Washington, Will You Be Mine?
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"The mining industry is confronted with a very challenging environment," said Kraig Naasz, the new head of the U.S. industry lobby group National Mining Association (NMA).
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U.S. Congress
Preview: Congress This Week (Sept. 17 - 21, 2007)
In the coming week the Senate will continue to debate the Fiscal Year 2008 defense budget after last week's testimony by Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker, which will provide a platform for general debate on the Iraq War and measures to begin withdrawing troops. It will also look at a bill to provide a congressional seat for Washington, D.C. The House will take on the Federal Aviation Administration section of the federal budget and, through the Financial Services Committee, will take up legislation to increase federal backing of low and middle income mortgages.
Know anything about these issues? Click the links to the articles above and add what you find. A complete list of the week's congressional hearings are below, courtesy of Govtrack.
Hearings Schedules:
The Week In Congress (September 10-September 14, 2007)
The main event this week on Capitol Hill was General Petraeus's testimony on the situation in Iraq. Between the testimony and the shortened week due to Rosh Hashanah, the Senate still had time to get through one major appropriations bill and preempt a vote on a resolution defending Gen. Petraeus that Senate Republicans were trying to tack onto it. Also, President Bush was expected to sign the Senate ethics and transparency bill, S.1, on Friday. More details can be found below and the links go to the full Congresspedia articles. Remember, Congresspedia is a wiki, so if you would like to add to these articles or record your representatives' votes, head on over and click "edit":
Coming Up This Week in Congress (Week of Sept. 10th, 2007)
The marquee events in Congress this week will be the hearings in both chambers of Congress with testimony from General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker on the Iraq War. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will also hear testimony from Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and FBI Director Robert Mueller on the July National Intelligence Estimate, which claimed that Al-Quaeda had largely rebuilt itself to pre-Afghanistan War levels. Most of these hearings, whose schedules are listed below, are available for live viewing via C-SPAN.
Also on the Senate's agenda is the $104.7 billion Transportation-Housing and Urban Development Fiscal Year 2008 funding bill, which currently exceeds President Bush's budget request by $3.1 billion and may receive a veto threat from him. With the beginning of Rosh Hashana on Wednesday evening, business in the Capitol will largely cease for the week.
Hearings Schedules:
The Week In Congress (September 3-September 7, 2007)
It was an eventful week on Capitol Hill, as Congress returned from its August recess and dug into a series of spending bills that must be completed by the end of the fiscal year on September 30th. The nutshell versions of the major bills that received action are below and the links go to their full Congresspedia articles. Remember, Congresspedia is a wiki, so if you would like to add to these articles or record your representatives' votes, head on over and click "edit":
Coming Up this Week in Congress (Week of Sept. 4th, 2007)
Congress is back in session after their August break and are diving headfirst into a passel of spending bills, many of which are due by September 30th, the end of the 2007 fiscal year. Iraq will also be a huge issue this month as the "Petraeus report" (which we have learned is actually being written by the White House) is to be delivered to Congress on September 10th - 11th and a Government Accountability Office report on Iraq is published in the next few days. While plenty of debate on Iraq is expected this week, it is unclear if anyone will try to move any bills ahead of Petraeus' testimony next week.
The issue of Iraq is also, of course, intertwined with the debate over the budget for the next fiscal year year, which starts October 1st. This week the Senate will take up spending bills for military construction and veterans affairs and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) also reportedly wants to start work on funding bills for the Defense Department, transportation and foreign operations. Authorization bills for the Federal Aviation Administration, Food and Drug Administration, State Children's Health Insurance Program and the massive 2007 Farm Bill also due by the end of the month. Congressional Democrats are additionally looking to pass legislation passed by the House earlier this year on student loans and financial aid.
As the September 30th deadline approaches it is unclear if all the funding bills, possibly including funding for the Iraq War, will be passed individually or passed as an omnibus bill. President Bush, meanwhile, is threatening to veto any bill that exceeds the budget he sent to Congress.
On the personnel front, Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) announced his resignation on Saturday, effective September 30th. The Republican governor of Idaho is expected to appoint current Lieutenant Governor Jim Risch to serve until the end of Craig's term next year. Sen. Tim P. Johnson (D-S.D.) is back after recovering from his stroke and says he'll be serving through the end of his term next year when he expects to run for reelection.
Each of the links in this post go to articles on the Congresspedia/SourceWatch wiki and are fully editable, so if you've seen some relevant information around, help spread truth and facts by going to the wiki article, clicking "edit this page" and adding it.
The House has not yet posted their hearing schedule for the week, but the Congresspedia staff put together the Senate schedule for the week:
Hearings Schedules:
Providing Information May Be Hazardous to Your Job
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
Is there an attempt "to flush out would-be whistle-blowers" at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, which "focuses on how pollution and other toxins in the environment contribute to disease"?
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Iraq: The "Gift" That Keeps On Bleeding
Shortly after the November 2006 election the Democracy Alliance, an exclusive group of about 100 Democratic Party millionaire activists, met in Miami, Florida. Members and their guests heard their keynote speaker and liberal legend Mario Cuomo analyze the Democratic Party in the wake of its stunning electoral victories that had given Democrats control of the US Congress. Cuomo criticized the Democratic Party for lacking vision, big ideas and a winning political argument. His recipe for future Democratic victories was simple: "You seize the biggest idea you can, the biggest idea you can understand. And this is what moves elections."
Cuomo then dared to voice an inconvenient truth: "Now it's 2006 and we're all rejoicing. Why? Because of Iraq. A GIFT. A gift to the Democrats. A lot of whom voted for the war anyway." The former New York governor challenged his partisan audience, "If Iraq is not an issue, then what issues do we have to talk about? … Where does that leave you? It leaves you in the same position you were in in 2004 – without an issue. Because you have no big idea."
Big-Spending Drug Industry Defenders
Submitted by Bob Burton on
The lead U.S. drug industry lobby group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), spent $10.7 million in the first six months of 2007 lobbying the U.S. government.
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SourceWatch Tracks the Pro-War Lobby and Vets for Freedom
SourceWatch citizen journalist Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a dogged and prolific investigator of the pro-war lobby. AI began digging into the pro-war front group Vets for Freedom in June 2006. AI's research exposing the neoconservative agenda and Republican operatives behind VFF has been used by scores of journalists. Just do a Google search for "Vets for Freedom" and you'll find AI's work in our SourceWatch article right at the top of your returns, next to the VFF's own website.
Pro-war funding appears plentiful for VFF as it gears up to lobby Congress in September. Here's some of the latest from AI and the VFF article on SourceWatch:
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