Dear President Obama

what we need you to do before you leave…

Americans face bitter consequences when the new administration takes power. You have a brief period where you can blunt the massive suffering that is about to be imposed on the public, especially on those who elected you twice.

The following list details several urgent tasks concerning the country’s continued well-being. We are now convinced that your leadership and legacy will be confirmed only if you take the following actions:

• Fill any vacancies in the Supreme Court and other federal courts, by any means necessary. If all else fails, appoint the new Supreme Court justice and any other federal judges while Congress is in recess.
• Enforce the provisions in the Voting Rights Act that enable the federal government to oppose voter suppression. While the Supreme Court has struck down that part of the Act which targets specific states, you may still demand enforcement of voting rights as federal law, and investigate the voter suppression rampant in this recent election.
• Force major government contractors to reveal their campaign spending.
• Safeguard the Iran Nuclear Deal by vetoing any attempt to continue the sanctions on Iran.
• Continue to normalize relations with Cuba by lifting the embargo.
• Set strict limits to the extrajudicial killings and detentions by Joint Special Operations Command. Prevent JSOC from acting outside existing conflict zones
• Restore the standards in the Army Field Manual on Interrogations to what they were in 1992.
• Restore the passages forbidding the usage of stress positions or sleep deprivation as torture techniques.Delete “Appendix M” which permits the “separation” of detainees through isolation, sensory deprivation and sleep deprivation techniques.
• Scrap the “Disposition Matrix”.
• Ban extraordinary rendition.
• Close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
• Vocally and unequivocally reaffirm Section 1021(e) of the NDAA that specifies that no one captured or arrested in the United States will be subject to indefinite military detention
• Set up a strict regulatory regime for solitary confinement in federal prisons. End solitary confinement for any reason other than prisoner safety. It should not be a punishment for minor infractions or a tool to prevent overcrowding. End the practice of indefinite isolation by imposing strict limits on the total amount of time a prisoner can spend in solitary confinement. End “double celling” where two prisoners are forced to live together in a solitary cell.
• Grant clemency for nonviolent drug offenders serving long sentences.
• Pardon Edward Snowden and commute Chelsea Manning’s sentence to time served.
• Formally conclude NSEERS, George W. Bush’s defunct Muslim registration program. Shut down the successor program US-Visit, with the understanding that a Trump white house would abuse a biometric database of Muslim immigrants.
• Amend Ronald Reagan’s Executive Order 12333 so that it no longer enables the NSA’s mass surveillance program.
• Strengthen the bans on military equipment for policing implemented through Executive Order 13688. Extend the ban to explosives, aircraft and armored vehicles of any kind.
• Put pressure on the FCC and DOJ to ban use of Stingrays (fake cell towers, often mounted on aircraft, used to hack smartphones) by the police.
• Block the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
• Delete the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) database. If Trump is unwilling to accommodate immigrants with no home outside the U.S., he shouldn’t have the information he needs to target them.
• Secure our nation’s commitment to ending discrimination in public housing.
• Secure our nation’s commitments to reducing fossil fuel usage through the domestic Clean Power Plan and international Paris Agreement.
• Put heavy protections on our National Monuments and Parks that prevent their potential exploitation for fuel and mineral rights.
• Place protections against the dismantling of Medicare. Trump countermanding these would serve as an immediate danger signal to the American public.
• Finally, issue a blanket pardon for immigration-related offenses. Even if a presidential pardon cannot grant citizenship, immigrants can still receive amnesty.

We need you to stand up to the Republicans now, as you did during the election, while you still have the power to do so. It is imperative that you proceed without delay.

In solidarity,
Millennials for Revolution