Interesting life stage. No, not the current mess outside . .
. all that ice covered with snow. No, I mean our mess just beginning in
Washington. And the Drumpf isn’t even yet on board. But his various swamp creatures, Paul Ryan,
et al, are already hard at work dismantling what is left of the Great Society
legacy of FDR and his followers.
Right out of the box, of course is the Affordable Care Act
(aka Obamacare). It will be replaced, I understand, with Trumpcare. What is
Trumpcare you might ask? Well, Trumpcare is a promise to provide health care at
some future stage, currently undefined to all those 20+ million folks who
signed up for Obamacare. They won’t have any health care protection for a
while, but hey, they didn’t have any before Obamacare kicked in either. So, what’s the big deal? You must understand
that the Drumpf first has to build his wall that the Mexicans are going to pay
for (hahahahahahahahaha). Oh, and while
he is killing Obamacare, he plans to defund the Planned Parenthood clinics,
through which a lot of folks get their prenatal care and cancer screenings. Republicans really hate it when all those
folks get health care.
But Paul Ryan is a big thinker. He’s after way more than
Obamacare. He wants to kill Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, and thinks he
has them in his sights. It is not yet
clear how he plans to disenfranchise the many millions who currently collect
from Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Paul Ryan is a big thinker, but he doesn’t
seem to be real accomplished at actually doing anything. On Medicare, and perhaps even Medicaid, we
think he wants to give folks vouchers to buy health care from your friendly
neighborhood health insurance company—makes me wonder whether Paulie has his
stock portfolio chocker-block full of private insurance company stocks. A voucher. Yeah, that’s what we need . . . a
voucher. No rules of engagement. Just a
voucher and a note saying, “Good luck, Paulie”.
Social Security is a bit tougher. I mean, how does he
replace automatic payments each month from the government? Maybe, a voucher
with a note saying, “we’re giving you discount coupons to WalMart.”
But then on other fronts, the republicans also seem to want
to kill public education. And guess what, there too, they want to give folks
vouchers to just go buy education for your kids. A little unclear just why they dislike public
education . . . maybe because it’s . . . public. They do seem to hate
everything associated with Government, aside from, of course, themselves. So, bye bye public education. Oh, and then there’s that relationship between
education levels and voters who support democrats. Can’t have that.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch (Washington, DC) we still await
the arrival of the new first family—the Drumpf and his daughter (surrogate
first lady). I guess Melania will stay in New York, while Ivanka helps
daddy-poo entertain all those important people. I guess Ivanka speaks English,
so she’s less likely to embarrass her daddy-poo. Maybe Melania will oversee The
Trump Towerland, while Daddy and Ivanka oversee the real action. One of the
guys will meanwhile hold down the fort at Maralago, entertaining all of daddy’s
Russian lenders, who seem to be manifold. Can’t have all those Russian and
Chinese “investors” unhappy, can we?
All that makes me wonder where Vlad the Impaler will house
his KGB-US headquarters. Probably New
York, but Maralago would make for relatively easier coming and going by
submarine, wouldn’t it? Oh, it’s all going to be so entertaining, until someone
shuts it all down, and we all enter the collective global toilet. But, until
then, have fun folks.
On the subject of what to do, what to do, a dear friend came
up with an idea. Barbara Thiede, a writer for our local newspaper, and a rabbi
has come up with an idea she is calling Minyans for a Grassroots Movement. What
is a Minyan, you might ask? Well, in the Jewish tradition, a Minyan is a group
of at least ten folks who would form a quorum needed to say prayers. So, on
this political front, the idea would be to gather a small group to send
messages—phone calls, mail, e-mails—to our local, state and National political
representatives on specific issues of concern. If any of the ten decide to
prepare a message, they will send that message to each member of the Minyan.
The members can then decide to write something similar, or cut and paste a supportive
message. Then if each member sends that message to friends, the friends can
also become supportive members, and so on.
The central idea is to get as many people as possible
writing, or calling legislative representatives, whether those reps are of the
same or different political persuasion. If your reps, like ours, are to the
right of Atilla the Hun, they still need to hear from constituents, otherwise
they will imagine they are acting with the complicit support of their voters. Don’t let them think that.
So, that’s the message for the day.
Write or call your elected representatives. Do it often. Let
them know how you feel about what they are doing or thinking of doing. Just do
it.
Here is at least a starting list of elected representatives' contact information.
Here is at least a starting list of elected representatives' contact information.
NORTH CAROLINA legislature:
Paul Newton = State Senator
Some House representatives:
US House & Senate:
Thom Tillis
202-224-6342
Richard Burr (US Senate)
202-224-3154
Richard Hudson ( US House, district 8 in NC)
202-225-3715
Robert Pittenger (US House District 9)
202-225-1976
Ta ta . . .
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