Yes, I know the title of this blog is harsh. There is good reason. My cousin shared this article on Facebook this morning, and I'm sharing it on my blog right now. The Republicans are going way too far, led by an unstable president who is trying to slander the free press, so that he and his Republican minions can abolish agencies that protect the American people and their lands, resources, and personal rights in order to protect and promote unsafe projects that benefit no one except big business and the private elite. This is fascism, plain and simple.
The American people need to protest in every way possible - phone calls, letters, marches, petitions. Loud and long and clear, and stop this reprehensible behavior of politicians before they run our country into the ground and our inalienable rights along with it.
And just for the record, I googled every single one of the bills listed in this article. They are real bills on the site for the US Congress.
For example: I googled Bill HR 861 (to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/861
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http://resistancereport.com/politics/gop-bills-congress/
While we
were distracted by Trump, Republicans advanced these 9 terrifying bills
The Republican-led Congress is wasting no time forcing
through the most horrendous bills seen in decades while America’s eyes are on
Russia.
With both houses of Congress
solidly under Republican control, there’s little in the way to stop House
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
(R-Kentucky) from sending bills to President Trump’s desk that embody the most
dangerous aspects of radical right-wing ideology.
However unlikely these bills’
passage would have seemed in the 114th Congress, the possibility of these nine
bills becoming law is much higher now, especially considering the flurry of
headlines around Donald Trump’s ties to Russia, Attorney General Jeff Sessions’
recusal on the ongoing investigation
into the president’s Russian connections, and Russian ambassador Sergey
Kislyak’s multiple meetings with several of Trump’s top lieutenants.
Here are the nine worst bills
to keep an eye on:
This bill — cosponsored by Republican
members of Congress from fossil fuel-producing states — is just one sentence
long, and says nothing about what would happen to the multiple environmental
regulations the EPA has instituted since 1970, or its multibillion-dollar
budget, or its thousands of staffers. H.R. 861 is currently awaiting
action in the
subcommittee on environment.
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa)
introduced this bill in January, which would redistribute funding earmarked for
public schools in the form of vouchers for parents to send children to private
schools. Over the long term, this would eventually bankrupt public schools, and
create a stratified
education system
in which cash-strapped public schools would be unable to meet the educational
needs of low-income students. The bill is awaiting action in the House
Committee on Education and the Workforce.
If this bill, introduced by
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), becomes law, the U.S. Department of Education
would terminate by the end of 2018. The bill’s brevity leaves many questions
unanswered, like what would happen with Department of Education grants for
public schools and universities, its budget, or its staff. Education Secretary
Betsy DeVos has said she would personally be “fine” if the agency she heads
were to be abolished.
Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska),
whose constituents likely include hunters who kill wildlife for sport rather
than for food, introduced this joint resolution voicing displeasure with a
Department of Interior rule that prohibits “non-subsistence” hunting in the Alaska
National Wildlife Refuge. The resolution passed the House and is awaiting action in the
Senate.
While President Obama was in
office, House Republicans voted at least 60 times to repeal the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act — also known as Obamacare — despite its
futility. However, the Trump administration has made the repeal of Obamacare a
top priority, meaning the repeal bill from Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas) is likely
to pass.
Despite the widely publicized
debunking of the video alleging the women’s health nonprofit was selling human
organs, Republicans are still refusing to stop destroying Planned Parenthood.
Rep. Diane Black (R-Tennessee) introduced a bill that would prevent any federal
grants from going to Planned Parenthood for a full year unless they swore to
not perform abortions. As the chart below from Planned Parenthood shows, only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood
resources go toward abortions, while the vast majority of funding is used to
help low-income women get STD tests, contraceptive care, and breast cancer
screenings:
Conservative ideologue Rep.
Steve King (R-Iowa) is aiming to cripple unions at the nationwide level with a
bill that would systematically deprive labor unions of the funding they need to
operate. Unions often provide one of the crucial pillars of support for
Democratic candidates and causes, and conservatives aim to destroy them once
and for all by going after their funding. It’s important to note that
right-to-work is bad for all workers, not just union members — in 2015, the
Economic Policy Institute learned that wages in right-to-work states are
roughly 3.2 percent lower than in non-right-to-work
states.
Multiple cities and states around the country have openly
stated that they won’t abide by President Trump’s plan to aggressively round up
and deport undocumented immigrants. A bill by Rep. Lou Barletta
(R-Pennsylvania) would strip all federal funding of any city that doesn’t obey
Trump’s immigration policies for up to a year.
Rep. Trent Franks (R-Arizona)
wants to aggressively prosecute pregnant women seeking abortions, along with
abortion providers, by making abortion a felony punishable by up to five years
in prison. The bill is currently awaiting action in the Subcommittee on the
Constitution and Civil Justice.
To fight back against these
bills, call 202-224-3121, ask for your member of Congress, and tell them to
vote no.
Tom Cahill is a writer for the Resistance Report based
in the Pacific Northwest. He specializes in coverage of political, economic,
and environmental news. You can contact him via email at
tom.v.cahill@gmail.com, or follow him on
Facebook.
