You haven't forgotten about that little attempted coup from almost three weeks ago, have you? Well, as many observers have pointed out, if Washington, D.C. were a state, it'd have its own National Guard and wouldn't have had so much trouble repelling Y'all Qaeda from our Capitol. Republicans despise the idea of D.C. becoming a state, even though it has more residents than Vermont or Wyoming and almost as many as North Dakota or Alaska. Of course, Sen. Cotton (A-AK) thinks D.C. is entirely composed of lobbyists, which will surprise the hundreds of thousands of good citizens who've been living and working there all their lives, and Sen. Daines (R-MT) seems to think they're not "real people." Hate to pile on, but D.C. doesn't just suffer under "taxation without representation," as their license plates say -- they suffer under higher taxation than nearly half our states. Hence Free DC and Demand Progress help you tell your Reps and Senators to make Washington, D.C. our 51st state.
Meanwhile, Public Citizen helps you tell Democratic Senate Majority Leader Schumer to reject Minority Leader McConnell's demand that Democrats preserve the filibuster during this session. I've long been against getting rid of the filibuster, and I could just restate my case again now off the top of my head, but fuck it -- 14 years is a long time to watch Republicans nullify the popular will again and again by stamping their feet and refusing to help pass even the mildest reforms. More than one observer has said that it's be a meaningless pledge anyway, since Democrats could still change the rules mid-session, but Democrats are also exactly the kind of politicians to "take the pledge seriously" so they'll have an excuse for not getting anything done, and then when they get buried by QAnon candidates in the 2022 midterms, they'll blame the liberals again. So lets do our best to deprive them of this stratagem.
UPDATE. Late last night, Sen. McConnell dropped his demand for a Democratic pledge to keep the filibuster -- because Sens. Manchin (D-WV) and Sinema (D-AZ) have publicly expressed their opposition to the idea. In a completely unrelated note, Sen. Manchin's D.C. phone number is 202.224.3954, and Sen. Sinema's is 202.224.4521. If you agreed with them once, as I did, you may want to describe why you changed your mind. You don't have to say "fuck it," like I did above.
Comments