National Stop Avelo Action Hour by UUs
Hosted by UUJNC and SWL

Friday, December 12
11:00 a.m. ET • 10:00 a.m. CT • 9:00 a.m. MT • 8:00 a.m. PT
RSVP (Virtual) 

Hosted by the UU state action network of North Carolina, UU Justice NC, and Side With Love, you can gather as part of a national community of UUs to challenge Avelo Airlines' dirty, immoral contract with ICE for deportation services in a follow-up to the “No Thanks Given” protests of Sunday, November 30th. See UU World: Opinion: UUs, Diverse Coalition Demand AT&T Drop DHS, ICE Contracts to End Profit from Pain, for related ideas and framing.

All of us deserve to move freely: to go to school, to work, to worship, and get back home safely. While we cannot stop every ICE interaction, abduction, detention, or deportation, we must continue to unite in solidarity across the country because an organized community is a safer community.

No-frills Action Hour: 
DC Home Rule and Statehood: Authentic Local Autonomy Needed, Solidarity Required
Hosted by UUSJ, the Reeb Voting Rights Project, and the League of Women Voters of DC

Tuesday, December 16
7:30 p.m. ET • 6:30 p.m. CT • 5:30 p.m. MT • 4:30 p.m. PT
RSVP (virtual)

Topic: DC autonomy and parity. Taxation without Representation is rough. Ever thought about what it would be like if you didn't have Senators? Are you comfortable being a de facto colonial master of 700,000 D.C. citizens? Taxation without Representation means that DC citizens need voter justice and local autonomy. Join in solidarity with DC residents to defend from federal overreach and “The Rise of the Imperial Presidency.” The next stop on the administration's unofficial national repression tour could be a city near you, or your backyard.

Our teams are working to relaunch an ongoing series of action hours. Participation will enable you to defend our democracy and champion a positive, inclusive vision for our republic. Over time, you will be invited to engage in various ways and on numerous issues.

Push back on the Rhetoric Attacking Migrants

Since the National Guard Shootings in DC (Guardian), the Administration has launched a series of increasingly sweeping and cruel attacks against migrants. Federal government leaders have used this tragedy as a springboard for broad-ranging attempts to demonize and punish hundreds of thousands of migrants who have no connection to the shooting. Most are here legally and trying to work and raise families. The President's tone and tenor on the matter have been deeply troubling, with outrageous attacks and harmful threats.

Take action: Ask Congress to denounce the statements and prevent the threatened actions.

If you want to show solidarity with Afghans, specifically, you can also take action in support of the Afghan Adjustment Act and the Fulfilling Promises to Afghan Allies Act.

Solidarity Required for DC, Authentic Local Autonomy Needed 

DC residents merit our help. They want our help getting Congress to stop being a threat and obstacle to local autonomy and DC Home Rule, and to advocate for DC Statehood,  because what Congress does in DC, rarely stays in DC. It could land near you.

Congress should be in solidarity with DC communities and oppose the dozen or so bills and twenty (20) budget riders that attack DC Home Rule. Tell Congress to support bills that preserve or expand DC's local powers. What federal actors are doing in DC is a bad precedent for all American communities.

Take action:

• Living beyond DC: Tell Congress: UUs Want D.C. Autonomy, Dignity, and Home Rule.
• Resident of DC: Tell Key Senators: You Deserve Home Rule, just like them.

NEPA Continues in Jeopardy

The House Natural Resources Committee recently passed a bill targeting the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), our nation's basic framework for protecting the environment. The SPEED Act, H.R. 4776, would, by most accounts, undercut, undermine, if not gut, NEPA’s core principles and commitments. The bill would allow proposals to move forward without considering the harmful environmental impacts such projects might impose.

Take Action: Urge your representative in the House to oppose the SPEED Act!

Oppose Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity

Ask your Federal Lawmakers to oppose the "Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act" (H.R. 38 /S. 65). Every Town, the gun violence prevention advocates say, "Congress Is Trying to Pass a Dangerous Federal Concealed Carry Mandate."

This action comes in solidarity with the UU Legislative Ministry of Maryland, which is profoundly concerned about the implications for state sovereignty and autonomy in determining what gun safety policies and norms are appropriate for local communities.

Take action: Tell Congress this is about a state's right to determine local gun safety norms.

Medicare for All, the Need is Clear

This year has shown that millions of our neighbors live in fear of medical costs. Families are forced to choose between putting food on the table and seeing a doctor. The sick avoid care due to cost, and medical debt is a leading cause of bankruptcy. All this even before the skyrocketing costs on the exchanges (KFF). This is not just a policy failure; it is a moral crisis.

The Medicare for All Act was reintroduced in Congress this past spring in both chambers, but the sour taste of the OBBA and Shutdown negotiations has opened a new opportunity to expand support and raise the pressure. For example, just recently, in November, Senator Van Hollen (D-MD) became a co-sponsor. This legislation would guarantee comprehensive healthcare as a right, not a privilege, to every person in the United States.

Take action: Tell Congress to co-sponsor Medicaid for All as a reply to the healthcare chaos.

UU Solidarity Initiative for Immigration Justice 

Since last winter, UU organizers and strategists have been diligently working to sharpen our denominational impact and meaningful engagement for immigration justice. Multi-organization collaboration moves at the speed of trust and consent, but we are now ready to announce a wider launch of the UU Solidarity Initiative (UUSI).

UUSI is a nationally coordinated effort by UU and UU-adjacent organizations to provide resources and opportunities to build strong communities of solidarity with immigrant communities under attack. Our primary purpose is to coordinate the resources of UU organizations to do more impactful, accountable immigration work. For example, consider joining the National Stop Avelo Action Hour on December 10th.

Members include: BorderLinks, UUA Side With Love, UUMA, UURISE, UUSC, and UUSJ.  

We invite your attention and warmly ask you to join us, see our sign-up.

Recalibrating a new Equilibrium Point

A New poll shows that taxing the rich is very popular (City & State). Americans, and others globally, have supported raising taxes on the ultrarich and corporations for years, decades even, but policymakers have not responded favorably (EPI). Since the advent of the New Democrats (also known as centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats, or moderate Democrats), legislators have been hesitant to put working people at the center of America’s economic agenda. Even though The case for taxing billionaires is older than you think, NBC.

Yet by some measures, this Congress has shown more pro-labor, economic populist green shoots than recent decades. See Sen. Hawley (R-MO) Calls for a “Pro-Worker Framework, or a synopsis of conditions in the 119th Congress by Center Forward, which observes “a new movement supporting unions is gaining traction on the political right. Though still limited in scope, emerging proposals from the Senate Republican ranks reflect a growing openness to labor protections historically championed by Democrats”.

Overall, small increases in taxes on the rich that were enacted during Democratic control of Congress and the White House have been consistently swamped by larger tax cuts enacted during Republican control. But in 2025, layoffs, Tariffs, skyrocketing healthcare, and the increased fear of job automation (and loss) due to AI and Datacenters have put economic justice issues back on the legislative map as Americans favor labor unions over big business now more than ever (EPI), and they see unions as the best protection against a turbulent economy and job market.

Healthcare and the Social Safety Net are still at issue

We need to speak with clear-eyed truth As America Faces a Caregiving Catastrophe, We Need to Name the Real Villains (Common Dreams). Amid the shutdown and related negotiations, many ideas were floated to address increased healthcare costs, as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium tax credits expired, and Marketplace Enrollees In Every Congressional District Face Steep Premium Increases Unless Tax Credit Enhancements Are Extended (CBPP).

• Americans More Supportive of Higher Taxes Once Informed of ‘Universal Benefits of Public Goods’: Study, Common Dreams
• Expanding Health Savings Accounts Would Do Little to Improve Access to Affordable Health Care, CBPP. 
• The Coming Crisis in Health Care and the Crisis We Already Have, TAP
• Americans’ Challenges with Health Care Costs, KFF
• What the Shutdown Means for the Health-Care Cost Crisis, RF
• Federal Government Shuts Down Over Health Care Subsidies, Medicare Rights
• US Healthcare System Is in Crisis, ACS

We tend to agree with Rep. Ro Kanna (D-CA-17): the apparent solution on the legislative playing field is single-payer (Common Dreams), as well as the Public Citizen pitch and analysis on Medicaid for All. To be sure, policy and program experts would need to tinker to make it work at an even larger scale.  

We hear about co-pays to ensure patients have some skin in the game; and, Conservative, right-leaning shops say Medicare for All could result in lower-quality care (Cato) or higher taxes (Heritage), but their analysis and motives are suspect. They brought us Project 2025, which is 48% complete, and its motor OBBA. They are the brain power behind dismantling the Republican answer to Universal Healthcare, the market-driven alternative Governor Mitt Romney developed in Massachusetts; the program President Obama scaled up nationally; the ACA Exchanges. 

Take action: Urge support for Medicare for All.

Catch-up on SNAP Maneuvers with David Super

Did you miss David Super’s excellent presentation on SNAP last month? Review the video here.

David explained that the Trump administration was acting unlawfully regarding SNAP during the shutdown. They showed little sympathy for beneficiaries and, in some cases, stressed the system capacity of state administrators. Terrible precedents were established. David also highlighted some things we can do to help and respond with creative compassion.

Economic and Tax Clippings

• Massachusetts’s Millionaire Tax Didn’t Lead the Rich to Flee, Jacobin
• Vague Offers of Cash Fail to Address Looming Premium Spikes for Marketplace Enrollees,  CBPP
• Obamacare tax credits look likely to expire as Trump rules out an extension, NBC
• Senate Republican Presses IRS on Tax Treatment of Crypto Staking, Bloomberg
• Tariff Dividends Would Cost More than Tariff Revenues Will Generate, Tax Foundation
• Tax Debates Stretch From College Sports To Global Revenues, TPC
• The mad dash to shape 'Trump accounts', Politico
• Estimated Budgetary, Distributional, and Macroeconomic Effects of “Tariff Dividends”, Yale Budget
• Economic Malignancy: The Swelling Wealth Share of Our Richest 0.00001 Percent, GMP
• The California Campaign to Introduce a First-of-Its-Kind Billionaire’s Tax, WSJ
• Don’t Hold Your Breath Waiting for a Tariff Dividend from Trump, ITEP
• Distributional weighting in benefit-cost analysis is practical and effective at assessing government rulemaking without bias against low-income individuals, WCEG
• 'Tax bomb' worth over $10,000 could hit some student loan borrowers in 2026, senators and advocates warn, CNBC
• National ‘Billionaires Eat First’ Campaign Aims to Make Trump and GOP Pay for Aid Cuts, Common Dreams

Justice and Democracy, from a Faithful Footing

Faith actors are coming together to galvanize participation from multi-religious, interfaith, and ecumenical Christian communities in the work to ensure the American faith community challenges authoritarianism rather than supporting it.

• To get engaged locally in this work, see our post for steps you can take.

To prepare for that deep work of spiritually disciplined engagement, the following three key documents are being revisited, reflected upon, and discerned about for implications regarding today’s challenges to our democracy and republic:

1. THE THEOLOGICAL DECLARATION OF BARMEN (1933)
2. ALABAMA CLERGYMEN'S LETTER TO DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. & Letter From Birmingham City Jail - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. April 16, 1963
3. The South Africa Kairos Document 1985

These documents make for good group readings in covenant circles or for your social justice council. Sections of text might be appropriate as grounding to open events.

Militarization in U.S. Cities

Did you miss Brett Heinz's fabulous presentation last month on the throughline from U.S. Airstrikes to the Insurrection Act? Review the video here.

Brett spoke to us at length about the following policy through-line: Airstrikes to the War on Drugs; the War on Drugs to the War on Terror; the War on Terror to the prospect of the Insurrection Act being used in U.S. Cities. He touched on: the Southern Strategy, several previous presidential administrations; the expanding role of the Department of Homeland Security; the hypocrisy, if not fallacy, of the term "narco-terrorist"; the urgent threat of the Imperial Presidency; and the needed shift in thinking to roll back the circumstances.

Strategy Development

Our Democracy Action team has been discussing its team strategy at our recent meetings. Volunteers agree, UUSJ obviously works at the intersection of two important “pillars” that can influence the Trump administration: the Faith pillar and the Members of Congress pillar. These are our target audiences for our strategic intent. The fundamental question is how we can best engage the faith pillar to influence the congressional pillar. You are part of the answer: see our post for starting steps you can take.

At this moment, many of our basic UU and national values are under attack by the administration. Our fundamental rights as citizens are being violated. Two of the most egregious areas in need of urgent and ongoing attention by faith groups and the population in general are the violent attacks on innocent immigrants by ICE and the inappropriate deployment of the military in U.S. cities and elsewhere, often, but not only, in support of ICE.

Faith groups are beginning to come together to witness and resist these attacks, and many of the members of our local UUSJ Democracy Leaders groups are engaging in this effort. At our last strategy meeting, we met with the conveners of the Immigration Action team to discuss potential joint actions to support this work.

Join in fellowship to engage as UUs

Participate in UUSJ’s “No frills actions hour” events to gather as part of a group and take a variety of actions, depending on the meeting topic. Actions follow a short issue briefing by volunteers. The next event will be on Tuesday, December 16, on the subject of DC Local Autonomy. You can register at this link.

Members of our Democracy Research and Advocacy Subteam have been galvanizing other UUSJ volunteers and organizing these monthly calls, testing your appetite to “push back” in various ways – as you have requested – and to champion the positive alternatives, as the policy process requires.

SPEED Act will likely speed harm

The "SPEED Act" currently proposed in Congress challenges the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) – by many regards a landmark law – and goes further than the administration's executive orders (EOs), altering the way agencies conduct their NEPA reviews, where the EOs already limit community participation and narrow opportunities for community accountability. The SPEED Act appears designed to gut NEPA and further limit reviews, while weakening the prospect of using science to respond to industry assertions. 

Many advocate accounts suggest that it would eliminate government accountability when relevant agencies inadequately consider health, environmental, or economic factors in their decisions. Advocates worry, the SPEED Act would prioritize the interests of fossil fuel producers, mining companies, and other likely polluters and industry actors.

• Bipartisan Policy Center’s What’s in the SPEED Act? Issue brief 
• Earthjustice Action’s Statement on SPEED Act
• House committee marks up SPEED Act that would renounce, not reform, environmental protections nationwide, Western Environmental Law Center

Take action with UUSJ to oppose the SPEED Act in the House.

COP 30 Summit was a Mixed Affair

This year’s COP (The Conference of the Parties) was the 30th annual United Nations climate conference where heads of government, and advocates, gathered for a summit to assess global progress on combating climate change. These negotiations have widespread international and domestic implications. This year at COP, 30:

• On the one hand, in a solid showing of solidarity, commitment and care – and perhaps the global populist Zeitgeist – 70,000 people march in Belém for climate justice (Disciples Dispatch).
• On the other hand, the summit president, André Corrêa, signaled deep fissures in the process and negotiations, particularly around the Paris Agreement (Guardian), and the COP concluded with text that made no mention of fossil fuels (BBC).
• On the third hand, many activists and advocates report that the meaningful future work on climate change and climate justice might have to move beyond the COP forum: see Governments of Colombia and The Netherlands Announce Co-hosting First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels as COP30 Text Drops with No Mention of Fossil Fuels (FFT)

Our sister organization, UUSC, consistently engages at COP from the perspective of the intersection of Human Rights and Climate Justice; see their key messages for COP 30.

Green Issue Coverage

• USDA searched for terms like 'diversity,' 'climate modeling' to target grants for cancellation, Reuters
• What Climate Change Will Do to America by Mid-Century, The Atlantic
• Taps run dry as water crisis forces Iran to consider evacuating its capital, NBC
• The Green Premium Is Dead. The Fossil Premium Has Arrived, Forbes
• Clean, Cheap Energy Looks Like A Political Winner, Forbes
• 2025 state of the climate report: a planet on the brink, BioScience, Oxford Academic 
• Bill Gates is wrong to quiet-quit the climate fight — and we would be, too, Star Tribune
• New national law will turn large parking lots into solar power farms, Electrek
• Australians to get three hours of free electricity every day under solar scheme, ABC
• Religious leaders say we need faith in the climate fight, CBC 
• EPA retreats from plans to end the Energy Star program, The New York Times
• What does the latest science say about the climate crisis?, World Economic Forum
• Coal Miners With Black Lung Say They Are ‘Cast Aside to Die’ Under Trump, The New York Times 
• The Climate Solution Sitting in America’s Trash, Sentient Climate
• Good news! These ‘positive tipping points’ will help save the world, Grist
• Solar energy is going to power the world much sooner than you think, New Scientist
• Trump killed a crucial disaster database. This nonprofit just saved it, Grist

Immigration: The Law, Rights, and Religion

As part of our work collaborating with the UU Solidarity Initiative (UUSI), which focuses on immigration justice, we have been made aware of a prominent university-based institute, The Law, Rights, and Religion Project (LRRP). LRRP is a law and policy center based at Union Theological Seminary that promotes freedom of religion, religious pluralism, and social justice. They focus on four areas of work that coincide with UU commitments. As an introduction to their work, see:

• Report on Religious Liberty & Immigration (July 2025)
• Update on Sensitive Locations Litigation (May 2025)
• FAQs on Religious Liberty & Immigration (Feb 2025)
• The Black Religious Liberty Curriculum (September 2024)
• Q&A on Free Speech, Religious Liberty, and Discrimination (August 2023)

Continued Dismantling of America’s Refugee Program 

November brought additional actions by the federal government to scale back and deeply weaken the effort created after World War II to welcome people fleeing war and oppression in their home country. The National Guard tragedy is exacerbating the trend.

• Take action: Urge elected officials to restore protection for refugees 

The decades-old U.S. refugee program features detailed vetting of applicants, typically in third countries, to ensure they meet all requirements and create no security threats. Earlier this year, the administration added a new “travel ban” to limit and almost eliminate admission of fully screened refugees, some of whom had airline tickets in hand, and they also deeply cut funds for programs to support refugee arrivals in the critical early months of their arrival.

Last week, the President began to speak of a permanent ban and other radical policy shifts. Take action: Ask Congress to denounce the statements and prevent the threatened actions.

Earlier in the fall, the president issued the lowest refugee admission goal in the 45-year history of such determinations and focused the few remaining slots on white Afrikaners from South Africa. This deeply troubling decision ignored tens of thousands of vetted refugees ahead of them in the approval process, most fleeing threats in the global south. 

In addition, according to multiple reports, the administration plans to reconsider all existing refugee approvals issued by the Biden administration and halt all processing of green cards to enable refugees to work. Recent declarations double down on this telegraphed intent. These draconian, unnecessary steps threaten the status and living conditions of over 200,000 approved refugees already in the U.S.

We Opposed Rule on Commercial Driver's Licenses

UUSJ submitted a public comment on an interim final rule entitled “Restoring Integrity to the Issuance of Non-Domiciled Commercial Drivers Licenses” issued by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). We view it as an attack on immigrants.

The rule unjustly discriminates against non-domiciled drivers, that is, those living in the U.S. but without resident status. For example, DACA recipients or asylum seekers, and, in the case of CDL holders, immigrants with USCIS-issued employment authorization documents. 

UUSJ strongly opposes the interim rule and urged the FMCSA to repeal it.