Happy Friday all. It’s E-Day! Epstein Day! We will see what the release of files - certainly missing much and heavily redacted - may bring. To prep check out this new NYT article (gift link) on the Dem driving the Epstein fight, Rep. Robert Garcia, and watch our recent conversation with the incredibly capable Ranking Member Of The House Oversight Committee too. Rep. Garcia has emerged as a true rising star in recent months and deserves a great deal of credit for getting us to this point.
In a related story Politico’s gives big coverage to the House Dems’ very strong and encouraging fall - ‘You cannot hide’: Democrats’ swaggering approach stymies House Republicans. An excerpt:
On paper, Democrats are locked out of legislative power in the majority-rules House. In practice over the past several months, they have been a swaggering force.
Time and again this year, Democrats under Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have maneuvered to successfully undercut the GOP agenda and put its leaders on the back foot. From a daily drumbeat on health care to the long-running saga over the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to a new focus on the rising cost of living, they believe they’re succeeding by making the party in power talk about Democratic priorities, not its own.
Their success was underscored this week when four House Republicans joined a Jeffries-led effort to force a vote on expiring Obamacare insurance subsidies — a major embarrassment for the GOP speaker.
“Our message to Mike Johnson is clear — you can run, but you cannot hide,” Jeffries said as he took a victory lap on the House steps Thursday.
The New Yorker was referring to his party’s effort to address a so-called health care “crisis” brought about by Republican governance. But it could just as well apply to the overall Democratic attitude at the moment, with the party increasingly buoyant about its political fortunes heading into next year’s midterm elections.
Johnson and his leadership allies have been able to put some wins on the board since lawmakers returned from their summer recess. Republicans ultimately triumphed and ended a record-long shutdown without agreeing to a costly extension of the Obamacare subsidies. They managed to unite and pass a small-bore health care package this week as well as a bipartisan permitting reform bill.
But it has come at a cost. To win the shutdown fight, Johnson kept the House out of session — giving up roughly a fifth of the year’s scheduled legislative days. And managing a razor-thin majority with its constantly clashing factions has left many of his members airing dissatisfaction with the status quo.
“I think the House as a whole has not been nearly as proactive as we should have been in recent months,” said Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.). “It certainly didn’t help that we weren’t even here for two of those months.”
“I believe that we’re behind,” added Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.). “We’ve got a lot of work to do between now and the midterms.”
With a sizable band of Republican malcontents willing to buck their party’s leadership, Democrats have sought opportunities to divide the majority party — often by using discharge petitions, one of the few legislative tools available to the minority party.
Already this year three discharge petitions have garnered the necessary 218 signatures, forcing votes Johnson tried to avoid on releasing the Epstein files, restoring federal workers’ collective bargaining rights and now extending the Obamacare subsidies for three years. Each one succeeded with the vast majority of Democrats signing on at Jeffries’ direction, with a handful of GOP rebels joining in.
“We’re in the minority, but our ideas are still really good, and they deserve bipartisan support,” said Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.).
Democrats, Jeffries said, have already “won more discharge petitions in the last three weeks than have been successful in the last 30 years.” More could be coming next year, with more lawmakers planning to move on Russia sanctions legislation and a ban on congressional stock trading.
Here’s Maria Shriver on our depraved leader’s desecration of The Kennedy Center yesterday. It’s time now for Congressional Democrats to assemble a bi-cameral working group to fight for and protect official Washington from Trump’s escalating ambition and madness…..
In my post yesterday I talked about how we should anticipate that the elections next year will be not a typical mid-term, fought out state by state, district by district. We should anticipate that Trump and his allies - including the tech bros, Russia and Gulf Arab states - will spend and do whatever it takes to keep the regime in power. It’s critical that pro-democracy forces to be war-gaming out what this unprecedented landscape may look like, and develop plans to prevail in what will be new and challenging terrain. In that regard I share a remarkable new AP investigation and report into Russia’s escalating “hybrid war” tactics in Europe:
In November, a train carrying almost 500 people came to a sudden halt in eastern Poland. A broken overhead line had smashed several windows, and the track ahead was damaged. Elsewhere on the line, explosives detonated under a passing freight train.
No one was hurt in either case and the damage was limited, but Poland, which blamed the attack on Russia’s intelligence services, responded forcefully: It deployed 10,000 troops to protect critical infrastructure.
The sabotage in Poland is one of 145 incidents in an Associated Press database that Western officials say are part of a campaign of disruption across Europe masterminded by Russia. Officials say the campaign — waged since President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — aims to deprive Kyiv of support, create divisions among Europeans and identify the continent’s security weak spots.
So far in this hybrid war, most known acts of sabotage have resulted in minimal damage — nothing compared to the tens of thousands of lives lost and cities decimated across Ukraine.
But officials say each act — from vandalism of monuments to cyberattacks to warehouse fires — sucks up valuable security resources. The head of one large European intelligence service said investigations into Russian interference now swallow up as much of the agency’s time as terrorism.
While the campaign places a heavy burden on European security services, it costs Russia next to nothing, officials say. That’s because Moscow is carrying out cross-border operations that require European countries to cooperate extensively on investigations — while often using foreigners with criminal backgrounds as cheap proxies for Russian intelligence operatives. That means Moscow notches up a win just by tying up resources — even when plots aren’t successful.
“It’s a 24/7 operation between all the services to stop it,” said a senior European intelligence official, who like the head of the European intelligence service and other officials who spoke to AP insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters.
This remarkable article has an interactive map detailing how Russia has been attacking Europe in recent years. Here’s a screenshot:
And in that regard I am disappointed that the DNC has chosen not release it’s Comprehensive Review of the 2024 Election, and hope they will reconsider in the coming days. For we need to learn everything we can from our disappointing loss to Trump in 2024 as we will be up against that same political machine next year, one that we know plays by a different set of rules than we do. Rules, for example, that allowed them to encourage and accept Russia’s help in 2016, and to corruptly wrest control of TikTok and hand it to a close political ally next year in time for the mid-terms:
2026 can be a year of opportunity for us. Let’s commit to do everything we can, together, to make it so……
now….
Winning The Midterms - Support Our 2026 Candidates
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Expanding The Senate and Electoral College Maps, Winning In Red States and Red Places (2026-2032)
Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $240,000 raised, $250,000 goal - Join our new campaign to expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas | Donate to all five state parties in a single contribution | Enjoy my conversations with Alaska Chair Eric Croft, Florida Chair Nikki Fried, Iowa Chair Rita Hart and Texas Chair Kendall Scudder | Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $10,000 to each of our five state parties!
In two new essays (here, here) I talk about how one of the ways we win the 2026 midterms is by providing early support to our candidates and parties to allow them to staff up now, be loud now, define the terms of the debate now, before the inevitable onslaught on AI slop, Russian disinfo, and Trumpian lies funded through bribes and corruption wash across the land. The midterms could be won or lost in these next few months - not in the fall of 2026 - and we need be fighting now with everything we got.
Winning The Big Arguments With Trump, Defending Our Democracy - We have two recommended actions today:
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:
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 current efforts to force Ukraine to surrender
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
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
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 unlawful occupation of our cities; stopping the unprecedented corruption; and by forcing the Administration to finally comply with Congress, end the rancid cover up, and release all of the Epstein files
Fight Trump’s war on science, higher education and our public health; reverse - not delay - the cuts to the ACA and Medicaid; support and co-sponsor Rep. Haley Stevens’ effort to Impeach and remove Robert Kennedy
2 - Celebrate America, Our Constitution, Our 250th Birthday By Bringing Our Resolutions Project To Your Community - Next year, on July 4th, America celebrates it’s 250th birthday. We need to make this holiday, a celebration of our Declaration Of Independence from a mad king, our day, and not allow it to become his.
One way we can do this is by bringing our Resolutions Project to your community or state. Imagine if by July 4th of next year a large number of towns, counties and states had passed formal resolutions, in the spirit of our Declaration of Independence, defending our Constitution and condemning the “injuries,” “abuses,” and “usurpations” of our mad king. For as our Founders wrote in the Declaration:
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
So far Hopium members have introduced or passed resolutions in 85 communities in 23 states. In the coming days we will be convening to discuss how to bring this campaign to more places and start planning to Own The Fourth next year.
Finally, please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire all of us to do more and fight harder!
Keep working hard all, and I remain proud - so proud - to be in this fight with all of you - Simon
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