You remember when George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin dead, and the "Stand Your Ground" laws promulgated by the American Legislative Exchange Council (or ALEC) were front-page news as a result? Or when ALEC's "Voter ID" laws in state legislatures received similar scrutiny? In the wake of all that, and with the help of committed citizen activism, over three dozen corporations left ALEC, and that has (according to The Guardian) dried up ALEC's funding a bit. But riding to ALEC's rescue, it seems, are big internet corporations like Google, Facebook, and Yelp. Why? I mean, they're all mammon-worshipers, but why now? Possibly because ALEC has lately declared that it's getting out of social policy and sticking with economic policy from now on? Like we should all bow down on our knees and give thanks! We ran down their economic policy goals yesterday -- more privatization, more pollution, more "freedom" for big corporations and less freedom for people. So Roots Action helps you tell Google, Facebook, and Yelp to abandon ALEC, while People for the American Way helps you tell everyone else.
Meanwhile, the USDA has rendered its verdict on neonicotinoids, deciding there's "not enough evidence" to ban them (adding that several factors cause bee colony collapse, which doesn't mean we shouldn't ban neonicotinoids) and calling for "more research" before it can take any action. One hopes the bees don't all die before then. And both the USDA and the EPA have also claimed that the cost of a neonicotinoid ban "could" outweigh the benefits. "Could," huh? Must we never do anything right if it "could" upset some CEO's effort to gild the plumbing in his ninth vacation home? And to think people will call this approach "conservative"! It's not conservative -- contrary to what you've heard, hating the environment isn't "conservative," and the USDA's judgment certainly doesn't protect the interests of small farmers against larger actors abusing their power. And it sure ain't liberal, either, because liberals don't approve of just any old innovation. Still, if our government won't listen, perhaps some of our big corporations will, so MoveOn helps you tell Lowe's and Home Depot to stop selling neonic-soaked garden plants.
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