H.R. 1352, the WATER Act, is back; the bill would free up $35 billion annually -- not a whole lot in the context of a $4 trillion-plus federal budget, I feel compelled to point out -- for water improvement and infrastructure projects. Infrastructure projects create jobs, after all; why, they even create jobs for Trump votaries! None of whom will ever vote for Joe Biden if this bill passes, since wrath is a hell of a drug. But $35 billion annually will get a lot of lead pipes replaced, a lot of sewer lines refitted, and a lot of forever-chemicals out of our drinking water, plus it'll target poorer communities in urban and rural areas. This is infrastructure spending you can count on! The WATER Act first came about after the government of Michigan, via an unelected and dictatorial "emergency manager," put lead in Flint's drinking water; now we all know how badly Texas is doing with its recent winter storms, not just in terms of electricity but also in terms of the clean water that's been slower to return to good Texans. Hence Food and Water Watch helps you tell your Congressfolk to support jobs and clean water by passing the WATER Act.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is gone, and so is his notorious Muslim ban, dead at the hands of Joe Biden -- but future Presidents might decide to do as Mr. Trump did, particularly since our Supreme Court, in a shameful ruling, gave it their blessing! Hence H.R. 1333, the NO BAN Act, is back -- it's yet another bill Mitch McConnell wouldn't let our Senators vote on during 2019 and 2020, lest we all find out they're just as obnoxiously racist as their Personal Lord and Savior. The NO BAN Act would, as you may recall, prevent our President from issuing travel restrictions based strictly on religion or race -- rather than, you know, a person's actual propensity to commit violence once he's here! -- and the Center for Rights and Dissent helps you tell your Congressfolk to support reasonable immigration restrictions by passing the NO BAN Act. That's for everyone who responds to "I support the NO BAN Act" with ZOMG WOULDZ YOUZ LETZ INZ ALLZ TEH IMMIGRASHUNZ!!!!! I'm sick and tired of people who respond to specific policy prescriptions with slippery-slope hysteria. No one says "let all immigrants in," but right-wingers can't beat anyone but a straw man in an argument.
In other news, Daily Kos helps you tell our Justice Department to investigate Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. For what, this time? For only letting vaccines go to two lily-white zip codes with low COVID transmission rates in one Florida county where a lot of his big donors live, that's what! We're not the only ones who raised eyebrows -- the Manatee County Commission, where the vaccines went, raised questions over who was getting them and why, and so did Rep. Charlie Crist, who once upon a time was That Republican You Liked until he became a Democrat. Mr. DeSantis, for his part, reminded everyone why he came up as part of the Tea Party flatugasm of 2010 and why Donald Trump loves him so -- he responded to criticism of his actions by threatening to take the vaccines elsewhere if the county didn't want them! Of course the county did want them -- it just didn't want to be unfair to its constituents, a lesson Mr. DeSantis could maybe one day learn. If he has to learn it from jail or from ignominious defeat in 2022, well, who am I to dictate the circumstances of how character gets built?
Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to pass H.R. 1370, the Anti-Racism in Public Health Act, then the Daily Kos Liberation League still helps you do that. Folks who say accusations of racism are "overblown" ought to tell us how black folks get more diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension than other folks, and while they're at it, they might also tell us how black kids die five times more from asthma than white kids do. And I would regard "because black folks don't take care of themselves as well as white folks" as not just a racist answer, but one that ignores the landfills that governments deposit near communities of color, the supermarkets big corporations don't build in communities of color, and, yes, the police who'll shoot a black man for brandishing a cellphone but take an actual white terrorist to McDonald's while arresting him. It really is OK to say racism is real; it's not a judgment on your life that it persists despite your efforts, but a call to keep fighting for justice, a fight that never ends until you draw your last breath.
OK, for-real finally this time: our House may be voting on H.R. 1, the For the People Act, today, so give them a call and tell them to vote for it.
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