The "free" trade "fast-tracking" bill -- which allows the President to present "free" trade deals to Congress and demand an up-or-down vote with little debate and no opportunity to amend, wonder why -- now goes to the House. But though we're still pressuring the House -- which Public Citizen and Food and Water Watch still help you do -- we're also pressuring U.S. Trade Rep. Michael Froman, who supposedly once said that if Americans knew what was in the TPP, they'd hate it. So Demand Progress helps you tell Mr. Froman to release any emails exchanged between himself and big Wall Street banksters regarding the TPP. The Obama Administration claims that "free" trade deals won't derail financial reform efforts here in the U.S., but even Bloomberg has found that claim inaccurate, and European nations, apparently thinking their banks aren't free enough to play in the casino economy, are lobbying to reduce capital requirements Dodd-Frank imposes upon banks. So getting any Froman/bankster emails would go some way toward illuminating this quandary -- and reminding more Americans that "free" trade deals, as our elites are writing them, don't serve our interests.
Meanwhile, you've no doubt heard that an oil pipeline burst just off Santa Barbara, California a few weeks back, putting 100,000 gallons of crude oil into the Pacific and smothering many, many thousands of animals there, so Avaaz helps you tell California's Attorney General and Santa Barbara County's District Attorney to file charges against Plains All American, the pipeline's owner, and its CEOs. Those who would respond that we don't "know" if Plains All American actually did anything wrong would betray an incredible naivete, not just of the role a civilized society plays in enforcing right and wrong, but also of the politics of pipelines, where corporations routinely skimp on pipeline safety to save money -- indeed, Plains has been been in the news for big oil spills before. And remember that "save money" really means "redistribute money upward to their CEOs" -- per page 124 of this SEC report, Plains All American's CEO has averaged over $5 million in compensation annually since 2012, and stands to make almost $87 million more if he gets canned with or without cause. Nice work if you can get it!
Finally, USPIRG helps you tell the USDA to force food corporations to label meat raised with antibiotics. Maybe the USDA doesn't care what you think, packed as it is with corporate big ag types, but that doesn't change our duty to communicate our will. And our will, here, is that corporations don't pump their animals full of antibiotics to the point where most antibiotics get used on nominally health feed animals rather than sick people or sick animals. Antibiotic abuse makes bacteria stronger, after all, until one day it becomes so strong that antibiotics can't kill it, which means the next cut could kill us. And though the newly-developed antibiotic Teixobactin has killed MRSA in lab trials, it's still a couple years away from routine use in people, and, as you can imagine, a couple years is a long, long time for bacteria. Of course, McDonald's has announced it won't use chicken raised with antibiotics, and Perdue is also phasing out antibiotics in most of its chicken -- and both of these are good starts that require us to keep pushing.
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