Long story short: tell our DOJ to investigate and possibly prosecute Donald Trump, tell fossil fuel corporations to abandon their Russian investments, tell our Transportation Department to release a promised climate-change reporting rule, tell state legislators to get private corporation campaign donations out of sheriffs' elections, tell our Fish and Wildlife Service to ban importation of hunting trophies, and tell President Biden to pardon non-violent marijuana offenders. Use the email/petition tools in the following paragraphs to communicate your will.
Common Cause helps you tell our Department of Justice to investigate Donald Trump for attempting to subvert the will of the American people after winning the 2020 election. Late last week House January 6 panel lawyers alleged in a California federal court filing that Donald Trump and several of his allies committed crimes as part of their efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and if the January 6 panel has enough evidence to say that, then our Department of Justice has enough reason to hold Mr. Trump accountable. We witnessed a lot of these alleged crimes happening in real time, not just on January 6, of course, but also on January 2, during that alternately begging/threatening phone call to Georgia's Secretary of State. But a lot else happened in the dark, too, which is why we need to shine a light on it.
Sum of Us helps you tell French fossil fuel corporation TotalEnergies to quit investing in Russia, and also to quit fossil fuels. Yeah, it may not do the latter just because we say so, but it's more vulnerable to pressure on the former -- though it stands virtually alone among Western fossil fuel corporations in keeping its investments in Russia, saying that no sanctions have compelled them to divest thus far, and also suggesting that gas drilling is a more "realistic" option for getting off climate change. Set aside the fact that wherever gas drilling wells leak methane, they pack a bigger climate-change punch than coal. Switching to gas is the "reasonable" option only because that's their will to begin with! If they put their capital behind renewables, we'd see a lot more renewable energy right now.
The National Campaign for Transit Justice helps you tell Transportation Secretary Buttigieg to release the Biden Administration rule mandating measurement of climate change emissions from our national highway system. "Measurement," too, not mitigation! We've tried to get mitigation passed during the 2021 battles over the Biden agenda, with limited success. But the Trump Administration overturned this rule while in office because of course they did, while the Biden Administration has announced they'll reinstate it. Thing is, they haven't actually done that, hence our efforts to get more out of them than they've delivered thus far. They really ought to, since it could very well wind up in court one day, which never went well for Mr. Trump.
Color of Change helps you tell your state legislators to get private corporation campaign donations out of county sheriffs' elections. You know how politicians always tell you that campaign donations aren't bribes because they're not quid pro quo transactions and anyway of course you can rely on them to separate what's good for them from what's good for the public? They lie about all of that, of course, but county sheriffs have a much harder time lying all of that when some private prison corporation, or some real estate magnate, or some big telecom corporation, fills their campaign coffers. Gosh, what could these actors possibly want? Like, you know, land for a private prison, more arrests to fill those beds, usurious phone rates for prisoners? Win here, and we can one day win everywhere else.
The Center for Biological Diversity helps you tell our U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to ban importing elephant trophies under the authority of the Endangered Species Act. Savanna elephants are endangered in Africa, which is, of course, where hunters go get their trophies, and maybe once upon a time we could argue that we must deploy trophy hunting as a necessary evil in regions where elephant populations have overrun human populations, but that time sure in hell ain't now, not when elephants all over Africa are in danger of disappearing in our lifetimes. And not for nothing, but if you've ever seen an elephant mourn its dead, you sure as hell wouldn't parade around your neighborhood with a bloody tusk shouting look what I did! The more we learn of our world, the more responsible we must be, but hey, civilization ain't easy.
Finally, Progress America helps you tell President Biden to pardon non-violent marijuana offenders. He campaigned on doing that, so he ought to start keeping that promise. There will be right-wingers who will say "you're not supposed to pardon people to further political ends." Go ahead and ask them how they felt about George H.W. Bush pardoning a slew of Iran-Contra participants or Bill Clinton pardoning big campaign donors or Donald Trump pardoning Steve Bannon, because those are all examples of "pardoning people to further political ends." Pardoning folks we shouldn't have jailed to begin with? That's just righting wrongs, which is something civilized people always do. And if folks want to call "righting wrongs" "political," then let them get caught with their cynicism hanging out.
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