The Senate finally passed an unemployment extension; now it goes to the House, where the worst House Speaker in history, John Boehner, now says he'll only allow a vote on it if some unspecified "job growth" measures get attached. What happened to Mr. Boehner's severe concern for the states who'd have such a hard time paying out five months of unemployment insurance? I guess he finally figured out that professing such "concern," particularly when states were expressing the precise opposite of that concern, made him look like the world's biggest idiot, and like all idiots he will now say nothing about it and hope you forget. But why should we forget? The Coalition on Human Needs, the National Women's Law Center, and USAction all help you tell Mr. Boehner to allow a vote on the Senate's unemployment insurance bill already. Feel free to add that you want the House to pass the bill without conditions or "job growth" initiatives. It's not that a bill couldn't include some job growth initiatives, but the ones the Republicans will insist upon won't grow anything but their corporate paymasters' bank accounts.
Meanwhile, the Obama Administration claims its overseas drone strikes are "narrowly targeted" at "top-level terrorist leaders planning to attack the United States," and that these strikes haven't killed very many civilians. But that's bunkum -- independent reporting tells us these drone strikes tend to kill "low-level militants" who aren't actually anywhere close to "planning to attack the United States," and that the strikes have killed more civilians than "top-level terrorist leaders." Hence Reps. Schiff (D-CA) and Jones (R-NC) have brought us H.R. 4372, the Targeted Lethal Force Transparency Act, which would require the Executive branch to report annually on how many combatants and civilians U.S. drone strikes kill. The first annual report would also include the last six years of drone strikes, and would describe exactly how the Executive branch defines "combatants" and "civilians." I mean, we know what these words mean, so any "innovation" the Executive branch attempts in defining these words will make them look idiotic. So both MoveOn and Peace Action West help you tell our government to support transparency for drone killings.
Comments