Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Wedesday 3/14 Call to Action

Wednesday
Holy buckets! The news is coming at us fast.
1. Yesterday, Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson via tweet. No one is sure exactly why, but rumors are flying that it’s because Tillerson spoke publicly against Russia. (https://www.cnbc.com/…/tillerson-poison-used-on-ex-spy-came…) Tillerson was Secretary of State for a little over a year, but in that time he slashed the State Department considerably. 60 percent of the State’s top-ranking diplomats resigned and new applications to join the foreign service fell by half. This will have an effect on the State Department for years to come.
https://www.vox.com/…/…/rex-tillerson-fired-state-department
Even so, Trump’s named replacement, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, may be far worse than Tillerson. Pompeo is hyper-partisan, and has a fishy background with the Benghazi investigation and torture. Minnesota’s own Congresswomen Betty McCollum put out a statement yesterday about Pompeo.
“I served in the House with Mike Pompeo and I can think of few people more ill-suited to be Secretary of State.
“Mr. Pompeo has opposed international engagement, undermined the Iran nuclear agreement, and advocated for torture. He was a ringleader wasting millions of dollars on the Benghazi witch hunt and he has shown his ultimate loyalty is to President Trump by downplaying his own Intelligence Community’s findings that Russia attacked our democracy to help then-candidate Trump.”
Pompeo will need to be confirmed by the Senate, so today would be a great day to start calling our senators and let them know that Pompeo is a bad choice for Secretary of State.
If Pompeo is confirmed as Secretary of State, Trump will nominate Gina Haspel as the new CIA director. She would become the first woman to lead the CIA, but Haspel has a storied past.
According to the ACLU, Haspel ran a prison in Thailand notorious for torture. She oversaw the mistreatment of prisoners including waterboarding. Allegedly, she also destroyed videotapes that revealed torture crimes. Yuck!
https://www.politico.com/…/2018/03/13/gina-haspel-cia-458726
Ms. Haspel will also need to be confirmed by the Senate. While your on the phone about Pompeo, you can tell Senators Klobuchar and Smith to vote no on Haspel.
More people got fired or quit yesterday too! It’s a revolving door at the White House.
http://thehill.com/…/378078-trumps-personal-assistant-john-…
2. Pennsylvania Special Election
Did you hear? In the special election for Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district, the Democrat, Conor Lamb, is the probable winner! Lamb’s lead right now is razor thin, so the addition of absentee ballots and a possible recount may change the outcome. In a district that went to Trump by 20 points in 2016, this is a huge accomplishment.
https://www.nytimes.com/…/pennsylvania-congressional-race-c…
The results of this election bode well for Democrats in the midterms this November. Now is not the time to get complacent, however. We can only change our government if we get out the vote. Make a commitment today to help with a local campaign. All hands on deck!
https://www.vox.com/…/pennsylvania-2018-special-election-re…
3. Guns in America
Students in schools all over the United States are planning to walk out of their classrooms today at 10 a.m. to protest gun violence. The protest will last 17 minutes to honor the lives lost in last month’s Florida school shooting.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/students-have-just-had-e…/…
Do you have time to join them? Check out this website and see if there is a school participating near you. March 14th Join the Women’s March Youth Empower Groups, #ENOUGH National School Walkout https://www.womensmarch.com/enough
In honor of the countless lives lost to gun violence, give your state and federal members of Congress a call and ask them what steps they are taking to curb deaths by gun violence.
Four Minnesota state senators have proposed a bill that would require universal background checks for gun sales and transfers. The bill would also make it mandatory to report lost of stolen firearms. Read more here: http://www.startribune.com/state-senators-proposal-unive…/…/
Read about Fred Guttenberg, father of one of the children killed in the Florida high shooting, fighting for change. https://www.theguardian.com/…/after-losing-his-daughter-flo…
Need an argument against arming teachers in schools? A teacher, who is also a reserve police officer, accidentally discharged a gun in school, injuring one student.
https://www.cbsnews.com/…/teacher-reserve-cop-accidentally…/
Klobuchar-202-224-3244
Smith (202) 224-5641
House of Representative switchboard: (202) 224-3121
MN Legislators: https://www.leg.state.mn.us/leg/legislators
Resistbot: https://resistbot.io/
Governor Dayton- https://mn.gov/governor/contact-us/
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Keith Ellison
7,000 shoes on the Capitol lawn today to memorialize 7,000 children killed since Sandy Hook. Republican leadership still behaves as if gunmakers' profits are more important than human lives. I hope Avaaz's protest helps them understand the cost of their inaction.

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