Trump's admin has made life exceedingly difficult for people like me who are fighting #cancer & dealing with extreme medical costs.
Obama said in 2009 that he hated watching his mother forced to work to pay bills as she fought for her life.
Many of us are still doing this.
Now Trump wants to make yet another critic of #ACA--the only buffer sick & #disabled Americans have until we get #UHC--head of HHS.
#AlexAzar is an actual lobbyist for #BigPharma.
And cut his legal teeth--he's a lawyer--working for #KenStarr investigating the Clintons.
Anyone who thinks sick/#disabled people are going to get a fair shake under this presidency aren't thinking clearly. And while I know we have more Russia news and
more sexual abuse claims today, this appointment impacts EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN WHO IS NOT RICH and it's barely news.
The stress on sick/#disabled people and their families is immense. It cannot be ignored. Just tonight @SherrodBrown is talking on #inners about how there will be yet another pass at repealing #ACA. This fight is not over.
So-called #TaxReform is really just about backdoor cuts to services to the middle-class, working-class and poor. None of us will see a tax cut. All we will see is more cuts to #Medicaid. Everyone's taxes are going up while we lose ESSENTIAL healthcare benefits.
So #TheResistance has to keep Russia on the side--that's going to be going on through 2020--and get back on the phones to your senators to ask them to block #AlexAzar. Trump says he'll get us a good deal on drugs.
He won't.
1 in 5 Americans has a #disability according to the CDC. cdc.gov/media/releases…
Everyone has a family member who has a disability--physical or mental.
We all need access to medical care.
The fact that Azar's worked for HHS before is what Trump believes will get him an easy confirmation. But America didn't have #ACA protections in 2005 to 2007 when Azar was deputy.
Nor in 2001 when he was General Counsel for HHS.
Look hard at #AlexAzar's history.
If you think his background investigating the Clintons isn't part of Trump's agenda, think again.
If you think a president and lobbyist for a major pharmaceutical company is a good choice for the person protecting our healthcare, think again.
You don't have to be sick now or #disabled now to know that you will need #ACA until we get full #UHC.
Remember that everyone willing to be part of the Trump admin accepts and approves Trump.
You deluded yourselves about Kelly, Mattis & McMaster.
Don't do it about Azar.
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I don't think men really understand how different it is to be a woman out in the world and how quickly things can turn dangerous.
When I was living in New Orleans, I was walking home from work one night. It was fall--dark early & foggy.
A man came out of the fog toward me.
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He said hi, I said hi.
As he started to pass me, he asked me if I had the time.
I looked at my watch, looked up, he had a gun pointed at me.
He hit me so fast I wasn't able to steel myself.
I fell to the ground.
He said, "I could rape you right now, but I don't have time."
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He wanted my money.
I had the grocery money for the entire house (I lived with 3 other people) in my purse.
He took it and disappeared into the fog.
The whole thing was maybe ten minutes, start to finish.
I was shaking so hard I could hardly get up.
My head was bleeding.
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The majority of the working class in America is women and POC.
And white men as a group haven't voted majority Democrat since 1964--they stopped after LBJ signed the the #VRA.
Flip the narrative and start listening to the ACTUAL working class--the rest of us.
Stop centering white men for everything.
Stop claiming only white men can save us from the damage white men did to us.
Women are the working class--my investigation here:
.@matthewstoller is very worried about white men, but it's really women of all races who are facing the worst effects of economic and social stresses.
My investigation here: damemagazine.com/2018/05/10/why…
The relentlessness of passing over superb women with strong credentials & election histories in favor of whatever man is a headline at a moment is exhausting.
Two months ago it was Avenatti. Now it's O'Rourke.
Bypassing the majority of Americans--women--is a national disgrace.
O'Rourke is fine. He is not, Harris, Gillibrand or Klobuchar.
▪Gillibrand is Congress' leader on women's rights & sexual assault victims.
▪Harris set NN2018 on fire with her speeches reclaiming identity politics.
▪ Klobuchar highlighted #Kavanaugh's unfitness for SCOTUS.
Americans MUST stop looking past women to find some man, any man to supplant them.
It took THIRTY YEARS of incredibly hard work for @HillaryClinton to get to run for POTUS. The rules for women are so different. No one sees a woman give a single speech and says "president!"
I lived in NOLA right after college.
I drank most every day, as did everyone I knew.
We were all in the domestic Peace Corps, all in our early 20s, all hardworking activists with stressful work.
We drank too much at Mardi Gras, New Year's.
It's absurd to claim #Kavanaugh didn't.
Those of us who've had alcoholics in our lives--like Klobuchar--tend to be careful about alcohol because we've been damaged by the drunks in our lives. I'm a control freak, so never liked being drunk, but lots of my friends did. What IS true, is most 20somethings drink to excess.
This new tack from the #GOP to dismiss #Kavanaugh's alcoholic drinking--& I am not saying he was/is an alcoholic, but he certainly drank like one--is just wrong. It undermines their own credibility and ignores reality: statistically the vast majority of teens/20s get drunk OFTEN.
Let's talk about sex, #Kavanaugh & Venn diagram overlap of male entitlement.
I've written a lot about sex in various contexts. In the late 80s/early 90s I also gave safe sex workshops back when folks my age were dying 24/7 from #AIDS. My 1st book was on juvenile prostitution.
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Most of us know consensual and non-consensual sex differ. The entirety of #Kavanaugh's defense and his defenders' outrage is predicated on the presumption that no teenaged boy knows what consent is.
THEY. KNOW.
Some, like their adult counterparts, don't care.
This is key.
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Since #MeToo we've seen egregious serial rapists like #BillCosby and #HarveyWeinstein exposed & attempts made to prosecute them.
But there are "lesser" sexual assaults we've given a lighter hand to: Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Mark Halperin, Louis CK--too many to list.
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