Tag Archives: GOP

Political Rants

Knocking it out old-school in the fighting 22nd

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Unlike many past election years, I haven’t been keeping close track of the state of play in Democratic or Republican primary contests for my Congressional District. Part of the reason for this is the redistricting debacle that New York State recently put itself through. The short version goes like this: the Democratic majority tried to implement a kind of lopsided gerrymander that would likely have flipped three seats into the Democratic column. That map was struck down by a circuit court in Maryland, and New York went with a more “equitable” version.

I have made my opinion on redistricting clear in previous posts, but to summarize: I don’t believe in unilateral disarmament. Red states are gerrymandering the living hell out of their congressional and legislative maps, adding dozens of safe GOP seats nationwide, ignoring court orders that don’t suit them, etc. Democrat-led states, on the other hand, are acting like boy scouts, implementing non partisan redistricting commissions, deferring to the courts, etc. The result may very well be permanent Republican crazy-ass rule. But Democrats can take heart in having been good little girls and boys.

What’s my number?

Okay, so … for a while, my residence was in the 19th district. I was getting invited to meet and greets with Antonio Delgado, the incumbent in that district who has since been named Lieutenant Governor by Kathy Hochul. Then came the court decision, and now I’m back in the 22nd, currently represented by the inimitable Claudia Tenney, the only NY Republican in Congress to vote against the recent bill protecting marriage equality. As I believe I’ve mentioned before, Claudia has decided to run in another district, as the new 22nd is a bit bluer than the old one, now that it includes Syracuse.

With Tenney off trying to gain a seat in the new 23rd, a beet-red southern tier district that stretches to Lake Erie, I am not at all clear on who will be running for the 22nd on the Republican side. I mean, I can read Ballotopedia like anyone else, so I know that Brandon Williams and Steven Wells are vying for the GOP nod. What I don’t know is who the hell they are. Wells seems to be harping on immigration, the Biden Crisis at the border, etc., wheras Williams appears to be a COVID skeptic, anti-lockdown corporatist.

Party of Roosevelt, Jackson, Kennedy, and Wallace

The Democrats in the primary race have been shooting me postcards for a few weeks. I’ve heard from Francis Conole, a dude who looks to be seven feet tall, Sam Roberts, a guy who was particularly good at getting his picture taken with Democratic leadership, and Sarah Klee Hood, who actually stopped by my house when I wasn’t there. Hood may be the best organized one – she was going door-to-door, after all. I have no sense, though, that the party leadership has any preference between these three.

What about policy? Conole seems like one of those Dem party pragmatists, like Anthony Brindisi was – you know, “common sense” solutions, etc. He does pay lip service to universal healthcare, or “greater access” to healthcare – that’s more like what he’s claiming. Then there’s the campaign finance question – apparently a crypto billionaire is bankrolling Mr. Conole to some extent. Not a particularly encouraging sign. Roberts has some very thin details on his policy page – mostly generalities about jobs, conservation, supporting policing, and – yes – “access” to healthcare.

Sarah Klee Hood, on the other hand, appears to support single payer and has posted info-graphics to explain its merits. Not bad.

Divide and conquer

Primaries in New York State are always confusing. They break up some local races from federal and some state races, strangely. For instance, primaries for congressional seats and state senate seats are held on August 23; the gubernatorial primary was held in June. They probably do this to confuse voters, but whatever.

Make your voice heard … even when that means just voting.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Handmaid’s tale.

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Probably the most amazing thing about the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation process is the degree to which she and all of the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee insist that there’s no underlying agenda behind her nomination, even though that agenda has been the most consistently central motivating force in GOP politics for the last four decades. That’s no exaggeration – this has been their core mission since the dawn of the Regan era. It’s been a relentless push over the course of forty years on the part of conservative politicians, political action groups, and the obscenely rich funders who back them, quietly and not so quietly. And yet they all sit in that Senate committee room and attempt to gaslight the American public, making stirring speeches about the roles of the coordinate branches of government and the crucial distinction between politics and civics, assuring us that they’re only interested in applying constitutional principles in a fair and measured way.

If you believe that, then you might be interested in this nice bridge I have for sale. Make no mistake: Barrett is an extremist, and a relatively young one at that – if she is confirmed, which seems more than likely, she will probably serve on that court for forty years or more. That means bloodcurdlingly reactionary decisions on a range of issues, from reproductive rights to same-sex marriage to the constitutionality of the ACA to the outcome of elections. Judge Barrett could not even acknowledge long settled statutory prohibitions on voter intimidation, nor her thoughts on the peaceful transfer of power following a national election. There are issues that she does have an opinion on; she has made that very clear in the form of open letters in publications, speeches, and other means. But we’re expected to believe that those opinions will not play a role in her jurisprudence. My. Smoking. Ass.

We’ve been here before, folks, right? Republican nominees being tight lipped about the very things that put them in front of that committee in the first place. We know that she was chosen by the Federalist Society and others, who pushed her forward for Trump, and our insane clown president of course signed off on the appointment. She has the votes … I’m certain that’s partly why Mitch McConnell is moving forward with this now. So why the hell not just say what you think, expound on the depredations of available abortion services (and birth control), and then flip everyone off? She should then do a little dance out of the room – when McConnell calls the vote, it will be all over. Sure, other things can happen …. but will they? The GOP has the power, and they will use it. It’s to the point where we’re placing a Taliban-like religious extremist on the court – one whose secret society group, People of Praise, had her referring to herself as a handmaid. Seriously, people? We can’t do better than this?

We’re facing a 6-3 Supreme Court, and we have to encourage leaders on the center-left to do the right things to counteract their antidemocratic powers. I’ll talk about some specifics on Strange Sound, so be sure to tune in.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Donnie in Nixonland.

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Our president offered a little fascist theater performance this week. The resulting spectacle was simultaneously ludicrous and terrifying, as most reality television tends to be (at least for anyone who is sane). Pumped up by his most reactionary advisors – Barr, Stephen Miller, etc. – the Cheeseburgler-in-Chief waddled out to the microphone to deliver a Miller-esque train wreck of a statement, then waddled over to St. John’s Church, freshly cleared by the 82nd Airborne, to have his photo taken while awkwardly clasping a bible. (Not clear that he was happy with the tome they handed him, perhaps preferring an edition with “Holy Bible” written in enormous gold letters on the cover.) This sorry spectacle was had at the cost of gassing, pelting, and beating thousands of peaceful protesters, journalists, and bystanders in an effort to drive them back from the vicinity of the White House.

What did the president gain from this effort? A badly produced propaganda video featuring scenes from his baby elephant walk to the church. (And I mean really bad, like every video they’ve ever made, starting with that laughable intro reel they ran at the 2016 GOP Convention.) He obviously wants to take advantage of the national anti-racist uprising to push a law and order narrative similar to the one used by Richard Nixon and George Wallace in 1968. This sounds a bit like the work of Steve Bannon, though perhaps not clever enough … more Miller’s or Barr’s speed. Honestly, they have little else to run on this year. They obviously blew the COVID-19 crisis, the economy is in the toilet, and Trump shows no interest in expanding his appeal beyond people in white hoods.

Here’s the problem with the 1968 strategy: It’s not 1968. At that time, the ruling party had been in power for eight years. The Vietnam war, vastly expanded by LBJ, was at its peak of violence, and young people in particular were in open revolt over the killing, the draft, etc. It was a much more openly, deeply racist country back then as well, and many Black Americans were only just beginning to get the franchise. What’s more, Nixon was the challenger, not the president. The “I’m going to clean up this mess” gambit doesn’t work if you’re the incumbent. For that to fly, you need to be calling out a party in power whose coalition is divided and hostile to their office holders. That’s not to say that the law and order tactic won’t work – nothing is beyond the scope of possibility these days. But if Trump is once again walking in the footsteps of Richard Nixon, he might want to be careful where he steps.

More than seven hundred billion dollars appropriated this year to spend on the U.S. military, and Trump uses them to liberate Lafayette Park. Worth it?

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Their man.

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It’s been a summer of discontent, to be sure, and the signs aren’t good for this fall. Internationally we appear to be on the brink of major upheavals, from India’s escalation of the conflict in Kashmir to uprisings in Hong Kong, Russia, and elsewhere. India-Pakistan is particularly worrisome, as these now nuclear armed states have already fought three wars over founding disputes like Kashmir; with Modi in control, this could end very badly. What a great time to have Donald Trump as president, right?

As much as pundits have tried to paint Trump as an atypical GOP politician with regard to foreign relations, his administration is doing about what you might expect a president Rubio to do; bellicose rhetoric, imperial policies, and arrogant attitude. The only question about Trump is whether, at any given moment, he may be pursuing his own narrow self interest or following the directions handed to him by his neocon national security team. It is hard for TV commentators to hold both administration positions in their heads at the same time.  Trump speaks nicely about Putin, while his cabinet officials tear up arms control agreements signed by Reagan. Trump exchanges notes with Kim Jong Un while is Pentagon plans military maneuvers in South Korea. Trump appears to resist the march to war with Iran, but the confrontation continues. The net effect of all of this is basically a mainstream Republican foreign policy, with a few fewer diplomats.

Trump, King of Greenland? Nice.

The fact is, I would far rather Trump and his administration start having a dialog with Russia over nuclear arms and nuclear materials. The mishap they had in the northeast of the country, at the Nenoksa test site, this past week underscores that need. Putin’s proposed nuclear-powered cruise missile is a tremendously destabilizing and toxic program. Think of it: even if it works as planned, you would have a missile with a conventional payload spewing radioactive fuel all over the place when it strikes its target, rendering it basically a dirty bomb. We are playing a similarly dangerous game with the development of low-yield nuclear “bunker busters”. Both of these weapons amount to a backdoor introduction of nuclear isotopes into common use in a conventional war. We need to put nuclear disarmament back at the top of the agenda … and right now, we’re heading in the opposite direction at full speed.

When the Trump administration is finally over, no doubt the GOP will attempt to distance themselves from this dumpster fire, claiming Trump was, at heart, a lifelong Democrat. Nothing doing. We need to hang this around their necks for as long as they remain the party of right-wing extremism, climate change denial, serial invasion, etc.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

The hard problem.

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Senate Republicans tried-on their comedy shoes this week, “debating” something they were breezily referring to as the Green New Deal but which was actually just a straw horse resolution they whacked like a pinata to show how proudly retrograde they are.  In the wake of the Typhoon in Mozambique and other recent climate-fueled disasters, this was a pretty remarkable exercise in ignorance and tone-deafness. No, I don’t expect anything better from what Noam Chomsky has accurately described as the most dangerous organization in human history. The Republicans literally stand alone in the world as the only major party that rejects the science of climate change. Quite a distinction.

Not that there isn’t some value in such a spectacle. It certainly focuses the mind on how much work we have to do. My hope is that all of my leftist and progressive friends and colleagues fully understand just how difficult this climate fight will be. This is not just about developing and advocating for big ideas. We can only move this process forward by mounting an effective inside/outside strategy – organizing a large, broad mobilization out in the communities and electing the most progressive politicians we can possibly elect.  We need to do more than just win power, which will be hard enough. We have to hold and sustain power over the next decade and a half particularly, as that is pretty much all the time we have left to turn this ship around. That will take an enormous effort and, really, a new kind of politics that makes a material difference in the lives of ordinary people.

Note to rookie comedian Mike Lee: don't quit your day job.

How are we going to convince millions upon millions of Americans to go with this Green New Deal framework? Well, part of the challenge is that climate change is what may be called a genuinely hard problem. There’s the tendency to compare climate change to the Great Depression, but that’s kind of misleading. Yes, the Depression affected almost everyone in the country, but its worst effects could be mitigated by some money in your pocket. Massive collective effort in the 1930s had the potential to provide relief relatively rapidly – relief that would be felt by a large segment of society. Climate change is more complicated. We can’t tell people that, if you do this important work, the climate will be noticeably better – that’s just not likely. We’re asking people to save the world for future generations … and it’s just possible that our best efforts might not even accomplish that. So in addition to emphasizing that concern for future generations, we need to flesh out the “new deal” component of the plan … the part that will deliver some level of equity and prosperity to ordinary Americans.

Don’t get me wrong – I am 100% in favor of a Green New Deal. But let’s proceed with our eyes open. This won’t be a cake walk.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Standoff.

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[Blogger’s Note: The shutdown ended a day after I wrote this. I’m posting it anyway because we’re likely to take this circus ride again sometime soon … and because I’m too damn lazy to write another post.]

There’s little light I can shed on the ridiculously long Trump government shutdown that hasn’t already been tossed around on the corporate media over the past 30-odd days (and they have been very odd indeed). I’ve got a handful of things to say about it, and here they are.

  1. This is an asymmetric battle. For the most part, the stuff being shut down is stuff the Republicans despise anyway and don’t mind seeing derailed or dismantled. This is just another avenue to the same ends they’ve been working towards since they came to power. They have nothing but contempt for government workers. They want to slash food stamps. They hate regulations and are glad to let corporate America run wild without even the nominal constraints that government imposes upon them. They pretend to care about securing the nation against attack, but their policies do the exact opposite. They simply don’t care if the country falls over backwards – arguably, that’s their core mission as a party.
  2. The Dems can’t back down. Seriously, if Donald Trump (aka President Drunk Uncle Twitter Troll) gets anything out of this shutdown, he will use this tactic again and again.  We know that’s the case … the man simply cannot be trusted to keep his word and he is incapable of telling the truth. We may as well have this out now … because if we don’t, it will just need to be dealt with later (and not much later).
  3. Labor may need to stop this. I don’t make a habit of telling working people what they should or should not do – they should do whatever works for them. But it occurs to me (and many others as well) that one way out of this impasse would be for the TSA and air traffic controllers to walk out. That would bring air travel and transport to a screeching halt, and my guess would be that the president would deflate like a punctured tire if that were to happen. Just saying – solidarity is an effective weapon.

What he looks like when he loses.High school standoff. Re this controversy about the standoff between Catholic anti-abortion protesters and Native Americans at the Lincoln Memorial this past weekend, I agree with Sam Seder that (1) young men can act like tremendous assholes when they gather in large numbers without proper supervision, and (2) where the hell were the supervising adults anyway, and how did they let this get so far out of hand? Despite all the hand wringing about misinterpreting the incident based on fragments of viral video, it’s obvious that these kids are mocking the Native Americans. I know that smirk anywhere. But I don’t blame them … just their minders, who shouldn’t be allowed to supervise children ever again.

Political Rants

Eleven angry men.

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When you think about the Kavanaugh nomination, you really need to step back and see the full picture. Sure, stopping the nomination is crucial, and it’s perhaps fortunate that he planted the seeds of his own self-destruction decades ago, long before his tenure as a hyperpolitical operative in the Republican Party. (Honestly, the guy is like the Zelig of American conservatism, working on the Star investigation, researching Vince Foster, participating in the “Brooks Brothers Riot” during the Florida recount, and on from there.) But if his nomination fails, they will attempt to fill the slot quite quickly with a much more boring, just as reactionary judge capable of serving multiple decades on the Supreme Court. So … why not just withdraw this troubled judge?

Well, HE seems nice.My guess is that they’re clinging to this one because Kavanaugh has proven to be such a reliable operative, and because he has a freakishly expansive view of executive power and privilege. (He apparently developed that during his stints in the W. Bush administration.) It’s hard to be certain of their reasoning, but their overarching motivations are quite clear. They want this seat and they want it now. The GOP has been working on this project for decades, taking an already conservative  court steadily to the right since Nixon’s days in power. A solid reactionary majority is the right’s insurance policy; it’s their trump card, no pun intended.

Consider the Republican party’s position. They remain, in essence, the party of white men. As this becomes less and less a nation of white men, it is an imperative for them to stave off the inevitable erosion of their voter base. The Senate is not so much of a problem, as a distinctly regional party can dominate that body given that party’s geographic distribution (e.g. Wyoming’s Senate delegation is  equal to California’s, even though the latter state is 70 times the size of the former in terms of population). The hyper-partisan GOP gerrymandering of the House in 2010 has made that body a lot more like the Senate in terms of representation, but that is a short-term solution for them. And the Presidency? They have lost the popular vote in six out of the last seven elections, so they mostly rely on narrow electoral college victories.

The Supreme Court, on the other hand, is the ultimate arbiter of public policy. With a solid reactionary majority, the GOP will be able to defeat progressive policies long after the party can no longer dominate electoral politics. So there’s much at stake in the coming days for those eleven angry white men on the Judiciary Committee …. much more than the problematic optics of the Kavanaugh hearing.

Elections matter, people. We need to take the Court seriously.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

State of the Yum-yun.

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Seems like a good time to respond to some choice bits from Trump’s first state of the union (or state of the umion, pronounced Yum-yun, if you’re reading the official announcement).

First, the big fat entrance. Rep. Claudia Tenney gets a word in Trump’s ear as he’s working his way down the aisle. Always wearing some bright color and right up front when Trump is in town.

First flub goes to Ryan: “I have the distinct privilege of preventing … presenting to you the President of the United States.”

Now, on to Trump’s remarks, delivered in a slithering, slow voice, lots of breath. Kind of nauseating, frankly.

The chief and his enablers.“A new tide of optimism was already sweeping across our land,” he tells us, referring to a year ago, then  jumped right in with the anecdotes and the guests of honor. “We always will pull through together, always.” Runs through a litany of lifesavers, mostly from disasters of our own making, through climate change, gun violence, etc. “The state of our union is strong because our people are strong. And together we are building a safe and strong and proud America.” Platitude.

Touting more jobs for Black and Hispanic people. Big cheer for “massive tax cuts,” of course. More take home pay! (Mitt Romney, come back – all is forgiven.) Calls out “cruel” tax of the individual ACA mandate, which very few people actually paid – big cheer from Republican recipients of government subsidized health insurance. Crowing about the titanic benefits of this “new American moment.” “You can dream anything, you can be anything, and together we can achieve absolutely anything.”

Some short takes:

  • “We share … the same great American flag …The motto is ‘In God We Trust,'” he says, then makes a big point about standing for the national anthem. So much for Mr. We’re All In This Together.
  • We’re “…totally defending our second amendment and have taken historic actions to protect religious liberty.” Shoot ’em up.
  • Calling on congress to empower cabinet secretaries to fire people. Is that novel?
  • “We have ended the war on American energy and we have ended the war on beautiful clean coal.” So much for the section on climate change.
  • “Companies are roaring back, they’re coming back. They want to be where the action is.” Well, it’s a kind of silent roar.

Trump starts talking about reducing the price of prescription drugs, and he gestures to the Democrats to stand and applaud. He does it again as he talks about repairing infrastructure, though the focus of this section sounds like he wants to roll back the environmental impact review process. He proposes $1.5 Trillion plan for infrastructure, but it must provide for streamlined permitting. Smell a rat?

Starting to talk about lifting people out of “welfare”. “Let’s invest in workforce development and let’s invest in job training, which we need so badly.” Calls for vocational schools and paid family leave – probably the Ivanka plan. A bleat on prison reform – very vague.

Immigration:

“For decades open borders have allowed drugs and gangs come pouring in.” Now he’s naming “guests” whose kids were killed by immigrants! MS13. Using them to call out “alien minors”. This section is fucking disgusting, worthy of Der Sturmer. He is “calling on congress to close deadly loopholes” in immigration laws. Dirtbags are clapping.

He wants to protect all Americans. How? He wants to defend Americans. “Americans are dreamers, too.” Oh, I see. Pretty much the only immigrants he’s talking about is gang members. MS13 again. Talking about arrests of gang members. So what is the problem? They’re going to prison. But Trump is talking about sending reinforcements. Now talking about bipartisan immigration reform – his draconian plan. Building a “great wall”. His rhetoric on immigration is all about violence by immigrants, merit and race based rules, and “protecting the nuclear family by ending chain migration.” Then he’s blaming opioid deaths on immigrant drug dealers. Just a lot of thinly coded language aimed at racial division.

Next, he’s praising cop – another guest in audience – who stopped a pregnant woman from shooting heroin. Then he adopted the baby. Point? This is not a speech; it is a series of extended anecdotes. It’s like a fucking variety show. He’s using these people as human shields.

Foreign policy and military section:

  • “Weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unmatched power is the surest means to our true and great defense.” Calling for end to defense sequester. Well, the GOP created it, so why not, right?
  • Taking credit for eliminating ISIS.
  • Calling terrorists “enemy combatants”. Sounds like the start of an argument for torture, Gitmo, etc. Just signed an order to re-examine detention policies and keep open Gitmo. Score one for the jihadist propagandists.
  • Touting new rules of engagement. Calling out artificial timelines. Recognizing Jerusalem as capital of Israel. Asking to cut off aid to countries that criticize us at UN. “Enemies of America.” “America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom.” “Terrible Iran nuclear deal.” “Communist and socialist dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela.”
  • Threatening North Korea again. “Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite … aggression.” Applauding that kid Warmbier. Extended anecdote about Korean guest who crawled to freedom and a further tirade against North Korea. Jesus H. Christ.

Big fat ending:

Patriotic claptrap roll call. Republicans chanting “USA, USA, USA!”

“The people dreamed this country, the people built this country, and it’s the people who will make America great again.” Yep. When they get rid of you.

Political Rants

In with the old.

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It’s manifestly obvious that Trump is an incompetent boob, grandfathered into the presidency by virtue of that mother of all mulligans served up by our founding fathers: rich white guy can’t win the support of the majority, so kick it to the electoral college. (Apparently Trump’s win came as a real shock to his family and himself.) That said, it would be a mistake to suppose that his ignorance is in any way blissful for the opposition – quite the contrary. The President and his party are making tremendous strides across a broad front, setting policies that will take a generation to turn around. Nothing less than that.

World's most effective boneheadI’ve written about the speed-dating approach to judicial appointments; suffice here to say that Trump has broken a first-year record on this. (These are lifetime appointments, mind you, and his picks are ghastly from a left-progressive standpoint.) He has also made a full frontal assault on regulations, removing the ban on fracking on public lands, fines for abusive nursing home care, safety requirements for blowout protectors on deep-water oil drilling operations, the fiduciary rule requiring financial advisors to put their clients’ interest ahead of their own, and so on. Other great accomplishments of the last year include loosening the already weak DOD restrictions on civilian casualties, trashing net neutrality despite massive, broad-based opposition, and canceling national monument status for large swaths of land in western states, thereby opening them up for resource and mineral extraction. There’s a lot, lot more, but I will stop there.

As we start the new year, we are faced with some truly grave prospects regarding this administration and the GOP agenda more broadly. Trump’s terrifyingly childish nuclear threats are bad enough in and of themselves – this tragic-comic display could easily result in terminal thermonuclear war, no joke. If we survive the year, we will be grappling with part two of the wrecking crew’s plan to tear down what’s left of America’s social safety net, from the ACA to Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security – programs we all rely upon to some extent. In that respect, this is merely an extension of a long-term project; a “generational” obsession, to borrow Speaker Ryan’s favorite modifier. That is going to be a fight, my friends.

So 2018 is looking a lot like more of 2017. No rest for the weary. Just keep your marching shoes handy, and plan on voting as if your life depended on it.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Cold day.

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No, this isn’t a post about the weather (though it is cold as hell out there). I just wanted to make a couple of points about the possibility of bipartisan cooperation in 2018 – something that’s being kicked around the corporate media as if it were somehow desirable. This is consonant with the oft-stated desire to see “things get done” in Washington, as if the precise nature of the things being done was somehow irrelevant; that legislation passed is a good in and of itself, abstracted away from the substance of the bill. Another piece of conventional wisdom, served up daily. I expect I’ll pass on this, and I would recommend my fellow left-leaning Americans do the same.

Why the GOP loves Trump. As far as I’m concerned, the GOP has demonstrated its bad will in about as many ways as can be imagined. And before anyone gives me a lesson on how politics works, on how you can disagree from morning to evening but at the end of the day you need to work together, etc., let me just say that the Republicans have become an extremist party bent on wrecking the country, and the only thing to be done with them is to beat them at the ballot box and then drag their sorry asses into the future along with us, kicking and screaming if necessary. Nothing short of that will do.

I know there are many in the Democratic party who feel that we need to provide a positive example and be willing to compromise as a stark contrast to the other side’s absolutism. There’s some of this sentiment circulating around discussion of an infrastructure bill next year. This is ludicrous. The Republicans just voted to blow an enormous hole in the federal budget, diverting a trillion and a half dollars from essential programs and handing it to the richest people in the country. If they want to make a deal on infrastructure, tell them to cancel that bill. And while you’re at it, tell them to stop working overtime to pack the federal judiciary with twenty-something Nazis. Change course and we can talk.

If the GOP says no, just say “see you in November”. Let’s let the people decide what kind of country this is going to be.

luv u,

jp