We all know that direct advocacy works. Engaging directly with our representatives is at the core of the Indivisible movement. When we contact our representatives, we remind them what the people think is important, who they are working for, and who has the power to keep them in office. People power is the most potent tool in the political playbook.
Click here to write a letter to the editor encouraging President Biden to lower prescription drug prices. One in four Americans struggles to afford their essential medications. We can not afford to wait for a legislative fix while Big Pharma lines its pockets! We need President Biden to use his existing authority to unilaterally lower drug prices right now while we continue to push for a more permanent legislative solution. Write to your local paper today and tell them why all Americans need affordable access to prescription drugs.
Sign up for Indivisible’s National Rural Caucus. Whether you’ve been organizing in your rural community for decades or are just getting involved, our rural program provides space to connect with one another, engage in rural electoral and advocacy work, and celebrate rural resistance and power building. Sign up to receive a monthly rural newsletter geared specifically towards organizing for change in rural communities.
We worked and worked and worked to dump Trump and his agenda…..and WE DID IT! What an amazing effort Indivisible groups all over the US put out in order to do this….and we…here in our little corner of Delaware County played our part. We phone banked, text banked, wrote postcards, rallied, went to educational events, worked hard for candidates….and now because of all this work….we can be hopeful that 2021 will be a better year for not just the US but for the world.
President Elect Joe Biden
But our work is not done. We got to rest a little after the election, but it is time to get back to work because if we want President Biden to do what we as progressives are going to ask him to do, then we have to give him the best shot at doing that. That means we must win the Senate! You can help do that by helping with the Georgia Run-Off election get out the vote! Below you will find a number of ways you can do that and links to sign up for any or all of them.
To make this a little more social, we will send out a zoom link to everyone for the January 5 Working Parties Texting Event (see below). We will do that on January 4 so if you want to join others while you text you have the link handy. For the other events, just sign up for what you can do.
Here they are! Thanks for your efforts
1) Democracy for America
Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff are running to flip Georgia’s two Senate seats blue on January 5th. If they win, Democrats will take control of the U.S. Senate. Just as we did in flipping Georgia blue in a presidential election for the first time in 28 years, DFA’s Protect America’s Vote campaign is playing a key role in the Senate runoffs.
Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff
We’re organizing on the ground in Georgia to mobilize newly-registered and infrequent voters to the polls in this runoff election and fight voter suppression head-on.
( https://fairfight.com/join-our-fight ) founded by Stacy Abrams, will be calling/texting Georgia voters to make sure they have the information they need to make a plan to vote either by mail or in person.
Stacey Abrams
As a volunteer for Fair Fight you would not be advocating for any candidate or political party. In order to phone or text bank with Fair Fight you must attend one of these training sessions.
These trainings will cover both phone banking AND text banking. The trainings will last about 1 hr and will cover:
You will need to sign up for your text or phone shift directly in the phone or text bank training event.
These trainings will take place on Zoom. Once you register for your training session on Mobilize you will be automatically registered for the Zoom call (and will receive this information in an email from field@fairfightaction.com) You will receive the link to log in to the training by email & text right before the training.
3) Working Families Party
The working famiies party is primarily concerned with healthcare reform, raising the minimum wage, universal paid sick days, addressing student debt, progressive taxation, public education, and energy and environmental reform. It has usually cross-endorsed progressive Democratic candidates through fusion voting, but will occasionally run its own candidates.
Working Families Party will be calling/texting Georgia voters to support Reverand Warnock and Jon Ossoff for Senate.
In partnership with CATE and the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Delaware County is hosting free Covid-19 testing sites for any Delaware County residents, 12 years of age and older. Please see the attached flyers. The testing is free (no insurance required), masks must be worn to the testing sites, and no ID is required. There is no pre-registration. Results will take up to 48 business hours. If anyone has any questions, call 610-891-6129.
Monday, November 16th & Tuesday November 17th US Army Reserve – Drive-thru testing 500 W 24th Street Upland, PA 19013 10 AM – 3 PM
Monday, November 16th Upper Darby High School 601 N Lansdowne Ave. Drexel Hill, PA 19026 10 AM – 3 PM
A discussion Wendell Potter, Dr. Walter Tsou and Mark Dudzic
On Tuesday, October 20th at 7:00 pm
Progressive Montco will be airing a webinar on Single-Payer Healthcare and discussing the future of the healthcare policy environment in the U.S.. We are honored to be joined by Wendell Potter, Dr. Walter Tsou and Mark Dudzic, three of the leading advocates for a single-payer healthcare system. We will broadcast via Zoom to Facebook and YouTube. You can register for the event at http://progressivemontco.org/m4a-webinar-register
List of co-sponsors: Berks Stands Up Center For Health & Democracy Business Leaders for Healthcare Transformation The Labor Campaign for Single-Payer Healthcare Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals Philadelphia Neighborhood Networks Indivisible Upper Darby Philadelphia Citizens Solidarity Committee PA Dist. 5 Demands Medicare For All Montco Medicare For All Delco PA Indivisible Our Revolution West |Philly Burbs PA Stands Up Progressive Abington Indivisible Mid Montco Indivisible: Narberth and Beyond Philadelphia Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) BuxMont DSA Social Justice Indivisible Healthcare4AllPA Capitol Region Stands Up Reclaim Philadelphia Delco DSA
“We’ve got enough crises in this country–1000 Americans are dying from COVID every day, 40+ million are going to lose their full unemployment benefits, small businesses are closing left and right, 10+ million could be evicted on August 1, and Trump is deploying a private army in American cities.
The last thing we need is fast-track, back door attacks on Social Security and Medicare. Drop the TRUST Act and get people the help they need!“ADD YOUR NAME
Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and their GOP cronies can’t stop trying to destroy Social Security. First, Trump vowed not to sign any COVID relief legislation without the “payroll tax cut.” The “payroll tax cut” would cut Social Security’s dedicated contributions and not even help the 40 million people who are unemployed. That plan has been publicly ditched, for now.
But the Republican COVID package now includes Mitt Romney’s TRUST Act. The TRUST Act would create a closed-door process to fast track cuts to Social Security and Medicare. SIGN NOW: Tell Congress to reject any COVID package that includes the TRUST ActThe Republicans are using a horrific, unprecedented crisis to try to sneak in cuts to Social Security.
Their lack of shame is breathtaking. Instead of trying to enact policies to save people’s lives and protect the dignity of seniors, frontline workers, and people who are unemployed, they’re trying to cut vital programs that keep millions of people out of poverty.
Republicans love to claim that the TRUST Act is about deficit reduction. That’s a ridiculous lie. Social Security doesn’t contribute to the deficit—it literally can’t by law.Social Security is popular and beloved. The Republicans knew that the “payroll tax cut” was too direct of an attack. So they tried to get sneakier and put in the TRUST Act. We can’t let them get away with this.
Take the People’s Agenda Pledge. Time is running out. We’re expecting the House to announce their next coronavirus relief package in the coming days. Hold your representative accountable when they vote on the next coronavirus relief package — if the bill doesn’t put people first, they should vote no.
Text “PEOPLE FIRST” to 977-79 to get the latest updates on the bill marker and what’s up next. We want to keep you updated on every move of this process. This is how you can get the latest news on the People’s Agenda and what’s moving through Congress.
We’re about to tell you some scary numbers, but know that we’ve got a solution and a whole bunch of asks for you to funnel your rage into. Today, the U.S. surpassed one million coronavirus cases. More than 55,000 Americans have died. That’s more cases and more deaths than any other country in the world. Overwhelmed health care workers are still facing shortages of masks and tests, and at least 26 million people have lost their jobs. In the last sixty days, there have been four relief packages passed and trillions of dollars allocated in response to the pandemic. Unfortunately, none of them put people first.
This week is critical because it may be our last chance to demand that Congress ensure relief to every person in this country, regardless of tax or immigration status, age, or disability. Here’s the solution: demand your representatives pledge to vote ‘no’ on the next coronavirus package unless it prioritizes the People First Agenda.
We can’t afford to wait any longer for Congress to take these necessary steps, because it’s unlikely that there will be another opportunity for them to do so.
The package must include these four policies:
Keep people on payrolls: Stop mass layoffs, and preserve employment relationships for all businesses, including small businesses. Ensure federal dollars go to workers and small businesses, not enriching CEOs and Wall Street.
Provide financial relief: Expand aid for the most vulnerable in the COVID-19 epidemic, including direct cash assistance, increased food aid, debt relief, and eviction protections.
Protect public health: Guarantee full health coverage for all COVID-19 care and protections for all frontline workers.
Defend elections: Enact a vote-by-mail requirement for 2020 federal elections while maintaining access to in-person voting for those who do not have access to mail voting.
If it doesn’t, representatives must vote no.
That’s our major ask, but as usual, there are others. Here’s this week’s to-dos:
Your weekly to-dos Take the People’s Agenda Pledge. Hold your Representative accountable when they vote on the next coronavirus relief package — if the bill doesn’t put people first, they should vote no.
Doctors and Nurses are putting their lives on the line during the COVID-19 epidemic. We’ve seen heartbreaking images on social media of health care workers wrapped in trash bags, with inadequate masks, still treating patients at the risk of their own lives―because that’s what doctors and nurses do.
Donald Trump could stop this by using the Defense Production Act to order mask production in America. But we can’t wait for Trump to come to his senses and do the right thing. Health care workers need masks now.
That’s why Social Security Works is proud to be a part of Masks for America, a crowdfunding operation to get masks directly to health care facilities that need them.
Click here to learn more and support Masks for America now! We’re not going to stop pushing the government to do the right thing. But until then, we’re in this together. Millions of Americans waiting for Medicare for All have turned to GoFundMe during their personal medical emergencies. It’s a sickening indictment of Donald Trump that frontline health care providers have no choice but to do the same.
Conversations and deal-making on the Hill are moving quickly, with a vote coming as soon as 6 pm eastern tonight. We wanted to give you an update on where things stand – and what we need you to do today.
A few hours ago, we heard from our contacts that Republicans in the Senate (read: Mitch McConnell) and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin (yes, this Steve Mcnuchin) are circulating a proposal that amounts to a taxpayer-funded corporate bailout with no strings attached. McConnell’s “solution” includes: No requirement that companies maintain payroll or benefitsNo requirements to reduce executive payLimited restrictions on stock buybacks (that Mnuchin can waive)No oversight
The proposal as written would give Mnuchin complete discretion over how to dole out the half-a-trillion dollars in taxpayer funds, and then hide the identity of the bailout recipients from the public for six months.
In practice, this means that Trump hotel properties could receive huge wads of cash, fire their workers, and we wouldn’t even know about it until much, much later. It means that airlines that spent 96% of their profits over the past decade on stock buybacks would get a bailout, while their workers get laid off.
To top it off, after all those handouts for big business, the proposal includes no Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) provisions to protect frontline workers; no specific provisions to protect individuals from eviction, foreclosure, or forbearance; no additional Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funds; no expanded emergency leave provisions; no funds to help with the treatment of the uninsured; no guarantee that undocumented immigrants can get free testing; and it does not provide adequate relief for the 44 million federal student loan borrowers. Direct cash payments would also not be available to millions of people who did not file a return in 2018 or 2019, and it would exclude some taxpaying immigrant families, some with kids who are US citizens, from benefiting from the checks.
Or, to say it more simply: This “solution” protects and helps big business, but not everyday people.Unacceptable.Regardless of party, your senators need to hear loud and clear from you that you demand they put people over profits (you can read more about what a people-first response looks like at our #PeopleOverProfits Hub). Here’s what you can do right now:
Call both your senators to demand they center people over profits. Even if they aren’t taking calls today (we’re hearing reports that some are), leave a voicemail. Text PPL to 977-79 and we’ll connect you, or use this call page to read through the script and get connected. If voicemail boxes are full, you can also send an email here.
Record a 30 second video that says people over profits. We’re compiling videos from all over the country from people just like you with a simple message: your name, where you’re from, and that you demand a people-first response from your members of Congress. Visit our video tool, look at the camera from your computer or phone, say your name and where you’re from, and the message, “I demand Congress put people over profits.” We’ll tag your senators, and you can share with friends and neighbors to get involved in this fight.
Democrats must fight for more testing. For hospitals. For workers. For direct relief to families. And for accountability for an administration that has bungled its response from the start.” Thanks for doing this work with us. And thanks for getting loud to tell Congress, people over profits. Period.
