Some Notes And Tasty Fare For Our Long Holiday Weekend....

Happy St. Valentine's Day All!!!!!!!

Good morning everyone. My wife and I kicked off this holiday weekend last night with a wonderful dinner at our favorite restaurant in DC and finished it off by watching Hamnet, which the old English major in me strongly recommends.

Here in DC we are looking forward to warmer temperatures and some rain this weekend to wash away the snow here, which has been with us for much longer than usual and has disrupted the Capital much more than many anticipated. Over these next few days I’m excited that we will go from challenging winter to those first warm, affirming days of early spring. And yes, all of a sudden it’s time to start planning our gardens everyone……..

We have five new meaty discussions for your consideration this long weekend:

• Trump Is Weaker, Our Movement Is Stronger (my latest recap of where we are in our fight for democracy)

• In America The Law Is King - Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center to talks about keeping our elections free and fair and more…..

• Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (PA-6), one the courageous six targeted by Trump, dropped by to talk about a new Democratic plan to tackle affordability, standing up for America, and reining in ICE

• One of the country’s leading experts on immigration and detention, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, spoke to us about why Trump’s detention centers are so central to his broader mass deportation strategy

• I joined Tara McGowan and David Rothkopf earlier this week for one of our regular get togethers. These discussions are always lively and informative, and this one was no exception

You can find all of our interviews and podcasts on the Hopium site under the Podcast tab, and on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify too. For your planning purposes you can now find the schedule of upcoming live and recorded conversations on our Events page. This week we will be joined by Rep. Delia Ramirez, Professor Phillips O’Brien, Alaska Senate candidate Mary Peltola and perhaps one more special guest.

Mary Peltola

And a general reminder that if you “like” a post or video here it makes it more likely that the Substack algorithm will promote it, and that it will then be seen by a wider audience. So hitting like on our posts helps bring our work to more people, and helps grow the Hopium audience. I am also grateful for those of you who’ve been using our referral system to bring in more subscribers. Together we’ve been able to introduce Hopium to many new people in recent months.

Yesterday we learned the name of the courageous Twin Cities “Bathrobe Lady” (and once again acknowledge the incredible inspiration that the people of Minnesota have been these last two months):

The State of the Union (not at all good) will be Tuesday, February 24th, a week from Tuesday. We are going to need to be very, very loud that week my friends.

Trump heads into this consequential period with his lowest job approval of his second term, his Congressional coalition fraying, DHS shuttered, his agenda roundly rejected by the American people, and a once proud nation just tired of the bluster and the bullshit, the incompetence and the corruption, the betrayal and the “more for me and less for all of you” agenda that is leaving us less prosperous, less safe, and less free….

There are two speeches members of our community keep talking about that I’m reposting for this long weekend in case you haven’t watched them yet….

The first is Senator Jon Ossoff’s powerful speech in Atlanta last weekend….

The second is Canadian Prime Minister’s Mark Carney’s Davos speech from a few weeks ago:

Janet Mills just dropped a terrific new ad about Susan Collins and her “30 years of concern”:

This week I began the process of rebooting my foundational With Democrats, Things Get Better presentation (last presented Aug, 2024) by updating some of its core graphs, ones that tell a very powerful story about American politics since the Cold War ended and a new age of globalization began:

that there is one party that has repeatedly made things better when in power, and another that has repeatedly failed to do their part - and has now become a threat to the Republic itself…..

No matter how you cut the data Trump has the worst jobs record of any President since Hoover…..

The economy just does better under Democrats than Republicans, much much better……

Democrats have averaged more than twice as many jobs created per month - 211,000 - as Republicans have per year - 90,000.

Since 1989 52 million jobs have been created in America. 50.6 million of them have been created under Democratic Presidents. 97%. Essentially all of them.

Now, Let’s Get To Work People!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Keep contacting your Senators and House Member and demand they rein in ICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are in the fight about ICE we all wanted to have and now we need to go win it!

Winning The Midterms, Competing In Red States and Red Places, Expanding The Map

Hopium’s Winning The House Campaign (2026) - $163,000 raised, $250,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Donate to all four endorsed House challengers with one click | Learn More | Enjoy our new conversations with Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Mayor Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), and Janelle Stelson (PA-10). Now including funds already raised with our friends at FridayAction for a joint event we are doing in late March.

Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $369,300 raised, $500,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Join our new campaign to expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas. Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $10,000 to each of our five state parties.

Mary Peltola For Alaska Senate - $33,300 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer and learn more. Amazing start everyone!

Winning Ohio - $58,700 raised, $250,000 goal - Our new campaign splits contributions evenly among Sherrod Brown, the Acton/Pepper ticket, and the Ohio Democratic Party. Donate today and help us turn this critical 2026 battleground blue! | Watch my conversation with David Pepper, who does a great overview of the opportunities we have in Ohio this year. Note a generous donor has sent $21,000 worth of Hopium-infused contributions directly to the candidates which are not included in our on-line goal tracker.

Roy Cooper for NC Senate (2026) - $76,500 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my conversation with Gov. Cooper and a new, terrific one with NC Dem Party Chair Anderson Clayton

Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $126,900 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my inspiring conversation with Senator Ossoff

Winning The Big Arguments With Trump, Defend Our Democracy

1 - Call Your Senators and Member Of The House And Demand They Act Upon Our Five-Part Agenda - We need to be loud people, very, very loud and make the case for our now five part agenda:

1. Stand with Ukraine and our European allies, and far more forcefully challenge Trump’s traitorous efforts to sell out the US and the West to Russia; demand Congress rebuke/issue a no confidence vote on his new threats to seize Greenland and his new, dangerous European tariffs;

2. Congress must stand forcefully for rule of law in the Caribbean and the Pacific - these illegal strikes must end; no war can be waged without Congressional approval; there must accountability for those who have broken the law, and the US must withdraw from Venezuela and cease other threats to violate the UN Charter and the sovereignty of other nations

3. Roll back Trump’s terrible, illegal tariffs that are re-igniting inflation, driving up prices, shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to working people, hurting small businesses and farmers, reviving tyrannical “taxation without representation,” and alienating governments and people throughout the world. To put America on a sounder fiscal course due to the enormous deficits brought by Trump’s 2025 tax cuts we should reverse the cuts to the wealthy and corporations

4. Defend our democracy, rule of law, and our liberties by blocking the expansion of ICE; restoring due process for immigrants across the country; vigorously defending the 1st Amendment; warring against his outrageous targeting of his domestic political opponents; ending the use of the military on our streets and the dangerous occupation of our cities; stopping the unprecedented regime corruption; and by forcing the Administration to finally comply with Congress end the rancid cover up of the Epstein crimes.

5. Fight Trump’s war on science, higher education and our public health; reverse the cuts to the ACA, Medicaid and our clean energy investments; take part in Stand Up For Science’s National Day Of Action on March 7th.

Keep working hard everyone. The momentum is with us, and we need to keep fighting as hard as we can - Simon