Believe It, You Matter, Part X: We May Not Get Everything We Want. Keep Fighting Anyway.

April 25, 2019March 16, 2019 otycd

This OTYCD post originally ran in August 2018.

Believe It, You Matter, Part X: We May Not Get Everything We Want. Keep Fighting Anyway.

You might have noticed that people are pissed about the way things are going. You might be one of those pissed-off people. Team Trump and its shitshow of corruption, cruelty, and pro-bully tactics have spurred millions to do more to push back.

A fair number of registered Republicans–including some high-profile ones–have left the party and gone independent. Many folks who were never politically active stepped up after the November 2016 election. They went to protests for the first time in their lives. Same again for phone-banking, knocking on doors, donating to causes and candidates, and calling their members of Congress. A small but heroic number found the courage to run for office.

It is unprecedented. It is organic. It might be unique in the history of America. And it should continue as long as Team Trump keeps crazy-assing and the GOP keeps shirking its duties to check Team Trump’s fucked-up, hateful, hurtful actions.

But! While we are righteous, motivated, and strong, we could still lose.

Take the SCOTUS nomination battle. Team Trump and the GOP are determined to ram their choice through before the midterms. We don’t want that. But because Democratic Senators are in the minority, there’s only so much they can do to stop it.

They will do what they can. They will fight. And, as we at OTYCD have asked, you should call your Senators and urge them to fight (if they’re Democrats) or vote no if they’re Republicans. Yes, your Republican Senators probably won’t change their votes, but they need to know their constituents oppose them on this, and will work to vote them out if they move a Trump nominee along.

But we could lose this one, and losing this one would be bad. People you love will be hurt by a SCOTUS dominated by hard-right judges. People you love could die as a result of a hard-right SCOTUS decision. You could lose your health insurance. Gerrymandering might get a yellow or green light. Voting rights might be curtailed. Parts of the Constitution that annoy evangelical Christians, greedy corporations, racists, and committed bullies could be muzzled and stomped upon. Democracy could be smothered. [Edited to add: This post was written and queued before the Senate approved Kavanaugh by a 51-49 vote.]

The answer is to keep fighting.

The only way to stop the SCOTUS from being perverted by hard-right extremists is to elect Democrats to the Senate and keep electing Democrats to the Senate until there are enough of them to control the chamber. And once they control the chamber, you need to defend them so they can keep control of the chamber and stop hard-right extremists from getting on the court.

If Democrats controlled the Senate now, they could refuse any nominee who’s stupidly hard-right and continue to refuse until Team Trump puts forward an actual moderate. But they don’t, so they can’t.

But if you curl into a ball and quit when the news of InJustice EvilJerk’s swearing-in breaks, we all lose.

Same again with the 2018 midterms. Things generally look good right now. But we won’t get absolutely everything we want. Simply from a mathematic standpoint, it’s unlikely that every Democrat wins and every Republican loses. There are too many races, at too many levels. There will be losses, and some of those losses might be tough.

Plus, there’s an elephant in the room (or, rather, the polling place). Having successfully messed with the 2016 elections, Russia’s hackers will be keen to try again in November 2018, and Team Trump has yet to order the National Security Agency (NSA) to take the steps needed to defend our country from those attacks.

Again, if you curl into a ball and quit when news breaks of, say, Iowa House Rep Steve King’s reelection, we all lose.

Yes, rest. Yes, unplug. Yes, take time away. You are allowed to have fun. You are allowed to do things that make you happy. Heck, it’s vital. Drafting and sticking with a self-care routine is one of the most important things you can do.

Rest. Recharge. Frolic. Forget for a few hours or days, maybe even weeks. But come back. Always, always come back. We need you.

And hey, getting mad is OK, too. Crying is OK. Despairing is OK. Feeling the force of your emotions is OK! But come back. Always, always come back. We need you.

Trump will go, but you must not.

You’ve got to stay here and carry on the fight.

Call Your State Legislators · Community Activism · Stand Up for Civilization · Stand Up for Norms

Live in Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, or Maine? Ask Your State Legislators to Kill, Rescind, or Defend Against a Call for a Constitutional Convention

November 12, 2018November 8, 2018 otycd

Do you live in Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, or Maine? Ask your state legislators to kill, rescind, or defend against a call for a Constitutional Convention (Con Con).

We at OTYCD have written about the long-term right-wing goal of calling a Con Con. The idea of a Constitutional convention isn’t inherently bad, but what its far-right advocates want to achieve IS inherently bad, and needs to be stopped.

The best way to stop a Con Con is to elect more Democrats to state legislatures–the entities that can put the call forward, and cancel the call as well.

On November 6, 2018, voters in several states did just that–they elected more Democrats. In seven states, they elected enough Democrats to flip one or both legislative chambers from red to blue.

In May 2018, we at OTYCD explained how to find out if your state legislature had passed a resolution in support of a Con Con, and explained how to ask your state legislators to rescind the resolution. It’s definitely doable; Nevada, Maryland, and New Mexico all rescinded in 2017.

In this post, we’re cross-checking the newly flipped legislatures against the map provided by the pro-Con Con people, so citizens in those states can ask their representatives to rescind a resolution or kill bills that are in progress.

We’ll be reproducing some language from that blog post to illustrate these points.

But first! If you don’t know who your state house rep and state senator are, go to the link below and plug in your address and zip code to get their names:

https://whoaremyrepresentatives.org

Also, we should start with the good news: on the pro-Con Con org’s map, states colored green have passed the resolution. None of the states that flipped one or both of their chambers on Tuesday are green on that map.

New York flipped its Senate properly blue at long last. New York state is also blue on the Con Con map–that means active legislation was in at least one chamber in 2018.

Unfortunately, the map does not identify which of the two chambers the bill is in. (Theoretically, a blue state could have bills in both.)

New Yorkers should call or email their state legislators, explain what a Con Con is, and explain there’s a bill in at least one of the state chambers in 2018. Say that you want that bill halted, or better yet, killed.

The newly flipped Minnesota House is in a blue state on the Con Con map (its Senate is in GOP hands). It’s not clear which of the two chambers the bill is in, but Minnesotans should call their state house rep, explain about the Con Con, and ask them to kill the bill or remain on alert to kill it.

New Hampshire flipped both its chambers to Democratic control on Tuesday. It’s on the pro-Con Con map as a yellow state, which means legislation has passed one chamber.

As with the blue states, the map does not identify which of the two chambers has passed the bill. It’s also not specified when that yellow-state chamber passed the bill; it could predate 2018. It could predate 2018 by a lot.

New Hampshirites should contact their state reps, explain what a Con Con is, and explain that a pro-Con Con bill has passed one chamber, but it’s not clear which, or when. Say you oppose a Con Con resolution, and that you want your state reps to vote no on any Con Con resolution bills that might arrive on their desks.

Maine and Colorado flipped their state senates. Both appear on the pro-Con Con map colored white, which, by inference, means there’s no legislation pending there at the moment, and the states don’t appear to be current targets of the org.

Even still, it’s probably worth it for Mainers and Coloradans to call their state senators, explain what a Con Con is, and explain that while the state is not currently a target, you want your reps to oppose any attempt to push the initiative. It’s the project of a far-right-wing org called COS Action. COS stands for ‘Convention of States.’

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Action Alerts · Call Your Members of Congress · Marches and Protests · Russian Scandal, Emoluments Clause

Call Your MoCs and Leave No Doubt In Their Minds About How You Feel About Trump’s Press Conference in Helsinki

July 17, 2018July 17, 2018 otycd4 Comments

Call your MoCs and leave no doubt in their minds–none whatsoever–how you feel about Trump’s treasonous performance in Helsinki.

Holy shit. I mean, holy shit. HOLY SHIT.

Everyone was braced for the Helsinki meeting to be bad. But, HOLY SHIT.

LEE

SHIT

Yeah, it’s every bit as bad as it looked and sounded and seemed. And yet, it’s hard to find the words to describe what we all saw.

How about we should start with the transcript and the video of the press conference, assuming you can bear to watch. It comes care of Boing Boing:

https://boingboing.net/2018/07/16/trump-putin-helsinki.html

Here’s a selection of reactions on Twitter:

John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan), director of the CIA from 2013 to 2017:

Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of “high crimes & misdemeanors.” It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???

Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson), Republican strategist and author of the upcoming Everything Trump Touches Dies:

He’s bad at being President. He’s bad at being a patriot. He’s bad at being an America. He’s owned. He might as well be wearing a dog collar and looking up at Putin for Donnie Snacks.

Putin is to Donald Trump as Donald Trump is to a single-celled life form. He’s played Trump like a fiddle. This is a disaster for America.

I’m starting to think the pee tape isn’t just real, but it’s spectacular.

If you needed any other evidence that this President is completely owned, you just got it.

Let me tell you, if Barack Obama had said the crap Trump said today there would already be 10, 000 hypercaustic elected Republican press releases, Facebook posts, and tweets. There would be a hundred calls for impeachment by close of business today.

Press secretary for a pro-Trump Senator: “FML. Can I come play for Team America now?”

Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom), Republican and author of The Death of Expertise:

This is worse than I expected. And my expectations were already rock bottom.

Holy crap. This is an abomination.

Putin is completely in command of this situation. He’s basically told Trump to go piss up a rope about the GRU guys [he means the 12 Russians who were indicted on July 13, 2018]. (“You want investigations? Sure. I’ll look into it. Give me Bill Browder.”) Trump, meanwhile, is babbling “no collusion.”

I dare any of Trump’s enablers and apologists to defend what we just saw.

I expect nothing from the House. But other GOPers who don’t oppose this are dead to me. This could be what finally drives me out of the party — I’m sure to the relief of the Putin Bloc who will stay. If you @ me about quitting, I’ll block you. I don’t need your advice on that.

Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES), a high-ranking Republican who worked for past presidential campaigns, and who recently left the party:

No American President has ever disgraced himself, the Presidency and the United Stated like Trump did today. The video will endure as a monument to stupidity, arrogance and idiocy throughout the ages. Trump beclowned himself and made the world much more dangerous. What a fool.

Ethics expert Walter Shaub (@WaltShaub):

Literal collusion caught on video today: “[I]n refusing to acknowledge the plain facts about Russia’s behavior, while trashing his own country’s justice system, Mr. Trump in fact was openly colluding with the criminal leader of a hostile power.” [Then he linked to this Washington Post story:]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/trump-just-put-russia-first/2018/07/16/8391f9aa-8914-11e8-a345-a1bf7847b375_story.html?utm_term=.efed2afa8562

Sally Yates (@SallyQYates), who tried to alert the administration about the dangers Michael Flynn posed and got fired in early 2017 for her trouble:

Our President today not only chose a tyrant over his own Intel community, he chose Russia’s interests over the country he is sworn to protect. All Americans should raise their voices. Let the world know what we stand for.

Maria Spinella (@mariaspinella) of CNN:

Chuck Hagel to his former colleagues on @wolfblitzer “now is the time…now is the time the congress of the United States must step up and step into this…this is serious”

Michael Cohen (@speechboy71), columnist for the Boston Globe:

That was a treasonous performance. Any Republican who doesn’t immediately condemn Trump’s words – and begin the process of impeachment – is complicit

Every journalist in America needs to have their hair on fire over what just happened in Helsinki. This is a grave political crisis.

Pedro da Costa (@pdacosta), senior correspondent at Business Insider:

It’s not a summit, it’s a crime scene.

Scott Gilmore (@Scott_Gilmore), editor-at-large for MacLeans:

Trump is in Air Force One right now, it’s only 9pm Helsinki time. He is likely watching the reaction. An almost universal condemnation, even among GOP politicians. Even he must realize he has stumbled into uncharted territory. How will he react?

Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) of Crooked Media:

This is just a really sad day for the United States.

With the exception of ailing Arizona Senator John McCain (his statement is the pinned tweet on the @SenJohnMcCain Twitter page), sitting GOP Congressfolk have been way too mealy-mouthed about this. So mealy-mouthed that it’s not worth including any of their responses here (though McCain’s is good and it’s a shame he can’t do more, but he has a particularly nasty brain cancer, so…)

By the time you see this post you may well have already called your MoCs.

If you sat there unable to do much more than absorb and pick your jaw up off the floor, well, your window to call is open. And hey, this is bad enough that it’s worth calling again about.

Celeste Pewter (@Celeste_pewter) was quicker on the draw than us. We are reproducing her sample script, which encourages you to ask your members of Congress (MoCs) to do more than issue sternly worded statements.

A few points we at OTYCD want to add:

Before you call, check the social media feeds for each of your MoCs to see what they’ve said about Helsinki. Be ready to quote what you like or don’t like. If one of your MoCs hasn’t said anything yet, point that out and ask when they will.

Call all three of your MoCs about this, but remember–House members and Senators have different powers, some of which don’t overlap.

Sure, be more passionate and forceful than what you see here but please, don’t actually yell, and don’t use abusive language. It’s July. Odds are interns are answering the phones. They’re just as pissed as you are. If you think you’re going to lose it, write down what you want to say and rehearse it until you can say it while keeping control.

Notice that Pewter does not use the I-word in this script. This is wise, because we’d need 67 Senators to succeed with an impeachment effort, and even now, it’s unclear if we’d have that.

When you call your Senators, you can urge them to urge GOP Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to advance the bill that protects Special Counsel Robert Mueller. He’s been sitting on it. He never should have sat on it. Time to tell him to quit that shit, and to add protections for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, too.

Charlie Pierce of Esquire suggested it’s time for at least three GOP Senators to stop caucusing with their party, to underline how serious this is. Key quote:

Three Republican senators moving across the aisle shuts everything down. It defangs Mitch McConnell. It would take considerable political courage for Sasse to do this, since he still has political ambitions, but Bob Corker and Jeff Flake both have announced their retirements, and they both have been quite critical about the administration’s antics. Those two literally have nothing to lose. Again, if there’s another constitutional method by which immediately to throw the brakes on the crazy train, I’m wide open to hearing it.

Full article is here:

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a22165304/donald-trump-press-conference-vladimir-putin-renegade-presidency/

If you are represented in the Senate by Corker, Flake, Sasse, Murkowski, Collins, McCain, or Graham, it’s worth asking them to do this.

If you have GOP Senators, it’s still worth it. Even if there’s no chance they’ll step away, the fact that constituents are calling to ask for it shows them how serious this is and how angry people are.

Lastly, there were spontaneous protests last night at Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C., and there will be another there tonight (July 17, 2018) at 7 pm EST. If you live in or near the city, please consider going.

Here’s the script. Scroll down for ways to support Celeste Pewter and her work.

Here are additional ways to support Celeste Pewter, author of the black-backgrounded script above.

You can follow her on Twitter:

@Celeste_Pewter

You can call your Members of Congress (MoCs) and tweet about your experience using the #ICalledMyReps hashtag.

You can check out The Road to 2018, an organization she’s involved with that defends and promotes vulnerable Democratic Senators. See our post on it:

https://onethingyoucando.com/2018/02/25/support-the-road-to-2018-which-defends-democratic-senators/

Subscribe to her peerless newsletter, It’s Time to Fight:

http://itstimetofight.weebly.com

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Read, Educate Yourself, Prepare · Uncategorized

Save This Twitter Thread and Read It When Things Seem Grim

July 3, 2018July 1, 2018 otycd

Save this Twitter thread and read it when things seem grim.

I’m just going to get right to it. This thread was tweeted on June 27, 2018 by @burnlittlelight. You need to read it and save it for when you need to read it again.

We are not fucked. We are not doomed. What we are is at war. So get in on the war effort. Join up, support the troops, all of those old cliches. I Want You. This is a paradigm-breaking time that will define the world for generations. We don’t give up. We fight for all our lives.

Yes, we are in the jaws of the wolf now. It is useless to pretend otherwise and everyone going about business as usual is being deeply foolish. But it isn’t over. It isn’t done. It is not done until every one of us is cold in the ground and not even then. We fight, loves.

Some of you are new at long odds and unfair fights. Some of you are new at losing. Some of you are new at life as you know it going fundamentally off the rails. Listen to those of us who have lost and failed and died and survived: it isn’t over for as long as you insist it isn’t.

Sometimes you lose a battle. Sometimes it looks really ugly ahead and all the choices involve steep prices and deep losses. But you fight anyway. You make some room for grief and anger and despair and then you get back up and you do whatever it takes until it’s not so bad.

I know it’s scary. I know it’s bad. There is no longer a way through this that doesn’t cost us, that doesn’t involve more losses, that doesn’t mean trauma. But there are ways through this nonetheless. Nothing is over until we let it be over. We need you. We need everyone in this.

Genocide is already in progress. Thousands of lives have already been harmed. We fight now to prevent it from getting exponentially worse. From inside and outside, we fight to stop a runaway global superpower from exerting fascism around the world. No use pretending otherwise.

My family survived pogroms and the Bataan Death March and occupation after occupation and I will be goddamned if we call it quits because we’ve lost some battles. We do not get to quit. No cowardice, no appeasement, no surrender. Because the hope is in us and what we do now.

Take a moment to feel it. Make room for the fear so it doesn’t surprise you, stop you, at the wrong time. And then recognize that this ends when we make it end, change your assumptions about your life, and get in the fight with whatever skills, resources, and gifts you have.

Don’t you dare declare defeat before it’s over. Some roads have closed and some battles have been lost and no, it’s not a fair fight, and no, none of this will be easy. So it’s time to be more than we have ever been before. It’s time to grow and to rise. We’re at war. So fight.

My love to all of you out there. I hope you can take a moment to do whatever you do to

gird yourself, to build your strength, your resolve, your commitment, your courage. To

root yourself in what you love and what you’re fighting for. I believe in us. I have to. You

can too.

We are the spark. And hope survives while we survive, and the fight goes on while we fight it. Keep breathing. Look after your neighbor. Get fed, get free, and help each other to be brave, in this world that requires so much courage. Time to grab on and bend the arc of history.

Follow that writer on Twitter:

@burnlittlelight

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Call Your Members of Congress · Uncategorized

Call Your MoCs to Defend the Affordable Care Act, June 26, 2018 Edition

June 26, 2018June 23, 2018 otycd

Call your members of Congress (MoCs) to defend the Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka Obamacare) again, this time from a fresh 2018 onslaught.

This is one of those things that needs constant action, aka repeated calls. Hence OTYCD scrambling our schedule. Right now we’re alternating between fighting the family separation policy and its effects, and staying on this. That might change, of course. As always, keep watching, and follow the Twitter accounts recommended in the text below for breaking news.

Update, June 22, 2018: Last night, the House Budget Dems Twitter account (@HouseBudgetDems) tweeted:

The Republican majority just voted to pass the House Republican 2019 budget and rejected every amendment offered by Democrats. Ranking Member @RepJohnYarmuth’s statement: https://democrats-budget.house.gov/news/press-releases/yarmuth-statement-committee-passage-house-gop-s-2019-budget …

Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) retweeted it with this comment:

BREAKING: The House GOP just voted a budget bill out of committee that fast tracks ACA repeal and $2 TRILLION in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. We need to flood them with calls to prevent a floor vote.

So, you heard him. Please call your House Rep again today and oppose the GOP-written 2019 budget bill.

If you’re game to add a second thing to your plate, you should voice concern to all three of your MoCs about Trump’s executive order on his family separation policy.

It does not address the question of how to reunite more than 2,000 children who have been parted from their parents.

It also contravenes a standing policy that requires the government to release families after holding them for 20 days if the detention center is not also a licensed child care facility. Team Trump, in essence, wants the leeway to detain families indefinitely.

Read an NPR story about what the executive order does and does not do:

https://www.npr.org/2018/06/20/622095441/trump-executive-order-on-family-separation-what-it-does-and-doesnt-do

And even though releasing migrants with GPS ankle bracelets is significantly cheaper than detaining them and has an extremely high compliance rate, too, Team Trump killed that program as of June 20, 2018.

Read a Christian Science Monitor piece on the just-ended GPS ankle bracelet program:

https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2017/0609/ICE-shutters-helpful-family-management-program-amid-budget-cuts

Regardless of what Trump signed or didn’t sign, there are ominous reports that military bases are preparing to receive as many as 20,000 migrant children:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2018/06/21/pentagon-asked-to-make-room-for-20000-migrant-children-on-military-bases/?utm_term=.f9f8b7e24f6f

So, again, if you’re up for multi-tasking: Ask your House Rep to vote no on the 2019 budget bill, and ask all three MoCs to demand that Team Trump make reuniting parted migrant families its first priority, and ask the government to resurrect the GPS ankle bracelet program.

Original text of yesterday’s Defend the ACA post follows.

Followers of this blog will remember how we cleared our (weekday) decks and posted only about ways to fight GOP attacks on the ACA.

We did this for weeks on end, at least two distinct, separate times. Both times, the GOP failed. (Thank you.)

But they’re not done. Despite the fierce, loud, and sustained resistance they got last year (and thank you all again for that), they’re trying again.

As of June 19, 2018, the House GOP put out a 2019 budget proposal that’s a toxic stew of still more tax cuts, cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, and yet another attempt to repeal the ACA.

Read this June 19, 2018 Bloomberg article on the 2019 House budget bill:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-19/house-gop-unveils-budget-to-fast-track-tax-cuts-end-obamacare

Here also is a string of tweets by Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) raising the alarm and reacting to the bill:

BREAKING: The House GOP just released a budget bill that fast tracks ACA repeal, massive Medicare and Medicaid cuts, and tax cuts. Possible vote next week. FLOOD THE HOUSE WITH CALLS.

Here is why it’s incredibly important to kill this right here and now. Once they obtain reconciliation authority, they can use it after the election but before new members are sworn in.

While the Senate is unlikely to adopt its own budget to take up these initiatives before the November congressional election, the budget process could be used by lame-duck lawmakers after the election to ram through Republican-only legislation.

Here are the reconciliation instructions for fast-track authority for ACA repeal, Medicaid cuts, and Medicare privatization. The numbers are *floors* – minimum funding cuts with authority for unlimited cuts.

This budget bill slashes Medicare by $537 billion and Medicaid by $1.54 TRILLION

He ends by retweeting Bloomberg reporter Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis):

A successful reconciliation effort is *very* unlikely but not impossible, especially if McCain were to resign and be replaced before November, which would allow Rs to lose 1 senator among Rand, Corker, Murkowski, Collins.

…and Spiro comments: This is correct. The threat is real. We must nip it in the bud now.

We at OTYCD suspect that Republicans are looking at the poll numbers, seeing the blue tsunami heading for them, and trying to wreck and warp and break as much of the government as possible before they’re swept out of office for what could be a damn long time.

Alternately, they may feel like the increasing chaos of Trump and his swirling universe of scandals–with Manafort off to jail for violating the terms of his bail, and his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen on the verge of turning state’s evidence against him, and the entirely different strain of fuckery represented by his sick and immoral policy of separating immigrant parents and children at America’s borders–gives the GOP cover to try this bullshit again.

We have to push back. Hard, loud, forcefully, and NOW by calling our House Reps and telling them to vote against the 2019 budget bill their GOP colleagues are pushing.

Also, a recap: You already know about the Department of Justice (DOJ)’s abdication of duty on a goofy lawsuit against the ACA brought by 20 state attorneys general who want to kill it. Legal scholars across the spectrum agree that the lawsuit is crap, but the DOJ responded by refusing to enforce the ACA on the assumption that it’s unconstitutional and it won’t be law much longer.

If the DOJ stance prevails and the ACA dies, that means the protections for folks who have pre-existing conditions goes with it.

That would be Very Bad Indeed. A total of 52 million Americans under age 65 have pre-existing conditions that make it crushingly expensive or flat-out impossible for them to obtain health insurance in a pre-ACA world.

If you don’t have a pre-existing condition, you know someone who does. We can’t go back to the way things used to be. We just can’t.

(Side note: More than 30 state attorneys general are up for re-election in 2018. Did yours join the anti-ACA lawsuit? Did yours join the counter-suit to defend the ACA? Did yours do neither? Find out and act accordingly.)

We already asked you to call and make it clear you oppose the DOJ’s shenanigans. Now we’re asking you to assume a defensive crouch, call your House Reps today to say NO to this bill, and be ready to start calling daily to fight this latest GOP legislative attempt to kill the ACA.

First, if you’re not already following these folks on Twitter:

Andy Slavitt (@aslavitt)

Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro)

Celeste Pewter (@Celeste_Pewter)

Ben Wikler (@benwikler)

…Start following them and checking their feeds a couple of times a day. Slavitt and Spiro are strong on health care news. Pewter is on top of everything to do with Congress and legislative stuff, health care included. Wikler’s feed is more general, but makes health care a focus.

The trick to manage, going forward, is staying on multiple Dumpster fires.

You need to keep supporting efforts to get Team Trump to rescind its fucked-up policy of separating families at the border.

You’ll also need to be ready to call your MoCs, probably more than once, maybe even daily, to defend the ACA. You might need to think about going to protests and marches in defense of the ACA.

We at OTYCD may need to post more than one thing you can do. That could happen. We’ll try to avoid it, but if we have to go back to doing a daily to support Obamacare, we will.

While we get comfortable in our defensive crouch, here are some relevant articles.

This June 14, 2018 Washington Post piece shows that damn near every big organization to do with doctors, hospitals, and health care have filed amicus briefs against the anti-ACA lawsuit:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/broad-health-care-coalition-opposes-administration-stance-in-anti-aca-lawsuit/2018/06/14/b406ad2c-700c-11e8-afd5-778aca903bbe_story.html?utm_term=.8064a9d9aae7

This Paste Magazine story uses Andy Slavitt’s recent tweets as a jumping-off point to explain what would happen to people with pre-existing conditions if Congress or the courts kill the ACA, and the general fuckery that the lawsuit represents:

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/06/the-biggest-healthcare-news-of-the-year-will-effec.html

This USA Today Op-Ed makes the case that going after the ACA will prompt voters to get rid of Congressfolk who don’t defend it:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/06/11/trump-kill-affordable-care-act-health-care-midterms-column/689085002/

Call Your Members of Congress · Uncategorized

Call Your MoCs to Defend the Affordable Care Act, June 22, 2018 Edition

June 22, 2018June 23, 2018 otycd