December 3, 2024

The many disqualifications of Pete Hegseth, a bold strategy on the ERA, bystander interventions against online harassment, and more!

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• STOP PETE HEGSETH
  With Matt Gaetz forced out of consideration for Attorney General, it’s time to turn our attention to an equally bad nominee for Secretary of Defense: Fox News personality Pete Hegseth. The disqualifications for Hegseth keep piling up. He’s been accused of raping his handler at a conference for Republican women – and paid a settlement to his accuser in exchange for non-disclosure. He was forced out of leadership positions at two veterans organizations over allegations of sexual harassment and mishandling reports of sexual assault, along with financial mismanagement and other personal misconduct. Even his own mother once called him “an abuser of women.” Beyond that, Hegseth has minimal experience, extreme conservative views, and ties to Christian and White Nationalists who want to rule the country through Biblical law. He has spoken out against women serving in combat and LGBTQ people in the military and considers all Democrats and leftists enemies of the state. He’s openly fantasized about the U.S. military taking sides in a new civil war between left and right. Let’s read this article on seven things you should know about Pete Hegseth, and then call our Senators and tell them that Hegseth is a dangerous and unacceptable choice to lead the Department of Defense.

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• PUSH BIDEN ON PUBLISHING THE ERA – DIGITAL TOWN HALL TONIGHT

  Women in the U.S. still lack guaranteed equal rights under the Constitution. And with only weeks remaining in President Biden’s term, both the need and the opportunity to change that are great. A broad alliance of organizations is pushing Biden to publish the Equal Rights Amendment while he still can. They’re hosting a digital town hall TONIGHT at 7:00PM Eastern featuring Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) – focused on how we got here and what we can do next to take action. We can sign up to attend this event here. We can also contact the White House directly to urge President Biden to move forward with the ERA, using this sample message from Democrats Abroad, and use this toolkit to amplify the call in our social media postings.

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• ENCOURAGE STATE GOVERNMENTS NOT TO COOPERATE WITH ICE
  Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) recently went on record to say that state governments have absolutely no obligation to cooperate with federal agencies on the identification and deportation of immigrants. While there will likely be some states that are eager to assist in deportation efforts and others that will resist, we can all raise our voices, no matter where we live, by reminding our state leaders that we expect them to spend our tax dollars in areas that our more directly beneficial to our state’s residents like housing, transportation and education. We can also remind them that utilizing state law enforcement to help ICE will make all of us less safe, as immigrants who have witnessed or been victims of crimes will be afraid to come forward. Let’s contact our governors and state legislators and tell them we want our tax money to be spent improving the lives of the people in our state, and not a penny wasted on assisting the federal government with raids and deportations. (We can also go a step further and join the Detention Watch Network for a webinar on building rapid response capacity to deportations tomorrow at 3:00 PM Eastern here.)

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• DON’T BE A BYSTANDER – ONLINE EDITION

  MAGA supporters are feeling emboldened in the wake of Trump’s victory, and they are taking their already intense campaign of online abuse to new heights. This is an attempt to silence our voices, and we must fight back – for ourselves and for those around us. Right To Be is hosting a free bystander intervention training TOMORROW, December 4th at 2:00PM Eastern, focused on how we can most effectively stand up for those being targeted for online harassment. Let’s sign up to take part here.

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• PRESERVE THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

  Trump’s victory has empowered his Christian Nationalist supporters to ramp up their efforts to break down the precious barrier between church and state, especially in our schools. We have already seen the Texas State Board of Education approve the creation of a “Bible-infused curriculum” for elementary schools. While they are attempting to give themselves cover by making its use optional, schools that comply will be rewarded financially. Meanwhile, Oklahoma’s state superintendent of schools Ryan Walters emailed public school districts demanding that they show all students a video of him praying for Donald Trump, and has also tried to order schools to incorporate the Bible into their classrooms. We know this is just the beginning, and we need to get in the fight. Let’s sign up for updates from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, one of the leading groups pushing back, and consider a donation to their work.

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