File this, also, under "evil done under cover of a pandemic": our EPA has announced that it will roll back clean car standards! The same standards that force car manufacturing corporations to give you more miles to the gallon, which saves you money at the pump! And for what? So our President can take yet another dump on one of the Obama Administration's few good works? You've heard it from their own mouths, how "cars will be cheaper" if they pollute more (ah, but higher gas prices will be with you for the entire life of your car) and how "it'll save lives because people will drive more if their gas is cheaper and thus have more accidents" (ah, but more pollution makes people sicker). Hence the Sierra Club helps you tell your state Attorney General to fight the rollback, and the Environmental Defense Fund helps you tell your Congressfolk to reverse this rollback. Hate to pile on, but the rollback will cost jobs, since regulations always create jobs for people trying to figure out how to adhere to them, and we'll have more trouble selling cars abroad where the standards are stricter. But as long as some CEO somewhere is redistributing income upward to himself, this Administration doesn't care.
Meanwhile, Iran and Venezuela aren't the only nations suffering under American sanctions during a pandemic -- so is Palestine. You've heard New York Gov. Cuomo talk about how many tens of thousands his state still needs to withstand this pandemic? Well, the Gaza Strip has a mere 56 ventilators, to go with its 40 ICU beds, for two million people, in a region the United Nations has declared would soon be uninhabitable thanks to over a decade of bombings and blockades. If you're inclined to say well that strip is just full of terrorists anyway so whatever, then ask yourself how two million terrorists could be so ground down! After all, it only took 18 terrorists to take down the World Trade Center and drive our government insane. Maybe, just maybe, most people in the Middle East are actually folks like us, and maybe, just maybe, most people don't deserve to be crushed in a pandemic. Hence Jewish Voice for Peace joins with M Power Change to help you tell your Congressfolk to act to end the Israeli blockade of Gaza so that its people might actually survive this pandemic.
Finally, Daily Kos helps you tell our state and federal governments to suspend co-pays for prisoners who need medical attention. We went over this a few years ago: a prisoner who has to pay a $5 co-pay for a medical appointment may be getting a cheaper co-pay than you are, but given that a prisoner might be making 15 cents an hour (if they even have a job!), a $5 co-pay is actually an onerous charge that prevents prisoners from getting the care they need -- and thus putting other prisoners and prison workers at risk. There's also this little thing called a coronavirus pandemic going on, and a single prisoner deciding he can't pay a co-pay could feed the fire of this pandemic, especially in prisons, where "physical distancing" isn't actually possible. I mean, they're not going to set prisoners free (even though most of them haven't been convicted of a crime, but are awaiting trial) and they're going to shake them down for medical appointments, too? That's not how a civilized society conducts itself.
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