Hi folks,
Hope you're doing as well as possible in these wild times!
Every year around Thanksgiving, my favorite giving project Blue Heart
<https://www.blueheartaction.org/> publishes a Giving Guide (2020 version
here <https://www.blueheartaction.org/giving-guide-2020>) to recommend
specific places to donate money: important and amazing but less
visible/less funded organizations which focus on long-term movement/power
building for marginalized communities.
This year, we're offering a donation match with the Giving Guide so that
any funds donated through the guide, up to a certain amount, will be
doubled (!!!). This will also help us see how much money the Giving Guide
moves :)
I'm looking for folks willing to contribute to this matching pool in
advance. This would be a pledge to match up to $N of other people's
donations to the specific orgs listed in the Giving Guide. We're hoping
this can be a big round number to inspire everyone to give more.
If you might be interested in making a larger donation in advance—or if you
have friends who might be interested—please reply to me in the next few
days and we can chat about the details.
I realize this is a bigger ask, and I deeply appreciate your consideration.
Excited to share the Giving Guide once it launches!
<3
Stacey
Q: is there a minimum amount asked of a matching donor?
A: not really, every little bit helps! If you're on the fence, please send
me an email! I would appreciate increments of $100 for bookkeeping, and if
it's < $100, perhaps waiting until the Giving Guide is out and giving
directly would be simpler. I'm personally in for $3000.
Hi friends, if you are interested in giving money or time to help Afghan
refugees resettle in the Bay Area, I wanted to point to a couple orgs doing
this work:
Jewish Family & Community Services East Bay
https://jfcs-eastbay.org/urgent-afghan-evacuation/
"Some planeloads of refugees have arrived in Fort Lee, Virginia, and this
month, JFCS East Bay has already welcomed 40 people to begin their new
lives in the East Bay. We are currently waiting for 23 people more people
to arrive from Fort Lee, and have accepted the cases of another 33 who are
still in Afghanistan. The number and pace of resettlement is like nothing
we’ve seen in recent years."
They also have volunteer opportunities (e.g. airport pickups, register kids
for school).
International Rescue Committee Northern California
https://help.rescue.org/donate/Softlandingfund
"The IRC Northern California is raising $150,000 toward an Afghan Soft
Landing Fund. 100% of your donation will be disbursed to cover emergency
temporary housing as well as rental & utility assistance to support evacuee
families stabilizing."
In solidarity,
Topher
hi folks,
when i send these emails, they're usually oriented around action. in
this case, the action i recommend is:
* call your federal house representative, and ask that they vote AGAINST
the bi-partisan infrastructure deal unless there's agreement on the
reconciliation package
* call your federal senators, and demand action on the reconciliation
bill, including specifically all climate-change-related spending there
i've done these actions and logged them in my activism log:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GcwD94b35Qk8j4D4mU5JuSbWdhsEYsWZ60Z…
i recommend you keep one of these, and also there are phone numbers
there in case your representatives are also my representatives!
WHY? WHAT'S HAPPENING?
this is a really critical moment. basically, in the next week, the US
actually does something on climate change, or we won't. actually, in the
next week the US might shut down the government and default on it's
debt. yeah, shit's pretty crazy right now.
the bipartisan infrastructure deal was a thing that D and R could agree
on in washington, and includes very traditional infrastructure funding
-- roads, bridges. there are votes to pass it in the senate. however,
the house progressive caucus is threatening to withhold their votes on
that bill, which might cause it to fail in the house, unless both that
bill and the reconciliation bill are brought to vote at the same time.
the reconciliation bill, which you've probably seen under it's $3.5T
price tag, includes the rest of biden's agenda, including funding for
climate change, expanded healthcare, etc... it's a reconciliation bill
because otherwise it would be filibustered by senate Rs, and so it needs
50 senate Ds plus harris's tie-breaker to pass. the dems can't agree
among themselves about this bill -- in particular, joe manchin of west
virgina and kyrsten sinema of arizona are balking at all sorts of stuff.
manchin, who is from a coal state (fun fact, there are maybe 20k coal
miners, loosely defined as anyone who has anything directly to do with
mining, in wv, a state of 2M people) and is also head of the senate
energy and natural resources committee, has general objections. sinema
seems particularly upset about giving medicare the ability to negotiate
drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.
the reconciliation bill includes funding for the federal government, so
if *something* isn't done, the government will shut down on friday. the
ideal outcome would be passing the reconciliation package. possibly, a
continuing resolution could be passed to temporarily fund the government
to avoid a shutdown.
in the meantime, the US has hit it's debt ceiling, a provision which
limits how much the government can borrow (by issuing bonds). the debt
ceiling was raised 3 times in bi-partisan votes during the last
administration, but now senate Rs are threatening to filibuster the vote
unless some unspecified demands for more bi-partisanship are met. if we
don't raise the debt ceiling by early october, the treasury will be
unable to service (pay interest on) it's existing bonds, and will be in
default.
in short, everything is a cluster-fuck and it's all happening right now.
i've been checking for updates here:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2021/sep/29/democrats-infrastructu…