Posts tagged: congress
An amendment that would legalize the use of propaganda on American audiences is being inserted into the latest defense authorization bill, BuzzFeed has learned.
The amendment would “strike the current ban on domestic dissemination” of propaganda material produced by the State Department and the Pentagon, according to the summary of the law at the House Rules Committee’s official website.
The tweak to the bill would essentially neutralize two previous acts—the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1987—that had been passed to protect U.S. audiences from our own government’s misinformation campaigns.
More here.
Chart of the day slash last three and a half years.
Interesting article at the link — perhaps Congress would actually accomplish something if the filibuster was removed.
Here’s your wonky map of the day accompanied by a sort of political junky’s Rorschach test.
Modern Gerrymanders: 10 Most Contorted Congressional Districts
I think I can spot a dinosaur’s face about to eat Chicago. What do you see when you look at the maps?
Swing dancers in Pennsylvania.
Hawks just west of Baltimore.
Looks like BS to me!
Republic Report has released figures documenting the fact that the average member of Congress gets a 1,452% salary hike when she or he leaves office and becomes a corporate lobbyist. They point out that politicians are allowed to negotiate these raises while they are in office, and don’t have to disclose this fact when they’re working on legislation that will benefit their future employers. One of the poster children for this is former Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) who fought against financial reforms to the derivatives market, then joined the board of a derivatives-trading company and was given an advisory role at Goldman Sachs.
Behold! What the Stop SOPA blackout managed to accomplish in 24 hours.
High five, internet.
Beautiful.
After intense lobbying from frozen pizza makers, and the potato and salt industry, Congress is poised to pass a spending bill whose riders establish that pizza is a vegetable and can be served in school cafeterias in substitute for actual vegetables.
We’re now facing a policy decision that has replaced science-backed common sense with the assertion that pizza ought to count as a vegetable when it’s served to schoolchildren.
(Side note: we’re not even talking about whole-grain pizza loaded with veggie toppings! We’re talking about frozen cheese pizza with tomato paste.)
If you want to take a look at the bill’s language, go for it, but the main takeaway is this: our Congressional leaders are on a fast track to overrule nutrition science in favor of political expediency. This is a dangerous precedent to set and not good public policy.
After finally winning the battle against “ketchup is a vegetable,” it is clear the war goes on.
As the House of Representatives opens hearings on SOPA, the worst piece of Internet legislation in American history, it has rejected all submissions and testimony from public interest groups and others who oppose the bill.
Irony Alert: The House is holding hearings on sweeping Internet censorship legislation this week — and it’s censoring the opposition! The bill is backed by Hollywood, Big Pharma, and the Chamber of Commerce, and all of them are going to get to testify at the hearing.
But the bill’s opponents — tech companies, free speech and human rights activists, and hundreds of thousands of Internet users — won’t have a voice.
Hey, look! Congressional staffers turn out to be really good at predicting the behavior of stocks that their bosses legislate. Outside Capitol Hill, we might call that “insider trading.” Except US insider trading laws don’t apply to Congress.
Angry yet?
In this week’s issue of Newsweek: Congress is getting rich off Wall Street.
Charts to go with the previous video.
Even as the Occupy protesters are being swept out of their campsites, Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes is exposing the very greed and corruption they are protesting The 60 Minutes team did a great segment tonight on insider trading on the stock market.
Congress: Trading stock on inside information?
A very informative fifteen minutes of video.
