Weekly Check In February 26

[tassosss]

I’m back from being out of town. Many thanks to tanaqui for keeping up with check-ins. This week there were a lot of town halls taking place around the country. Did you go to one, or plan to? How was it?

Housekeeping
Is anyone out there interested in helping us tag posts? That seems to be the area where we’re falling down the most.

Reminder that we have a suggestion post if there’s a topic that you’d like to see discussed but would like to ask the mods to look into. This can be anything from general information, or a how-to-do-a-thing, or something you may want to discuss as a community. Folks are welcome to post directly to the comm as always, but if you’re not comfortable/don’t have spoons, we can help too.

If you read one thing this week, read this:
A Minority President: Why the Polls Failed, and What the Majority Can Do This is an excellent article that talks about world views and the brain and how absolutely essential the language used around politics is for shaping how people vote.
Follow up reading includes actions you can take.

Muslim Ban/Immigration
tanaqui  has an excellent round up post this week on what our Minority President’s next moves are and what DHS is doing.

Confirmation Hearings
Not a lot of movement at the moment but we’ll keep you updated as they continue.

Get Involved
Anyone thinking of running for office? The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is holding candidate training this spring and summer for how to run for office

Get Educated
You can request a recording of the conference call that took place this week with Elizabeth Warren to discuss resistance strategies
snickfic ’slink roundup on running for office, and work done by the resistance, including a platform for The Movement of Black Lives
In yesterday’s roundup Civics 101 podcast, enrollment in ACA maps, resistance news, how voter ID’s discriminate, and Delaware’s special election for a State Senate seat goes to Democratic candidate Stephanie Hansen
Updates of Minority President’s campaign in contact with Russian operatives during the campaign and his undermining of democracy by attacking the press

Poll #18044 check in Feb 26

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 20

View Respondents

This week I

View Answers

called my one senator
4 (36.4%)

called my other senator
3 (27.3%)

called my representative
2 (18.2%)

got on a resistence call
0 (0.0%)

signed up for daily action alerts
2 (18.2%)

called my state senator
1 (9.1%)

called my state representative
2 (18.2%)

called my governor
1 (9.1%)

went to a protest
5 (45.5%)

went to a town hall
2 (18.2%)

.

View Answers

got involved with a local group
3 (15.0%)

sent a postcard/email/letter
7 (35.0%)

donated money
9 (45.0%)

took care of myself
13 (65.0%)

committed to action in the coming week
3 (15.0%)

did something else
10 (50.0%)

How Technology is Brainwashing the Planet

[lynnenne]

With links to Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and Nigel Farage, this right-wing US computer scientist is at the heart of a multimillion-dollar propaganda network.

Based on what readers "like" or click online, this company builds "probability models of how people vote. And then they look at what they can do to influence that." They serve up links to right-wing stories and conspiracy theories - deliberately trying to influence people to vote right-wing. And they are EVERYWHERE.

2/26/2017 link roundup

[snickfic]

Activism / Resources
* The Tap (Ballotpedia). This is a weekly newsletter of politics news and events, including Trump news, special elections, SCOTUS activity - a whole wide range of stuff. Definitely worth subscribing.

* State legislative special elections, 2017 (Ballotpedia).

* WTF Just Happened Today, a daily politics news twitter. Nice for getting just the headlines from, without all the repeated retweets some twitters do.

News / Analysis
*Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media (Guardian). Read only if you want to turn your panic up to 11.

* Ohio Gov. Kasich says House conservatives may cause "problem" passing Obamacare replacement. This is REALLY interesting to me - it suggests that some GOP congress members are so conservative that there's no satisfying them AND the base that's demanding that they get to keep their health care benefits, so the Republicans will have to work with (/ make at least moderately happy) some Dems to make up for those lost conservatives. (In addition to the Dems they'd have to have to pass any bills at all, obviously.)

* Chris Christie tells GOP lawmakers to hold town halls: ‘You asked for the job. Go do it.’ (WaPo)

* Churches Are Readying Homes And Underground Railroads To Hide Immigrants From Deportation Under Trump (Buzzfeed)

* I Was a Muslim in Trump's White House (Atlantic)