Why We Need the For the People Act--What It Does

Please contact your Senators this week and ask them to support, vote for the For the People Act.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Today's Republican Party

Robert Reich rightly calls out the Republicans for who and what they are and work for. I love who he put on the opening screen, don't you?

What's In the For the People Act?

Know this, everyone! What the For the People Act does:

--Expands voting rights, --Limits partisan gerrymandering, --Strengthens ethics rules, and --Limits the influence of private donor money in politics. It's only bad for Republicans and the Republican Party. It is patently good to great for Americans and America. Please contact your Senators now and tell them to support it.

The Republican Party Insanity Today, Christmas Eve, on COVID Assistance

So here it is. Christmas Eve. Here we are. At long last. And now, this is where we all are with this Republican Party Congress, Republican Party President and the possibility of COVID assistance.

House Republicans To Block $2,000 Stimulus Checks On Christmas Eve

So Congress, at long last, came up with a bill they could all agree one, months in the making, for COVID pandemic assistance to and for America and Americans. After all that negotiating, this Republican Party President Trump concludes they assistance should be $2000, not the paltry $600 at the last minute or he'll veto it all. Yahoo! Right?

Except this is where we are now. On Christmas Eve. The Republicans in Congress are all going to collectively be Scrooges. They say they are voting it all down. It's their President but they want no part of it.

So what, pray tell, do these Republicans in Congress do now with their President? Go to the White House and implore him to see it, to see things their way? If that's even possible?

Merry Christmas indeed, America. 

Happy holidays?

Happy new year?

More:

Trump gives Congress chaos for Christmas, with aid to millions up in the air

Update. Breaking in the last two hours:

GOP senator warns $2K checks can't pass, urges Trump to sign COVID deal

It seems our own Missouri Senator Roy Blunt did the right thing and reached out to the President.

Sen. Roy Blunt (Mo.) a member of the GOP leadership, warned Thursday that President Trump's demand for $2000 stimulus checks can't pass the Senate and urged him to sign a massive year-end agreement.

Some semblance of sanity seems to be coming about, anyway. It's nice that it's coming from our own Senator and state.

Sidney Powell: Senior Aides Are Blocking Trump From Giving Me White House…

Bill Barr's Quote APresidential Pardons Resurfaces on His Last Day…

GOP senator warns $2K checks can't pass, urges Trump to sign COVID dea

Missouri's Senator Blunt Takes a Deserved, Fair, Earned Beating at Daily Kos Today

Yes, it's a brutal write up on Missouri's Senator Roy Blunt today over at the Daily Kos but really, with him making excuses for this Republican Party President Trump of theirs and his denying our vote, our votes, our election and Democracy.....  Well... What can I say but he earned it all? And it's fair. Very fair. And yes, deserved.

Sen. Roy Blunt goes on Sunday shows to explain Republican Party's cowardly stance on Democracy

Just a bit from the article today but I really recommend all voting Missourians read the entire piece at Kos.

Republican Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri is a coward. Sen. Blunt has a storied career of being absent from the job he reportedly has as a senator in the United States Congress. In a Senate run by arguably the least legislative senator ever, Mitch McConnell, Blunt stands out in his sheer cowardly laziness. This has made it considerably less surprising to watch Sen. Blunt, over the past couple of weeks, do the Republican anti-Democracy dance of first vaguely insinuating that there is voter fraud that rigged the national election, and then outright pushing the theory that the outcome of the election was in doubt. The best that can be said about Blunt is that he’s a good bellwether for telling you what talking points the Republican leadership has passed down to its underlings—or hasn’t. He’s a coward.

On Sunday, as the worm has turned and the almost forty cases Trump and his band of Keystone fascists have lost or had thrown out in court settles in, Blunt and friends went on the Sunday shows to tell America that they were still technically acting like democratically elected representatives. They also wanted to remind their base that our election system might need to be rigged more for the minority of Americans in the Republican Party. Especially if all of these Black and Asian and Latino people are going to come out and vote!

Host Dana Bash began by trying to see if Sen. Blunt might join the meager trickle of GOP officials recognizing that President-elect Joe Biden won the Nov. 3 election against one term white supremacist executive Donald Trump. Blunt began by not acknowledging that, but reporting that “well, we are certainly moving forward as if that what is going to happen on January the 20th.” He then attempted to soften the Trump administration’s withholding of the transition funds by remarking that it “is a relatively new thing in American government that the elected president would have to have government money to make their transition is available.”

Sen. Roy Blunt basically reported what has only recently begun to happen. Sen. Roy Blunt said nothing. He then went on to argue that the semantics of calling Biden the victor or the “President-elect” are all just words...

As I said, it's brutal...but it's fair. And I say again, it's earned. And deserved.

Thanks, Senator Blunt! Thanks for standing up for us! And our vote! And votes! And election! And Democracy! Heck, for that matter, for decency and truth.

Not.

Quote of the Day -- Presidential Edition

 

Carl Bernstein  @carlbernstein

I'm not violating any pledge of journalistic confidentially in reporting this: 21 Republican Sens–in convos w/ colleagues, staff members, lobbyists, W. House aides–have repeatedly expressed extreme contempt for Trump & his fitness to be POTUS. 

The 21 GOP Senators who have privately expressed their disdain for Trump are: 

• Portman 
• Alexander 
• Sasse 
• Blunt 
• Collins 
• Murkowski 
• Cornyn 
• Thune 
• Romney 
• Braun 
• Young 
• Tim Scott 
• Rick Scott 
• Rubio 
• Grassley 
• Burr 
• Toomey 
• McSally 
• Moran 
• Roberts 
• Shelby

With few exceptions, their craven public silence has helped enable Trump’s most grievous conduct—including undermining and discrediting the US the electoral system.

9:10 PM • 11/22/20

Let's do this, folks.

#Throwthebumout  

Missouri's Senator Blunt Tries to Clean Up Another of This President's Messes--Again

Did you see this? Missouri's Senator Blunt had to speak in Congress about our election this Fall after his political party's President put it all into question.

As Trump questions U.S. election system, Blunt says it’s ‘secure as it’s ever been’

How pathetic is it that we have to have our Senators come out to speak in Congress, publicly, officially, to reassure the American people, we, the taxpaying citizens, that our President, this President, this very Republican Party President won't threaten our very own election and our vote, our votes?

What's additionally insane is that this is no way, not even remotely this same Senator or other Republican Party Senators have had to go behind this President and clean up after his verbal messes. Here's another. This one took place in October, 2019.

Top Senate Republican: 'I doubt the China comment was serious'

Like Senators Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham and far too many others, they all prove they're extremely faithful lapdogs to this lying, cheating, conniving, self-serving conman. McConnell came out to "reassure us" this week.

McConnell Vows Orderly Transition of Power After Election

They're all far more interested in keeping and maintaining power--and their own money--than they are for doing what's right and good for the nation, for the people, even for Democracy.

Thanks, Republicans. Thanks again. Thanks again so very much.

Vote, folks.

And vote blue.

#BlueWave2020

86 45

BYEDON

Missouri Senator Blunt Keeps Missouri in the Wrong and in the Past, the Racist Past

Sadly, frustratingly, we are advised today Missouri's Senator Roy Blunt plants his feet deeply in our state's and nation's racist past.

GOP senator blocks bill to remove 

Confederate statues from Capitol

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) on Thursday blocked the Senate from passing a bill to remove Confederate statues from the Capitol.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) tried to pass the bill by unanimous consent, which allows legislation to pass without a vote but also enables any one senator to block it.

The measure would remove statues of individuals who voluntarily served in the Confederacy from the Capitol.

Booker called keeping statues of Confederate figures in the Capitol a "painful, insulting, difficult injury."

"The continued presence of these statues in the halls is an affront to African Americans and the ideals of our nation," he added.

Schumer added that passing a bill to remove the statues would be one step toward confronting the "poison of racism."

"Candidly, I don't think it would be too imposing to ask our states not to send statues of people who actively fought against this country. You know, there is a reason that Connecticut doesn't send a statue of Benedict Arnold," Schumer said.

But Blunt objected, noting that Congress had an agreement with states and that he wanted time to consider giving the issue a hearing in the Rules Committee, which he chairs.

"I'd like to ... get the opinion of people who are taking similar statues out of the building. I'd also like to find out what other states have in mind as their part of this agreement," Blunt said.

Excuse me, Senator, excuse us...   You want to get the opinion of people who are taking down similar statues??

Hello??  They're taking them down! They think they're wrong! They think they honor racists! What do you need to know?

Thanks for taking and keeping us backward, Senator. Thanks for not doing the right thing. Thanks for complicating things. We know you like and want "small government."

Right.   Got it.

An Old But Terrific Article About Our Senator Blunt and the NRA from The Star

I love it when the truth, the facts come out, especially on politicians who take money from organizations and who then put that organization and its preferences ahead of the American public, ahead of the nation.

Nowhere is this any more true than with our own Senator Roy Blunt and the money--the big money--he takes from the NRA, the National Rifle Association. Here's that article. It ran June 14, 2016:

Who's the top recipient of NRA donations 

anywhere in the country

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch also ran it, same day:

Report: Blunt top NRA campaign donation 

recipient in Congress 

Another one just ran two days ago in Fortune Magazine:

NRA Contributions: How Much Politicians 

Like Roy Blunt Receive

Unfortunately for Senator Blunt, he is no longer the top recipient of funds and funding--money--from the NRA. This article in the New York Times, showing the latest of who takes in the most from them came out October 4 last year, after the Las Vegas slaughter:

The Congress Members Receiving the Most 

N.R.A. Funding

Don't get me wrong here. You needn't feel sorry for the good Senator Blunt, however. According to that same article, he did take in more than four and one half million dollars from the NRA alone. In all, he got a cool, whopping $4,551,146 just from the NRA.  Poor kid, he's fallen back to the number 3 position on how much he raked in from that greedy, selfish, self-serving organization. 

Links:

"The NRA has morphed... into a radical mouthpiece for its largest benefactors, the gun manufacturers."

The Cult of Guns in America

Bill Moyers: NRA 'Enabler Of Death' (VIDEO) 

Senator Blunt Rightly Takes a Well-Earned and Very Deserved Beating In the Media With This Latest Florida Slaughter of Innocents

So yet 17 more Americans, innocent Americans were, once again, slaughtered here in America.

Having what they thought was a normal, peaceful even, likely, beautiful day when a fellow American got and took an AR-15 automatic weapon---because they could---and gunned these people down.

It's beyond disgusting.

Now, rightfully, our own Missouri Senator Roy Blunt is taking a beating in media for his bought and paid for complicity in one more of these massacres in our country.

A writer for JImmy Kimmel, Bess Kalb, posted this yesterday on Twitter.

Bess Kalb‏Verified account @bessbell

This is not a political issue. This is not a Constitutional debate. This is a pandemic that's killing children. And it's perpetrated by hypocrites who preach a doctrine of "life" but take money from a profit-driven gun lobby. @RoyBlunt @SenatorBurr @SenThomTillis @SenCoryGardner

1:35 PM - 14 Feb 2018

• 3,601 Retweets
• 7,578 Likes
• 

The New York Times showed, last year, how our Senator was the third highest paid Republican Party Senator by and from the NRA. The New York Times published this article last October.

The Congress Members Receiving 

the Most N.R.A. Funding 

In it, one can read how Senator Blunt took in more than 4 million five hundred fifty one dollars from the NRA last year.

Imagine that.

Our Senator took in $4,551,146 from the NRA, from just one, single source.

What would be, what is, really, a person's or even a family's fortune, this one government representative took in from one organization.

It's obscene. 

I've said it probably a thousand times. It's why I created this group on Facebook.

Get the Big, Ugly Money Out of Our Election System 
and Government

It made it into media clear across "the pond" to the UK. This came from the BBC.

Florida shooting: Senators singled out 

over gun lobby funds

This is where we are presently, as a nation.

America Is Averaging One School Shooting 

Every 60 Hours In 2018

Let's keep this in mind, too.

'This Happens Nowhere Else Other Than the United States of America'

We have to finally, at last, get things done about weapons in America. I propose the following, at minimum:

1)  Require background checks for ALL weapons purchases, coast to coast, for criminal history

2)  Require background checks for ALL weapons purchases, coast to coast, for mental stability and finally

3) Ban the purchase of all automatic weapons, including and especially the AR-15 and all like it, again, nationwide. 

These are not difficult things but they are important. If they save even one life, let alone more, they will have achieved their goals and what we so desperately need in our country. We need to bring back the Assault Weapons Ban.

The time for "thoughts and prayers" and inaction is over.

You hear that, Senator Blunt?

The days of putting money and the NRA before the people, before we Americans, needs to be over and soon as possible. 

As with our health care, we must put people and American lives ahead of profit and profits.

Links:

Sachs: Ban semiautomatic assault weapons and save lives 

Mass Shootings Are Getting Deadlier

No Mass Shootings in Australia in 20 Years: How Did They Do It?

Since 1968 More Americans killed by guns than in all U.S. Wars

WALL OF SHAME: The NRA Gave These 9 Senators Over $22 Million 

Kristof: How to Reduce Shootings

Survivor Calls for Action: ‘You Guys Are the Adults’

This we cannot allow:

As Nation Suffers 18th School Shooting in 45 Days, Trump Budget Would Slash Funding for Background Checks

The Time Has Long Since Come: Contact Your Congressional Representatives

Now we add Las Vegas, too, to the long, long list of cities and towns across the nation that's experienced more needless, avoidable gun and weapons violence and tragedy.

Please, contact your representatives in Congress. All three of them, your 2 Senators and one member of the House of Representatives. Tell them we need the following, at least.

--Background checks, required, for weapons purchases for criminal history, nationwide

--Background checks, again, required for weapons purchases for mental stability

--An assault weapons ban. Again. We did it once, we could do it again. There is no reason assault weapons are available and on our streets in this nation

These, above, are what we should have and do, at minimum and soon as possible. Some additional things we should do are:

--Passing an assault rifle ban 

--A high capacity magazine ban 

--Taxing ammunition 

--Banning convicted domestic violence perpetrators from owning or purchasing firearms for 5 years

--Not allowing people on the "NO FLY" list to purchase guns 

--Instituting a gun buy-back program that would pay people to give up their current assault rifles. 

And I get it. We won't. But we should.

At any rate, please, please do, again, contact your representatives in Congress. Tell them the time has come. Americans need to stop dying, and on our streets. These deaths and tragedies are avoidable. Completely avoidable.

Call Your Rep — 

Congressional Representative 

Contact Information

Please call.  Today.

And thank you, in advance.

Senator Roy Blunt Is Lying To Missourians and America About Health Care Today

Senator Blunt, one of our two Senators here in Missouri, posted on Facebook today. What he posted is not just a lie but it makes me angry.  What he wrote:

Obamacare is imploding. In Missouri, premiums on the Obamacare exchanges have increased by 145 percent, on average, since 2013, and 25 counties may have no provider offering health insurance on the Obamacare exchanges next year.

That's what he says and what Republicans in that political party want us to believe but here are the facts.
First, Obamacare is anything but "imploding."

More Americans have health insurance 

than ever 

Even doctors support it.

Poll: Just 15 percent of doctors 

want ObamaCare repealed

Even doctors who voted Trump support Obamacare.

Most Doctors Who Voted For Trump 

Don't Want Obamacare Repealed

Their plan, the Republicans' plan, the AHCA, "Trumpcare", would hurt the disabled, for starters.

The disabled will pay 

for the GOP's Medicaid cuts

The AHCA Creates the "Perfect Storm" 

for People with Disabilities

Their plan would also hurt the poor.

How the AHCA Leaves the Old, Sick, 

and Poor Behind 

It would hurt the elderly.

AHCA's End To Cost Sharing Reductions 

Slams Older, Sicker Americans

it would hurt Veterans, for God's sake.

President Donald Trump's Moves 

Could Hurt Veterans' Health

Heck, even their supposed leader, President Trump calls it out for what it is.

Trump calls House healthcare bill 'mean'

And why wouldn't he call it mean?

Trump Budget Cuts Medicaid Even More 

Than House Health Bill

So just who would or does  their ultra-secret plan help?  Take a guess. It's Republicans, after all.

Republican Health Care Bill Delivers 

Big Tax Cut For The Rich

If you already have money, here's yet one more plan--and a great one--for you. If you're sick or get sick or you're elderly or disabled or a Veteran?

It sucks to be you.

So while the rich get even richer, more Americans would be dropped from heath care insurance, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office or CBO.

CBO: Republicans' AHCA Would Leave 

23 Million More Uninsured

That isn't even touching exactly how they're writing their horrible health care bill for nation.

Secret Republican Senate Talks 

Shaping Health Care Legislation

13 Men, and No Women, Are Writing 

New G.O.P. Health Bill in Senate

The fact is, right now, Americans very much support the current plan, the ACA, "Obamacare. This is from February of this year.

Polls: Support for Obamacare 

at all-time high

And this is from April of this year.

Gallup: ObamaCare has majority support 

for first time

And if Obamacare is "imploding", how do Americans feel about the Republicans' upcoming plan?

Majority of Americans don't like 

GOP health care bill

Check out exactly how few Americans support the Republicans' new plan for us.

Quinnipiac poll shows 17 percent 

of American support Trumpcare

So, it seems clear here, given all the above, that Senator Blunt and any and all like him who would say or are saying that Obamacare is collapsing in on itself and/or that Americans don't want or don't like Obamacare clearly don't know the facts or, especially, the wishes of the American people.

Don't tell us it's raining, Senator Blunt. We know better.