Long story short: tell Sen. Manchin you don't care whether our Senate passes the For the People Act in a "bipartisan" manner, then tell your Senators to pass real gun control legislation as well as the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act and put a fifth Commissioner on the FCC who'll help defend internet freedom and expand internet access, then tell President Biden to fire two Social Security Administration executives who are trying their damnedest to screw up our Social Security. You can find phone numbers for your Reps and Senators using the tools in the upper right-hand corner of this page (or, if you're on a cellphone, the bottom of this page), but I'll also provide email/petition tools for most of these alerts below .
Sen. Joe Manchin (D?-WV) says the American people won't accept "as legitimate" a For the People Act that isn't "bipartisan" -- so go ahead and call him, at 202.224.3954, and tell him you don't give one rat's hind-quarter whether or not any Republicans vote for the For the People Act. We're well past noting that people don't care about "bipartisan" government, they only care about good government -- Jesus Mary and Joseph more than two-thirds of the Republican House caucus, and almost one-fifth of the Republican Senate caucus, supported an overthrow of our government on January 6! And he wants to "work with" these people? You don't "work with" evil, you work around evil -- or over it, or through it. The good news? Sen. Manchin is neither stupid nor insensitive; he can be pulled toward the truth.
In 2018, Thom Hartmann offered the best gun control proposal I've yet heard: make it as hard to get semi-automatic weapons as it is to get automatic weapons, and regulate gun ownership the way we regulate car ownership. Folks would have to jump through a lot of hoops to get a semi: if you had to (for example) have a police officer vouch for you before you get a semi, well, that'll stop a lot of people from getting them. And it ain't that tough to fill out the paperwork for a car, so the paperwork for a gun won't be particularly onerous, either. Rather than support blanket gun bans, you may wan to call your Reps and Senators and tell them you want this instead.
The Friends Committee on National Legislation helps you tell your Senators to pass H.R. 1280, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Don't brook any silliness that this is a "defund the police" bill -- in fact, it actually increases federal police funding! -- and don't brook any other silliness, either. In fact, you can go ahead and think of this bill's opponents as objectively pro-choke holds, since this bill bans them, or objectively pro-militarizing police since the bill would fight that, or objectively pro-getting away with murder since the bill limits "qualified immunity." That middle item, right-wingers should note, is something that can easily be turned on them, even though it mainly gets turned on anti-racism protestors these days.
Battle for the Net helps you tell our President to nominate, and our Senators to confirm, a fifth FCC Commissioner who'll help restore net neutrality and ensure everyone can have access to broadband internet. Not just because we're the richest country on Earth, but don't they know there's a pandemic on? More folks work from home and take classes from home than ever before, so letting the big corporations do whatever they want (like install data caps, thanks Comcast!) ain't gonna cut it anymore. And, you know, Mitch McConnell said that if we make Senators talk through filibusters from now on, they'll retaliate by slowing everything down, and this fifth FCC Commissioner is just one thing they'll try to hold hostage. But don't be a hostage! Being a hostage is un-American! Just hound them until they give in.
Finally, Social Security Works helps you tell President Biden to fire two notorious Social Security Administration appointees, Andrew Saul and David Black. For what? For gumming up the works wherever they can, that's what! Lately they've prevented some 30 million good Americans -- both seniors and folks with disabilities -- from getting stimulus checks by not giving needed data to our IRS. Think this was just some oversight on their part? Nah, we're not schmucks: they've also tried to make it harder for folks to get Social Security disability benefits, plus they told SSA workers they had to keep commuting to their jobs despite the pandemic -- while they worked from home! Maybe we should put people in charge who aren't trying to burn everything down? (President Biden's phone number is 202.456.1111, if you want to go that route.)
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