Dear friends,
Start with an urgent guerrilla action to stop a West Virginia abortion ban from passing today. I made up a name and chose a town and a zip code. I’m working my way down the list of senators (provided). Here’s the background:
Addison Gardner, 12, spoke at a public hearing of West Virginia’s House of Delegates against proposed state legislation that would both ban abortions without exceptions for rape or incest and allow for physicians to be prosecuted for providing abortions.
She asked,
Does my life not matter to you?
The bill passed on Wednesday “after allowing exemptions for victims of rape and incest up to 14 weeks of pregnancy.” The provision to mandate prison time for abortion providers is intact. It goes to the state senate for a third reading today, even though none of the committees have reviewed the bill.
Call West Virginia state senators and tell them where you’re from and let them know you oppose the abortion bill.
Councilmembers Tiffany Cabán and Sandy Nurse made a visit to Rikers Island this week. They saw people held in a hot, unventilated intake area, who had been waiting for days, stripped down to their shorts, and were denied access to many of the areas they hoped to see.
“It’s on lockdown because there was an incident earlier in the day” is usually the response that we are given. On top of that, in going to the units we did see and talking to folks, they would name those particular units. They would be like, “In comparison, we’re OK here, but you should go see this unit.”
Cabán is realistic about how effective federal control of the jails would be:
Rikers Island is not just brick and mortar. It’s a culture that exists at varying different levels and degrees across our carceral systems altogether. Is a federal receivership going to solve everything? No. Could it reduce some of the acute, extraordinary harm that we are seeing in this moment? Yes. . . . [W]e have to look at this holistically. We need to build outside infrastructure to support these things. We have to decarcerate. We have to invest in physical and mental health care in our communities. And we have to invest in antipoverty initiatives.
Repeatedly, Mayor Adams has called on the federal government for assistance to address a wide array of problems, including fighting crime and reducing gun violence and, more recently, to assist with resources for asylum seekers.
Call on Mayor Adams to ask for federal control of city jails to address the problems that plague the system. This will take 30 seconds.
Call on Public Advocate Jumaane Williams to encourage the mayor to seek federal guidance. Another fast ready-made action!
I’m still reading up on the bill negotiated by Manchin and Schumer, and the analysis is confusing. On the one hand, it seems that the federal tax credits for wind and solar industries will be extended for a decade, and that the long extension is just what is needed. On the other hand, the price for this win is
a tit-for-tat expansion in fossil fuel development on federal lands and waters, Bloomberg reported.
The Schumer-Manchin deal requires the Department of Interior to hold regular sales of oil and gas leases before it is allowed to offer solar or wind lease sales, according to Bloomberg.
Over the next 10 years, that means potential drilling in “600 million acres of offshore leasing — four times the size of the entire Gulf of Mexico outer continental shelf,” the Center for Biological Diversity warned.
How serious is that? Depends who you ask. Brett Hartl, government affairs director for the Center, called this potential fossil fuel expansion — which could lock in oil and gas production into the 2030s — a "climate suicide pact."
Others disagree: Even with the fossil fuel provisions, “the bill is still absolutely worth it for climate change,” University of Santa Barbara environmental policy professor Leah Stokes told the Times.
I would love to know what you think.
One last thing: I called on you Wednesday to support Cori Bush against a primary opponent who has been accused of rape and sexual harassment, and whose father has contributed heavily to the PAC supporting him. Uncharacteristically, there was very little action. Her primary is next week and we are going to kick ourselves if she loses.
Support Congresswoman Cori Bush for reelection. She’s the superior candidate, she needs us, and we need her.
I am going to spend the weekend in Vermont, traveling on the first train to go directly to Burlington from New York City since 1953. I’ll be in the unquiet car calling West Virginia state senators on the first leg of my journey.
I’ll be back with good news on Tuesday.
with love,
L