The Alliance for Retired Americans is sponsoring a national call-in day today, to tell President Trump to keep his campaign promise to protect Medicare and Social Security from benefit cuts, so call 1.202.456.1111 to do that. You may also want to call your Reps and Senators (as always, you can find their phone numbers using the tools in the upper left-hand corner of this page) to notify them that you have communicated your will to President Trump, and that they should follow the people's will by rejecting Medicare and Social Security benefit cuts themselves. The aptly-named Johnson plan (named either for its sponsor, Rep. Sam Johnson of Texas, or for that body part Republicans keep swinging in our faces) would cut Social Security benefits dramatically, and Paul Ryan's plan to privatize Medicare would do the same to Medicare. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the 54% of Americans who voted for someone other than Donald Trump do not want their Medicare and Social Security benefits endangered -- and I bet the majority of Donald Trump's 46% vote share don't want that, either. See? Keeping Medicare and Social Security strong enjoys actual bipartisan support. And since I mentioned it, how come I'm not hearing anything from the "liberal" media about the vital importance of bipartisanship these days? Is "bipartisanship" only important when Democrats control the Presidency and Congress?
Also, the Senate is planning to vote on Rep. Mike Pompeo's nomination for CIA chief today, so you may want to get on the phone to your Senators and tell them to reject his nomination. The Senate hoped to confirm Mr. Pompeo on Friday, but Democrats apparently managed to delay that for one more working day, and that gives us one more chance to stop the nomination of a man who believes that government spying on innocent Americans is A-OK, that Mr. Snowden's whistleblowing of NSA spying on innocent Americans is "treason," that we should keep Guantánamo Bay open for all the "terrorists" we can't even press charges against after all these years, and that people who use email encryption are probably terrorists. And he's also another one who thinks Muslims don't condemn terrorism enough. Aren't you tired of hearing your Tea Party uncle say that all the time? Less than 30 seconds of googling will reveal literally thousands of instances of Muslims actually condemning terrorist attacks, but why do all that work, when there are Trump votaries to be enraged? Yeah, I know, Mr. Pompeo said he was against torture at his confirmation hearing. But given that he thinks the Bush administration didn't torture, and that he said he "can't imagine" Mr. Trump giving him an order to torture someone (he must think we don't remember a thing!), I find his professed opposition suspect. And so should you.
UPDATE. And the Presidential comments line isn't taking comments right now. Apparently it was turned off during the transition, but it's almost Tuesday already, so I have to assume turning it back on and hearing good Americans' comments is not a priority for the Trump Administration. You can contact Mr. Trump here, I suppose, and maybe also tell him to turn on his phone.
Comments