Hello, Indivisible Venturans!
AUGHHH!
(2), count ‘em, (2) outrages from the political operatives on the Supreme Court right on top of each other, and organizers for MFOL and Planned Parenthood are holding a shared protest on the sidewalk in front of the Ventura County Government Center at 5:30 this evening.
Reasons why this is happening…we’ve added an article at the bottom which is as clear an explanation as any…
Keep ahead of us at tinyurl.com/VC-events!
EVENTS!
Friday – 06/24/2022 – VENTURA – “Protest for MFOL and Vigil for ROE” (5:30 pm – 7:00 pm PT) Ventura County Government Center
There are actually TWO events happening on the same day, to keep up with the pace of rampant GOP corruption coming out of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court’s ruling that the constitutional right to abortion acccess can be left to the states comes 24 hours after it ruled that concealed carry can’t be left to the states, imposing a nationwide constitutional right to conceal carry firearms. It doesn’t make sense — but that’s because this is the corrupt, far-right court that Trump packed before he left office.5:30 pm – Vigil for ROE
Our extremist Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade. Twenty-six states will likely move to ban abortion, including 13 states with trigger laws where bans have already gone into effect. Planned Parenthood Central Coast Action Fund is hosting a vigil TONIGHT at the Ventura County Government Center at 5:30pm.
Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/events/546674573599079
Please join in solidarity for the 36 million people that have lost access to safe & legal abortion care and learn what you can do to fight back!5:30 pm – Rally for MFOL
WHAT: Rally to protest SCOTUS decision on guns and political corruption in the courts- WHO: Local March For Our Lives organizers and community members
- WHEN: Friday, June 24 at 5:30 PM to 7 PM PT – WHERE: Ventura County Government Center at 800 S Victoria Ave, Ventura, CA 93009. Meet at the center patio between Hall of Justice and Hall of Administration.
- ACTION: Contact your legislators: https://bit.ly/MFOLCourt
- More Information: The People Are Supreme: March For Our Lives Rally to be Held at Ventura Courthouse in Protest of Dangerous Supreme Court Decision on Guns
Tens of thousands nationwide marched for their lives this month and we won’t stop until our voices are heard. Today, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the gun lobby in the most significant second amendment case in 15 years, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, a decision that will kill people and undermine states’ rights to create gun safety laws that protect their citizens. In response, local March For Our Lives organizers and community members will rally outside of the courthouse in Ventura on Friday, June 24 to protest the overt political corruption that led to this decision.
This decision is the result of partisan elected officials in Washington unethically ramming through three conservative nominees to the court and decades of manipulation by the NRA, which donated millions to confirm Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. This extreme and dangerous ruling will cost lives.
We are part of an active network of organizers nationwide who are fed up with our institutions allowing senseless, preventable gun violence. Hundreds of thousands across the country marched for their lives this month, and we will continue to take action, not only to pass gun reform in the Senate, but to protect our right to safety at the courthouse and ballot box.
#ThePeopleAreSupreme #EndGunViolence #VenturaCounty #Ventura #Camarillo #Fillmore #Moorpark #Ojai #Oxnard #PortHueneme #SantaPaula #SimiValley #ThousandOaks #SanBuenaventuraFriday – 06/24/2022 – THOUSAND OAKS – “The People are Supreme” (5:30 pm – 7:00 pm PT) The Promenade at Westlake
This week, a far-right extremist Supreme Court issued two decisions that will literally cost American lives –gutting women’s rights while handing a gift to the gun lobby that will create a more dangerous, violent nation. In response, Women United for Change and Indivisible: Conejo will rally at the corner of Westlake and Thousand Oaks Boulevards to protest SCOTUS extremism and the right-wing political corruption that has led to these decisions.
These decisions result directly from Republicans in Washington unethically ramming through three conservative nominees to the court. Now it’s time for us to take action, demanding that Roe v. Wade and real, substantial gun reforms are codified by Congress–and that the Supreme Court is reformed to end the tyranny of extremist justices who are out of step with the vast majority of Americans.
Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/events/558646002306222/Friday – 06/24/2022 – SANTA BARBARA – “VIGIL FOR ROE” (5:30 pm – 7:00 pm PT)
https://www.facebook.com/events/1119112455614492/
Saturday – 06/25/2022 – THOUSAND OAKS – “Feria de Ciudadanía Gratuita ” (9:00 – 11:00 am PT) Saint Pashal Baylon Church, 155 E. Janss Rd. T.O.
Saturday – 06/25/2022 – SANTA PAULA – “Solidarity with Survivors” (10:00 am PT) Santa Paula Police Dept., 214 S. 10th St.
Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/events/698649404809825
Saturday – 06/25/2022 – OXNARD – “Stonewall Dems of VC Annual PRIDE Awards Celebration Mixer” (6:00 pm – 8:00 pm PT)
The Stonewall Dems of Ventura County invite you to join us for our Annual Pride Awards Meeting and Pride Month Celebration Mixer.
We will be meeting in person this meeting for food, beverages and featuring an evening of special guests, Stonewall Dems Pride Awards, exciting fundraising, and PRIDE! Directly following Oxnard Pride happening in Plaza Park that same day.
Meeting will take place at the GOOD Club Field Center.
Stay tuned for all the details as they evolve.
To donate to our club:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/stonewallvc…
To join our club free of charge:
https://docs.google.com/…/18-vBSK7V2UDEljfkO…/prefill
Please contact us with any questions or to donate an item to our silent auction at:
vcstonewall@gmail.com.
Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/events/358145029747731Sunday – 06/26/2022 – OXNARD – “Swap Meet Justice Citizenship, Family Resource and Expungement Clinic” (9:00 pm – 3:00pm PT) Oxnard College, 4000 S. Rose Avenue, near the gym.
Please advertise this event to those in your social media who are eligible to get any version of the COVID vaccine (1st, 2nd, or either booster). Disability Rights California is providing funding for a $50 gift card and a voucher for a lunch from Tacos Juarez (!!!) at the Swap Meet to the first 300 people who get vaccinated at the clinic at our fair, that day. No rain-checks.This is a PER-PERSON offer, not per family! It is FIRST COME – FIRST SERVED. Youngest age is 12 years old. People do not need to be county residents, or documented. The County asks that people bring a form of documentation that has their name on it, which doesn’t have to be a government issued one, and proof of age. This amazing giveaway is in addition to our normal free monthly resources available to the community, which are listed on our new website!: swapmeetjustice.orgHere are the Ventura County Public Health agency’s flyers for the vaccination clinic in English and Spanish.
Sunday – 06/26/2022 – ONLINE EVENT – “The Janes Virtual Screening with Jane Founder, Heather Booth” (10:00 am – 1:00 pm PT)
About this event
Join us for a virtual screening of The Janes documentary about a fierce group of women who went underground to provide safe abortions for women who needed them. Afterward, we will be joined by The Janes founder, Heather Booth, Planned Parenthood Advocacy Project Los Angeles, and Black Women for Wellness to discuss the documentary, answer questions, and actions we can take to control our future and protect the most vulnerable & disenfranchised.
About the movie:
In the spring of 1972, police raided an apartment on the South Side of Chicago where seven women who were part of a clandestine network were arrested and charged. Using code names, fronts, and safe houses to protect themselves and their work, the accused had built an underground service for women seeking safe, affordable, illegal abortions. They called themselves “Jane.”
Directed by Oscar-nominee Tia Lessin (HBO’s Trouble the Water) and Emmy-nominee Emma Pildes (HBO’s Jane Fonda in Five Acts), The Janes offers first-hand accounts from the women at the center of the group, many speaking on the record for the first time.
The Janes tells the story of a group of unlikely outlaws. Defying the state legislature that outlawed abortion, the Catholic Church that condemned it, and the Chicago Mob that was profiting from it, the members of Jane risked their personal and professional lives to help women in need. In the pre-Roe v. Wade era –– a time when abortion was a crime in most states and even circulating information about abortion was a felony in Illinois –– the Janes provided low-cost and free abortions to an estimated 11,000 women.
Schedule
10 AM – movie screening
12 PM Panel discussion Q&A with Heather Booth, Kimberly Robinson, Community Liaison Northern California Office, Black Women for Wellness and Jamie Kennerk, Public Affairs Specialist for Planned Parenthood Advocacy Project Los Angeles County (PPAP)
*All times are Pacific
RSVP at https://www.mobilize.us/trnindivisible/event/471413/
Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/events/685972425780701Sunday – 06/26/2022 – OXNARD – “Community Care Event” (1:00 – 3:00 pm PT) Lion’s Park, Oxnard
If you are able, please consider donating to our Venmo @surjvc so we can continue to have our Community Care Events. We are accepting donations of non-perishable pantry items, fresh fruit or vegetables, eggs, hygiene products, warm clothing, socks, ponchos, backpacks, or other useful items for the unhoused community.
Reach out to Nicolette at nicolettemarie311@gmail.com if you would like to donate items or volunteer.
Sunday – 06/26/2022 – CAMARILLO – “Camarillo Pride” (11:00 – 4:00pm PT) Pitts Ranch Park, 1400 Flynn Rd
Camarillo Pride 2022
Welcome to the first-ever Camarillo Pride, family-friendly event! We have booked a space in hopes of accommodating those in the community who would like to connect, interact, learn, and share their beautiful identities and families.
As of now, we’re looking to have:
-inflatable jump house/obstacle course,
-face-painting,
-It Gets Better Camarillo- Coming Out Stories
-CPR demonstrations,
-an information booth of local businesses services welcoming gay, bisexual, pansexual, queer, transgender, and other individuals
– and more
This event is focused on providing a free and safe space for members of our Camarillo and surrounding communities and their families. We’d like you to feel welcomed and able to connect with like-minded people. We’d like you to be able to learn something new and make new friends.
We are hosting this on a volunteer and donation basis. More details coming soon! #beyou #CamPride2022 (https://allevents.in/camarillo/camarillo-pride-2022/200022589851701)
ACTIONSThe Supreme Court is deleting democracy.
– Action #1: Expand and rebalance this lawless Court with H.R. 2584/S.1141 – Judiciary Act of 2021. It no longer represents the American public.
– Action #2: Supreme Court justices should not be above the law. “YES” on the Judicial Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act and the Supreme Court Ethics Act.
– Action #3: Chat with Joe.
– Action #4: Help fund non-profit organizations that help women access healthcare, in Texas and beyond.
POST: https://indivisibleventura.org/2022/06/24/the-supreme-court-is-deleting-democracy/
March for Our Lives – Actions to take now!
The Senate GOP is giving the nod to the least they can get away with beyond “thoughts and prayers”, and the NRA-captive SCOTUS just handed down another spurious 2nd Amendment decision, allowing concealed carry without cause. Be heard. Call your legislators and make sure your friends and relatives in RED states are calling theirs. Stay tuned – there will be local actions across the country happening as early as tomorrow.
POST: https://indivisibleventura.org/2022/06/23/update-6-23-22-march-for-our-lives-actions-to-take-now/
PHONEBANKS, TEXT BANKS, POSTCARDSFriday – 06/24/2022 – ONLINE TEXT BANK – “Abortion Access National Textbankrite Letters for Beto” (4:00 pm – 5:00 pm PT)
Join Supermajority for a text bank into the state of Michigan. We will be contacting women ahead of their primary in August.
Why Michigan? It’s one of Supermajority’s 5 target state’s this election cycle. Michigan has dangerous trigger language on the books that may make abortion inaccessible in the state if folks don’t turn out to vote. Right now there is an opportunity to get an initiative on the ballot that would protect access to abortion and with the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, it’s increasingly important that we do everything we can do make sure that Michiganders engage and in their primary.
No worries if you’ve never texted before, staff will be on hand to train you and assist with any issues.
Mobilize link: https://www.mobilize.us/mobilize/event/473001/
Friday – 06/24/2022 – ONLINE LETTER WRITING – “Write Letters for Beto” (3:30 pm – 4:30 pm PT)
Sign up here to join a Beto for Texas Letter Writing Party!
Letter Writing parties are a great opportunity to meet other Beto for Texas volunteers and get trained on our letter writing process. After a brief training, we’ll all write letters together!
Facebook link: https://www.mobilize.us/betofortexas/event/427673/Sunday – 06/26/2022 – PHONE BANK – “Phone bank to Register Voters in CA-27 (formerly CA-25)!” (3:00 pm – 5:00 pm PT)
Join Field Team 6 in calling eligible voters (likely Democrats) in Californa’s 27th district (formerly CA-25)! You’ll be targeting Mike Garcia, a Republican who voted to overturn the Biden election results. Join us as we turn voices into votes!
Making sure people are registered to vote is a super-effective way to make a difference. In 2022, we can flip this seat back to a Democrat.
Whether you are an experienced phone banker or this is your first time, join us to make calls. We need your help. We’ll provide training on both the script and how to use our phone bank platform.
Mobilize links:
- Field Team 6: https://www.mobilize.us/mobilize/event/376397/
- CA Dem Party: https://www.mobilize.us/mobilize/event/436453/
Sunday – 06/26/2022 – ONLINE LETTER WRITING – “Write Letters for Beto” (12:30 pm – 2:00 pm PT)
Sign up here to join a Beto for Texas Letter Writing Party!
Letter Writing parties are a great opportunity to meet other Beto for Texas volunteers and get trained on our letter writing process. After a brief training, we’ll all write letters together!
Facebook link: https://www.mobilize.us/betofortexas/event/427673/JOIN THE POSTCARD BRIGADE!!
You Can Make a Difference! Do you want to help Democrats win in the 2022 elections? You can write Get Out The Vote (GOTV) postcards to help get Democratic voters to the polls! Studies have shown that receiving a colorful postcard with a short punchy message is the most effective way to persuade a voter to get to the polls.
One of Indivisible Ventura’s members is working with Postcards to Swing States (PSS) to coordinate GOTV postcarding focused on Senate races in swing states. PSS identifies the campaigns, writes the message, and provides the voter names and addresses. She will provide the cards and, if needed, the stamps.
If you want to participate, please send an email to her at ivpostcards@gmail.com. She will add you to her writer roster and email you a description of the campaigns she is currently running. You decide which campaigns you want to join and specify the number of cards you want. If you live locally, you may collect your supplies from her address in Ventura. She can also will snail mail your packet to you.Resist every damn day!
– Debby Millais, Postcard Wrangler
READING
(https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/supreme-court-dobbs-roe-wade-obergefell-marriage-equality.html) The Supreme Court’s decision on Friday overruling Roe v. Wade is a devastating blow to individual autonomy and women’s equality, a horrific assault on liberty that will inflict unspeakable suffering and death in the states that are already criminalizing abortion. That decision, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, marks the culmination of a decadeslong battle against reproductive freedom.
But it also constitutes the start of another crusade—an all-out assault on the many other rights that are “all part of the same constitutional fabric,” as the liberal justices put it in dissent. With Dobbs, the majority has torn down the entire doctrine protecting gay rights, marriage, and contraception, among other personal liberties. These rights are now in grave and immediate jeopardy.
In case there was any doubt about this fact, Justice Clarence Thomas spelled it out in his concurring opinion calling on the Supreme Court to overrule Griswold v. Connecticut (protecting birth control), Lawrence v. Texas (protecting same-sex intimacy), and Obergefell v. Hodges (protecting same-sex marriage). Thomas helpfully spelled out the doctrinal implications of Dobbs: Beginning today, every progressive constitutional victory rooted in individual liberty is up for grabs.
The basic threat is easy to grasp. For more than a century, a debate has raged over how courts should define the “liberty” guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Some say it protects unenumerated rights, but only those deemed “fundamental” in 1868 when the amendment was ratified. Others say it also safeguards modern rights which are “so fundamental that the state must accord them its respect.” The court relied on this second conception of liberty in Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell, as well as other cases like Skinner v. Oklahoma (barring involuntary sterilization) and Loving v. Virginia (safeguarding interracial marriage).
In Dobbs, though, Justice Sam Alito flatly rejected this vision of ever-evolving liberty: For the court to recognize unenumerated rights, he wrote, they must be “deeply rooted in the nation’s history and traditions” with a high level of specificity. Many states, he asserted, criminalized abortion around 1868, so reproductive freedom cannot possibly be a component of constitutional liberty. (There are, in fact, many errors and misunderstandings in his historical analysis, but the justice doesn’t care.) In Roe, Alito concluded, the Supreme Court created a right that does not exist, deciding a question “that the Constitution unequivocally leaves for the people.”
The flaw in this reasoning—aside from its historical dilettantism and cruel disregard for the lives it will destroy—is that it flatly contradicts precedent. In Obergefell, the court explained: “The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times.” Thus, the Framers “entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.” The Constitution must be read to protect “intimate and personal decision[s]” that are “central to personal dignity and autonomy.” In short, an “emerging awareness” of individual freedom may gain constitutional stature—even when it was not on the minds of the men who wrote the 14th Amendment.
Alito overruled this doctrine in Dobbs. If constitutional liberty really guaranteed “a broader right to autonomy,” he wrote, it could also “license fundamental rights to illicit drug use, prostitution, and the like.” These are really “policy arguments” on which the court has no “authority to weigh.” So unless a right has “deep roots” in “the specific practices of states at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment,” it is totally unprotected.
With this conclusion, Alito all but declared that decisions like Obergefell and Lawrence v. Texas (striking down sodomy bans) are next on the chopping block. Yet the justice tried to obscure this fact with empty rhetoric. Abortion, unlike every other purported right, “destroys” the “life of an unborn human being,” the justice wrote. So “nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”
The dissenters—Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, writing jointly—rebuked Alito’s faux assurances with a mix of fury and fear. “Should the audience for these too-much-repeated protestations be duly satisfied?” they asked. “We think not. … Either the majority does not really believe in its own reasoning. Or if it does, all rights that have no history stretching back to the mid-19th century are insecure. Either the mass of the majority’s opinion is hypocrisy, or additional constitutional rights are under threat. It is one or the other.”
The majority’s “sole reason for overturning Roe and Casey,” after all, was because “the law offered no protection to the woman’s choice in the 19th century.” And “here is the rub”:
The law also did not then (and would not for ages) protect a wealth of other things. It did not protect the rights recognized in Lawrence and Obergefell to same-sex intimacy and marriage. It did not protect the right recognized in Loving to marry across racial lines. It did not protect the right recognized in Griswold to contraceptive use. For that matter, it did not protect the right recognized in Skinner v. Oklahoma not to be sterilized without consent. So if the majority is right in its legal analysis, all those decisions were wrong. … And if that is true, it is impossible to understand (as a matter of logic and principle) how the majority can say that its opinion today does not threaten—does not even “undermine”—any number of other constitutional rights.
Don’t believe it, the dissenters warned, when Alito insists the court can “neatly extract the right to choose from the constitutional edifice without affecting any associated rights.” That lie is akin to “someone telling you that the Jenga tower simply will not collapse.” And even if Alito were telling the truth, law has a way of “actually following where logic leads, rather than tolerating hard-to-explain lines.” The dissenters “cannot understand how anyone can be confident that today’s opinion will be the last of its kind.”
For good measure, the liberal justices also pointed out that Alito recently joined Thomas’ opinion “lamenting that Obergefell deprived states of the ability” to “resolve” same-sex marriage “through legislation.” Moreover, “those two justices hardly seemed content to let the matter rest: The court, they said, had ‘created a problem that only it can fix.’ ”
We know at least two-fifths of the Dobbs majority wants to overrule Obergefell. We also know that Thomas wants to overrule every single decision that rests on constitutional “liberty,” because he does not believe that guarantee encompasses any “substantive rights.” The only remaining question is whether these justices can attract three more votes. In his mealy-mouthed concurrence, Kavanaugh pinky-promised that overruling Roe “does not mean the overruling of those precedents” inextricably linked to Roe. Then again, Kavanaugh also apparently told Sen. Susan Collins that he would not overrule Roe, and look how that turned out. His assurances of restraint, dubious from the start, now ring hollower than ever.
The conservative legal movement scored its single greatest victory on Friday when the Supreme Court rewarded its relentless assault on a precedent that most Americans thought was settled. That movement will now devote its energy to toppling other precedents that, at this moment, many consider to be sacrosanct, or at least settled. Any statements to the contrary by the court’s far-right bloc are not to be believed. Less than four years ago, Kavanaugh told the nation, under oath, that he believed Roe was “settled,” then proceeded to unsettle it at the earliest opportunity. No constitutional right favored by progressives is safe from this Supreme Court’s wrecking ball
Please DONATE to the cause!
Indivisible Ventura is completely volunteer run and your donation will support the direct costs of organizing in Ventura — things like expenses for Swap Meet Justice, posters, art supplies, stamps, transportation, and more! Although we’ve defeated Trump and taken back the Senate, we have to act urgently to save our democracy and enact other desperately needed reforms. Getting it done depends on all of us. Let’s stand together, indivisible. Indivisible Ventura is one of 6,000 grassroots Indivisible groups across the country. Together, we will win. (https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ven383907253)
The usual caveats…
Keep ahead of us on our calendar scroll here: tinyurl.com/VC-events
• If we screw up a link, our apologies. You can find the original post here: tinyurl.com/VC-events
• We’re putting up information on local protests and actions by others we’re finding from informal sources.
These listings are not endorsements nor guarantees as to time/place/type of protest or participant safety. Events can and have already been cancelled without notice.
• Check ahead for future events there as well. We often miss morning event postings.
• If we screw up or miss information about an event, please send an email to indivisibleventura@gmail.com.
