If you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to block our Administration's proposed $478 million weapons sale to Saudi Arabia, then MoveOn still helps you do that. I've been thinking lately of a line from Space: 1999, spoken by Commissioner Simmonds after being told by Commander Koenig he didn't have the "right" to make a particular decision: "I got to being Commissioner by doing what's necessary, not what's right." Governments are full of people who "got where they are" by doing what was "necessary," but no rational human being looks at this topic and says you know what Saudi Arabia needs? More American weapons! People only support such a thing with excuses -- at least they're not Iran being one of the more absurd ones -- or with appeals to your cynicism, like the world's a bad place. But what if the world's a bad place because of all the things folks believe they "have" to do? Then maybe we ought to do some good things instead.
Meanwhile, H.R. 7200, the Transparent Representation Upholding Service and Trust (or TRUST) in Congress Act, would require all Congressfolk to put certain assets -- like securities, commodities, and futures -- into a blind trust within 90 days of assuming office. The bill would exempt "widely held investment fund(s)" like mutual funds and T-bills, presumably because the public can check the status of these investments more easily than the kinds of hifalutin "financial instruments" that seem to break our economy a lot these days. Of course, H.R. 7200 follows on the heels of a number of U.S. Senators apparently making major investment decisions right after being privately briefed on how bad this COVID-19 pandemic was going to get. And H.R. 7200 actually has two Democratic sponsors and three Republican sponsors; might it be an example of actual bipartisanship, not the "bipartisanship" where Democrats just cave to Republicans? I don't know, but the Project on Government Oversight helps you tell your Congressfolk to fight corruption by passing the TRUST in Congress Act.
Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to stop our FBI from harassing black protestors, then the Daily Kos Liberation League still helps you do that. No, our FBI's still using the "Black Identity Extremists" category to identify, spy on, and otherwise harass folks protesting the fact that police execute black folks without even charging them with a crime, and much more so than they ever do to white folks. And maybe our President sits back and chortles at all the tear gas and facial recognition software police turn on protestors, but not the rest of us -- at least, not if we're civilized. It does boggle the mind that so many folks call themselves "conservative" but still think literally any criticism of police completely cripples their ability to do their job. Set aside that this isn't very "law and order" of them -- how weak must they think police officers are? I, for one, think they'll do well in a reality where we don't demand they fight protestors.
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