Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Take a deep breath, let it out, drink a toast that we killed tRUmpcare AGAIN, take another deep breath, and now roll up our sleeves and fight for Puerto Rico

Greetings, fellow Dot Calm Readers, Freedom Fighters, and Truth Crusaders!

Well, WE DID IT!

We killed the vicious Graham-Cassidy tRUmpcare ?.0 bill.

That's right, friends--we killed evil tRUmpcare AGAIN!

Funny how people just don't take kindly to Republicans wanting to murder them and all their loved ones.

Whodathunkit?

I ran with my own script this time, spending between two and three hours total on the phone, calling every Republican senator at least once and the likeliest ones to say "no" at least two or three times.

I also called my own senators, both Democrats, and exhorted them to do their utmost to stop the bill by every procedural means possible.

I also Resistbot'ed faxes to my members of Congress from the moment I first heard rumors of zombie tRUmpcare's rising from the grave until we got the "all clear" yesterday evening.

Whew!

The funny thing about activism is that each of us does what each of us can, and it all adds up.

I simply felt like doing my own thing this time--and I could tell from the reactions I got from the senators' aides which statements really got their attention: telling senators that they might lose the Koch brothers as donors but that they'd gain millions of very enthusiastic Democrats; reminding them of Howard Dean's and Bernie Sanders's successes in grassroots fundraising; and acknowledging that the aides were being slammed with phone calls and thanking them for taking my call. I also thanked the senators who were even remotely friendly "for everything they do." Even though I'm desperately allergic to Republicans, I made a point of encouraging the positive--even though we don't typically see it from them--just in case we might be able to create more of it by thanking them even when it-snot there.

Next time, though, I am going to run with the Indivisible playbook because Indivisible was put together by ex-staffers and aides who watched the Tea Party harness a very small minority into complete domination of the Republican Party and the nation's government at state and federal levels.

Indivisible sent out stats on how many of us called our senators:

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In just the last week:

  • 2,233 Indivisible volunteers across the country dialed 320,552 times using our Calls to Kill TrumpCare tool to encourage constituents in Alaska, Arizona, Maine, and Colorado to call their Republican senators. That’s 61,680 minutes (or 42.8 days!) of call time!
  • You visited our TrumpCareTen.org resources, call scripts, and contact information to put pressure on your senators over 201,000 times.
  • You hosted 172 events across the nation at congressional district offices over the course of the week to continue pressuring your members of Congress and for yesterday’s National Day of Action to #KillTheBill.

-----

The folks at Indivisible are subject matter experts, and I'm sure I'll have ample opportunity to compare results between their approach and mine...unfortunately.

Cheez, I still reel to think that America has come to this.

FML.

*****
Comrade tRUmpski
owes more money to Russia
than Puerto Rico owes
to predatory American banks.
-- Dot Calm's shadow
*****

And now...

It's up to us to save Puerto Rico because Dotard and the Fuckheads (now, there's a band name for you) are missing in action. Dotard Donnie would rather twist NFL player protests against police shooting unarmed Blacks with impunity into being all about him than do anything real to help real Americans in REAL suffering. When his aides tried to cajole Dotard Donnie into tweeting about Puerto Rico, he retorted that what's going on in the NFL is worse (!).

WTF?!??

25th AMENDMENT NOW!!!!!

As I said, FML.

I've been to San Juan and have very dear friends there. I also have lots of Puerto Rican friends here in the continental US. San Juan is (ugh, was?) beautiful, and you could not hope to meet friendlier, nicer, more intelligent, more hard-working, more classy, more helpful, more honest, or more talented people anywhere.

Puerto Ricans are all that and a bag of chips, and they deserve a shit-ton better than fucking do-nothing Republicans fucking doing nothing.

No less than Texans or Floridians, our American brothers and sisters in Puerto Rico need and deserve our help!

Please take these two steps to render aid and comfort to the people tRUmp SHOULD be helping instead of Putin and the Oligarchs (hum, that also sounds like a band name):

1. Go to Puerto Rico Strong at https://puertoricostrong.myshopify.com/ and drop-ship whatever you can afford. Dot Calm always lamented how nigh-impossible it was to send "FPS" (feminine protection supplies) to disaster victims...periods stop for no one...so I sent 9 boxes of tampons three times--one for each hurricane. I'm going to send as much water as I can afford, hopefully before I blawg atcha this Thursday. It sux that our government is missing in action--srsly, what did these morons expect would happen when they installed an ignorant dotard instead of real leaders with real experience, compassion, and brains?--so, alas, we have to step in and take care of our own because neither Republicans nor prayers fill empty bellies, quench thirst, medicate the sick, or stanch menstrual flow.

2. CALL CALL CALL all of the Republican senators--AGAIN!

--Tell them to censure tRUmp for scolding Puerto Rico about its debt when (1) Hurricane Maria has created a humanitarian disaster orders of magnitude worse than Katrina and (2) HE owes Puerto Rico $33 MILLION for his bankrupt golf course there, so he has no right to scold Puerto Rico for their debt until he pays them what he owes them.

--Tell them that tRUmp's actions--getting wrapped around the axle about the NFL while ignoring life-or-death suffering in Puerto Rico--prove yet AGAIN that tRUmp is unfit to hold public office and MUST be removed NOW. (Further evidence of tRUmp's unfitness: given his rather fluid relationship with reality, tRUmp can't tell the difference between real and fake news, and he prefers fake news to our own world-class military and intelligence agencies' briefings! tRUmp got punk'd by a seven-month-old story about an Iranian missile launch, which failed, but which he angrily tweeted about just the same...and he's the one with the nuclear launch codes!!!!!)

--Tell them to send aid and personnel NOW, NOT when the new fiscal year starts, because people are suffering and dying TODAY.

This is a list of all current Republican U.S. senators (52 total):

If you want numbers for all of the senators, click here for Daily Kos's directory. That's the site I used to call Manchin and Heitkamp. I wasn't taking any chances with any of those bastards!

*****
I'm trying like hell to get tRUmp
to block me on Twitter...
I've been on a tear
and hoped one of my recent tweets would do it.
For example,
I tweeted in response to tRUmp
scolding the Dallas Cowboys
for "dropping to its knees as a team":
You drop to your knees to holster Putin's cock.
The only country you love is Russia.
STFUDonnieYouTraitorousSonOfABitch
-- Dot Calm's shadow
*****
 
Well, dear ones, that's it for me--work is still kicking my ass, and I'm beat. I'm gonna go have a Fireball and relax...and then start pounding these bastards again tomorrow to save Puerto Rico!
 
- Dot Calm's shadow
 
*****
 
 
 
*****