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Should Trump eliminate these beautiful national monuments? Here's your chance to weigh in.

motherjones.com
The public comment period is now open!

prettyarbitrary:

dorkthropology:

YOU CAN COMMENT HERE. As of right now there’s only 10k. Public comments close May 26th so get on this shit while you can.

These are the places up for consideration:

Basin and Range
Bears Ears
Berryessa Snow Mountain
Canyons of the Ancients
Carrizo Plain
Cascade Siskiyou
Craters of the Moon
Giant Sequoia
Gold Butte
Grand Canyon-Parashant
Grand Staircase-Escalante
Hanford Reach
Ironwood Forest
Mojave Trails
Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks
Rio Grande del Norte
Sand to Snow
San Gabriel Mountains
Sonoran Desert
Upper Missouri River
Vermilion Cliffs  
Katahadin Woods
Marianas Trench
Northeast Canyons and Seamounts
Pacific Remote Islands
Papahanaumokuakea
Rose Atoll

COME ON PEOPLE. TELL THEM WHY THESE NATIONAL MONUMENTS MATTER TO YOU. If people can leave 50k comments about why the EPA should keep regulations, and crash the FCC’s website over net neutrality, you can bring it for our national monuments.

Our national monuments are part of the national parks system, and include both protected wilderness and protected cultural and historical landmarks (including, surprise surprise, sites significant to indigenous cultures). 

They are important not only for the sake of nostalgia, national pride and beauty–although all of those are valuable in their own right–but also for the sake of anthropology, American history, environmental science and biodiversity.  These sites are often of great scientific interest, housing rare species and natural phenomena, battlefields, and some of the oldest human settlements in the Americas.

The locations on this list didn’t become federally protected as a lark.  Most of them were added to this list thanks to a great public outcry, because experience had proven that nothing less was sufficient to protect them.

The Death Panelists

dagwolf:

dagwolf:

The Republicans healthcare legislation. It’s bad enough that it unnecessarily rations care for poor people, the young and old, but their reason for rationing is some people deserve to be sick and to suffer from illness, perhaps even die.

Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, says “we [shouldn’t have to] take care of the person who sits at home, eats poorly and gets diabetes.”

We have a real problem in the United States. For some reason, Republicans and even many Democrats believe 1) health must be earned, 2) only the healthy should be insured, 3) and that most sick people choose not to be healthy. If you must purchase health insurance if you’re healthy yet must accept financial responsibility for being ill, then insurance is a legal scam that permits owners to steal wages from healthy workers for nothing in return while healthcare is a consumer good poor and sick people aren’t permitted to access unless government discerns proper earning.

The argument against universal healthcare is that the government would be permitted to pick and choose who receives healthcare and that it should be your choice and that choice shouldn’t be curtailed. Come to find out, Republicans mean being able to make a choice to receive care is a synonym for being able to afford care (a consumer right to an economic good) and that they are perfectly happy tying illness to laziness in order to justify denial of care (read, coverage) to sick people.

And I should be clear. It’s not health that is ultimately earned, is it? Illness must be properly earned. Wealthy people are permitted illness for any reason because they can afford care at any cost. While other people must earn their illnesses according to the standards our government and the insurance companies decide for the long term benefit of owners, not patients. Health isn’t even at issue. So, stop calling it health care.

micdotcom:

These teens took on Rep. Tom MacArthur’s pre-existing conditions amendment at a town hall

  • Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.) has been asked to defend his eponymous American Health Care Act amendment to some of his most formidable critics: teens.
  • During a nearly five-hour Wednesday night town hall, high school senior Joseph Zetkulic asked MacArthur about the amendment’s policies on pre-existing conditions.
  • “How did it pass your conscience to allow rape to become a pre-existing condition?” Zetkulic asked, according to ThinkProgress. “Is rape considered a pre-existing condition under your amendment, yes or no?”
  • Apparently, MacArthur did his best to dodge the question, chalking up claims that sexual assault could be included among the AHCA’s preexisting conditions to “hysteria.” Read more (5/12/17)

gehayi:

Also? Pay attention to what your state legislatures are doing. Because, in most cases, state legislatures are the ones who draw up the voting maps.  There have been a LOT of reports of redistricting to ensure that whether a majority of the voters vote for Democrats or not, the Republicans will win actual seats in the midterms.  There are also a lot more bills (some of which have already been passed and/or signed by state governors) to make voting and voting registration harder, especially for younger and minority voters…who tend to vote Democrat.

Which is why Ryan, McConnell and their ilk are so arrogant. They feel that their seats are assured, even if the majority of the voters want them out of office. It’s the November 2016 election all over. They don’t mind having the illusion of elections, but they don’t want elections to have any impact. They are in office–and they never intend to leave.

This is the OPPOSITE of democracy.

"I'm facing jail time after laughing at Jeff Sessions. I regret nothing."

vox.com
"My story should scare you — and inspire you to act."

cricketcat9:

thedemsocialist:

I am an ordinary person. A mother of two and a grandmother of one, I am a retired children’s librarian who loves to hike, bike, travel, pick purple wildflowers, grow cherry tomatoes, read to little kids, and dance. I shop at Costco. I love their tortilla chips and salsa. I read Lisa Scottoline, Sandra Cisneros, and Howard Zinn. I watch documentaries, rom-coms, and foreign films. I have a cairn terrier named Jinx and a grandpuppy named Mattie. I am just an ordinary person who happens to care an awful lot about peace and justice and human rights.

And yet on January 10, I was arrested for laughing during the confirmation hearing of attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions. And just this week, I was convicted of the two charges I received as a result of my arrest: one of disorderly and disruptive conduct, and one of parading or demonstrating on Capitol grounds. Sentencing happens next month — I could spend up to a year in jail, or be fined, or both. Just because I let out a chuckle at a public hearing.

She was convicted. My American acquaintances who support the Orange One pretend this did not happen, in fact - that nothing out of ordinary ever happened since the elections, and I hear more and more “I don’t follow American politics”. Like hell you don’t, cowards.