Wednesday, October 04, 2017

TO THE PHONES--THE GOP IS TRYING TO MURDER US AGAIN!!!!!

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE NOW, even after hours--THEY VOTE TOMORROW!!!!!

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

Here we fucking go again--time to call Congress AGAIN!

Here's the agenda:

1. DON'T gut Medicaid and Medicare
2. NOT ONE PENNY in tax cuts for the rich
3. DON'T ban late-term abortion

Let me discuss each briefly in turn.

1. DON'T gut Medicaid and Medicare

Friends, we are yet again reduced to begging our government not to kill us.

Fortunately, we're up to the challenge.

You see, Republicans want to fleece ONE TRILLION DOLLARS from Medicaid and HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS from Medicare.

THEY MUST BE STOPPED!!!!!

According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Medicaid spending was $574.2 billion in fiscal year 2016.

According to Medicare.gov, total expenditures in 2011 to cover 47 million Americans were $549.1 billion.

In other words, stripping a trillion dollars from Medicaid and half a trillion dollars from Medicare COMPLETELY DEFUNDS BOTH PROGRAMS.

The only outcome from cutting this level of funding is a reduction in--if not total elimination of--services.

The states could never pick up the slack--especially impoverished states like North Carolina, where the health care is piss-poor to begin with.

People will DIE if Republicans get their way.

Friends, my dad is a disabled vet with Parkinson's. He paid into the system his whole life. He EARNED the Medicare benefits he's using now as well as the Medicaid benefits he will one day need when his condition progresses beyond the point at which I can continue to care for him.

He fucking paid into it--he earned it.

The fucking Koch brothers and Mercers did NOT pay into the system; they did NOT earn my dad's benefits; and they do NOT need my dad's benefits to survive.

My dad DOES.

2. NOT ONE PENNY in tax cuts for the rich

The idle, lazy rich did NOT earn OUR tax money and do NOT pay enough into the system to justify getting tax cuts.

WE, on the other hand, DO deserve a break. We are the engine of the economy: we produce what the rich profit from; we spend the money we're paid, putting it back into the system; we earned the money Republicans want to steal from us to give to the moocher rich class; and we deserve to benefit from all our hard work.

Once Reagan cut corporate taxes--even though worker productivity has been steadily climbing--income inequality emerged, and workers' wages started dropping.

They have dropped ever since.

Even the Republicans in Kansas finally realized that you have to tax the rich if you want civil society with roads, schools, etc. They realized that you have to tax the rich if you want to pay your bills. They overrode Sam Brownback and raised taxes on those who could most afford to pay.

As a nation, we must do the same!

It's time to reinstate Ike's 90% top tax rate but on all income, whether wage, investment, inheritance, whatever.

Sure, we can collect the next lowest rate on singles' first $5M and on married couples' first $10M, but we MUST collect 90% on every penny above that.

This way, not only can we afford the insanely extravagant military that Republicans want, but we can also afford decent public schools, health care, roads, scientific research, etc.

And we can also make it harder for the lazy mooching rich to manipulate the system through Citizens United because they'll have less discretionary cash with which to purchase politicians.

Making Affluents Pay Again is the only way to Make America Great Again.

3. DON'T ban late-term abortion

By now, you've probably heard that the House of Representatives voted to ban abortions after 20 weeks.

The average American man thinks, "Kewl! I can't imagine why a woman would want such a late abortion anyway--women must be teh ebil fings!"

The average Republican thinks, "Kewl! I LOVE denigrating and controlling women, treating them like chattel incubators, and maximizing their suffering and misery!" Why else would Republicans be so intent on forcing as many births as possible while denying CHIP health insurance to pregnant women and 9 million children?

I keep telling these men--and my female-if-chickenshit representative--to GO TALK to women who have had late-term abortions.

You see, women don't have abortions because they enjoy killing, like Republicans do.

They have abortions because they must.

And they don't have late-term abortions because they "forgot" to have early-term abortions.

Most women who make the heart-wrenching decision to have a late-term abortion would rather keep the child...which is impossible if the pregnancy is not viable, if continuing the pregnancy will kill the woman, or if child has such egregious defects that it cannot survive.

Unlike Republicans, women understand these realities when faced with them--they may wish magic were true, but they know the evidence they live through as they live through it.

But let's suppose for the sake of argument that women are as callous as Republicans are and that they do go around getting pregnant for the pleasure of waiting as long as possible to have an abortion because late-term abortions are just so delightful and ever so much fun.

(Excuse me while I go vomit.)

Hum, you know what? How much you wanna bet that Republicans really do think that women think this way
--how much you wanna bet that Republicans are just projecting?

But I digress...

You see, even if a woman doesn't have a "good" reason for wanting to have a late-term abortion, it is still her right to have one.

NO MATTER WHAT, NO MATTER WHEN--as Dot Calm used to say--a woman has a RIGHT to an abortion.

She has a right NOT to have a baby, just as a man has a right not to live-donate tissue or organs.

The legal precedent is McFall v Shimp, which, as I blawgged in October 2015, does NOT exclude women.

A woman's body is her own property. It belongs to her
--not her father or husband, as the Bible and evangelicals teach; not the government. A woman's body is hers alone, and society needs to learn to respect that fact.

To the phones!

Here's the agenda again:

1. DON'T gut Medicaid and Medicare
  • Tell them you've heard about the intended $1T cut to Medicaid and $0.5T cut to Medicare--in other words, completely defunding both programs.
  • Tell them about people you know who'll be harmed.
  • Remind them that these ordinary Americans paid in--the Kochs and the Mercers did not pay in, did not earn the benefits, and do not need them to survive.
  • Encourage them: they may lose the Kochs and the Mercers as donors, but they'll gain millions of us Dems.
  • Remind them that small, grassroots donations really add up--just ask Howard Dean or Bernie Sanders.

2. NOT ONE PENNY in tax cuts for the rich
  • The rich already have more than enough to survive--we don't.
  • Eisenhower's top tax rate on wages was 90%, and he was a Republican.
  • Under Eisenhower, America had a booming economy and world-class living standards.
  • When Reagan cut corporate tax rates, workers' wages DROPPED; with them, the standard of living dropped and has been dropping for ordinary Americans ever since.
  • Since society benefits the rich the most, it's time for them to pay their fair share--90% on ALL income, whether wage, investment, inheritance, whatever.
  • Let singles pay the highest current tax rate on their first $5M and let married couples pay the highest current rate on their first joint $10M, but tax everything above and beyond that 90%.
  • This way, Republicans can have all their tanks, planes, and guns, and we can have health care, schools, roads, and science.

3. DON'T ban late-term abortion
  • GO TALK to women who needed late term abortions.
  • Women get them out of need, not out of callousness or neglect--either they or the baby cannot survive.
  • McFall v Shimp gives the legal precedent protecting a woman's right not to have a baby for any reason or no reason, just like men have the right not to live-donate tissue or organs.
  • If Republicans want to regulate something, let them regulate ejaculations--men do have a choice to ejaculate or not, you know.
I'm going to have to make all three points in each call to each senator's office. In a perfect world, I'd make one call for each point, but I don't have that kind of time. Making yet another 52 calls is already a big-enough ask.

Please click each contact below (source: https://contactsenators.com/party/republican) and call each one of the 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.

Don't forget to Resistbot your representative and senators--text "Resist" to 50409 to begin. They will read your letters and faxes--don't listen to any Russian bots or Republican concern trolls who tell you otherwise!

...

Christ, I need a fucking Fireball.

Hopefully, if we all call, the Republican bastards will have given up this bullshit by the next time we e-speak.

Speaking of which, the volunteer work I do entails teleconferences that I used to be able to schedule around "blawg nite" so that I could blawg on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But one of my teammates can't meet on Mondays any more, so I have to shift to blawgging on Mondays. I'm planning to keep blawgging on Thursdays, but I can't this week--hence, this evening's post--because we had to reschedule this week's telecon for my other teammate. Ah well--I hope you don't mind. The best I can tell you is to follow me on Twitter because I always announce whenever I update le blawg:

@dotcalmsshadow

Well, that's it for me, dear ones. Of course, I'd rather be sitting with my dad while he eats supper, but I have no choice but to try to save the country and the world from the Republican motherfuckers in Congress and the White House...may they all get bent...as painfully as possible, grrrrr!

- Dot Calm's shadow

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

posted by Dot Calm @ 7:32 PM