can be easily done on this page: https://fcnl.quorum.us/ . They don’t ask personal questions. You can choose your issue, and go to work. It’s very easy. I get, I think, 3 emails from them most weeks, but most are news. Today I was there to write my buttsy senators a letter about their votes opposing the child tax credit, and I thought I’d just drop the link to the action center (above) so anyone can go there, anytime, and work on what they will.
https://fcnl.quorum.us/ is the Action Center. Here’s a local-ish story about KS’s senators: https://hayspost.com/posts/c1412ea0-1b11-460b-a576-79e635d1e2fa , if anyone’s interested. It’s fairer coverage than I expected; the West is pretty red. But, there are children in poverty in every county of this state, lots of them, and everyone knows it. Now if we could just get someone to run against these Republican senators…
I have followed and read Steve’s writings for a very long time. He is a true rational thinker. If you like clear thoughts and reason on a subject you will enjoy this blog. Hugs. Scottie
Some people said militant anti-abortion activist Matthew Trewhella was a ’90s figure who’s no longer relevant, but our reporting shows he’s influencing policies, bills and movements today.
This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Wisconsin Watch. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.
In the fall of 2022, Phoebe Petrovic, an investigative reporter at Wisconsin Watch and a member of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network, noticed a pastor and his church appearing in local news coverage for their anti-LGBTQ+ protests. Looking closer revealed Pastor Matthew Trewhella’s startling history. And digging even deeper, she noticed an untold story: his broader influence on modern Republican politics. His rise helps illustrate the growing power of the Christian right in the Republican party. Here, Petrovic describes how she reported the story and what she learned.
What were the key takeaways from your reporting?
A few decades ago, Trewhella was known as a militant anti-abortion activist. Today, he’s got a different reputation: thought leader on the far right, increasingly welcomed by Republicans.
Trewhella helped to rehabilitate his reputation through his 2013 self-published book, “The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates,” which uses a 16th-century Protestant doctrine to argue that government officials have a God-given right and duty to defy laws, policies or court opinions deemed “unjust or immoral” under “the law of God.”
He’s preached this doctrine to county Republican parties and local groups across the country, even to the National Sheriffs’ Association, a preeminent law enforcement organization.
His book has influenced Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions. At least 10 measures across the country refer to lesser magistrates. One of the earliest, issued in 2019, was authored by a county commissioner who has described reading Trewhella’s book as a “turning point” for him.
A prominent booster of debunked election conspiracy claims is using Trewhella’s book to disrupt future elections.
How does Trewhella fit into the election? What does he say about his work?
In the cast of characters who might influence the upcoming election, Trewhella is not rallying crowds the same way as Steve Bannon, the former Donald Trump strategist, or Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative student group Turning Point USA. Trewhella is more behind the scenes, providing a religious justification for some far-right policies and causes.
Trewhella says that he promotes nonviolence. But after an activist killed an abortion provider in 1993, he signed a document describing the murder of these doctors as “justifiable.”
In a brief interview, I asked Trewhella about his reputational shift over the decades. He responded: “Most people will always only care about three things in life: me, myself and I. … It’s only because of their mundane, self-absorbed lives that they would think someone like me is an extremist. That’s my answer.”
Trewhella did not respond to over a dozen attempts to set up a second interview. He did not answer written questions by email and refused a certified letter containing them.
What did experts tell you about Trewhella?
Frederick Clarkson, a senior research analyst at Political Research Associates, which studies threats to democracy and human rights, has tracked Trewhella for decades. Clarkson said, “All of those county commissioners and mayors and whatnot who are entertaining this stuff, they’re putting people’s lives and the entirety of civil order at risk by playing footsie with Matt Trewhella.”
Another extremism researcher, Devin Burghart, said, “I think that the public needs to know that he’s a dangerous theocrat, who would fundamentally alter the United States in irreparable ways that would harm many, including women, people of color and the LGBTQ community.” Burghart is president of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, which tracks the far right. (snip-More)
Despite passing in the Senate earlier this week, the Kid’s Online Safety Act (KOSA) is reportedly dead in the U.S. House after progressives, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), worried that it would possible censor LGBTQ+ content. Some Republicans also opposed the bill, stating that it would violate free speech protections for social media platforms and their users.
KOSA would have mandated that social media companies take measures to prevent recommending any content that promotes mental health disorders (like eating disorders, drug use, self-harm, sexual abuse, and bullying) unless minors specifically search for such content. Opponents worried that Republican attorneys general who see LGBTQ+ identities as harmful forms of mental illness would use KOSA’s provisions to censor queer web content and prosecute platforms that provide access to it.
“KOSA was a poorly written bill that would have made kids less safe,” said one of the bill’s most vocal opponents, Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future, a nonprofit that protects human rights in the digital age. “It’s good that this unconstitutional censorship bill is dead for now, but I am not breathing a sigh of relief.”
“KOSA was always too controversial to succeed, and divided our coalition,” Greer added. “If we want to take on Big Tech and win, we have to quickly regroup and make a plan for next Congress. We need strong privacy, antitrust, and algorithmic justice legislation that address the harms of Big Tech without endangering free expression and human rights.”
Many other groups opposed the bill, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, the LGBT Technology Partnership, as well as LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations in six states.
While KOSA passed in the Senate earlier this week in a 93-1 vote, three senators voted against the bills: Ron Wyden (D-OR), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Rand Paul (R-KY) — all three made statements explaining why.
Wyden specifically said he voted against the bills because he worried a future administration could use the legislation to “pressure companies to censor gay, trans, and reproductive health information,” The Hill reported.
Lee said, “This legislation empowers the [Federal Trade Commission (FTC)] to censor any content it deems to cause ‘harm,’ ‘anxiety,’ or ‘depression,’ in a way that could (and most likely would) be used to censor the expression of political, religious, and other viewpoints disfavored by the FTC.”
Paul wrote in a recent Louisville Courier Journal opinion article, “KOSA would impose an unprecedented duty of care on internet platforms to design their sites to mitigate and prevent harms…. This requirement will not only stifle free speech, but it will deprive Americans of the benefits of our technological advancements.”
KOSA was introduced by anti-LGBTQ+ Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who said that one of the bill’s top priorities is to protect children from “the transgender in this culture.” Blackburn’s office told LGBTQ Nation that her comment had been “taken out of context” and wasn’t related to KOSA. Nevertheless, the anti-LGBTQ+ conservative think tank Heritage Foundation has also said it wishes to use the law to “guard” kids against the “harms of… transgender content.”
Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, said, “KOSA compounds nationwide attacks on young peoples’ right to learn and access information, on and offline. As state legislatures and school boards across the country impose book bans and classroom censorship laws, the last thing students and parents need is another act of government censorship deciding which educational resources are appropriate for their families.”
(Authoritarians always go too far before they’ve made sure what they’re doing is legal. It seems that Gov. DeSantis came the closest to figuring that out, and setting himself up, though courts won’t back him. Still, he’s going until they make him stop. Anyway, I hope Oklahomans do hold the entire Board accountable, especially the Superintendent, and make him restore the inappropriate charges for his trips, too.)
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Legal experts tell News 4 the events of Wednesday’s Oklahoma State School Board meeting are unprecedented, and should alarm anyone with power to hold State Superintendent Ryan Walters and the Oklahoma State Board of Education accountable.
Those events include Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters personally attacking multiple public officials by making verifiably false claims about them, and the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office alleging Walters and the Board may have violated state law.
At Wednesday’s meeting, the Oklahoma State School Board (OSBE) and Supt. Ryan Walters voted to table a decision on whether they would allow State Sen. Mary Boren (D-Norman) and other legislators to sit in on their executive session discussions, despite getting guidance from the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office advising them they legally had to let the legislators in.
In comments made to reporters following Wednesday’s meeting, Walters seemed to be unaware the Attorney General’s Office had emailed him and all state school board members a letter with guidance on July 18.
Following the meeting, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office released a statement suggesting Walters and the board may have willfully violated Oklahoma’s Open Meeting Act.
After the meeting, Walters also falsely claimed to reporters that Sen. Boren wants to “make it where we can’t remove pedophiles from classrooms.”
He also called Bixby Public Schools superintendent Rob Miller a “clown” when asked about claims Miller had made on social media.
Boren says she showed up to Wednesday’s meeting with one focus: to sit in on the second of two scheduled executive session discussions OSBE had on its agenda for the meeting.
The agenda indicated the board planned to use the first executive session to hold “confidential communications with board counsel concerning a request by Senator Mary Boren to observe all executive sessions of the Board on July 31, 2024.”
It said, in the second executive session, the board would “discuss possible action” on four separate issues involving the possible revocation of certain teachers’ teaching certificates.
The second executive session is what Boren said she wanted to observe.
According to the agenda, the board would first take a vote to enter the first executive session. After the board completed that session they were to vote to return to open session, and then discuss and take “possible action regarding the matters discussed” in the first session.
Boren expected, after the first session, the board would vote as to whether or not they would allow her to observe the second executive session.
Winning The House w/Rudy Salas (CA-22), Good Week Of Polling For Harris, Trump Is The Ugliest Thing We’ve All Ever Seen by Simon Rosenberg
Join Us To Make Calls and Write Postcards for Janelle Bynum Tonight at 730pm ET Read on Substack
Happy Thursday all. Been a really good week for us. Got a few things for you today:
It’s A New, Bluer Election – 8 polls have been released this week showing Vice President Harris leading (all polls via 538):
49%-45% (+4) Civiqs
49%-46% (+3) Leger (was +7 Trump)
48%-46% (+2) FAU (was +5 Trump)
46%-44% (+2) Economist/YouGov (was +3 Trump last week!!!!!!)
45%-43% (+2) Redfield and Wilton
50%-48% (+2) American Pulse Research and Polling
44%-42% (+2) Angus Reid Global
47%-46% (+1) Morning Consult
Yesterday we discussed that a new Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll had Harris leading in the battlegrounds 48%-47%, ahead in AZ, NV, MI, WI, tied in GA and only down 2 in NC. A new set of polls by GOP/DeSantis pollster Public Opinion Strategies found good news in the battlegrounds, Harris-Trump:
WI 48-45
PA 48-46
MI 45-45
NV 45-46
AZ 43-48 (note Harris leads by 2 pts in AZ in the Bloomberg/MC poll)
We also learned yesterday that the Trump campaign has started buying ads in North Carolina, meaning they view it as in play (which it is!) and we saw very good polls in both MN and NH, consistent with Harris having modest national popular vote leads.
Let’s discuss what this all means. Right now the Vice President appears to be opening up a modest lead in the national popular vote. Battleground state polls this week have her leading in AZ, NV, MI, PA, WI and close in GA, NC. We still have not yet seen the full effect of the rallying around her, a week of campaigning next week with the new VP pick, our joyous Convention or what will now be the most powerful early vote/GOTV machine ever seen in an American election.
Trump and Vance continue to generate far more negative press than positive, and we are now on offense, playing hard and perhaps even beating them now on social media. Taken together I think it is reasonable to expect that we gain a few more points in the election over the next few weeks and enter the home stretch in a much stronger position than the pro-Putin, Project 2025-loving MAGAs.
Based on polling and our very strong 2022 performances I always felt it was likely we would hold the three Blue Wall states – MI, PA, WI – which gets the Vice President to 269 Electoral College Votes (note the UAW endorsed VP Harris yesterday, meaning we head into the fall with the most enthusiastic labor support a Democratic ticket has had in many years). Which is why here at Hopium we’ve focused on winning AZ, NC and the Nebraska blue dot. Winning any of these 3 gets us to 270. We currently lead in NE-2, and our friend Jane Kleeb the NE State Party Chair is as good as it gets. AZ and NC are in play, with extremists Kari Lake and Mark Robinson at the top of the GOP tickets in those states, and Ruben Gallego and Josh Stein running very strong campaigns for Senate and Governor. In addition to the $800,000 we’ve raised for Biden and Harris, our community has now invested more than $800,000 into AZ, NE and NC as part of what I’ve called our check – MI, PA, WI – and checkmate – any of AZ, NE, NC – strategy.
Here’s our friend Anderson Clayton, the NC Dem Party Chair, thanking the Hopium community for being the largest outside investor in NC Dems this year: (vid on the page)
Friends, we are not playing catch up any more. We are playing to win.
Here’s a new ad from the Harris SuperPAC, Future Forward: (vid on the page)
Trump reminded us yesterday what a racist pig he is, and once again did remarkable harm to his candidacy. But remember folks, here at Hopium, nothing he does or says is a surprise. We know he is a rapist, fraudster, traitor and felon. We know he is old, very old, profoundly unfit and deeply unwell. We know he is a modern day Bull Connor, a white supremacist, a bigot and a xenophobe. We know he is the ugliest political thing we’ve all ever seen.
Here’s Stuart Stevens with a great riff on Trump the babyman from MSNBC last night: (vid on the page)
And we know what Trump and Commander Vance want to do if they somehow get into the White House next year:
They want Putin to win, the West to lose. The border to be in chaos, and migrants to keep flowing into the country. Americans to lose even more rights and freedoms. The planet to warm faster. 10 year olds to carry their rapist’s baby to term, and for more women to die on operating room tables. Tens of millions to lose their health insurance. More dead kids in schools. Verified rapists in positions of authority. A restoration of pre-Civil Rights era white supremacy. Huge new tariffs which will raise prices on everything and wreck the global economy which has made us prosperous. Big new tax cuts for their wealthiest donors and tax increases for every day people. Books banned across the US. Seniors to pay more for insulin and prescription drugs. Foreign governments free to pollute our daily discourse and harass our citizens. Teenagers to work night shifts in meat packing plants and not go to school. The minimum wage to stay at $7.25. Mass arrests and mass deportations of immigrants long settled in the US. Insurrectionists to be pardoned. To end American democracy for all time.
The reason we are all here is that we are committed to not letting any of this happen. And this week while you all have rallied for the Vice President, raising more than $100,000 (amazing), we’ve also significantly stepped up our efforts to flip the House to give the Vice President the legislative partner she needs to advance her agenda next year. We heard from House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries earlier this week. We’ve raised close to $150,000 for our House candidates since Friday and almost $800,000 in the past two months. You can catch our 7th interview with our House candidates, Rudy Salas, above. Rudy is running to flip CA-22 and become the first Latino Member of Congress from California’s Central Valley. And tonight we kick off our Thursday night Hopium Winning the House phonebanking and postcarding Zooms, this one supporting Janelle Bynum in OR-5. I’ll be starting things off at 730pm ET and we will be joined by Janelle herself to give us a bit of motivation to go out and do good, together.
You can join us tonight by signing up here. You can learn more about this new grassroots collaboration project to win the House, including how to order postcards if you need them. Please consider giving us a shift or two in the weeks ahead. We can do this people!!!!
Here are additional ways to do more and worry less in the days ahead and help us win. All of our goals are by the first day of early voting in the Presidential election, September 20th (or maybe by the last day of the Dem Convention???):
Harris For President – $794,000 raised today, $1m goal – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. The $794,000 raised is both Biden-Harris and the $194,000 we’ve already raised for Harris for President
Winning The House – $727,000 raised today, $1m goal – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. We’ve also raised more then $55,000 into the individual House campaigns (you can either give to all 11 or each one individually). Watch my recent interview with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. It will get you all fired up to make him our next Speaker
Commit to Vote on Day 1 and get everyone you know to join you. Early voting begins in a few states on September 20th, less than 2 months away!
Watch my With Dems presentation on the greatness and goodness of the Democratic Party, this six minute video on the incredible stakes in this election and my latest take on the 2024 election recorded on Monday, July 29th
As Tuesday’s primary in AZ-01 is still too close to call, I have taken Andrei Cherny off our 12 way split for House contributions until we have a clear winner there. Thanks to all of you who have supported Andrei. He is a close friend, and truly one of the smartest and best people I’ve ever worked with. More on this soon.
Finally, please help me spread Hopium and grow this plucky community. Use this link to sign others up to be a Hopium subscriber. Note that options for group and gift subscriptions are available to those who want to bring friends and colleagues into the Hopium community. Click on the group and gift tabs here to learn more. To update your payment information or check your renewal status follow these instructions from Substack.
We are now over 97,000 strong – help us get to 100,000!!!!!
Keep working hard all. Lot’s to be excited about right now. Proud to be in this fight with all of you – Simon
Scottie's Playtime 