Ho hum, Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) has introduced a "resolution of disapproval" aiming to nullify the FCC's net neutrality rules. Such resolutions, as you know, supposedly stop the Executive branch from doing something unwarranted or harmful, yet I only ever hear of such resolutions on those rare occasions our government actually does something good for its owners, the American people. It makes one wish Democrats had ever contemplated a "resolution of disapproval" at, well, any damn thing that arrogant monster George W. Bush did. The good news? President Obama would have to sign this resolution of disapproval to make it law. You think even he would 13-dimensional-chess his way into signing a resolution undoing something he specifically and publicly asked an Executive branch agency to do? (And if he did, would right-wingers applaud -- or declare he's just doing that to put us off his real Socialist agenda?) In any case: it doesn't matter what they want, it matters what we want. So Free Press helps you tell Congress to respect the will of the people and reject the anti-net neutrality "resolution of disapproval."
Meanwhile, H.R. 912, the Appalachian Communities Health Emergency Act (or ACHE Act), would mandate that our government study mountaintop removal coal mining and determine whether it poses significant health risks to surrounding communities. H.R. 912 would then empower our government, under the auspices of the Clean Water Act, to prohibit such mining wherever it poses these risks. Sounds rational, right? Of course we know the science has already told us that cancer and birth defects and lung cancer all go up dramatically wherever corporations blow the tops off mountains to get to the coal underneath, but for the right wing, none of this is reasonable, because TEH WAR ON COAL!!!! All their other undeclared wars have gone badly enough that you'd think they'd have learned by now not to see a "war" everywhere but, to paraphrase a famous philosopher, you can't stop right-wingers, you can only hope to contain them, which we do by shaming them for putting corporate money over people's health. So CREDO helps you tell your Congressfolk to support an end to mountaintop removal mining and the health horrors it brings.
Meanwhile, the Sierra Club helps you tell Chevron's corporate board to stop dropping huge piles of money on state and local elections. The news hook? The city council of Richmond, CA sued Chevron after a Chevron refinery explosion sent 15,000 people -- 15,000 people! -- to local hospitals. And then Chevron responded by spending $3 million on mayoral and city council elections in a happily failed effort to pack those offices with people who wouldn't sue them. What right do we have to tell Chevron how to spend its money, right-wingers ask? The right granted to us by the Constitution's First Amendment, obviously. Thanks to our right-wing Supreme Court, Chevron has a "right" to tell us all to go scratch, but it does not have a right, however, to be insulated from the PR consequences of such decisions, any more than a child who acts out has a "right" to be free from the discipline that would remind them how to act. Is that an unfair comparison? Maybe so -- after all, children are generally a lot more charming than corporations.
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