Last Thursday, Mr. Obama pledged to wind down the "War on Terror" because it damages democracy, and the "liberal" media applauded it. How pleasing that they've all finally seen what so many of us saw over ten years ago! The New York Times's praise is especially repugnant -- they actually had the cojones to say that "much of what Mr. Obama said should have been said years ago." Like when they said it, in 2002? Oh, wait: they were doing PR for the Iraq war then. So Mr. Obama has pledged to "ultimately" repeal the Authorization to Use Military Force, but Roots Action helps you demand its repeal now. And Mr. Obama still wants to close Guantánamo, four years after telling us he'd close it within a year, but the Center for Constitutional Rights helps you demand that Mr. Obama take immediate steps to close Guantánamo, while Amnesty International helps you tell Mr. Obama to release Shaker Aamer, who has been cleared to leave Guantánamo twice. Also, the ACLU helps you tell Mr. Obama to end the targeting killing of Americans, which program he defended, rather weakly, last week.

Meanwhile, Chevron holds its annual shareholder's meeting in California this week, and Public Citizen helps you tell Chevron to keep its money out of American elections. Chevron donated $2.5 million to the right-wing SuperPAC called the Congressional Leadership Fund, and that $2.5 million represented over one-fifth of that SuperPAC's total fundraising haul for the 2012 elections. But Chevron's donations might have been illegal (even under the post-Citizens United regime), since Chevron receives federal contracts, and American law bans federal contractors from making political donations. Chevron, for its part, claims that Chevron subsidiaries (such as Chevron U.S.A.) actually hold the federal contracts, not the parent corporation, Chevron Corporation, that made the donations. Got that? Another reason to fight against corporations owning other corporations. When Zombie James Madison comes around, he can't get his head around how the anti-slavery amendments not only made corporations into people but somehow don't prevent them from owning other corporations.

In other news, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been investigating the Jeep Grand Cherokee -- particularly the model made from 1993 to 2004 -- for its role in fiery crash deaths. During those years, the Jeep Grand Cherokee's gas tank was positioned behind the rear axle, which left it quite exposed in the event of a rear-end crash. (In 2005, Chrysler moved the tank in front of the axle, ostensibly to clear room for storage.) The end result: perhaps hundreds of otherwise survivable rear-end collisions killed drivers simply because the gas tank exploded. You might well be saying (as Chrysler has been saying) that a few hundred fatalities over the last two decades isn't that many, but if that number ever became 100% of you, you might feel differently about it. If you're lucky! Hence Jenelle Embrey of Linden, VA has started a petition on change.org, helping you tell the NHTSA and the Department of Transportation to recall the offending Jeep Grand Cherokee models. And Ralph Nader supports the petition; need we say more?