A powerful coal company called Murray Energy sued us

Friend,

I wish I had different news.

The corporate lawsuit against Public Citizen may be going to trial.

We’ve been ordered to proceed with the case in a state court located in the same small Ohio town where the company suing us is headquartered.

To refresh your memory:

Last summer, a powerful coal company called Murray Energy sued us after we ran radio ads pointing out its opposition to new worker safety and clean air protections.

We’ve tried to have the suit dismissed or at least heard in a neutrally located federal court.

But instead, we will be required to spend time and resources responding to demands from Murray Energy for documents and depositions.

And Public Citizen staff will have to divert attention away from the vital work they do every day to protect consumers and safeguard democracy.

It’s an outrage that this meritless legal attack could end up distracting from the real work we need to do.

I won’t sugarcoat it — we need help to get through this.

Can you donate right now — $20, $50, maybe even $100 or more — to help us stand up to this corporate attack?

Thank you for whatever you can chip in today.

Onward,

Robert Weissman
President, Public Citizen

© 2015 Public Citizen • 1600 20th Street, NW / Washington, D.C. 20009

The TRUTH will set you FREE.

Derailing Fast Track for the Trans-Pacific Partnership has become a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole

Friend,

Derailing Fast Track for the Trans-Pacific Partnership has become a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole. A Fast Track vote could pop up again — this time in the Senate — as soon as Tuesday.

On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives — led by House Speaker John Boehner and his corporate cronies — used another procedural gimmick to punt Fast Track back to the Senate. Our concerns that more-of-the-same trade policy would offshore more jobs and push down our wages remain 100 percent unaddressed.

How do we demolish Fast Track? Focus all we’ve got on the U.S. Senate!

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is planning another Senate Fast Track vote for as early as next Tuesday. Our window is short. We must act NOW.

Email your senators right now.

It’s hard to imagine, but the Fast Track bill that the House bounced back to the Senate is even worse than it started. To get the Republican votes to squeak it through the House, Boehner and Rep. Paul Ryan added a ban on climate negotiations and gutted the ban on Fast Track for countries that ignore horrific human trafficking problems, like Malaysia. Modest language against currency cheating was dropped.

It is past time for the United States to forge a new path on trade that reflects our democratic values, not the interests of multinational corporations.

McConnell and Boehner are telling Senate Democrats to trust them and okay the latest Fast Track bill. And, then sometime later, they promise to pass legislation to help American workers who lose their jobs because of the unfair trade deals Fast Track would enable.

Seriously. The McConnell-Boehner plan is to put the Trans-Pacific Partnership on the Fast Track and never look back. But the only way they can do that is if the 12 Democratic senators who supported moving the previous Fast Track package go along with their ploy — or they get some new senators to take the bait.

Do you trust Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and Paul Ryan to come up with a plan that will benefit American workers and grow the middle class? I don’t either.

With the next vote on Fast Track coming as soon as Tuesday, there is no time to spare. Write your senators today!

Thanks for all you do.

In solidarity,

Melanie Foley
Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch

P.S. Make sure to check our website, www.citizen.org/trade, for the latest developments. A lot will be happening in the next couple of days.

The TRUTH will set you FREE.

A grab bag of giveaways to Big Business

FRIEND,

John Boehner is a sore loser.

Last Friday, he and other corporate shills in the U.S. House of Representatives lost their latest bid to “Fast Track” the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) — a grab bag of giveaways to Big Business that is being secretly negotiated between the United States and 11 Asian-Pacific countries under the guise of “free trade.”

But Boehner and his buddies have already concocted a procedural maneuver to hold yet another vote — TODAY — that would Fast Track the TPP!

Well, if they are going to keep trying to force Fast Track and the TPP on us, we HAVE TO keep doing our part to block it.

Take action RIGHT NOW: Tell your representative to vote “No” whenever the House votes on John Boehner’s next ploy to Fast Track the TPP.

The TPP is barely about trade at all.

It is an insidious scheme by multinational corporations for unprecedented power to evade the laws and regulations that protect us from their reckless pursuit of profits.

Fast Tracking the TPP would make it easier to offshore our jobs and push down our wages by throwing Americans into competition with workers in Vietnam making less than 60 cents an hour.

And it would flood us with unsafe imported food, increase fracking, roll back Wall Street regulation, and on and on and on.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking the TPP is too complex or abstract to worry about.

You need to be worried about the TPP.

The TPP will affect every aspect of your day-to-day life.

It would do all of the damage NAFTA did to jobs, wages, food safety, the environment and more. But the damage would be even worse than NAFTA.

And Fast Tracking the TPP is the top priority of Big Business in this Congress.

Whether you’ve taken action against Fast Track before or are a newbie, email your representative IMMEDIATELY to block Fast Track and the TPP.

Thank you.

Onward,

Robert Weissman
President, Public Citizen

The TRUTH will set you FREE.