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Here's a preview of what's happening in the U.S. House this week
HEARINGS:
The hearings on the oil spill will continue this week:
Wednesday 6/23 - Education and Labor - Workers Health and Safety for Oil Spills
Wednesday 6/23 - Science and Technology - Deepwater Drilling Technology
Thursday 6/24 - Natural Resources - Gulf Coast Oil Spill/Standards for Preparedness
As of now there are no big names listed to testify at any of these hearings.
LEGISLATION:
- There will be another case of the House impatiently tapping it's feet waiting to see if the Senate can get a tax extenders bill finished. This bill contains the funds to continue to finance unemployment insurance, which ran out on June 1st. Last night the Senate couldn't get cloture on a further reduced version of H.R.4213 The American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010.
- Friday, the Senate passed a short-term "doc fix." This will eliminate, for six months, the planned cut in reimbursements to doctors who care for medicare patients. This bill has to go back to the House next week for passage.
- The House Rules committee was supposed to meet last Thursday on the DISCLOSE act so it could proceed to the floor on Friday. That didn't so much happen. (Just so you know, DISCLOSE stands for "Democracy is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections Act." Clever, right?) The DISCLOSE act is Congress' response to the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision. It's intended to make the campaign finance process more transparent. "The bill would require corporations, unions and nonprofit groups to disclose their top five donors if they participate in political activity and to agree to other disclosures in connection with expenditures prior to elections." It didn't make it to the floor this week because multiple groups are upset that the bill will include a provision that exempts the NRA from adhering to it. Van Hollen is apparently willing to extend that exemption to other groups but the Blue Dogs and the CBC aren't happy and made that known in meetings Thursday with Pelosi. However, there's still support for doing something to counter the Citizens United decision so there's a pretty good chance Rep. Van Hollen will come back with more compromises next week.
POLITICS:
- We'll continue to watch the Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) BP apology-fallout. The Democrats, as evidence by my inbox today, are not going to let this go and with Rep. Bonner jumping on the bandwagon, who knows if more GOP-dominoes will fall. As of now, GOP leadership in the House still supports Barton in his position of power.
Leave a Comment:
That committe that Obama set up to investigate the oil leak - - does it have anyone that actually has any knowledge about the oil industry and the rig??
Did BP have any knowledge about the oil industry and the rig? Apparently not.
The full disclosure bill is a scam, as long as it allows certain organizations like the NRA terrorist group to escape the limitations. If the NRA is allowed to be exempt than the cowards in Congress had better not pass this scam bill. Only if the bill covers all organizations is the bill fair and worthy of passage, any exemptions for the NRA or any other group makes the bill worthless and not worthy of passage. The NRA should be listed by the federal government as a terrorist organization since it is complicit in aiding and abetting criminals to use guns to kill tens of thousands of Americans each year. The NRA has helped gun toting criminals kill more Americans than al-Qaeda did on 9/11.
It is just desserts and poetic justice that Jerky Joe Barton and other BP Oil hugging repugnant ones are trying to protect BP Oil from President Obama's rightful shaking down of BP Oil to help the small people harmed by the Gulf oil spill. It's too funny that the party of sore losers was so certain that they would take back control of Congress that they let all the looney conspiracy nuts and Racist Neo-Nazi Bircher White Supremacists out of the closet as the Teahadist Paliban and now they're finding out that their extremist lunatic fringers are talking them out of a big win in November.
I certainly hope that the rightwingers in the Gulf red states who got slimed by the BP Oil spill disaster now see that they've been backing the wrong party, the party that would rather protect BP Oil from paying it's fair share rather than protect those righties in the Gulf red states who have had their economic lives endangered. Wake up Gulf red state morons President Obama is working for you while your repugnant one representatives are working for BP Oil.