Blog Archives

Mad about your utility bills? Join our allies from TURN in Davis, CA March 2 to protest!

2/22/2017

Dear Friends:

Please join our allies with The Utility Reform Network at a special meeting of the Public Utilities Commission on March 2 in Davis, CA

Take Action!

If you are hopping mad about your outrageous PG&E gas bill—You are not alone!

We need your help to stop the California Public Utilities Commission from granting PG&E rate hike after rate hike that are driving utility disconnections, homelessness, and forcing families to choose between paying for heat or paying for food and medicine.

Protest outrageous bills and fight future rate hikes!

   1)   BRING YOUR BILL!   Have your voice heard in person by the five Commissioners at the next CPUC meeting. You will have two minutes to tell them how much your PG&E gas bill has increased, and what your family must sacrifice in order to get it paid.

PUBLIC MEETING WITH THE CA PUC

CPUC Public Meeting
9:00 Thursday, March 2
UC Davis, Appellate Courtroom
King Hall 400 Mrak Hall Drive
Davis, CA

   2)   SIGN A PETITION! Tell the Commissioners to stop approving outrageous rate increases that double your bills by signing here.

   3)   FILE A CPUC COMPLAINT! Make the CPUC review your individual bill to find PG&E mistakes that might result in a credit or refund on your bill here.

   4)   SPREAD THE WORD! Share our petition on Twitter and Share on Facebook!

Your actions today can prevent outrageous rate hikes tomorrow!

Sincerely,
Ana Montes, TURN
The Utility Reform Network
785 Market Street, Suite 1400
San Francisco, CA 94103
office: 415.929.8876
http://www.turn.org

Please take advantage of this opportunity to be heard. Your voice can make a difference!

Thank you.

0 Comments

Two federal bills that begin the assault on older Americans. Please oppose them!

2/16/2017

0 Comments

Dear Friends:

Two actions, a joint House Resolution and a bill, start the assault on America’s aging population.

First, as a step in changing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), HR 708 would permit the reinstatement of “risk rates”. These are actuarial justifications for charging some people higher rates than others. HR 708 is an “Age Tax” that lets insurance companies charge us more as we get older (which ought to be a very good thing!) without any other consideration.
An “Age Tax” presumes that every older person is a burden on the system which, in this day and age of careful prevention and healthy ways of life, is not remotely accurate. Such a presumption opens the door to restoring the ban on coverage for pre-existing conditions. These aspects of health coverage denial and unaffordability were eliminated from ACA for very good reasons. They put health care financially out of the reach of older people and let insurance companies “cherry pick” only the healthy to cover.
We need you to contact both your Representative and your two Senators to stop the “Age Tax” now!

The second issue, HJR 66, attacks a program we worked to obtain in CA – California Secure Choice. This program, passed last year, enrolls employees of any business that has no retirement plan into Secure Choice. Unless employees opt out, they will have an automatic deduction of 3% of their earnings put into the state Public Employee Retirement System pool of investments so that upon retirement they will have a nest egg to supplement their Social Security.
California Secure Care and similar programs offer congregations and faith organizations a way of helping their staff and clergy obtain pension coverage when they otherwise cannot afford to do so. This is a great boon to us as well as to the fast food workers, cleaners, hotel housekeepers, and every other low-wage employee or those working for impoverished organizations. Retirement security just became real!
No one is forced to participate if they choose not to do so; loans for emergencies may be withdrawn during the pre-retirement years and repaid on very easy terms, and participants will have the safety and security of the PERS fund to protect their pensions just as state workers do now. This is at no cost to either the employer or to taxpayers.
But Congress is dead set against this plan, now in effect in 6 states and in preparation within 19 more. It does erode private retirement plan dominance, a good thing for working people if not for those plans. Employers always have the option of setting up their own traditional plans, but for those who cannot or do not, employees are automatically covered. Protecting investors not working people is behind this joint resolution.
Please contact your Senators and ask them to vote against HJR 66 and permit working people the option of participating in their state’s retirement system.
Are your representatives and Senators already on your side? Let them hear anyway! They need numbers to hold up to opposition to make clear that the weight of public opinion is on our side!
Please take advantage of the Congressional break this coming week, February 18-25 to contact your federal legislators in the district. To find their local contact information, please go to our site:   http://www.churchimpact.org/take-action.html

We have a real chance to protect two programs we use, health and retirement, but we must act now to make sure these bills do not pass.
Raise your voice! Make a difference!

Thank you!

0 Comments

Congress at home this coming week. Tell them to save our health care!

2/15/2017

0 Comments

Dear Friends:

Congress is in recess (sigh) from February 18th-25th. This means your Representative will be "at home" for you to contact.

This is the perfect moment to find if they are holding Town Halls you may attend and to call or visit their local offices. The key issue before them on policy is still and always the fate of our health care system. We have actually heard - not making this up - that some clueless Representatives think they can pretend to be eradicating "Obamacare" while preserving the best of the "Affordable Care Act" in their fantasy replacement plan.

Call it what you will, the ACA has been a lifeline for millions and cannot be unraveled easily. Take away any of the pieces, the rest falls apart. What we need are improvements for the parts that work less well - pharmaceutical cost containment through bulk purchases of drugs; greater cost control on premiums even as subsidies keep pace. (That's just good stewardship of our health care spending.) We also need actual disbursement of billions from Congress to pay providers for care already offered so the system remains solvent and on an even keel. The failure to pay into the system for subsidies and reimbursements is simply obstructionism. No law has been passed, no budget items have changed, and this is just petty politics to make ACA appear to be insolvent when it is not.

With all these issues in mind, please let your voices be heard. We want to preserve and improve ACA this year. We don't want to repeal or replace!

You may remember from our early days of advocacy for a universal health plan that we and Faithful Reform in Health Care created four principles we want to see in any program or policy:

1. Inclusive. It must cover everyone.

2. Affordable. It must support the Common Good by offering comprehensive plans that are affordable for individuals, families, our society.

3. Accessible. Plans must be available and usable by everyone in every walk of life and every part of the nation.

4. Accountable. Our provision of care as well as our spending must be transparent and open to critique for improvement.

ACA is still a work in progress, especially in many states that did not set up a state option. But it was constructed with these four principles in mind, and we know that because we worked in national coalitions speaking directly to those crafting the plan and to those who would ultimately administer it. Our voices were heard then. They must be heard now! These four principles are essential to quality care, and we will not settle for less.

To contact your House Representative, please go to:

http://www.churchimpact.org/take-action.html

Call your district offices to find out about Town Halls or to set a visit during the week your Representative is in town. If you are directed to staff, that's fine. They can be great advocates for your views with their employer. Are your Representatives friendly to protecting ACA? Let them know you appreciate that and want them to stand firmly on protecting ACA. They need your voice and position so they can say to uncertain colleagues that they heard from XXX numbers of constituents. Every voice therefore counts no matter who your Representative may be.

Down the line, your congregation may want to host a community forum or town hall, and you are free to do so. This is educational information on democratic issues all within your rights as an organization of faith. You may arrange that through your Representative's district office, too.

In this upcoming week, take every opportunity to Save Our Health Care through your actions. It's a great opportunity to be heard. Please seize the moment!

Thank you!

0 Comments

Assault on immigrants needs your witness - please join us and out allies for justice

2/14/2017

0 Comments

Dear Friends:

No one can watch the waves of arrests of immigrants this past week without a shudder of fear. Under the pretext that those being arrested are criminals – the worst of the worst – Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested over 700 people in a series of blitzkrieg assaults on people they claimed were both undocumented and criminals. They also claimed that it was continuing the policies of the previous administration, and that is not true.

The raids were carried out simultaneously in several states. Unlike previous arrests, the “collateral damage” swept up anyone in proximity regardless of status and for whom no warrants existed. They merely had to appear to be immigrants. Whole apartment complexes were turned out, people were fingerprinted without a shred of concern for their status, and workplaces were raided even again as no warrants existed for anyone other than a specific person. Checkpoints at intersections and highways stopped people demanding “papers” that not everyone carries. Such people were swept up and arrested.

Of those with some kind of record, the majority appear to have been for minor crimes, not for felonies. It did not matter. No one present at a raid was spared.

Now we get word that a new Executive Order will use false information to promote a policy denying green card status to entirely lawfully present people who have followed the rules and are asking to be permanent residents with, for many, hopes of citizenship.

The pretext is not that they are a burden to our society but that they might be. Using the utterly discredited idea that immigrants are a charge on our social service system – when in fact they contribute far more than they ever get – those who ordinarily would obtain a green card for long-term residence can now be denies if they might someday obtain a means-tested public benefit.

This means natural-born children of immigrants who are already eligible for health care and other services will also be denied or the acceptance of health care, food assistance, etc. used against their parents’ ability to obtain permanent residence. All this is in the Executive Order being created by the White House, despite a detailed study by the Center for American Progress that showed immigrants overall documented and lawfully present, use far fewer public services than the rest of the population.

With ICE raids increasing and lawful presence now threatened to those who ‘played by the rules’, families are being torn apart. Citizens, mostly but not exclusively young children, are losing their parents to deportation and being eft stranded in the United States.

You shall love the alien as yourself. Lev. 19:34

You shall not deprive the resident alien…of justice. Deut.24:17.

We are called as people of justice and people of faith to stand against the cruelty of dehumanizing immigrants. Whether they are lawfully present or not, they are human beings seeking what every immigrant who came here has wanted – a chance for a safer, better life.
These raids and the proposed ban on permanent residency for using resources into which immigrants have paid is a travesty of our entire idea of justice. President James Madison asserted that aliens owe temporary obedience to our laws and in return are entitled to Constitutional protections. In 1981 the Supreme Court denied Texas the right to ban immigrant children from school. In 2001 in Zadvydas v Davis the Court again ruled that the due process of the 14th Amendment applies to everyone whose presence may be or is “unlawful, involuntary, or transitory.”

These presumptions of right are now being ignored.

We urge you and your congregations to consider the many ways in which you might help. Normal advocacy such as calling the White House is not available. The White House phone line has been eliminated. There are other ways to comment, however. Whether they are read and forwarded to the president is not clear, but here are the options:

www.whitehouse.gov/contact or send a message through Facebook Messenger. For government information by topic, visit www.usa.gov or call 1-800-FED-INFO

In addition, we encourage every congregation and concerned individual to become familiar with the Sanctuary work of our key allies in the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity.

http://www.im4humanintegrity.org/sanctuary-resources/

Sanctuary is not without risk, especially in these days of unknown consequences. IM4HI has done excellent preparation work giving you the best legal and moral guidance on whether your congregation should participate and what you can do and how you can do it. We do not encourage individuals to do this until every factor is known, but congregations, together, have much greater presence and power than isolated homes.

You will see their office numbers and addresses as well as the guide to Sanctuary on these web pages.

We must do what we can for justice for all people no matter who they may be.

“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of those who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Mat, 25:40.

Do all you can, howsoever you can, for as long as you can.

Thank you!

0 Comments

Did you March on January 21? Senator Dianne Feinstein wants to know why!

2/1/2017

0 Comments

Dear Friends:

We are passing this on from our members in Southern California. Do with it what you like.

"To All Those Who Participated in the Women's Marches: THIS MAY BE VERY IMPORTANT

Sen. Dianne Feinstein wants to hear from YOU. She has gotten a week's delay of the Jeff Sessions confirmation vote.

For real—this is not a random cut n paste FB meme, but a direct request from her Chief of Staff.

Basically: FEINSTEIN WANTS 2-4 SENTENCES FROM MARCHERS EXPLAINING WHY YOU MARCHED AND WHAT IT MEANT.

She will be incorporating messages AND most likely the sheer NUMBER of emails she gets, in her opening statement at the Sessions hearing for the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Send emails to:

Sean_Elsbernd@feinstein.senate.gov, Caitlin_Meyer@feinstein.senate.gov

Subject line: WHY I MARCHED

Thanks for speaking out.

Please copy, paste and share this message widely. Thank you!

0 Comments

Mad about your utility bills? Join our allies from TURN in Davis, CA March 2 to protest!

Two federal bills that begin the assault on older Americans. Please oppose them!

Congress at home this coming week. Tell them to save our health care!

Assault on immigrants needs your witness - please join us and out allies for justice

Did you March on January 21? Senator Dianne Feinstein wants to know why!

Author

Archives

Categories