President Biden approved $5.2 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE earlier this month. Throwing deadly weapons at these nations will almost certainly perpetuate the Saudi-led war in Yemen — a conflict President Biden announced he would no longer support over a year ago. By backing Saudi-led troops in Yemen with weapons, money, and intel, the United States is actively perpetuating one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. It’s morally indefensible, and Congress must act to withdraw US support now. We demand Congress must take a stand against the war in Yemen by passing a War Powers resolution ending US military aid immediately! President Biden must deliver on his campaign promise to end unauthorized US support for the war in Yemen. Right now, the war is on pause for the first time in 6 years, giving millions of Yemenis on the brink of starvation a chance at survival. But it’s set to resume October 2. The US must end its support for the Saudis before that date. Such a move could be decisive in finally bringing this war to an end. Congressional action can’t wait. The situation in Yemen is incredibly dire: over two million children under the age of five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition in 2022 and could die without urgent treatment. In May, Representatives Pramila Jayapal and Peter DeFazio introduced the Yemen War Powers Resolution, which would finally end unauthorized US support for the war. Pressure is mounting: more than one hundred advocacy groups are calling on Congress to pass the resolution. Congress needs to hear from you, too: we condemn US support for these atrocities! Tell Congress to pass a War Powers Resolution to help end the war in Yemen!

The Twitter whistleblower’s allegations are totally damning. It’s time for a Congressional investigation into the tech giant. Twitter’s former head of security Peiter “Mudge” Zatko made a nearly 200-page disclosure to the federal government alleging that Twitter mismanages users’ private data, is vulnerable to foreign surveillance and hacking, is negligent with spam accounts, and habitually lies to the federal government. Twitter’s alleged negligence may be putting us all at risk. Congress must investigate the tech giant for its shady behavior — and for whether it’s putting the rest of us at risk. Congress must investigate the new whistleblower allegations against Twitter! The whistleblower reports that the company’s internal security rules allow Twitter employees to easily access and tamper with users’ private data. This policy caused a huge scandal in July 2020, when hackers compromised the Twitter accounts of Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Kanye West, Elon Musk and others. Twitter made public statements claiming it had addressed this problem, but Zatko’s claims suggest this may not be entirely true. According to Zatko’s filing, in January 2022 over 4,000 Twitter employees were “authorized to access the live production environment and sensitive user data. Twitter lacked the ability to know who accessed systems or data or what they did with it in much of their environment.” This isn’t the first time Twitter’s security policies have come under scrutiny. In 2011, the FTC investigated Twitter for reckless handling of users’ private data. As part of the settlement, Twitter agreed to establish “a comprehensive information security program” designed to protect private user data. Twitter further agreed not to “misrepresent in any manner, expressly or by implication, the extent to which [Twitter] maintains and protects” private user data. According to Zatko, Twitter hasn’t upheld its end of the bargain. Congress must investigate Twitter’s alleged abuses and lies — just the latest tale of Big Tech recidivism. It’s just one piece of holding Big Tech accountable. Congress must investigate the new whistleblower allegations against Twitter!

The way Congress treats its own workers sets an example for the rest of the country. Last year, one in eight Congressional staffers didn’t make a DC living wage. Beyond low wages, Congressional workers face other indignities. A group of Congressional workers recently wrote for the New Republic: “We deal with abusive bosses, constant pressure, and brutal burnout from 60-, even 70-hour workweeks. We work in an environment where discrimination abounds and where we’re made to feel powerless when responding to sexual or psychological abuse by management. One year after a mob of domestic terrorists and white supremacists attacked our workplace, many of us do not feel safe at work.” Congress must commit to the well-being and human dignity of its staff — including by ensuring all staff are paid a living wage. In May 2022, the House of Representatives set a new minimum wage of $45,000 for all staff. It’s time for the Senate to follow suit. The Senate must fund, and mandate, a $45,000 minimum wage for all committee and personal office staff for the fiscal year beginning September 2022! Working conditions for Congressional staff have deteriorated to an alarming degree since March 2020 between exposure to COVID-19, the January 6 insurrection, and ongoing threats of political violence. Many staff have reached their breaking points. Staff are telling their horror stories and making their voices heard. In May 2022, House staff finally won the right to collectively bargain and a guaranteed living wage. But Congressional bosses are a tough opponent — especially Senate bosses. In the Senate, the same minoritarian rule that has blocked much of President Biden’s agenda is blocking Senate staff from securing livable work conditions. The rest of us need to stand in solidarity with Senate staff against Senate bosses — aka, senators. The road to Senate unionization and fair working conditions may be long and winding — but the Senate appears amenable to ensuring a minimum wage for all staff this year. We need to keep the pressure on to make sure that happens. Democrats on the Senate appropriations committee have included enough funding in their proposal for next year’s budget for every senator’s office to pay its staff a DC living wage. Now, the Senate must pass a spending bill that mandates all senators actually use that money to fairly compensate their staff. The Senate must fund, and mandate, a $45,000 minimum wage for all committee and personal office staff for the fiscal year beginning September 2022!

Trump’s Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is still in office — and still trying to decimate the postal service at the expense of Black, Brown and Indigenous communities. President Biden must stop DeJoy. This spring, Congress passed the Postal Service Reform Act, which invests in USPS and postal workers. Despite this cash infusion, DeJoy is still trying to slash USPS operations by cutting positions, hiking postage rates, and shuttering post offices around the country. DeJoy has to go. The only way to fire DeJoy is to nominate two public servants to the Postal Board of Governors who will stand up to DeJoy, invest in a green postal service, protect union jobs, and build a strong USPS that serves all American communities! Tell President Biden to nominate two board members to the Postal Board of Governors who reflect our national diversity and will stand up to Louis DeJoy! USPS offers a huge opportunity for promoting equity. Postal Service jobs have long been a pathway to the middle-class for Black Americans, who make up nearly a quarter of postal workers. And the postal service plays a vital role in connecting our communities, especially rural communities. We rely on USPS to deliver ballots, communicate, bring life-saving prescriptions to seniors, and so much more. We need a Postmaster General who will take advantage of this opportunity. Instead, we have Louis DeJoy — who plans to eliminate 50,000 good union jobs over the next decade as part of his plan for USPS austerity. It’s time for a visionary Postal Board of Governors who will fire DeJoy and herald in a new era for the Postal Service. That means investing in a union-made, electric postal fleet; ensuring postal jobs remain good union jobs; and expanding USPS public service even further by looking into offering banking services, internet access, and more through the postal service. Currently, the Postal Board of Governors is majority white and majority male. We need nominees who bring a diversity of life experience to the board — reflecting the postal workforce and our nation as a whole. Tell President Biden to nominate two board members to the Postal Board of Governors who reflect our national diversity and will stand up to Louis DeJoy!

Trump’s Postmaster General Louis DeJoy wants to cut 50,000 Postal Service positions. Congress must stop DeJoy. Not only will DeJoy’s plan eliminate 50,000 good union jobs, it’ll also compromise the ability of the Postal Service to carry out its essential functions — like delivering ballots safely and bringing life-saving prescriptions to seniors and rural communities. DeJoy’s plan to decimate the USPS workforce is just one piece of his broader vision for USPS austerity. The Postal Service is an essential public service, yet DeJoy cares more about cutting costs than making sure USPS performs its key functions. Congress must stop DeJoy from slashing 50,000 USPS jobs! USPS funding is a major equity concern. The postal service is the lifeblood of much of rural America, where people rely on the USPS to deliver goods and transmit information. In areas without internet access, US mail is absolutely essential. And there’s another problem with DeJoy’s plan: it reinforces the idea that USPS should be managed like a business. That’s absurd. USPS is a public good. Instead of slashing postal workers, we should be taking advantage of the huge opportunity USPS offers for our country. USPS should expand its services for rural and low-income communities even further by looking into offering banking services, internet access, and more. Sign the petition: Congress must stop DeJoy from undermining the postal service and slashing 50,000 USPS jobs!

The monkeypox outbreak in the US has quickly gone from containable to crisis. There are now over 6,300 known cases in the US — almost entirely among queer men. So far, the public health response has been inadequate. The White House just declared a national public health emergency — that’s a good thing. Now, the CDC must make use of the additional funds available in such emergencies by doubling down on providing tests, vaccines, and containment guidance before the disease becomes endemic. The CDC must use newly-available emergency funding to provide monkeypox tests, vaccines, and containment guidance! The rapid spread of monkeypox among men who have sex with men has called to mind the AIDS crisis for many gay and bisexual Americans. In the US, monkeypox has manifested as a virtually all-queer disease — with only 1.4% of people who have contracted monkey pox in New York City identifying as straight. The government has been very slow to address this disease that primarily affects queer men. Vaccine stores were very low to begin with; the government has been criticized for moving too slowly to produce and distribute more. Inevitably, the situation raises questions about whose suffering counts as a crisis. Recognizing the monkeypox crisis as a public health emergency was a good step towards addressing this crisis. Now, public health officials must make use of the new emergency funding available to answer the demands of queer male public health groups like ACT UP, the storied AIDS coalition that still advocates for health equity. People need rapid tests, vaccines, and guidance! Emergency funds must be used to help communities treat, prevent, and contain the spread of monkeypox!

Marriage equality is under threat. Last week, the House of Representatives took a big step towards protecting the right to marriage for people of all genders and races when it passed the Respect for Marriage Act. The Senate needs to follow suit. The Senate must pass the Respect for Marriage Act, legislation to protect marriage equality in the face of threats from the far-right Supreme Court! Justice Clarence Thomas signaled that the Supreme Court could overturn marriage equality and the right to access contraception. It would be a grave mistake not to take him seriously. When the Supreme Court overturned the right to abortion in its devastating Dobbs ruling, Clarence Thomas wrote: “we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.” In other words, he wants to apply the same terrible reasoning that struck down Roe to the landmark cases that protect contraception, the right to a consensual partner of the same sex, and marriage equality. Congress needs to spring into action immediately and pass laws specifically protecting the equal right to marriage and contraception nationwide. Fortunately, legislation protecting marriage equality has good momentum in Congress. The Respect for Marriage Act would codify marriage equality and repeal the Defense of Marriage Act: a 1990s law that allows states to outlaw same-sex marriages. The House cleared the bill last week — with a surprising degree of Republican support. It’s clear that there’s a path forward in the Senate too — if leadership gets serious. There’s no other option: the Senate must protect the fundamental rights of all Americans! Sign the petition: The Senate must protect marriage equality by passing the Respect for Marriage Act!

When ICE or CBP agents show up at someone’s door, they can, and often do, lie and themselves as police. That’s a major problem in many immigrant communities. Immigration agents misidentifying themselves as regular police seriously erodes trust in local law enforcement. It also can lead to violations of immigrants’ rights — for example, when people think they’re required to comply with a search when they’re not. Senator Cory Booker recently introduced the Combating Deceptive Immigration Enforcement Practices Act, legislation that would stop ICE and CBP from wearing clothing displaying the word “police.” Congress must pass this legislation to protect immigrant communities! Tell Congress to stand against ICE and CBP’s violations of immigrant rights by passing the Combating Deceptive Immigration Enforcement Practices Act! This deception is a threat to public safety and an abuse of immigrant rights — but it’s technically not illegal under current law. According to an attorney for the ACLU, “We have repeatedly seen ICE go to people’s homes and coerce people to authorize entry under the mistaken belief that [the agents] are police. It undermines public safety in these communities.” This is unacceptable. It’s Congress’s responsibility to pass a law protecting immigrants from over-policing and police brutality! Stop immigration agents from falsely identifying as police.

Too many Americans already pay too much for bad healthcare — and our economy is already dominated by Big Tech. Amazon smashes small businesses with one hand and snatches them up with the other. It’s a well-known fact that Amazon preys on the small businesses that use its platform by preferencing Amazon products in its search results and copying successful products produced by small businesses. Amazon has acquired 118 companies in the last 25 years — including pharmacy company PillPack. Now, Amazon wants to lock down its monopoly on the medical field by adding One Medical to the list. Not only would Amazon have too much market power with One Medical under its belt, it also would have a frightening degree of informational power. Should we trust Amazon with our private health data — which could easily be abused to discriminate against consumers on the basis of health conditions? Absolutely not. Sign the petition: Tell the FTC to thoroughly investigate the Amazon – One Medical merger for potential anticompetitive effects and privacy violations!

Every single day, more then 110 US citizens are killed at the hand of guns. That's over 40,000 people a year! This year 83 people have been killed in school shootings. Teachers, school staff, parents, and our children who we are supposed to protect over everyone and everything else. There have been 27 school shootings so far this year, we still have four months left. If most mass shooters tend to be 18 and 19 years old, it only makes sense so raise the age requirement for buying firearms. Not only that, but it would also be helpful create laws and restrictions for selling firearms to underage citizens. If protection is an issue, again, there are plenty of substitutes for a firearm.

Let’s get our voices heard! We need to stand up for our children and protect them.

The message above is the closing paragraph of a letter organizations and individuals will submit to the Delaware River Basin Commissioners. Your signatures will be added to the letter. Here's the full text. You adopted a permanent ban on fracking throughout the Delaware River Watershed last year, a historic and righteous decision by the DRBC. The public has been clamoring since then for you to complete the job and prohibit the pollution and depletion caused by fracking taking place elsewhere by revising the pending fracking regulations and voting for a full ban. This will protect both the Watershed’s communities – human and nonhuman – and its irreplaceable water supplies for up to 17 million people by prohibiting the fracking industry’s effort to dump its toxic and radioactive wastewater in the Basin and preventing their use of Delaware River water for water-intense, wasteful and destructive fracking processes. In 2018, the fracking industry produced 2.9 billion gallons of wastewater[1] in Pennsylvania alone, and the longer well bores being drilled since 2018 mean even higher volumes of both water use and resulting toxic wastewater.[2] The industry is searching for new places to exploit, which is why they are knocking on the Delaware River Basin’s door. A full ban will also ensure that the DRBC’s regulations do not enable the industry to emit considerable greenhouse gasses by continuing to frack without restraint. DRBC must do its part to restrain the polluting fracking industry and the spewing of methane, the most powerful of greenhouse gasses on the all-important 10- and 20-year time scale.[3] In other words, we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today! And this is part of DRBC’s mission. The climate crisis appears unrelenting as we face record-breaking heat waves, storms, fires, droughts and flooding, nationwide and globally. People are demanding an all-out offensive by leaders and all branches of government to fight climate change. To reach goals that scientists say we need - like 50% reduction of GHG by 2030 – decisive action at the regional and state level is more important than ever to move us away from polluting fossil fuels and towards clean renewables. This is where you come in, Commissioners. The DRBC has recognized that climate change is directly affecting its water resources program.[4] Climate change impacts on the basin’s water resources include changes in precipitation and runoff that increase flooding and drought, impairment of habitats and water quality (including salt water intrusion to Delaware Estuary water supplies) and sea level rise.[5] Reports covering the specific impacts of climate change on the Delaware River, Estuary and Bay back up this conclusion. A 2019 report from Rhodium Group ranks Salem and Cape May counties among the 3 NJ counties that are expected to experience the highest increase in average annual damage costs due to changes in sea level and hurricane activity since the 1980s.[6] A Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission report found that sea level rise would result in rising water levels in the Delaware Estuary, causing permanent change to the landscape and new flooding.[7] In an earlier DVRPC report, the study concluded that sea level rise over the next 100 years will inundate almost all of Pennsylvania's 1,500 acres of tidal wetlands along the Delaware, the salt line in the Delaware River will migrate further upstream (threatening Philadelphia and South Jersey’s drinking water supplies), and pollutants in contaminated sites could be released into estuary waters.[8] Will DRBC allow the fracking industry to take advantage of the Delaware River watershed to get rid of its polluting wastewater and deplete our water by fracking, all the while emitting climate-killing methane? Or will DRBC do the right thing by prohibiting this abuse? Here in the Delaware River Watershed, our future hangs in the balance as you decide on final regulations regarding fracking wastewater and water operations in the Basin. We, the undersigned, ask you, the voting members of the DRBC, to revise the draft regulations to completely ban imports of fracking wastewater and exports of water for fracking, to protect the public, water supplies, the watershed’s ecosystems, and to help alleviate the climate crisis. [1] https://www.fractracker.org/2019/10/want-not-waste-not-fracking-wastewater/ [2] The supersized gas wells being drilled today in the Marcellus and Utica shale formations use 10-20 million gallons of water per well. According to FracFocus data, the average well in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale used 11.4 million gallons in 2017, up from 4.3 million gallons reported by agencies in 2011. This means not only more water is needed to fracture the extended horizontal well bores but also means there are greater volumes of wastewater produced by these wells - between 1-1.5 million gallons of wastewater (for 10 M gallons of water used in fracking a well), increasing the volumes many times over the amount typically produced previously in Pennsylvania. FracTracker Alliance Issue Paper, “Potential Impacts of Unconventional Oil and Gas on the Delaware River Basin”, March 20, 2018. Main Author: Matt Kelso. https://www.delawareriverkeeper.org/sites/default/files/FT-WhitePaper-DRB- 2018%20%28003%29.pdf [3] Natural gas is primarily methane, a greenhouse gas 86 times more efficient at warming the atmosphere than carbon over a 20-year time frame (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 2013. Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and its effects persist for hundreds of years (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/01/03/1612066114.full) The well documented vented and fugitive losses from natural gas systems contribute to atmospheric warming; current technology and practices have not controlled these releases.