The so-called "moderate" health care "reform" bill -- a.k.a. the Graham-Cassidy bill -- still stumbles through the hallways of the Senate like a zombie, threatening to take down the Affordable Care Act's pre-existing conditions ban through yet another clever loophole, kill the medical device tax that only bothers medical device corporations, zero out all of the Affordable Care Act's subsidies, and end Medicaid funding within a decade. That they're even calling this monstrosity a "moderate" bill shows you how thoroughly right-wingers have destroyed the word. And if it passes, it could get worse -- what's to stop this reactionary Congress from "reconciling" it with the hated House bill so that nearly all of the House bill becomes law? Look, if I thought of that, then they thought of it months ago. So give this zombie health care bill the headshot it deserves, by using the tools in the upper right-hand corner of this page (or the bottom of this page, if you're viewing it on a smartphone) to call your Senators and tell them to reject the Graham-Cassidy bill.
Meanwhile, President Trump has occasionally seemed to be of two minds about the DACA program that defers deportation for certain folks who were brought to America as children. Now, we don't need to pay too much attention to this apparent dichotomy -- oftentimes politicians seem to be "conflicted" about something about which they're not actually conflicted, and they do it to put people off their game -- but the problem of DACA's end in less than six months still remains, and helping these good folks out is our duty as Americans. I mean, seriously, we're going to blame them for something they literally had no say in doing? And send them back to countries they likely wouldn't even recognize? All so people can have swordfights over "who's more conservative"? So People for the American Way helps you tell your Reps and Senators to pass H.R. 3440/S. 1615, the DREAM Act, which would not only protect a lot of immigrants brought to America as children, but would actually help them contribute more to American society.
Finally, Brazil's government would like to sell off vast swaths of currently-protected Amazon rainforest for the benefit of, you guessed it, corrupt cronies, and Brazil's President plans to travel to the U.N. building in New York next week to drum up support (and possible buyers, I presume), so Avaaz helps you tell the government of Brazil to stop selling off Amazon rainforest. It's a pretty simple principle, really: hold on to public lands, use them for the public good, and care for them on the public's behalf, and they'll last forever, but you can only sell public lands off once, and the money you make from them won't last forever. Besides, governments typically sell off public lands for one of two reasons: to make up for budgetary shortfalls they could have avoided, or to funnel money to some crony or other. And contemplate a rainforest that's home to approximately one out of every ten species of animals on Earth and produces more than a fifth of the world's oxygen, and selling off chunks of it sure does seem small, doesn't it?
Comments