Chop Wood, Carry Water 3/30

Baby steps

Hi, all, and happy Wednesday!

Last night I spent four hours at the Los Angeles County Democratic Party’s monthly meeting. I’m an elected member, and this was an important night for us—we got to vote on endorsements for various Los Angeles candidates who have races coming up in November.

It didn’t go the way the party establishment wanted it to.

It may seem like a small thing, but enough of us new, grassroots members have run for seats on the LACDP—and won—that we now form our own kind of coalition. Because of this we are able, in small ways, to change the course of “business as usual.”

Last night, for example, we blocked the endorsements of some (terrible) incumbents running for higher office, helped progressive candidates get higher vote totals than their establishment opponents, and stopped a party-anointed, charter-school-supporting candidate from receiving the endorsement LACDP leadership had hoped to give her, uncontested.

It doesn’t sound like much, but I’ve come to realize that it’s micro-victories like these that are the real building blocks of progress. They’re not flashy, or easy to explain, or even social-media-postable, but bit by bit they do move us closer to a world where the old, awful order doesn’t automatically prevail.

So perhaps every day I need to ask myself not “how can I change the world today?”

But rather: “How can I move the needle an inch? Or a quarter-inch?”

Or even: “How can I get closer to the needle?”

Baby steps. Tiny, tiny, tiny forward movements. Scores of them, taken consistently, over long periods of time.

It’s not instantly satisfying…

But it’s how we win.

So let’s take some more right now.

Call Your Senators (find yours here)

Hi, I'm a constituent calling from [zip]. My name is ______.

I have some concerns about a bill that I know the Senate will be voting on soon. It’s S.1260 - the United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021. While it contains a lot of good provisions, I share Bernie Sanders’ concern that it contains $53 billion for profitable microchip companies like Intel, and $10 billion for Jeff Bezos to go to space. Absolutely unacceptable. I want those provisions stripped from the bill before it’s passed.

One more thing: I want the Senator to vote YES on Ketanji Brown Jackson and NO on Jennifer Rearden, a judicial nominee who will receive a vote next week. She’s a Big Oil apologist—no way. Thanks.

Call Your House Rep (find yours here)

Hi, I'm a constituent calling from [zip]. My name is _______.

I’m calling to express my opposition to the Medicare REACH program.

This program would completely transform traditional Medicare by allowing for-profit middlemen to place themselves between seniors and the care they need. This is a stealth attempt to privatize the last public elements of Medicare, and it is being implemented without input from seniors, physicians, or even Congress itself.

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra has the power to end REACH today, and Congress has the power to pressure him to do so. I’d like the Congressmember to work with their colleagues to fight this dangerous and insidious program. Thanks. [H/T and more info]

Extra Credit ✅

Can you use this tool to send a letter to your Senator asking them not to confirm Jennifer Rearden? Yes, I know we already called. We need to double down. Sigh.

Bonus points go here and send POTUS this note:

I writing to ask you to withdraw your nomination of Jennifer Rearden to be a federal judge in the Southern District of NY.

Rearden is a corporate lawyer who heads the crisis management team at a Big Law firm – the same small crisis management team that brags about its work representing Chevron in its lawsuit against Steven Donziger. Donziger had the audacity to represent Ecuadorian villagers damaged by Chevron’s deliberate pollution of the Amazon rainforest basin and obtained a huge judgment in Ecuadorian court, but Chevron retained Rearden’s firm to accuse Donziger of corruption. And billing records show that she worked on Donziger’s case.

Rearden has also represented corporate interests accused of discrimination against disabled and HIV-positive folk. In short, she’s everything that’s wrong with America’s judicial system, and she’s getting a vote the same day as Ketanji Brown Jackson, who’s everything right in America’s judicial system.

President Biden, this judge will tarnish your record of otherwise stellar nominations. Please, please withdraw her name. Thanks.

Get Smart! 📚

On Apr 12, 2022 at 4:00 pm EDT ProPublica is offering a webinar about how the ultrawealthy skirt the tax system and how Biden’s new billionaire tax proposal could change that. It’s called The Billionaire Playbook.

They’ve been working to expose this messed up system for a while, so this should be excellent and super informative. See the list of awesome speakers and register here.

Protect Elections!

I met with the co-founder of Power the Vote—an INCREDIBLY impressive organization—yesterday, and I want to shout about them from the rooftops. 📣

The founders of Power the Vote ran voter protection for the Democratic Party of Georgia during the 2020 cycle, when the state flipped blue for the first time in nearly 30 years. Some of you may remember the ballot curing phonebanks I posted here for weeks after the November elections. Those were theirs.

The work PTV did was critical to the outcome of the elections. DNC Chair Jaime Harrison has called their Georgia program “the nationwide model for voter protection programs.” Which is good, because they’ve expanded to four more states!

Power the Vote was created to: (1) fund permanent, year-round voter protection teams in battleground states (starting in GA, NC, AZ, TX, FL) and (2) give those teams expertise and support, drawing on the best practices they developed in Georgia.

Please consider volunteering with them here or donating here.

Win Races! 🗳

Y’all. I am phonebanking for Jessica Cisneros again today. This phonebank is SO FUN! Last week I left it floating on air. Please—it’s so satisfying. And if she beats Henry Cuellar I’ll just…dance with joy. Literally.

3PM PDT/6PM EDT. Sign up here.

Resistbot Text (new to Resistbot? Go here! And then here.)

[to all 3 reps and President Biden] [H/T] [Quick send to Congress text SIGN PNDHXO to 50409 and to POTUS text SIGN PXCBVU to 50409]

Like most Americans, I’m concerned about inflation. I want President Biden—with Congressional support—to adopt three inflation-control measures. 

1. Green Energy: I oppose the Republican demand for "energy independence" by ramping up oil production, increasing subsidies and tax breaks for Big Oil, and eliminating health, safety, and environmental oversight and regulation. Instead I support using the Defense Production Act to increase production and use of green technologies that reduce fossil fuel demand and fuel costs as called for in the March 23, 2022, letter from Senators Markey, Warren, and others. 

2. Price Controls: The root of inflation lies in corporate greed and price-gouging, not federal social spending or workers being paid too much. The best way to fight inflation in energy costs during this national crisis is to use the DPA to impose price controls on gasoline, natural gas, and heating oil, similar to what Trump did in 2020 to reduce price-gouging by medical equipment companies in the first months of the pandemic. 

3. COVID-19 Funding: As you know, the COVID-19 funding that Americans relied on for the past year to cover the costs of testing, vaccinations, and treatment has run out. Republicans blocked renewing it in the Omnibus appropriations bill. For the families that will now have to pay these bills, it's a new and punishing form of inflation. I call on you to quickly propose and pass an emergency supplemental funding bill that combines additional humanitarian and military aid for Ukraine with restoration of the COVID-19 relief funding. Thanks.

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OK, you did it again! You helped save democracy! You’re amazing.

Talk tomorrow.

Jess