In the next few weeks, the deficit “super committee” will develop a deficit reduction plan that could set the direction of the federal budget for the next decade. There are 12 people in the room making those decisions, and they need to hear from you.

Click here to tell the super committee to support a plan that ends the wars, cuts wasteful military and nuclear spending and protects alternatives to war. You will be redirected to their public comment page, where you can fill out your information and personalize the sample message.

August 6th is the 66th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima. It is only by remembering the past that we can ensure our mistakes are never repeated.

Join me on Saturday, August 6th to remember the victims of nuclear weapons, and call attention to the danger nuclear material poses to our planet. Our keynote speaker, Dr. Arjun Makhijani, is a world-renowned nuclear expert who will draw the deep connections between nuclear weapons and nuclear power in light of this year’s tragic events at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.  Also, we’ll have live music, Taiko drummers and a live video chat with bomb survivors from Japan.

The event will be held outside of Livermore Laboratory, one of the two labs responsible for designing and developing nuclear warheads. 

Last night Congress voted to pass the final budget for 2011, and while there is a lot we are not happy about, there is one success to celebrate. Nuclear nonproliferation efforts were given an increase of $190 million over last year’s funding.

These important programs that clean up loose nuclear material around the world had been threatened with as much as a 20% cut! That would have severely jeopardized the efforts to lock down bomb-grade nuclear material within four years, one of the crucial steps on the road towards a nuclear weapons free world.

from Global Security Newswire:

Our political team spent a couple of days last week making the rounds of key congressional offices to strategize, feel out the new political landscape, and push for action on ending the war in Afghanistan, taking further steps to eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons, and building out the development and diplomatic tools we need to deal with conflict peacefully.

Being so early in the year, and with committee assignments not even settled yet, there was still a lot up in the air. Here are a few of the interesting questions that surfaced and that will inform our organizing and lobbying in 2011.