We must keep calling and writing our Congresspersons and Senators on a regular basis. Every day there are new dangerous actions, as well as the ongoing deep threats to our democracy and to our being a good, decent country. We will be sending updates on actions to you by email, but there is no need to wait to hear from us. Please make a plan to contact your representatives or join an action at least twice a week. We are hearing again and again that they need to hear from us!
Other Actions for the Week of March 30
We believe that it is time to try to get our messages through to more Republican House and Senate members. When I call my Congressman, he just asks for my name and phone number, not my address. So it might be worth the effort for all of us, in addition to our 34 members who actually have Republican Senators or Representatives, to call one or two Republicans in other districts or even other states. I’ve tried to identify in this email issues that I think Republicans will be concerned about.
I. This Week’s Calls or Emails to Representatives. These issues may especially get to Republicans:
(1) The outrageous national security breach using Signal and including a journalist from The Atlantic on a national security call about attacking the Houthis. Let’s demand the removal of Hegseth and Mike Waltz - two enormously unqualified members of Trump’s team. Republican members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee can be found at https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/about/committee-members/ and members of the House committee at https://homeland.house.gov/. Let’s ask these people what they would have done if Biden had been President when this happened. I am sure Republicans would have been screaming for his impeachment. Let’s remind them that they chanted “Lock Her Up!” after they found that Hillary had used her laptop for some State Dept communications.
(2) The destruction of FEMA just before hurricane season. Last Monday, Kristi Noem, secretary of Homeland Security, said that her department planned to “eliminate” FEMA. On Tuesday, CNN reported that top officials from FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security met to discuss FEMA’s future and options for shutting it down. According to CNN, the agency is currently in a state of disarray as more than $100 billion in disaster assistance and grant money is frozen and hiring is largely stalled. See https://www.fastcompany.com/91306634/ This has got to be a big problem in Florida, Texas, Louisiana, North Carolina and many other states.
(3) Economic disaster of tariffs: This past week Trump announced new tariffs — a 25% tariff on all imported cars and car parts. https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/27/cars/auto-tariffs-car-prices-impact-hnk-intl/index.html. This is expected to raise car prices by thousands of dollars. History shows tariffs lead to lasting economic harm, such as lower production and incomes. Data from 151 countries from 1963 through 2014 shows higher tariffs reduce output and productivity, increase unemployment, and worsen inequality. Studies of US tariffs in 2018-2019 confirm they failed to boost employment and instead harmed manufacturing due to rising input costs and foreign retaliation. https://taxfoundation.org/blog/trump-tariffs-prices-long-term-effects/. Trump says he wants to cut taxes, but then he goes ahead and raises prices for all of us by imposing tariffs and starting a trade war. Meanwhile, the stock market seems to go into free fall every other day.
2. Other actions of the past week that concern us but may play less well with Republicans:
New arrests of foreign students for expressing their first amendment rights (they do have them, as the Supreme Court has declared) to disagree with American foreign policy, particularly the fascist-like grab off the streets by unidentified ICE agents of a Turkish grad student at Tufts and her detention in Louisiana, apparently for no reason other than writing an Op Ed piece last year opposing the war in Gaza.
Disastrous cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services. On Thursday, the Trump administration announced that it was laying off 10,000 employees at the Health and Human Services Department. The layoffs are a drastic reduction in personnel for the health department, which had employed about 82,000 people. In addition, on Monday HHS abruptly canceled more than $12 billion in federal grants to states that were being used for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment and other urgent health issues. There have also been at least $4 billion in cuts or freezing of funding for medical research by the National Institutes of Health, abruptly halting clinical trials and other research.
For an update on many of Trump’s actions in the past week, see https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/us/trump-agenda-2025.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
New attacks on law firms. Executive Orders against Jenner & Block and Wilmer Hale preventing them from doing work with the federal government were issued by President Trump, basically because he doesn't like the causes they support either through paid or pro bono work. Courts have now enjoined three of his Executive Orders against law firms.
Flood DOGE with FOIA Requests for our data. Sen. Jamie Raskin is urging everyone to make a formal demand under the Freedom of Information Act to see and, if need be, correct our personal information that Musk and DOGE have collected. On Monday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued an injunction commanding DOGE to comply with citizen requests under the Freedom of Information Act. FOIA encompasses the Federal Privacy Act of 1974, which entitles any citizen to access personal information held in any U.S. government records system. Sen. Raskin has posted the letter he sent for us to use as a template:
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ak-raskin/images/Raskin_DOGE_Privacy_Request.pdf
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