Congress

Contractors Cash In As Congress Adds Billions To Pentagon Budget

September 14, 2022 Julia Gledhill and William D. Hartung, Tom's Dispatch. Educate! Congress, Military Industrial Complex, Pentagon, Wars and Militarism

Congress has spoken when it comes to next year’s Pentagon budget and the results, if they weren’t so in line with past practices, should astonish us all. The House of Representatives voted to add $37 billion and the Senate $45 billion to the administration’s already humongous request for “national defense,” a staggering figure that includes both the Pentagon budget and work on nuclear weapons at the Department of Energy. If enacted, the Senate’s sum would push spending on the military to at least $850 billion annually, far more — adjusted for inflation — than at the height of the Korean or Vietnam wars or the peak years of the Cold War. U.S. military spending is, of course, astronomically high — more than that of the next nine countries combined. Here’s the kicker, though: the Pentagon (an institution that has never passed a comprehensive financial audit) doesn’t even ask for all those yearly spending increases in its budget requests to Congress.

US Launched 251 Military Interventions Since 1991, And 469 Since 1798

September 14, 2022 Ben Norton, Multipolarista. Educate! Congress, Military Industrial Complex, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

The United States launched at least 251 military interventions between 1991 and 2022. This is according to a report by the Congressional Research Service, a US government institution that compiles information on behalf of Congress. The report documented another 218 US military interventions between 1798 and 1990. That makes for a total of 469 US military interventions since 1798 that have been acknowledged by the Congress. This data was published on March 8, 2022 by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), in a document titled “Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2022.” The list of countries targeted by the US military includes the vast majority of the nations on Earth, including almost every single county in Latin America and the Caribbean and most of the African continent.

Groups Urge Congress To Reject Mountain Valley Pipeline

September 8, 2022 The Center for Biological Diversity. Resist! Congress, Joe Manchin, Mountain Valley Pipeline, Pipelines

Washington, DC — More than 80 conservation groups sent a letter today urging congressional leadership to reject Sen. Joe Manchin’s proposal to fast-track the approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline as part of any “permitting reform” deal struck between Manchin and Democratic leaders. “The Mountain Valley Pipeline is an ecological and climate disaster that threatens one of the largest remaining wild landscapes in the eastern United States,” the groups’ letter said. “This destructive pipeline was rejected by the federal courts in part because of the devastation it would cause to endangered species and sensitive ecosystems along its path.”

SADC Rejects Anti-Russian Bill In United States Congress

September 3, 2022 Abayomi Azikiwe, Popular Resistance. Resist! Africa, Congress, Russia, Wars and Militarism

A recent gathering of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has expressed its displeasure with recent legislation making its way through the United States Congress which is aimed at punishing the continent for its diplomatic and trade relations with the Russian Federation. This event was convened under the theme of “Promoting Industrialization through, Agro-Processing, Mineral Beneficiation, and Regional Value Chains for Inclusive and Resilient Economic Growth.’’ The title took into serious consideration the contemporary operating context in the Southern Africa region and the urgent need to enhance the implementation of the SADC industrialization and market integration programs as contained in its development framework covering the years of 2020-2030.

Congress Considers A National Domestic Workers Bill Of Rights

August 26, 2022 Bella DeVaan, Inequality.org. Create! Bill of rights, Congress, Domestic Workers, Worker Rights and Jobs

$71,610.03: the back wages, interest, and civil penalties paid to a live-in domestic worker by their negligent employer in Seattle. In July, King5 News reported, the city’s Office of Labor Standards orchestrated the employer’s settlement – redress for their failure to pay minimum wage, provide overtime pay, and track payment. “I would encourage other domestic workers to come forward and not to be afraid if they believe that the contracts and the form of payment are not being fulfilled according to the work that is done,” the anonymous domestic worker shared in the wake of her repayment. In 2018, exactly three years prior, Seattle was the first city in the nation to pass a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.

Aging US Nuclear Plants Are Dangerous And Expensive

August 19, 2022 Harvey Wasserman, Truthout. Educate! Congress, Finance and the Economy, Inflation Reduction Act, Nuclear Energy

The much-heralded Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), while offering a vital lifeline to the renewable energy industry, also contains massive subsidies to keep dangerously aging atomic power plants operating for years to come. Meanwhile, six decrepit atomic reactors are now caught in a terrifying military crossfire in southeastern Ukraine, showing exactly why it is so important to shut down nuclear plants instead of subsidizing them. The Ukrainian reactors, located at Zaporizhzhia, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, are now being used as a shield for Russian artillery arrays. A single errant shell could send far more atomic radiation pouring over Europe than did Chernobyl, with an unimaginable toll of downwind death and destruction from which the continent might never recover.

The Stealth Plan For Medicare For All

August 14, 2022 Rick Staggenborg, OpEd News. Educate! Congress, Health Care, Medicare for all

Some advocates of a publicly funded universal health care system have predicted that its creation is inevitable because of the "death spiral" of insurance costs. This term refers to the fact that as costs of insurance rise, fewer people can afford it, leading to a new round of rising premiums and out-of-pocket costs. If this cycle were allowed to continue indefinitely, it would be only a matter of time before the medical insurance industry priced its product out of existence. In a rational world, this simple fact would lead Congress to do what every other industrialized nation has done; create a publicly funded system of universal health care either through a government-run system such as Medicare for All, or through a tightly regulated system of non-profit insurers that offer a defined benefit package specified by the government, as in Germany.

Climate Protesters Delay Congressional Baseball Game

August 6, 2022 Zach Roberts, DeSmog. Resist! climate crisis, Congress, Direct Action

The Congressional Baseball Game is an annual tradition that dates back to 1909. It’s supposed to be a time for both sides of the political system to come together and join in a peaceful nine innings of the national pastime. But this year’s game, held on Thursday, July 28 at the Washington Nationals’ ballpark in Washington, D.C., was less sleepy than the average baseball game. Now or Never, a group of justice, faith, and climate organizations, held a protest in an attempt to disrupt the event and draw attention to the urgent need for large-scale climate action. Approximately 60 protesters rallied in front of the ballpark’s centerfield gates. While they didn’t have the numbers to shut down the event completely as they’d hoped, they did manage to delay the game.

As Congress Passes A ‘Climate Suicide Pact,’ The Fight To Declare A Climate Emergency Continues

August 1, 2022 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast climate crisis, Congress, Fossil Fuels, Joe Biden

As heatwaves, droughts and wild fires ravage the planet, pressure is building on the White House and Congress to take substantive action to address the climate crisis. More than a thousand organizations in the United States have come together as the People vs Fossil Fuels coalition with the demand that President Biden declare a climate emergency and use his executive powers to stop fossil fuel extraction and new infrastructure. Their actions have succeeded in reopening climate provisions in Congress' Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which is expected to pass this week, but the bill contains poison pills that offset the beneficial sections. Jean Su, an attorney and director of the Energy Justice Program with the Center for Biological Diversity joined Clearing the FOG to explain what the President could do, the problems with IRA and what we can do to protect our chances for a livable future.

To Save The Planet, We Must Choose

August 1, 2022 David Sirota, The Lever. Educate! climate crisis, Congress, Environment, Exxon

In the climate change era, if ExxonMobil is celebrating legislation, it’s a bad sign. So when the company’s CEO, Darren Woods, last week lauded Congress’s new climate spending bill, that was a warning not just about the specific “all-of-the-above” energy provisions in the bill, but also about our continued unwillingness to make binary choices, even when they are necessary. Choice avoidance is the Washington Consensus. Politicians seeking to simultaneously appease voters and their CEO donors routinely tell us we get to have our cake and eat it too. They insist we can have billionaires and shared prosperity, legalized corruption with democracy, lower inflation plus corporate profiteering, and a livable planet alongside a prosperous ExxonMobil.

Manchin Poison Pills Buried In Inflation Reduction Act

July 30, 2022 The Center for Biological Diversity. Educate! climate crisis, Congress, Oil and Gas, Renewable Energy

Washington - A proposed climate and energy package would require massive oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, reinstate an illegal 2021 Gulf lease sale and mandate that millions more acres of public lands be offered for leasing before any new solar or wind energy projects could be built on public lands or waters. The provisions, in sections 50264 and 50265, are buried near the end of the 725-page Inflation Reduction Act. The bill was released Wednesday after Sen. Joe Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced they had agreed to the $370 billion package. “This is a climate suicide pact,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s self-defeating to handcuff renewable energy development to massive new oil and gas extraction.

Since 2021, Big Oil Has Spent Over $200 Million To Sabotage Climate Action

July 29, 2022 Jake Johnson, Common Dreams. Educate! Big Oil, Congress, Energy, Money in Politics

The oil and gas industry, one of the most powerful corporate forces in American politics, has spent more than $200 million over the past year and a half to stop Congress from slashing carbon emissions as evidence of their catastrophic impact—from deadly heatwaves to massive wildfires—continues to accumulate in stunning fashion. That topline estimate of the fossil fuel industry's lobbying outlays and congressional election spending in the U.S. was calculated by Climate Power, which provided its findings exclusively to Common Dreams. Nearly 80% of the industry's campaign donations during the time period examined went to Republican candidates, according to Climate Power, whose analysis draws on data from OpenSecrets.

Biden’s Staff Sounds Climate Alarm

July 25, 2022 Julia Rock and David Sirota, The Lever. Resist! Biden administration, climate crisis, Congress

President Joe Biden’s surrender on climate policy amid the intensifying crisis has prompted his own agency experts to sound a rare public alarm about their boss’s retreat, according to a letter being circulated throughout the administration and Capitol Hill. The letter to Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) — provided to The Lever by a House Democratic staffer — is initialed by 165 staffers at federal health and environmental agencies and at 75 congressional offices. They are demanding the president use more aggressive tactics to pass his long-promised climate agenda through the Senate. “President Biden, you have an exigent responsibility to reduce suffering all over the world, and the power and skills to do so, but time is running out,” says the letter, which is now being circulated throughout the administration for more signatures.

Historically Low Approval Ratings Show The US Regime In Crisis

July 14, 2022 Ezra Brain, Left Voice. Educate! Congress, Governance, Joe Biden, Supreme Court

Only 36 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. system of government is sound, according to a new poll from Monmouth University. This number is a significant drop from previous polls which showed that even as recently as 2020, 52 percent felt the system was sound. This historic drop — down from 62 percent of responders who said that the system was sound in 1980 — is the result of sustained decrease in Americans’ faith in the government over the past several years. A recent Gallup poll which measures faith in 16 different institutions — including governmental institutions as well as institutions more broadly defined such as the medical system and small businesses — backed up these findings. The poll found that the average level of faith in institutions is at an all-time low and that faith in 11 of the institutions that they measure has dropped significantly.

The January 6th Scam

June 23, 2022 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Congress, Democrats, January 6th, US Capitol Attack

The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol is a mouthful of a name, and the lengthy moniker is an indication of its lack of any honest intent. The hearings preach to the democrats’ choir, divert attention from the country’s most pressing needs, and keep the name Donald Trump in the public collective consciousness for the most cynical of reasons. Although the hearings do have some benefit for the left. Primarily they expose liberals' treachery and lack of anything resembling the political ideology they imagine for themselves. When they aren’t hyperventilating about what Trump said to Vice President Pence, or that his daughter didn’t know what Trump was thinking or other such nonsense, they find a way to praise conservatives.

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