4/23: It’s today! Tuesday’s agenda includes gun shows & oil drilling!

April 20th, marked the 20th anniversary of the Columbine shooting, which changed everything…

Update with your Tuesday morning coffee: Reach out and say “Hi” to your County Supervisor!

Email: Use this form here to send a message. It has an example letter you can alter or use as is.

Call – Minimal script: I’m calling from [town/area] and I want Supervisor [___] to vote “YES” on the oil well moratorium this afternoon. Over 2.5 million Californians are already exposed to chemicals in their water, with the highest burden placed on low-income and minorities. Please don’t risk our people, don’t risk our water.

Contact:
District 1: Steve Bennett (805) 654-2703, District 2:: Linda Parks (805) 214-2510, District 3: Kelly Long (805) 654-2276, District 4: Bob Huber (805) 955-2300, District 5: John Zaragoza (805) 654-2613
Which one is mine? Check here.

Action #1A – Come support a ban on gun shows at the Ventura County Fairgrounds. DAA Board Meeting – TUESDAY, April 23rd, 9 am.

image.png

Momentum is building up across California to get our state out of the gun dealing business. Guns shows have already been banned at Del Mar and at the Cow Palace. (There’s also an impending law banning gun sales at the Cow Palace, see below.) 

  • Email to the Fair Board:  Talking points from the Brady Campaign here. Use personal stories if you can. Send to bquaid@venturacountyfairgrounds.org
  • Show up at the meeting –  Fairgrounds at Derby Hall, 10 W. Harbor Blvd.
  • Share flyer on social media – flyer
  • Call/email Governor Newsom – You can use the same talking points, contact information here.

“In these times of horrific gun violence, no state agency should be promoting and profiting from the proliferation of firearms and ammunition in our community,”-  Ruth Borenstein, a leader of the San Francisco chapter of Brady United Against Gun Violence.

Continue reading “4/23: It’s today! Tuesday’s agenda includes gun shows & oil drilling!” →

Mon – 4/22: Wonk Week! 2,576 bills are now moving through the CA legislature. Help keep the good ones alive!

The CA state legislature works very differently than Congress.

Unlike their federal counterparts, there’s a limit on how many bills each assemblymember or state senator can sponsor, and a February cutoff for introducing  them. This year, the starting gates were loaded with a record 2,576 new bills , including 1799 Assembly bills and 237 Senate bills, in addition to numerous amendments and resolutions. Apparently the most popular bill right now is AB-31, which proposes to eliminate sales tax on tampons, pads and other menstrual products.

But there are some other very important bills on the crowded committee agendas as each house rushes to get all their bills heard and reported to the floor by the late April/early May deadlines, and then passed out of the own house by May 31st. Even with the inevitable loss of bills as they “die” in committee, this is a huge task. Last year, 2,177 bills were introduced and 900 passed.

Indivisible Ventura is working with a coalition of Indivisible groups throughout CA, as well as the Sierra Club, United Way, CAUSE, ACLU and others to pick out the bills most important to us and track them through the legislature. We then ask people to call when a bill we’re watching comes through one of their legislator’s committees, so good bills get to the governor’s desk and bad ones get stopped.

Action #1 – Call today for SB-200 “Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund. 

We already asked you to call your state senator today to oppose SB-230, an attempt to distract us from truly reforming the use of force by police officers in CA. We would also like you to call in support of SB-200: “Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund“.

Continue reading “Mon – 4/22: Wonk Week! 2,576 bills are now moving through the CA legislature. Help keep the good ones alive!” →

Sun – 4/21: Your Monday call to oppose SB-230 can save a life.

Image used by permission of Darrin Bell, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. The death of Trayvon Martin was one of driving motivations behind his amazing work.

Action – Tell your state senator to oppose  SB 230 – which perpetuates our police-execution machine.

Despite our liberal reputation, CA leads the nation in police-involved killings at a rate 37% higher than the national average, due to extremely loose regulations on when police can use lethal force.  Between 2005 and 2016, our police officers killed over 1,200 people. In 2017, they killed 162 people, half of whom did not have guns. A recent LAPD report found that one in three instances of use of force by its officers involved someone with mental illness. Shootings also disproportionately impact communities of color, as CA police kill unarmed young black and Latino men at significantly higher rates than they do white men.

This action is actually the tale of two competing CA bills –

  • AB-392 “Peace officers: deadly force“, backed by the ACLU, civil-liberties groups, labor unions, and families, CHANGES the standards about when police are allowed to use deadly force from “reasonable” to “necessary“. (APPROVE!)
  • SB-230“Law enforcement: use of deadly force” backed by police unions and management, concentrates on improving internal department policies and training, all of which they could do without creating this unnecessary law. (OPPOSE)

Here’s a clip from a officer training video from Kern County in 2006. Although Sheriff Youngblood stated his words were taken out of context, it’s not surprising that Kern County is currently the leader in officer-involved killings. (Sheriff Youngblood retained his seat.)

SB-230“Law enforcement” is on the 4/23 agenda in the Senate Committee on Public Safety, (Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson is a member, along with Sen. Nancy Skinner (Chair), Sen. Moorlach (Vice Chair), Sen. Bradford, Sen. Mitchell, Sen. Morrell, and Sen. Wiener.)

They’ll be meeting at 9:30 Tuesday, so get your calls in on Monday! (If you’re not sure who your senator is, check here.) (AB-392 has been re-referred to the Rules Committee and isn’t on the agenda yet.)

Continue reading “Sun – 4/21: Your Monday call to oppose SB-230 can save a life.” →

Fri. – 4/19: RE: Mueller Report – The administration is “taking the temperature” before putting out a “counter report”…

Let’s turn it to “boil.”

Quote here.

Action #1 – Read the Mueller report (what there is of it) for yourself.

quote on report

Mueller’s report makes clear that there’s a “substantial body of evidence” on obstruction.

  • The geniuses in Indivisible East Bay have made the Mueller report searchable here.
  • The Washington Post analysis on the 10 areas of possible obstruction, with page references, here.

Action #2 – Ask for resignations, because you don’t ask, you don’t get. 

Continue reading “Fri. – 4/19: RE: Mueller Report – The administration is “taking the temperature” before putting out a “counter report”…” →

Wed. 4/17: Take the quiz below. Then decide if this is business as usual. 3 actions

Last Friday, President Donald Trump tweeted out a doctored clip of Omar speaking at a Council on American-Islamic Relations charity dinner, where she said, “some people did something,” in reference to the Sept. 11 tragedy. The clip was deliberately taken out of context and has since sparked not only media controversy but, since last Saturday,  has incited literally hundreds of death threats from unpaid but willing amateur assassins eager to do the president’s bidding against a sitting congressperson and her family.

Action #1 – Take the quiz!

Reading comprehension – Who are we’re talking about here?

Continue reading “Wed. 4/17: Take the quiz below. Then decide if this is business as usual. 3 actions” →

Wed 4/17: Stop the fake “cost/benefits” attack on the Mercury & Air Toxics Rule. Deadline TONIGHT, 11:59 pm EST.

Action – Comment now! Even most utilities think this is a bad idea!

The EPA wants to weaken the Mercury and Air Toxics (MATS) Rule by insisting that it is no longer “appropriate and necessary” to regulate hazardous air pollution from coal and oil-fired power plants because the costs outweigh the benefits.

(Let’s take a moment to clarify that…)costs outweigh benefits

(There, fixed!)

This is just the beginning. The Trump EPA is trying out this new weaponized cost/benefit strategy. If it works, they’ll use it to dismantle all our long-standing environmental regulations protecting our air and water from the toxic by-products of fossil fuel generation. Please speak up against this latest attack on our environment.

The deadline is TONIGHT, Wed. 4/17, 11:59 pm EST. Don’t miss this chance! 

  • Read their nonsense here. BE OUTRAGED!
  • COMMENT HERE.
  • Copy your comment and send it to your rep. and senators too! – contact info. here
  • Check out other comments here.
  • Information: Writing tips, sample comments, talking points, history of the EPA and reference below, in that order.

Continue reading “Wed 4/17: Stop the fake “cost/benefits” attack on the Mercury & Air Toxics Rule. Deadline TONIGHT, 11:59 pm EST.” →

Tues – 4/16: Indivisible against hate – support #IStandWithIlhan, #NoBanAct and the 9/11 Victims Fund.

Watch this video. Be impressed. Then let’s help her “make good trouble.”

Action #1 – We are Indivisible Against Hate. #IStandWithIlhan, and make sure your legislators have got her back too.

It’s not just about Rep. Omar and it’s not about 9/11. Trump, GOP members and their minions are trying to tear the Democratic House majority apart- by attacking its diverse new legislators, inciting hatred and death threats, and religious dog whistling. They want to herd scared voters towards racism, facism and Islamophobia at the next election, and to incite us into wasting our time and opportunities squabbling amongst ourselves. Right now, we and our legislators need to join hands and clearly share our vision for a better and more just world. #IStandWithIlhan, #StandWithIlhan

  • Video: Make your own #IStandWithIlhan video here like Leah and Ezra’s above with the help of Indivisible and share it with your social media.
  • Cards: We’re writing support cards for Rep. Omar at our Third Thursday Pizza lunch. Info here.
  • Call: Make sure your legislators are publicly on-board too.

Continue reading “Tues – 4/16: Indivisible against hate – support #IStandWithIlhan, #NoBanAct and the 9/11 Victims Fund.” →

Mon 4/15: Those who would destroy our clean water protections are so close, they can taste it. So will we. “Waters of the U.S.”, Comment by tonight at 11:59 EST.

Action – The administration would like to redefine “water”. You know that this isn’t good. Save the current version of “Water of the United States” (WOTUS)

Clean water is not just a problem for Flint Michigan…
The Clean Water Act (CWA) has been regulating water in the United States since 1972 with bipartisan support under multiple administrations. In 2015, Obama’s EPA created the Waters of the United States (WOTUS), which added science-based protections and clarified terms, using the best input from reputable scientists, the Army Corps of Engineers, the public, agriculture, environmentalists, and more. Even with those protections in place, in any given year from 1982 to 2015, between 9 million and 45 million Americans got their drinking water from a source that was in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Most at risk: people who live in rural, low-income areas.

Utilities, fossil fuel, mining, and farming interests are now expecting their return on investment in Trump, their lobbyists arguing that WOTUS defined federally regulated waters too broadly and that the scope should be limited per Supreme Court Justice (and noted NON-SCIENTIST) Scalia’s opinion to “only relatively permanent, standing or flowing bodies of water.” Then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt issued a proposal in June 2017 to roll back the expanded definition, and our protections to having clean water. In January 2018, the EPA formally suspended the rule for two years, and in December, the administration unveiled a new plan to replace the rule. The deadline to make comments is TONIGHT (4/15), 11:59 pm EST.

  • Proposed rule here. Comment here.
  • Read other comments for inspiration here.

Comment examples: 

Continue reading “Mon 4/15: Those who would destroy our clean water protections are so close, they can taste it. So will we. “Waters of the U.S.”, Comment by tonight at 11:59 EST.” →

Third Thursdays – Pizza, Camaraderie, & Postcards on April 18th! That’s TODAY!

Let’s meet at Santino’s for pizza, camaraderie, and social justice – every Third Thursday.

Where: Santino’s Pizza. It’s at 4231 Telegraph Rd., Ventura, 93003
When: April 18th, 11:30am – 1:30pm.
RSVP: None. Just come – you provide your own stationary and envelopes (bring an extra for a new friend!), we provide the pizza and postcards and stamps!
Questions? Email indivisibleventura@gmail.org

On April 18th, we’ll focus on:

The Pennsylvania Congressional District 12 Special Election – we’ll be sending postcards to voters in the district to remind them to vote for Marc Friedenberg – his website is here – in the newly vacated seat most recently held by a Republican. Let’s keep the House Blue! We’ll provide the postcards.

Medicare for All support from Senator Feinstein – the Medicare for All bill has dropped in the Senate! Senator Harris has signed on as a co-sponsor, and we will urge Ms. Feinstein to do the same. Bring your own stationary if you want to participate in this issue. More info here

No Gun Shows at the Ventura County Fairgrounds support from Governor Newsom – Gavin Newsom, in his campaign for governor, told the fair board he is against gun shows on state property. Let’s hold him to his word.  Bring your own stationary if you want to participate in this issue. More info here

Words of comfort to  Continue reading “Third Thursdays – Pizza, Camaraderie, & Postcards on April 18th! That’s TODAY!” →