We learn from WUSA in Washington, D.C., that the D.C. police have been stockpiling tear gas and pepper spray since late spring, "in preparation for" post-election "civil disturbance." OK, the last phrase is a quotation, but the first phrase is just me being skeptical -- they don't "prepare for" disturbance, they cause disturbance! Who thinks protestors like getting the crap kicked out of them? Only haters think that -- the rest of us assume that protestors are human beings like everyone else, and would prefer to be heard without being shot or having their heads cracked. And not for nothing, but the Geneva Protocols ban tear gas, and we ratified those Protocols, so they're American law. I know Tha Bush Mobb said they weren't, because terrorism, but they were as wrong about that as they were about everything else. Hence Win Without War helps you tell your Congressfolk to prohibit our law enforcement personnel from using tear gas. You know, lest we get in the way of our President deciding to hold up another Bible in front of another church.
Meanwhile, our EPA continues to ignore the science regarding the pesticide chlorpyrifos, which causes brain damage in the children whose mothers get exposed to it while they're pregnant. But H.R. 7940/S. 4406, the Protect America's Children from Toxic Pesticides Act, seems tailor-made to grapple with an Administration that delays doing its job. The bill would prevent our EPA Administrator from making "interim determinations" on pesticides -- which allow harmful pesticides to stay on the market! -- and would also prevent said Administrator from simply running the clock out on review petitions by banning pesticides from market if the Administration doesn't complete said review within 90 days. And it would require our EPA to consider all relevant science, rather than just whatever "science" our EPA's industry flacks cough up. It's a shame we have to tell this Administration how to do its job, but duty is duty, so Environmental Action helps you tell your Congressfolk to pass the Protect America's Children from Toxic Pesticides Act.
Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your state legislators to enact the National Popular Vote Compact, which would allow states within the compact to assign their electors to the winner of the national popular vote, then Progress America still helps you do that. Currently states totaling 196 electoral votes have joined the compact, which leaves 74 more to make 270, which would ensure that the popular vote winner will also win the Electoral vote. One can't argue, at this stage, that the Electoral College has performed as our Founders supposed it would -- it hasn't prevented manifestly unfit candidates from becoming President, but has enabled manifestly unfit candidates to become President, in both 2000 and 2016. That's twice in 16 years; I'm not sure how many more experiments we need to run to confirm that hypothesis. Would the National Popular Vote Compact be better than a Constitutional amendment outlawing the Electoral College? No. But should we let the perfect murder the good? Certainly not.
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