I am running against MAGA Trumper TOM McCLINTOCK, please donate HERE. Thanks.

Mike Barkley, Candidate for Congress

This is my

PLATFORM PAGE

Most candidate pages are heavy on pretty pictures but light on detail.
I have tried to include as much detail as you could possibly ever want, with daily changes.

Return to HOME Page [New home page October 2023]

New California District 5: All of Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne, Mariposa, and parts of El Dorado, Stanislaus, Madera, and Fresno Counties,

VOTE March 5, 2024

My home is centrally located on SR 99 7 miles outside the boundary of CD-5 so I can be at any CD-5 community in under 2 hours except for some of those along SR 41 or 168 which takes a little longer. If you want to see me, give me a call at 209/823-4817. Thanks.

Mike Barkley for Congress Committee - FEC Candidate Committee #C00495507 / Candidate #H2CA00096

(Final redistricting maps are at the Commission website. )
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Hello,

Votes received,
Congressional District 10: 5,028 - 2012 Primary 11,005 - 2014 Primary 18,576 - 2016 Primary 24,000 - 03/22/2017 polling 2,904 - 2018 Primary 5,561 - 2020 Primary Congressional District 5: 64,285 - 2022 Primary 109,506 - 2022 General
For those of you who voted for me in each of these elections, a big Thank You!.

This has not been about me. This is about the proposals in my platform listed below. Recent years have been grim for many in this country; implementing proposals like these will help.

Best wishes to all of you.

--Mike _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

QUALIFICATIONS:

Lawyer/CPA (Inactive)/Computer Programmer/Rancher-Farmer
Progressive Democrat/Moderate Environmentalist/Local Activist/U.S. Navy Veteran
Present or previous public office: none (other than 3-time elected AD-12 Delegate to the California Democratic Central Committee)
BIOGRAPHY
PHOTO and PHOTO and PHOTO
2012 Primary Election Voter Pamphlet CAMPAIGN STATEMENTS for all 5 candidates, 1 progressive (me) and 4 conservatives (them)
2014 Primary Election CAMPAIGN STATEMENTS for all 3 candidates.
2016 Primary Election CAMPAIGN STATEMENTS for 3 of the 4 candidates - Michael Eggman didn't file one, I suspect he missed the deadline; he also filed his candidate papers at the last minute.

CAMPAIGN DONATIONS:

Please donate to my campaign HERE at the secure ActBlue web site. or, if you prefer by mail, please make checks payable to Mike Barkley for Congress Committee , 167 N. Sheridan Ave., Manteca, CA 95336, and include your occupation and name of employer for FEC regulations.

Thank you and best wishes. --Mike

PLATFORM:

Philosophy:

Legislative:
Summary/high points:
Detail:
- RESTORE MANUFACTURING IN THE U.S. [see also Tax below]:
  - Pursue legislation to grant otherwise qualified bidders using a higher overall percentage of domestic labor, parts and materials the right to "bump" low bidders with a lower percentage in all Federal, State, and Local contracts, including "no-bid" contracts.
  - Add insourcing requirements wherever possible to federal, state & local contracts, including for clerical and customer support functions; Support Rep. Nick Rahall's ‘Invest in American Jobs Act of 2011, H.R. 3533; Support the Bring Jobs Home Act (S. 337 2013-14 Senator Debbie Stabenow)
  - Reexamine NAFTA and the other free trade agreements that have shipped millions of jobs out of this country; reexamine other international job thieves such as Globalization, Outsourcing, Deregulation, Foreign currency manipulation, Foreign below cost selling, Foreign labor compensation and public protection differences, Adverse tariff imbalances, GATT & WTO concessions, Most-favored nation concessions, and so on and bring every one of these jobs back home; Consider supporting The Trade, Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment (TRADE) Act of 2009?, 110th & 111th Congress, H.R. 3012
  - Oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership until it is proven that it produces no net loss of equivalent jobs; especially oppose the Fast Track aka Trade Promotion Authority.
  - Support The Brown-Sessions- Schumer-Graham-Burr-Stabenow-Collins-Casey Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2013 & 2010 (S. 1114 - 113th Congress/ S. 1619 - 112th ) - reconcile this with the warnings in Rana Foroohar's 10/24/2011 column in Time; Consider the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act, H.R. 1276, 2013-14 Sander Levin, and other years.
  - Subsidize USA manufacturing sufficiently to bring parity with China or India manufacturing
  - Identify strategic industries essential to the function of and defense of our society (metals, machine tools, power grid components, etc.) and for those that we have lost to outsourcing, fund their return.
  - Consider a Wilbur Ross value added tax with export rebates
  - Subsidize small-business lending (more than just the SBA)
  - Consider eliminating corporate income taxes for manufacturing plants in certain economically depressed zip codes.
  - Stop deporting foreign-born engineers after they graduate
  - Fund or share in the environmental cleanup costs of domestic rare-earth mining; heed the warnings of Stephen Leeb, http://ideas.time.com/2011/12/04/the-real-china-threat/
  - Support environmentally-friendly domestic aquaculture
  - Extend hardwood flooring tariffs to laminate flooring and lumber in general, raise those tariffs to competitive levels (In 2016 the Modesto Bee made fun of this platform plank, which of course means only that they didn't understand it and didn't care enough to ask. A few years ago a tariff came through on some imports of hardwood products and not others including hardwood flooring, so I added this as a reminder to ask "why?" if an opportunity arose to do so.)
  - Set minimum standards nationwide for workers' compensation; ban imports of manufactured goods from countries that do not meet those standards; consider the same for workplace safety and environmental protection
  - Extend human environment protections to foreign installations and subsidiaries of domestic businesses.
  - Consider variants of the Herman Cain and Buddy Roemer proposals to disallow corporate tax deductions for purchases from foreign countries.
  - Ascertain whether or not the IRS or any other Federal agency has outsourced any call center activity and if it has, put a stop to it
  - Impose a per-call "equalization" tax on every phone call shunted to an out-of-the-country phone support center; support The United States Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act, H.R. 2909 113th Congrss
  - Allow Tesla to sell cars wherever they wish
- Adopt LABOR UNION BILL OF RIGHTS for all unions, including government employee unions, nationwide:
  - Adopt right to collective bargaining
  - Adopt right to strike, picket & boycott, for any reason or location / Allow and protect secondary boycotts, secondary strikes, general srikes, and sit-down strikes
  - Adopt or strengthen "card check"/"majority sign-up" / adopt the Employee Free Choice Act (2009 H.R. 1409/S.560 )
  - Consider allowing and protecting minority unions
  - Provide that union certification votes shall succeed by a majority of those workers voting, not by a majority of workers eligible to vote
  - Set aside any requirement that there be periodic recertification votes
  - Abolish "right to work" / replace Taft-Hartley §14(b) [ 29 USC §164(b) ] with a specific pre-emption of state laws on right-to-work and a specific ban on right to work laws / repeal any other union-busting portions of Taft-Hartley
  - Require Project Labor Agreements where possible for all federal, state, and local contracts.
  - Allow SNAP/food stamps for striking workers and their families
  - Provide that any political campaign rights or privileges allowed corporations shall also be allowed unions ; prohibit the "paycheck protection" scheme
  - Extend full collective bargaining rights to temporary workers.
  - Extend full union protection to unions of independent truck drivers
  - Ban the practice of hiring permanent replacement workers to replace striking workers.
  - Allow common situs picketing
- More Labor:
  - Adopt the Iceland "Equal Pay Standard" that makes "employers prove they offer equal pay regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexuality or nationality."
  - Adopt The Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or PRO Act
  - Re-examine the Wagner Act ( The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (49 Stat. 449) 29 U.S.C. § 151-169 )
  - Figure out how to set aside Pattern Makers League of North America v. NLRB, 1985 and then do so.
  - Adopt the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2013 (ENDA), S. 815 , and other years; support full federal recognition of gay rights.
  - Support the Paycheck Fairness Act, S. 84 Mikulski 2013-14
  - Consider adopting the German system of labor bargaining rights
  - Support Bernie's "Workplace Democracy Act"
  - Resurrect the "Look for the Union Label" campaign as a Federal campaign; pair with an effective "Look for the Made in USA Label" campaign
  - Require on-line vendors to show prominently a "made in . . . " on every web page for every product offered.
  - Investigate increasing assertions of progressively inhumane working conditions at the U.S. Postal Service and impose a cure; oppose efforts to privatize the Postal Service or impair postal workers' benefits; repeal The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (HR 6407) or support HR 1351 (United States Postal Service Pension Obligation Recalculation and Restoration Act of 2011); oppose HR 2309 (Issa-Ross Postal Reform Act); Support HR 630/SB316 Postal Service Protection Act of 2013, DeFazio / oppose S.1486 Postal Reform Act of 2014, Carper, D
  - Examine instances where unions have cancelled retiree health insurance and restore such benefits where appropriate.
  - Support the Bankruptcy Fairness and Employee Benefits Protection Act of 2014, S 2418, Rockefeller, D-WV
  - Cover medical interns and residents under the Fair Labor Standards Act and end the barbaric exploitive sleep deprivation rite of passage
  - Remove the medical residency roadblocks that act as a quota limiting the number of practicing physicians .
  - Require minimum wages for food servers, home health workers, prisoners, and jurors the same as for all others; set part time wage levels 10% above that to discourage Afforable Care Act avoidance; Support the Fair Minimum Wage Act but make it $15 an hour, not $10.10.
  - Oppose HR 1406, 2013-14 which allows employers to avoid paying overtime
  - Provide for compensation without eligibility penalty of college athletes who produce college gross revenue
  - Require fair pay for professional sports cheerleaders
  - Consider re-regulating air, trucking, rail, energy. . .; Repeal the union busting portions of the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976, the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, etc.
  - Develop air quality standards for small independent truckers that will allow them to remain in business, and preempt such standards for them nationwide, including at the nation's ports ; require foreign truckers to meet the same standards that domestic truckers have to meet; require clean indoor restrooms with running water for all port drivers and at all truck brake check areas and all regulatory scale facilities; explore other methods to assist small independent truckers
  - Sift through and adopt where appropriate the various initiatives of Senator Tom Coburn, such as consolidating the numerous redundant Federal Job Training Programs weeding out what doesn't work and strengthening what does
  - Consider H.R. 1000 The Humphrey-Hawkins 21st Century Full Employment and Training Act, 2015-16, Conyers
  - Provide that no charter school shall open unless the faculty and staff shall have full participation in the union contracts, membership, seniority, salaries, and benefits of the School District in which it is placed, or if there is no school district, of the proximate district largest in numbers of students.
  - Ban school vouchers
  - Oppose the union busting aspects of Common Core and Race to the Top
  - Reopen all the black lung cases on which Dr. Paul Wheeler of Johns Hopkins had any input.
  - Figure out what to do about the "temporary help" scam whereby companies, especially large companies, use a revolving door of teams of low-paid workers from temporary help agencies to avoid paying fair wages or benefits.
  - Re-examine the H-1B visa program to make sure that every such visa is issued for a job skill not available in the USA and that issuing such visas does not depress USA wages
  - Close loopholes excluding public employees from paid family leave provisions.
- & Social Security (see also BUDGET),
  - If imposing the Social Security Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision would put the recipient below the poverty line then it shall not be applied. Retroactively. For that matter, eliminate the Social Security Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision as unfairly cheating workers of their earnings.
  - Increase the amount retirees can earn without adversely impacting their Social Security
  - Avoid raising the Social Security retirement age; restore it to 65;
  - Reverse the Immigrant Social Security Confiscation Amendment.
  - Adopt the Multiple Sclerosis Anti-Discrimination Social Security Act; improve Federal response and nurturing, including disability assistance programs, for wasting diseases such as Huntington's, ALS, MS, Systemic Scleroderma, and so on
  - Adopt Lori's Law (for disability, not the one for murder)
  - Support HR 3118/S.567, Linda Sanchez/Tom Harkin Strengthening the Social Security Act of 2013; add reverse means testing to SSI and Social Security to lift recipients out of poverty
  - Support, S.2305 - Social Security and Marriage Equality Act, 2013-14, Murray D-WA , HR 1984, the Fair Adjustments and Income Revenues (FAIR) for Social Security Act (set aside wages cap) DeFazio D-OR , HR 1983, the Social Security Protection and Truth in Budgeting Act (no diverting trust funds) DeFazio D-OR, S. 2455 Retirement and Income Security Enhancements (RAISE) Act, 2013-14, Begich D-AK
  - Support Improving Access to Social Security Services Act S.2742 2014, Schumer, D-NY
- Infrastructure:
  - Fund serious infrastructure maintenance and upgrades: highways & bridges, rail, waterways & ports, air, communications, power, electrical transmission, fuel, nuclear power plant seismic retrofits, sewage treatment plants and drinking water systems, move utilities underground, etc. ; fund the list at mjbarkl.com/infrastr.jpg :
  - Another Time Magazine Infrastructure Issue 04/10/2017:
    - Construct a multi-track grade-separated freight rail beltway around Chicago
    - Construct a multi-track grade-separated freight and passenger rail beltway around New York City
    - Fund the Chicago Belt CREATE projects
    - Install manual backups to the electrical smart grid
    - Upgrade the locks on the Mississippi River system
    - Install broadband for all
    - Install a one-stop permitting process for major and multi-state projects and add Federal funding agencies
  - Underground the Puerto Rico & U.S. Virgin Islands electric power grid; for that matter do the same for mainland hurricane belt and tornado belt communities.
  - Eliminate the Puerto Rico prohibition on bringing in automobiles not first sold in Puerto Rico and establish an auto ferry between Miami and San Juan.
  - Finish the San Juan rapid transit system
  - Establish an infrastructure bank, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Infrastructure_Reinvestment_Bank )
  - Support the Partnership to Build America Act of 2013, HR 2084, Delaney D-MD
  - Support the Durbin Privatization limitation bill
- Extend unemployment benefits for the 99-ers if still relevant; impose means-testing for unemployment benefits / extablish a substantial tax credit for hiring ex convicts and those who have exhausted their unemployment benefits
- Support lump-sum relocation subsidies for the unemployed
- Support Senator Warren, et al. S. 1837 (113th): Equal Employment for All Act of 2013 to prevent employers from looking at credit reports when hiring, and especially from considering foreclosures,
- Provide that where any agency of Federal, State, or Local government has laid off any employee, that employee shall be granted right of first refusal for any open position with the agency for which that employee may be trained at any time within the next 10 years which right shall continue until that employee is actually rehired, with the longest laid off having the highest priority.
- Extend the 72-hour no-hire after layoffs to 30 days
- Solve the racial bias in government layoffs and retroactively compensate for it
- Extend the New York Domestic Workers protections nationwide
- Arrange for regular job fairs at King-Kennedy Center, West Modesto
- Voter rights:
  - Adopt the VOTING RIGHTS RESOLUTION
  - Provide that the sole criteria for voter registration and regulation of persons registering voters in the U.S. shall be by regulations set by the Federal Elections Commission
  - Extend the Voting Rights Act Section 5 pre-approval process to all electing jurisdictions; add the 2012 disenfranchise states to Section 5 of the voting rights act
  - Outlaw the imposition of any requirement for registering to vote other than the unsupported declaration under penalty of perjury that the person registering is eligible to vote / ban the increasing state-level insistance on government-issued photo-IDs for voting, limits on student voting, and limits on same-day registration / adopt registration-friendly rules for voter registration drives
  - Define as a "poll tax" any photo-ID requirement for voting, any candidate filing fee, any candidate party endorsement application fee
  - Provide for "early voting" in all jurisdictions
  - Provide that every polling place that accumulates a waiting line of more than one hour on election day shall be open for voting the next day regardless of the day of the week that would be.
  - Support Hillary Clinton's Count Every Vote Act of 2005 S. 450
  - Consider adding to all elections the option for a voter to make his/her vote a public vote rather than a secret vote to aid in testing and reducing vote-recording and counting fraud such as that as has been alleged in Ohio in 2004.
  - Provide that any multi-jurisdictional campaign to interfere with the electoral franchise shall be prosecutable under RICO and related statutes, including those efforts using a sham excuse of preventing voter fraud
  - Support HR 5799 - Voter Empowerment Act of 2012, by Rep. John Lewis of Georgia to reverse ALEC Jim Crow laws, H.R. 12 2013-14
  - Support Attorney General Holder's proposal for automatic voter registration of all citizens; make voting a right to be taken away, not a privilege to be requested; support national, electronic, automatic voter registration.
  - Consider Norm Ornstein's voter lottery as an incentive to vote
  - Support Approval Voting
  - Change the FCC candidate preference rules to exclude negative ads from preferred rates.
  - Consider supporting H.R.20 - Government By the People Act of 2014, Sarbanes D-MD
  - Exclude campaign contributions received, from Section 8 and other safety net calculations.
  - Adopt:
  - Robocalls or robodialers must identify themselves as such.
- Freedom of Association rights in elections (Freedom of Association is an "implied" right in the U.S. Constitution):
  - require that all levels of elections allow candidates to identify their political party
  - ban open primaries (or at least the "top two" provision of California's Prop. 14)
  - ban term limits other than those set by the U.S. Constitution
  - require that slate mailers fully disclose party affiliations
  - Consider: all properties or communities with multiple individually addressed units within shall allow without charge political canvassing at the front doors of those individually addressed units. Nothing herein stated shall interfere with negotiation by parties concerned for reasonable limits on access, see outline.
- Impose De Facto PAC rules:
- Enhance and extend to the states the Federal Open Meeting Laws, including for "Associations" that are constituted predominantly of legislators from other agencies or their staffs
- Immigration :
  - Pass the Dream Act; initiate a "Private Bill Project" to accomplish the goals of the Dream Act until such time as the Dream Act is adopted.
  - Establish within ICE & USCIS a joint Office of Reuniting Families and give it the power to carry out its mission and cut through time and bureaucracy, to act within 30 days upon the petition of any U.S. citizen to protect a relative: issue at least a permanent green card to protected spouses, and ancestors, siblings, descendants, nephews & nieces, and their spouses and eliminate all citizenship application waiting periods and any requirement to return to the home country for them, including any already deported but excluding those awaiting prosecution for or convicted of a felony or accepting deportation in lieu of prosecution for a felony unless the felony is an immigration law violation; suppport the Respect Families Resolution.
  - Except for offering water, food, clothing, shelter, or medical care, require that Border Patrol or ICE does not talk with a family member related to or anyone suspected of being an undocumented alien without first there being a qualified attorney appointed for that person and that attorney being present.
  - Require that persons facing deportation be furnished counsel: Adopt "Deportation is a criminal penalty," to ensure full rights in prosecution; expand H.R.4936 - Vulnerable Immigrant Voice Act 2013-14 Jeffries, D-NY to cover all immigrants under threat of deportation
  - Consider shortening statutes of limitation for wrongful immigration to 5 years including for re-immigration after deportation except for persons deported who have been convicted of a felony or who accepted deportation in lieu of prosecution for a felony; provide that such limitation shall apply regardless of whether or not it is asserted
  - End the 3 & 10-year ban on reentry
  - Support Bernie Sanders' [was] A Fair and Humane Immigration Policy
  - Challenge the racist portions of the Safe Communities Act/Keep Our Communities Safe Act; Adopt A federal level anti-profiling act
  - Fund relief for the Mexican border deportee refugee camps.
  - Recognize and respect the differences between immigrants and refugees.
- More Education
  - Adopt the BUDGET (below) and restore school funding in every state
  - Support free Community College; support free State College tuition; Support Senator Sanders' College for All Act
  - Support President Obama's preschool for all proposal, or at least fund pre-K education for at-risk kids; fund after-school and gang avoidance programs for at-risk kids; if not already, require that compensation packages for Head Start and other pre-K faculty and staff match K-12 levels; Expand affordable child care and after school programs with tax credits; Support The Strong Start for America's Children Act of 2013 (H.R. 3461), Miller D-CA
  - Allow campaign funds to be used for child care.
  - Consider funding and expanding the Khan Academy concept
  - Require and fund restoration of wood and metal shop classes and life skills class components such as personal budgeting at all high schools; do the same for physical education, music, and art; establish or strengthen computer and engineering labs in high schools.
  - Rebalance the systems of educational scoring or bumping to get 99-week or longer unemployed persons into the classes they need
  - Is there anything in the UMBC model that can be pushed down into lower grades?
  - Outlaw the teaching of "creationism" in any school that receives funds from any government or hosts students in lieu of public schooling
- Health (See also BUDGET, below) :
  - Basically I'm seeing 4 kinds of health care improvement plans:
    I would vote for any and all of these. My Budget, below, pays for the first two - if the other two are adopted I can rework my Budget.
  - Add to whatever is chosen coverage for dental, vision, hearing, bathroom DME and workers' compensation injuries.
  - Restore Tricare cuts;
  - Allow Medicare to negotiate price on drugs, medical devices, equipment, CT or MRI scans, etc.
  - Strengthen the powers of the Treasury, FDA, and Medicare to hold hearings to identify price-gouging for a specific drug, identify a reasonable retail price for that drug, and then take through eminent domain the right to manufacture and sell that drug for the valuation based on that price.
  - Require Medicare/MedicAid and all other insurers pay 100% of Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Devices for diabetics
  - Adopt that any prohibitions against health care for undocumented immigrants shall not apply to immunizations, innoculations and vaccinations against disease; for that matter, set aside any such prohibitions as being racist.
  - Consider scrapping the Medicare enrollment period - people need Medicare all year long, not just in a couple of autumn months.
  - Until such time as we move towards single-payer, make it possible for people to make healthcare cost & benefit comparisons without submitting any personal information
  - Consider requiring that any health insurer offering health insurance anywhere in the country must offer health insurance at the same rate under any ACA exchange everywhere in the country, with preemptions of state law to make it work.
  - Reopen Patterson Hospital and other small rural hospitals throughout the country?
  - Consider the Camden Coalition project;
  - Adopt the 2001 McCain-Edwards-Kennedy Patients' Bill of Rights, S.1052 .
  - Establish a Federal Insurance Authority to monitor and punish predatory insurance practices, including below cost marketing, merger & acquisition activity funded by aggressive claim denials especially in workers' compensation third party claims administration, and so on.
  - Figure out how and then include insurance companies under anti-trust law.
  - Extend Americans with Disabilities Act coverage to the entire Federal Government, excluding only combat, law enforcement, and Secret Service; expand OSHA to cover all government employees, excluding only combat, law enforcement, and Secret Service
  - Support H.R.1286 Healthy Families Act 2013-14 DeLauro, D-CT (earn sick pay)
  - Support The Family And Medical Insurance Leave Act (The FAMILY Act) March 2015, DeLauro D-CT/Gillibrand, D-NY H.R.3712 2013, S. 786 2015
  - Support the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, S.942, 113th Congress, Senator Casey
  - Require that GMO foods be labeled as such; support The Genetically Engineered Food Right-to-Know Act, Boxer, S.511 2015; Repeal the Monsanto Protection Act included in Spending Bill HR 933 that President Obama signed.
  - Research & solve the bee death problem; support a moratorium on the sale, distribution and use of neonicotinoids
  - Grant $15,000 payment in first trimester or $10,000 in second trimester for any pregnant woman of any age who decides not to have an abortion, which may be applied for in any appearance at a qualified abortion clinic, which clinic shall also receive a compensatory payment (sufficient to make the decision financially neutral for a typical clinic) if the other payment is accepted. Such payment shall be made even if the woman never had any intent of obtaining an abortion; scrap the Hyde Amendment and ensure Planned Parenthood is treated equally in all Government funding.
  - Support the Women's Health Protection Act of 2013, S. 1696, Blumenthal
  - Support the Access to Birth Control Act, H.R. 728, 2013-14, Maloney & Lautenberg
  - Consider stripping pharmaceuticals and medical devices out of the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act.
  - Devise and implement guidelines for nurse-practitioners to operate free clinics without physician supervision, especially in the aftermath of disasters
  - Remove barriers to stem cell research
  - Increase funding for AIDS, cancer, MS, ALS, and similar research,
  - Enhance the Cancer Moonshot, a National Cancer Institute initiative launched by President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.
  - Increase funding of CDC and NIH pandemic research and prevention sufficiently to ensure adequate protection of this country
  - & SNAP/Food Stamps - work to improve nutrition for the poor and to make sure funds allocated for that purpose are not diverted from that purpose:
    - Investigate and halt any practice of denying SNAP/food stamps to recipients of SSI, SSDI, or state or any other sort of disability compensation
    - Find out why people who work part time are not allowed SNAP/food stamps, if that is the case, and fix it.
    - Reassess food stamp/SNAP coverage for the elderly who are caring for other family members to make sure the assistance is fair and adequate.
    - Add fingerprint sensing technology to SNAP/food stamp system to stop the selling of the "stamps" to others? Or make them individually payable so that anyone else using them will be rejected? Explore ways to make the various types of "food stamps" usable only by the intended recipient.
- Transportation & Transportation Safety :
  - Advocate restoring cuts to Essential Air Service, if any; carefully examine Mica's bill HR 658, 03/2011; consider using gas tax money to subsidize air service to smaller regional airports
  - Require a national standard minimum commercial airline legroom.
  - Require sensors for when there is an obstruction on a rail crossing after the arms come down, and thence an automatic full stop for the on-coming train.
  - Require seatbelts on intercity buses and trains [2013, looks like Congress is doing this! Great.]
  - Subsidize Greyhound (or Amtrak) bus service to small towns
  - Require that adjacent public transit agencies (such as Stanislaus and San Joaquin) provide inter-agency transfer points with syncronized schedules
  - Require collision avoidance and speed control systems on all motor vehicles by 2025
  - Urge GM to return to Manteca
  - Require a beltway plan for all cities over 50,000 population
  - Link I-205/I-580 to I-505
  - Upgrade SR-99 to Interstate highway status
- Energy (See also BUDGET, below) :
  - Support the NRCS Environmental Quality Incentives Program
  - Require energy independence
  - Ban exporting raw fossil fuels and certain specified end products of their refinement, with no exemption for free trade zones.
  - Subsidize the reestablishment of refineries in the U.S.
  - Prove that ethanol produces a net gain in usable energy or phase out ethanol subsidies
  - Phase in cap & trade, or better yet carbon fee and dividends
  - Reexamine the wisdom in using nuclear reactor fuel rods with zirconium that generates hydrogen during cooling problems (think Hindenberg with radioactivity? in EVERY plant?)
  - Explore feasibility of implementing TransAtomic's salt reactors.
  - Support the New Apollo Initiative
- Consumer Financial Protection :
  - Examine restoring the portion of the Glass-Steagall Act repealed by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999 and reversing the other relaxations of it - Support HR 1489 2011? but beware of LaRouchePAC participation - support Elizabeth Warren's 21st Century Glass Steagall Act, S. 1282, 2013-14 instead?
  - Repeal the portion of the 2012 JOBS Act (HR 3606) that reduces financial protections for the public
  - Restore the Wall Street speculation fee; include credit default swaps, derivatives, stock options and futures; Support the Ellison Inclusive Prosperity Act HR 1464, 2015-16, Tax Wall Street Bill HR 1579 2013, the Financial Transaction Tax Bill HR 6411 2011-12, etc. all forms of The Robin Hood Tax; examine FASB rules for credit default swaps, consult William K. Black
  - Put ALL derivatives on an exchange with transaction taxes and transparency
  - Prohibit naked short sales or purchases of any security or commodity.
  - For financial firms in bankruptcy or receiving bailouts or being merged or sold or liquidated under government supervision, provide a 10-year claw-back of management salaries, bonuses, severance, settlements, or other fees, and consultant, legal, accounting, and rating-agency fees
  - Fully fund SEC, CFTC, CFPB, etc.
  - Strengthen Dodd-Frank; modify Dodd-Frank to treat mortgage brokers and banks equally rather than running those brokers who behaved properly out of business to punish those who did not behave properly
  - Support Senator Warren's ( & Coburn's ?) Truth in Settlements Act of 2014 , S.1898
  - Support regulations to close Wall Street's 'Retirement Advice' loophole
  - Slowly increase banking reserve requirements
  - Strengthen the Stock Act
  - Investigate and regulate Fair Isaacs (FICO)
  - Bring foreclosures to a dead stop:
    - Add full power to impose modification of mortgages on a primary residence to the bankruptcy court's jurisdiction ; support the 2009 Dick Durbin Amendment to allow use of Bankruptcy to protect consumers in foreclosure
    - Require every forcloser that foreclosed on someone illegally to furnish all details of what they did and where they went wrong NOW without further delay.
    - Support eminent domain buy back of underwater home loans
    - Phase in allowing REO rentals; expand the FHFA "deed for lease" program and implement a lease-to-own program
    - Allow, encourage, require all foreclosing lenders to negotiate a post-foreclosure continuing tenancy agreement for homeowners losing their homes to foreclosure.
    - Allow, encourage, require foreclosing lenders to extend to persons losing their home in foreclosure first right of refusal on any subsequent sale of that home
    - Develop and fund an FHA-like program for home purchases by persons who have suffered foreclosures or short sales because of failures to bargain in good faith by lenders such as Bank of America (Countrywide Financial)
    - Exclude home mortgage foreclosures from FICO scores, credit reports, and mortgage aps
    - Figure out how to require that persons refinancing a home be offered the same sort of advantageous interest rates as persons purchasing a home, and then implement it; require such refinancing be allowed even if "under water" or insufficient equity
    - Ease home mortgage criteria at the bottom of cycles, tighten them at the top (instead of backwards like we are doing now which has seriously damaged the housing market).
    - Make banks liable for the effects of "zombie mortgages".
  - Get serious about curing homelessness. Adopt and fund the Salt Lake City and Houston solutions.
  - Fund a study of the relationship between:
  - Investigate whether or not USDA Rural Housing Centralized Servicing Center is properly handling requests for financial assistance on mortgages owed by persons in financial distress and fix the problem if there is one; investigate whether or not disabled persons are being denied rural housing Repair/Rehab funds routinely granted the elderly and fix the problem if there is one;
  - Prohibit gift card fees and expiration; ban rebate card expirations
  - Require that any agency using debit cards to pay benefits pay all debit card fees that would otherwise be imposed on the beneficiary; for any employer using payroll cards, require that the employee not be charged
  - Prohibit expiration of pre-paid cell phone minutes
  - Support net neutrality, oppose CISPA
  - Reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to make social media take responsibility.
  - Student Loans, Consider :
    - Forgive student debt for STEM graduates at the time they receive their diplomas;
    - Support Steve Israel's Student Loan Employment Benefits Act of 2012 (HR 5129), the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012, H.R. 4170; the Student Loan Fairness Act HR 1330, Karen Bass, 2013, H.R. 4582, Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act, Courtney D-CT 2013, 15, S.2432 - Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act 2013-14 Warren D-MA
    - Keep student loan interest rates low;
    - Provide that no student loan shall bear an interest rate higher than the lowest rate charged banks by the Treasury or the Federal Reserve
    - Ban the inclusion of student loans on credit reports until such time as they are subject to bankruptcy
    - Support H.R.532 - Private Student Loan Bankruptcy Fairness Act of 2013, Cohen,
    - Either the entity that holds the debt finds you a decent job, or else treat student debt like any other debt in bankruptcy
    - Require deferral of student loans for military on active duty
    - Require deferral of student loans for disabled people for the duration of the disability.
    - Exempt Social Security from student loan garnishment.
- Tax :
  - Repeal the Trump Tax Cuts
  - Explore ways to encourage the repatriation of corporate funds stored offshore, including by an excise tax; consider an excise tax on funds or profits parked offshore; eliminate the tax deferral on offshore corporate profits; support the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act of 2011, S. 1346./ support a "pure worldwide tax system", support the Wyden-Gregg tax reform bill.( The Bipartisan Tax Fairness and Simplification Act of 2010 (S. 3018) ) - oppose a "territorial tax system"
  - Close the Google Bermuda loophole
  - Consider strengthening FATCA, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act
  - Support the "Stop Corporate Inversions Act of 2014" (H.R. 4679); use eminent domain to protect the tax base from "tax inversion mergers" where necessary to halt the practice; consider Senator Carl Levin's list of Corporate Loopholes that should be closed.
  - Consider strengthening the tax on excess retained earnings as reflected in uninvested, undistributed cash or near-cash balances; exclude stock buy-backs from the list of qualified investments; consider excluding mergers & acquisitions from the list of qualified investments; inhibit the ability of corporations to purchase their own stock
  - Consider stripping the tax deduction for interest on LBO's.
  - Impose a graduated excise tax on corporate management compensation levels that exceeds a certain multiple of the lowest wage paid by that corporation, foreign or domestic
  - Repeal the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, at a lower level than the $400,000 proposed by President Obama
  - Support HR 1124, the Fairness in Taxation Act of 2011, Schakowsky
  - Consider a limit on income allowed capital gains rates, such as up to $1,000,000 per year
  - Revoke the carried-interest loophole; support Congressman Levin's 2009 H.R. 1935 (re: ...treatment of partnership interests held by partners providing services.)
  - Consider the Fareed Zakaria 9-18-27-18-9-50 tax plan
  - Phase out percentage depletion allowances
  - Require minimum 50% royalty on all Federal gas & oil leases, retroactively
  - Require U.S. Government coal leases charge market rates.
  - Ban income tax on mortgage forgiveness retroactive to 01/01/2008; make forgiveness of debt not taxable unless the incurring of the debt is deductable
  - Restore income averaging for personal income taxes.
  - Adopt the THE TAXPAYER TRUST FUNDS ACT ; do the same for Federal agencies.
  - Provide that
    1) no agency within the United States collecting taxes that uses the U.S. Mails in any way for tax collection activity shall assess a penalty per year in excess of 10% of the underlying balance due if that balance is under $50,000, to which a reasonable rate of interest may be added on the underlying balance due.
    2). No agency within the United States collecting fees, permits, or fines that uses the U.S. Mails in any way for collection activity shall assess combined penalty and collection charges and any other charges per year in excess of 10% of the underlying fee, permit, or fine balance due if that balance is under $50,000, to which a reasonable rate of interest may be added on the underlying balance due.
  - Eliminate the wage ceiling on FICA withholding
  - Consider a graduated excise tax on campaign contributions, see outline.
  - Impose an annual license fee on firearms, small for a single gun, escalating for quantity, see mjbarkl.com/repeal.htm
  - Insist that the IRS interpret 501(c)(4) correctly.
  - Kick pro football out of 501(c)(6) / add a tax surcharge for excess compensation
  - Provide any state-sanctioned or state-operated lottery that in any way uses U.S. Mails or any method of interstate commerce in its operation shall return unclaimed winnings to the pool of funds available for winnings and not confiscate those funds for any other purpose.
  - Require any government agent or agency running a public lottery provide that any player wishing to do so have their wagers personally registered using an appropriate government ID and thereafter be informed of their winnings with no submission of lottery ticket, etc., required.
- Adopt the ONLY BALANCED U.S. BUDGET which BALANCES this year and funds MEDICARE FOR EVERYONE
- War (See also BUDGET, above) :
  - Restore the name of Department of Defense (the ultimate "spin") to "Department of War" / rename Department of Homeland Security to Department of Defense
  - Discourage use of war as a political policy; reexamine the Kellogg-Briand Pact
  - Fund clearing the VA disability claim and mental health backlogs; Fund VA efforts sufficiently to allow it to clear the backlog and to provide immediate positive response in possible suicide situations; upgrade positive suicide response time from 17 days to immediate; expand veterans' care to all veterans, not just those serving at certain times or in certain theaters.
  - Designate the Fort Hood shooting as a terrorist act and thus "combat related" for the purposes of U.S. Military victim benefits.
  - Adopt: Veterans and their dependents shall receive health care treatment upon showing up at a VA facility and completing a declaration of qualification. Only then shall the VA commence its process to determine eligibility but while that review continues, no veteran or their dependent shall be denied health care and if the review is ultimately adverse to the veteran, the veteran shall not be charged for the care during the review; accept veterans' claims subject to audit, like the IRS does with tax returns claiming refunds
  - Add such firefighters and firefighter union health plans as wish it to the Veterans' Administration Health Administration, adding a research unit on firefighter cancers and other health problems.
  - Relax the VA's stinginess on meds.
  - Make the recognition of women in combat retroactive for pay, benefits, & recognition.
  - Support H.R.4628 - MOM Act, 2013-14, Duckworth, D-IL
  - Support H.R.2377 , ENLIST Act 2013-14, Denham R-CA
  - Allow Sikhs to enlist without requiring loss of turbans or facial hair
  - If not yet done, rescind the dishonorable discharges given gay veterans, and replace with honorable discharges
  - Support the Sexual Assault Training Oversight and Prevention Act or STOP Act, H.R. 1503, 2013-14 Jackie Speier; support the Gillibrand Military Justice Improvement and Increasing Prevention Act of 2021-22 S.1520 (handling sexual assault)
  - Require judicial review of drone strikes that target U.S. Citizens; halt the use of drone strikes within countries with which we are not at war or for which we don't have that country's permission
  - Remove the FOIA exception that allows the memo justifying the drone killing of U.S. Citizens to remain withheld
  - Require for buyers and users of civilian drones that an FAA license be procured conditioned on successful passing of a training course that includes instruction on what locations and practices are off-limits.
  - Examine the ramifications of using depleted uranium and white phosphorus shells and support appropriate abatement legislation.
  - Support Senator Feinstein's NDAA modification bill? Support Barbara Lee's H.R. 198 to repeal the Authorization to use Military Force, 2013-14; Support Barbara Lee's AUMF repeal, War Authorization Review and Determination Act or WARD Act. H.R.4608, 2014
  - Escalate the sweep of the oceans of Somali, Malay, & Filipino pirates
  - Solve the Skynet/singularity risk.
- Guns :
  - See Constitutional below
  - #BlackLivesMatter
  - Repeal the 2005 gun manufacturer lawsuit shield act (The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) ); Remove the litigation protection enjoyed by the gun industry; Subject gun manufacturers to tort liability and CPSC jurisdiction
  - Set aside the prohibition against the CDC researching gun violence, and fund the research.
  - Ban lead bullets; educate the public on the risks of using steel bullets in dry grass.
- Water :
  - Recover for the people of California the value of the $1,000,000,000 of water taken illegally from Stony Creek by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and its clients / set aside the Angle Decree / restore the environmentally damaged and economically depressed upper Stony Creek Watershed / prove the safety of Black Butte Dam abutments; adopt The Angle Act
  - Restore the water rights of the community of La Grange, California
  - Augment the summertime flow in upper Stony Creek tributaries with diversions from upper Eel River tributaries for the purpose of reestablishing Stony Creek salmon runs and improving Eel salmon runs./ construct refrigerated salmon bypass channels in the valleys parallel to Black Butte and Stony Gorge
  - Restore salmon runs on all streams where they once were, nationwide
  - CVP 3 : Strengthen California flood protections sufficiently to withstand a repeat of the floods of 1861-1862 and solve the Delta and supply problems : suspend Section 8 of the Reclamation Act of 1902 and its progeny and preempt conveyance capacity for this project / fund and develop the Westside Conveyance System and reservoirs, Westside Canals and Rio Vista Siphons to Bethany Reservoir, enlarge Shasta, line the Glenn-Colusa Canal / enlarge and extend the Folsom South Canal beyond Stockton to Bethany Reservoir picking up flood flows of Dry Creek, Cosumnes, Mokelumne, and Calaveras Rivers along the way / develop the Orestimba and Los Banos Grandes Reservoirs and enlarge Friant or build Temperance Flat / devise and implement ways to cut reservoir evaporation / plan the logistics to sell California water to Southern Nevada and Arizona to help fund all this - see project outline
  - Adopt the NEW MELONES SPILLWAY ACT
  - Place rescue air-boats with first responders in jurisdictions susceptible to inundation by flood.
  - Require USA to pay its fair share of levee district costs
  - Attend to the long term water and flood control needs of San Joaquin and Stanislaus Counties ahead of any export users
  - Restore Hetch Hetchy
  - Restore the Owens River Valley
  - Strengthen subsidies for clean water systems and clean wastewater systems for small rural communities throughout the country; guarantee every American clean water and adequate sanitation
- Law & Justice :
  - Establish a Federal "chicken" court; whenever anyone feels the application of a rule by an agency is "chicken" they file a complaint with the chicken court - the judge and stenographer show up at the complainant's location, record what the complainant has to say, gives the agency 5 days to defend, considers for another 5 days, and then issues a non-appealable ruling allowing or disallowing the application, the loser to pay the court $100 / Design some sort of Federal Small Claims Court where the targeted public, especially farmers, can protest arbitrarily applied and pointless regulations, and get the application of them suspended or redressed.
  - Set aside the entirety of Section 8 Housing written agreements and replace them with a single phrase notice: "We reserve the right to halt payment for any reason."
  - Examine Section 8 for a relationship to mobile home, travel trailer, and motor home owners, to ensure that poor and destitute who happen to own and live in one can still get the rental help they need for the ground lease payments, including waiver for physical condition of the residence.
  - Save Section 9.
  - Bring back ACORN.
  - Develop national standards for CPS intervention that protects minority families from racist persecution.
  - Increase AmeriCorps funding
  - Explore ways to bring justice to the matter of Tim DeChristopher, Bidder70; Seek pardon, apology & reparations.
  - Explore ways to bring justice to cases such as Matthew Otto's, in Montana
  - Consider hearings on the motives and methods behind the arrest & incarceration of Barrett Brown.
  - Support Zoe Lofgren's "Aaron's Law", HR 2454, 2013-14
  - Establish a lobby desk and department in every United States Court to assist pro per litigants and make and coordinate requests for pro bono assistance with the local bar
  - Restore funding to the Legal Services Corporation / enhance funding of CRLA
  - Require the National Archives to return upon request case files to the courts from which they came
  - Curtail the death penalty
  - Require changing the practice of labeling cases "People vs." to "[Governmental Entity] vs." / rename all statutory crime or civil labels of "Obstructing Justice" to "Interference with Investigation" or whatever other label is appropriate / establish a rule that lying by any government person to a civil or criminal defendant, whether before or after commencement of prosecution or litigation, is a compensable denial of due process
  - Adopt: at all levels of government strip searches are prohibited absent probable cause,
  - Provide that the holding that a defendant received a fair trial is irrelevant if reasonable doubt can be shown that the defendant did not commit the crime.
  - Ensure and protect, retroactively, the Freedom of Speech/Freedom of Press/Freedom of Petition rights of citizens to film with audio actions of law enforcement on duty or in public
  - Regulate the street drug "Bath Salts" (methylenedioxypyrovalerone / MDPV / mephedrone )
  - Support McNerney's (METH Act) H.R.752 - Methamphetamine Education, Treatment, and Hope Act of 2013
  - Legalize marijuana for adults, especially in order to reduce the drug wars in Mexico; include adequate protections for young people; or at least legalize medical marijuana at the Federal level; allow growers and vendors to use federally regulated financial institutions in states where marijuana has been legalized; legalize industrial hemp - fund research on the possibilities of Industrial hemp; remove the restrictions on marijuana research.
  - Consider the 09/2015 $10 billion "Hillary Clinton Drug Epidemic Plan," [sorry, busted link]
  - Support the S.1410 - Smarter Sentencing Act of 2014, Durbin-IL
  - Revise Federal & State asset forfeiture to eliminate miscarriage of justice; outlaw "national security letters, no knock searches, broad general warrants, preconviction forfeitures."
  - Rewrite the Patriot Act to respect the Bill of Rights
  - Label by statute the practices of "waterboarding", sleep deprivation and hypothermia as torture
  - Prohibit rendition
  - Consider the Lynne Stewart case and fix what went wrong; rewrite SAMS - Special Administrative Measures - to comport with the Bill of Rights
  - Provide that Investigation, charging, and prosecution of peace officer-involved homicides shall be by State Prosecutors, not Local, but in the event that State Prosecutors are unable or unwilling to prosecute, it shall be by Federal Prosecutors who shall have all the rights and privileges of State and Local Prosecutors.and shall apply State Law in the exercise of those rights; consider supporting the Conyers and Johnson Police Accountability Bills; require the keeping of statistics on deaths at the hands of police in the USA, including who is armed or unarmed, who is facing or fleeing, the races of the victims, and such other data as might be indicative of a problem.
  - Where pepper spray has been acquired in interstate commerce or in any way with Federal funds, make it a Federal felony to use pepper spray against an asthmatic or a pregnant woman.
  - Where plastic ties have been acquired in interstate commerce or in any way with Federal funds, make it a Federal felony to use them in lieu of handcuffs in such away as causes any damage whatsoever to those upon whom they are used.
  - Acknowledge that the use of Guantanamo Bay for a prison violates the lease and warrants its termination and turn over possession of the entire facility to the Government of Cuba by 2016
  - Fully fund the BATFE
  - Examine and then Support the Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence Registry Act, SAFER Act of 2012, 2013, S. 3250 (Cornyn), HR. 1523?, S. 80; Ban charging victims for rape kit tests.
  - If there is still a problem getting older fingerprint cards into the system, develop a fleet of mobile processing labs to visit underfunded jurisdictions and start processing those print cards.
  - More prison issues:
    - Support Senator Ben Cardin's Democracy Restoration Act (S. 2017 2011-2012), restore the right to vote for felons who have completed their debt to society
    - Guarantee adequate medical treatment, general education, and vocational programs to persons in government custody, at all levels and stages of Federal, State, or Local incarceration; grant credits for time served for top grades in such study; abolish waiting lists for prisoner education: prisoner applies? increase the allocated resources to cover the request.
    - Restore Pell Grants for prisoners; outlaw any ban on tuition aid for ex-cons; for that matter, outlaw any forms of discrimination against persons who have fully served their time and their parole or probation, including voter rights, employment, housing or food stamps.
    - Halt & reverse prison privatization
    - Cap prisoner phone call charges at levels comparable to those charged the general public.
    - Solve the racial slant that places a disproportionate percentage of people of color in prisons.
    - Consider adopting the Norwegian prison system.
- Government and Diplomacy :
  - Support Senator Tester's agricultural bills
  - Reverse every Trump Executive Action
  - Consider supporting S.29 - Respect for Marriage Act, 2015-16 , Feinstein D-CA
  - Require human rights improvements by Israel in exchange for continuing the $3,000,000,000 in annual foreign aid; Conversely, no direct or indirect foreign aid or any other funding shall be paid to any government or organization that does not remove from its constitution, charter, bylaws or other governing documents any advocacy for the destruction of Israel or its people.
  - Make all appropriate efforts to restore relations with Cuba
  - Support Congresswoman Lee's "no More Ghost Money Act", H.R. 261 2015 (unsavory payments to foreign officials)
  - Support S.624 Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act, Durban, 2010
  - Rescue the Little Cinnamon House in the Virgin Islands
  - Invite Puerto Rico & the U.S. Virgin Islands to become a state
  - Invite the U.S. Pacific Territories to become, collectively, a state
  - Upgrade the infrastructure and social support systems in Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, & U.S. Pacific Territories to the level of the mainland where lacking.
  - Recognize the unconstitutional exclusion of U.S. Territory residents from Federal Rights & Benefits and develop Amendments and Practices to remedy the exclusions.
  - Support Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation (SSMN) tribal recognition.
  - Offer substantial grants to encourage mergers and consolidations of municipalities and local districts
  - Encourage presidential candidates and Supreme Court Nominees to reveal their IQ, LSAT, SAT, etc. scores; move towards an understanding that climate-change deniers are unfit for public office.
  - Add 10 Justices to the U.S. Supreme Court and stop this cycle of subverting justice by alternating political parties in power.
  - Reduce the number of administration appointees requiring advice & consent of the Senate
  - Change U.S. Government programming procurement to engage the vendors with the best programmers rather than those with the best lawyers.
  - Require that every Congressional freshman who has not done so take an Economics 101 course, and keep taking it until achieving a passing grade
  - Construct an adequate Congressional dormitory as part of the Capitol Complex
  - Build a permanent fence around the Capitol Complex
  - Consider establishing a Congressional Constituent Services Office/Congressional Ombudsman to offload the bulk of constituent services requests from individual members of Congress and improve service delivery
  - Fix whatever rule, regulation, statute, or chilling effect interferes with Congressional staffers answering questions about political plans of their Legislator
  - Properly reimburse the revenue lost to and the expenses incurred by DC for hosting the Nation's Capital/Capitol
  - Make DC transit open earlier for non-office workers to get to work in the morning.
- Adopt nationwide minimum standards for high-rise buildings: integrated firefighting apparatus, tougher standards on using trusses in floors and ceilings, hardened fire stair wells, fire stair wells sized proportionate to anticipated structure population, all fire stair wells descending all the way to the street level, at least two fire stair wells placed at the outside edge of the structure at opposite corners of the structure, independent emergency fire stair lighting, all these to reduce design deficiencies that multiplied the casualties from the attacks on the twin towers on 09/11/2001
- More Environment & disaster preparedness :
  - Support the Sanders & Boxer Climate Change Act of 2013, S332
  - Provide for environmental regulation of natural gas well fracturing; support passage of the FRAC Act; repeal the Halliburton rule or exemption
  - Impose the ozone regulations rejected by the President
  - Phase out the grandfather clause in the Clean Air Act
  - Support the EPA's Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS)
  - Update the Toxic Substances Control Act, eliminate the "grandfather" clauses.
  - Strengthen protections against oil spills
  - Halt off-shore drilling until blow-out preventers that actually work can be designed, tested, and required / encourage Mr. Bromwich of MMS (or his successor) to be a bit more sensitive to the risk of not requiring blowout preventers that actually work
  - Consider banning Corexit?
  - Consider banning PFAs?
  - Repeal the McCain/Flake Amendment to the DAA that allows sale of the Apache holy site at Oak Flat to foreign mining company Resolution Copper Mining LLC (joint venture of UK's Rio Tinto & Australia's BHP-Billiton)
  - Exempt the recharging of passenger vehicles from any provision of law that might make it a criminal or citable offense.
  - Fund a CCC-type program to thin out forests to reduce occurrences of fires like the Rim Fire in locations such as Mt. Rushmore, including culling trees killed by bark beetles.
  - Devise a federal legislative program to handle wildfire and homeowners' insurance issues, starting with tripling the U.S. Forest Service's firefighting budget and expand its ability to assist in fighting fires on land not under Federal jurisdiction; strengthen fire road maintenance
  - Advocate the formation of a Congressional Natural Disaster and Casualty Insurance Caucus:
    - Wildfires
    - Earthquakes
    - Floods
    - Hurricanes
    - Tornados
  - Pay federal firefighters a liveable wage.
  - Provide for a refundable recycling fee of 1 cent per cigarette butt or cigar butt; cover with a can and bottle recycling program all states not covered by a can and bottle recycling program
  - Establish federal standards for metal recycling, including full identification of scavengers and locations from which metals have been gathered, filed under penalties of perjury, backed up by audits
  - Restore Gulf-state wetlands
  - Strengthen Louisiana hurricane protections
  - Upgrade the various relevant federal programs to strip out the red tape and increase to 100% the provision of financial assistance to construct EF5-resistant tornado shelters/safe rooms in counties or parishes that have ever suffered tornados F2 or higher
  - Phase-in protections for mid-America against another New Madrid earthquake
  - Begin sweeping the Pacific of floating plastic to the extent possible without further damaging marine life
  - Devise & fund ways to clean up the man-made garbage on the ocean floor.
  - Require sewage treatment plants for factory pig farms.
  - Fund preservation and restoration of rain forests and coral reefs
  - Halt the collapse of the oceans' diversity; oppose the Empty Oceans Act, Hastings R-WA, 12/2013, H.R. 1335 2015 Young-AK
  - Increase the funding for studying near-earth objects.
- Strengthen NPR, PBS & arts funding
  
  A friend posted a Noam Chomsky quote asserting that phrases like "support our troops" mean nothing. About that specific phrase, I disagree. Here is what it means to me:
- Support our troops:
  - Don't send them to war based on a lie. Define the objective and support their efforts to attain it. Do not take their sacrifices for granted. Do not waste their lives and limbs.
  - Equip them sufficiently to withstand injury to all extents possible. Train them. See to their spiritual and physical needs. Furnish them the best educated and most skilled leadership. Care for and protect their families.
  - When they return, care for their wounds and disabilities without stint, fund their pensions, honor their service, ensure that they prosper with education, housing, jobs, counseling, etc. Forever.
Constitutional:
- Amend: Every person within the geographic borders of the United States and its territories is entitled to government-funded health care.
- Shut down the gun madness, make guns a privilege, not a right: Repeal the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, impose a graduated tax on ownership and possession with penalties for misuse , see draft Amendment Resolution and Legislation
- Recognize the right of women to terminate pregnancies at will and to receive funding for it as for any other medical procedure, Amend: "A woman's right to terminate her pregnancy shall not be infringed."
- Recognize in all jurisdictions the validity of same sex marriage, Amend: "Any marriage between two people in any jurisdiction is valid for all purposes in every jurisdiction."
- Advocate approval of the Equal Rights Amendment, only this time with a 100-year time limit for adoption / Support 112th Congress H.J. Res 47
- Adopt, Campaign funding, Amend:
  "1. Congress may regulate political campaign funding as it chooses.
  "2. Corporations are not persons; Money is not speech."
  ( Support 2013-14 HJR 20 21 & 29 [2018: can't find these?] , Congress to regulate campaign money, and corporations are not people. )
- Adopt "full incorporation" of rights: "Within the Fourteenth Amendment Section 1., after the words 'privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States' add the phrase 'including any and all of their rights enumerated or implied in this Constitution'"
- Amend: "Except as provided elsewhere in this Constitution, all issues in either body of Congress shall be resolved by simple majority vote of eligible voters in that body"
- Adopt,Voting, Amend:
  "1. Every citizen shall have the right to vote in all jurisdictions that include the citizen's declared principal residence.
  "2. Exercise of that right to vote shall be under such Regulations as the Congress shall make."
  ( Support the 2013 Pocan/Ellison Right to Vote Amendment, H.J. Res. 25 [can't find this one either?] )
  or,
  "The right to vote of citizens over the age of 18 shall not be infringed."
- Recognizing the failure of impeachment as a remedy, adopt the Hiram Johnson cure for corruption. Amendment:
- If there is a test out there that grades a person's moral IQ, require a minimum score to be allowed to hold elective office.
- Provide lifetime voting membership in the House of Representatives for all past Presidents
- Provide that a Bill to modify any Treaty may be initiated in the same manner as a Revenue Bill.
- Grant full electoral franchise to DC through statehood or restoration to Maryland
- Repair flaw in U.S. Supreme Court jurisdiction:

FDR's speech introducing Second Bill of Rights
and wiki article

United Nations:
- Resolution by the U.N. / The Putin Resolution:
  
  Upon petition by any member nation, the United Nations shall draft for consideration a set of criteria and/or standards for defining an autocratic ruler.
  
  Thereafter, upon petition by any member nation, the United Nations shall consider whether or not a particular ruler is an autocrat.
  
  Thereafter, upon petition by any member nation, the United Nations shall consider whether on not a particular adjudged autocrat has killed or caused the death of ____ people within or without the ruled country, and if it determines that threshold death toll has been exceeded, shall draft for consideration a proposal for the United Nations to remove that autocrat from power.
  - - -

ENDORSEMENTS:

California Democratic Party

North Valley Labor Federation

California Labor Federation

AFL-CIO

Madera Democratic Club

San Joaquin Valley Democratic Club

Democratic Women of El Dorado County

Fresno County Democratic Women's Club

The Mother Lode Democrats of Amador County

Latino Community Roundtable

Gun Sense Voter

ERA Coalition awarded the ERA Certification Stamp of Approval

Member of (not endorsed by; divide between donor and member is often fuzzy):

California Democratic Party
Environmental, Progressive, Rural, & Veterans' Caucus California Democratic Party
Former, 3-time Elected Delegate to the California Democratic Convention, AD-12
Occasional Associate Member, San Joaquin County Democratic Central Committee
Occasional Member Central Valley Democratic Club
Democratic Club of Greater Tracy
Manteca Democratic Club
Single Payer San Joaquin/CARA
Democracy for America/Dean for America
Democrats.org
MoveOn.org
Progressive Democrats of America
Progressive Change Campaign Committee
ProgressiveCongress.org/Congressional Progressive Caucus Center
AARP
American Civil Liberties Union
California Alliance of Retired Americans
Occasional member Latino Community Roundtable, Modesto
League of Women Voters
Modesto Peace/Life Center
NAACP Chapter #1048 Modesto
Planned Parenthood
Occasional member Rainbow Push Coalition
Southern Poverty Law Center
Occasional member Sacramento Valley Chapter, Brady Campaign

[None of the major gun control groups offer memberships except LCAV for $250]
Breast Cancer Research Foundation
Doctors without Borders
Habitat for Humanity
350.org
California League of Conservation Vogers
Earthjustice
Environmental Defense Fund
Friends of the Earth
Greenpeace
National Audubon Society
National Wildlife Federation
Natural Resources Defense Council
The Nature Conservancy
Save the Redwoods League
Sierra Club
World Wildlife Fund
California Farm Bureau Federation (through the family ranches)
Apartment Owners Association of California
The American Legion (Vietnam era non-combat vet, U.S. Navy, made E-5 in 26 months)
The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
California Society of Certified Public Accountants (CalCPA), Life Member
American Bar Association
California State Bar (LSAT 710)

Faith: Presbyterian

Choral and barbershop quartet bass singer

ELIGIBILITY TO RUN FOR CONGRESS

U.S. Constitution Online

candidate information sheet

Federal Election Commission

Hanging out with the guys at the California Democratic Convention, 04/30/2011:

(Actually, "the guys" are cardboard cutouts; "I'M IN" referred to support for the Obama-Biden 2012 Campaign.)

Please donate to my campaign HERE at the secure ActBlue web site.
Thank you and best wishes. --Mike

--Mike Barkley, 167 N. Sheridan Ave., Manteca, CA 95336 (H) 209/823-4817
mjbarkl@inreach.com
No more excuses! - Cure Multiple Sclerosis now!
(c) 2012, Mike Barkley

_______________________________________________________________ | | | Paid for by Mike Barkley for Congress Committee #C00495507 | | | | (except that it didn't cost anything) | |______________________________________________________________|

I am running against MAGA Trumper TOM McCLINTOCK, please donate HERE. Thanks.

Mike Barkley, Candidate for Congress

PLATFORM PAGE

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CAMPAIGN DONATIONS:

PLATFORM:

Legislative:

Summary/high points:

Detail:

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Constitutional:

United Nations:

ENDORSEMENTS: