Roots Action (along with 10 other organizations) helps you tell your Congressfolk to oppose any new Authorization to Use Military Force (or AUMF) for President Obama, and to repeal the AUMFs Congress passed in 2001 and 2002. Maybe we should, you know, debate whether to formally declare war, as the Constitution would have us do? After all, endless war-making against whomever we're fighting has made no one any safer, though it has been good to weapons-manufacturing corporations. And those who claim that a 22-minute video of ISIS burning a Syrian pilot alive tells them all they need to know should answer this: does ISIS have a government? Do they have a political presence in any world legislature? If the answer to either of these questions is "no," then we don't have any business making war upon them. We have business, certainly, getting together the Middle Eastern countries ISIS is terrorizing, and negotiating a better outcome -- hopefully before the next gang of terrorists rises from the ashes of our air strikes in Iraq and Syria, a gang I'm sure will do things that make ISIS blanch.
Meanwhile, National People's Action helps you tell Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen to reject the proposed merger of two mediocre banks, CIT Group and OneWest Bank. Why? Because the resulting behemoth would be large enough to be considered a "systematically-important financial institution" under the law, one which we the taxpayers might have to bail out if it ran aground. Also, the banks have to prove their merger will be good for the public, at least partly by demonstrating a past record of investing in the communities they serve -- but these two banks generally haven't done well at that. Note, also, that OneWest emerged from the ashes of California lender IndyMac, and has needed FDIC assistance to resolve foreclosures IndyMac foisted on unfortunate families. And who has been one of the ringleaders of OneWest's emergence? None other than former hedge fund manager John Paulson, the poster child of banksters, who made $4 billion during the meltdown telling folks to invest in crappy mortgage securities while he bet against them. I would not want the stink of that man on anything I did.
Finally, if you've missed previous "free" trade-related action alerts, then Public Citizen helps you tell your Congressfolk you don't buy the bogus claim that the Trans-Pacific "Partnership" would help small businesses, and Democracy for America helps you tell Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) that supporting any form of "fast-tracking" for the TPP would be disastrous. Yes, big corporations are claiming that the TPP would be a boon for small businesses, like they always do whenever they want some undeserved goodies for themselves, but it doesn't matter if the majority of exporters are small/medium businesses if a mere three percent of small/medium businesses do any exporting at all. Would it be piling on to note that counting how many businesses are small businesses is much less relevant than counting how much of the economy small businesses have a piece of? No, it would not be piling on. As for Sen. Wyden, he should know that PPP found almost two-thirds of his state's voters opposing the TPP and nearly three-quarters opposing fast track. Maybe he doesn't have to worry about re-election in 2016, but we deserve a world where he has to earn it.
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