Let's Make Good Trouble

Hello Resisters,  

I call this email “the week ahead” but what a week we have had behind us.  As a reminder, and to let newly signed up resisters know, the purpose of my weekly is to focus on actions we can take in the week ahead and beyond.  Sometimes, things are so awful, it’s hard not to get distracted by the week gone by. But it’s the week gone by that often dictates actions we need to take, especially if it means making phone calls.  Who are we calling this week?  

Israel-Iran War:  5Calls.org has a list of 53 issues to call about.  At the top of the list is stopping the U.S. involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict.  There are two resolutions calling for this. One in the Senate (Senate Resolution 59) and one in the House (House Resolution 38).

The Senate resolution was introduced by Senator Tim Kaine, in the Foreign Relations Committee.  From what I could see, it has not been co-sponsored or signed by our senators. Time to make calls to Warren and Markey: Warren: 202-224-4543; Markey: 202-224-2742.

The House resolution was introduced by Representative Massie (KY).  Three MA representatives have co-sponsored the resolution Pressley, McGovern and Lynch.  Call our representative Bill Keating, who sits on both the Armed Services Committee and Foreign Relations Committee and ask that he sign his name to the resolution.  His number is: 202-225-3111. 

National:  

Numbers vary, but the No Kings Protest last week had historic turnout.  I’ve seen numbers from 5 million to 13 million.  The Alt National Park Service, which I follow on Bluesky said they had over 140,000 coalition members attending events across the country, at least one at nearly every protest.  Local authorities provided crowd estimates, which were reported back and compiled for the final count of 13 million.  Looks pretty scientific to me, so I’m going with their numbers. 

There are two action days of protests on the horizon for July. No Kings 2.0, 4^th of July protest. Theme is Independence without tyranny. Participating 50501 chapters will host a community day of action with food drives, and mutual aid. I’ve also seen notices for a massive mobilization for 17 July from 50501, which falls on Thursday. Theme is ‘Let’s Make Good Trouble.”  I’ll keep everyone posted as we get closer.  But for planning purposes, mark your calendars.

Happy Pride and making strides, Gina Ortiz Jones was elected the Mayor of San Antonio, defeating her republican challenger and making history as the city’s first out LGBQT+ mayor. Happy dance time for sure.    

State:

If you have been following how the Big Bullshit Bill (BBB) is faring in the Senate, then you know the Senate Parliamentarian struck down several provisions, thanks to something called the Byrd Rule.  Call Senator Warren and thank her for the work she and her staff did by giving the Senate parliamentarian in-depth written briefs and oral arguments in advance of her ruling striking down provisions in the BBB to defund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  Other provisions taken out of the bill are the clause that would have made it impossible for courts to hold federal agencies in contempt.  A plan to dump food and costs onto already-strained state budgets.  Efforts to eliminate the federal audit watchdog (PCAOB).  EPA emissions rollbacks that had nothing to do with the budget.  

How does the BBB impact our state? Under proposed SNAP cuts, roughly 250,000 state residents, many of them children, stand to lose some or all of their SNAP benefits.  The gutting of health care will mean 250,000 families, seniors, veterans and people with disabilities will lose coverage; health care workers will lose jobs. The bill takes food from the poorest kids and health care from the most vulnerable.  These numbers were crunched by number crunchers on Governor Healy’s staff.

Local:  

Saturday, June 28 at 1200-3:00 PM, Indivisible SouthCoast New England is hosting a Women’s Rally with music and speakers at Buttonwood Park on Rockdale Ave.  Bring donations of Feminine products, toiletries, diapers, clothing etc.  Here is a link to their website:  SouthCoast New England - Do Something (Indivisible) · Indivisible 

A friendly reminder.  If you need Dunkies when you get over the Bourne Bridge, the owner of the one ON the rotary has been hosting weekly hate rallies in front of his place for over 4 years now. There are plenty of other better places to get your coffee and donut fix.  Tell all your friends as well.  

Your Rochester Dems are working on getting a killer website up and running.  I’ll let you know when it launches. We have a facebook page as well, Rochester Massachusetts Democratic Town Committee. We have grown from 7 or 8 members when we rejuvenated the organization in 2017 to almost 35 voting members today.  35 is the maximum number of voting members allowed on the committee by the State. We have been active in local, state and national elections.  We have sub-committees that include outreach, political action, elections, social media and fundraising.  We have hosted postcard parties, paid for mailings to voters who tend to vote blue, have attended state caucuses, helped local candidates navigate campaign finance rules, coordinated with adjacent town democratic committees for multiple activities, in other words been busy doing good work.  We welcome all, and we have been really fortunate to get some younger, tech savvy people on board.  Shoutout to our current Chairperson Michael Kovacevich, and our two prior chairs Jordan Latham and Matt Monteiro who have made all this happen.   

My Two Cents:

A smart and evil man manipulated a stupid and evil man into a war against a fanatical and evil regime (George Conway)  Evil is the common denominator here.  It is scary. 

I am so worried about what we call ‘mission creep’ in the military. The bombing of nuclear sites to destroy the capability of Iran to produce nuclear weapons is a clear objective. That’s where this needs to stop.  But Trump tweeted that regime change in Iraq would not be so bad after all a day later.  The objectives and goals are changing.  The first Bush was smart about mission creep.  After Desert Storm he did not invade Iraq.  The mission for that war was to get the Iraqi’s out of Kuwait. Once accomplished, the military went back home.   The second Bush was not so savvy.  We went post 9/11 to invading Afghanistan and then turning around and invading Iraq to destroy their nuclear weapons, which morphed into regime change, a war which dragged on for years.

Military power is limited in what it can accomplish, and the military needs clear goals and objectives.  While previous administrations had military leadership that would let a president know what the military could and couldn’t accomplish, this administration is staffed by inexperienced and incompetent leadership, starting with Hegseth.  Hegseth fired many top civilians and several generals and replaced them with people whose only qualification was absolute loyalty.  As Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz and the United States Navy is ordered to keep it open, we will take naval losses.  Trump, being the vindictive revengeful person he is, the situation will escalate quickly. 

We can be optimistic that it will all go away, Iran will back down, and Trump will get back to deploying the military on Americans protesting his awful kidnapping and deporting of hardworking immigrants.  But we had another saying in the military, “the enemy has a vote”  Iran will respond, and we can only hope things don’t spiral too out of control.