The Ohio state legislature, perhaps emboldened by the Presidential victory of the 46% Man, has sent not-one-but-two anti-abortion bills to Gov. Kasich's desk -- one that would outlaw abortion after 20 weeks, which we've seen before, but another so-called "heartbeat bill" which would outlaw abortion after a mere six weeks, or well before most women even know they're pregnant. Both bills contain no exceptions for incest, rape, or the life or health of the mother; remember back in the day when these exceptions were considered sane anti-abortion policy? Those days are gone, and right-wingers put these bills forward not to actually reduce abortions (since they're generally against the kind of birth control that would actually reduce abortions) but to engage in ever-more-rage addled swordfighting over Who's More Conservative. (Spoiler alert: no one in a swordfight is conservative.) Both Pro-Choice America and the ACLU help you tell Gov. Kasich to veto both these bills. These 20-week bans typically don't get past federal courts, but that should change with a President Trump appointing judges everywhere, so the time to speak out, as usual, is now.
Meanwhile, the Army Corps of Engineers has denied (for now) the final easement that would enable the completion of the Dakota Access pipeline, but make no mistake, they're still building out there, still planning to despoil sacred Sioux land and put good folks' drinking water at risk of pollution. One thing we can build on is that the PR hit delivered by the Standing Rock Sioux has been quite impressive -- and yet one gets the feeling that Dakota Access's funders are merely waiting for the PR storm to blow over, that even the memory of peaceful Sioux protestors getting pelted with rubber bullets and water from cannons will fade from our minds. Hence the Sierra Club helps you tell big banks to divest and stop lending money to the builders of the Dakota Access pipeline. They may also be waiting for a President Trump (who's got money tied up in the Dakota Pipeline, because of course he does!) to swoop in and grant the permits they need. They should be wary of that, since Mr. Trump is not exactly known for his even temperament, and is as likely as not to leave dead Sioux protestors in his wake.
Finally, Mr. Trump has signaled that he even plans to leave his fingerprints, or whatever they are, all over the EPA's Clean Car Standards, which have upped fuel economy standards for American cars. For the moment, the EPA has signaled that it'll leave the standards where they are, having completed a legally-mandated review of the standards, but the EPA hasn't finalized that decision, so both the Environmental Defense Fund and the Sierra Club help you tell the EPA to keep fuel economy standards strong. Why does Donald Trump want to lower the standards? Because he believes all regulations are evil. Why does he believe all regulations are evil? Because they keep him and his kind from making all the money they can, as if money is the only damn thing of consequence on this Earth. But these standards save money for car drivers at the pump -- and by "car drivers," I mean, of course, all Americans -- and they also reduce pollution in reducing the amount of oil we dig up to make gasoline. So why does our next American President want people to pay more money for gas and suffer more health care issues from pollution? It's a question worth asking!
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