6/29-6/30: Your Ventura County weekend activity update!

Share this information with those who need it and those who can help!

Action #1 – June 29th – “Know Your Rights” Workshop 

Sharing link: here

This event, and another offered on July 9th in a different location, are sponsored by Buen Vecino and will be conducted in Spanish. If you’re interested to becoming a Know-Your-Rights educator in English, Spanish or in other languages, check out buen-vecino for further information. Contact casaartearch@att.net for more information.

Continue reading “6/29-6/30: Your Ventura County weekend activity update!” →

Thurs 6/27: Yeah, they’re concentration camps…so now what do we do?

Action #1 – If you  haven’t called your legislators on HR 2415/S.1243 – Dignity for Detained immigrants” yet – start here.

Go to this link and follow the instructions in Action #3 on that page to make a 10-second call to your legislators.

Action #2 – Check out local activities!

Activities listed here.

Action #3 – Congress’s final funding bill must comply with humanitarian basics.

Both houses have passed their bills for funding addressing the humanitarian crisis at the border. Both versions include stipulations regarding migrant care and prohibit the use of the funds for a border wall. However, the Senate bill offers the Pentagon funding and has fewer rules on how agencies can appropriate the funds. The House bill has many more restrictions on how the administration can use the money and contains clear standards for the care of children. It also bans the HHS secretary from waiving requirements for facilities designated as “emergency influx shelters”, which is how the administration has gotten around the 20 days maximum of the Flores Settlement. This is  how some kids in Homestead, Florida have ended up detained for as much as 8 or 9 months. Next, our legislators have to reconcile the two versions.

Continue reading “Thurs 6/27: Yeah, they’re concentration camps…so now what do we do?” →

UPDATE: Friday deadline 6/28 – Sign-up sheet for those interested in carpooling &/or a bus to detention centers for July 12th – Lights of Liberty.

Action – Fill in this poll by Friday if you’re interested in carpooling and/or a bus to Adelanto or Otay Mesa Detention Centers for July 12th!

Poll link here.

In Ventura County, a coalition of immigrants’ rights advocates and allied organizations is considering joining these protests in three locations:
1. The High Desert Detention Center in Adelanto, near Victorville (about a 90-minute drive);
2. The Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego (about a four-hour drive);
3. A protest in Camarillo, outside an ICE facility and across a freeway (DO NOT FILL OUT POLL.)

Continue reading “UPDATE: Friday deadline 6/28 – Sign-up sheet for those interested in carpooling &/or a bus to detention centers for July 12th – Lights of Liberty.” →

Wed 6/26: Killing Iranian people is not a reelection strategy, Mr. President. Take your war powers back, Congress! 2 actions.

See the full Iran tweet record at Rogue NASA!

Action #1 – Legislators – Publicly pledge support for HR 2354/S.1039 – Prevention of Unconstitutional War with Iran Act of 2019

Though this video is supposedly a comic program, it’s actually a good quick wrap up…

Minimal script: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want to thank Rep/Sen [___] for cosponsoring {Rep. HR 2354/Sen. S.1039} – “The prevention of unconstitutional War with Iran Act“. I would also like Rep/Sen [___] to issue a statement that Congress not only supports diplomacy over war, but the President is not authorized to use any military force against Iran.

  • Rep-check here. Thank Brownley and Carbajal for already being cosigners.
  • Sen-check here. Thank Feinstein and Harris for already being cosigners.

Action #2 – Legislators – Take back the blank check. “YES” on H.R. 1274 – Repeal of the Authorization for Use of Military Force.  Finally.

Continue reading “Wed 6/26: Killing Iranian people is not a reelection strategy, Mr. President. Take your war powers back, Congress! 2 actions.” →

Mon 6/24: Mark your calendars. 2 gun show meetings!

Here’s the long awaited Committee Report on Gun Shows  and the associated materials from the Ventura County Fairgrounds Board of Directors  (6/21/2019) and the notices for the next two meetings.

(July 24th UPDATE from Indivisible Conejo concerning this week’s Ventura County Fair Board meetings):
The board has removed any consideration of its gun show policy from tomorrow’s (Tuesday) agenda, and instead will devote the entirety of its special Thursday meeting to the subject. Therefore, if you would like to participate during Public Comments tomorrow at 9 a.m., please feel free to do so, but understand that the board will not be addressing our concerns afterward. We strongly encourage activists to come to Thursday’s meeting and make your voices heard!
A word of warning: It seems clear, based on documents posted to the Fair Board’s website over the weekend, that this debate is not going to go our way. The ad-hoc committee on guns shows will recommend that the board create a formal policy allowing them, with the addition of a few minor regulations. The committee’s sole rationale seems to be that it has not found “a direct link between a firearm sale at the Fairgrounds and an incident of gun violence in the Ventura community.” That preposterously narrow criterion doesn’t begin to account for the broad public aversion to guns and paraphernalia being marketed on publicly owned property, or the trauma our county has experienced so recently at Borderline. It is our job to let the Fair Board members know that their jobs and reputations are on the line with this decision — not to mention the reputation of the fairgrounds itself! Please join us on Thursday at 9 a.m. at the Derby Club on the fairgrounds site.
June 25 is the regular board meeting.
June 27 is a special meeting specifically about guns shows and gun show policy.
Come join us as we make our feelings clear about our state government being mixed up in a business that’s part of our national trauma.

Mon 6/24: “Things can be concentration camps without being Dachau or Auschwitz.” Tell your legislators to defund hate and uphold human rights. 4 actions.

Quote by Andrea Pitzer, author of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps. She describes camps as “a deliberate choice to inject the framework of war into society itself. …You are revoking the human and civil rights of non-combatants without legal justification…. you don’t have to intend to kill everyone to have really bad outcomes.”

(Go here for today’s LOCAL SOCIAL JUSTICE actions)

Action #1 – Take a moment to watch history merge with the present.

Great! We’ve fallen so low that the 99-year-old former prosecutor at the Nazi Nuremberg trials has spoken out in protest of the Trump Administration’s treatment of refugees as crimes against humanity. Below is a fascinating 60 minute conversation with a sharp, humorous, ferociously kind man who discusses our immigration laws, war, war criminals, remorse, reparations and the hope he has for our students. What he says here is why we resist. (Download the Universal Declaration of Human Rights here.)

Action #2 – Be an active resister. Speak out against the Sunday Raids.

Last Monday, our president took a moment from his busy day to threaten immigrant communities with a massive ICE raid, perversely nicknamed the “family op“. Continue reading “Mon 6/24: “Things can be concentration camps without being Dachau or Auschwitz.” Tell your legislators to defund hate and uphold human rights. 4 actions.” →

Monday – 6/24: Someday, a young person will ask you what you did during the time of concentration camps. Mark your calendars – 3 local actions – Join in!

There is a philosophy, in both Judaism and Islam, that is paraphrased “whoever destroys a life, it is as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he has saved an entire world.” 33 worlds are now gone.

(Go here for today’s LEGISLATIVE actions.)

“What did you do, grandpa?” – when our country ran amok, when we put scared, desperate men, women and children into freezing cages, when we pulled screaming toddlers from their parents’ grip, when we fed them inadequate or rotten food, or trapped them in vans, or carried their bodies out of our facilities.

Over the last week, we’ve read ferocious arguments on Facebook over the term “concentration camp“. We’ve seen “READ HISTORY!” hurled at each other on Twitter. We watched “Never Again” being reduced from the robust internal tripwire it should be to a verbal tombstone. 

Yes, social messaging is a crucial issue in our modern political world. Everyone should be reminding their media circles that we can’t let shame or denial keep us from hearing the warning 6 million souls are screaming to us. There are also active things we can do to help drive that message, to connect with other resisters and to help affected people directly. Here are some options…

Action #1 – June 29th – “Know Your Rights” Workshop 

This event, and another offered on July 9th in a different location, are sponsored by Buen Vecino and will be conducted in Spanish. If you’re interested to becoming a Know-Your-Rights educator in English, Spanish or in other languages, check out buen-vecino for further information.

Continue reading “Monday – 6/24: Someday, a young person will ask you what you did during the time of concentration camps. Mark your calendars – 3 local actions – Join in!” →

Thurs – 6/20 – Mass Call-in Day for HR 1046 – The Medicare Negotiation and Competitive Licensing Act.

“Time to cut prices so that patients can stop cutting their pills in half.”

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“And time for Democrats to deliver on our promise of Medicare negotiation to address soaring medication costs. Our proposal responds to rampant prescription price gouging in America with an American solution: negotiation and competition,” said Congressman Lloyd Doggett (TX-35). “This legislation, sponsored by most Democratic House Members, will repeal and replace the Republican-imposed prohibition of negotiation and authorize expanded use of generic competition to lower prices. Now, President Trump can follow the advice of Candidate Trump by supporting this effective negotiation legislation.”
– Rep. Lloyd Dogged (TX-35)

H.R. 1046 – “The Medicare Negotiation and Competitive Licensing Act“ would authorize the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to negotiate drug prices and, if drug companies refuse to negotiate in good faith, it would enable the Secretary to issue a competitive license to another company to produce the medication as a generic.

Action – Join in the call campaign today!

Indivisible groups across the country are joining together for a national call-in day in support of H.R.1046, the the Medicare Negotiation and Competitive Licensing Act by Rep. Lloyd Doggett. Pressure for your MoCs to support this bill is more important than ever as House Dem Leadership plans to roll out a framework for their competing (weaker) proposal imminently Continue reading “Thurs – 6/20 – Mass Call-in Day for HR 1046 – The Medicare Negotiation and Competitive Licensing Act.” →

Wed. 6/19: Welfare for the rich requires a lot of taking from the poor. Comment on this deliberately deceptive rule, deadline Friday, 6/21, 11:59 pm EST.

Action  – Write a comment on the administration’s manipulation of the Consumer Price Index to hurt vulnerable populations.

To improve poverty stats in time for his campaign trail, the Trump administration has decided to pretend that we have fewer poor people. “Instead of actually doing anything to cut poverty in America, Trump is trying to fudge the numbers to artificially ‘reduce’ the U.S. poverty rate,” said Rebecca Vallas, vice president of the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress. “It’s mathematical gaslighting.” And it’s more than just words – they’re going to do it by weaponizing inflation. If you already understand the economic shenanigans involved here, go ahead and comment. If your eyes just glazed over a little, would you be more interested if we told you that he’s taking money from you too?

  • Proposed rule change here.
  • Comment here.

Weaponizing Inflation – Think of this as a war game. 

The Trump administration’s favorite activity is vacuuming up money from the lower and middle classes into their own pockets, by either misdirecting our attention with well-timed presidential tantrums, or worse, making us co-conspirators.

The object of today’s game is obstensibly to punish the poor, a group that is both ignored and shamed in GOP America. What many of us reluctant players didn’t realize was when the 2017 #TaxScam passed, a bigger game had already started. The middle class, women and the elderly had just joined the poor on the losing side. By structuring this rule request around both a scapegoat class and using dry economic formulas and unfamiliar economic terms as weapons, they are discouraging us from playing. The GOP then scoops the money from the field, all the while saying, “But we told you what we were doing.”

How what you don’t know about can actually hurt you.

Let’s dive in, like an online language course, with some explanatory pictures and get into details later. All you need to know right now is that the rate of inflation helps determine all lot of things, including the poverty line and tax brackets. And that at least one of those items may already be screwing you.

benefits go down Continue reading “Wed. 6/19: Welfare for the rich requires a lot of taking from the poor. Comment on this deliberately deceptive rule, deadline Friday, 6/21, 11:59 pm EST.” →