With the war in Afghanistan now almost old enough to vote, Win Without War helps you tell your House Reps to co-sponsor H.R. 1274, which would repeal the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (or AUMF) which all future Presidents have misused to start military conflicts wherever they like. And unlike past bills purporting to repeal the AUMF -- you may recall last year's S.J.Res. 59, which would have repealed the 2001 AUMF but also expanded Presidential power to start war without Congressional authorization -- this bill would simply repeal the 2001 AUMF 240 days after its enactment, which surely would give our Executive branch enough time to wind down its "war on terror"-related activities, including the ongoing war in Afghanistan. Don't brook any foolishness about this bill "putting our troops in harm's way." You know what puts our troops in harm's way? Fighting stupid wars, that's what. So how about we maybe do less of that?
Meanwhile, in a related note, our Pentagon has requested $750 billion in this year's Administration budget, so a large coalition of good-government groups (including Roots Action, Public Citizen, and Social Security Works) helps you tell our government to cut at least $200 billion of defense spending annually. We already spend more on defense than the next seven nations combined; an actual conservative might say we must ask how much more money we must throw at a problem. In any case, you might want to comment (in the petition's comment box) on what you'd rather spend the money on. Plenty of options (i.e., better public education funding, higher Social Security benefits, actual infrastructure rebuilding) leap to mind, but you might also want to address the notion that "defense spending gives us innovative products," because more National Institute of Health and/or National Institute of Science spending would achieve the same end, for less money.
Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell our FTC to block the proposed Bristol-Myers Squibb/Celgene merger, then CREDO still helps you do that. I am pleased to be reminded that both Bristol-Myers Squibb and Celgene just so happen to produce cancer-fighting drugs; since cancer is probably going to be the biggest health care problem we face over the remainder of this century, how do we think this merger would out for good Americans? With prohibitively expensive cancer treatments, that's how. This merger would be the biggest of all big pharma mergers, and you know what mergers bring, generally: less competition, fewer jobs, higher prices -- and even more profits for an already gluttonous pharmaceutical industry, who then use those profits not so much to research better drugs (they get corporate welfare for that already!) as for advertising and buying even more favorable laws from Congress. So let's put a stop to that.
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