owlmoose | Semi-regular political linkspam: Call. Your. Senators.

This is it folks, this is the big one. I don't need to tell you that, I suppose, but here we are. Even in California, where my Senators are firmly No-votes and leaders in the resistance, there are things we can do to stand up and fight -- here's a short to-do list for anyone who lives in a state with two Democratic Senators.

A few links on healthcare:

Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey went through the bill, line by line, to point out some of its more terrible effects.

Politico reports that the Senate Democrats will be playing hardball. Placing our calls in support of this tactic is one of the important things that blue-staters can do.

With the urgency of our desire to kill this bill, I've seen a resurgence of the desire to call Senators from other states. Here's a good Twitter thread on the importance of NOT doing that, tempting as it may be, especially when there's evidence of Astroturfing from the other side. I know it's scary, but this time, fighting fire with fire would do more harm than good.

And other things:

The Brookings Institution put out a scathing editorial on voter suppression in the United States, a good overview of recent court decisions with some damning statistics.

The Associated Press published a report on the effects of gerrymandering, and it's not pretty.

It probably shouldn't come as a surprise that the Democrats lost the special election in Georgia's 6th Congressional District, and in fact the narrow loss continues the trend of being competitive in districts that ought to be safe GOP, but given how much effort and money we poured into that district, it's also understandable that people were disappointed. But the rush of pundits and BernieBots to blame Nancy Pelosi for the loss is both a headscratcher, and almost unbearably stupid. Charles Pierce explains why.

And maybe before you get too invested in demonizing one of the most powerful women in the Democratic party, maybe you should consider who is in the trenches, doing the actual work in places like the Georgia 6th.

Meanwhile, another Congressional special election flew completely under the radar: the South Carolina 5th. The Republican won that seat as well, but by an even smaller margin. This is not a seat that any polls suggested ought to be competitive, and the Democrats spent almost no money here. This ought to scare the GOP; we'll see if they heed the warning.

Maryland and the District of Columbia have sued Donald Trump for violations of the emoluments clause and other conflict of interest laws.