TIME TO GO LIVE - JULY 11 at 12 PM - REGISTER HERE.
Season 5 - Episode 23 - Show 215
Title: “Defeated? NO. Defiant? Always - HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE”
We are dancing in defiant as ever on Friday, July 11 to the song HEY HEY HEY by Michael Franti who sings:
Say hey, hey, hey, No matter how life is today
There's just one thing that I got to say
I won't let another moment slip awayI hold on, I'm trying to hold on
I hold on, hold on, hold on
I don’t need to remind any of us how hard it is right now as we watch our democracy dismantled piece by piece, cut by cut, lie after lie, but we hold on, we have to hold on no matter how life is today because we know there is only one way to go — defiantly and determined.
The Human Cost of "Doge Cuts" is unfolding before our eyes in real time.
Virginia is the political testing ground for the DOGE slash and burn of the federal workforce to the medicaid cuts that threaten free clinics and hospitals. Reporting reveals that few states stand to be more affected than Virginia by DOGE workforce cuts, home to over 340,000 federal workers, from the suburbs just across the Potomac River from Washington to the military communities of Hampton Roads. The un-Supreme Court just ruled that federal jobs can be cut by this Administration even while a legal battle moves forward on the legality of proposed reductions.
We also just learned that Virginia is leading the country with immigration arrests by ICE and Homeland Security. Immigration arrests in Virginia have surged by 350% due to increased collaboration between local and federal law enforcement. Advocates said they believe more arrests are on the way as the recently passed "Big, BAD, FUGLY Bill" laid out roughly $170 billion for expanded deportation efforts and more disturbing, MAGA f-Trump has built his own lawless gestapo force.
Here is another important fact about what to expect in Virginia after witnessing the chaos unfolding in Los Angeles. The U.S. Marine Corps, in cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has quietly launched a pilot program to station ICE agents at three major military installations: Camp Pendleton in California, Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia and Marine Corps Base Hawaii.1 We will be watching closely what this bodes for our upcoming elections and if Marines will be sent into blue areas of Virginia.
Hey, hey, hey - you are NOT defeated. Volunteer to stay defiant. Below are some opportunities to get off social media and engaged in helping those in need.
LIve in Virginia? VOLUNTEER
VACIR (VA Coalition for Immigrant Rights) is compiling a list of people and groups that want to help.. ➜Sign up
Volunteer with New Virginia Majority
The NVM Solidarity Committee connects Virginia residents with citizenship or documentation privileges who want to support immigrant communities with meaningful action opportunities. ➜Sign up
Volunteer with ACLU VA - Let them know if you want to ‘court watch’ or work as a volunteer attorney. Email the ACLU of Virginia at acluva@acluva.org.
BE DEFIANT - BUILDING A TOUR DE FORCE
Below are a few opportunities to find your joy and to invest in yourself.
Indivisible launches - ONE MILLION RISING a national effort to train one million people in the strategic logic and practice of non-cooperation, as well as the basics of community organizing and campaign design. This is how we build people power that can’t be ignored.
Session 1: The Moment & Your Mission - July 16 Get oriented to making meaning of this moment and the role you can play in coordinated strategic action.
Session 2: How to Make it Happen - July 30 This train-the-trainer session is how we get to one million. Learn not just our strategy, but how you can train others and get them on board. You'll host your first community resistance gathering after this session.
Session 3: What Now? - August 13 You'll be onboarded to basic campaign design and learn how to implement it locally as well as get plugged into our next national campaign work. Your second community resistance gathering will move this action forward.
GET LOUD - SASSY - SMART
Commit to Democracy Workshops:
Elizabeth Chur, author of The Joy of Talking Politics with Strangers, held a workshop at the Women’s Summit (June 28) on how to have more satisfying, effective conversations with voters - and now, she is teaming up with Commit to Democracy to offer a series of interactive, one-hour workshops will help you build your toolkit and strengthen your sense of community. Dates are July 10, 17, and 31. Go here to sign up.
Have fun creating protest signs on July 22 - sign up for online workshop: Click for Sign Making!
TOWN HALL WITH JESSICA CRAVEN: Author of Chop Wood, Carry Water, will host a Virtual Town Hall on July 15th at 4 PM PST. We were thrilled Jessica spoke last year at the Women’s Summit and she continues to inspire us all with her daily calls to action. Sign up here.
Okay - do you feel a bit better right now? It’s good to not doom scroll or give up. Stay engaged by educating and exercising - your body, spirit, and mind.
NOW TIME FOR SHOW BUSINESS
This Friday, July 11 at 12 pm the Power Lunch crew will unpack some great lessons from the Women's Summit and discuss how we will foster and adopt the Power Pack candidates from phone banking to postcarding -- and fabulous weekends of action across Virginia. Then we will go hard at the motherfuckers hurting Americans - the Republicans are loyal to only thing - a rotten turd called Trump. We will hold them accountable.
🎱 The terrible BBB passed on Tuesday, 50-50 (with VP breaking the tie). ALL Dem Senators + 3 Republicans voted against this budget bill, which will cause 11 Million people to lose healthcare benefits. How every Senator Voted [NY Times]
We will come together with a great line-up of guests to talk about the impacts of the BIG UGLY and attacks on our freedoms — and what we can do about it to hold the monsters accountable.
GUESTS:
Congressman Robert C. "Bobby" Scott has represented Virginia's third congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1993. Prior to his service in Congress, he served 15 years in the Virginia General Assembly.
Tram Nguyen, Co-Executive Director, New Virginia Majority. Tram Nguyen is an award-winning activist and community leader who helped found New Virginia Majority in 2007. She leads multi-racial, multi-issue campaigns using large-scale civic engagement, community organizing, advocacy, leadership development, and strategic communications.
Lynlee Thorne, Political Director, Rural GroundGame (RGG), a grassroots organization supporting Democratic candidates in Virginia. In 2019, Lynlee was instrumental in creating RGG to address the decline of the Democratic Party in rural areas of Virginia by offering campaign support to Democratic nominees, committees and organizations across a state where rural areas receive only 1.6% of party funding.
Ms. Margaret Morrison - Lifelong activist
Margaret Morrison has been fighting against injustice and protecting civil rights since 1965 when she marched from Selma to Montgomery. She's featured in the documentary, RESISTERHOOD, a regular After-Chat sage on the Friday Power Lunch, and was an honorary guest speaker at the Women’s Summit Badass Brunch where she told her personal story about her life experience under Jim Crow that fueled her lifelong journey to bend the moral arc of justice.
We are excited to be back after a much needed break and a HUGELY successfully event - the POWER UP Women’s Summit on June 27-29, 2025. Now, we move on to summer of organizing and getting stronger - more defiant and loud. Won’t you join us every week at 12 pm to keep on trucking …
Cheers,
Katherine, Finale and Carrie
https://www.yahoo.com/news/marines-team-ice-bold-move-080058412.html
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