It’s all been said already. The GOP bill, TrumpDoesn’tCare, sucks. And frankly, I am unable to find the funny in the fact that the current leaders just sold us down the River Styx, on our way to hell.
I feel it personally, deeply. I honestly fear for the future of myself and everybody like me with a preexisting condition. Everybody with a chronic condition that requires expensive medicine. Mine costs $26K every six weeks. Over the 5 years of the “pool” the GOP added to the AHCA, I’ll use $1 million just by myself. Because of poop problems.
Folks keep telling me that I’m over-reacting, that this bill will never pass the Senate. And that’s true. But I have no faith that the Senate version will be much better, only different. After all, it is run by the folks who literally stole a supreme court seat. Does anybody really believe that these guys will do the right thing?
So clearly there is only one response that I have to Donald Trump and the House GOP.
If you hear about somebody doing this at the White House or on Capitol Hill, just pretend you don’t know me.
Earth Day. The Science March (which I sadly can’t attend until Science gets around to curing my damn Crohn’s Disease). My late sister Judy’s birthday. So I’m reposting this. Hey – Jude believed firmly in recycling!
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She’s been gone now for 17 years, Jude. Not a day has gone by since that I haven’t wanted to talk with her, laugh with her, or, alternatively because she was my sister, smack her. There really isn’t a relationship like you have with a sister. Even long after they are gone.
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Today, April 22, is Earth Day! It’s the Anniversary of the very first Earth Day. Here is Walter Cronkite’s report on the first Earth Day, 1970:
It would also be my late sister Judy’s 65th birthday.
Whoever made the decision to turn Judy’s birthday into Earth Day chose wisely. Judy was a born environmentalist and recycler.
On the first Earth Day, Judy was a new, very young mother who believed in saving the planet. She was the first “environmentalist” I ever knew personally, and well, I thought she was nuts. There was a recycling bin in her kitchen for as long as I can remember. And this was back when recycling took effort. She believed in gardens, not garbage, and she made life bloom wherever she was.
“I’ve got kids,” she’d say. “It’s their planet too!”
But years later, Judy took recycling to a whole different level when she helped people recycle themselves. In the 1990s, Jude, who was then living in Florida, began working with the Homeless, assisting at shelters. Then she actively began trying to help homeless vets food, shelter and work — to enable them to jump-start their lives.
When she died in early 2000, the American Legion awarded her honorary membership for her services to homeless vets. A homeless shelter was named in her honor. So she’s still doing good works, my sister is. That would make her wildly happy.
Jude also gave me the Beatles. So it is very appropriate that they wrote a song for her.
You see, the night the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan, it was MY turn to choose what we were going to watch. And we were going to watch the second part of The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh starring Patrick McGoohan on the Wonderful Wide World of Disney. My four (all older and MUCH cooler) siblings were furious with me. But I was quite insistent. You might even say that I threw a Class I temper tantrum over it, but I wouldn’t admit to that. Hey, I was seven. And it was my turn to choose. Fair is fair, especially in a big family with only one TV.
Somehow, Judy talked me out of my turn. She was always very persuasive. Thanks Jude.
Remember those Certs’ Ads from the 60s? {Shut up if you don’t, please. I’m not talking to you, you whippersnapper.]
Well this morning I had a “two in one” moment, and I nearly drove off the road because the story I heard on the radio hit my two* hot buttons.
Did you hear this one?
Louie Gohmert, (Braintrust-TX (of course) announced that he wasn’t going to do any in-person Town Hall meetings with his constituents because, and I quote:
The House Sergeant at Arms advised us after former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot at a public appearance, that civilian attendees at Congressional public events stand the most chance of being harmed or killed — just as happened there.
Now to clarify in case you’ve been self treating your PESD heavily and are starting to look like Steve Bannon, this really pisses me off.
Because Louie, Louie has an A rating from the NRA, and just two weeks ago on February 2, Louie, Louie voted to allow mentally ill folks to get guns, and he believes that MORE guns will prevent mass shootings.
Talk about the personification of the politician who thinks it’s OK for US to get shot wherever we go, but makes sure that his place of employment is a veritable Fort Knox of security.
Later today, Gabby Giffords, who has been working since her shooting for sensible gun laws, called Louie, Louie out on his hypocrisy:
“I was shot on a Saturday morning. By Monday morning, my offices were open to the public,” Giffords said. “Ron Barber ― at my side that Saturday, who was shot multiple times, then elected to Congress in my stead ― held town halls. It’s what the people deserve in a representative.”
“To the politicians who have abandoned their civic obligations, I say this: Have some courage,” Giffords said. “Face your constituents. Hold town halls.”
Gohmert, put on some kevlar and get your ass in front of the public.
My own member of congress, Barbara Comstock, you too. Telephonic Town Halls don’t cut the mustard. I want you to look into my eyes before you rip away my healthcare/medicare/civil rights.
Oh, and in 2018, can we please get rid of these GOP members of Congress who are too stupid to even know how stupid they are?
* OK, so I have more than two** hot buttons.
** OK, so I have more than two hundred hot buttons.
When I’m suffering with something-or-other, it really helps to know that I’m not alone. Since November 9, 2016, there’s been a veritable epidemic of misery sweeping the nation. Relax, though. Because your misery now has a name, an actual diagnosis:
We’re all suffering from PESD. Although frankly, I don’t know why they needed a new diagnosis. Because if the election of Donald Trump doesn’t represent a traumatic event, I don’t know what does.
Breaking news! Hours after the (Obama holdover) Acting Attorney General Sally Yates announced that she would not uphold Putin’s President’s Muslim ban, Trump fired her.
Just-fired Attorney General Sally Yates. Google Image
It took Nixon about 5 years to do something this egregious.
Trump? 10 days. TEN DAYS.
But I think we have another new Democratic hero. Isn’t it amazing how many Democratic heroes Donald Trump is developing?
FiftyFourandAHalf 