VEC MONDAY MESSAGE 8/18/2025

Hello Everyone,

CURRENT EVENTS

*NOTE:The next VEC meeting will be held on Zoom at 1p September 4 . It will feature Diane Dimperio presenting her training on Voter Registration. This is our time to prepare for a big fall push to the midterm elections. We need to register new voters, facilitate Vote By Mail registration, and convince non-voting Democrats that there are crucial reasons to vote Democratic. This effort will need lots of participation from DWCAC members. Diane’s talk will be a good refresherfor registration; please make every effort to attend the September VEC zoommeeting.

*News anchors keep asking “Who is the new Democratic leader to unify and lead the party to success? That’s the wrong question! Why do we continue to look to the “strongman”, the magic bullet? That leader is all of us!

Let’s wear our shirts!They cost $15, check payable to DWCAC and mailed to DWCAC, PO Box 357579, Gainesville 32635-7579. The QR code on the back, when scanned, lets people into a screen to choose their state and then are directed to exactly the paper Voter Registration form that we hand out.

Registering online is one of the number of ways we’ll encourage people to register. Please continue to email me your orders and mailing your check to Dee.

UPCOMING EVENTS

*Health Fair at Porters Community Center 9/27 12-6p. We’ll be tabling and handing out socks.

*Downtown Festival and Art Show 11/15 and 16 from 10a-5p.We’ll be tabling with Voter Registration, Vote By Mail, and Medicaid Expansion Petition forms. We are also in the process of setting up a postcard writing session to remind people to register.

Please note these events and plan to participate to represent the DWCAC.

*Current Boycotts: August 1-31 Walmart, Lowes, and McDonalds

*Upcoming Boycotts: September 1-30 Amazon, Uber, and Pepsi Co

SOME NEWS, OBSERVATIONS, AND QUOTES

*Everyone but Donald Trump and his supplicants are predicting very rough times ahead. Inflation is beginning to rise and prices as well. US importers are running out of the inventory they had stocked and are now facing the decision to raise prices because the exporters in foreign countries are not paying Trump's tariffs.

*Who’s actually paying the tariffs that Trump declared foreign countries

would pay? Here’s how it goes: First the importer (say, Walmart) sets up a bill of sale with the foreign manufacturer (the exporter, say, China). The exporter creates and ships the goods to a US port. In order for the importer to pick up the goods, they must pay the exporter and then pay all fees and tariffs on the goods. The importer then faces two choices: (1) absorb the total cost which results in lower profits or (2) raise consumer prices. Exporters are not paying the tariffs and, so far, importers are selling from a stock pile of goods to avoid raising consumer prices. It’s easy to see there are decisions coming for importers.

*To help explain Trump’s tariff rationale (nobody else's) think of a situation where you buy several pairs of designer shoes and rack up quite a debt and then become angry at the seller for the debt! The US has imported far more goods than exporting countries have purchasedfrom the US so Trump claims that these countries are taking advantage of the US! Jeffrey Sachs reminds us that if you spend more than you take in, that’s a trade deficit. For another example in fantasyland, consider the tariff on Lesotho, a small African nation struggling with a miniscule GDP. They export goods to the US which is important to their struggling economy. Trump sees the amount they gain from exporting to the U.S. and that they buy little from the US. He has decided that the amounts imported and exported must be equal (for all countries) so he enacts a huge tariff on Lesotho (and others). These people are so poor, they can’t afford to buy U.S. goods. Also, much of what Trump wants them to buy, they can’t use.

Also, let's recall that a large GDP does not reflect individual happiness.

SOMETHING TO CONSIDER

*In a deeply thought-provoking essay by Toni Morrison titled “Cinderella” (“Source of Self Regard”), Toni explores the awful effect the stepmother’s cruelty had on her daughters (not your usual Cinderella story!). Richard Wolfe predicts the awful effect that Israel's cruelty towards the Palestine community will have on the conscience of the Israeli population. US writers bring out the idea that the cruelty shown in slavery and the decimation of the native population has never left the American conscience. The present cruelty towards immigrants is teaching our children that such cruelty is allowed.

*Trump is once again engaged in making up his own statistics. Crime numbers are down, not up as Trump claims, especially in Washington, D.C.

Let’s encourage everyone we can to research facts to the best of their ability so they can’t be easily manipulated. Distortion of financial reporting may soon follow.

*Let's keep our eyes open and focus on the true problems. Let’s not let the uproar over Epstein distract us from our real crises such as losing our democracy. Some good advice from AOC (Daily Kos 8/2) “We have no choice but to live in the time that we live in, and to make it better one day at a time, one choice at a time.

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PLEASE STAY INFORMED BY USING OUR ONLINE RESOURCES:

Facebook: Democratic Women’s Club of Alachua County (Admin. Sarah Jones)

Website: DWCAC.net (Admin. Suzy McGinnis)

Please help Suzy and me to serve your interests by viewing the sites, commenting and liking what you see on site, and sending photos and

comments for us to post. P.S. I’m beginning to see lots of activity on the FaceBook page: Hooray!

Note: if you do not wish to receive messaging from VEC in the future,

please email me (sajn39039@gmail.com) and I will remove you from the

VEC mailing list.

Thanks to everyone

Sarah Jones, VEC Chair