Weekly Check In February 19

[tanaqui]

Again, it's been a week with some good "wins" in among new awfulness. As this article about the collapse of Andrew Puzder's nomination as Labor Secretary points out (thanks to Snickfic for the link), the resistance is having an effect.

So what next?

Muslim Ban/Immigration

The White House seems to have realized it's not going to succeed in court with the original Executive Order and is talking about issuing a new, slightly more limited version of the order, though legal analysts think the courts will still maintain the restraining order preventing its implementation.

Meanwhile, ICE seem to be pushing at limits imposed by policies from the Obama administration, detaining a DACA recipient and stripping him of his DACA status, picking up immigrants outside churches and arresting a victim of domestic violence when she was attending a court hearing.

Check for protest marches and rallies
Sign the petition to respect "sensitive locations", including churches
Donate to these organisations
Check our Muslim Ban and Immigration tags for organisations that need donations or other kinds of support.

Confirmation Hearings

Scott Pruitt was approved as head of the EPA, despite protests from EPA insiders, but Andrew Puzder withdrew as nominee for Secretary of Labor after his many horrible and hypocritical actions were highlighted. Meanwhile, Trump seems to be struggling to find someone to take on the National Security Advisor role after Mike Flynn was pushed out over his Russian connections. Snickfic has linked to some good background reading about all of this in this link roundup

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is losing staff either because they failed background checks or because they were fired for past disloyalty to Trump.

No new confirmation hearings have been scheduled for next week so far, but we'll keep you posted on any developments.

Get involved

Add a report on Town Hall or other recess action to defend ACA to the Indivisible/OFA database
Figure out the local impact of legislation so you can include it when you protest to representatives (via Snickfic's link roundup)
Defend Voting Rights (two links in Snickfic's roundup)
Know your rights and don't let the police take them away from you
Track down your "invisible" representatives - members of Congress who haven't scheduled Town Halls

Get educated

As always, don't forget to check our What's Next? Resources Roundup (and the comments) for more links and snickfic's terrific link roundup posts. Remember that you can use the comments to add more links.

Housekeeping Note

We're a bit behind on tagging, so feel free to tag your own posts if there are a suitable tags available. (Put a request in the post or in the Suggestions Post, or shoot the mods a PM, if you'd like us to create a tag.)

Poll #18008 The Week

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 16

View Respondents

This Week, I...

View Answers

called my one senator
8 (66.7%)

called my other senator
7 (58.3%)

called my representative
3 (25.0%)

got on a resistance call
0 (0.0%)

signed up for daily or weekly action alerts
1 (8.3%)

called my state senator
1 (8.3%)

called my state representative
1 (8.3%)

called my governor
0 (0.0%)

went to a protest
1 (8.3%)

got involved with a local group
3 (25.0%)

View Answers

sent a postcard/email/letter
6 (46.2%)

donated money
6 (46.2%)

took care of myself
7 (53.8%)

committed to action in the coming week
3 (23.1%)

did something else
4 (30.8%)

Comments

[teaotter]

I freaked out about the leaked memo about using the national guard for immigration enforcement this week. I wish I'd read the thing instead of falling for a click-bait headline "summary," but eh, something was likely to make me panic this week.

At any rate, this did lead me to a very productive conversation with my mom (a libertarian-leaning voter in a very red state) about immigration and protests and political action. I got her to thinking about immigration in terms of people we know and people who are our neighbors, and what armed raids actually mean as far as rounding up people who "look" illegal.

I guess "talked with family members with opposing viewpoints" counts as "did something else" on the poll, right?

[tassosss]

Yes, it totally does. And I think that that sort of conversation is incredibly important because the only way to really change minds is to make it personal.

Good on you for having that conversation!

[tanaqui]

Yes, that absolutely counts as "did something else"! Those conversations are hard, so -- while I'm sorry you were upset about the memo -- well done for having the conversation, and yay that it was productive!