Healthcare, the environment, and the global gag rule

Here is the latest from PAGE (Progressive Action Global Exchange) and Kathy's suggestions at STOP, LOOK, LISTEN! 

Priority Actions

• Write a letter to your local/hometown paper, urging your Senators to oppose the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Based on input from PAGE members, we’ve developed a draft letter that you can adapt! The GOP continues to try to ram their travesty of a health care bill through Congress. If you’re a US-American abroad living in a country where people like to take care of each other, and where there is universal health coverage, you have a unique and important perspective to contribute. Take some time in the next couple days to write a letter to the editor of your local hometown paper.
  • Try to get to this quickly, as the vote will probably happen soon. Let us know if you get published!
  • Once you write to your editor, tell you friends about your letter, and encourage them to write too.

Extra Actions

• Win a Trip to Machu Picchu! ...by raising money for the Sierra Club. Sierra Club engages globally and focuses on Environmental Justice.They are having a FUN-raising FUND-raising contest, where your creative idea could land you a trip one of the most beautiful places in the world. If you’re living abroad, you might have opportunities to try unique approaches to fundraising. You’ll probably also learn some fundraising skills which you can continue to use for the resistance!
• Stop the Global Gag Rule. On January 23rd, President Trump signed an executive order called the Global Gag Rule or Mexico City Policy. Every Republican president since Ronald Reagan has signed a similar executive order, which restricts any U.S. dollars going to foreign NGOs that provide any information about abortion services, referrals for abortion services, post-abortion care, or advocate for abortion rights in their country. President Trump’s executive order expands the Global Gag Rule much farther than ever before.  
  • Learn: Read more about the Global Gag Rule or watch a short film about it.
  • Act: Sign the petition here to oppose the Global Gag Rule.
  • Support CHANGE’s work on the Global Health, Empowerment and Rights (HER Act). This bill would permanently end the Global Gag Rule and create a consistent U.S. policy guaranteeing foreign aid to global health organizations.  Ask your Representatives and Senators to cosponsor this bill and encourage your friends, colleagues, and family to do the same!
  • Find out how the Global Gag Rule will impact your country of residence and raise awareness in your community.

​STOP, LOOK, LISTEN! by Kathy Sherretts

I’m in the US for the next several weeks, and getting into a lot of conversations about the news. Someone says: “Yeah, well, I saw it on…” The WSEE 6 o’clock news? InfoWars? The New York Times? The Audubon Society weekly newsletter? 

• Where does your news come from? Using Media Bias Fact Check you can search media by name to get a rough idea of the bias and reliability of a news source such as a website, newspaper, interest group, or media company. Here is an explanation of the methodology they use to evaluate each source of news. 

• Evaluating a specific story? As always, Snopes. This was my go-to guide to urban myths (Kentucky-Fried Rat: Regular or Extra-Crispy?) but Snopes now goes above and beyond its original mission, analyzing facts and fact-adjacent items in the news. 

• And also: Politifact, in national, global, and state editions. For a quick check of the latest pass-around factoids, take a look at the Truth-O-Meter. 

Article:
Slate Magazine: Too Hot to Fly By Ashley Braun
There’s irony in the fact that the airline industry delayed addressing its emissions problem based on economic arguments, and is now faced with the specter of rising costs because of climate change.

Article:
The Washington Post: White House releases sensitive personal information of voters worried about their sensitive personal information by Christopher Ingram
“This request is very concerning,” a voter wrote to The Election Integrity Commission. “The federal government is attempting to get the name, address, birth date, political party, and social security number of every voter in the country.” That email, published by the White House, contained the sender's name and home address.

Podcast
ProPublica The Breakthrough: ICIJ's Sasha Chavkin Reports on the World Bank’s Best Kept Secret  (26 min.)
Around 2009, the World Bank had stopped requiring governments to submit detailed reports on the effect that its economic development projects may have on local communities. Reporter Sasha Chavkin discusses a series called “Evicted and Abandoned,” detailing how 3.4 million people were displaced by World-Bank-funded projects.