Next ENCDC Meeting: August 6th via Zoom

Topics:

Our Guest Speaker, Adam Kraft will share information on NATO's role, the role of the United States in helping Ukraine, and the challenges to get assistance and training to the Ukrainian military to fight the Russians.

Adam is a National Security Executive at Veloxxity and retired Major after 22 years in the US Military.

See the meetings page for more details.

Ted Eytan from Washington, DC, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

In the final days of the current session, SCOTUS has handed down decisions that make clear they value guns over women, essentially giving individual states permission to treat women as second-class citizens, while ruling that states can do nothing to quell increasingly horrific acts of gun violence.

We knew this was coming, with the unprecedented leak of a preliminary decision draft from the desk of Justice Samuel Alito. But now the SCOTUS, as configured by Mitch McConnell and "TFG," has made clear in their 5-4 decision that they are determined to undermine decades of social progress. With the Dobbs (Roe) decision, a deeply flawed opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito in what attempts to characterize "Originalist" perceptions about basic rights in this country, opens the gate to reversing other hard-won legal battles such as gender, marital, and even racial equality. In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas explicitly spoke of revisiting such earlier decisions. It's clear now in fact that Chief Justice Roberts, as conservative as he is, has lost control of the court to a group who seem unconcerned with logic and consistency in their pursuit of the MAGA agenda.

Reaction was Swift

Marches and demonstrations in reaction to the Dobbs decision sprang up around the country and the world. Some of these are ongoing. Given the connection to the LGBTQ community, some of these spontaneous actions merged with planned Pride Month activities. 

Within days politicians and office-holders weighed in to the discussion with their own position statements, some for but most against the rulings. Speaker Pelosi condemned the Dobbs decision in a blistering statement Friday. On Monday, she said the House would take up legislation to codify other matters decided by the high court and would again consider the Women’s Health Protection Act, a sweeping abortion rights bill that passed the House and failed in the Senate.

What People Are Doing

Responses to the world-changing decision on women's rights have thus far fallen into two categories: 1) Meet the political challenge head-on by pressuring lawmakers into encoding those rights into law or finding some other Constitutional basis to write new law covering the issues in more generic terms, and 2) discussing ways to overload or otherwise circumvent the new state-based abortion bans. A new 'Underground Railroad' may emerge, helping women who have few means to deal with their situation alone. 

...And The Executive Branch?

Words have been few from Biden's office so far, though Vice President Kamala Harris has been quite vocal that something does need to be done. As far as what CAN be done, there's an excellent summary here. A couple of highlights are making pregnancy termination medicines available OTC so that they could be purchased online without prescription, or using federal properties for clinics in or adjacent to states where abortion is now illegal.

July 9th Meeting

The club met via Zoom.

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- Oktoberfest

The club discussed having a booth for Oktoberfest on 10/25 in Encinitas from 10AM to 4PM. Volunteers are needed for staffing the booth and setup/teardown.

- Candidate Introduction

Several candidates introduced themselves, including: 

• Dr. Pamela Redela, in the running for Encinitas City Council, District 4

• Kristin Brinner, candidate for Solana Beach City Council, District 2

• Chris Duncan, our candidate for California State Assembly District 74 (www.votechrisduncan.com)

• Rob Howard spoke for Daniel Dominguez, who is running for Oceanside's District 2 Council seat.

• Tony Kranz was with us, introducing himself and his race for Mayor of Encinitas

 - Speakers

Kimberly Best Robidoux, an Attorney and Partner with WR Immigration, gave a talk and slideshow on "America and Immigrants, a Symbiotic Relationship" Some of the takeaways from the presentation:

• Immigration has been integral to the formation and populating of the United States

• The architecture of our current immigration process is quite complex, but is intended to support labor, families, and refugee situations.

• China, Philippines, and Latin America dominate migrant source areas.

• Most end up in California, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, and Florida

• Since current recordkeeping by WR began, the number of immigrants entering the country has steadily increased up until late 2019, when a number of factors (including COVID) largely shut down the flow of migrants, creating what is now an approximately 2 million person shortfall in the labor market.

• This shortfall impacts all business sectors, as migrants represent a wide range of experience and expertise.

• As U.S. population "ages," the need for migrants to fill gaps in the labor market will only increase.

• A selection of famous immigrants shows how they have impacted U.S. innovation and culture throughout our history.

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Laura Basa with ACLU  gave a talk on her group, CPAT (Coalition for Police Accountability & Transparency) and the Racist origins of policing.

• Based upon collected data in the county, it's clear that many officers are targeting non-whites in their traffic stops, and are being much more aggressive in their stop procedures with non-whites/LGBTQs

• The PAN policy (Police Accountability Now) is a meaningful step toward protecting our entire citizenry in a more peaceful and uniform way. 

• This policy will require extensive support for its implementation. CPAT's goal is to make people aware of the issue and sensitive to who is representing them in communities with Law Enforcement bodies. See their website for more information.

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New York Times, May 26, 2022

This loss is unimaginable, and yet it is real.

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Please Vote. Vote Blue, and elect

representatives who will finally address: Sensible gun laws

Women's Health Protection

Voting Rights

Climate change

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#VoteBlue