As NAFTA renegotiation drags on, Sign for Good still helps you tell your Congressfolk that any NAFTA renegotiation (which they'll have to approve, after all!) must put people before corporations and protect our clean air and clean water. "Free" trade defenders claim the problems we diagnose with these trade deals are "theoretical." But our recent experience proves they're wrong! In 2015, the World Trade Organization ruled that our country-of-origin labeling laws violated at least two "free" trade deals -- and then Congress rushed to repeal those laws rather than face punitive tariffs. Why should we let "free" trade deals nullify our laws like that? And why should we tolerate the existence of "investor-state dispute settlement" mechanisms that let corporate investors nullify laws that would protect our clean air and clean water -- and then exact tribute for the "hardship" of having to follow them? Given the low character of our corporate elites, none of this is "theoretical."
Meanwhile, this Change.org petition helps you tell the Virginia state House to impeach state 12th Judicial Circuit Court Judge T.J. Hauler for allowing an 18-year-old man to serve no jail time despite being convicted for raping a 14-year-old girl. I have just described everything you need to know about that case -- the age of consent in Virginia is 18, and any kind of "carnal knowledge" with youths between the age of 13 and 15 is a felony in Virginia, which means this was rape the moment he knew how old she was. No, there is literally no imagining that "she secretly wanted it" or "she asked him to tie that belt around her neck" or even that she said yes at any point -- we have age of consent laws precisely so we can protect younger people against the older people who'd abuse them. Still, Judge Hauler gave the offender zero years in jail, and wouldn't you know it, Judge Hauler has a history of going light on sex offenders. But maybe not for much longer!
Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to pass H.R. 6239/S. 3150, the DISCLOSE Act, then a consortium of good-government groups including Common Cause and Issue One still helps you do that. The DISCLOSE Act would, as its title suggests, force more campaign finance disclosure for political ads that target a candidate for office -- for example, it would force disclosure of campaign ads that target a candidate's character without explicitly also endorsing another candidate, and it would force corporations to run an "I approve this message" disclaimer the way candidates for office have to do. In this, the "Age of McConnell" -- that is to say, the age of virtually unrestricted campaign contributions leading to virtually boundless corruption -- most folks want to know who exactly is spending buku bucks trying to manipulate them. And even our Supreme Court, notorious for conflating money and speech, says that's not too much to ask.
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