Tag Archives: Barack Obama

Black History

~~ the Senate ~~ CONGRESS ~~ the House


visitors-memorials-eve

The Senate stands in adjournment until 10:00am on Wednesday, September 11, 2013.  Following the prayer and the pledge, there will be a moment of silence to pay tribute to the thousands of Americans whose lives were taken on September 11, 2001.

 Following any Leader remarks, the time until 2:30pm will be equally divided and controlled between the two Leaders or their designees with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

 There will be a bipartisan, bicameral remembrance ceremony of the 12th anniversary of the September 11th attacks at 11:00am tomorrow on the East Front of the Capitol.

Members will gather in the rotunda at 10:45am.

The Senate is in a period of morning business for debate only until 2:30pm, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two Leaders or their designees and Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

There will be a bipartisan, bicameral remembrance ceremony of the 12th anniversary of the September 11th attacks at 11:00am on the East Front of the Capitol.  Members will gather in the rotunda at 10:45am.

As a reminder, there is an order to adopt the motion to proceed to S.1392, Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2013, at a time to be determined by the Majority Leader, with the concurrence of the Republican Leader. Discussions continue on the appropriate time to turn to its consideration.

The Senate has adopted the motion to proceed to S.1392, Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2013. By consent, no amendments or motions relative to Syria or the use of military force are in order during the consideration of the bill. The time until 6:00pm is equally divided between the two Leaders, or their designees. There will be a period for debate only to allow for opening statements on the bill (Wyden 20 minutes, Murkowski 20 minutes, Shaheen 15 minutes and Portman 15 minutes). Senators will be notified if and when any votes are scheduled.

The following amendments are pending to S.1392, Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2013 :

The Merkley amendment #1858 (standby power usage study) is pending

Senator Inhofe asked unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment in order to consider Inhofe-Carper amendment #1851 (to modify the federal purchase of renewable energy requirement). Senator Vitter objected. Senator Vitter wants an agreement to vote on his healthcare amendment before any other amendments are considered.

 Senator Udall (CO) spoke about an amendment on energy retrofitting of schools that he would like to call up but will refrain from offering until there is no objection to setting aside the pending amendment.

Senator Bennet asked consent to call up amendment #1847 (commercial real estate landlords and tenants). Senator Vitter objected.

Senator Klobuchar asked consent to set aside the pending amendment in order to call up Klobuchar amendment #1856 (retrofitting nonprofit buildings). Senator Portman objected on behalf of Senator Vitter.

The Senate is in a period of morning business until 7pm with senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each. We expect to resume consideration of the energy efficiency bill tomorrow morning.

WRAP UP

No ROLL CALL VOTES

LEGISLATIVE ITEMS

Adopted S.Res.222, Supporting the goals and ideals of National Save for Retirement Week, including raising public awareness of the various tax-preferred retirement vehicles and increasing personal financial literacy.

No EXECUTIVE ITEMS

************************************************************

Last Floor Action:
10:02:01 A.M. – MORNING-HOUR DEBATE – The
House proceeded with Morning-Hour Debate. At the conclusion of Morning-Hour, the
House will recess until 12:00 p.m. for the start of legislative business.

——————————————————————————————————

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Whites Only?


By 

The GOP’s Demographic Doom

Some in the Republican Party continue to argue that the party can make up for its abysmal standing with minority voters by becoming more conservative in order to attract and turn out more white voters.

CAP Senior Fellow Ruy Teixeira lays out fresh evidence why this whites-only strategy is destined to fail:

5. White voters are increasingly likely to be single and secular. The idea that the GOP can get higher and higher levels of support from white voters presupposes that the white population is likely to get ever-more conservative and therefore inclined to vote Republican. But what if the reverse is true? Two factors that could make the white population more liberal are family and religion. Thirty five percent of white voters in 2012 were unmarried, compared to 30 percent in 1984. Unmarried whites are far more likely to vote Democratic than married ones.

And in just a five year span from 2007 to 2012, the percentage of whites who are religiously unaffiliated rose from 15 to 20 percent. According to Brownstein, Democrats have averaged a 32 point advantage with white secular voters since 2000.

4. A smaller and smaller proportion of white voters are working class. Working class or non-college educated voters are among the most conservative white voters, regularly giving Republicans a 12-14 point larger margin than they receive among white college graduates. But white working class voters are declining precipitously as a share of voters (down from 54 to 36 percent between 1988 and 2012) while white college graduates are increasing their share (from 31 to 36 percent over the same time period). That means that the white working class is also declining as a share of white voters. Back in 1988, 64 percent of white voters were white working class; by 2012, that figure had dropped to just half of white voters. This trend is likely to continue for many years making the white vote a harder not easier target for GOP appeals.

3. The rise of the Millennial generation. The Millennial generation, as has been widely documented, is the most liberal generation in the electorate by a considerable margin. This is also true of white Millennials—they are considerably more progressive than their older counterparts.  In the last two elections, the Republic margin among white Millennials has averaged 20 points below that among white voters as a whole.  And Millennials are becoming a larger and larger proportion of the white electorate with every passing year. By the time the 2020 election is held, they’ll make up about two out of every five (37 percent) of all white voters.

2. White Republicans are too concentrated in the most conservative areas of the country. Even assuming Republicans can get past the factors above and continue inflating the national support among whites, that will not necessarily yield success against Democrats’ domination of the electoral college. As Brownstein points out, “Romney’s national margins among the various groups of white voters are inflated by Obama’s utter collapse in the country’s most conservative regions, particularly the South.” This chart makes his point plainly — Obama did much better among white voters in competitive states than in the South or Appalachia:

whites by state1. Every year, the pool of white voters shrinks. The most important reason why the GOP’s desperate quest to squeeze ever more voters out of the white population is doomed to fail is that every year there are fewer of them. How Republicans can look at charts like this one:

minority-growth

Or this one:

pop-projections-by-race

and still place their faith in a white people forever strategy is beyond me. But they do.

Republicans seem to think they will soon be matching the Gipper’s 64 percent share of the white vote in his 1984 re-election victory and then some. But, as Karl Rove (!) put it, “it’s unreasonable to expect Republicans to routinely pull numbers that last occurred in a 49-state sweep.” Unreasonable the white voters strategy may be, but since when has that stopped the contemporary Republican party from believing something?

BOTTOM LINE: Instead of demanding more damaging austerity and pursuing an endless series of unpopular attacks on Obamacare, Republicans should attempt to broaden their appeal by pursuing policies like immigration reform with a pathway to earned citizenship.

~ my 2cents ...

the Middle East


The World is watching…

The marches the violence against the Protesters and those called Rebels fighting back  … people seem to have had enough of dictatorship

My question is … will those deeply invested in or associated with Syria and the Middle East in general step up and renounce the use of Chemical Weapons lest we call them WMD as well as the National Norm enacted approximately 100 yrs ago.

Remember … there is always strength in numbers

people dying for wanting to be heard, for wanting to be participants in their own futures is not new … mothers with children, older men and women and college students are coming out in droves to let the current dictators know it’s time for a change though the chance of death and or certain injuries are at risk

We see a country in possible transition, definitely a movement against dictatorship in all its forms and bad actors allowing elections though the votes of millions seem to have gone uncounted. The demand to be heard is great but to get the change they need and want means the fear of challenging the authority a huge financial risk … and the possibility of death.

The supreme leader tried to cut off all connections to the outside world, stated the US meddled in the process to divert responsibility and is willing to use extreme force — the Militia should rise up against this kind of behavior… don’t they want  personal freedom too … a change from the old ways to a more positive way of life … human rights, a chance for a better economy and a chance to be heard, to participant in the process of life ….

 

They have a dictator/supreme ruler making threats and a militia shooting/ killing their own for non-violent protest …  it is shameful

 

The journey toward freedom is sometimes paved with danger

 

Pray for all those involved and hope Americans are safe

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

53 days


We can’t let West, Texas happen again.west TX chemical explosion

It’s time for the President to take action. Send a message to President Obama right now and urge the administration to adopt better safety standards for chemical plants!
take action today

greenpeaceRick  Hind, Greenpeace

A small town in Texas will never be the same after fifteen people lost  their lives when a fertilizer plant exploded back in April.

The explosion was so big it registered as a 2.1 magnitude earthquake and destroyed a 37-block area of West, Texas. The most tragic part of it all is that the explosion along with the death and destruction that followed didn’t have to happen.

There are safe, affordable alternatives to the dangerous chemicals like the  ones used in the Texas fertilizer plant available right now. But instead of making the switch, the chemical industry has chosen to spend its money lobbying Congress so that it can keep putting millions needlessly at risk. And up until now, that strategy was working.

Things are changing though. President Obama recently issued a directive to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop plans for new safety  measure at chemical plants by November. What happens next is up to us.  It’s your voice versus the chemical industry.

Send a message to President Obama and the EPA right now and urge them to  adopt safety standards that prevent chemical disasters.

You’re likely close enough to a facility that stores or uses deadly chemicals, like chlorine gas, to be at risk if something unexpected were to  happen. Most people in the U.S. are.

Chemical safety isn’t just an environmental issue — it impacts communities everywhere. That’s why we’ve been working closely with a diverse coalition of groups  including labor and environmental justice groups to send a clear message to the administration: the time to act is now.

President Obama has been outspoken on this issue in the past. In fact, back when  he was a Senator from Illinois he had this to say,: “We cannot allow  chemical industry lobbyists to dictate the terms of this debate. We  cannot allow our security to be hijacked by corporate interests.”

Take action and tell President Obama and the EPA that now’s the time to put  those words into action and prevent another disaster like the one in  West, Texas.

A decade ago the EPA proposed using the Clean Air Act to enforce commons  sense rules for chemical plants like the one in West, Texas. For a  decade Congress and two Presidents have been dragging their feet.

Legislation that would address this problem has completely stalled in Congress and  is going nowhere thanks to the deep pockets of the chemical lobby. It’s  up to the President to do the right thing and he needs our support to  make it happen.

If the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the nuclear disaster in  Fukushima and the West, Texas explosion have taught us anything in the  last couple of years, it’s that disasters happen. There’s no sense for  millions of Americans to remain needlessly at risk from dangerous  chemicals when safer alternatives exist.

Tell President Obama you support him using his authority to do what Congress won’t, and put the safety and health of American citizens ahead of  corporate interests.

Sincerely,

Rick Hind Greenpeace Legislative Director