President Biden did run on a diplomacy-first foreign policy, and though one could easily say he broke that promise when he ordered a missile attack on Syria, we could compel him to renew that promise by telling our Congressfolk to pass S. 434, the Iran Diplomacy Act, as Peace Action helps us do. Contra what you've heard from Trump votaries still unable to admit they made a grievous error in supporting the man -- I have no sympathy for them, of course, since admitting your mistakes builds character -- the Iran nuclear deal was achieving its aim (i.e., of keeping Iran from developing nuclear weapons) until Donald Trump withdrew the United States from it because IRANZ IZ TEH BADZ!!!!!! Seriously, if he explained it better than that, he must have only done so to the mirror. Of course, when someone good at being evil comes along -- cough Tom Cotton cough -- we won't be able to avoid war with Iran very easily, unless we've already got the Iran nuclear deal back in place and it's continued to work for a couple of years. Do good works and you inspire people; sustain good works and you make evil works a lot harder.
Meanwhile, Roots Action helps you tell our U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights to break up Amazon. Not just because half of all online commerce goes through Amazon -- and half is far too big a market share, frankly -- but because Amazon has driven so many businesses small and large out of business (I, for one, think a world without Encore Books is a rather smaller world). The Roots Action petition -- a DIY campaign created by a user named Vahid R. -- explains further: Amazon's monopoly status enables it to treat its employees badly, bully its business partners, and reach out and monopolize other sectors of the economy. We all worried that Amazon would eventually monopolize grocery stores when it bought Whole Foods, but it's already done worse than that in cloud computing, where it currently controls about a third of the market, more than its next two major competitors combined. Politicians like to make a show of being mad about big tech, but if we stay silent about monopolists, they won't do anything about it.
In other news, Environmental Action helps you tell your Congressfolk to restore the ban on importing trophy animals like elephants. You may recall this being an issue of some notoriety in late fall of 2017, after a photo of one of his offspring sporting a bloody elephant tail went viral on social media, and Mr. Trump actually delayed his plan to reverse the ban -- for nearly four months! Hey, shame doesn't work as well on everyone! And generally we should avoid electing the people most immune to it! In any case, Mr. Trump did follow through on reversing the ban before spring had sprung in 2018, so now it's time to remind our Congressfolk that even though elephants aren't "endangered" in America per se, they are pretty obviously endangered in Africa (i.e., where you'd go to get hunting trophies), where their numbers have sunk from 10 million to less than half a million. And, hey, if you got to know an elephant -- they mimic you, they mourn their dead, they adapt to change, they work together toward common goals -- you'd never hunt one down and cut its tail off just to show everyone what big balls you have.
Finally, the ACLU helps you tell our President to lift unnecessary restrictions on abortion. Specifically, you'd ask President Biden to lift the in-person restriction on getting mifepristone (which, when used in tandem with either misoprostol or gemeprost, induces medical abortion) and instruct our FDA to review all of the restrictions it's put on the drug. Our FDA requires that folks pick up mifepristone in person, which sucks during a pandemic, but also sucks at other times, because Jesus Mary and Joseph you can get Xanax delivered through the mail, so there's no reason you can't get mifepristone through the mail, either. Not to pile on, but if you're poorer, getting the drug through the mail might be your best option. Maybe Mr. Biden -- being personally opposed to abortion but unwilling to tell everyone else how to feel about it, which closely resembles my position on the matter -- thinks being pro-choice but letting our FDA restrict access to mifepristone is a "compromise." But there is no compromise possible with right-wingers, certainly not on abortion. At least not publicly! Ask Scott DesJarlais what I could mean by that.
Finally for-real-this-time, our House didn't vote on the COVID relief bill yesterday, but they'll likely vote on it today, so give your House Reps a call and tell them to pass it, even if you called them yesterday.
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