Amnesty International helps you tell local law enforcement to respect basic human rights when policing the protests at Standing Rock. Those would be the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, of course, but why should a corporation trying to ram a pipeline through a Native American reservation get top billing over that reservation? We've heard about the many, ah, issues Native protestors have been having with police -- like, you know, excessive force and getting military-grade weapons pointed at them. You'd think protest was against the law or something! If the Standing Rock protestors dressed up as Tea Party protestors, do you suppose the police would give them an easier time? I kid, of course -- the Tea Party would never protest a pipeline threatening to destroy clean water in a sacred Indian land. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it'll look at alternate pipeline routes, but I bet a President Trump changes that. I also fear he'll just send troops in to shoot the whole lot of them. I really do fear that. Of course, there'll be no giving a Murderer-in-Chief a "chance" at that point.
Meanwhile, we spoke of the distinct possibility that our new Republican overlords will destroy Medicare before too long, but we have not spoken of the equally-distinct possibility that our new Republican overlords will also destroy Social Security. I know, Mr. Trump talked a good game about not cutting benefits for either one if we elected him, but now it's all fuck-you-I-won, which you would have expected if you noticed a Trump policy advisor saying at a Peter G. Peterson Foundation conference back in May that Mr. Trump would "take a look at" the "entitlement" programs if elected. (You know I put the word "entitlements" in ironic quote-marks because you worked for them, so they're not an entitlement, right?) Anyway, Mr. Trump has lately added at least two unregenerate Social Security privatizers to his transition. Not because they're Social Security privatizers, of course -- I'm sure it's because they're the BEST and YUGEST advisors he could find. Still, we know them by their actions, so Social Security Works helps you tell Mr. Trump to reject Social Security and Medicare privatization and expand benefits instead.
Finally, Congress has begun their lame-duck session and still plans to keep the anti-gay, pro-bigotry Russell Amendment in whatever defense authorization bill comes out of Congress, so People for the American Way still helps you tell your Senators to keep the Russell Amendment out of the defense authorization bill. The defense authorization bill is, as you've surely guessed, a must-pass bill, meaning it gets all kinds of nefarious amendments attached to it that would wither in the light of day like a vampire if introduced alone -- and Rep. Steve Russell's amendment would let federal contractors ignore our laws protecting employees from discrimination because of their "religious conscience" or "liberty" or "whining" or whatever, all while continuing to take taxpayer money, i.e., our money. Naturally the Russell Amendment doesn't just apply to the Defense Department, but to all federal departments. Truly terrible human beings serve as our Representatives -- people who don't care about our heritage as Americans, but only about personal and political gain. So we must remind them who's really the boss around here.
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