Demand that Jared Kushner's Security Clearance Be Revoked
Thursday, July 13th
(Adapted from Rogan's List)
As conservative writer David Frum, a speechwriter for President George W. Bush, tweeted yesterday, "Why isn’t every GOP intel & foreign affairs committee chair House & Senate demanding removal of proven security risks from White House?"
Why indeed?
Want to learn more? Read this timeline from the New York Times, and then take a moment to ask those House and Senate chairs that very question.
Find them here:
- Senate Intel Committee: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/
- Senate Foreign Relations Committee: https://www.foreign.senate.gov/about/committee-membership
- House Intel Committee: https://intelligence.house.gov/about/hpsci-majority-members.htm
- House Foreign Affairs Committee: https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/subcommittee/full-committee/
What's Going On In Congress This Week? 17 Bills Are On The Agenda
Tuesday, July 11th
(Adapted from Rogan's List)
Seventeen (17) bills are currently on the House agenda for the week of July 10.
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H.R. 1492: Medical Controlled Substances Transportation Act of 2017 |
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H.R. 1913: Clear Creek National Recreation Area and Conservation Act |
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H.R. 2480: Empowering Law Enforcement to Fight Sex Trafficking Demand Act |
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This is an opportunity to be informed about what is on the House agenda. You can make any last-minute calls or send emails to our representative and let him know how you would like him to vote on specific bills. Contact information at http://www.philipstowndemocrats.org/representative_sean_patrick_maloney.
One of the bills on the House agenda this week is HR2810: National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), otherwise known as the defense budget. Here is the text of the bill as of July 6. You can expect to hear more about it in the media this week.
Knowledge is power.
Protect Our Public Lands: Take Action Before July 10th
Thursday, July 6th
We're coming to end of the public comment period on Trump and Ryan Zinke's unprecedented review of our national monuments. They're talking about rolling back these designations and putting these shared spaces in jeopardy. (Read more.)
Make sure the Interior Department hears from you before July 10th.
Action You Can Take Today
- Sign the League of Conservation Voters petition.
- Write a letter via the REI blog.
- Tweet at Secy Ryan Zinke.
- Post a message on Zinke's Facebook page.
Try A Little Pre-Holiday Reading: 45's Conflicts of Interest To Date
Monday, July 3
(Adapted from Rogan's List)
Some Talking Points for the Fourth of July
We all know that Trump, unlike previous presidents, has not made his tax returns public. We also know that he did not really divest from his businesses properly and continues to profit from them.
Most of us probably don't have a full grasp of the nature and extent of Trump's conflicts of interest. This serious article spells them all out and explains why they are a problem. Get yourself a long cool drink before reading, because it's a long, long list: https://www.justsecurity.org/42728/mixing-politics-business-master-list-trumps-conflicts-interest/
Election Integrity Commission? New York Says No.
Saturday, July 1st
(Adapted from Rogan's List and NewYorkUpstate.com)
Trump's Election Integrity Commission, which will meet in July and is chaired by Mike Pence, with Kansas anti-immigrant gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach as vice-chair, is requesting full voter rolls, including names and party affiliations, from every single state. They claim that the purpose of the group is to "promote fair and honest Federal elections", however most of the commission members believe that voter fraud is rampant and that voting guidelines need to be more stringent. In other words, it's really a voter suppression commission. (Read more.)
The commission is now seeking data from all 50 states that includes voters' first and last names, dates of birth, political parties (if available) and the last four digits of their Social Security number.
Officials in at least 24 states have said they won’t turn over all voter roll data and in at least five states they’ve made it clear they won’t turn over any, including Governor Andrew Cuomo, who announced yesterday that New York will not comply with a request for voter data.
Action You Can Take Today
Contact the Governor and thank him for standing up against this farce.
By mail:
The Honorable Andrew M. Cuomo
Governor of New York State
NYS State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224
By phone:
1-518-474-8390
Online:
Contact form here.
If you live in a state other than New York, you can reach out to your secretary of state or election board and tell them you want them to stand up too: https://www.rockthevote.com/get-informed/elections/contact-sos/.
You can use this script: https://twitter.com/Celeste_pewter/status/880531418350198784.
Resistance is Patriotic: Tell the NRA to Stop Their Anti-Democratic Rhetoric
Friday, June 30th
(Adapted from Rogan's List & Women's March)
In a chilling, shameful misrepresentation of the #resistance, the NRA has gone a step too far in their newest video ad that barely stops short of promoting violence. As we are reminded by Vox, the NRA "has a very long history of using apocalyptic, paranoid rhetoric about the collapse of American society in order to sell people on the notion that they need to act now to preserve their gun rights."
They seem to have forgotten that protest is a form of patriotism, and that Americans have the right to free speech. The Women’s March has penned an open letter to NRA Executive Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre, which states in part, "Mr. LaPierre, before the Second Amendment was the First Amendment. The advertisement released by the NRA is a direct attack on people of color, progressives and anyone who exercises their First Amendment right to protest. At a time when our nation is seeing a rise in racially charged incidents and violence motivated by hate speech, it is unconscionable for a powerful organization like yours to unashamedly peddle an "us versus them" narrative. You are calling for our grassroots, nonviolent resistance movement to be met with violence." (Read more.)
Action You Can Take Today
The NRA needs to hear from all us, we the people, that provocative propaganda like this is not only unacceptable, it is downright dangerous. Tell them at https://contact.nra.org/contact-us.aspx.
Election 2017: Sign a Nominating Petition Today
Philipstown Democrats are carrying nominating petitions this week for Town and Country-level races. Help us get these candidates on the November ballot.
Candidates for Town Offices:
Richard Shea. Town Supervisor
Michael Leonard, Town Councilman
John VanTassel, Town Councilman
Candidate for County Sheriff:
Robert Langley
We are also carrying petitions for delegates and alternates for the 9th Judicial District Convention.
If you are a registered Democrat and would like to sign, please contact us at [email protected] or through the contact form on our website.
Thank you.
Dual Department of the Interior Action: Protect the Grizzly Bear & Coral Canyons
Saturday, June 24th
(Adapted from Rogan's List, EcoWatch, EarthJustice and NPR)
A grizzly mother and her cub in Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park.
Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images
In a controversial decision, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has delisted the Yellowstone Grizzly Bear from the Endangered Species Act opening these bears up to trophy hunting. This is a mistake. "Grizzly bears are the slowest reproducing mammal on the planet, and a population decline can take decades to reverse," Derek Goldman of the Endangered Species Coalition says in a statement emailed to NPR. "Therefore," he continued, "we have been calling on Fish and Wildlife Service and the states to develop adequate management plans for grizzly bears before any delisting is finalized. We will closely review the final rule to ensure there are adequate protections for grizzly bears."
You can use the Sierra Club's tool to send a note to Ryan Zinke and the Dept. of Interior: https://goo.gl/USQbVQ
While you're at it, you might want to mention that Zinke should continue to protect national monuments such as the Coral Canyons and Seamounts National Monument, which is off the coast of New England and is the first marine national monument in the Atlantic Ocean.
NOAA OKEANOS EXPLORER PROGRAM, 2013 NORTHEAST U.S. CANYONS EXPEDITION SCIENCE TEAM
Coral Canyons is now under review for drilling by Zinke's department. As noted by EcoWatch, "In April, Trump signed an executive order to aggressively expand drilling in protected waters off the Atlantic and Arctic oceans....The monument, which consists of 4,913 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains off the New England coast, was designated by President Obama last September to protect critical ecological resources and marine species, including deep-sea corals, whales, sea turtles and deep-sea fish."
Zinke recently told Reuters that the development of America's protected federal lands could help the country become a "dominant" global energy force. "There is a social cost of not having jobs," he said. "Energy dominance gives us the ability to supply our allies with energy, as well as to leverage our aggressors, or in some cases our enemies, like Iran." (Read more.)
Tell the Ryan Zinke and the Interior Department that we want to keep this monument, and all the others under question, as is. They are irreplaceable national treasures.
Write: Ryan Zinke, US Dept of Interior, 1849 C Street NW, Washington DC 20240
The EPA Must Be Able To Do Its Job: Remind Director Pruitt
Friday, June 23rd
(Adapted from Rogan's List and other sources)
What Really Matters: Our Environment
There is bipartisan support for the EPA in Congress. As reported by Buzzfeed, "Republicans and Democrats came together [last week] to jointly attack the Trump administration’s proposal to slash the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by $2.4 billion, or 31%, next year." Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nevada) told Pruitt during the hearing “You may be the first person to get more than you asked for, because, quite frankly, as many people have made the point, nobody is standing on the rooftops begging for dirty water and dirty air and dirty soil and those sort of things." (Read more in Mother Jones.)
Action You Can Take Today
Let Congress know that you agree that slashing the EPA budget will not benefit the American people. Bonus: You can use a new app, Stance, to leave a message for your representative, even if their voicemail is full. Try it out at: http://www.takeastance.us/
And more:
Less than two weeks ago, Director Scott Pruitt's EPA dismissed 12 scientists from a major scientific review board, and is looking to replace them with members who come from industries whose pollution the agency is supposed to regulate. More foxes in charge of the henhouse. Tell Pruitt his actions are unacceptable and counter to what the American people want from the EPA, which is exactly what his agency's name says: Environmental Protection.
- Write to: Scott Pruitt, EPA, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave NW, MC 1101A, Washington DC 20460
- Call him at: 202-564-4700
- Send an email to: [email protected]
It's STILL All About Healthcare: Thank Our Democratic Senators For Their Efforts
Thursday, June 22nd
(Adapted from Rogan's List)

Emotions and actions continue to run high about the secretive Senate health care process.
As reported today in The Guardian, "The Senate’s 142-page proposal, unveiled on Thursday, would eliminate or reduce key benefits provided by Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act; lower taxes for the wealthy; strip funding from the women’s reproductive health provider Planned Parenthood; and dramatically cut and restructure Medicaid, America’s public health insurance program for low-income and disabled Americans....Experts believe the legislation could leave millions of Americans without health insurance, and could have a stark impact on vulnerable populations such as people recovering from addiction, ageing middle-class baby boomers, and women and children."
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats held the floor recently to shine light on the flaws of the male-only, closed meetings, as reported by Reuters this week: "Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said that the closed-door Republican meetings on healthcare amounted to "the most glaring departure from normal legislative procedure that I have ever seen."
"Republicans are writing their healthcare bill under the cover of darkness because they are ashamed of it," Schumer charged. The resulting legislation would likely throw millions out of health insurance, he said, while granting "a big fat tax break for the wealthiest among us."
Action You Can Take Today
Although it is sometimes unbearably boring to keep calling and writing to the same people all the time, they still need to hear from you, all the time.
- Please thank our Senator Chuck Schumer for navigating these unprecedented times.
You can find his contact info here: http://www.philipstowndemocrats.org/senator_chuck_schumer
- While you're at it, thank our Senator Kirsten Gillibrand for her stand on protecting our healthcare too.
You can find her contact info here: http://www.philipstowndemocrats.org/senator_kirsten_gillibrand