Here is today’s Call to Action from Mid Maine Indivisible. Also, remember our weekly actions here in the Bangor area! The Tuesday Weekly Vigil at the Federal Building in Bangor and the Wednesday Weekly Orono Protest. – Dave
Hi Folks,
Good morning everyone, it’s Thursday and time to recharge before the week ends. Actually we can take three calming breaths, any time, any day, throughout the day. Our unchecked franticness and despair does not help us run the marathon we are in.
Call our Senators and ask them to oppose the nomination of Emil Bove, (Nosferatu 2) for the Federal Appeals Court (3d circuit). Once there, Trump, can advance him to the Supreme Court. He is really bad news. Details and links below.
From earlier this week – support clean energy as below and also ask our delegation to vote to extend the ACA tax credits.
For the Heart
For Your Heart this Fifth Week of Summer:
Life is made up of Pleasant, Unpleasant, and Neither Pleasant or Unpleasant sensations in the body. This is the Second Foundation of Mindfulness. Usually human beings crave the pleasant and push away the unpleasant. If we do this too strongly, we get thrown off center.
Nancy Hathaway Center for Studying Mindfulness
Psalm
~~~Wisława Szymborska
How leaky are the borders of man-made states!
How many clouds float over them scot-free,
how much desert sand sifts from country to country,
how many mountain pebbles roll onto foreign turf
in provocative leaps!
Need I cite each and every bird as it flies,
or alights, as now, on the lowered gate?
Even if it be a sparrow—its tail is abroad,
thought its beak is still home. As if that weren’t enough—it keeps fidgeting!
Out of countless insects I will single out the ant,
who, between the guard’s left and right boots,
feels unobliged to answer questions of origin and destination.
If only this whole mess could be seen at once in detail
on ever continent!
Isn’t that a privet on the opposite bank
smuggling its hundred-thousandth leaf across the river?
Who else but the squid, brazenly long-armed,
would violate the sacred territorial waters.?
How can we speak of any semblance of order
when we can’t rearrange the stars
to know which one shines for whom?
Not to mention the reprehensible spreading of fog!
Or the dusting of the steppe over its entire range
as though it weren’t split in two!
Or voices carried over accommodating air waves:
summoning squeals and suggestive gurgles!
Only what’s human can be truly alien.
The rest is mixed forest, undermining moles, and wind.
TODAY’S ACTION (s)
- Call Senators King and Collins to oppose the nomination of Emile Bove to be a judge on the Federal Appeals court: Bove was Trump’s lawyer in the hush money case, He ordered the firings of Jan. 6 prosecutors, threatened to purge the FBI and prosecute local and state officials who pushed back against Trump’s mass deportation agenda, and dropped the corruption charges against NYC mayor Eric Adams. Go to 5calls.org to get more talking points on this.
- Call our Congress people to support clean energy: The Citizens’ Climate Lobby is 800 strong in DC lobbying for funding clean energy and passing reform legislation for energy projects. To learn more and call in through their website go here.Use these handouts for additional talking points if you like, or just use the link.
- Protect the Affordable Care Act: Ask our Congressional Delegation to maintain the ACA’s tax credits. Tax credits that help support the ACA are slated to be ended at the end of this year. This will make the ACA premiums 75% more expensive and force 4 million people off insurance over the next 10 years.
- Join Indivisible for their One Million Rising Trainings: Go here to register for this training that will be happening July 30th and August 13th. You can watch the first training here.
- Start making a list of friends who are like-minded but have not yet taken action: To get to 3.5% (11.6 million folks) of the US population we need everyone to get involved in the resistance. Use this list to invite folks to actions, events, and contact campaigns that will help activate them. For more on the 3.5% rule go here.
Statewide Actions This Week:
- If you know your Maine Representative or Senator is supportive of making ICE accountable in Maine, ask them to join with Representative Cassie Julia to put in a bill to ensure proper identification of ICE agents acting in Maine. Lawmakers in California have introduced legislation requiring the identity and affiliation of ICE agents to be displayed while interacting with the public.
- Indivisible Actions – Register Here, For the One Million Rising action – register here and watch the first session here.
- Buy some American Flags for your next Demo; there are lots around from July 4th – Reny’s (“the Maine Shopping Experience”) has bunches.
Angus King
DC: (202) 224-5344
Augusta: (207) 622-8292
Susan Collins
DC: (202) 224-2523
Augusta: (207) 622-8414
Bangor: (207) 945-0417
Chellie Pingree
DC: (202) 225-6116
Portland: (207) 774-5019
Waterville: (207) 873-5713
Jared Golden
DC: (202) 225-6306
Bangor: (207) 249-7400
Caribou: (207) 492-6009
Lewiston: (207) 241-6767
Find Your State Senator: Here
Find your State Representative: Here – (by name), By District: Here,
LOCAL ACTIONS: Join Mid Maine Indivisible(Kennebec and Somerset Counties) Please join us if you are in the Mid Maine area. To sign up: go here.
Are you interested in helping New Mainers learn/improve their English? To sign up for English tutoring or any of our other volunteer opportunities, please visit: Capital Area New Mainers Project (CANMP) to fill out a volunteer interest survey. An English Learning option at the Waterville library at 1:00 on Mondays is also an option for volunteers. Contact CANMP for the details.
Thursday, July 24th: 4 – 5 pm, Fairfield/Benton Bridge, Stop the Coup + Save Democracy.
Saturday, July 26th, The Art of Resistance: 4 – 8 pm, at the Winslow Congregational Church, 12 Lithgow, Winslow The Art of Resistance is meant to bring us together and remind us of what enlivens us and keeps us moving forward day after day: reaffirming our connections with one another; sharing our creative inspiration; expressing joy and laughter. Schedule: 4pm: Art Exhibit opens 4 to 6pm: Art-making for kids and grownups! Make origami butterflies, paint mini-canvases, and create protest signs.5pm: Community Sandwich Share: Bring a sandwich cut in two, half for you, half for the sharing table. Extras will be on hand for those who cannot provide sandwiches.Bring non-alcoholic beverage. Water provided. 6-8pm, Variety Show: Short performances related to the day’s theme.
First Saturday of each Month at 2:30: Somerset Stands Up Rallies-Margaret Chase Smith Bridge, downtown Skowhegan. Bring your signs, American flags, your voice, your friends, families and neighbors for this peaceful gathering of concerned residents of Somerset County. Next one is August 1st, 2:30
Sunday, July 27th: at 1:00 (and every Sunday): Stand with us against Trump/Stephen Miller; For Peace in the Middle East, For Ukraine, Stop the War in Iran, etc. on the Bridge by CVS in Waterville.
Tuesday, July 29th: 12:00-1:00 (and every Tuesday) Stand against Tesla/Musk and the rising authoritarian state: around the Tesla Charging Station Elm Plaza on Main Street, Waterville.
Wednesday, July 30th: (and every Wednesday) 12:00-1:00 Waterville, Maine. Corner of Main and Chaplin St. Grandmothers for Reproductive Rights, GRR! demonstrates every Wednesday across from Resolve, the local anti-abortion center. Please join us in assuring all Mainers have access to safe, legal, shame-free reproductive health care including abortions and contraceptive care. For more info please contact Elayne Richard at recordconnection@gmail.com.
MORE ACTIONS
*If you haven’t yet, write your letter to Governor Mills thanking her for her stand against Trump, and asking her to run against Collins. SHE HAS NOT YET RULED THIS OUT! Hand written if possible. Mail to: State House Station 1, Augusta, Maine, 04333.
*If you would like to join Maine People’s Alliance Federal Lobby Group, please contact Jim Parakilas at jamesparakilas@gmail.com. We meet Mondays at 2 pm. Consider joining the MPA for trainings in June and July on resistance strategy, lobbying, and other areas. Contact Jim on this.
With great appreciation for all the engagement everywhere!
As always, throw a little sand in their gears!
-Mid Maine Indivisible
Loving kindness towards ourselves doesn’t mean getting rid of anything. It means we can still be crazy after all these years. We can still be angry after all these years. We can still be timid or jealous or full of feelings of unworthiness. The point is not to try to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already. Pema Chodron
