Posts tagged Washington
Polluters, politicians run a foul of Moms Clean Air Force
Feb 1st
Julianne Moore Stars in New Video Calling on Mothers To Join the “Moms Clean Air Force”
Actress Asks Mothers to Tell Washington to Stand Up for Clean Air,
Not Protect the Utility and Coal Industries
Washington, DC – Actress and mother Julianne Moore today released a new video calling on parents to join the fight against toxic air pollution. In the video, which endorses a nonpartisan grassroots group called the Moms Clean Air Force, Moore appears along with the heroine of her popular children’s books, Freckleface Strawberry.
Moms are becoming a powerful force in American politics. They are telling Washington that they will not allow their children’s health to be compromised by dirty fossil fuel power plants, the single largest source of pollution in the U.S. The Moms Clean Air Force is a growing community of tens of thousands of moms— from all across the political spectrum and all across the country—uniting to make their voices heard to protect their children’s health.
“Clean air should be above politics,” Moore said. “The discussion about regulations to protect our air has gotten so polarized that we have forgotten an important thing: We all breathe the same air. And all our children suffer because of pollution. We don’t have to choose between a healthy economy and a healthy environment. We can have both. We can have what’s best for all our children.”
President Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act into law in 1970 with overwhelming support from Democrats and Republicans; however, the law is now under dangerous political attack. The new mercury and air toxics standards signed in December, after 21 years of planning, are already under political attack, with some politicians in Congress and lobbyists for the utility and coal industries calling to annul it or defund the Environmental Protection Agency.
Responding to this threat, Moms Clean Air Force is bringing parents together in support of a simple idea: That every child has the right to breathe clean air.
Moore became interested in MCAF after Dominque Browning, the group’s Co-Founder and Senior Director and former Editor-in-Chief of House & Garden, contacted her last summer. “I wrote to Julianne, knowing she is a protective mom, asking her if she would help us spread the word about the connection between toxic—and invisible—air pollution and children’s health, and she responded immediately,” Browning said. “Julianne joins a Force of thousands of mothers with real concerns about mercury poisoning, asthma, behavioral issues, and host of other problems associated with polluted air. Together we are determined to clear the air and protect the health of our children and loved ones.”
Moms Clean Air Force is a coalition of mothers including Blythe Danner, Laila Ali, and Jessica Capshaw, and partner groups such as Healthy Child, Healthy World, Treehugger, Green for All, Asthma Moms, Latism (Latinos in Social Media), Alliance of Nurses for a Healthy Environment (ANHE), Care2, BlogHer, and Clever Girls Collective.
Keystone pipeline rising from the dead?
Jan 30th
44 SENATORS BEHIND KEYSTONE BILL TOOK $23 MILLION IN CAMPAIGN CASH FROM BIG OIL
Washington, D.C. – Forty-four Senators who introduced legislation today backing the controversial Keystone XL pipeline received $23.4 million in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry since 1989,according to analysis by 350.org and Public Campaign Action Fund. The figures reflected data coded by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics and available on their website and include contributions through September 30, 2011. Fourth quarter filings are due to the Federal Election Commission tomorrow.
The bill, which was announced today by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and cosponsored by 42 GOP senators and one Democratic Senator, would approve the Keystone XL project despite the Obama Administration’s rejection of its permit following months of intensifying protest against it and studies downplaying its potential economic impact.
“We no longer can just accept business as usual on Capitol Hill – the idea that the fossil fuel lobby puts a quarter in the slot, turns the handle, and gets a shiny toy has to come to an end,” said Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org. “The nation’s top scientists, not to mention ten recent winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, have explained why this is a lousy idea. That should speak as loudly as campaign cash.”
The analysis of campaign donations for the cosponsors found that seven of them have taken more than one million dollars over their careers from the oil industry. The cosponsors collectively received more than $1.1 million over the first three quarters of 2011, the last data available in advance of tomorrow’s FEC deadline.
“The introduction of this Keystone bill is not about jobs for Americans, it’s about these Senators’ trying to protect their own jobs,” commented David Donnelly, national campaigns director of Public Campaign Action Fund. “They’re looking out for themselves, paying back their Big Oil donors, and trying to cash in for more Big Oil money.”
Lifetime Contributions to 44 Senators from Oil and Gas Industry
Name | Career Oil & Gas $$ |
McCain, John (R-AZ) |
$2,869,241 |
Hutchison, Kay Bailey (R-TX) |
$2,223,271 |
Cornyn, John (R-TX) |
$1,864,050 |
Inhofe, James M (R-OK) |
$1,352,523 |
Isakson, Johnny (R-GA) |
$1,352,523 |
McConnell, Mitch (R-KY) |
$1,089,811 |
Vitter, David (R-LA) |
$1,011,685 |
Blunt, Roy (R-MO) |
$756,198 |
Thune, John (R-SD) |
$648,962 |
Coburn, Tom (R-OK) |
$551,663 |
Burr, Richard (R-NC) |
$549,852 |
Murkowski, Lisa (R-AK) |
$532,489 |
Wicker, Roger (R-MS) |
$528,310 |
Corker, Bob (R-TN) |
$444,350 |
Roberts, Pat (R-KS) |
$428,800 |
Alexander, Lamar (R-TN) |
$414,550 |
Moran, Jerry (R-KS) |
$384,496 |
Chambliss, Saxby (R-GA) |
$381,192 |
Barrasso, John A (R-WY) |
$370,150 |
Hatch, Orrin G (R-UT) |
$363,525 |
Toomey, Pat (R-PA) |
$358,716 |
Shelby, Richard (R-AL) |
$352,700 |
Coats, Daniel R (R-IN) |
$348,908 |
Kyl, Jon (R-AZ) |
$334,332 |
Portman, Rob (R-OH) |
$321,458 |
Crapo, Mike (R-ID) |
$312,189 |
Enzi, Mike (R-WY) |
$305,650 |
Sessions, Jeff (R-AL) |
$297,000 |
Grassley, Chuck (R-IA) |
$270,050 |
Hoeven, John (R-ND) |
$263,289 |
DeMint, James W (R-SC) |
$248,389 |
Rubio, Marco (R-FL) |
$238,034 |
Cochran, Thad (R-MS) |
$231,485 |
Lugar, Richard G (R-IN) |
$200,925 |
Heller, Dean (R-NV) |
$156,450 |
Graham, Lindsey (R-SC) |
$149,875 |
Manchin, Joe (D-WV) |
$143,400 |
Boozman, John (R-AR) |
$141,952 |
Ayotte, Kelly (R-NH) |
$140,368 |
Johnson, Ron (R-WI) |
$113,700 |
Paul, Rand (R-KY.) |
$105,840 |
Risch, James E (R-ID) |
$88,350 |
Johanns, Mike (R-NE) |
$82,800 |
Lee, Mike (R-UT) |
$50,350 |
Total: |
$23,373,851 |
Available online at http://bit.ly/w3B6kl.
###
Dirty Laundry: the Naked Curmudgeon blasts TV reporters stupid questions
Dec 28th
People have been upset with bearers of bad news at least as far back as the days of Sophocles, Euripedes and Aeschylus, the writers of tragedies in which a messenger could be killed just for bringing the king some bad news.
Nowadays, we don’t kill the journalists for giving us bad news; we seem to thrive on it and demand they give us more.
Oh, every decade or so there will be complaints that newspapers just report bad news and never good news, and some newspaper will be started that proudly proclaims it will print only good news. Then it will lose money and go out of business, because people are more interested in tragic events than in happy events … unless, of course, the events happen to them.
Remember, the Greeks invented tragedies before they invented comedies. Bad news allows us to feel good about ourselves, to feel pity for the sufferers and fear that the events could happen to us and to achieve a catharsis of those emotions.
Comedies, however, make us laugh and allow us to feel smug about our happiness. Greek tragedies were about the nobility, but comedies were about common people. Then the moralists of the 16th and 17th centuries decided that the purpose of comedy was not only to amuse and entertain, but also to instruct.
So, what would you rather read about (or more likely these days, watch on TV), the latest scandals about Washington politicians, foreign nobility and Hollywood stars or the fact that the reported number of crimes went down last month?
Bad news doesn’t usually come with the admonition that we shouldn’t act this way, but have you noticed how popular TV sit-coms usually end with a moral?
When I was young, I wanted to be a newspaper reporter. I was fascinated with the challenge of gathering all the facts about a story and then writing those facts according to journalistic formulas so that the least common denominator, Everyreader, could understand them without difficulty.
However, newspaper reporters didn’t make very much money, Woodward and Bernstein hadn’t made investigative journalism fashionable yet and the epitome of TV journalism was Edward R. Murrow, not some blow-dried performer who just reads the teleprompter.
Later, whenever any argument arose about journalism, I always defended the reporters. They were doing their job. Bad things happen. People would rather hear about bad news than good news.
News reporter messes up, calls herself stupid on… by Christian_Carrion
And yet I have become extremely upset with TV reporters and their stupid questions.
Why ask an accused criminal “Did you do it?” Do you believe a criminal will suddenly confess on national TV instead of to the police? Does another denial give the audience any more insight about the story?
Why ask anyone “How do you feel?” How do you believe anybody feels after tragically losing a loved one, surviving an accident or winning the Super Bowl?
And why do journalists insist on inserting their own opinions? I have a rule of never answering a question beginning with a negative. “Don’t you feel the proposed health plan will cost the taxpayers too much money?” is a weak way to ask for someone’s opinion, because the reporter’s opinion overshadows the question and any answer.
I have always wanted to be part of an important story, just so I could counter reporters’ stupid questions.
“Did I do it? That’s a stupid question.”
“I feel like you have just asked another stupid question.”
“Don’t you feel that by asking your question that way, you are just giving your own opinion instead of asking for mine?”
And speaking of opinions, who cares what the public believes? Why do so many TV and radio shows keep asking for public opinions? A Denver morning TV “news” program once asked, “Does it seem like you have a lot of bad hair days?” Back then people actually paid money to call in their one little vote.
Why are there so many daytime talk shows? In 1961 Jackie Gleason probably started the first prime-time TV talk show when he sat down with just one guest and they simply talked. I believe Phil Donahue established the pattern of involving audiences, taking phone calls and having guests with unusual problems or stories.
Perhaps fascination with dirty laundry is nothing more than wanting to feel fear and pity for the catharsis, being able to feel smug at the absurdity of other people’s lives and watching tragedies about the common folk for a change.
I rest my case.
The Naked Curmudgeon
Dan Culberson