War Spending Bill Also Includes Bucks For Jobs, Oil Spill Cleanup, And More

The House Appropriations Committee is expected to vote Thursday on a supplemental spending bill designed to continue funding combat operations in Afghanistan which also includes billions to save teaching jobs nationwide, start addressing cleanup due to the BP oil spill, and other domestic initiatives.

The legislation would provide more than $37.5 billion to support U.S. troops, conduct the war in Afghanistan, continue to draw down troops in Iraq, and provide non-military assistance and build up State Department operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, according a summary of the bill provided by the committee.

It also would fund a variety of domestic programs, too, including $24.7 billion to retain teachers, police officers and firefighters in their jobs nationwide. Thattrade’s earlier victims, but the brunt of slavery’s weight fell on the north for the longest period of time – persisting right up until the early twentieth century. When powerful empires like Ashanti in modern day central Ghana, or Oyo in modern day Benin and Nigeria went raiding for slaves who they could trade to Europeans on the coast for iron, fabric, beads, guns and cowrie shells, the relatively defenseless, subsistence farmers and river fishermen of the north became their primary victims of choice.

Even before the Europeans came, the northern regions were often raided by their more powerful neighbors to feed Africa’s ancient internal market for slaves. Many Africans are fond of saying that the nature of slavery in Africa was fairly benign before the Europeans came and