Congress

Students March For Pathway To Citizenship At ‘Welcome Back Congress’

September 22, 2021 Ryan White, Diamondback News. Resist! Congress, Infrastructure Bill, Migrant Rights, Youth Activism

A steady chorus of drums and symbols filled Benjamin Banneker Park in Washington, D.C., as the sun peaked in the overcast sky above. A sea of protesters joined the beat and began chanting. “Congreso, escucha, estamos en la lucha,” the crowd roared in Spanish, each repetition growing louder. Their voices rose above the percussion and were greeted by an enthusiastic organizer speaking into a microphone. The “Welcome Back Congress” march had officially begun. Around a thousand activists and immigrants — including a humble contingent from the University of Maryland — converged in Washington, D.C., Tuesday as Congress returned from its August recess. The march, organized by CASA, a grassroots immigrant advocacy organization, demanded that a pathway to citizenship remain in the budget reconciliation package.

The Draft Has Been Expanded To Women

September 3, 2021 Edward Hasbrouck, The Practical Nomad. Educate! Congress, Military Draft, Wars and Militarism, Women

Today the House Armed Services Committee joined the Senate Armed Services Committee in voting 35-24 to expand registration for a possible military draft to include young women as well as young men. Following today’s House committee vote and an earlier Senate committee vote in July (before Congress’s summer vacation), the versions of the annual “must-pass” National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to be considered later this fall in both the House and Senate will include provisions requiring women to register for the draft within 30 days of their 18th birthday and report to the Selective Service System each time they change their address until their 26th birthday, as young men have been required to do since 1980. An alternative compromise amendment to suspend draft registration unless the President declared a national emergency and put the Selective Service System into standby was submitted before today’s committee session, but ruled out of order on the basis of arcane PAYGO procedural rules.

The Eviction Crisis Is A Race And Gender Wage Gap Issue

August 12, 2021 Rebekah Entralgo, Counter Punch. Educate! Congress, Evictions, Housing, wealth inequality

The federal eviction moratorium coincided with Black Women’s Equal Pay Day 2021, which marks the number of days into the year that the average Black woman has to work to catch up to the average white man’s annual earnings in 2020. Based on recent Census data, Black women make just 63 cents for every dollar earned by a white man. If Black women’s earnings continue to grow as slowly as they have since the mid-1980s, it will take them more than 100 years — until 2133 — to reach pay equity with white men. “Lower pay deprives Black women of resources they need to provide for themselves and their families and over a lifetime can really add up — the loss of earnings in D.C. alone adds up to almost $1 million dollars over 20 years,” said Chandra Childers, lead author of a new report on the wage gap from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

‘New’ Counter-Terror Policy In Africa Lacks Political Will To Change Course

August 10, 2021 Elizabeth Schmidt and William Minter, Responsible Statecraft. Educate! Africa, AFRICOM, Congress, Wars and Militarism

Last month the U.S. House of Representatives passed the “Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership Program Act of 2021” with strong bipartisan support. Current U.S. policies have been counterproductive and a new U.S. policy is desperately needed in Africa and elsewhere in the global south. However, the proposals outlined in this bill — while welcome — risk being nothing more than a change of sentiment. Sponsored by seven Republicans and five Democrats, H.R. 567 garnered the votes of 214 Democrats and 181 Republicans on June 29. Acknowledging the failure of U.S. counterterrorism policies in North and West Africa, the bill would establish a new interagency U.S. government program that is intended to bolster African countries’ capacities to counter terrorist threats in the Maghreb and Western Sahel.

Reverend William Barber Leads Moral Monday March For Voting Rights

August 7, 2021 John Zangas DC Media Group. Resist! Congress, Poor People's Campaign, Rev. Barber, Voting Rights

On Monday August 2, 2021, Reverend William Barber II walked alongside Jesse Jackson leading several thousand on a revival of that same moral imperative. Their Moral Monday March was to demand that Congress restore the Voting Rights Act, signed by President Johnson on August 8, 1965, by passing the For The People Act, legislation which will strike down at the Federal level, all new voting restrictions passed in States like Georgia, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and Arizona.

Why Many In Colombia Embark On New Strike

July 20, 2021 Adriaan Alsema, Columbia Reports. Resist! Colombia, Congress, Finance and the Economy, National Strike

Social organizations called new strikes for Tuesday, Colombia’s Independence Day, to demand that Congress passes legislation on economic policy, peace and human rights. The latest strike was called by the National Strike Committee more than 80 days after it’s initial April 28 strike sparked protests throughout Colombia that have continued in the cities. The initial protests successfully sunk a controversial tax reform, but failed to force the far-right government of President Ivan Duque to negotiate demands on economic policies in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The National Strike Committee has given up on the increasingly tyrannical government and is now trying to pressure Congress, which begins a new legislative year on Tuesday,

Civil Society Calls On Congress To End War And Blockade On Yemen

July 20, 2021 Action Corps, Popular Resistance. Resist! Congress, Economic Blockade, Hunger, Yemen

New York - Civil society groups rallied at U.S. legislators’ offices in New York, Boston, and San Francisco on Friday, July 16th as part of a National Day of Action for Yemen. They called for U.S. senators & representatives to introduce a new War Powers Resolution to end U.S. participation in the 6-year war and blockade on Yemen that has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, according to the U.N. In Boston, Brian Garvey of Massachusetts Peace Action noted, “We’re not going to stop until we end the U.S. war in Yemen, and that means War Powers....It’s the only legislation that meets the urgency right now.” During the Day of Action, letters were hand-delivered (see letter to Sen. Sanders below) to local offices of the following legislators signed by dozens of local civil society groups in each state calling for the new War Powers Resolution.

July 24: National Marches For Medicare For All

July 18, 2021 Popular Resistance. Resist! Congress, Health Care, Medicare for all, National Improved Medicare for All

We are a coalition of groups that are coming together to march for Medicare for All. Who is in that coalition depends on which city you are talking about. There is no one single group behind this. The list seems to grow every day. Some people are even politically homeless and simply focused on doing what they can to move #M4A forward. We are nonpartisan, but some local parties have joined in the fight! We are proud to say that this type of coming together hasn't happened in recent memory, if ever. Our movement was founded from a place of compassion and love. We came together out of frustration with the lack of action from the powers that be. Many of us have our own personal stories as to why we are in this fight. All of us know that healthcare is a right, not a privilege.

Child Care Should Be Universal And Well-Paid

July 14, 2021 Michelle Chen, Truthout. Create! Child Care, Congress, Pandemic, Worker Rights

Queen Freelove of New Haven, Connecticut, remembers when the pandemic transformed the daycare she ran out of her home, abruptly turning the atmosphere from cozy to clinical: “Things got extremely traumatic for us,” she recalled. She was constantly trying to keep the environment sanitized, keeping a stockpile of masks, wipes, and other equipment, stopping parents in the hallway when they arrived to pick up their kids to take their temperature and give them a squirt of sanitizer — the protocol for “contactless” drop-offs and pick-ups. Keeping parents outside to minimize direct interaction, she said, was “hard, because we look forward to having that great relationship with the parents, and that really helps. But we could no longer have that relationship that we once had, because of the pandemic.”

Liberals And Congress Retreat Rather Than Fight For Medicare For All

July 3, 2021 Ed Grystar, Counterpunch. Strategize! Congress, Health Care, Medicare for all, Single payer health care

At a Bernie Sanders healthcare town hall last year, Rep. Pramila Jayapal glibly stated that the problem to enacting Medicare for All was not more education of the public, but a question of “political will” necessary to actually push it forward. Yet, despite a pandemic, which has laid bare the inequalities and deficiencies of our healthcare system coupled with Democrat majorities in three branches of government, Medicare for All seems off the table. Where is the political will?

Revealing The Pentagon Papers In Congress: Going To The Supreme Court

June 30, 2021 Mike Gravel and Joe Lauria, Consortium News. Educate! Congress, Pentagon Papers, Supreme Court, Vietnam War

My gut was tight as a knot. The oral arguments began before the Supreme Court on April 19, 1972. I fidgeted in my seat in the audience in the first row with my wife and two young kids. I could see our legal team sitting in front of me: Robert Reinstein and Chuck Fishman. A young Alan Dershowitz sat next to them, representing Beacon. Twenty-four Ionic columns of Italian marble surrounded us below white friezes encircling the chamber. I gazed up at the Justices arrayed in black high before me on their imposing, mahogany bench, under a 44-foot ceiling. Behind them were red satin curtains and four marble columns. A huge black and white clock hung from above. Two new Justices had joined the Court since the New York Times ruling: Hugo Black and John Harlan left in September 1971.

How A US Congressman Took On The US Blockade Against Venezuela

June 27, 2021 Celina della Croce, Peoples Dispatch. Organize! Congress, Massachusetts, US Sanctions, Venezuela

On a cold winter day in February 2019, activists gathered in downtown Northampton, Massachusetts, to denounce the attempted US-backed coup in Venezuela. More than two years later, in the wake of ongoing rallies and discussions with Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, activists gained some ground as the congressman tweeted an open letter to President Joe Biden on June 14 in which he called on the president to end “all secondary and sectoral sanctions” against Venezuela. The letter stated: “While US officials debate the sanctions policy in Washington, for people in Venezuela the ongoing crisis is a life-and-death matter. … I have never believed that sanctions should be used to punish whole populations for the actions of their leaders or to bludgeon an adversary into submission.

Revealing The Pentagon Papers In Congress: A Pyrrhic Victory

June 26, 2021 Mike Gravel and Joe Lauria, Consortium News. Educate! Congress, Pentagon Papers, US Supreme Court, Vietnam War

I propped myself up on an elbow as the announcer read the news: The Supreme Court ruled, 6-3, against Nixon. The government’s unprecedented move to stop the presses had failed. The Court agreed with two lower courts that the attempt to impose prior restraint on the press was unconstitutional. The ruling turned out to be more complex than at first glance, but it was an unequivocal call for Constitutional constraint on an out-of-control control executive. The Court challenged the executive’s misuse of “national security” as a mantra to undermine the Bill of Rights and accrue quasi-dictatorial powers. Writing for the majority, Justice Hugo Black boldly took on Nixon’s nonsense: “To find that the President has ‘inherent power’ to halt the publication of news by resort to the courts would wipe out the First Amendment and destroy the fundamental liberty and security of the very people the Government hopes to make ‘secure.’

Revealing The Pentagon Papers In Congress: Reading The Papers

June 25, 2021 Mike Gravel and Joe Lauria, Consortium News. Educate! Congress, Pentagon Papers, Vietnam War, Wars and Militarism

Some scholars believed that, had FDR lived, there may have been no Vietnam War for either French or American troops. But the Pentagon Papers revealed, through access to State Department, Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Department classified material, that though Roosevelt “vehemently advocated” a trusteeship and ultimate post-war independence for Vietnam, Britain, which occupied Indochina after the war, would not allow it. “Ultimately, U.S. policy was governed neither by the principles of the Atlantic Charter, nor by the President’s anti-colonialism but by the dictates of military strategy and by British intransigence on the colonial issue,” I read. I went on with the Truman years, reading how Harry had rebuffed Ho in a disastrously stupid foreign policy decision.

Boycott Juneteenth 2022

June 21, 2021 Trevor Baldwin, News One. Strategize! Black America, Congress, Juneteenth, Slavery

I believe the reason there’s more disdain than pride is because it feels like we’re honoring a crime – a day commemorating the end of a 2 ½ year hostage negotiation where the captors were not punished yet instead compensated for the inconvenience of slavery ending. Our collective cases of injustice and reparations have been made with overwhelming evidence. Unfortunately, our moral victories aren’t moving the needle enough to ensure that our lives matter. It might be time to reject these trophies of courage and resilience while perpetrators of violence against us get slapped with feathers. No more ceremonies acknowledging injustices if it’s not accompanied by legislation that prevents it. As we have these national “enlightenment” moments of events like Tulsa, where are the laws that protect Black people from the impulses of that white rage repeating?

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