After the ISIS attacks in Beirut and Paris, a lot of American politicians have been responding by pretending they're going to bomb the daylights out of everyone they don't like, or by declaring they won't take any refugees from Syria. To some Americans, that sounds like strength, but it's weakness -- anyone can bang on loud objects when they're angry, but it takes a grown-up to realize that, while banging on loud objects may be pleasurable for a short while, we're civilized people, with obligations not just to our past and to our present but also to our future, and a civilization that forgets that violence begets violence and mercy strengthens bonds will not last long. Hence CREDO helps you remind our government that civilized nations do not lash out in hatred when terrorists attack. Our government is currently bombing putative ISIS targets in Syria as we speak -- and they're conducting this bombing without the authority of Congress, I should add -- so regardless of what sympathetic noises President Obama has made in recent days, they need the reminder as much as any right-wing blowhard currently running for President.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans may vote on S.J.Res. 24, a "resolution of disapproval" that would nullify the EPA's carbon emissions plan, as early as today, so both the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Environmental Defense Fund help you tell your Senator to reject the bill. The EPA's Clean Power Plan would force energy corporations to cut their carbon emissions and convert more of their operations to renewable energy sources, but of course big energy corporations hate it, because being told to do anything differently than how they're doing it would prevent them from redistributing everyone else's wealth upward to themselves. No the EPA's plan isn't a "job-killer" but a job-creator, since the people who refit and redesign power plants presumably need jobs to do that, and it's not evidence of Big Gummint overreach, since it lets states develop their own plan that meets EPA targets, and it's certainly not a burden upon small businesses, since large corporations, not small businesses, do most of the polluting. So, really, right-wingers have no excuses to kill the EPA's Clean Power Plan. They could still be completely unreasonable, but let's expose that.
Finally, Pennsylvania residents, take note: SB 805, which would allow Pennsylvania's biggest energy producing corporations to opt out of paying state energy efficiency program fees, still awaits a Senate vote. Could it be they're having trouble explaining why big corporations shouldn't have to pay into the state's energy efficiency program while you still have to? That means now is the time to strike! So the Sierra Club helps you tell your state Senators to oppose SB 805 via email, but also points you to the Secretary of the Senate's phone number, 1.717.787.5920, so that you may call your state Senator. Perhaps SB 805 flaks will claim that the big corporations will pass the savings on to their consumers. Ever see a big corporation pass its savings onto consumers? You may be the first! And if everyone else still has to pay into a system that actually saves all of us money in the first place, then we'll all wind up paying more anyway when the program falters due to shortfalls in funding. More and more it seems corporatists don't understand how things actually work.
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