Congress

A Highway To Peace Or A Highway To Hell?

March 22, 2023 William J. Astore, Tom Dispatch. Educate! China, Congress, Military Industrial Complex, Pentagon Budget, Russia

In April 1953, newly elected President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a retired five-star Army general who had led the landings on D-Day in France in June 1944, gave his most powerful speech. It would become known as his “Cross of Iron” address. In it, Ike warned of the cost humanity would pay if Cold War competition led to a world dominated by wars and weaponry that couldn’t be reined in. In the immediate aftermath of the death of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, Ike extended an olive branch to the new leaders of that empire. He sought, he said, to put America and the world on a “highway to peace.” It was, of course, never to be

‘Holman Rule’ Allows The House To Fast-Track Government Program Cuts

March 20, 2023 Charles Tiefer, The Conversation. Educate! Austerity, Congress, Government Programs, Holman rule

The slim Republican majority in the House of Representatives has just voted to give itself a streamlined way to fire civil servants and shut down federal programs it doesn’t like – outside the standard process of review and debate. This method, known as the Holman rule, has been used in the past by both parties to cloak political decisions in the language and process of saving taxpayers money. It was included in a package of rules approved as the House began its business in January. As a former acting general counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives and the author of a treatise on congressional procedure, I know that this method has been used in the past to push extreme political agendas through the political process without due consideration for the public interest.

SNAP Benefits For African Mothers Are Gone While Ukraine Eats Good

March 16, 2023 Erica Caines, Hood Communist. Educate! Black America, Congress, Food Security, SNAP Program

As the country ushers in commemorations for ‘International Women’s Month’, 42 million households have been hit with a significant reduction in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits impacting the ability of millions of mothers to feed their children. In December 2022, Congress voted to end the pandemic emergency allotments after passing the government funding package the previous year. After nearly three years, the program that temporarily increased federal SNAP benefits for low-income families came to an end on March 1st.

House Of Representatives Defeats Resolution Demanding Troop Withdrawal From Syria

March 11, 2023 People's Dispatch. Educate! Congress, Syria, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

A resolution asking for the complete withdrawal of US troops from Syria within six months was defeated on Wednesday, March 8, in the US House of Representative despite drawing bipartisan support. The resolution was proposed by Republican representative Matt Gaetz from Florida, who claimed that the presence of US troops in Syria has no justification and no clear objective. The resolution received 103 votes in favor and 321 votes against. Despite the expressed support of the Progressive Caucus, the resolution was only supported by 56 Democrats and 47 Republicans in the House, which has a total strength of 435.

Protesters Disrupt House China Panel’s First Hearing

March 3, 2023 Jared Gans, The Hill. Resist! China, Congress, New Cold War, Wars and Militarism

Protesters disrupted the first hearing of a House select committee investigating potential threats that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) poses to the country and U.S.-China competition late Tuesday, arguing that the country should cooperate with China instead of competing with it. “China is not our enemy,” read a sign held by Olivia DiNucci, an organizer for CODEPINK: Women for Peace, which advocates against the United States engaging in wars and “regime change efforts.” A CODEPINK release states that DiNucci delivered a message that “The American people need cooperation, not competition with China” before she was taken out of the chamber where the meeting was happening.

We Need To Cut The Military Budget, But Don’t Trust The Far Right To Do It

February 28, 2023 Phyllis Bennis, In These Times. Educate! Congress, Military Industrial Complex, Pentagon Budget, Rightwing Politics

Since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives earlier this year, the so-called “Freedom Caucus” — the badly misnamed right-fringe of the congressional GOP — has been flexing its influence. Caucus members are deeply invested in an agenda that would increase inequality and enrich corporations and billionaires, strip hard-won rights from people of color, immigrants, women, and the LGBTQ community, destroy the environment to enrich fossil fuel companies and slash social investment for the poor. And yet surprisingly, some of these extremists are also—sort of—calling for cutting the military budget. Does that provide an opening for anti-war progressives looking to cross the aisle? Unfortunately, no.

Police Accountability Is A ‘Non-Starter’ Without Discarding The Qualified Immunity Doctrine

February 14, 2023 Ben Rosenfeld, CounterPunch.org. Educate! Accountability, Congress, Police, Qualified immunity

Some reps in Congress assert that dismantling qualified immunity (“QI”)—a police officer’s so-called good faith defense to a civil rights lawsuit—is a “non-starter” in negotiations to pass the George Floyd Civil Rights Act. In reality, meaningful police accountability is a non-starter without discarding QI. QI is a regressive framework which has turned federal civil rights lawsuits into sheer games of chance with bad odds. Under QI, the Supreme Court instructs judges to apply a two-pronged analysis, in a specific order: first to examine whether the right sought to be vindicated was clearly-established at the time, and second to examine whether the officer reasonably could have believed his/her conduct was lawful.

Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Program In Jeopardy

February 9, 2023 Peoples Dispatch. Educate! Congress, Joe Biden, Military Recruitment, Student Debt

On Friday, February 3, 128 Republican lawmakers in the US House of Representatives, and most Senate Republicans, filed amicus briefs with the Supreme Court, opposing President Biden’s student loan forgiveness program. Biden’s program, announced August 24 of last year, would have forgiven up to USD$20,000 in federal student loans for the most low-income borrowers, and USD$0,000 for those earning less than USD$125,000 per year. This would have affected about 43 million people and forgiven around USD$1.6 trillion in student loan debt. Many believed that this was only a band-aid on a massive issue, as the average US household with student debt owes USD$58,238. However, even this band-aid measure was never implemented. The plan has been repeatedly halted by conservative-led legal challenges, and has now found its way to the Supreme Court, which will ultimately decide the program’s fate only as late as June 2023.

GOP Has Not Created A New Church Committee

January 18, 2023 John Kiriakou, Consortium News. Educate! Congress, FBI, GOP, Surveillance

House Republicans last week announced that they would quickly create a special committee that they referred to as the Church Committee II. Formally, they named it the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. The subcommittee was created on a straight party-line vote: All 221 Republicans voted in favor while all 211 Democrats were opposed. It will be chaired by far-right Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan, the former wrestling coach at Ohio State University whom six former wrestlers accused of doing nothing to help them, despite the fact that he knew they were being molested by the team doctor. Jordan is also the incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee; in one of life’s ironies, despite graduating from an obscure law school in central Ohio, he never bothered to take the bar exam.

Economic Justice Coalition Launches ‘Full Employment For All’ Campaign

January 17, 2023 Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams. Create! Congress, Full Employment, Martin Luther King Jr, Worker Rights and Jobs

In an effort to "create an economy of full employment for all regardless of race, gender, or religion," 10 leading U.S. economic advocacy groups on Monday launched a new campaign calling for a federally subsidized jobs program targeting communities plagued by high unemployment. The Full Employment for All campaign is timed to coincide with the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday and the 60th anniversary year of King's "I Have a Dream Speech." Just as King's indictments of U.S. capitalism and militarism are often overlooked, omitted, or overshadowed by his civil rights work, the full name and purpose of the August 1963 demonstration—the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom—have been eclipsed by the iconic speech he delivered there. A year before his April 1968 assassination—which happened while he was supporting striking Black Memphis sanitation workers—King wrote that "we must create full employment or we must create incomes."

House Republican Rules Package Designed To Enable Skewed Priorities

January 16, 2023 Joel Friedman, CBPP. Educate! Austerity, Congress, Federal budget, Republicans, Tax Cuts

The House Republican majority recently adopted a rules package to guide that chamber’s legislative action that would put up steep barriers to investments in critical national needs while paving the way for ever more tax cuts, inevitably tilted toward the wealthy and profitable corporations. That isn’t an agenda that will expand opportunity or support broadly shared economic growth. Proponents describe the rules as “restoring fiscal sanity,” but they just reflect an ideology that ignores reams of evidence showing that the tax cuts of recent decades haven’t meaningfully boosted economic growth. The large tax cuts have led to higher deficits and debt and lower investments in areas such as education, research, child care, climate, and transportation that would make our nation as a whole stronger. The new House rules can be waived, but this package offers a window into the House majority’s priorities — favoring new tax cuts while hindering new investments.

The Vote For House Speaker Obscured Democratic Treachery

January 12, 2023 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Congress, Democrats, Kevin McCarthy, Republicans

In 2021 Democratic Party progressives asked those members of congress who claimed to share their political priorities to stand up to their leadership, which meant standing up for the people. They knew that Joe Biden promised to veto any legislation providing free, universal healthcare, known as Medicare for All. But they did what any political activist should do. They made the demand anyway. The call to #ForcetheVote was a request for House members to withhold their votes for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House unless she committed herself to bringing Medicare for All to a vote. The House members who called themselves progressives did nothing of the sort. They elected Nancy Pelosi without demanding that she bring Medicare for All or any other issue for a vote. The Squad and the Progressive Caucus, all failed to do what their supporters wanted.

Congressional Chaos – Deals And Trades

January 10, 2023 Sara Flounders, Workers World. Educate! Congress, Kevin McCarthy, Politics, US politicians

The U.S. Congress’ dysfunction was on full display through 15 rounds of votes for the “Speaker of the House” position. The rivalry, trading, dealing, secret and public concessions, within the Republican Party, and even physical scuffles were in clear view. The multiple votes and the open floor fights are a preamble of the coming session. During the theater of numerous votes, the House of Representatives ground to a halt. Without a Speaker elected, no other body in the House can function or even convene meetings, nor can the new members of the House be sworn in. Since the Republicans had a majority (a slim majority, 222 Republicans, 212 Democrats) in the House, they chose the Speaker, who is right behind the vice president in the list for succession to the presidency. But 218 votes were needed to make Kevin McCarthy, a conservative California Republican with eight terms in Congress, Speaker.

In Ukraine, It’s Patriot vs. Iskander For Now

December 25, 2022 M.K. Bhadrakumar, People's Dispatch. Educate! Congress, Joe Biden, Russia, Ukraine, US Imperialism, Volodymyr Zelensky, Wars and Militarism, Washington D.C.

With the Republicans poised to take narrow control of the House of Representatives in the US Congress in January, the Joe Biden Administration is hoping to extract as much funding as possible for the proxy war in Ukraine against Russia before the locus of legislative business shifts on the Hill. The White House is requesting nearly $45 billion in new funding. Who else could canvass better than an accomplished actor-politician? Enter President Vladimir Zelensky. When Zelensky proposed on Sunday that he’d find time to visit Washington for a few hours on Wednesday, President Biden promptly accepted. For Zelensky too, it pays to be seen holding Biden’s hands amidst swirling rumors of a power struggle in Kiev. To be sure, from the strategic perspective, the backdrop of Zelensky’s decision to travel to Washington urgently would have been the one-day trip by Russian President Vladimir Putin to Minsk on Monday, which shook up the geopolitics of European security.

‘I Did Not Know I Had A Voice’

December 21, 2022 Sara Herschander, Capital and Main. Organize! Congress, Domestic Workers, Worker Rights and Jobs

After nearly a decade working as a live-in nanny in New York City, Ludie Delva knew she was being underpaid, but didn’t know there was a minimum wage. And though she worked upwards of 60 hours per week, she wasn’t aware that she also qualified for overtime that might’ve helped with the bills she struggled to pay on her $500 weekly paycheck. Nor did she know about New York state’s Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, legislation that would ultimately allow Delva to reclaim over $25,000 in stolen wages from two former employers. The final amounts paled in comparison to what they owed her, but the money still allowed Delva to purchase a home for her family in Haiti, and survive a pandemic that thrust domestic workers around the country into prolonged economic uncertainty.

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