Tag Archives: Washington DC

Tell Democratic Leadership: Don’t cave to Republican extremists on the budget.

No more weak backroom deals!

Clicking here will add your name to this petition: http://act.credoaction.com/r/?r=7198&id=17174-2591629-s_o9PNx&t=9

“Democratic Leadership: Don’t cave and cut a backroom deal with Republican extremists on the budget.”

http://act.credoaction.com/r/?r=7198&id=17174-2591629-s_o9PNx&t=10 << sign the petition

It’s breathtaking to think that the Republicans would risk a government shutdown because Democrats won’t unilaterally capitulate to their demands for concessions in some of the most intractable ideological wars of our time.

But last week the House passed and sent to the Senate for consideration an extremist’s wish list under the guise of the “Continuing Resolution.” The Continuing Resolution is a must-pass bill that is necessary to maintain funding for the federal government while Congress debates the 2011 budget.

Even worse, the Huffington Post reports that Democratic leadership and key Appropriations Committee staffers met yesterday to identify cuts in social spending drastic enough to appease Republican demands for devastating spending reductions.1

Tell Democratic Leadership: Stand your ground against Republican extremism. Don’t cave and cut a backroom deal on the budget. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Democrats must stand their ground. But progressive champions in the Senate won’t be able to fight if their leadership preemptively cuts a deal with Republicans. Unfortunately, such a deal may already be underway.

If a Continuing Resolution isn’t passed by March 4, the government will shut down. Yet the Republicans have shown no willingness to compromise on any of their extreme demands including devastating cuts to Planned Parenthood, NPR, and the EPA.

Democrats now have two choices: Stand their ground or cave to this extremism to avoid the government shutdown that Republicans are forcing.

Tell Democratic Leadership: Stand your ground against Republican extremism. Don’t cave and cut a backroom deal with Republican extremists on the budget. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

If Democrats continue to cave to Republican extremists, it will only embolden the rightwing to launch even more radical attacks against progressives, because Republicans have learned, when they don’t compromise, they win.

We’ve seen it in Wisconsin where the Republican governor turned a budget surplus into a deficit with giveaways to corporations and millionaires, and then used the completely predictable budget deficit that resulted to bludgeon the public employee unions and diminish the power of the progressive base in his state. And when Unions offered to take benefit cuts, Walker said no, because his attack isn’t really about balancing budgets, it’s about breaking the public employee unions.

And now we’re hurtling towards total disaster in Washington D.C., because Republicans are practicing the same tactics, holding the needs of everyday Americans hostage with their threats of forcing a government shutdown. Intoxicated with power and propelled by a Tea Party base, they are willing let the American people twist in the wind if Senate Democrats don’t agree to their increasingly extreme wish list of demands.

It’s the logical result of a history of caving by Democrats. Time and time again, Republicans have practiced brinkmanship and the Democrats have been the first ones to blink — preemptively caving on a range of issues from climate to the public option to Bush tax cuts for millionaires. Not surprisingly, that behavior has only emboldened the Republicans to raise the stakes even more.

Tell Sens. Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durban and Pres. Obama: It’s time to stop preemptively caving without a fight. Don’t cut a backroom deal with Republican extremists who are threatening to shut down the government. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

As you may have noticed, things aren’t working out quite as Governor Walker planned in Wisconsin. And now the politicians in Washington DC should take a page from Wisconsin’s playbook. Tens of thousands of protesters have rallied behind nurses, teachers and other public employees. And the politicians are following the people’s lead with 14 Democrats in the state senate fleeing the state to deny the governor the quorum he needs to pass his radical agenda.

This is the kind of leadership we need in the U.S. Senate. But according to the Huffington Post, Democratic leadership is already busy caving to Republicans behind closed doors.

The Continuing Resolution passed by the House is not a serious attempt to address our budget. Republicans have hijacked a bill to fund the operation of government and attached their extremist wish list of cuts meant to serve their personal ideology, not address the real needs of the American people. For example, the Republicans sought to defund Planned Parenthood by denying Title X funding that currently enables millions of women to obtain birth control, cancer screenings, HIV tests, and other lifesaving care.

And that is just one of any number of deeply unpopular items that the Republicans could never force through the Senate or overcome a presidential veto of without being attached to “must pass” legislation like the Continuing Resolution.

This is not the end game, it’s just the beginning. The Republicans will have multiple opportunities to hold the budget hostage to their extremist demands. After the Continuing Resolution comes the fight over the debt ceiling and then 2011 budget process starts. Republicans are refusing to negotiate in good faith because they are confident that their utter intransigence will pay off — as it has in practically every single significant fight during the Obama administration. If we don’t draw the line now, Republican demands will only become more radical in these successive fights.

The time is now to draw the line. We can’t continue to let the Republicans hold the needs of the American people hostage to their increasingly extreme rightwing wish list. Wisconsin has shown us what can happen when Democrats fight back. Join us in putting Democratic leadership in the Senate — Sens. Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin — and President Obama on notice: Don’t sell us out before we have get the chance to fight.

Becky Bond, Political Director

CREDO Action from Working Assets

1. “Senate Democrats Meet To Find More Cuts For Long-Term Funding Deal With GOP,” The Huffington Post, February 24th, 2011

~ my 2cents ...

weekend views &some News …

02/27/2011 Nativegrl77

The weather is just as mad as what is going on politically No?

With a couple of days, left in February the countdown to March Madness and the NCAA championships begins by those devoted college bb fans. The crazy climate(changes) around the country are just as mad but the madness in Washington, DC and specifically on the floor of the Senate begins on Monday the last day of February.

Last year at this time, President Obama was in Philadelphia talking about what HCR will do for everyone what the exchanges will offer when implemented. Though if you listened to the Media garbage back then, we were supposed to believe that it is his last ditch effort to push, jam, ram and or dupe Senators to get HCR through; but contrary to what Republicans and or “the Media” says the debate on HCR took about a year. I don’t know about you but that hardly qualifies for ramming or rushing in my opinion. The biggest issue for me about HCR was that Congress did not listen to the people and of course, “the media” kept the public from hearing all of what HCR could you for us personally. Now, after a few months of media network staff shake-ups we find out that FOX was NOT the only station with a strategy to limit the information “We the People” received by the bigwigs like Murdoch and the Koch brothers. The fact is there were more people who wanted a Public Option back then but apparently little or no airplay. Finding out that the 24/7 news cycle is actually manipulated to the extent that it is should make us all give pause and question what we see or hear on the television machine.

Most of us agree that the television machine and cable stations should not be allowed to just give us what THEY want us to hear see and use to judge how those bills will not only affect us but how it might affect our voting, but if we take the November elections into account, it worked . The information coming out of the airwaves was deceptive back then when Congress was trying to pass legislation before the midterm elections and now that Congress is getting back to work next week we all need to push for better, more accurate ok demand the truth when reporting opposed to what most if not all are delivering to us currently. In addition, if being manipulated by those in the News biz industry wasn’t bad enough those guest spots are now such jokes because they seem sound and act scripted. I want the real news fair and balanced on all stations whether owned by right or center politically or on the extreme right.

It would be great if left of center, the Democratic Party in both chambers of Congress actually conceives some sort of plan and or strategy and start calling the bluffs of the Republican Tea Party. The fact is the public deserves to know what kinds of disgusting amendments the Republican Tea Party tries to attach to reasonably fair and balanced bills in order that no one could vote for them. I admit I have yet to understand why the House and Senate adjourn early or take breaks so often leaving the people’s business until the last minute. It worked during the lame duck session but you have to wonder if they are dedicated public servants or a bunch of politicians who have no plan and just avoiding the obvious for as long as they can blaming the President for his lack of leadership. The lack of leadership in Democratic Party in Congress worked for two years; seemingly distracted by their election campaigns. The lame duck session was constructive their lack of good strategy bit us back with tea party members being elected and some of them extreme with the so-called mainstream conservatives trying to keep up in order that they keep their seats in Congress and that worked too. I thought the tea party was bad and they are but they have also given a few negative blows to their Republican sub-group voting against them which was unexpected by Republican led leader of the House. There were promises made in that so called “Pledge to America” that has yet to —– and is being questioned more and more and because of the tea party, folks right of center, think John McCain, Tim Pawlenty and a few others who use to be considered reasonable have now chosen to lean even farther right, practice exclusion, are seemingly birthers. If you pay attention to what Pawlenty has been saying, if elected President will reenact dadt at least who knows what else he will promise, maybe strip the constitution of the 14th and 17th amendments. Well, calling March mad because of college basketball is mild considering the madness that is in the political air definitely applies to what we will probably see on the floor of Congress for the next two years and it will probably make us all mad. Unless of course hearing about a completely new round of offensive gossip, promotion of falsehoods and outright lies about the President’s beliefs and or if he is an American is not enough. It seems like strategically filtered blips put into interviews by potential Presidential candidates and talking heads, which makes me mad because really it just does not belong on the airwaves in any form especially in the news. Most people expect truthful news maybe some spin but these days the spin is laced with some truth or maybe it’s the Republican truth accepted pushed at us by not just right wing stations but by seemingly progressive stations who actually are owned by righties definitely limiting left of center news get on the airwaves.

Last… as February leaves let the madness of March begin …Talk about March Madness, last March Republican Senator Paul Broun, from Georgia; stated that all you had to do was read it for yourself; he knows for sure President Obama was a Socialist. A reporter asked if he thought President Obama was born in the US, Broun stated he did not know but frankly as someone in public office, he should have said yes. It might just be me but isn’t that the response birthers usually give, maybe a tea party member. It is amazing to know that this kind of behavior is what we get and accept from people holding public office that we pay to do the business of the people. If Barack Obama were white, there would be absolutely no questions about his beliefs, race, and or religion. It’s offensive that a Public Servant would behave in such a way; but then the list of Senators behaving like Broun are many and should make people outraged or at least question his competency. It is ironic that a year ago Broun was acting out, still got elected, the charade is over and the truth of what the Republicans have planned for Americans is out.

What happened, the end results of the November elections is a warning to those who stayed home to protest, voted right of center for whatever reason and for registered Republican voters. I have a question for all those above -is this what you want and voted for yourselves or the future of your children because what I see spreading all over the country, mostly the south does not fit what less government has always been described as by any stretch of the imagination.

Other News …

**Reports of a 2week compromise by dems&repubs in the Senate which might help avoid govt shutdown

**Tripoli braces for even more deadly clashes

**NFL mediations take place on Tuesday

**Security forces switch sides in Libya -join protesters

**Shuttle docks with space station for last and the 13th time

**83rd annual Acad Awards tonight

**will cnn back off the major coverage they planned of the tea party or will they show how right of centr they truly are

**Governors will make that trip to Washington, DC minus Scott Walker who is trying to figure out how they will get the dems at the table only to proceed with dismantling the unions with a quick vote -they just have to be in the room and the vote taken -and it’s all over –

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

From Wisconsin to Washington D.C.

02/24/2011 Nativegrl77

I don’t know about you, but I am getting sick of this crap. People are really hurting. Jobs are not coming back fast enough, people are still losing their homes, and what are Republicans doing? The GOP is using the budget crisis to wage a war on working people.

Join our DFA Live call on Tues., March 1 at 8PM EST with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) to talk about what Republicans are planning to do and what you can do to stop them.

From Wisconsin to Washington D.C., Republicans are taking advantage of a crisis they created when they gave away tax cuts to the rich.

Seriously, Speaker Boehner is threatening to shut down the government by March 4th if they can’t cut funding of groceries for low-income pregnant women and children, but two months ago he insisted upon tax cuts for people making more than a quarter of a million dollars a year.

That’s not all, Republicans in Congress are insisting on cutting many vital programs to support police, fire fighters, teachers, nurses, and the list goes on and on. Not to mention the fact that even though Social Security does not contribute to the deficit, Republicans are insisting that cuts to Social Security should be on the table.

This DFA Live will also feature Nancy Altman, Co-Director of Social Security Works. She will explain how the budget, Social Security and jobs are linked and what we can do to protect the vital programs that keep our communities strong.

Cuts to Social Security and other vital programs are job killers. Speaker Boehner says that if the Republicans kill jobs, then “So be it.”

We believe Americans deserve a budget that creates jobs and protects vital programs with no cuts to Social Security.

Join our DFA Live on Tues., March 1 at 8PM to learn more about the issues and find out what you can do before March 4th to stop the Republicans.

Thanks for everything you do,

-Levana

Levana Layendecker, Communication Director

Democracy for America

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Official Google blog

01/28/2011 Nativegrl77

It’s become a welcome tradition: Today is the fourth annual Data Privacy Day. Dozens of countries have been celebrating with events throughout the week to inform and educate us all about our personal data rights and protections.

This is the first year I’ve marked this day as director of privacy across both engineering and product management at Google. I’ve chosen to spend the day in Washington, D.C., where there’s a been a lot of robust and productive discussion lately. People from Congress, the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Commerce, and industry and consumer groups have been contributing to these important conversations about how to best protect people’s data, and we’re happy to be participating too. I’m doing my part by bringing my geek sensibilities into a public discussion that we’re hosting today. In fact, that’s what we’re calling it: “The Technology of Privacy: When Geeks Meet Wonks.” I’ll be joined on the panel by technologists from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Federal Trade Commission and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. If you can’t attend in person, don’t worry—we’ll be uploading a video of the event later in the day on our Public Policy blog and you’ll also be able to see it on the Google Privacy Channel on YouTube.

On this Data Privacy Day, a major focus for Google is on creating ways for people to manage and protect their data. We’ve built tools like the Google Dashboard, the Ads Preferences Manager and encrypted search, and we’re always working on further ideas for providing transparency, control and security to empower our users. For example, earlier this week we launched an extension for Chrome users called Keep My Opt-Outs, which enables you to opt out permanently from ad tracking cookies. And pretty soon we’ll be extending the availability of 2-step verification, an advanced account security solution that is now helping protect more than 1,000 new accounts a day from common problems like phishing and password compromise. Right now it’s available to Google Apps Accounts; we’ll be offering it to all users in the next few weeks.

Data Privacy Day 2011 reminds us that as industry and society are busy moving forward, we face new challenges that together we can tackle through conversation and innovation. We’re eager to be part of the solution.

Posted by Alma Whitten, Director of Privacy, Product and Engineering

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Mark and Dante just married,and they need your help

01/20/2011 Nativegrl77

Last month, members Mark Reed-Walkup and Dante Walkup got married in Washington, D.C., where same-sex marriage is legal. After their wedding, they couldn’t wait to get home to Texas and share the joy with their Dallas community.

Unfortunately, the Dallas Morning News didn’t share their sentiments — turns out the paper refuses to print gay wedding announcements in its Wedding section.

Mark and Dante are fighting back. Join them in telling the Dallas Morning News to print same-sex wedding announcements in its Weddings section.

As Mark told Change.org: “Our ultimate goal is to raise awareness about how this is blatant discrimination and send a clear message to the Dallas Morning News and news outlets around the country.” Together, we’re planning to do just that.