Congress

The Democrats’ Disastrous, Militarist Climate Plan

July 5, 2020 David Swanson, World Without War. Educate! Climate Change, Congress, Democrats, militarism

Don’t believe for a minute that the Democrats climate plan even means what it says. Its solutions include disastrous scams like “biofuels” and nuclear energy. It proposes no fundamental change in lifestyle, no reduction in personal consumption, and no halt or reduction in eating meat (but renewable energy production on land used for livestock, so that the same land can mitigate the unacknowledged damage it is doing). It offers no proposed federal budget with any major moving of the money to where it’s needed, and no plan to extract any resources from billionaires and corporate giants. This plan has been criticized for largely ignoring 96% of humanity in order to address a global problem as an isolated country. That’s not quite right. It’s actually a plan built around hostile violence toward the world and the imperative to occupy the world with military forces. Here’s a bit of it: “The U.S. military is the world’s largest consumer of energy from fossil fuels. Among federal agencies, the Department of Defense (DOD) is responsible for 77% of the federal government’s total energy use.”

Washington Wants 17 Million Syrians Starved Into Submission

July 3, 2020 Stephen Lendman, Global Research. Educate! Congress, Food Insecurity, Sanctions, Syria

Signed into law by Trump last December, the draconian measure that breaches international law became effective on June 17. It has nothing to do with protecting Syrian civilians, everything to do with starving and otherwise immiserating them into submission to Washington’s imperial boot. The measure threatens sanctions on nations, entities and individuals that maintain legitimate economic, financial, military, and intelligence relations with Damascus — their legal right under international law. Syrian envoy to Russia Riyad Haddad explained that threatened US sanctions under the measure “not only target Syria, they directly or indirectly jeopard(e) all its allies and are also aimed against Persian Gulf countries, so that none of these countries dares to invest in” the Syrian Arab Republic.

New Democratic Climate Action Plan Is Woefully Inadequate

July 2, 2020 Jessica Corbett, Commondreams. Educate! climate crisis, Congress, Democrats, Green New Deal

"This is not an emergency response." That is how Laura Berry, director of research and policy at the Climate Mobilization (TCM), responded to reporting on a congressional "action plan" for the planetary emergency from the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, which the panel and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) unveiled Tuesday. The climate roadmap features hundreds of policy proposals under 12 key pillars. Specifically, the 538-page plan calls for selling only zero-emissions vehicles by 2035, net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by 2040, and net-zero U.S. emissions economy-wide by no later than 2050.

FBI Misled Congress: Black Activists Still Under Investigation

June 17, 2020 Media Justice. Educate! Black Activists, Congress, FBI, Surveillance

As Black activists around the country lead protests for racial justice, following the police murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black people, MediaJustice and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) today reveal that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is still surveilling Black activists using a dated designation they testified to Congress was no longer in use. Of one million pages of documents, responsive to a FOIA request filed by MediaJustice and the ACLU, up to one-third of the pages are on open investigations of Black people as “domestic terrorist” threats for potential “Black identity” activities. Today, more than 100 civil rights organizations sent a letter urging Congress to cease federal funding for surveillance technologies, known to be disproportionately deployed in communities of color.

The Democratic Party Exists To Co-Opt And Kill Authentic Change

June 15, 2020 By Caitlin Johnstone, CaitlinJohnstone.com. Educate! Congress, Democratic Party, Propaganda, Rebellion2020

The entire role of the Democratic Party is to enthusiastically agree with American support for movements calling for real changes that benefit ordinary people, while making no actual moves to provide no such changes. The actors read the lines but remain motionless. Barack Obama made a whole political career out of this. People elected him because he promised hope and change, then for eight years whenever hopeful people demanded changes he’d say “Yes, we all need to get together and have a conversation about that,” express sympathy and give a moving speech, and then nothing would happen. The actors remain motionless, and Godot never comes.

Members Of Congress Receive COVID-19 Small Business Loans

June 15, 2020 Jessica Buxbaum, Shadowproof. Educate! CARES Act, Congress, Corruption, COVID-19

Members of Congress obtained disaster loans for their businesses through the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The program has been embroiled in controversy since it launched in March. Large corporations received multimillion-dollar loans. Minority-owned businesses were shut out of aid. Seventy-four members of Congress own businesses or have relatives or spouses who own businesses. Of this number, only 14 of them responded to repeated inquiries stating that they did not apply for federal loans, including those with considerable wealth. The CARES Act does contain a conflict of interest provision prohibiting members of Congress or their immediate families from receiving aid. However, as detailed in a House Ethics Committee memorandum released in April, this clause is only restricted to emergency relief funds. This subtle loophole has permitted lawmakers to circumvent potential conflicts of interest and access government relief.

More On Mueller’s Forensics-Free Findings

June 7, 2020 Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, Consortium News. Educate! Attorney General, Congress, DNC, RussiaGate

At the time of our Memo, it was already clear that Mueller’s findings would be fatally incomplete. We were virtually certain that Mueller’s report would lack the forensic findings that we VIPS had arrived at through the kind of rigorous investigation that the FBI avoided doing. So we gave our Memo to you with the title: “Mueller’s Forensics-Free Findings”. Sans forensics, Mueller’s report fell far short of Rosenstein’s earlier commitment “to ensure a full and thorough investigation”. It was also clear to us that relying for forensics on CrowdStrike, a private cyber-security firm of checkered reputation, picked and paid for by the Democratic National Committee, would signal a conflict of interest on this controversial issue. Now we know a lot more as a result of testimony released last month (but widely ignored in Establishment media).

Groups Fight To Keep Desert National Wildlife Refuge Intact

May 21, 2020 Roz Brown, Public News Service. Resist! Congress, National Park, weapons, wildlife

Las Vegas - Conservation groups say Nevada eventually could lose its Desert National Wildlife Refuge north of Las Vegas if Congress approves a request from the U.S. Air Force to expand its sprawling military range. Russell Kulhman, executive director of the Nevada Wildlife Federation, said the proposal to add acreage to the Nevada Test and Training Range would dramatically shrink the number of acres for recreation, and possibly threaten the area's bighorn sheep population. He said every couple of decades, the Air Force requests more space on the refuge, reducing the public's access to bird watching, hiking, backpacking and camping. "In another 20 or 40 years, there really won't be a refuge," he said. "Obviously, the mission comes first for their priorities and wildlife will be secondary."

The US Response To Covid-19 Has Lavished Wealth On The Rich

May 18, 2020 Miles Kampf-Lassin, In These Times. Educate! Congress, COVID-19, Taxes, wealth inequality

According to a recent report from the Institute for Policy Studies, America’s billionaires saw their wealth shoot up by $282 billion in just 23 days as the country was sheltering in lockdown. Overall, U.S. billionaire wealth grew by nearly 10% at the same time over 20 million people filed for unemployment, and by April 10 had passed $3.2 trillion—topping last year’s level. To take just one example, Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO and already the richest person in the world, saw his fortune inflate by $24 billion in the first three months of the year, a surge the report’s authors say is “unprecedented in the history of modern markets.” Meanwhile, his workers have staged a series of walkouts and other labor actions to protest a lack of basic workplace protections as warehouse employees have fallen ill with the virus, and some have died.

New Report Reveals Big Oil’s COVID Lobby Bonanza

May 14, 2020 Friends of the Earth. Educate! Congress, COVID-19, Fossil Fuels, Lobbyists

Big Oil is wasting no time exploiting the coronavirus for profit. Polluters fought hard for kickbacks in the first coronavirus stimulus package and they are undoubtedly up to it again. As Trump and the GOP continue their crusade to prop up Big Oil, we must stop the fossil fuel industry from snatching more taxpayer money. Highlights of the report include: At least 11 oil and gas companies and trade associations reported lobbying on tax issues in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the $2.2 trillion stimulus package passed in March. The filings indicate that tax policy was Big Oil’s largest single intervention in stimulus negotiations. This lobbying blitz seems to have been rewarded with over $100 billion in tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the industry, especially companies like Halliburton that reported losses last year and companies like ExxonMobil beginning to report losses this year. These new giveaways are in addition to $16 billion in annual direct subsidies for oil and gas.

Once Again, Congress Will Let Wall Street Pillage Main Street

May 10, 2020 Leonard C. Goodman, PopularResistance. Educate! Bailout, Congress, Recession, Workers

Over the last decade, Congress’s approval ratings have hovered around the mid-teens or low 20s, reflecting the reality that our representatives in Washington, D.C., serve the needs of big donors while throwing an occasional rhetorical bone to the “essential” workers who actually make the country function. Congress’s handling of the current crisis of the pandemic is unlikely to improve its ratings. Working Americans are facing an unprecedented disaster. Before the virus hit, half of them lived paycheck to paycheck and didn’t have $400 saved for an emergency. Now they have been ordered to stay home. Many have no income while their rents, utility bills, student loans, and credit card debts are accruing. The small businesses—restaurants, gyms, and stores—that provide half of the nation’s jobs were ordered to shut down. Their rents are accruing. And with no income coming in, many have little chance of repaying what they owe when the economy reopens.

Newspapers Won’t Connect the Dots On Postal Service Threats

May 5, 2020 Julie Hollar, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! 2020 Elections, Congress, Media, US Postal Service

More than six weeks after a bill was introduced to require vote-by-mail to be available for the November 3 elections, no federal steps have been taken to ensure a fair and free election in the shadow of a pandemic that threatens people’s ability to access the polls. In fact, while some states scramble to put together vote-by-mail plans—shouldering the financial burden themselves—others are doing nothing, and New York went so far as to cancel its presidential primary. Meanwhile, commenting on Fox & Friends (3/30/20) about the Democratic vote-by-mail bill, Donald Trump said the quiet part out loud: The things they had in there were crazy. They had levels of voting, that if you ever agreed to it you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.

Postal Bankruptcy Would Hit Rural US The Hardest

May 5, 2020 Brian Wakamo, Scott Klinger and Sarah Anderson, Inequality.org. Educate! Bankruptcy, Congress, Rural, US Postal Service

As postal workers strain to meet demand for deliveries of medicine, food, and other essentials, the U.S. Postal Service is facing potential financial collapse due to plummeting mail revenue. Without a major cash infusion, the USPS is on track to run out of money before the end of September, according to the Postmaster General. A USPS shutdown would be devastating for the entire country, but especially for the rural communities that rely most on a public service with a universal mandate to serve every address, no matter how remote. A new Institute for Policy Studies report finds that the 15 most rural U.S. states would face heavy blows to jobs, revenue, mail and package deliveries, and voting rights.

The Fifth Coronavirus Relief Package We Need

April 29, 2020 Howie Hawkins, Nation of Change. Create! Bailout, Congress, COVID-19, Recession

The coronavirus depression is fast becoming as deep as the Great Depression. The federal government’s response has been too little, too late. While sickness and death spread, while unemployment and small business failures soar, while health care and essential workers lack personal protective equipment (PPE), Congress is in recess until May 4. The childlike dummy, Donald Trump, spouts bad advice daily in his televised briefings. Thursday he said we could beat the coronavirus by injecting disinfectants or somehow shining ultraviolet radiation inside our bodies. Meanwhile, the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, is MIA. Is he sitting on a park bench somewhere feeding bread crumbs to pigeons? Since the lockdown started five weeks ago, 26 million people have applied for unemployment insurance.

Four Reasons To Ditch The Draft

April 27, 2020 Rivera Sun, World Beyond War. Create! Congress, Military Draft, Wars and Militarism, Women

There’s a bill before Congress to expand the military draft to women. It’s a terrible idea. Here are four reasons why: It’s not about “equality.” Some say drafting women is only fair; after all, men 18-25 must register for the draft. Shouldn’t women? The answer is no. It’s not equally fair, it’s equally unfair. Gender equality and fairness means freeing men from military conscription, too. Real equality means abolishing the military draft for everyone, once and for all. Drafting everyone (regardless of gender) is not a solution to the “poverty draft.” Frankly, if a draft were enacted, poor people (who often don’t have college waivers like the ones used initially during the Vietnam War) would still be fighting the wars, they just wouldn’t be getting the same incentives as in the “All Volunteer” Force.

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