March 27, 2025 - 5 Days to Wisconsin
Scandals in Washington, elections back home, electric bills going up, 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
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If you have questions, comments, and especially submissions for actions, please email us at roganslisttips@gmail.com!
SIGNALGATE FALLOUT SPREADS, NO ACCOUNTABILITY SO FAR
After days of ugly smears aimed at Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg and outraged denials of his reporting, he published the full war plans group chat text yesterday – and as we can read in this gift link, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth did in fact share significant details of an ongoing military operation over Signal. As parties as biased as Republican Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker admitted, this absolutely would have qualified as classified information.
We have now established that leaders including Vice-President Vance, Secretary of Defense Hegseth, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller were sharing information about strikes in Yemen over an app sufficiently unsecured that the Pentagon warned employees not to use it, information that could have endangered the lives of our military personnel. They did so while multiple members of the conversation were in foreign countries. They lied about it. And they did so while knowingly attacking a civilian location.
There need to be consequences for this.
Let’s let our members of Congress know we are demanding the removal of Hegseth and Waltz, and their impeachment if they will not quit or be fired. And let’s tell them to push for an independent prosecutor to investigate all those involved in the chat for potential criminal violations, including destruction of records and lying under oath to Congress in the aftermath. We can use this script from 5Calls as base language or email working off of this language on Resistbot from our friend .
Let’s also demand the same relentless media coverage of this serious security breach from the media as they gave to Hillary’s emails. The State Department ultimately concluded “there was no persuasive evidence of systematic, deliberate mishandling of classified information” from Hillary, even though the Columbia Journalism Review found “in just six days, The New York Times ran as many cover stories about Hillary Clinton’s emails as they did about all policy issues combined in the 69 days leading up to the election… and [coverage] accounted for more sentences than all of Trump’s scandals combined (65,000 vs. 40,000).” Let’s tell the New York Times (washington@nytimes.com ; national@nytimes.com) and our own regional newspaper of record that the Trump administration security breach is so egregious that we expect an unrelenting drumbeat of Watergate-style coverage for as long as it takes to get to the bottom of it.
Lastly, let’s give them some incentive. As suggested by , we should engage with as many articles and posts about Signalgate as we possibly can. The media rewards engagement – so let’s click links, reply and comment, and share stories so they know they’ll get it with more coverage.
DEMOCRATIC UPSET IN SPECIAL ELECTION AS WE HEAD INTO GOTV
Some great news from Pennsylvania as Democrats earned another shock victory in a deep-red state legislative district on Tuesday. East Petersburg Mayor James Malone beat Republican county commissioner Josh Parsons 50-49 to win a state senate seat Trump carried by 15 points in November – and became the first Democrat to ever win this constituency. He did so running hard on education and reproductive rights and against Elon Musk and his thefts from the federal government.
This is a great sign as we head into GOTV for next week’s elections. We have two open House seats in Florida, both of which are in even deeper red areas – but the GOP is showing real signs of struggle. In the Florida Sixth, vacated by Signalgate figure Mike Waltz, Republican nominee state senator Randy Fine has had lackluster fundraising, has seen fewer Republicans than Democrats return their vote by mail ballots, and has a lead on Democratic teacher Josh Weil only within the margin of error in a recent poll in an electorate Trump won by 30. Gun sense advocate Gay Valimont is also posting surprisingly strong numbers in the Florida First against Republican state chief financial officer Jimmy Patronis. While the lean of the electorate will probably carry both Republicans through and Elon Musk is starting to pour money in, we at the very minimum have a real chance to send a clear message to MAGA by keeping the margins far narrower than anyone expected.
Let’s do our part! We can sign up to phonebank for Josh Weil today or tomorrow here, Saturday here and Sunday here. We can make calls for Gay Valimont any time here, today through Sunday here, Monday here, or Election Day here.
(We can also find ways to help hold our majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, also up for grabs Tuesday, here.)
TRUMP WANTS TO RAISE OUR ELECTRIC BILLS
Trump is trying to cover the costs of $4.5 trillion in tax breaks that will mainly go to billionaires and big corporations, and has actively worked to boost his fossil fuel industry donors and undermine climate action. As we’d expect, that means the clean energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act are in trouble. They are a likely target as MAGA Republicans try to nail down the details on their steal-for-the-rich budget.
Climate activists and green energy boosters are making the case to save them for the family budget – emphasizing that getting rid of these credits will raise our electric bills. A recent study found repealing the IRA tax credits would drive energy prices up nearly 10% by 2029. Another suggested the repeal alone would raise household energy costs by $32 billion and kill almost 800,000 jobs. We can find state-by-state stats here.)
And we’ve got some key players in our corner, with numerous city mayors urging leadership to protect them and 21 GOP representatives signing on to a letter opposing full repeal. Let’s make our voices heard! We can contact our members of Congress to save the IRA tax credits and make energy more affordable with scripts and language here, or text SIGN PEGPKQ to 50409 to send this message via Resistbot.
PROTECT NONBINARY AND TRANS STUDENTS WHO NEED STUDENT AID
Yet another way Trump is bullying marginalized kids: proposed changes to the Department of Education Federal Student Aid forms include requiring trans students to misgender themselves and removes the nonbinary option on forms. Let’s make sure they know they do not represent us in this bigotry. Public comment is open for 12 more days. We can post our comments to the Federal Register here.
PROGRESSIVE ORGANIZING IN DEEP RED STATES
A recent article in
highlights the work of Tennessee State Representative Aftyn Behn and the progressive organizing she has been doing in her deep red state. Tennessee, she says, has “been living in Project 2025 for years.” “Where we can begin,” she says, “is with an accelerated version of a listening tour. Either the Democratic county group, grassroots groups, or a trusted nonprofit organization can kick off a community needs assessment that identifies the issues. The meetings lead to producing a report, around which people can organize.” Let’s read the article Fighting the Good Fight, download this organizer toolkit for local organizing, and, if we’re in Tennessee, get involved with Behn’s organizing activities here.KEEPING AN EYE ON…
Hands Off National Day of Action April 5th, find a protest near you here or organize one here and make social content to grow the crowds here
Kill The Cuts Day of Action to save research and education funding April 8th
Target Fast boycott in effect through April 17th, Latino Freeze boycotts on resegregation supporters continuing
Resistance Rangers rallies at national parks for Earth Day April 22nd
Join the federal workers #SaveOurServices rapid response network here
I call my Dem. senators every day, and my R Rep Hurd. Today Hurd's email and phone wasn't available (swamped?). I am professional, succinct and overall concerned about the trusk takeover, fascism, and select a specific illegally frozen funds for my rep. Today it is the frozen wildfire mitigation funds in out huge rural district. It is always the VA. Etc.
Ilene Bilenky. Ret. RN, MPH, US Army Reserves medical officer
Ridgway, CO. 81432
What is a “standout at Social Security Offices?” I clicked on the link but couldn’t find it in the doc?