Republicans have apparently produced an Obamacare repeal bill, but seem a bit timid about actually showing it to anyone. First they showed the bill only to Republican House members in a room guarded by Capitol police, preventing any of them from leaving with a copy of it; then they turned Sen. Paul (R-KY) away when he showed up with a copy machine, then they told Rep. Tonko (D-NY) that the bill wasn't in the room, then Ways and Means Chair Kevin Brady (R-TX) exited the room professing no knowledge of the bill's whereabouts, and then a group of Democratic Reps showed up and searched the room, to no avail. Needless to say, this isn't a good look for Republicans, but as I've also suggested before, failure and incompetence are like fuel to these guys, so I wouldn't be surprised if they "find" their Obamacare repeal bill very shortly and have a vote on it very quickly. Nothing prevents you from calling your House Reps (using the tools in the upper left-hand corner of this page) and demanding that the public get to see this bill before they vote upon it. Really, it's our government, so it's not so much to ask.
Moms Rising helps you tell Walgreen's to get the junk food out of its checkout lines. You know how that works: big supermarket and drugstore chains put items in the checkout line you're more likely to buy on impulse -- since, you know, you're already so close to getting out of there! -- and if you've got your children with you, they're likely to want whatever's there, too, and it almost certainly will be something like candy bars or soda that ain't good for them, and they'll almost certainly be less able to resist it than you will. And while supermarkets can afford to appear non-judgmental about such things, what does it say for a drug store that they're putting junk food in front of you as you're getting ready to go? Your inner Libertarian may well be asking what's the big deal? If enough people want it, the market will provide it! That's rubbish, of course -- markets thrive on giving you what they want and convincing you that you want it -- but certainly the market will never know what we want unless we speak out.
Meanwhile, Environmental Action helps you tell Target to cut down on the amount of food it throws away for cosmetic reasons. Not too many years ago, big food retailers routinely threw out produce that didn't "look perfect," to the point that they threw out 10 percent of all food produced in America -- and if you've ever picked through the tomatoes to find the "best" ones, you know why they do it! But food that doesn't "look perfect" is still nutritious, and the thrown-out food in our landfills produces about a quarter of all methane emissions in America -- and, as you know, methane emissions pack a big climate change punch. Thanks in part to agitation from consumers like you, the big grocery corporations are starting to rethink their policy toward less-than-perfect-looking produce, but Target isn't one of them, and though Target probably will never be as big a player as WalMart on the grocery scene, a lot of folks still go there -- which means Target's in a position to do a lot of good, if it chooses. So let's help them choose wisely.
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