As David noted, it is very important we flood the lines. I just called Shelly Moore Capito. Because I know a lot of you freeze up, here is what I said so if you want to write a script before you call, maybe use some variant of this:
Hi, good morning. My name is John Cole and I am calling from Bethany, WV. I just wanted to urge Sen. Capito to not support any cuts to Medicaid or Medicare. People around here depend on that coverage, and it would just be devastating were Sen. Capito and congress to remove that lifeline for so many people just to give more tax cuts to the rich.
I’d also like to remind Senator Capito that she is running in 2020, and it certainly won’t help her campaign if tens of thousands of constituents are receiving notification that year that they are losing their coverage because of the 2020-2023 or 2020-2027 phaseout is starting.
Also, as a lifelong West Virginian, I know for a fact her father would never supported anything like this.
YMMV. BTW- her father was Arch Moore, who despite a checkered past and convictions, was pretty popular as Governor.
Buskertype
I try not to bring up Capito’s crooked dad when I talk to her office, but that’s just me.
TKinNC
Also, too: here’s a link to Indivisible’s guide for the call-
Stop Trumpcare
mix & match!
bystander
I’m glad I don’t see the point in calling Schumer or Gillibrand about his.
Big Ole Hound
My California senators got this covered.
rikyrah
This is the second Democrat, by my count, to withdraw from a race due to death threats. Really, really worrying. https://t.co/FjJfAmCKwd
— Seth Millstein (@SethMillstein) June 12, 2017
Jim Parene
I called Sen. Bill Nelson this morning and I spoke to a very nice Staffer. I used J.C.’s script. I thanked the Senator and asked him to keep up his opposition to the 45*’s agenda.
I also called rubio’s office. I got the machine. I let the message according to the script and asked the Senator to oppose trump care. I told him that I will be effected by any cuts and that I take these matters personally. I askd him to please start working on behalf of his constituents, for a change.
I have been finding that the more calls you make, the easier it gets to express one’s self.
Keep calling!
Jim Parene
@rikyrah: This is a horrible trend. Perhaps we could start volunteering to provide protection for the candidates.?
Mike R
Called my senators Sasse and Fischer, the results should equal be with what the calls cost, in other words nothing.
BCHS Class of 1980
Would it make sense to exhort the Dem Senators to procedurally lock down the Senate if Yertle proceeds with the secrecy?
D58826
and to re-assure John that yes his dogs are smarter than he is:
Bruce K
My Senators are Schumer and Gillebrand. I’ve already emailed Schumer’s office – I’ve had difficulty calling offices through Skype, but would phone calls to those two help?
ArchTeryx
@BCHS Class of 1980: Absolutely. Withhold unanimous consent on everything. Force the Turtle to take.a bunch of votes on everything, includong opening the doors. No quarter given. Hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake.
Major Major Major Major
Supportive calls to Dems in purple/red states are always at least appreciated by the staffers, too.
Mnemosyne
@bystander:
@Big Ole Hound:
It’s always nice to call and thank them for standing firm to protect Obamacare. I usually end up faxing their offices because it’s hard for me to make calls from work.
SatanicPanic
@Big Ole Hound: Called them anyway.
wvng
I called Shelley this morning. And last week, and will next week. Make it personal.
OGLiberal
I just read up on Capito’s dad and while I get saying “Daddy wouldn’t do this” might make a normal person think twice, given his criminal record, he probably would have done this and more…and the apple rarely falls far from the tree. (see, Trump, Donald Jr.; Trump, Ivanka; Trump, Eric)
Adding…and one of dad’s crimes was extorting money from the God of West Virginia, the Almighty Coal.
Wyatt Derp
Markey and Warren are on the right (I mean correct) side but I did thank them.
SatanicPanic
@Jim Parene:
Yeah, I think people get hung up on sounding smart or making a persuasive argument, but really it’s just numbers. “It’s a bad bill, you should oppose it” is fine.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
it’s Cillizza, but he has a quote
D58826
On CNN with friends like this who needs enemies –
What ever Lynch did or didn’t do, Comey came to the conclusion that there was no wrong doing. And while he said he was concerned about the ‘matter’ vs ‘investigation’ wording he has never said that Lynch in any way told him to stop the investigation or redirected resources. All this is going to do is give the RWNJ’s more ammo to shut down the Russia probe.
But since we need one more Clinton investigation surely there must be some stone unturned from Whitewater so lets drag old Ken Starr out of the closet and let him go at it again.
SatanicPanic
@D58826: Oh that’s f*cking stupid. That makes me so mad. I’m calling her office today to ask her to retire already. What an idiot.
OGLiberal
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: 40% of American voters will believe that. For some reason, this buffoon with names on buildings is like Jesus to a not insignificant portion of Americans.
rikyrah
Russia Was Helped by ‘Treasonous’ Americans
June 12, 2017
By Taegan Goddard
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) told Politico that the Russians had “treasonous” guidance from Americans in hacking the 2016 presidential election.
Said McAuliffe: “Somebody had to give these people a roadmap. So I believe somewhere in this, somebody was directing the Russians on whose names to use, what impact these certain people sending a memo would have on the American electorate. I mean, they just didn’t sit over in some cubicle over there somewhere in Moscow and figure this out.”
rikyrah
The Official Portrait of 44.
I am all up in my feelings about this.??
He is trolling them with the tan suit
?????
https://mobile.twitter.com/j_boyd_ii/status/874084311154270209/photo/1?
Leave them behind
This is going to work just as well as it did in the house. Quit now and save yourself the time and aggravation. We lost this fight in November, remember this is what people want. And we are all going to get it good and hard.
Me? I’m going to take care of myself. Or not as the case may be. You are all on your own. Save yourselves
Alce_e_ardilla
@bystander: I called them to tell them to do everything they can to slow down the bill, to allow for public opinion to be felt.
O. Felix Culpa
@rikyrah: Love it!
OGLiberal
@D58826: Could you ever imagine a Republican saying this?
Democrats (elected ones, most of them) suck and are cowards. Jesus Christ on a fucking bike…she’s a senator from California whose only threat, and this is highly unlikely, would be from her left….what the fuck is she’s thinking?
I can’t even….
SatanicPanic
@Leave them behind: F*ck you a**hole.
Alce_e_ardilla
@Leave them behind: Go fuck yourself. Go take your defeatism elsewhere.
rikyrah
Another Stunning Election In France As Macron’s Party Sweeps
June 12, 2017
5:01 AM ET
The brand new party of brand new French President Emmanuel Macron is poised to sweep parliamentary elections after a first round of legislative voting yesterday.
Official tallies show his party could wind up with more than 400 seats in the 577-seat French parliament after next week’s final round. French news media are likening a party that barely existed a year ago to a tidal wave sweeping everything in its path.
Macron’s party — Republic on the Move — received 32 percent of the vote, followed by the mainstream conservatives with 21 percent. The Socialists, party of former President François Hollande, didn’t even make 10 percent. Its number of seats will drop from nearly 300 to around 30.
“The left is being wiped out,” says Christophe Barbier, a columnist with L’Express. “And the right is in a huge ideological crisis because Macron has taken some of their best people for his government.”
Very few candidates received the 50 percent vote needed for a first-round victory. Most districts will see a runoff between the top two finishers next Sunday.
O. Felix Culpa
Troll alert in aisle 26!
The Moar You Know
I did exactly what you said. Called up Feinstein’s office and said “My name is John Cole and I am calling from Bethany, WV” and they told me to get bent and hung up on me. What am I doing wrong here?
rikyrah
@Leave them behind:
Why are you here?
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
Barrack is the ultimate troll!
I love him, and I miss him sooooooooo much!
Oh and great portrait. Yum.
rikyrah
found at TOD:
New Tool:) Send messages to your reps/senators…..from your phone:) Boom!
It turns your texts into faxes and sends them to your elected persons….
https://resistbot.io/
rikyrah
Why Democrats Need to Listen to Hillary Clinton
by Nancy LeTourneau
June 12, 2017 10:25 AM
Anger is a hot topic in politics these days. As a former therapist, I’ll admit that there is a lot of pop psychology out there that has been fueled by this idea that we all need to do a better job of expressing our feelings—especially anger. What my former profession hasn’t done a good job of, however, is teaching people that simply expressing anger isn’t enough.
I remember learning a real life lesson years ago when I worked in a group home that considered the expression of anger to be an important part of the healing process. One day during a staff meeting, two men got into a heated exchange over a disagreement. They were sitting at opposite ends of our conference table and eventually stood up and raised their voices in anger. As a young newbie to this kind of anger, it was pretty intimidating. But they also did something we don’t see very often. In the midst of their anger, they continued to listen to each other. In the end, they spontaneously reached out to shake hands across the table as a sign of respect, if not complete agreement.
I have never forgotten that moment because it was a rare glimpse into the possible. Actually listening to an opponent in the midst of anger doesn’t happen very often. What happens more often than not is that the actual disagreement gets lost as the arguments become more personal in an effort to shut the other side down.
That is precisely what I am seeing in the attempt by some pundits on the left these days who want Hillary Clinton to shut up and go away. As Paul Waldman recounts today, it has become a bit of a cottage industry. It is clear that some people are angry with Clinton. I don’t see any point in denying that anger. But almost none of them are engaged in discussing where the actual disagreements are rooted. It’s all pretty personal. And by suggesting that she needs to shut up and go away, it’s clear that these folks aren’t interested in listening to what she has to say.
There are some things Democrats need to talk about, like how to compete politically in a Citizens United era, how to move forward on universal health care, what good trade agreements should look like, what the role of government should be in combating income inequality, how best to combat the forces of xenophobia and what a 21st Century foreign policy should look like. In a party as diverse as Democrats, there are disagreements on a lot of those things. But when either side is defined in personal terms (i.e., corrupt), and therefore needs to be silenced, it simply means we don’t listen and the divide deepens.
D58826
@OGLiberal: and that is assuming she runs again at her age
rikyrah
Russian state actors are posing as attractive young women on Facebook to friend service members & gather intel. https://t.co/eu5dQykR6V
— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) June 12, 2017
rikyrah
On a call this morning we got a report: the volume of calls going into the Senate is light. THIS WEEK IS A CODE R… twitter.com/i/web/status/8…
—
Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) June 12, 2017
Make no mistake: Trumpcare will pass the Senate if we don’t dial up the pressure to maximum, unprecedented levels.… twitter.com/i/web/status/8…
—
Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) June 07, 2017
Leave them behind
It’s not defeatism when you are actually beat. But go ahead and focus on a painting. That’s worth 6 senate seats alone for sure. You moral victory/purity types make me sick.
SatanicPanic
@OGLiberal: She’s an outlier- been in the Senate since the early 90s and keeps getting reelected because pols are afraid to challenge her. She’s well to the right of most other California Democrats. I don’t imagine Kamala Harris or Adam Schiff would say something this dumb.
hovercraft
@Leave them behind:
Interesting, we here realize that the ACA impacts ALL of us, not just the people on Medicaid or on the exchanges, ALL of us, so by calling our senators, marching and going to town halls, are HELPING OURSELVES/SAVING OURSELVES.
One more thing, Democrats Believe in working for the common good, we believe that those of us who have been more fortunate that others should be willing to make sacrifices for the common good, that’s what makes us Democrats.
So why don’t you run on over to john Galt world where your nonsense will be appreciated.
Kay
Despite Trump’s belligerence they know it looks bad to be ducking this Russia investigation. The sort of desperate spin that it’s “fake news” is ebbing.
Because people ARE eventually going to find out what happened- Trump aside, there will eventually be information on this and it will be released to the public and Jeff Sessions and the DOJ will look like absolute hacks if it turns out to be big and they hid it and ducked questions on it.
D58826
@SatanicPanic: Well then change her registration to GOP if she is going to walk like a duck and quack like a duck she might as well be a duck
Ridnik Chrome
@rikyrah: Holy shit, that’s Binghamton, New York, which is home to SUNY Binghamton. When I saw your link I was expecting that the story was from some deep red state. I did not expect to see New York, and definitely not a college town like Binghamton.
Gretchen
@Leave them behind: Dos svedanya, Ivan.
SatanicPanic
@D58826: I’m not defending her, I think she’s terrible and I’ve suggested to her aides that she consider retiring. I’ll do so again today. Just saying she’s not the norm for Democrats here.
Immanentize
I called my two Masshole Senators (Markey used to be my Rep., too). I have a question — who is in charge of Senate recruiting and or the Democratic Senate Committee or whatever it’s called. I will call that/those Senators as well. Maybe I should call the Republican Senate person too?
rikyrah
Luther’s coming back for a 5th season!!!
Yeah!!!
Some more Idris :)
D58826
@hovercraft:
Yes I know but we have gotten to the point that being the adults in the room and being middle of the road just turns you into road kill when dealing with facists like Der Fuhrer/ZEGS and YRTLE. Schumer could bring the Senate to a halt by requiring a vote of unanimous consent each day (and not providing it) but that would be disrespectful to the traditions of the Senate. So instead he makes speeches and gets rolled.
D58826
@SatanicPanic: True I understand
Immanentize
@rikyrah: I grew up just outside Binghamton (Endwell) and went to SUNY B (now oddly called B.U. which is hard for a guy who now lives in Boston). The place is a classic old versus young rust-belt city with plenty of racist Trumpians whose old factory jobs were wiped out along side a vibrant college town community. Schizo doesn’t begin to describe. But it was never a threatening kind of place.
rikyrah
‘Too Black and Militant’ – Critics Slam Marvel Comics for Black Panther Movie Poster
by Tosin
After just 24 hours for the release of the teaser trailer of Marvels new film, Black Panther, the media backlash has already started.
The powerful trailer featured actors Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, and Angela Bassett in a very strongly themed Marvel superhero movie that wove the storyline around the Fictitious Wakandan leader and ruler, T’Challa who also doubles as the Black Panther.
Following the release of the poster and teaser trailer yesterday, critics are claiming the new poster resembles Social Activist and Co-Founder of The Black Panther Party, Huey P. Newton, who was seen as ‘too militant’ in the 1960’s.
Barbara
@rikyrah: I used this tool and posted it on Facebook. Tomorrow I will try it on my mother’s behalf, sending a letter to Toomey but I should get her permission first. He’s a lost cause especially since he was just reelected.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Did you see that your girl was whining about Washington being ‘so mean’ to her?
PHUCK.OUTTA.HERE.
Immanentize
@D58826: This was discussed in the last thread — she didn’t “Call” for an investigation, she sort of agreed that they could look into that issue, but that it should NOT be linked to the Russia investigation. Like I said this morning, she is of the B. Clinton style of Dem who feels like they need to give a mile before they take back their inch. It is a very bad public posture. But DiFi generally votes all the right way (except maybe on privacy and police powers).
rikyrah
A debt-ceiling deadline adds a wrinkle to a challenging landscape
06/12/17 11:30 AM
By Steve Benen
The national political landscape isn’t exactly tranquil right now. The White House is facing crisis conditions; the president’s political operation is facing a counter-espionage investigation; the president himself may be facing obstruction-of-justice allegations; U.S. allies are giving up on American leadership in ways without modern precedent; and Congress’ agenda is in peril.
It’s against this backdrop that policymakers have to prepare to raise the debt ceiling.
Technically, the nation reached its limit in March, but at that point, the Treasury Department’s “extraordinary measures” kicked in, giving Congress a little breathing room. Nevertheless, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin urged lawmakers more than three months ago to raise the debt ceiling “at the first opportunity.”
Congress has so far ignored the appeal, prompting Mnuchin to announce on Friday that he has “plans and backup plans for funding the government” into at least September if Congress does not raise the debt ceiling before its August recess. The Washington Post reported:
…………………………
Federal tax receipts have been quite a bit lower than expected in recent months, which only accelerates the timeline for an inevitable debt-ceiling increase. Complicating matters, the Trump administration can’t seem to get its story straight: while Mnuchin has urged Congress to pass a clean bill, Trump’s far-right budget director, Mick Mulvaney, has said he wants lawmakers to tack on some conservative priorities in the legislation.
For now, the president said he’s taking Mnuchin’s side, but (a) Trump is also on record having argued the exact opposite before the election; (b) Gary Cohn, Trump’s National Economic Council director, has expressed support for Mulvaney’s argument; and (c) White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer recently hedged when asked to back up Mnuchin’s call for a clean bill.
And while Trump World is divided against itself, congressional Republicans – the folks who’ll have to schedule and execute the increase – see raising the debt limit as a difficult and painful vote, largely because they themselves made these votes difficult and painful during the Obama era for reasons that never really made any sense.
House Freedom Caucus members last month “demanded” that any debt-ceiling increase be tied to assorted conservative goals that far-right lawmakers want, which all but guarantees that House GOP leaders will have to reach out to House Democrats to avoid a crisis.
chopper
@rikyrah:
note the super-long tie.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: I love it — i might get a print for my office….
D58826
Notice the missing stakeholder in this? Yep all of those WWC folks who voted for Der Fuhrer. One can only hope that the widow and orphans of a worker who died in a preventable industrial accident are comforted by knowing that Der Fuhrer cares.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-officials-to-unveil-plan-to-cut-factory-rules-this-week/ar-BBCx5HR?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=iehp
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@Leave them behind: Look in the mirror asshole. And since when is it being about purity to care and fight for millions of people who WILL lose healthcare insurance, likely dying or going bankrupt as a result? This isn’t a game and never was.
GTFO armchair pundit
rikyrah
Black Teen Finds Photo of Herself Being Lynched Shared in Group Chat
Breanna Edwards
Today 8:58am
A 15-year-old California high school student discovered a shocking picture of herself with a noose drawn around her neck posted in a chemistry chat room for Los Angeles’ Palisades Charter High School.
“Oh, my God, it’s me being lynched,” Aina Adewunmi told CBSLA. “Looking at an image of yourself like that hurts.”
Aina is new to Palisades, having just transferred to the charter school in January. She said she’d mostly felt welcomed and accepted by students there, but three boys in particular started to use racial slurs.
“They added me to their group chat and then started using the n-word,” Aina said, according to the New York Daily News. “I said they can’t use the word, and that’s when I thought I set the boundary.”
D58826
@rikyrah: This is one issue that I think the D’s should act like the adults in the room. If they can QUIETLY gain a few concession then they should but no threats to push default. And if that means providing the required votes to pass the increase then so be it. Risking the nations credit rating is not the hill that the D’s should chose to die on
chopper
@rikyrah:
how do we know this is true tho? mnuchin is one of the rarities in the trump admin in that he actually has relevant experience in his field, but this administration is so bad at what it does i wouldn’t doubt that we’ll go over the fiscal cliff a month from now. “oops”
D58826
@Immanentize: I know, it just raises my BP that we keep handing scoring own goals and giving the GOP political cover.
bemused
@hovercraft:
The idiot must be one of those lucky ducky .01 percenters who can pay for even the most expensive health issue he/she may end up with for life and not impact what he/she owns. If not, good luck with saving him/herself.
randy khan
@bystander:
So pick some Republicans and call them. It can’t hurt.
I did call both Kaine and Warner to give them attaboys – I think the encouragement helps, too.
randy khan
@Leave them behind:
Oh, shut up.
If your attitude is that you’re going to take care of yourself, I’m pretty sure you’re not on our side anyway.
NeenerNeener
@Ridnik Chrome: Yeah, that freaked me out when I saw it too. So much for moving back to my home town when I retire. When I left there (many years ago) it was a reasonably center-left town.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: fuck that shit. ‘Too black and militant’ means they are doing Black Panther RIGHT. I mean, hello…dude’s name is BLACK PANTHER, dammit!
Villago Delenda Est
I’m in a very easy state/cong district. Merkley, Wyden, DeFazio. They’ll all do the right thing…they never stop emailing me about it!
Major Major Major Major
@D58826: Sometimes I hate being the responsible ones.
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah: The critics can all swallow vibranium dildos.
rikyrah
Code of Silence
How private companies hide flaws in the software that governments use to decide who goes to prison and who gets out.
by Rebecca Wexler
One day in early January, a letter appeared on my desk marked DIN92A5501, an inmate’s identification number from the Eastern Correctional Facility in upstate New York. The author, Glenn Rodríguez, had drafted it in upright, even letters, perfectly aligned. Here, in broad strokes, is the story he told:
Rodríguez was just sixteen at the time of his arrest, and was convicted of second-degree murder for his role in an armed robbery of a car dealership that left an employee dead. Now, twenty-six years later, he was a model of rehabilitation. He had requested a transfer to Eastern, a maximum-security prison, in order to take college classes. He had spent four and a half years training service dogs for wounded veterans and eleven volunteering for a youth program. A job and a place to stay were waiting for him outside. And he had not had a single disciplinary infraction for the past decade.
Yet, last July, the parole board hit him with a denial. It might have turned out differently but, the board explained, a computer system called COMPAS had ranked him “high risk.” Neither he nor the board had any idea how this risk score was calculated; Northpointe, the for-profit company that sells COMPAS, considers that information to be a trade secret. But Rodríguez may have been stuck in prison because of it.
Proprietary algorithms are flooding the criminal justice system. Machine learning systems deploy police officers to “hot spot” neighborhoods. Crime labs use probabilistic software programs to analyze forensic evidence. And judges rely on automated “risk assessment instruments” to decide who should make bail, or even what sentence to impose.
Supporters claim that these tools help correct bias in human decisionmaking and can reduce incarceration without risking public safety by identifying prisoners who are unlikely to commit future crimes if released. But critics argue that the tools disproportionately harm minorities and entrench existing inequalities in criminal justice data under a veneer of scientific objectivity.
Even as this debate plays out, the tools come with a problem that is slipping into the system unnoticed: ownership. With rare exceptions, the government doesn’t develop its own criminal justice software; the private sector does. The developers of these new technologies often claim that the details about how they work are “proprietary” trade secrets and, as a result, cannot be disclosed in criminal cases. In other words, private companies increasingly purport to own the means by which the government decides what neighborhoods to police, whom to incarcerate, and for how long. And they refuse to reveal how these decisions are made—even to those whose life or liberty depends on them.
Miss Bianca
@Immanentize: Thank you for pointing this out.
By all means, let’s lose our heads over a distortion of what DiFi may have SAID, and forget about what she’s DOING to help stem the tide of Republican bullshit, amirite?
I swear, with friends like us, who needs enemas.
@rikyrah: shit, this is chilling. As if the incarceration system didn’t have *enough* problems..
Domestic Short Hair Tabby fka...
@bystander: I’m doing it anyway! Schumer’s DC office busy twice, will try Gillibrand next.
Aleta
https://twitter.com/iskandrah
Alexandra Halaby. @iskandrah
The mother of a child murdered at #SandyHook, who is harassed by #AlexJones followers, appeals to NBC. #ShameOnNBC
Alexandra Halaby Retweeted Nelba Márquez-Greene
Nelba Márquez-Greene @Nelba_MG
Every week. 5 years later. Still harrased by truthers. You do NOT give crazy a platform. You’re better than this @nbc
No One You Know
@rikyrah: Is the tan suit really that big? Or am I imagining that it hangs on him like a blanket? Epic troll. Love the little flag pin. That’s ANOTHER thing we must take back.
Kay
Thug House member got sentenced:
That’s true- people shouldn’t spend so much time in jail -but I think 4 days is perfectly reasonable for smacking the hell out of someone.
Apparently the judge is unfamiliar with “jail fees”:
Kay
@Aleta:
Is that show in trouble? That seems a little desperate.
What if the cable news business model COLLAPSES! Wouldn’t that be the best thing? One can only hope!
D58826
@Miss Bianca:
I understand what your saying but the GOP will weave what she said into an attack ad, which is what all most people will see. They won’t know
.
Look at what they did with Obama and spread the wealth Joe the plumber. I realize they will take any comment out of context but lets not make it any easier for them
No One You Know
@chopper: I don’t understand. Is he saying he has a plan and therefore there’s no problem because he did his job?
Villago Delenda Est
@Leave them behind: UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH!
D58826
@Kay: Saw on the intertubes yesterday that a judge in Fla decided that a guy with a house full of guns and explosives in his house and FB page of violent threats did not constitute a treat to the community and allowed him to post bail and walk the streets of said community till his trial.
Oh did I mention the guy was ah (drum roll please) white!!
Villago Delenda Est
@Aleta:
She is mistaken about that. These people will do anything for sweet, sweet ratings that can be monetized into revenue to feed their insatiable greed.
HRA
@rikyrah:
Personally there has been a lot of daily requests for wanting me to befriend people. I checked out a few on their page and found them bare of any information. Now I just ignore them.
AMinNC
Interesting – Senator Burr’s (R-NC) staffer in DC office told me the Senator does not support the bill that came out of the House and won’t support Senate bill if it’s similar. May have just been blowing smoke, but maybe pressure is working. I hit hard on the fact that cutting or block-granting Medicaid funds will kill rural hospitals – not something they want to be responsible for.
D58826
9th circuit upheld the ban on Trump’s Muslim EO. so some good news. This was on the case that from the Hawaii district court.
Miss Bianca
@D58826: You know, honestly? Let’s see you have to guard your tongue 24/7 against anything, everything, that someone MIGHT decide to use to smear you, and see if you can hold yourself to the standards you hold others to.
Laura
@rikyrah: what a dignified gentleman. The tan suit is fantastic!
2liberal
called and LVM at Jeff Flakes 202 number, no oppty to speak to a person
Lyrebird
1. called Toomey. Was very polite… I’ve been a staffer, too. But please don’t anyone start with me right now about the evils of specialty hospitals, because one of ’em has made a huge difference for us, and I used my preexisting-condition cutie as leverage as much as I could. Maybe one of the staffers has a conscience. I don’t think Toomey does.
2. called Casey with profuse thanks and encouragement.
Gah.
rikyrah
Trump faces constitutional questions over foreign payments
06/12/17 11:01 AM
By Steve Benen
The moment he took the oath of office as president, Donald Trump was already facing a serious legal dispute. The Constitution, which the Republican had just sworn to uphold, prevents U.S. officials from receiving payments from foreign governments – it’s generally known as the “Emoluments Clause” – but Trump, who refused to divest from his private-sector enterprises, continues to profit from businesses who receive payments from foreign governments.
There’s already some pending litigation challenging Trump’s current practices, but the Washington Post reports that the legal dispute will add a new dimension today.
D58826
@Miss Bianca: HMMM go back and read what I said. The GOP will figure out how to make a D saying Good Morning into an attack ad. But giving an interview where you say that your disturbed by what Lynch did and the GOP doesn’t even have to take it out of context. And after being in politics for as long as she has I’m sure she knows how to blow smoke to avoid a question that she doesn’t want or need to answer. FSM knows when I watch some of GOOPers on cable it sets off the smoke alarm in my apt.
Laura
@Leave them behind: then fuck the fuck off you pure defeatist lazy-ass shite-bag dead ender.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
I wish we could tattoo a version of this on the forehead of every “libertarian” who insists there’s no need to regulate private industries because corporations can’t send you to jail. ?
Mnemosyne
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yep. We need to get Adam to put him back into his box. He seems to have peed his way out of it again.
rikyrah
@D58826:
Good
mai naem mobile
I’ve called both of my worthless big tawkers no action fools McCain and Flake.
D58826
@Laura: But please tell us how you really feel!!!!!!:-) yes snarky
EdTheRed
I live in DC. My senators are No One, and the Honorable F*ck You, Libtards, You’ll Pay Taxes Without Representation And Like It. So please put in a word for me when you’re calling your own senators. Because if DC had 2 senators, we literally would not be in this situation.
Camembert
@BCHS Class of 1980: I’ve been asking my Senators to shut down the Senate until Bannon is gone in my calls. The staffers are very polite.
D58826
not the most anticipate SCOTUS decision ofthe term
But anytime you get Justice Thomas and the Notorious RBG on the same side it is notworthy
Villago Delenda Est
@D58826: It’s about damn time.
Immanentize
@D58826: This is really important because it stands for 8 votes supporting (and not hedging about) birthright citizenship. The attack on that 14th amendment bedrock principle is even a bridge too far for the righty Supremes .
Mnemosyne
@EdTheRed:
Well, c’mon, you guys only have a population of 672K, so it’s not like you’re bigger than two actual states that do get 2 senators apiece …
D58826
@Immanentize: I agree the case is important but certainly not one that the general public was watching like gay marriage a few years back. Certainly didn’t mean to devalue the 14th amendment
HeleninEire
@EdTheRed: Good comment.
OGLiberal
@Immanentize: I’m not far from Binghamton in Northeast PA and the Trump hysteria has taken hold here big time. I just saw a sign a couple days ago that read “Lock Her Up”…and it wasn’t there a few days before. We all know the election ended a while ago. People here have huge TRUMP signs on their lawns, cars, etc…still. Some couple bought a huge billboard outside Scranton (a Dem city…home of the Caseys and Biden and Hillary’s dad) that said TRUMP and it was there for several months before the election…big and obnoxious, just like the man himself.
The problem with Binghamton and Scranton and the like in this area is that a) they are very sad places – no jobs, no hope and b) they are very white. (Scranton-Wilkes-Barre more than Binghamton) Stories I’ve read recently seem to imply that they less exposure you have to people who aren’t exactly like you, the more you hate them. And the more you blame them for your bad luck. I think Scranton, unlike West Virginia, knows that coal isn’t coming back, but they haven’t replaced it with much. Retail, warehouse jobs, service industry – that’s about it. The GOP has no answer to these issues but they give these whites folks somebody – AKA, brown people – to blame for their problems…and easy to hate those you never even see or interact with….they’re not people, just objects of hate.
rikyrah
@Immanentize:
good to be reminded of that
Raoul
I ended up calling CO Sen. Gardner’s D.C. office. Went direct to VM, which may mean they were busy, or may be because I have an our of state area code on my phone? These days, what do area codes have to do with phones, really. A good friend has lived in MN/CA/GA/MN/GA in the past 15 years, all with the same 612 cell number.
Anyway, left a message urging him to oppose Medicaid cuts, AHCA, and shaming the Senate for drafting a bill impacting 1/6th of the economy in secret.
Miss Bianca
@Raoul: If you actually live in CO, you might want to try email or fax. That way you can put your ZIP code in. If you don’t, then don’t bother – they won’t respond.
Kay Eye
Called my “senators” here in Texas, their Austin offices, urging them to protect medicare/medicaid for their constituents’ needs, including mine (proud Medicare card holder, thank you LBJ); threw in a call to my rep Roger Williams for good measure, to thank him for the correspondence from him about the Affordable Care Act and telling him that his staff had badly misinformed him and that I would send him correct information soon so that he can make informed decisions. (Only got his voice mail.)
I always include name, zip code, phone number in my calls.
Meant to ask Cruz’s office if a congressional investigation into the possible involvement of his father in JFK’s assassination might not be a good idea, so as to clear his name. Maybe next time.
Gravenstone
@Mnemosyne: Our old buddy Derf appears to have finally outed himself again, a few threads down. Can’t keep a good troll down – and these morons are anything but good.
Raoul
@rikyrah: I suppose a portrait of him in the tan suit, eating arugula with a dijon mustard dressing might have been a troll too far?
Raoul
@SatanicPanic: Interestingly, at least at govtrack on her sponsorship analysis DiFi is charted as being about in the middle of the Senate Dems. What she may be up to with Lynch I cannot say, it seems extremely stupid and counterproductive.
Raoul
@Kay: I wish that was my take. But I think Sessions will go into the public hearing and do lots of “I can’t comment in open session about that” and afterwards, Rump will tweet “Vindicated!!1!11” and Sessions will then refuse a closed appearance.
Ohio Mom
I am resting my feet in the snack bar between the two National Gallery of Art buildings. This post made me feel guilty so I called Portman’s office and told the woman who answered the phone, “I am on vacation on DC with my family and I have to interrupt it to call you to tell you to tell your boss to leave Medicaid and the ACA alone!”
For the unteempth (spelling?) time, I had to explain to a Republican staffer what a risk cooridor was, and how Rubio led the effort to get rid of them.
I explained that insurance companies don’t like uncertainty and the uncertainty Republicans have created is leading insurance companies to leave markets, e.g., the company just pulled out of Ohio.
And so on and so forth, all about how their boss and his pals are sabotaging my family’s health security to give tax breaks to the 1% of the 1%. None of these phone answers claim to know what I am talking about when I bring up the effort to use Reconciliation to pass this monstrosity. I have to explain Reconciliation to them.
Either they are playing dumb or they are completely ignorant. They can never answer my final question either, but I don’t ever expect them to: “Why don’t I ever have to call Sherrod Brown’s office? How come I can trust him to act on my family’s best interest?”
Maybe I’ll write an email next — I’m not going anywhere until Ohio Dad gets here from his side trip to the Postal Museum. And now I am riled up.
low-tech cyclist
@Ohio Mom: The first person who answers the phone likely won’t know all the details. Sarah Schmidt is Portman’s Health Legislative Assistant. Ask for her.
low-tech cyclist
@bystander:
And living in Maryland, I’ve got Cardin and Van Hollen who are sure No votes on whatever abomination Mitch & Co. bring to a vote.
But it’s still worth calling. First of all, it’s good for staff morale if the calls they get from the right are balanced by supportive calls. But second, if there’s more that the Senators can do besides just voting the right way, it’s good to urge them in that direction.
This afternoon, I’ll be calling up my Senators to ask them to demand to see the draft of the health care bill that the Republicans send to CBO. If it’s close enough to the final product for its CBO score to be relevant, then it’s close enough for the public to get a look at it.
Ohio Mom
@low-tech cyclist: I had to leave a message at the DC office, they are either not answering the phone or on the proverbial other line. So I left a message and called the Cincinnati office. I also wrote an email.
I think there is value in educating the interns, I am just getting tired of doing it. They are an incurious, purposefully ignorant lot.
Schmendrick
Thanks for the reminder. One of the Republican senators facing the biggest risk of fallout from this vote is Dean Heller of Nevada, and I just called him to let him know that I will make sure to remind as many of my fellow constituents as I can about who voted to cut Medicaid and Medicare to provide the Trump family and the other top .01% with hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts. His phone in DC was busy, but I got through to a staffer in Las Vegas. He sounded as if I was not the first one to express such an opinion.
Raven Onthill
For those of us with Democratic Senators, Indivisible offers this guide on how Democratic Senators can resist this. Call your Senator, Democratic or Republican.
Meantime, I have updated an old snarky post about the Senate: “Today Republican Senate leader McConnell announced that all Democratic Senators will be arrested …”
chopper
@No One You Know:
he’s saying that the ‘extraordinary measures’, the number-shifting the treasury can do between when we start breaching the debt ceiling and we go full-on over the cliff, can go until september. problem is, tax receipts are lower this year than expected and this administration is full of morons, so i don’t really trust we can make it even close to then.
Kenneth Kohl
@bystander: yep, good to know we NY’s have some solid rep. I just emailed the Senators. I think I’ll swing by their Buffalo offices to give staff a pep talk
J R in WV
@Leave them behind:
Thanks for the encouraging message, you dumb ass. Really, dumber than an ass, they’re smart self-reliant animals, while you depend on others for your food, shelter, transportation, everything you buy.
Dumb slime mold, more like. Keep up the good work of supporting democracy, idiot. Surrender to the bandits at the first opportunity! Good job!!!
Jim Parene
@Ridnik Chrome: I graduated from SUNY Binghamton and the locals always mistrusted the College Folk. I am not surprised about the death threats.
Off campus, Binghamton is really Pennsiltuckey. It is a rust belt style tragedy. The locals blame Liberals and their policies for the factories moving out.
Singing Truth to Power
Called and had to leave a voicemail. My senator is Ron Johnson, so the call is almost certainly a complete waste of time, but I did it.