Trump is notorious for his “filing system”: when he is finished with a
piece of paper, he tears it into tiny pieces and throws it away, which
is fine if you’re a CEO (maybe), but is radioactively illegal under the
Presidential Records Act, because the President works for the public,
and is required by law to archive their official papers and save them
for public scrutiny.
White House staffers gave up on trying to explain this to Trump, who
just kept on tearing up everything, from official letters from Senators
to letters from constituents to notes and other paperwork.
The staffers – paid nearly $70,000 year – ended up with full-time jobs
retrieving scraps of paper from Trump’s trash-can and piecing them back
together with clear tape so they can be filed in the National Archives.
Some of these staffers were eventually fired; they’ve spoken to
Politico about their year in the Trump administration as paper-tapers.
Trump is notorious for his “filing system”: when he is finished with a
piece of paper, he tears it into tiny pieces and throws it away, which
is fine if you’re a CEO (maybe), but is radioactively illegal under the
Presidential Records Act, because the President works for the public,
and is required by law to archive their official papers and save them
for public scrutiny.
White House staffers gave up on trying to explain this to Trump, who
just kept on tearing up everything, from official letters from Senators
to letters from constituents to notes and other paperwork.
The staffers – paid nearly $70,000 year – ended up with full-time jobs
retrieving scraps of paper from Trump’s trash-can and piecing them back
together with clear tape so they can be filed in the National Archives.
Some of these staffers were eventually fired; they’ve spoken to
Politico about their year in the Trump administration as paper-tapers.
The Supreme Court just issues a ruling allowing Ohio and other states to purge voters from their election registration rolls due to their failure to cast a ballot in previous elections.
This is a major victory for the Trump administration and the GOP, and a direct consequence of the Supreme Court being stacked with more conservative judges (the votes were 5-4). This is also a huge part of what Trump/the GOP were counting on to save them in the 2018 midterm elections, which is where Democrats have been hoping to take back a majority in the House, giving them more power to combat Trump’s abuses of power and Republican legislation.
What this means is YOU CAN NOT ASSUME THAT YOU ARE REGISTERED for the 2018 elections, just because you SHOULD be. Thanks to this decision, red states can purge voters’ registration based on their not having cast a ballot in even just previous federal elections, NOT just the national Presidential elections. Effectively, if you haven’t voted in previous senate races or for congressional representatives in the past few years, that’s all they need now to say you’re no longer registered and need to register again.
They’re deliberately counting on people assuming they’re still registered and so not checking until after registration deadlines have passed, or showing up to vote this November and only then finding out they’re no longer registered, when its too late to do a damn thing about it.
And this is absolutely targeted at marginalized communities, low income voters, disabled voters, and basically anyone who simply can’t always AFFORD to keep on top of every federal election and show up to vote in every senate race, etc. Which not so coincidentally happen to be all the communities and voters who have the most to gain from Democratic victories in the 2018 midterms and are the least likely to cast votes for GOP candidates at this point.
This was absolutely a calculated effort aimed specifically at keeping the GOP in power with a majority control of the government come November, and unfortunately, it has a DAMN good chance of accomplishing just that if it goes by unacknowledged. I’m not looking to alarm or panic anyone, simply to say:
If you are a registered voter in a red state at this point, please please please do not take your registered status as assumed. Check on your registration status, look up all relevant voter registration deadlines for your state and district, CIRCLE THAT SHIT ON YOUR CALENDAR, and check your registration status AGAIN right before those deadlines pass, so you can be sure of it before its too late to do anything about it til the next voting cycle.
use vote.org to check your registration status. use the form, or scroll down to find the resources for the state you live in.
please do check! even if you think you are OK. even if you are not in Ohio. and please be aware of your state’s voter ID laws.
I am a poll worker in Pennsylvania, and if you haven’t voted in a certain period of time you do get asked for ID. I don’t like it but that’s the rule.
So… this guy’s going around in my neighborhood, knocking on doors, and declaring that he’s running for President of the United States in 2018!
Cool. I mean… it’s gonna be a pretty difficult thing to accomplish, since the next presidential election isn’t until 2020, but… sure. You do you.
Anyway, he wants to run for president so he can get Congress to pass 35 bills. Probably should have asked why he wasn’t running for Congress, that way he could… you know… author and submit bills to be passed by Congress, but this was probably going to be the least of his troubles with this plan, so I just let him continue.
He asks if I would like to read these bills. I take a moment to think about it. There’s an 80 year old man walking door to door with a duffel bag filled with about a hundred copies of 35 congressional bills, who wants to be elected as president of the united states in 2018, and who believes completely that he can accomplish this by handing out those 100 packets?
Hell yes I want to read that!
Anyway, he gives me a packet, thanks me for his time, and leaves.
I start reading.
The first several pages are all about how he wants to tax the rich to invest in programs for the poor, create affordable housing for every homeless person in America, and to just straight up give money to every American below a certain income level. He goes on to talk about all the ways they can tax the right and how Bernie Sanders was a great man, but his policies didn’t go far enough, not by a LONG shot! We need to take MORE money from rich people and give MORE money to the poor!
This made it very confusing when I got to the bill about how we need make sure Congress can overrule any Supreme Court decision because the SCOTUS made Gay marriage legal and that’s not in the constitution and also, did you know that every communist is gay? That’s right. EVERY communist is gay. All of them. All gay. That’s how you know it’s bad to be gay. Because communists are gay. All of them. And that’s their real goal, those communists. They want to make the whole world gay and they’ve told this guy that to his face, but he’s not going to let him!
You may think I’m exaggerating here. I’m definitely not.
Anyway, the rest of the proposals are this weird mix of creating more social safety nets, getting rid of immigrants, stricter and more transparent campaign finance laws, rooting out gay people and communists from America, going green to protect against climate change, turning all of our national parks land into housing and business centers, giving $10,000 to anyone whose ancestors were once slaves, prison reform (not to make them more hospitable, but to make them intentionally worse) and giving children money. There are also bills that… I just don’t know how to describe.
One bill proposes that America build 10 dams in Africa. Cause… apparently that land’s not owned by anyone who would object…? The bill goes on to explain that the power generated will go to African people. So… yeah. 10 hydro-electric dams ought to do it, am I right? Oh wait, no, the bill goes on to explain that we’re going to get England and France involved in building dams too so that their countries can make money off of African nations as well. Yup. Because that worked real well the first time around.
Then there’s a bill about how we should require US high schools to teach EVERY child how to play one musical instrument and to speak one foreign language. The bill also states that the kid can pick any instrument and any foreign language and the teacher will just buy the necessary books to teach them that instrument/language. Oh, and also they will be required to learn Morse code. No reason given for that last one. He just thinks it’s important that EVERYONE knows Morse code.
Then there’s a bill titled, “The Family Farm Bill.” There’s no bill listed here. It just states, and I quote, “I need to talk to some family farmers to decide the best legislation for this.”
There’s a bill to declare war on every country that terrorists or any weapons terrorists use come from. He’s very proud of this bill, stating that this bill alone is the reason that Iran and the communists have joined forces to try to destroy him. Yup. That’s right. Iran and all communists are hell bent on killing the only guy in the country running for president in 2018.
Other gems in this packet include:
Calling the bills his babies and then proceeding to ask: “Please give birth to Jim’s babies.”
A link to his blog where he’ll be talking about all the other bills that he and God have come up with together.
In defense of one bill: “A country in Europe has a law like that.” Just… a country in Europe. No word on which one, but one of them did it, and it was apparently pretty cool. Not cool enough to remember which country it was or to spend 5 seconds on google to find out, but cool nonetheless.
Also, did I mention that the packet uses like 10 different fonts and font sizes for no discernible reason?
Anyway, the whole thing ends with a link to a blog post where this guy promises to name every communist in America so that we can get rid of them.
So I was doing some research on common medications for a pharmacology class at school, and realized that Wikipedia is calling out the outrageous practices of pharmacological sales in the US. Right up there in the main intro to the medication they’re showing how much the drug costs to produce, versus how much a typical course of treatment costs in the USA.
Also, just so you’re aware, as of late Mat 2018, 1.80 GBP is 2.40 USD. For a three month supply of the pill. The same amount could cost you 150 USD in the United States.
so stfu capitalists who say that nationalized healthcare in the US isn’t “affordable”. you’re just money hungry mother fuckers who hate people
Since the 1980s, we’ve heard the GOP talk about how “regulations kill innovation” and “regulations stifle business.”
Meanwhile, drug prices have gone up like this (see also: why airplane seats get ever smaller) – because regulations were revoked that set price limits on essential medicines AND allowed widespread marketing.
And man, as someone who was a kid in the 1970s, before the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, I remember how often the air outside just smelled awful. I remember what it’s like to fly on an airplane full of people smoking.
They get away with this stuff because they control the narrative and have made the word “regulation” itself an insult – when they’re protections. We need to reclaim this topic.
Senate bill 2918 was introduced May 22, led by U.S. Senators Kamala D. Harris (D-CA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and Mazie Hirono (D-HI). In a press release, Harris said, “The freedom to worship is a founding principle of this nation as well as the right to live free of discrimination or fear that one’s civils[sic] rights will be undermined because of race, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity. The Do No Harm Act will ensure we protect both these rights for all.”…
Despite any debates surrounding the use of RFRAs, most experts do agree that the Do No Harm Act will not pass in a Republican-controlled congress.
Leahy said, “While the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) was originally passed by Congress to protect the rights of religious minorities, it has been contorted in recent years to defend discriminatory practices against LGBTQ individuals and women seeking access to reproductive health services. The Do No Harm Act would help put an end to misuse of the act and ensure that longstanding anti-discrimination protections in the law are not eroded.”
I get really confused when americans, when talking about universal health care are like ‘yeh but it’s not free sweaty 🙂 🙂 you have to pay it through taxes 🙂 so gotcha!!’
and I’m like ….???? That’s the whole point??? Everyone pays their fair share so that no one has to be turned away because they don’t have insurance??? And no one has to set up a Fundraiser page just so that they DONT DIE???? So people don’t put off going to the doctor because they’re scared of going bankrupt?? Because healthcare is a RIGHT and should be free at the point of access?!?
“So no one has to be turned away” she says hahaha go to a universal health care country and get a necessary operation in less than a few years and come back and talk shit.
Look at the cure rates compared to mortality rates in universal health care countries and compare them to ours, then talk shit.
Tear your ACL in a universal health care country and see what the people say if you should go to their hospitals or go to an American hospital, then talk shit.
2010. I’d been feeling a bit ill. Work was going nuts, so I figured it was stress. Pretty good call considering a week later work fired their entire IT department (of which I was part).
But then I got sicker. And it turned out I had cancer.
Burkitt’s lymphoma, stage 4a. It had spread into my brain and spinal column. 90% cure rate, but I needed nine months of chemo – and not the outpatient chemo, nope, talking multiple week stays per round of the magrath protocol. Drugs were about 10k an IV bag. I was unemployed. And there were complications.
Thankfully I live in a country with universal healthcare. And it didn’t cost me a goddamn cent to save my life. I’m now officially past the five year mark to move me from “remission” to “Cured”.
I’ve lived in a universal healthcare country my entire life. And I’ve seen the US system in action. Your system is fucked. Straight up fucked. You’ve got fucking Dickensian shit going on there, people dying on streets from preventable causes or ending up broke for breaking a hip. Your health insurance companies have you by the balls and people like you are begging them to squeeze harder. What the actual fuck is wrong with you?
“But but but TAXESSSSSSSSS”
yeah no shit. That story above? Happened when I was 32. I’d spent 14 years of my life paying those fucking taxes that funded the system that saved my life. And guess what? Now I’m cured, I’m…Back..at work..And have been for several years…earning waaaay more money and paying back into the system.
This shit doesn’t exist in a vacuum, dickhead. You’re not feeding some imaginary pack of leeches, you’re paying forward on your own damned healthcare so you don’t have to argue with an insurance company while trying to heal.
i also don’t get why americans can’t wrap their heads around the fact that universal healthcare is actually cheaper
like yeah your taxes might go up (hell, take a chunk out of the military budget, they might not even change) but you won’t have to pay ridiculous health insurance premiums. it’s a net saving, dumbasses.
ireland has amended their constitution 36 times in 80 years. you’ve done it 27 in over 200 years.
times are changing. take notes. stop killing your children with weapons of destruction.
can other countries stop acting like america is a singular, ignorant hive mind? or that change is easy here?
there are horrific systems of oppression in place here and many of us can barely afford to even live let alone fight. those who do fight for change are doing it against a wildly corrupt government designed to prevent progress and silence us.
like i’m glad ireland is able to make these changes, but it’s really fucking hard to ammend the constitution here, especially when corrupt politicians hold a power monopoly.
we seriously don’t all slobber over the constitution. a HUGE percentage of us want change, but our government doesn’t represent us and pretty much implements policies without any input from us.
if change was easier, our children would not be getting slaughtered in their schools, people wouldn’t be starving and dying of treatable disease, black people wouldn’t be getting shot in the streets, and immigrant children wouldn’t be getting ripped from their parents’ arms.
also, other countries need to stop acting like y’all are high and mighty and flawless.
The population of Ireland is about 4.8 million. The population of the US is 325.7 million.
We’re a big fucking country with a lot of opinions and a lot of oppression. We’re trying our best.
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