I’m doing a bit of catching up this morning, enjoying the different rhythm of Spring Break, and one of the items in my reading pile is a Guardian long-read by Rebecca Solnit: Protest and persist: why giving up hope is not an option, from 13 March.

The beginning of the piece is a primer for those new to the ideas of social and political protest, but she foreshadows her destination when she remembers recent history and writes:

An old woman said at the outset of Occupy Wall Street “we’re fighting for a society in which everyone is important”, the most beautifully concise summary of what a compassionately radical, deeply democratic movement might aim to do.

I agree. Occupy was to millennials, perhaps, what the anti-war movement was to me and my fellow boomers. In many ways we lost our way in the ’70s and ’80s, but even then protest, the desire to fight for that society in which everyone counts, smoldered and even, at times flared, as Solnit describes.

We work towards that perfect society by studying the past; by building on the strategies and organizing principles of others. Solnit asks:

But what were the strategies and organizing principles they catalyzed?

The short answer is non-violent direct action, externally, and consensus decision-making process, internally. The former has a history that reaches around the world, the latter that stretches back to the early history of European dissidents in North America. That is, non-violence is a strategy articulated by Mohandas Gandhi, first used by residents of Indian descent to protest against discrimination in South Africa on 11 September 1906. The young lawyer’s sense of possibility and power was expanded immediately afterward when he traveled to London to pursue his cause. Three days after he arrived, British women battling for the right to vote occupied the British parliament, and 11 were arrested, refused to pay their fines, and were sent to prison. They made a deep impression on Gandhi.

He wrote about them in a piece titled Deeds Better than Words quoting Jane Cobden, the sister of one of the arrestees, who said, “I shall never obey any law in the making of which I have had no hand; I will not accept the authority of the court executing those laws …” Gandhi declared: “Today the whole country is laughing at them, and they have only a few people on their side. But undaunted, these women work on steadfast in their cause. They are bound to succeed and gain the franchise …” And he saw that if they could win, so could the Indian citizens in British Africa fighting for their rights. In the same article (in 1906!) he prophesied: “When the time comes, India’s bonds will snap of themselves.” Ideas are contagious, emotions are contagious, hope is contagious, courage is contagious. When we embody those qualities, or their opposites, we convey them to others.

She opens the third act of her piece with the line that grabbed me:

There are terrible stories about how diseases like Aids jump species and mutate. There are also ideas and tactics that jump communities and mutate, to our benefit. There is an evil term, collateral damage, for the people who die unintentionally: the civilians, non-participants, etc. Maybe what I am proposing here is an idea of collateral benefit.

She continues:

What we call democracy is often a majority rule that leaves the minority, even 49.9% of the people – or more if it’s a three-way vote—out in the cold. Consensus leaves no one out. After Clamshell, it jumped into radical politics and reshaped them, making them more generously inclusive and egalitarian. And it’s been honed and refined and used by nearly every movement I’ve been a part of or witnessed, from the anti-nuclear actions at the Nevada test site in the 1980s and 1990s to the organization of the shutdown of the World Trade Organization in late 1999, a victory against neoliberalism that changed the fate of the world, to Occupy Wall Street in 2011 and after.

We don’t protest in a vacuum. Our revolutions always build on the revolutions of the past and like those who forget History in general, we ignore lessons learned at our peril. The latest permutation on the theme came with the decision of an independent, socialist senator from the tiny state of Vermont to stand up and tell a few people that there was a better way. Bernie lost, but in losing he birthed the rise of other organizations like the Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus, Our Revolution, Indivisible and many, many others, all with the intent to deflate the orange gasbag. Solnit writes:

The only power adequate to stop the Trump administration is civil society, which is the great majority of us when we remember our power and come together. And even if we remember, even if we exert all the pressure we’re capable of, even if the administration collapses immediately, or the president resigns or is impeached or melts into a puddle of corruption, our work will only have begun.

That job begins with opposing the Trump administration but will not end until we have made deep systemic changes and recommitted ourselves, not just as a revolution, because revolutions don’t last, but as a civil society with values of equality, democracy, inclusion, full participation, a radical e pluribus unum plus compassion. As has often been noted, the Republican revolution that allowed them to take over so many state houses and take power far beyond their numbers came partly from corporate cash, but partly from the willingness to do the slow, plodding, patient work of building and maintaining power from the ground up and being in it for the long run. And partly from telling stories that, though often deeply distorting the facts and forces at play, were compelling. This work is always, first and last, storytelling work, or what some of my friends call “the battle of the story”. Building, remembering, retelling, celebrating our own stories is part of our work.

And concludes:

To believe it matters—well, we can’t see the future. We have the past. Which gives us patterns, models, parallels, principles and resources, and stories of heroism, brilliance, persistence, and the deep joy to be found in doing the work that matters. With those in our pockets, we can seize the possibilities and begin to make hopes into actualities.

We can choose the path of collateral damage by doing nothing or, we can risk and maybe, just maybe succeed for a time and create that collateral benefit that will carry the fight for that society where everyone is important.

Forget computer screens and ordering online. I’ve often remarked to Mary Jo that if either Buster or Gillighan ever figure out that the door to the refrigerator opens the same way as every other door in the house—both dogs are adept at pawing open other doors—we’re doomed.

From Steve Holecko and the Cuyaghoga County Progressive Caucus:

Just a reminder about today’s We’re Not All In Protest, upcoming Cleveland City Council Committee hearings on the the Q renovations and something you can do at home.

We’re Not All In Protest Outside County Council Building as they vote inside to hand out Corporate Welfare to the Q, today, March 28 from 4 to 7 pm at Cuyahoga County Administrative Headquarters, 2079 E. 9th St. Cleveland 44115

Sadly, County Council is expected to approve the Q renovation deal at their March 28 meeting at 5 pm. Ever seen traffic on East 9th street between 4 and 7 pm on a weekday? Let’s have a large street presence with signs and maybe banners to show the folks going home during rush hour what’s happening inside the County Council Building and what we think of it. Suggested sign: Neighborhoods First: Corporate Welfare Last but if you have another idea feel free to use it. Although we are not likely to stop County Council’s approval of the deal with this protest remember it goes to Cleveland City Council next and the deal cannot go through without their approval.Remember also that they’re all up for re-election this year and as the narrow 9-7 vote for the Dirt Bike Scam showed there may be some dissension in the ranks. A large presence Tuesday will help set the stage as they discuss the deal the next few weeks. Our friends from SEIU #1199 will be joining us for this event. Please RSVP here.

We’re Not All In Presence at Cleveland City Council Committee Meeting today, March 28 and Tuesday, April 4 from 9 am to noon at Cleveland City Hall, 601 Lakeside Ave. Cleveland 44114. The Development and Sustainability Committee will be meeting to discuss and hear testimony concerning the $88 million Corporate Welfare giveaway to billionaire Dan Gilbert for the Q renovations project. The bill must be voted on favorably in this committee before it goes to the rest of City Council or it dies. Let’s try to stop it here! CCPC will be giving testimony at the April 4 meeting. Let’s try to have a large presence to support our testimony and to show we oppose the deal. If you can make it to these meetings please wear your CCPC t-shirt if possible. Something else you can do at home: Contact the committee members and voice your opposition to the deal. Committee members are Anthony Brancatelli (216 664 4233), Phyllis Cleveland (216 664 2309), Brian Cummins (216 664 4238), TJ Dow (216 664 2908), Kerry McCormick (216 664 2691) and Terrell Pruitt (216 664 4944). Please RSVP here.

Steve Holecko
CCPC Political Director
440 220 1874

At timemark 0:57 a father an son stand at a crossing while a giant chugs past. The narrator says, Lucky the boy who could one day say he had seen them in action. My father not only was lucky enough to see the giants in action, but in Fairmont, West Virginia, where he lived for the first 14 years of his life, his father arranged for him to actually to take the throttle and move a B&O Big Boy 4-8-8-4 from one end of the rail yard to the other and back again.

(Almost like father like son, I got to see a Big Boy, traveling under its own steam heading east through Athens, Ohio, when I was a student at Ohio University. The B&O tracks ran along the south border of the campus and I was visiting a friend in an apartment one spring afternoon when I heard the distinctive sound—I know the sound because a regular feature of our family vacations was to visit and ride attractions featuring live steam—of a steam engine coming down the track. I stepped onto the balcony just in time to see the Big Boy round the curve and roll through the campus at about 10 mph. She wasn’t pulling any cars so I figured she was headed to the B&O Museum.)

The Steampunk genre of Science Fiction has been very popular for a couple of decades now, but those tales cannot capture the majesty of the real steam marvels. They weren’t environmentally friendly (they carried 25 tons of coal as fuel) and they would be replaced by the diesel-electric after WW II, but the Big Boys (like the HMS Victory from the 19th century) represented the pinnacle of a technology that transformed the United States.

Between Progressive Field, First Energy Stadium and Quicken Arena, and the Republican National Convention at the Q, the city of Cleveland provided more than 100,000 hours of extra police protection downtown in 2016.

To be exact, 100,767.75 hours of police time were expended downtown through the last pay period of 2016, according to the city of Cleveland.

From which neighborhoods did these police services come?

The 100,000 hours means, at 40-hour weeks, more than 2,500 weeks of work by Cleveland police were expended downtown, a small part of the City of Cleveland. There are, we know, 52 weeks in a year.

That suggests 48 years of service in one year were provided to downtown. At least the RNC costs were supported by funding outside the city. And these figures don’t count the normal police protection given downtown.

The late Art Modell put it most succinctly when he admitted: “We are 32 fat-cat Republicans who vote socialist (on football).”

Of course, our city and county government is dominated by Democrats, not Republicans. Democratic politicians, led by County Executive Budish and Mayor Jackson, service the richest in this poor, declining city and county. Figures showed this week that the county continues to lose population. These costs fall upon fewer and fewer citizens.

The city provided the numbers of police services as follows for extra police hours:

—RNC related: 76,970 hours.
—Cleveland Indians: 6,891.5 hours.
—Cleveland Browns: 4,960.75 hours.
—Cavaliers & other related events at Quicken Arena: 11,945.5 hours.

Last year the city provided more than 34,000 hours of extra police service to the three sports facilities.

(I noted recently that the three sports facilities escaped paying $20 million of property taxes in the most recent year. They have been given the additional perk of Continue Reading »

First up this morning, Trevor Timm on Everyone loves Bernie Sanders. Except, it seems, the Democratic party. My takeaway:

In other words, [the DNC elite are] doubling down on the exact same failing strategy that Clinton used in the final months of the campaign. Sanders himself put it this way in his usual blunt style in an interview with New York magazine this week – when asked about whether the Democrats can adapt to the political reality, he said: “There are some people in the Democratic Party who want to maintain the status quo. They would rather go down with the Titanic so long as they have first-class seats.”

Next, Russ Feingold says that If Gorsuch is confirmed, the legitimacy of the US supreme court won’t recover. The problem is not Gorsuch (GOR such) but rather the high-jacking of the confirmation process by Senate Republicans:

Never before has Senate leadership so openly and intentionally played political games with our highest court. Already, the legitimacy of the supreme court has taken a severe blow because of it. But, if Gorsuch is confirmed, it would lock in a dangerous precedent from which the legitimacy of our highest court might never recover.

Senate Democrats, led by Bernie Sanders, will not go down with out a fight.

Third on my list this morning is Russel Berman’s The Republicans Fold on Health Care where this quote nails the problem:

As the prospect of a loss became more real on Friday, the frustrations of GOP lawmakers loyal to the leadership began to boil over. “I’ve been in this job eight years, and I’m wracking my brain to think of one thing our party has done that’s been something positive, that’s been something other than stopping something else from happening,” Representative Tom Rooney of Florida said in an interview. “We need to start having victories as a party. And if we can’t, then it’s hard to justify why we should be back here.”

Turning to one of my top three journalists, Matt Taibbi writing in Trump The Destroyer, I liked:

During the election, Trump exploded every idea we ever had about how politics is supposed to work. The easiest marks in his con-artist conquest of the system were the people who kept trying to measure him according to conventional standards of candidate behavior. You remember the Beltway priests who said no one could ever win the White House by insulting women, the disabled, veterans, Hispanics, “the blacks,” by using a Charlie Chan voice to talk about Asians, etc.

Now he’s in office and we’re again facing the trap of conventional assumptions. Surely Trump wants to rule? It couldn’t be that the presidency is just a puppy Trump never intended to care for, could it?

Mmmm, could be!

Fourth and fifth on my list are two pieces from The Atlantic’s Educational Eden series focusing on the when and what students learn. I start with Fixing America’s Broken School Calendar by Hayley Glatter, Emily DeRuy, and Alia Wong. Continuing to structure school calendars based on a 19th century agricultural schedule is madness. This is what a 21st century school calendar should look like:

Students will be in school year round, with the equivalent of eight weeks of vacation distributed throughout the year—two weeks every season. This will diminish the frequency and extent of summer learning loss, reduce the need to review at the start of the school year for certain subjects, and provide more time and opportunities to go into more depth in the curriculum. Summer will not be a time for parents to worry about what they are doing with their children, especially for elementary- and middle-school students, as it will be no different from the fall, winter, or spring.

Finally, as to the question of what, the trio asked educators to imagine their classroom utopia and recorded the responses in Schools Aren’t Teaching Students What They Need to Know. My best find was this:

Sure, there’s a baseline of what kids should know before graduating. Every student will be able to read and think critically. Every student will understand enough math and science to navigate the world around them. Every student will be exposed to the arts and to strategies that address their well-being, both physically and emotionally.

And of course, while high standards aligned with what kids need to know and do are important, we will ensure that kids are learning to love learning, [Emphasis mine, JH] not merely to recite facts. That requires giving them space to explore, play, and find out about themselves and each other.

What do you think I ought to be reading…?

There are three kinds of Republicans in our House of Representatives: there are the members of the Freedom Caucus who publicly stood up and said they would vote No on Trumpcare because of their Conservative principles (like Jim Jordan (OH-4); there are those members who publicly stood up and said they would vote No on Trumpcare because they represented districts with large blocks of voters who would be devastated by the pro-death panel legislation (like David Joyce (OH-14); and there are members, like my own Jim Renacci, who prayed that if they kept their heads down they would weather the shit storm that was Trumpcare.

Duck and cover never works.

Next year Renacci will either win the Republican primary and face a Democratic opponent in the general election for governor of Ohio (a very unlikely scenario) or he will stand for re-election as congressman for Ohio’s 16th district. In either case, he will lose. He will lose because any member of the House who didn’t stand up and publicly announce his No vote on Trumpcare will be counted as a yes vote and no amount of special pleading about the vote never taking place will change that.

Last year I gave more than $1,000 to the campaign to elect Bernie Sanders as President of the United States of America. Next year I now pledge to give an equal or greater amount to whoever Renacci faces in the general election.

Previously…

Part of President Donald John Trump’s wish list proposed federal budge includes the elimination of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other vital federal agencies. I know that I’m attributing a grandly petty motive here to President Trump, but grandly petty seems a pretty appropriate description of the inner workings of a man who seems to be channeling his inner Aria Stark.

Continuing in his role as petulant two-year-old of the Free World, President Donald John Trump is pointing fingers at everyone except himself following the spanking delivered yesterday by his own party. David Graham, reporting in It’s Never Trump’s Fault: Speaking after the collapse of the Republican health-care bill, the president assigned blame to plenty of parties but cast himself as a mere bystander for The Atlantic, writes:

He said Democrats should come up with their own bill. [Uh, Donny, you do know that Obamacare is the Democrats bill, right? JH] “I think the losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, because they own Obamacare,” he said, referring to the House and Senate Democratic leaders. “They 100 percent own it.”

Trump was very clear about who was not to blame: himself. “I worked as a team player,” the president of the United States said, demoting himself to bit-player status. He wanted to do tax reform first, after all, and it was still early. “I’ve been in office, what, 64 days? I’ve never said repeal and replace Obamacare within 64 days. I have a long time. I want to have a great health-care bill and plan and we will.”

Strictly speaking, it is true that Trump didn’t promise to repeal Obamacare on day 64 of his administration. What he told voters, over and over during the campaign, was that he’d do it immediately. On some occasions he or top allies even promised to do it on day 1.

Clearly the President wasn’t read the memo about Republicans being all about bootstraps and taking responsibility.

Trump’s quick disavowal of any role in the collapse fits with an emerging pattern: The president never takes the blame for anything that goes wrong. What about his claim that President Obama “wiretapped” him?

“All we did was quote a certain very talented legal mind who was the one responsible for saying that on television. I didn’t make an opinion on it,” Trump said during a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel last week. “That was a statement made by a very talented lawyer on Fox. And so you shouldn’t be talking to me, you should be talking to Fox.”

How about his claim, during the presidential campaign, that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the Kennedy assassination?

“Well, that was in a newspaper,” he told Time’s Michael Scherer this week. (The National Enquirer, to be specific.) “No, no, I like Ted Cruz, he’s a friend of mine. But that was in the newspaper. I wasn’t, I didn’t say that. I was referring to a newspaper.”

The ruling by a federal court in Washington state against Trump’s Muslim travel ban? The work of a “so-called judge,” Trump tweeted, and even he preemptively dumped the blame for any future terror attack on the courts for a decision that “essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country.”

There are no bucks on President Trump’s desk.

I think that comparing today’s events to Waterloo is way over the top. President Donald John Trump is far from finished (although I think Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, whom I’d cast as Ahab in this saga, may be done). If we have to reach for a military metaphor, perhaps Operation Market Garden and the bridge too far may be more apt.

President Trump sadly is attempting to blame Democrats for his failure to herd cats, but former Speaker John Boehner called this weeks ago when he said:

In the 25 years I served in the United States Congress, Republicans never, ever, one time, agreed on what a healthcare proposal should look like. Not once.

David Frum, writing in The Republican Waterloo: conservatives once warned that Obamacare would produce the Democratic Waterloo. Their inability to accept the principle of universal coverage has, instead, led to their own defeat for The Atlantic, offers some long-view perspective.

Seven years and three days ago, the House of Representatives grumblingly voted to approve the Senate’s version of the Affordable Care Act. Democrats in the House were displeased by many of the changes introduced by Senate Democrats. But in the interval after Senate passage, the Republicans had gained a 41st seat in the Senate. Any further tinkering with the law could trigger a Republican filibuster. Rather than lose the whole thing, the House swallowed hard and accepted a bill that liberals regarded as a giveaway to insurance companies and other interest groups. The finished law proceeded to President Obama for signature on March 23, 2010.

A few minutes after the House vote, I wrote a short blog post for the website I edited in those days. The site had been founded early in 2009 to argue for a more modern and more moderate form of Republicanism. The timing could not have been worse. At precisely the moment we were urging the GOP to march in one direction, the great mass of conservatives and Republicans had turned on the double in the other, toward an ever more wild and even paranoid extremism. Those were the days of Glenn Beck’s 5 o’clock Fox News conspiracy rants, of Sarah Palin’s “death panels,” of Orly Taitz and her fellow Birthers, of Tea Party rallies at which men openly brandished assault rifles.

Frum was fired for that writing that blog post.

In retrospect, I have to confess to considerable sympathy for my employers’ point of view. A think tank is not a university, a haven for disinterested thought. It exists to advocate, and I had contradicted my institution’s advocacy on the most sensitive point at the most sensitive time. Being right was no excuse. If anything, being right aggravated my offense.

The demand for message discipline reached its zenith in the conservative world in the months before and after ACA passage, and I was by no means the only person to fall afoul of it. From the libertarian Cato Institute, from the National Center for Policy Analysis, from Heritage—about half-a-dozen people were and would be forced to leave for expressly ideological reasons before and after me. And why not? If during the Obama presidency we did indeed—to borrow the mighty phrase of Theodore Roosevelt’s— “stand at Armageddon to battle for the Lord!” there could be no room in such a host for warriors who questioned the merits of the cause or the prudence of the generals.

Tonight, Trump and Ryan have both been disciplined—by We The People. This spanking, however, is not an expulsion. This is one battle in a long fight and the billionaire masters of the Republican Party are not slinking back to Mordor. Republicans have other fights—Trump has already said that cutting taxes for the wealthiest people is his next priority—but there are those who will want to go back into the health-care breach and Frum believes they are delusional:

On the strength of their vow to eliminate the ACA, Republicans would win election after election, culminating in the stunning capture of all the elected branches of government in November 2016. From time to time, some old veteran would recall my 2010 prediction that the law would endure and smilingly wonder if I wished to reconsider.

I never did, for the reasons that the whole world has witnessed in real time over this week of Obamacare’s 7th anniversary.

Some of the conservatives who voted “no” to the House leadership’s version of repeal may yet imagine that they will have some other opportunity to void the law. They are again deluding themselves. If the Republican Party tripped over its own feet walking across this empty ballroom, it will face only more fearsome difficulties in the months ahead, as mid-term elections draw closer. Too many people benefit from the law—and the Republican alternatives thus far offer too little to compensate for the loss of those benefits.

The last sentence, of course, is key: Too many people benefit from the law…

Here is precisely what would happen in 2018 if Trumpcare were passed. Every single Republican who voted to repeal Obamacare would face political advertisement after political advertisement featuring the tragic sufferings and deaths of the constituents they’d kicked to the curb. Every day they would see the devastated faces of spouses, mothers, fathers and children whose lives have been destroyed because their elected representative took away the health care that was keeping their loved ones alive.

They may still face those ads. They should face those ads.

Just as I will not forget that my representative Jim Renacci was not on the list of Republicans ready to vote no on Trumpcare, We The People will not forget who stood on the right side this day.

Previously…

President Donald John Trump thinks he’s King Henry V, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan his Duke of Exeter and my representative in the House, Jim Renacci is relegated as that brave yeoman.

Following the president’s failure yesterday to bully and bribe enough Republicans into accepting that the steaming pile of shit gathered by Ryan, and blessed to be known for years as Trumpcare, was worth risking the ire of important constituencies like senior citizens represented by the American Association for Retire People, Ryan postponed the vote in the hopes that enough middle-of-the-night, backroom deals could gather the 216 votes needed to finally, after seven years of promises, replace Obamacare with Trumpcare. (I imagine that Ryan is at least thankful that his name will not be associated with pathetic legislation.)

Today, Ryan and Trump think they can beat 216 votes out of he Republicans in the House. We each can directly influence only one member. In my case that is Rep. Jim Renacci. If you, like me, live in Ohio’s 16th Congressional District, call Renacci now at:

Washington 202.225.3876
Wadsworth office 330.334.0040
Parma office 440.882.6779

[Update @ 0629: Again, Rep. Renacci’s Washington office voicemail box is full, but I left this message at both his Wadsworth and Parma offices: Good morning, this is Jeff Hess from Ohio’s 16th Congressional District calling to ask that Rep. Renacci think first about the Ohioans living in the 16th District and vote NO on any healthcare legislation that comes to the house floor today. Thank you.]

[Update @ 0741: Since Renacci’s Washington voicemail box is still full, I took the second option and email him. Here’s what I said:

Good morning,

I tried to call the Washington office this morning (and yesterday morning, but the voicemail box was full both days.

Email is a poor second option, but I want to encourage Rep. Renacci to do the right thing for the voters in Ohio’s 16th District (and considering that he has thrown his hat in the ring for governor, all of Ohioans) and vote NO on Trumpcare today.

Thank you,

Jeff Hess]

Let Renacci know that kicking 300,000 Ohioans to the health insurance curb is not a good idea.

Previously…

Ralph Nader, in Reason and Justice Address Realities, writes:F

It is not just Donald Trump whose rhetoric is chronically bereft of reality. Politicians, reporters, commentators and academics are often similarly untethered to hard facts, albeit not for narcissistic enjoyment. There are many patterns of fact, relevant to a subject being discussed, that are off the table—either consciously or because they are deemed inconvenient. Rarely are there omissions due to the facts being hard to get or inaccessible.

That in mind, here are a few examples that warrant our scrutiny:

Consider the immense public attention to health insurance and health care and the recent struggles over Obamacare and now Ryancare. Conspicuously absent from the dialogues that pundits, politicians and reporters carry on is that the third leading cause of death in the U.S. is “medical error.” According to a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine report last May, over 250,000 people lose their lives yearly in U.S. hospitals from “diagnostic errors, medical mistakes and the absence of safety nets” to stop hospital-induced infections, incompetent personnel, dangerous mixes of prescribed drugs and more. Yet in the debate surrounding the health care industry, this huge annual human casualty toll is unmentioned and, for many, intentionally “off the table.”

From a financial perspective, all the coverage of the costs of health insurance and health care excludes at least an estimated $340 billion (according to, among other sources, the leading expert, Professor Malcolm Sparrow of Harvard University) Continue Reading »

[Update at 0551: Renacci’s Washington voice mailbox is full, but both Ohio offices are still taking messages.]

This morning I’ll be calling all three offices—see phone numbers below—of my representative in the House of Representatives to encourage him to vote No if (and this is a fascinating if) the bill replacing the Affordable Care Act with Trumpcare comes to a vote today.

Reading Lauren Gambino’s piece (linked above) in this morning’s Guardian, however, indicates to me that Renacci is getting a much stronger message to vote No than any he’ll hear from me or any other constituent.

Later on Wednesday, a group of conservative donors, led by the powerful brothers Charles and David Koch, reportedly announced that it was putting together a new fund for Republican reelection races in 2018—except for candidates who voted for the healthcare overhaul.

Call this morning (I have all three numbers on speed dial)—

Washington 202.225.3876
Wadsworth office 330.334.0040
Parma office 440.882.6779

—And let Jim know how you feel.

Like President Harry S Truman, Gorka has an odd initial in his name. Truman’s “S” is problematic for journalists and historians, ; Gorka’s v. (lowercase), however, is a bigger problem for all Americans (feck, everyone on the planet given his proximity to the guy with the nuclear codes) because the v. is his dog whistle to his buddies in the Vitézi Rend. What is the Vitézi Rend you may well ask? Well, writes Lili Bayer in Elite Nazi-allied Order From Hungary Claims Trump Adviser Gorka Is a Sworn Member for The Forward:

Sebastian Gorka, President Trump’s top counter-terrorism adviser, is a formal member of a Hungarian far-right group that is listed by the U.S. State Department as having been “under the direction of the Nazi Government of Germany” during World War II, leaders of the organization have told the Forward.

So, we don’t have a pseudo Nazi in the White House, we have the real thing.

Sad.

Four of the turkey buzzards stopped in at our home this morning (and drove the dogs mad with their invasion). These two were close enough for Mary Jo to capture in one photo.

[Update at 0530 on 23 March: Rut roh—Later on Wednesday, a group of conservative donors, led by the powerful brothers Charles and David Koch, reportedly announced that it was putting together a new fund for Republican reelection races in 2018 – except for candidates who voted for the healthcare overhaul.]

According to CNN, 23 House Republicans have said they will vote no tomorrow (four more have told CNN that they are leaning that way) on repealing the Affordable Care Act and replacing that lifesaving legislation with the Draconian Trumpcare. One of the cuts targets services, desperately needed in Renacci’s district, aimed at preventing further opioid deaths so great in Ohio that county morgues are forced to bring in refrigerated trailers to handle all the bodies.

How many Craig Moss’ are there in Ohio? How many are in Renacci’s district? How many will vote him out of office in 2018 (and crush any dreams of replacing Governor John Kasich)?

Renacci needs to join the 23.

1. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL)—“I plan to vote no.”
2. Tom Garrett (VA)—“Right now I’m a no. I’m a firm no.”
3. Mark Meadows (NC)—The Freedom Caucus chairman remains against the bill.
4. Rob Wittman (VA)—“I do not think this bill will do what is necessary for the short and long-term best interests of Virginians and therefore, I must oppose it.”
5. Dave Brat (VA)—“I can’t support.”
6. Andy Harris (MD)—Opposes in its current form
7. Tom Massie (KY)—Tweet 3/22: Hell no
8. Ted Yoho (FL)—“I could not support the bill as it is right now.”
9. Justin Amash (MI)
10. Raul Labrador (ID)
11. Warren Davidson (OH)—“If we called the votes today, I would be a no.”
12. Paul Gosar (AZ)—Told CNN on 3/17 he can’t support the bill “in its current form.”
13. Scott Perry (PA)—Told CNN on 3/17: “I whip no, and I’m open for discussion. I want to be part of the team. I want to be part of the solution.”
14. Brian Fitzpatrick (PA)—Facebook post 3/19: “I have concluded that, although the American Health Care Act focuses on several much-needed reforms to our health care system, in its current form I cannot support this legislation.”
15. John Katko (NY)—“Despite some promising reforms, I do not support the proposal before the House in its current form.”
16. Walter Jones (NC)—Said Congress needs to slow down; on 3/21 when asked by reporters if he’s going to vote no, he replied, “Absolutely.”
17. Jim Jordan (OH)—Told CNN’s Manu Raju he is a “no” on 3/21, he has been very critical and introduced “clean repeal” bill
18. Ted Budd (NC)—On 3/21 – “As currently written, I cannot support the American Health Care Act.”
19. Leonard Lance (NJ)—Told reporters on 3/21: “I’m a no.”
20. Mo Brooks (AL)—Told reporters on 3/20: “?I like where we are and as you know, I believe this is a really bad bill for the United States of America, and I think we are going to kill it.”
21. Frank LoBiando (NJ)—Statement 3/22: “Simply put, this bill does not meet the standards of what was promised; it is not as good as or better than what we currently have. Accordingly, I will vote no on this healthcare plan.”
22. David Young (IA)—Statement 3/22: “While the American Health Care Act, legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare, is a very good start, it does not yet get it right and therefore I cannot support it in its’ present form.”
23. Dan Donovan (NY)—Statement 3/22: “The legislation would also have a harmful impact on senior citizens.”

That list includes two Ohioans, but not my representative Jim Renacci, now officially a candidate for Governor. Will Renacci stick with Speaker of the House and kick his constituents, many at the epicenter of the opioid crisis, to the curb, or will he join with the 23 Republicans unwilling to destroy the healthcare, including treatment centers for opioid addiction, that tens of thousands of their voters rely on?

On 30 September of last year, Rep. Jim Renacci wrote:

Last Saturday, September 24th, seven residents of Cuyahoga County died from drug overdoses. These deaths come at a time in which Cuyahoga County is experiencing a drastic increase in drug-related deaths. By the end of the year, the total number of such deaths is expected to rise to over 500, a doubling of the number in 2015. This follows a national trend of increasing drug use, particularly of opioid drugs like heroin, which is used by an estimated 435,000 people. Opioid overdoses kill 78 Americans each day, one person every 19 minutes, for an annual total of 28,000 people. The opioid epidemic is becoming a public health crisis.

Opioids are a class of drugs that relieve pain. They do so by binding to receptors in brain cells, similar to how a key fits into a lock, to reduce the intensity of pain signals. Once they bind to these cells’ receptors, the cells release chemicals like dopamine, which produce a state of relaxation and euphoria. Common opioids include heroin, morphine, and fentanyl. While some, like morphine, have legitimate medical uses, others are dangerous because of their addictive nature and strength. The strongest opioids can result in unconsciousness, respiratory arrest, coma, and even death.

Fentanyl is one such opioid. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid, meaning that it is man-made, and it is 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine. Because of this, drug dealers and manufacturers are lacing their heroin products with fentanyl to produce stronger highs with less actual heroin. This makes these heroin products even more dangerous because fentanyl can be lethal, even in small doses.

Because of this public health crisis, I voted in favor of the Dangerous Synthetic Drug Control Act of 2016 on Monday, September 26th. This act adds 22 synthetic drugs to Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, recognizing that these synthetic drugs, like other Schedule I drugs, have high potential for abuse and no medicinal purposes in the United States. Three commonly abused versions of fentanyl were added to Schedule I, along with other widely-abused opioids. Because of their addition, the U.S Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) now has greater authority to stop these drugs from being sold and distributed on our streets, particularly toward unsuspecting youth.

This is an issue I care deeply about because of its effects on Northeast Ohioans. [Emphasis mine, JH] I have growing concerns over the increase in heroin and opioid abuse, both in Ohio and at the national level. The federal government spends over $25 billion annually on drug control programs, and approximately $10 billion goes toward drug abuse prevention and treatment programs. That is why I previously held a roundtable discussion with Sen. Rob Portman to gather feedback from key stakeholders on what the federal government’s role should be in combating prescription and opioid abuse. I am hopeful that with efforts like the Dangerous Synthetic Drug Control Act, we will be able to lead a coordinated response to this epidemic at the federal, state, and local level and make our communities drug free.

So, tomorrow Renacci gets to show Ohioans just how deeply he cares. Was Renacci just blowing smoke up our butts? Let him know how you feel by calling one of his offices at:

Washington (202) 225-3876
Wadsworth office (330) 334-0040
Parma office (440) 882-6779.

Let Jim know how you feel.

Previously…

Here’s Moss just a week before the inauguration of President Donald John Trump:

JAKE TAPPER: Welcome back to CNN Live, tonight at George Washington University. With one week until the inauguration of Donald Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan is our guest. I see you’ve got your Packers pin on now.

PAUL RYAN: You bet I do. I had it on the last segment, too.

TAPPER: But, I do want to turn to one serious question. Obviously, the nation is in the throes of an opioid epidemic. I want to introduce you to Craig Moss. He came from upstate New York to join us tonight. He says he’s attended more than 40 Trump rallies during the campaign. Craig?

CRAIG MOSS: Hello. I lost my son, Rob J. R. Moss, three years ago to a heroin overdose. And heroin comes into the towns and just ruins the communities and families. And my question to you, sir, is do you and the members of Congress intend to support Donald Trump’s stance on protecting our borders by supporting his recommendations so we can slow down that heroin that’s coming into this country? And secondly, are there any laws currently being put together that would provide and mandate – – and I stress mandate – – step- down procedures for folks that are being prescribed ox con tin and that type of drug?

TAPPER: By step down, just to—you mean helping wean people who are on these opioids, wean them off?

CRAIG MOSS: Exactly, yes. That’s exactly—yes, sir.

RYAN: Well, you know, unfortunately, I have heard too many stories like yours just in the last couple of years, and I’m really sorry about the loss of your son. I’m thinking of two buddies of mine in Janesville, Wisconsin, who lost their sons, just like you did. This affects everybody and it is an epidemic raging through our country. So, yes, on your border question, it’s what we were talking about before. It’s one of the reasons I said why we’re building the border wall and the fence. This is one of the reasons, because we’re getting so many drugs coming in from the southern border in particular, which is making it so much more high in supply and low in price. So, that is one of the big reasons why we need to secure our borders. So, yes, we do support our president- elect in doing that, and that’s something we’re working on right now. We just passed legislation last month on opioid reform on a whole host of issues. We just—literally, it went into law about a month ago, and it doesn’t mandate step- downs, but it pushes a lot of reforms, like you just said, which is fixing the way prescriptions are written in America; digitizing these, so that you can make sure that a person can’t go shopping around for prescriptions; and making sure that physicians who prescribe these know what they’re prescribing and to guard against the kinds of problems, because typically what happens is you get hurt, you know, you get in a car accident, you get a painkiller, and then that progressively takes you farther down the road to where you’re addicted to opioids, and then comes heroin. That is the classic progression that we’ve seen, and that is what our landmark legislation—one of the things I’m most proud of this last year, Republicans and Democrats came together, seeing that this was a raging epidemic, to pass the most sweeping legislation in this area that we’ve ever passed. And we put—then a few weeks ago, at the end of—I mean, before Christmas, I passed legislation funding it, putting a lot of money out to the states to fund this new policy. So much so that our governor in Wisconsin, Scott Walker, is just now convening a special session of our state legislature to deal with all the new federal funds coming into the state to fight opioid abuse and to fight—it’s law enforcement, it’s medical professionals, and it’s counseling and it’s prevention. So, we have to have a full- front war against this opioid epidemic, and that is exactly what we passed and funded just a couple of weeks ago. So, this is happening everywhere in this country. And thank you for going around and talking about it. Thank you for making people aware.

TAPPER: God bless you, Craig. A lot of people in your shoes, and we’re really sorry. All right. A lot of emotional actions, a lot of tough stories.

RYAN: It’s a tough time in our country.

Damn! Paul Ryan is one stone-cold psychopath.

Previously…