Action Alert Digest - September 29, 2021

September 29, 2021

Action Alert Digest

Taxpayers are Subsidizing Soaring CEO Pay at Pentagon Contractors

Last week the House passed the National Defense Authorization Act. Through this legislation, taxpayers will continue to subsidize obscenely large CEO paychecks at top Pentagon contractors. More than half of the $14 trillion in Pentagon spending since 9/11, or $7 trillion, has gone to for-profit contractors. In 2020, the 20 publicly held U.S. firms that received the most lucrative Pentagon contracts paid their CEOs an average of $17.7 million. MORE

Leaders to UN: A Warmer World Is a More Violent One, Too

Using apocalyptic images, three presidents and seven foreign ministers at the U.N. warned last week that a warmer world is also a more violent one. At a ministerial meeting of the Security Council, the officials urged the U.N.’s most powerful body to do more to address the security implications of climate change and make global warming a key part of all U.N. peacekeeping operations. MORE

Dems Who Opposed Pentagon Cuts Received Nearly 4x More Donations from Weapons Makers

When the U.S. House authorized a $778 billion military budget for fiscal year 2022, every Republican voted against two amendments to reduce Pentagon spending, but Democrats were split. The Democrats who voted against the 10% Pentagon budget cut have taken, on average, 3.7 times more campaign money from arms manufacturers since January 2019 than the Democrats who voted for it. MORE

New Woodward and Costa Book Shows Why No President Should Have “Sole Authority” To Start a Nuclear War

According to Bob Woodward and Robert Costa’s new book Peril, in the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley, fearing what a president he deemed unstable might do, told military officers he was to be included in the nuclear launch process. If true, Milley took an extraordinary step that undermines the long-held civilian-military division of nuclear responsibility. MORE

Veterans Group Urges President Biden to Adopt No First Use Policy

Veterans For Peace, with over 140 chapters in the United States and affiliates abroad, is calling on President Biden to step back from the brink of nuclear war by declaring and implementing a policy of No First Use and by taking nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert. MORE

13,000 Migrants From Del Rio, Texas, Conditionally Released into the U.S.

As the Biden administration continues to take criticism for its handling of 15,000 migrants who were huddled under the Del Rio International Bridge for weeks, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told an online legal conference this week that 13,000 migrants are having their asylum cases heard before a U.S. immigration judge. MORE

The Biden Administration Will Raise the Cap on Refugee Admissions to 125,000

The Biden administration announced it will admit up to 125,000 refugees during fiscal year 2022, which begins October 1, 2021. Because the previous administration gutted the US Refugee Admissions Program, the current administration is not on track to reach the admissions cap for 2021, which President Biden raised to 62,500 in May. MORE

Biden Administration Takes New Steps to Preserve Obama-Era DACA Immigration Program

The Biden administration has proposed a rule to save the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program that shields undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. The proposed rule will go through a public comment period, but the Department of Homeland Security said it is not a substitute for congressional action. MORE

TAKE ACTION: Pass the Build Back Better Act

The climate crisis is accelerating, and we must dramatically cut our carbon emissions if we hope to preserve a livable planet. Meanwhile, our country is facing the intersecting crises of COVID-19, economic injustice, and racial injustice. That means transforming our economy to build a pollution-free, 100% clean energy future. EarthJustice asks us to tell Congress to support the Build Back Better Act to invest big in a sustainable and just future. TAKE ACTION

U.S. Says Ivory-Billed Woodpecker and More Than 20 Other Species Have Gone Extinct

Death's come knocking a last time for the splendid ivory-billed woodpecker and 22 more birds, fish, and other species: The U.S. government is declaring them extinct. It's a rare move for wildlife officials to give up hope on a plant or animal, but government scientists say they've exhausted efforts to find these 23. Climate change could make such disappearances more common as a warming planet adds to the dangers facing imperiled plants and wildlife. MORE

Why The US Isn’t Ready for Clean Energy

Our country’s current goal is for solar plants alone to make nearly half of US electricity by 2050. While solar plants can be built relatively fast, high-voltage transmission projects can take up to 10 years. A new video from Vox explains in six minutes how the network of transmission lines in the U.S. will need to expand to move that energy from the Midwest to urban centers, and why that could be an obstacle to rapid greening of the energy grid. MORE

R. Kelly Found Guilty of Racketeering and Sex Trafficking

After more than 25 years of accusations and a federal court trial in New York that lasted seven weeks, R&B singer R. Kelly has been found guilty of charges including sexual exploitation of a child, bribery, racketeering, and sex trafficking involving five victims. Kelly faces a possible sentence of 10 years to life in prison. MORE

Teen Trafficking Investigation Recalls Unheeded Calls for Change

News that the federal government may have released teenage migrants to labor traffickers has triggered memories of similar incidents in the past and drawn attention to recommendations that went unfulfilled. Six years after an Ohio egg farm trafficking case resulted in sweeping policy recommendations from outside groups, and new screening protocols which were all intended to prevent recurrence. Yet the new investigations suggest those efforts fell short. MORE

TAKE ACTION: Urge the House to Pass the FVPSA Improvement Bill

The Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA) is at the heart of our nation’s response to domestic violence services. More than 1,500 local, public, private, nonprofit, and faith-based domestic violence programs rely on FVPSA-funding to keep their doors open to more than 1.3 million victims each year. The National Network to End Domestic Violence urges us to tell our Representatives to vote “YES” on the FVPSA Improvement bill. TAKE ACTION

Afghan Domestic Violence Survivors Forced to Return to Abuse or Live in Abandoned Prison

In the wake of the Taliban takeover, Afghan women in a domestic violence shelter who had escaped abusive households were given the option to return to their abusive homes, some of which threatened death for leaving, or be taken under the care of the Taliban. While most of the women chose to chance their luck at returning home, and one survivor who chose to go with the Taliban said she knew at least one woman who was killed, likely by an angry family member. MORE

TAKE ACTION: Tell Congress to Expand Medicare and Medicaid

Right now, drug and insurance companies are lobbying Congress to eliminate health care expansions in order to protect their obscene profits. By providing coverage in the 12 states which have yet to expand Medicaid, more than 2.2 million poor Americans would obtain the health coverage they desperately need. The Coalition on Human Needs urges us to tell Congress to expand Medicare and Medicaid. TAKE ACTION

No Time to Be a Child

During the pandemic, teenage girls took on more caregiving at home, extra shifts at work, and the burden of organizing racial justice protests. In many instances, it upended their lives. Black and Hispanic youth were more likely to have lost a parent or a family member to Covid-19. Black and Hispanic teenage girls were more likely than white girls and their male counterparts to shoulder care responsibilities at home. MORE

Almost Half a Million US Households Lack Indoor Plumbing: ‘The Conditions Are Inhumane’

Almost half a million American households lack basic indoor plumbing, with renters and people of color in some of the country’s wealthiest and fastest-growing cities most likely to be living without running water or flushing toilets. While some rural and indigenous communities have never had indoor plumbing, the vast majority of unplumbed Americans are in fact found in urban areas, with one in three affected households living in just 15 cities. MORE

Ernest Johnson is scheduled to be executed on October 5th by the state of Missouri for the murders of Mary Bratcher, Fred Jones, and Mabel Scruggs. Please hold Ernest, Mary, Fred, Mabel, their families, and the people of Missouri in prayer. TAKE ACTION

Stephen Barbee is scheduled to be executed on October 12th by the state of Texas for the murders of Lisa Underwood and Jayden Underwood. Please hold Stephen, Lisa, Jayden, their families, and the people of Texas in prayer. TAKE ACTION