I'm meeting Pelosi August 14 to end the Famine in Yemen

Help me press Nancy Pelosi to end the Famine in Yemen in Springfield, Illinois on August 14. 
[Individuals only!]: sign the MoveOn petition for individuals

[Organizations only!]: sign the Demand Progress - FCNL - Win Without War letter for organizations

“Where are our missing twenty millions of Irish should be here today instead of four, our lost tribes? And our potteries and textiles, the finest in the whole world! And our wool that was sold in Rome in the time of Juvenal and our flax and our damask from the looms of Antrim and our Limerick lace, our tanneries and our white flint glass down there by Ballybough and our Huguenot poplin that we have since Jacquard de Lyon and our woven silk and our Foxford tweeds and ivory raised point from the Carmelite convent in New Ross, nothing like it in the whole wide world! Where are the Greek merchants that came through the pillars of Hercules, the Gibraltar now grabbed by the foe of mankind, with gold and Tyrian purple to sell in Wexford at the fair of Carmen? Read Tacitus and Ptolemy, even Giraldus Cambrensis. Wine, peltries, Connemara marble, silver from Tipperary, second to none, our far-famed horses even today, the Irish hobbies, with king Philip of Spain offering to pay customs duties for the right to fish in our waters. What do the yellow-johns of Anglia owe us for our ruined trade and our ruined hearths?”
- James Joyce, Ulysses


I’m meeting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on August 14 in Springfield, Illinois to end the Famine in Yemen. “Ourselves alone,” as it were.
Nancy Pelosi doesn’t know about the meeting yet. She doesn’t know that we’re meeting, she doesn’t know the purpose of the meeting, she doesn’t know me from Adam.
All she knows is that she’s going to Springfield to address the Illinois Democratic County Chairs’ Association and a bunch of Illinois Democrats. She expects to see Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the Senate Democratic Whip. She expects to Betsy Dirksen Londrigan, the IL-13 Congressional candidate “anointed” by the DCCC and the Champaign County Democrats. She doesn’t expect to see me there.
But “I’ll be there,” as we used to say in Jobs with Justice. I’ll be there as the elected representative of Democratic voters in Cunningham Township 18, and as the Third Vice Chair of the Champaign County Democratic Party. I’ll also be there as the Policy Director of Just Foreign Policy. I’ll be there hand-delivering this MoveOn petition for individuals urging Nancy Pelosi to end the Saudi war in Yemen in the August House-Senate negotiations on the “veto proof” National Defense Authorization Act, by including the Adam Smith-Ro Khanna-Adam Schiff-Pramila Jayapal Yemen War Powers amendment that passed the House. The Smith-Khanna amendment would cut off the unconstitutional supply of U.S. intelligence for Saudi airstrikes in Yemen. It would also cut off the U.S. supply of spare parts for Saudi airstrikes in Yemen. [The NDAA is seen as “veto proof” in Washington because it “funds the troops.”]
I’ll also be there hand-delivering this organizational letter of peace and justice organizations to Speaker Pelosi, organized by Demand Progress, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, and Win Without War. The organizational letter presses Pelosi to include three amendments that passed the House in the “veto proof” House-Senate NDAA that is sent to Trump: the Smith-Khanna Yemen War Powers amendment, the Tulsi Gabbard – Ted Lieuamendment that prohibits the Special Defense Acquisition Fund from supplying spare parts and munitions transfers to Saudi Arabia, and the Tom Malinowski amendment that imposes a one-year ban on munitions sales, transfers, and licenses to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Malinowski, a former top official of Human Rights Watch, was also a top official in the Obama-Biden Administration when the Obama-Biden Administration started the Saudi war in Yemen. So in Washington DC parlance, Malinowski is a key “validator” of efforts to end the war. His testimony could be invaluable at the Hague.
Springfield is the ideal venue to end the biblical catastrophe that was unleashed on Yemen by the Obama-Biden Administration. Springfield is where Barack Obama announced his candidacy for President. I was in the crowd that day. Barack Obama promised us that he would “end the mindset that got us into war.” Barack Obama told the Boston Globe that the President only uses force pursuant to Congressional authorization, just as it says in the War Powers Resolution of 1973.
Springfield is also where my uncles Ed and Bob served in the state legislature, before Uncle Ed got elected to Congress and moved to Washington. They were Republicans. Everyone has their cross to bear, as my mother used to say.
Let’s end the biblical catastrophe in Yemen now. Stand with me when I meet Nancy Pelosi in Springfield on August 14 by signing my MoveOn petition. 
Thanks for all you do to help me end the Famine in Yemen,

Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy

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