Tag Archives: Congress

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

“I will not comply”


 

Background checks are under attack already.

Despite the fact that even gun dealers, who are now complying with the law when they sell weapons, have told their customers that the new law, “is basically the same as if you bought it in the store,” the gun lobby is already planning to complicate, erode, and repeal what we’ve all fought so hard for.

And the attack starts this Sa‌turd‌ay, when the gun lobby holds its “I Will Not Comply” rally on the green in front of the capitol in Olympia.

The gun lobby is standing up Sa‌turd‌ay against background checks — will you stand with us today to help protect the background checks we worked so hard to make law?

You helped us win the fight for background checks on the ballot — step up today with a contribution of $3 to protect them in Olympia!

This rally is going to be pretty nuts — they’ve lined up the son of Cliven Bundy, the tax-dodging rancher who nearly started a shooting war with local law enforcement last year.

This is what we’re up against when the legislature convenes in Jan‌uary.

They’re not going to give up — and we can’t either.

We never could have beaten the gun lobby this fall without you. Step up today, and contribute $3 to help us beat them again!

Thank you for keeping up the fight.

Zach Silk
Campaign Manager
Yes on 594

 
Black History

the Senate ~~~ CONGRESS 12/15 ~~~ the House


PinterestRedGifts feat. picture is from Pinterest

The Senate stands adjourned until 10:00am on Monday, December 15, 2014.

Following any Leader remarks, the Senate will proceed to Executive Session to consider the Murthy, Santos, Rose, Saldana, and Blinken nominations.

Monday, 5:30pm—Up to 4 roll call votes

  1. Cloture on Executive Calendar #681, Vivek Hallegere Murthy, to be Medical Director in the Regular Corps of the Public Health Service, subject to qualifications therefor as provided by law and regulations, and to be Surgeon General of the Public Health Service for a term of four years;
  2. Confirmation of the Murthy nomination;
  3. Cloture on Executive Calendar #979, Daniel J. Santos, to be a Member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board for a term expiring October 18, 2017; and
  4. Cloture on Executive Calendar #635, Frank A. Rose, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (Verification and Compliance).

Tuesday, Approximately 10:00am—Up to 2 roll call votes

  1. Confirmation of Executive Calendar #979, Daniel J. Santos, to be a Member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board for a term expiring October 18, 2017; and
  2. Confirmation of Executive Calendar #635, Frank A. Rose, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (Verification and Compliance).

Tuesday, 2:30pm—Up to 2 roll call votes

  1. Cloture on Executive Calendar #1084, Sarah R. Saldana, to be an Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security; and if cloture is invoked
  2. Confirmation of Executive Calendar #1084, Sarah R. Saldana, to be an Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security.

Tuesday, 6:00pm—Up to 2 roll call votes

  1. Cloture on Executive Calendar #1150, Antony Blinken, to be Deputy Secretary of State; and if cloture is invoked
  2. Confirmation of Executive Calendar #1150, Antony Blinken, to be Deputy Secretary of State.

By unanimous consent, the Senate passed the following bills:

 

Passed H.R.2754: Collectible Coin Protection Act

Passed H.R.3572: Coastal Barrier Resources System Units

Passed H.R.1206: Electronic Duck Stamp

Passed H.R.1378: To designate United States Federal Judicial Center located at 333 West Broadway in San Diego, California, as the “John Rhoades Federal Judicial Center” and to designate the United States courthouse located on 333 West Broadway in San Diego, California, as the “James M. Carter and Judith N Keep United States Courthouse.

Passed H.R.5050: May 31, 1918 Act Repeal

Passed H.R.5185: EARLY Act Reauthorization of 2014

Passed H.R.5816: United States Commission on International Religious Freedom

Passed S.706: Transnational Drug Trafficking Act

Passed the following Post Office Naming Bills, en bloc:

 

– H.R.3027 – To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 442 Miller Valley Road in Prescott, – Arizona, as the “Barry M. Goldwater Post Office”.

– H.R.4416 – To redesignate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 161 Live Oak Street in Miami, Arizona, as the “Staff Sergeant Manuel V. Mendoza Post Office Building”.

– H.R.4651 – To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 601 West Baker Road in Baytown, Texas as the “Specialist Keith Erin Grace Jr. Memorial Post Office”.

– H.R.5331 – To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 73839 Gorgonio Drive in Twentynine Palms, California, as the “Colonel M.J. ‘Mac’ Dube, USMC Post Office Building”.

– H.R.5562 – To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 801 West Ocean Avenue in Lompoc, California, as the “Federal Correctional Officer Scott J. Williams Memorial Post Office Building”.

 

Passed H.R.4276: Veterans Traumatic Brain Injury Care Improvement Act of 2014

Passed H.R.5687: To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 101 East Market Street in Long Beach, California, as the “Juanita Millender-McDonald Post Office”.

5:32pm The Senate began a 15 minute roll call vote on the motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar #681, the nomination of Vivek Murthy, to be Surgeon General;

Invoked: 51-43

5:59pm The Senate began a 10 minute roll call vote on the motion to invoke cloture on confirmation of Executive Calendar #681, Vivek Murthy, to be Surgeon General. The remaining votes in this series will be 10 minutes in length.

5:59pm The Senate began a 10 minute roll call vote on the motion to invoke cloture on confirmation of Executive Calendar #681, Vivek Murthy, to be Surgeon General. The remaining votes in this series will be 10 minutes in length.

6:18 The Senate began a 10 minute roll call vote on the motion to invoke cloture on Calendar # 979, Daniel Santos, Member, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety;

Invoked: 54-39

Next:

Cloture on Executive Calendar #635, Frank Rose, Asst Sec State – Verification.

Cloture was invoked on the Rose nomination 54-39. The previously scheduled 10:00am votes tomorrow on confirmation of the Santos and Rose nominations will be voice votes.  At 2:30pm tomorrow, there will be 2 roll call votes and at 6:00pm there will be 2 more votes.

 

Tuesday, December 16:

2:30pm—Up to 2 roll call votes:

  1. Cloture on Executive Calendar #1084, Sarah R. Saldana, to be an Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security; and if cloture is invoked
  2. Confirmation of Executive Calendar #1084, Sarah R. Saldana, to be an Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security.

 

6:00pm—Up to 2 roll call votes:

  1. Cloture on Executive Calendar #1150, Antony Blinken, to be Deputy Secretary of State; and if cloture is invoked
  2. Confirmation of Executive Calendar #1150, Antony Blinken, to be Deputy Secretary of State.

Senator Blumenthal asked unanimous consent that the Senate take up and pass H.R.5059, Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act.

Senator Coburn objected.

 

Senator Portman asked unanimous consent the Energy Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R.2126, and the Senate take up and pass the bill.

Senator Coburn objected.

WRAP UP

Roll Call Votes

  1. Cloture on Executive Calendar #681, Vivek Hallegere Murthy, to be Medical Director in the Regular Corps of the Public Health Service, subject to qualifications therefor as provided by law and regulations, and to be Surgeon General of the Public Health Service for a term of four years; Invoked: 51-43.
  2. Confirmation of the Murthy nomination; Confirmed: 51-43.
  3. Cloture on Executive Calendar #979, Daniel J. Santos, to be a Member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board for a term expiring October 18, 2017; Invoked: 54-39.
  4. Cloture on Executive Calendar #635, Frank A. Rose, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (Verification and Compliance); Invoked: 54-39.

Legislative Business

Passed H.R.2754: Collectible Coin Protection Act

Passed H.R.3572: Coastal Barrier Resources System Units

Passed H.R.1206: Electronic Duck Stamp

Passed H.R.1378: To designate United States Federal Judicial Center located at 333 West Broadway in San Diego, California, as the “John Rhoades Federal Judicial Center” and to designate the United States courthouse located on 333 West Broadway in San Diego, California, as the “James M. Carter and Judith N Keep United States Courthouse.

Passed H.R.5050: May 31, 1918 Act Repeal

Passed H.R.5185: EARLY Act Reauthorization of 2014

Passed H.R.5816: United States Commission on International Religious Freedom

Passed S.706: Transnational Drug Trafficking Act

Passed the following Post Office Naming Bills, en bloc:

  • R. 3027 – To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 442 Miller Valley Road in Prescott, – Arizona, as the “Barry M. Goldwater Post Office”.
  • R. 4416 – To redesignate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 161 Live Oak Street in Miami, Arizona, as the “Staff Sergeant Manuel V. Mendoza Post Office Building”.
  • R. 4651 – To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 601 West Baker Road in Baytown, Texas as the “Specialist Keith Erin Grace Jr. Memorial Post Office”.
  • R. 5331 – To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 73839 Gorgonio Drive in Twentynine Palms, California, as the “Colonel M.J. ‘Mac’ Dube, USMC Post Office Building”.
  • R. 5562 – To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 801 West Ocean Avenue in Lompoc, California, as the “Federal Correctional Officer Scott J. Williams Memorial Post Office Building”.

Passed H.R.4276: Veterans Traumatic Brain Injury Care Improvement Act of 2014

Passed H.R.5687: To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 101 East Market Street in Long Beach, California, as the “Juanita Millender-McDonald Post Office”.

Passed Calendar #606, S.1744: Security Clearance Accountability, Reform, and Enhancement Act, with committee-reported substitute amendment and committee-reported title amendment by voice vote.

Passed H.R.2901: Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act of 2014.

Passed H.R.1068: To enact title 54, United States Cod, “National Park Service and Related Programs”, as positive law.

Passed H.R.2866: Boys Town Centennial Commemorative Coin Act, with a Johanns amendment.

Executive Business

Confirmed all nominations on the Secretary’s desk in the Foreign Service.

========================================

Last Floor Action:12/12
3:10:44 P.M. – The Speaker announced that pursuant to the order of the House of today, the House stands adjourned until noon on Tuesday, December 16, 2014, unless it sooner has received a message from the Senate transmitting its adoption of H. Con. Res. 125, in which case the House shall stand adjourned pursuant to that concurrent resolution. Agreed to without objection

=============================================

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Special report: Company stores leave farmworker​s trapped by debt


Los Angeles Times

Dear Readers:In 1910, when Mexicans launched their revolution, a major grievance involved the company store, which kept the working poor enslaved to a plantation economy.
Today, the Los Angeles Times reveals that this vestige of an oppressive past remains a fixture of Mexican agriculture, including export mega-farms that supply tomatoes, cucumbers and other produce to American consumers.Read: Company stores trap Mexican farmworkers in cycle of debt
Workers at camps are held in a kind of indentured servitude thanks to the low pay and high prices. Desperate workers scale barbed wire at night to escape their debts. Please read the story
by Times writer Richard Marosi and see the pictures by Don Bartletti.
The piece on company stores is the third in our “Product of Mexico” series. Our first installment told readers about unbearable conditions at labor camps operated by Mexican mega-farms. Our second offered an inside look at Bioparques, one of Mexico’s biggest tomato exporters and a supplier to Wal-Mart.
Our reporters’ expose of the company store left me thinking of Faulkner’s line about history: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Davan Maharaj, Editor
P.S. Don’t miss the faces of farmworkers captured by the Times photojournalist Don Bartletti as he traveled across nine Mexican states.
~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Never Forget. Act


By

Two Years After Newtown, Take Action Right Now To Defeat The NRA

9:35 am on Sunday morning will be exactly two years after the start of one of the most horrific mass shootings in American history. On the morning of December 14, 2012, a gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut armed with a semi-automatic assault rifle and killed 20 children and six educators before taking his own life.

Many people hoped this tragedy would be a transformative moment for the United States, but by some measures not that much has changed. In the two years since, about 60,000 Americans have died by gunfire. There have been at least 94 school shootings (and another reported today in Portland, OR). Congress failed to pass comprehensive background check legislation even though 90 percent of Americans supported it. And if trends continue, 2015 will be the year when gunfire passes motor vehicles as the leading killer of young Americans under 26.

But despite these deplorable incidents and disappointing trends, there are many indications of progress in the fight for stronger gun laws. This year, Washington state voters passed a referendum to strengthen background checks with 60 percent of the vote, and in Nevada, a similar measure just qualified for the ballot with a record number of signatures for the state. Legislatively, there have been 64 laws passed to strengthen gun laws, including significant reforms in swing states like Colorado.

And while there was some political backlash to those — like in Colorado where two Democratic state Senators were recalled in 2013 following their votes to strengthen gun laws — the gun violence prevention community has punched back. This year, in those same two seats, candidates supporting gun safety measures like stronger background checks beat the NRA-backed candidates. Colorado governor John Hickenlooper also won. Connecticut governor Dan Malloy narrowly won reelection, and there is evidence that his support of stronger gun laws was a key reason voters pushed him over the edge. And with new groups like Gabby Giffords’ Americans for Responsible Solutions, Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action, and Sandy Hook Promise, along with this new, proven strategy to focus on states and bring the issue directly to voters, the future looks bright.

Which brings us to the next big test: confirming Dr. Vivek Murthy for surgeon general. We wrote just a few days ago about this fight — and about how the NRA has made it their mission to block Dr. Murthy’s confirmation simply because he has taken the medically accepted position (and the position taken by the surgeon general under Ronald Reagan) that gun violence is a public health issue. Dr. Murthy has excellent credentials to be the nation’s top doctor, and the country shouldn’t go through any more public health crises without a surgeon general’s leadership. With Congress in the middle of negotiating how they are going to finish their business before the year ends, now is the critical moment to get them to stand with Vivek and deal a big defeat to the NRA. Will you help?

Here is what you can do:

1. Call your Senator and urge them to stay in session to confirm executive nominees including Dr. Vivek Murthy. (202) 224-3121.
2. Get engaged on social media. Click here for sample messages and graphics to share with your networks.
3. Share this email. Send this around to anybody you know who wants to give America the public health leader it needs regardless of what the NRA says.

BOTTOM LINE: This weekend offers an important time for remembrance of the devastation the Sandy Hook shooting caused two years ago, and reflection on how efforts to reform our gun laws have gone since then. While federal legislation remains out of reach, many positive reforms have taken place and momentum is building for more in the coming days and months.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

One bank to wreck a world wonder?!


 Avaazpix
DearAvaazers across the world,

India’s coal king Adani wants to turn the delicate Great Barrier Reef into a major shipping lane. But if we act fast we can sink his dirty coal complex by getting the State Bank of India to turn down his billion dollar lifeline:

SIGN THE PETITION

India’s coal king is bidding for a $1 billion bank loan to turn one of the world’s ecological treasures into a major shipping lane. But if we act fast we can block his billion and keep the Great Barrier Reef home for whales and dolphins, not hulking coal ships.

UNESCO says the project puts the Reef in danger and eight leading international banks have backed away. Now it’s up to the State Bank of India to make or break it. The Bank’s Chairwoman has staked her reputation on cracking down on “bad loans” — and a massive global campaign can persuade her to scrutinise and stop this crazy coal project.

Public pressure has already changed other banks’ minds, so add your name now to say no to the world’s worst loan. When we hit a million, we’ll prep a definitive dossier showing its financial and environmental problems, then deliver it to Chairwoman Bhattacharya with legal letters and a media blitz:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/india_great_barrier_reef_loc/?biEWLbb&v=49294

The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living organism on Earth and home to thousands of protected species. In the past three decades it’s lost around half its coral, due to pollution from mines, climate change and other factors. German magazine Der Spiegel reported that “if current trends continue, the unthinkable could happen: the Great Barrier Reef could die.”

This wild coal rush is toxic for the planet. Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel, and to get the coal to India, Adani would need to expand a shipping lane right through the Reef. Some argue that India needs coal to pull people out of poverty, but India’s own coal minister just announced that India should be able to phase out coal imports in the next three years, long before the Australian mine is ever completed!

Campaigns by Avaaz and others, plus doubts over the project’s viability, have persuaded banks like Citigroup and Deutsche to say no to Adani’s planned Carmichael coal mine and infrastructure complex. Now the State Bank of India is under fire from India’s press and political opposition. 

69% of Indians polled said they were against this project. As the head of India’s largest state-backed bank the Chairwoman will have to listen to public opinion and our million-strong petition, a flood of messages, ads, and reports can encourage the Board to turn Adani down. Add your voice now to hit a million against the reef-wrecking coalmine:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/india_great_barrier_reef_loc/?biEWLbb&v=49294

Time and again this year our community has shown it can rise to the challenge of making our climate safe for future generations. We’ve been fighting for the Great Barrier Reef for a long time so let’s ensure we unite again to save it from this catastrophic coal complex.

With hope and determination,

Danny, Nick, David, Alex, Oli, Alaphia, Nic, Ravi and the whole Avaaz team

MORE INFORMATION

Adani’s Australian project gets $1 billion SBI loan (The Times of India)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Adanis-Australian-project-gets-1-billion-…

Adani group’s Great Barrier Reef project in troubled waters (Forbes)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghabahree/2014/05/29/adani-groups-great-barrier-reef-project-in-troubl…

India could bankroll Adani group’s delayed Australian coal mine (IB Times)
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/india-could-bank-roll-adani-groups-delayed-australian-coal-mine-1475143

National Stock Exchange of India quizzes Adani on loan for Galilee Basin coal project (Sydney Morning Herald)
http://www.smh.com.au/business/mining-and-resources/national-stock-exchange-of-india-quizzes-adani-o…

SBI’s $1 billion loan to Adani makes no sense, here’s why (firstbiz)
http://firstbiz.firstpost.com/economy/sbis-1-billion-loan-to-adani-makes-no-sense-heres-why-108668.h…

India rejects Galilee Basin Coal (Market Forces)
http://www.marketforces.org.au/indiacoalpolling