After several months of debating a supplemental spending bill which would fund U.S. military operations in Iraq through fiscal year 2007 (September of this year), it now appears as though the Democratic-led Congress and President Bush are nearing an agreement.
In their groundbreaking 1988 book, Manufacturing Consent, professors Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky not only explained, but documented with extensive case studies, how mass media and public opinion are shaped in a democracy. Twenty years later, can their "propaganda model" still be used to explain modern media distortions? That was one of the main questions discussed last week at a conference in Windsor, Ontario, titled "20 Years of Propaganda?" Organized by Dr. Paul Boin, the conference drew hundreds of scholars and activists including myself, and more than 1,000 people attended a closing speech by Chomsky on May 17.
As part of our ongoing series of partnerships with research and advocacy organizations, Food and Water Watch has established an informative page on offshore fish farming legislation on Congresspedia. Here's FWW's Andrianna Natsoulas (who edits SourceWatch and Congresspedia under the name Anatsoulas) to explain why they think this is an important issue:
Both the House and Senate are in session this week, with each chamber expected to debate and consider several important bills and resolutions. Highlights include:
After the jump is a full listing of this week's House and Senate hearings, courtesy of GovTrack and Thomas:
Both the House and Senate tackled a busy legislative schedule this past week, as issues such as the Iraq War, defense spending, and the federal budget were addressed. For an in-depth look at the legislation considered in Congress since Monday, we again turn to Robert McElroy’s TheWeekInCongress. His site is a great resource for citizens wishing to keep track of what their members are up to in Washington, and we urge you to check it out.
The campaigns of House Reps. Robert Brady (D-Pa.) and Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.) to become Philadelphia’s next mayor ended yesterday when each was defeated in the city’s Democratic primary election. Former City Councilman Michael Nutter won a decisive victory in the five-way race, collecting approximately 37% of the vote (watch acceptance speech).
I've blogged previously about how the Congresspedia staff is working with research and advocacy organizations to build articles on federal legislation, but one particular aspect of these collaborations deserves highlighting: the ability to link the Congresspedia profiles of members of Congress to those on pieces of legislation.
CMD Founder and Executive Director John Stauber has been in Germany, Austria and Belgium for the past two weeks speaking in major cities and discussing the publication of "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You" in German. On May 16 Vienna's daily paper Der Standard ran an interview with Herr Stauber that can be read in German by searching his name on their website. He was previously interviewed by Nils Klawitter for the German magazine Der Spiegel, and a translated portion of the interview is below. (Thanks to Orange-Press, publishers of the German edition of Toxic Sludge Is Good for You, for the translation.) If you would like to read the German interview in its entirety, please go to: http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,481658,00.html
Both the House and Senate are in session this week, with each expected to debate and consider high-profile legislation. The House is set to vote on the fiscal year (FY) 2008 Defense Department authorization, while the Senate will spend considerable time debating possible changes to U.S. immigration policy. In addition to legislation, both the House and Senate are again planning to hold a number of important committee hearings. These include one by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on a bill which would grant the District of Columbia a voting member of the House, as well as a House Science and Technology Committee hearing on the current state of global warming. Here, courtesy of GovTrack, is a quick rundown of all of this week’s House and Senate hearings:
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