Brandon Williams = Terrible MAGA Rep.
Jan. 6 Remembrance Vigil and What's Next
Thank you to everyone who attended the event we held last Saturday, Jan. 6th in front of the Utica Police Department. We had about 40 people in attendance and good media coverage including an interview that our own Kathy Wojo did on camera with WKTV.
Most people don't pay attention to any aspect of politics or government, so our goal was to remind people in our own community how terrible it was to see our Capitol building violently attacked at the command of the previous guy. Do most NY22 voters really want to go back to that kind of chaos and disruption?
Brandon Williams says he didn't pay any attention when our capitol was violently attacked even though he had taken an oath in the military to protect our country. Then he voted for a House Speaker, Mike Johnson, who supported election denialism, did nothing to stand against the lies of Donald Trump, and continues to enable and protect those involved in the violent attack against hundreds of law enforcement officers. There is no way that he would have the support of a majority of NY22 voters if they knew how dangerous he was for our democracy, or how little he cared about the many law enforcement officers who were injured on Jan. 6th
Our goal is to weaken Brandon Williams and remind NY22 voters just how terrible MAGA Republicans are for our health, our community, for truth and for the survival of our stable form of government. We kicked off this process in 2024 with the vigil, and we'll keep it going.
What's next in our efforts to advance our 2024 goal?
IMV's January 2024 Meeting
Sunday, Jan. 28th, 2-4 pm
Schuyler Commons
1776 Independence Square in Utica
Schuyler Commons is the location of many of our early 2017 and 2018 meetings, so it's a bit of a homecoming and an homage to our post-Women's March roots. (Note: We'll need a few volunteers to stay after the meeting ends and help put the room back in order so that we can get our room deposit back.) We'll talk about how to use petitioning season to start connecting with voters about the importance of voting for President Biden and other Democrats up and down the ticket in 2024. Please mark your calendar for this important meeting.
Call Sens. Schumer & Gillibrand: Reject Trump-Era Immigration Policies
Congress is back in session, and MAGA Republicans are right back to trying to force Senate Democrats to reinstitute Trump-era immigration policies. We must make sure Sen. Schumer and Sen. Gillibrand know that is unacceptable.
The supplemental funding package -- extra money the Biden administration requested to respond to crises around the world -- currently being negotiated in the Senate has continued to be held up by Republicans. Instead of ensuring lifesaving aid is sent to Ukraine ASAP, Republicans are trying to play hardball to “secure the border.”
But we’ve already seen these policies at play. Trump’s policies led to neglected children being locked away in inhumane conditions and family separation leaving hundreds of children still estranged from their parents. This was the reality of Trump-era immigration policy.
Republican governors have tried to bait Democrats into supporting their heinous treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers by bussing and flying them to Democratic cities (often under misleading circumstances) while purposefully refusing to plan with those cities so preparations can be made. These heartless Republicans are turning human beings into political chess pieces -- then using their own manufactured crises to attempt to sway Democratic opinion toward returning to Trump’s draconian border policies.
If Republicans get their way, we will be looking at:
An end to asylum for everyone except for the most fortunate who can afford an international plane ticket
Mass deportation without a hearing nationwide
A restart to Trump’s signature Title 42 policy denying migrants the right to seek asylum
And a dramatic increase in the incarceration of asylum-seekers, including families.
Make sure that Senators Schumer and Gillibrand know we will not accept going back to Trump-era immigration policies. Call and demand they hold strong against Republican hardball.
No child deserves to be ripped away from their parents. No child deserves to be detained in a facility with poor sanitation and unsafe conditions. Make sure your senators know that turning back to Trump-era immigration tactics is unacceptable. We must be better than that.
Climate Crisis Workgroup Updates
NY HEAT Act
Climate activists--including IMV--lobbied hard for the NY HEAT Act last year. As a result of this people-powered pressure, Governor Hochul included major portions of it in her 2024 agenda, State of the State address. Read more about the Governor's 2024 agenda here and here. Read our full statement with 40+ quotes here., including the one from Maggie Reilly, IMV Climate Crisis Working Group Chair:
“CCWG is encouraged by Governor Hochul’s inclusion of major portions of the NY HEAT Act in her State of the State address. We also applaud the many activists for their hard work fighting for clean energy and an equitable future for all New Yorkers. Eliminating the “100-foot rule” and changing the Public Service Law will allow for New York to transition off a fossil fuel infrastructure and toward an electric/thermal energy network. This is a necessary step for the fight against climate change."
We now look to the legislature to include the entire NY HEAT Act in their one-house budget.
Governor Hochul has made a start and now it's up to the legislature to do their part by putting the full NY HEAT Act in their "one-house" budgets. Join us in Albany on Tuesday, January 23rd for our Rally and Lobby Day!
There will be a bus going from the Westmoreland Thruway exit at 9:15 am on January 23rd. Please let Maggie Reilly, Margaret_reilly@mac.com or Jennifer Geiger, jgeiger777@gmail.com know if you are going to attend. RSVP today to reserve your seat on the bus.
The NY HEAT Act is THE MUST PASS CLIMATE BILL for 2024 and getting it into the state budget is the best chance of passing it. Here's our most up to date one pager on the bill which you can download.
Please register for our Grassroots Zoom call on Thursday, January 18th at 7PM. We'll be preparing for January 23rd and beyond! Even if you are not free at that time, be sure to register so you'll get the recording sent to you.
CCWG MEETING
The CCWG (IMV) is having their first meeting of 2024! Mark your calendars for January 31, 2024. More details to follow!!
Honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
(A note from the Editor)
Hopefully you have identified the way you plan to honor Martin Luther King. It doesn't happen very often that his actual birthday falls on the national holiday. as it does this Monday Having just finished reading Jonathan Eig's recently biography of King, I was struck by this quote from King's book, Chaos or Community: Where Do We Go From Here?
"Our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change,"
It seems fitting for all of us, who are trying to be active politically through collective action especially on the truly important and urgent issues of our time and seeking social justice and change where it is needed.
And it reminded me also of another favorite sentence, from an early sermon King preached, before the civil rights movement could claim very many victories at all: "Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle."
Many years later, in the last year of his life, King once again spoke powerfully of the need to do the work in order to make change, especially when the forces holding injustice in place seemed like they would never budge:
"Structures of evil do not crumble by passive waiting. If history teaches anything, it is that evil is recalcitrant and determined, and never voluntarily relinquishes its hold short of an almost fanatical resistance."
I believe that we honor Dr. King when we work together for social and political change, especially in these times when the stakes are so high.
Thanks for staying awake together as a community, for struggling and working even when it starts to feel exhausting or hopeless, and especially, for maintaining an "almost fanatical resistance" that is nonetheless, as Dr. King always insisted, actively peaceful and non-violent. -Jen
Breathe. Then push.
Follow us on Instagram's Threads.net/@indivisiblemohawkvalley, on X (Twitter) using @indivisiblemv, and of course, on our Facebook page and IMV Activism Group.
