Pam Garrison @WestVirginiaPPC: “Senator Manchin, shame on you for looking down your nose at us! ... We didn’t create this poverty. This is the result of you and the Congress’ failure for decades.” #PoorPeoplesCampaign
Jean Evansmore @WestVirginiaPPC: “Yes, we need drugs that we can afford. Yes, we need to have teeth so that we can eat. Yes, we need hearing aids. Yes, we need healthcare workers who are paid well for what they do!” #PoorPeoplesCampaign
Alex Gallo from Charleston, WV: “We refuse to accept that there is no room in this democracy for the 140 million people in this country who are poor or one emergency away from ruin.” #PoorPeoplesCampaign
Rev. Paul Dunn from First Baptist Church in Charleston, WV to @Sen_JoeManchin: “There is room in this democracy for the things that you are voting against. We need you to rise up and be a leader! ... We need you to open up your heart.” #PoorPeoplesCampaign
.@stewartacuff from WV to @Sen_JoeManchin: “There must be room in this democracy for low-wage workers. There must be room in this democracy for single parents, trying to raise kids on two jobs. ... There must be room in this democracy for every person of legal age to vote!”
.@RepJayapal: “The things we are fighting for are not easy. They should be! But they are not. ... The #PoorPeoplesCampaign and all the people across the country that are telling the truth about what change must be and what it looks like, your voices are absolutely crucial.”
.@denita944@texas_ppc: “You sir, Sen. Manchin, and those like you, are the wicked (Psalm 82:3-4). And you are my oppressor. And it is my duty as an impacted person to tell you that we refuse to accept that there is no room in this democracy for the #BuildBackBetter agenda.”
Bruce Grau @WisconsinPPC: “We need #BuildBackBetter in Wisconsin! We’ve got a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. We’re a ‘right to work’ state. 1 in 10 people live in poverty! Last year 17,000 kids were left out in the street.” #PoorPeoplesCampaign
.@RepBarbaraLee: “Jesus Christ, yes, was born homeless, in a manger, but [Christmas] reminds me that his life was about fighting for the most vulnerable, fighting for justice, fighting for peace. Now this means inclusion in this moment in our democracy, which is very fragile.”
Right now, while some organizations are meeting in backrooms with @Sen_JoeManchin, we’re watching a rolling coup d'état, a rolling insurrection run rampant through state legislatures.
.@MaryKayHenry@SEIU: “We refuse to accept that there is no room for a $15 minimum wage ... We refuse to accept the $8 and $9 wages that are paid to our nation’s 2 million home-care workers and 2 million childcare workers.” #FightFor15#BuildBackBetter
.@liztheo: “Sen. Manchin is playing at Caesar or at least King Herod in today’s Christmas story. … Although those in power, like Sen. Manchin, are willing to murder children in order to protect their wealth & privilege, the voices of mothers are crying out.” #PoorPeoplesCampaign
.@alvjc@BRepairers on Christmas contradictions: “We’re calling out today the hypocrisy of politicians who proclaim one thing but do another. We reject the narrative of Sen. Joe Manchin and others like him that there’s not room enough in the inn of our democracy.”
.@RevNancyPetty@PullenChurch: “You can’t be the second best place to live in America & have a poverty rate of 13%. … Do we want the award of being the best place to live in the U.S.? Or do we want the honor of being a community & a state where all people are treated equally?”
“To my fellow Christians: Be careful tonight of going into your warm churches & singing ‘Joy to the world, the Lord has come,’ if you’re not willing to go out into the streets of America tomorrow & work for that justice and the joy of justice for all Americans.” @RevNancyPetty
Rev. Jimmie Hawkins @PCUSAWashington: “We say to Sen. Manchin, it is not too late! The vote hasn’t been held, and there is still time for you to do the right thing. Vote for the people in West Virginia who need healthcare, higher wages & daycare.” #BuildBackBetter
It would be better for @Sen_JoeManchin to get out of the Senate than for him to keep on hurting poor and low-income people, because God is not pleased.
Jonathan @wilsonhartgrove@RedLetterXians: “I’m here as someone who celebrates Christmas to say to other people who celebrate Christmas: We’ve gotta decide which side we’re on! Either we side with the Herods ... or we side with those folks who say it’s good news for ALL people!”
.@fhunscripted@proctorconf: “The spirit of the Grinch now continues during this season with Sen. Manchin and all who oppose voting rights and refuse to invest in human infrastructure so that we can rise from the rubble of COVID.” #BuildBackBetter
Here is the open letter to @Sen_JoeManchin that I read during the press conference livestream:
Rev. William Lamar, @MetropolitanAME Washington, D.C.; @fhunscripted@friendshipwest Baptist Church in Dallas, TX; and Rev. Dr. @alvjc, Co-Chair/Executive Director Mass Poor People's and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly & Moral March on Washington.
Sen. Manchin, Republicans, & so-called moderates keep saying, “There is no room in our democracy for the uplift of poor & low-wealth people,” but the Christmas story shows us that God can work through poor people to bring good tidings of great joy for everyone,
even when those who think they’re in control and say that there’s no room.
During this Christmas season, too many people are being denied access to the basic building blocks for abundant life—living wages, voting rights, health care, a pathway to citizenship,
and protection from ecological devastation. The continued erosion of the #BuildBackBetter agenda and the dismantling of voting rights protections across the country this year have revealed a dangerous and immoral political philosophy that assumes there is no room in the democracy
“South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, had spent weeks trying to turn Manchin against the bill and said ‘I very much appreciate’ Manchin’s opposition.”
I’m just watching the clip of @VP Harris on @CThaGod’s show. I’m glad he asked the question, and glad she answered the way she did. Brother Charlamagne, keep raising the hard questions.
Dems need to be very clear who the President is! The President should go to West Virginia and Arizona and then to the well of the Congress, and be very clear that the fight for voting rights, Build Back Better, living wages, etc. is all connected.
And Madame @VP, that fire and firmness you showed toward Charlamagne is the very fire and firmness you should show towards Manchin and Sinema. How dare they keep you from casting the final votes on BBB and voting rights, key steps to saving this democracy!
Congress is choosing to spend more on guarding the world’s oil supply (at least $81 billion a year) than on the Build Back Better proposal for fighting climate change ($55 billion a year).
Congress is spending more on a single military contractor, Lockheed Martin ($75 billion last year), than on the Build Back Better proposal for preschool and child care ($40 billion a year).
Congress has authorized spending an extra $25 billion next year on weapons the Pentagon didn’t even ask for, rather than the $20 billion a year Build Back Better proposal for poverty-busting tax credits for families and workers.
Respectfully to @POTUS, @TheBlackCaucus, and others: voting rights is not the most important fight. When we say that we separate issues, that should never be. If you have voting rights but don’t have an agenda that takes us forward, it’s not enough.
If you have voting rights, but lose the planet? If you have voting rights, but poverty is destroying the lives of millions, you still have an impoverished democracy. If you look at voting rights only through the lens of race, it becomes a Black issue rather than a democracy one.
We have three fights we must see as non-negotiable and inseparable if we are going to address the issue of racism, poverty, militarism, etc.:
1) The infrastructure of our democracy, voting rights, redistricting, etc.