Action Newsletter
DEMOCRATIC EVENTS
1. Executive Board Meeting of the Skagit County Democrats, Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012, 10 am – noon, Party Headquarters, Mount Vernon
All interested Democrats are welcome to attend. Remember that the food bank boxes always need replenishing.
2. Central Committee Meeting of the Skagit County Democrats, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012, 10 a.m. – noon, Party Headquarters, Mount Vernon
All PCOs are urged to attend. All interested Democrats are welcome, as always. We will be electing a new Vice Chair from among the PCOs to fill the vacancy created when Josie Hedgpeth took over as our Chair. We will also begin the important work that is necessary to prepare for caucuses and the county convention leading up to the critical November election. Don’t forget something for the food bank boxes.
3. New – Voter ID Phone Bank, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 6 pm, Party Headquarters, Mount Vernon
If you are new to Voter ID, we will explain the whole process and provide a phone script. Skagit County has 30,000 registered voters who have not been identified as Democrat, Republican, or Independent. We have two objectives with the Voter ID project:
- Find our Democrats so we can call them during a get-out-the-vote campaign.
- Clean up bad phone numbers, addresses, people who have moved out of the area, etc.
Please join us for an evening of camaraderie and shared “Hurray” when we find another Democrat.
Janet McKinney, Voter ID Coordinator
COMMUNITY EVENTS
1. Transition Fidalgo and Friends Meeting, Friday, Jan. 13, 7 p.m., Anacortes Public Library, 1220 10th Street, Anacortes
Climate Change: Implications for the Pacific Northwest
Please join us to hear Dr. Nick Bond, Washington State Climatologist and Principal Research Scientist, University of Washington, talk about these issues and what each of us can do to have an impact. The lecture is free and open to the public, and
is first in a series of presentations this winter sponsored by the Skagit Co. WSU Beach Watchers, promoting education and stewardship of our local marine resources. For questions regarding this lecture and future presentations, please contact WSU Beach Watcher Coordinator, Lynne Jordan (360) 428-4270 x223 or ljordan@co.skagit.wa.us.
From Transition Fidalgo and Friends, “Growing Community Resilience”, http://transitionfidalgo.org
Sandra Spargo
Defending Water in the Skagit River Basin
The Alliance for Democracy
Anacortes, Wash.
360-982-2105
2. New - MoveOn Skagit “Occupy the Courts”, Friday, Jan. 20, Saturday, Jan. 21, Mount Vernon
STAND AGAINST CORPORATE PERSONHOOD. MoveOn Skagit invites you to participate in events to protest the 2-year anniversary of the Citizens United decision which declared that corporations are people and money is free speech. On Friday January 20 the group will be rallying in front of the courthouse beginning at 11:30 am until mid afternoon. On Saturday, January 21 from 1 to 3pm they will be rallying at College Way and Riverside Drive. Please join us in making the point that money is not speech and human beings, not corporations are entitled to constitutional rights. The group will also be registering voters and gathering signatures for a petition to amend the constitution to reverse this decision at the Mt Vernon post office from 12 to 2pm Saturday the 21.
360- 540-3334 for more information.
3. New - “Occupy the Courts”, Friday, Jan. 20, 12:00 am – 11:30 pm, Federal Courthouse, 700 Stewart Street, Seattle
Move To Amend is planning bold action to mark the second anniversary of the infamous Citizens United v. FEC decision! Occupy the Courts will be a one day occupation of Federal courthouses across the country, including the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Friday January 20, 2012. Americans across the country are on the march, and they are marching OUR way. They carry signs that say, “Corporations are NOT people! Money is NOT Speech!” And they are chanting those truths at the top of their lungs! The time has come to make these truths evident to the courts.
Dress warmly and bring signs and banners between 10 am and 4 pm to show your solidarity with your fellow humans and grassroots organizations. There will be entertainment and speakers from 11 am to 2 pm. Please join us in Seattle or at a Federal Court building near you! Sign up to participate: http://movetoamend.org/occupy-courts-sign
4. New – “The Great Infection of the Sea”, Presented by Captain Charles Moore, Saturday, Jan. 21, 6 p.m., Port of Bellingham Cruise Ship Terminal, Dome Room, 355 Harris Avenue, Bellingham
A prominent seafaring environmentalist and researcher shares his shocking discovery of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the Pacific Ocean, and inspires a fundamental rethinking of the Plastic Age and a growing global health crisis.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
1. New - Support our Small Critical Access Hospitals; Contact Your State Legislators
Rural hospitals that are designated Critical Access Hospitals are currently being reimbursed by Medicaid & the State at the actual costs they incur for treatment of patients. The governor and the legislature have been considering eliminating that practice and enforcing their own reimbursement scale which does not take into account the actual costs to the hospitals. The theory behind the practice as it operates now is that Critical Access Hospitals are so designated to treat rural populations. But because they are necessarily small and in outlying areas their costs of treatment are higher than larger urban hospitals that have advantages of scale and other things going for them. This does not mean that CAHs can necessarily “charge more” just because they are small and rural. The reimbursements must be for demonstrable actual costs. Simply put, if this support for CAHs goes away, you will see several rural hospitals in serious trouble or having to close their doors. For a small hospital, the difference in reimbursements can mean the difference between operating in the black or not. If we are concerned for quality health care for ALL citizens of our State, regardless of where they live, support for CAHs should continue. Please contact your legislators and urge them to support continued full reimbursement of Critical Access Hospitals.
Senator Kevin Ranker – 360-786-7678
Representative Mary Margaret Haugen – 360-786-0410
Representative Kristine Lytton – 360-786-7800,
Representative, Representative Jeff Morris – 360-786-7970
Don Ambrose, PCO Minkler Precinct 139
2. New – Listen to We Do The Work, a Worker Radio Program, Every Monday at 5 pm on KSVR, 91.7.
For live streaming go to Live Broadcast of KSVR programs and “click here for live broadcast” on KSVR’s website to listen to the radio show through your computer.
The next 3 shows:
Monday, January 9 and 16, Parts 1 and 2:
Walmart workers who voluntarily joined the OURWalmart campaign will reveal the work conditions at Walmart and how the OURWalmart campaign proposes to convince Walmart to treat its employees with respect and to provide them with adequate wages and benefits.
Monday, January 23:
Steve Garey, President of United Steel Workers Local 12-591, will explain how unions are good for our communities, and he will tell us that workers are not responsible for the prices we all pay at gas pumps.
To hear previous programs that are archived, go to Older Broadcasts of We Do The Work within Skagit Talks.
Janet McKinney
Labor-Democrat Work Group Coordinator
3. News and Needs from Party Headquarters
- Amie with Organizing for America [OFA] is available Thursday afternoons after 1pm. Her team needs volunteers for the Obama 2012 campaign. There is much to do!
- Committees for the 2012 election are being organized. They are; convention, caucus, resolutions and Gala. If you would like to know more about or work with one of the committees, let staff at HQ know, 336-1555 or staff@skagitdemocrats.org, and we will forward your contact info to those committee chairs
Thought for the Week
Jobs, By the Numbers:
- 2…the number of years of consecutive employment growth in manufacturing, after not one single year of growth between 1997 and 2010.
- 8.5 percent…the unemployment rate, the lowest since February 2009 just after President Obama took office.
- 22…the number of consecutive months of private sector job growth.
- 12,000…the number of public sector jobs lost in December of 2011 alone.
- 212,000…the number of private sector jobs created in December of 2011 alone.
- 280,000…the number of public sector jobs lost in 2011.
- 315,000…the number of health care jobs created in 2011.
- 673,000…the number of private sector jobs lost during the entirety of the eight-year Bush presidency.
- 1,080,000…the number of net jobs created during the entirety of the eight-year Bush presidency.
- 1,600,000…the net number of jobs created during 2011, after accounting for job losses in the public sector.
- 1,900,000…the number of private sector jobs created during 2011.
IN TWO SENTENCES: In either of the past two years alone, President Obama created more private sector jobs than President Bush did during the entirety of his eight-year presidency. While today’s jobs numbers are a promising sign, it’s no time to get complacent when 14 MILLION Americans are still out of work.
From the ThinkProgress War Room
Gail Nicolls, Secretary
Skagit County Democrats
guemesgail@gmail.com
Formatting and posting by Brad Clure, Chair of Technical Committee
Skagit County Democrats
300A South 1st Street
Mount Vernon, WA 98273
360-336-1555
Email to staff: staff@skagitdemocrats.org
Send news items to news@skagitdemocrats.org