A Corrupt SCOTUS Comes To A Struggling Trump's Rescue (Again), Their Assault On Our Public Health Escalates, Let's Keep Fighting To Stop Their Terrible Budget Bill

Hopium Gathering 1230pm Saturday At The Women's Summit In McLean, VA

Afternoon and evening all. Tomorrow I speak at the 9th Annual Network NOVA Women’s Summit at 1045am ET in McLean, Virginia. There is still time to buy tickets if you want to join us. For those attending there will be a meet up for members of the Hopium community in Continental Ballroom C at 1230pm after our morning session. Come by if you can - look forward to seeing folks!

An Ugly End To The Week - While I still believe Trump is struggling and increasingly unpopular, he and his allies continue to break things, important things, that will be difficult if not impossible to repair. I’ve been traveling and had some person things to attend t today - and it was a crazy news day - so I am not going to be give what became an ugly week it’s due tonight. But a few notes, and a reminder that job one now remains killing the terrible reconciliation bill……

Kennedy’s Dramatic Undermining Of Vaccines - Yes, here we are. The Administration is working to make COVID, measles and other diseases great again while at the same time working to weaken health care access to close to 100m people. All of this still leaves me stunned, and deeply angry. From the AP:

During his Senate confirmation hearings, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suggested he wouldn’t undermine vaccines.

“I am not going to go into HHS and impose my preordained opinions on anybody at HHS,” he said. “I’m going to empower the scientists at HHS to do their job and make sure that we have good science that is evidence based.”

He also said he wouldn’t halt congressionally mandated funding for vaccination programs, nor impose conditions that would force local, state or global entities to limit access to vaccines or vaccine promotion.

“I’m not going to substitute my judgment for science,” he said.

Yet the Department of Health and Human Services under Kennedy has taken unprecedented steps to change how vaccines are evaluated, approved and recommended — sometimes in ways that run counter to established scientific consensus.

Here’s the story from the Santa Fe New Mexican that drove my Bluesky posts this afternoon - 5 inmates in New Mexican jails test positive for measles.

This comes on the heals of the Supreme Court making a decision that will dramatically undermine the reproductive health care of tens of millions of women across America.

More on all this in coming days. This shit makes me angry, very, very angry.

SCOTUS Bends The Knee To Trump, Again - Today’s ruling limiting the ability of Federal Judges to block unlawful and unconstitutional activity by the Trump regime was shocking and dangerous. We will all be spending time in the coming days working to understand where we are now, but to get an initial take I share a recording of a press conference from earlier today by 5 Dem AGs:

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin
Washington Attorney General Nick Brown
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell
California Attorney General Rob Bonta
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong

It feels like the role of Democratic Attornies General in defending the Constitutional order, while already important, became much more so today.

New Hopium Discussions For The Weekend - It’s been a bit of an ugly week so am sending along some our recent conversations for weekend enlightenment and uplift. Dive in when you can……

• “Boundless Optimism” - My conversation with Rep. Mikie Sherrill, our great candidate for NJ Governor

• On Trump’s “Spectacle Of Power” - my riveting conversation with Anne Applebaum

• Folks Aren’t Buying What Trump Is Selling - my latest video and post on the current moment

• MI AG Dana Nessel on the success of the 23 Dem AGs in challenging Trump’s lawlessness

• Tom Bonier’s compelling presentation pulling together new data about the 2024 that concludes Dems must make partisan voter registration a much bigger priority

• Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, on how Trump is making America far less safe

Now, Let’s Get To Work

Folks, if you are angry, pissed, scared and wan’t to do something, got a lot of things you can do, below. Let’s start off with a wonderful note from Hopium community member Elizabeth T:

Thanks so much for your framing in this video! {my video presentation this week} It caused me to take a moment to think about the ways I have changed my behavior since joining Hopium last November. I now take it as a matter of course that I will call my elected officials seven days a week. I am writing postcards every day. I'm working to get a resolution passed in my city. I'm telling people in my circle to do at least one thing every day (make a call, have a conversation, attend a protest, etc.). I picket with my neighbors at an intersection near our houses regularly. I imagine I'll be doing this for the rest of my life, although I would like to think that my actions will eventually be about making good things better rather than helping to stop the destruction of everything good in our society. Thanks, Simon and the rest of the patriots here! I have learned SO much from all of you!

Great work Elizabeth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Support Hopium’s Priority Candidates - June 30th Filing Deadline Is Coming Up!

• Mikie Sherrill NJ Gov - $200,000 goal ($25k by 6/30), $20,000 raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch Our Interview

• Abigail Spanberger VA Gov - $200,000 goal, $137k raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch Our Interview

• Jon Ossoff GA Senate - $200,000 goal ($25k by 6/30), $13,000 raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer

• Hopium House 7 - $200,000 goal, $139k raised - Donate | Learn More, Volunteer, Watch Our Interviews

1 - Stop The Reconciliation Bill - Job One for us this summer remains fighting Trump’s ruinous and deeply unpopular economic agenda. We need to keep calling every day and demand our leaders vote down the reconciliation bill and roll back Trump’s terrible tariffs. This is the big, definitional battle of the summer and we need keep working it every day. Those of you in states with Republican Senators have a particularly important role to play in the coming weeks.

Here’s a possible script to use to fight the reconciliation bill and tariffs. Use whatever works for you:

I am calling to urge you to vote against the reconciliation bill and to roll back Trump’s terrible and illegal tariffs. Together these actions have raised taxes on all of us and will explode the deficit - things Republicans have always told us they did not believe in.

But your agenda is also causing all of us to “pay more and get less” for every day things including our health care; people to loses their jobs; and the economy to slow - all so you can give your rich donors a huge tax break. Your plans will weaken this great country and are an extraordinary betrayal of everything you promised during the campaign - which was to help people like me, not Elon Musk, get ahead.

Your plans are ones of sabotage, surrender and betrayal and I urge you to abandon them and to work with Democrats to find a better way.

2 - Get The Military Off Our Streets, Fight Trump’s Inhumane Immigration Escalation - Contact your Rep and Senators to demand they fight Trump’s illegal use of the National Guard and Marines in California. Encourage Democrats at all levels of government to a stand with Governor Newsom and the California - for Trump is not just attacking California, he is attacking the rights and freedoms of all of us. See my recent interviews with Joe Garcia, Leon Krauze and Senator Chris Van Hollen for more.

In the coming days I want to work with all of you to do something more explicit about demanding the end of masked, plain clothes “police” snatching people here in America without warrants.

3 - Own The Fourth, The Flag And Patriotism - To keep our momentum going after this weekend’s No Kings events I encourage to explore ways of Owning The Fourth and make our Independence Day an ugly one for our mad wannabe king.

Inspired by the tactics of our Founders, learn about how Hopium members are advancing “resolutions of condemnation” in their communities across the country and consider bringing this initiative to your state, country or city/town. Our resolutions passed in New Mexico this week, others are working to bring them forward - let’s keep the mo’ going everyone!

4 -Volunteer To Help Your State and/or Local Democratic Parties Stand Up Voter Registration Efforts - In the presentation he made to our community on Friday Tom Bonier made a persuasive case that Democrats must once again make partisan voter registration a national priority. State and local Democratic Parties are in the planning stages to take this on. Members of our community should consider contacting their state and local parties and offer to help stand up these vital efforts in the coming months.

For more on the need to make partisan voter registration great again see my recent interview with Jane Kleeb, Nebraska Democratic Party Chair, DNC Vice Chair and President of the Association of Democratic State Committees.

5 - Stand Up For Science - Sign on to the critically important Bethesda Declaration and watch my interview with Stand Up For Science’s Executive Director Colette Delawalla. Signing on to the Declaration is one concrete way you can take action today.

Note that we did get a great court ruling restoring the NIH grants the Bethesda Declaration calls for. Here’s how one medical journal characterized the ruling:

District Judge William Young, a nominee of Republican President Ronald Reagan, blasted the Trump administration’s NIH cuts as discriminatory and “bearing down on people of color because of their color.”

A federal judge ruled that President Donald Trump’s sweeping terminations of NIH research contracts are not only illegal, but are also a clear manifestation of the government’s “racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community.”

In a speech after delivering his verdict on Monday, U.S. District Judge William Young in Massachusetts called the administration’s move to cut federal funding for certain research grants “arbitrary and capricious,” going against established government standards, as per the Associated Press. Young blasted the Trump administration, which he said was “bearing down on people of color because of their color,” NBC News reported. “The Constitution will not permit that.”

In a very important development, Republican Senator Bill Cassidy has called on Robert Kennedy to delay the meeting of his newly constituted fake vaccine advistory committee this week.

For more on the need to fight Trump’s war on science, research, academia and our public health see my recent interview with noted climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann.

Please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire all of us to do more and fight harder!

Grow Hopium - We’ve set a goal of trying to grow the Hopium community from the 152,000 we are now to 175,000 by Labor Day. Do what you can to encourage your friends, family and colleagues to become a summer subscriber to Hopium, free or paid. If each current paid subscriber brings in just one new subscriber this summer we will hit our goal.

To encourage the growth of our community annual paid subscriptions are 10% off through Labor Day and we’ve launched a new referral awards program too. So you can earn months towards a paid subscription by bringing in new subscribers to the Hopium community!

Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon