Senate

Some lawmakers in the US Senate, shortly before gorging themselves on taxpayer-funded federally unpardoned turkey and retiring into dimly lit sequestration for the remainder of the year to engage in various unspeakable biological activities, have thrown into the ring a bill and a letter air travellers may actually be happy about.

One of the biggest problems with solar, wind and other renewable energy forms is their unpredictability: if the sun doesn't shine, or the wind doesn't blow, or the seas are becalmed, no energy is produced, which, while it can lead to pleasantly spontaneous candlelit dinners, may also cause those dinners to consist of cold sandwiches.

It seems that aiding a long-term child sexual abuse cover-up might have implications even if you're good at instructing 300-pound 6th-year undergraduates in the art of clipping kneecaps.

The US Senate, amazingly, actually got off its recalcitrant obstructionist posturing posterior and passed the VOW to Hire Heroes Act in a 95-0 vote yesterday. This fairly modest bill gives a tiny boost to unemployed veterans by offering employers a tax credit and vets some job training assistance, thereby marginally increasing the chance that businesses will choose to hire an unemployed veteran rather than, say, some other unemployed person or no one at all.

Still, every tiny little bit helps, particularly considering the skyrocketing incidences of homelessness, depression, anxiety and suicide among those who have returned from America's well-planned wartime adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here are some details of the bill from Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), who authored it:

The Respect for Marriage Act, a bill which endeavors to undo the damage caused by the existing Defense of Marriage Act, has passed its first hurdle and is moving forward to the full Senate for consideration.

The Defense of Marriage Act seeks to discriminate against LGBT couples, essentially defining them as second-class citizens for no reason other than their sexual orientation. Nice. Real American. Federally sanctioned bigotry is as Constitutional as it gets.

Wyden’s YouTube Town Hall Video Discusses How Bipartisanship Can Lead to Better Legislation

November 7, 2011 -- Washington, D.C. -- Each month, as part of its YouTube Town Hall series, YouTube invites Members of Congress to submit videos addressing the nation’s most talked about issues, as decided by viewer votes and popular Google News topics. Videos are posted without party identification giving viewers a chance to weigh the many sides of an issue on its merits versus the political party of the speaker.

For the third consecutive month, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon has submitted a video to the series. This month’s video tackles the topic of “governance” and the value of political compromise.

Calls filibuster of criminal justice reform “sad metaphor for the obstructionism that is too frequently replacing common sense leadership in our national debate”

November 1, 2011 -- Washington, DC- Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) today spoke on the Senate floor regarding the recent filibuster by Senate Republicans to block passage of his legislation to establish a bipartisan National Criminal Justice Commission, though it enjoyed support from more than 100 organizations, including: the National Sheriffs’ Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the Fraternal Order of Police, the Sentencing Project, the ACLU and Prison Fellowship.

YouTube video can be found here.

Senator joins bipartisan effort to combat waste, fraud and abuse while protecting Medicare and Medicaid

November 7, 2011 -- (U.S. SENATE) – Senator Jon Tester is pushing to make sure that Medicare and Medicaid work better for Montanans, while saving taxpayers tens of billions of dollars lost every year to waste, fraud and abuse within the two initiatives.

Tester recently joined nearly 30 Democrats and Republicans to promote the Medicare and Medicaid FAST Act, which does not affect Medicare or Medicaid benefits or change medical service pricing.

The Medicare and Medicaid FAST Act:
• Stiffens penalties for Medicare fraud,
• Ends the government’s controversial and often abused practice of paying Medicare and Medicaid claims quickly without first verifying them,

November 7, 2011 -- With the deadline approaching for the Super Committee to recommend at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction, senators Mark Udall (D-CO) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) sent a letter to the committee chairs encouraging them to include in their report the creation of a panel to identify wasteful government programs that could be cut to save taxpayers over $100 billion.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 - Sen. Bernie Sanders issued the following statement today after the Department of State inspector general notified him that it is conducting a special review of the State Department's handling of a controversial proposal to build an oil pipeline from Canada to Texas: