+
Sign up for
The Upworthiest
Our top stories of the day delivered straight to your inbox.
upworthy

washington d c

More

'I urge you to resign': A fired up mom tells Scott Pruitt exactly what she thinks.

"Hi, I just wanted to urge you to resign because of what you're doing to the environment and our country."

Teacher Kristin Mink didn't hold back when confronting Scott Pruitt, the controversial head of the Environmental Protection Agency. When she saw him eating lunch at a Washington, D.C., restaurant, she knew she had to say something. She just didn't know what.

Then it hit her: "His actions are the source of so much of my despair for my child's future and frankly the future of humanity," Mink wrote to Splinter afterward. She decided to make it personal.

Mink walked up to Pruitt and introduced her toddler son — just so Pruitt would know whose future he was affecting.

"This is my son. He loves animals. He loves clean air. He loves clean water. Meanwhile, you're slashing strong fuel standards for cars and trucks for the benefit of big corporations," Mink said as Pruitt's face dropped into a deep and nervous frown.

"We deserve to have somebody at the EPA who actually does protect our environment, somebody who believes in climate change and takes it seriously for the benefit of all of us, including our children," Mink continued.

And then she repeated her first request: "So, I would urge you to resign before your scandals push you out."

That's when, according to Mink, Pruitt rushed from the restaurant, his security detail in tow.

EPA head Scott Pruitt was 3 tables away as I ate lunch with my child. I had to say something. This man is directly and significantly harming my child’s — and every child’s — health and future with decisions to roll back environmental regulations for the benefit of big corporations, while he uses taxpayer money to fund a lavish lifestyle. He’s corrupt, he’s a liar, he’s a climate change denier, and as a public servant, he should not be able to go out in public without hearing from the citizens he’s hurting. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency U.S. EPA Administrator Scott PruittETA: You don’t have to wait til your next Pruitt sighting to take action! Click here to help Boot Pruitt! https://www.addup.org/campaigns/boot-pruitt

Posted by Kristin Mink on Monday, July 2, 2018

Protecting our environmental future is more important than ever.

Pruitt, a Donald Trump appointee, has been courting controversy since he arrived at the EPA. While only there a short time, he's already begun to undo over 20 Obama-era regulations. He has made himself the final authority on The Clean Water Act, is rolling back emissions regulations for cars and trucks, and is revising fuel efficiency standards, taking away incentives for cleaner cars with a lower carbon footprint.

That's nothing to say of Pruitt's questionable conduct: Since being in the role, he's refused to let his schedule be known to the public, demanded a 24-hour-security detail (a cost of $3 million a year), and built a soundproof phone booth (which cost upward of $43,000). Other ethical concerns include that Pruitt hired his own banker to run the Superfund program and is allowing EPA employees to moonlight as political consultants.

We should be worried. And, like Mink, we should speak out whenever and wherever we can.

It's easy to forget that public servants don't work for themselves: They work for the public. It's incumbent on us to push back and speak out when their policies and actions are corrupt.

"Our children's future is at stake," the end of Mink's video states. "As citizens, it is our responsibility to confront corrupt, unethical, and immoral government officials whenever and wherever we see them."

She's using her voice. We should all raise our own. Elections are coming. Are you registered to vote?

More

A woman dragged from her wheelchair for protesting the health care bill speaks out.

It's an unforgettable image.

Just a few hours after Senate Republicans released their health care bill, a woman in a wheelchair chanting "No cuts to Medicaid" is rolled down Capitol office building hallway by police.

About 10 seconds into the shot, the officers lift her out of her chair and carry her off-screen and outside as her chants grow louder and louder.

Her name is Stephanie Woodward. She's a disability rights lawyer and activist.

She had traveled to D.C. with a group of around 60 protestors to call on the Senate majority leader to preserve the program.

"People with disabilities depend on Medicaid for our lives and for our liberty," she says in an interview.

The group piled into McConnell's office with others lying down on the floor just outside. Members were taken into custody about 20 or 30 minutes later.

The Senate bill contains major cuts to Medicaid, a program that funds a large portion of medical care for Americans with disabilities.

The current proposal caps the amount of money the federal government provides the states to cover the program, which funds home care for disabled adults in addition to general medical care. With drastic funding reductions, Woodward fears, many disabled adults would be forced into nursing homes, losing their independence in the process.

"My parents were working-class people," says Woodward, who was born with spina bifida. "They couldn't afford to keep me alive if it wasn't for Medicaid. Medicaid paid for all my surgeries growing up, paid for my wheelchairs. I wouldn't be who I am today ... without Medicaid getting me here."

Woodward would like to see senators revise the bill — and bring people with disabilities into the process.

High on her list is making sure the law does not reduce the ability of people who need intensive, frequent medical care to do more than just survive.

Photo by Don Emmert/Getty Images.

"We have the right to not only live, but live just as every other American in the community," she says.

In the meantime, she has no regrets about the protest.

"I'm certainly a bit sore, but it's worth it," she insists. "It's what we need to do to fight for our lives."

For her, it's about the values in the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

"We don't see that as just restricted to people without disabilities," she says. "I think that's for all Americans."

Badge
Lawyers' Committee
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights
More

Too young to remember the huge LGBTQ rally of 1993? Check out these 16 pics.

1. On April 25, 1993, a massive LGBTQ rights rally stormed the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

And it was a spectacular, colorful sight to be seen.

Photo by Mark Wilson/AP.

2. By some estimates, the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation is one of the largest political rallies in U.S. history.

Exact crowd sizes are difficult to nail down. But many believe the march attracted somewhere between 300,000 and 800,000 supporters from across the country and world.

Photo by Paul Richards/AFP/Getty Images.

3. These smiling, energized, angry, determined marchers were trailblazers that, in so many ways, helped lead us to where we are today when it comes to LGBTQ rights.

4. Because, back in 1993, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people lived under dramatically different circumstances.

Photo by Aryeh Rabinovich/AFP/Getty Images.

The 1990s might seem like they were yesterday. But in certain respects, they may have felt like the Dark Ages if you weren't straight and cisgender.

5. For one, the HIV/AIDS epidemic was still raging at crisis levels in the early 1990s.

The spread of HIV/AIDS still is, without a doubt, a major health concern in the U.S. today, particularly for certain sub-populations. But at the time these photos were taken — before many medical advances allowed for HIV-positive people to live longer, healthier lives — overall mortality rates were still rising at an alarming speed. They finally began dropping in 1995.

Marlin Hofer and David Briley, the two men in the foreground, were both affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. When this photo was taken, Hofer was HIV-positive and Briley was living with AIDS. Photo by Wilfredo Lee/AP.

6. One major focus of the march was securing more federal funding for HIV/AIDS research and patient care.

The marchers' voices helped lead to a more robust strategy in combating the virus in the years ahead.

Marchers unfold an AIDS memorial quilt with names of those we've lost written on its squares. Photo by Jennifer Law/AFP/Getty Images.

7. Another goal for many marchers in 1993 was ending the military's ban on LGBTQ people serving.

8. These were the days before "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," when an ever harsher ban was in place.

Before "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was passed in 1994 — technically allowing LGBTQ members to serve as long as they did so entirely in the closet — a more explicitly homophobic ban barred all LGBTQ people from serving regardless of their status as being out or not.

9. Let's not sugarcoat it; "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was still blatantly homophobic. But its passing did loosen certain restrictions.

These marchers helped push progress forward so that we could eventually be where we're at today. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was effectively repealed in 2011, and today, LGBTQ people can serve openly in our armed forces.

Photo by Mark Wilson/AP.

10. The marchers of 1993 also had other key demands in mind, like better inclusion of LGBTQ people and history in our education systems.

Shouldn't students learn about historical figures like Harvey Milk and Marsha P. Johnson just like they learn about Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King Jr.?

These marchers thought so.

It's been a long time coming, but we're starting to see signs of progress here too. In 2016, California became the first state to require LGBTQ history curriculums in its public schools — a move that may be sparking a new nationwide fight for better queer representation in classrooms, according to Vice.

11. Marchers wanted more rights for LGBTQ parents, too.

Marriage equality was a long way from being a mainstream topic in 1993, believe it or not. But these marchers were fighting for issues like same-sex adoptions and fairer custody laws long before they had widespread support in the U.S.

We now have national marriage equality and same-sex adoption from coast to coast, and studies show that kids raised by same-sex or same-gender parents grow up just as well adjusted as their peers raised by straight, cisgender parents.

12. The march also demanded an end to discrimination in all of its forms, regarding gender, race, religion, and more.

As the official march platform read:

"We demand an end to discrimination and violent oppression based on actual or perceived sexual orientation, identification, race, religion, identity, sex and gender expression, disability, age, class, AIDS/HIV infection.”

13.  In so many ways, those marchers in Washington helped pave the way for much of the progress we can now celebrate.

They certainly weren't the first pioneers of the modern LGBTQ rights movement — the Stonewall rioters can wear that badge proudly — but history will look at the 1993 march as a pivotal moment for LGBTQ equality in America.

14. And for that, those marchers deserve a big thank you.

15. But over two decades later, the job is from over.

With a new administration in place threatening to strip away LGBTQ rights, every LGBTQ person and ally should be ready to fight like hell.

In its infancy, the Trump administration has already loosened protections for transgender kids in schools across the country. If the Affordable Care Act is gutted by congressional Republicans, our progress on HIV/AIDS could be reversed.

Vice President Mike Pence — one the most anti-LGBTQ politicians in the U.S. and who is sitting atop arguably the most homophobic and transphobic party platform ever in existence — has supported conversion therapy for children, legalized the discrimination of queer business patrons, and allowed an HIV outbreak to fester during his time as the governor of Indiana.

Trump's White House cannot be allowed to take us backward. On June 11, 2017, people are joining aPride march in Washington, ready to send a clear message to their representatives in office. Its impact has the potential to be just as loud — or louder — than in 1993.

16. Some things may have changed in the last 24 years, but our desire for nothing less than full equality remains the same.

"This whole experience has been very moving," marcher Barak Gale told The Washington Post about the march in 1993. "We don't want special rights; we just want the right to love like everyone else."

Photo by Marcy Nighswander/AP.

From Your Site Articles
More

America Ferrera's speech at the Women's March sends a powerful message against hate.

The 'Superstore' actress takes a stand for our country's core beliefs.

"We are America," actor America Ferrera told a crowd of thousands at Washington, D.C.'s Women's March.

The message, a rebuke of the idea that any one politician can truly represent the great diversity that makes the U.S. the country it is today, came just one day after President Donald Trump was sworn into office.

"It’s been a heart-wrenching time to be a woman and an immigrant in this country ― a platform of hate and division assumed power yesterday," Ferrera told the marchers. "But the president is not America. His cabinet is not America. Congress is not America. We are America."

Other speakers include Planned Parenthood's Cecile Richards, Angela Davis, Gloria Steinem, Janet Mock, Ashley Judd, Scarlett Johansson, Melissa Harris-Perry, and many more.

The daughter of Honduran immigrants, Ferrera holds an acute awareness of what some of Trump's policies would mean for people like her parents.

The United States is a nation of immigrants. Some more recent than others, but for the overwhelming majority of our population, that is our history. Trump's victory and the brand of nationalism that he's bringing along with it represents a challenge to our core identity as a nation of immigrants. Ferrera wasn't having it.

"We march today for the moral core of this nation against which our new president is waging a war," she said. "He would like us to forget the words 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free' and instead take up a credo of hate, fear, and suspicion of one another. But we are gathered here and across the country and around the world today to say, Mr. Trump, we refuse."

Protesters gather during the Women's March on Washington. Photo by Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images.

Trump may be our president, but that does not mean he gets to dictate our country's values.

Ferrera spoke out against forms of division — some of which existed long before Trump's political rise — and urged the country to stand in solidarity with people of different races, ages, genders, sexualities, and countries of origin.

Human rights should not be a matter of debate, and we should not allow ourselves to lose those rights just because a politician says so. We cannot and should not go down without a fight. Ferrera's speech sends that message loud and clear.

It's on all of us to stand up for what we believe in. It's on all of us to model the positive change we want to see in the world.

To be sure, elections have consequences. The question remains, though, to what end? We must fight to affect the policy decisions our politicians — including Trump — make. We must push back on injustice. We must never forget who we are.

Watch a clip of Ferrera's speech below:

From Your Site Articles
Trending Stories