The Drug Policy Alliance helps you tell your Reps and Senators to repeal the asset forfeiture laws that make it much easier for state and local law enforcement agencies to take money from folks who haven't been proven guilty of a crime. This is yet another remnant of the I'm-tough-on-crime-because-I-have-very-small-testicles era -- law enforcement wanted to stop suspected drug dealers from moving money around, so they concocted a way to seize it, and who could have predicted that they would one day become so financially dependent on the practice that they'd abuse it? Besides anyone who thought about it for a minute, I mean. Asset forfeiture not only constitutes an abuse of government power against innocent-until-proven-guilty citizens, it's also an act of profound cowardice -- if state and local governments have trouble funding police forces, they should have the guts to raise taxes, or, at the very least, stop giving out welfare handouts to corporations in the form of tax breaks. I mean, if you don't have at least that amount of courage, you really should be in another line of work.
Meanwhile, Congress is back in session, and the House passed H.R. 1599, the absurdly-named Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act, before the break -- a bill that actually prevents accurate labeling of genetically-modified organisms (or GMOs) in our food by preventing states and localities from mandating such labeling, and which "compensates" for that by permitting a "voluntary" labeling regime for GMOs, just like the "voluntary" regime we have had for over two decades that no one uses to label GMOs. (Those four-digit PLU codes you see in the produce section? If anyone wanted to label their GMO-laden produce, they'd start the code with an "8." Ever see one? Of course you haven't.) It's only safe for the big agricultural corporations that seem to get all the say about everything, even with supposed GMO-labeling proponent Barack Obama, who will surely add this to his list of broken promises, probably in the name of "bipartisanship" (when, like, hello? support for GMO labeling is actually bipartisan!). Just Label It helps you tell your Senators to support honest food labeling by rejecting H.R. 1599.
Finally, the Department of Labor is finishing up rules that would require retirement investment advisors to adhere to a "fiduciary duty" to put their customers' needs ahead of their own. Sound commonsensical to you? Of course it does! And you know what that means: Wall Street banksters hate it and are trying to scuttle it. They're not completely stupid, of course, so they say that of course they look out for their customers' best interests, so why do they need regulations forcing them to do that? (Though if you are, in fact, looking out for your customers' best interests, regulations mandating that you do that shouldn't really bother you.) They also say the rule will close off investment advice to large portions of Americans -- as if there will ever be a shortage of customers looking for retirement investment advice, or a shortage of professionals looking to earn money giving it! OK, I take it back: they are completely stupid. Americans for Financial Reform helps you support the Department of Labor's retirement advice rules.
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