Ahead of Donald Trumps inauguration on Jan. 20, the grassroots movement to resist the president-elect is picking up steam and spreading across the country.
One group of activists even released a highly detailed guide with strategies on how to effectively oppose the incoming president and try to limit the threat he poses to the country.
the 26-page document, titled indivisible: a Practical Guide for Resisting Trump, lays out a game plan for progressives and urges activists to give the Republicans who dominate D.C. a taste of their own medicine.
More from the guide:
The authors of this guide are former congressional staffers who witnessed the rise of the Tea Party. We saw these activists take on a popular president with a mandate for change and a supermajority in Congress. We saw them organize locally and convince their own MoCs to reject President Obamas agenda. Their ideas were wrong, cruel, and tinged with racism and they won.
We believe that protecting our values, our neighbors, and ourselves will require mounting a similar resistance to the Trump agenda but a resistance built on the values of inclusion, tolerance, and fairness. Trump is not popular. He does not have a mandate. He does not have large congressional majorities. If a small minority in the Tea Party can stop President Obama, then we the majority can stop a petty tyrant named Trump.
The guide started as a simple Google document but has gone viral in recent weeks as the country inches toward a Trump presidency and many Americans are wondering how they can get involved. It covers a range of topics, like how to build local grassroots organizations and which ways are most effective in influencing policymakers.
It also lays out Tea Party strategies that liberals can borrow in order to effectively oppose Trump:
The Tea Party focused on saying NO to Members of Congress (MoCs) on their home turf. While the Tea Party activists were united by a core set of shared beliefs, they actively avoided developing their own policy agenda. Instead, they had an extraordinary clarity of purpose, united in opposition to President Obama. They didnt accept concessions and treated weak Republicans as traitors.
The document continues:
Stall the Trump agenda by forcing them to redirect energy away from their priorities. Congressional offices have limited time and limited people. A day that they spend worrying about you is a day that theyre not ending Medicare, privatizing public schools, or preparing a Muslim registry
There is no question that the next four years will be challenging for progressives and the millions more Americans who cast their vote for somebody other than Trump. But that doesnt mean liberals should just hide under a rock until the next presidential election cycle.
There are things that can be done right now to minimize or prevent some of the damage that the incoming president promises to do. None of them involve keeping your head in the sand for four years.
If Trump and his dangerous agenda are going to be stopped, millions of regular Americans from all across the country are going to have to stand up and get involved. With a little over two weeks until his inauguration, it appears the wheels of resistance are rapidly spinning.
ROYERSFORD, PA -- A local Royersford business will be featured on an episode of the popular cbs show Undercover Boss. The episode featuring the Royersford-based Painting with a Twist will premiere on Wednesday, January 4.
The local business is holding a viewing party and a special free class during the airing of the show at 8 p.m.
"Remember, we have NO IDEA how we will be portrayed so be prepared to laugh and celebrate ROFO....or help mop our tears at the end of the night," the business said.
Owners said that they received an overwhelming response to the free class and viewing party idea.
"We could have filled our spots at least twice over," they said.
While Painting with a Twist does not know precisely how they will be portrayed, the episode features other chains of the business as well. They also teased that "Roy.G.Biv" is of importance to the episode, and that this theme will be painted during the class.
Tickets for the regular class that night are still available. As of Tuesday afternoon, only six seats are left. See here for more information.
Painting with a Twist is located just off the Royersford exit of Route 422, across the road from Applebees and Texas Roadhouse.
On the latest episode of his show Literary Disco,Strong told his audience that "We finished the third season of Girl Meets World my brother and I were directing a lot of episodes and I acted in a couple and the show ended."
(Photo: Disney)
The episode in question -- season 3"s twenty-first andthethird of three upcoming episodesset to resume on January 6, is titled "Girl Meets Goodbye."
That episode, which hits the Disney Channel on January 20th, will bring just about every guest star back into the fold, and hopefully fans will know soon if that is indeed the show"s swan song.
But after Strong"s comments started to circulate online,Girl Meets World"s writers and producers took to their official Twitter account to clarify that no decision had yet been made.
They returned to Twitter today to reverse that course.
"It is with incredible pride in our work and complete sadness that things end, that I report to this wonderful audience that our show is over. I just officially got the call, and would like to thank this audience for its incredible love and loyalty." they tweeted. "Please watch our January episodes. We leave you with three incredible souvenirs of a show we couldn"t be more proud of. As I look back I can tell you with absolute certainty - We gave you our best."
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Girl Meets World stars Rowan Blanchard (Riley Matthews), Ben Savage (Cory Matthews), Danielle Fishel (Topanga Matthews), Sabrina Carpenter (Maya Hart), Peyton Meyer (Lucas Friar), August Maturo (Auggie Matthews), Corey Fogelmanis (Farkle Minkus), Amir Mitchell-Townes (Isaiah "Zay" Babineaux), Uriah Shelton (Joshua Matthews), Rider Strong (Shawn Hunter), Cheryl Texiera (Katy Hart), Danny McNulty (Harvey Harley Keiner), William Daniels (George Feeny), Lee Noris (Stuart Minkus), Jade Holden (Classmate), Nicholas Jabonero (Student), Sarah Carpenter (Sarah), Ava Kolker (Ava Morgenstern), and Cecilia Balagot (Isadora Smackle).
Before Rogue One officially became the third highest-grossing movie of 2016, all of three weeks ago, Diego luna talked to our own mike ryan about being in a Star Wars movie, er, story. The word cloud of the interview would look something like holy sh*t, crazy, lovely, and oh my G*d, surrounded by a million exclamation points. Luna sounds genuinely thrilled to be part of the Star Wars family, and not just because of the paycheck, either the movies meant a lot to him as a child, and they mean a lot to millions of people now.
The Y tu mam tambin star, who was born in Mexico City, recently shared a heartwarming story on Twitter from a fan who took her Mexican father to see Rogue One. I wanted my father, with his thick Mexican accent, to experience what it was like to see a hero in a blockbuster film speak the way he does, she wrote, later adding, I told him that Diego has openly talked about keeping his accent and how proud he is of it. And my dad was silent for a while and then he said, And he was a main character. And I said, He was. And my dad was so happy. Lunas response: I got emotional reading this!
Pence lays out Trump admin"s plan to do away with ObamaCare
Q. Why is it called reconciliation?
A. The term originated in the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which was intended to give Congress more control over the budget process by allowing lawmakers to set overall levels of spending and revenue.
The process begins with a budget blueprint, a resolution that guides Congress but is not presented to the president for a signature or veto. It recommends federal revenue, deficit, debt and spending levels in areas like defense, energy, education and health care.
The resolution may direct one or more committees to develop legislation to achieve specified budgetary results. By adopting these proposals, Congress can change existing laws so that actual revenue and spending are brought into line with reconciled with policies in the budget resolution.
Q. How has reconciliation been used?
A. Since 1980, Congress has completed action on 24 budget reconciliation bills. Twenty became law. Four were vetoed.
The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 was a vehicle for much of the Reagan revolution. It squeezed savings out of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, the school lunch program, farm subsidies, student loans, welfare and jobless benefits, among many other programs.
In 1996, Congress reversed six decades of social welfare policy, eliminating the individual entitlement to cash assistance for the nations poorest children and giving each state a lump sum of federal money with vast discretion over its use. Those changes were made in a reconciliation bill, pushed by Republicans but signed by President Bill Clinton.
Congress reduced deficits with another reconciliation bill, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. That law also created the Childrens Health Insurance Program, primarily for uninsured children in low-income families. On the same day in 1997, Mr. Clinton signed a separate reconciliation bill that cut taxes.
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Peeling away pieces of the law could lead to market chaos.
The Bush tax cuts were adopted in reconciliation bills signed by President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003.
On several occasions, Congress has increased assistance to low-income working families by increasing the earned-income tax credit in reconciliation bills.
Congress also made changes to the Affordable Care Act in a reconciliation bill passed immediately after President Obama signed the health care overhaul in 2010. Later, when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, they passed a reconciliation bill to eviscerate the Affordable Care Act, but Mr. Obama vetoed the bill in January 2016.
Republicans say that measure will provide a template or starting point for their efforts to undo the health care law this year, with support from President-elect Donald J. Trump, who calls the law an absolute disaster.
Q. How does the reconciliation process work in the Senate?
A. In the House, leaders of the majority party can usually control what happens if their members stick together. In the Senate, by contrast, one member or a handful of senators can often derail the leaders plans. The reconciliation process enhances the power of the majority party and its leaders. Senate debate on a reconciliation bill is normally limited to 20 hours, so it cannot be filibustered on the Senate floor.
The Senate has a special rule to prevent abuse of the budget reconciliation process. The rule, named for former Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, generally bars use of the procedure to consider legislation that has no effect on spending, taxes and deficits. The Senate parliamentarian normally decides whether particular provisions violate the Byrd rule, but the Senate can waive the rule with a 60-vote majority.
Q. What does this mean for the Affordable Care Act?
A. Republicans hope to use the fast-track procedure of budget reconciliation to repeal or nullify provisions of the law that affect spending and taxes. They could, for example, eliminate penalties imposed on people who go without insurance and on larger employers who do not offer coverage to employees.
They could use a reconciliation bill to eliminate tens of billions of dollars provided each year to states that have expanded eligibility for Medicaid. And they could use it to repeal subsidies for private health insurance coverage obtained through the public marketplaces known as exchanges.
Republicans could also repeal a number of taxes and fees imposed on certain high-income people and on health insurers and manufacturers of brand-name prescription drugs and medical devices: tax increases that help offset the cost of the insurance coverage expansions.
Those provisions were all rolled back in the reconciliation bill Mr. Obama vetoed last January. That bill did not touch insurance market standards established in the Affordable Care Act, which do not directly cost the government money or raise taxes. The standards stipulate, for example, that insurers cannot deny coverage or charge higher premiums because of a persons pre-existing conditions. Insurers must allow parents to keep children on their policies until the age of 26, and they cannot charge women higher rates than men, as they often did in the past.
Such provisions are politically popular, but it is not clear how they could remain in force without the coverage expansions that help insurers afford such regulations. Without an effective requirement for people to carry insurance, and without subsidies, supporters of the health law say many healthy people would go without coverage, knowing they could obtain it if they became ill and needed it.
Democrats say they will fight to preserve the law after Mr. Obama leaves office. Recent history shows that lobbying and public pressure can sometimes make a difference, altering the votes of individual lawmakers and changing the contents of a reconciliation bill.
Thierry Henry - "Arsenal & Liverpool have helped Chelsea" - Sky Sports An action-packed December produced bundles of goals, but what"s your No. 1? Shaka Hislop is not surprised with Swansea"s sacking of Bob Bradley and looks ahead to their next potential manager. craig burley praises chelsea for continuing to grind out results in their impressive 13 game unbeaten run.
Adam "Football Cliches" Hurrey is back with his latest monthly review, in which he surveys the winners, losers and major talking points of December.
Who won the month?
The marathon men of Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham
This was a truly hectic holiday period of matches, living up to its status as a separator of men from boys. Jose Mourinho"s Manchester United were the only side to emerge from weeks 14 through 20 without a defeat and indeed could have taken maximum points if not for some late carelessness against Everton.
Further up in the title-race mix, though, three well-drilled and sweat-soaked game plans emerged from the fixture maelstrom with reputations more or less intact. Chelsea"s record-threatening run of victories finally ended, and tellingly, it was against the one side who you could bank on to match them for sheer yardage. Spurs bounced back from a 1-0 defeat to United with four wins and 15 goals, seven of them from a flying Dele Alli, as Mauricio Pochettino"s machine began to grind into action again.
While Liverpool were perhaps the most fragile of the three, they remained sturdier than either Manchester City or Arsenal, both guilty of dropping precious points against teams in their top-four midst. The title was neither won nor lost over the last few weeks, but the benchmark was certainly set.
Who lost the month? Swansea City
The festive period ended with a much-needed boost for Swansea City, as Crystal Palace somehow conspired to lose to them for a second time in barely a month, but that won"t paper over the worrying cracks that widened toward the end of 2016.
A desperately one-sided defeat to Tottenham began their latest slide, as 5-0 quite feasibly could have been 10-0, so often did Spurs find the target. A 3-0 win over Sunderland gave both Swansea and Bob Bradley some hope of a fresh start, only for them to ship 13 goals in their next four matches, all defeats.
Bradley"s near-impossible job of proving his credentials became an untenable one as soon as his players lost faith. As for the players -- the graceful figure of Gylfi Sigurdsson apart -- there is little about Swansea"s squad that suggests Premier League solidity. It looks increasingly likely that a new era under their American owners will have to be built from Championship foundations, unless Paul Clement can get his ideas across quickly that is.
Player of the month:Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Zlatan Ibrahimovic has acclimated incredibly well to the Premier League, ranking second in the league with 13 goals.
An utterly unique player at 35 years old, he has played every minute he was eligible to in the Premier League, and at 6-foot-5, he is neither constrained nor pigeonholed by his height. There is a hint of Eric Cantona in the way Zlatan Ibrahimovic carries himself at Old Trafford, a place that has needed an unyielding character like him ever since Roy Keane"s passive-aggressive departure in 2005.
That presence is backed up by the numbers: six goals in seven Premier League games over December and the festive period; 12 in his past 12 in all competitions. Ibrahimovic stormed through English football"s proudest tradition at the first time of asking and, with a final flourish, gave his few remaining skeptics some seriously short shrift to start 2017.
Match of the month: Bournemouth 4-3 Liverpool
"It"s a wonderful story if you"re not part of it on the wrong side. Today, that"s where we were." - Jurgen Klopp
Jurgen Klopp, usually philosophical in defeat, did well to hide his almost certain exasperation at the Vitality Stadium. A 2-0 half-time lead (sufficient to avoid Premier League defeat 98 percent of the time, the statisticians say) became a 3-1 lead and stayed that way until there was less than a quarter of an hour to go. Not even the most optimistic Bournemouth fan could have expected to be queuing up to get a photo of the scoreboard after the final whistle.
Bournemouth had generously given before gleefully taking away. Artur Boruc stationed himself in no-man"s-land twice in the space of three minutes to give Sadio Mane and Divock Origi sights of an unguarded goal. Half-time: two shots on target, two goals, three points on the way.
The home side needed some of that straightforwardness, and they found it almost by accident, as Ryan Fraser bounded on as a 55th-minute substitute for the injured Junior Stanislas. Within 90 seconds, the youngster had ruffled Liverpool feathers to earn a penalty. Game on.
Emre Can artfully steered in a third for the visitors -- a goal that felt like a reassertion of their respective statuses -- only for Fraser to rifle beyond an increasingly suspect Loris Karius 12 minutes later to cut the lead to 3-2.
The equaliser, again involving Fraser, was a slightly surreal moment: Steve Cook plucking Fraser"s cross out of the south coast air, and swivelling to poke a half-volley into the corner, all in a manner very unbecoming of a centre-half. At that point, anything was possible. Bournemouth won a corner at the death and the ball was laid inside to Cook, who decided to test Karius" mettle once more -- the goalkeeper"s nervous injury-time fumble felt inevitable. In stepped Nathan Ake -- on loan from Chelsea -- and the "wonderful story" was complete.
Goal of the month:Olivier Giroud vs. Crystal Palace
Perhaps it was the tired legs opening up the space -- or, conversely, the adrenalin of the Christmas period -- but December and early January were spoiled for well-constructed and exquisitely taken goals. Steve Cook"s aforementioned touch, turn and shot against Liverpool flew the flag for goal-scoring defenders, as did Stoke"s Marc Muniesa, who scored his first career Premier League goal by beating three Burnley players in his own half, charging upfield and tucking home a superb volley.
Emphatic finishes also caught the eye. Jeff Hendrick"s arcing volley against Bournemouth was as good as his two touches to set it up, while Wilfried Zaha"s dainty footwork against Hull were the subtle prelude to an astonishingly powerful finish into the top corner.
Above all, though, this was a month (and a bit) for elite impudence. West Ham were already well beaten when Arsenal sliced through them once more to allow Alexis Sanchez the time and space to pull off the most devastating of dummies at Darren Randolph"s expense -- feinting to hammer the ball into oblivion before simply dinking it into the corner instead.
Even that, though, was overshadowed by 2016-17"s new Premier League fad: the scorpion kick. The name needs some work, clearly, but tidy descriptors are hard to come by for such an intricate piece of instinctive technique. Henrikh Mkhitaryan laid down the gauntlet on Boxing Day with his diving back-heel flick against Sunderland. While that was marginally the easier of the two, Olivier Giroud"s improvisation against Crystal Palace was far more camera-friendly. And as plenty have already observed, a goal in off the crossbar deserves a bonus point. Giroud"s fantastic goal on New Year"s Day didn"t qualify for December"s goal of the month vote, but expect it to be a top challenger in next month"s poll.
A good month for: Postmatch interviews
They generally look like they"d rather be pulling their own teeth out than offering answers about penalty incidents, "turning points" and "bouncing back from here". Football management is clearly stressful enough without having to bring your heart rate down sufficiently to avoid saying something noteworthy just after the final whistle.
Pep Guardiola, though, has taken it to a whole other level. Long before his monosyllabic stare-off after Manchester City"s win over Burnley, Guardiola was showing little willingness to play the TV game. Even the friendly innocuousness of prematch interviews -- "what"s the thinking there, Pep?" -- were being turned into wars of attrition.
He wears the look of a man who spends every waking hour (so, about 23 a day) thinking about how to solve microscopic football problems, but a two-minute chat with a TV reporter needn"t be one of them.
A bad month for: High-profile referees
It"s moved from cult status to mainstream success, but the Mike Dean Show now threatens to jump the shark completely. However, while the facial expressions and hand gestures of a referee provide the centre-stage entertainment, the debate over Premier League officiating remains dead in the water.
Fury over refereeing decisions can often be disingenuous. The counter-debate in their favour -- that split-second judgements for tackles and offside calls are incredibly difficult to catch with the n***d eye -- is ignored, to an infuriating degree. TV coverage is well within its rights to establish whether, for example, a player was in an offside position or not -- but using that freeze-frame analysis to declare that refereeing standards are on the slide is exceptionally unhelpful. But as long as there is a human being with a whistle in the middle of the pitch, this circular debate will go on eating its own tail.
What January needs to deliver
Some stomach for the relegation fight from the bottom three. Hull and Swansea, in the midst of the customary new year managerial upheaval, currently look in no state to stage a great escape. Sunderland have pedigree for that sort of thing, of course, but there"s a reason why they have so much practice. All three will be hoping for Crystal Palace to continue their slump, regardless of the Sam Allardyce Effect.
Adam Hurrey analyses the language of football. You can follow him on Twitter: @FootballCliches.
