The FCC, now led by the right-wing former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai, aims not merely to gut net neutrality regulations -- the ones that let you, and not some corporation, determine where you want to go on the internet -- but to make it considerably more difficult for you to leave a public comment. Why would that be? It couldn't be because you (like nearly everyone else in America regardless of ideological stripe) want the FCC's net neutrality rules to stay exactly the way they are, could it? I kid, of course -- that's exactly why it is. But, as The Nation's latest email says, "(a)fter millions fought to ensure a level playing field, Pai would allow monopoly Internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon to pick winners and losers online." Right-wing politicians constantly complain about "government picking winners and losers," not because they love freedom or even the "free" market, but because they want to pick winners and losers on behalf of their corporate paymasters, and if they get to pick here, we're all going to be losers. Hence Battle for the Net helps you tell the FCC to stop trying to destroy our internet freedom.
Meanwhile, S. 987, the 100 By 50 Act, would take steps to get America off fossil fuels entirely by 2050. The bill would (among other things!) build out zero-emission public transportation, help lower-income working families get more access to renewable energy, get fossil fuel workers more assistance as their jobs disappear, retrain workers in clean energy jobs (which sure is a better idea than trying to retrain them as computer programmers!), and end corporate welfare for fossil fuel corporations. It's an ambitious and entirely necessary bill, achieving aims of which most Americans would approve (what, you think Americans like pollution?), but be warned that hateful Republicans won't be your only obstacle to getting it passed -- Democrats addicted to "entrepreneurship" and "bipartisanship" and "the art of the possible" may be a bigger one. But ain't nothing we can't accomplish when we do it ourselves, instead of electing more Democrats and hoping against hope they'll learn some courage. CREDO helps you tell your Congressfolk to support a real renewable energy effort by supporting the 100 by 50 Act.
Finally, CREDO helps you tell your Congressfolk to support the Raise the Wage Act. I don't have bill numbers for the latest iteration of the bill, but Sen. Sanders also introduced it during the last Congress; it would raise the minimum wage from $7.25/hour now to $9.90/hour right away, and then gradually raise the minimum wage to $15/hour by 2024. That's seven years from now, for those folks in your life who constantly complain that minimum wage hikes are a "shock to the system" for small businesses. They're not, of course -- yeah, bosses have to pay workers more, but when workers have more money in their pockets, they also buy more stuff, which means a lot of that money eventually makes its way back to the businesses that are paying the higher wage. And after 100-plus days of Republicans trying to hide workplace injuries and block new overtime pay rules and block regulations keeping banksters from exploiting worker pension funds and even cutting overtime for workers, it's well past time we changed the subject. Think we'll succeed, though the politicians and the "liberal" media oppose us? We'll never know unless we try.
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