Today President Obama unveiled the BRAIN initiative. The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is "the next great American project." The White House describes the brain project as "a bold new research effort to revolutionize our understanding of the human mind and advance the president's vision for creating jobs and building a thriving middle class by investing in research and development."
Here's Five Facts on BRAIN:
1. It is designed to map the inner workings of the brain, seeking answers to challenges such as epilepsy, autism, and Alzheimer's disease.
2. Job creation - the project would lead to developing technologies at the intersections of nanoscience, imaging, engineering, informatics, and other rapidly emerging fields of science and engineering - all opening new innovative careers for American students.
3. Three government agencies are uniting to lead the project: The National Institutes of Health, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Science Foundation.
4. All of this for just $100 million - miniscule by government spending standards (after all, the comparable, Human Genome Project was three BILLION).
5. Fact: It's about time. "As humans we can identify galaxies light-years away, study particles smaller than an atom but we still haven’t unlocked the mystery of the three pounds of matter than sits between our ears."
For more, WATCH HERE:
DFA applauds innovative efforts for progress. After all, as President Obama said: "We are a nation of dreamers and risktakers." What do you think of the BRAIN initiative? And what dream projects would you like to see the government invest in?
DFA’s Purple to Blue Project is a national, multi-year effort to win state House and Senate chambers across the country by making so-called “purple” state legislative seats decisively Democratic. For more information about Purple to Blue, check out this great Huffington Post article.
We're excited to launch our Purple to Blue program with the announcement of two endorsements in Virginia today. What is Purple to Blue?
Forget John Boehner and Paul Ryan -- Republicans don't need Congress to push their radical right-wing agenda. They're doing it right now, state by state:
Ending women's right to choose
Busting unions
Deregulating industries and pillaging the environment
Giving away huge tax breaks to big corporations and the super rich
Republican state legislatures are laboratories of right-wing extremism -- and we need to stop their radical agendas before they go any farther.
That's why DFA is launching the Purple to Blue Project, a new multi-year effort dedicated to winning state House and Senate chambers across the country -- starting right now in Virginia.
Even as Democrats picked up wins nationally last year, conservatives continued to cement control of state legislatures -- and they're using states like Virginia to build momentum for radical, extreme agendas.
We're seeing the damage they can do. Virginia's newly-enacted restrictions on abortion have spawned a national assault on women's right to make decisions about her own life: just this weekend, North Dakota's Republican-controlled legislature passed a "personhood" amendment, effectively banning all abortions in the state.
Whether it's stripping away labor rights in Wisconsin, restricting voting rights in Pennsylvania, or attacking a woman's right to choose in Virginia, conservatives are growing bolder and reaching further than ever before.
It's time to get back to basics. DFA is targeting five swing districts in Virginia to send a powerful message to Republicans: If you continue to wage war on our core values, progressives will defeat you at the ballot box.
This isn't a process that will happen overnight, but we have to start now. We're endorsing our first round of candidates -- now we need to raise $10,000 to begin recruiting staff to join them in the field.
North Dakota lawmakers just passed a so-called "personhood" amendment -- basically saying that life begins at conception, effectively banning abortion and potentially banning some forms of birth control.
Right-wingers have been pushing their anti-choice agenda at the state level for years, and this fall, voters will have the final word on this amendment -- North Dakota could be the first state to enact a personhood abortion ban.
Anti-choice, anti-woman activists have been pushing for legislation like this all across the country. Now that they've scored a victory, they'll be embolded to push extreme measures like this everywhere.
This is an all-hands-on-deck moment. We need to stop these radical measures from taking hold in other states.
The United States has 58,344 Federally Licensed Gun Dealers. That's nearly twice the number of post offices.
See how many gun dealers are in your state here:
Background Checks are Quick and Easy -- And They Save Lives.
Under current law, federally licensed gun dealers are required to conduct criminal background checks for all gun sales. However, private sellers can sell guns without background checks, no questions asked.
We need to close this dangerous loophole in our federal gun laws. Under the Senate Background Checks Bill (S.374), if you want to sell your gun, you'll simply meet your buyer at a local gun store and the store will conduct the background check on the buyer. The gun lobby has argued that it is inconvenient to the point of being unreasonable for gun owners to require a background check for every private sale. But the facts make it clear that no matter where you live in America, getting a background check is quick and easy.
How do you feel about America's gun industry? We want to hear from you in the comments.
