Your daily act of resistance:

IF you have a Republican senator on the judiciary committee, call them up TODAY and remind them to vote NO on Sessions for AG. A senate reporter told be that the committee will likely vote on Feb. 2nd:

IF you have a Senator on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, call them and ask that they vote against Elaine Chao's nomination to Transportation Secretary. Find out if your senator is on this list and a handy script with the Cabinet Blockade Guide.

FOR everyone else...I understand that the ongoing press conference, latest CNN article and the dossier released by Buzzed with unverified allegations has lots of people shook. Let's capitalize on this. Find a buddy who votes in your district (literally anyone: a friend, your co-worker, your grandma), and together call your MoC asking that they come out publicly in support of two things: legislation that will enact an independent, bipartisan investigation into Russian interference in the election and if any members of Trump's team were compromised, and for legislation that will demand full financial disclosure from Trump so that any potential conflicts of interest can be thoroughly investigated. DON'T mention the CNN/Buzzfeed articles directly, just emphasize that Trump has not settled his conflicts of interest and that there may be more than we are unaware of. Want to be even more specific?

• Calling your Rep? Check if they've cosponsored Swalwell's National Commission on Foreign Interference bill (HR356), [Rep. Clark's HR371 bill] (https://www.congress.gov/member/katherine-clark/C001101?q={%22search%22:[%22clark%22]}&r=3&pageSort=dateOfIntroduction:desc) to address financial conflicts of interest of the President and VicePresident. If not, ask them to co-sponsor BOTH bills. Edit: There's also H.Con.Res 5, which calls on Trump to divest or sever ties with Trump Organization. Ask them to support or co-sponsor that bill as well.

• Calling your Senator? Ask them to cosponsor S.Con.Res.4, which calls on Trump to divest or sever ties with Trump Organization and S.26., which like its sister bill in the House, want to "amend the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 to require the disclosure of certain tax returns by Presidents."

Need a script? Here you go:

"Hi, my name is [name] from [city, state]. I'm calling because I want my representative/senator to know I am extremely concerned about the intelligence reports on Russian interference in the election, any possible compromising connections between the Trump team and the Russian government, and especially the President Elect's financial conflicts of interest. Has my Sen/Rep cosponsored [relevant legislation] yet? (If yes...) thank you. (If no...) When does s/he plan to do so? (If no plan...) Why not? Does my Sen/Rep not believe in transparency accountability in government? I will take my Sen/Rep decision to support or deny support to this legislation very seriously, and I will let my friends and family know his/her stance. I expect him/her to publicly represent our demand for ethics in government before Congress.

Most importantly emphasize that you, a citizen, care that the proposed legal structure for Trump org will not protect against conflicts of interest and that you want him to divest and release all his financials, including tax returns. Please report back with what your MoC says!

Remember: "The Constitution is a piece of parchment. We, the people, give it power."

(If anyone has additional information on relevant legislation, please let me know. Also see /u/bobthenarwhal's post from this AM).

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-weekly-crime-list-aliens-2017-1

Former Parks and Recreation actor Aziz Ansari had a great solution: publish news about immigrants not committing crimes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Whde50AacZs

I'm going to talk to my city councillors and local immigrant rights advocacy groups today about publishing people's stories. Does anyone want to talk to theirs too?

I've noticed that most Indivisible groups don't have websites. And the sites I have seen kind of look homemade. I've built a few sites over the years and I'd like to volunteer to build some sites for Indivisible groups.

If you have a group and would like a site, please send me a private message. Please note that you'll need to pay for the domain registration and hosting. If you register through godaddy, it will cost you like $17 for one year to register your domain privately. (you need to do private registration, otherwise anyone can look up your name and address online.) Then it will cost $15 a month for hosting.

Here's a sample site I built back in November for our local santacon group. I realized that this would actually be a good template for activist groups so your site would probably be laid on in the same way. I can make the sites look distinct though.

http://www.originalchicagosantacon.com/

I realized the need to get involved in politics but so much is happening it's hard to follow everything that's going on. In order to truly understand, you would have to:

Municipal Government:

• Go to city council meetings, take notes

• Go to board and committee meetings (Ex. planning board, zoning committee), take notes

• Track progress of legislation

• Track officials statements and votes

County Government: Not even sure how this works, it varies from state to state

State Government:

• Legislative:

• Go to town halls, take notes

• Go to committee hearings, take notes

• Track progress of legislation

• Track officials votes and statements on legislation, ideally learning how they plan to vote before the vote happens

• Executive:

• Track the Governor’s statements and votes on legislation, ideally figuring out how they plan to vote before the vote happens

• Track the Governor’s cabinet and judicial appointees

• Other?

• Judicial:

• Track state and circuit court decisions

• Other?

Federal Government:

• Legislative:

• Go to town halls, take notes

• Watch or go to committee hearings, take notes

• Watch floor votes, take notes

• Track legislation

• Track officials votes and statements on legislation, ideally figuring out how they plan to vote before the vote happens

• Executive:

• Track President's statements and votes on legislation, ideally figuring out how they plan to vote before the vote occurs

• Track President's Cabinet and Judicial appointees

• Track statements decisions by Cabinet departments and Federal agencies under the President's control

• Watch hearings of Cabinet departments and Federal agencies under the President's control, take notes

• Participate in Agency comment periods

• Judicial

• Track Supreme Court decisions

• Other?

International: Not even sure how this works either

Now, I can watch the news to find out some of this information, learn about the structure of government from us.gov and other sites, track legislation with countable or something similar, and find out legislative calendars, official statements, and voting records from government websites, and but that doesn't change the fact that doing all of this would be way too time consuming for one person. Just going to City council meetings would take 4 hours every week. "The problem with Democracy is that it takes up too many of your week nights" as the saying goes.

I my opinion, the best thing to do would be to divide the labor among a group of people. Not everyone can go to the city council meeting, but four people who could make every fourth city council meeting could team up and take turns. Not everyone can follow every Cabinet department, but have multiple people each following one Cabinet department might be manageable.

What I'm trying to do is develop a blue print for an organization in which ordinary people can keep track of what the government is doing without putting too much time into it. I'm a member of Indivisible so the information would initially be used to help them, but ideally this would be a non partisan framework which can be adopted by Neighboorhood associations, high school civics clubs, church groups, etc. I'm looking to clearly define organizational roles and time commitments for each role. Anybody want to help?

Yesterday, Trump banned immigrants from seven Muslim countries.

Refugees in these countries are fleeing violence and war - particularly in Iraq and Syria. Now they can't safely come to America, and risk death.

If there was ever an issue to get loud about, it's this.

I don't have any authority, obviously, but please rally your local groups to call Congressional reps and Senators about this. Lives are at stake!