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Thanks for the detailed explanation of "congressional earmarks," Heather. I will try and read more about these and hope they make a difference for the American people. Very interesting.

As to the other portions of your letter, this was EVERYTHING:

"Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne noted that the adherence of all but seven senators to Trump “should end the absurd talk that there is a burden on President Biden to achieve a bipartisan nirvana in Washington. If most Republicans can’t even admit that what Trump did is worthy of impeachment, how can anyone imagine that they would be willing and trustworthy governing partners?”

Dionne added that the acquittal made an overwhelming case for getting rid of the filibuster, which in its current incarnation effectively means that no legislation can pass without support from 60 senators. Thanks to the 50-50 split in the Senate, getting to 60 means getting 10 Republican votes. This is impossible, Dionne says, because clearly “There are not 10 Republican Senate votes to be had on anything that really matters.”'

This is so true. Republican senators who did not vote for conviction are as bad as T---- and the insurrectionists themselves. Maybe worse. . .because of the power they continue to hold. As far as I'm concerned, they wanted the insurrection--even though they were in danger--because they do not like that Congress--the House especially--is looking more and more like America. They fear the loss of white supremacy. How do we work with people like that? We don't. We work right through them, we don't give up, give in, or go away. I am emboldened everyday by the younger people from every background in this country who are being elected into positions of power. If each one of us commits ourselves to work hard in our own communities to dismantle systemic racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and sexism, white supremacy as a power structure will collapse. White supremacists will never completely disappear, but white supremacy as a power structure MUST. That and only that will move us toward achieving this experiment we call Democracy. Only then can we begin to distribute wealth and power in this country.

Thanks again, Heather. This American needs your daily letters.

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In different areas, power is still out here in North central Texas. Dallas/Ft Worth area. It hasn’t been discriminating, rich and poor alike are hit by it. The affluent area of Southlake had to open a warming station. All hotel rooms sold out. My friends, a family recovering from Covid, didn’t have electricity to run the husband’s breathing treatments. They did get a hotel room.

There are people on Facebook saying this is all Biden’s fault. Because he’s proposed alternative energy to the beloved oil. But the council , ERCOT, formed to prevent this said they weren’t given the funds needed to fix these problems from Gov. Abbott. The energy company Oncor says as areas get back online they’ll start rolling blackouts again!

So many thanks to Biden! For being a president! No thanks to Abbott who continues to play the party politics.

Thanks for the summary, Heather! News here is all about the weather! ❄️

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Thank goodness, an end to the ban on earmarks! Before the ban, members of Congress could bargain with each other for real, tangible things that could benefit their districts, exhibiting the "self interest" deliberately harnessed by the Founders. In an excess of moralistic zeal, such earmarks were abolished. (Except for the billions of dollars granted by the Department of Transportation annually, most recently by Mitch McConnell's wife, Elaine Chao.)

After the earmarks ban, and with the advent of near-universal media, there were no more "backroom deals," and everything was aboveboard and before the camera. The only things a Congressperson could trade were soundbites, or protests of fealty, or demonstrations of loyalty to party or ideology.

Yay. Ideology has become paramount, and actually getting work done has become "giving in to the enemy," or "betraying one's principles." Frankly, I'd much rather one Member trade, for instance, free feed for llamas in Tennessee, to another Member in exchange for a vote for easier voting registration, like, everywhere. It's a manageable corruption, where taxpayer money is funneled to local projects that seem like nonsense everywhere else, but it still leads government onward and toward the needs of the people.

A fairly recent example is the "Bridge to Nowhere," where Sarah Palin sold out her own state in her hopes of national advancement. I was there, in Ketchikan, and saw that the proposed bridge, partially funded with federal funds, was actually the connection between the city of Ketchikan and it's international airport. Without the bridge, travelers had to board a ferry and cross a river to reach the airport. Calling it a "Bridge to Nowhere" made an ideological sham of the needs of the local community, and made fodder for sloppy journalists and venal politicians.

Please, let's restore earmarks and give Members of Congress real money to trade with each other. Without earmarks, competence in Congress, especially on the Republican side, has become measured by how little one can accomplish, all in the name of "purity" of values and ideology. Government, declared by Reagan to be the "problem," has become the whipping boy of the Right, instead of the valuable player in our society it rightfully is. Perhaps if we give to Congress, the Right as well as the Left, the power to grant governmental benefits, we can get them to agree that government, like business or religion, is simply a powerful social tool, useful for dealing with certain social ills.

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Thank you, Dr Heather.

The phrase that summed it up for me in this Letter was quoted from The Washington Post,

"If most Republicans can’t even admit that what Trump did is worthy of impeachment, how can anyone imagine that they would be willing and trustworthy governing partners?”

Smh.

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Thanks your clear presentation of facts. Slightly off topic: during the impeachment trial, Rep. Ruskin read from the preamble of the Constitution. The phrase “promote the the general welfare”struck a cord. If that isn’t saying in clear language that the tole of government is to help the people, I don’t know what is.

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I love what our new president is doing in so many ways. Going to Republican states to talk directly to the people, reevaluating earmarks to benefit state localities and non-profits, but not private companies.

I do wish he'd reconsider the way the $1,400 checks would be distributed. I'm one of millions of people who has not been affected financially by the pandemic and who lives comfortable on far less than $75,000. Many of us just don't need the check. It's a place where I think there is room to negotiate with Republicans.

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Since the Confederate White People's Treason and Insurrection Party only represents around 25% of the national electorate not, losing 20% of their voters puts them under 20% of the national electorate, leaving them an "outlier".

Even so, continue to treat them as the Dangerous Enemy they are. Whatever Democrats are going to do is going to have to start showing results a year from now if there's hope of holding the House and Senate. Start donating to and working for Democratic House candidates and state legislature candidates NOW.

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Thank you, Professor Richardson for that bristling indictment of the current crop of Republican legislators, "... young Democrats have quite a deep bench of talent, especially in contrast to the younger Republicans, who seem to excel in media appearances more than in policy."

It conjured up an idea for a new campaign slogan: Results trump Rhetoric: Vote Democratic for Results!

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Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! Just zeroing in on Biden's immediate support for

Texas as it confronts nature's wrath. While I surmise this will not change the minds of many "conservative" Texans, it still was IMHO the right and moral thing to do.

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No reason to be up at this hour but the dog barked because the newspaper arrived hours ahead of schedule trying to beat the snow. Friends in Texas are worrying about pipes freezing.

So many numbers in today’s letter but they tell the story. Interesting contrast between Democratic rising stars and Republican. Biden reaching out to mayors and governors because they are- Americans.

I would not have given the former president credit for knowing that there were state Republican committees much less how to pack them. Always learn something here.

Stay safe everyone.

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This is from an email that came to me from the owner of a brewery in Wisconsin. I live in Florida but somehow I received this and I’m glad I did. It is a company that is putting its money where its mouth is and is taking its business out of a bank that supported Republicans who voted to acquit Trump. If more businesses can be pressured in this way and if it can make a difference, maybe that’s one way to affect the system. I applaud this business!

“What do Incredible Bank and Aspirus have in Common?

They have branches and hospitals all throughout Central and Northern Wisconsin and are considered anchors of their communities.

In short, everyone who lives "Up North," which, because it's a red area in a swing state, has an undue amount of influence on the makeup of the U.S. Senate and future presidential elections, recognizes the names of these two businesses.

Unfortunately, they are also among the top 10 institutions who have donated to Congressman Tom Tiffany and Senator Ron Johnson, traitors to our country.

We’ve talked about Incredible Bank for two weeks now, and it’s time to for us to close the chapter on their support for Tom Tiffany and move onto Aspirus and its support of Ron Johnson, because Johnson’s vote to acquit Trump this weekend demands our attention and disgust.

But in order to close the Chapter, we must take action.

Today, the Minocqua Brewing Company and the Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC will be moving its money out of Incredible Bank forever because they’ve failed to pledge that they will never again donate to the campaigns of Congressman Tom Tiffany, who signed onto a Texas lawsuit against Wisconsin and voted to overturn the results of our election, with no evidence that our election was rigged and after Trump lost 60 out of 62 lawsuits at all levels within our judicial system.

We have been chastised by the bank and the GOP for condemning the company based on the donations of the Nicklaus Brothers, Todd Nagel, and Glendon Peterson-- the owners, president, and CFO, respectively.

“Everyone has the right do donate privately to any politician, regardless of party. These are the actions of private citizens, not Incredible Bank as a whole,” said the Incredible Bank public relations department.

Pardon our French, but that’s bullshit, and everyone reading this email knows it. The actions of a company’s leaders, rightly or wrongly, reflect upon the company itself. As the owner of the Minocqua Brewing Company, I know all too well that what I do directly effects the health of my business. Lord knows I’d love to be more anonymous, but I’m not because my company is a very public part of my community.

Incredible Bank should stand for stability in the Northwoods, and the refusal of its four top leaders to make the simple pledge to stop donating to a congressman who voted to destabilize our democracy and in turn, our economy, doesn’t deserve to be the stewards of our money.

It’s that simple. If you’re an Incredible Bank customer and agree with our assessment, we encourage you to follow us and put your money in another bank that actually cares about stability, or at least has the foresight to understand that tacit support of sedition is destabilizing and should demand a public rebuke.

Now let’s move onto Aspirus.

Why on earth would the largest hospital chain in the Northwoods, whose nurses have been pushed the limits both physically and emotionally by a global pandemic and immense death, be donating so heavily to Ron Johnson, a man whose Covid denial is 2nd only to Donald Trump’s?

It’s the doctors.

Doctors Mark Hoffman, Joseph Gelling, David Tange, and Timothy Logemann have collectively donated over $38,000 to Johnson since 2016.

Do we condemn them for these donations? No. They primarily gave this money before the pandemic and before Johnson voted to acquit Donald Trump of impeachment, and we don’t care that these guys are Republican or that they have donated to Republicans in the past.

But we think that for the sake of their colleagues and patients, they need to collectively sign a pledge to never donate to Ron Johnson again.

Healthcare workers and patients have died unnecessarily because Ron Johnson and Donald Trump denied Covid and failed to protect us from the virus. These doctors, who took the Hippocratic oath to “do no harm,” can no longer donate to a man who has indirectly killed Wisconsinites by lying to them about medical science.

If they continue to donate to Johnson, they are showing that they care more about their pocketbooks than their patients, and we could never entrust our bodies to doctors who hold that philosophy.

And now that Johnson has voted to acquit Donald Trump after a slam-dunk case that proved he led an insurrection against his own country, it is morally imperative that the leaders of Aspirus Hospital, as well as the other companies in the Northwoods listed in the enclosed graph that have donated to Johnson in the past, pledge to no longer support him.

And we ask you, as people who have a choice in how you spend your money, and who hopefully have a choice in who you choose to provide your healthcare, use your voice and demand these companies do the right thing for their state and country and abandon politicians who lied to us and hurt us.

We've given you phone numbers and email addresses. Please use them.

Thanks for reading,

Kirk Bangstad, Owner, Minocqua Brewing Company

P.S. If you like the work we're doing as progressive watchdogs in Northern Wisconsin, and want to see more billboards, radio ads, and research that sheds a light on Republican corruption and insanity, please consider contributing to our Super PAC.

Donate to SuperPAC”

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Texas Republicans: We want to secede from the United States!

Also Texas Republicans: Hey, can we have some federal funds to help deal with cold and snow?

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Thanks again for yet another informative letter. One additional item to supplement the message:

Of the seven Reps who voted guilty, if memory serves (which it doesn't always these days) none face re-election in 2022, either because they had chosen to retire (e.g. Burr) or because they are not up until later. These Senators, in other words, had no reascon to fear "getting primaried", as T. has explicitly said would be the fate of "weak" Rep Senators. "Getting primaried" is a recent addition to political English; it means the Trumpistas (earlier it was the Tea Party so-called "Freedom" Causcus) will find someone to oppose you in the Rep primary and knock you out before the general election. Due to ordinarily low turnout at primaries, the fanatics tend to have the upper hands, so this is not an empty threat. My guess is that, while an appallingly large number of Rep Senators are true Trumpistas, the majority, or at least enough to assure a "not guilty" verdict, were quaking in fear for their poor little political lives. Nancy Pelosi put it with characteristic clarity and bluntness at the press date for the House managers. She pointed out that many prople who are approached to run for Congress say they have "other options" to consider - which is why they were asked in the first place. "We don't want people in Congress who have no other options. So why is it that so many Republican Senators are afraid of losing their jobs?"

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If the Democrats don't kill the filibuster they will lose the House in 2022 b/c Republicans will say Democrats did nothing.

They still may lose the House if they do kill it but they might get the Senate so overloaded with Democrats they could tell the good filibuster loving Senators from AZ and WV to go take a flying .... at a rolling donut.

Plus look at all the stuff they could repair from the past and prevent from happening in the future.

E.J. Dionne lays it out perfectly. #killthefilibuster

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Morning everyone! Stay warm! It is negative-10 here in KC; never got above 0 yesterday and they are very worried about our electric and gas grids because of the huge load on them. Fingers crossed we make it to the afternoon when finally things are going to start improving (a balmy 10 above 0 for this afternoon--which will feel a lot better when walking the dog!!)

This is the sentence in today's letter that flummoxes the daylights out of me: "Republicans in Congress overwhelmingly stand against the bill, in part because it calls for $350 billion to provide aid to states and cities." The execrable senators from Texas, who claim to hate "socialism," just hounded the POTUS about immediately sending emergency aid to TX to deal with the very real crisis of this insane weather mess. But these same execrables think that helping states and cities whose budgets have imploded because of the massive economic crisis caused by their Dear Leader is somehow a bridge too far??? What the heck???

I know that this has been a debate for months but what I do NOT understand is WHY IS THIS A DEBATE?

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The Senate adjourns with no COVID relief in sight. The $2000 checks, inadequate though they are to meet the need, we’re promised “immediately” and are no closer to reality. All of the political gamesmanship is fascinating, but will be lost on those who are not helped.

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