1,057 grassroots organizations,(including Indivisible Ventura) and nonprofits from across the country signed on to a letter to President Biden, representing the voices of 3,315,520 individual members.
(Thanks to Indivisible Georgia Coalition for putting this original letter together!)
Now we’re asking you to add your voice as well.
You can copy/paste this sample email, in part or in its entirety or make your own:
Continue reading “We wrote a letter to Biden. We need you to write one too.”(From Dean Obeidallah) “This is special edition of my newsletter given the dangerous lies that many-although not all—Fox News hosts have been spewing about the Covid vaccine.
On Tuesday, July 20, I filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission against Fox News for possible violations of the Covid-19 Consumer Protection Act. That law, enacted in December 2020, makes it “unlawful” for a corporation or individual “to engage in a deceptive act or practice in or affecting commerce associated with the treatment, cure, prevention, mitigation, or diagnosis of COVID–19.”
My goal in filing this complaint is to prompt the FTC to investigate and bring an end to the apparently deceptive information Fox News has been selling to the consumers of its channel. Given the FTC’s expanded powers under the new Covid-19 Consumer Protection Act to protect the public from deceptive information related to the treatment or prevention of Covid-19, I believe this complaint fits squarely within the spirit of its new mandate. Fox News is a for-profit business that is selling its product — information — to the public in exchange for cable subscription fees.
The FTC is the perfect agency to protect the public from any person or entity peddling false information about Covid-19 vaccines in pursuit of pecuniary gain. I wrote in detail about the legal basis for the claim, the sources that prove Fox News hosts lied about the Covid vaccine and the need for an investigation in my new MSNBC op-ed out today that you can read HERE.
My hope though is that YOU will also file a complaint with the FTC—it literally will take you less than five minutes. Info is below. Let’s not just get angry about the dangerous lies Fox News is spreading that is potentially killing people, let’s do something about it!
Today’s good news included the IRS being ordered to hand over Trump’s taxes to Congress and the public exposure of the notes taken during his attempt to bully Georgia into declaring him a winner.
But not good enough. The GOP will just patiently wait out this news cycle or even consider it a welcome distraction from the news they’re hoping we won’t notice…
On August 16, the Census Bureau will release their demographic data, the starting gun for the GOP to quietly and immediately gerrymander away six to 13 seats in the House of Representatives—more than the 5 needed to retake the House in 2022—through its control of the redistricting process in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and Texas alone. The Republican redistricting advantage extends far beyond those four states: They’ll be able to draw 187 congressional districts, compared to 75 for Democrats, and those that elected new legislators like Lucy McBath, the first Black woman to represent old Newt’s district, will be eliminated. We already know that CA will lose a seat, while Texas, Florida, and NC will gain some.
Instead of hanging in their home districts with us, we need our senators to be pushing S.1 – For the People Act through. Some reforms could theoretically wait until after a recess period, but certain key proposals, such as prohibiting partisan gerrymandering, must be enacted now to make a difference in the 2022 elections. Without congressional action in the next few weeks, Republicans could lock Democrats out of power for the next decade, even if voters mobilize and turn out heavily in Democrats’ favor. So, the window to prevent partisan gerrymandering is closing quickly.
Yeah. That’s the real news.
Minimal script for our own senators: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want Sen. [___] to stay in the Capitol to push through “S.1 – For the People Act,” especially the parts prohibiting partisan gerrymandering. I would consider leaving for summer recess a dereliction of duty, as the Census Bureau is releasing fuel for a savage GOP-redistricting on August 16. I and my friends worked hard for Sen. [___]. But unless [he/she] wants to become part of the legislative minority party again, watching helplessly as an actual minority party passes unjust bills and tries to reinstate a fascist president, [he/she] needs to get to work now and stay until it’s done. No excuses. Nothing in [his/her] district is as important as dealing with this issue.
Continue reading “No recess until the Senate passes S.1 – For the People Act and stops partisan gerrymandering.”The Declaration for American Democracy is planning a solid week of advocacy on democracy in D.C. next week from Aug. 2 to Aug. 6. (Video below from DFAD – click if “black”.)
They want to get state legislators from as many states as possible to come to D.C. on Aug 3 to follow in the footsteps of the Texas legislature (minus the fear of arrest… ) to speakup about the effect that the suppressive laws would have on democracy in their states. And CA wasn’t free of voter suppression bills – two of them showed up on the Brennan Center’s State Voting Bills Tracker.
They need us to help to get the word out! We’ve printed out a 2000 character version of their letter below to fit in Sen. Limón and Asm. Bennett’s email comment sections. If your legislators have no limits, use their original version here (email template for state legislators) Share with your friends and family! Let’s get leaders from all over America to stand on the Capitol steps and demand better from the GOP.
Update: 7/28/21 “Senators say they have deal on ‘major issues’ in infrastructure talks.” Haha, no. You go home when it’s passed both houses and signed by Biden, along with a serious voting rights bill, and all the funding legislation that’s pending under deadline.
While it might be amusing to track the various COVID and Critical Race Theory lies that GOP legislators will tell their packed and contagious hometown audiences during August recess, we simply can’t afford the time. We’ve already had a whole administration of opportunity wasted with Donald Trump’s “Groundhog Day-style” promises of “Infrastructure Week!” (aborted attempts listed here and here). Now he’s reaching out and touching those who fear him, threatening to turn them into losers like himself unless they stall the current infrastructure talks with Trump-dsyfunction until after the 2022 elections, more than a year away.
After all, what’s another year of the GOP’s legislative sabotage? Who minds another year of roads buckling under extreme heat, “sun-kinked” railroad tracks, flooded, melting, or inadequate runways and 47,000 bridges in need of urgent repair, with predictions that 1 in 4 U.S. steel bridges will collapse from extreme heat by 2040? (No problem except for those involved in their 171.5 million daily crossings.) And who doesn’t remeber last winter, when 15 million people in Texas were without safe drinking water in the wake of the massive storm, cold snap, and power outages, along with more in Oklahoma, Louisiana, and other hard-hit Southern states.
ACTION #1: Send a letter to our Ventura County Board of Supervisors to support the recommendation of indoor mask wearing.
ACTION #2: ZOOM – Call in to the Ventura County Fairground Board regarding gun shows- Tuesday, July 27 (9:00 am)
(VC Star) “Citing rising COVID-19 infections and the spread of the delta variant, Ventura County public health officials are urging residents to wear masks indoors in public places whether they are vaccinated or not.
“While vaccines remain our best tool against COVID-19, masking in indoor and crowded outdoor settings will help us curb the spread of this latest wave of infection,” said Dr. Robert Levin, Ventura County’s health officer, in an advisory released Monday.
COVID-19 case rates have increased across California since the state’s full economic reopening on June 15. Ventura County’s COVID case rate grew to 4.5 infections a day per 100,000 people for the week ending July 10 — nearly four times the rate a month earlier. Levin said county data shows unvaccinated people are 22 times more likely to become infected and hospitalized than vaccinated residents.“
Please send a letter to our Ventura County Board of Supervisors to support the recommendation of indoor mask wearing given the impact of the delta variant – Meeting is Tuesday, July 27.
Continue reading “Two urgent Ventura County actions…”
(Video the “New California Wildfire Report Co-Authored by ForestWatch Staff”)
We, along with the good people at Los Padres ForestWatch, are very excited about a reboot of the Civilian Conservation Corps, which contains grant programs for planting trees in urban areas, support for outdoor recreation, and funding focused on creating jobs for youth. What we are not excited about are billions of taxpayer dollars tucked into HR 1162/ S 487 which go towards outdated solutions for wildfires that were developed by the original CCC almost 90 years ago, actions which we now know will increase threats to communities and worsen climate change.
Continue reading “Clearcut some outdated logging solutions out of the Conservation Corps Act (HR 1162/S487)”We have, like many groups, advised people to cut off their unwitting financial support of FOX News, a right-wing propaganda machine masquerading as a media empire. And as there’s more than one way to attack this issue, so we offered a variety of options here.
Meanwhile, the poison continues. Tucker Carlson, who promotes white nationalist viewpoints on his widely watched show, gave a sympathetic and unquestioning platform to Charles Murray, a social scientist who uses racist pseudoscience and misleading statistics to argue that social inequality is caused by the genetic inferiority of the black and Latino communities, women and the poor. Meanwhile, a report released last Friday by the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters showed that the majority of vaccine-related segments that Fox News aired over the past two weeks “repeatedly fearmongered about and downplayed the need for continued vaccination campaigns.”
So what do we do now?
In 2019, the Intercept published an article: “The Problem at Fox News Is Not Just Tucker Carlson — It’s the Murdoch Family Who Owns and Controls the Network: It’s not enough to criticize the racist anchors on Fox News. The Murdoch family is responsible for what happens there. Let’s talk about them…
…It’s absolutely correct to direct our anger at the terrible people we see on Fox and the terrible things they say, but they are not the worst culprits or the most powerful ones. Remember the Watergate-era saying, “follow the money”? Do that with Fox News and you’ll quickly realize that the people responsible for its hateful programming — the people who can shut it off in an instant but don’t because they approve of it or are too cowardly to take a stand against it — are Rupert Murdoch and his heirs, who founded and own a controlling stake in the network’s parent company.“
In fact, let’s talk to Rupert...
Megadrought. Aridification. We are officially in serious trouble.
(Esquire) “Not long ago, we mentioned that Lake Mead, the water source for 40 million people (1 in 10 Americans) and for massive tracts of American farmland, and a big part of the existence of the states of California, Nevada, and Arizona, was reaching record lows...the problem is getting worse, and quickly, too.
Continue reading “It’s not just a drought. It’s “aridification.” “YES” on H.R. 4099. Now.”But after years of an unrelenting drought that has quickly accelerated amid record temperatures and lower snowpack melt, the lake is set to mark another, more dire turning point. Next month, the federal government expects to declare its first-ever shortage on the lake, triggering cuts to water delivered to Arizona, Nevada and Mexico on Jan. 1. If the lake, currently at 1,068 feet, drops 28 more feet by next year, the spigot of water to California will start to tighten in 2023.
The crisis, said Eric Kuhn, former general manager of the Colorado River Conservation District, can no longer be ignored. “According to Merriam-Webster, a drought is a temporary condition,” he said. What is happening, he suggested, is something more permanent and troubling. “This is aridification.”
“Democratic lawmakers in Texas staged a dramatic walkout to prevent the Republican-controlled Legislature from passing a sweeping bill to rewrite election laws in the state. Critics say the bill will lead to mass voter suppression, especially of Black and Latinx voters, by eliminating drive-thru and 24-hour voting, as well as ballot drop boxes. The Republican bill would also make it easier for elections to be overturned even if there is no evidence of fraud.“
Joe did his part. Watch his speech, or read it here.
OK, call your senators over and over. Make it as much a part of your everyday life as coffee in the morning and it will take less than a minute of your time. Phone calls and in-person meetings are the most effective ways to influence your senator, and since we need to pass this bill before August recess, calling daily now is truly crucial. We know it might feel odd to call over and over, but please know that your second and third calls are just as important as the first one.
You can go to Indivisible’s autodialer here or DIY it.
Minimal script: Hello, I’m calling from [zip code] and I’m very concerned about Senate Republicans’ use of the filibuster to block the For the People Act from passage. We cannot let Republicans hold our democracy hostage. It’s time to eliminate the filibuster to save our democracy.
Will Sen. [___] eliminate the filibuster and pass the For the People Act, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and all the other essential Democratic priorities? Republicans cannot be allowed to continue obstructing our government and standing in the way of progress. There’s no time to waste.
Continue reading “TX Dem. legislators are facing arrest for trying to protect voting rights. Our job is easy – just to pick up our phones!”
