Pentagon Working to Influence Future Movies about Iraq
Submitted by Anne Landman on
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U.S. Government
Coming this week in Congress: Housing, Medicare cuts and FISA (July 6-12, 2008)
Coming up this week in the Senate are Harry Reid's latest attempts to pass the main bill containing Congress' response to the housing and mortgage crisis and a rollback of a cut in doctors' payments for Medicare services. A vote on the FISA (warrantless wiretapping) bill is also possible. The House won't be doing much.
Details and this week's committee schedules after the jump.
In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will take up the main bill containing Congress' response to the housing and mortgage crisis. The central provision of the package is a massive program to offer a federal guarantee to banks on mortgages if the lender agrees to reduce the outstanding principal on the mortgage to 85% of the current value of the house and reduce high, variable interest rates to a lower fixed rate. A version of the bill has passed the House but just before Congress adjourned for the 4th of July recess, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) derailed a final vote by demanding a vote on an amendment of his containing renewable energy tax changes. Once the bill passes the Senate, however, it still faces a veto threat for President Bush, who has objected to the price of a $4 billion grant program contained in the bill for local governments to buy, fix up and sell abandoned homes.
Reid is also likely to bring up for a second vote the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008, which reverses a 10.6% cut in payments to doctors for Medicare services that went into effect on July 1. Supporters of the bill say the cuts will cause more doctors to stop participating in Medicare while detractors cite the cost of the bill or say more comprehensive changes to Medicare need to be made. The bill has passed the House with a veto-proof margin and was only stopped in the Senate by a single vote vote before Congress broke for recess. (See how your senators and representative voted here.)
Finally, the controversial bill to change the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act may also be brought up for a vote. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has caused a ruckus among many of his supporters by indicating that he will vote for a final bill even if it contains a provision to give retroactive immunity from lawsuits (and possibly criminal prosecutions) to the major telecom companies that broke federal privacy laws by turning over phone records without court authorization when cooperating with President Bush's warrantless surveillance program. He had previously stated that if the bill contained the provision he would support a filibuster, which is exactly what Sens. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) and Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) have announced they will do.
While the Senate plays catch-up on bills passed by the House, the lower chamber is largely concerned with more mudane business this week; the one exception being a bill to require the White House to preserve emails.
This week's committee hearings:
(The House is not in session on Monday and hasn't posted their schedules yet - I'll try to update the post when they do.)
The PR People in the Lost Chapter on Iran / Contra
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
To understand how the Bush administration "could fool tens of millions of Americans, intimidate Democrats, and transform the vaunted Washington press corps from watchdogs to lapdogs," look to the 1980s, suggests Robert Parry.
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Obama's Love Affair with Ethanol
Submitted by Judith Siers-Poisson on
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is on record as a big supporter of ethanol and has many ties with the industry.
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A Flood of Evidence
Next week, I will moderate a panel titled "Beyond the Phony 'Debate': Government Science and the Climate Crisis" in Washington, DC. In case I needed any proof that the climate is important, last month's flooding in the Midwest gave me a personal look at what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was talking about last year when it warned of "an increased chance of intense precipitation and flooding due to the greater water-holding capacity of a warmer atmosphere."
The photograph at right shows a road not far from my home in Portage, Wisconsin that was damaged during the floods. In Sauk County, just a few miles from where I live, officials estimated that 95 percent of the roads were damaged. The seven states where the flooding occurred are still trying to assess the cost of the disaster, but it is already clear that the damages will run into billions of dollars.
In Lake Delton, about 20 miles from Portage, the water broke through a dam, causing the entire lake (600 million gallons of water) to drain into the Wisconsin River, washing away several homes in its path. The Wisconsin River passes through Portage. Like other local residents, I spent some time at the levee, gawking at the rising waters and watching for bits of other people's homes as they floated downstream.
Featured Participatory Project: Help Publicize What the Candidates for Congress and the White House Stand For
Submitted by Conor Kenny on
The online world is rife with complaints that it's hard to tell what positions and records Barack Obama and John McCain really have on the issues.
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Meet the Nuclear Power Lobby
The following article appeared in the June 2008 issue of The Progressive magazine.
The nuclear power industry is seeing its fortunes rise. "Seventeen entities developing license applications for up to thirty-one new [nuclear] reactors did not just happen," boasted Frank "Skip" Bowman. "It has been carefully planned."
Bowman heads the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the main lobbying group for the industry. His remarks (PDF), at a February gathering of more than 100 Wall Street analysts, were part of a presentation on "reasoned expectations for new nuclear plant construction."
Bowman knew it was important to impress his audience of wary potential investors. "We are where we are today because this industry started many years ago on a systematic program to identify what went wrong the last time," he said, "and develop ways to eliminate or manage those risks."
American Association of Public Health Physicians: "Tobacco Bill Is a Scam"
Submitted by Anne Landman on
The American Association of Public Health Physicians (AAPHP) has published an updated analysis of H.R. 1108, the massive bill currently under consideration by Congress that would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco products. AAPHP concludes, "This bill is a scam.
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Congresspedia Preview: This Week in Congress (June 29-July 5, 2008)
Both the House and Senate are out of session this week for the 4th of July recess. Many members of Congress aren't just kicking their feet up - this is prime campaigning season and the number of districts considered competitive keeps growing. To see who's running for Congress in your state, see Congresspedia's Wiki The Vote project. (And make sure to add to the profiles of the candidates you know something about!)
Congresspedia Review: This Week in Congress (June 20-27, 2008)
This week the Senate and House finally came to agreement with the White House on a bill funding the Iraq war through 2009 that also contains billions in new domestic spending and the House approved a Medicare pay fix for physicians. Several other issues have been pushed to after the July 4th recess after Senate Republicans threw some sand in the gears: a single senator stopped the housing and mortgage crisis legislation and another group stopped the renewal of the global AIDS package. In both cases the Republicans wanted votes or other participation on bills that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was trying to quickly push through. Still, the Senate did manage to confirm five nominations to the currently inactive Federal Election Commission.
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