November 9, 2024
Sadness, Then Renewal
by Linda Bobrin

This past week has been a roller coaster. I felt so joyful and certain leading up to the election that this was it, history would happen. The deep disappointment that followed has been overwhelming. I know I am not alone in this feeling. I’ve seen the many posts on social media as well as the emails and text messages sharing the sense of sadness.

It will take some time to regroup and to feel up to moving forward.

There is a tendency to rethink the campaign and to discuss what went wrong. There will be plenty of time for that in the coming months. In the meantime, I think we all need a break.

The amount of work you all did was phenomenal. Yes, it wasn’t enough to win, but it was important, and it was inspiring. As an organization we got approximately 60 new volunteers, we received donations higher than in past years and we were able to door knock, phone bank, postcard and more.

I am hoping we can keep up that level of activism as we move forward. It is appealing to just say no more, I’m done. Believe me, I’ve thought about that as much as anyone. But we cannot give in or give up. There are going to be big fights ahead. We will be unhappy with a lot of what’s coming but we had wins the last time this happened and we will hopefully have more in the future.

In the near future, we have municipal races and county row races in 2025. We need to focus on our local municipalities and win those seats.

We will need to lean on each other in the coming weeks and months and try to keep each other focused on the races ahead. If we give up, we lose. I hope you will join me in the upcoming fight. I need all of you to keep me going. At the moment, I too am feeling a deep sense of grief and disappointment in my country. Perhaps the focus of our next fight will help us move forward.

I thank each and every one of you who worked on this campaign. Your work and commitment is deeply appreciated. We live to fight another day. I look forward to seeing you next week at our Newtown Dems meeting.

With deep respect and affection, I thank you and look forward to working with you in the future.

Sincerely,

Linda

November 8, 2024
Flood Insurance Task Force Recommendation Advances

Acting on a recommendation from the Flood Insurance Premium Assistance Task Force, State Rep. Perry Warren successfully amended a Senate bill to add two hours of flood insurance training to the continuing education requirements of insurance brokers.

S.B. 1241, sponsored by state Sen. Chris Gebhard, R-Berks/Lancaster/Lebanon, deals with pre-examination education requirements for insurance producer licensees. The bill passed the House and is now back in the state Senate for a concurrence vote. As vice-chair of the House Insurance Committee, Warren proposed the flood insurance continuing education amendment in the committee.

The House passed this bill as Hurricane Milton was approaching landfall in the United States. The Flood Insurance Premium Assistance Task Force, with Warren and State Sen. Steve Santarsiero as members, met throughout the first half of this year to work to lower the rates of flood insurance and mitigate the impact of floods for residents and municipalities. This amendment implements one of the recommendations of the task force. "I look forward to working with my colleagues in both chambers to continue to enact the recommendations," said Warren.

The Flood Insurance Premium Assistance Task Force was created by Act 22 of 2023 as a result of legislation that Warren sponsored. Santarsiero originally proposed the task force as a member of the PA State House.

October 14, 2024
Democrats Support Unions, Republicans Do Not
by Deborah DiMicco

Joe Biden negotiated the resolution of a strike which threatened to cripple our economy in three days. Who's the dealmaker now?

The International Longshoremen’s Association walked off the job on October 1, dockworkers from Maine to Texas hitting the picket lines. The last time the ILA went on strike was in 1977. It took seven weeks to reach a settlement. The Biden administration (don’t forget that Joe Biden walked the picket line with striking auto workers) was able to help both sides reach an agreement in three days.

As the election draws ever closer, it’s important to remember whose side the presidential candidates are on. Julie Su, acting Labor Secretary said, “Over the last week and more, I have spent hours on the phone and in meetings with the parties urging them to find a way to a fair contract.” As the former president hides in his happy places on the campaign trail and on Fox News, let’s remember in 2023, the AFL-CIO noted in a press release, “Former President Trump spent four years in office weakening unions and working people while pushing tax giveaways to the wealthiest among us. He stacked the courts with judges who want to roll back our rights on the job."

As Elon Musk shares the stage with Trump at his rallies, the United Auto Workers filed federal labor charges against the former president and Elon Musk for publicly applauding the practice of firing employees who threaten to strike. Said Trump, “I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike and you say, you’re all gone. You’re all gone.”

So here’s the deal. Trump is not on our side. He is not on the side of labor, of workers, of the common man or woman trying to get ahead. It is time to vote: to vote him off the island, to purge us of this threat of the former president and his musky followers. Make them irrelevant. Their way is anti-labor, anti-middle class, anti-you and me. It is all for one, and that one ain’t us. November 5 is coming. The future is in your hands. Your mission….is to VOTE.

October 5, 2024
The Serial Predator Who Claims He Will Protect Women
by Deborah DiMicco

Is anyone else creeped out by Trump’s sudden “friend of women” riff assuring us that we will be “happy, healthy, confident and free” and that we will “no longer be thinking about abortion?”

Trump continued: “We want you to have your beautiful babies in this country. We want you to have your beautiful, perfect baby….we need them.” This is far more than, as Stephen Colbert put it, “upsetting.” This is cringing, skin crawling EEWWW. Does he think women are stupid? When one sees this grab-them-by-the-pussy sex abuser try to project Big Brother benevolence toward women, it appears that the answer is yes.

We’ve been told by JD Vance that Republicans will “create stories” and this, clearly, is just another fabrication to sucker us into voting for him even as he seeks to take away our choices, our self-determination, our independence. Trump and the MAGA conservatives he must appease see a threat by strong women who want to upend their society’s order, where the man is at the top and in charge. That creaky notion is being challenged by smart, powerful independent women who dare to disagree, who dare to see a different America, who dare to challenge the conservative, patriarchal “we know best” status quo. So Trump & Co must diminish these women. This is not limited to those in the opposing party. They even go after their own; Republican Senator Katie Britt’s rebuttal to Biden’s State of the Union address was delivered from her kitchen table, the tacit message; this is where women belong.

Kamala Harris’ candidacy (pronounced KAH mah lah, her name deliberately mispronounced by Trump and Vance in childish, deliberate insult and denigration) is the height of what these conservatives fear: a shift in power, from those who seek to take power away from women, to those who would empower them. Trump’s words of rapprochement are disingenuous, and are glaringly inconsistent with his actions. Yet Trump thinks we’ll buy it. He thinks we’re stupid. That is his biggest mistake.

September 27, 2024
Listen to the Lambs
by Deborah DiMicco

Blaming the shooter and leaving it at that will not protect our lambs, our children, from the next school shooting.

~ American Negro Spiritual

The school shooting at Apalachee High School was the 45th school shooting of 2024.

Listen to the lambs.

“I really don’t want to go back. I shouldn’t have to go back to school worrying about dying.” said a 14 year old Apalachee student.

Listen to the lambs.

At the sound of gunshots, students took refuge behind an upended teacher’s desk. One began to pray.

“Everybody was crying. Everybody was on the floor hugging each other.” Some texted their parents “I love you.” “This can’t be happening,” said another.

Oh, but it can. The 14-year-old shooter, Colt Gray, used an “AR-platform style weapon.” Since the ban on assault weapons was allowed to lapse in Congress, assault weapons have become one of America’s most popular firearms. It’s “reliable, adaptable and accurate” according to the NRA. It fires 60 rounds per minute. And it’s relatively cheap.

The four who were killed at Apalachee High School? They didn’t stand a chance.

Trump sidestepped the gun issue, saying the shooter was a “deranged, sick monster.” JD Vance says school shootings are “a fact of life.” Really? So how did this “sick monster” get his hands on a gun? How did the Uvalde shooter? The monsters are out there, and Trump and the NRA and gun-rights activists are quick to blame the shooter, completely missing the point that by refusing any kind of restrictions on gun ownership, they are aiding and abetting every single one of these shooters. Trump and his gun supporters claim they are pro-life, yet they refuse any attempts to keep guns out of the hands of the “monsters.”

Four more dead. The 45th school shooting of the year.

Listen to the children. All a-crying.

If we as a nation do not take the steps necessary to ban assault weapons, to require background checks, to enact red flag laws and safe storage laws, the “monsters” will continue to get guns. And innocent children and teachers will continue to die.

The US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, declared that firearms are the leading cause of death for children and adolescents. If we do not stand up to the NRA and the politicians in its pocket, if we do not stand up for life - for children and families at risk every day because a child simply wants to go to school and safely return home, we share the blame with Colt Gray and the many other gun-toting monsters who preceded him. And, undoubtedly, the other monsters who will follow.