Congress might have the debt limit and the continuing resolution off their plate for the month, but they don't have Children's Health Insurance Program (or CHIP) reauthorization off their plate, because that expires September 30. So Moms Rising helps you tell your Congressfolk to reauthorize CHIP for the next five years. Of course, a bill reauthorizing the enormously-popular CHIP -- which helps deliver health insurance to almost 9 million children and (along with Medicaid) keeps the uninsured rate among children down to 5% -- would be as close to a must-pass bill as you could get, this side of an appropriations bill. And you know what that means! It means Congressfolk attaching all manner of evil to it, in the hope they can get that evil passed when it would otherwise wither under sunlight. So feel free to use the "personal message" section of the Moms Rising tool to express your will on that matter as well, i.e., "no poison pills!" or "no irrelevant amendments!" (Though tempting, "no shenanigans!" would probably be too vague.)
Meanwhile, given that the Trump Administration has lifted Obama-era limits on the notorious 1033 program, which allows our Defense Department to give local police departments military weapons, Roots Action helps you tell Congress to enact legislation banning this practice. Crime being down generally since the early 1990s -- regardless of what unscrupulous politicians and the nightly news and 80 million cop shows might suggest -- you have to wonder why police officers would need things like tanks and grenade launchers. And I think you would conclude that they don't need them to fight crime, since they're not very good crime-fighting tools, but to control and intimidate protestors. Donald Trump must love protestors an awful lot, since he's made so many of them, and if he wants fewer protestors, maybe the solution isn't to arm police like they're soldiers. Maybe, just maybe, the solution is to stop doing things people hate -- and start serving the people's interests.
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