On the Ground: To The Other Side In Tijuana

I hope some of you and especially Judith will read this essay.

1. Bill explained that our old local CA13 Sister District group has been renamed East Bay Action Network and is now an affiliate of (and not a sub-group of) the larger Sister District organization. CA 13 is going solo in order to be able to engage in not only the activities forwarded from Sister District but also other actions that are not part of the SD mission. Most of us will not notice any difference in how our group functions and Bill will keep us up with anything we need to know about this reorganization.
2. We went over our two upcoming fundraisers. First, we will offer our Quite Evening at Home for June 11th, the night of the Virginia primary. Look for a sample invitation to be posted later this week–hoping that everyone will give their suggestions on how to improve it. We will then send it around to friends via email. For the second fundraiser, our Political Paraphernalia Auction, we will be able to host an on-line auction with 20 items (one item can actually be a group of items). Please bring all donations (old buttons, bumper stickers etc. to our next meeting. We will take photos for the auction at the meeting. The auction will go live after we have done as much as we can with the Quiet Evening. Funds raised by the auction will go to Bill’s intern program.
3. Judy gave an update about all the work going into replacing the Alameda sheriff. Bruce will be coordinating with Indivisible CA since they can be a big help with this vital issue. Judy will be posting information to keep us up to date. Thursday May 27th panel on Alameda County Politics at the Wellstone Club meeting, 7:00 Humanist Hall Oakland (This information will be repeated closer to the date of the meeting.)
4. We went over a possible button design. Andy will be printing out some samples for our next meeting so send any ideas on to him. We also reviewed the postcard plans. Hope to have them for our next meeting.
5. We wrote postcards for a study on voter turnout that Sister District is doing. We will certainly share anything we hear about the results of various postcard studies—though it may be a while since this was about getting voters out this coming November.
6. .

Josh Marshall posted an important piece on Talkingpointsmemo about some Democrats feeling discouraged. This came into my inbox just a few days after a note about Tony the Democrat dropping a campaign because he does not have as many people writing postcards these days.

If you are reading this, you are part of the solution, not the problem (as we said in the 60’s). The Virginia election is coming, Tony and Votefwd have Democratic campaigns in their sites. We are the ones who keep other Democrats from giving up. We are the energizing bunnies for our friends and those around us who get distracted from the main goal—electing every Democrat we can all the time all the way up to the White House.

We are the ones who will meet today to move forward on fund-raising for Virginia. We have a special postcard campaign in process as well. I am so looking forward to seeing you all–the ones who do NOT let down their energy. Discouraged?? No–we are too busy!

Our house, 4:30 pm. We have some addresses, so bring postcards if you have them.

Please note: Sorry for the delay in posting minutes.

Next meeting: Sunday April 14th 4:30-5:45

1. We started off with a lively discussion answer some questions from Indivisible Headquarters about 1) do we want to endorse a particular candidate (to which we said no, but we did list several we all liked in a hierarchy of top tier and second tier and 2) which issues are most important to us. At some point Bruce, our scribe, will post a summary here. Interesting points made all around.
2. We talked about our two fundraisers. Jane is going to catalogue all of the items for our political auction. Please pass a list of your donations on to her (jane@donjelinek.com). Emily is going to make the handout about Virginia elections for the Quiet Evening fundraiser. More on both fundraisers soon.
3. Bill reported that something is going between with our CA 13 Sister District group and the main Sister District group. He will give us a report after an upcoming meeting which has been set up to explain the situation.
4. We talked about buttons and postcards. We are ordering 750 postcards with the color-in design for those who want that one and we will also order some of the Our Vote is Our Voice for those who like that one. The Elmwood Post office is already out of postcards so we recommend everyone buy when they can. Design a new button contest is on (Bruce has sent in some great suggestions and we want to move forward so if you have an idea, send it to Andy (drlaz@me.com)).
5. For our action item we all looked as the http://www.Votefwd.org which most of the group was not familiar with. They have some important campaigns on now such as a special election in Pennsylvania. Even if we lose some of these campaigns they get getting people in the habit of voting.
6. Michael passes this additional action item on to everyone:

Support our hungry neighbors in Puerto Rico. [h/t Mi Familia Vota]

The president is blocking food aid to Puerto Rico where nearly 43% of the population relies on food stamps.
Donate: To the Food Bank of Puerto Rico (Banco de Alimentos de Puerto Rico)

Call: Your Feinstein and Harris (202) 224-3121
Script: Hi, I’m calling from [ZIP] to support relief for Puerto Rico. Our fellow Americans are starving due to the president’s biases and Congressional inaction. I’m asking [name] to show mercy toward our fellow citizens, support immediate passage of S. 572 to address the situation, and ensure Puerto Rico receives all promised financial support.

In case you missed this email from Indivisible partner MoveOn and might want to join tomorrow’s protest rallies in El Cerrito or Oakland, I’m posting it here: Last night, Donald Trump’s hand-picked attorney general, William Barr, missed the deadline set by Congress to release the full Mueller report. 

That’s why tomorrow, Thursday, April 4—at nearly 300 events around the country—the Nobody Is Above the Law coalition is joining together to demand that Barr immediately release the full report and supporting evidence. 

Click here to check out a map of the actions and RSVP to join a “Release The Report” event near you tomorrow, Thursday, April 4.

As Rachel Maddow reported live on her show Monday night, these #ReleaseTheReport actions will be critical to getting the backs of congressional Democrats who are subpoenaing the full report and underlying evidence and pushing back against Barr and Trump’s stonewalling.

The two latter races, both Democratic holds from the 2015 Election, were strongly for Trump in 2016. The Democratic governor is up in November, along with the regular legislature election.

I have emerged from the world of grading into the world of politics and we have lots to talk about on Sunday, such as …….

Indivisible in the Primaries? The Big Questions

US Indivisible has asked local groups to complete a survey by April 15 on what should be the posture of Indivisible in the primary election season around both candidates and issues.  Do we want to endorse a presidential candidate? If so, on what criteria? How much do the candidates’ campaign values or practices matter? What about their stance on specific policy issues? What are the pros and cons of endorsing—both for Indivisible nationally and for us locally? How about other types of engagement in the primary process? And how would we rank the current candidates if we were to endorse any at this point?

On Sunday, we’ll spend some time on a questionnaire covering these issues.  It should be an interesting conversation.

Usual time and usual place. As always, feel free to recruit others to come.

We now have a Guest WiFi set up, so you can connect your phones or laptop conveniently.

Light note passed along on the CA Indivisible Slack channel: lassner@andylassner on twitter: “I’m not saying it would be hilarious if folks in Fresno showed up to this event just to moo. I’m not saying that at all. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D2IAxJtU4AEuk1Q.jpg”

Response on the Slack thread: “A number of folks are renting cow costumes and are planning a big protest outside the venue.  Please go!”