Long story short: tell President Biden to do better by American workers, tell our government to roll back the notorious 287(g) program, tell state legislators to ban non-disclosure agreements between corporations and legislators, tell President Biden to stop our military's use of cluster bombs, tell the Manhattan D.A. to drop murder charges against Tracy McCarter, and tell our DOJ and USPS to investigate Louis DeJoy for corruption. Use the email/petition tools in the following paragraphs to communicate your will.
Daily Kos helps you tell President Biden to use his lawful authority to expand worker power in America. How would he do this? He could raise the overtime floor so more good Americans can get time-and-a-half when they have to work more than 40 hours in a week; he can force federal contractors to give their workers adequate overtime, sick leave, and vacation time; he can issue new workplace safety standards to protect outdoor workers (like farm and construction workers) and warehouse workers, among other things. And he doesn't have to go to One True Great and Real Super-American President Joe Manchin for any of it -- he can just issue Executive Orders, which our laws allow in these matters, and walk away. And then his approvals might finally go back up! People like it when you do good works, after all.
The ACLU helps you tell our government to roll back the notorious 287(g) program, which nominally gives local law enforcement officers the job of federal immigration officials in an effort to combat crime, but which, in practice, leads to totally non-violent and non-criminal brown-skinned folks getting deported for busted taillights or driving without a license. So 287(g), as our government has practiced it the last five years, doesn't reduce crime and doesn't get rid of the "worst" undocumented immigrants! You would also have to ask why we always seem to be in an immigration "crisis" when we already have so many tools at our disposal, and you might have to conclude that right-wingers don't want to stop undocumented immigration, because then how would they create drama and hysteria? Hey, if I see it, I say it.
The Daily Kos Liberation League helps you tell state legislators to ban non-disclosure agreements (or NDAs) that legislators sign with corporations. Because it's profoundly undemocratic! Legislators are supposed to account to their constituents, and a non-disclosure agreement interferes with that. Naturally proponents of corporate NDAs say they "protect sensitive negotiations," but why are they sensitive in the first place? Because if you found out that, say, your Mayor was negotiating to outsource parking meters to a big corporation, you'd be mad? Because they were using your money in a way you'd never approve of if they made their deals in the light of day? Doesn't matter how nice people are when they defend these things; evil doesn't need a Snidely Whiplash mustache anymore.
Win Without War helps you tell President Biden to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions and thus ban the use of cluster bombs by our military. Because they're indiscriminate killing machines, that's why! And they don't just kill over large areas, they also kill over time, because a lot of them don't explode right away. Thus good Vietnamese still get injured, maimed, and killed by cluster bombs we dropped there 50 years ago. Hey, that war's been over since 1975; is it sane, moral, or decent that the Vietnam War still kills people? Think of what your life would be like if some enemy nation dropped cluster bombs in your county, and you never knew if one was going to blow you up on the way to Wawa or ShopRite or the movie theater. Sounds awful, doesn't it? So let's not unleash such horrors on other folks.
Color of Change helps you tell the Manhattan District Attorney to drop charges against Tracy McCarter, accused of murdering her ex-husband. Who repeatedly beat her up, and after she left him, which took guts, he got drunk and assaulted her, and she stabbed him to death in self-defense. Somehow the state refused to present a grand jury with evidence of her abuse, saying it wasn't "substantial enough," which is kind of a bass-ackwards way of admitting there was abuse and anyway shouldn't the jury have decided that if they were mulling charging her with murder? The new Manhattan D.A. even declared his support for Mr. McCarter on the campaign trail; guess what he's been doing since then? I mean, besides giving up on prosecuting Donald Trump. That's right, not a word from him about Ms. McCarter. We ought to try to change that.
Finally, Daily Kos helps you tell our Justice Department and U.S. Postal Service Inspector General to investigate Postmaster General DeJoy for personally profiting from the COVID tests our USPS delivered to households in January. Don't brook any silliness about he did some good, why shouldn't he personally profit from it? That is the mark of sickness, immorality, and decadence -- you're supposed to do the right thing because it's the right thing; if you benefit from it, how do you really know you're doing the right thing? I mean, anyone can cobble together a system of values based on what's gotten them goodies in the past; how about we put together a system of values that sustains and nourishes a civilization beyond what it does for us? Or is that old-fashioned?
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