Pennsylvania residents, take note: the Sierra Club helps you tell your state legislators to oppose a slew of pro-pollution bills -- HB 209, HB 1237, HB 1959, HB 1960, and HB 1792. These bills would, generally, make it harder to issue or enforce clean air and clean water regulations, and thus easier for fossil fuel executives to redistribute income upward to themselves. You can look up all these bills if you like, but I'll just say this: HB 209 is a real peach of a bill, one that would mandate that two regulations go down for every new one that comes up -- after all, it's not like regulations fulfill specific legal obligations or anything! -- and would establish, get this, an Office of the Repealer. Just imagine a man in a cape and tights going around yelling I AM THE REPEALER! and explaining to little Johnny that his tap water catching fire is the price of progress. Is that something legislators could take to the Pearly Gates, let alone their constituents?
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats still can't find a 51st vote for S.J.Res. 52, the resolution of disapproval that would overturn the FCC's recent net neutrality repeal, and I think I know why: Republican John Kennedy of Louisiana, who's been doing a Hamlet act about supporting S.J.Res. 52, has signed on to a sham of a net neutrality bill sponsored by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who has fought internet freedom her whole damn career. Their bill would ban blocking and throttling websites, but doesn't address the issue of "paid prioritization," which would let ISPs allow some websites (from big media corporations that can pay out the nose for it!) to load faster on your computer than others, and "paid prioritization," as you might imagine, would stamp out small businesses trying to get heard on the internet. So don't believe the hype, and let Common Cause help you tell your Congressfolk that only S.J.Res. 52 will bring back our internet freedom.
Finally, if you've missed previous opportunties to tell your Congressfolk to support H.R. 4505/S. 2177, the Restoring Overtime Pay Act, then Daily Kos still helps you do that. The Restoring Overtime Pay Act would essentially restore the Department of Labor's Overtime Pay rule mandating that folks who make less than $48,000 annually must be paid time-and-a-half when they work overtime. And the bill would render moot the dispute over Labor's apparent overreach in crafting the rule, by essentially making the $48,000 limit an exemption to the white-collar overtime exemption. So what's left for right-wingers to squeal about? That overtime pay rules "kill jobs"? Strong overtime pay rules create jobs, by forcing corporations to hire more people instead of overworking the ones they've got. And it's really right-wingers' Personal Lord and Savior the Corporate CEO who kills jobs in America. So, again, don't believe the hype.
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