If you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to reject S.J.Res. 59, the military force authorization that would actually expand the President's war-making powers, then Demand Progress still helps you do that. Giving the President even more unconstitutional power is a bad idea, particularly when this particular President has loaded up his cabinet with folks who want to make war on Iran. But S.J.Res. 59 gives the President the power to add particular groups to his bad-guy list and then go ahead and bomb them, even if it results in what Ron Paul used to call "blowback," and it give Congress a power to veto these bad-guy list additions within 30 days that they'll never use, because they're Congress. Oh, and S.J.Res. 59 also expands the President's power to unconstitutionally detain people, and people might include you or I or those we love, particularly if any of us protest the next war and the one after that. So let's get to it, good peoples.
Meanwhile, Mike Pompeo's unfortunate ascension to State has left an opening for CIA Director, one the President wants to fill with CIA lifer Gina Haspel, who has (like Mr. Pompeo!) shown a lust for torturing suspects that should offend our citizenry, our heritage, and our civilization. We can't say for sure that Ms. Haspel tortured suspects herself (or, more likely, ordered other folks to do so), but we can say for sure that she oversaw torture in Thailand and that she oversaw the destruction of videotapes of CIA torture, and why gamble that she "wasn't that involved" when you can find someone better? Some folks will say she was just doing her job -- or they'll cynically invoke the CIA's long history of torture, as if that's a reason not to fight evil now! -- but we get only one life, and we really ought to make it a life the Lord would be proud of. Hence Roots Action helps you tell your Senators to block Ms. Haspel's ascension to the top of the CIA.
In other news, Just Foreign Policy helps you tell your U.S. House Reps to hold a vote on our involvement in the Saudi war against Yemen. Our involvement in the Saudi war against Yemen, of course, also includes our involvement in creating near-famine conditions, our involvement in the worst cholera epidemic in history, and our involvement in the collapse of Yemeni water, food, and health care infrastructure -- not to mention our involvement in the continuing destruction of Houthi rebels who have actually proven to be pretty good al-Qaeda fighters, which means we're essentially on the same side as al-Qaeda with regards to Yemen, and regardless of how thoroughly ISIS has surpassed al-Qaeda in evil, this is not the side you want to be on. The Senate has voted on our unconstitutional involvement refueling Saudi planes and furnishing weapons and helping them with targeting, but the House hasn't; it's well past time for our House Reps to do so.
Finally, H.R. 3923, the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, would (as the title suggests!) strengthen standards for detaining aliens at detention centers, including ending mandatory detention and barring use of private prisons for detention. I can already hear the President's votaries demanding to know why we should be so nice to immigrants when we have other problems, but that is of course a false choice, one that implies that our government can only ever do one thing at a time (and, er, one that also implies that our government should be spending all of its efforts catering to other people's prejudices). A great nation can treat immigrants humanely and (to name just one thing we also spend a lot of time talking about at this blog) revive moribund Appalachian economies, too -- among other good works we could enumerate. In the meantime, CREDO helps you tell your Congressfolk to pass the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act.
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