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The United States of Resistance is a weekly industry newsletter sharing the top news from across the resistance. Please share with others! Sign up | Archived Newsletters
Resistance Spotlight: The Resistance
In the middle of the night, all Democrats, Independents, and three Republican Senators voted against the third and final attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. In a historic moment, we defeated TrumpCare.
Today, let's add Senators Murkowski, Collins, and McCain to the Resistance. Take a minute to call those Senators who voted no and thank them. Thank them for preserving health coverage for tens of millions of Americans. And then thank yourself. They voted. But you called, and wrote, and tweeted, and marched, and rallied, and shared your stories. This victory is yours.
Some quick calling stats from Daily Action: "Here are our calling stats for the three Republicans who were compelled to vote no. These reflect callers who used one of our hotlines to call"
- Susan Collins: 663 calls, 3,314 minutes
- John McCain: 1,025 calls, 4,628 minutes
- Lisa Murkowski: 209 calls, 1,362 minutes (at ~6.5 minutes per call, our Alaskan callers showed impressive dedication!)
- Daily Action calls on Obamacare/AHCA/BCRA/"Skinny Repeal" overall: 247,359 calls, 822,567 minutes
- Senate health care calls overall: 160,474 calls, 521,058 minutes
What's Next for Healthcare?
This fight is not over. Trump took to Twitter this morning. No surprise there...and tweeted, "3 Republicans and 48 Democrats let the American people down. As I said from the beginning, let ObamaCare implode, then deal. Watch!"
Now it's time to call for bipartisan collaboration to fix the parts of the Affordable Care Act that need fixing.
Tomorrow, Saturday, July 29, thousands of Americans will stand up at hundreds of events around the country as part of the "Our Lives are on the Line" rallies. Our message will be clear. We will not forget: the GOP voted time and time again to strip away health care for millions of Americans.
Join the national Our Lives are on the Line rally in Washington, D.C. at Freedom Plaza at 6:30 PM ET. The rally will continue, rain or shine, with Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Actor Justin Long headlining the event. More information here. And for those not in Washington, there are more than 150 events taking place across the country.
Webinar TODAY! Join our Op-Ed Project: Building a Better Society Through Science.
Last week we kicked off our Op-Ed campaign: Building a Better Society through Science. We had our first webinar this week, and have one more TODAY at 1pm EDT.
Webinar link: join.freeconferencecall.com/rise-science-tech
Call-in number: 641.715.3580 (access code: 609621#)
All are welcome to join, whether or not you made the first webinar, and anyone participating as a writer and/or editor is highly encouraged to attend. If you missed the last webinar, it is archived here.
More information on the project: RISE Stronger, together with 500 Women Scientists, Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Engaging Scientists and Engineers in Policy (ESEP) Coalition, are calling on you to speak up for science by writing an op-ed to your local newspapers in support of government funding for science, technology, and the programs that enrich and improve our society and local communities.
Learn more here or email us at [email protected]
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What Else is Going on in Washington
There is so much going on in D.C. right now. Here are a few things to keep your eyes on.
- Trump tweets news of transgender military ban. Defense Secretary Mattis says he was blindsided. Joint Chiefs, including chairman General Joseph Dunford were unaware of the alleged policy.
Dunford informed service members that there will be "no modifications to the current policy until the President's direction has been received by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary has issued implementation guidelines."
- Congress reached a bipartisan agreement on a bill that imposes sanctions on Russia, Iran, and North Korea. The House approved the bill in a 419-3 vote, and the Senate in a 98-2 vote. The sanctions package is now with Trump, who can either sign it or veto it. If he vetoes, it will go back to Congress.
Congress could easily override the veto.
- The House
approved a series of spending bills, including $1.57 billion requested for Trump's border wall. The entire package equaled $827 billion, and passed mostly along party lines, with a vote of 235-192. It will now go to the Senate, and will likely be blocked there. Federal funding runs out October 1.
- Trump hires new Communication Director, Anthony Scaramucci. Things are already going rogue. Check out this New Yorker piece, relaying a conversation between Scaramucci and New Yorker writer, Ryan Lizza.
Must Read: Dan Rather Facebook Post
Link
"Perhaps...
Perhaps the sun rises today over a Washington less riven by cynicism...
Perhaps the fortified walls of intransigent partisanship may start to crumble...
Perhaps the cold calculus of political gamesmanship will begin to give way to the moral accountability of empathetic policy...
Perhaps the clarity of three Republican senators - two strong, independent women and a gravely ill American hero - can lead us on a path to increased normalcy....
Perhaps we can learn to appreciate more all the historic bonds that tie us together as a nation and be less consumed by the damaging forces that tear us apart...
Perhaps... perhaps... perhaps...
I do not diminish the headwinds we face. I do not excuse the vulgarities and injustices that sadly find root in America. And I do not underestimate the capacity of some of our elected officials to rally passions with appeals to our basest instincts.
But what happened early this morning in the Senate chamber will go down as one of the most dramatic showdowns in the history of that august body. While we will have to wait and see where it goes from here. For today I chose hope, a clear-eyed hope, but a hope nonetheless.
In a quirk of timing, these last few days I have been re-reading and putting the finishing edits on my book entitled What Unites Us (due out this November and written with my long-time collaborator Elliot Kirschner). The message of the book is one in which I believe strongly: We are a nation with a common destiny, if we chose to embrace it. From the right to vote to the environment, from service to the free press, from empathy to audacity, we are a people and a nation with a deep foundation built on a strong but imperfect sense of unity. On my countless journeys throughout every corner of this great land I have seen the goodness of my fellow citizens expressed in ways big and small, public and anonymous, and from every part of our diverse population.
I am an optimist, and always have been. That optimism has been tested in my life on several occasions, but rarely more so than recently. However I am now more encouraged than I have been in a long time that we may, just may, be able to come together. We need each other. None of us has a monopoly on wisdom, other than, perhaps, the wisdom of knowing we cannot accomplish what needs to be done alone. And that is how it should be."
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