Campaign for Corporate Reform – CW
Corporate Accountability and Democracy – GP
Hold Wall Street Accountable -DFA
Move to Amend’s Proposed 28th Amendment to the Constitution – MTA
Progressive Reading & Documentary List – CW
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Republicans are busy doing everything they can to end Democracy and turn this country into a Trump led dictatorship!
Democrats desperately needed to pass $15 Minimum Wage, but you took it out of COVID-19 Relief Bill!
But you don’t want to get rid of the Filibuster knowing full well there is no Republican support or good will.
You waste all the hard work of others that got you elected with a Democratic House and Senate.
Republican fascist politicians cheer while the public and your base are disgusted with you and Democrats!
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Democrats need to pass Voter Reform to counter outrageous Republican voter suppression!
But you don’t want to get rid of the Filibuster knowing full well there is no Republican support or good will.
You waste all the hard work of others that got you elected with a Democratic House and Senate.
You guarantee Republicans will certainly win (steal) the 2022 elections and take over the House and Senate!
This will make you a useless lame duck President awaiting the crowning of the Trump led dictatorship in 2024.
Why are you becoming a major negative instrument in the Democracy destroying crisis??????
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Democrats need to pass serious Police and Legal Reform to counter outrageous unjust murderous behavior!
A police & legal system that continues to operate behind the White Supremacy attitudes of the Jim Crow days!
But you don’t want to get rid of the Filibuster knowing full well there is no Republican support or good will.
You waste all the hard work of others that got you elected with a Democratic House and Senate.
Why people of color ever supported you, we will never know? Your History is not very good with them!
Why are you becoming a major obstruction in finally bringing justice to those long oppressed????
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Democrats need to pass a true Universal Health Care as the rest of the industrialized world has long had!
Imagine all people regardless of income covered by Medicare For All a comprehensive health care from inception to heaven’s gate!
No more for-profit blood sucking insurance companies!
No more burdensome monthly payments and co-pays!
No more begging bureaucrats for health care you need but they are so heartless to deny!
No more bankruptcies and heart-breaking Go-Fund pleading because of outrageous medical bills.
But you don’t want to get rid of the Filibuster knowing full well there is no Republican support or good will.
You waste all the hard work of others that got you elected with a Democratic House and Senate.
Why in a serious pandemic with massive job loss?
Why when the fatal flaw of corporate provided healthcare has now been exposed?
You still support the myth of a for profit corporate controlled health care system rather than a universal affordable health care for everyone!
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Democrats need to pass a comprehensive program to combat the impending climate crisis that threatens the existence of most life on earth!
Most climate scientists believe we might have only a decade to prevent a runaway global warming catastrophe!
Already everywhere in the world “100 year“ disaster events are starting to occur on a yearly basis, a forewarning of even worse times to come!
Young people have led the fight for a Green New Deal that will secure a future worth living! A livable future for the next 7 generations!
But you don’t want to get rid of the Filibuster knowing full well there is no Republican support or good will.
You waste all the hard work of others that got you elected with a Democratic House and Senate.
You still support climate busting fossil fuel corporations and others who worship their immediate profits over future existence of life on earth!
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Democrats need to do a major overhaul of our foreign and military policies, finally turning away from one of wars, war crimes, oppression, and massive human rights violations.
Our national priorities are never ending wars, massive military budgets, nuclear weapons and more than 800 military bases in foreign lands!
We complain and struggle to combat against the mass migration flows that come to our borders and the borders of our European friends!
Yet we continue to ignore the fact that our wars, coup plots and dictator support are what drives many of these same desperate people out of their beloved homelands!
These people, often families, must risk everything to find some peace, justice and economic future elsewhere!
Violating International laws, our Constitution, and the UN Human Rights Charter, we have no hesitation supporting those same violations by friendly nations who have long helped our corporate interests!
Yet, we hate those nations who have chosen to improve their own people’s lives rather than sell them out to these foreign corporate interests!
Against these nations, we relentlessly attack with Economic Sanctions, Internal Rebellion, Election Interference, Assassinations, Coups and Wars to bring them into compliance with our corporate interests! 60+ years for Cuba and Palestine for example!
Unfortunately, ending filibusters will do little good on this issue as most Democrats and Republicans have always joined in solid bipartisan support for these countless crimes against humanity.
Mr. President, I guess one should not expect anything different from you! On this issue you finally have the bipartisan support you worship!
Bipartisanship is something you will never find elsewhere in the “filibuster” Senate created long ago to help guarantee the continuance of Slavery! And little has changed!
Note: This was a series of e-mails I sent to President Joe Biden on March 4, 2021. https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
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AB-988 Mental health: mobile crisis support teams: 988 crisis hotline This bill would establish the 988 Crisis Hotline Center, using the digits “988” in compliance with existing federal law and standards governing the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. The bill would require the Office of Emergency Services to take specified actions to implement the hotline system, including hiring a director with specified experience and designating a 988 crisis hotline center or centers to provide crisis intervention services and crisis care coordination to individuals accessing the 988.
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Assembly Bill 988 will implement the new nationwide 988 Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Crisis Hotline created last year by the Federal Communications Commission and Congress. The 988 hotline, which all states must implement by July 2022, replaces an underutilized, hard-to-remember 10-digit number.
The bill was introduced by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda) in partnership with The Steinberg Institute, The Kennedy Forum, Contra Costa County, NAMI of Contra Costa County, and the Miles Hall Foundation, the organizations sponsoring the legislation.
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Justice for Miles Hall: The Miles Hall Foundation -FB
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AB 249, the California DISCLOSE Act
AB-988 Mental health: mobile crisis support teams: 988 crisis hotline
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1. Bernie Sanders ignores parliamentarian ruling and as Senate Budget Chair keeps $15 minimum wage in the COVID Relief bill. 2. Vice President Kamala Harris as Senate Chair would then have to publicly take $15 Minimum Wage out of bill (probably to never win a future election again). 3. McConnel would object, but would need 60 Senate votes to override Harris refusal to remove Minimum Wage. That would require 10 Democrats and just won’t happen. 4. Then McConnel could ask for a vote to end the Senate filibuster rule This means that all the Republicans, Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) would have to vote to end the filibuster that they love so much and thus free up the Democrats to pass future bills! 5. Senate would vote on COVID Relief bill needs only 51 votes under its reconciliation status. Minimum Wage Increase opponents, Democrat Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) would have to vote down entire COVID Relief bill (thus probably never able to win another election while suffering the wrath of their constituents and their fellow Democrats). Only Democrats can stop $15 Minimum Wage! If it doesn’t happen Bernie and Democrats will long be blamed by Republicans in furure!
Thus Bernie is the key. The champion of the $15 Minimum Wage needs to step up! Action speaks louder than words!
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Parliamentarian of the United States Senate – Wikipedia The Parliamentarian of the United States Senate is the official advisor to the United States Senate on the interpretation of Standing Rules of the United States Senate and parliamentary procedure. Incumbent parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has held the office since 2012, appointed by then Majority Leader Harry Reid.
An important role of the parliamentarian is to decide what can and cannot be done under the Senate’s Reconciliation process under the provisions of the Byrd Rule.
The role of the parliamentary staff is advisory, and the Presiding Officer may overrule the advice of the parliamentarian. In practice this is rare, and the most recent example of a Vice President (as President of the Senate) overruling the parliamentarian was Nelson Rockefeller in 1975.
The parliamentarian is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the Senate Majority Leader. Traditionally, the parliamentarian is chosen from senior staff in the parliamentarian office, which helps ensure consistency in the application of the Senate’s complex rules.
The Parliamentarian role in the Senate is only an advisory role and they do not decide what the Senate can and cannot actually do. The Senate themselves decide the rules for the Senate.
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2021-02-28 Kamala Harris Could Deliver $15 Minimum Wage if Democrats Really Wanted It There’s a moment every four years when the polls are tight and certain Democrats shake their heads, marveling at the fact that so many Americans — particularly low-wage workers — still vote for the GOP. “Don’t they know we’re the working people’s party?” they say. “Republicans only care about giving tax cuts to the rich.” Next time you hear a variation on that theme, remember this moment, when Democrats had a majority in the Senate, the opportunity to raise the wage floor for millions of Americans and lift nearly a million workers out of poverty, and — faced with a minor road block — they threw their hands in the air and gave up.
2021-02-28 Progressives Dismayed Over Biden-Harris’s Unwillingness to Push $15 Minimum Wage While Biden and his administration have made clear they will not move to use Harris’ authority as presiding officer of the Senate to disregard or overrule the Parliamentarian’s determination, the anger on the progressive left — both inside and outside of Congress — has only grown since Thursday. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Democrats have no choice but to “muscle it through” the Senate given the campaign promises made to voters leading up to last year’s elections. “We can’t back to voters in two years,” explained Jayapal, “and say, ‘You know, we made you a promise — you delivered us the House, the White House, and the Senate — but a parliamentarian told us that we can’t do it.’”
2021-02-28 ‘Democrats Will Lose in 2022′ If $15 Wage Dies in Senate: Anger Grows as Biden-Harris Bow to Unelected Parliamentarian “If you were writing a Dickensian novel, it would be about millions of desperately poor people being promised a $15 starvation wage, and then watching their millionaire senators tell them that a parliamentary adviser in the palace said no.”
2021-02-27 On the Minimum Wage, Joe Biden Chose Failure The Biden administration’s preemptive surrender on the $15 minimum wage is nothing like its guns-blazing approach to getting union-buster Neera Tanden confirmed for a White House job. The contrast demonstrates Biden’s lack of sincerity when he claims to be a working-class fighter.
2021-02-27 The Democrats Are Blocking a $15 Minimum Wage Not Republicans. Not the Senate parliamentarian. Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, and even Joe Biden are to blame for squandering their party’s majority power.
2021-02-26 “I’m Sorry,” Says Ro Khanna, “An Unelected Parliamentarian Does Not Get to Deprive 32 Million Americans the Raise They Deserve.” Sen. Bernie Sanders also denounced the guidance, lamenting that “archaic and undemocratic rules of the Senate” are now standing in the way of ending “starvation wages in this country.” “This is an advisory, not a ruling. VP Harris needs to disregard and rule a $15 minimum wage in order. We were elected to deliver for the people. It’s time we do our job.” —Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)
2021-02-26 On a $15 Minimum Wage, Democrats Are Shooting Themselves in the Foot — Again Pushing through a $15 minimum wage wouldn’t just be an economic gift to workers — it would be a political gift from the Democrats to themselves. Inaction, on the other hand, would hand a historic favor to the far right. Biden is committing a huge blunder by wavering.
2021-02-26 Democrats Never Cared about Minimum Wage Last night, the Senate Parliamentarian ruled that a $15 minimum wage cannot be passed with a simple majority. Democrats have said that they will not challenge her ruling, making it clear that they will always prioritize the interests of big business over workers.
2021-02-26 Is This VP Harris Gambit Real? Vice President Harris has the unique ability to overrule the Senate parliamentarian on this ruling about the whether the minimum wage hike can be included in the COVID relief bill. Critically, it’s claimed that while the Senate can overrule her it could only do so with 60 votes. That makes all the difference in the world since while all fifty Republicans and Manchin or Manchin and Sinema could overrule her with 52 votes there’s basically no way they get to 60 votes.
2021-02-26 The Biden Administration Bombed Syria Before Raising the Minimum Wage Yesterday, we were treated to a telling contrast: Joe Biden bombed Syria without congressional authorization, and then refused to lift a finger when the Senate parliamentarian slapped down a minimum wage increase. It’s a pathetic reflection of Biden’s twisted priorities.
2021-02-26 Concerns Cloud Democrats’ Scramble To Salvage Raising The Minimum Wage With A Workaround Wyden put out a statement saying that his proposal would impose a 5 percent penalty on the payrolls of big corporations if workers earned less than a certain amount. He also called for a tax credit equal to up to 25 percent of wages for small businesses that pay their workers higher wages. Many of the specific numbers, however, have not yet been made public. While the proposal is a good faith effort to salvage raising the minimum wage in the current political landscape — it seems unlikely that a standalone bill to raise the minimum wage would attract the 60 Senate votes needed to overcome a filibuster — experts on and off the Hill are already expressing concerns about whether Plan B would be a fitting replacement.
2021-02-26 Columnist explains how Republicans’ mistake gives Democrats a ‘big opening’ Washington Post opinion writer Paul Waldman discusses the ramifications of this development in his Thursday column, warning that if Democrats don’t find a way to be as bold and aggressive as possible with their agenda, it could hurt them in the 2022 midterms.
2021-02-26 Put the Minimum Wage Bill on the Floor Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth McDonough quietly announced her ruling that the increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025 is not in order for budget reconciliation. We know that the minimum wage hike produces changes in outlays and revenues, as the Congressional Budget Office confirmed earlier this month. What McDonough had to rule to put the provision out of order under the “Byrd rule” is that those changes were “merely incidental to the non-budgetary components of the provision.” In other words, she had to read the mind of a legislation and decide what parts of it are incidental and what parts are primary.
It’s a stupid process that’s only necessary because a handful Democrats refuse to overturn another stupid process, the filibuster and minority rule. So they shoehorn the only legislating they can get done in a polarized Senate. How democracies die” may sound hyperbolic, but yeah, this would be the path.
First off, yes, the Vice President can ignore the ruling of the parliamentarian. And though both Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) have said that they would uphold the Byrd rule to their dying breath, if you read the latest Congressional Research Service report on the subject, you find that, if the chair rejects the parliamentarian’s advice and rules a minimum wage increase in order, it would take 60 votes, not 50, to appeal that ruling. So Manchin and Sinema would need eight Democratic friends and all the Republicans to succeed.
But White House chief of staff Ron Klain said explicitly this week that Harris would not ignore the ruling. And Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s statement last night said Biden “respects the parliamentarian’s decision and the Senate’s process.” So it’s not going to happen. How democracies die” may sound hyperbolic, but yeah, this would be the path.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer could fire the parliamentarian for making a contrary ruling, and find someone who would put the minimum wage increase in order. But Schumer only said that he was “deeply disappointed” in the decision, and I just don’t see him firing McDonough at this time. How democracies die” may sound hyperbolic, but yeah, this would be the path.
2021-02-26 150K+ Voters Back $15 Minimum Wage as Biden and Harris Pushed to #Keep15In Pandemic Relief Bill “Decency is Democrats using the political power they’ve been handed to finally deliver for the hardworking people of this country.”
2021-02-26 Democrats come up with Plan B for raising the minimum wage. Republicans keep lying about it (this article does not mention over riding the parliamentarian’s decision?)
2021-02-26 MD-Sen: Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D) Calls For Abolishing The Filibuster To Pass The $15 Minimum Wage Last night the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the Senate budget reconciliation rules prohibited the inclusion of the $15 minimum wage increase in the reconciliation process. This ruling shows that the entire anti-majoritarian rules structure in the Senate needs to change. The American people voted in overwhelming numbers to hand Democrats the Senate majority. We should be able to take a vote on a minimum wage without being blocked by antiquated rules. Since Republicans are set on using their 50 votes to block progress in the Senate, that means the filibuster has to go.
2021-02-25 “Not Ready to Give Up”: Democrats Push Senate to Keep Popular $15 Minimum Wage in Stimulus Bill As the House of Representatives prepares to pass a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, a fight is brewing over the inclusion of an increase to the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. The measure is at risk in the Senate, where conservative Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema oppose its inclusion in the relief bill or suggest a lower amount. Congressmember Jan Schakowsky of Illinois says Congress must pass the minimum wage hike to help address inequality in the United States. “The current minimum wage, federally, is $7.25. Now, you can’t live on that. You can’t raise a family on that,” she says. “Those colleagues of mine who think that it is too high, that we have to have perhaps a regional wage, are so disrespectful.”
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H.R.530 – Accelerating Broadband Development by Empowering Local Communities Act of 2019
Accelerating Broadband Development by Empowering Local Communities Act of 2019
This bill nullifies rules issued by the Federal Communications Commission that revoke state and local authority to regulate telecommunications equipment deployment.
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This resolution calls on the United States to expend all assistance appropriated in FY2018 to the West Bank and Gaza before the end of 2019. The resolution also presses for the enactment of legislation to specify that activities funded through the Economic Support Fund may not be construed to assert jurisdiction over the Palestinian Authority.
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H.R.2354 – Prevention of Unconstitutional War with Iran Act of 2019
Prevention of Unconstitutional War with Iran Act of 2019
This bill prohibits funds from being used for kinetic military operations against Iran unless Congress authorizes such an action, with various exceptions such as in response to an imminent threat. (“Kinetic military operations” typically refers to active military actions, in contrast to latent operations or cyberwarfare.)
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 | C A on Alternative Media List |
| Wright, Ann Peace A… on Palestine and Israel | |
 | mekorganic on Great March of Return |
 | Johanna Casiddy on Great March of Return |
 | jack Gilroy on Drone Assassination Program |
| C A on Alternative Media List |
| Wright, Ann Peace A… on Palestine and Israel | |
| mekorganic on Great March of Return |
| Johanna Casiddy on Great March of Return |
| jack Gilroy on Drone Assassination Program |
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