Besides upstanding lawyers and law-abiding honorable (present and former) judges, here's a growing list of Profiles in Courage men, women, and advocacy groups who refuse to be cowed or kneel to the force of Trump/Musk/MAGA/Fox "News" intimidation:
I'll begin with Missouri's own Jess[ica] (à la John Lewis's "get in good trouble") Piper, then, in no particular order, Heather Cox Richardson, Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, Ruth Ben-Ghait, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell, Chris Hayes, Jim Acosta, Jen Rubin And the Contrarians, Steve Brodner, Brian Tyler Cohen, Jonathan Bernstein, Jessica Craven, Annne Applebaum, Lucian Truscott IV, AOC, Chris Murphy, Elizabeth Warren, Tim Snyder, Robert B. Hubbell, Ben Meiseilas, Steve Schmidt, David Pepper,Judd Legum, Josh Marshall, Paul Krugman, Andy Borowitz, Jeff Danziger, Ann Telnaes,͏ ͏Will Bunch, Jake Tapper, Bennie Thompson, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger; American Bar Association, Blue Missouri, Third Act, Democracy Forward, Public Citizen, Democracy Index, Democracy Docket, ACLU, America, America/Steven Beschloss et al. And, as Joyce Vance says, "We're in this together"--or via Jess Piper, from rural Missouri: "Solidarity." FIGHT BACK! WE ARE NOT ALONE!
I like Lawrence O'Donnell and listen to every program, but he does like to feature Democrats who talk a good game, but are voting for Trump's choices. O'Donnell lets Baldwin and Whitehouse smirk and complain, but they are weak Democrats as they fear "good trouble".
We are here with you, and gathering in strength. The courts decide what is legitimate and what is illegitimate. That is their job, not JD Vance’s, and the courts are standing strong. Where they need to be backed up, we will back them up by taking to the streets en masse. On every street in which Mump plans to travel, it will not be possible. When they ignore the courts, our first wave of protestors will cross the Rappahannock and the Potomac. We will be in the hundreds of thousands, but only until our reserves arrive after crossing the Susquehanna and the Delaware. Then we will be in the millions. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/peaceful-and-lawful?r=3m1bs
What angers me most is that a lot of their unrestricted pursuits are not constitutional, some downright illegal, and yet they seem to not care..actually even laugh at us, which is what their little, as in small in every way, leader did. He laughed saying we should let their process move on. I am sure it is exactly what they want, to leave them alone long enough until the process CANNOT be undone. The damage they can cause in the FBI alone may be irreparable. It is why they must be stopped before. Where is the Supreme Court in all this??
Contact your friends in purple or red states and urge them to reach out to their Senators. Some GOP Senators might be swayed if enough people speak out.
RFK Jr’s confirmation hearing to lead the Federal health agencies is coming soon. It’s not just his anti-vax stance, but he has no science background. During his hearing, he showed that he didn’t even have a basic understanding of the CDC, FDA, Medicare, or Medicaid. It was embarrassing.
Call your Senators, even Democrats! We cannot be sure that our Democratic Senators will vote against these reckless nominees. Some elected Democrats are caving already. You would be shocked if you looked at the list of “Yes” votes for many who have been confirmed. N.J. Senator Cory Booker voted to confirm Scott Bessent to lead Treasury. Bessent promptly gave Elon Musk permission to access Treasury records and payment systems. Thanks, Cory!
Google your Senators’ names to find their phone numbers. Their DC office voice mail boxes may be full, so call their local office. You probably won’t reach a human. When you leave a message, tell them you want a response, and give your phone number or email address. I’ve heard that emailing Congresspeople thru their websites is pointless. (For one thing, you’ll have to choose a category, and “Cabinet Nominees” is not among them.)
Make a separate phone call each time you contact your Congresspeople. Each constituent opinion is noted individually and tallied. Our Senators want to be re-elected, so your opinion matters.
Soon you’ll be calling to speak against Kash Patel, who would be terrifying as head of the FBI.
BTW, Democracy Forward - https://democracyforward.org/ - is largely responsible for the Trump Administration’s having rescinded the federal spending freeze. Other groups needing our support are Public Citizen - https://www.citizen.org/ - and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington - https://www.citizensforethics.org/ - These groups are suing the Trump administration virtually every day.
Join me in donating to keep these fearless advocates and lawyers working to save our democracy. Even if you’re too discouraged to read the details, pls. donate if you can afford to.
Sam Freedman wrote on Substack (Feb. 12) “Much of what Donald Trump has done so far is recognizable from his first term – the use of tariffs to force negotiations, 25% or more on steel and aluminum imports, the over-hyped deportation of ‘spectaculars’, the paranoid fixation on his enemies real and imagined. . .” The big difference is Elon Musk.”
When the Soviet Union disintegrated into many individual countries, it was a shock to the entire world - but none more than to the Russians themselves. I lived in Moscow, Russia during this timeframe. Everyone - from avid communists to non-believers - was dumbfounded. My friends who were in the USSR government were suddenly out of work. The smell of freedom was everywhere, as people who previously were not allowed to leave the Soviet Union were booking airline tickets. Western stores and restaurants were cropping up on every corner in Moscow. Foreigners were coming to Moscow to form joint ventures with newly found partners. It was known as the “wild west” period in Russia history.
No one believed in this change more than the U.S. Government. USAID (the United States Agency for International Development) aided this Russian transition by drafting the Russian Constitution, Part I of the Russian Civil Code, and the Russian Tax Code. They also assisted to the adoption of the 2001 Land Code which provided the right to buy, sell, and own urban and rural land in Russia. Two multi-billion-dollar judicial reform programs were introduced with the help of USAID and the World Bank. During this timeframe, jury trials were reintroduced into the Russian justice system. According to the USAID Fact Sheet on Russia, our government has helped the Russian people improve public health, combat infectious diseases, protect the environment, develop a stronger civil society, and modernize their economy. All of these dollars, devoted time, and western expertise were lost when Putin gained the reins of control. Russia rapidly moved from a free-falling fledging democracy to a dictatorship – one based on the 15 years that Putin worked in East Germany when it was still a fascist state.
In 1997, a book published in Russia - much like Mein Kampf (Germany)) and Project 2025 (USA) - named The Foundations of Geopolitics. All three books are written with one theme - the will of one man over the will of the people. The Russian book outlines Putin’s vengeful plans on the U.S. who he blames for the downfall of the Soviet Union. It also restructures the world according to pre-NATO days. Today, 2024, over three million Russian citizens (U.S. 2020 Census) live in the United States. Most of them - not all - are loyal to Putin and Russia. They are here to fulfill Putin’s plan to destroy the United States from within and Trump is their number on tool. Their number two tool is Elon Musk.
Elon Musk’s Nazi salute was right out of George Orwell’s 1984. “In his dystopian novel 1984, George Orwell wrote: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command”. Indeed, it is true power to be able to not merely refute, minimize, and deny the very thing that you are doing or saying, but to be able to make people believe that they did not see or hear what you did in front of their very eyes.
"At a rally to celebrate Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 47th President of the United States, ‘tech bro’ Elon Musk performed a nazi salute, not just once, but twice, … just to be sure the world noticed. The crowd loved it and responded with a despicable and perverse roar of delight.” (Bart Cammaerts, Feb. 4th, 2025) This should be no surprise to most Americans who watched on TV (for months) the January 6th insurrection and destruction of our Capitol and then was later told by this president that it was a love fest. Billions of dollars of property were destroyed on January 6th, and there were five deaths.
Musk has made several trips to Moscow recently and met with President Putin. The two men have shared values and apparently are working together to destroy the U.S. democracy but also to influence the election outcomes in other countries worldwide.
When Musk and his team of “teens” moved to close USAID, many across the globe were shocked. USAID worked in 177 countries – providing medical, agriculture, food, and financial assistance to those in need. USAID also paid over $2 Billion Dollars annually to American farmers to produce grains that are shipped abroad. From the now rusting Kansas Grain Elevators to the fields of Iowa, these farmers are not getting paid. This closure of USAID is far more than an act of efficiency to reduce government spending. It was a vendetta. First, it was USAID that supported efforts of Black South Africans during and after apartheid. South Africa is where Musk was born - a white kid in an African nation.
Second, USAID was the eyes and the ears of the United States intelligence community on a worldwide scale. They had programs and activities in 177 countries and in 29 regions. (AI Overview) Every program abroad funded by USAID was required to report monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, and annually on their programs and spending to the USAID offices in D.C. These reports include local government trending, info on local leaders, regional controversial and political affairs, etc. USAID was Eisenhower’s clandestine approach to gathering intelligence information in the name of global humanitarian aid. Vladimir Putin, a trained KGB/FSB Russian spy and president of Russia, understood the intelligence-gathering role of USAID. This 70-year U.S. global surveillance function via USAID has been squelched – humiliated, without warning, and leaving them unable to retaliate or renovate. Putin is pleased.
While Trump is busy demolishing the U.S. government and democracy, Musk is the middleman between Putin and Trump. And most Americans do not know the truth about what is happening in our country.
Our democracy cannot hold if no one is there except a few people in congress & a few judges are all we have..People sheepishly leaving their departments & congress getting locked out of buildings? This is literally "we don't know what hit us" stuff. Do we have a military to stand firm do we have a general who stands firm... this isn't a protest this is an overthrowing of our government... they call us "woke" well for god's sakes wake up
"Trusk" and the other malevolent, mentally ill oligarchs around the two-headed monster have already crossed the Rubicon. They are flouting our laws and thumbing their noses at the rulings that judges issue. How long will it be before those judges are carted away by their mob along with journalists, writers, intellectuals, philosophers, professors and any who hold that the pursuit of truth and happiness, of justice for each and every one of us, still matters.
So what now? I believe that we should make a start by encouraging our Democratic leaders to show a sense of true unity in order to confront the existential peril we face. We have some wise and courageous leaders in Congress: Chris Murphy, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Hakeem Jeffries, Jamie Raskin, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to name but a few. We have brilliant minds among our intellectuals, our writers and scholars. However, we lack a sense of cohesion. How effective is it, for example, if Chris Murphy makes an impassioned speech, only to have his words drowned out in the torrent of insane blather that issues from the mouths of the fascists?
This is exactly why the concept that Timothy Snyder is echoing - namely, that the Democratic Party should form a "shadow cabinet" in keeping with the practice of the opposition party in Britain - is so vitally important to our situation here. Such a cabinet would be in a position to provide a unified response to the insanity while enunciating a clearly defined, moral agenda to point the way forward. The cabinet, because of its collective nature, would also command the attention of the press in order to ensure that the message is heard on an ongoing basis by as large a number of voters as possible.
The shadow cabinet would be in a better position than any number of separate individuals or entities to organize the kind of ongoing strikes and work stoppages across the nation that will be required to bring this regime to a grinding halt. How else are we, the people, going to be able to prevail? As a first step towards the organization of the mass stoppages that will be required, the cabinet would also be in a position to reach out to the leaders of our military to ensure that they will refuse orders to gun down protesters. Let there be little doubt that Trump would order such attacks (for any who need convincing, please remember that he wanted the military to shoot protesters during his first term). Yes, these are the hellish depths in which we find ourselves.
Besides upstanding lawyers and law-abiding honorable (present and former) judges, here's a growing list of Profiles in Courage men, women, and advocacy groups who refuse to be cowed or kneel to the force of Trump/Musk/MAGA/Fox "News" intimidation:
I'll begin with Missouri's own Jess[ica] (à la John Lewis's "get in good trouble") Piper, then, in no particular order, Heather Cox Richardson, Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, Ruth Ben-Ghait, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell, Chris Hayes, Jim Acosta, Jen Rubin And the Contrarians, Steve Brodner, Brian Tyler Cohen, Jonathan Bernstein, Jessica Craven, Annne Applebaum, Lucian Truscott IV, AOC, Chris Murphy, Elizabeth Warren, Tim Snyder, Robert B. Hubbell, Ben Meiseilas, Steve Schmidt, David Pepper,Judd Legum, Josh Marshall, Paul Krugman, Andy Borowitz, Jeff Danziger, Ann Telnaes,͏ ͏Will Bunch, Jake Tapper, Bennie Thompson, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger; American Bar Association, Blue Missouri, Third Act, Democracy Forward, Public Citizen, Democracy Index, Democracy Docket, ACLU, America, America/Steven Beschloss et al. And, as Joyce Vance says, "We're in this together"--or via Jess Piper, from rural Missouri: "Solidarity." FIGHT BACK! WE ARE NOT ALONE!
I like Lawrence O'Donnell and listen to every program, but he does like to feature Democrats who talk a good game, but are voting for Trump's choices. O'Donnell lets Baldwin and Whitehouse smirk and complain, but they are weak Democrats as they fear "good trouble".
We are here with you, and gathering in strength. The courts decide what is legitimate and what is illegitimate. That is their job, not JD Vance’s, and the courts are standing strong. Where they need to be backed up, we will back them up by taking to the streets en masse. On every street in which Mump plans to travel, it will not be possible. When they ignore the courts, our first wave of protestors will cross the Rappahannock and the Potomac. We will be in the hundreds of thousands, but only until our reserves arrive after crossing the Susquehanna and the Delaware. Then we will be in the millions. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/peaceful-and-lawful?r=3m1bs
Maximum Urgency Now
What angers me most is that a lot of their unrestricted pursuits are not constitutional, some downright illegal, and yet they seem to not care..actually even laugh at us, which is what their little, as in small in every way, leader did. He laughed saying we should let their process move on. I am sure it is exactly what they want, to leave them alone long enough until the process CANNOT be undone. The damage they can cause in the FBI alone may be irreparable. It is why they must be stopped before. Where is the Supreme Court in all this??
thanks, Steve and Mark, for all you do!
Contact your friends in purple or red states and urge them to reach out to their Senators. Some GOP Senators might be swayed if enough people speak out.
RFK Jr’s confirmation hearing to lead the Federal health agencies is coming soon. It’s not just his anti-vax stance, but he has no science background. During his hearing, he showed that he didn’t even have a basic understanding of the CDC, FDA, Medicare, or Medicaid. It was embarrassing.
Call your Senators, even Democrats! We cannot be sure that our Democratic Senators will vote against these reckless nominees. Some elected Democrats are caving already. You would be shocked if you looked at the list of “Yes” votes for many who have been confirmed. N.J. Senator Cory Booker voted to confirm Scott Bessent to lead Treasury. Bessent promptly gave Elon Musk permission to access Treasury records and payment systems. Thanks, Cory!
Google your Senators’ names to find their phone numbers. Their DC office voice mail boxes may be full, so call their local office. You probably won’t reach a human. When you leave a message, tell them you want a response, and give your phone number or email address. I’ve heard that emailing Congresspeople thru their websites is pointless. (For one thing, you’ll have to choose a category, and “Cabinet Nominees” is not among them.)
Make a separate phone call each time you contact your Congresspeople. Each constituent opinion is noted individually and tallied. Our Senators want to be re-elected, so your opinion matters.
Soon you’ll be calling to speak against Kash Patel, who would be terrifying as head of the FBI.
BTW, Democracy Forward - https://democracyforward.org/ - is largely responsible for the Trump Administration’s having rescinded the federal spending freeze. Other groups needing our support are Public Citizen - https://www.citizen.org/ - and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington - https://www.citizensforethics.org/ - These groups are suing the Trump administration virtually every day.
Join me in donating to keep these fearless advocates and lawyers working to save our democracy. Even if you’re too discouraged to read the details, pls. donate if you can afford to.
PLEASE RE-STACK THIS!
I also recommend Democracy Docket which is fighting for voting rights. Check out their website and subscribe (free) to Marc Elias' posts on You Tube.
Sam Freedman wrote on Substack (Feb. 12) “Much of what Donald Trump has done so far is recognizable from his first term – the use of tariffs to force negotiations, 25% or more on steel and aluminum imports, the over-hyped deportation of ‘spectaculars’, the paranoid fixation on his enemies real and imagined. . .” The big difference is Elon Musk.”
When the Soviet Union disintegrated into many individual countries, it was a shock to the entire world - but none more than to the Russians themselves. I lived in Moscow, Russia during this timeframe. Everyone - from avid communists to non-believers - was dumbfounded. My friends who were in the USSR government were suddenly out of work. The smell of freedom was everywhere, as people who previously were not allowed to leave the Soviet Union were booking airline tickets. Western stores and restaurants were cropping up on every corner in Moscow. Foreigners were coming to Moscow to form joint ventures with newly found partners. It was known as the “wild west” period in Russia history.
No one believed in this change more than the U.S. Government. USAID (the United States Agency for International Development) aided this Russian transition by drafting the Russian Constitution, Part I of the Russian Civil Code, and the Russian Tax Code. They also assisted to the adoption of the 2001 Land Code which provided the right to buy, sell, and own urban and rural land in Russia. Two multi-billion-dollar judicial reform programs were introduced with the help of USAID and the World Bank. During this timeframe, jury trials were reintroduced into the Russian justice system. According to the USAID Fact Sheet on Russia, our government has helped the Russian people improve public health, combat infectious diseases, protect the environment, develop a stronger civil society, and modernize their economy. All of these dollars, devoted time, and western expertise were lost when Putin gained the reins of control. Russia rapidly moved from a free-falling fledging democracy to a dictatorship – one based on the 15 years that Putin worked in East Germany when it was still a fascist state.
In 1997, a book published in Russia - much like Mein Kampf (Germany)) and Project 2025 (USA) - named The Foundations of Geopolitics. All three books are written with one theme - the will of one man over the will of the people. The Russian book outlines Putin’s vengeful plans on the U.S. who he blames for the downfall of the Soviet Union. It also restructures the world according to pre-NATO days. Today, 2024, over three million Russian citizens (U.S. 2020 Census) live in the United States. Most of them - not all - are loyal to Putin and Russia. They are here to fulfill Putin’s plan to destroy the United States from within and Trump is their number on tool. Their number two tool is Elon Musk.
Elon Musk’s Nazi salute was right out of George Orwell’s 1984. “In his dystopian novel 1984, George Orwell wrote: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command”. Indeed, it is true power to be able to not merely refute, minimize, and deny the very thing that you are doing or saying, but to be able to make people believe that they did not see or hear what you did in front of their very eyes.
"At a rally to celebrate Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 47th President of the United States, ‘tech bro’ Elon Musk performed a nazi salute, not just once, but twice, … just to be sure the world noticed. The crowd loved it and responded with a despicable and perverse roar of delight.” (Bart Cammaerts, Feb. 4th, 2025) This should be no surprise to most Americans who watched on TV (for months) the January 6th insurrection and destruction of our Capitol and then was later told by this president that it was a love fest. Billions of dollars of property were destroyed on January 6th, and there were five deaths.
Musk has made several trips to Moscow recently and met with President Putin. The two men have shared values and apparently are working together to destroy the U.S. democracy but also to influence the election outcomes in other countries worldwide.
When Musk and his team of “teens” moved to close USAID, many across the globe were shocked. USAID worked in 177 countries – providing medical, agriculture, food, and financial assistance to those in need. USAID also paid over $2 Billion Dollars annually to American farmers to produce grains that are shipped abroad. From the now rusting Kansas Grain Elevators to the fields of Iowa, these farmers are not getting paid. This closure of USAID is far more than an act of efficiency to reduce government spending. It was a vendetta. First, it was USAID that supported efforts of Black South Africans during and after apartheid. South Africa is where Musk was born - a white kid in an African nation.
Second, USAID was the eyes and the ears of the United States intelligence community on a worldwide scale. They had programs and activities in 177 countries and in 29 regions. (AI Overview) Every program abroad funded by USAID was required to report monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, and annually on their programs and spending to the USAID offices in D.C. These reports include local government trending, info on local leaders, regional controversial and political affairs, etc. USAID was Eisenhower’s clandestine approach to gathering intelligence information in the name of global humanitarian aid. Vladimir Putin, a trained KGB/FSB Russian spy and president of Russia, understood the intelligence-gathering role of USAID. This 70-year U.S. global surveillance function via USAID has been squelched – humiliated, without warning, and leaving them unable to retaliate or renovate. Putin is pleased.
While Trump is busy demolishing the U.S. government and democracy, Musk is the middleman between Putin and Trump. And most Americans do not know the truth about what is happening in our country.
Our democracy cannot hold if no one is there except a few people in congress & a few judges are all we have..People sheepishly leaving their departments & congress getting locked out of buildings? This is literally "we don't know what hit us" stuff. Do we have a military to stand firm do we have a general who stands firm... this isn't a protest this is an overthrowing of our government... they call us "woke" well for god's sakes wake up
"Trusk" and the other malevolent, mentally ill oligarchs around the two-headed monster have already crossed the Rubicon. They are flouting our laws and thumbing their noses at the rulings that judges issue. How long will it be before those judges are carted away by their mob along with journalists, writers, intellectuals, philosophers, professors and any who hold that the pursuit of truth and happiness, of justice for each and every one of us, still matters.
So what now? I believe that we should make a start by encouraging our Democratic leaders to show a sense of true unity in order to confront the existential peril we face. We have some wise and courageous leaders in Congress: Chris Murphy, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Hakeem Jeffries, Jamie Raskin, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to name but a few. We have brilliant minds among our intellectuals, our writers and scholars. However, we lack a sense of cohesion. How effective is it, for example, if Chris Murphy makes an impassioned speech, only to have his words drowned out in the torrent of insane blather that issues from the mouths of the fascists?
This is exactly why the concept that Timothy Snyder is echoing - namely, that the Democratic Party should form a "shadow cabinet" in keeping with the practice of the opposition party in Britain - is so vitally important to our situation here. Such a cabinet would be in a position to provide a unified response to the insanity while enunciating a clearly defined, moral agenda to point the way forward. The cabinet, because of its collective nature, would also command the attention of the press in order to ensure that the message is heard on an ongoing basis by as large a number of voters as possible.
The shadow cabinet would be in a better position than any number of separate individuals or entities to organize the kind of ongoing strikes and work stoppages across the nation that will be required to bring this regime to a grinding halt. How else are we, the people, going to be able to prevail? As a first step towards the organization of the mass stoppages that will be required, the cabinet would also be in a position to reach out to the leaders of our military to ensure that they will refuse orders to gun down protesters. Let there be little doubt that Trump would order such attacks (for any who need convincing, please remember that he wanted the military to shoot protesters during his first term). Yes, these are the hellish depths in which we find ourselves.
We, the people, have to dig ourselves out.