Action: sane nuclear policy, and "free" trade.

The President's budget actually requests an increase in nuclear weapons spending, to $12 billion, and while that's small potatoes compared to other areas of the budget, we could spend at least some of that money a lot better than we do. Hence Sen. Markey has introduced the Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures (or SANE) Act, which would cut $10 billion annually in nuke spending. There is no reasonable way to argue against that goal by saying ZOMG TEH TERRURIZTZ WILL WIN!!!!! Terrorists use whatever's at hand to achieve their goals, and they usually don't have nuclear weapons lying around -- a terrorist might get his hands on a nuke one day, but that's an argument to build fewer nukes, not more. It's also an argument to strengthen programs that secure loose nuclear materials, programs toward which Congress has had considerable ambivalence lately. Finally, hitting a terrorist with a nuclear bomb is a bit like hitting a roach with a sledgehammer, and missing the roach. So Peace Action West helps you tell your Congressfolk to cut nuclear weapons spending.

Meanwhile, word on the street is that a "fast-track" bill -- one that would, as you know, permit little debate and no amendments on the Trans-Pacific "Partnership" "free" trade agreement -- could be introduced into Congress any day now. Perhaps with Sen. Warren's Washington Post op-ed slamming the pact's "investor-state tribunals" -- the ones that would nullify American laws so that corporations could extract tribute from the American people at will -- our Congressfolk will get cold feet for a while, but eventually they will bring it forward, and so Public Citizen helps you tell your Representatives to reject "fast-tracking" "free" trade agreements. No one who has defended the TPP has yet bothered to explain why the bill needs less debate and speedier passage -- indeed, folks who defend the TPP seem to assume that defending it from criticisms alone argues for less debate and speedier passage, when any moderately accomplished student of logic would tell you it doesn't. What do they have to hide, you might wonder? "Free" trade's record of unsafe products, job outsourcing, and wrecked economies, maybe?

Comments

[Denny]

Thanks!