thisfinecrew | Entries tagged with congress

The Great Slate now has seven races polling within the margin of errror:

https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1058835720142512128

(And they have some matching funds, if they've still got any left by now; DM or e-mail or Tweet to get it matched.)

As I understand it, this is pretty much the last point when extra donations will make a difference to anything before Tuesday, so if you have any spare cash left, then they and/or Donate Save America (plus any individual candidates you like) seem like solid choices.

rydra_wong

Intel and now Land O'Lakes have pulled funding from him after pressure (because he's an overt white nationalist who hangs out with and endorses Nazis):

Bloomberg: Land O’Lakes Pulls Support for Iowa Congressman Steve King Over Racial Remarks

JuddLegum is keeping track and linking to companies that are still funding him: https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1057299815443390469

ETA: Aaaaand Purina's out.

Meanwhile, a recent poll has King's opponent J. D. Scholten within a point of him, FiveThirtyEight have significantly changed their odds, and the Cook Report has switched IA-4 from "likely Republican" to "lean Republican".

rydra_wong

As things come down to the wire --

H/t to

jjhunter for the heads-up -- two more GiveSmart slates (trying to flip state legislatures):

GiveSmart NY
GiveSmart 6: Run for Something and Future Now

The various GiveSmart slates have collectively raised $750,000 and they're hoping to hit $1 million before this is done.

The Great Slate (Congressional candidates) has some matching funding going on at the moment (or did 11 hours ago, anyway).

Donate Save America (targeted for maximum efficiency!) is also shooting for $1 million.

GrabYourBallot (tight House and Senate races and governorships) is at over $200,000.

If you have particular favorite candidates or slates you'd like to promote, I suggest linking in comments!

rydra_wong

Then here's a fun game that you, the viewer, can play along with at home!

https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1056607869712371714
https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1056900094728065024
https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1056902024732782593

Judd Legum is trying to find out why ATT and other companies gave money to overt white supremacist and friend of neo-Nazis Congressman Steve King. Funnily enough, he's having a hard time getting answers from them. He thinks maybe other people might have better luck.

rydra_wong

From VoteSaveAmerica:

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/donate-save-america

Our smart friends at the data firm Civis crunched the numbers and found that donating to these 20 specific House candidates would give you the most bang for your buck. Here’s why:

1. They are expected to be extremely close races

2. They have less expensive media markets so each advertising dollar will go a lot further

3. You donations will actually help improve Democrats' chances of winning in these races by boosting voter turnout

In fact, according to the Head of Political Data Science at Civis, every dollar you donate toward this list of races would generate roughly 2.2 times as many votes than if you just donated to the 20 closest races across the country.

The list includes Alyse Galvin (Alaska) and Kathleen Williams (Montana, running against the unspeakable Gianforte).

rydra_wong

The Great Slate currently has someone matching donations (so anything you donate is doubled)

Over $20,000 of matching left at last tweet: https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1053858998355673088

So if you'd like to donate to them but haven't gotten around to it yet, now might be a good time.

rydra_wong

Here's The Great Slate of thirteen House candidates: "Each of them is a first-time progressive candidate with no ties to the political establishment, an excellent campaign team, and a clear path to victory in a poor, rural district that is being ignored by the national Democratic Party. None of the candidates takes money from corporations."

The Great Slate is from from Tech Solidarity:

The Verge: Meet the campaign connecting affluent techies with progressive candidates around the country

You can read up on their candidates and read interviews with each of them here:

Tech Solidarity: The Great Slate

As with #GrabYourBallot, you can donate to the whole slate or individually to personal favourites (they have a dude who was inspired by the Women's March to run, running against Steve King, "possibly the worst man in Congress"!).

So. These are all long shots, but they're not no-hopers, and they have potential to cause Republicans trouble and at least make them have to fight for places they don't expect to have to fight for (which soaks up money and energy which they then don't have for fights elsewhere).

tanaqui

Kavanaugh was, to no one's great surprise, confirmed to the Supreme Court yesterday. We're already seeing responses and actions to move forward, like this fundraiser to honor Dr Blasey, particularly in her professional capacity. But the focus is now switching back to the mid-term elections and taking back as much control as possible in Congress.

We've also been swapping advice on how to look after yourself when protesting, in case the Big Orange Baby throws another tantrum and threatens Mueller and Rosenstein again.

So what else has been going on in the comm?

Upcoming Elections - New

For Your Rage-donations
Strategy Call: Moveon.Org
More Postcard Campaigns!
Here Comes The General

Voter Registration, Voting Rights and How to Vote

Useful How-to Guide For Voters
Link(Spam): US Voter Information
Deadlines to register: in table format and in graphical format.
There have been more reports of people being removed from rolls so check your registration and tell others to as well.
Cancelled voter registrations: If You're In Indiana Or Know People In Indiana
Check For Availability Of Provisional Ballots, And Resist And Win Calls

( Ongoing Actions -- Elections )

( Ongoing Actions -- Immigration )

( Ongoing Actions -- General )

( Housekeeping )

So, what have you all been up to in the last week or are planning to get involved in next week?

Poll #20543 The Week

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 9

View Respondents

This week, I...

View Answers

called my one senator
7 (77.8%)

called my other senator
4 (44.4%)

called my representative
1 (11.1%)

called my governor
0 (0.0%)

called my state reps
0 (0.0%)

sent a postcard/email/letter/fax
4 (44.4%)

attended a town hall
0 (0.0%)

donated money to a cause
5 (55.6%)

attended an in-person activist group
0 (0.0%)

participated in phone/online training
2 (22.2%)

went to a protest
3 (33.3%)

signed up for alerts
3 (33.3%)

took care of myself
5 (55.6%)

not a US citizen but worked in solidarity in my own community
1 (11.1%)

did something else
3 (33.3%)

committed to action in the coming week
2 (22.2%)

rydra_wong

This is brilliant and needs to go viral:

The #GrabYourBallot List

The 31 candidates on this list have one thing in common: they’re all Democrats running in especially tight midterm races for the U.S. House, U.S. Senate or U.S. governorships.

ActBlue: Donate to the #GrabYourBallot candidates

ETA:

plaidadder makes an extremely important point:

I hate giving money to political campaigns because if they lose you feel like you just set it on fire but I now try to look at it this way: even if your candidate loses, if s/he makes the election more competitive that makes the RNC spend more money on it and that depletes their resources.

snickfic

Trump Administration Creates Census Crisis With Move to Suppress Immigrant Responses

The 2020 census will include a question about US citizenship for the first time since 1950, the Commerce Department announced Monday night. Civil rights groups say the question will massively depress responses from immigrants fearful of deportation and could sabotage the entire census.

The move sets up a huge legal and political battle over one of the most important tasks mandated by the Constitution. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and former US Attorney General Eric Holder have already announced their intention to sue the Trump administration over the new question. Democratic members of Congress have also said they will introduce legislation to block the new question.

Call your reps!

EDIT: Suggested call scripts in the comments of this post!

tanaqui

This week saw another horrific mass shooting in a school that's reignited the gun control debate.

Meanwhile, the details of the events leading up to the shooting are being used by Trump and his defenders/apologists as another stick to beat the FBI and discredit special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. On Friday, the investigation handed down indictments for 13 Russian nationals and 3 companies for criminally interfering with the 2016 election.

We've had just a couple of posts in the comm this week.

Actions
Feminist Wikipedia Takeover
District funds for the mid-terms

Housekeeping (the usual stuff)
Reminder that we now have a Friending Meme and a (locked) post where you can connect with others with live in the same area. We hope you find both of these posts useful!

We also 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.

As we don't always get the time to pull things out of the suggestions post into their own separate posts, it may be worth checking every week (or tracking the post) to see if there's any new information you're interested in.

Also if you need help with tags, PM

redbird, who is our tag guru. Both

tassosss and I are very grateful for the help.

So, what have you all been up to in the last week or are planning to get involved in next week?

Poll #19521 The Week

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5

View Respondents

This week, I....

View Answers

called my one senator
2 (40.0%)

called my other senator
2 (40.0%)

called my representative
1 (20.0%)

called my governor
0 (0.0%)

called my state reps
0 (0.0%)

sent a postcard/email/letter/fax
1 (20.0%)

attended a town hall
0 (0.0%)

donated money to a cause
1 (20.0%)

attended an in-person activist group
0 (0.0%)

participated in phone/online training
0 (0.0%)

went to a protest
0 (0.0%)

signed up for alerts
2 (40.0%)

took care of myself
2 (40.0%)

not a US citizen but worked in solidarity in my own community
1 (20.0%)

did something else
1 (20.0%)

committed to action in the coming week
2 (40.0%)

tanaqui

This week started with a State of the Union address and ended with a memo, both of which were, uh, "factually challenged". Which is pretty much situation normal for this administration....

And as is normal for this comm, we had some great posts that provide positive ways to respond.

Actions

Toolkits for responding to the State of the Union address

Feel displeased by Devin Nunes? Donate to Andrew Janz!

Housekeeping (the usual stuff)
Reminder that we now have a Friending Meme and a (locked) post where you can connect with others with live in the same area. We hope you find both of these posts useful!

We also 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.

As we don't always get the time to pull things out of the suggestions post into their own separate posts, it may be worth checking every week (or tracking the post) to see if there's any new information you're interested in.

Also if you need help with tags, PM

redbird, who is our tag guru. Both

tassosss and I are very grateful for the help.

So, what have you all been up to in the last week or are planning to get involved in next week?

Poll #19417 The Week

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 2

View Respondents

This week, I...

View Answers

called my one senator
0 (0.0%)

called my other senator
0 (0.0%)

called my representative
0 (0.0%)

called my governor
0 (0.0%)

called my state reps
0 (0.0%)

sent a postcard/email/letter/fax
1 (50.0%)

attended a town hall
1 (50.0%)

donated money to a cause
0 (0.0%)

attended an in-person activist group
0 (0.0%)

participated in phone/online training
0 (0.0%)

went to a protest
0 (0.0%)

signed up for alerts
0 (0.0%)

took care of myself
0 (0.0%)

not a US citizen but worked in solidarity in my own community
0 (0.0%)

did something else
0 (0.0%)

committed to action in the coming week
0 (0.0%)

rydra_wong

Mother Jones: There’s a Brutal New Campaign Ad Targeting Devin Nunes and His Memo

NatashaBertrand: Some news: Devin Nunes’ Democratic opponent, @JanzforCongress, raised over $100,000 today alone with news of the memo release, per a senior campaign aide.

Note: past election results make this look like a pretty safe seat for Nunes; it isn't the most obvious one to try to flip.

However.

Andrew Janz For Congress

tanaqui

Control of the House in 2018 will be decided by a small number of Swing Districts, places where the last election was decided by a thin margin. The House of Representatives has 435 seats, 70 of which are considered competitive; to gain control, progressive candidates need to win back at least 24 of them (and hold existing seats, of course).

SwingLeft lets you find your closest Swing District and join its team to learn about actionable opportunities to support progressives — and defeat Republicans — in that district, no matter where you live.

https://swingleft.org/

tanaqui

Federal Communications Commission Chair Ajit Pai is expected to unveil his plans for rolling back net neutrality in the next few weeks (although net neutrality apparently isn't one of the issues that the FCC will be voting on in November).

Meanwhile, some of the ISPs (Verizon and Comcast, from what I've seen) are trying to get the FCC to rule that states can't set their own local net neutrality rules.

Various groups are currently organising a push to contact Members of Congress and encourage them to kill the FCC plan.

Information and ideas for ways to help (in addition to calling) at Battle for the Net.

Find out if your Member of Congress is holding a session where you can drop in to talk about net neutrality

Donate to the campaign

redbird

I get email from a variety of activist groups (as I suspect many of you do). They're often asking me to sign a petition "to Congress," which I'm fairly sure will be ignored if it even gets there.

I've started clicking through to some of the petitions, not to sign them, but as a starting point for research. This morning that meant looking up the bill(s) they're petitioning about, and whether my senators and congressmember had taken a position. Then I can send an email, or pick up the phone (email is easier, even if it isn't a weekend).

The disadvantage is that this takes longer than making a call when someone has provided a script, or emailing via the ACLU website with a pre-drafted message. But it seems worth doing, and there's a chance that I'm calling their attention to something that they weren't already paying attention to.

The specifics of the most recent: the email was from ColorofChange.org, about FBI and police surveillance. It turned out both Massachusetts senators are already cosponsoring the bill, so I just emailed my Congressmember.

( the text of my email to Rep. Capuano, if anyone wants to use it as a starting point )

julian

My very own own Senator Ed Markey, along with California Congressman Ted Lieu, has created a bill that would require authorization from Congress (either as a declaration of war or the more-common- of-late authorization of force) before a nuclear strike.

This is a wonderful bill for a number of obvious reasons; it's HR 699/S 200. (House/Senate version. House text.)

If you are so inclined, call your Senators and Congressfolk to urge them to pass it. (202) 224-3121, or use Resistbot. (Text the word "resist" to 50409 to begin.)

Rachelmanijia has more info, a script, and other ideas here, and the campaign is hashtagging it up at #PullTheFootball, if you're Twitter-inclined.

If you're not American, feel free to share the info around anyway; the more folks who get this info, the better.

rydra_wong

(X-posted from my journal. Thanks to

executrix and

wendelah1 for pointing me towards some of these.)

Thanks to folks at

thisfinecrew for links, and links that led to other links among the following:

Solidarity Cville: Donate -- suggestions and links for local groups to support

Indivisble: Stand in Solidarity with Charlottesville - Find an Event

The Nation: Here’s What You Can Do After Charlottesville

Indivisible: Are Your Members of Congress Doing Enough to Respond to the Charlottesville Terrorist Attack? -- though this is several days old and therefore lacks a script for HOLY FUCK THE PRESIDENT IS DEFENDING NEO-NAZIS (EVEN MORE) WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?

SPLC releases new edition of Ten Ways to Fight Hate guide after Charlottesville attack

Politico: GOP chairmen resist hearings on white supremacy

They don't want it. Demand it.

plaidadder: Three Democratic members of the House have introduced a censure resolution.

You can read the text here.

Censure is a formal reprimand. It is not legally binding, but it is rare, and Sends a Message. MoveOn.org originally organized around a campaign to get Congress to censure Clinton instead of impeaching him.

This may be an attempt to accomplish something less difficult than impeachment; or it may be a trial run to see how many Republicans are ready to jump from the Trump Train.

ETA: Politico: Pelosi endorses censure of Trump over Charlottesville response -- apparently at least 79 Democrats have signed.

Not directly Charlottesville-related, but interesting and could be worth asking your reps to support:

H.R.1987 - Oversight Commission on Presidential Capacity Act

To steal Wikipedia's explanation: "This bill would replace the Cabinet as the body that, together with the Vice President, determines whether Section 4 should be invoked. Under the bill, an eleven-member commission would conduct an examination of the President when directed to do so by a concurrent resolution of the Congress."

(Which, basically, shifts the power to forcibly 25th-Amendment the President back towards Congress to a greater degree, as opposed to depending entirely on the Cabinet which that President apppointed.)

sporky_rat

I just called my State Senator's local office (Cochran, R-MS) and the very nice lady there told me that they're trying a new system where they take your name, address, optional on phone and email and they take very close care to write down your exact opinion, not just a yes/no. (Mine was that I have eight of the pre-existing conditions that will be removed if the AHCA gets passed by the Senate, please vote against this, Mr Cochran.)

Be aware if that's a thing your reps are doing.

Current Mood: determined

tassosss

The spending deal reached by Congress yesterday will fund the government through the end of the 2017 federal fiscal year in September.

News links:
What’s in the spending agreement? We read it so you don’t have to. (WaPo)
The more exhaustive list, alphabetized.
Seven things to know about the government funding deal (The Hill)
The high profile highlights.

The full text of the bill is here. (PDF)

Takeaways:
No wall, but $1.5 billion for other border security
Planned Parenthood intact
NIH funding went up by $2 billion
Defense goes up by $15 billion
Coal Miners healthcare extended permanently but doesn't address their pension fund
$68 million to reimburse New York City and Florida for Trump's protection details while in his other residences
IRS funding at last year's levels
HHS gets $800 million (4x increase) for opioid crisis
EPA funding only decreases 1 percent, but limits some of their regulatory power
Increases for USGS ($23 million), Fish & Wildlife ($11 million), and NASA ($368 million)
NSF and other science agencies at same/similar levels to last year
Food Stamp funding went down by $2.4 billion
Medicaid funding aid for Puerto Rico at $295 million

Follow up actions:
This is an opportunity to thank your congress people for specific provisions in the budget and to keep hammering on the importance of your issues.

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Never Give Up, Never Surrender

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rydra_wong - SEVEN
rydra_wong - The campaign to get support pulled from Steve King is working!!!
rydra_wong - Getcha last donations in
rydra_wong - Angry? Bored? Can you phone or Tweet or e-mail?
rydra_wong - Maximize your donating efficiency with SCIENCE! (yes, it's another slate)
rydra_wong - Matching donations
rydra_wong - If you fancy some long shots in your rage-donating
tanaqui - Weekly Check In October 7
rydra_wong - For your rage-donations
snickfic - bad news for the 2020 census
tanaqui - Weekly Check In February 18
tanaqui - Weekly Check In February 4
rydra_wong - Feel displeased by Devin Nunes? Donate to Andrew Janz!
tanaqui - 2018 is the year for taking back the House
tanaqui - Action to protect net neutrality
redbird - Action: doing something with all those emailed petitions
julian - Avoiding nuclear war, one step at a time
rydra_wong - Asssorted Charlottesville resource links
sporky_rat - New system for opinion calls showing up
tassosss - What's in the Congressional Spending Bill?

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Never Give Up, Never Surrender

Links and Positive Action for the next Four Years

Entries tagged with congress

SEVEN

The campaign to get support pulled from Steve King is working!!!

Getcha last donations in

Angry? Bored? Can you phone or Tweet or e-mail?

Maximize your donating efficiency with SCIENCE! (yes, it's another slate)

Matching donations

If you fancy some long shots in your rage-donating

Weekly Check In October 7

For your rage-donations

bad news for the 2020 census

Weekly Check In February 18

Weekly Check In February 4

Feel displeased by Devin Nunes? Donate to Andrew Janz!

2018 is the year for taking back the House

Action to protect net neutrality

Action: doing something with all those emailed petitions

Avoiding nuclear war, one step at a time

Asssorted Charlottesville resource links

New system for opinion calls showing up

What's in the Congressional Spending Bill?

Profile

July 2025

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