Dec 212009
 

The White House Press Office sent out a statement today announcing that President Obama signed the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010 into law on Saturday:

H.R. 3326, the “Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010,” which provides FY 2010 appropriations for Department of Defense (DOD) military programs including funding for Overseas Contingency Operations, and extends various expiring authorities and other non-defense FY 2010 appropriations.

Within the Appropriations Act is Sen. Al Franken’s (D-MN) amendment prohibiting defense contractors from restricting their employees’ abilities to take workplace discrimination, battery, and sexual assault cases to court. The measure was inspired by Jamie Leigh Jones, who was gang-raped by her co-workers while working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. Many Republicans opposed the legislation — saying it was an unnecessary attack on their allies in the defense contracting business — and faced intense political blowback over their positions.

Think Progress

 Posted by at 4:47 pm
Dec 172009
 

While many questions posed to Wittman, first congressional district representative, dealt with health care and the economy, the show was quickly stolen by TEA Party members. …

Following other audience members’ questions, many of which regarded health care reform, Carpenter took the floor again, to continue attacks against the current administration.

“The usurper we have in the White House has not proven he is qualified to be there,” Carpenter said, speaking about President Barack Obama’s contested birthplace.

The documentation of Obama’s birthplace that has been presented to the public is valid, though, Wittman responded.

As Wittman pointed out his position on Obama’s contested birthplace, often referred to as the “Birther Movement,” another TEA Party member in the audience presented the representative with a manila envelope.

Inside the envelope were documents, which the woman said were from American Grand Jury, an anti-Obama organization, that supposedly gave proof of the president’s false citizenship.

Northern Neck News

 Posted by at 8:24 am
Dec 162009
 

I agree with this from Democracy For America:

If Democrats remove the choice of a public option, they can’t force Americans to buy health insurance.

Here’s the deal, Senate leaders are all over Washington claiming they finally have a healthcare reform bill they can pass, as long as they remove the public option. After all, they say, even without a public option, the bill still “covers 30 million more Americans.” The problem is that’s not really true.

What they are actually talking about is something called the “individual mandate.” That’s a section of the law that requires every single American buy health insurance or break the law and face penalties and fines. So, the bill doesn’t actually “cover” 30 million more Americans — instead it makes them criminals if they don’t buy insurance from the same companies that got us into this mess.

A public option would have provided the competition needed to drive down costs and improve coverage. It would have kept insurance companies honest by providing an affordable alternative Americans can trust. That’s why, without a public option, this bill is almost a trillion dollar taxpayer giveaway to insurance companies.

We must act fast. Both Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid and Democratic Senators need to hear from you. Please stop whatever else you are doing and make the calls right now.

Senator Harry Reid
DC: (202) 224-3542
Carson City: (775) 882-7343
Las Vegas: (702) 388-5020
Reno: (775) 686-5750

Call your Democratic Senator too — Senate Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

Do it.

 Posted by at 11:58 am

I’ll Say, Steny

 Congress, Economy  Comments Off
Dec 152009
 

Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. House is considering reinstituting the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which barred bank holding companies from owning other financial companies, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said today.

A renewal of the 1933 law “is certainly under discussion” by House members, Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, told reporters in Washington. The Glass-Steagall law was repealed in 1999.

Hoyer made the comments when asked whether Congress and the Obama administration could do more to persuade banks to make more business loans to get credit flowing into the economy.

“As someone who voted to repeal Glass-Steagall, maybe that was a mistake,” Hoyer told reporters.

 Posted by at 12:58 pm
Dec 102009
 

Seven liberal, civil-rights, and advocacy organizations condemned Congress today for what they described as a rush to judgment after an independent investigation found no evidence that Acorn, the controversial community-organizing group, had engaged in illegal activity.

Congress voted to cut off federal funds to Acorn — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — in September after undercover videos appeared to show employees in several cities offering advice to two conservative activists about illegal activities, including prostitution and child trafficking.

The investigation — led by Scott Harshbarger, a former Massachusetts attorney general — found that the activities caught on the videos demonstrated “longstanding management weaknesses” but did not lead to any actions by Acorn employees, “illegal or otherwise.” It added that the videos were all of members or part-time employees, rather than supervisors or organizers, and were edited before they were released.

“This independent report serves as a valuable reminder that in barring Acorn from competing for federal contracts when no lawbreaking had occurred, Congress rushed to judgment and violated fundamental constitutional rights,” said Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice, one of the groups that issued statements of support for Acorn.

“The real embarrassment here is the unwarranted persecution of a nonprofit organization that has worked diligently for nearly 40 years to improve the lives of America’s poor and minority communities,” added Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

Philanthropy.com

 Posted by at 2:31 am
Dec 092009
 

Ten years ago, Congress dismantled the decades-old Glass-Steagall Act, breaking down the firewalls between commercial banks and securities houses, and helping Wall Street firms grow into the too-big-to-fail institutions that exist now. There’s been a great deal of debate about the extent to which the death of Glass-Steagall contributed to the global economic collapse that plagued the past two years — not to mention the trillions of dollars in government bailout cash that were required to stabilize the nation’s banking system. But some House Democrats place the blame squarely on the repeal of Glass-Steagall, and today they introduced legislation to reinstate it.

“{The repeal} was a recipe for disaster because these banks were empowered to make large bets with depositors’ money and money they didn’t really have,” Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.), who sponsored the new bill, said in a statement.

When many of those bets, particularly in the housing sector, didn’t pan out, the whole deck of cards came crumbling down and U.S. taxpayers had to come to the rescue. The absence of the protections in the Glass-Steagall Act essentially turned these financial giants into quasi-government entities because they were only able to survive the recent collapse with government assistance.

Hinchey’s proposal would force the giants of Wall Street to choose whether they wanted to be commercial banks or investment houses, but they couldn’t be both. (A simple lender, for example, couldn’t also be an underwriter.) Co-sponsors include Democratic Reps. John Conyers (Mich.), Peter DeFazio (Ore.), Jay Inslee (Wash.) and John Tierney (Mass.).

The House Rules Committee will meet Tuesday to consider the proposal before it can move to the chamber floor as part of a larger tax bill the Democrats have to pass by the end of the year.

The Washington Independent

 Posted by at 12:54 am
Dec 082009
 

BOXER: There’s nothing in this amendment that says if a man some days wants to buy Viagra, for example, that his pharmaceutical coverage cannot cover it, that he has to buy a rider. I wouldn’t support that. And they shouldn’t support going after a woman using her own private funds for her reproductive health care. Is it fair to say to a man you’re going to have to buy a rider to buy Viagra and this will be public information that could be accessed? No, I don’t support that. I support a man’s privacy, just as I support a woman’s privacy.

Think Progress

 Posted by at 6:03 am
Nov 302009
 

Fascinating. I know I’ve lived too long, when a Bircher thinks extremists are extreme.

Peter Boyce, a John Birch Society leader in South Jersey, is running for Congress from NJ-02 as the candidate of the Constitution Party of New Jersey, as he had done in 2008. He was a speaker at the Sussex County Tea Party on July 4. He was a delegate to the recent Continental Congress 2009, where he presented a motion for a committee to be formed to declare independence from the New World Order.

I can’t say Boyce is a true blue Birther, I really don’t know, but he has referred to the President’s eligibility in the past; in November 2008, shortly before Election Day, he wrote:

Questions concerning the legitimate citizenship qualifications of both Senators McCain and Obama have been raised and will not be resolved in court before the election. The enemies of American liberty and prosperity would like nothing better than to see Americans embroiled in another civil war and/or living under martial law. These unresolved issues could be used as a wedge to foment criminal acts and social upheaval. (There is no question about the Constitution Party’s presidential candidate, Dr. Chuck Baldwin’s, citizenship qualifications.)

In the wake of this month’s Con Con, Boyce has issued a “Patriot Alert Regarding Continental Congress 2009.”

A concerted effort was made to set-up the entire patriot/constitutionalist/militia movement into formally making terroristic threats which would have (and still holds some) potential to trigger the justification of declaring martial law and the round-up of all patriots as terrorists. …

One delegate made it a point to read a written copy of each of the reports and the initial proposed “The Articles of Association”. In reading all of the fine print, he realized that the entire agenda boiled down to a manipulation of the delegates into making a demand on Congress to submit to an unelected authoritative body under threat of “serious public inconvenience”. (See Black’s Law Dictionary “terroristic threat”) This is very similar to the communist tactic of making a demand for power under threat of national labor strikes.

This final document package from Continental Congress 2009 would serve as a means to marginalize and demonize the entire patriot/constitutionalist/militia movement in the eyes of the American people. It would give a perceived justification of rounding up millions who signed the pledge.

The delegate stopped the proceedings by calling for a “Point of Information”, requesting a legal definition of the term “terroristic threat” and consideration of that definition in relation to the Continental Congress delegates being charged with the felony offense of “conspiring to commit terroristic threats”. He was immediately ruled out of order by the President of CC2009, Michael Badnarik. The Sgt of Arms was instantly called to escort the delegate from the podium. As he was being escorted out, another delegate (who had been trying to bring out information about the 14th Amendment) stepped up to the microphone and began reading the requested definition from Black’s Law Dictionary. That delegate was also immediately ruled out of order and the microphone grabbed away.

Delegate Number Two was told that any further effort to bring information forward would result in immediate removal and arrest. Thus began an exodus of the 14th Amendment sub-committee. Delegate Number One, Two and many of the other delegates, not willing to subject themselves to felony prosecution for conspiring to threaten Congress with terroristic acts, have submitted formal resignations and disassociation letters to the Continental Congress 2009 and We The People Foundation by certified mail.

It is imperative that the freedom-loving people of America be made aware of this treachery, become activated to expose it, and warn their fellow citizens to beware of signing on to any document pledging their support to carry out acts resulting in “serious public inconvenience”.

Unless I am mistaken, this is what occurs at 11/21/09, Part 1, minute 195-200 on video. When I was watching the video, I couldn’t quite figure out why Her Birther Queenn-ness was getting such a hard time.

On the Daily Paul, there is a draft of the Call to Action produced at the Con Con and a discussion in the comments section of who is to blame for cowardly changes watering down the Call to Action. Apparently, it’s Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq.!

 Posted by at 11:43 am