Both MoveOn and the People's Email Network help you tell your Reps to support the Barbara Lee amendment that would essentially repeal the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (or AUMF), but I think this issue merits a phone call to your Reps; let's let them know what this means to us. The last two Presidents have abused the AUMF in order to launch substantial military operations without getting Congressional authorization. And House Speaker Ryan, for his part, says that the Lee Amendment "undercuts our military," thus pretending that it would require us to strand our troops wherever they are, and also saying he'd prefer to "pass one that gives the military the latitude and the flexibility they need to do their jobs," thus pretending that the AUMF hasn't always been about giving unconstitutional "flexibility" to the President. And seriously, what law of physics prevents Congress from passing an actual war resolution? Note well that the law of Congressional cowardice is not actually a law of physics, even if it often seems that way.
Meanwhile, as you may recall, S. 1297 would permanently reauthorize Section 702 of the nefarious FISA Amendments Act, which specifically authorizes our government to collect emails, texts, and phone calls in bulk and without a warrant. Look over S. 1297's list of Senate sponsors and you won't find such far right-wingers as Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Ron Johnson, all to varying degrees skeptical of government spying, but you will find the Republican Caucus's Last Moderate, Susan Collins of Maine, and you'll also find Senate defense "hawks" such as Lindsey Graham and John McCain. I've said this before and I'll say it again: lone wolf terrorists and terrorist organizations are not "existential threats." Terrorists don't destroy societies -- they terrorize otherwise sane and healthy people into destroying their societies for them. So let's foil them by staying free. Free Press helps you tell your Congressfolk to protect the privacy of good Americans by rejecting S. 1297.
Finally, Food and Water Watch helps you tell the Federal Trade Commission (or FTC) to stop Amazon's proposed acquisition of Whole Foods. Currently four corporations control 60% of America's grocery sales, and food production is really not the kind of thing we should ever allow to become monopolized, not just because monopolies can control farmers as well as consumers but because, well, everyone has to eat. And while Amazon is a monopoly in online sales, not supermarkets, we should not allow them to use their monopoly power in online sales to wedge themselves into every other marketplace. This is why I always say no corporation should ever own any other corporation, because that concentrates power in fewer hands, and the fewer the hands that hold the power, the less freedom for the rest of us. That would seem like a conservative viewpoint, of course, if conservatism hadn't been so thoroughly debased by its loudest adherents over the years.
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