February 4, 2025

Resistance in Washington, time for schools to step up, make beautiful trouble, and more!

Contact all members of Congress:

• By phone: (202) 224-3121

• By email: Congress.gov

• By US mail: Representatives / Senators

• By fax: Representatives / Senators

• By Resistbot: Resist.bot

Contact White House or other federal agencies:

• usa.gov/federal-agencies

If you have questions, comments, and especially submissions for actions, please email us at roganslisttips@gmail.com!

• PUSHBACK FOR THE MUSK TAKEOVER AT USAID

  Elon Musk has functionally seized control of the U.S. Agency for International Development, including having one of his minions ordering regular USAID employees to stay home and claiming he and Trump are shutting down the agency entirely. Other U.S. officials have indicated it will be merged into the State Department with significant cuts. Either way, neither this unelected billionaire nor the president have the authority to do any of this without Congress, and their violations are causing real-world harm. Their foreign aid cutoffs are already halting lifesaving work around the world, including efforts to stop malaria, monitor Ebola outbreaks and treat HIV/AIDS. They’re also undermining our national security, encouraging instability and damaging our global image while boosting China’s – and in the short run, they briefly shut down funding to keep guards on duty over thousands of imprisoned ISIS fighters. Yesterday, Democrats began efforts at pushing back on this illegal act of self-destruction. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) announced he will put a blanket hold on all of Trump’s State Department nominees until the Trump-Musk attack on USAID ends. Then a group of Democratic lawmakers including Senators Schatz, Chris Murphy and Chris Van Hollen and Reps. Don Beyer, Jamie Raskin, Gerry Connolly, Johnny Olszewski, Ilhan Omar, Suhas Subramanyam, Sarah Elfreth, Jim McGovern, Yassamin Ansari, and Eugene Vindman attempted to enter USAID headquarters to speak with staff – and were blocked by security, apparently on Musk’s orders. None of this is okay, and all of it demands even more of a fight. Let’s take action by:

  • Thanking those Democratic elected officials who showed up to USAID today and made sure the spotlight stayed on the illegal shutdown – and encouraging them and other representatives to aggressively work to draw attention to the administrative coup and to interfere with it any way they can.

  • Thanking Senator Schatz for not treating this as business as usual and putting his hold on Trump State Department nominees – and encouraging him and all Democratic senators to use the procedural weapons they have to #FreezeTheSenate with holds, rejecting unanimous consent, quorum calls and more to slow the Trump-Musk wrecking ball.

  • Turning up the heat on the media. The nation’s cable news networks failed to cover the Democratic event at USAID live. Let’s reach out to MSNBC at MSNBCTVinfo@nbcuni.com and CNN via tips@cnn.com to ask why.

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• TELL SENATORS TO STOP PROJECT 2025 AUTHOR, IMPOUNDMENT LEADER’S CONFIRMATION

  The assault on our democracy goes far beyond USAID and it has been relentless. Even with two federal judges having blocked Trump’s “freeze” halting federal funding, there are still reports coming in that rural health care centers, research labs, child care facilities and other organizations are not receiving funds. This will only get worse if the Senate goes forward with this week’s planned confirmation vote of Project 2025 author Russ Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought has been a leading force behind Trump’s civil service purge, reining in independent agencies and this exact tactic of impoundment – the President unilaterally refusing to spend funds appropriated by Congress, cutting off whoever he chooses. If he takes the job, we can anticipate even more ripoffs, as taxpayer funds for Medicaid, schools and infrastructure are held back and channeled to right-wing projects like cutting taxes for billionaires and corporations. There are lots of procedural tools to slow down Vought while we build opposition to the damage he proposes, but our senators must have the guts to use them. Indivisible is encouraging folks to contact their senators and urge them to vote no on Vought – and to #FreezeTheSenate until all funding is fully unfrozen. Let’s check out their guide here, make the call and consider working with our local Indivisible groups or other interested activists in arranging a protest at one of our senator’s local offices over the Vought vote with this toolkit.

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• INTERIM FBI DIRECTOR STANDS UP AGAINST THE TRUMP PURGE

  On Thursday, FBI director nominee Kash Patel promised the Senate under oath all FBI employees would be protected against political retribution. A little over 24 hours later, the Trump Justice Department ordered acting FBI director Brian Driscoll to fire eight senior executives and to turn over the names of every FBI employee involved in investigating January 6th. Legal experts, along with the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, have indicated few if any of these firings are legal under current civil service laws. The DoJ also fired dozens of prosecutors who worked on January 6th criminal cases. While the executive dismissals went forward, Acting Director Driscoll reportedly refused the order targeting agents who worked on January 6th, which would have touched on thousands of personnel – close to a sixth of the bureau. If he can show that sort of defiance in the face of Trump’s pressure, our elected officials need to have his back. Let’s reach out to our members of Congress and urge them to hold public events with the fired prosecutors and FBI agents, highlighting their history of public service and calling out Trump for making us less safe to carry out his retribution. For our senators, let’s also urge them to vote no on the clearly untrustworthy Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi (scripts and language here) and to put a hold on these and all other Justice Department nominations, including U.S. attorneys, as long as they continue to politicize the DoJ and threaten the jobs of agents and prosecutors in good standing.

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• EVERY KID DESERVES SAFE SCHOOLS

  Some of the most effective defiance of Trump won’t come from anyone in Washington, D.C. MAGA has once again made our schools a battleground, and our kids their target. The White House has rescinded policies preventing immigration enforcement action at schools and other “sensitive locations.” Trump has also issued executive orders forcing unprecedented federal interference into local schools, ordering them to avoid teaching accurate history and social studies, bar teachers from calling trans students by their names and ban trans kids from using the bathroom that matches their gender identity or risk losing federal funding. Lawsuits have already been fired against the executive orders, most funding to schools is not federal, and most of the federal funding cannot be limited this way. But the message to the kids under attack is loud and clear, and they need to hear a different one from us. Multiple school districts came out with a loud and forceful response to the executive order, saying they would not comply and would support their teachers and kids, and others have taken proactive steps to reassure their students they will do everything possible to keep them safe from ICE. Let’s make sure our local school superintendents, principals, school boards, and PTAs are doing the same:

  • We can use this sample language from Shay O’Reilly to urge those involved with our school district to put out a statement rejecting the executive order and reaffirming their commitment to civil, human and First Amendment rights for all, including trans and gender nonconforming students.

  • Indivisible.org has adapted a guide to work with local school districts on keeping out students safe from ICE infiltration. Let’s share this information with our schools, ask what they are doing, and work with them to make sure all students are guaranteed a safe, quality education. If there’s pushback, let’s also share this information from the National Immigration Law Center that demonstrates how Trump’s policy rescinding schools, hospitals, and religious institutions as safe spaces compromises safety for all of us.

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• USE THE BEAUTIFUL TROUBLE TOOLBOX TO PLAN AND TAKE EFFECTIVE ACTIONS

  If we are ready to take action with an established group, or start our own, we can check out The Beautiful Trouble toolbox. This resource offers creative activism strategies from over 175 activists worldwide. It provides real-world stories, effective tactics, guiding theories, key principles, and strategic methodologies to help plan successful campaigns. We can customize it and share our own tool collections, and the resource is available in multiple languages. Constantly evolving, it supports new movements with fresh ideas and innovative approaches. We can check out the website here for inspiration and get involved!

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STATE-SPECIFIC ACTIONS

• UT – PROTECT WORKERS’ RIGHTS FOR PUBLIC SERVANTS

  The right has been pushing another attempt to union-bust in Utah, with the House passing HB 267 – legislation that would ban collective bargaining for public sector unions. This would take away significant power in the workplace for our teachers, firefighters, police and municipal employees. Unions and civil servants led by the Utah Education Association have brought significant pressure on legislators, rallying 18 Republicans to vote no in the House, and last week successfully pushed opponents into proposing a compromise measure to the Senate that would require a recertification election every five years instead of a ban. The future of this substitute legislation is still up in the air, and Senate leaders have suggested the original bill would get a vote if it does not gain support. Let’s reach out to our state senators and tell them the ban on collective bargaining needs to stay dead. We can use this tool from the UEA.

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KEEPING AN EYE ON…

Wisconsin state supreme court election less than two months away… North Carolina supreme court steal will go to trial… Gabbard, Kennedy nominations still at risk, committee votes today… Mexico, Canada tariffs delayed for 30 days… Los Angeles wildfires contained, need for relief remains… Starbucks, Amazon workers need help organizing… keep eyes out for denied funding from the “freeze”…

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