by Kate Turner '21
October 7, 2018
[Taken down for site construction and re-uploaded 5.24.19]
what are the dems up to?
We're enjoying our fall break, and preparing for more work than ever as we get even closer to November 6 and the midterm elections.
Next week at our meeting, we’ll be working with the organization Postcards to Voters on their get out the vote campaign, targeting Democrats in key districts and reminding them to vote in the midterms!
Reminder that the Dems will be tabling in Blanch every Monday and Thursday from 5:30 to 7:30 as part of our effort to make sure at least 1,000 Mount Holyoke students vote! Want to register to vote or request an absentee ballot? We’ll do all the work for you!
in the pioneer valley
Feel like it’s difficult to get meaningfully involved in a blue state like Massachusetts? Check out Swing Left Northampton, a local division of an organization aiming to take back the House. They’re spreading out beyond state lines to target key districts in New York and New Hampshire as well as contributing to efforts to get out the vote in Western Mass. You can get involved or donate here.
A Western Massachusetts collective spanning the Franklin, Hampshire, Hampden and Berkshire counties will receive $1 million over three years from the Department of Justice to collect data about youth opioid addiction. “The intention is to both help young adults who are using substances and to try to find the most effective evidence-based ways to prevent addiction in the first place.”
The Northampton City Council has unanimously passed a resolution to oppose the expansion of natural gas pipelines in the area.
state-wide
Citing a housing emergency, 15 mayors in the Greater Boston area agreed to accelerate the pace of housing construction in the region.
Boston is the seventh-most congested city in the United States, and increased urban traffic has officials and environmental experts “very concerned about its air quality.”
Following the suspension of the Massachusetts State Police’s highest paid trooper, scandals have rocked the state police force, with dozens facing federal and state charges. Here’s a comprehensive timeline of the scandals.
national news
Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court on Saturday. We’re outraged and we’re saddened — and the Mount Holyoke Dems still stand with Dr. Ford and all the survivors who were affected by this process. Here’s a list of how every Senator voted on the confirmation. Let’s get to work and vote them out.
Hundreds of migrant children are being roused in the middle of the night (to prevent potential escapes) and taken to a tent city in West Texas, where they are bunked in groups of twenty, given no formal education, and offered only limited legal aid. The number of migrant children detained in the US has increased fivefold since last year, and their time in detention has doubled.
In the latest rollback of protective environmental regulations, the EPA is moving to weaken US radiation regulations on the basis of evidence from outliers who claim that high amounts of radiation are actually harmless to humans. Weakened regulations pose the greatest threat to workers at nuclear installations and oil and gas drilling sites, medical workers performing X-rays and CT scans, and people living near Superfund sites.
Although Amazon is hiking its minimum wage for employees to $15 an hour, it’s doing so by eliminating monthly bonuses and stock awards. The pay raise came after Amazon received criticism for the fact that thousands of its workers were on food stamps. Surprise, surprise — guess Amazon doesn’t care about its employees after all.
The Trump administration has begun denying visas to same-sex partners of diplomats and United Nations employees who are not married. Only 12 percent of UN member states legally allow same-sex marriage.
In the first conviction for an on-duty shooting by a Chicago police officer in fifty years, Officer Jason Van Dyke was found guilty of second-degree murder for shooting teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times in 2014.
about elections
After a week as horrible as this one, it’s hard not to feel hopeless. But voting is more important now than ever before. We have four weeks until the midterms — let’s vote these people out.
If you feel like you need more help registering or requesting an absentee ballot, the Dems are here for that! Stop by meetings on Sundays or when we’re tabling Mondays and Thursdays, and we’ll do all the hard stuff for you. You can do this!
We’re lucky to be able to exercise our power to vote. Not everyone else is. An estimated 6.1 million Americans are forbidden to vote because of “felony disenfranchisement” — that’s one in 40 adults across the country. One in 13 African Americans of voting age are disenfranchised, which is a rate more than four times greater than non-African Americans.
In Florida, 10 percent of the state’s adult population is ineligible to vote, including one in five African Americans. That’s more citizens disenfranchised than in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee combined.
Desmond Meade is leading a movement to place the Voting Restoration Amendment on the Florida ballot in 2018. The amendment would restore the voting rights of Floridians with felony convictions once they’ve fulfilled the terms of their sentence.
Here’s how to support Amendment 4.
get involved!
Sexual violence affects millions of Americans, particularly women and girls.
Support survivors by getting involved with RAINN, the National Sexual Violence Research Center or the Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence.
Here’s also a list of resources for survivors and victims of abuse by state and a way to look up the laws in your state and how you can work to change them.
If you yourself have been having trouble, the national sexual assault hotline is 1-800-656-4673.
In the wake of this week, be sure to take care of yourself. Here are some tips for self care in the wake of the Kavanaugh hearings, and some more specific tips for self-care in the wake of trauma or trauma resurgence.
Also consider donating to your local Planned Parenthood or Planned Parenthood Southeast. Organizations like these need your support now more than ever.
As always, here’s this week’s Americans of Conscience checklist. Your voice still matters.