
BIDEN’S BUILD BACK BETTER AGENDA IS A CLIMATE MILESTONE
The Build Back Better (BBB) bill is a roadmap for the kind of bold and broad climate action that is long overdue. And it’s on the threshold of passing. Panicked, the fossil fuel industry, which thrives on billions in government subsidies, has its paid-for politicians fighting to eviscerate it, although the legislation is supported by the vast majority of the American people.

REPUBLICANS KILL VOTING PROTECTIONS SIMPLY TO PROTECT THEIR POWER
Elections are supposed to be competitions of ideas with the majority deciding what’s best for them and the country. That’s the theory. Faced with a shrinking voter base, Republicans are going all out to pass laws that exclude Democratic voters. Dems are fighting to protect the right to vote and fair vote counting. But the GOP is blocking those efforts too.

PASS BUILD BACK BETTER ASAP
Despite uniform GOP obstruction, Democrats have devised pro-family, politically popular legislation. Now they must pass Build Back Better as soon as possible to show Americans Democrats deliver on their promises.

FRIDAY RECAP: Oct. 29, 2021
While Congress was busy this week, it actually resolved nothing. Despite accelerating state gerrymandering, voting rights bills still languish in the Senate. Bloated defense budgets pass easily, but Democrats are cutting funding for desperately needed family infrastructural and climate programs. And, it’s not clear Big Oil will be held accountable for decades of lying about climate change. Nevertheless, at least Democrats are trying to govern. Let’s call and remind them what we need.

THE DAY FOR CLIMATE RECKONING AND ACTION HAS COME
Big Oil has known that climate change is real for decades but has employed every trick in the book to support climate denialism, foster uncertainty about the science, and cover up its role in the climate catastrophe. It’s time to hold Big Oil to account and pass meaningful climate legislation.

INVEST IN PEOPLE NOT WEAPONS
“The annual Pentagon budget hovers over $750 billion annually, twice that of the much debated Build Back Better Act that costs about $350 billion annually. . . .And the Build Back Better Act is PAID for, unlike the Pentagon’s budget (which we don’t even audit!)” Rep. Mark Pocan’s tweet, Oct. 3, 2021

THE GOP IS RIGGING ELECTIONS TO SOLIDIFY WHITE SUPREMACY
In state after state, the GOP is sabotaging future elections by blocking non-white citizens from the voting booth and rigging the vote-counting system. In Congress, bills to overturn those unconstitutional laws are blocked by the GOP using the filibuster loophole to thwart the Senate majority. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court continues its 20-year effort to maintain white supremacy.

FRIDAY RECAP: Oct. 22, 2021
This week, as Democrats begin negotiating with themselves about what belongs in Build Back Better, we identified the questions we need to answer in telling our MoCs what needs to be included in the final product. We also called on our Senators to pass voting rights legislation, with a filibuster carve-out if necessary, and we called out the Senator who, with his corporate donors, is trying to destroy the planet. To ensure these bills pass, we must continue calling Congress.

THE CARBON POLLUTERS’ SENATOR (D-WV) IS SINGLE-HANDEDLY KILLING THE PLANET
Sen. Joe Manchin, drenched in fossil fuel money, is intent on blocking the most significant climate change bill in history and our last, best chance to slow the coming devastation. We cannot sit back and let him and industry donors destroy the planet.

The GOP is blocking millions from voting in 2022
The John Lewis Voting Rights Bill and Freedom to Vote Act will go a long way to protect our democracy and blunt Republican efforts to block Democratic voters. Thoughtful conservative Republicans, such as Bill Krystal and Governor Christine Whitman have spoken out loudly against these authoritarian tactics. By contrast, Democrats in the Senate have been paralyzed. They must push our Senators to pass both bills.

FIGHT FOR WHAT’S ESSENTIAL IN THE BUILD BACK BETTER PLAN
Democrats negotiating with themselves over what to tear out of BBB provides us with an opportunity to influence the final package. So, let’s tell them what programs are essential, whether to go wide or push just a few, what constituencies to prioritize, and what funding mechanisms to use.

FRIDAY RECAP: Oct. 15, 2021
This week, as critics worried the $3.5 trillion care bill would create an “entitlement society,” we identified who are the freeloaders living off government handouts — oil companies, the pharmaceutical industry, the ultra rich, and more moochers. Then with the anti-democrats seeking to control elections, we called for the Democrats in Congress to restore the guardrails Trump destroyed to protect the country from another would-be dictator. And we reported that, thanks solely to AT&T, we have another extremist propaganda machine, One America News network.

HOLD AT&T RESPONSIBLE FOR FINANCING DANGEROUS PROPAGANDA
The One America news network grew as it endorsed white nationalism, pro-Trump propaganda, and deadly misinformation about coronavirus. Viewership exploded when the network claimed falsely that “treasonous radical Democrats” stole the 2020 election and without a doubt, OAN played a significant role in provoking the January 6 insurrection. We demand that Congress hold hearings to investigate OAN/AT&T.

WILL CONGRESS REIN IN PRESIDENTIAL ABUSES AND PREVENT FUTURE COUPS?
“Trumpism with or without Trump remains a peril, because his unprecedented appetite for authoritarianism has spread to his followers. . . .The continued viability of the United States as a constitutional republic requires both that seditionists be brought to justice and that we. . .repair the weaknesses in our system that they exposed.”
Laurence Tribe, Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard University

WILL BUILD BACK BETTER CREATE AN “ENTITLEMENT SOCIETY”?
The Build Back Better bill would take from the rich and help the rest of us. But America’s biggest welfare recipients, the rich and powerful, hate that idea. So they have dispatched their lobbyists to push their paid-for politicians to defeat the bill whose sole purpose is to help make America a more broadly prosperous nation.