Why? Why Now?
Why Letters and Postcards?
Our republic is in danger from within. What can we, you and I, individual citizens, do about this? The answer depends upon us and our perspective of elected officials.
Begin with what appears to be the prevalent model for liberals and members of the Democratic party. That model seems to be patterned after advanced weapons of war: Fire and Forget. Change one word to: Elect and Forget. We elect them into office and we forget about them until the next election. We take little to no action for the purpose of guiding their behavior. We don’t tell them our goals and needs. We neglect to tell them what we think of the things going on within the halls of government.
Oh, we may visit various political forums such as Facebook and twitter, and post our opinions. But does that have any effect? Do any of our elected officials have sufficient staff to count up all the tweets and posts to keep in touch with constituents? I suspect not.
Why is that? Or more directly: Why do we suspect those posts and tweets have no effect?
Presuming to take the perspective of elected officials, they are aware that the level of effort required for tweets and posts is essentially zero. The cost is nothing more than a few moments of time. And maybe more important, those that do care, can easily create multiple on-line IDs and post multiple times. And those who really want to destroy our democracy, create software that can create fake IDs and use them to post.
Our representatives cannot differentiate between A: individual citizens making their few posts, and B: automated software capable of making dozens to thousands of fake IDs and posts. Facebook and Twitter, for example, cannot do it. And they really don’t want to take on that task. They will get no rewards.
Foreign nationals, such as Vladimir Putin and those people that are part of his RT (Russia Today) and their IRA (Internet Research Agency) can, and indeed have, interfered in our elections in this manner.
So what are our options?
Our options fall into two categories. 1) Watch and do nothing more than post and tweet. Hope for the best. 2) Take some initiative and find something to do.
From my perspective, option 1 is overly simplified, but seems to be the path taken by the majority of Democrats.
Option 2 is simplified to a far greater degree. There are an unlimited number of variations, or sub options. But the options do boil down to, hope for the best, or do something.
Do Something!
This option is a bit of a problem. I really don’t know the best thing to do. We have donated to multiple campaign and organizations, but as individuals, we are limited in that. (Side note: Our names have gotten out and we get multiple solicitations in the mail every day.)
We have created this web site. We have mailed about a hundred postcards to local residents who are registered as Democrats. The only reply has been from a Republican who was not interested in changing his mind.
As a result, we have started a letter / postcard writing campaign. This page shows but a few of those letters and postcards. We ask you, dear reader, for your advice and participation. Please advise as to other options we may take to rouse our elected officials into defending our democracy. Tell us how to join you. Or join us and let us know what you are doing.
Postcards
Postcards strike me as the best way to communicate thoughts to elected officials. They are relatively small which forces us citizens to get to the point. The recipient only needs to turn it over to read it. This helps with the suspicion that most correspondence from constituents is completely ignored.
We have a printer that can be set up for postcards, 4 x 6 format. That makes it easy to print the postcards. The contents of some postcards has been posted on this web page in M.S. Word format, it is formatted such that our HP OfficeJet Pro will print it on a postcard. Readers may need to change the format a bit for their printers.
Blank Postcards
We get blank postcards in packs of 100 from Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BFXBBYL/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Letters with Postcards
Sometimes there is too much to put on a postcard so a letter is warranted. When sending a letter we often put a self-addressed and stamped postcard in the letter, addressed to ourselves. On the back and along the top we create a couple of checkboxes for easy response. Not finding an ASCII equivalent of a checkbox, here is an approximation of the postcard:_________________________________________ | |_|Good Idea |_| Needs Work | | |_| Comments | | | | | | Then at the bottom we put | | |_| Staff | | |_| Recipient’s name | |________________________________________|
An image of the back is shown here https:ca23rd.org/letters/return_postcard_back.jpg
However, the one and only second person to review the format says the checkboxes should be put on the front, as shown here:
https:ca23rd.org/letters/return_postcard_front.jpg Your opinion is solicited.
Hopefully, the staff will put the postcard in the mail back to us. Sometimes,
in the letter, we explicitly ask that the postcard be returned. It seems to
us that it is just as easy toss the postcard into the out box as to toss in
in the trash.
However, after sending close to 100 of these letters, none of the postcards
have been returned. We wonder why that is. Readers: Opinions and suggestions
are very much solicited and appreciated.
Prosecute Trump
We have been sending postcards to Attorney General Merrick Garland weekly, sometimes twice a week. This section will be updated more frequently than other sections.
The evidence that Trump and his minions, to include some members of contress and probably some number of state elected officials, did indeed try to overturn the 2020 election. They continue with these efforts. They will not stop until they are forced to stop. The only way to do that is to put them on trial and in prison. Even then they will not stop. But, when in prison, and convicted of attempts to overthrow the government, they can no longer serve in elected office.
The problem is they are not being prosecuted. The Department of Justice, led by Merrick Garland, has taken no effective action.
We have been writing Attorney General Merrick Garland at least once every week, often twice. There seems to be no effect. So we have started writing President Biden, Vice President Harris, and our senators Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla. We have been sending similar postcards to each, changed to depict the perspective of each recipient. We ask Garland to take immediate action while correspondence to the others takes the perspective of asking the recipient to encourage Garland to take action.
The below images of some postcards sent provide a picture that can be referenced in a tweet. An HTML page of each postcard is provided. Is it worth the effort to post the MS Word version of each item sent so readers can download and print? Please advise.
The postcard to AG Garland in a web page format is here. The MS Word version to print on a 4x6 postcard is here.
The postcard to President Biden in a web page format is here. The MS Word version to print on a 4x6 postcard is here.
The images for each are just below
January 6 Committee
The Jan 6 committee has done much good work. But they have been too timid. Recent reports are that they were discussing asking Gini Thomas, wife of SCOTUS Justice Thomas, in for questioning about her actions to overthrow the 2020 election. In effect, to overthrow our federal government.
Discussing??? Get serious! The J6 committee has been far too reluctant to call people in to testify. Do a Google search for "can the house sergeant at arms arrest someone" Here is some text shown by the search:
With the Architect of the Capitol and the House Sergeant at Arms, the Sergeant at Arms serves on the Capitol Police Board, responsible for security around the building. The Sergeant at Arms can, upon orders of the Senate, arrest and detain any person who violates Senate rules, or is found in contempt of Congress.
The above references the Senate, but I strongly suspect the House can do the same.
Another web page is here:
Here
Some of the text is below.
WASHINGTON D.C., DC - QUESTION: Can you be arrested for ignoring a Congressional subpoena? ANSWER: Yes. Congressional leaders can send the Sergeant At Arms to arrest and detain anyone who refuses to comply with a subpoena. However, law experts tell the Verify team that this is highly unlikely.
Note the wording Congressional leaders. Further down on that page is this conversation:
PROCESS:
It’s a question that has popped up before. Viewers have reached
out to the Verify team questioning how someone could simply
ignore a Congressional subpoena.
Lewis Braithwaite, from Clinton, Md., reached out to voice his concern.
"Why are they not being penalized?" he asked.
Braithwaite was concerned that this was a double standard.
"When I get a subpoena, as a citizen, I better show up," he said.
"If I don’t show up, there’s consequences. I’m either going to jail,
there’s a fine, or both."
Our Verify researchers turned to constitutional expert, Ilya Somin
from George Mason University, and two reports from the Congressional
Research Service.
Somin confirmed that Congress has three options to get someone to comply
with a subpoena.
First, they could ask the U.S. Attorney of the District of Columbia --
in this case, Jessie Liu -- to bring criminal contempt charges,
which comes with a fine up to $100,000 and prison time.
In October, our researchers contacted Liu’s spokesperson,
asking if they would bring charges against the Trump administration.
They said "no comment."
Another option is for Congress to file a civil lawsuit in federal court.
In this situation, a judge could order someone to comply with the subpoena.
The last option involves the Sergeant At Arms, who can be ordered
by Congress to detain anyone who doesn’t comply with a subpoena.
"That third option is rarely used," Somin said. "If I recall correctly
it has not been used since the 1930s. But it could be, at least
in principle."
So yes, we can verify that technically Congress can order someone
to be arrested in order to comply with a subpoena.
With all that in mind, we now present the text of the postcard that has been mailed to each member of the Jan 6 committee. We ask each reader to please write something similiar to them.
Representative Thompson, Jan 6 Committee Member, Recent news says you, the committee, are "discussing" whether to bring Ginni Thomas in for testimony. Discussing.?! Have you forgotten what is at stake? The republic of these United States is dire jeopardy. Donald Trump and many members of Congress are working to destroy our democracy. The legislatures of multiple states are creating campaign laws to prevent large segments of the population from voting. They even want the authority to outright overturn an election they don’t like. And now we hear that Ms. Thomas was actively trying to overturn the election. The wife of a Supreme Court Justice! And you are "discussing" bringing her in to testify. Stop "discussing" and issue subpoenas. Don’t wait on DOJ to prosecute ignored subpoenas. Use the House Sergeant at Arms to bring them in. Its been done in the past.
Here is a list of the January 6 committee members as an html page:
Jan 6 Committe Members
And here is an MS Word document that may make it easier to copy and print.
J6 in MS Word
xxx
An image of that postcard was put on this site so it can be posted in a tweet.
We do suspect than members of congress have little to no concern with the opinions of people from other districts or states. However, when serving on a committee, and indeed during all official functions, they are representing every single citizen of these United States. So the hope is that a postcard is sufficently easy to read, amost difficult to ignore. Maybe the postcard will get some attention.