April 20, 2018
Day 454 of 1461 days

Dear Co-defendants –

These Are the Times that Try Men’s Souls

Okay, okay, women’s souls too!!!! We are all on the outside looking in, unable to influence much at all for the moment. And that, progressive reader, is because there is not much going on, or promising to go on, in legislative Washington. Despite Paul Ryan’s avowed aims of dismantling entitlement programs, he has chosen the wiser and easier course to simply declare the game over, and go home to Janesville on his handsome pension of $85K plus $250K positions on any many boards as he’d like. Given the balance in the Senate, nobody has much of a feel for anything big. I think it will stay that way.

Which leaves us wondering what we can do! Fear not, the world is full of promise for activists. We are on the precipice of 2018 national elections, with only about 200 days to go until November 12, 2018. Here are a few things we can do to make that election the great winner that we progressives need.

1.-Spend some money on candidates who need it. Spend as much as you can afford on senators currently under fire from the enemy. Google Claire McCaskill, Heidi Heitkamp, Jackie Rosen and Kyrsten Sinema – all candidates for must-win senate seats. We do have a chance to win this house if things go our way, and if we do, we then control all Supreme Court appointments. It is worth the effort!

2.-Do not neglect to support those organizations doing all our institutional fighting for us. Emily’s List, ACLU, MALDEF, Planned Parenthood, NRDC, Politico, NPR and others. Send some money to these outfits so they can continue to slug it out for our side.

3.-Participate in any effort to support national candidates who need assistance – phone banks, post cards, canvassing. Pick a project and organize to get it done. Need a good project worth your time? Try unseating Devin Nunes in Fresno CA. Contender Andrew Jantz might do it with enough help[! There are others too. If you lack one, give me a note and I’ll outline one or two for you.

4.- Do not ignore the local races. Here in Oregon, May 15^th is the big date for primaries and maybe the generals, too, in non-partisan races. In Oregon non-partisan primaries, the candidate with 50% plus one more vote wins the election. That means that any non-partisan race with two candidates only will be decided within one month. See the “endorsement” section below for our endorsements and opportunities to help. Last primary in 2016, 20% of registered voters decided those elections. Make it 25%, and we win. Get out the vote.

5.-Talk to your neighbors and friends. Many people encountered at canvassing don’t know that there is an election coming up, and that the vote for Washington County commissioners is vital for our advancement locally. Talk things up. Get out the vote. Make it your mission to get one acquaintance to fill out that ballot and vote.

6.-Find out if a friend or relative is unregistered – and then get them registered to vote.

ENDORSEMENTS

While all hell has been breaking loose daily in Washington DC, we at Cedar Mill have been busy tending to a few things under our direct control: endorsements. A committee, composed of Karyn Servin, John Fox, Laurie Weide, Lisa Perry and Mercedes Maltese, have met with all the candidates for county-wide positions. We found that all the candidates were all absolutely progressing in the right direction, and we had some difficulty in a picking just one for endorsement by the chapter.

We have already registered our endorsement of Suzanne Bonamici(Dem Representative to Congress), Mitch Greenlick(State Rep for 33^rd District), Elizabeth Steiner Hayward (State Senator for 17^th District)and Kate Brown (Governor). After interviewing all the ‘progressive’ candidates for local offices, we endorsed the candidacies of Greg Malinowski, Kathryn Harrington, Steven Burke and Juan Carlos Gonzales. Oregon has a jungle-primary wherein the winner of the non-partisan primary election, with 50% plus one vote, wins the whole cake. Less than that, the highest two go on to the general election in November. Greg Malinowski, Steven Burke and Juan Carlos Gonzales fall into this primary win-or-lose category.

We owe all our candidates our loyal work, money and promotion. These people do work tirelessly for us. Canvassing opportunities abound in the next few weekends at the following places:

Max Wall, Saturday 4/21/ 12 PM – 140 NE 3^rd Ave, Hillsboro, 97124 (Dem Hqs)

Kathryn Harrington, Saturday 4/21 12PM, 5495 SW Erickson Ave, Beaverton 97005

Greg Malinowski, Saturday 4/21 11-3PM, Sun 4/22 12-4PM, Sat 4/28 12-4PM. All at

Local office in Shopping Center, NWCornell/NW Saltzman, below library and next to Cedar Mill Museum.

Find the time and courage to go out and knock on some doors to help us all get the progressive government we so need in this county! This is our chance to unseat a regressive business-oriented county commission.

RON WYDEN TOWN HALL

The senator will be in Washington County on Saturday, April 28 at 11:00 AM. The place: Five Oaks Middle School at 1600 NW 173^rd Avenue, Beaverton. The only excuse for not going is that you have signed up for canvassing to support one of our local endorsees! Be there.

MONTHLY MEETING 

The meeting is set for Monday, May14, at 1750 NW 131^st, 97229. Doors open at 6:30PM and the meeting starts promptly at 7:30 PM.  Refreshments, both adult and juvenile will be provided along with a few tasty snacks.

L’audace, encore l’audace, et toujours l’audace!

Thank you.

John Fox

INDIVISIBLE CEDAR MILL OREGON

Facebook: INDIVISIBLE CEDAR MILL OREGON      WWW.INDIVISIBLECM.ORG

OUR MISSION: Rebuild and maintain a progressive majority in every level of government – federal, state and local.

Resistance Letter #46
March 23, 2018
Day 427 of 1461 days

Dear Co-defendants –  

March 24 Protest

The big national march to protest gun violence and to seek some measure of sanity in dealing with automatic rifles takes place tomorrow The march is nationwide. The Portland protest will gather at The North Blocks (Burnside and 9^th, more or less). The march is a family affair, so bring along children and grand-children, and allow them to march for their own lives and the lives of fellow students.

Lots of individual Indivisibles are marching with their children and grandchildren, so the group will be loosely connected at best. We will try to see what can be done, but, if Washington was any lesson, we will be outnumbered by many people and organizations, Try to meet at the parking lot of the Jewish Museum as 8^th and NW Couch, and we’ll see what can be done.

 Candidates Night

Washington County Resistance and Indivisible Cedar Mill sponsored a progressive candidates’ night at Leedy Grange Hall on March 19, Monday. Candidates for County Chair, County Chair District 2, and Metro Representative for District  4 were all there. Candidates for the Washington County Chair were Ryan Deckert, Kathryn Harrington and Shabba Woodley. For Washington County Chair Position 2, we had  Greg Malinowski and Pam Treece.  Additionally, Dana Carstensen and Juan Carlos Gonzales were speaking as candidates for Metro District 4.

The meeting went off very well, and was attended by about 35-40 people. Paige Dickson of Washington County Resistors posed pre-selected question to the candidates, and did a terrific job. By and large, the candidates all addressed the questions squarely, but several were caught off guard on the specifics of the answer.

Karyn Servin of CM Indivisible is organizing a committee to interview the candidates, and to obtain agreement on endorsements. These endorsements will be used locally, and will also be registered with Indivisible National for access by any and all. Our phone bank activity and canvassing will be tied in with our endorsements.

Those Illinois Races

Last month we participated in mailing postcards to get out the vote for Marie Newman who was running against Dan Lipinski for Representative in Congress. Marie was a distant runner when she started a few months back, and came up well, but not well enough. She lost by a two-point margin, 51-49 percent. This saddens us of course, but it is amazing that she did as well as she did against a machine-supported candidate in a machine-supported district. In 2020, this woman will win the race.

Overall, Democratic voter participation was up an astounding 300% V 2014 and 30% V 2010. Republicans tended to stay home, with a 30% drop in participation. This is, of course, a very strong showing for the progressive element, and will lead us to taking over the House strongly in November.

In a separate statement, Donald J Trump has read some of the tea leaves and is bemoaning the fact that, as popular as he is, he cannot drag all the Republicans along with him. Poor boy.

We will continue our postcard events to get out the vote for progressive candidates. I will have another 250 cards ready for pick-up and mailing by Tuesday next. We will still be supporting Dr Hiral Tiperneni in Arizona if all goes well! I will have 25 packs each of cards with all the usual accompaniments. I will send out a message on Monday to volunteers to come pick up their cards; five dollars for 10 cards!

District Attorney for Washington County

There has been considerable angst in finding a decent attorney to run for this office. One of the major problems is that it is not as generously renumerated as most attorneys demand. Nevertheless, some candidate has surfaced and is yet, believe it or not, not identified. The candidate will be in King City on April 8^th and we will be going there to check his bona fides, if any. Call Karyn or reply to this letter to come along on the ride!

MONTHLY MEETING 

The meeting is set for Monday, April 9, at 1750 NW 131^st, 97229. Doors open at 6:30PM and the meeting starts promptly at 7:30 PM.  Refreshments, both adult and juvenile will be provided along with a few tasty snacks.

L’audace, encore l’audace, et toujours l’audace!

Thank you.

John Fox

INDIVISIBLE CEDAR MILL OREGON

Facebook: INDIVISIBLE CEDAR MILL OREGON      WWW.INDIVISIBLECM.ORG

OUR MISSION: Rebuild and maintain a progressive majority in every level of government – federal, state and local.

March 13, 2018
Day 417 of 1461 days

Dear Co-defendants –

Pennsylvania District 18

As anticipated, Connor Lamb may have pulled off a defeat of RiclkSaccone. With all votes counted, he is currently ahead by 900 votes. This is in district that Trump won by 20 points There may be paper ballots still to be counted. We will know all by tomorrow morning. This, win or lose, is a body blow to the Republicans and to Trump in particular!

Wednesday Solidarity

Join us tomorrow morning at NW Trail/NW Cornell at 10:00 AM to observe, along with Sunset High students, seventeen minutes of remembrance of the Parklands shooting. Accu-Weather forecasts no rain for that time, but be prepared. Bring umbrellas, signs and sentiments.

March for Life

The big march for gun-control and gun-sanity is set for March 24^th, Saturday, in downtown Portland. Over 18,000 people have indicated their attending, so it’ll be a big crowd and we would like to make it even bigger with our attendance.  Gather at the North Park Blocks (NW Burnside and 9th Avenue/or so) at 10:00AM. It will be a family affair, so bring everybody to this dance. After a little speechmaking, the crowd will march to Pioneer Square Plaza.

Thank you.

John Fox

INDIVISIBLE CEDAR MILL OREGON

Facebook: INDIVISIBLE CEDAR MILL OREGON      WWW.INDIVISIBLECM.ORG

OUR MISSION: Rebuild and maintain a progressive majority in every level of government – federal, state and local.

February 11, 2018
Day 387 of 1461 days

Dear Co-defendants –

WADDA WEEK!

After passing a record deficit-burdened tax bill, the Republicans and Democrats got together and then passed a budget with a scheduled $300 billion deficit to add to the $1,500 billion already assumed this year. Whatever happened to those avid Republican deficit hawks who, under Obama, wanted every cent increase in spending to be offset by two cents in saving? Gone with the wind!

This two year budget also included provisions for, basically, an open-ended debt ceiling for the same time. This budget approval included, in rough terms, an increase of $160B for the military and $140B for domestic social programs such as a 10-year agreement on CHIP, funding the opioid program, increasing child care provisions and securing veterans’ benefits. The formal budget request will be issued on Monday from Trump and associates, but that is a formality only. The legislature, not Trump, Kohn, Mulvaney et al, will spread the money around and all that brave austerity promised by Trump is gone, gone, gone.

The Koch brothers did not like this budget and lobbied strenuously against it. Mulvaney and Cohen did not like the deal. Obviously, the Republicans aren’t afraid of those boys any more than the Democrats are of those of us arguing for a DACA connection. Our pleas also fell on deaf ears.

DACA

The Senate opens formal debate on immigration, including DACA, on Monday.  Allowing for February congressional recesses, that will allow 13 days to solve this thorny problem, get the solution through the Senate and the House, and then signed by el Presidente. Both sides have got good reasons to at least get the  DACA differences resolved. The Democrats are supposedly the champions of these unfortunate Americans, and will suffer in 2018 if they don’t fight mightily to restore protections. The Republicans can see that their control of the Senate may rest in not alienating these people any further. They are certainly looking to Nevada and Arizona where Heller’s and Flake’s seats are up for grabs in states that have, respectively, 360,00 and 1,000,00 active Latino voters.

The Senate will handily arrive at something to address the issue; the House is much more hostile to dealing fairly with these DACAns. But, exactly why Pelosi made the 8 hour oration and then allowed seventy-three Democrats to vote for the Republican budget is an unanswered question. There may have been a deal that we don’t know about yet. Pelosi is not weak or stupid.

The Republican Party wants this issue solved.  The Democratic Party wants this issue solved. Trump will have to go along even as he did when run over rough-shod by the budget deal. Other Trumpian immigration concerns will probably have to wait — until after 2018 elections.

Voter Registration and Getting out the Vote (GOTV)

These two pedestrian and banal activities will decide our success or failure in the upcoming elections. It really is as simple as that. Virginia in 2017 went as well as it did because there were an additional 300,000 voters over the 2015 election turnout. In Virginia, every contesting Republican got more votes in 2017 than in 2015, so there was no sharp falloff in Trumpian support. The extra 300,000 voters turned the trick.

In the presidential election of 2016, an astounding 91 million voters failed to turn out and vote.  Trump won with 68 million votes and Clinton lost with 71 million votes. So, the non-voters, the I-can’t-get-off-my-dead-ass part of the population, really won the 2016 election.

It is our job to get these non-participants registered and voting next November. Indivisible Cedar Mill will start a program next Month to do just that. We can do a lot with cards, phones and texts to help this effort, and we will. We will start with a postcard effort at increasing voter registration and continue this effort through November. Bring some cash to the February meeting to buy a packet of postcards, going at 20 pre-stamped postcards for $10.00.

CALLS TO ACTION

Call Senators Merkley and Wyden and Representative Suzanne Bonamici to urge them to hang in there and to support DACA without giving Trump funds for a border wall. In fact, tell them that a border wall is a non-starter. And thank them all for their predominantly unfailing support of our progressive causes. We are fortunate to have these three representing us in Congress.

Senator Ron Wyden – 202-224-5244

Senator Jeff Merkley – 202-224-3753

Representative Suzanne Bonamici – 202-225-0855

MONTHLY MEETING

The meeting is set for Monday, February 12, at 1750 NW 131^st, 97229. Doors open at 6:30PM and the meeting starts promptly at 7:30 PM.  Refreshments, both adult and juvenile will be provided along with a few tasty snacks. The first speaker will be Kathryn Harrington, candidate for County Commissioner and the other will be Leslie of Soul Boxes, a gun-control effort. Be there.

L’audace, encore l’audace, et toujours l’audace!

Thank you.

John Fox