Email Your Congresscritter

The American Freedom Campaign has made it easy to tell your representative just what you think about this insane bailout that Bush and his fat cat friends swear we must give him.

Everything I'm reading today makes it abundantly clear that this bailout as it stands is noxious on a variety of levels. It's going to cost us far more than $700 billion in the end. It's going to ensure our national debt is so insanely high that we won't have anything left over for the social programs that could have made our lives better. Once again, the Republicons bring us to the brink of bankruptcy and walk away with their sacks full of cash, laughing while the Dems tighten the nation's belt, count its pennies, and tell us that in order to balance the checkbook, we're going to have to make sacrifices.

It's not even clear this is necessary in the first place.

And now the fuckers are talking about how they can demand we do this, and then vote against it so they can use it against the Dems in the election (h/t Digby):

Every Democrat should read Patrick Ruffini's post from yesterday at NextRight. He is, I strongly suspect, perfectly reflecting the game that Republicans, including Team McCain, want to play with the Paulson Plan:

Republican incumbents in close races have the easiest vote of their lives coming up this week: No on the Bush-Pelosi Wall Street bailout.

God Himself couldn't have given rank-and-file Republicans a better opportunity to create political space between themselves and the Administration. That's why I want to see 40 Republican No votes in the Senate, and 150+ in the House. If a bailout is to pass, let it be with Democratic votes. Let this be the political establishment (Bush Republicans in the White House + Democrats in Congress) saddling the taxpayers with hundreds of billions in debt (more than the Iraq War, conjured up in a single weekend, and enabled by Pelosi, btw), while principled Republicans say "No" and go to the country with a stinging indictment of the majority in Congress....

In an ideal world, McCain opposes this because of all the Democratic add-ons and shows up to vote Nay while Obama punts.

History has shown us that "inevitable" "emergency" legislation like the Patriot Act or Sarbanes-Oxley is never more popular than on the day it is passed -- and this isn't all that popular to begin with. All the upside comes with voting against it.

Ruffini is exactly right about the politics of this issue, especially for Republicans. Think of this as like one of those periodic votes on raising the public debt limit. It has to pass, of course, but there's zero percentage in supporting it for any one individual. The speculative costs of the legislation actually failing are completely intangible and ultimately irrelevant, while the costs it will impose are tangible and controversial from almost every point of view. For McCain and other Republicans, voting "no" on Paulson without accepting the consequences of that vote is the political equivalent of a bottomless crack pipe: it will please the conservative "base," distance them from both Bush and "Washington," and let them indulge in both anti-government and anti-corporate demagoguery, even as Democrats bail out their Wall Street friends and big investors generally. You simply can't imagine a better way for McCain to decisively reinforce his simultaneous efforts to pander to the "base" while posing as a "maverick."

Democrats are right to demand significant substantive concessions before offering their support for the Paulson Plan. But just as importantly, they need to demand Republican votes in Congress, including the vote of John McCain. If this is going to be a "bipartisan" relief plan, it has to be fully bipartisan, not an opportunity for McCain to count on Obama and other Democrats to save the economy while exploiting their sense of responsibility to win the election for the party that let this crisis occur in the first place.

I cannot express to you my outrage that these goatfuckers are planning to use the crisis they encouraged in order to score politically. They've proven that they're nothing more than common fucking criminals. This is what criminals do: blame the victim for their own lawbreaking. We need to do everything in our power to ensure they don't get away with this.

So send your emails. Make your phone calls. And be sure to tell absolutely every right-leaning friend, acquaintence, and stranger on the street just how stupid the cons think they are.

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In case you're interested, this is the email I sent my Congressman, attached to the pre-made one from the American Freedom Campaign:

The more I read about the consequences of this bailout package, the more it terrifies me. The lack-of-oversight concerns attached at the bottom of this email are only the most obvious.

1. There's a lot of crowing in right-wing circles about how this can be used to destroy Democrats. The basic premise is that Republicans will vote no while you vote yes, and then they'll put on their fiscal conservative hats and run against you.

2. Every credible economist - right, left and center - despises this bill. And all of them are saying that $700 billion is only the beginning.

3. Paulson demands you pass a "clean" bill, and yet spent this weekend stuffing it with extras for his Wall Street pals.

4. And the saddest part: by simply bailing out the rich kids who got burned, we're doing nothing to ensure that the rest of America has anything left over. If we don't attach requirements that ensure the American people get something out of this deal, how are we going to pay for health care, for science, for social programs? How are we going to afford a better future if all we buy are toxic, worthless assets?

Congressman Inslee, as I sit here, I'm watching our future die. And I am bitterly, bitterly angry that the greedy bastards who murdered it are about to walk away scot-free, not a penny poorer.

Please, please fight this. Please fight for us. Make sure that there is oversight, make sure America gets a chance to earn back some of that $700 billion, and make sure that the irresponsible idiots who brought us to this pass are responsible for helping set things right.

I know I can count on you. You have never let me down. Thank you for all you've done, and all I know you will do.

Feel free to steal any/all verbiage for your own efforts.