Amnesty International helps you tell the government of Venezuela to release its political prisoners. Venezuela just had an election, as you know, and it wasn't quite the resounding victory for which incumbent President Nicolas Maduro might have hoped -- in fact, given the increased number of protestors out in the streets after the election, it may well have been a loss. Mr. Maduro has taken a page from Mr. Assad's playbook by shooting those protestors, a few short years after following in the footsteps of his predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez, by wresting rule-by-decree power, this time while the opposing party controlled the nation's assembly. But it doesn't matter whether I might agree with any part of Mr. Maduro's political philosophy, because governments are always wrong to fire on their protestors, and governments are always wrong to detain their political opponents. And if governments do either one, then they are failed governments, and deserve to be out of power.
Meanwhile, Food and Water Watch helps you tell the U.S. Department of Agriculture (or USDA) to keep unsafe Chinese chicken out of American stores. Specifically, you'll ask the USDA to deny "granting equivalency status for the poultry inspection system in the People's Republic of China," which the USDA would like to do though China's lackluster poultry inspection system is notorious the world over, allowing things you might expect (sick birds and antibiotic abuse) and things you might not (using recycled cooking oil from street gutters, yum!). This is the kind of thing we supposedly put Mr. Trump in office to stop, but the Trumpoids have an answer: it's a great deal, a YUGE deal, really, because we're opening up their markets to our beef! So we're selling safe, high-quality beef to China, and we're getting crappy, disease-ridden chicken in return. Yeah, that's a great deal like getting Jason Grimsley for Curt Schilling was a great deal for the Astros.
Finally, Sen. Booker (D-NJ) has introduced the Marijuana Justice Act, an ambitious bill worthy of the man Mr. Booker pushed out of the Senate, the late Frank Lautenberg. Among other things, the bill would end federal scheduling/prohibition of marijuana, withhold funding from states that continue to criminalize it (which they'd have the right to do) if they disproportionately arrest and convict non-whites on pot charges, and establish a Community Reinvestment Fund to help those communities most harmed by the "war on drugs" (which, as John Ehrlichmann himself said, was always about demonizing blacks and anti-war activists). Fact is, pot is no worse than alcohol or tobacco, and if it's a "gateway drug" to anything, it's most likely a gateway drug to "getting hemp grown the way we've historically grown cotton," which may explain Attorney General Sessions's opposition to it even more than any racist feelings he might have. Anyway, Drug Policy Alliance helps you tell your Congressfolk to support the Marijuana Justice Act.
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