Presidents and the Rhetoric of Recessions

Are presidents reticent during recessions? Some research indicates that presidents make fewer major and minor speeches when economic conditions worsen (Ragsdale 1984; Eshbaugh-Soha 2010). We examine whether this holds true with major discretionary speeches utilizing recessions as the indicator of poor economic conditions. In addition, we also investigate the subject matter of major discretionary speeches given during both economic expansions and contractions. Presidents potentially have an incentive during a recession to focus the attention of the public away from economic concerns, where they have little command and control ability, to foreign policy, where they do have more power to act unilaterally. We find that presidents are not reticent during recessions. During recessions, fewer average months elapse between major discretionary speeches than we find elapse during economic expansions. Furthermore, while presidents never talk about the economy at high rates overall, they do focus more than twice as many major discretionary speeches on economic topics during recessions than they do during expansions. We also find no evidence that presidents attempt to ratchet up the rate at which they discuss foreign policy during recessions in an attempt to divert attention from economic matters

Communicating as Chief Legislator: Four Case Studies from the State of the Union

While the Constitution stipulates in Article II, Sec. 3 that presidents can recommend necessary and expedient measures to Congress, it is up to Congress to act. The primary place presidents engage in the activity of recommending legislation is the State of the Union Address (SUA). We examine SUAs from 1965-2002 and identify the legislative requests that presidents make of Congress. The SUA is a unique presidential speech that allows assessment and comparison between presidents of whether Congress follows where the president leads. Are presidents successful in getting Congress to enact the policies they ask for in the SUA? Furthermore, the policy making environment is complex and in order to assess the nature and role of the chief legislator’s communications with Congress in the SUA, we utilize case studies to determine what role the SUA played in the outcome of four cases. Each case was chosen based on its outcome. One is an unsuccessful request (constitutional amendment for four-year house terms), one is fully successful (authorization and funding of a manned space station), one is partially successful (civil service reform), and one is a repeat request from multiple presidents that was eventually successful (line-item veto). We find that when a president uses the SUA to request action of Congress, he typically receives about two in five of his requests, either in full or in part, during the following congressional session. In each of our four cases, the SUA played an integral role in the outcome, although this did not always mean the president was successful in getting his request enacted, or that the SUA was the most important factor. The SUA is an excellent tool of political communication for the chief legislator, but it is not without its limitations. The chief legislator’s position in the political system makes it much more likely Congress will give consideration to his requests, but it does not guarantee the president will receive a substantial amount of his requests. The chief legislator’s increase in rhetorical powers represented in the SUA did give him an advantage over regular legislators, but it did not unduly increase his power over the legislature. The chief legislator is not an ordinary legislator, but neither is he empowered with a rhetorical arsenal with which he can assault Congress. The system of shared legislative powers continues to check the president despite an increase in the president’s rhetorical power. The SUA is a tool the chief legislator can utilize to facilitate congressional leadership, but it is not a weapon with which he can cudgel Congress into accepting his leadership

George W. Bush and the Rhetoric of Chief Legislator: The First Term

Near the beginning of a congressional session, the president will present key pieces of his legislative agenda to both Congress and the American public in the State of the Union address (SUA). He will couch his requests in a way that seeks to persuade his audiences he has the legislative solution to a problem he details. Effective political communication between the president and Congress is essential since each play key roles in the legislative process. While Congress comprises the legislative branch, the moniker we attach to one of the multiple jobs with which presidents are charged is that of chief legislator. Within the legislative process, presidents may recommend legislation, but it is up to Congress to act. While the chief legislator’s role is limited, the SUA has become a potent tool that the president may utilize in his role as chief legislator. Presidents, as chief legislators, share two goals with regular legislators. They desire to secure reelection, and they want to make public policy. In addition, term limited presidents have a unique goal; they want to secure a positive legacy. In the SUA, chief legislators will claim credit for past successes, make requests for legislative actions, and use symbols all to further these mutually reinforcing goals. We examine how President George W. Bush used the rhetoric of the SUA in his role as chief legislator during his first term to aid him in the advancement of these goals. We find that Bush’s use of the policymaking rhetoric changed after 9-11 and became unusual when compared to previous presidents’ use of the SUA. He acted less as chief legislator and more as commander-in-chief and chief executive

The Presidential Rhetoric of Hard Times

Is there a presidential rhetoric of hard times? We are interested in presidents’ rhetorical reactions during economic contractions. Do they rhetorically react at all? If they choose to speak, what do they seek to convey to the public about the economy? We analyze the major discretionary speeches presidents give during recessions. Some presidents are reluctant to address major economic remarks to the public; in five of the 11 recessions since World War II, presidents have not offered a major economic speech. They do, however, deliver major discretionary speeches on other topics during recessions. While most presidents tend to deliver more major remarks about non-economic subjects during recessions, Reagan is a notable exception. When presidents do choose to direct major remarks on the economy, we search for common characteristics in their rhetoric to examine if this subset of speeches classifies as a genre of rhetoric. We examine three dimensions in the speeches: orientation toward time, the tone of the remarks, and whether or not there is action specified. We found that there is no discernable overall pattern for how presidents orient their rhetoric in time, the speeches are more negative in tone than expected, and while there are a good number of action oriented sentences, the speeches are not uniformly action oriented. Thus, there is not sufficient evidence to suggest there is a uniform presidential rhetoric of hard times

Introduction

On September 23, 2015, the University of Northern Iowa celebrated Constitution Day with a forum marking the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965. I served as moderator of the panel, and we were fortunate to have four distinguished speakers who discussed various aspects of the history, legacy, and current status of the VRA. The Rev. Dr. Michael Blackwell, UNI Director for Multicultural Education Emeritus, and President and Executive Director of the Project for the Beloved Community, Inc., commemorated the passage of the VRA by discussing some of the background and personalities involved in the years before the VRA became law, as well as talking about the current challenges related to voting rights. Professor John Johnson from the Department of History at UNI looked at the conditions in the United States before the passage of the VRA, in particular discussing methods used to disenfranchise voters. Scott Peters, Associate Professor of Political Science, explored current issues related to recent and upcoming Supreme Court decisions. Finally, Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate talked about voting rights in Iowa and the importance of voting. What follows are the remarks each panelist made for UNI’s forum on The 50thAnniversary of the Voting Rights Act: Progress, Problems, and Perils

MagA expression attenuates iron export activity in undifferentiated multipotent P19 cells

© 2019 Liu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a non-invasive imaging modality used in longitudinal cell tracking. Previous studies suggest that MagA, a putative iron transport protein from magnetotactic bacteria, is a useful gene-based magnetic resonance contrast agent. Hem-agglutinin-tagged MagA was stably expressed in undifferentiated embryonic mouse teratocarcinoma, multipotent P19 cells to provide a suitable model for tracking these cells during differentiation. Western blot and immunocytochemistry confirmed the expression and membrane localization of MagA in P19 cells. Surprisingly, elemental iron analysis using inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry revealed significant iron uptake in both parental and MagA-expressing P19 cells, cultured in the presence of iron-supplemented medium. Withdrawal of this extracellular iron supplement revealed unexpected iron export activity in P19 cells, which MagA expression attenuated. The influence of iron supplementation on parental and MagA-expressing cells was not reflected by longitudinal relaxation rates. Measurement of transverse relaxation rates (R2* and R2) reflected changes in total cellular iron content but did not clearly distinguish MagA-expressing cells from the parental cell type, despite significant differences in the uptake and retention of total cellular iron. Unlike other cell types, the reversible component R20 (R2* – R2) provided only a moderately strong correlation to amount of cellular iron, normalized to amount of protein. This is the first report to characterize MagA expression in a previously unrecognized iron exporting cell type. The interplay between contrast gene expression and systemic iron metabolism substantiates the potential for diverting cellular iron toward the formation of a novel iron compartment, however rudimentary when using a single magnetotactic bacterial gene expression system like magA. Since relatively few mammalian cells export iron, the P19 cell line provides a tractable model of ferroportin activity, suitable for magnetic resonance analysis of key iron-handling activities and their influence on gene-based MRI contrast

The Consolidation of the White Southern Congressional Vote

This article explores the initial desertion and continued realignment of about one-sixth of the white voters in the South who, until 1994, stood by Democratic congressional candidates even as they voted for Republican presidential nominees. Prior to 1994, a sizable share of the white electorate distinguished between Democratic congressional and presidential candidates; since 1994 that distinction has been swept away. In 1992, a majority of white southern voters was casting their ballot for the Democratic House nominee; by 1994, the situation was reversed and 64 percent cast their ballot for the Republican. Virtually all categories of voters increased their support of Republican congressional candidates in 1994 and the following elections further cement GOP congressional support in the South. Subsequent elections are largely exercises in partisanship, as the congressional votes mirror party preferences. Republicans pull nearly all GOP identifiers, most independents, and a sizeable minority of Democratic identifiers. Democrats running for Congress no longer convince voters that they are different from their party’s presidential standard bearers—a group that has consistently been judged unacceptable to overwhelming proportions of the southern white electorate.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Micropapillary bladder cancer: Current treatment patterns and review of the literature

No guidelines exist for management of micropapillary bladder cancer (MPBC) and the majority of reports of this variant of urothelial carcinoma (UC) are case series comprised of small numbers of patients. We sought to determine current practice patterns for MPBC using a survey sent to the Society of Urologic Oncology (SUO) and to present those results in the setting of a comprehensive review of the existing literature