In & of DC; on Midrats

When you send your elected representative to Washington DC, you are not just sending one person. It takes a team to conduct the business of the nation. For each Congressman and Senator - there is a cadre of staffers that makes it happen.

Bills do not sprout out of the heads of politicians - no - they are carefully crafted, often over years, by the people you see in the background on C-Span. Politicians cannot and do not read source documentation all that much, they are too busy - others do that for them and give them the Executive Summary.

Who are these people, how do they work, and how what role do they play in keeping the machinery of government and policy moving?

Our guest for the full hour this Sunday, 03 April from 5-6pm EST to discuss this, the influence of milblogging upon legislation, how HR 5729 was written partially because of blogger activism, the think tank community and the relationship between the Executive Branch and the Hill and how that prevents some great ideas becoming law. And how the 501(c)(3) status's ban on non-profit's lobbying activities hurts national security decision-making - and more will be Michael Clauser.

Mike is an Adjunct Fellow at the National Strategy Information Center. He served as the National Security Legislative Assistant to a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the previous Congress. He was recently identified as a "Next Generation National Security Leader" by the Center for a New American Security and as a "Nuclear Scholar" by the Project on Nuclear Issues at CSIS. Prior to working on the Hill, Mike served in the Presidential Administration of George W. Bush in the Pentagon in both OSD and on SecNav staff. He holds masters degrees from the University of Exeter in England and the Poznan University of Economics in Poland and is a graduate candidate at the U.S. Naval War College. He did his bachelors in philosophy and religion at Penn State and is a native of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Join us live if you can and join in with the usual suspects in the chat room, but remember, if you miss the show or want to catch up on the ones you've missed - you can always reach the archives at blogtalkradio - or set yourself to get the podcast on iTunes.

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