Contact
Federal Government Officials
Fax legislators
for free:
Or use Resistbot: https://resist.bot/
Or use StampsLicked to have messages
hand-delivered to our own legislators: https://stampslicked.org/
White House
contact: https://www.usa.gov/federal-agencies/white-house
1. For
weeks, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has continued to block any
attempt to hold votes on the government shutdown, waiting instead to vote only
on Trump's newest "deal" (https://cbsn.ws/2U6HjLt).
The House has already passed legislation to re-open the government, and
Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate have stated that Trump's offer
is a non-starter. To increase pressure on senators, Indivisible is hosting a
National Call Day today, the 33rd day, to end this government
shutdown with no border wall funding. Let's check out the call scripts at Indivisible,
then contact our senators. asking them to end this shutdown with the
House-passed legislation ASAP.
2. The
Senate announced that it will vote Thursday afternoon on two bills that would
re-open the government. The first bill is Trump’s proposal to appropriate $5.7
billion for a border wall in exchange for three years of protection for
residents with DACA and TPS status. If this bill fails, the Senate will vote on
a Continuing Resolution to open the government for three weeks. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/426469-senate-to-vote-on-dueling-government-funding-bills.
Considering that the courts have already blocked the administration from ending
DACA, and just today, the Supreme Court stated they would not take
the case until at least next fall, and considering that even from a conservative standpoint, a
border wall is expensive and ineffective,
we need to tell our Senators to vote this proposal down, and then to vote FOR
the Continuing Resolution and support the 800,000 government workers whose
paychecks have been compromised. Or
better yet, vote on the House’s bill that has been waiting on McConnell to
bring it to a vote.
3. The
cruelty of the impact of the Trump administration goes on day by day as the
Supreme Court upheld Trump’s ban of transgendered people serving in the
military by a 5-4 vote with Gorsuch and Kavanaugh in the majority:
https://www.apnews.com/45b6f92f726e48988de948cdba2ee026 This
is taking place as cases in the lower court work their way through the system.
Let’s remind our MoC that military leadership is not seeking this civil rights
violation as policy and that we should not be turning away qualified people
eager to serve our nation.
4. Trump
tried to make it look like he got concessions before the decision was made to
lift sanctions on three Russian companies, but the current deal looks like an
even better opportunity for Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/21/us/politics/oleg-deripaska-russian-sanctions.html Let’s express our concerns to our MoCs,
particularly the Republican Senators who voted to lift the sanctions.
5. Four
humanitarian aid workers affiliated with No More Deaths/No Mas Muertes were
found guilty at a bench trial on Friday of misdemeanor charges for leaving
water and food for migrants in a restricted area of Arizona’s Cabeza Prieta
National Wildlife Refuge, where the remains of 137 of 2800 dead border-crossers
discovered since 2000 have been found. This is the first time in a decade
that a humanitarian aid volunteer along the border has been found guilty; “If
giving water to someone dying of thirst is illegal, what humanity is left in
the law of this country?” asked a No More Deaths statement: https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2019/01/20/4-no-more-deaths-volunteers-found-guilty/
Since Trump’s ascendancy, the permit to enter the refuge requires initialing
a “new clause saying that . . . you are agreeing to not put food, water,
blankets, socks, medical care out on the refuge.” Let’s remind the White
House and the Border Patrol--877-227-551--that leaving anyone to die in the
desert is immoral and lend our support to No More Deaths--https://www.uusc.org/initiatives/no-more-deaths/
6. In
their endless effort to undermine the Affordable Care Act, a new Trump administration
proposal would change the annual limits on consumers’ out-of-pocket costs for
insurance plans sold under the ACA; insurers would not have to count the full
amount of a consumer’s co-payment for a brand-name drug toward the annual limit
on cost-sharing but rather only the smaller amount that would be charged for a
generic version of the drug or for using coupons drug companies
issue: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/21/us/politics/trump-obamacare-drug-costs.html or https://khn.org/morning-breakout/consumers-could-be-on-hook-for-more-health-costs-under-trump-proposal-to-incentivize-generic-drugs/
This proposal will be posted in the Federal Register this week, we are told,
though because of the government shutdown the site is currently
“unsupported”: https://www.federalregister.gov/public-inspection/current
Let’s watch carefully for a public comment period--and if there isn’t one, call
on our MoC to object.
7. With
Housing & Urban Development (HUD) closed by the government shutdown and
weakened by an exodus of staff under Ben Carson, landlords have begun illegally
pressuring low-income, disabled, and elderly tenants to come up with the rent
ordinarily paid by federal government subsidies: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/21/us/politics/government-shutdown-housing-services.html or https://affordablehousingonline.com/blog/millions-low-income-renters-at-risk-if-shutdown-into-march/
Let’s call on Trump to end his dangerous game of chicken over the Wall and
Congress to act to protect HUD tenants from predatory landlords.
8. “Thousands
of disabled people employed with the government through a federal contracting
set-aside program have been sent home without pay because of the partial
government shutdown, nonprofit managers who employed them say, raising new
concerns about how the shutdown is impacting those least prepared to weather
it. John Kelly, vice president of government relations and public policy at SourceAmerica,
an organization that works with more than 400 such nonprofits, said he is aware
of 143 nonprofits across 43 states that have been affected.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/01/22/thousands-disabled-federal-contract-workers-sent-home-due-shutdown-managers-say/?utm_term=.5370c8405927 Another group of people who are the least
prepared for this shutdown are suffering. Today is national call-in day
to end the shutdown. Please be sure to make a call to your senator, Governor
and the White House. . .let’s open government now.
9. For
generations US presidents have gone to great lengths to avoid conflicts of
interest by selling their businesses or putting them into trusts during their
term of office. Until Trump, and he has profited
nicely since being elected. https://www.citizensforethics.org/presidential-profiteering-trumps-conflicts-got-worse/ Let’s tell our MoCs that it is time to pass legislation
to eliminate these kinds of breeches of respectability.
Election/Voting
Other
Actions
1. The confrontation in D.C. between a group of
high school students and a Native American activist has been all over the news
and social media. There are a few hours of footage but watching a clip of any
length will tell us that the boys were openly disrespectful of Nathan Phillips,
the elder who tried to step in between them and a group of other youths with
whom they were exchanging taunts.
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/20/686988268/video-of-kentucky-students-mocking-native-american-man-draws-outcry In
honor of Phillips' calm under fire, and his long history of supporting Native
youth, let's help out some of the organizations that provide assistance to
young indigenous people, if we can: A) Phillips' own organization, the Native
Youth Alliance: m.facebook.com/NativeYouthAlliance/,
B) The Native Youth Leadership Alliance: https://nativeyouthleadership.org,
C) or The American Indian College Fund: https://collegefund.org/howtohelp/
2. If we are teachers or know a teacher who could
benefit from this, Teaching Tolerance has developed a plan designed with the
intent of “helping students to see this moment from an Indigenous
perspective—helping them recognize the impact of the
confrontation on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—is a necessary step toward
untangling its complexity. It’s just one reason educators need to teach about
settler-colonialism.” We can get it
here: https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/what-is-settlercolonialism
3. Recently some people, often people of
color, have been trying to explain the difference between racial bias,
which any person can have, and racism, which refers to a whole
social/political/economic system of discrimination. This isn't mere semantic
hairsplitting, because it accurately identifies how people's racial biases have
had such unequal effects on various races.
Yet journalism's reluctance to use the term since the civil right
movement seems to be rooted in mistaking "racism" for a blight
on the soul, instead of a personal failing abetted/amplified by a societal
one. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/01/16/685980809/why-journalists-are-debating-using-racist-to-describe-rep-steve-kings-quotes Let's tell the editors of our favorite news
sources to get their definitions straight and start calling racism by its true
name.
4. In celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. and
Black History Month, let's take on a few items from this convenient
list of concrete actions that white people can take to help advance racial
justice: https://medium.com/@cshutack/what-white-people-can-do-for-racial-justice-f2d18b0e0234.
Pro-tip: people who aren't white can do them, too! Extra pro-tip: a lot of them
make life better for all of us, not just black people.
5. It has now been 35 days since the White House
has given a press briefing, and today Trump tweeted that he intends to continue
to limit face-to-face interaction between the White House and members of the
press. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/426461-whca-condemns-trumps-retreat-from-transparency-after-he-says-he-told-sanders.
The administration’s constant attempts to place limits on the free press is a
tactic used by many fascist governments that only want their brand of “truth”
publicized. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-fascist-learning-about-how-fascism-works-can-help-prevent-ncna905886.
Let’s be extremely mindful of the many ways Trump derides and delegitimizes the
media and make sure to stay informed by reading sources from vetted
publications. We can check out this chart to
learn which sources have the least and most media bias. We should also continue
to review Amy
Siskind’s weekly list, which reveals other
ways that this administration has attempted to erode our democracy.
State
Actions
1. KY: Concern about the behavior of Covington
students reminds us that there is another serious problem with these private
schools: the quiet of transfer of much needed public-school funds to private
institutions like Covington. The “Ed Choice Tax Credit” bills, ready to go in
both Kentucky houses, have been described as “thinly disguised private school
vouchers” and these tax credits for private schools are very likely to make it
through the legislature if there is not a huge outcry. It’s time to pushback on
private Kentucky schools getting public school dollars. We need to call, write,
and reach out to our state legislators. There will be all sorts of folks
rallying for these credits, so let’s make our voices heard! We can read an
analysis of these problematic bills here:
https://kypolicy.org/school-voucher-tax-break-proposals-threaten-funding-public-education/ We can find the Senate Bill text here: http://www.lrc.ky.gov/record/18RS/SB36.htm
and the House Bill text is here: http://www.lrc.ky.gov/record/18RS/HB134.htm. We can use this tool to find our legislators
here: http://www.lrc.ky.gov/Find%20Your%20Legislator/Find%20Your%20Legislator.html
2. MI:
On February 23rd, Clean Water Action and Sierra
Club will be hosting
a Love Our Water Lobby Day from 8:00am-1:00pm in Lansing. The event will
be the first volunteer lobby day of the newest legislative session, where we
will meet with our state legislators to discuss our environmental priorities.
Volunteers will receive lobbying training and materials. We can register for
the event here and
check out the Facebook event page here.
Marches/events/webinars/Tweetstorms
to attend/organize
1. It is long past time for the shutdown to end and
if we are in DC today, January 23, from 12-1, we can do something about it. We
can join Federal/ DC Employees, their unions, families and friends to occupy
the Hart Atrium, fill the building with people and demand that Senate
Republicans call a vote to end the Shutdown. Location: Hart Senate Office
Building, 2ND St NE, Washington, District of Columbia 20002 (*REMINDER* Before
entering Hart Senate Office Building, all visitors are screened by a
magnetometer and all items that are permitted inside the building are screened
by an x-ray device. The following items are strictly prohibited: Signs
(No larger than 8x11), Aerosol containers, Non-aerosol spray (prescriptions for
medical needs are permitted), Any pointed object (i.e., knitting needles,
letter openers, etc. Note: pens and pencils are permitted.), Any bag larger
than 18" wide x 14" high x 8.5" deep, Electric stun guns,
martial arts weapons or devices, Guns, replica guns, ammunition, and fireworks,
Knives of any size, Mace and pepper spray, Razors and box cutters. We can find out more about the event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/310768219561217/?ti=icl
2. Ongoing Tweetstorm: Nancy Pelosi is running an emergency
Tweetstorm using the hashtag #TrumpShutdown.
Please search, choose Latest on the top navigation and retweet all. We can also
click on this link for prewritten tweets to send out: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1blVY_XVRIqRxs0YdRj3IN4y-r6kUlK3i0-k8lOXHQaM/edit
Reading/Watching
1. What Are
We Supposed to Learn from the Covington Catholic High School Boys? - https://teacherinastrangeland.blog/2019/01/21/what-are-we-supposed-to-learn-from-the-covington-catholic-high-school-boys/
2. The Voting
Rights Act: A Short Guide - https://politicalcharge.org/2019/01/21/the-voting-rights-act-a-short-guide/
3. How
Voting-Machine Lobbyists Undermine the Democratic Process - https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/how-voting-machine-lobbyists-undermine-the-democratic-process
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.