The U.S. We Hope and Expect to Be Here Is Almost Gone



The U.S. We Hope and Expect to Be Here Is Almost Gone

 

Maybe, hopefully, we’re all realizing that the country many of us loved; that, in a variety of ways, many fought for and dreamed of, is disappearing. DT, Musk, their GOP sycophants and billionaire cheering section are doing all they can to rip away our rights and incomes to feed their own power and greed. And people are already, and increasingly, dying from this.

Take elementary-aged children people in Reserve, La, whose school is located next to the Denka Performance Elastomer Plant. The region is called Cancer Alley, and rates of deaths, especially for children, are one of the highest in the US. The Biden administration sued to finally curb the plant’s emissions. The DT DOJ stopped the suit. DT seems to care more about profits than common people; and in this case, the majority of residents are black.

DT’s EPA has announced it would cut 31 climate, air, water, and emissions regulations, putting the health and lives of millions at risk. According to Health Policy Watch, under attack is a 2009 EPA finding that climate change-causing pollutants, including methane and carbon dioxide, harm human health. Without this “endangerment” clause, the EPA will clear the way for widespread dismantling of greenhouse gas emission regulations.

“The potential increase in health-related expenses, environmental degradation, and the stifling of innovation will lead to higher costs for consumers and impede economic growth,” said Margo Oge, former EPA director of transportation and air quality. “These actions will not make America great – they will just make Americans sicker,” she said in a LinkedIn post.

The safety of the food we eat is being drastically threatened by DOGE’s cuts to the US Department of Agriculture. According to interviews taken by WIRED, thousands of workers, food inspectors, disease-sniffing dog handlers and trainers fired by Musk remain unemployed, leading to food rotting and pests proliferating. Without inspectors, invasive pests and diseases can slip through inspection cracks, and wipe out an entire agricultural commodity, which can cause national security concerns and price increases. Some people thought DT would lower their food and others’ costs of living—not so.

The same is true with the bird flu killing chickens and raising the cost of eggs (15.2% increase since December)⎼ among those fired (and later re-hired) were those from the Department of Agriculture who had been working to respond to the bird flu outbreak.

I’ve written elsewhere about the measles epidemic increasing and spreading due to DT’s Health secretary, RFK Jr.’s history of spreading anti-vaccination misinformation. RFK Jr.’s fixation on attacking vaccinations is also interfering with research into cancer and other diseases. A senior official at the National Cancer Institute told KFF Health News that DT’s acting NIH director sent an agency-wide email directing all grants, contracts, and “collaborations involving mRNA vaccines” be reported to Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy’s office and the White House. The mRNA technology, crucial to the development of successful COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic, has also exhibited promise in research on HIV/AIDS and cancer.

In a recent column, Heather Cox Richardson warned us that RFK, Jr. is now proposing to address the bird flu decimating US poultry and cattle farms by letting the disease free to run rampant.

She writes that veterinary scientists say that letting the virus sweep through flocks is “a really terrible idea,” as Dr. Gail Hansen, a former state veterinarian for Kansas, told Apoorva Mandavilli of the New York Times. Chickens and turkeys don’t have the genes to resist the virus, and every infection is an opportunity for the virus to mutate into a more virulent form, one of which could spread among humans. If this flu was permitted to infect let’s say 5 million birds, “that’s literally 5 million chances for that virus… to mutate.”

Many other cuts by DOGE throughout the government also threaten our lives. For example, in the Veterans Affairs Department doctors and other healthcare workers have sacrificed financial compensation they could’ve earned in the private sector to often work seemingly endless hours for lower pay, all in the service of helping others; in exchange, they’ve been mocked by Musk, fired without explanation, cause, or due process. And veterans, who risked their lives defending our nation, are now facing a different sort of life-threatening peril, but this time it’s from their own nation.

The recently passed DT GOP budget Continuing Resolution supports these cuts in programs that work for the majority of us and gives the benefits to billionaires. It calls for increasing military spending while cutting or ending funds for key programs involving rental assistance, public health, and other critical areas. Politico reported that “The bill, for instance, does not renew $40 million in fiscal 2024 funding for more than 70 programs that help children and families.” Most, but not all the cuts, have been in funding requested by Democrats.

And two last points: our trans family, friends, and neighbors are facing a terror many can’t conceive of, of a loss of health care and recognition of their very identity and right to live in a way that’s true to who they are.

And women everywhere, at or near the age to choose whether to have a family, are being denied that right. And they’re being denied lifesaving health care due to anti-abortion legislation passed by GOP legislators. This legislation is cruel, ignorant of the implications of what they’ve dictated, or maybe they just don’t care about the health of women. For example, three women in Texas died after miscarriages because the doctors involved feared persecution for violating anti-abortion laws. Also in Texas, 3 women were recently arrested for performing an abortion. One is a licensed midwife, another a nurse practitioner, and the third an assistant. The midwife is a brown immigrant.

Common Cause, the Sierra Club and others are trying to alert us to the barely reported efforts by the GOP to call for an Article V Constitutional Convention to enshrine in law a new government of, by, and for billionaires. 28 out of the necessary 34 states have already passed such legislation.

Yet the opposition, the cry to actually improve our nation not to destroy it, is growing. The list of successful legal suits against DOGE cuts and Executive Actions is extensive. Town Halls, phone calls, demonstrations at GOP Congressional and Tesla offices,  and on the streets proliferate.

Almost everywhere we look, our rights, our air and water, our national security, our jobs, our lives are at stake. This must stop. Each of us must do what we can to help end this threat from an administration that obviously doesn’t care about the well-being of the majority of us.

 

 

 

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