This Week In Congress

Also, note: the "This Week In Congress" e-mail kind of blew this week. Eli may choose to individually talk about it, but we probably won't discuss it together. With any luck I'll convince her we should be talking about Rihanna and Aasiya Zubair Hassan instead.
-- Lu

This Week In Congress

I figured I'd go ahead and post the e-mail itself, actually, so people could see what we're reading/discussing. The links should work.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THESE BILLS?
More than 500 bills have been introduced in the House and more than 200 in the Senate in the 111th Congress. What is on the minds of Members of Congress that they feel need to be addressed? Here are a few examples:

H.R. 15 creates a nationalized system of free health care.

H.R. 414, the Camera Phone Predator Alert Act, requires cameras in cell phones to make an audible sound to alert others (such as in locker rooms) when a picture is taken.

H.R. 346 repeals the automatic payraises Congress receives.

H.R. 390 addresses "college football playoff games" while H.R. 187 says let Cubans play American baseball.

H.R. 227 states that human life begins at fertilization.

H.R. 254 moves voting to the weekend.

H.R. 113 requires anything funded by an earmark to be audited. Perhaps things like H.R. 202, which creates a "Museum of Ideas."

H.R. 116 ends political "robocalls" if you are on the "Do Not Call" Registry, while Senate bill S. 30 wants there to be caller ID honesty.

H.R. 126 would limit citizenship at birth only to those who have at least one parent who is a citizen or legal resident. H.R. 160 would limit Social Security benefits to only legal citizens or residents.

H.R. 155 would ban taxes on unemployment benefits for two years, while H.R. 162 bans taxes on Social Security benefits.

H.R. 87 says "Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is," and invites those who like to pay taxes to voluntarily pay extra taxes. Or how about just a "Fair Tax" as called for in H.R. 25.

H.R. 70 would make it a hate crime to display a noose with the intent to intimidate. And H.R. 40 explores paying reparations to African-Americans.

S. 213 would create an Airline Passenger Bill of Rights.

And Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is back in the swing of things. He's introduced S.151, a bill to protect Indian arts and crafts.

Of course, Lu, I do feel it necessary to point out that Halloween is safe-- nooses are not to be displayed with intent to intimidate. I don't think someone would file a hate crime complaint against a haunted house.

Though I'd love to file one against the Hell Houses... I swear, that is some hate going on there.

Newsletter day!

Today my completely awesome cousin forwarded an e-newsletter to me from Congress.org. The letter highlights stuff going on in Congress, giving examples of bills that were introduced and explains them in easy plain English. It also links to the full text so that you can go read it.

Eli: Oh, awesome on the second one!
Prove that my work sucks, bitch, or pay me more!
Woo, repealed Congressional auto-raises!
And FUCK life at fertilization. What are they going to do with spontaneous abortions? And yay voting on the weekends!
Lu: I mean a lot of them are stupid. But I like that you can click and go see the bill and sponsors and stuff
Eli: I'm on the fence about the citizenship thing, and uncertain what "caller ID honesty" means.
Like, it is necessary that some IDs come up blocked.
Lu: Right
I'm realllllly pro HR 414 though
Eli: Yay noose=intimidation, boo reparations.
Lu: I do not think you should be able to take stealth pictures
Eli: YES.
But.
Lu: Um... I'm less noose=intimidation=HATECRIME
I was pro-it when I read it
Eli: Depends on the situation, I think. Because the Jena situation was clearly a hate thing.
Lu: but now I'm thinking. Like, yeah a lot of the time a noose is hate crimey.
But sometimes it's just Halloweeny
Eli: Ooh, yeah, that's a problem.
Lu: and I don't think we should legislate away the Halloweeny stuff just to take care of the Hate Crimes
Eli: And as for the camera phone thing, a lot of the time you just don't want to hear a damned clicking every time you're myspacing it up.
Lu: Also, now that I am getting this weekly, do you want to make discussing it a weekly part of the blog?

Eli: Yes.

So there you have it. We'll be getting this newsletter once a week and be talking about it. We weren't really intending to post this, so it's not exactly our collected thoughts. Mostly just gut reactions like "Oh, I like this!" followed by a lot of "Oh, actually, when I think about it, do I really want that legislated?" In the future, we hope to, you know, have gotten past that when we talk about it. Or maybe not. We'll also post links to the actual bills when we discuss them I hope.

Anything to add Eli?

--Lu