Category: Save These Tools

See the Shiny New 2020 Version of Vote Save America’s Website
Read, Educate Yourself, Prepare · Save These Tools

See the Shiny New 2020 Version of Vote Save America’s Website

otycd

See the shiny new 2020 version of Vote Save America’s website, which has a useful to-do list in the leadup to the general election on November 3, 2020.

 

The folks at Crooked Media have been at the forefront of pushing back against Trump since his election in November 2016.

 

Now that it’s clear that the GOP-controlled Senate refuse to do their jobs and remove Trump, the task falls to us–We the People.

 

It is a daunting task. In allowing the trial to devolve into a sham exercise, the GOP-controlled Senate indirectly gave Trump a green light to use every tool a sitting president has to cheat his way back into office. Let’s be frank: Those tools are numerous and formidable.

 

Mitch McConnell has compounded the problem by refusing to fill vacancies at the Federal Election Committee, rendering it non-functional. He has also steadfastly refused to permit the advancement of bills that would safeguard the 2020 election from interference and general fuckery.

 

All that said, Trump can be beaten IF lots and lots and lots of us a) get off our asses and fight back or b) continue to stay off our asses and fight back.

 

As you know, we at OTYCD have a range of action guides and useful information (and soon we will collect them all into one 2020 to-do list, we promise.

 

We have our Need to Do Something NowRightNow to Fight Back Against [Fresh Horror]? page.

 

We put together a list of sitting Senators who are up for re-election in 2020.

 

We updated the Choose Your Core Four for 2020 and added a “plus”–supporting an organization that defends the right to vote.

 

We recommended that you start a 2020 fund.

 

We identified the most important thing you can do (and OK, we cheated a little, because it actually gives you four things).

 

Crooked Media’s 2020: Be a Voter. Save America., piece covers much of the same ground but also encourages you to adopt a battleground state and fill out a sample ballot as the general election approaches.

 

See the piece here. It’s useful, and worth bookmarking.

 

Also see the main Crooked Media website, through which you can download its many excellent podcasts and read exclusive stories.

 

Buy Crooked Media merch.

 

Like Crooked Media on Facebook.

 

Follow Crooked Media on Twitter.

 

Subscribe to One Thing You Can Do by clicking the button on the upper right of the page. And tell your friends about the blog!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Self-advocacy 101: Find Your Congressional Representatives
Save These Tools · Uncategorized

Self-advocacy 101: Find Your Congressional Representatives

otycd

FWIW: This is the first-ever post to OTYCD, uploaded on January 7, 2017. Happy Birthday to Us!

 

Before you can start pushing back against Trump, you need to know who represents you in Congress.

 

Find out who your Congressional representatives are by plugging your zip code and your state into this web site:

http://whoismyrepresentative.com/

 

This web site is better for learning who stands for you in the House of Representatives (plug in your zip code and it will narrow the choices to two. The name that seems more familiar to you is probably your House rep):

http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

 

Once you have pinned down your two Senators and your House Rep, pull up their web pages. Scroll to the bottom. If their offices aren’t listed there, go to the Contact page and find them.

 

Pick the state office that is closest to you (*NOT the Washington D.C. one).

Find the phone number for that office.

Put it in your phone.

Repeat for your other two representatives.

Done!

 

* You can put the Washington, D.C. numbers in your phone, but call them last. You are far more likely to reach a real person if you call the district offices.

 

Subscribe to One Thing You Can Do by clicking the blue button on the upper right or checking the About & Subscribe page. And tell your friends about the blog!

Subscribe to Wall-of-Us and Fight Trump
Community Activism · Read, Educate Yourself, Prepare · Save These Tools · Stand Up for Norms · Use Your Power, Recruit Friends · Vote with your Dollars

Subscribe to Wall-of-Us and Fight Trump

otycd

This OTYCD entry originally posted in April 2017.

 

Subscribe to Wall-of-Us, which offers a weekly collection of actions to push back against Trump.

 

Encouraging greater activism is the goal of Wall-of-Us, which says on its home page, “He promised a wall. He will be stopped by a wall of us.”

 

Every Sunday it sends out four actions that you can take over the course of the coming week. Some are timely, some are long term. All provide food for thought and fuel for concrete action.

 

See the Wall-of-Us home page:

https://www.wall-of-us.org

 

See Brick by Brick, its victory page:

https://www.wall-of-us.org/brick-by-brick/

 

Subscribe to Wall-of-Us:

https://www.wall-of-us.org/subscribe/

 

Donate to Wall-of-Us:

https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/wall-of-us?refcode=nav

 

Like its Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/1beautifulwall/

 

Follow Wall-of-Us on Twitter:

@1beautifulwall

 

Subscribe to One Thing You Can Do by clicking the button on the upper right of the page. And tell your friends about the blog!

Read The Normal Person’s Guide to Internet Security
Action Alerts · Online Privacy, Net Neutrality · Read, Educate Yourself, Prepare · Save These Tools

Read The Normal Person’s Guide to Internet Security

otycd1 Comment

This OTYCD entry originally posted in May 2017.

Read The Normal Person’s Guide to Internet Security, a straightforward guide to some basic things you can do to safeguard yourself online. 

You will remember we squawked as loudly and as quickly as we could about HR Res. 86, which promised to let Internet Service Providers (ISPs) collect information on where you go online and sell it to marketers and other third parties. (You won’t be surprised to learn that it and its Senate counterpart bill were entirely and solely sponsored by Republicans.)

Unfortunately that bill passed Congress and Trump signed it into law. Many state legislators are at work on state-level solutions to protect you, but in the meantime, have a look at The Normal Person’s Guide to Internet Security and see what else you can do to defend yourself.

The guide is essentially Online Privacy 101 and does not pretend to be otherwise. If you’ve already implemented two-step authentication on all your devices and favorite web sites, and have already installed ad blockers, etc. etc., this is probably too elemental for you. But for the rest of us, it’s at least a good refresher-cum-checklist, if not a decent introduction to concepts we should all master.

Read The Normal Person’s Guide to Internet Security (Warning–the URL contains a NSFW word, so you may want to wait till you get home to look at it):

https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/guide/internet-security/?utm_source=WTF+Just+Happened+Today%3F&utm_campaign=f3b55c952c-Day_80_Complicit_4_9_2017&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9813b73b1a-f3b55c952c-158473581

 

Follow its author, Matt Kiser, on Twitter:

@Matt_Kiser

Believe It, You Matter: You Need a Longer Break? Take It. Just Please Come Back, OK?
Health Care · Save These Tools

Believe It, You Matter: You Need a Longer Break? Take It. Just Please Come Back, OK?

otycd

Hi there. Sarah Jane here. I write the Believe It, You Matter entries.

 

Over and over on this blog, we stress the importance of regular self-care. It’s one of the four things listed under The Most Important Thing You Can Do. [Yes, we know it says The Most Important THING you can do. We cheated.]

 

But sometimes, regular self-care isn’t enough, and you have to step away for a longer spell.

 

I am writing this to tell you explicitly: If stepping away for a longer spell is what you need to avoid burnout, do it. Just please come back, OK?

 

There are days when I Cannot News Anymore, and I have to stop and mainline the Great British Baking Show instead. It happens. Sometimes it sneaks up on me.

 

Sometimes I go weeks between signing into the One Thing You Can Do Twitter account, because life happens, and because sometimes I come down with an acute case of I Cannot News Anymore.

 

Know how I handle it?

 

I step away, I let the blog run evergreens, and I aggressively refuse to beat myself up for stepping away.

 

Then, when I’m ready, I come back.

 

You matter. Your voice matters, and your vote matters, even if it doesn’t feel that way. We need you to stay here to carry on the fight, and we’ll still need you after Trump goes. Hell, we’ll probably need you more then.

 

If it’s all too much, step away and rest. But please come back. Always come back.

 

Subscribe to One Thing You Can Do by clicking the blue button on the upper right or checking the About & Subscribe page. And tell your friends about the blog!

 

 

Subscribe to Rogan’s List and Keep Busy
Community Activism · Save These Tools

Subscribe to Rogan’s List and Keep Busy

otycd

This OTYCD entry originally posted in April 2017.

 

Subscribe to the Rogan’s List blog, and get to work. 

 

Susan Rogan will keep you as busy as you want to be. The retired university librarian’s blog gives you more than a dozen useful nuggets of information per day, almost every day, from actions to tools to organizations to join, and more. Are you extra-eager to do more? Start here. The newest Rogan’s post tends to go live around 9 am EST.

 

See the Rogan’s List blog, and subscribe (plug your email address into the slot above Rogan’s picture and below the shot of the to-do list):

 

http://roganslist.blogspot.com

 

Subscribe to One Thing You Can Do by clicking the button on the upper right of the page. And tell your friends about the blog!

Learn to Help Friends and Family Who Want to Do More Than Register to Vote
Action Alerts · Choose Your Core Four · Community Activism · Elections · Escape Your Bubble · Postcard Campaigns · Read, Educate Yourself, Prepare · Save These Tools · Stand Up for Civilization · Stand Up for Norms · Use Your Power, Recruit Friends

Learn to Help Friends and Family Who Want to Do More Than Register to Vote

otycd1 Comment

This OTYCD post originally appeared in July 2018.

 

Learn to help friends and family who want to do more than just register to vote.

 

Sarah Jane here. We at OTYCD have encouraged you to talk to friends and family about voting, and make it as easy and as painless as possible for them to register, learn where their polling place is, and plot how they will physically get to the polls on Tuesday, November 6, 2018.

 

But what if they ask you about doing more than that? What if they’re excited, or concerned, or both about the direction the country is threatening to take, and they want to go beyond making sure they themselves are registered to vote?

 

May we humbly suggest you send them to this very blog?

 

 

Start by sending them to our page on The Most Important Thing You Can Do (we cheated, there’s actually four):

https://onethingyoucando.com/the-most-important-thing-you-can-do/

 

 

Also suggest they read the third entry in the Believe It: You Matter series, The Parable of Eating Less Meat. It’s about how activism is not a competition, and everything counts.

If you went from doing nothing to doing something, and you do that something consistently, you win. Doesn’t matter how big or small the something is.

Read Believe It: You Matter, Part III: The Parable Of Eating Less Meat:

https://onethingyoucando.com/2018/04/16/believe-it-you-matter-part-iii-the-parable-of-eating-less-meat/

 

 

And if you want to suggest that they subscribe to the blog, we won’t stop you.

 

 

Also encourage them to visit postcardstovoters.org and volunteer to write Get Out The Vote (GOTV) postcards, using their own supplies.

 

Of all the things I (Sarah Jane) have done to push back against Trump since November 2016, writing postcards to voters has been the most satisfying.

 

I can write postcards anytime Tony the Democrat and friends have a campaign going, which is almost always. (The few times when they’re between campaigns, I prep postcards for future campaigns by decorating them with rubber stamps.)

 

Writing postcards to voters doesn’t require knocking on doors, calling people, or otherwise approaching strangers, which is terrifying to an introvert like me.

 

Let’s be clear, though. I do all that stuff, too, and I recommend it, but writing postcards to voters is something I can do whenever I want, for as long as I want, and I can set it aside if need be. I call it my civic knitting–each postcard is a stitch that strengthens democracy.

 

Also? New research shows that hand-writing postcards to voters is just as effective at getting out the vote as canvassing (physically knocking on doors), and sometimes more effective.

 

For more, see this June 22, 2018 piece from Blue Virginia called The Mighty Pen Prevails: In the Digital Age, Handwritten Voter Contact Is a Powerful Secret Weapon:

https://bluevirginia.us/2018/06/the-mighty-pen-prevails-in-the-digital-age-handwritten-voter-contact-is-a-powerful-secret-weapon

 

 

If your friends and family are open to supporting candidates, point them to the OTYCD post on the Core Four Strategy:

https://onethingyoucando.com/2018/04/08/choose-your-core-four-for-2018/

 

 

Helping eager friends and family learn who’s running for election and re-election in 2018 and find candidates to support is pretty next-level, but if you have the time and energy to do it, we at OTYCD encourage you to follow through.

 

 

Subscribe to One Thing You Can Do by clicking the button on the upper right of the page. And tell your friends about the blog!

 

 

Believe It, You Matter, Part X: We May Not Get Everything We Want. Keep Fighting Anyway.
Action Alerts · Community Activism · Fighting Bigotry, Racism, Sexism, Homophobia, Transphobia... · Marches and Protests · Read, Educate Yourself, Prepare · Save These Tools · Stand Up for Civilization · Stand Up for Norms

Believe It, You Matter, Part X: We May Not Get Everything We Want. Keep Fighting Anyway.

otycd

This OTYCD post originally ran in August 2018.

 

Believe It, You Matter, Part X: We May Not Get Everything We Want. Keep Fighting Anyway. 

 

You might have noticed that people are pissed about the way things are going. You might be one of those pissed-off people. Team Trump and its shitshow of corruption, cruelty, and pro-bully tactics have spurred millions to do more to push back.

 

A fair number of registered Republicans–including some high-profile ones–have left the party and gone independent. Many folks who were never politically active stepped up after the November 2016 election. They went to protests for the first time in their lives. Same again for phone-banking, knocking on doors, donating to causes and candidates, and calling their members of Congress. A small but heroic number found the courage to run for office.

 

It is unprecedented. It is organic. It might be unique in the history of America. And it should continue as long as Team Trump keeps crazy-assing and the GOP keeps shirking its duties to check Team Trump’s fucked-up, hateful, hurtful actions.

 

But! While we are righteous, motivated, and strong, we could still lose.

 

Take the SCOTUS nomination battle. Team Trump and the GOP are determined to ram their choice through before the midterms. We don’t want that. But because Democratic Senators are in the minority, there’s only so much they can do to stop it.

 

They will do what they can. They will fight. And, as we at OTYCD have asked, you should call your Senators and urge them to fight (if they’re Democrats) or vote no if they’re Republicans. Yes, your Republican Senators probably won’t change their votes, but they need to know their constituents oppose them on this, and will work to vote them out if they move a Trump nominee along.

 

But we could lose this one, and losing this one would be bad. People you love will be hurt by a SCOTUS dominated by hard-right judges. People you love could die as a result of a hard-right SCOTUS decision. You could lose your health insurance. Gerrymandering might get a yellow or green light. Voting rights might be curtailed. Parts of the Constitution that annoy evangelical Christians, greedy corporations, racists, and committed bullies could be muzzled and stomped upon. Democracy could be smothered. [Edited to add: This post was written and queued before the Senate approved Kavanaugh by a 51-49 vote.]

 

The answer is to keep fighting.

 

The only way to stop the SCOTUS from being perverted by hard-right extremists is to elect Democrats to the Senate and keep electing Democrats to the Senate until there are enough of them to control the chamber. And once they control the chamber, you need to defend them so they can keep control of the chamber and stop hard-right extremists from getting on the court.

 

If Democrats controlled the Senate now, they could refuse any nominee who’s stupidly hard-right and continue to refuse until Team Trump puts forward an actual moderate. But they don’t, so they can’t.

 

But if you curl into a ball and quit when the news of InJustice EvilJerk’s swearing-in breaks, we all lose.

 

Same again with the 2018 midterms. Things generally look good right now. But we won’t get absolutely everything we want. Simply from a mathematic standpoint, it’s unlikely that every Democrat wins and every Republican loses. There are too many races, at too many levels. There will be losses, and some of those losses might be tough.

 

Plus, there’s an elephant in the room (or, rather, the polling place). Having successfully messed with the 2016 elections, Russia’s hackers will be keen to try again in November 2018, and Team Trump has yet to order the National Security Agency (NSA) to take the steps needed to defend our country from those attacks.

 

Again, if you curl into a ball and quit when news breaks of, say, Iowa House Rep Steve King’s reelection, we all lose.

 

Yes, rest. Yes, unplug. Yes, take time away. You are allowed to have fun. You are allowed to do things that make you happy. Heck, it’s vital. Drafting and sticking with a self-care routine is one of the most important things you can do.

 

Rest. Recharge. Frolic. Forget for a few hours or days, maybe even weeks. But come back. Always, always come back. We need you.

 

And hey, getting mad is OK, too. Crying is OK. Despairing is OK. Feeling the force of your emotions is OK! But come back. Always, always come back. We need you.

 

Trump will go, but you must not.

 

You’ve got to stay here and carry on the fight.

Remember to Donate to Food Banks During the Summer Months, When Schools Are Closed
Community Activism · Save These Tools · Use Your Power, Recruit Friends

Remember to Donate to Food Banks During the Summer Months, When Schools Are Closed

otycd

This OTYCD post originally appeared in April 2018.

 

Remember to make a point of donating to your local food banks during the summer months, when schools are closed.

 

Students who receive free and reduced-price school meals can suffer during the summer, when their schools close. Their schools are often their most reliable source of nutritious meals. While many communities have programs that feed children under 18 during the summer, not all do.

 

It’s almost a cliche to volunteer at soup kitchens and food banks during Thanksgiving and Christmas, but summer is when the need can be keenest.

 

Food donations are always welcome at food banks, but donations of money are even more effective. Also ask your food bank if they accept donations of diapers, toilet paper, and feminine hygiene products, which cannot be purchased with food stamps.

 

 

Find your nearest food bank:

http://www.feedingamerica.org/find-your-local-foodbank/

 

 

Donate to the AmpleHarvest.org food pantry network:

http://ampleharvest.org/donate-m1/

 

 

Find the nearest summer meals program in your community:

https://www.fns.usda.gov/summerfoodrocks

 

Subscribe to One Thing You Can Do by clicking the button on the upper right of the page. And tell your friends about the blog!