S. 2943, the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2017, is currently in conference -- and apparently the Senate version would limit the amount of information the Pentagon would be required to provide about using private contractors. You recall, perhaps, Gen. Shinseki's statement before the Iraq war that "several hundred thousand soldiers" would be needed to occupy Iraq, which was rather more than Bush the Lesser planned to provide -- and you may also recall Blackwater mercenaries getting a thousand dollars per day to work during the occupation of Iraq. I mention these two items, of course, because they are intimately related, and because their knowledge reflects very badly on the Bush Mobb's judgment. Think maybe our government might be trying to cover a President Trump's ass when he decides to invade a much larger country and outsources even more of our military functions to "the best" private mercenaries? I've said it before and I'll say it again, at the risk of being called a Communist or whatever: we waste a damn lot of money selling public functions to private corporations, and this problem might be at its worst in the defense industry. So Just Foreign Policy joins with MoveOn to help you tell Congress to reject provisions that would hide information about public spending on private defense contractors from the people.
Meanwhile, quite a few big food corporations, including Campbell's, Mars, and Dannon, have decided to use clear GMO labels on their packages -- you know, the kind that say things like THIS FOOD IS MADE WITH GENETICALLY-MODIFIED INGREDIENTS, things that anyone who knows how to read can read. Well, Hershey Co. has apparently decided to go in the other direction, and though it's committed to removing GMOs from some of their chocolates, a commitment isn't a result, and if it's not going to label GMOs in the foods that continue to have GMO ingredients, then the whole thing starts to look like a scam. I mean, I hate to think the worst of our corporate titans, but I don't want to be a schmuck, either. So Just Label It helps you tell the Hershey Corporation to label its GMO ingredients clearly on its products. And not with no fancy-pants "QR codes" that you need a smartphone to read, either -- not everyone has a smartphone, and not everyone who has a smartphone is an amateur programmer. And, really, what the hell is wrong with just saying THIS FOOD IS MADE WITH GENETICALLY-MODIFIED INGREDIENTS? Besides, the fact that "this food contains genetically-modified ingredients" would be snappier, I mean? (Look, the folks who write copy for food labels aren't exactly Raymond Carver acolytes.)
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