Long story short: tell your Congressfolk to stop mass murders, pass a Build Back Better-style reconciliation bill, and pass the PFAS Firefighter Protection Act, the EQUAL Act, and the PASTEUR Act. Use the tools in the upper right-hand corner of this page (or, if you're on a cellphone, the bottom of this page) to find your Congressfolk's phone numbers and/or use the email/petition tools in the following paragraphs.
On the occasion of yet another mass school shooting, I present Thom Hartmann's two-pronged solution to the mass shooting issue: make it as hard to get semi-automatics as it is to get automatics, and regulate guns the same way we regulate cars. You may want to call your Congressfolk with some version of this plan. Right-wingers will say they don't want to get their guns registered because TEH FREEDUMZ!!!!!, but ignore them. Liberals will say there wouldn't be enough background checks, but ignore them, too, because the registration process does that job. As for fewer semis meaning less "freedom," remember that mass murder isn't a "freedom."
The Friends Committee on National Legislation helps you tell your Congressfolk to pass a reconciliation bill that attacks climate change, raises taxes on the rich and on corporations, and extends the Child Tax Credit expansion. Yeah, the Build Back Better Act failed last year, because Joe Manchin finally said "I just can't get there," but if we turn out in force to demand the things BBB would have done, we'll increase the possibility of him "getting there." And don't believe the Manchinean hype that the Child Tax Credit expansion drove inflation. First off, you'd think it would have come down by now, since the CTC expansion expired almost five months ago. Second, we all know there's a relationship between high prices and high corporate profits.
Penn PIRG helps you tell your Congressfolk to pass H.R. 7597/S. 4076, the PFAS Firefighter Protection Act, which would keep PFAS chemicals out of firefighting foam. They don't call PFAS chemicals "forever chemicals" for nothing -- they leach into our drinking water and then our bodies and they don't break down, and firefighting foam is one of the main sources of PFAS chemicals. And if we really care so much about our first responders, then why do we expose them to chemicals that could give them cancer, thyroid problems, or reproductive issues? Don't believe the hype that PFAS-laden firefighting foam is the only or best option; at this writing at least 100 PFAS-free foams exist, and it seems unlikely they all suck.
The ACLU helps you tell your Congressfolk to pass H.R. 1693/S. 79, the EQUAL Act, which would equalize sentences for crack and powder cocaine and allow resentencing of past crack-related offenses. Over a decade ago, Congress reduced the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine from 100 to 1 to 18 to 1, and I guess that was progress, but we should go all the way to 1 to 1. Now some Democrats are afraid of doing anything daring about crime before the midterms, a strategy that very recent experience has taught us completely assures defeat at the polls. A lot of times you have to wonder if that's the idea. If so, history will treat them badly -- if any historians remain!
Finally, speaking of apocalyptic settings, the Pew Charitable Trusts helps you tell your Congressfolk to pass H.R. 3932/S. 2076, the PASTEUR Act, which will fund research and development of new antibiotics. As you know, seven out of every 10 antibiotics don't go to sick people or animals, but to nominally healthy feed animals, ostensibly so as to make them meatier. But thanks to antibiotic abuse, we face a future of superbugs that can't be killed by antibiotics; you don't want to live to see folks sit around the campfire and say sure, the next cut can kill you now, but at least we had cheap chicken for a while! One way to ensure we don't is to keep researching, and finding, new and better antibiotics. So maybe do that instead of more corporate tax cuts?
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