Google spoke sternly about leaving ALEC not too long ago, accusing the right-wing legislative organization of "literally lying" about climate change -- but Google still contributes to the political campaigns of inveterate climate change deniers, to the tune of almost $100,000 annually over the last seven calendar years, so Sum of Us helps you encourage Google to stop contributing to climate change-denying politicians. Don't worry that you'll accidentally snare the good politician who happens to think climate change is bunk, because climate change deniers also happen to be strict corporatists opposing any "government meddling" (i.e., your meddling, since your government belongs to you) in the "free" markets. I'm sure this is why Google still supports the campaigns of climate change deniers -- because they're more likely to get Google some tax break or other. But, really, they can't have it both ways: supporting corporatists means obstructing any meaningful attempt to deal with rising oceans, destroyed ecosystems, and more extreme weather events.
Meanwhile, Mary McDonald of Lexington, KY has started a petition on Change.org asking President Obama to pardon Aaron Glasscock, a pre-med student aiming to become a pediatrician, instead convicted of conspiracy to distribute cocaine in late 1999 with a sentence of 30 years without parole. Why? Because it sure looks like Mr. Glasscock's father and friend framed him -- his father, with whom Mr. Glasscock had very limited contact for many years, offered him a free spring break trip to Florida to Mr. Glasscock if he would drive said friend to Florida to look at houses to flip and then drive him back, with some $900,000 in the truck's second tank all set to buy cocaine with. Mr. Glasscock has been a model prisoner over the last 15 years, having kept himself busy enough with coursework and activities and jobs to make you think he'll have an easier time making it on the outside than most, and though he may disagree, I think we should blame wrongdoers more than the people unwittingly caught up in their wrongdoing. You can argue for his pardon and release here.
Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell the FCC to reject the proposed Comcast/Time-Warner merger, then Free Press helps you do that. Do not be swayed by Comcast's promise to keep net neutrality protections in place -- they should be doing that anyway because it's the right thing to do, and anyway they're only making that promise until 2018, possibly hoping for another good midterm cycle for Republicans during that time. (Don't laugh: the 2010 cycle coincided with weak net neutrality rules easily discarded by the courts, almost like that was the idea.) And if Comcast takes over Time-Warner, they'll control the vast majority of the cable TV market in America, which means they'll be able to cut jobs (in the new, "streamlined" corporation resulting from the merger) and jack up prices pretty much at will -- and we'll never have the high-speed internet that results from actual competition, whether that's actual competition between corporations or actual competition between corporations and municipalities. To Comcast, one must always say: how much is enough?
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