Category Archives: ~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Friday in Congress


The Senate Convenes: 9:45amET June 18, 2010

On 6/17/2010 these comments came after the jobs bill was voted down 56-40  -“Tonight, every single Republican voted to deny states critical aid that would keep firefighters, police offices and teachers employed,” said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “And tonight, every single Republican voted to tell the one in ten Americans who have lost their jobs that they are on their own.” Please call your representative in Congress.

Following any Leader remarks, the Senate will proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each. There will be no roll call votes on Friday, June 18.

Unanimous Consent:
Passed HR3962, with Baucus and title Substitute (provides for a 6-month extension of the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula)

passed H.Con.Res.242, a concurrent resolution honoring and praising the NAACP on the occasion of its 101st anniversary

Turns out the vote for the doc fix was too late , the House won’t be available to do their part til next week & Medicare announced that it will process claims at lower rate  &this will increase costs to tax payers and providers – this is unacceptable

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The next meeting in the House is scheduled for 11:ooamET June 21, 2010

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Apologize to BP? add your name …we won’t apologize


Organizing for America

When BP CEO Tony Hayward testified before Congress this morning, many expected to hear him apologize for the disaster his company has caused. Instead, GOP Congressman Joe Barton was the one saying he was sorry — to BP.

In his opening statement, Barton, the top Republican on the committee overseeing the oil spill and its aftermath, delivered a personal apology to the oil giant. He said the $20 billion fund that President Obama directed BP to establish to provide relief to the victims of the oil disaster was a “tragedy in the first proportion.”

Other Republicans are echoing his call. Sen. John Cornyn said he “shares” Barton’s concern. Rep. Michele Bachmann said that BP shouldn’t agree to be “fleeced.” Rush Limbaugh called it a “bailout.” The Republican Study Committee, with its 114 members in the House, called it a “shakedown.”

Let’s be clear. This fund is a major victory for the people of the Gulf. It’s a key step toward making them whole again. BP has a responsibility to those whose lives and livelihoods have been devastated by the disaster. And BP oil executives don’t deserve an apology — the people of the Gulf do.

Stand with us to show that the American people support holding BP accountable — and we won’t apologize for doing so.

We support holding BP accountable. And we won't apologize for doing so. Add your name.

Rep. Barton and Republicans like him don’t understand that the real tragedy is what’s happening to the people in the Gulf Coast. They’re the ones who deserve his apology — not BP.

But big oil knows exactly who its allies are. And if Republicans win control of the House, Rep. Barton could be chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee — overseeing regulation of the oil and gas industry.

Notably, companies like Halliburton — the folks responsible for cementing the Deepwater Horizon rig — are directing their political committees to deliver thousands of dollars to GOP candidates this cycle. Barton himself has received more than $100,000 from the oil and gas industry this election cycle.

Barton should apologize to the people of the Gulf and he should step down as the highest-ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Adding your name to our open letter is one of the best ways you can show him and other Republicans that they weren’t elected to defend big oil.

Sign the open letter today:

http://my.barackobama.com/NoApologies

Thanks,

David Plouffe

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

UNDER THE RADAR

RADICAL RIGHT — CANADIAN BILLIONAIRE SET TO LAUNCH A CONSERVATIVE NETWORK BEING DUBBED ‘FOX NEWS NORTH’: Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s ex-communications director Kory Teneycke has teamed up with media company Quebecor — run by billionaire media tycoon Karl Pierre Peladeau — to start a new “24-hour conservative news and comment channel” called Sun TV News, which many media insiders are dubbing “Fox News North.” Interestingly, Teneycke met with News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch and Fox News President Roger Ailes just four months before leaving his position to join Quebecor. The meeting was not listed on Harper’s public itinerary and “only came to light when The Canadian Press searched media consultant Ari Fleischer’s mandatory disclosures with the U.S. Justice Department,” although Teneycke insists that the Quebecor venture was not discussed. However, just four months later — “barely a year into his job as Harper’s chief spokesman” — Teneycke “pick[ed] up a contract with Quebecor to explore a project that Ottawa insiders almost immediately described as a fledgling ‘Fox News North.'” Teneycke, now the vice president of Quebecor, has told the press that Sun TV News will offer “an attractive mix of hard-news reporting during the day and straight talk opinion journalism at night” that will take on “smug, condescending, often irrelevant journalism” and “political correctness.” He insisted that the channel “will not be another network catering to elite opinion” or the “lame-stream media,” a phrase also used by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Peladeau plans to “invest $100 million over five years to tear up Canadian TV’s rule book with [the] conservative all-news channel in a mostly liberal Canuck TV landscape.”