Congress

EU Parliament Members To Senate: ‘No Fast Track’

June 23, 2015 Staff, www.popularresistance.org Educate! Congress, fast track, TPP, Trade, TTIP

By Staff of Popular Resistance. Note: Forty three members of the European Parliament sent a letter to the members of the US House of Representatives last week urging them to oppose Fast Track. They highlighted the broad reach of the treaties currently under negotiation and the importance of exploring their full impacts on their constituents before moving ahead on them. Like the US Congress, members of the EU Parliament have been excluded from the secret negotiations with limited access to the text. Unlike the US Congress, they do not have a choice whether they Fast Track the treaties or not. They advise the US Congress not to cede their power to provide checks and balances to the executive office. This week, the parliamentarians decided to publish their similar letter to the US Senate as an open letter for all to read. Here it is:

Sneak Attack On Net Neutrality Picks Up Steam In The House

June 20, 2015 Amy Kroin, www.freepress.net Educate! Congress, Internet, Net Neutrality

By Amy Kroin in Free Press - “Maybe every so often we can be on the side of the American people,” Rep. Jose Serrano said, “and not corporations.” Those are fighting words — but unfortunately the House majority doesn’t seem to be heeding them. Not when it comes to Net Neutrality. This afternoon the House appropriations committee voted against two amendments — one from Serrano, one from Rep. Nita Lowey — to remove anti-Net Neutrality language from a must-pass government-funding package. The anti-Net Neutrality provisions — buried deep within this 158-page bill — would strip the FCC of the money it needs to enforce its open Internet protections. The provisions would also prevent the rules from remaining in effect until after the court cases challenging them have been decided — a process that could take years.

GOP/Obama Want To Delay Fast Track Till July

June 15, 2015 Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Congress, Democracy, fast track, TAFTA, TISA, TPP, TTIP

By Kevin Zeese. Washington, DC - Think about this: They write a treaty in secret with corporate interests 'assisting' the Obama administration, rigging the global economy for big business at the expense of people and planet; then they want to have a fast track process through Congress to rig the review of the rigged agreement; now because they lost the vote of fast track they want to rig the re-vote of the rigged fast track review of the rigged corporate trade agreement. Rigging on top of rigging on top of rigging -- and they claim the US is a democracy? Call Congress on www.StopFastTrack.com or call 202-224-3121 and tell them -- no rigged vote, no delay, vote now!

Not Over Yet, Some Tough Votes Ahead On Fast Track

June 12, 2015 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org Educate! Congress, fast track, Obama, TAFTA, TISA, TPP, TTIP

While we all cheered the failure to pass Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) the House was quickly voting to pass Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority (TPA). This provides several possible scenarios that could result in either position ultimately winning. While much of the media described this as a tremendous victory for those who oppose Fast Track and the Obama trade agenda, in fact we have some difficult challenges ahead. We need to hold the line on TAA to prevent any form of TAA from passing the House and prepare for a vote in the Senate if a new form of TAA passes or if the TPA bill passed in the House goes back to the Senate without TAA. We want our allies in the House to vote no on TAA no matter what kind of amendments are made to the bill. Now that TPA has passed, stopping TAA becomes even more important. The House TPA without TAA would be much more difficult to pass in the Senate. Our goal in the House is for no TAA bill to be passed.

Is Republican Support For Fast Track Collapsing?

June 10, 2015 Matthew Boyle, www.breitbart.com Educate! Congress, fast track, House, Politics, TPP

By Matthew Boyle in BreitBart - Below are two articles from Breitbart reporting a very different situation in Congress that is being report in the corporate media that covers Capitol Hill. While Politico and The Hill quote Paul Ryan saying -- "we're close" -- (something he has said repeatedly for weeks) and John Boehner -- "we're confident, but not certain" -- and then Breitbart, reporting from the perspective of grassroots Republicans in two articles they describe Republican support as collapsing under intensive grassroots pressure. One article describes a wall of phone calls into congressional offices opposing "ObamaTrade". On Monday night Republican grassroots activists held a twitter storm against TPA that trended nationally as a hot topic. The second Breitbart article says that leadership is not even getting its phone calls returned from Republicans and that Boehner has been unable to point to any new Republican saying that they will support fast track.

Critics Blast ‘Compromises’ As Patriot Act Barrels Toward Sunset

May 30, 2015 Deirdre Fulton, www.commondreams.org Resist! Congress, Law, Surveillance, Wars and Militarism

With the sunset of key spy powers on the near horizon and lawmakers scrambling to save them, privacy and internet freedom groups are dialing up the pressure on Congress to end mass surveillance as we know it. The Senate will return to Washington, D.C. for a rare session on Sunday, on the heels of a week-long Memorial Day recess. With sections of the Patriot Act barreling toward a 12am June 1 expiration, lawmakers are reportedly scrambling to come up with a last-minute deal to save the law after a series of Senate votes on Friday failed to resolve an impasse. The debate over the National Security Agency's (NSA) spy powers has some senators pushing to kill the Patriot Act entirely and others advocating for "clean" re-authorization.

Senate Moves To Check Executive Spying Power

May 27, 2015 Shahid Buttar, www.truth-out.org Educate! Congress, Law, Surveillance

Congress approved the Patriot Act in 2001 with neither debate nor an understanding of what it entailed. Since then, it has accepted - from both the Bush and the Obama administrations - secret legal interpretations contorting statutes into mass surveillance programs recently held illegal by a federal appellate court, as well as lies under oath by senior officials aiming to hide domestic spying programs from congressional and public oversight. The American people have never gone along quietly. During the Bush administration, years before the Edward Snowden revelations amplified mass outrage in 2013, nearly 500 cities and eight states issued official declarations decrying mass surveillance.

Tell The Congressional Black Caucus, Don’t Fall For Obama’s Race Card On Fast Track

May 25, 2015 Editors of Black Agenda Report, www.blackagendareport.com Resist! Congress, fast track, Free Trade, Obama, Racial Justice, TPP

We understand that the First Black President is now leaning heavily upon members of the Congressional Black Caucus to provide the handful of Democratic votes in the House needed to achieve fast track status for TPP and TTIP. To their credit so far, many CBC members are quietly resisting the president, and a few dare to say so out loud. It's time to let the Congressional Black Caucus know that this is a time and a place when they MUST resist narrow appeals to racial solidarity, when they MUST refuse to line up behind the president. President Obama will demand their support in the name of racial solidarity, if nothing else, but they must refuse. But for the next 10 days, we want to gather as many online signatures to present to the Congressional Black Caucus as possible demanding that they stand up for their constituents, to stand up to the president and SAY NO TO FAST TRACK, NO TO TPP AND TTIP.

What The Trade Battles Are Really About

May 23, 2015 Zaid Jilani, www.alternet.org Educate! Congress, Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Intellectual Property, TPP, Trade

As opponents and advocates of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) continue to battle it out, the debate over the agreement has largely focused on the issue of trade – whether jobs will be lost or gained, what the agreement will do to our trade deficit, and other related matters. It's worth pointing out that the United States already trades heavily with the other 11 nations included in the TPP talks. As Paul Krugman says, “this is not a trade agreement. It's about intellectual property and dispute settlement; the big beneficiaries are likely to be pharma companies and firms that want to sue governments.” Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has been particularly critical of the so-called Investor State Dispute Settlement provisions, which would empower corporations to use international courts to sue the U.S. government and others who are enacting regulations and protections that harm their profits.

If Trade Is War, It’s Time We Fought Back

May 23, 2015 Sonali Kolhatkar, www.truthdig.com Educate! Congress, fast track, Free Trade, Obama, TPP

It is not often that members of Congress get the opportunity to weigh in on international trade. But negotiations over fast-track authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in recent months have given elected representatives the chance to voice their opinions on how the government should engage with other countries financially. For example, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., released a report this week highlighting various promises that presidents have made over the years as they touted the labor benefits of so-called free-trade pacts like NAFTA, and pointing out how they fell flat in living up to those promises. But Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders (a Vermont independent who is a presidential candidate) are among a tiny handful of lawmakers who are openly skeptical of the TPP. The battle lines over the secretive multilateral trade pact pit Warren and Sanders against President Obama, as well as most Republicans and Democrats.

Fast Track Passes Senate But With Anti-Slavery Poison Pill

May 23, 2015 Laura Barron-Lopez, Ryan Grim, and Zach Carter, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Congress, Free Trade, Law, Obama, TPP

President Barack Obama's trade agenda suffered a setback Friday evening during a series of last-minute maneuvers in the Senate. While the upper chamber eventually passed a bill that would help Obama streamline a trade pact with 11 Pacific nations, the final product threw a wrench into the president's plans. The Senate approved a bill to "fast-track" trade agreements negotiated by the president. The agreement will prevent Congress from amending or filibustering Obama's controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. The TPP deal would have a hard time surviving without fast-track authority. But a key crackdown on human trafficking survived the legislative jujitsu. The White House considers the provision a deal-breaker, as it would force one of the nations involved in the TPP talks -- Malaysia -- out of the agreement.

Congress Concerned By Capitol Police Conduct With Protesters

May 20, 2015 Hannah Hess, www.rollcall.com Resist! Congress, Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Speech

Congress has been critical of the Capitol Police this year when it comes to the department’s handling of protesters. Now, one member is demanding to see the department’s policies on removing demonstrators from House and Senate hearings. It started in January, when Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain called one of the protesters who disrupted a panel hearing “low-life scum,” and later vowed he would be “raising hell” over their behavior toward 91-year-old former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. “I don’t know if they are being more aggressive,” said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., the latest to scrutinize Capitol Police. “I do know that I have been in hearings where people got up, had a sign, sat down [and] weren’t even asked to leave as long as they didn’t repeat the infraction.” Concerned Capitol Police might have tossed one of her constituents from a House hearing without just cause, Norton wants clarification on the department’s policy on protesters. In a Monday letter to Chief Kim C. Dine, Norton asks Capitol Police to specify the regulations or laws “that indicate whether officers must personally observe the conduct to remove a demonstrator or may rely solely on witness reports.” Local activist Adam Eidinger is fighting “unlawful entry” charges stemming from his arrest during an April 21 House Oversight and Government Reform Committee markup, which he says he was carried out of despite not causing a disturbance. Eidinger heads back to court on May 27. He has said he intends to sue if he is successful in fighting the charges.

You Can’t Read The TPP, But These Huge Corporations Can

May 14, 2015 Alleen Brown, www.firstlook.org Educate! Capitalism, Congress, Free Trade, Law, TPP

The Senate today is holding a key procedural vote that would allow the Trans-Pacific Partnership to be “fast-tracked.” So who can read the text of the TPP? Not you, it’s classified. Even members of Congress can only look at it one section at a time in the Capitol’s basement, without most of their staff or the ability to keep notes. But there’s an exception: if you’re part of one of 28 U.S. government-appointed trade advisory committees providing advice to the U.S. negotiators. The committees with the most access to what’s going on in the negotiations are 16 “Industry Trade Advisory Committees,” whose members include AT&T, General Electric, Apple, Dow Chemical, Nike, Walmart and the American Petroleum Institute.

Washington Post Calls Senators Names If They Oppose TPP

May 14, 2015 CEPR, www.cepr.net Educate! Congress, Journalism, Media, TPP, Trade

Everyone knows that the Washington Post supports the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), but does it really have to resort to name calling in its news pages to refer to people who disagree with its position? That's what readers of its front page piece on the Senate vote to block the discussion of a bill authorizing a fast-track are wondering. The piece referred to Senator Sherrod Brown and other staunch opponents of TPP in its current form as "anti-trade hard-liners." Of course Senator Brown and his allies are not opponents of trade, they do not advocate autarky. The correct way to refer to these people would have been "anti-TPP." Given the concern of newspapers over space, in addition to being more accurate, this also would have saved the paper two letters.

SunsetThePatriotAct.Com Demands End To Mass Surveillance

May 13, 2015 Demand Progress, www.demand-progress.tumblr.com Resist! Congress, Law, Surveillance

As the House prepares for a vote on the USA Freedom Act this week, 13 netroots groups—representing approximately 10 million Americans—have launched a campaign and activism website calling on Congress to reject reauthorization of key provisions of the PATRIOT Act. Instead, the site calls for Congress to allow PATRIOT Act provisions—including Section 215, which has been exploited to justify the collection of data on millions of innocent Americans’ phone calls—to sunset on June 1st. Netroots groups plan to use the site to generate hundreds of thousands of emails and tens of thousands of phone calls to Congress over the next two weeks. Internet users may visit SunsetThePatriotAct.com to make their voices heard.

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