So we're over 13 years into the "war on terror." Now raise your hand if you feel safer because of it. Go ahead, don't be shy. Anyone? Didn't think so. This year the Obama Administration -- headed up by a Nobel Peace Prize winner, no less -- hit a new low by conducting air strikes in Syria and Iraq without any Congressional authorization whatsoever. Hard to believe he's been outclassed by Tha Bush Mobb, and as an added bonus, precisely none of the folks who loved Tha Bush Mobb now also love Barack Obama! It's like he took our hopes on his back so he could dash them. Fortunately, I never placed my hopes in him: I placed them in America, and I still do. So even though various Congressfolk have introduced more than half a dozen let's-kill-brown-skinned-folks-over-there bills, the Friends Committee on National Legislation helps you tell your Congressfolk end the "war on terror" instead. You know what will work a whole lot better than just bombing everything? Treating the nations of the Middle East like they're comprised of human beings, and collaborating with them to end the threat from ISIS, since none of them are too fond of ISIS, either.
Meanwhile, the Union of Concerned Scientists helps you tell Shell to stop funding ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. Why? Well, because Royal Dutch Shell's CEO has made some very interesting comments about climate change lately. "Let me be very, very clear," he began (that's two "verys," for those of you keeping score at home), "for us climate change is real and it's a threat we want to act on," and also "we're not aligning with skeptics." What a breath of fresh air -- we're used to big oil corporations not just pooh-poohing the threat posed by carbon-based pollution and the higher average temperatures and the spike in extreme weather events it causes, but then hiring their own scientists to tell us that it's not happening, or isn't a threat, or isn't caused by fossil fuel corporations belching filth into the air. However, Shell still funds ALEC, which has bravely taken up the flag of climate change denialism. You'd like Shell to put its money where its mouth is, and if they need some steel in their spine to do that, surely we can lend some of ours, because we've got plenty.
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