Well, it was a whirlwind week of overwhelming bills and executive orders being passed. It's almost too much to think about, but we have to think about it. I would urge everybody to read all you can about the facts and figures of these issues, and contact your state representatives to let them know how you feel about them. They need to hear from us.
The Healthcare Bill
A well-written, non-hysterical article about the House voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act this week.
Another article explaining the health care bill passed this week.
This article describes the pre-existing conditions controversy from this week.
The healthcare bill now lies in the hands of the Senate. It will take time, but the final product is likely to look vastly different from what it looks like now. And that seems to be just fine with the House. For me, this is proof that this was just about getting a cheap victory to make them look less completely pathetic. This wasn't for the American people's benefit, it was for Congress's.
I normally don't share Washington Post articles because I know it's a limited site if you don't have a paid subscription to it, but if you haven't maxed out your free articles for the month yet, or have a subscription, please read this article very carefully. The healthcare bill that Congress passed this week is very upsetting, but the media, both social and news, are not helping very much to quell the hysteria and tell the truth. We need to fight this, but we need to know the facts and base our arguments on those and not our emotions built up from a meme we saw on Facebook or a news article designed to get you to read it and grow terrified so you'll make sure to keep checking back to the site.
Good News
82 of the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014 have been released.
It looks like PBS is safe for another year, in spite of all our worries!
Scientists have used technology to remove the HIV DNA code from mice, freeing mice from the disease. Could this work one day for humans? Only time and a lot of testing will tell.
LGBT Issues
Though this article veers from the original topic part way through, this is the first real "mainstream" news site talking about the alleged rounding up and torture of LGBT people in Chechnya, that I have seen.
And a follow-up article from the same news site explaining more about Chechnya.
This might not get passed, but at least some members of Congress are trying to do the right thing for our fellow LGBTQ American citizens.
The Supreme Court has refused to hear an argument to try and dismantle the ban on gay conversion therapy in the state of California. The ban is being upheld.
Miscellaneous
After a rather raunchy commentary on an episode of Stephen Colbert's night show this week, the FCC will be looking into the complaints it has received to see if any laws were broken.
One of Trump's latest executive orders is aimed at loosening the rules around churches and political speech. The next time you're at church, if you hear your pastor talking politics, you'll know where your religious institution stands on this issue...
The state of Texas is just a governor's signature away from banning sanctuary cities in their state.
Trump can't seem to get anybody to become Secretary of the Army. It's like they don't want to work for him, or something.
Question of the Week
The facts behind the woman arrested after laughing at Jeff Sessions, including a video of the actual incident.
"The US Department of Justice is literally prosecuting a woman for laughing at Jeff Sessions"-This is an actual headline for an article. This is my opinion, but this is not balanced news.
An actually well-balanced, non-hysterical article about the woman arrested after laughing at Jeff Sessions.
Are the Democrats guilty of crying wolf? One of the big headlines I saw a lot this week, besides the healthcare bill, was this one: A woman was arrested and jailed for laughing at Jeff Sessions and has now been found guilty. What isn't told in those headlines, is the context behind all of it. And while I understand that it sounds like a dangerous precedent that Sessions himself is setting, the reality is, none of this appears to have anything to do with him at all. The headlines make it sound like a woman laughed at him, and he had her carted off. If you watch the video of what happened, it paints a very different picture.
My question is, is this good for us as a party to do? With people hurling accusations at us and the media for spreading fake news, are we really doing ourselves any favors by playing into their hands? If we overreact to things like this, when something actually vital happens, does that help spread the word or does it just dilute it because we've overreacted so many times before? The problem with these issues, and with the way the media portrays them, is that they play on our emotions. They're designed to make us terrified and/or outraged over the situation that none of us bothered to investigate beyond the meme we saw on Twitter or that headline we saw on HuffPo. This is irresponsible activism, if you can even call it activism. We must do better than this.
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