Long story short: tell our Justice Department to investigate whether Amazon lied to Congress about how it uses its monopoly power, tell President Biden to lower drug prices and extend the student loan payment holiday, tell our FCC to require big internet service providing corporations to explain internet charges and speeds clearly to consumers, tell our Interior Department to stop fossil fuel drilling around Chaco Canyon, and tell AT&T to keep its promise to stop contributing to election objectors. Use the email/petition tools in the following paragraphs to communicate your will.
Public Citizen helps you tell our Justice Department to investigate Amazon for lying under oath to Congress about how it blocks competition. Our House Judiciary Committee has alleged, in a letter to Attorney General Garland, that Amazon obstructed its efforts to discover how it engaged in unlawful anti-competitive practices, which would be like you obstructing a police officer's efforts to learn how you broke into someone else's house and stole their flat-screen. Apparently Amazon's claim that it didn't use data it collected on third-party sellers against them has already succumbed to investigative reporting (which hardly happens anymore!), and our House Judiciary Committee made this letter public, so Mr. Garland can evade further embarrassment by complying with their will, and ours.
Social Security Works helps you tell President Biden to use his lawfully-granted Executive power to lower the price of prescription drugs. What can President Biden do? He can use "march-in rights" granted by the Bayh/Dole Act of 1980 -- which is to say, he can grant the patent license for a drug to another corporation, or even reserve that license for our government, if our government helped fund the patent in the first place, which is usually the case -- or he can declare "eminent domain for patents," and simply assign the patent to a generics manufacturer. The big pharma corporations would whine about either of these things happening, but they'd also fold, because there's nothing they can do. Except, I guess, tell everyone Joe Biden is a tyrant for, ah, lowering drug prices. Yeah, that'll go over well with the American people.
Americans for Financial Reform helps you tell President Biden to extend the student loan payment pause past May 1. We've said that simply cancelling student loan debt would be the best stimulus we could enact, given that Republicans will block any serious economic stimulus so they can feel important, but given that the average student loan payment (per the Federal Reserve Bank of New York) is $393/month, the payment holiday sure ain't nothing! It amounts to a monthly stimulus that rivals the (now-expired) Child Tax Credit expansion for families with one young child. And to those who say I had to pay my student loans off, so why should they get a holiday? Pick a response: college costs are absurdly high now, we're still getting out of a pandemic, you have a heart of stone.
Consumer Reports helps you tell our Federal Communications Commission (or FCC) to force big internet service-providing corporations to give consumers a sort of "nutrition label" which would contain clear information about upload/download speeds, data overage charges, and the fees they prefer to keep hidden. When some right-wing troll asks "why should Big Gummint get involved?" you need only reply have you seen an ad for Comcast etc.? They tell you they're the fastest and you can watch all these fancy TV shows and they never tell you what they're really offering you! Do you remember Xfinity download speeds, or do you remember the Slowskis? Granted, only trolls ask you about Big Gummint in this context anymore -- actual right-wingers hate their ISP as much as you do, and for reasons they can tell their FCC to fix!
Penn Environment helps you tell our Department of the Interior to protect the Chaco Canyon area of New Mexico from drilling and mining corporations. Because it would pollute public lands, kill unique wildlife, and defile an area of religious significance to Native populations. And you've looked outside at the night sky lately, right? And it seems like you see fewer stars in the sky all the time? That's air pollution and light pollution at work, and these things are not at work at Chaco Canyon precisely because we don't drill in there -- drilling rigs would bring massive work lights, which would make the stars invisible to us like it has just about everywhere else. Some things are worth saving, and a night with stars in it is one of them. It shouldn't just be in Van Gogh paintings.
Finally, Common Cause helps you tell AT&T to stop delivering campaign contributions to the Republican Congressdolts who voted against election certification on January 6. I wouldn't say they incited the attempted coup on January 6, but I would say they were the "legitimate" arm of that utterly illegitimate movement based on lies and whining. Seriously, it is a whole lot better not to have a President who never, ever stops whining, and thus enables that behavior in his votaries. AT&T must think they've bought some goodwill with us now that they've let their contract with OAN lapse, but if you stop doing one evil so you can keep doing other evils -- and supporting these 147 Congressdolts is evil! -- then you're kinda doing the whole good/evil thing wrong.
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