Happy Tuesday, Activists ~
We hope you had a good weekend. And that includes enjoying the amazing Eagles win! (Apologies to Commanders fans.) But it sure was fun.
This week we need to make more calls to push our senators to vote NO on the next batch of horrible cabinet picks. And this set is truly horrible. I mean, are these the only people they could find?! But we have a shot of getting at least one of them voted down.
I don't know if you've been seeing it - and you probably have - that many in the media are asking: "Where are the activists?" And you might be saying to yourself, as we are - "We're right here, doing the work!" Ezra Levin, Indivisible Co-Director answered it well: "We’re not counting on viral moments on authoritarian-friendly social media platforms to deliver the outrage to congressional doorsteps. We’re informing our neighbors. We’re organizing our communities. And we’re demanding that our elected officials fight with the same energy we are or get the hell out of the way." Enough said.
CALLS TO ACTION
First, we have a correction to make from last week's Call to Action. Our new guidance is that we should make one call for only one nominee and not group them together in one call or email. It seems a senator's staff codes the call for the specific nominee, so if we group them all together it's only one entry with one code. So please make a separate call or email on each of these terrible nominees. Since it only takes a couple of minutes to make the call, hopefully you can make three calls in one day.
On Friday, Senate Republicans confirmed Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary by a historically small margin. If we can flip just one additional Republican to vote ‘no’ on Russell Vought, Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard, or RFK Jr., we can block their nominations. And there’s reason to believe there’s growing opposition to some of these nominees. Let’s keep the pressure on.
1. Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget -- A co-author of Project 2025, is a far right-wing hawk on expansive executive power and believes in using the military during civil unrest, slashing spending programs without Congress, and stripping federal workers of their protections. Yeah, he's that guy. Call and tell your senators to vote NO on this anti-democracy zealot. His committee hearings already took place and we don't know when the rest of the process will happen.
2. Hearing on Wednesday, January 29, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., vaccine skeptic, Secretary of Health and Human Services This position has enormous control over 18 agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
3. Hearing on Thursday, January 30 -- Kash Patel, Director of the FBI. This guy is so horrible I barely have words. He's lied about so many important issues, for example about his role at DOJ, and also abused processes there, and he is big part of Trump's "retribution" campaign, saying ""We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media".
4. Hearing on Thursday, January 30, Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence. She probably has the slimmest chance of being approved because of her past trips and alignment with Russia and Syria's former dictator Assad. And, hilariously, because she was only recently a Democrat and Republicans have a hard time with that ("she's not one of us"). Let's make our calls and emails and help defeat her nomination.
Here are the senators' contacts --
Sen. McCormick – Phila office 215-405-9660; D.C. office 202-224-6324; email link (scroll to the bottom of the page).
Sen. Fetterman – Phila office 215-241-1090; D.C. 202-224-4254; email link
For outside PA: Find your senators’ phone numbers and emails at this link.
DNC CHAIR ENDORSEMENT
Indivisible just announced that it has endorsed Ben Wikler for DNC Chair after input from group leaders nationwide. As they describe: "In this political moment, we need a DNC chair who recognizes the historic demands on the party to resist fascism and mobilize diverse coalitions to save our democracy. We need a chair who understands that lasting power can’t be built top-down -- it needs to be organized from the bottom up. Ben is the real deal, and we’re proud to endorse him for DNC Chair."
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