McCain is a “no”. It’s dead, Jim.
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Bring a couple bread bags and put them on your feet when she starts shoveling it. It would help if over half there would do the same. I’m sure she would get the meaning. You would not have to say anything. I’m sure the local press would be amused.
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You know, when I was a kid, I used to wear bread bags over my feet when i walked to school in the winter. But we wore them UNDER our shoes, to keep our feet from getting wet. I never saw anyone wear them OVER their shoes, that would be stupid, you’d just fall down from the slippery plastic against ice.
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Very familiar story to me here in South Carolina. My mom lasted about 8 years with pension and savings from a nursing career _ Medicaid got us through the last year _ we sold her house and paid back the state - she basically broken even after working to 65 and living to 90. Will the voters accept a dismantling of Medicaid? What are the lower income elderly going to do? There will be a lot of medication “accidents” - ie, suicides.
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Doubt that he’s a Democrat.
But put your money on him for being a whiny horse’s ass.
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“We were raised to live simply, not to waste. It was a lesson my mother taught me every rainy morning,” Ernst said. “You see, growing up, I had only one good pair of shoes. So on rainy school days, my mom would slip plastic bread bags over them to keep them dry. But I was never embarrassed, because the school bus would be filled with rows and rows of young Iowans with bread bags slipped over their feet. Our parents may not have had much, but they worked hard for what they did have.” - Joni Ernst
She also told a version where they slipped on bread bags before going out to the barn for chores. I was raised on a farm, we always used rubbers or rubber boots which could be hosed off.
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I live in a state that created its own exchange. The ACA was passed into law in March 2010. My state’s exchange website went live in December 2013. I know several states got their exchanges running quicker, but there’s one example for you that took 42 months.
The scope of what Graham-Cassidy changes seems even broader than what was involved with state-level exchanges. So yes, 2 years sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
Your “anyway” and “lesser of two evils” gives you away as someone who, wittingly or unwittingly, helps the Republicans defeat Democrats.
Your smug, self-satisfied and morally superior attitude of resentment, outrage and grievance has never gotten a liberal elected, has never helped pass a piece of helpful legislation, and has never prevented the reactionaries from advancing their agenda.
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In case you see this, good luck and I’m glad you’re going. You’ve probably already edited this, but if you want your point to come across clearly and just as importantly to be heard by other constituents as well as your Senator, you’ll need to rework it so they don’t shut down on the third sentence.
Something like,
I have two questions, one for you and one for Chuck Grassley. But he hasn’t done a public meeting in this county in 6 years. Thank you for giving your constituents this opportunity to discuss this issue with you, one many of our lives depend on.
I wrote a lot of letters for Amnesty International in my younger years. I’d almost always write two drafts, the “what I think and feel” version and the “getting results” version, lol. Basically I’d edit out anything that I thought would shut them down and replace it with an appeal to their better nature, whether or not I privately thought it existed. Lot’s of “I’m sure that now that you know this prisoner that was arrested in your jurisdiction is missing, you will do everything you can to locate him and facilitate contact with his lawyers and his family”, knowing full well that this dude was almost certainly responsible for the disappearance. Amazingly, this kind of thing can work.
I’m not saying don’t be angry, I’m saying that sometimes it’s more effective to direct the anger just sideways of the actual target so they don’t just throw up their defenses and not hear you.
Anyway, your story is compelling and I hope you get a chance to tell it.
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“Look at the actual charge the Consumer Law Section wanted Harris to file in the OneWest case: a civil enforcement action. Though he was OneWest’s chairman, Mnuchin was never at risk of indictment or conviction. At best, California would have extracted a decent-sized fine from the company—paid for by shareholders.”
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That’s a good edit. It was an extreme struggle for me to write that without lashing out (much).
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As I said, at least two versions! I envy people who can do this automatically. I’m not one of them.
Really? We havent’ been close enough to power to do anything. We’ve been forced to vote for the lesser of two evils. Kept at arms length…the dirty fucking hippies.
Hows that working out? And you want more of the same. You are the definition of insanity.
Good luck with Cory fucking Booker and his Wall St cabal.
Your comment deserves to be repeated—and regularly—for being the absolute Dog’s Honest Truth.
I wish I could like it a bazillion times.
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From 2009 - 2010 we had Congress and the White House. We did a lot. I want more of that.
Maybe you disagree.
I don’t know what you think I want, and at this point I don’t care. You’re commenting on a page about opposition to the latest ACA repeal bill with rants about hippies and moderate Dems.
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Oh that’s not the half of it. But of course, I did not have a chance to tell my story. The Town Hall was only 90 minutes long, it started with a bunch of angry comments on Graham-Cassidy, which Ernst deflected for about 30 minutes by saying it was a moot point, it won’t come up for a vote now. She didn’t mention McCain opposing, and the audience still pressed her to commit to voting against it, or any similar bill. She said she had to represent ALL her constituents, with the clear implication that my Liberal town was outvoted by all the other rural Republican counties. Some one yelled "we’re constituents too!, she said she heard from this group and that group and this other group, and at this point I had enough and yelled, “But were you LISTENING?” This got a positive response from the audience, more positive than Ernst’s prevarications.
Then there was the obligatory rambling 15 minute question by an old guy dressed in a T shirt with military slogans. He rambled on forever about military benefits, and of course Ernst indulged his question with an equally pointless rambling monologue about how she is a vet and she understands the problem.
Then there were shouts about DACA from student groups, and a mass walkout chanting something about DACA. This was another pointless exercise. I was much more amused by the Robot Protester. Wow I haven’t seen him since the days leading up to the Caucus, where he made a scene carrying a sign “Robot Rubio.”
Of course he was roughly escorted out by police.
There were a smattering of questions about ending the AUMF, cutting the military budget, funding Iowa’s schools, and other questions that she was completely unresponsive to. Of course I expected her to avoid answering any questions, but this was a masterful performance.
However there was one thing that troubled me. On the way in, a lady was handing out signs, red printed with Disagree, and green printed with Agree. But people do not know how to use them. They hold up both signs, one behind the other. They face the Green Agree side towards the stage, but they’re holding the Red behind it, so to the audience behind her, it looks like she’s DIS-agreeing. Would you people all please get with the program, and hold up only ONE sign at a time? The press in attendance is looking for shots of a sea of green or red signs. But everyone blows it so it’s impossible to tell if you are for or against. Half of the reason we have the signs is to show your support to others in the audience. But you’re not supporting them if they don’t know which sign you’re holding up. So just hold up ONE damn sign. Is that really so difficult? Apparently it is.
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Wow, that was a fantastic write-up.
- What a coward to pin defeat on McCain.
- “But were you LISTENING?” was a perfect response. Yelling out of turn is usually counterproductive but that’s exactly the right time to do it, isn’t it.
- DACA folks are threatened and angry, and rightly so. I don’t know what it’s like in Iowa but here in Texas I’ve been really impressed with their organization and unflappability at protests I’ve been to. Multiple groups so I have no idea who should get credit. It’s clear this is deeply personal and not a political fashion statement for them. Sometimes tactics like walkouts work. Sometimes not.
- The signs, aghhh. That’s where education really works, isn’t it? Agitate, educate, organize.
Thanks for the write up!
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Hey I was surprised to see video from this Town Hall just now on Chris Matthews show. She was making the announcement that Graham-Cassidy was dead for all practical purposes. End of clip. Nothing showing the huge response from the audience, the shot didn’t even SHOW the audience.
Matthews was saying that the only reason why this bill to kill the ACA is coming up again is because big donors are furious that the GOP was unsuccessful at repeal. And that is why Republicans won’t publicly say they won’t vote for a bill that won’t pass anyway, their donors would desert them.
I don’t think the students here have any particular investment in DACA except as a philosophical ideal. This town is whiter than snow. The largest minority population is foreign students from China, they’re not in peril of expulsion. There are larger Latino populations in rural areas, but they’re nowhere near here. Most Iowans recognized after the Postville raid that immigrants were restoring the economies of rural areas that were rapidly decreasing in population.
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The ‘Repeal and Replace’ catchphrase has a similar rhythm to ‘catch and release’. Makes it feel more humane on a subliminal level.