You heard about the string of "suicides" last month, where black men just happened to be found hanging in trees? Change.org helps you tell Morristown, NJ police to reopen an investigation into the death of Amani Kildea found hanging from a tree an hour from his home, whose death they ruled a suicide. Mr. Kildea, all of 20 years old, apparently aspired to join law enforcement one day, and what a bitter irony it would be if police officers lynched him! We don't know that they did, but the thought has occurred, even though I know police officers who would stop their fellows from lynching someone. And this has happened before. Some people say "every time we gave blacks something in the '60s they rioted," but that's not true in almost any sense -- setting aside that recognizing their rights would be a hell of a way to describe a "gift," the actual timeline was usually a) law got passed, b) police killed black man, c) folks rioted. Hopefully an investigation into Mr. Kildea's death would help break that wheel.
Meanwhile, Americans for Financial Reform helps you tell our government to ensure that taxpayer money meant to go to small businesses actually goes to small businesses. It's a shame we have to tell our government to do the thing it already said it was doing, but we got a lot of stories this week about big corporations getting CARES Act money intended for small businesses, and we haven't heard nearly as much about the (at least) 66,000 small businesses that have permanently closed since the beginning of this pandemic. Of course, our government has pretended, for a very long time, that everything it does for big corporations it does for small businesses. It wasn't that long ago that Republicans were telling us that taxes shouldn't go up on rich people because of "the effect it'd have on small businesses," though that was total BS. Big corporations have been using small businesses as a human shield for decades now -- often to avoid regulations that would never hit small businesses as much as they hit big corporations! At least we're on to them, and at least we can communicate to the politicians that we're on to them.
Finally, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness covers a million acres of northern Minnesota and receives more visits than any other wilderness area in America. You know what's coming, right? Of course a big mining conglomerate wants to mine copper and nickel there, hence H.R. 5598, the Boundary Waters Wilderness Protection and Pollution Prevention Act, which would withdraw nearly a quarter of the Boundary Waters Wilderness from mining leases and only allow similar kinds of development if they don't pollute the land, water, or air in the area. That's the most important thing about public lands, after all -- that they're clean enough for good Americans to enjoy for generations to come, not whether they can be converted into money that'll get spent faster than you can say "don't drink the water." You'd think "most-visited wilderness in America" would carry some weight with our government, but apparently not -- at least, not if we don't speak out! Hence Environmental Action helps you tell your Congressfolk to protect public lands by passing the Boundary Waters Wilderness Protection and Pollution Prevention Act.
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