Food and Water Watch helps you tell your Congressfolk to support H.R. 5313, the WATER Act. The WATER Act -- the acronym stands for Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity and Reliability, which isn't bad, as Congressional bill acronyms go -- would, as you might expect, fund the restoration and upgrading of our water grid, which would not only ensure that we have clean water, but would also create jobs. Health care in America really begins with clean water; when we don't have it, we can't stay healthy, and if we can't stay healthy, we can't be free. Sadly, I'm afraid that bills like the WATER Act won't pass until a lot more neighborhoods suffer what Flint, MI suffered. That's not necessarily because folks are saying those (expletives) in Flint, screw them, although I'm sure a few people are. It's more that people don't demand change until it directly affects them, which is totally understandable, since we don't usually learn through thought experiment. That said, encouraging empathy in oneself and others is a worthwhile endeavor -- and solving our water infrastructure problems before they affect mass numbers of Americans is another one.
Meanwhile, the ACLU helps you tell the Department of Housing and Urban Development to do everything it can do to protect women from domestic violence predators in their homes. From what can HUD protect women? Well, it can protect them from "nuisance ordinances," which enable landlords to evict tenants who make too much trouble, the definition of "trouble" including women who make "too many" 911 calls on their abusive partners; it can also protect them from housing discrimination, so that women who do leave their abusive partners can more easily get safe housing. And how would it accomplish these aims? By issuing guidances on how "nuisance ordinances" should be interpreted, and enforcing protections already legislated in the Violence Against Women Act and the Fair Housing Act. Do not be the fool who says what's the big deal? You should just leave anyone who hits you -- unless you've never been in love with anyone, because then you'd have an excuse, I guess. And certainly don't claim Big Gummint would be oppressing municipalities that pass "nuisance ordinances," which are little more than cudgels landlords use to evict tenants more easily.
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