Randolph County Democratic Party

Let’s mix things up a bit today. Instead of calling legislators, lets see about getting some sanctions against horrible people in the media. For instance, Sleeping Giants has made it their mission to take down Breitbart and other racist, anti-Semitic organizations by putting pressure on the people who advertise on their websites.

Here is their most recent call to action:

If you scroll down through their Facebook timeline there’s all sorts of good stuff they’re doing to put pressure on companies who advertise on sites that condone hate speech.

 

Stick it to Hannity

I probably don’t have to tell you how odious Sean Hannity is, but lately he’s been a bootlicker extraordinaire for Trump, finding any way possible to contort the truth about Trump’s ties to Russia. Hannity has also recently been hammering the fake news story that a DNC staffer, Seth Rich,  was mysteriously killed during election season. Hannity is saying that this staffer is another on the Clinton Death List (remember that nonsense?). The Rich family has sent a cease and desist letter to Fox, but Hannity keeps on flapping his gums.

Then there’s this list of advertisers on Sean Hannity’s show. https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2017/05/23/these-are-sean-hannitys-advertisers/216607

I’d be willing to bet all these companies have Facebook pages or Twitter accounts. I’m sure they have contact numbers on their websites. If you’re feeling froggy, why not give some of them a call, email or social media callout. I’ll put links for the Facebook pages for first few in the list:

Alfa Romeo

Allstate

Angie’s List

AstraZeneca

Bayer

Blink Health

Boehringer Ingelheim

Booking.com

Capital One

 

 

 

Why have smart, low-income NC students been excluded from advanced classes? – “In theory, such things as race, culture and family background shouldn’t limit a child’s likelihood of being labeled gifted. In reality, the results of “intelligence” tests consistently yield the same advantage for white, Asian and non-poor students as traditional academic exams do. In 2015-16, for instance, CMS identified roughly 30 percent of white and Asian students in grades 3-5 as gifted, compared with about 4 percent of black and Hispanic students in those grades. The district doesn’t report that data based on income, but black and Hispanic students have significantly higher poverty rates.”

One of the main reasons that poverty and lower performing schools go hand in hand is that fact that school funding is tied to property taxes in this country. Older, poorer neighborhoods generate less property tax money and therefore the schools receive less funding in return. Wealthy neighborhoods pay more in property tax and receive more funding.

Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has made it her life’s mission to drive public school into the ground so that her wealthy friends can siphon off government dollars for their school privatization schemes. “Funding for college work-study programs would be cut in half, public-service loan forgiveness would end and hundreds of millions of dollars that public schools could use for mental health, advanced coursework and other services would vanish under a Trump administration plan to cut $10.6 billion from federal education initiatives, according to budget documents obtained by The Washington Post.”

At the state level, we saw how vindictive Republicans in the Senate rammed through an amendment, dreamed up behind closed doors, which cut education funding in Democratic districts. “Here’s another nugget: The amendment stripped seven counties, represented by Democrats, from a program that financially supports teacher assistants working on a college degree.” 

The mission today is to call anyone and everyone from President down to General Assembly and let them know that you support a strong PUBLIC education system. We will not stand for them making education inaccessible to poor students, minority students, immigrant students or any other arbitrary box they try to lump our children into. Education is a human right and our legislators need to get with that program or get out.

UPCOMING EVENTS: 

Lobbying 101 Training Session – Tuesday May 23, 2017 at Guilford Co. Democratic HQ  2300 W. Meadowview Rd. Suite 110 Greensboro, NC Join us for a short training session with Maddie Majerus, Director of Organizing for Equality NC. She will explain a bit about the lobbying process, how to be most effective, and spend some time workshopping with us–i.e. teaching us how to prepare personal stories and tell them effectively when meeting with representatives, etc.

If you’d like to receive these calls to action via email, please follow this link: Click me!

🚨BREAKING NEWS🚨 

Special counsel appointed in Russia probe

 

 

FEDERAL:  

RUSSIA AGAIN 🙄:

Call Senators, Burr and Tillis

BURR SCRIPT: I am a constituent calling from ____________ in NC. I want to let Sen. Burr know that he needs to get on the ball about investigating the connections between Donald Trump and Russia, with regards to their tampering with our elections. The Senator has the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of the Honorable Senator Sam Ervin by putting country before party and investigating Donald Trump to the fullest extent possible. We are watching what the Senator does with the responsibility he now holds. Either get moving or get out of the way. Thank you for your time.

TILLIS SCRIPT: I am a constituent calling from ____________ in NC. I wanted to make it known that we expect Senator Tillis to urge his fellow Senator, Richard Burr to investigate Donald Trump’s ties to Russia. Senator Tillis has an opportunity here to be a hero by pressing for a fully staffed and operational investigative committee. History will not look kindly upon those who stand by and do nothing while our republic is handed to the Russians. Thank you for your time.

**As you may have heard, Thom Tillis had a medical emergency yesterday at a charity event in DC. Please use this opportunity to wish him well. We may disagree policy-wise, but he his a human being and we don’t wish him ill health. If anything we hope this will help him realize how important affordable, accessible healthcare is for everyone, not just Senators.

 

REP. WALTER B. JONES CALLS FOR INDEPENDENT COMMISSION:

Send a thank you to Rep. Walter Jones R-NC 3, for signing on to a bill calling for an independent commission to investigate Trump’s ties to Russia.

Call (202) 225-3415
Contact via Email & Office locations: https://jones.house.gov/contact-me
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RepWalterBJones/
Twitter: @RepWalterJones

Too bad NC6’s Mark Walker hasn’t the stomach to agree. Maybe you should mention it to him. Be careful, though, he might try to duck the question.

PALLING AROUND WITH DICTATORS:

As if telling the Russians everything he knows or thinks he knows wasn’t enough, Trump’s ne’er-do-well friends are now allowing their bodyguards to come into our country and beat up Kurdish protesters in Washington DC.

Turkish Dictator’s Suited Thugs Beat Up Protesters on Embassy Row – “Shortly following a White House visit by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who recently consolidated power for himself in a narrow, contested referendum vote, witnesses say Erdogan’s bodyguards attacked protesters carrying the Kurdish PYD flag outside the Turkish ambassador’s D.C. residence.”

Evidently this isn’t the first time Erdogan’s thugs have attacked protesters in the US. In March 2016, Erdogan’s security guards reportedly attacked demonstrators and journalists outside the Brookings Institution in Washington. What a guy!

 

Vice Pres Pence deletes his picture of dinner with #Erdogan as the Turkish President’s thugs attack protesting Kurds outside on the street. pic.twitter.com/fVWcI6qvef

— Kurdish Solidarity (@Hevallo) May 16, 2017

Call the White House Comment Line at at 202-456-1111 and let them know that this kind of behavior is unacceptable and that the Turkish president and his entourage need to be unceremoniously given the boot from this country because of this.

If you’d like to contact the Department of State about this atrocity, use this contact form: https://register.state.gov/contactus/contactusform

 

 

 

STATE: 

Here’s a nice little Throwback Thursday tidbit from Stronger NC: Stories of Resistance in NC We North Carolinians have never been ones to just sit down and do what we’re told.

 

 PHIL BERGER DOESN’T LIKE PARTISANS (lol, wut?)

There are reports coming from resisters in activist groups around our area saying that the person answering the phone in Phil Berger’s office has been grouchy and hateful to callers who do not agree with Sen. Berger’s viewpoints. Being the President Pro Tempore of the NC Senate, you’d think Mr. Berger would want to hear from all North Carolinians and not shirk his duty as a legislator and head of the Senate. Give Mr. Berger’s office a call about the Senate budget recently passed in the middle of the night, which cut education funding from Democratic districts. If the person answering the phone is hateful to you, let your friends on social media and in real life know about it. Last I checked, our taxes pay their salaries. They work for us.

SCRIPT:  I am a North Carolina resident. I wanted to let the Senator know how underhanded the 3am vote to cut education funding in the districts of Senate Democrats was. Politicians who behave like this are the reason people hate politicians. These kinds of actions do all North Carolinians a disservice and are an embarrassment to our state, the Senator’s district and the Republican Party. I urge the Senator to start putting people before his party and make better decisions for our state and district. Thank you.

 

UPCOMING EVENTS:

• Sixth Congressional District Democratic Convention – Saturday, May 20th

Save the date! The location for the 6th District Democratic Convention is still being set, but it will most likely be in Guilford County. Randolph County District Convention delegates need to save the date for Sat. morning, May 20, 2017. More details coming as soon as we know. We will set up a carpool once we know the location.

Note: If you attended and signed in at the County Convention on April 8th, you are a delegate to the 6th District Convention to be held in Guilford County.  

 

 

If you’d like to sign up to receive these calls to action via email, please follow this link: Click me!

We’d also like to announce that our former County Chair Jim Meredith is a candidate for the 6th District Democratic Executive Committee Chair. Read about his candidacy here. Jim Meredith for NC6th Chair

FEDERAL:

Call Richard Burr and Thom Tillis and stay on their cases about an independent investigation. There is a script here.

Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador – “Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States only learned through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence gathering method, but described how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances. Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic State’s territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat.”

Can you imagine Congressional Republicans if Hillary Clinton had engaged in this same kind of behavior? They’d have had a witch ducking and a burning at the stake before nightfall.

 

OTHER NEWS:

Sinclair requires stations, including KOMO, to air segments tilting to the right – “Since November 2015, Sinclair has ordered its stations to run a daily segment from a “Terrorism Alert Desk” with updates on terrorism-related news around the world. During the election campaign last year, it sent out a package that suggested in part that voters should not support Hillary Clinton because the Democratic Party was historically pro-slavery. More recently, Sinclair asked stations to run a short segment in which Scott Livingston, the company’s vice president for news, accused the national news media of publishing “fake news stories.”

Just another part of Republicans’ plan to consolidate power and control all forms of government and media.

Sinclair Owned Local Stations in NC – if you see any news on these stations that skews a story to the right, let them know that we see what they’re doing and will let others know of their bias.

WLOS 13 Asheville

WLFL 22 RDU

WRDC  28 RDU

WXLV 45 Greensboro HP WS

WMYV 48 Greensboro HP WS

 

 

REPUBLICANS STICKING IT TO THE POOR:

Republicans plan massive cuts to programs for the poor

“House Republicans just voted to slash hundreds of billions of dollars in health care for the poor as part of their Obamacare replacement. Now, they’re weighing a plan to take the scalpel to programs that provide meals to needy kids and housing and education assistance for low-income families.”

… 

“Atop that, GOP budget writers will also likely include Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) proposal to essentially privatize Medicare in their fiscal 2018 budget, despite Trump’s unwavering rejection of the idea. While that proposal is more symbolic and won’t become law under this budget, it’s just another thorny issue that will have Democrats again accusing Republicans of “pushing Granny off the cliff.”

CALL MARK WALKER

SCRIPT: I am a constituent from District 6, calling to urge Rep. Walker to think long and hard before voting for the current budget bill in the House. With the President’s wish list for military and infrastructure it is a given that Republicans, as usual, will want to cut social programs to the bone. After the tone-deaf passage of the AHCA, which is predicted to kick 24 million people off their health insurance plans, I would hope Rep. Walker would want to cultivate a more compassionate image. Hopefully he will put country and constituents before Party for this vote. Thank you for your time.

 

STATE:

IT’S ABOUT TIME!

We got some much needed good news today about the Voter ID laws in NC. The Supreme Court of the US has declined to hear the appeal from NC Republicans. This means that the decision reverts to the lower court ruling, which struck down the racist Voter ID law.

U.S. Supreme Court Won’t Revive North Carolina Voter-ID Law – “The U.S. Supreme Court dealt an unexpected setback to the voter-identification movement, refusing to reinstate North Carolina ballot restrictions that a lower court said target blacks “with almost surgical precision.”

 

STATE BUDGET:

Time to give Reps. Pat Hurley and Allen McNeill a call on the state budget. Here is an excellent rundown of the education portions of the Senate budget from Together We Will North Carolina. Some was good, some was bad. They recommend you contact your Representatives and the chairs of the House Education Appropriations Committee (Pat Hurley is both) and let them know how the Senate budget will affect you and urge them to vote accordingly in the House.

Chairman             Rep. Blackwell 919-733-5805 Hugh.Blackwell@ncleg.net

Chairman             Rep. Elmore 919-733-5935 Jeffrey.Elmore@ncleg.net

Chairman             Rep. Fraley 919-733-5741 John.Fraley@ncleg.net

Chairman             Rep. Horn 919-733-2406 Craig.Horn@ncleg.net

Chairman             Rep. Hurley* 919-733-5865 Pat.Hurley@ncleg.net

Vice Chairman    Rep. Conrad 919-733-5787 Debra.Conrad@ncleg.net

Senate budget would cut off food aid to 133,000 – “Officials at the state Department of Health and Human Services estimate the change would cut food benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to 133,000 people – 55,000 of them under 18.”

 

COMMENTS ON MEDICAID REFORM IN NC TAKEN UNTIL MAY 25, 2017

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services is looking at ways to build a Medicaid system with more opportunities to improve the health and well-being of all North Carolinians. Your thoughts, ideas and comments are important to shape a system that works best for our state. Input is needed on how can, or should, Medicaid:

 

UPCOMING EVENTS:

• Sixth Congressional District Democratic Convention – Saturday, May 20th

Save the date! The location for the 6th District Democratic Convention is still being set, but it will most likely be in Guilford County. Randolph County District Convention delegates need to save the date for Sat. morning, May 20, 2017. More details coming as soon as we know. We will set up a carpool once we know the location.

Note: If you attended and signed in at the County Convention on April 8th, you are a delegate to the 6th District Convention to be held in Guilford County.