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!
***
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.
*****
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.
Tired of calling your senators and congressman/woman? Maybe what you need to do instead is go to town. Town Halls, that is.
Yup. Here’s another way to raise some hell.
The Town Hall Project 2018 is a website that posts public forums for senators and members of congress. Meetings where you can go and listen to and talk with the people who claim to represent you.
If you have questions, problems concerns with what is happening in our government, in our world, go to town.
If you think that keeping Obamacare is important to you, go to town.
If you think that maintaining Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security as you’ve expected them to be when it was time for you to collect on what you’ve paid out for decades, go to town.
If you think that protecting the environment is important to you, go to town.
If you think that Trump’s Executive Order banning Muslims should be revoked, go to town.
If you have other opinions that I haven’t listed and that you feel your representatives in Congress need to hear about, go to town. And bring friends. Bring lots and lots of friends.
The Town Hall Project 2018 has promised to update its website regularly. So bookmark it, and show up.
American Democracy is no longer a spectator sport. Get it in gear.
Tomorrow will be a day of mourning for many of us, as we head into who knows what is to come.
It is time for the peaceful opposition to start in earnest.
There will be protests and marches to join, petitions to sign, letters to write and calls to make. We must keep it up.
But here is one of my favorite tactics —
Deny Putin’s President the ratings he so desires!
It’s not enough to not watch the inauguration.
You must actively turn on your TV to something else.*
Me, I plan to turn mine on to Comedy Central, home of oh so many left wing folks.
[You can also set your DVR to another channel, but the way ratings work, you must watch the recording the same day or the ratings are shown for the day you watch, rather than the day you record. ]
Of course, this is not all I plan to do as one member of the Loyal Opposition. It isn’t all I will suggest/bug/pester you into doing over the years, either.
But it is going to be hard to do anything else on January 20, 2017 through the tears we’ll all be shedding.
***
For those of you planning to attend the Women’s March in Washington, DC on Saturday, January 21, here is some important information for you:
For those of you who want some ideas of how to help, or need to get some comfort from the fact that there ARE and WILL BE things to do, here’s some ideas.
Sometimes a metaphor actually plops into your lap. Or your hands. Or into someplace you hope you don’t drop your cell phone.
That happened to me today, when I read an article in the Huffington Post about one of the, ahem, priorities, of the folks setting up Friday’s Inauguration of Donald J. Trump. And really, it is a metaphor for what is to come.
You see, whenever there is a big event here in the DC area, there’s a lot of shit going on. Literally. Lots of people = lots of pee and poop! So port-a-potties line the Mall, surround the Monuments; and ring the Capitol itself. And in the DC area, one company has the scoop on poop.
When I saw that headline, my first thought was, “Of course they are. They’re covering up all kinds of shit.” But this time they’re not covering up the shit, but the name.
Photo Credit: Michael Showalter for the NY Post
Of course folks are covering up Don’s shit. But it’s up to us to pull off the tape and show the world Don’s Johns. That will be our job for the duration of Trump’s presidency — whether that is for 2 weeks or 4 years. To pull off the tape on Don’s Johns. To expose every breach of law, each unethical behavior, all threats to the rule of law.
THAT is how we will survive Trump. Because you can’t paper over the truth for long.
If you were a news junkie during the George W. Bush era, you’re already experiencing deja vu. That sinking feeling already makes your eyes roll automatically when Putin’s President appears. It settled into the back of your neck from the whiplash as you shake your head and shout “no, no, no, no, no, no, no!” over the latest outrage or tweet. And it’s there in the pit of your stomach, when you try not to vomit whenever you see the color orange.
Yup, it’s started. The Deluge. The Flood. The Trump shit storm.
During the Bush years, I would just be ready to pounce on one issue, when another hit the fan and took the wind out of my sails. Resistance is hard if there is just so much to resist.
How, I worried in the days since November 8, will I survive Trump. I feared a heart attack. A stroke. Getting so scared I’d shit in my pants. Of course I worry about the last one sometimes during a scary movie.
Anyway, I’ve come up with a strategy for a hybrid Resister/Surviving Human. I’m going to become a political centaur!
Google Image. No shit will be given by this filly.
I’m going to take my mother’s marital and parental advice and apply it to my activism. She said:
Choose Your Battles!
Me, I’m going to try to focus on issues I know about and/or that are closest to my heart. The ones I write about here on FiftyFourAndAHalf.
But that won’t be all I do. I will look for and follow the lead of others who are knowledgeable about other issues, and I will try to help to the extent I can. It’s not hard, really, to make calls to Congress and the White House. Really, it just takes a minute. You or I can even just cut and paste and hit “send.”
But I will try my very best to keep my blood pressure — and my outrage to livable levels.
George W. Bush kept us all off balance because there were so many things to be outraged about, that we couldn’t keep it up. Different bad presidents need different tactics.
And Trump will make the Dubya years look like a walk in the park. And that park is in Baghdad.
