11-25-24 Newsletter

 

We are grateful to all of you who are working to ensure hope, opportunity, democracy, truth, decency, justice, and a thriving future for everyone.  Our best wishes, The INCO Leadership Team  Beeb Ashcroft, Laurie Caplan, Mary Beth Cottle, Eric Halperin, Carmen Hammersmith, Bebe Michel, Ken Potter ACTION ALERT On Thursday the House of Representatives passed a bill to give the Trump administration the power to revoke the tax-exempt nonprofit status of any organization by simply saying the group supports terrorists. No proof, no hearings, and no due process - just an anti-democratic President going after any group he wants. This terrifying bill, HR 9495, now goes to the Senate. Our Members of Congress WANT and NEED to hear from you! Please call Senators Wyden and Merkley. Ask them to vote NO and to encourage their colleagues to do the same. Senator Ron Wyden  202-224-5244 Senator Jeff Merkley 202-224-3753 * INCO MEETING * Showing Up for Each Other SAVE THE DATE! Saturday, December 14 11 am - 12:30 new location: Astoria Senior Center, 1111 Exchange Parking on street and across Exchange in the parking lots INCO needs you to help us defend our democracy! DEFENDING OUR DEMOCRACY We have an abundance of opportunities to make an impact in our communities, state, and nation. What do you want to tackle first? What issues are on your mind? LOCAL At the November 19 INCO 2.0 meeting, there was widespread interest in local attention and action. Suggestions included protecting communities at risk from discrimination, keeping Clatsop County blue, partnering with other like-minded groups, focusing on local public health, including women's reproductive health; and attending city and county government meetings.  If you'd like to focus on issues here in Clatsop County, then please attend: The first Local Issues and Action Team meeting   Tuesday, December 3 at 3-4:30 pm WineKraft, 77 11th Street, east end of the Pier 11 building, on the Riverwalk. OREGON An excellent guide for following state issues is COIN, the Consolidated Oregon Indivisible Network,  made up of several dozen Indivisible groups in Oregon. Sign up here to get COIN newsletters and alerts. If you'd like to help Indivisible volunteers from across the state evaluate and track pending legislation, contact COIN or incoregon@gmail.com. INCO's Cheryl Conway is a key member of COIN's legislative team. NATIONAL Local Indivisibles also want to follow national issues, like gun safety, health care, foreign policy, democracy and the rule of law, etc. What do you want our Members of Congress to do? How can INCO have a voice at the national level? One example is public heath:  Healthcare policy is already threatened by Trump's nominees, as described by Joyce Vance of Civil Discourse:  "Increasingly, I’m contemplating the issues we are going to face at the intersection of public health and the rule of law. Dr. Vin Gupta posted on BlueSky today, “We need as many healthcare professionals to be courageous and speak to truth, for our patient’s sake and for the sanctity and credibility of our profession. That starts now. We cannot allow the highly abnormal to be normalized.” He said it in the context of the qualifications, or lack thereof ...." INCO's National Team is ready to get started! Please contact incoregon@gmail.com if you'd like to work on national issues with INCO's National Team. "ASPIRATION AND INSPIRATION" Thank you for this reminder of the good and great things one individual can do, what words can mean, what aspiration and inspiration can help us achieve. I feel compassion and pity for those who live without courage, integrity, truth, self-respect, kindness, and dignity. The rest of us must continue to set an example of decency and help lead our communities and country forward. It's never been easy, but we can do it. -- Reader's Comment, Letters from an American, November 19, 2024 INDIVISIBLE AND RESISTANCE *  Check out INCO's website to find how to contact elected officials, reliable news and information, tips for planning events and publicity, and more! Let us know what else you'd like to see on the site - we've already started updating it. Contact incoregon@gmail.comwith your suggestions. *  INCO encourages you to watch the November 13 national Indivisible call on YouTube here:  Strategy, the new Indivisible Guide, Elizabeth Warren, inspiration, and solidarity! *  Read Indivisible's 'Worth Fighting For: A Post-Election Community Gathering Guide' - a tremendous resource for pro-democracy Americans, including INCO.  *  We encourage you to sign up for emails from national Indivisible here.  Check out AP's article about how to use Bluesky, an increasingly popular site for pro-democracy people and those leaving X (Twitter).   INCO IS ON INSTAGRAM! If you're new to Instagram, sign up here for an account. "LESSONS FROM OUR SUCCESS!" "Matt Gaetz’s withdrawal from consideration for Attorney General is instructive on many levels. Most of the lessons learned should fortify us for the battles to come. "Lessons include: "Public pressure works.  "... Just because Trump wants something doesn’t mean he can get it. Timothy Snyder advises us, “Do not obey in advance.” To that admonition we should add, “Do not concede before the battle is over.” ".... Trump was bluffing about recess appointments.  ".... Every defeat suffered by Trump weakens the illusion that he is invincible.  ".... Trump has other corrupt and corruptible candidates to replace every nominee we defeat. That’s okay. "There is no bottom to the supply of corrupt and corruptible Trump loyalists who can (and will) replace every corrupt and corruptible nominee or appointee who takes office in the Trump administration. That’s okay. The point is to resist, disrupt, and expose the corruption. We need to keep it up, every day!" -- Robert Hubbell, Today's Edition, November 22, 2024 PROJECT 2025: THE GOP'S ANTI-DEMOCRACY BLUEPRINT • "What Project 2025 means for you." It's terrific graphic, suitable for printing as a flyer. • A long list of major features of Project 2025, from Robert Hubbell in his Today's Edition newsletter •  FROM INDIVISIBLE:  - Project 2025 Explained -- An in-depth analysis of the MAGA playbook - 25 Things to Know About Project 2025 -- A quick list of 25 extreme things MAGA Republicans have planned with Project 2025 - Talking About Project 2025 -- Key messaging strategies for educating voters about Project 2025 and ensuring they understand the stakes • The 920-page Project 2025 document is here. Find a topic that interests you in the Project 2025  table of contents.   FUN STUFF INCO INSIGHTS "Politics should be the part-time profession of every citizen." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower Indivisible defends democracy by opposing authoritarianism, bigotry, and corruption. Comments, news, and photos to INCO at incoregon@gmail.com.  Resources and other information at www.incoregon.org and www.indivisible.org. Encourage others to sign up for the INCO newsletter here. Look for the INCO column in Hipfish Monthly. We're on Facebook, too. INCO Weekly Newsletter  •  November 25, 2024 Website Email Facebook Copyright © 2024 INDIVISIBLE North Coast Oregon, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in at our website or signed up at a community group meeting. Our mailing address is: *|766 Lexington Avenue, Astoria, OR 97103:HTML|* Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

11-18-24 Newsletter

 

Hi Laurie, My sister and myself definitely want to be a part of this organization and pledge to do as much as we can to preserve our Democracy in these unprecedented times. Our hearts and heads are with our country and ALL the people who call the USA home. We know we need border reform and a better way to communicate to the young people who will inherit this country but we need to open as many eyes as we can to the MESS we have right now and into our future! Count us in...we may be older but we have all ages of young people with our family and friends! Janie Senator Elizabeth Warren, "persister-in-chief," is a longtime Indivisible ally. Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg co-founded and co-lead Indivisible.  INDIVISIBLE AND RESISTANCE INCO encourages you to watch the November 13 national Indivisible call on YouTube here:  Strategy, the new Indivisible Guide, Elizabeth Warren, inspiration, and solidarity! Read Indivisible's 'Worth Fighting For: A Post-Election Community Gathering Guide' - a tremendous resource for pro-democracy Americans, including INCO.  *  Three Main Takeaways from Indivisible  * • Our work mattered, but it wasn’t enough. We lost all seven presidential swing states. Our campaign and ground game in battleground states significantly closed the gap and was enough to win other races in the House, Senate and state elections, but it just wasn’t enough to overcome the nationwide swing. • A rejection of the status quo, not an embrace of fascism. The result was part of a global backlash in western democracies in the post-covid/inflation era. Voters rejected incumbents globally this year, but that doesn’t mean the electorate embraced Project 2025 or facism. That matters, because it means there will be major potential backlash to Trump 2.0. • A coalition built on dissatisfaction with the status quo is not a durable coalition. The sadists, grifters, and extremists who lead MAGA will soon become a governing party with an unpopular agenda. If we organize to push back on them, we can fracture their coalition and build our own. INCO 2.0 Showing Up for Each Other INCO 2.0 launched last week with a determined crowd eager to resist Trump 2.0 and defend our democracy. Thanks to Sherise Smith for the photo.   You're invited to our next meeting Tuesday, November 19, 3-4:30 pm at WineKraft at the east end of the 11th Street Mall on the Astoria Riverwalk, 77 11th Street No purchase necessary.   At the meeting we'll discuss next steps: how to move forward effectively, which issues to address, who will do what, etc.  You might have been one of about 1400 people at the Astoria Women’s March on Saturday, January 21, 2017. From that inspiring event developed Indivisible North Coast Oregon (INCO), our local resistance to authoritarianism, bigotry, and corruption. INCO is one of dozens of Indivisible groups in Oregon and thousands across the country. INCO’s focus for the last few years has been on elections: supporting good candidates, progressive issues, and robust civic engagement and voting.  INCO's actions over the next few years will be decided by those who show up, speak up, and take action. Whatever you can do will make an impact as we defend democracy. We'd love to see you Tuesday. If you're interested but won't be at the November 19th meeting, please email incoregon@gmail.com with what you'd like to do with INCO. "WE CAN THINK ANEW" "In fact, the story of this time will be written not just in Trump’s actions but how all of us respond.   ".... This will be a period of ferment on the center and left. This is the kind of moment when new ideas, new groups, new leaders, and new strategies emerge. We can think anew. "In the end, what will count is not just what we are against, but what we are for." -- The Brennan Center for Justice, newsletter, November 13, 2024 VOTER TURNOUT NUMBERS "Voter turnout 2024: 14M more non-voters than Donald Trump supporters; Kamala Harris got 10M fewer votes than Biden ".... More than 89 million voting eligible Americans did not vote in the 2024 race, according to the latest counts from the University of Florida’s U.S. Election Project. "That translates into 36.5% of the eligible electorate not voting." -- https://www.belgrade-news.com/news/  (Montana), November 13, 2024 RESOURCES  *  RESOURCES  *  RESOURCES INCO's website: www.incoregon.org Indivisible national's website: www.indivisible.org COIN (Consolidated Oregon Indivisible Network):  https://www.coinoregon.org/ The 2024 Indivisible Guide  INCO email: inco2010@gmail.com Contact info for elected officials     Pro-democracy media organizations Crooked Media, COURIER Newsroom, MeidasTouch, Resolute Square, Deep State Radio Social media  Threads, Blue Sky News, perspective, opinion on Substack Heather Cox Richardson - Letters from an American (connecting context, history, and current events) Lucian Truscott IV - Lucian Truscott Newsletter (connecting context, history, and current events) Robert Hubbell - Today's Edition (opportunities for activism, legal insights, current events) Joyce Vance - Civil Discourse (legal insights and details about current events) Jay Kuo - Status Kuo (legal insights and details about current events)  Dan Rather - Steady  (perspective from this outstanding reporter) Timothy Snyder - Thinking About (historian about authoritarianism, fascism, current events) Ruth Ben-Ghiat - Lucid (historian about authoritarianism, fascism, current events) Judd Legum - Popular Info (investigative reporting, current events) Simon Rosenberg - Hopium  (political expertise and perspective) Robert Reich - (political and government expertise and perspective)  Podcasts, some on YouTube The Bulwark - several different ones Robert Reich Al Franken  (he interrupts a lot) Jon Stewart (he interrupts a lot) Books and authors Anne Applebaum, books, articles in The Atlantic Timothy Snyder, on Substack, ON TYRANNY: TWENTY LESSONS FOR THE TWENTIETH CENTURY; ON FREEDOM Ruth Ben-Ghiat, on Substack, STRONGMEN, articles Other organizations Democracy Docket Brennan Center for Justice; the November 13 newsletter is worth reading ACLU Please send names and links for other suggested resources to incoregon@gmail.com. INDIVISIBLE ON SOCIAL MEDIA A WAY FORWARD "Exit polls showed that the more attention voters paid to political news, the more likely they were to vote for Harris, by wide margins. Harris +13 for voters who paid a great deal or a lot of attention. Trump +23 for votes who paid little or none at all. ".... Whether it was the economy, or the border, or identity politics, the biggest problem for the Democrats was and is messaging — how voters perceived those issues. In a double-blind poll conducted in October, voters preferred Harris’s policies to Trump’s when they weren’t told whose policies were whose. Read that again. ".... Please know, all is not lost. This election wasn’t a blowout like Reagan’s 1984 result (he won by 18 points) or even Obama in 2008. Just over 2 points separated Trump and Harris. In many states, voters backed Trump but also backed ballot initiatives that are counter to the MAGA agenda: abortion rights, paid family leave, and raising the minimum wage. In Missouri, 12 percent of voters chose Trump and abortion rights. While the Democrats have an enormous hill to climb, they aren’t starting at the bottom of it." -- Dan Rather, Steady, November 11, 2024 CONGRATULATIONS, OREGON! Oregonians just elected five pro-democracy women to Congress. COIN suggests we flood their offices with postcards of congratulations!   You can congratulate them on their victories, thank them for their service to Oregonians, and let them know how glad we are to have them working for us and all Americans against Trump’s dystopian agenda. You can also sign up to be on their mailing lists and tell them which local Indivisible group you belong to. Representative-Elect Janelle Bynum (bottom left photo) 1021 SE Sunnyside Rd #300 Clackamas, OR  97015   Representative Suzanne Bonamici  (top right) 12725 Southwest Millikan Way, Suite 220 Beaverton, OR  97005   Representative-Elect Dr. Maxine Dexter (top left) PO Box 12209, Portland, OR 97212   Representative Val Hoyle  (bottom right) 940 Willamette St Eugene, OR  97401   Representative Andrea Salinas  (top center) 18861 SW Martinazzi Avenue #200 Tualatin, OR 97062 TRUMP TARIFFS IN OREGON "Donald Trump’s re-election could have widespread implications for Oregon’s economy if he follows through on his pledge to establish tariffs on goods imported into the United States. Oregon is among the most trade-dependent states in the nation, with exports valued at $27.7 billion last year. That makes us vulnerable if retaliatory tariffs come into play. Computer chips, wheat, fruit, wood products, and aircraft components are among the many products the state’s factories and farmers sell to buyers overseas. ".... Tariffs might increase the demand for domestic timber but could also trigger retaliatory trade barriers from other countries that buy Oregon forest products. The state exports more than $600 million in wood products and pulp annually, sales that could be jeopardized by a trade war." -- State Representative David Gomberg (HD 10), newsletter, November 10, 2024 - - - - - - - - - - - - Rep. Gomberg represents House District 10, south and east of Tillamook County. INCO recommends his newsletter for news and perspective about the Oregon legislature, coastal issues, and other information. You can sign up for his newsletter here.  PROJECT 2025: THE GOP'S ANTI-DEMOCRACY BLUEPRINT LEARN MORE ABOUT PROJECT 2025 • "What Project 2025 means for you." It's terrific graphic, suitable for printing as a flyer. • A long list of major features of Project 2025, from Robert Hubbell in his Today's Edition newsletter •  FROM INDIVISIBLE:  - Project 2025 Explained -- An in-depth analysis of the MAGA playbook - 25 Things to Know About Project 2025 -- A quick list of 25 extreme things MAGA Republicans have planned with Project 2025 - Talking About Project 2025 -- Key messaging strategies for educating voters about Project 2025 and ensuring they understand the stakes • The 920-page Project 2025 document is here. Find a topic that interests you in the Project 2025  table of contents.   INCO INSIGHTS Hope has two lovely daughters,      anger and courage. Anger so that what must not be         will not be and courage so that what can be           will be.                       --  St. Augustine Indivisible defends democracy by opposing authoritarianism, bigotry, and corruption. Comments, news, and photos to INCO at incoregon@gmail.com.  Resources and other information at www.incoregon.org and www.indivisible.org. Encourage others to sign up for the INCO newsletter here. Look for the INCO column in Hipfish Monthly. We're on Facebook, too. INCO Weekly Newsletter  •  November 18 , 2024 Website Email Facebook Copyright © 2024 INDIVISIBLE North Coast Oregon, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in at our website or signed up at a community group meeting. Our mailing address is: *|766 Lexington Avenue, Astoria, OR 97103:HTML|* Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.