Tag Archive: president-obama


Hot dogs and chicken patties and greasy pizza — oh my! Those are the entrees most kids currently get in their school cafeterias. If school lunch reform legislation doesn’t pass this week, those meals are unlikely to get any better in the future.

The Child Nutrition Act, legislation that would improve both the quality and accessibility of school lunches, has been kicking around in Congress for months on end. While the Senate passed its version of the school lunch reform bill — the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act — back in August, the House has yet to vote on the bill. That will change this Wednesday, December 1st, as representatives will finally weigh in on the legislation.

The House can do a number of things with the pending legislation. For one, it could neg the bill entirely, meaning kids wouldn’t see any increased funding for school lunches. The House could also delay the bill through a motion to commit, which would essentially kill the legislation for the rest of the year. With Republican lawmakers taking control of the House of Representatives this January, it’s unlikely that increased funding for school lunches will get enough support from Congress next year. Unless the House votes in favor of the Child Nutrition Act this week and sends it to President Obama’s desk for approval, this may be the last chance in the foreseeable future for federal school lunch reform.

View Full Article »

You might think that more water would be the last thing a flood victim would want to see, but gaining access to clean drinking water can mean the difference between life and death after a devastating deluge.

Floods not only hold the devastating potential to displace thousands of people from their homes, and kill or injure those in its path, but the surges often cut off large populations of people from food, medical supplies and potable water. Without access to these vital resources, health risks and fatalities can multiply exponentially in a matter of days or even hours.

In many cases these horrible circumstances are compounded by the fact that for those who were homeless before a flood, gaining access to clean water was already an enormous challenge. As Change.org blogger Steven Samra pointed out earlier this year, when massive floods swept through Nashville in May, residents of the city’s largest homeless encampment not only lost all their personal possessions, but also lacked the social safety net available to those who had been previously housed. Unable to access local, state or federal aid, without the assistance of housed friends and family, and dislocated from what limited resources (food, water, etc.) they may have had before the flood, many peoples’ situation went from bad to worse.

View Full Article »

Let’s Drive Away From Oil

This fall, President Obama has the opportunity to set fuel efficiency standards that save us money at the pump, decrease carbon pollution, and move us beyond oil.

The technology exists today to build vehicles that save fuel while enhancing safety, performance, and consumer amenities. By relying on American ingenuity and innovation, we can build clean vehicles at a price consumers can afford.

But the auto industry has always been slow to adopt new fuel-saving and safety technology in the absence of strong standards.

Without setting strong new fuel efficiency and global warming pollution standards these fuel-saving and pollution reduction technologies will continue to go under-utilized. Tell President Obama to seize this historic opportunity to make 60 MPG the standard for new vehicles by 2025.
Let’s Drive Away From Oil

In an important speech on foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations this week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton only spent a few minutes on U.S. policy toward Sudan (thanks to Travis Atkins, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who posed a question). But what she did say regarding North-South issues – “the situation… is a ticking time bomb” – provoked a torrent of follow-up questions when a State Department spokesperson held his daily briefing with reporters.

The State Department sought to step away from the suggestion that war in Sudan was “inevitable,” but the press secretary continued to convey a sense of urgency. “We are very mindful that if, for some reason, full implementation of the CPA is not forthcoming, or if the referendum is not seen as credible, there certainly is the risk of further conflict,“ he said.

As someone who peruses the press briefing transcript daily, I can say this is the most attention directed at Sudan from D.C. journalists in recent months, and the fact that it led off the press secretary’s updates is also significant.

View Full Article »

Who Killed the Climate Bill?

The climate bill is kind of like a suffering, wounded dog. You want to believe it’s for the best when it’s finally put out of its misery, except you wish it just didn’t have to go down that like that.

In an unsurprising move, Senate majority leader Harry Reid made it official this afternoon. He announced he would introduce an “admittedly narrow, limited” energy bill that contains no greenhouse gas provisions and maybe even no renewable electricity mandate. The votes, he said, just weren’t there.

“It’s easy to count to 60,” said Reid, according to Politico. “I could do it by the time I was in eighth grade. My point is this, we know where we are. We know we don’t have the votes.”

Despite tireless climate champion Sen. John Kerry’s  vague assurances that he will keep negotiating for a cap on carbon emissions at some future point in time, Democrats just gave up on the last, best chance to pass a global warming measure anytime soon.  How often does an oil spill Armageddon come along to illustrate why this matters? And the Democrat majority ain’t getting any bigger in November, that’s for sure.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world gets it. For god’s sake, even China — America’s eternally convenient climate punching bag  — is reportedly on the verge of establishing a mandatory carbon trading program by 2015.

Looking for someone to blame for this sad state of affairs? Here are a few options:

View Full Article »

To put it bluntly, one of the only things Americans need less than gun deregulation is another hole in the head. Thanks to House Democrats, we may receive more of both.

Under pressure from the gun-rights lobby, House Democrats might exempt the National Rifle Association from pending campaign finance legislation. As you might recall, earlier this year, the Supreme Court upended 100 years of campaign finance restrictions, determining for the first time in the 223-year history of our Constitution that corporations are equivalent to human beings under the First Amendment. It was a startling chapter in the Roberts Court’s embrace of conservative judicial activism — one that disgusted the American public and earned a central role in coverage of President Obama’s second State of the Union address.

Since that remarkable demonstration of judicial prerogative, Democrats have included campaign finance reform among the planks in a populist platform that they hope will mitigate losses in the mid-term elections. That political calculus, however, is giving way to pressures from the NRA.

While conservative politics undergoes an identity crisis, with moderates losing out to the looniest elements of the hardcore right, Democrats on Capitol Hill seem bent on sacrificing their principles to maintain the broad tent that brought them electoral landslides in 2006 and 2008. The latest lamb sent to the slaughter? Common-sense gun regulation.

View Full Article »

Reports have surfaced of United States support for a plan to reopen commercial whaling after more than twenty years.

The deal could come this month and would undermine decades of hard-won protections for whales and permit Japan, Norway and Iceland to openly kill whales with explosive harpoons for profit and trade.

Time is running out — please help protect these gentle giants from a return to such horrific cruelty. Take action and tell President Obama to reject plans to resume commercial whaling.
President Obama: Stop the Sellout of Whales

Ban New Offshore Drilling

On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico.

Now, an oil spill on pace to be worse than Exxon Valdez is pumping at least 5,000 barrels of oil a day — that’s over 200,000 gallons — into the biologically diverse and commercially productive Gulf of Mexico.

Thousands of sea birds, dolphins, whales, sea turtles, and other animals are threatened by the ever growing plume of toxic sludge.

As the massive oil spill continues to grow, it exposes the dangers of offshore drilling. We need to send a message to President Obama and your senators to ban new offshore drilling and support clean energy alternatives.


Offshore drilling will NEVER be safe. Sign the petition to end new offshore drilling now.

SIGN THE PETITION:
Ban New Offshore Drilling

Powered by WordPress. Theme: Motion by 85ideas.