Rogan’s List for January 26, 2023

Sue Rogan

3 years ago

Bogus news sites, Medicaid recipients, House committee shenanigans, and more.

Contact all members of Congress:

Contact White House or other federal agencies:

STOP KEVIN MCCARTHY’S VENGEFUL COMMITTEE MOVES
Kevin McCarthy has moved forward with his efforts to strip Reps. Ilhan Omar, Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from their committee posts as revenge against the bipartisan effort to discipline Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene’s for encouraging violence against their colleagues. While there’s nothing to stop McCarthy from blocking Congressmen Schiff and Swalwell from the Intelligence Committee based on total lies, it will take a full House vote to keep Congresswoman Omar off Foreign Relations. Democrats have rallied around her and several Republicans have indicated they won’t back the move. Let’s contact our members of Congress, especially if we’re in Republican districts, and tell them to reject McCarthy’s gambit.
KEEP GUNS AWAY FROM KIDS
We’ve seen multiple incidents in 2023 where little children have somehow gotten their hands on guns, one nearly ending a teacher’s life. Connecticut has taken the lead in trying to avoid future tragedies of this nature with Ethan’s Law, which mandates safe storage of guns and creates stiff penalties for anyone who does not properly store and secure firearms around children. The Connecticut congressional delegation has introduced Ethan’s Law at a federal level. Let’s contact our members of Congress and tell them to co-sponsor and push for a vote on this common-sense safety measure.

LEARN ABOUT NO- AND LOW-COST ACTIVIST TECH TOOLS Whether we are interested in winning elections, supporting people who are, or advocating for change with policymakers and elected officials, we will want to hear this interview with Deepak Puri, of DemLabs, live on Sunday, January 29 at 7:30 pm EST. Deepak has been cited in Newsweek and NBC as an expert in identifying effective low- and no-cost technologies. We will meet a fascinating man who resigned from his executive positions in Silicon Valley to work pro bono helping progressive causes and candidates win with leading edge technologies. We can register here at no cost.

LEARN TO SPOT BOGUS SITES
As more local communities lose their local newspapers, tv, and radio stations, “pink slime” hyper-partisan news outlets disguised as neutral have sprung up. These bogus sites, while seeming to be local and objective, are neither, spreading misinformation and widening partisan divides. https://www.poynter.org/tfcn/2022/journalistic-meat-or-fraudulent-filler-what-is-pink-slime-journalism/ and https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/08/12/pink-slime-jounrnalism-local-news/ Here are some ways to know when a site is bogus and what to do. https://getpocket.com/collections/how-to-spot-a-bogus-news-site To find out more about how to determine the credibility of news sources we can also check out the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to fostering better critical news consumption.

MEDICAID RECIPIENTS AT RISK The number is uncertain, but the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that between 5.3 and 14.2 million people will lose their Medicaid coverage due to the end of “continuous coverage” mandated by Congress on Dec. 29, 2022 as part of a “spending” bill and set to take effect on March 31. NPR puts the number at 6 to 8 million. “Continuous coverage,” adopted as a pandemic measure, relieved Medicaid recipients of mandatory disenrollment/reenrollment along with other administrative burdens, all of which had made getting Medicaid an ordeal and ensured reduced use of this program; continuous coverage dramatically increased the number of people covered by medical insurance. We need to urge the leaders of the Department of Health and Human Services at 1-877-696-6775 or @SecBecerra to join the epidemiologists in acknowledging that the pandemic is not “over” and press the federal government to keep this option for all who need it.