Can you sign the letter? Can you help deliver it?

Friends,

The Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore will deliver the letter, see below, to the office of Rep. John Sarbanes on Wednesday, May 21 at 4:30 PM. Can you sign the letter? Can you help deliver it? Call 410-366-1637 or email mobuszewski at verizon.net. Thanks.

Kagiso,

Max

Rep. John Sarbanes
600 Baltimore Ave.
Suite 303
Baltimore, MD 21204

May 21, 2014

Dear Representative Sarbanes:

Members of the Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore are voters and supporters of Progressive Democrats of America. We call upon you to cosponsor Congressman John Conyers' Expanded and Improved Medicare For All Act (H.R. 676) that would provide improved and comprehensive healthcare for all United States residents with better outcomes while controlling costs. Please contact Rep. John Conyers’ office at (202)-225-5126 to cosponsor H.R. 676, if you haven’t already.

We also call upon you to co-sponsor the War Authorization Review and Determination Act (H.R. 4608), and to vote for Rep. Barbara Lee's amendment to the FY2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)—both of which would repeal the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). For 12 years, the AUMF has been used to justify open-ended war and endless abuses of privacy and human rights. Please help lead the effort to repeal the AUMF and restore Congressional constitutional decision-making authority over war and peace.

The FY2015 NDAA is expected to reach the House floor imminently. It contains wasteful spending on unnecessary, obsolete weapons systems and other unconscionable expenditures we cannot afford. We must return to a peacetime military budget, as after all previous wars, and reinvest in our children's future. Please vote no on final passage of the NDAA, and contact Rep. Barbara Lee’s office at (202)-225-2661 to cosponsor H.R. 4608, if you haven’t already.

We further call upon you to oppose any “Fast Track” legislation for the Transpacific Partnership (TPP), including the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities Act (H.R. 3830), and any other “Fast Track” legislation that may be proposed. “Fast Track” is an extreme, rare procedure, only used 16 times in history. It would circumvent your Article One Constitutional trade authority, severely limit debate, and prevent amendments.

The TPP would hurt U.S. business, send jobs overseas, and would open American companies and government agencies to complaints before international tribunals seeking $billions in “future lost profits,” and thereby undermine laws protecting our economy, consumers, workers, and the environment. Please oppose any “Fast Track” legislation, the TPP, and similar deals.

Finally, we are seeking an end to the use of killer drone strikes, which we believe to be illegal and unconstitutional. We ask you to speak out against this assassination program, which ignores any veneer of due process. Consider as well a request for the full, unclassified release of information surrounding the administration’s drone policy.

We look forward to your response. And when you are ready, we would like to meet with you, preferably in Baltimore. But if necessary, we will travel to your D.C. office. We thank you for your consideration regarding these critically important issues, and look forward to ongoing discussion and engagement with you in the coming months.

Peace,

Max Obuszewski, on behalf of Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore/Fund Our Communities

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs