r/DemocraticUS

Trump has now agreed to a settlement with an IRS commissioner he can fire and an acting attorney general who wants a nomination to drop his $10 billion lawsuit in exchange for a $1.7 billion slush fund to "compensate" the henchmen who committed crimes for his benefit. This could include the nearly 1,600 people charged with attacking the Capitol to overturn the results of the election on January 6th.

This is a theft from the American taxpayers, playing out right in the open. The White House is going to use our money to pay off himself and the thugs who committed political violence on his behalf. There will certainly be legal challenges ahead, but as Rep. Jamie Raskin has pointed out Congress has power over spending, which means they can stop it from going forward... and if they don't, it's because their members/leadership are making a choice to allow it. 🗣️ Let’s reach out to our reps and demand they prevent a single penny of our money from being used for Trump’s slump fund. We can find scripts and email language to use here, or text SIGN PMLDMK to 50409 to send this message directly via Resistbot. 🗣️

Also in today's List:

• Condemn Colorado Governor Jared Polis for his decision to commute the sentence of one of the last coup co-conspirators facing consequences
• Even as opposition on Capitol Hill inches forward, Trump is threatening to escalate again in Iran – tell reps it’s time to shut this down, help Indivisible drive calls to Congress, make opposition visible
• Ready to organize tenants in your community? Apply for TUF’s Union School by June 15th
• This week’s judges to thank
• Georgians go to the polls with a chance to unseat two conservative supreme court justices TOMORROW - phonebank to get it done today at 12PM and 6PM and throughout the day Tuesday! Plus learn how we can help pass a new challenge to Citizens United in Montana at 7PM ET and how to organize a freedom vigil at a detention site at 8PM ET

Jamie Ager, a fourth-generation West North Carolina farmer and the Democratic nominee for the Eleventh Congressional District, is kicking off weekly Tuesday evening phonebanks tonight at 5PM! Ager is running hard on addressing the federal government’s shortfalls in Hurricane Helene recovery, the affordability crisis and taking on corruption.

Ager is running in an R+5 district that was already on the radar before we learned incumbent Republican Chuck Edwards was under Ethics Committee investigation over accusations of sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment. There have been allegations that the congressman had an affair with a then-staffer, in direct violation of House rules, and that he singled out two young, female staffers for inappropriate attention. ☎️ Let’s help take down this creep. We can sign up for phonebanks tonight and on Tuesdays to come here. ☎️

MAKE CALLS FOR JAMIE AGER TUESDAYS

Also in today's Rogan's List:

• Red flags keep piling up on Trump’s threats against Cuba, tell Congress we want them to put an end to the saber-rattling here
• Help turn out voters for the Georgia supreme court and Alabama primaries today
• Another indictment of an ICE agent in Minnesota, tell your local prosecutors to follow suit
• Join America’s science community in pushing Congress to reinstate the National Science Board
• Join SURJ for a conversation on exhaustion, burnout and how to continue the long fight against authoritarianism and white supremacy TOMORROW at 8PM ET
• We are anticipating a vote this week on a national “don’t say trans” and forced outing law in the House - we can find scripts and language here to let our reps know we want them to oppose this attack on our kids!

Conventional wisdom has it that the only way to end the Citizens United regime is for a future Supreme Court to overturn it or to amend the Constitution – getting two-thirds of both houses of Congress and three-quarters of state legislatures to defy the billionaires and big businesses. But analysts led by Center for American Progress fellow and former FEC lawyer Tom Moore have been pushing an innovative approach to take on corporate power: rewriting state codes to explicitly deny corporations they charter the authority to spend in elections.

This idea has taken off. Legislation pursuing this method of end-running Citizens United has been introduced in 15 states (see the list here), and folks in Montana are trying to push it through as a ballot initiative. Hawai’i passed their version, S.B. 2471, nearly unanimously, and yesterday Governor Josh Green signed it into law. This could be a game-changer.

This, to be clear, is not a perfect or complete solution. We are going to see legal challenges against this effort for years to come, in a judicial system stacked with the sort of right-wing judges who caused this mess in the first place. Even if it does stand, it impacts corporations, not individuals - folks like Elon Musk, Ken Griffin, Richard Uihlein and Jeff Yass will still be able to spend what they want. But we’re talking about getting billions out of our elections, the first major disruption to this crooked system. And we’re talking about rejecting the ridiculous idea of “corporate personhood” that has been forced on us by the puppets of the powerful. We are taking power back for regular Americans and restoring a little bit of sanity to politics.

Let’s make sure Hawai’i is just the beginning.

🗣️ We can contact our own legislators and governors and ask them follow the Aloha State’s lead. We can find call scripts here and email language here, or send this message directly using Resistbot by texting SIGN PSIYZJ to 50409. We can also check whether there are bills already introduced in our state we can encourage them to support here. 🗣️

CALL/EMAIL LANGUAGE

SEND A RESISTBOT

🙋🏽‍♀️ We can also join the fight to pass it via ballot initiative in Montana. If we’re in the state, we can find out how to add our signature to get it on the ballot here and sign up to volunteer here. The Transparent Election Initiative will also be holding a webinar on Monday at 7PM ET/5PM MT about “the Montana Plan,” emphasizing how supporters across the country can help advance I-194. Let’s sign up to join them here. 🙋🏻‍♀️

VOLUNTEER IN MONTANA

GET INVOLVED FROM ANYWHERE MON @ 7PM ET

🙋🏿We can get more information and sign up to be part of this movement with the Transparent Election Initiative here. 🙋🏻

VOLUNTEER FROM ANYWHERE

🔁 And we can share this video explaining this new approach with our networks. Huge majorities of Americans have long wanted to take our country back from the oligarchs, let’s them know we’ve got a plan! 🔁

SPREAD THE WORD

Also in today's Rogan's List:

• The next phase of the fight for voting rights starts now - join solidarity events for All Roads Lead to the South tomorrow, help lead voter registration and engagement for Good Trouble Lives On, volunteer with Fair Fight Action
• Republicans won’t hold their own accountable, so the voters must – helping vote out Cory Mills, Chuck Edwards, Max Miller and Jen Kiggans
• Mifepristone access is safe for now – let’s use this pause to keep spreading the word about available resources for abortion
• Learn best practices and get plugged in with support to hold freedom vigils at detention sites, call Monday @ 8PM ET
• Anger at data centers is real, let’s make sure we can use it effectively – training on power mapping Wednesday @ 8PM ET
• A sitting supreme court justice hasn’t lost reelection in Georgia in more than 100 years… we’re going to change that on Tuesday! Phonebank for pro-choice, pro-democracy progressives TODAY at noon and 6PM ET, SATURDAY at 2PM ET, and SUNDAY at 1PM and 4PM ET

We’re about to get the chance to put two pro-democracy, pro-choice progressives on the high court in Georgia THIS TUESDAY, as former state senator Jen Jordan and trial attorney Miracle Rankin try to oust Republican-appointed Justices Sarah Warren and Charlie Bethel. (Check out Heather Cox Richardson’s interview with the candidates here!) A sitting justice hasn’t lost reelection in the Peach State in more than 100 years, and we’re going to make some history… and position us to flip the court just in time for the 2028 presidential race.

This is the sort of low profile race where a little bit of our efforts can make a big difference, and party IDs will not be on the ballot to guide folks. Let’s put in the work! 🗳️ We can sign up for phonebanks EVERY DAY UNTIL ELECTION DAY here or volunteer for Election Day shifts here. We can also find canvassing opportunities on the ground here and a social media toolkit here. 🗳️

GOTV PHONEBANKS

CANVASS AND WORK THE POLLS

SIGNAL BOOST THIS RACE

🗳️ Rogan’s List is keeping a running and frequently updated list of opportunities to help in this race here – please check back for more! 🗳️

Also in today's List:

• Trump weaponizes Medicaid funds against California, blue states should use standard debt-collection methods to get our money back
• Bill letting crypto billionaires run wild goes before Banking Committee today, tell senators to vote no
• Get Free, 50501 will celebrate the real America, not Trump’s whitewashed version, with “All of U.S. 250” mass mobilization June 27th
• Keep accurate information about abortion access available, volunteer to join the team at INeedAnA.com
• Join the National Day Laborer Organizing Network’s effort to protect day labor corners – find a program or start one of our own!

With no re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz in sight and experts suggesting we'll see the national average price of gas reach $5 a gallon as early as June, the Trump regime is trying to do something, anything, to indicate to the American people that they care. Their latest suggestion: suspending the federal gas tax.

The federal gas tax is an easy punching bag, and it’s frequently an early target when politicians need to look like they’re doing something about gas prices. (It’s already been suggested by members of Congress on both sides of the aisle since Trump began his war, although congressional leadership does not seem enthusiastic.) But pausing it will not in fact do much to help consumers. We pay 18.3 cents in federal taxes for each gallon of gasoline and estimates suggest we’d only see prices fall 10-16 cents, meaning we’d be reducing today’s average national price to $4.34 at best – still higher than it was a month ago, and still climbing. Furthermore, every dollar we end up saving as consumers from a gas tax suspension is a dollar that’s not getting used for the highway and mass transit repairs that that tax is supposed to be funding.

Activists and Democrats led by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Rep. Ro Khanna have been pushing a real solution to put money back in our pockets. They’ve proposed a windfall profits tax on the fossil fuel industry (the Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act, S.4111/H.R.7960), which return some of the excess money they’re making off this crisis to American households. And there’s plenty to return: Big Oil, who donated massively to elect this president, made $30 million *an hour* extra for the same amount of oil in just the first month of the war, and could ultimately clear more than $200 billion in excess profits off Trump’s “excursion.” Trump has been openly gleeful about how this war is driving more oil sales from Texas. That’s money that’s better used by regular working folks who are trying to make ends meet.

Let’s reach out to our members of Congress and urge them to ignore Trump’s band-aid with the gas tax, and support the Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act as a real answer to rising gas prices. We can find scripts and language to use here. We can also send this message via Resistbot by texting SIGN PJIYXQ to 50409.

Also in today's Rogan's List:

• After primary day in Nebraska, help Dan Osborn shake up the Senate and the state Dems protect the blue dot in the legislature
• Join Red Wine & Blue to flood social media with the truth about the attack on voting rights TOMORROW at 7:30 PM ET
• Talk about what works to flip Congress TODAY with Volunteer Blue at 4:00PM ET
• Six days left until the Georgia primary… and until we flip two supreme court seats! Today, we can phonebank for Jen Jordan and Miracle Rankin from 6-8PM ET here or any time by signing up here! We can also commit to shifts over the next few days here (new sessions just added all weekend) and put this DemCast USA social media toolkit promoting our progressive candidates here!