Congress

Sanctions: A Sanctimonious Word for Economic Warfare and Outright Theft

March 9, 2022 Ann Garrison, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Congress, Eritrea, Sanctions, US Imperialism

The word “sanctions” emerged in the Middle Ages, meaning ecclesiastical decrees. Today it’s a sanctimonious word for economic warfare, including even outright theft. Despite all the terror about what could happen in Ukraine next, Afghans are still facing freezing cold and starvation and the US has seized—not just frozen but seized—their $7 billion in assets on deposit at the Federal Reserve. And Ethiopia and Eritrea face brutal sanctions in House Resolution 6600. The US has imposed sanctions on roughly a third of the world’s population , most famously now on Russia, but more on developing nations than not. In mid-February a bill to impose new sanctions on Ethiopia and Eritrea, House Resolution 6600 , moved out of the House Foreign Relations Committee onto the House floor.

Postal Reform Act Passes In Senate, Sent To President Biden’s Desk

March 8, 2022 National Association of Letter Carriers. Resist! Congress, US Postal Service, Worker Rights

Today, in a 79-19 vote the Senate passed the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 (H.R. 3076). Following House passage on Feb. 8, the bill will now be sent to President Biden for his signature to become law. “This is a monumental victory for letter carriers and all Americans who depend on the Postal Service for affordable and high-quality universal service,” NALC President Fredric Rolando said. “I want to congratulate and thank all the NALC members who lobbied their members of Congress to win passage in the Senate and the House. Thanks to your support, dedication and action, bipartisan postal reform, that was 12 years in the making, has finally passed in both chambers.” This bipartisan legislation will improve the financial stability of the Postal Service.

We Can’t Just Keep Saying ‘Pass The PRO Act’

February 22, 2022 Jonah Furman, Labor Notes. Organize! Congress, Labor Unions, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

In January our movement got its annual punch in the gut from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, whose 2021 report shows 241,000 fewer union members than the previous year. Just 1 in 10 workers belongs to a union; in the private sector it’s 1 in 16. In 20 years the country gained 14 million workers—but unions lost 2 million members. Poll after poll shows majority support for unions; “Striketober” gripped headlines for weeks. And yet our numbers keep going down. The law is broken, the employers are aggressively resistant, the members are on defense—all true enough, but none is an answer to the crisis. The bottom line is that our unions either can’t organize, or won’t. The United Auto Workers has lost 275,000 members—40 percent of its membership—since the year 2000.

Experts Detail Deadly Consequences Of US Drone Strikes To Senate

February 11, 2022 Brett Wilkins, Commondreams. Educate! Civilian Deaths, Congress, Drones, extrajudicial murder

Experts on the conduct and consequences of U.S. drone strikes delivered harrowing testimony Wednesday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on two decades of aerial bombardment during the so-called War on Terror. "Our nation is at a turning point," Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said upon opening the hearing. "In the months after 9/11 we strayed from our values, engaging in torture and indefinite detention at Guantánamo, which continues." "We also began conducting lethal strikes in unprecedented ways," he continued, later acknowledging the tens of thousands of men, women, and children killed U.S. airstrikes in at least half a dozen nations over the past 20-plus years. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the committee, was dismissive of the proceeding, instead expressing concern for "the growing spike in violent crime, including murders and attacks on police" in the United States.

Capitol Hill Staffers Are Organizing Unions

February 10, 2022 Chris Cioffi and Jim Saksa, Portside. Organize! Capitol Hill, Congress, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Inspired by an anonymous Instagram account and disgusted by bad pay and worse bosses, congressional staffers have begun the uncertain journey toward unionizing. Organizers of the nascent Congressional Workers Union described their long-running efforts and future plans to organize one of the nation’s most idiosyncratic workplaces to CQ Roll Call on Monday. Just what their struggles will produce remains to be seen — much will depend on how members of Congress, their fellow staffers and an obscure legislative branch office respond. The CWU announced its campaign to unionize lawmaker offices and committees on Friday, but the organizers said they had been planning for more than a year. The initial talks began before Jan. 6, 2021, but the attack on the Capitol changed the tone.

Black Alliance For Peace Condemns The ‘America COMPETES Act’

February 9, 2022 Black Alliance for Peace. Educate! China, Congress, New Cold War, US Imperialism

On Friday evening, February 4, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the America COMPETES Act of 2022 (H.R. 4521). The stated intent of the legislation is to strengthen “America’s national and economic security and the financial security of families, and advance our leadership in the world.” While this claim, found in Nancy Pelosi’s press statement on January 20th, seems to be addressing some of the most important political and economic issues currently plaguing the United States, from the supply chain to the shortage of semiconductors, the Black Alliance for Peace sees this piece of legislation as sinophobic and militaristic, and that only strengthens the imperialist designs of U.S. foreign policy.

Memo To Congress: Diplomacy For Ukraine Is Spelled M-i-n-s-k

February 8, 2022 Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, Popular Resistance. Educate! Congress, NATO, Russia, Ukraine

A December 2021 poll found that a plurality of Americans in both political parties prefer to resolve differences over Ukraine through diplomacy. Another December poll found that a plurality of Americans (48 percent) would oppose going to war with Russia should it invade Ukraine, with only 27 percent favoring U.S. military involvement. The conservative Koch Institute, which commissioned that poll, concluded that “the United States has no vital interests at stake in Ukraine and continuing to take actions that increase the risk of a confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia is therefore not necessary for our security. After more than two decades of endless war abroad, it is not surprising there is wariness among the American people for yet another war that wouldn’t make us safer or more prosperous.”

Congress Launches New Pro-Israel ‘Cheerleading’ Caucus

January 30, 2022 Jessica Buxbaum, Mintpress News. Educate! Congress, Israel, Israeli Lobby, Peace

Washington - Earlier this month, Congress launched the bicameral, bipartisan Abraham Accords Caucus to support normalization between Israel and Arab states. Backed by pro-Israel groups, this new political development can be interpreted as a way for the Israel lobby to regain its power over a U.S. Congress that is increasingly critical of Israel. Described as a “cheerleading squad” in the Jewish Insider by its co-chair, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), the caucus’s stated goals include expanding the Abraham Accords agreements and fostering regional peace. The group’s other co-chairs are Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), David Trone (D-MD), Ann Wagner (R-MO), and Brad Schneider (D-IL).

US Unveils Legal Trigger For War With Russia

December 17, 2021 Finian Cunningham, Sputnik News. Educate! Congress, Russia, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

A bill tabled this week in the Senate looks likely to pass into law because of the bilateral consensus of belligerence towards Russia. It is generally accepted as if fact that Russia is threatening to invade Ukraine despite Moscow’s repeated denials and lack of evidence to support such sensationalized speculation. Among other provocations, the lawmakers want to more than double the supply of lethal weaponry that the US is about to send Ukraine and to kill off the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Europe. On top of that – as if all that were not incendiary enough – the US Senators want to designate Russia a “terrorist state” if its “forces further invade Ukraine”.

Congress Passes Massive $778 Billion NDAA

December 16, 2021 Dave DeCamp, AntiWar.com. Educate! Congress, Joe Biden, NDAA, Pentagon Budget

On Tuesday, the Senate passed the massive $778 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in a vote of 89 to 10. The legislation is a compromise version of the NDAA that was already passed by the House and now just needs President Biden’s signature to become law. Congress added $25 billion more to the spending bill than Biden requested. The bill authorizes $740.3 billion for the Pentagon, $27.8 billion for the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons program, and $9.9 billion for “Defense-related Activities Outside NDAA Jurisdiction.” In September, the House passed a different version of the NDAA that included an amendment from Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) that would have ended US support for the war in Yemen, but the measure was stripped from the compromise version.

CIA Sex Crimes

December 14, 2021 John Kiriakou, Consortium News. Educate! C.I.A., Congress, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Sexual Abuse

Buzzfeed reported on Dec. 1 that over the past 14 years, the C.I.A. has amassed credible evidence, including confessions, that 10 employees and a contractor committed sex crimes against children and that only one was ever charged with a crime. The evidence the C.I.A. released to Buzzfeed in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit shows that the 10 employees and one contractor committed crimes including child rape, the purchase of violent child pornography, and viewing as many as 1,400 photos of nude children on a C.I.A. computer while overseas on a work assignment. The contractor had arranged to have sex with an undercover F.B.I. agent who he thought was a child. The only C.I.A. officer prosecuted for child sex crimes had also mishandled classified information.

How Congress Loots The Treasury For The Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex

December 7, 2021 Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, Popular Resistance. Educate! Congress, Military Budget, Military Industrial Complex, Pentagon

Despite a disagreement over some amendments in the Senate, the United States Congress is poised to pass a $778 billion military budget bill for 2022. As they have been doing year after year, our elected officials are preparing to hand the lion’s share - over 65% - of federal discretionary spending to the U.S. war machine, even as they wring their hands over spending a mere quarter of that amount on the Build Back Better Act. The U.S. military’s incredible record of systematic failure—most recently its final trouncing by the Taliban after twenty years of death, destruction and lies in Afghanistan—cries out for a top-to-bottom review of its dominant role in U.S. foreign policy and a radical reassessment of its proper place in Congress’s budget priorities.

Potential Legislation On China Amounts To A New Cold War

December 2, 2021 Aída Chávez, Black Agenda Report. Educate! China, Congress, New Cold War, Wars and Militarism

Congress is itching to pass a sweeping bipartisan package that threatens to enshrine a new Cold War, this time against China, and they’re counting on the American public’s inattention to get it through by the end of the year. After months of stalling in the House, and a failed attempt to attach the legislation to the annual defense bill, majority leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi struck a deal this week for a bicameral conference on the anti-China legislation. The US Innovation and Competition Act is a massive piece of legislation purporting to make the United States more “competitive” with China economically, politically, and technologically. Mainstream media outlets and lawmakers have framed the bill as the most expansive industrial policy legislation in US history, and as being crucial for countering China’s economic rise.

Amid Overdose Crisis, Public Health Groups Urge Congress To Pass Life-Saving Bills

December 1, 2021 Julia Conley, Common Dreams. Create! Congress, Harm Reduction, Opioid crisis, Public Health

Two weeks after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released sobering statistics showing a record-breaking number of drug overdoses in the U.S. in the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, more than 260 advocacy groups called on lawmakers Tuesday to urgently pass public health proposals to mitigate the crisis. Led by the Drug Policy Alliance, People's Action, the National Harm Reduction Coalition, and VOCAL-NY, the organizations said the unprecedented number of overdoses in the 12-month period ending in April 2021 was "grim, but not unexpected" considering the criminalization of drug use in the United States and lack of resources for people with drug use disorders.

Why There Are So Few Whistleblowers

November 26, 2021 Melvin Goodman, Counter Punch. Educate! Accountability, Congress, Legal System, Whistleblowers

Adam Schiff’s new book, “Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could,” makes a strong case for the importance of whistleblowing, particularly in these fractured times. Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, argues that his committee is “uniquely dependent on whistleblowers” because of the “classified nature” of its work. Without whistleblowers, the congressional intelligence committees would be “almost completely reliant on the intelligence agencies to self-report,” according to Schiff. A whistleblower in the intelligence community cannot go to the press, so they must have “access to Congress” or the “whole system fails.”

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