Hi, all, and happy Wednesday! It is pretty happy, actually. Y’all, the election results in New York yesterday were VERY encouraging. If you haven’t heard, Democrat Pat Ryan scored a huge special election upset by defeating Republican Marc Molinaro 52-48
Thanks for pointing me to texting. I responded to about 150 today related to reproductive health. Easy to do but you were right, per activism 101. A lot of swearing. Happily I knew most of the words.
As one of the activists in CD19 canvassing to get out the vote for Pat Ryan, polls weren’t really relevant: we still knockef on doors to get voters to vote - in this case mostly Dems, sometimes “unaffiliateds,” aka independents. In our small town, we knocked in about 300 doors during the six week campaign. How many votes did we produce? We’ll never know but definitely some. They mount up from town to town. Postcards may be easy and satisfying; phone banks I find frustrating because as one person whose door I knocked on said, I never answer. Canvassing is the best. It is sometimes challenging but usually fun and often moving. People like to talk and tell
their stories! So give it a chance this fall. Most campaigns have a place to sign up as well as many organizations. Try Mobilize.us where Dems post their Volunteer opportunities. You’ll never regret irbid you do it; you might regret it if you don’t.
Good news, but - President Biden announced his decision to cancel $10k of student debt, means-tested, and double that for Pell Grant recipients who are effectively pre-secreened as lowest income. Payments start again in January. Much better than nothing, but does nothing about predatory interest, and does nothing about the racial wealth gap - which cancelling $50k would have done.
Here is my suggestion for going forward: urge President Biden to combat predatory interest by declaring a maximum interest cost of 5% of the original amount borrowed, on existing and future loans. Anything interest beyond that maximum that has already been paid, gets re-assigned to payments against principal.
Thanks for pointing me to texting. I responded to about 150 today related to reproductive health. Easy to do but you were right, per activism 101. A lot of swearing. Happily I knew most of the words.
As one of the activists in CD19 canvassing to get out the vote for Pat Ryan, polls weren’t really relevant: we still knockef on doors to get voters to vote - in this case mostly Dems, sometimes “unaffiliateds,” aka independents. In our small town, we knocked in about 300 doors during the six week campaign. How many votes did we produce? We’ll never know but definitely some. They mount up from town to town. Postcards may be easy and satisfying; phone banks I find frustrating because as one person whose door I knocked on said, I never answer. Canvassing is the best. It is sometimes challenging but usually fun and often moving. People like to talk and tell
their stories! So give it a chance this fall. Most campaigns have a place to sign up as well as many organizations. Try Mobilize.us where Dems post their Volunteer opportunities. You’ll never regret irbid you do it; you might regret it if you don’t.
Good news, but - President Biden announced his decision to cancel $10k of student debt, means-tested, and double that for Pell Grant recipients who are effectively pre-secreened as lowest income. Payments start again in January. Much better than nothing, but does nothing about predatory interest, and does nothing about the racial wealth gap - which cancelling $50k would have done.
Here is my suggestion for going forward: urge President Biden to combat predatory interest by declaring a maximum interest cost of 5% of the original amount borrowed, on existing and future loans. Anything interest beyond that maximum that has already been paid, gets re-assigned to payments against principal.