Time to get organized

The major unions should pony up a few dollars to underwrite a new organization, the Union of Unemployed Workers. The UUW would have two functions: to fight for the rights of and improved benefits for citizens who happen to be unemployed or underemployed; and to train a new generation of workers on the history of and reasons for labor organizations, so that eventually, when they return to fulltime employment in crappy jobs in the service sector, they'll be ready, willing and able to organize and join workplace unions.

It's not just Obama.

It's going to be important in 2014 -- in terms of manpower; donations; Green, Peace & Freedom and independent challenges; etc. -- to remember who is responsible for what.

Apparently, House Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi influenced Democratic members of whom we can usually expect better, such as Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL), Sheila Jackson Lee (TX), Luis Gutierrez (IL), Jan Schakowsky (IL), Marcy Kaptur (OH), Chris Van Hollen (MD), Steve Israel (NY), Ami Bera (CA), Joaquin Castro (TX), Joe Kennedy (MA), Annie Kuster (NH), Nita Lowey (NY) and Louise Slaughter (NY), to vote to protect NSA's power. If only 12 of them had opposed the program, some spying would have been stopped.

That the vote was close is good news, however: it offers hope that opponents will be encouraged to keep fighting.

How Nancy Pelosi Saved the NSA Surveillance Program: "The obituary of Rep. Justin Amash's amendment to claw back the sweeping powers of the National Security Agency has largely been written as a victory for the White House and NSA chief Keith Alexander, who lobbied the Hill aggressively in the days and hours ahead of Wednesday's shockingly close vote. But Hill sources say most of the credit for the amendment's defeat goes to someone else: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. It's an odd turn, considering that Pelosi has been, on many occasions, a vocal surveillance critic...."

The rest of the story: http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/25/how_nancy_pelosi_saved_the_nsa_surveillance_program

More on possible congressional resistance to domestic spying: Six Ways Congress May Reform NSA Snooping

1) Raise the standard for what records are considered “relevant.”
2) Require NSA analysts to obtain court approval before searching metadata.
3) Declassify Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinions.
4) Change the way Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judges are appointed.
5) Appoint a public advocate to argue before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
6) End phone metadata collection on constitutional grounds.

Move along. Nothing to see here,

Don't read too much into the administration's "impatience" with Pres. Karzai. Even if the combat troops are pulled out earlier than the end of next year, "advisers" will stay and you can count on billions of your dollars going to Afghanistan into the distant future, even as our own infrastructure problems continue to fester.

Billions for Kabul; nothing for Detroit.