On Your Side Action

05/20/2025

Join us tonight, Fayetteville and Bragg friends! Sign our petition to protect Vets and Defense communities exposed to deadly herbicides, including Agent Orange!

https://www.onyoursideaction.org/dodherbicide

Cardinal and Pine's 'Voices for Veterans' is happening TOMORROW!

Join us at Studio 215 in Fayetteville at 5:30pm.

Registration is FREE and includes a reception with food and beverages following the panels.

Can't make it in person? Check out the livestream with the link in the comments

04/26/2025

🚨 Call your congressional Reps and advise them you adamantly oppose cuts to Medicaid and will hold them accountable for these cuts, especially as these programs are VITAL and life-saving for Veterans and military families.

As a reminder, Medicaid is 93% of non-Medicare mandatory spending under the Energy and Commerce Committee so the cuts to cover the corrupt Trump tax plan benefiting the billionaires will have to include devastating cuts to Medicaid. Never forget that 1.6M Veterans depend on Medicaid and that 1.2M Vets depend on SNAP (food assistance). Meanwhile roughly 1/4 of active duty military families are food insecure and depend on SNAP.

More info: https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/congressional-republicans-cant-cut-medicaid-by-hundreds-of-billions-without-hurting

Impact on Veterans: https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/2025-budget-stakes-veterans-could-lose-vital-health-food-and-other

04/24/2025

🇺🇸 To our NC friends, don’t forget to join us Friday, 4/25 to discuss defending our Veterans. We’ll be discussing Vets and Defense community toxic exposures with action items!

Please RSVP here:
https://www.mobilize.us/bullcityindivisiblenc/event/777279/

🖊️ You can sign our petition even if you cannot attend. https://www.onyoursideaction.org/dodherbicide

04/13/2025

🇺🇸 To all our N.C. friends, join us for this outstanding Vets policy discussion featuring newly launched U.S. Senate candidate!

03/23/2025

😡 The cuts by Trump and DOGE amount to a deadly war on Veterans. We fought alongside Clay Hunt’s family for the Clay Hunt SAV Act to protect Veterans from su***de when there were an estimated 22 Vets lost a day. The numbers are only down to 17 a day and part of that lowering of the numbers is due to deceptive measurement. Pictured is our founder with then VA Secy McDonald at the Willard Hotel celebrating passage of the Clay Hunt SAV Act. No other VA Secy would have allowed what is happening to happen except for Wilkie, also under Trump. This isn’t about politics or party. This is cruel, evil, and un-American.

Our founder nearly lost VA patients to su***de frequently. Every single Vet she ever talked to about this knows of someone lost to su***de. Almost every one of her Vet patients would have known someone’s name, as a second degree connection at most, who was lost to su***de had she asked them. Every. Single. One.

DOGE is firing disabled and service-connected Vets with PTSD from VA service indiscriminately. You know what leading su***de risk factors are—financial stress, loss of purpose, PTSD and moral injury. Fight NOW! Save the VA! Save mental health care, and the lives of the Vets you know and love! We got your six at On Your Side Action! https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/22/us/politics/veterans-affairs-mental-health-doge.html

***de

03/20/2025

There is no guardrail anymore. No words. Deadly contamination of their food supply that we caused, not our problem according to the current administration.

Diplomats in Vietnam warned Washington that halting USAID’s efforts to clean up the massive deposit of postwar pesticides would be a catastrophe for public health and relations with a key strategic partner in Asia.

03/18/2025

Are you willing to speak to lawmakers about the potential reversal of the ban on cancer-causing TCE? Contact us ASAP! Roughly 17M Americans have TCE in their drinking water despite the chemical being classified by the WHO IARC as a known human carcinogen due to its strong association with kidney cancer. It is also a known endocrine and immune disruptor that is further linked to liver cancer, NHL, leukemia, and Parkinson's disease.

In late 2024, the Biden EPA put in place a ban on TCE that impacts most uses within a year except for some industrial uses on a longer timeframe. TCE has been a frequent DoD contaminant because it is widely used as a degreasing agent in metal cleaning as part of routine DoD industrial and maintenance processes. TCE is present at roughly 40% of hazardous waste sites on the EPA's National Priorities List for potential Superfund cleanups.

Under industry and DoD pressure, it is possible that the House Energy and Commerce Committee or the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee are going to take up the issue of reversing the ban. We need to speak to these relevant lawmakers NOW about the harm of this reversal to our families. If you are willing to speak to lawmakers, we need your contact ASAP, email [email protected]

Sign up for action alerts on our website:
https://www.onyoursideaction.org

03/14/2025

🚨All Patriots, keep calling! Let your Senators know you oppose the budget proposal being considered for cloture, which is DEVASTATING to Veterans! Make it clear that you adamantly oppose the $22.8B cut for next year from a critical "Cost of War Toxic Exposures Fund" which covers burn pits, Agent Orange, and other substances covered under the PACT Act. Remind them that responsible budgeting includes specified funding for VA including for VHA homelessness assistance grants, mental health care, opioid and substance abuse programs as well as caregiving support. Given the current VA shortfall in funding AND the cuts to toxic exposure funding, direct allocation for critical Veterans benefits programs is absolutely essential!

FYI--the budget under consideration also includes hugely detrimental cuts to housing assistance programs that are critical to homeless Vets--not to mention the cuts to Social Security, NIH, and the fact that Medicaid will be gutted. Don't be fooled, the CBO has confirmed that the GOP will have to cut Medicare or Medicaid in order to achieve their budget goals. The most likely target will be the largest cuts to Medicaid in history--a reminder that roughly 1 in 10 Veterans depend on Medicaid. Keep calling!

03/05/2025

😡 The proposal will put VA back to around 2019, pre-PACT Act staffing levels at a time when expansions of eligibility for care and benefits necessitate increased staffing. The PACT Act passed overwhelmingly bipartisan—these plans are an absolute betrayal of our Veterans. And a reminder that roughly 25% of the VA workforce are Veterans. Please call your lawmakers 202-224-3121

Let lawmakers know that you adamantly oppose staffing cuts at VA. Voice your support for the full implementation of the PACT Act, including the increased staffing required to expand care and benefits for conditions associated with Veterans toxic exposures.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is planning an “aggressive” reorganization that includes cutting 80,000 jobs from the sprawling agency.

03/03/2025

🚨 Make your calls to your Senators letting them know you oppose the House’s draconian budget resolution gutting essential, lifesaving funding for Medicaid and SNAP in order to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Switchboard 202-224-3121

FYI—there is a lot of misinformation. Remember Medicaid goes by different names in the states. Also, the Senate budget resolution did NOT extend the 2017 tax cuts and has smaller cuts to mandatory spending items like Medicaid. For the budget to advance into law, the House and Senate must now develop and agree on a single identical budget resolution. We can still stop this deadly action gutting Medicaid and SNAP to benefit the top 1%.

02/28/2025

🙌 This is absolutely a win! THANK YOU to ALL of you who made calls and spoke out to defend our Veterans! We do have power when we all raise our voices together!

The Department of Veterans Affairs has temporarily suspended billions of dollars in planned contract cuts following concerns that the move would hurt critical veterans' health services, lawmakers and veterans service organizations said.

02/26/2025

🚨 Call 202-224-3121 and DEMAND lawmakers intervene to protect the health of our nation’s Veterans! Let lawmakers know they will be held accountable if they don’t intervene to stop the DOGE slash and burn cuts to VA staffing, care, research, procurement, and benefits IMMEDIATELY.

From the experts at the VA, “the VA Chiefs of Staff Advisory Committee, who represent medical leadership at the system’s 170 VA medical centers—issued a desperate plea for help to Steve Lieberman, acting VA undersecretary for health (USH). “Veterans,” they wrote, “will lose access to clinical trials that are integral to the care of cancer, mental health conditions, and a host of other medical and neurological conditions.” Veterans with conditions that disproportionately impact them will suffer even more if research on things like “toxic exposures, PTSD, substance use disorders, su***de, heart disease, spinal cord injury, Parkinson disease, dementia, and many others” is compromised.” https://prospect.org/health/2025-02-25-va-research-funding-slashed/

Though not as prominent as the NIH, VA researchers play a major role in advancing basic health science. Hundreds of projects have been cut.