Indivisible
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PRIMARY 10 25 ON WH ANTIFA MTG TERROR BS SOROS REID HOFFMAN GAI CRC VOUGHT? DOJ 3?
SEE NO KINGS
SEE RESISTANCE
~ VOUGHT CONFIRMANTION
sj
Nelson Hall, Campbell United Church Of Christ
https://maps.app.goo.gl/MGCT6fMDGz3Er7So8
Or join us on ZOOM: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8427714040
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CORTESE FOREIGN DONOR
Rebecca, Patrick, Gloria, and Lugene,
https://www.indivisiblesanjose.org/
Email us at indivisiblesanjose@gmail.com
Mailing Address:
Indivisible San Jose
PO Box 5474
San Jose, CA 95150
fiorettajohn@gmail.com>
| to: | Rebecca Elliott <indivisiblesanjose@gmail.com>, |
Patrick McKercher <patmck13@gmail.com>,
gogoglo19@gmail.com
| date: | Jan 28, 2026 |
ice out for good 1 26
several stories we recommend amplifying:
- _Renee Nicole Good_
- _Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez_
- _Carlos Jimenez_
- _Marie Ange Blaise_
- _Johnny Noviello_
- _Chaofeng Ge_
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GAI’s Seamus Bruner Reveals Left-Wing Funders Such as Roy Singham Behind Antifa Riots
PIX PEACE SIGN Elizabeth Weibel9 Oct 2025
Seamus Bruner, the Director of Research at the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) revealed that left-wing funders such as billionaire Neville Roy Singham were behind left-wing Antifa riots and protests.
During a roundtable event on Antifa with President Donald Trump, Bruner explained that he, GAI President Peter Schweizer, and their team “followed” a trail of money and “followed it to the top of what” they called the Protest Industrial Complex, or Riot Inc. Bruner explained that the so-called “Riot Inc.” was made up of many different divisions, and that “dozens of radical organizations” have received millions of dollars from Riot Inc.
“We found a network of NGOs, it’s not just the Soros network, the Open Society Network. It’s other funding networks, the Arabella Funding Network, the Tides Funding Network, Neville Roy Singham and his network, foreign cash,” Bruner explained. “And, it’s also big left-wing funders — some of them are not citizens of this country.”
Bruner continued to note that these left-wing funders were “pouring money into this entire ecosystem.”
Bruner continued to share “three money facts” about Riot Inc., explaining that there were “many divisions” such as “PR divisions, marketing divisions” and even a “well-funded legal division.”
“Number two, we have identified dozens of radical organizations, not just the decentralized Antifa organizations, but dozens of radical organizations that have received more than one hundred million dollars from the Riot Inc. investors,” Bruner added. “These would be the lawyer groups, these would be the groups that advocate for calling good, honest Americans fascists.”
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“And then, three, I think the most shocking thing is that we have found that more than one hundred million dollars in U.S. taxpayer funding has flowed into these funding networks, including at least four million dollars to these very groups themselves,” Bruner added.
Bruner’s mention of Singham comes after an investigation by the Breitbart News Foundation reported that while “records from the United Kingdom confirm” that Singham resigned from Thoughtworks, Inc., which he founded in 1993, “Chinese government records suggest otherwise.”
After founding Thoughtworks, Inc. in 1993 and building the company into a software consulting powerhouse, Singham helped orchestrate its sale in October 2017, for approximately $785 million to a group of funds managed by London-based private equity firm Apax Partners. Corporate records from the United Kingdom confirm Singham’s resignation from Thoughtworks the same month, and his own LinkedIn profile says he has been retired since 2017. Thoughtworks’ English-language website relegates him to its “alumni” section, reinforcing the image of a clean break.
But Chinese government records suggest otherwise. These records list Singham as a corporate officer of Thoughtworks’ Chinese subsidiary, Thoughtworks Beijing, as recently as June 17, 2025, and for at least as far back as 2022. These records are from the National Enterprise Credit Reporting System (NECIPS), China’s corporate registry. Other documents, including trade show profile and “help-wanted” ads, listed Singham as Thoughtworks Beijing’s official contact in 2021.
The New York Post reported in June that Singham was set to be called to testify before a congressional committee regarding him funding “radical anti-Israel and Marxist groups” behind the Los Angeles riots.
In an article written by Bruner in June, Bruner detailed how the GAI had uncovered how the “official partners” behind the “No Kings” protests “bagged $114.8 million since 2019 from the Arabella Avisors dark money network an how professional protest organizations use tax dollars as a force multiplier.”
Bruner reported:
The expected worldwide mobilization of protests against President Donald Trump this weekend will hardly be a spontaneous eruption. On the contrary, the tumult is a carefully plotted production organized by The Indivisible Project and financed by the progress dark money network managed/advised by Arabella Advisors, which has perfected the mounting of made-to-order protests. Since 2019, the Arabella network has dumped more than $100 million into the coffers of the official “No Kings” protest partners—including the creator of the official protest song book.
This “grassroots” “nationwide days of defiance” targets Trump and his “billionaire allies,” according to organizers. The Arabella network’s biggest benefactors are the left’s own billionaire heroes, including George Soros, Bill Gates, Hansjorg Wyss, Mark Zuckerberg, and Reid Hoffman.
During the roundtable event, Bruner vowed to “keep following the money,” and expressed that he appreciated “everything” Trump was doing.
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INDIVISIBLE: A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO DEMOCRACY ON THE BRINK | Indivisible
edit?tab=t google doc
two lead authors of this doc were Leah and Ezra, co-founders of Indivisible. Find us on Bluesky at @ezralevin and @leahgreenberg. We didn’t do this alone - huge thanks to the 2-3 dozen friends, family, colleagues, Indivisible leaders, and brilliant minds in the pro-democracy world who in the week after a traumatic election conspired with us on how to move forward. in this movement, and we’re here to help.
One-Page Summary
_Chapter 1: What Happened and Why it Matters_. Heading into the 2024 election, Americans were angry about inflation and frustrated with the status quo. Some voters either flipped to Trump or didn’t vote at all. That gave Trump the margins to win -- but it doesn’t give him a mandate for dictatorship or Project 2025. Americans of all stripes are going to be pissed when Trump 2.0 comes to town dressed in chaos, corruption, and cruelty. We can stoke that backlash to break up their coalition and build ours.
_Chapter 2: A Quick Primer on Constituent Power_. Trump wants us to believe that the presidency is all-powerful. It ain’t true. Political power in our democracy overlaps between local, state, and federal electeds. Your power comes from your ability to be a source of support (or a pain in the ass) to those electeds. You can use this power to get them to stand up to Trump 2.0 or face political consequences. We review the basics of constituent power -- what it is, how it works, and how yours can do the most good in this moment where you live.
_Chapter 3: The Plan to Get Through the Next 2 Years_. Our best chance to get through this era with some amount of democracy intact is to hang on until 2026 and win big in the midterms -- breaking Trump’s hold on Congress and making sure election deniers and saboteurs aren’t in charge of the 2028 election. We’ve boiled it down to three big plays:
- We will all throw in to say NO to the Project 2025 agenda pushed by the White House and Congress. We’ll stop what we can and pick strategic fights to drive national backlash to win in 2026.
- We will play hardball wherever we’ve got Democrats in local, city, or state office -- pushing them to block, delay, and challenge MAGA’s attacks.
- We will work to protect and win elections -- defending against election deniers in swing states and turning all that national backlash into an electoral majority coalition that delivers big wins in 2026.
You’ll plug into the plays that make the most sense for where you live and the leverage you have. Think of it as a giant national pro-democracy team -- some of us are playing offense, some are playing defense, but if we all play our roles, we’ll make it through together.
_Chapter 4: Protect and Prepare_. Things are about to get much worse, and we need to treat an attack on one as an attack on all of us. That means supporting communities under threat and preparing to operate under increasingly authoritarian conditions. We’ll review how to:
- Organize to Protect Communities Under Threat. MAGA will hit hard, and we’ll need to stand together.
- Operate Under Authoritarian Creep. We’re not giving up on democracy, but we are not naive about what we face. We’ll cover lessons learned about operating under increasingly authoritarian conditions.
_Chapter 5: Practical steps for finding or forming your local Indivisible group_. Fascists depend on you, believing you’re alone and powerless. And honestly, on your own, you don’t have a ton of power. But, organized groups of individuals do have power. If you’re a fan of an existing group in your area, join it. If not, get a few friends together, start a new local Indivisible group, and build from there. Your local group is the basis for everything else you can hope to achieve in this period. This chapter includes some starter recommendations for how to pull your new, local, volunteer-led Indivisible group together, connect with others on the ground, and get to work.
...
Voters rejected the status quo -- they didn’t embrace fascism. The best way to understand this is that voters were given a choice between the status quo and “not the status quo.” President Biden’s approval rating sat under 40% for this entire election season; by wide margins, Americans said the country was on the wrong track, and large majorities cited lingering and intense economic pain due to inflation and the aftermath of COVID. Vice President Harris ran an impressive campaign on an impossible timeline -- but she couldn’t overcome the widespread frustration with the incumbent. The result was that a bunch of people chose “not the status quo,” either by voting for Trump or not voting at all.
BUT OTHER THAN THAT, HOW WAS THE PLAY, MRS. LINCOLN? We lost every battleground state for the presidential, but the down-ballot outcomes were much more mixed. We held steady in the House. In the Trump-won battleground states of NV, AZ, WI, MI, and NC, enough voters simply declined to vote for any other Republicans, so Democrats won Senate and gubernatorial elections. Abortion ballot initiatives won majority support almost everywhere. States passed minimum wage increases and rejected attacks on public schools. This election isn’t a story of MAGA domination. It’s a story of status quo rejection. |
There’s longer-term stuff here that we need to explore and take seriously. We’ve known for a long time that a lot of people do not believe that our democracy is responsive to their needs or that the economy is working for them. We’ve seen a multi-cycle erosion of working-class support for Democrats and a broad trend towards anti-establishment distrust from voters who think the system is broken. We’re in a short-term fight with MAGA as a political force -- but we have a much longer struggle to build the kind of political system that strengthens regular peoples’ trust in democracy because they experience it delivering for them.
...
We can have long debates about what that will take. But the painful 30,000-foot reality we see clearly in the results is that we simply were not able to convince enough people that the threat posed by Trump to democracy, to abortion, and to all our rights and freedoms outweighed their frustration with the status quo.
What this means for our next steps. Let's be real: Trump won a narrow victory in the swing states. It feels shattering because we hoped to see a national rejection; instead, he made gains. But this win is not a mandate, and it’s not a durable coalition. Sure, Trump has his die-hard MAGA base, animated by white grievance politics and Christian nationalism. But his win relied on peeling off people who are frustrated and alienated, not pro-fascist or pro-Project 2025, and on voters staying home.
The fact that Trump managed to turn himself into the change candidate is infuriating -- but it also points to the path forward. Once he takes office, he sheds the mantle of “change” candidate and becomes the avatar of a corrupt and extremist administration. Trump won by literally putting as much distance between himself and Project 2025 -- i.e., his policy agenda -- as he possibly could. That is not a separation he can maintain once in office, once his team starts putting his agenda into action. Our work defining Trump 2.0 and its apologists by their worst and most devastating policies begins now.
This doesn’t happen automatically, and it won’t happen without all of us. But it’s possible to prevent some of the harm that is coming to our communities while building to break the MAGAs back in the midterms. That brings us to what is in our power to do in the next chapter.
...
| Electeds Care a Lot About | Electeds Doesn’t Care Much About |
|---|---|
| Verified constituents they actually represent (e.g., people who live in their district for rep or state for senators) | People from places they don’t represent |
| Advocacy that requires effort -- the more effort, the more they care. Calls, personal emails, and especially showing up in person | Form letters, a Tweet, or Facebook comment (unless they generate widespread attention) |
| Local press and editorials, maybe national press | Wonky D.C.-based news |
| The endorsement of an interest group with verified political power (lots of money or lots of people) | Your thoughtful analysis of the proposed bill |
| Groups of constituents, locally famous individuals, or big individual campaign contributors | A single constituent |
| A concrete ask that entails a verifiable action -- vote for a bill, make a public statement, etc. | General ideas about the world |
| One single, timely ask in your communication (letter, email, phone call, office visit, etc.) | A laundry list of all the issues you’re concerned about |
NO KINGS
BEWARE BS
WA
EXMR
Thousands are expected to gather in cities nationwide on Saturday to participate in the latest “No Kings” protest. The demonstrations are meant to rebuke President Donald Trump‘s political platform and actions.
Yet, to Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI), chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, the protests represent something else. She described the nature of the rally during a press conference on Thursday while discussing the government shutdown.
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“Here we are, Democrats have shut down your government now for 16 days,” McClain said. “I think we all want to know what have the Democrats done with all this time on their hands. Well, let’s see, they’ve posed for glossy photos outside the Capitol. They’ve screamed at Capitol police officers, who, by the way, they are refusing to pay. They’ve jumped on TV to what looks like an audition to be the next radical in charge, after Chuck Schumer. And now, they’re gearing up for their ‘I hate America’ rally this weekend.”
McClain then remarked on the performative nature of the left-wing political protests and slammed Democrats participating in them as “cheering for chaos.”
“A rally where they’ll cheer for chaos, instead of country,” McClain said. “So take note of what goes on at that rally.”
“Take note of how they put Americans first,” she said. “Contrast that with Republicans, who are doing what we always do, and that is actually working for the American people.”
McClain then listed the efforts of Republicans to end the government shutdown.
Saturday’s “No Kings Protest” runs counter to much of what McClain mentioned. It is fundamentally opposed to Republican ideals and political philosophies. It is a national effort funded and organized by the Indivisible Project, as the Washington Examinerpreviously reported. Married left-wing political activists and former congressional staffers Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg head the organization.
CUOMO PICKS UP NEW SUPPORT IN NYC MAYORAL RACE AFTER ERIC ADAMS DROPS OUT: POLL
The Indivisible Project is predominantly funded by the Open Society Foundations, a tax-exempt organization established by George Soros, which promotes “bold, democratic solutions to our urgent, common challenges that advance rights, equity, and justice.” The OSF contributed nearly $8 million to the Indivisible Project between 2017 and 2023.
“We rose up once, and on October 18 we’ll rise again — because one protest isn’t enough to protect our democracy,” read a press release from Indivisible. “As the president escalates his authoritarian power grab, the NO KINGS nonviolent movement continues to grow stronger. We are united once again to remind the world: America has no kings, and the power belongs to the people.”
- Tags
- Congressional Republicans
- Democrats
- Donald Trump
- Government Shutdown
- House Republicans
- No Kings
- Protests
---
REF
Indivisible Project
2023
$3,000,000
Indivisible Project
2022
$1,135,000
Indivisible Project
2021
$500,000
Indivisible Project
2021
$375,000
Indivisible Project
2019
$1,750,000
Indivisible Project
2018
$500,000
Tides Advocacy
2017
$350,000
---
REF2 WE
$WALL
The Soros-backed Indivisible Project, organizer of the nationwide “No Kings” movement, has rolled out an activism recruitment program aimed at training 1 million anti-Trump protesters “to fight back.”
Indivisible’s virtual lesson plan, marketed as “One Million Rising,” teaches “the basics of community organizing,” mass mobilization, and “strategic non-cooperation.” Beginning as coordinated Zoom calls, the training regimen eventually mandates in-person meetings.
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“Let’s get organized. Let’s stop Trump,” the sign-up portal says, citing large-scale deportations of illegal immigrants under the Trump administration.
The three-part training series began Wednesday with “Session 1: The Moment & Your Mission,” an online orientation outlining ways to resist federal government efforts. As an example, the instructors, who consider themselves “freedom trainers,” suggested “pressuring the sheriffs in their communities to not cooperate with ICE.”
By the end of the introductory call, 5,000 recruits took the “One Million Rising Pledge” to host a protest this summer.
“Session 2: How to Make it Happen,” scheduled on the night of July 30, is a do-it-yourself tutorial to coach enlistees on assembling their own “community resistance gathering” after the second session.
....
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If you’ve been following our emails or checked the news this week, you’re aware that on Tuesday, Trump’s Office of Management and Budget issued a memo freezing virtually all federal spending -- funds allocated by Congress for things like Medicaid, housing assistance, scientific research, food for hungry families, and a million other things.
These were funds that the Constitution does not allow the president to withhold. So before the freeze was set to take effect (and after a tremendous amount of chaos and fear was unleashed), a federal judge blocked it. Then, amidst massive public backlash, and nonstop calls to House and Senate offices (thanks to all of you), the White House backpedaled and rescinded the memo.
We wish that were the end of the story. But it is not. Quickly after the memo was rescinded, Trump’s press secretary volunteered that they were only rescinding the document, not the intent behind it. That statement was confusing, but clear enough about the administration’s illegal intentions that another judge felt the need to issue a second order blocking the funding freeze.
Obviously, the administration bungled this. And clearly, they’re not done trying. That’s why Trump wants Russell Vought at the helm of OMB.
What does Vought have to do with the funding freeze?Well, the entire concept is kind of his "Hot to Go" (or depending on your generation, perhaps his "Free Bird"). Read his academic writings, and he waxes on about the president remaking government by withholding funds from programs that don’t align with his ideological agenda. Watch his Senate hearings, and he croons about the president’s right to do it, Constitution and Supreme Court guidance be damned.
In fact, while serving as OMB Director for a brief time during Trump’s first term, he tried it on a much smaller scale -- freezing funds allocated for Ukraine (an impeachment resulted). The move was later deemed blatantly illegal.
The Office of Management and Budget is often called the "most important agency you’ve never heard of" because it really does hold a lot of power -- coordinating policy across all government, overseeing budgets, and more.
Russell Vought has an even more expansive view of the agency’s power -- he views it the “nerve center” of the federal bureaucracy and believes that under the right leadership (his), it can totally bypass Congress and give Trump king-like powers. He wrote an entire chapter about it in Project 2025 -- the Heritage Foundation blueprint for an autocratic second Trump term. You may recall Trump disavowing the plan on the campaign trail. But surprise, now that he’s president, he’s seeking to install its authors in the highest positions of government.
If Vought is confirmed, chaotic funding freezes like we saw this week will only be the beginning. Together, Trump and Vought will seek to transform the government into a tool of far-right ideology,Christian Nationalism, and political revenge against Trump’s enemies.
We’ll be honest. Vought is not going to be the easiest of Trump’s nominees to block. His MAGA bona fides and extensive experience in Washington give him a lot of cred with Republican senators.
But this week, senators also witnessed his plans put into action -- and the mayhem it caused in their states as millions who rely on government grants nearly had their lives, businesses, and education upended. All senators, especially Republican senators, need to understand that a yes for Vought is a yes for the exact funding freeze that was just rescinded.
No amount of expert questioning during a senate hearing could have better illustrated the danger Vought poses. We all witnessed it. Now, it’s up to us to make sure senators don’t hear the end of it -- and to demand they vote no.
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I don't know how many of you received this notice, but we are asked to contact Senator Padilla now and request that he introduce a companion bill to HJR 48 in the Senate....Good luck and thanks for all you do,
Thanks, Judith
https://www.padilla.senate.gov/contact/contact-form/
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Jessica Munger <jessica@movetoamend.org>
Date: Mon, Apr 4, 2022 at 3:52 PM
Subject: Re: Time to flood Sen Padilla with HJR48 demands!
To:
Cc: Lawrence Abbott <lraoak@gmail.com>, Milly Harmon <milly@movetoamend.org>, California Move to Amend <ca-mta@movetoamend.org>, California State Network <california@movetoamend.org>, ebmta-steercomm@googlegroups.com <ebmta-steercomm@googlegroups.com>, Greg Coleridge <greg@movetoamend.org>, Jennie Spanos <jennie@movetoamend.org>, Jennie Spanos <jennie.s@movetoamend.org>, Geoffry White <Geoffry.White@gmail.com>
Hi all,
I'm writing to loop in Geoffry White from Los Angeles (Cc'd) who wants to get involved in the efforts to secure Padilla's support. Could we make sure Geoffry is added to the CA-MTA group? Thanks for all you do.
Best,
Jessica
On Mon, Mar 14, 2022 at 2:05 PM 'carolp6798@yahoo.com' via California Move to Amend <ca-mta@movetoamend.org> wrote:
The email I sent to Padilla today:
Senator Padilla,
We request that you introduce HJR48, the We the People Amendment, into the Senate. Simply reach out to lead sponsor Rep Jayapal, to introduce the Senate Companion Bill. HJR 48 is CaDem Federal Priority Legislation and is cosponsored by a majority of California’s Congressional Reps. When you were Secretary of State of California, you took the bold step of supporting Proposition 59, a state equivalent to HJR 48. You understood then that democracy depended on input from all the people, not just the wealthy few. HJR 48 will ensure democracy is in the hands of the people for generations to come. Thank you.
Carol Pinson
On Monday, March 14, 2022, 10:44:02 AM PDT, Milly Harmon <milly@movetoamend.org> wrote:
>
Good morning!
We have the blast to all of California scheduled to go out tomorrow morning which Margaret drafted.
It provides a script and contact info for Padilla’s office and a link to follow to be connected by phone and send an email.
Thanks!!!
On Mon, Mar 14, 2022 at 10:35 AM Lawrence Abbott <lraoak@gmail.com> wrote:
Good morning all
Today at noon my Indivisible East Bay group is meeting with Sen Padilla’s Legislative Director, Josh Esquivel. As you know IEB signed on to our letter asking the Senator to support HJR48.
Today’s agenda has been finalized and we have an ask for Josh. You can read it below.
Now would be an excellent time to start our campaign to get MTA supporters to flood their Senate offices with requests for him to introduce the HJR48 companion bill!
Thank you all much, Lawrence
IEB Padilla agenda item ask:
Will the Senator support HJR48 The We the People Amendment by reaching out to lead sponsor Rep Jayapal, to introduce the Senate Companion Bill? HJR48 is CaDem Federal Priority Legislation and is cosponsored by a majority of California’s Congressional Reps.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "California Move to Amend" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to ca-mta+unsubscribe@movetoamend.org.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/movetoamend.org/d/msgid/ca-mta/CANGC6ZFkjUNexRyVJxm%3D7jqEuiqd_jAHdyDDtX%2BfDzw5hcOJ7A%40mail.gmail.com.
--
Milly Harmon
They/She
National Co-Director, Move to Amend Coalition
Cell Phone in AZ: (707) 362-7240
Office in CA: (916) 318-8040
---
Yet Indivisible has also received funding from the tech entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, as well as foundations or coalitions tied to Democracy Alliance donors, including the San Francisco mortgage billionaire Herbert Sandler, the New York real estate heiress Patricia Bauman and the oil heiress Leah Hunt-Hendrix.
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https://www.alternet.org/right-wing/tom-cottons-cease-and-desist-letter-activist-raises-serious-first-amendment-questions
In October, Stacey Lane — a human resources professional of 19 years, got in the mail a cease-and-desist letter from Senator Tom Cotton, R-Ark. The letter, in an envelope addressed to Lane, said that all communication “must cease and desist immediately with all offices of U.S. Senator Tom Cotton.”
“Healthcare was really big issue before I got the letter. I did what I could to call senators and congressmen and raise the concerns I had,” Lane told Salon.
The letter — now getting attention in the national media — is raising questions about whether or not it's possible to bar a person from petitioning their government's representatives.
[ltr img]
Lane says she’d call the office once or twice a week, usually during times that preceded a major vote or legislative action. There would be several weeks where she wouldn’t call at all.
“My calls were purposeful typically surrounding a major vote or legislative action or call to action via the various activist groups. I was not a serial, daily caller-just-to-call type [of] person,” Lane said.
According to Tom Cotton’s office, Lane — a member of Ozark Indivisible, an activist group part of the Resistance movement against the Trump administration, used vulgar language on multiple occasions. The final incident, which prompted officials in Cotton’s office to administer a cease and desist, was when Lane allegedly called a 19-year-old intern a c**t. According to Cotton’s office, the letter was issued based on the guidance of the U.S. Capitol Police, who has not returned Salon’s request for immediate comment.
When the cease and desist letter started to make noise on Twitter, John Noonan, Senior Counselor for Military and Defense Affairs in Cotton’s office, tweeted about the event to set the record straight to anyone who criticized the move — like the ACLU.
- This went out to a single constituent, not a group.
- That constituent called a 19 year old intern a c***.
- Constituent had multiple warnings.
- We have a very different understanding of "harassment." https://t.co/gJdFYviELw
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) January 18, 2018
Lane told Salon she didn’t recall calling the intern a c**t though, it’s a word she’s maybe used “two times in my life.”
“Have I used colorful language? Yes, but it’s nothing more than I see our president using,” Lane told Salon.
Cotton’s office issued a statement about the matter saying, “If an employee of Senator Cotton receives repeated communications that are harassing and vulgar, or any communication that contains a threat, our policy is to notify theU.S. Capitol Police’s Threat Assessment Sectionand, in accordance with their guidance, send a cease and desist letter to the individual making the harassing or threatening communication.”
Indeed, vulgar language can be rattling, but issuing a cease and desist veers into the realm of prior restraint, explained David Snyder, executive director of First Amendment Coalition.
“This letter is inappropriate, and I would say it’s borderline unconstitutional,” Snyder told Salon. “This kind of speech, as offensive as it may be and as vulgar as it is, is just part of the game; it’s part of what happens in a democracy.”
Snyder added that protests, by nature, are not polite.
Of course, the first Amendment doesn’t protect threatening language where a person’s individual safety is at risk.
“If this staffer had a legitimate concern for personal safety then this might be someone the office should report to the Capitol Police and let them deal with it from there,” Snyder said.
When Salon asked Cotton’s office if this cease and desist letter was a violation of the First Amendment, they said they didn’t have a comment.
Wayne B Giampietro, General Counsel to the First Amendment Lawyers Association, suggested that a tactic like this could be a form of intimidation.
“Anyone who wants to try to intimidate someone can send a cease and desist letter. Whether that letter is worth the paper its written on is another story,” he told Salon. “Unless the profanities are a direct and imminent threat to the lawmaker, they are almost certainly protected by the First Amendment.”
Lane says when she received the letter she felt like it was a threat.
It was a tactic to suppress my voice,” she told Salon.
Indivisible, the activist group Lane is part of, has had a tumultuous relationship with Cotton and his office, which the Arkansas Times has been following. Salon spoke to another Indivisible activist who had been arrested in his office following a protest. A video has also surfaced on Facebook of protesters being kicked out of Cotton’s office.
Cotton, 40, is the youngest serving U.S. senator. Before his election to the Senate he served one term in the House. Cotton has been rumoredto be named the next CIA director.
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==
...“We’re in a disruptive period, and when we get through it, the progressive infrastructure landscape may look different,” said Gara LaMarche, president of the Democracy Alliance, a club of wealthy liberals who donate at least $200,000 a year to recommended groups. “There may be groups that have been around that don’t rise to the challenge, and there may be some new groups that do rise to the challenge, while others fade away.”
The Democracy Alliancehas helped shape the institutional left, steering more than $600 million since its inception in 2005 to a portfolio of carefully selected groups, including pillars of the Clinton-aligned establishment like the think tank Center for American Progress and the media watchdog Media Matters.
But this year, the Democracy Alliance hired Archana Sahgal, a former Obama White House official, to help the new anti-Trump groups, and it suspended its intensive vetting and approval process to recommend donations to a host of groups created since last fall’s election.
The Democracy Alliance distributed a “resistance map” to its donors in July including new groups focused on converting the anti-Trump energy into electoral wins, such as Flippable, Swing Left and Sister District, as well as legal watchdog groups and others focused on mobilizing protesters, such as Women’s March and Indivisible.
Perhaps no group epitomizes the differences between the legacy left and the grass-roots resistance like Indivisible. Started as a Google document detailing techniques for opposing the Republican agenda under Mr. Trump, the group now has a mostly Washington-based staff of about 40 people, with more than 6,000 volunteer chapters across the country. The national Indivisible hub, which consists of a pair of nonprofit groups, has raised nearly $6 million since its start, primarily through small-dollar donations made through its website.
Yet Indivisible has also received funding from the tech entrepreneurReid Hoffman, as well as foundations or coalitions tied to Democracy Alliance donors, including the San Francisco mortgage billionaire Herbert Sandler, the New York real estate heiress Patricia Bauman and the oil heiress Leah Hunt-Hendrix.
And an advocacy group funded by the billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros, a founding member of the Democracy Alliance and one of the most influential donors on the left, is considering a donation in the low six figures to Indivisible. Mr. Soros has already donated to a host of nonprofit groups playing key roles in the anti-Trump movement, including the Center for Community Change, Color of Change and Local Progress.
Indivisible would “gladly” accept a check from Mr. Soros or his foundation, said an official with the group, Sarah Dohl. But, she added, the group is committed to ensuring that money from major donors does not become a majority of the group’s revenue “because we want to maintain our independence both from the funders and from the party.”
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There’s no shortage of outrageous bills in Congress that few people take seriously. Republican Representative Matt Gaetz’s bill to abolish the EPA, for instance, caused widespread internet outrage and inspired hundreds of protesters to show up at a town hall Gaetz hosted. But the bill has absolutely no chance of becoming law.