Marjorie Cohn: Will Judge Overturn Arpaio Pardon?
Via Truthout When Donald Trump plunged a dagger through the hearts of former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio’s victims and all justice-loving people by pardoning the racist serial lawbreaker, many threw up their hands in resignation. The president’s constitutional pardon power is absolute, they thought. Not so, argue lawyers and legal […]
Immigration Fairness Act – A Fix to the Green Card Backlog?
Recently, there has been a lot of debate on the influx of immigrants into the country. Additionally, there has been a significant backlog on green cards — citizens of some countries like China and India may have to wait decades to gain employment and citizenship status in America. The Fairness […]
Gun Bill Roundup: These Gun Bills Are Fully Loaded
Recently, a number of bills have been introduced that have to do with gun violence and gun control. Here we provide concise summaries of these bills — be sure to check them out on Billcam.DailyClout.Io, weigh in, and spread the word! HB-1478: Gun Violence Research Act This bill is exclusively […]
Want to See the Secretive Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018?
via Wikimedia Here is HR 3180, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018. The bill essentially creates secret and classified “black budgets” for 16 agencies, and makes the very allocation of these funds also into a secret. It even forbids the President from discussing the budgets publicly. Last week, […]
An Undebated Bill to Pass This Week: Handing Over Billions in FAA Funds, And Most FAA Responsibilities, to a New Corporation with Contracts with the Private Sector
Stop the presses — this bill, HR 2997, transfers ALL Federal aviation resources and activities to an ill-defined nonprofit corporation that is allowed to operate under any name or names it chooses. It forbids any other entity from managing any other aviation activities in the US, except for the Department […]
AHCA Will Be Voted On After Independence Day
Hey all — big news. The AHCA, the Republicans’ health care bill, has had a postponement on the vote….leadership announced that the vote is pushed back till after the holiday. Maybe all of that citizen feedback — including the fact that you can FIND and SHARE the AHCA in BillCam […]
Pork Barrel Politics: New Laws Silence and Fine Critics of Animal Abuse
“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian,” stated rock legend Paul McCartney in 2009. Most people know about the growing uproar around the ethics of producing and consuming animal products. With the rise of the vegetarian and vegan movements, more people than ever are demanding to know: […]
GOP Claims Huge AHCA Savings Without Math
If you’ve been following the action in Congress, or have been on Twitter, or have simply turned on the news, you know that commentary about the GOP’s new health care bill is inescapable. Last week, Republicans passed the American Health Care Act of 2017 or the AHCA. And you don’t […]
What’s Really In Those Immigration Executive Orders?
For over a decade, I have looked at detention and deportation issues in the US. As a professor at Stony Brook University, I often find that what policymakers promise that immigration policies will do does not line up with what actually happens. I have also learned to be wary of the hidden influences […]
Commemorating Muhammad Ali — An African American Muslim Who Refused to Be Silenced
On January 17th, 2017 Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT) introduced a Federal bill that, if it passes, will order coins to be minted in commemoration of an African American Muslim who played a significant role in our country’s cultural history — Muhammad Ali. Ali – who was an American professional boxer and an activist known for […]
Cyberbullying Crackdown?
Has anyone by now not been the victim of online harassment and bullying at some point? The issue of online bullying is endemic, now that kids grow up with their social lives essentially online. Bullying that used to be confined to the schoolyard, now tracks children, teenagers and adults in cyberspace. And […]
Obama’s Final Bill Invites Silicon Valley Innovators Into Unelected Government Positions — Under the Trump Presidency
Last week, mere hours before Donald Trump’s Inauguration, President Barack Obama signed, while he was still President of the United States, one final bill into law. Again: this was Pres. Obama’s very last bill. The bill, known rather obscurely as the TALENT Act of 2017, is a last-minute codification of an existing program called the “Presidential Innovation […]
Fourteen Connecticut Representatives Propose 14 Different Bills to Remove the Same Unpopular CT Tax on Health Centers
This month, fourteen different Connecticut lawmakers proposed fourteen different bills, all set to accomplish, if passed, essentially the same thing. These bills, sponsored by both Democrat and Republican lawmakers, are each only a sentence long, and all aim to either repeal or to phase out a tax on ambulatory […]
Should Protesters Be Allowed To Burn US Flags?
While many Americans cheered the victory of Donald J Trump in the US election, others were distressed that this candidate had become the new President of the United States. Some of those opponents expressed their sentiments in a controversial but time-honored form of protest — they burned the American flag. […]
The House Just Passed A Stealth Provision Permitting Discrimination Against LGBT Americans by Federal Contractors
On Wednesday, the House passed the hefty National Defense Authorization Act of 2017 (the ‘NDAA’). Hidden within this thick, must-pass, military spending bill, is a little-noticed provision allowing the government to discriminate against LGBT-identifying employees who are working under federal contracts. The provision, introduced by Republican Representative Steve Russell of […]
Turning Federally Protected Lands Over to Ranchers and Farmers?
On July 14, 2016, Representative Paul Gosar (AZ-R) proposed a bill that will, if passed, provide for the “dissemination and disposal of federal lands” in order to use them for grazing and water rights. The bill would make a major change in the Antiquities Act of 1906, which is an […]