First things first. Raping girls is apparently a thing in India -- it happens about every 22 minutes and seems to have the state's unofficial sanction (as many folks have come forward to describe police indifference to tales of disappearing girls), and maybe it has the state's official sanction, too: a minister from India's ruling party has lately said of rape that "sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong." Such steadfastness in the face of evil! But India's new Prime Minister got elected on a putatively pro-business platform, and perhaps he'll respond to a world that refuses to visit India as a tourist destination until India stops tolerating rape. Hence Avaaz helps you tell India you'll be withholding your vacation dollars until it adopts some common sense reforms that will prevent women and girls from being treated like receptacles for rage. These reforms include: better public education for women without discrimination, more comprehensive public services for victims of sexual violence, amending laws to ensure that violence against woman gets punished, and equal pay for equal work. We've seen American right-wingers proffer excuses opposing similar initiatives in America, and we'll get worse from Indian right-wingers. But who cares what rage-filled fools think?
Meanwhile, the Sierra Club notes that right-wingers in the House have introduced a slew of bills supposedly designed to "reform" the Endangered Species Act, but which would actually deform the Endangered Species Act. At least the House has numbered them consecutively for our convenience -- H.R. 4315, H.R. 4316, H.R. 4317, and H.R. 4318, all passed out of committee but yet to be considered by the full House. The corporate forces that would gut the ESA like to tell us how much money it costs the economy -- money in drilling and logging and so forth. What they really mean, of course, is that the ESA costs corporate CEOs money, thus preventing them from gilding the plumbing in their seventh vacation home. But hiring people to plan how to save endangered species and then implement those plans actually creates jobs and creates income and supports economies. And while logging and drilling bring environmental hazards that hike up health care costs for everyone nearby, endangered species often contribute a lot to local ecosystems -- they keep predators from overrunning areas, to name one matter governments will spend money to deal with sooner or later. So the Sierra Club helps you tell Congress to reject these anti-environmental bills.
Finally, as you know, H.R. 3899, the Voting Rights Amendment Act, would undo the damage the Supreme Court did to the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder by replacing the formula the Court found wanting (singling out specific states and municipalities for heightened federal scrutiny) with a formula that would allow the VRA to scrutinize states and municipalities that have previously been caught committing serial voting rights violations. Yet H.R. 3899 has not advanced in the House, though its lead sponsor, James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, is a Republican, and nine other Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors. H.R. 3899 has 15 Democratic co-sponsors, making this bill as bipartisan a bill as this Congress is likely to put out. So has the House Republican majority decided to give the Tea Party all the say about everything again? Or have they applied the Hastert Rule, indicating they won't bring a bill up for a vote unless it's supported by "a majority of the majority"? The correct answer to both questions is: who gives a flip what they want? A vast majority of Americans oppose taking away folks' voting rights. So USAction helps you tell your House Rep to demand a House vote for voting rights.
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