INDIVISIBLE Lambertville NJ / New Hope PA

Category: Call to Action

  • ACTION: Help Your Local Non-Profits

    Food Pantries – The non-profits supporting those in need are in need themselves as the number of people accessing their operations continues to increase. This link is a one stop shop to all the local food pantries in Hunterdon, Bucks and beyond https://www.foodpantries.org/ci/nj-lambertville. Monetary donations allow them to stock what is most needed and eliminates the need for you to shop and deliver. 

    Meals on Wheels Volunteers Needed (Hunterdon) – Volunteer drivers are needed for the delivery of meals from 11 AM to 1 PM Monday through Friday. This is a vital service to some of our most vulnerable residents in Hunterdon County.  Protocols are being put into place so there isn’t face-to-face contact with the meal recipients. Details on Meals on Wheels locations will be provided to interested volunteers. If you know of any interested residents in your community, please have them contact either Human Resources Director Grace Kelly at gkelly@co.hunterdon.nj.us or Deputy Chief of Staff Brad Myhre at bmyhre@co.hunterdon.nj.us.

    Lebanon Site:
    Needs Drivers for each of the following locations:
    Clinton, Quakertown, Jutland/Pattenburg, Hampton/Glen Gardner, Califon, Tewksbury, Annandale, High Bridge and Lebanon.

    Flemington Site:
    Needs a Driver for each of the following locations:
    Senior Housing, Flemington Central, Flemington South, Flemington North, Flemington/Ringoes, Whitehouse, Frenchtown, Milford, Alexandria, Lambertville and Stockton.

    Know of other non-profit community groups aiding people in need at this time? Post in the comment below.

  • Important State and Local Coronavirus Information

    NJ Department of Labor Benefits and the Coronavirus Information page for Employees – New Jersey residents are provided with some of the most comprehensive employee benefits in the nation. New Jersey requires earned sick leave, temporary disability benefits, paid family leave insurance, and unemployment benefits. In addition, the New Jersey Assembly this week passed several bills aimed to assist those impacted by COVID-19. One bill implements a temporary unemployment program for employees who are out of work because of the coronavirus or who have to care for a sick family member or a child whose school is closed because of the virus. Full pay would be available to these employees if this bill is passed as written. Unfortunately, like the situation in New York, the New Jersey online unemployment page is overwhelmed.

    Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry Information for Workers Impacted by Coronavirus – Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor has also waived the seven-day waiting period for benefits and has published a website to assist those employees impacted by the coronavirus. Unemployment benefits are potentially available if an employer temporarily closes or goes out of business because of COVID-19, if an employer reduces working hours because of COVID-19, if an employee been told not to work because their employer feels their might get or spread COVID-19, or if an employee has been told to quarantine or self-isolate, or live/work in a county under government-recommended mitigation efforts.

    Sign up at the following links to receive emergency notifications from your State, County and Municipality 

    New Hope
    Lambertville City
    Solebury Twp
    Hunterdon County
    Bucks County
    New Jersey Department of Health’s COVID-19 Dashboard
    Pennsylvania Department of Health’s COVID-19 Alert

  • Payback Project Targets Republicans in Ten States – Join the Effort

    Contributed by Amara Willey.

    Rising out of frustration over the impeachment process, Indivisible began a campaign, Project Payback, in February to oust the Republicans who are the staunchest supporters of Donald Trump. Indivisible has identified these senators as the biggest threats to our democracy. Payback means rallying supporters in every state to elect Democratic candidates.

    In order to gain a majority in the Senate, Democrats need to pick up four seats in the Senate (three if a Democrat is elected president and the vice president takes his or her place in the Senate). Since two Democrats (in Michigan and Alabama) are also defending their seats in states Trump won, Democrats need to target a larger area in case those two aren’t re-elected.

    The eleven targeted GOP Senators are Martha McSally, Arizona; Cory Gardner, Colorado; David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia; Joni Ernst, Iowa; Mitch McConnell, Kentucky (also Senate Majority Leader); Susan Collins, Maine; Steve Daines, Montana; Thom Tillis, North Carolina; Lindsey Graham, South Carolina; and John Cornyn, Texas. 

    Arizona – Sen. McSally actually lost her bid for senator in this state, but then was appointed by the governor to fill Sen. John McCain’s seat after he passed. Arizona’s support of Trump was narrow, and Dems are feeling pretty good about some of the contenders for this seat. 

    Colorado – Things aren’t looking too good for Sen. Gardner at the moment, and his support of Trump will only hurt him in a state where Trump is not too popular. Hillary Clinton won Colorado by 5 percent of the vote in 2016, and Dems have 50,000 more registered voters than Republicans do. 

    Georgia – Stacy Abrams in her unsuccessful gubernatorial race gave some hope to flipping this state. She had wide support from younger and non-white voters, as well as women. A number of Democrats are running for this seat currently, but none are raising the kind of money that the incumbent Republican is. Abrams declined to run in this race.

    Iowa – Dems have cause to be optimistic here. Trump’s tariff threats in Mexico and Canada have affected farmers in this state. Dems flipped two house seats in 2018 and gained two statewide offices, demonstrating that this state seems to be swinging back after the 2016 election.

    Kentucky – For anyone to beat incumbent Sen. McConnell would take a miracle, but a number of Democratic candidates are giving it a go. Perhaps the mishandling of the coronavirus situation could help here, but it’s still unlikely that a Democrat will overturn this seat.

    Maine – Despite Sen. Susan Collins’ high popularity in this state, Dems are optimistic about their chances to defeat her. Whoever wins the primary will have access to $4 million of crowd-funded money raised to unseat Collins after she voted to confirm Kavanaugh.

    Montana – Democratic Sen. John Tester won reelection in 2018, but it will be more difficult for a Dem to win a Senate spot with Trump on the ballot. On March 9, Montana’s Democratic governor Steve Bullock entered the race, giving some hope to flipping this seat. Bullock, who ran for president and dropped out in December, easily won his second term as governor in 2016, even when the state overwhelmingly voted for Trump.

    North Carolina – Sen. Thom Tillis narrowly won with less than 50 percent of the vote in 2014, and in 2016 a Democrat became governor of the state. Tillis has been trying to appeal to both Dems and Republicans, but he has waffled on several issues and appears to be weak. This race may come down to who rides the coattails of the next president.

    South Carolina – This is another state where flipping the seat seems like a long shot. Although Sen. Graham has revised his original views of Trump from calling him a “race baiting, xenophobic and religious bigot” to full support, there is some hope that African Americans will help to turn this overwhelmingly red state as part of a Democratic renaissance happening in the South.

    Texas – Beto O’Rourke’s bid against Ted Cruz in the 2018 election demonstrated that Texas wasn’t as red as everyone first believed. Dems are trying to rebuild the coalition against Sen. John Cornyn. Former Congressional candidate MJ Heger is currently in that race, but there has been speculation that now that O’Rourke is out of the presidential race, he may also try for that seat. After Biden indicated that he would put O’Rourke in charge of gun control issues if he becomes president, that, however, may be a bigger carrot for O’Rourke.

    Action: This campaign is ambitious and will require a lot of grassroots activism. If you are interested in getting involved with this project, go to https://www.paybackproject.org to sign up or join the Indivisible Payback Project texting team. Donations are also being accepted. 

    Resources:

    https://onethingyoucando.com/2020/02/07/join-indivisibles-payback-project-and-target-nine-gop-senators-for-defeat-in-november-2020/
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/01/donald-trump-impeachment-republican-senate-coverup
    http://occasionalplanet.org/2020/02/03/indivisible-launches-the-payback-project/
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/12/senate-seats-most-likely-flip/
    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-democrats-have-a-candidate-in-kentucky-but-can-she-beat-mitch-mcconnell/
    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/09/steve-bullock-will-run-for-senate-in-montana-in-2020-election.html
    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lindsey-graham-2020-election-gets-2020-challenger-in-former-south-carolina-dnc-chair-jaime-harrison/

  • Join the Action Challenge!

    Commit to doing at least one or more actions each week between now and November 3. Here are a few options you can do at home, with friends over coffee or wine, or out in the street loud and proud. Have more ideas? Let us know and we’ll add them to the list. We’re working on a way for you to record your time or number of items (postcards/texts) and turn them into a collective graphic to demonstrate the awesome power of ILNH activists, so keep track and we’ll let you know when that’s ready. (PS – we’d welcome any among you of the technologically inclined that have a great idea how we can do this efficiently). 

    As the shoe guys said, JUST DO IT! 

    • Payback project: Indivisible.org – focuses on nine vulnerable Senate Republicans up for re-election. If you’re not in one of the nine Senators’ states, you can sign up through the project to text voters for GOTV, donate to the ad campaigns that will run in those states
    • Resistbot: Text “Resist” to 50409 and Resistbot finds out who represents you in Congress or your state legislature, turns your text into an email, fax, or postal letter, and delivers it to your representatives. 
    • MoveOn Texting – Be social and/or independent; ILNH is organizing we-text Wednesdays – a weekly MoveOn Texting social opportunity. We’re still working on the location, and if you’d like to host one, contact Kati Kertez. But don’t wait, you can easily knock off hundreds of texts in as little as 15 minutes anywhere you have an Internet connection (I used to do mine while on conference calls).  
    • Vote Forward: Letters to Voters – Vote Forward is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization. Our mission is to empower grassroots volunteers to help register voters from under-represented demographics and encourage them to vote. We build tools to enable Americans, wherever you live, to get unlikely-to-vote fellow citizens to the polls.
    • Postcards to Voters: Send friendly, handwritten reminders to targeted voters giving Democrats a winning edge in close, key races coast to coast.
    • Change the Conversation Together: Deep canvassing focused in Bucks County to flip the district, but these skills are important for anyone who’s serious about getting Democrats elected. Share values instead of talking points to find common ground. Contact Susan Shapiro or check the Change the Conversation Bucks Facebook page for upcoming workshops and trainings.  

  • What Comes Next in an Uncertain World

    Contributed by Deb Kline.

    One of the difficulties in putting together a monthly newsletter is that just as you declare the deadline, important news floods into the gap between then and distribution. On Friday, we woke to find the US had taken aggressive action in the assasination of Iran’s top general, Qassem Suleimani. Suleimani, a man previously unknown to the majority of Americans, was known to the intelligence community and others as masterminding many attacks across the Middle East, resulting in hundreds of deaths.  

    According to the administration, the assassination prevented an imminent attack on Americans. However, our own intelligence community and others have said the evidence of such an attack was “razor thin,” and in fact, was offered as a far-out option in retaliation for the attack on the US Embassy in Iraq, in expectation that the other options would look better and more measured. 

    The timing couldn’t be more suspect. As the negative news of the president’s holding of the Ukraine military funds ratcheted up, and more Americans stepped into the Impeach and Remove camp, suddenly we are on the brink of war with a country that only a few short years ago it seemed we were reducing the potential for armed conflict. 

    Once again we are heartbroken and angry. Some of our troops are already being sent to the region. The inept, corrupt, manipulative baby-man in the White House has delivered what we most feared. 

    What comes next from the administration and now, our enemies in the  Middle East remains to be seen. But, you and I cannot wait to take action. Just as we did after the 2016 Election, it’s now more important than ever to call our legislators, to stand with those who oppose war and gather together in support of each other.  

    Remember the name of our organization: Indivisible. We are together in this fight. If you are in despair – and who isn’t – join us as we lock arms and take action. Together, we are stronger.