Tag Archives: Senate

Repeal Of Monsanto Protection Act Blocked From A Vote

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Activist Post June 6 2013

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.)

Two senators took to the floor Thursday to oppose the Monsanto Protection Act rider to the farm bill. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) have introduced an amendment to the farm bill that would repeal the provision. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) blocked the vote on the amendment and the Senate voted to end the debate on the Monsanto Protection Act.

Even though the Senate voted to end the debate, Stabenow’s declaration to oppose Monsanto Protection Act extension without full debate is significant.

Huffington Post notes:

When two senators have a pre-arranged public conversation on the Senate floor, it’s known as a colloquy and is typically the bow that ties up a deal struck beforehand. While Merkley was unable to get a repeal vote, the colloquy is a significant win for him, with Stabenow promising she will oppose any attempt to extend the Monsanto Protection Act in backroom negotiations.

Late night on March 26th, President Obama signed HR 933 into law with biotech rider Sec. 735 – dubbed the Monsanto Protection Act – still contained.

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Alert: Monsanto Rider Slips Through Senate, Hour Glass Running…

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Activist Post March 23 2013

The rider (Sec. 735) that would prevent courts from halting illegally planted GM crops (sometimes courts find fault with USDA-approved GM fields) slipped into the Senate Continuing Resolution spending bill HR 933 blind-sided an angry populace last week, giving little time to voice complaint before it was to go through the Senate.

On Wednesday morning, HR 933 passed with the new rider dubbed by activists as the Monsanto Protection Act therein. The rider has nothing to do with proposed government spending to keep it running for the next six months.

Alliance for Natural Health (ANH-USA) reported earlier:

Once the CR passes the Senate, it will move to the House and Senate conference committee to resolve any differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. Since this rider was not in the House version of the bill, there’s a slim possibility the rider will not be in the final duly passed version.

The general consensus on the Hill is that once the Senate acts, the House Appropriations Committee leadership is prepared to take the modified Senate CR directly to the House floor, possibly as early as Thursday. This is why urgent grassroots action is required to ensure that does not happen.

If this “must-pass” bill gets signed into law, it would be the point of no return for unhindered Monsanto havoc. They would trump federal court power and courts would not be able to use authority to stop sales or planting of any illegal or hazardous genetically modified crops. Strange for biotech giants to want this rider, as the USDA already gives them unheeded approval without safety testing of their crops. Rider (Sec. 735) clinches Monsanto power – if the USDA or court system wants to halt GM crops or revoke approval, they cannot. It’s also an open backdoor to whisk in future approvals.

This action is detrimental to farmers who want to fight against Monsanto’s patent infringement lawsuits, those for the preservation of organic crops against GM contamination, and our export economy as so many other countries have adopted GM bans. This Monsanto-driven rider is simply an industry ploy to continue to plant GM crops even when a court of law has found they were approved illegally – But it’s being voted on urgently.

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Coldwarrior ~ Senator Rand Paul Issues a Warning

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The Blogmocracy March 9 2013

Coldwater writes ~ And I hope he means it.

Sen. Paul ~ The Senate has the power to restrain the executive branch — and my filibuster was the beginning of the fight to restore a healthy balance of powers.

Read on, do you see those names listed by the good Senator from Kentucky? Those are your new Conservative Leaders. Those representatives still have spines, unlike Senators Graham and The Traitor John McCain and the rest of the ‘establishment’. Its time for the broken down, the sold out, the go along to get alongs to go. I hope they leave quietly into the night and let the these new, real leaders to get on with restoring America to its rightful place.

Sen. Rand Paul ~ My filibuster was just the beginning (published March 8)

If I had planned to speak for 13 hours when I took the Senate floor Wednesday, I would’ve worn more comfortable shoes. I started my filibuster with the words, “I rise today to begin to filibuster John Brennan’s nomination for the CIA. I will speak until I can no longer speak” — and I meant it.

I wanted to sound an alarm bell from coast to coast. I wanted everybody to know that our Constitution is precious and that no American should be killed by a drone without first being charged with a crime. As Americans, we have fought long and hard for the Bill of Rights. The idea that no person shall be held without due process, and that no person shall be held for a capital offense without being indicted, is a founding American principle and a basic right.

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Sen. Paul Introduces Bipartisan Audit the Fed Bill

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Activist Post February 6 2013

Sen. Rand Paul has introduced the bipartisan Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2013. Known widely as “Audit the Fed,” the bill calls to eliminate restrictions on Government Accountability Office (GAO) audits of the Federal Reserve and mandating the Fed’s credit facilities, securities purchases, and quantitative easing activities would be subject to Congressional oversight.

“The Fed’s operations under a cloak of secrecy have gone on too long and the American people have a right to know what the Federal Reserve is doing with our nation’s money supply,” Sen. Paul said. “Audit the Fed has significant bipartisan support in Congress and across the country and the time to act on this is now.”

During the 112th Congress, Audit the Fed legislation (H.R. 459) passed the House of Representatives handily, 327-98.

Sen. Paul’s version, S. 209, currently has 19 bipartisan co-sponsors in the Senate and companion legislation was introduced earlier this year in the House of Representatives and currently has over 100 co-sponsors.

Below is text of Sen. Paul’s legislation:

S.209

A BILL to require a full audit of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Reserve banks by the Comptroller General of the United States, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

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Chris Hedges ~ The Final Battle

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TruthDig | December 23 2012

Over the past year I and other plaintiffs including Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg have pressed a lawsuit in the federal courts to nullify Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This egregious section, which permits the government to use the military to detain U.S. citizens, strip them of due process and hold them indefinitely in military detention centers, could have been easily fixed by Congress. The Senate and House had the opportunity this month to include in the 2013 version of the NDAA an unequivocal statement that all U.S. citizens would be exempt from 1021(b)(2), leaving the section to apply only to foreigners. But restoring due process for citizens was something the Republicans and the Democrats, along with the White House, refused to do. The fate of some of our most basic and important rights—ones enshrined in the Bill of Rights as well as the Fourth and Fifth amendments of the Constitution—will be decided in the next few months in the courts. If the courts fail us, a gulag state will be cemented into place.

Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, pushed through the Senate an amendment to the 2013 version of the NDAA. The amendment, although deeply flawed, at least made a symbolic attempt to restore the right to due process and trial by jury. A House-Senate conference committee led by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., however, removed the amendment from the bill last week.

“I was saddened and disappointed that we could not take a step forward to ensure at the very least American citizens and legal residents could not be held in detention without charge or trial,” Feinstein said in a statement issued by her office. “To me that was a no-brainer.”

The House approved the $633 billion NDAA for 2013 in a 315-107 vote late Thursday night. It will now go before the Senate. Several opponents of the NDAA in the House, including Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., cited Congress’ refusal to guarantee due process and trial by jury to all citizens as his reason for voting against the bill. He wrote in a statement after the vote that “American citizens may fear being arrested and indefinitely detained by the military without knowing what they have done wrong.”

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Paul Craig Roberts ~ Puppet State America

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Paul Craig Roberts | November 25 2012

The United States government and its subject peoples think of the US as “the world’s only superpower.” But how is a country a superpower when its entire government and a majority of the subjects, especially those members of evangelical churches, grovel at the feet of the Israeli Prime Minister? How is a country a superpower when it lacks the power to determine its own foreign policy in the Middle East? Such a country is not a superpower. It is a puppet state.

In the past few days we have witnessed, yet again, the “American superpower” groveling at Netanyahu’s feet. When Netanyahu decided to again murder the Palestinian women and children of Gaza, to further destroy what remains of the social infrastructure of the Gaza Ghetto, and to declare Israeli war crimes and Israeli crimes against humanity to be merely the exercise of “self-defense,” the US Senate, the US House of Representatives, the White House, and the US media all promptly declared their support for Netanyahu’s crimes.

On November 16 the Congress of the “superpower,” both House and Senate, passed overwhelmingly the resolutions written for them by AIPAC, the Israel Lobby known as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the only foreign agent that is not required to register as a foreign agent. The Global News Service of the Jewish People reported their power over Washington with pride. (http://current.com/19su0kc). Both Democrats and Republicans shared the dishonor of serving Israel and evil instead of America and justice for the Palestinians.

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Megan Scully ~ Rand Paul Holds Up NDAA Bill Over Indefinite Detention Amendment

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Govt Slaves | November 15 2012

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul is holding up consideration of the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill over an amendment he plans to offer that would require a jury trial for Americans detained in terrorism investigations.

A Paul spokeswoman said the senator wants “an agreement in principle to get a vote” on the amendment, which would likely produce some fireworks on the floor.

Paul’s demand for a vote comes as Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Arizona Sen. John McCain, the top Republican on the panel, are working behind the scenes to limit debate on the sprawling policy measure (S 3254) to ensure it receives floor time during the lame-duck session.

On Thursday, Levin said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had given him and McCain control of the length of time needed for the bill. Their goal, he added, is to get it on and off the floor in three days.

But, in order to do so, the two lawmakers must try to steer clear of amendments that could take up significant floor time and potentially jeopardize passage of the bill.

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Eric Blair ~ Senate Narrowly Votes Down Cybersecurity Act Again, Obama Signs Secret Directive

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Activist Post | November 15 2012

Desperate for Internet control, Senate leaders once again put the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 up for a vote yesterday, and yet again, it failed to pass. But this time it was one vote closer (51 to 47) to passing than itsAugust defeat (52 to 46).

The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, first introduced in 2010 by Joe Lieberman, was quickly dubbed the Internet Kill Switch Bill because of the power it gives to the executive branch to seize or shut down parts of the Internet in a cyber emergency.

At the time Lieberman justified this draconian power grab by saying, “Right now, China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in a case of war. We need to have that here, too.”

Here’s the interview where he made these statements along with some commentary on why this policy is so dangerous:

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Travis Waldron ~ Justice Dept. Ends Investigation Into Goldman Sachs Mortgage Abuses Without Pressing Charges

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Nation Of Change | August 10 2012

After a year-long investigation into Goldman Sachs, the bank singled out by a Senate investigative committee for its abusive mortgage practices in the run-up to the financial crisis, the Justice Department announced Friday that it would not press charges against the bank. Goldman Sachs became of the face of widespread mortgage fraud and abuse that led to the subprime mortgage crisis when evidence that it had made trades described by its own bankers as “shitty deals” came to light during a Senate investigation in 2011.

The Department of Justice, however, concluded that it did to meet the “burden of proof” required for charges, the Wall Street Journal reports:

“Based on the law and evidence as they exist at this time, there is not a viable basis to bring a criminal prosecution with respect to Goldman Sachs or its employees in regard to the allegations set forth in the report,” the statement read. [...]

In a statement Thursday, Goldman said: “We are pleased that this matter is behind us.”

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Congress Just Abolished One Its Most Important Consitutional Powers

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Govt Slaves | August 6 2012

(Alexander Higgins)  The United States Congress has just forfeited one of their most important Constitutional provisions to keep the power of the President of the United States in check.

When our founding fathers wrote the framework of the US constitution they went through painstaking debate to ensure a rigorous foundation was created that would allow the three branches of the federal government to maintain a balance to  keep the powers of the other in check.

Of the powers assigned to the US Congress, the Senate was given the authority to review and vet, then accept or reject the appointment of many presidential nominees.

This power was given in Article II section 2 and ensures that dozens of management positions, which now fall under the Department Homeland Security (including the treasurer of the United States, the deputy administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, the director of the Office for Domestic Preparedness, and the assistant administrator of FEMA) are not appointed in a manner that would create a system of control by which the President could seize totalitarian tyrannical powers as possessed by King George during the Revolutionary War

I don’t know how much they were paid off but I certainly hope it was enough for them to overcome the guilt of destroying our nation because that section of the United States Constitution has just officially been abolished by the Congress  and now only awaits the President’s signature to be signed into law.

So just when the American public is outraged  by the media blackout over Obama appointing the first ever Assassination Czar congress rubs it our face by saying not only is that okay but the President can appoint such positions and we don’t even want any oversight over the process.

What’s next? A FEMA Camp Czar and a Homeland Assassination Czar?

Just one recent example of why this power is so important, if it weren’t for this balance the torture-tainted John Brennan, who is now Obama’s Assassination Czar and has been caught up in repeated scandals and outed for lie after lie, was actually Obama’s first choice to lead the CIA.

Due to fear over political fallout that would have occurred during the vetting process America Obama was forced not to make the appointment and America was saved from the horrible consequences that would have been suffered.

For more  on the Assassination Czar see: John Brennan, Torture-Tainted CIA Prospect, Alarms Obama Supporters and How the U.S. Army’s Field Manual Codified Torture — and Still Does

Now, thanks to the genius bureaucrats in Washington, the President will be able to make such horrible decisions in the future with absolutely no Congressional oversight or fear of political fallout for such appointments.

Here’s more from the New American :

House Passes Bill Eliminating Senate Approval of Presidential Appointments

By a vote of 261-116, the House of Representatives passed a bill rewriting Article II of the Constitution and divesting the Senate of the power to accept or reject the appointment of many presidential nominees.

Last year, the Senate passed the measure by a vote of 79-20, so it now goes to the desk of President Obama for his signature.

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Alex Pappas ~ House Passes Bill Eliminating Senate Confirmation For Presidential Appointees

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Govt Slaves | August 4 2012

UPDATE: The House passed the legislation Tuesday night by a vote of 261-116. The bill now goes to President Obama’s desk for his signature.

The House of Representatives is set to consider legislation Tuesday that would exempt certain presidential appointees from having to be confirmed by the Senate.

But a number of conservative groups are arguing that the “Presidential Efficiency and Streamlining Act” amounts to Congress neutering itself and giving the executive branch unprecedented power.

Presidential appointees that would no longer require Senate confirmation under the legislation include the treasurer of the United States and the deputy administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration.

“The United States Constitution does not bestow kingly powers on the President to appoint the senior officers of the government with no process,” wrote Thomas McClusky, the senior vice president for the Family Research Council’s legislative arm, in a Monday memo to lawmakers.

Sources told The Daily Caller that there is concern in the ranks among conservatives opposed to the legislation that House leaders will bring the legislation up for a voice vote to avoid putting members on the record.

“I can tell you that there will be members who want this vote on the record,” an aide to one conservative member told TheDC. “Whether or not they’ll get the chance is still in question.”

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Matt Taibbi ~ Senators Grovel, Embarrass Themselves At Dimon Hearing

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Rolling Stone | Reader Supported News | June 16 2012

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, prepares to testify before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. (photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

OPINION ~ I was unable to watch J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon’s Senate testimony live the other day, so I had to get up yesterday morning and check it out on the Banking Committee’s web site. I had an inkling, from the generally slavish news reports about the hearing that started to come out Wednesday night, that it would be a hard thing to watch.

But I wasn’t prepared for just how bad it was. If not for Oregon’s Jeff Merkley, who was the only senator who understood the importance of taking the right tone with Dimon, the hearing would have been a total fiasco. Most of the rest of the senators not only supplicated before the blow-dried banker like love-struck schoolgirls or hotel bellhops, they also almost all revealed themselves to be total ignoramuses with no grasp of the material they were supposed to be investigating.

That most of them had absolutely no conception of even the basics of the derivatives market was obvious. But what was even more amazing was that several of them had serious trouble even reading aloud the questions their more learned staffers prepared for them. Many seemed to be reading their own questions for the first time.

It would be one thing if this had been a bunch of hick congressmen from the plains asking a panel of MIT professors about, say, ozone depletion, or the potential dangers of nuclear fallout. But these were members of the Senate Banking Committee, asking Dimon questions as though he were an alien from another world: “Tell us, Mr. CEO, what is this ‘derivative trading’ to which you refer? How long has it been in use on your planet?” The whole tenor of the proceeding was incredibly embarrassing, and showed just how unlikely it is that you’ll ever get anything like real questioning in a Senate hearing when a) the level of general expertise among the members is so shamefully low, and b) the witness is a man who controls millions of dollars of campaign contributions.

The senators could have used the hearing as an opportunity to grill Dimon in detail about the entire history of the Chief Investment Office, the unit of Chase that recently copped to unexpected multibillion-dollar derivative trading losses. This was an opportunity to show Americans how a too-big-to-fail commercial bank like Chase – supported by vast amounts of public treasure, from Fed loans to bailouts to less obvious subsidies like GSE purchases of mortgages and implicit guarantees of bank debt – uses the crutch of government support to gamble recklessly in search of huge profits, with the public on the hook for any potential downside.

The senators should have interrogated Dimon about his role in moving toward that reckless gambling strategy. Instead, they mostly cowered and cringed and sat mute with thumbs in their mouths, while Dimon evaded, patted himself on the back, and blew the whole derivative losses episode off as an irrelevant accident caused by moron subordinates.

Some of the weirder moments of the hearing:

43:27 In Dimon’s prepared statement, he notes that the “original intent” of his firm’s Chief Investment Office was to hedge the company against a “systemic event.” This turns out to be the first sortie in what would become an hours-long campaign to blur the lines between hedging and betting.

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Naomi Wolf ~ The Paycheck Fairness Act’s Realpolitik

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Guardian UK | RS_News | June 9 2012

OPINION ~ Once again, with dispiriting regularity, yet another bill to make it easier to fight for equal pay for women and men has come up for debate by Congress. And once again, we are being bombarded by misleading punditry funded by interested think tanks.

Is this issue dead, as claimed – and if so, is one of the key justifications for arguing that feminism is unnecessary, correct? Sadly, the answer is a resounding “no”.

Opponents of the Paycheck Fairness Act have been stealthy and effective at seeding the debate with disinformation. A well-worn iteration on television and in highbrow analysis magazines is that the wage gap is really due to a “choices gap” – meaning that, these days, any wage disparity between men and women has to do only with the different lifestyle choices women are making. They say women opt for a “mommy track”, for instance, or for professions that yield them more freedom to stay home with children.

The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) has been taking aim at these canards for many years now, arguing that the wage gap “isn’t merely a matter of choice in occupation”, for women are “typically paid less than men in the same occupation”, regardless of pay level.

The truth is that a full-time working woman is paid an average of 77 cents for each dollar earned by a white male in the United States. The situation is even worse for African-American and Hispanic women, who earn 62 and 54 cents respectively for every white male dollar.

According to a factsheet (pdf) put together by the NWLC, the yearly gap between white women and men comes to a total of $10,784, and the trend is for this volume to grow over the years, especially for college graduates. Stresses the organization:

“Even when women make the same career choices as men and work the same hours, they earn less.”

And, as women get older, the wage gap based on gender only increases. This may help explain why so many young women think this is not such a big deal, while older women will not wake up to the full extent of the systematic unfairness until it is too late for much organized action.

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