om_main | Philip, Arthur, and Lydia, the afternoon of the GDA vote

The talk is all business in Philip's office, but at least Congress is doing the right thing... this time.

"If we're all doing the same thing, we might as well do it in the same room instead of these constant updates, right?" Lydia smiled at Arthur, then turned and knocked on Philip's door.

"I'm not arguing," Arthur said mildly, though he shifted the laptop in his arms again, a mild sign of the stress he wasn't going to let out any other way. "It'll save on typos, anyway."

"It's open," Philip called out. He'd had a couple visitors in his office space and he wasn't surprised there were more, all things considered. It wasn't the most comfortable area, but at least he'd scrounged up a couple of chairs and a little table to go with his desk.

Lydia smirked at Arthur as she pushed through the door. "We thought we'd join you in your--oh god, it's small in here."

Arthur shot her an amused look in turn, then nodded a greeting at Philip as he moved to settle himself into one of he chairs, already opening his laptop. "Where do we stand?" He asked, brusque in the way he tended to get whenever there was something to be focusing on.

"I don't tend to notice it," Philip said dryly. "And it's looking pretty good so far, there's been a lot of parallels to genetic testing for disease. The language on this thing is horrendously sloppy."

"Which is unsurprising, considering that the combined IQ of the Committee on Science is probably in the double-digits," Lydia said with a snort. "Good for us, though."

"The average of IQ of the people voting isn't going to be much higher," Arthur said, deadpan but distracted as he got his feeds set back up. "If they use enough scare tactics anything will sound good."

"They're using scare tactics in the wrong direction, at least." Philip replied. "I'm hearing parallels to minority groups as well, that can only help. It's too bad we can't publicize what's going on behind-doors in Canada."

Lydia sighed. "Jean-Paul wishes--and I wouldn't be surprised if he looked for a way to make it happen, but that's another problem for another time.

"Scare tactics are, luckily, all they have for the moment. Is there someone calling them out on the floor, at least?"

Arthur gave the kind of distracted hum that meant something had just gotten filed away to the back of his mind for later, but he flicked them both a look without verbalizing it. "Not in so many words," he answered instead. "Par for the course."

Philip drummed his fingers on his desk briefly as he thought. "We could do a little misinformation of our own. Sneak a few things in social media? Resurrect the genetic testing healthcare hysteria with some blatant ignorant misinformation?"

"I like it," Lydia said, making some notes on her iPad already. "We could get Tessa and Barbara to plant some, too. What should we say?"

"Compare it to eugenics," Arthur said flatly, though one side of his mouth curved up the smallest amount. "We may as wall make Godwin's work for us."

"Stick something in there about how it would be a mandated program so there would be taxes involved, but leak that one in small doses," Philip suggested. "The first assumption is always that government will make people pay for it somehow." A flat out lie? Yes, but he didn't care so much.

"Taxpayer dollars bent on invasion of American citizens' privacy," Lydia said even as she typed it out. "All in aid of a eugenics project. We'll start it backwards--eugenics, invasion of privacy slippery slope argument" --god, she hated slippery slope arguments, but rwnjs loved them-- "and a hint here and there about tax dollars. They'll definitely run with that on their own."

"I doubt it will do much to affect this vote," Arthur said, attention entirely on the screen in front of him, half a dozen live feeds and at least two spreadsheets, "but we may as well start the groundwork for anything in the future. Whether or not it passes, this will happen again."

"And better prepared," Philip said with a sigh. He shared a few things he'd started working on, sending the links off to Lydia and Arthur both. "The language on this one is a travesty, they'll tighten it up or worse, attach it to something else that'll be a lot harder to shoot down."

Lydia sent their ideas to Barbara and Tessa, CCing Arthur and Philip, of course, and went to examining Philips links. "We need to get some serious lobbying happening. Stark Industries and Oscorp will help. Shaw--he'll help but in his weird backwards way. It works, though. It's a start."

Arthur sighed a little and flexed his hands before starting to type again. "Not yet. We need a groundswell first, or it will just look like corporations playing politics."

"True, and the last thing we want is the idea that people with money are controlling this. There's enough one percenter issues as it is. I'll leave the timing on that to you two, social media is not exactly my forte." Which was an utter understatement but at least Philip was good with number crunching.

"Honestly, I think that's going to be assumed anyhow," Lydia said, not totally convinced. "Since that's generally the way things work anyhow, especially in Washington. But it can't hurt to hold off on it for the moment, either. At least, ostensibly."

"We're looking for kneejerk reactions," Arthur said with a slight shake of his head. "Irrational responses. It may occur to people later that money talks, but we want this to go viral first."

"Some of them might shoot themselves in the foot on that account anyway," Philip put in. "Some conservatives will back anything if it sounds like opposing will make them liberal."

Lydia still didn't much care for the idea of letting anything develop without their touch for even the shortest of periods, but it was true that their efforts would be better spent elsewhere for now. She could accept that, so she nodded. "And there's our IQ problem again. God."

Arthur gave her a look that somehow managed to be commiserating despite not shifting all that much from his usual expression. "If people are going to be stupid regardless, we might as well make it work for us."

"Moo," Philip said dryly. "As we cattle-herd at its finest."

"Preach," Lydia agreed, still clicking away.