Update: This one woman, Gigi Sohn, poses such a threat to telecom giants AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and Charter, that their lobbyists are pulling out all the stops to smear her, as reported here. Watchdog site TechDirt.com has identified four Democratic senators (Manchin, Sinema, Kelly, Cortes Masto) who the telecom lobby are targeting for a “NO” vote. Although these industries have reportedly created entirely fake consumer or civil rights groups, it appears that they may be “co-opting” partnered organizations like LULAC, all to prevent this one woman from restoring meaningful federal oversight of their industry.
Don’t hand your reproductive privacy to authoritarians without a fight!
The internet is tracking your period apps, your search history and your location. Companies are already selling that information to cops and extremists.
“I do think that we are facing a future in which the data collected by period-tracking apps could be used either as a dragnet to identify women who may have had an abortion or as evidence that a woman has had an abortion in a future in which seeking out or having an abortion is criminalized, which is something anti-abortion advocates have been eager to do.” – Eva Galperin (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
Action: Call your legislators!
Continue reading “Don’t hand your reproductive privacy to authoritarians without a fight!”Visualize this! Smacking the GOP out of office and getting the work done!
Thanks to everyone who showed up yesterday for our Ventura County Government Center action for #BansoffOurBodies. Be ready for a Planned Parenthood action on May 14.
Images and comments regarding the Ventura action are on our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/IndivisibleVentura . These rallies were happening all across the nation and Senator Warren had some choice words to share at an event near her.
READ: “The dog caught the car” – Read Heather Cox Ricardson’s cogent analysis of the GOP’s cynical history of manipulating evangelical Christians to remain in power and how it led to this moment here.
Get your phone ready for action!
These actions should take no more than 10 minutes total (waiting-for-your-coffee-time) if your phone is programmed with all your legislators numbers.
- How should I do this? tinyurl.com/make-faster-calls
- Why should I do this? My peeps are all Dems.: tinyurl.com/Why-call
Get a live person to talk to, say your script, mimimum (zip code) + “(YES/NO) on (bill name/#).” Add whatever moves you. Done. Rinse and repeat tomorrow. Relentless calling is how the Tea Party led us to Trump and this SCOTUS. We can do it too.
Is CA ready to be a reproductive care sanctuary?
CA already had a list of bills to pass. We’re wondering if they are strong enough.
- UPDATE: “May 5 (Reuters) – Louisiana lawmakers have advanced a bill that would abolish abortion in the state, grant constitutional rights to “all unborn children from the moment of fertilization” and classify abortion as a homicide crime.“
- UPDATE: “As Idahoans plan for a future without abortion rights, a leading Republican in the Idaho House would support holding hearings on legislation banning abortion pills and morning-after pills.
Our “Deeper Dive” section below discusses the eugenics movement that’s always been behind the eyes of GOP believers. We’re not the only ones who’ve noticed.
Hint: The forced-birther movement was never about religion. It was never about babies.
Action #1: Email your assemblymember and state senator to support our sanctuary bills.
Sample email script to legislators: I’m writing because I want Asm./Sen. [___] to vote to pass every one of the 13 remaining bills advanced by Gov. Newsom and the CA Future of Abortion Council to protect those seeking reproductive sanctuary and equity in our state. I’m appalled that a bill like AB-2223, which protects California’s women who experience pregnancy loss, wasn’t passed years ago. However, I’m concerned we may have left off some important protections.
Although AB 1666 focuses on civil liability judgements, if Roe v Wade falls, 26 states will rapidly increase criminalization of abortion, stillbirth and miscarriages. I want to CA to have protections similar to Connecticut’s HB-5414. Their bill offers protection against:
- CRIMINAL prosecution by those states who will use “fetal personhood” to press charges of homicide. It bars extradition by CT’s governor and cooperation with the pursuing state’s investigation or prosecution.
- Abusive civil lawsuits by bounty hunters. It allows those targeted to countersue for full damages, and attorneys’ fees in CT state court.
We had hoped that none of these measures would be necessary, but Texas legislators are threatening women with execution if Roe falls, and Louisiana just advanced a bill that classifies abortion as homicide and which, if passed, they intend to enforce, no matter what SCOTUS decides.
The shadow of Long COVID
Between 5 and 30 million Americans are suffering with symptoms of Long COVID.
Below are several bills that focus, in different proportions, on directly helping patients, educating medical providers and researching this new syndrome that can manifest symptoms in almost every system of the body, including our brains. Considering how many of their constituents are affected, the cosponsor lists for these bills are surprisingly short. Let’s change that!
(More information on each bill is included at the bottom.)
Action #1: Tell your legislators you expect to see their name cosponsoring H.R.7482/ S.4015 – TREAT Long COVID Act.
Continue reading “The shadow of Long COVID”Not again?!? Romney’s “TRUST Act” – the GOP’s Trojan Horse to cut seniors’ Social Security & Medicare benefits is BACK!
A lot of Democratic senators fell for this scam last time! Take nothing for granted. Tell them – “NO” on this GOP-swindle and “YES” for a real solution – “Social Security 2100 Act – A Sacred Trust.”
Sen. Feinstein joined over 20 other Democratic senators in voting for Romney’s TRUST Act last time it was up. Perhaps they did not appreciate then how it would fundamentally weaken Social Security and Medicare, allowing cuts to benefits without regard to how they would affect their constituents who depend on them. But…it’s a GOP bill. The rich are always protected and the poor and middle-class are left to pay the check. Seriously – THEY SHOULD HAVE FIGURED THIS OUT BY NOW!
What we need is H.R.5723/S.3071 “Social Security 2100 Act – A Sacred Trust.” This legislation adjusts the payroll wage cap so that the wealthy begin paying their fair share into the program. They also includes a 2 percent across the board increase in benefits and a more accurate inflation formula for calculating cost-of-living adjustments.
Action: Tell your legislators to vote “NO” on Romney’s Trojan Horse TRUST Act (H.R.2572/S.1295) and “YES” on H.R.5723/S.3071 – Social Security 2100 Act – A Sacred Trust.”
Continue reading “Not again?!? Romney’s “TRUST Act” – the GOP’s Trojan Horse to cut seniors’ Social Security & Medicare benefits is BACK!”A new kind of “Electric Slide”
2035 – the year that all new cars should be electric zero-emission models to meet the Paris Accord goals, is just 13 years away.
The transportation sector contributes 27 percent of the nation’s total greenhouse gas emissions – the biggest single culprit. Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill contains $7.5 billion for building a national network of electric vehicle (EV) chargers to compete with nearly 117,000 gas stations. On the state level, Gov. Newson signed an executive order requiring that 100% of new passenger vehicles sales in California will be ZEVs by 2035. Meanwhile, polls indicate that while three quarters of Americans see electric vehicles as the future of transportation, initial high cost and lack of easy access to a charging station hold many back. Here are some CA proposals to help solve these problems.
Action #1: Tell your CA state senators that we need SB-1230 & SB-1482!
Continue reading “A new kind of “Electric Slide””It’s always been about the oil.
Climate change warnings started long before the first Earth Day in 1970.
- Action #1: “YES” on H.R.5253/S.3167 – Fossil Free Finance Act.
- Action #2: “YES” on H.R.2519/S.1115 – Keep It in the Ground”
- Action #3: Email Joe and tell him to hold the line!
In 1957, Roger Revelle described fossil fuel burning as “a grandiose scientific experiment” on climate. In 1966, a coal industry research organization reported that “the temperature of the earth’s atmosphere will increase and that vast changes in the climates of the earth will result.” By the late 1970’s, the fossil fuel industry moved from researching side effects of their own product to protecting their investments with a vast archipelago of climate change-denial think tanks.
The GOP and their corporate funders know that the denial game is nearly over, as citizens watch record-setting environmental catastrophes on their nightly news. So oil-garchs like Koch are set on changing the game board – they funded Trump, whose administration rolled back more than 100 environmental regulations and now, with the most corrupt Supreme Court dark money could buy, they are betting on the whole concept of regulation itself being overturned.
Action #1: “YES” on H.R.5253/S.3167 – Fossil Free Finance Act.
Continue reading “It’s always been about the oil.”Earth Day Week of Actions – Sierra Club National and Sierra Club – Los Padres Chapter
- Action #1: Tell Travelers Insurance to stop enabling companies to drill in the Arctic.
- Action #2: Tell State Treasurer Fiona Ma: Hold Wall Street banks accountable to their climate commitments
- Action #3: Update from our local Sierra Club Los Padres Chapter, with ACTIONS!
Action #1: Tell Travelers Insurance to stop enabling companies to drill in the Arctic.
Petition here: https://act.sierraclub.org/actions/national?actionid=ar0357858&id=70131000001iOuIAAU
Email the CEO Alan Schnitzer: schnitzer@travelers.com
Dear Mr. Schnitzer, I’m writing to you from California, where Earth Day began after an oil spill off our coast was so destructive that President Richard Nixon, surveying the damage and cleaup efforts in 1969, stated to the crowd, “…the Santa Barbara incident has frankly touched the conscience of the American people.” I’m asking that your company, as one of our largest insurance companies, join the top major US banks in committing to prevent such an tragic event from occuring in a national treasure – the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Please, during this week of Earth Day observations, show your leadership for human rights, our climate and sensitive ecosystems by publicing stating that Travelers will not support oil or gas drilling in the Arctic and help protect this sacred place for good.
Action #2: Tell State Treasurer Fiona Ma: Hold Wall Street banks accountable to their climate commitments
Continue reading “Earth Day Week of Actions – Sierra Club National and Sierra Club – Los Padres Chapter”What women and families need is literally the opposite of what the GOP stands for.
Sen. Blackburn, McRibGreene, Josh “Uterus” Hawley and serial sexual predator/college drop-out Rep. Cawthorn defining “woman” were distracting, but not enough to forget that the extremist-funded GOP has done nothing to improve the lives of non-millionaire women and it is now actively harming them. So, stiffen the spines of wobbling Democrats and bedevil the phones and email of any GOP legislators one may be unfortunate enough to call one’s own, and share these important issues.
- Action #1: Tell Congress to keep child care in their economic package.
- Action #2: Tell Joe to keep his word and cancel student debt – (2) sample letters to use.
- Action #3: The “sandwich generation” is struggling. Email your senators and ask them to invest in home- and community-based services.
Action #1: Tell Congress to keep child care in their economic package.
(MomsRising.org) 6,000 child care centers closed during the pandemic and nearly half a million families are now estimated to be stranded without reliable child care, exacerbating the nation’s worker shortage. Even pre-pandemic, more than half of families lived in child care deserts without safe, nurturing, affordable options. Because of this, women are falling behind economically, especially those in low- and middle-income communities, Black and Hispanic families, and rural families.
Continue reading “What women and families need is literally the opposite of what the GOP stands for.”
INDIVISIBLE VENTURA 