Happy Tuesday, good Americans! Now call your Senators and tell them to pass H.R. 6800, the HEROES Act. Yes, we should tell our Congressfolk that we want unemployment benefits extended past the end of this week, as we did yesterday, but we should also tell our Senators that the HEROES Act already does that. Plus, the HEROES Act would also fund COVID-19 testing and tracing, would fund our Post Office, would help states and localities endure this pandemic a little better, and provides, would extend working family tax credits and repeal a big bazillionaire tax credit, and would also provide another round of stimulus checks to working families. One of the things the bill doesn't do, of course, is fulfill Mob Boss Mitch's wish that big corporations get "blanket immunity" from any lawsuit arising from their mishandling of pandemic-related guidelines. But they already have the money to fight lawsuits; what about our ability to fight corporate neglect? And what about our need for economic sustenance during this pandemic?
Meanwhile, the HEROES Act would extend funding for our Post Office, but (as we've discussed before) the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 caused our Post Office's funding troubles, by forcing our Post Office to fund its pensions 75 years in advance, an absurd mandate our government forces upon no other entity public or private, and one Congress obviously intended to cripple our Post Office. Thus we've been hearing of funding shortfalls for the last decade-plus, when our Post Office had been entirely self-funding since 1982. Thus Progress America helps you tell your Congressfolk to repeal the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, so that our Post Office can continue to provide the good services we deserve while funding itself. You'd think a conservative would approve of our Post Office funding itself without taxpayer money, but apparently today's "conservatives" only care about converting everything into unearned money for some crony or other. That sound you hear is Russell Kirk spinning in his grave.
In other news, the Mexican government recently detained Susana Prieto Terrazas, a labor lawyer and activist, for three weeks on trumped-up crap; the Big Stick of Bad PR helped get her released, but now her government is planning new trumped-up crap to charge her with, all for trying to organize labor unions against maquiladoras, or foreign-owned factories which generally export their goods to the owning corporation's country of origin. You may be thinking that her plight is tragic but outside the scope of your activism, but actually, it's not! Mexico just signed the USMCA trade deal with Canada and the United States, and one of the things they're now legally-bound to do is stop harassing labor activists like this. Hence Rethink Trade helps you tell your Congressfolk to pressure Mexico into holding up their end of the deal. After all, it is their job now; trade deals can't do better by us if no one will enforce them.
Finally, you may have heard about the hack that breached popular Twitter accounts -- but you may not have heard that the hackers might have been able to get at Twitter users' private direct messages, since Twitter hasn't embraced end-to-end encryption, as other messaging apps have done. And this isn't just about shielding that R-rated direct message to your beloved or that smack-talking thread about your boss from hackers; it's also about journalists and activists who use encryption in their messaging. And not because they're "probably criminals," as Mike Pompeo has said, but because they may be living in countries that'll kill them if they find out what they're saying. Imagine trying to evade rogue police abducting protestors without encrypted messaging! Which is most certainly not something that only happens in other countries! Fight for the Future helps you tell Twitter to help out all its users by implementing end-to-end encryption on direct messages.
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