Howdy y’all!

Here’s a new weekly feature! Okay, it’s the only weekly feature post, but it is new, too! I’ve never committed myself to a regular post before. It’s kind of scary because other than dog walks, I’ve never done anything on the regular, and the dog walking thing was only to keep them from crapping in the house. Regular is not my thing.

But, this is important. I’ve been wanting to urge folks to start a weekly call list of issues and bills to pressure their Congress folks about. It’s tough to keep up with all of the issues and bills and stuff out there, but I’m told that if you (a) call your own Congressional folks and not the saveur du jour like Senators Susan Collins and Smitch SmcConnell, it is more effective.

Before moving on to the how and what of contacting your representatives in Congress, we’ll address how and where to keep up with the issues! Oh, Psy of Life! You’re so wonderful!

Keeping up with the Issues, Bills, and Court Cases

Five calls is a membership-based website that will help you track national and local issues. They will help you figure out who to contact and how to contact them! They also have apps for your mobile devices. They’re pretty wonderful. Or, at least, nothing bad has happened to me or my computer since I’ve joined, and you can’t get any higher praise than that!

Indivisible is the veritable group that sprung up shortly after the 2016 elections to advice citizens how to influence Congress. There are numerous local groups following their advice that you could join. They have all kinds of neat-o stuff to keep you up to speed on all the issues you care about, like: the Indivisible pledge, the 2020 playbook, “Take Action Now” featuring juicy details on Congressional actions on bills and hearings and stuff, and information about important cases in front of the courts, like the latest ACA challenge! a new blog to follow, a resources page with all sorts of do-it-yourself ideas for maintaining our democracy, trainings so that you’re able to be more effective in all the things you wanna do, and campaigns to participate in for focused national action. It is a veritable smorgasbord of resistance goodies to choose from. If you’re ready to move beyond social media #hashtag resistance by post, then you could do worse than Indivisible.

Let us know via the comments how you make out with either Five Calls or Indivisible. You could also post your top issues that you’re contacting your Congress person about this week!

This Week’s Issues

Here are some of the issues we’re following here at Ye Olde Blogge:

1. Open an impeachment inquiry! Call your Representative and tell them it is past time to start one. It may not result in the Ol’ Pussy Grabber’s removal from office. It may not stop the Repubes from gutting our democracy and trying to fill it’s empty shell with their single-party, pseudo-democratic, authoritarian fascist state, but it is the right thing to do. He needs to be held accountable. It is a no-brainer.
2. Well, damnby-dumby that didn’t take long now did it? This post weren’t up ten minutes before Acosta resigned! I guess blogging really does change the world, and now I have to amend a post! So now, call you Congress folks and DEMAND an inquiry into the cover-up of Jeffrey Epstein et al’s crimes! Man, this stinks to high-heavens! This mo’fo needs to go. He needs to be de-barred and investigated for possible criminal behavior. If it leads to Bill Clinton or any other big name Dem, Repube, religious leader, or other favorite person, so be it and fuck them. We are done protecting those motherfuckers.
3. Support the SAFE Act to secure our elections. If the Repubes want to allow Russian meddling to continue to help them, that’s on them. We need to maximize pressure on both the House and Senate to protect our elections. We need everyone of them on the record on whether they would protect our elections.
4. Cut funding for ICE and CPB to prevent the Ol’ Pussy Grabber’s sadistic fascistic immigration abuses. We are in the middle of the appropriation process, and the appropriations bill for the entire fucking government is coming to the floor and must be passed by 30 September or the whole damn government is shutdown AGAIN! This is a favorite tactic of the Repubes to shut it down over every little burp, fart, and hang-nail. I’m not saying we should shut the government down over this, but if there ever was an issue to shut ‘er down over, this is it. It is time to take sides.
5. Co-sponsor HR 1046. This bill will allow Medicare to negotiate fair drug prices and should that fail allow competitive licenses to be issued to generic drug manufacturers. It is a kick-ass bill that will kick the asses of big pharma so expect a lot of lies from the other side. There are also other candy-assed panty-waste bills that would allow for arbitration and other bullshit tactics that might sound great, but aren’t.

Contacting your Member of Congress

Here’s how to contact you’re member of Congress (MoC):

• Call My Congress: Uses your zip code to locate your Congressional Representative and your Senators. And, it returns phone numbers, tweeter handle, party affiliation, voting record, and link to C-Span appearances!
• 5 Calls: Sign-up for 5 Calls because it is a service that will help you contact your Congressional representatives and keep you abreast of on going issues that are important to you! Now, that is a good deal.
• The Capital Hill Switchboard: (202) 224-3121.

Friday 12 July: Please note that this post was updated to reflect the resignation of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta.