Mon 4/29: April 30th – House Rules Committee – 1st hearing on Medicare for All. How you can help… Part 1

This is historic. The House Rules Committee just announced it will be holding the first-ever hearing on Medicare for All this Tuesday, April 30th, at 10 AM.

Action – Activate your “family and friends” committee!

Our Reps. Brownley and Carbajal aren’t on the Rules Committee, and we can’t call other people’s representatives. (What!? Why not?)  So look at the list below of committee membership, and look to see if any of the hold-outs are in districts of your families and friends. If you don’t know, don’t worry.

Your friends have friends who have friends. This is our secret power!

ACTIVATE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA! Call/email/facebook/tweet/instagram/etc. to your social circle to get the members of these legislators’ districts to call their offices. Continue reading “Mon 4/29: April 30th – House Rules Committee – 1st hearing on Medicare for All. How you can help… Part 1” →

Fri 4/26: A judge stopped Trump’s offshore pillaging. So now he’s coming to frack CA: Public Hearing – May 23/ Comment period open!/Call Newsom.

PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)


Action #1: Mark your calendars for May 23. Work out your carpools to the Santa Barbara meeting! 

Kern County is the most-fracked county in California by a wide margin. This region also has the worst air quality in the nation, as well as highly elevated rates of cancer and respiratory illness. For the people that live here, fracking means more oil extraction, more crippling climate impacts, and more impacts on their health.

Yesterday, while we were busy writing comments against the administration’s proposal to strip “streamline” the power of states to control drilling activities off their own coastlines, Trump had to delay his plans to give offshore drilling leases to his favorite donors, due to a court decision blocking fossil fuel activity in parts of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans. But he and his EnergyDominance™ team (fossil-fuel-lobbyists-now-getting-government-paychecks) are concentrating on striking back at coastal states who oppose him and turning America into one big corporate-owned Superfund site.

Jim Hines, our Sierra Club advisor and early warning system sent this today…

“Greetings Energy Activists:
On this morning’s conference call with the executive staff at the U.S. Dept. of the Interior, the major topic was the advancement of the President’s ‘America’s Energy Dominance Program’, and wouldn’t you know it, but Ventura and Santa Barbara counties were mentioned. Continue reading “Fri 4/26: A judge stopped Trump’s offshore pillaging. So now he’s coming to frack CA: Public Hearing – May 23/ Comment period open!/Call Newsom.” →

Fri 4/26: Howl for the wolves! – Part 1. Goal: quarter million comments by 5/14.

Action #1 – Stop Trump from removing Endangered Species Act protections from wolves. – write a comment (Deadline 5/14) 

But first, a message and a meeting…

(A message from Jim Hines, Sierra Club California/Nevada Wildlife Team)
“The howl of the wolf in the American wilderness may be heard no more.
 A recently released proposal by the Trump Administration would remove all federal endangered species act protections for wolves and this opens the door for a number of individual western states to allow hunting of wolves. My Sierra Club wildlife team is working on getting people to the 7 upcoming public hearings across America on this issue. We are also asking people to submit their written comments using this link.
Help us protect wolves.“

UPDATE: CA PUBLIC HEARING TO PROTECT GRAY WOLVES – CANCELLED! 

Continue reading “Fri 4/26: Howl for the wolves! – Part 1. Goal: quarter million comments by 5/14.” →

Thurs 4/25: Tonight! – Santa Barbara Town Hall by Congressman Salud Carbajal

Thurs 4/25: Rep. Salud Carbajal Town Hall

Facebook event here.

RSVP here for free tickets.

Description:  Rep. Salud Carbajal (CA-24) is hosting a town hall meeting in Santa Barbara to answer questions directly from Central Coast residents and provide an overview of legislation the 116th Congress has put forward in its first 100 days of session. Carbajal looks forward to hearing about the top priorities of his constituents.

This town hall meeting is free and open to the public.

Date: Thu, April 25, 2019

Time: 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM PDT

Location: Santa Barbara County Education Office Auditorium
4400 Cathedral Oaks Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93110

Sat 4/27: Katie Hill (CA-25) Town Hall

Continue reading “Thurs 4/25: Tonight! – Santa Barbara Town Hall by Congressman Salud Carbajal” →

Wed. 4/24: That would be a “NO” on “streamlining” environmental devastation, Wilbur… Deadline Thursday 4/25, 11:59 pm EST.

WilburPeople – this only has 3088 comments – most of which will be tossed for duplication!

This sly little rule change will gut our states abilities to stop offshore drilling!

The Trump administration, through NOAA (now controlled by Wilbur Ross, our incredibly corrupt Secretary of Commerce) would like to “streamline” the “federal consistency process” in the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) affecting offshore oil and gas. This regulatory proposal would weaken long-held state’s rights with respect to virtually all facets of federal offshore oil and gas drilling, seismic airgun petroleum exploration, and renewable energy projects.

Continue reading “Wed. 4/24: That would be a “NO” on “streamlining” environmental devastation, Wilbur… Deadline Thursday 4/25, 11:59 pm EST.” →

Sunday 4/28: “Swap Meet Justice!” citizenship fair! Come join us!

Action  – THIS Sunday, 4/28 – Come join us at “Swap Meet Justice!” and help spread the word!

You do not need to be a lawyer. You do not need to speak another language. However, all volunteers with bilingual skills are appreciated.

Every last Sunday of the month!

When: 8am-3pm,  4/28, 5/26, 6/30, 7/28, 8/25, 9/29, 10/27, 11/24, and 12/29. You may come for a shorter amount of time, but please come at 8:30 for new volunteer orientation. We also don’t start new applications after 1:30 or 2:00, so we can finish in time for the marketplace’s closing.

Where: Oxnard College Marketplace & Swap Meet (Map below, more information, hand-outs and posters for printing all here.)

Where is the Oxnard College Swap Meet? And when I get there, where do I go?

Continue reading “Sunday 4/28: “Swap Meet Justice!” citizenship fair! Come join us!” →

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.” →

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@venturacountyfair.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!” →

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”…” →