Opinion

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Rep. Welch, Rep. Lummis and Sen. Wyden Introduce Legislation to Require Transparency in Intelligence Budgets

by Not Signed In | Politics

Bill tracks 9/11 Commission recommendation to make public the top line budgets of 16 federal intelligence agencies

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT), Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) have introduced legislation that would require the president to disclose in the annual budget request to Congress the top line spending levels at the 16 federal agencies known to conduct intelligence activities. Top-line spending levels for federal intelligence activities are currently treated as classified information.

‘They Were Wrong Then. They’re Wrong Now,’ Sanders Says of Trade Deal Backers

by Not Signed In | Politics

WASHINGTON, May 12 – In a Senate floor speech today opposing a proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) recited a litany of bogus claims by previous trade deal backers which turned out to be wildly inaccurate.

Backers of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China and other business-backed trade deals claimed that they would generate jobs in the United States. In fact, economists now say, those pacts were a major reason why some 60,000 American factories closed since the turn of the century as manufacturers shifted jobs to low-wage nations overseas.

“These folks have been proven wrong time after time after time,” Sanders said.

Ugh (Loud Motorcycles)

by TechFan | Op/Ed

With the return warm weather and open windows, painfully loud motorcycles are also back, and seem to be worse than ever. Living downtown, I’m used to my apartment filling with noise from the logging trucks and ambulances that frequently pass by, but the level of nuisance from some of the motorcycles lately is at another level. Last Monday, one was so loud it left a trail of car alarms going off in its wake.

Sanders Welcomes Court Ruling on NSA – Calls for Congress to Strengthen Privacy Protections

by Not Signed In | Politics

WASHINGTON, May 7 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today welcomed a federal appeals court ruling that the National Security Agency does not have the legal authority to collect and store data on all U.S. telephone calls.

“Clearly we must do everything we can to protect our country from the serious potential of another terrorist attack, but we can and must do so in a way that also protects the constitutional rights of the American people and maintains our free society,” Sanders said. “We can do that without living in an Orwellian world where the government and private corporations know every telephone call that we make, every website we visit, everyplace we go.”

Just Don’t Do It, Sanders Urges Obama on Nike Trip

by Not Signed In | Politics

WASHINGTON, May 7 – Citing Nike’s low wages for foreign workers, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) yesterday asked President Obama to cancel a planned meeting on Friday with executives of the athletic shoe maker at its headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon.

Nike has taken advantage of free-trade agreements – similar to proposed new pact which Obama is touting – to offshore tens of thousands of American jobs to Vietnam and other low-wage countries.

“Nike epitomizes why disastrous unfettered free-trade policies during the past four decades have failed American workers, eroded our manufacturing base and increased income and wealth inequality in this country,” Sanders wrote in a letter he sent to the president yesterday.

Sanders Files Bill to Break Up Big Banks

by Not Signed In | Politics

WASHINGTON, May 6 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today introduced legislation to break up the nation’s biggest banks in order to safeguard the economy and prevent another costly taxpayer bailout. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) proposed a companion bill in the House.

“No single financial institution should have holdings so extensive that its failure could send the world economy into crisis,” Sanders said. “If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.”

The biggest banks in the United States are now 80 percent bigger than they were one year before the financial crisis in 2008 when the Federal Reserve provided $16 trillion in near zero-interest loans and Congress approved a $700 billion taxpayer bailout.

Anniversary End of USA’s 3.5 Million Holocaust Celebrated in Communist Vietnam! Great Satan’s Defeat

by jay janson | Op/Ed

Regarding the huge celebrations in Vietnam on April 30, 2015, your author adds herein not a single God-damned or blessed word of text more than he already has written in dozens of titles on the subject, the links to which are provided, each along with a synopsis. If anyone landed in from outer space and is uninformed of America’s thirty year genocide in the French colonies of Indochina, he or she might like to Google ‘Beyond Vietnam – a Time to Break Silence,’ or just ‘Beyond Vietnam,’ for the text of Rev. Martin Luther King’s 1946 New York sermon that made headlines across the world and brought vilification of King in America’s press and electronic media.

Rooting For Baltimore

by Lise | Op/Ed

The news out of Baltimore on last Monday afternoon hit me with an eerie feeling of familiarity.  My family had moved to Baltimore in January of 1968.  Just four months later, in April (coincidentally) of that year, the city erupted in riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King.  I was only seven and barely understood what was going on, but I’ve never forgotten that time.  We were home from school for a week while the National Guard rode down our street in big convoy trucks with guns facing out.  My uncle took us up on the roof one night to see the fires that dotted the skyline to our south.  Everyone was very freaked out.

Hearing then that a “mob” of “thugs” was making its way through the city toward downtown, touching many of the places that were hit so hard in ‘68, brought those years back again. It wasn’t a settling feeling.  In the late ‘60s in places like Baltimore, there were adults who truly feared revolution.  They thought that maybe the center wouldn’t hold. They were inordinately fearful of what they perceived as chaos, and certainly the events of that year were chaotic.  I remember hearing my father saying to someone, “if they get to 25th Street, we’re going to have to leave.”    Monday afternoon brought back that scary feeling of chaos to a lot of people old enough to remember.

What’s Really Going On In The Middle East?

by tomaidh | Op/Ed

Let Wesley Clark explain.

Former Washington insider and four-star General Wesley Clark spilled the beans several years ago on how Paul Wolfowitz and his neoconservative co-conspirators implemented their sweeping plan to destabilize key Middle Eastern countries once it became clear that post-Soviet Russia “won’t stop us.”

As I recently reviewed a YouTube eight-minute clip of General Clark’s October 2007 speech, what leaped out at me was that the neocons had been enabled by their assessment that – after the collapse of the Soviet Union – Russia had become neutralized and posed no deterrent to U.S. military action in the Middle East.

Raising School Taxes

by Not Signed In | Op/Ed

The Vermont Senate is considering a bill that will provide tax incentives to school that find ways to cooperate with surrounding districts to improve efficiency and student opportunities. The schools in our supervisory union are widely recognized as leaders in these kinds of changes, having begun implementing them a decade ago.

The bill also cuts supports for small schools, and cuts support for schools adjusting to declining numbers of students. Guilford, Putney, Vernon, and the high school district benefit from these supports and will see tax rates increase if they are cut.

Vermonters Are Held In Prison Even After Their Release Date If They Don’t Find A “Qualified” Home

by Cris Ericson | Op/Ed

The family of Oscar Mark Delgado, Sr.  from Johnson, Vermont are looking for someone to provide a home for their adult son, Oscar Delgado, Jr. In the State of Vermont, people are held in prison after their sentences are completed if they can not find a qualified home that the probation officer approves. This results in a high rate of prison over-population in Vermont and it results in sending people to out-of-state prisons because too many people who have already completed their sentences are forced to stay in Vermont prisons because their probation officer will not “qualify” the new residence of the person to be released.  

Rep. Welch Outlines Energy Efficiency Agenda for New Congress

by Not Signed In | Politics

Vermont Energy Efficiency Leaders Gather to Discuss Latest Initiatives to Save Money, Create Jobs, and Protect the Environment

MONTPELIER, VT. At Blodgett Supply in Montpelier today, Rep. Peter Welch met with a broad cross-section of Vermont energy efficiency leaders to outline his efficiency priorities for the new Congress and learn about the latest energy efficiency innovations in Vermont. The roundtable discussion comes on the heels of House approval this week of Welch-authored energy efficiency legislation which President Obama will soon sign into law.

Take The “U” Out Of JUKRISLIMS!

by MarkTwain© | Opinion

The misappropriation of ‘Unitarian’ into the collective initialism of JUKRISLIMS remains one of the worst things to happen to human spirituality since the days of Leviticus.

Lumping Unitarians in with Christians is the same to me as lumping Unitarians in with the Jews, and lumping us in with Mohammedans and Krishna worshippers is even worse. Doing so has effectively denied Unitarian people a rightful place of their own, and has jeopardized our future. It would be equally offensive to me if Republicans had misappropriated our Unitarian lifestyle.

Sanders: Slow Down Fast Track

by Not Signed In | Politics

WASHINGTON, April 22 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today opposed an effort to rush legislation through a Senate committee in order to hurry congressional approval of a controversial trade deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Sanders invoked a Senate rule to stop a morning meeting of the Finance Committee to mark up the so-called fast-track bill.

“This job-killing trade deal has been negotiated in secret. It was drafted with input by special interests and corporate lobbyists but not from the elected representatives of the American people. Instead of rubber stamping the agreement, Congress and the public deserve a fair chance to learn what’s in the proposal,” Sanders said.

End Polluter Welfare Act

by Not Signed In | Politics

WASHINGTON, April 22 – As the nation marked Earth Day, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) introduced legislation to close tax loopholes and eliminate other subsidies for the oil, gas and coal industries.

Subsidies for polluters now in place are projected to cost taxpayers more than $135 billion in the coming decade.

Sanders’ Senate bill and Ellison’s companion measure filed today in the House would remove tax breaks for fossil-fuel industries and ensure that taxpayers receive a fair return for energy resources owned by the American people and make research into renewable energy a national priority. The measures also would prevent companies from escaping liability for spills or deducting cleanup costs from their taxes.

Sanders, Labor Leaders to Protest Disastrous Trade Deal

by Not Signed In | Politics

WASHINGTON, April 20 – Protesting a trade deal that would throw Americans out of work, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today planned to march with leaders of the AFL-CIO and other labor organizations to a rally outside the U.S. trade representative’s office.

“One of the key reasons why the middle class in America continues to decline and the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider is because of disastrous trade agreements which have sent millions of decent-paying jobs to China and other low-wage countries,” Sanders said.