If you've missed previous opportunities to tell your House Rep to pass a Constitutional amendment allowing our government to regulate campaign finance again, then Daily Kos still helps you do that. Our Supreme Court's disastrous Citizens United v. FEC ruling in 2010 has opened the floodgates of corporate campaign spending, even though good Americans get more and more disgusted with all the money blown on campaigns, too often for politicians who shouldn't be elected dog-catcher. Proponents of campaign finance spending tell us that it takes money to get heard, etc., but that statement does not justify allowing people or corporations to spend virtually any amount of money to "get heard." In fact, we can reasonably suppose that when a few people or corporations drop hundreds of millions on a campaign, they actually prevent other good Americans from being heard. So let's bring back campaign finance reform in America.
Meanwhile, Washington is one of 15 American states that somehow do not ban female genital mutilation (or FGM), so a Change.org petition helps you tell Washington state legislators to ban FGM. Some religious sects claim our First Amendment protects FGM, though reasonable people would conclude differently -- if your rights end when they trample on other people's rights, then reasonably your "right" to mutilate a young girls' genitals would end with her right, you know, to not be fucking traumatized for life. Congress banned FGM at the federal level over 20 years ago, but a Michigan federal District Court judge overturned the ban, saying that FGM is a "local criminal activity" and that "Federalism concerns deprive Congress of the power to enact this statute." That should warn you against imbibing too much Federalism! And our Justice Department won't appeal the ruling, so whom does that leave? That leaves us! You know, like always.
Finally, our EPA has proposed a new Lead and Copper Rule, but won't mandate the replacement of lead-lined service line pipes, which does kind of defeat the purpose of a new Lead and Copper Rule, doesn't it? Unless our EPA's "purpose" is actually to pretend to protect our clean water while utterly failing to do so! Hence Environment America helps you tell our EPA to make sure we get all the lead pipes out of our water infrastructure within a decade. Our EPA is only taking comments until tomorrow, though, so get cracking. At least six million homes in America still get water from lead-lined service lines, meaning at least six million homes remain at risk for lead contamination and all the neurological problems it brings, especially for children. Cities like Madison, WI and Lansing, MI have replaced all of their lead service lines, so it's not like replacing their lines would be a "burden." You know what would be a burden? The increased health care costs from lead poisoning, which we all must bear.
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