You may recall that the Peruvian corporation Tal S.A. -- which produces half of the blueberries Americans buy from Peru -- has fired nine of its workers, who just so happened to be their union's entire executive committee. Your fellow CEOs would find you a bit gauche if you were that obvious in America, but things are a little more freestyle in Peru. Despite our best efforts, Tal S.A. hasn't budged in its unwillingness to give these folks their jobs back and negotiate a fair contract with their union; in fact, they've fired hundreds more workers, and blamed the union for it. I know right-wingers who would be more than happy to blame you for it, too, if you pressured Tal S.A. to do the right thing, but you should recognize such an argument as a hostage situation, and we don't do hostage situations. So now it's time to tell Tal S.A.'s American buyers to pressure Tal S.A. into treating their workers better, which the International Labor Rights Forum helps you do. Tal S.A. may think it has us by the short-hairs, but we buy and eat the blueberries, so we have the power. Our Glorious Elites spend all their time telling you you don't have the power, but they're wrong -- and they live in mortal fear of a world where we all know they're wrong. Helping them adjust to reality really would be the compassionate thing to do.
Meanwhile, S. 2123, the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee ages ago and represents a more bipartisan criminal justice reform act than we had any reason to expect from this Senate -- but the full Senate hasn't voted on it. Possibly Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell awaits an opportunity to extract Estate Tax repeal as a tribute for allowing a vote, but remember: it doesn't matter what he wants, it only matters what we want, and we want a bill that would begin to wean us off our habit of handing out endless mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders, because a sane and healthy society doesn't hand out endless mandatory minimum sentences for such things -- certainly not when banksters crap all over the economy and can't be put in jail even for a day. Anyway, the ACLU helps you tell your Senators to support the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act. Don't believe the hype from right-wingers that sentencing reform is somehow "anti-police," or equals "disrespect for police." If police only feel validated by the most draconian sentencing possible for their collars, then they're getting the whole public service thing wrong. And most police aren't like that -- in fact, I suspect they'd welcome even the slightest amount of relief from being on the tough-on-crime treadmill.
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