Politics
Going Forth On the Fourth After Strict Blackout Conditions and Requisitioned Gunpowder Had Been the Law
Julia Sneden wrote: My father told me about the Fourth of July that took place in 1910, when he was 4 years old. He grew up on his grandfather’s prune ranch, in thrall to a slew of young aunts and uncles. Each Fourth, the uncles staged a display of fireworks for the family and the working crews (and their families) that lived on or near the ranch. The uncles would fire their pyrotechnics from a metal, flatbed wagon which was, perhaps, normally used as a drying bed for the prunes when they were harvested. One year, someone or something caused the wagon to up-end just as the display was lit, and instead of shooting up, the fountains shot straight at the crowd standing by the barn. more »
Updated, Senate Judiciary Hearing on Tuesday: “Protecting Innocence in a Digital World”; House Hearing Wednesday on Economic Well-being of Women Veterans
A bill to ensure the humane treatment of pregnant women by reinstating the presumption of release and prohibiting shackling, restraining, and other inhumane treatment of pregnant detainees, and for other purposes; A bill to require the secretary of Defense to establish an initiative on improving the capacity of military criminal investigative organizations to prevent child sexual exploitation, and for other purposes; A bill to direct the Joint Committee on the Library to obtain a statue of Harriet Tubman and to place the statue in National Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol; A bill to modify the unconditional ownership requirement for women-owned and minority-owned small business concerns for purposes of procurement contracts with the Small Business Administration more »
Weekly Legislative Update, June 24th: Reauthorizing Health Programs, Human Trafficking and Migration, Universal Child Care, Coast Guard Gender Diversity, Mammography Coverage, Campus Sexual Violence
Bills Introduced: A bill to increase transparency and reporting on campus sexual violence; House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure is scheduled to mark up H.R. 3362, the Small Airports Mothers’ Room Act; Reauthorizing Vital Health Programs for American Families; A bill to require the comptroller general ... to conduct a study on ways to increase reporting of missing Indians and the effects of substance abuse, including the use of methamphetamine, on violent crime in Tribal communities; “Unprecedented Migration at the US Southern Border: The Exploitation of Migrants through Smuggling, Trafficking, and Involuntary Servitude;” A bill to provide coverage for wigs as durable medical equipment under the Medicare program. more »
Biden, Klobuchar Rankings by the Lugar Center Highest Among Presidential Candidates Who Built Bipartisan Collaboration in the Senate
The lifetime Senate scores show a wide variance among current Democratic presidential candidates, ranging from former Vice President Joe Biden, who placed in the top quartile of the rankings, to Senator Bernie Sanders who placed 247th out of the 250 Senators covered by the Index. “The new data provides historical context for the challenges to bipartisan collaboration in the Senate over the last twenty-six years,” said Lugar Center Executive Director John Lugar. “But it also shows that legislators can work to build consensus with members of the opposite party regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum.” more »