Five long years ago, President Obama said he'd close Guantánamo Bay within a year. Needless to say, he hasn't done that. Sure, Congress got all not-in-my-backyard about housing detainees and withheld funding to close Guantánamo, but I say don't make the damn promise if you can't keep it. Now Guantánamo has a little over 150 detainees (though the Obama Administration has shipped quite a few detainees to other camps), of whom 77 have already been cleared for transfer to nations that have pledged to respect the detainees' rights. Either put the detainees on trial or let them go; why is this so hard? So Amnesty International helps you tell President Obama to shutter Guantánamo Bay and transfer those detainees cleared for transfer. Don't believe the hype that "half of these detainees go back to terrorism when they're released." That hype had bad science behind it -- though it's a wonder more detainees don't become terrorists after having eight or ten years ripped from their lives for no good reason.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives may soon vote on H.R. 7, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. Now you may be saying to yourself: self, federal taxpayer dollars don't fund abortion now, and you'd be right, but this bill isn't really about that -- it's about preventing private health care plans from including abortion coverage, and it's also about preventing folks who need abortions from deducting them as medical expenses on their taxes. Well, actually, you could deduct it on your taxes -- if you can prove to the IRS that you were raped, or were in an incestuous relationship, or you needed the abortion to survive, or that the abortion itself caused you injury. I thought the Republican Party was all about lower taxes. I thought the Republican Party was supposed to be all about keeping the IRS off your back. See, it's really very easy to turn H.R. 7 on the Republicans. Both the National Women's Law Center and Planned Parenthood help you tell your Congressfolk to oppose H.R. 7.
Finally, Food and Water Watch helps you tell your Congressfolk too oppose the Trans-Pacific "Partnership" "free" trade deal, as well as fast-track authority for said deal. Why does Food and Water Watch care -- you know, besides the fact that they're good people? Because the TPP threatens to overwrite (in addition to any other law our nation has passed) our food safety laws, or any GMO-labeling law we might get passed, or any law promoting local food sources, because any law that "threatens" corporate profits can be overturned in the TPP's extralegal "investor-state tribunal" regime. And corporations do love to argue that regulations hamper their profits. Of course, regulations don't hamper their profits, and none of these corporations would really like to live in their Wild West fantasy where no regulations exist to, say, enforce contracts between parties or make sure the roads they all drive on are safe to travel. Not only wouldn't they like their little Wild West fantasy, I'd go so far as to say couldn't survive such a world. Because they're weak, in case I'm being too subtle.
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