Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Promoted from the Comments: ‘Tell me, Senator, is this why you came to Washington?’

Promoted from the Comments: ‘Tell me, Senator, is this why you came to Washington?’

by | 80 Comments

This post is in: 

With thanks to Stately Plump Buck for this inspirational letter to their senators.

My letter to Senators Budd and Tillis:

“Hey, asshole –

There’s a kind of rot that sets into a soul long before the body is cold. You can smell it in the air at certain town halls, rising like sulfur from the mouths of the self-righteous. And recently, it came reeking from the lips of Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, who, when faced with a citizen trembling for the lives of the poor under the knife of Medicaid cuts, declared with the serenity of a hangman: “Well, we all are going to die.”

Senator, I write to ask whether you kneel at the same altar of indifference.

Do you whisper the same dark catechism?

Would you stand before a mother whose child clings to life by the threads of public care and offer her that same benediction? Would you lay a hand on her shoulder, look into her red-rimmed eyes, and say, “Well, we all are going to die”?

Would you utter that phrase to the parents of Laken Riley, whose tragic death your party holds up like a lantern in the dark, not to mourn, but to signal your arrival at the gates of another argument? Would you, too, speak of death so glibly when it serves the interests of the weak, not the strong?

Do not mistake Senator Ernst’s remark for gallows humor. It was not irony—it was revelation. It was a glimpse into a soul that has bartered compassion for ideology and now hides the trade behind a grin and a scripture verse. She speaks of Jesus but walks among the tombstones as if she planted the crosses herself. She speaks of the poor but signs their death warrants with a fountain pen engraved with donor names.

This is not just one woman’s callousness. It is a sickness of spirit that has crept like mold across your party. The House budget—which she so heartily praises—is not a piece of legislation. It is a bloodletting. It strips the frail and the fearful so that billionaires may keep polishing their yachts and building their fancy rocket ships.

Tell me, Senator, is this why you came to Washington?

To let the hungry starve, the sick suffer, and the poor die quietly, out of view, while you balance ledgers and flatter donors?

If Senator Ernst’s words made your conscience stir, even faintly, then you must speak. Because if you say nothing, we will know what you believe. That we are all, in your eyes, just waiting for death—and some of us deserve to arrive there a little sooner if it keeps the budget balanced.

You were not sent to D.C. to preside over despair with a smirk. You were sent to serve. And so I ask plainly:

Do you agree with Senator Ernst—that “we’re all going to die” is an acceptable answer to Americans pleading for their lives?

If not, then say so. Say it loud. Say it in the record, in your votes, in your actions. Because if you will not rebuke this cruelty, then you stand with it—like Pontius Pilate, who washed his hands and let the innocent be condemned.”

It seems like this amazing letter should be shared far and wide.

Reader Interactions

80Comments

  1. 1.

    Urza

    I just scrolled past a meme that’s relevant.

    “The Wicked become even worse when they are tolerated”

    We really needed to ostracize these people decades ago and make it clear they weren’t welcome in society.

  5. 5.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Urza:

    We really needed to ostracize these people decades ago and make it clear they weren’t welcome in society.

    We are always told that we need to reach out to them, understand them, and every time we lose, abandon our own people & beliefs to appease them.

     

  8. 8.

    Old Man Shadow

    and some of us deserve to arrive there a little sooner if it keeps the budget balanced.

    It does not.

    You aren’t being ordered to die for your country. You aren’t being sacrificed for the future generations or even for a good harvest this year.

    You’re being ordered to die so Caesar and his inner circle can enjoy more bacchanals and have another pleasure yacht.

  10. 10.

    Sure Lurkalot

    Excellent read about the ghoul highlighted above. Actually, too short. A taste:

    Medicaid expansion is clinging, and clinging is the enemy of inner peace. The truly enlightened refuse coverage, choosing to drift from urgent care to urgent care like cherry blossoms on the wind. Like their pulse, thoughts of single-payer systems soon fade.

    snip

    Repeat this mantra as your prescription is denied on religious grounds: Everyone dies. Everyone dies. Everyone dies. Let the liberals weep, for you are free and clear, though not in the medical sense, of course.

    The Zen of Dying Quietly, and Other Teachings by Senator Joni Ernst

  11. 11.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Urza:

    The late, great Steve Gilliard was preaching this 20 years ago.  Driftglass called it years later after Steve’s death “The Gilliard Doctrine”:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20050910004807/http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2003/12/im-fighting-liberal-you-know-ive.html

    I’m tired of people acting like these people can be reasoned with or talked to. They don’t want to talk, they want to drive us away into a corner and ridicule our ideas.

    I’m not writing to make conservatives happy. I want them to hate my opinions.

    I’m not interested in debating them.

    I want to stop them.

    And this:

    It’s is time to stop looking for an accommodation with the right. They want none for us. They want to win, at any price.

    So, you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly.

    In soooo many ways, we as a Party haven’t learned shit in the intervening 20+ years.

    Driftglass’s post on this from 2011:

    https://driftglass.blogspot.com/2011/03/gilliard-doctrine.html

  13. 13.

    Chief Oshkosh

    I just sent the following to my two blue Senators (quoted letter shortened here to save space). May as well make sure they know about this letter.

    Dear Senator X,

    Thank you for all that you do for the citizens of Z. You and Senator Y are bright points of hope an increasingly dark time.

    “I am told that one of their constituents just sent the message below to Senators Tillis and Budd. In case their staffers choose to hide this letter from their bosses, could you see that they receive the message? And maybe do it in a public fashion?

    Thanks again for being a great Senator,

    Chief Oshkosh

    —

    Letter to Senators Tillis and Budd:

    “There’s a kind of rot…and let the innocent be condemned.” “

  15. 15.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    In all due seriousness; I would drop the “Hey, asshole ” because that is personal attack, and the senator’s staff will just trash it and not read the rest. But the rest of it is well written.

  16. 16.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @WaterGirl: So take out “hey asshole” and send it. :-)

    Yes, the rest is gold, “hey asshole” is just a distraction.

  17. 17.

    Barbara

    Joni Ernst is learning Michael Kinsley’s maxim, which is that a gaffe in Washington is when someone accidentally tells the truth.  The truth is, she doesn’t give a flying fuck about her constituents.  Nor does Trump.  Anyone who thinks otherwise is lost in a haze of mistaken thinking about who is in the tribe.  Why this isn’t more obvious to more people is sort of an enduring mystery to me.

    I just wish I felt more optimistic that Ernst will actually pay any price for it.

  18. 18.

    WaterGirl

    @geg6: Maybe we should all send the letter to our senators?

    (I would remove the “hey asshole” part, but would otherwise leave it exactly as it it.)

  19. 19.

    Kristine

    @Old Man Shadow:

    You’re being ordered to die so Caesar and his inner circle can enjoy more bacchanals and have another pleasure yacht.

    Don’t forget more plastic surgery for wives and girlfriends.

  21. 21.

    Torrey

      I agree with Old Man Shadow at #8 that “if it keeps the budget balanced” is not the right phrase. Balancing the budget is a good thing and using that wording gives the reader room to say, “well, but it’s vital that the budget be balanced, and we can’t do everything, so we have to focus on the vital issues.” Perhaps change that phrase to something like “if it keeps billionaires from having to pay a few dollars more in taxes.”

    Definitely lose the “hey, asshole.”

    Maybe you can have the letter published as an open letter to the senators in a newspaper, if there’s one that will take it as an op-ed.

  24. 24.

    WaterGirl

    I bet 50 BJ peeps posting this on BlueSky could be enough to get it to make the rounds.

  25. 25.

    Belafon

    @Melancholy Jaques: Because there have always been more of them than us. There have just been times when we’ve been able to shame them into not acting on their impulses.

  26. 26.

    RevRick

    @WaterGirl: Yes, the “hey asshole!” salutation will guarantee it never gets read. Back in the olden days, I was taught to use honorifics to address doctors, lawyers, officials, clergy, professors. I hope manners still matter, because they are a witness against barbarism.

  27. 27.

    Jay

    Ted Cruz called the FBI on me
    ‪@weareronin.bsky.social‬

    Follow
    San Diego neighborhood makes ICE agents retreat
    San Diego neighborhood makes ICE agents retreat
    1:05

    0:15 / 1:21

    June 2, 2025 at 2:29 PM

    Everybody can reply
    9.2K reposts
    2.4K quotes
    35.1K likes

    Turn the sound on.

    https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:yay3iwpcbmvq5po3vuqeunmj/post/3lqnpuphux225?ref_src=embed

    Unmarked vehicles, check.
    No stinking badges, check,
    Full face masks, check.
    Body armour and full combat load for a night out in Falluja, check.
    Squad Automatic light machine gun, check.

    All to kidnap somebody’s gardener, home care worker, house cleaner or the family that mans all three shifts at the 7/11 and put them in a Concentration Camp.

  29. 29.

    montanareddog

    @Torrey: @Old Man Shadow:

    I agree with Old Man Shadow at #8 that “if it keeps the budget balanced” is not the right phrase.

     

    Perhaps change that phrase to something like “if it keeps billionaires from having to pay a few dollars more in taxes.”

    “if it keeps the budget balanced” jumped out at me, too.

    Perhaps something along the lines of “if it provides a fig leaf to pass deficit-exploding tax cuts for billionaires” (I am sure others could word that sentiment better).

  30. 30.

    Jackie

    This is happening NOW! Noon to 2pm and 🌮 are FREE!

    The Democratic National Committee will park a taco truck outside the Republican National Committee’s headquarters on Capitol Hill with a graphic of President Trump in a chicken suit and the “Trump Always Chickens Out” slogan per Axios.

  33. 33.

    WaterGirl

    @Eric S.:  Like the Illinois Lottery motto:

    You can’t win if you don’t play.

    Or the sports phrase:

    You lose 100% of the shots you don’t take.

    I’m not up for giving up before we try.

  34. 34.

    Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)

    @Urza: “Decades ago” their reach was limited to print media, flyers and Postal Service delivery. The Imternet has allowed them to swell their ranks or the price of a single hosted server with website and email engine, a GoDaddy-issued internet domain, and a decent workstation: about 6 months’ worth of postage in the traditional model.

    What worked as late as the 90s is no longer effective. What we need is their complete disconnection.

  37. 37.

    KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))

    Man. That’s some righteous writing. My son already reads this blog, and I’ve forwarded it to my sister. Has anyone posted it on bluesky yet? I only wish I could have said anything half as eloquently true.

  39. 39.

    Lapassionara

    @montanareddog: I agree. The problem is that it explodes the deficit and make our borrowing costs even higher. So, not even a veneer of fiscal conservatism.

  40. 40.

    Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)

    @here – is it just me, or is “hey asshole” the nym of the person who wrote the missive?

  41. 41.

    RevRick

    @Barbara: For me, the most galling part of Ernst’s non apology is her claim that embracing Jesus Christ is the answer when throughout church history those who did strove to ameliorate life’s vicissitudes. From feeding the hungry in the earliest church to establishing hospitals to centers of learning to homes for the aged, the mission to care has always been a centerpiece of the historic church. Her cavalier disregard tells me that her relationship to Jesus is purely transactional: what’s in it for me? GOP Jesus is a son of a bitch.

  42. 42.

    Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)

    @Belafon: Cable before Fauxnews brought us little more than televangelism, Married With Children and reruns of Benny Hill. What we see now is far more recent – and malevolent.

  43. 43.

    Steve in the ATL

    @RevRick:

    use honorifics to address doctors, lawyers, officials, clergy, professors

    Let’s focus on what’s important!

  49. 49.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Belafon:

    These days, it seems like it’s not even permissible to say that racism, misogyny, lying, & corruption are wrong.

    They are wrong & we need to say so emphatically.

  52. 52.

    RevRick

    @Eunicecycle: I think that for his contemporaries he was an unsettling one, but I’ll take that. In less than twenty years after him Paul, the apostle, was alluding to a familiar baptismal hymn that claimed that in Christ “there is no Jew or Greek, no slave or free, no male and female,” claims that everybody else “knew” were ridiculous.

  55. 55.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Jackie: ​

    This is happening NOW! Noon to 2pm and 🌮 are FREE!

    Damn, no way I could get there before 2pm. Too far out in the exurbs!

  57. 57.

    lowtechcyclist

    @RevRick:

    Her cavalier disregard tells me that her relationship to Jesus is purely transactional: what’s in it for me?

    Her cavalier disregard has a name that Jesus gave it: hardness of heart. As I recall, Jesus talked about that sin more than almost any other.  She already stands condemned by the Lord she claims to serve.

  61. 61.

    LAC

    @Melancholy Jaques: yep, still getting that BS even now by the tone police. These troglydytes are two seconds from a million man march in order  to say the n word with a hard r (sponsored by Dockers), but let’s hold hands and try to reach them.  Yeah, noooo.

    And Ernst didn’t abracadabra her bony ass into that seat. She was elected woth all that baggage in tow.  Hard lessons will have to be learned.

  63. 63.

    Marc

    @RevRick: Back in the olden days, I was taught to use honorifics to address doctors, lawyers, officials, clergy, professors. I hope manners still matter, because they are a witness against barbarism.

    I had to call one of my doctors “asshole” exactly once, when he shrugged his shoulders about why I was losing blood to the tune of a few pints a month.  It worked, he gave me the referral I was demanding (which showed it was cancer as I suspected), but we never spoke again.

  67. 67.

    Ruckus

    Wow.

    That is a letter for all ages.

    It is a letter to all humanity.

    For the betterment of all rather than the greed of the not insignificant few, who feel/believe that they are better than all the rest combined because they have money. At one time in human history that money concept worked.

    Not well mind you but it worked.

    But in a modern democracy money is valued over every other damn thing on the planet?

    No effing way. If it works at all it gives piss poor results. Now I don’t mind that others have a lot more money than me, it is after all capitalism. BUT. Just having money is greed personified. Doing something positive to get it is a part of economic democracy. Which the vast majority of us share in during our lifetimes. Some will have more, some not so much. But the part of democracy that works is all of us doing OUR SHARE of making it work. The rich will still get richer but the poor will eat and have a roof over their heads. And the rest of us in that big damn middle will have likely have decent lives and reasonable comfort.

    This does not mean that the poor can piss off it means that we all do our share of monetary support of and for the betterment of ALL OF US. Sure some will live better, some a lot better, but life will be at least minimally reasonable for all.

    I’m not holding my breath till it happens but in a world with billions of humans there has to be a better way. And we need to find it far sooner than later.

  69. 69.

    TONYG

    @Torrey: That’s right.  Ever since the beginning of the first Reagan Administration — almost 45 years ago — Republican administrations and congresses have INCREASED, not DECREASED the budget deficits.  The “Big Beautiful Bill” is the latest manifestation of that trend.  Republicans have demonstrated for almost a half-century that they DO NOT GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THE BUDGET DEFICIT.  It’s always been about tax cuts for the richest people in the country, and about pain (and sometimes death) for everyone else.  That’s all it’s ever been.

  70. 70.

    Miss Bianca

    I read that letter yesterday, thought it was great. Whether it will have any effect on its intended targets remains to be seen. You’d think they would writhe with shame reading such an indictment, but I verily believe that in order to be a modern Republican, you have to have self-amputated a sense of shame long, long ago.

    Still, great letter.

  72. 72.

    Hoodie

    @WaterGirl: Or as an open letter you send to the local media, not your GOP senator’s staff, who will immediately File 13 it.   Take out the “asshole” and one of the local stations in Raleigh or Charlotte might run it.   Also, maybe talk about the tax cuts in terms of power, e.g., more money for people like Musk et al. to buy politicians like Tillis and Budd, instead of the stuff about yachts.

  74. 74.

    Emily B.

    @WaterGirl: Off-topic: A couple of weeks ago you mentioned a very cool-sounding initiative to send postcards with news headlines (from reputable sources) to voters in VA, NJ, etc. this year. Could you remind me of the group that’s doing this? I seem to recall that June 3 was the roll-out day, and I’d love to sign up.

  77. 77.

    Rabbit Rabbit

    If we’re all going to die anyway, why force us to be born? The mental gymnastics required to get from one stance to the other is… incredible.

Comments are closed.