small stream which ran at the base of the hill - and into what is now the Mall - had the grand title of the Tiber.

Another myth concerns the founding of London in the UK. Geoffrey of Monmouth claims that London was founded when Brutus (A Trojan - who Geoffrey credits as being the ancestor of the English Kings) fled from Troy in about 1070 BC to the British Isles. He was the founder of the settlement which later become London - he called it "New Troy". The BBC tell the story here.

The Building of Washington DC

In one of the videos from my walk whilst in the USA, I show the point at which the surveying to establish the  District of Columbia began (to see the video of Jones Point press here)

The timeline for the establishment of the City and the Capitol Building is -

July 16th 1790 - Congress, meeting in New York, passes the Residence Act - which moves the seat of government to Philadelphia for 10 years, and then to a new site (a square of 10 miles on each side) on the Potomac - the exact area to be established by the President.

Washington selected an area which included the existing settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria - but the new city was on the Maryland side to the south and east of Georgetown. L'Enfant prepared a map showing the outline of the new city and its major streets and buildings in 1791.

1791 First public sale of lots within the Federal District

1792 Competitions were announced for the design of an Executive Mansion (now the White House) and a building for the Congress. The Executive Mansion was sorted out with ease, but none of the plans for the Congress Hall satisfied the Commissioners. William Thornton requested and was given permission to submit a late entry. This design was chosen. However his only professional competitor - Stephen Hallet - was, in compensation for the work he had done on his own entry, given a key role in building - and he abused his position to alter and undermine Thornton's plan. He was eventually discharged.

Sept 18th 1793 - the Cornerstone of the Capitol was laid

late May 1800 - The government left Philadelphia - to set up in Washington

Nov 17th 1800 - The North (Senate) Wing of the Capitol was ready - but the House Building was barely more than foundations. So both Houses met in the Senate Building. A temporary House of representatives building was available by December 1801.

1811 - the House Building was completed - but the middle building remained unbuilt - so the two Houses were joined by a temporary passageway.

Aug 24th 1814 - the British burned the Capitol Building!

Guide to Capitol Hill

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The view from the Library of Congress

I filmed this at about 1pm Washington time (6pm UK time)yesterday. The morning was spent catching up on the news [It is so good to be able to read the physical editions of The Hill, Politico & the Washington Post - I'm grateful for the ability to read them online from 3600 miles away - but it's nicer to read - and mark - the hard copies. I also rang & then emailed a number of Members' offices - to set up interviews in the coming days.

Having made my way to "the Hill" I popped into the Library of Congress Book/Gift shop - before making this video. Then I crossed to the Newspaper and Current Periodicals Reading room, which like the Congressional Research Service, is based in the Madison Building. I spent some wonderful hours reading the Washington Post from November 1974.

I made my way to Politics and Prose - where I picked up a signed copy of President Carter's Diaries. I have quite a bit of reading to do - and I'll be blogging about some of that soon.

Bailout Information

Roll Call, the respected journal which appears on Capitol hill - and thankfully has an online subsciption (which I value greatly) - is publishing a webpage dealing with the Bailout. It describes itself as -

"Roll Call's Bailout Information Center is a clearinghouse for Roll Call's extensive coverage of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. It also serves as a resource to examine how each member of Congress voted and voice your opinion directly to your lawmaker."

http://www.rollcallgroup.com/bailout/

What happened?

Yesterday afternoon (evening in the UK) the world's eyes were focused on the floor of the House of Representatives - and the result was a dramatic defeat for the bail-out proposals. In the following hours we saw the response from around the world. This story is far from over...

Explanation and comment will be found from many sources - but the links to those closest to Congress are set out below

Roll Call: http://www.rollcall.com/
The Hill: http://thehill.com/
CQ Politics: http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5
Politico: http://www.politico.com/
Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
National Journal: http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/

Here is a sobering column from today's Washington Post (Business Section)


They Just Don't Get It

By Steven PearlsteinTuesday, September 30, 2008; Page D01

Oy vey.

That is the technical economic term that best sums up a day in which the House of Representatives refuses to pass a $700 billion rescue plan pushed by the White House and congressional leaders from both parties, Wachovia is taken over in a deal that will have the government potentially owning 10 percent of Citigroup, a few European banks fail, the Federal Reserve and other central banks are forced to inject an additional $300 billion into the global banking system, the Dow Jones industrial average plunges 778 points, and investors everywhere rush to the safety of gold and short-term Treasury bills.

The basic problem here is that too many people don't understand the seriousness of the situation. Americans fail to understand that they are facing the real prospect of a decade of little or no economic growth because of the bursting of a credit bubble that they helped create and that now threatens to bring down the global financial system.

Politicians worry less about preventing a financial meltdown than about ideology, partisan posturing and teaching people a lesson. Financiers have yet to own up publicly to their own greed, arrogance and incompetence. And leaders of foreign governments still think that this is an American problem and that they have no need to mount similar rescue efforts in their own countries.

In the coming weeks and months, all of these people will come to understand how deep the hole really is and how we're all in it together. They'll come to understand that the giant sucking sound they hear is of a massive deleveraging of the global economy and the global financial system as households, governments, businesses and investment funds adjust to living in a world with less debt and more inflation.

And they will come around, reluctantly, to the understanding that the only way to get out of these situations is to have governments all around the world borrow gobs of money and effectively nationalize large swaths of the financial system so it can be restructured, recapitalized, reformed and returned to private ownership once the crisis has passed and the economy has gotten back on its feet.

In the next few weeks, the center of attention here in the United States will shift from the Congress and an exhausted Treasury to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which will now have to rescue any number of failing banks, either by taking them over directly or managing their transfer into stronger hands. It will also shift back to the Federal Reserve and other central banks, which will have to step up their efforts to maintain liquidity in money markets and prevent the credit crunch from taking down hedge funds, businesses, and state and local governments.

These will, alas, be only holding actions. Restoring real stability to financial markets will require the kind of systemic approach and extraordinary government interventions that the public has refused to authorize and finance. In better times, the public might have put aside its reluctance in response to the strong and unified recommendation of political and business leaders. But it is a measure of how little trust remains in both Washington and Wall Street that voters are willing to risk a serious hit to their wealth and income rather than follow their lead.

The Burning of Washington

During my recent mini-holiday, I read Anthony S Pitch's "The Burning of Washington: The British Invasion of 1814". Today is the 194th anniversary of the attack on the city of Washington and the burning of the Capitol Building and the White House. Pitch's book is a good read, giving a full account of the events preceding and following that fateful night.

Britain and the United States had been at war since 1812 - and some have referred to it as the second war of independence. A brief outline of the two and a half year war can be found at http://www.usahistory.com/wars/1812.htm

The attack on the new capital was a retaliation for the attack by American forces on York (now Toronto) in Canada on April 27, 1813. The Americans attacked with a fleet of fourteen ships via the York Harbour. The Parliament Building was looted, and then burned down.

After Washington was attacked British forces moved on to Baltimore. An observer of the attack launched upon Fort McHenry (a fort which was vital to Baltimore's defence) wrote a poem about the failure of the sustained bombardment on the fort - "The Star Spangled Banner" now the American national anthem.