It’s crunch time on health care. The Senate may vote as soon as this Thursday on a cruel, monstrous bill that will defund Medicaid (leaving our grandparents without the nursing home care they need), cost 15 million people their health insurance next year alone, and make sure a newborn with a heart condition would be left to die if his family couldn’t pay millions of dollars for surgery. Like Smokey says, only you can prevent forest fires.
One Nation Under Guns
There are a dozen different reasons we could call for more gun control: the US’s regular mass shootings, the numbers of young children who are shot or have access to unsecured guns every year, the loopholes in the background check process, and the threats to women whose abusers have guns. So while the shooting of Congressman Steve Scalise is fresh in our minds, the impetus for this email isn’t one shocking event but a steady background drumbeat of gun violence that we live with every day.
Here Come the Sharks
American consumers are not being given a choice regarding the Financial Choice Act of 2017. Congressional Republicans are trying to decide for us. The bill recently passed the House of Representatives, and dismantles — er, “deregulates” — some of the important consumer protections put in place following the 2007/8 financial crisis. As a society, we’ve been doing our best to keep predatory lenders at bay, but the sharks are a-circling, because this bill means it’s feeding time.