You've no doubt heard that our President has declared that he'll withdraw the United States from the famous Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (or INF), and we've already advocated against that foolish move. There is some doubt that a President can simply nullify a treaty, since it becomes law upon Senate ratification, but we can fight on other fronts, too, as both Roots Action and Win Without War help you tell your Congressfolk to stand for nuclear disarmament by supporting S. 312, the Prevention of Arms Race Act, which would prohibit funding of nuclear weapons banned by the INF. The bill would only allow funding and development of weapons that would violate the INF if our President jumped through at least seven flaming hoops (for example, he would have to prove that we simply have no INF-compliant weapons that could adequately defend our country); of course, our President's impatience with negotiating the finer points of law has already cost him virtually every significant effort to rewrite our clean air and clean water regulations, so if he interprets it as an outright ban, I wouldn't mind.
Meanwhile, Penn PIRG helps you tell pizza chain corporation Domino's to get antibiotic abuse out of its supply chain. Why Domino's? Same reason as "why McDonald's" -- because it's the biggest, and if it sources its meat more responsibly, others will follow. And Domino's has already committed to getting antibiotics out of its chicken supply; now it must follow with the meat we're all more likely to put on pizza, that being beef. In a land where seven out of 10 antibiotics go, not to sick people or animals, but to healthy animals so they can beef up (so to speak) and better endure the squalid conditions of factory farms, we have the right and the duty to attack the problem any way that'll work, and giving Domino's another good PR opportunity is certainly one of those ways. It is sad that we don't have a federal government that'll attack the problem, and that's been true regardless of which party runs things. But we're Americans, which means we're not prisoners of our government's inaction, either. So let's get to work.
Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to pass H.R. 582/S. 150, the Raise the Wage Act, then Progress America still helps you do that. The Raise the Wage Act, as you know, would raise the minimum wage gradually to $15/hour over the next five years -- which right-wingers wailing about the "shock to small businesses" should duly note -- and would also raise the wages of tipped and disabled workers so that they ultimately achieve parity with the minimum wage for everyone else. The bill would also mandate annual increases to the minimum wage in line with increases in national median income, though it wouldn't allow the minimum wage to fall if median income also happens to fall. The current minimum wage of $7.25/hour, as you know, actually represents a wage cut from 50 years ago, when the $2/hour minimum wage actually had over $13.50/hour in contemporary purchasing power, so raising it to $15/hour not only wouldn't wreck our economy, but it would give our working families more of a fighting chance in making better lives -- the kind of fighting chance baby boomers had.
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