One long national nightmare is over; now begins the next one. The Russell Amendment to the defense authorization bill would allow federal contractors to use "religious liberty" as an excuse to take your hard-earned taxpayer money and then discriminate against people they don't like -- i.e., gay folks, Muslims, single mothers, women who use birth control, et cetera. What does that have to do with defense, you ask? It doesn't -- it has to do with the defense authorization bill being a must-pass bill, which means Congressfolk routinely attach amendments to it that would never pass under the least bit of scrutiny. Does no one remember that folks used to routinely use the Bible to justify slavery? And they could do so again -- no, I believe they'd claim that "religious liberty" justifies an "exemption" from the 13th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. So, do I have action alerts? You bet I have action alerts! CREDO, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, the National Women's Law Center, and NARAL all help you tell your Reps and Senators to pimp-slap the Russell Amendment into a just oblivion. And you can tell them to oppose the entire bill if it contains the Russell Amendment. Republicans have filibustered defense authorization bills for less, after all.
But Congress ain't done -- they'd also like to obliterate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. You remember when Wells Fargo got caught committing all that fraud on their customers? We wouldn't have known about it without the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Plenty of Congressfolk, across the ideological spectrum, excoriated the bad behavior of Wells Fargo's executives -- but plenty of Congressfolk across the ideological spectrum also want to cripple the agency that helped expose that behavior! Banksters absolutely crippled our economy eight years ago, and still our "leaders" whine about a "nanny state" every time we try to institute reforms that would prevent a similar catastrophe. It's not that I don't understand why they act that way -- banksters have spent over a billion dollars lobbying Congressfolk and funding their campaigns this year -- but I would think they would have some shame by now. I mean, a normal person would. So Americans for Financial Reform helps us apply that shame yet again, by helping you tell Congress to reject efforts to cripple the CFPB.
Finally, though Congressional leaders have said they won't bring up the Trans-Pacific "Partnership" for a vote, and plenty of Congressfolk who typically support "free" trade deals have said they'd never vote for it, it's the day after Election Day now, and you know what that means: Congress thinks it can do whatever it likes, and to hell with us. And now the "liberal" media can begin the hard work of convincing the public that the Trans-Pacific "Partnership" is inevitable, just like they did when the American people didn't want the bailout back in 2008. Of course, "free" traders' case for this job-killing, law-nullifying, corporate power-worshiping "free" trade deal was full of rhetorical absurdity to begin with (booga booga China booga booga American leadership booga booga we know the last few "free" trade deals stunk so let us pass this one and we promise we'll listen to you in the future ha ha sucker!), so why should their M.O. change? You can use the tools in the upper-left-hand corner of this page to call your Reps and Senators to let them know you still oppose the Trans-Pacific "Partnership."
Comments