The Senate votes today on the two impeachment charges against our President, so now's the time to call your Senators and tell them to convict and remove him from office. (You can use the tools in the upper right-hand corner of this page to find your Senators' phone numbers; you may want to check out their websites, too, in case you can't reach their Washington numbers. I've programmed all of my Senators' phone numbers into my phone.) Republicans have been admitting for months that our President did wrong, but they're also saying it doesn't rise to the level of an impeachable offense. While I don't presume that this is the most impeachable offense he's committed, nor do I presume this is the worst thing he's done in office, just picture how Republicans would have reacted if President Obama had refused to release Ukraine aid money Congress had already mandated he spend unless the Ukranian government concocted some sort of investigation into Mitt Romney. They'd have howled like banshees! Their commitment to the rule of law may be entirely situational, but that doesn't mean ours has to be, nor does it mean we must remain silent.
Meanwhile, you may know that our President has decided to let states accept federal Medicaid funding in block grants, and you may also know that this has been a long-desired goal of the far right in America. Why? Because the far right hates Medicaid, of course -- it helps poor working folk get health insurance and therefore health care, so the right hates it as it hates all government programs that actually help people. And turning Medicaid funding into block grants would give states "flexibility" in how they spend it -- meaning they might not even spend it on health care! This block grants scheme would also limit funding to states, meaning that if folks need more health care than the block grant would fund, those folks would be SOL. Luckily, this block grant program is an option for states, not a mandate -- though it sure won't be an option for poor working folk! We expect a lot of states would leap to accept this "option," but we, the residents of those states, have a say about that. Hence Daily Kos helps you tell states to stop our government's attempt to destroy Medicaid by refusing the "option" to accept Medicaid funding as a block grant.
Finally, as part of its mad drive to destroy all regulations that actually help good Americans, our Administration has proposed to "streamline and clarify" the process by which our government enforces the National Environmental Policy Act, and you can guess what that means -- it means "streamlining and clarifying" science and public input out of the process, by reducing public commenting on decision-making processes that might cost some corporate executive some money, and by preventing government agencies from taking climate change into their decisions. Every time this Administration changes a regulation they make it worse, and the only thing that's stopped them from doing far more damage so far? Us, that's what. No, really, us -- when the courts strike down an Administration regulatory proposal, they often cite the numerous public comments this Administration routinely ignores in pushing that proposal, and believe it or not, clean air and clean water actually remain fairly popular with the American people. Hence both WildEarth Guardians and the Union of Concerned Scientists help you tell this Administration to scuttle yet another plan to ruin clean air and clean water regulation.
UPDATE. Senate acquits our President by 48-52 on the abuse of power charge (Sen. Romney of Utah being the only Republican to vote with all 47 Democrats) and 47-53 on the obstruction of Congress charge. Sen. Collins voted to acquit, saying our President had "learned a lesson" from the experience; I shudder to think the "lesson" he's learned is that he can do even more of whatever he likes. But we'll keep instructing him otherwise, as is our duty as citizens.
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