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SEEKONK, MASSACHUSETTS, United States

Monday, July 16, 2018

TRUMP SIDES WITH PUTIN OVER AMERICA. U.S. SENATOR SHELDON WHITEHOUSE.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse — US Senator for Rhode Island
The president just stood next to the authoritarian ruler of a hostile power and blamed the state of our bilateral relationship on American ‘foolishness.’
He refused to hold Russia accountable for interference in the 2016 election, and refused to credit the analysis of the U.S. intelligence community over the empty word of Vladimir Putin. His statements today are deeply unnerving, as is his abandonment of many of our closest allies in recent days.
WHITEHOUSE.SENATE.GOV
The Official U.S. Senate website of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island

See you at the State House tomorrow? Kim Kargman, Organizing Manager, Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts.

Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts
Searchingforreason.N--
President Trump’s attacks on the national Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program. Skyrocketing STI rates. The #MeToo movement. The time for a law that protects teens from abstinence-only sex education in Massachusetts is now.
Tomorrow, we will make the final push for the Healthy Youth Act at the Massachusetts State House – and we need your help. Most state reps support the bill, but they need to hear your voice to be convinced to bring the bill to the floor for a vote.
Last Chance Lobby Day for the Healthy Youth Act
Tuesday, July 17th, 2018
12 PM to 2:00 PM
Room 437
Massachusetts State House
24 Beacon Street
Boston, Massachusetts
We know that 85 percent of 2018 likely voters in Massachusetts oppose abstinence-only programs. And we know that if we don’t act, anti-science, anti-LGBTQ sex ed programs will continue to be taught across the state. Young people have a right to an education free from shame and stigma. Join me at the State House to make this vision a reality.
Sincerely,
Kim Kargman
Organizing Manager
Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts

Calls for Proposals: The 2019 AAPT-APA Teaching Hub.


American Philosophical Association
Dear DAVID,
AAPT-APA Teaching HubThe APA Committee on the Teaching of Philosophy (CTP) and the American Association of Philosophy Teachers (AAPT) invite proposals for Teaching Hub sessions at the 2019 Eastern Division meeting in New York, NY, January 7–10.
The AAPT-APA Teaching Hub is a series of interactive workshops and conversations designed specifically for philosophers and created to celebrate teaching within the context of the APA divisional meetings. Jointly organized by the CTP and the AAPT, the Teaching Hub aims to offer a range of high-quality and inclusive development opportunities that address the teaching of philosophy at all levels, pre-college through graduate school.
This year, we are offering a Teaching Hub at all three APA meetings. Each Teaching Hub will include a poster session featuring both (1) independent work by undergraduate students and (2) work in the teaching of philosophy by faculty and graduate students. Please consider submitting your own work to one of the Teaching Hub poster sessions, and please encourage undergraduates who have completed independent work in philosophy this past academic year and undergraduates who are working on summer research projects in philosophy currently to submit an abstract to one of the Teaching Hub poster sessions.
Please also consider submitting a proposal for one of more of the following regular sessions at the 2019 Eastern Division meeting (calls for proposals for Teaching Hub sessions at the Central and Pacific Division meetings will be forthcoming):
  • STEM Collaborations in the Philosophy Classroom – Deadline: August 23, 2018This session will share ways philosophy teachers might collaborate with various STEM classrooms to create new learning opportunities for both populations of students.
The complete calls for proposals are available on the Teaching Hub webpage.
For general information about the AAPT-APA Teaching Hub, please visit the AAPT website and the CTP webpage. For specific information about the Teaching Hub at the 2019 Eastern Division meeting in New York, NY, please contact Alexandra Bradner (alexandrabradner@gmail.com) or Russell Marcus (rmarcus1@hamilton.edu).
We look forward to receiving your proposals.
All the best,
David W. ConcepciĆ³n
Chair, APA Committee on the Teaching of Philosophy
P.S. Please note that all APA meeting participants are required to register for each meeting they attend.

Sunday, July 15, 2018

BROKEN. CONGRESSMAN DAVID CICILLINE.


July 13, 2018  

Dear David,

Congress is broken.

Each day, more and more Americans are losing faith that their government actually works for them. More than 80% of Americans say they can’t trust Washington to do what’s right for them. More than two-thirds feel like our democracy is getting less responsive under Republican control. Working people today don’t even get a seat at the table.

The Republicans who control Congress have given away all the seats at their table to corporate special interests, to billionaires, and to the big banks and big pharmaceutical companies. That’s why the interests of working people are not being protected today.

On Wednesday, I forced a vote on the DISCLOSE Act, legislation that Senator Whitehouse and I have introduced to shine a light on the unlimited, secret corporate spending that has flooded American elections in recent years. The DISCLOSE Act is simple – it requires that organizations that spend money in federal elections have to disclose their donors. It closes one of the biggest loopholes that the Citizens United ruling opened – namely that corporations, billionaires, and even foreign governments can secretly funnel hundreds of millions of dollars into 501(c)(4)’s in order to covertly influence our campaigns.

Republicans rejected this bill – hardly a surprise – but I’m nowhere near done fighting for transparency in our elections. I will continue working to advance commonsense ethics and campaign finance reforms that end the rule of big money and begin a new era where working people get all the seats at the table.

Fishermen

Earlier this week, Republicans moved forward on a bill that will hurt Rhode Island’s commercial fishing industry. H.R.200 undermines science-based catch limits that we’ve used in recent decades to keep fisheries sustainable. In the 1990s, after fisheries were brought to the brink of economic and environmental collapse because of overfishing, Congress put these catch limits in place.

Since then, dozens of fish stocks have been brought back to sustainable levels and overfishing incidents have been cut substantially. Good-paying jobs in the fishing industry have thrived. The industry as a whole generates thousands of good-paying jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars of economic activity each year in Rhode Island.

The bill Republicans passed this week will jeopardize the progress we’ve made. If it becomes law, it will hurt fishermen in Rhode Island, and in states up and down our coasts. As this bill moves to the Senate, I will continue working against it and standing up for Rhode Islanders who depend on the fishing industry for their economic well-being.

Strzok

Yesterday, Republicans held ANOTHER hearing on Hillary Clinton’s emails. It’s July 2018. Hillary Clinton lost the election 21 months ago. We should be talking about health care costs, corruption in government, securing our elections from foreign interference, the President’s cruel family separation policy, job creation, raising wages, the opioid crisis, affordable education, workforce training, prescription drugs, renewable energy, climate change, preserving the future of Social Security and Medicare, resources for veterans, cybersecurity, fixing our broken immigration system, women’s reproductive health care, LGBT equality, or workers’ rights.

But instead, we spent 10 hours in a hearing that Republicans wanted to use to talk about Hillary Clinton’s emails one more time. Fortunately, I think the American people saw right through it, even as Republicans tried to take FBI Agent Peter Strzok’s closed-door testimony from June 27th out of context to use it against him.

On that note, I promised to release Agent Strzok’s closed-door testimony in full if Republicans couldn’t find a rule that prohibited me from doing so. They didn’t. Committee staff is currently working with the FBI to remove any sensitive information from the transcript. Once that’s completed, it will be released to the public.

Supreme Court

On Monday, President Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. With this nomination, President Trump is rigging the system even more against working people and in favor of powerful corporate special interests. After all, Judge Kavanaugh was vetted and approved by right-wing special interest groups that are close to this White House. That alone should tell us all we need to know about him.

On the federal bench, he’s taken the side of corporations against consumers, questioned the value of commonsense environmental protections, and argued against a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions. If he is confirmed, it will mark a major victory for powerful special interests at the expense of everyone else.

During the campaign, President Trump made one explicit promise about his Supreme Court appointments - he would only select justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade. He openly discussed the possibility of “punishment” for women who seek an abortion. He’s trying to make good on those promises by nominating Judge Kavanaugh.

As a Member of the House, I don’t vote on this nomination, but I know that the stakes are incredibly high. In my view, it would be an enormous mistake to confirm this nominee who will move the Supreme Court dramatically to the right and out of step with the prevailing views of most Americans for a generation. Democrats in the Senate should use every tool at their disposal to stop this nominee from being confirmed. This is a fight worth having.

As always, if you or someone you know has any questions or concerns, please call my office at 729-5600 or send me an email at David.Cicilline@mail.house.gov.

You can also click here to follow my work on Twitter.

Warm regards,

David Cicilline
Member of Congress