Saturday, June 10, 2017

On Distractions, Distractibility and Also Some Dumb Gifs

This is me every time I see one of the endless Russia-is-a-distraction hot takes:


Lookit:

1) Donald J. Trump is not some kind of badass brilliant strategist.  He is, to quote the delightful Jon Lovett, a dotty old racist

2) Russia interfered with our election and that is, empirically, a big fucking deal which we should all be watching like:


3) Paying attention to this story means you care about important stuff and does not mean you're all:


4) Finally, calling someone stupid in service of exaggerating your own political acumen is not a particularly persuasive editorial technique.


All that said, I think it's pretty evident that the Congressional GOoPers are taking advantage of this story (which, not to put too fine a point on it, is a BIG FUCKING DEAL) in order to do some real damage in their constant pursuit to fuck over the poor and vulnerable in order to give big tax breaks to really rich people.

To wit:

- Overturn Dodd-Frank - In 2008 our economy crashed and one of the prime movers of this crash was de-regulation. Republicans will tell you that Business People understand how to Business because they are all Business-y and not a bunch of dirty hippies like Elizabeth Warren.  But if you look at this chart:


Let's all remember that the rich boys who crashed our economy stayed rich before, during and after.  Because that's who all their Business brilliance does its Business for: keeping the rich rich and not caring fuck all about those of us who aren't.

We have a problem with gross wealth inequality in America.  Let's look at another chart!  Charts are fun!


The Reagan administration began enacting policies whereby American wealth was shifted more and more to the wealthy and away from the rest of us and this is now pretty much the official religion of the American rightwing political class. This chart BLOWS MY MIND!  It makes me want to TAKE MY COUNTRY BACK.  Only I want to take it back from guys like this:


And not like this:


Because these people are just living their lives and are taking the subway and are not the problem and not in your way and also only have the tiniest sliver or what we got here anyway!

Dodd-Frank won't fix all our (or even most) of our problems with income inequality.  But it will keep the door open for more regulation and may stop those rich bastards from crashing our economy again.

2. ACA Repeal - There is not a democrat in either house of our Congress who wouldn't eagerly work with their Republican colleagues to fix the ACA.  The GOP lies and lies and lies again about this. I wish all of you (both of you) would watch Claire McCaskill take Orrin Hatch to task on this:



ACA repeal is bad. ACA reform is good. But don't ever forget what the GOP is really after is a tax break for the rich.  And this makes me so mad!

(Finally gonna see WW today and I'm PSYCHED!)
You may be reading this and thinking:


Well, human men and woman, I think you should be picking up your phone every day and calling your senators and reps about this.  I don't care if you're in the reddest of the red or the bluest of the blue.  These calls matter.  Josh Marshall explains it all here, but here's a pull quote:
If your Rep is a diehard “yes” in a safe district, you should still call. Why? First, no one is ever that safe. But the more important point is that when people in safe seats hear more than they expected, they will rightly get the sense that other people in their caucus might go down to defeat. So they may no longer be in the majority. Especially today, parties operate as units. No representative is an island.
Every day. Pick up your phone.  It's two minutes out of your day and it matters.  Resistance is one phone call away. Just. Do. It!!!!





(Recommend that you say this in your head rather than out loud)


Posted by at