Your mission today? More calls!
I know we’re all sick of making calls, but they make a difference. Republican members of congress are feeling besieged, and Democrats are standing up to Trump more directly because of pressure from their base. That is, from us.
There are a lot of things to call about. Here are a couple of ideas:
SAY NO TO JEFF SESSIONS
Is your Senator on the Judiciary Committee? Find out here. If so, call as early as you can to tell them to vote against Jeff Sessions for Attorney General — the committee is scheduled to vote on him this morning!
SAY NO TO BETSY DEVOS
Is your Senator on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee? See here for a list of members. If your Senator is a Republican, tell them to vote against Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. She’s also up for committee vote this morning. If your Senator is a Dem, thank them for pledging to vote against her, as all Dems on the committee have done.
Also consider calling or Tweeting these Republicans, even if they’re not your Senators.
We only need 3 more votes to #StopDeVos! Call & tweet the following senators to vote against Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. pic.twitter.com/cT464fLbnF
— Women's March (@womensmarch) January 30, 2017
https://twitter.com/Diane_7A/status/826175944444542977
INVESTIGATE TRUMP’S RUSSIAN TIES
Congresswoman Maxine Waters has a plan:
I'm leading my colleagues in a press conference tomorrow at 8:30 am (ET). We are taking on @POTUS ties to Russia! We have a bill #resist
— Maxine Waters (@RepMaxineWaters) January 31, 2017
Ask your congressperson to support her!
THE MUSLIM BAN
Check out 5calls,org for a handy script to use when calling about the Muslim ban, as well as ideas for other issues to call about.
GIVE YOURSELF A BIG PAT ON THE BACK BECAUSE YOU ARE AWESOME
DeVos is such a fucking nightmare. Sessions is even worse. If we can stop one of them, it would actually save lives.
I made my Muslim ban calls yesterday. I actually could not leave a message for one of my senators as her voicemail as well as the staffs voicemail was full, but was able to leave a message with my other senator. (Both of them have made statements that put them on the side of decency on this issue.) I was able to speak to someone in my representative’s Washington office on this issue. So far he’s been mum but has (this is so lame!) put up a poll on facebook. Yes, he is a typical back-bench gop invertebrate.
Today I called my senators about Sessions and DeVos. This time I was able to talk to someone in the office I couldn’t reach yesterday but only got busy signals at the other. I know both of them oppose DeVos and one is on record as opposing Sessions. However, neither are on the relevant committees. *sigh*
Tomorrow I hope to make more calls. These are very hard for me.
It may be too late to help but the following article shows Sessions asking Yates whether she felt able to say no to an improper presidential order, during her confirmation hearings. It may be useful in talking about Sessions’ confirmation.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/30/justice-department-trump-immigration-acting-attorney-general-sally-yates
@ weatherwax
Yeah, just been watching the video of that. It’s actually Sessions who warns her it’s her duty!
I posted this on another thread, but I think it’s worth a double post–send a free fax:
To your congressperson
To your senator
OT, but I haven’t seen anything about this until today….
This is Drumpf’s America. I’m surprised the MGTOWS etc. aren’t hailing him as a hero of the Beta Uprising.
Tragic.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/call-911-she-fought-a-masked-intruder-in-her-daughters-bedroom-then-he-fired-a-gun/2017/01/31/f3bf6fee-e3f4-11e6-a453-19ec4b3d09ba_story.html?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.f54fdf75602a
Senate committee approves DeVos nomination:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/317044-senate-committee-approves-devos-nomination
I had to check the calendar to make sure today wasn’t April 1st..
Sigh.
More and more I find reasons to want corporate dems out of office. This women is a scam artist and advocate of fly by night chaters schools, wants to gut public education which is a major source of new voters for dems, and wants to install christian charters. And they just let her in, just like that. Then again why should I expect better from the people who let Trump in office by sheer incompetence?
Let’s just hope for some heroes in Education try to make it impossible for DeVos to do much damage.
I’d just like to remind everyone to take time and rest if you need to. It’s easy to feel like you’re letting people down if you don’t participate in every single action, so here’s a bit of truth that might help put things in perspective: one of the tools in the arsenal of a fascist regime is using their opponents’ passion against them. It’s not unusual for an elected fascist to start out ‘big’, pushing egregiously oppressive legislation, for the purpose of overloading and wearing out the citizens in opposition. Then, when people start falling into complacency out of sheer exhaustion, they start quietly slipping in the really dangerous changes to government and law.
Better to rest and recover when you need to, so that we can all continue to remain vigilant in the coming months and years. Unless he’s impeached, we have four years to go. Pace yourself.
DeVos was just voted out of committee. She hasn’t been confirmed yet, the full Senate needs to vote on her. Every Dem on the Committee voted nay.
I know the Dems are going to boycott the full votes on Price and Mnuchin. I don’t know if boycotting the committee hearing on DeVos would have prevented the Rs from passing her or not.
@ PreuxFox: thank you. I was thinking along similar lines, of this being basically the Trump-style version of a Blitzkrieg.
Of course, I still feel guilty for not having made any phone calls–I’ve done some protest marching, but that’s it. In my case, it’s “function like a normal person on my days off from work” or “spend hours on the phone and then crawl into a bottle of vodka”. (And this would be after writing scripts, finding out who and when to call, and all the rest of it.) I see a lot of people here who are braver than I am, though, and I pull away because I’d probably hit the bottle if I didn’t.
*goes back to corner of shame*
@ Falconer: that sounds like good news.
Diane flippin’ Feinstein just came out against Jefferson Beauregard Sessions The Third, when she has voted for every other single Trump nominee so far.
EDIT: Oh my god, Trump’s had his two Supreme Court choices flown to DC for the big announcement this evening. Jesus Christ. Like government is some kind of TV show.
Just heard on the radio that my representative backs the EO and claimed it’s not a ban on Muslims (even though nearly all of the people it impacts are, you know, Muslims).
http:/www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/01/chart-day-90000-people-are-affected-trumps-travel-ban-about-87000-are-muslim
So I called his office just a little while ago, and among other things mentioned that someone writing for THE NATIONAL REVIEW (!!) described it as “likely to undermine the national interest.” Things are just that craptastic.
I also mentioned Steve “destoy the state” Bannon.
*sigh* Trying very hard to not run upstairs and take a Xanax.
Someone thought that Trump’s signing photo ops looked a lot like a baby eating. The photshops are hilarious
@pk1154, rogue angel, don’t get down on yourself if you can’t contribute every day, or even if you can’t contribute most days. This is going to be a long, long process – two years at a minimum. You need to pace yourself and contribute when you can and how you can.
It’d be a good thing for us to brainstorm things to do when you want to contribute but can’t muster the energy to phone or march or write letters. Knitting pussy hats is a good one, nice and quiet. That could be extended to making, like, larger props and flags for protesters. Even if you don’t go yourself you could send your flag or sign, and I’m sure someone would carry it. Can anyone think of anything else?
@rogue angel – all I’ve been doing is sending e-mails, to my local, state, and federal representatives. It’s hard for me to make phone calls during work hours. I know e-mails aren’t as effective but it’s better than nothing, I think.
I also encourage my fellow Resistance fighters online and in person as much as I can, to keep our energy up.
I mean, the guilt and shame – it’s nonsensical if you don’t mind me saying. There are non-contact, supportive things you can do. And when you can’t, just take care of yourself, rejoin the fight at another time, we’ll still hold your place.
@ dreemr
I don’t know about MGTOWs but the Incels are hailing Trump’s victory as proof that if you’re a rich misogynistic asshole, women will throw their underwear and votes at you.
And that’s apparently why nice guy Bernie Sanders finished last.
So in their world Trump is the ultimate ‘alpha’.
I made a cool dinner.
http://i.imgur.com/MH5UXS1h.jpg
It’s meatballs with mashed potatoes – in the same ball!
The mixture is fake ground meat, mashed potatoes, egg, cream, onions, flour, soy sauce, salt, black pepper, and allspice, rolled into balls and coated with flour, then egg, then bread crumbs, deep fried in half ‘n’ half sunflower and rapeseed (they really need to change the name of that seed) oil.
The sauce is a lingonberry teriyaki, made from dark syrup, soy sauce, water, rice vinegar, pressed garlic, grated ginger, corn starch, and lots of lingonberries.
Served with thinly mandolined cucumber, pickled in rice vinegar, salt, and sugar.
Quite a bit of work, and lots of dirty dishes, but it was a fun dinner!
@Alan – sorry, I meant the 15-year old boy in the story I linked, not Trump (although Trump definitely normalized the misogyny that fueled this boy to murder).
@IP, that looks super tasty! A lot of work but it looks amazing. Lingonberry teriyaki sounds amazing too. I should try that.
As for the whole problem with rapeseed oil, we started calling it canola instead of rapeseed a long time ago. So, canola plants and canola oil. At this point, the only people who call it rapeseed are a) really old farmers who refuse to change, and b) asshole edgelords trying to make people angry. So, maybe calling it canola could catch on there?
@Scildfreja
THAT’s what canola is?!?!?!
I always thought canola oil was some generic mix of various neutral oils. Thanks! :p
DeVos – nominee for Secretary of Education – may have plagiarized answers to written questions submitted by the committee: http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/31/politics/betsy-devos-plagiarism-obama-official/index.html
The irony would be delicious if I weren’t so certain that it won’t change anything.
@ dreemr
Actually that was my fault for not parsing your post properly! Sorry.
And I’m very appreciative of the link to the story. It’s quite relevant to something I’m working on at the moment.