Congress

If There’s A Final TPP Deal: Can It Pass Congress?

October 6, 2015 Lory Wallach, www.commondreams.org Resist! Congress, TPP

By Lory Wallach for Common Dreams - If there really is a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal, its fate in Congress is highly uncertain given the narrow margin by which trade authority passed this summer, the concessions made to get a deal, and growing congressional and public concerns about the TPP’s threats to jobs, wages, safe food and affordable medicines and more. The intense national battle over trade authority was just a preview of the massive opposition the TPP will face given that Democratic and GOP members of Congress and the public soon will be able to see the specific TPP terms that threaten their interests. With congressional opposition to TPP growing and the Obama administration basically up against elections cycles in various countries, this ministerial was extended repeatedly because this was the do or die time but it’s unclear if there really is a deal or this is kabuki theatre intended to create a sense of inevitability so as to insulate the TPP from growing opposition.

Pope Tells World’s Top Arms Dealers To End Arms Trade

September 25, 2015 David Swanson, www.davidswanson.org Educate! Congress, Pope Francis, Wars and Militarism

By David Swanson - I lack patience. I admit it. There's my confession. I couldn't sit through the Pope's slow and plodding and polite speech to Congress, waiting for him to say something against the primary thing that body does and spends our money on. But finally he got there: "Being at the service of dialogue and peace," he said, "also means being truly determined to minimize and, in the long term, to end the many armed conflicts throughout our world. Here we have to ask ourselves: Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society? Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade."

Guatemalan Congress Votes To Allow Investigation Of President

September 2, 2015 Associated Press, www.theguardian.com Resist! Congress, Corruption, Guatemala, Impunity, Law

By Associated Press in The Guardian - Guatemalan civilians who support the ousting of President Otto Pérez Molina have formed a wall of bodies to let lawmakers into Congress, protecting them from presidential loyalists trying to prevent a vote on withdrawing the leader’s immunity from prosecution in a corruption scandal. Dozens of Pérez Molina backers had blocked access to the capitol since the morning in an attempt to delay the proceedings, which are similar to impeachment and could lead to criminal charges. The interior department vice-minister Elmer Sosa also arrived with riot police to “guarantee the safety of protesters and congress”, and lawmakers were finally able to go inside. “It was impressive that the people themselves came and created a human chain and a path so we could enter,” said opposition legislator Leonel Lira.

10 Places AIPAC Would Never Show Members Of Congress

August 18, 2015 Max Blumenthal, www.alternet.org Educate! Congress, Imperialism, Israel, Occupation, Palestine

By Max Blumenthal in Alternet - 58 members of Congress will be in Israel in the coming days on a tour sponsored by the America Israel Education Foundation, an arm of the pro-Israel lobbying organization, AIPAC. Though AIPAC claims the trip is an annual ritual with no connection to the increasingly rancorous debate over the Iran nuclear deal, the trip offers Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a key opportunity for face-to-face fear mongering with some of the lawmakers who control the deal’s fate. After the Republican delegation visits Israel, 22 Democrats — including several who represent key swing votes on the deal — will be shepherded through the AIPAC tour by House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, an Israel lobby favorite.

3x More Donations For Anti-GMO Legislators From Agribusiness

July 28, 2015 Alex Lazar, www.opensecrets.org Educate! Congress, Corruption, GMOs, Law, Monsanto, Politics

By Alex Lazar in Open Secrets - Thursday’s House passage of a bill that would keep states from requiring genetically modified foods to be labeled was a big — and not at all close — win for agribusiness and food and beverage interests. The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015, known to its critics as the DARK (Deny Americans the Right to Know) Act, sailed through by a vote of 275 to 150. While the bulk of its support came from the GOP and most of its opponents hailed from Democratic districts, the vote didn’t break cleanly along party lines. Among its 107 sponsors were 92 Republicans and 15 Democrats. But a more telling predictor of where lawmakers came down was the amount of support they’d received from interests with a stake in the legislation.

Sending Citizens Summons To Members of Congress

July 27, 2015 Ralph Nader, www.commondreams.org Strategize! Congress, Democracy, Inequality, Politics, Ralph Nader

By Ralph Nader in Common Dreams - My proposal of a Citizens Summons can begin the process of showing your elected legislators who is truly in charge, as befits the Preamble to the Constitution – “We the People.” I am including below a draft Citizens Summons to your Senators or Representative. It covers the main derelictions of the Congress, under which you can add more examples of necessary reforms. Your task is to start collecting signatures of citizens, members of citizen groups, labor unions, and any other associations that want a more deliberative democracy. The ultimate objective is to reduce inequalities of power. Shifting power from the few to the many prevents the gross distortions of our Constitution and laws, our public budgets, and our commonwealth, that currently favor the burgeoning corporate state. May you give your lawmakers a memorable August recess; they deserve to be shown the workings of what our founding fathers called “the sovereignty of the people.”

Republicans Are Trying To Defund Net Neutrality. Will It Work?

July 25, 2015 Brian Fung, www.washingtonpost.com Educate! Congress, FCC, Law, Net Neutrality

By Brian Fung in The Washington Post - It's no secret that many Republicans hate the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules, which went into effect this June and regulate Internet providers like legacy telephone companies. Some now want to use Congress' power of the purse to roll those regulations back. If it works, Congress could forbid the FCC from using its budget to enforce net neutrality and give Internet providers a come-from-behind victory. This week, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bill that contains an amendment singling out the FCC and net neutrality. Notably, the rider would prohibit the FCC from using its most powerful regulatory tool to police Internet providers — Title II of the Communications Act.

Timeline For TPP Vote Uncertain

July 24, 2015 Lori Wallach, www.citizen.org Educate! Congress, fast track, TPP

By Lori Wallach for Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch - TPP proponents are eager for Congress to vote on a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal in late 2015. But to do so, given Fast Track’s statutorily-required timeframe of notice periods and pre-vote reports, TPP negotiations must be completed – and the TPP text itself – by the end of July. If notice to Congress of intent to sign the TPP were sent by August 1, a final TPP vote could be held the last week Congress is in session in December. Assuming the quickest timeline conceivable under the Fast Track rules and that somehow a required International Trade Commission (ITC) report on TPP impacts could be completed faster than has ever occurred for past pacts*, a TPP vote could take place about four and one half months after Congress is given notice of intent to sign a deal. Thus, negotiations must conclude at the July 28-31 TPP ministerial and a text must be ready for notice of intent to sign by August 1. That text must be publicly posted on August 30. This would allow for a vote the week of December 14. After that, Congress goes on recess and a vote would roll to 2016.

San Carlos Apache Tribe Clashes With Rep. Gosar After Rally

July 24, 2015 Indianz, www.facebook.com Resist! Arizona, Congress, Indigenous People, Land Rights, Mining, Sacred, Save Oak Flat

By Indianz - Members of the San Carlos Apache Tribe declared victory in their campaign to protect one of their most sacred places at a rally at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday even as some were threatened with arrest by a Republican member of Congress. With almost no financial backing, the Apache Stronghold left Arizona earlier this month on a 2,000-mile journey to educate the nation about the threats facing Oak Flat, a sacred gathering, ceremonial and burial site in Arizona. The trip culminated in a rousing rally in the Washington, D.C., heat with calls to support a bill that will protect the land from a controversial mining development. "Nothing is going to stop us," elder Sandra Rambler stated to cheers. "No surrender." As a spiritual leader within the tribe, Manuel Cooley said it's not common for him to take political stands. But Oak Flat is so important to his people that he drove to the nation's capital to explain why the proposed Resolution Copper mine will destroy the site.

200,000 People Demand Congress Puts End To Mountaintop Removal

July 18, 2015 Jeff Biggers, www.ecowatch.com Resist! Congress, Environment, Mountain Justice, Petition

By Jeff Biggers in Ecowatch - Signaling a watershed shift in recognizing the national health crisis from cancer-linked strip mining in central Appalachia, more than 200,000 people have signed historic CREDO Action and Earthjustice petitions, calling on Congress to pass the Appalachian Communities Health Emergency Act (H.R. 912) and enact a moratorium on new mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR). With the Appalachian coal industry in a tailspin and the global banking community pulling out of mountaintop removal financing, the extraordinary show of support for the ACHE Act campaign effectively acknowledges that the only defenders of the cancer-linked radical strip mining operations are a handful of absentee coal companies, indicted coal baron Don Blankenship, and their fringe supporters in Congress.

Bird-dogging To Stop TPP, TTIP And TiSA

July 17, 2015 Margaret Flowers and Mackenzie McDonald Wilkins, www.flushthetpp.org Resist! Congress, fast track, TPP, Trade

By Margaret Flowers and Mackenzie McDonald Wilkins for FlushtheTPP.org. Germantown, MD - It has been one month since Fast Track passed through US Congress. Now we are starting a mass mobilization effort to stop the TransPacific Partnership (TPP). One part of the effort to Stop the TPP is to hold members of Congress accountable, by birddogging them wherever they go and challenging them in upcoming elections. Already, this has been happening across the country. On July 16 a small group from Communication Workers of America (CWA), FlushtheTPP, and Popular Resistance protested Congressman John Delaney's vote to Fast Track the TPP at a community forum. See the video here: filmed and edited by Mackenzie McDonald Wilkins.

Congress Moving To Prevent States From Requiring GMO Labeling

July 16, 2015 Katherine Paul, www.organicconsumers.org Resist! Congress, Food and Agriculture, GMOs

By Katherine Paul in Organic Consumers - With no debate and only a voice vote, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture today (July 14, 2015) passed out of committee H.R. 1599, a bill to preempt states’ rights to label GMOs. Within hours, it was announced that the bill will go straight to the House floor, as early as next week, with no vote in the Energy and Commerce Committee. If we don’t stop it in the House next week, the fight to stop this “Mother of All Monsanto Protection Acts” will take place next in the U.S. Senate, by early fall. In his opening statement this morning, Committee Chairman Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-Texas) (who shortly after today’s vote said he will co-sponsor H.R. 1599) couldn’t have sounded more like a Monsanto employee if he’d tried.

Act Out! – Greeks, Congressional Cliff Notes & A Jack Ass Named ALEC

July 16, 2015 Occupy, www.youtube.com Resistance Report ALEC, Congress, Greece, Media

By Eleanor Goldfield - This week, we're talking repurposed consumerism and Greece's future with artist Lane Collage and how “Austerity” is Greek for “Could happen to you too, America!” Next up, Anthony Freda drops some knowledge for political artists. And isn’t it about time we started paying attention to Congress? Here are your cliff's notes. Finally, it's a bummer that Ben and Jennifer broke up but we really need to be focusing on ALEC. Nick Bernabe of the Anti-Media shows you how. But first, let's take a train ride through the progress of our time.

Filipino Human Rights Advocates Testify In Congress

July 16, 2015 International People's Tribunal, www.popularresistance.org Educate! Congress, Human Rights, Phillipines

Convened by the Ecumenical Advocacy Network of the Philippines (EANP), the briefing comes eight years after the 2007 US Senate hearing on the Philippines that led to a historic Senate decision to cut the US military aid package to the Philippine government, based on the Philippine military’s culpability in committing gross human rights abuses. As a result, restrictions were placed in the annual foreign military financing package until such time the Philippine government could prove compliance with human rights conditions, including holding the Philippine military accountable for human rights abuses. The Aquino and Obama governments are pushing to have the restrictions to aid lifted, despite the former not having met the requirements set in 2007.

Congress Just Got One Step Closer To Blocking Net Neutrality

June 27, 2015 Eric Geller, www.dailydot.com Educate! Congress, FCC, Internet, Net Neutrality

By Eric Geller in Daily Dot - The House committee that writes the federal budget approved a provision on Wednesday that would freeze the FCC's net neutrality rules. The provision of the spending bill written by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government suspends the rules until a federal court rules on the legal challenge currently facing them. It also requires the FCC to publish the details of any rule it proposes at least 21 days before voting on it—a step that agency advocates oppose because it contravenes the typical rulemaking process—and significantly cuts the commission's funding. The full House Appropriations Committee voted 30-20 to approve the bill, which becomes part of the overall spending bill that will eventually go to the House floor. The anti-net-neutrality provision is not present in the Senate appropriations bill.

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