Thursday, November 02, 2017

It isn't just our money or our democracy that the Greedy Oligarch Putinists are stealing...

Treason's greedings, fellow Dot Calm Readers, Freedom Fighters, and Truth Crusaders!

Before we get down to the brass tacks of why I'm extra pissed today, please CALL and KEEP CALLING your own members of Congress and as many of the Greedy Oligarch Putinist senators as you can.

Earlier this week, they released the gawd-awful tax plan that will gut Medicare and Medicaid while adding $1.5T to the deficit.

Friends, we've all paid into these programs--Americans like my dad who use these benefits earned them.

Use the contact information below to tell your members of Congress that, if they touch Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security, WE WILL SUE their asses off for every penny we've ever paid in PLUS INTEREST.

I'm shocked that the retirement investment firms aren't beating down Congress's door to scream at them over how much money they'll lose if Congress robs us of our tax deduction. I know for a fact that I won't invest in a 401k or IRA without the tax credit--I'd rather just put that money into savings where I won't have to pay brokerage fees and where I can access my own money in an emergency without taking those 10% hits on penalties.

And where are the home builders and big mortgage lenders screaming at Congress that this tax bill will encourage people to rent or stay put if there's no advantage to owning or upgrading?

And why aren't the churches and other charities up in arms that we could lose the charitable deduction? They'll lose their shirts--or, should I say, they'll gain shirts in the form of cast-off clothing and housewares, but they'll lose all that lovely cash that lets the pastors and their families live like royalty in tax-free, rent-free custom-built mansions where they can drive Bentleys and fly around in their own private jets. Just ask tRUmp's "spiritual advisor," Paula White.

And, in case you didn't know, the tax bill includes measures to gut Obamacare as well as Medicaid and Medicare.

Friends, the Greedy Oligarch Putinists have the middle and lower classes squarely in their sights, and their knives are sharpened to carve us up and let their already-fat-but-still-h0ngry donors feast on us.

DON'T LET THEM!!!!!

I'm extra-pissed--as I suspect you are, too--because there's a lot more to this grand larceny than "just" dollars.

The dollars are OUR money, which we've all worked our asses off for...and our money is our safety, our security, our health, our future, and our well being.

And you don't hear one damn thing from one Republican--not even McCain or Flake or Corker, who've said some nice, happy-clappy words lately--about how we should cut out tRUmp's golf trips and all of his cabinet's private jet trips and everyone's lavish weekly vacations before cutting what ordinary Americans need just to survive and giving it to the already too fucking rich.

If the GOP kills Medicare, I don't have enough left in retirement savings to cash out to pay for a hospital stay for my dad.

He's more than welcome to what I have, but I already cashed out my retirement to build onto my house for him to come live with me--sadly, my mother didn't survive to make the move. My dad and I could have managed by remodeling the house without building onto it, but we didn't know back then that it would just be the two of us. So I'm already tapped out except for a few bux here and there. Like I said, my dad is more than welcome to it, but remember that I'll lose a full third to taxes and fees to cash out what little is left if I need it to save his life.

So we're fucked in that direction.

Here's another direction we're fucked.

As you know--and as I've tweeted--Republicans crash the economy to extract all the money for themselves and their rich doors; then they let Democrats clean up the mess and put the economy back on its feet to refill it with cash; then they swoop in, crash the economy again, and extract all the money again...lather, rinse, repeat.

And, as you know, we have tRUmpublicans running the House, Senate, and Executive.

So, let's say that the tRUmpublicans succeed in killing Medicare.

That means that I will have to sell my house just to have enough cash on hand to keep my dad alive--and Atheist God knows where we'd live.

Selling the house means selling NOW--cashing out while the cashing's good.

Why?

Because, if/when they crash the economy by cutting taxes for the rich and pay and services for the rest of us, then I won't be able to sell my house because nobody will be able to buy it--its market value will plummet, and my mortgage and I will be underwater.

Glub, glub, glub.

Assuming I still have a job and health insurance, which is unlikely with a GOP crash, I could keep myself alive, but, if my dad ends up in the hospital for any reason, my money will go toward keeping him alive, which means defaulting on my mortgage, which means the bank taking our home and me declaring bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy means that I may not be employable once we get Democrats back into office, assuming I survive that long. You see, the government and its contractors are funny about giving security clearances to those with bankruptcies on their records unless they're Republicans running for president.

So my dad and I would be double fucked--we'd lose our home, and we'd likely lose our means of survival. If I were laid off and subsequently lucky enough to get a job, would I be able to afford an apartment--would the new, lower salary I'd get be enough for us to live on?

I speak from experience.

When MASTURBATed Cruz shut down the government in 2013 for two weeks--two weeks!--all the government contracts were either delayed or canceled. I was out of work for nine months--nine months!! That's how suckilicious Bush's economy was--Obama's corrections hadn't even started to kick in by then.

I sold my house, which I'd only owned for a year, before I could get foreclosed on, stored all my possessions, and rented a room. I sent out anywhere from three to a dozen resumes and job applications every single day, including weekends, while I was out of work.

I took the first job I was offered. It paid 23% less than I had been getting. I was there for a year before being let go because it wasn't a great fit. Thanks to Obama, I was only out of work for three months before taking my current job, which pays 11% less than the good job I'd lost--I lowballed myself a little just to get in. (Oh, and they bitched about not being able to get me for the 23% less. Bastards.)

But the bottom line is that I'm still recovering from the two-week government shutdown in 2013, and, when I was rehired, it was for substantially less than I had been making, and I was fucking grateful to have any job at all.

This is what Naomi Klein calls "disaster capitalism," friends.

It's the same money-and-power lust that drove Stinky Zinke to give a fishy sweetheart deal to his cronies at RottenWhitefish energy to "repair" the energy grid in Puerto Rico--the tRUmpublicans figure they can just run roughshod over us to profit from the disasters they inflict on us.

It is sickening how far we've fallen in so few months--how much we've lost from basic civility, the rule of law, empathy toward the vulnerable, taking care of each other, basic accountability and integrity in government officials, basic integrity of our government institutions, understanding or valuing the truth or evidence or reason...!

Jesus ass-twerking Christ.

Doesn't it both gall and terrify you to think that this one little family--my dad and me--of what used to be solidly middle-class workers who've both worked long, distinguished careers could get pushed off the cliff into financial ruin and possibly death not by natural disaster but by Republican greed?

Doesn't it both gall and terrify you that my dad and I are actually among the lucky ones in that we at least have the house and, between us, my job and health insurance and his Social Security and Medicare to keep us afloat for the moment? Most Americans don't even have that much. Most are scraping by, working harder and harder to fall farther and farther behind while the top 1% gets richer and richer.

Doesn't it both gall and terrify you that the GOP has our very peace of mind by the short curlies?

Well, it galls and terrifies me.

I've been shooting for a better job than my current 11%-underpaying job with the hire-and-fire mentality. Been working toward it for months now. Had a successful interview; some aspects of the hiring process seemed to be moving forward; but I haven't heard "boo" for like two or three weeks.

So, I told my dad over breakfast out Saturday--our weekly routine that we both look forward to--that, if I don't get this job, I will look seriously into skipping the country with him so that we can live like sane, rational human beings with a decent job, decent health care for both of us, and a work schedule that allows us time together that my current boss yells at me for taking.

As I said, we'd have to sell the house while the selling is good.

It would be a tremendous amount of work, all on my shoulders, but think of it...we could live like civilized human beings in a culture that values the lives of its citizens.

We could live with dignity and freedom that are foreign to Americans.

And we wouldn't have to worry about getting caught in the next bump stock-fueled gun massacre.

So, in the short nine months that Putin's cock holster has been in office, the tRUmpublicans well and truly have managed to fucking steal the entire country right out from under us.

It hasn't been enough for them to try to rewrite our past to worship slavers and Nazis as only the most gullible and hypocritical--like evangelicals--can.

It isn't enough for them to steal the present by keeping us in a constant state of fear for our lives.

They have already reshaped the country and possibly the climate enough that they may already have evicted us from the future, too.

And this is why we can't have nice things...

And this is why I drink...

And eat chocolate...

And FIGHT LIKE HELL--GRRRRRR!!!!!

- Dot Calm's shadow

P.S.--If you're on Daylight Savings Time, don't forget to turn your clocks back an hour Sunday night

(If you value my work, please consider supporting me on Patreon--thank you!)

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If you can stomach a quick 'n' dirty tally of each fresh new hell we find ourselves in with Putin's cock holster squatting in the White House (eww!), don't forget to check out What The Fuck Just Happened Today?

And if you prefer to watch your n00z and analysis in carefully pre-screened nuggets on YouTube, check out my videos page--Dot Calm's shadow's M00bies from The Resistance.

 
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Contact Congress and give the bastards a piece of your mind!

E-MAIL your own members of Congress and be counted (by law):

Click Democracy.io

FAX your own members of Congress and use "Letter2editor" to send a letter to your local paper:

Text "Resist" to 50409 

and then

CALL THE BASTARDS!!!!!

First, call your own senators, be they Republican or Democrat.

Next, call everyone on this handy triage list:
  • John McCain
  • Susan Collins
  • Lisa Murkowski
  • Jeff Flake
  • Shelley Moore Capito
  • Bob Corker (use his e-mail link below if the phone doesn't work)
  • Rob Portman
Then, if you can (with a brief script, plan on two hours to call all 52), please click each contact below (source: https://contactsenators.com/party/republican) and call every one of these bastards:

Republican Senators

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.

If you want numbers for all of the representatives, click here for the House's directory.

covfefe, when the walls fell

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posted by Dot Calm @ 9:07 PM