Earlier this week, President Trump released a 55-page version of his infrastructure proposal, and, naturally, it takes America hostage: gut all the clean air, clean water, and endangered species regulations, or the crumbling infrastructure gets it! If your kid told you not to make sure he did his homework right because that would impinge on his ability to get it done at all, you'd see that as the BS it is, but Our Glorious Elites stand ready to let our manchild President get away with arguing that regulations prevent us from building things, when actually they prevent us from building things wrong. And really, complaining about regulations all the time does kind of mark you as a whiner -- if not a law-breaker, as Mr. Trump's numerous citations at Mar-a-Lago would suggest. So the Sierra Club helps you tell your Congressfolk to reject the Trump infrastructure scam and fund real infrastructure building by supporting renewable energy projects.
Meanwhile, S. 1917, the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, is up again; it's not everything we would hope for in sentencing reform, etc., but it does represent progress. Admittedly the works it would perform -- reducing sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, giving judges more leeway in sentencing, and making such reforms retroactive so current prisoners can benefit from them, among others -- don't constitute the flavor in the Trump Administration, but they do much better reflect the American people's priorities, which is, after all, the point of legislating in a representative form of government, and long after Donald Trump is gone, we'll still be here. Word on the street, however, is that S. 1917's sponsors -- 10 from each party, none named Rand Paul -- might water the bill down further in order to attract more votes, so use the tools in the upper right-hand corner of this page to call your Senators to insist they support S. 1917 as-is.
Finally, the Senate will be voting on immigration matters this week, so People for the American Way helps you tell your Senators to enact a clean DREAM Act, one unburdened by Trumpian demands for a "border wall." The DREAM Act, as you know, would force the Executive branch to keep foregoing deportation proceedings for immigrants brought here as children; these are immigrants who have spent decades here, made a contribution to American society, and wouldn't recognize their home country if they were deported back to it, which would make their deportation an act of cruelty. We should avoid being cruel whenever possible, of course, and if you're the kind of person who can't keep strength and cruelty separate in your head, please navigate to another website. And let's also avoid pandering to President Trump and his need to stoke rage in his votaries with demands for a "wall." Only weak nations build big walls; great nations do right by their people, and thus don't need big walls.
Comments