Morning all. Gavin Newsom gave a powerful, must watch speech last night, hosted by our friends at MeidasTouch. Here it is:
The speech ends with a compelling call to action:
The founding fathers did not live and die to see this moment.
It’s time for all of us to stand up.
Justice Brandeis said it best: in a democracy, the most important office is not president, it’s certainly not governor. The most important office is office of citizen.
At this moment, we must all stand up and be held to a higher level of accountability.
If you exercise your First Amendment rights, please do so peacefully.
I know many of you are feeling deep anxiety, stress, and fear.
But I want you to know that YOU are the antidote to that fear and anxiety.
What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty. Your silence. To be complicit in this moment.
Do NOT give in to him.
Grateful to Governor Newsom for stepping up and fighting for all of us at this critical moment.
I will be talking about our current moment with Stuart Stevens today at 1230pm ET live (link) and to our paid subscribers tonight at 7pm ET (link).
My bottom line today - while Trump continues to break things that will be difficult if not impossible to repair, the circle of defiance continues to grow; the public is not with him on any of his big initiatives; the economy is slowing, trade deals aren’t happening, he keeps losing in court, badly and had to bring Abrego Garcia home; his tariffs were declared illegal by two different courts; Musk deeply wounded him and his whole rancid regime last week and Putin is tossing him around like a rag doll.
His thing isn’t working as they planned; he is weak not strong; and so in this moment of desperation and bruised ego they escalate, change the subject, try to deflect from his many ongoing and manifest failures. And he we are.
Trump and Miller are escalating because they are weak and failing, not strong and winning.
And we cannot let up for one minute….
Hopium Backs Mikie Sherrill For New Jersey Governor - Our field is set for the two big 2025 governors races in New Jersey and Virginia and it is time to go to work everyone. Rep. Sherrill won her primary in New Jersey last night, is a great candidate, and I am proud to endorse her today. Our goal is to raise $25,000 for her by the end of the month, and $200,000 by Labor Day. So here now are our three priority fundraising campaigns (and friends, as Trump is escalating, we need to escalate our actions too):
Mikie Sherrill NJ Gov - $200,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer
Abigail Spanberger VA Gov - $200,000 goal, $126k raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch Our Interview
Hopium House 7 - $200,000 goal, $126k raised - Donate | Learn More, Volunteer, Watch Our Interviews
We also have ongoing campaigns to raise money for the new DNC, support the North Carolina Democratic Party and to thank Senator Cory Booker for his spirited leadership in a time of enormous challenge.
Standing Up For Science With Colette Delawalla - Pleased to be able to share a new interview with Stand Up For Science’s Executive Director Colette Delawalla. We sat down live yesterday afternoon and a recording is above.
Stand Up For Science is a new organization that has taken the lead in fighting the Trump-Musk-Kennedy attack on science, research, academia and our public health. Like Trump’s immigration escalation in recent days, there has been an escalation in their attack on science too as on Monday Robert Kennedy did something he explicitly promised under oath he would not do - he fired the entire American vaccine advisory board.
On Monday Stand Up For Science launched a national campaign to support something called the Bethesda Declaration, which is an unprecedented dissent from current leading scientists in the government challenging the anti-science direction of the Trump regime. Learn more about this important initiative here and consider joining me in signing on.
You can also learn how be part of their Summer Fight For Science campaign here.
Colette, a young scientist herself, took the initiative to start this organization earlier this year, stepping away from her PhD program at Emory University. Watch our discussion when you have the time and join me in Standing Up For Science and fighting the wildly destructive attack on science, research, academia and our public health today, an attack as Colette and I discuss is making Russia and China - not America - great again.
Now, Let’s Get To Work - In last Saturday’s post I offered up some initial ideas of what our summer was going to look like. Please check it out if you haven’t gotten to it yet.
Job One for us this summer is fighting Trump’s ruinous 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.
Here’s a possible script for contacting your offices. 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.
I know many of you are involved in the June 14th No Kings events, town halls, Telsa take downs and all the other in person activities that have taken off of late. Thank you, and do keep working it everyone. I am still encouraging our community to explore ideas for how we can Own The Fourth and make our Independence Day an ugly day for our mad wannabe king.
We had some progress this week in one of our Own The Fourth concepts, getting local governments to pass resolutions of dissapproval. From Hopium community member Mark Roberts comes this note:
When word came that British regulars were marching on Concord to try to seize weapons on April 19th, 1775, two companies of Minutemen, 81 soldiers in all, from Stow Massachusetts made the march to Concord, taking part in the rolling battle with the British all of the way back to Boston.
Last night, the Stow Select Board took an early action in calling out an autocratic leader act as a king. The Select Board voted to send letters to their Democrat state leaders calling on them to take back July 4th, saying in part:
"It is time for Massachusetts once again to lead the country and denounce the Current Administration and Congress for the repeated overt failures to follow the Constitution.
We urge the government of Massachusetts to call on the federal government to honor our democracy, to uphold the United States Constitution, to respect the laws passed by Congress, and to abide by all lawful decisions and orders of the United States federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court.
The Select Board of Stow, Massachusetts calls on you to issue a proclamation on behalf of all of the citizens of Massachusetts seeking to secure and save our democracy for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren.
Respectfully yours,
Select Board of Stow Massachusetts
Cc: Rep. Kate Hogan
Sen. Jamie Eldridge"
New activities today can also include:
Contacting our Reps 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 take 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.
Stand Up For Science by signing on to the critically important Bethesda Declaration
Please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire all of us to do more and fight harder.
Growing Hopium - We’ve set a goal of trying to grow the Hopium community from the 151,000 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. 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 - and a fight it truly is - Simon
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