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Wish you could sue the bastards? It’s easy! This week’s ACM [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-06-08
We have, by now, surely all been affected by this administration’s illegal, immoral, unconstitutional and human rights violating actions. Federal jobs have been decimated while the gestapo rounds up small children, tariffs kill our budgets (food or medication? electricity?!), civil rights are erased and the EPA’s new guidance will kill us all. Likely everyone has standing now in court – you have been “harmed”, so you can sue for compensation, to stop the gestapo, to stop the madness!
The courts have proven one of our best bets for pushing back against the torrent of evil actions by this administration. In fact, now is the perfect time to sue! Trump et al are on a losing streak.
At On Data and Democracy Adam Bonica shows in graphic detail how this administration is losing cases at an accelerating pace:
We are winning! 96.3% wins vs 3.7% losses. There are several organizations constantly on the front lines defending democracy, the constitution, and civil rights. They constantly take on the administration and provide “one-stop-shopping” for your lawsuit. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) , Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) , Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) and many others are acting on behalf of all of us, and the more we can support them the more cases they win – simple math. They need our help, and we need theirs!
The abjectly illegal activities of this administration have been so swift and numerous it is nearly impossible to keep up. If you are like me, you are pissed off, maybe even feeling anger – or outright rage – at the current fascist administration and their white nationalist agenda. I want to sue them every damned day! It is a gift knowing I can sue them – and win! By donating to any of these organizations I am seeing direct action from my dollars. Although I have zero financial interest in any of these organizations (full disclosure – I have donated to these three and others), I would like to introduce these organizations — in their own words — in case you are unfamiliar with what they stand for and what they do. Donation links accompany the acronyms:
ACLU – American Civil Liberty Union (current lawsuits)
The ACLU was founded in 1920.
In the years following World War I, America was gripped by the fear that the Communist Revolution that had taken place in Russia would spread to the United States. As is often the case when fear outweighs rational debate, civil liberties paid the price. In November 1919 and January 1920, in what notoriously became known as the “Palmer Raids,” Attorney General Mitchell Palmer began rounding up and deporting so-called radicals. Thousands of people were arrested without warrants and without regard to constitutional protections against unlawful search and seizure. Those arrested were brutally treated and held in horrible conditions. In the face of these egregious civil liberties abuses, a small group of people decided to take a stand, and thus was born the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU has evolved in the years since from this small group of idealists into the nation’s premier defender of the rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. With more than 1.1 million members, 500 staff attorneys, thousands of volunteer attorneys, and offices throughout the nation, the ACLU of today continues to fight government abuse and to vigorously defend individual freedoms including speech and religion, a woman’s right to choose, the right to due process, citizens’ rights to privacy and much more. The ACLU stands up for these rights even when the cause is unpopular, and sometimes when nobody else will. While not always in agreement with us on every issue, Americans have come to count on the ACLU for its unyielding dedication to principle. The ACLU has become so ingrained in American society that it is hard to imagine an America without it. One of the ACLU’s earliest battles was the Scopes Trial of 1925. When the state of Tennessee passed a law banning the teaching of evolution, the ACLU recruited biology teacher John T. Scopes to challenge the law by teaching the banned subject in his class. When Scopes was eventually prosecuted, the ACLU partnered with celebrated attorney Clarence Darrow to defend him. Although Scopes was found guilty (the verdict was later overturned because of a sentencing error), the trial made national headlines and helped persuade the public on the importance of academic freedom. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered all people of Japanese descent, most of whom were American citizens, be sent to “war relocation camps.” Eventually more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were sent to these internment camps. The ACLU, led by its California affiliates, stood alone in speaking out about this atrocity. In 1954, the ACLU joined forces with the NAACP to challenge racial segregation in public schools. The resulting Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education that ended the era of “separate but equal” was a major victory for racial justice. The ACLU was also involved in the 1973 the Supreme Court victories in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, which held that the right to privacy encompasses a woman's right to decide whether she will terminate or continue a pregnancy. In 2003, the ACLU helped persuade the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas to expand upon the privacy rights established in Roe when it struck down a Texas law making sexual intimacy between same-sex couples a crime.
SPLC – Southern Poverty Law Center (current lawsuits)
Although the SPLC continues to focus on the southern states of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi, their reach is national as their cases often result in changes to other state or national laws.
The SPLC was founded in 1971 to ensure that the promise of the civil rights movement became a reality for all. By the late 1960s, the civil rights movement had ushered in the promise of racial equality as new federal laws and decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court ended Jim Crow segregation. But resistance was strong, and these laws had not yet brought the fundamental changes needed in the South. African Americans were still excluded from good jobs, decent housing, public office, a quality education and a range of other opportunities. There were few places for the disenfranchised and the poor to turn for justice. Enthusiasm for the civil rights movement had waned, and few lawyers in the South were willing to take controversial cases to test new civil rights laws. Alabama lawyer and businessman Morris Dees sympathized with the plight of the poor and the powerless. The son of an Alabama farmer, he had witnessed firsthand the devastating consequences of bigotry and racial injustice. Dees decided to sell his successful book publishing business to start a civil rights law practice that would provide a voice for the disenfranchised. “I had made up my mind,” Dees wrote in his autobiography, A Season for Justice. “I would sell the company as soon as possible and specialize in civil rights law. All the things in my life that had brought me to this point, all the pulls and tugs of my conscience, found a singular peace. It did not matter what my neighbors would think, or the judges, the bankers, or even my relatives.” His decision led to the founding of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
NRDC – Natural Resource Defense Council (current lawsuits)
On January 1, 1970, New York–based lawyer John H. Adams came together with other like-minded litigators to set up an organization they called the Natural Resources Defense Council. NRDC was the first national environmental advocacy group to focus on legal action, and we committed ourselves to protecting the environment for generations to come. Learn more about some of our major achievements, among the hundreds of victories we’ve achieved to make good on that founding goal.
…
We are in the fight of our lives. If we fail, the consequences will be like nothing human civilization has ever seen. But NRDC has the arsenal we need to win this fight. We combine rigorous science, policy advocacy, and legal expertise with millions of supporters providing political and lobbying muscle. And this place is full of energy. - Manish Bapna, [current] NRDC president & CEO
There are, of course, countless other plaintiffs currently suing the administration, including Harvard University, PBS, OPB, multiple city/municipality, county, borough and state agencies, coalitions of states and attorney generals, many employee unions, medical professionals, scientists, individuals, and so many more.
You can keep track of the lawsuits to protect us from the deluge of horrible Executive Orders, lawlessness (including by top Dept of Justice officials of course), and racist violence this administration is being found guilty of at Lawfare.com
Lisa Needham is a great resource here for the latest developments in her “Injustice for All” series. The latest from yesterday is at The latest ways courts pushed back against our lawless president.
Please don’t spend what you can’t afford to give. There are countless other ways you can help the resistance against fascism, corporatocracy, theocracy or dictatorship! The list is seemingly endless, but some main ideas are:
INDIVIDUAL ACTIONS
Freeway blogging : This is protected free speech (so far) and should be taken advantage of if you like guerrilla-type actions on your own or with friends. These can be very effective – Tesla will never be the same!
Call your elected officials EVERY DAY and tell them why you support them (fighting this regime), or tell them you are pissed off at how this “administration” follows no rule of law, bill of rights, or the constitution. And anything else you think of… They make it easy at 5calls.org
Guerrilla warfare-style action with books (passing out “banned books” in those neighborhood “little libraries” is one thought)
Signs – design & post / print & distribute / hold ‘em high!!
Many more!
GROUP ACTIONS
Attend meetings about furthering our progressive values.
Organize multiple groups of friends and relatives to meet with on a regular basis to discuss projects, actions, current events & fights, and maybe a slice of pizza or better!
Phone banking
Letter writing & postcards
Protests, including large corporations donating and benefiting from this administration.
Many more!
GROUPS SUPPORTING PROGRESS and PEACE:
Living Liberally (formerly Drinking Liberally)
Swing Left
Indivisible.org
Mobilize.us
Common Power
And literally hundreds of others
Personally, I have been at meetings with Seattle Supports Democracy, People Power, Sunrise PDX, (supporting and for teens and young adults in Portland Oregon — see Sunrise Movement for your local organization) and others. There many, many organizations and individuals fighting along-side each other to defend democracy! Feel free to add more favorites in the comments section!
Please give what you can afford to help keep America a democracy. We ALL need each other right now. Thank you!
I would like to end this short article with a quote from the Edward R. Murrow story done by the play Good night, and good luck. Truth to power. Live streamed play performed June 7, 2025
It’s a fight for the very soul of this republic…. The question is, what are you going to do! (emphasis mine)
P.S. The air is thick with talk of martial law in light of the National Guard being called in to suppress the conflicts in Los Angeles Friday and Saturday. Please be safe and stay prepared!!
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