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.

March 17, 2018
Day 421 of 1461 days

 

Dear Co-defendants –

 

 627

That number represents the winning majority for Conor Lamb in the PA18 race. Four counties make up PA18, and Lamb lost all of them except for Allegheny where the majority of voters live. He upended a Republican tradition; Trump won that district by +20 points in 2016. The district was so heavily Republican that the Democrats (curse them!) didn’t even field a candidate in the last election. Lamb, who was cursed and condemned by the PA Republicans, is now being cast as really being a staunch conservative.  Nope.

Lamb won because, among other things, Democratic voters throughout his district had a six percent increase in voting. This turnout was backed by 1,556 national Indivisible volunteers who spent 2,917 shifts sending over 108,000 texts to likely Democratic voters. Without this increase in Dem turnout, Lamb would have lost.

Our postcards favoring Marie Newman over Dan Lipiniski in Chicago will have the same effect there. Our efforts pay off. Be sure of it. We have ordered another 2,500 postcards to do our share of making things happen. A new postcard project for us is about a week off.

 

March 24 Protest

The big national match to protest gun violence and to seek some measure of sanity in dealing with automatic rifles takes place a week from today. 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 lives and the lives of fellow students.

Indivisible Cedar Mill will gather our forces in the parking lot of the Jewish Museum at 8^th and NW Couch by 10AM. Look for the big banner. There may be a lot of people gatherin g there.

 

Low IQ Congresswoman

In a speech last week or so, Trump trashed four women, actually leaving Hillary out of the cast! Among his women of scorn was Maxine Waters who represents CA43 and has for years. Maxine is not a person to take Trumpian abuse lightly and she gave a speech to the Human Rights Commission which is worth hearing. Go to  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioiU3mrR_Ro to hear her rejoinder to Trump;  the first ten minutes have more to do with the allegiance to the LGBQTA (is that all of it?) community, and then,  at ten minutes in to her talk, she takes on Donald Trump

It is worth listening to. Great ending!

 

Candidates Night

Washington County Resistance and Indivisible Cedar Mill are sponsoring a progressive candidates’ night a Leedy Grange Hall on March 19, Monday night next. Candidates for County Chair, County Chair District 2, and Metro Representative for District  4 will be there. The affair starts at 7:00PM, and will end at 8:30PM, right on time.

Candidates for the Washington County Chair are Ryan Deckert, Kathryn Harrington and Shabba Woodley. For Washington County Chair Position 2, we will have Greg Malinowski and Pam Treece. Additionally, Dana Carstensen and Juan Carlos Gonzales will be speaking as candidates for Metro District 4.

 

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 10, 2018
Day 414 of 1461 days

Dear Co-defendants –

 

Bystander Training

Indivisible Cedar Mill is sponsoring Bystander Training. This training allows you, as an onlooker, to get involved with solving a difficult situation without getting killed for your actions. We have all seen situations where we know that some action should be taken, but we are not sure what to do. For $30.00, this three-hour course will put you on the right track. The course will be held at 1750 NW 131^st Ave, 97229, this upcoming weekend on Saturday , 10 March, from 3:00-6:00 PM. Either get in touch with me by responding to this email, or check in with Karyn on Facebook.

 

Postcards for Marie Newman of IL

About 25 of you have postcards from last month that you have filled out for Karyn. Please get these to her at the next meeting on the 12^th March.

Additionally, we are cooperating with another GOTV campaign and I will have packs of 10 postcards for sale at the 12^th March meeting. I will go over these mailings, but right now we are mailing postcards to support the run of Marie Newman in the 3^rd District of Illinois. She is running against Dan Lipinski, the sole Democrat rep who voted against Obamacare, against pro-choice matters and I forget what else.  She, Mare Newman, needs to win this primary.

We maybe on to another election by the time I get the labels ready for distribution. Stay tuned and bring $5.00 for a packet of 10 cards.

 

#NEVERAGAIN

The Parkland shootings have energized a good portion of the Millenials who were not too politically inclined. Apparently, getting shot at is a good motivator for political involvement. The Florida students have, by Florida standards, achieved quite a bit with some anti-gun legislation being signed by the governor today. The fight continues. And we should be in the fight.

Be at Sunset High School on March 14^th at 10:00 hours. The students will be having a meeting which should last at least seventeen minutes, one insignificant minute per significant victim. I do not anticipate any ‘thoughts and prayers’ element to this, just a solemn remembrance of Parkland and the possibility of this happening elsewhere. All possible members should be involved to honor the moment ,and to show support to the students. Bring signs.

On March 24th, at North Park Blocks in Portland at 10:00AM, we are gathering together for a big march – March for Our Lives –to protest the lack of gun control and the all-too-easy availability of guns in this county, state and country. Early registration puts the crowd response at 18,000 marchers, so this will not be a small time-wasting project. This is a nation-wide event, much like the Women’s March of 2017. Assemble at 10:00AM, marching to Pioneer Courthouse Square. Be there. Be there. Be there.

 

Candidates Night

ICM is cooperating with the Washington County Resistance to present a Candidates’ Night at The Leedy Grange, Monday,  March 19^th, from 7-9:00 PM. The Grange Hall is located at 835 NW Saltzman Road. Candidates for the Washington County Chair are Ryan Deckert, Kathryn Harrington and Shabba Woodley. For Washington County Chair Position 2, we will have Greg Malinowski and Pam Treece. Additionally, Dana Carstensen and Juan Carlos Gonzales will be speaking as candidates for Metro District 4.

Our mission says that we will ‘regain and maintain progressive electoral control at all levels of government.’  Metro and Washington County are both critical for our progressive hopes. It is at this level that we make all sorts of decisions about out our every-day life and livability. Come listen to the candidates respond to questions. These questions will be gathered from you the night at our March 12^th meeting.

 

Bonamici Town Halls

Suzanne Bonamici will be holding six town halls here over the next few weeks. This is our chance to let her know what Indivisible is, and what our concerns are. Try to attend one of these meetings. Forget the improving weather and just show up — that’s 90% of our job, no?

Bonamici Town Hall at Conestoga Middle School, Saturday March 10, 2018, from 2:00to 3:00 PM. This is at 12250 SW Conestoga Drive in Beaverton. Another Town Hall in our area is in NW Portland at the Northwest Neighborhood Cultural Center, from 10:30-11:30, at 1819 NW Everett.

 

CALLS TO ACTION

Two appeals courts have placed a hold on DACA-restrictions, so the program is allegedly, or supposedly, running along as it always has. The US  Supreme Court has declined to review the lower court rulings. 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. Urge them to stay on the case for gun control, referencing the movement in Florida. 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, March 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. Our guest speaker is Ron Wyden’s Washington County representative, Ree Armitage.  Ree will be available for questions, and should be able to let us know what Ron Wyden is up to beyond what we read in the news.  Bring your questions!

Rumors are swirling about Karyn preparing some Margaritas or something very similar.

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.

 

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

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.

 

January 20, 2018
Day 365 of 1461 days

Dear Co-defendants –

In For A Dime, In For A Dollar

The federal government  shut down last night and will stay shut  pending the adoption of either a new budget or a new Continuing Resolution (CR). The Democrats are insisting that both DACA and CHIP issues be resolved before they will agree to any spending bill. There are sufficient House and Senate votes to simply accomplish this, but Trump is – well, it’s hard to say what or where he is on this issue. He blows hot and cold. There are not enough Senate votes to pass any bill without Democratic support. McConnell needs 50 votes and he has 49 Republicans (Cochran (MS) and McCain (AZ) in absentia). He needs 11 votes from the Dems and he got five – Donnely, Heitkamp, Jones, Manchin and McCaskill. You may be sure that these five  — all blue senators up for re-election In very red states – voted ‘yes’ with approval of the Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer.

So, the Dems have crossed the Rubicon and now they need to hang tough until they get what they want – a solution for DACA and CHIP. See Calls for Action down below to give our senators and representative your support and your insistence that we come away with a DACA and CHIP win…nothing less will do.

 

Town Halls

Senator Wyden has cancelled his Town Hall for today. He’s needed in DC!

 

Support the Ozark Indivisibles

Senator Tom Cotton has sent cease-and-desist letters to several members of Ozark Indivisibles for contacting him too rudely and too often. Apparently, listening to his constituents is not his main concern. So, write him a postcard or give him a call telling him that it is his job to pay attention to his callers, whether he agrees with them or not. A letter to his DC office will take three weeks to get delivered, but they are delivered directly to his field offices. This website will give you complete addresses and phone numbers for the sensitive senator.

https://www.cotton.senate.gov/

 

Measure 101

We are coming down to the wire on this measure, with a January 23^rd voting deadline. A final canvass will be held today, Saturday, meeting at 1200 hours at the Democratic Hqs in Hillsboro at 140 SE 3^rd Ave.

Indivisible Cedar Mill is committed to sending members to the ultimate phone bank on Monday at the same location. Meet at 1750 NW 131^st at 5:15PM to carpool in to Hillsboro for a 6:00 to 8:30 phone bank.

 

The Blue Tide Continues To Roll

A special election in Wisconsin for the State Senate went the right way last Tuesday, with Democrat Patty Schachtner beating her opponent by 9 points. This district went to Trump by 17 points last year, and in the previous race for this seat, the Republican candidate won by 26 points. Schachtner’s win continues a strong showing by Democratic candidates throughout the nation in special elections; the Republicans have noticed, and Speaker Ryan considers it a ‘wake up call.’ We progressives can gloat a bit, but we must keep our eyes in the ultimate goal, a Democratic House and Senate in 2018, and give Speaker Ryan an especially loud wake up call then.

 

CALLS TO ACTION

Call Senators Merkley and Wyden and Representative Suzanne Bonamici to urge them hang in there and to fund CHIP and to support DACA without giving Trump funds for a border wall. In fact, tell them that a border wall is a non-starter.

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.  

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

Thank you.

John Fox