In these scary days, it will be good to get together this Sunday (January 12) and start planning our 2020 actions. We’ll meet at our house as per usual, 4:30-5:45. Bring a snack. We look forward to seeing everyone!

Indivisible, Move-On, and just about every other progressive group in America will be in the streets Tuesday evening December 17 to declare that Nobody Is Above the Law.  Join this historic nationwide mobilization on the eve of Trump’s impeachment—the vote is expected Wednesday. Click here to RSVP for rallies in Oakland, El Cerrito, Emeryville or other Bay Area cities. Start times range from 4 to 5:30 pm; signs are welcome but not required.

I have 200 postcard addresses from Reclaim Our Vote that need to be sent to Texas by early January. The goal is to encourage people to register to vote, including the many people thrown off the voter rolls. Email me if you want some of them.

Join us this Sunday Nov 17th at our house 4:30-5:45 and raise a glass to our Virginia victories. Andy will give his analysis of the elections in Virginia, Kentucky and Mississippi, including turn out and prospects for the future. Bring any interested friends and a snack.

I have to admit, not my style, but in case some of you have escaped the Postcards4VA mailing list, I am publishing your opportunity to buy their celebratory T-shirts!

I think I am more-than-average prone to fear that Trump will win again. The wonderful Michelle Goldberg writes in today’s NY Times about an antidote.

“The best answer to despair is recognizing that you’re not helpless,” said Ezra Levin, co-founder of the progressive group Indivisible and co-author of the new book “We Are Indivisible: A Blueprint for Democracy After Trump.” …

Levin reminded me that in 2017, Democrats’ chances of winning the House seemed bleak, given the effect of gerrymandering. “In early 2017 we got laughed at when we said we could take the House,” he said. The blue wave of 2018 wasn’t preordained — people built it.

https://nyti.ms/2NtCKdW

Nancy Guy is hanging on by 18 votes. Every dollar and every postcard of ours for that campaign was vital. And Andy Askew won–hurrah. We won the Kentucky Gov. as well so those postcards were well sent. A painful loss for Cheryl Turpin but Virginia is blue and we have lots to celebrate so

PARTY Sunday, Nov 17th 4:30-5:45 with happy food and drinks.

Lots of interesting down-ballot wins as well — we’ll review and celebrate them all. Also some number crunching about turn-out –a snack for every vote.

1. The highlight of our meeting was Bill’s phone call report of his experiences volunteering in Virginia. He has such positive things to say about his housing, his view and the new friends he is making, that we call had volunteer envy–maybe more of us will join him next time.
2. We have decided to take a break from out regular meetings until January. If things go well in Virginia, we’ll have a party. Watch for details.

• Action Items
• Join our new member Grita and Jane every Friday 3:-5:00 pm in front of the downtown Berkeley Toyota Dealer to protest Toyota’s support of Trump’s plan to rollback environmental standards for cars.
• Encourage your friends to load their phones with the free App Vote With Me which is especially good for getting younger voters invested since they don’t want their friends to see that they failed to vote. Can our slightly aged group bring about a viral sign-up? Let’s see.

• Ann has put this together for us:

Five-minute Actions to Help Interned Immigrant Children                                                               At the U.S.-Mexico Border

Many Americans are concerned about the health and wellbeing of immigrant children held in detention centers at the U.S.-Mexico border, but some concerned people have limited free time and feel that they cannot respond effectively to this situation. I have found some ways for them to express their support for immigrants in less than five minutes a day.

Signing a petitionJeff Merkley, a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, has an online petition for reuniting immigrant families at the border.http://www.jeffmerkley.com  go to reunite immigrant families. (can search for “merkley immigrant families”)The ACLU, saying that separating families is inhumane, has a petition at:https://www.aclu.org/action/You can find other petitions with a search—“reunite immigrant families”

Making a donationYou can donate your frequent flier miles to Lawyers for Good Government to help cover travel expenses for immigrants and refugees as well as for attorneys working pro bono to represent them. You can also make a financial donation.http://www.lawyersforgoodgovernment.orgAfter immigrants leave the detention centers, many stop at—Catholic Charities of Rio Grande Valley in McAllen, Texaswhere they receive food and clean clothing. You can make a general financial donation or go to their Amazon wish list.http://www.catholiccharitiesrgv.orgThere are many non-profits asking for online donations. Be careful. You can check their qualifications at—www.charitynavigator.org

Contacting your representative and senatorsCalling—Call the Capitol Switchboard 202 224 3121Open 24 hours. You give them your zip code, they connect you to appropriate offices.Sending email, writing letters—https://www.usa.gov/elected-official for contact information.

Being supportive of immigrantsRAICES—Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Serviceshas a Cartas de Corazon program.  In Texas, RAICES distributes greeting cards with supportive handwritten messages (in Spanish) to immigrants. Volunteers buy blank greeting cards, write messages (provided by RAICES) in them, and mail the group of cards to Texas. Names and addresses of volunteers are not on the cards.               https://www.raicestexas.org/volunteer/go to “remote volunteer activities”

1. Sunday at our meeting we will be working on how to text to get out the vote so bring your laptop if you have one. We’ll have other things for non-texters to do.
2. We are nearing our $1,000 goal so don’t forget to ask friends to chip in. Lots of people are just chewing their nails these days from anxiety. Encourage them to donate instead.

Attendance:

• Naomi
• Mimi
• Ann
• Janice
• Babette
• Bruce
• Jane
• Mary
• Jeff
• Noemi
• Andy

Four things to do for impeachment:

1) Naomi will take her ironing board to Ashby and College with Carol Fridays from 5 to 6 p.m. She will take postcards and printouts from Tony. As it gets dark earlier, it will have to be earlier in the day.

2) Andy is trying to think of ways to pressure Republicans in Congress. Maybe we could send thank-yous to those who have cracked a little. WaPo has an ongoing tally at https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/impeachment-support-house-democrats/. The NYT article at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/us/politics/trump-impeachment-congress-list.html is from October 10.

3) Bruce says national Indivisible suggests signing up to make calls to people in key areas.  The webpage is https://act.indivisible.org/signup/impeachment-senate-calls/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=link2_groupleaders&t=10&akid=54868%2E822731%2Exr7UGh. It will come up with Bruce’s name, but you can click on a link to put in your own name for the calls.

4) Write to Democratic holdouts. See links above.

Virginia Elections

Bill has been watching this. Virginia is quite tight, and the Republicans are really moving. The NRA is putting up big money against Nancy Guy. We have no postcard addresses left for Virginia, but we can do letters through Vote Forward. You can get started at https://votefwd.org/. These need to be mailed Tuesday, October 29. Make sure you follow the instructions and use the return address they give because they want to keep track of bad addresses.

Our next meeting is right before the Virginia election. Naomi is thinking of setting her house up for phone banking and texting that day. Watch for further information about that.

East Bay Activist Alliance is doing phone banking at the following times.

• Oct. 23, 1-4PM, Phonebank at Sports Basement Berkeley with Indivisible Berkeley
• Oct. 26, 1-4PM Phonebank at Sports Basement Berkeley with Indivisible Berkeley
• Oct. 27, 1:30-4:30PM, Phonebank in Redwood Heights/Oakland with Democracy Action East Bay and EBAA

They’ll also have special GOTV Phonebanks in Berkeley, Oakland, and Dublin/Pleasanton Nov. 2-5.

We’re still taking donations for the Virginia candidates. Five people have given a total of $400 so far for the current drive. The money goes to the three candidates in Virginia.

2020 Elections

Everyone in California is flush with money except T. J. Cox. Valadao, the Republican who previously held the seat, has outraised Cox. He outraised Cox the last time and lost anyway, but it was very very close.

The other one we’re interested in is Ammar Campa-Najjar, who ran against Duncan Hunter in 2018 and nearly won.

Naomi thinks we need to focus on one or two California races.

The Senate is more of an issue than the House in 2020. Naomi thinks we should pick one or two races. Possibilities include Arizona, Alaska, and Iowa.

Postcards

Noemi says Tony the Democrat is still doing the Kentucky statewide slate.

Janice says Grandmothers in Action is doing postcards. See http://www.grandmothersforabrighterfuture.com/

National

Bruce says national Indivisible is still wrestling with how to deal with a presidential primary endorsement. Their questionnaire for the candidates is about 23 pages. They did add one of Bruce’s suggested questions.

Naomi is going to get a copy of their book from Mrs. Dalloway’s. The title is “We Are Indivisible: A Blueprint for Democracy After Trump”. Bruce says they’ll be promoting it at Book Passage. You should reserve online at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/leah-greenberg-and-ezra-levin-we-are-indivisible-tickets-76485725865 if you want to go to that. Remember that the more preorders they get, the likelier it’ll land on the NYT bestseller list for publicity.

Next Meeting

The next meeting is Sunday, November 3.