My Birthday Wish: Democracy and Freedom 🇺🇸🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
As I approach my 36th birthday, I’ve been reflecting on the world I hoped we'd be living in by now….yikes.
What I do know is this: my freedom to thrive as an openly-gay man in America requires democracy.
So for my birthday, which falls the day before Pride Month, I’m showing up for democracy, and I’d love for you to join me!
If you're in Los Angeles, come be in community at this powerful event:
🌈 June 1 – Christopher Street Project x Grassroots Dems HQ Pride Kickoff
With Alyssa Milano and Jai Rodriguez (!!!)
Who wouldn’t want to kick off Pride Month with these 1990s and 2000s icons?! (Yes, their attendance inspired my circa 2004-5 photo, Abercrombie polo and all!)
[RSVP Here]
Not in LA and/or can’t attend? Consider donating to the event via the link above!
You probably know Grassroots Dems HQ as an electoral machine for good. I’ve asked you to volunteer with them many times over the past seven years!
Christopher Street Project is a bold new federal PAC laser-focused on electing pro-trans candidates and challenging the dangerous idea that trans rights are negotiable as Democrats sort things out.
These organizations’ success means bolstering the democracy central to protecting - and one day again expanding - freedom for all of us.
Yes, “freedom”, that word conservatives self-righteously wave around while actually taking it from others. I’m not just talking about the negative “freedom from” oppression, but a positive “freedom to” be, to dream, to thrive, to exist.
So this coming Pride Month, let’s all of us, LGBTQ and allies, organize and build the America we deserve — together.
Hope to see you there.
Stay Tuned: There will be an Equality California PAC event later this summer, to be rescheduled from its original June 7 date. EQCA - the country’s largest and most successful LGBTQ statewide political NGO - helped in key House districts, including candidates Derek Tran and Dave Min who flipped/protected vulnerable seats.
Stop the Big Bad Bill
The House GOP passed Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” to give oligarchs a massive wealth transfer by gutting key parts of the social safety night when we’re on the precipice of a tariff-induced recession.
Here’s just a taste of this catastrophic bill:
Sickening - and in many cases killing - 8.6 million people by kicking them off of Medicaid with nearly $700 billion in cuts
Starving 3 million families and jeopardizing school meals for 18 million children with $267 million in cuts to SNAP (food stamp) and other USDA programs
Building literal concentration camps with $100 billion for Stephen Miller’s mass deportation scheme
Defund of Planned Parenthood via a ten-year block on Medicaid reimbursements
Join Grassroots Dems HQ every Thursday and/or Indivisible’s Stop the Cuts campaign to apply maximum pressure on the Senate.
In America, We Don’t Do Kings
While Trump wastes millions on a military parade in DC on June 14 (his birthday and Flag Day), folks are mobilizing everywhere to show that organized people power is stronger than his authoritarianism.
Find a No Kings event near you on June 14!
Thousands of protests being organized. No matter what you see in the media, more protests are happening now than in Trump 1.0. If I wasn’t flying home from the East Coast that day, I’d be there, but I’ll have a “No Kings” shirt on in solidarity!
Food for Thought
Sarah Milgrim’s Death Was a Tragedy. Distorting Her Legacy Would Be Another., Yasmina Asrarguis
"Just as the extremist misunderstood Sarah, so too do many of those who profess to weep for her loss. Those who mourn Sarah should reflect on her ideals, learn from her life’s work and aim as she did on creating the fragile groundwork for Middle East peace. It was a future she helped prepare for, one conversation, one relationship at a time."
Enough Is Enough. Israel Is Committing War Crimes, Former Center-Right Kadima Israeli Prime Minister & Likud Mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert
"Recent operations in Gaza have nothing to do with legitimate war goals. The government sends our soldiers – and the military obeys – to wander around Gaza City, Jabalya and Khan Yunis neighborhoods in an illegitimate military operation. This is now a private political war. Its immediate result is the transformation of Gaza into a humanitarian disaster area."
“What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians. We're not doing this due to loss of control in any specific sector, not due to some disproportionate outburst by some soldiers in some unit. Rather, it's the result of government policy – knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly dictated. Yes, Israel is committing war crimes.”
After the DC shooting it’s clear: The pro-Palestine movement must be purged of violent extremism, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib
“My work is to normalize multiple truths: We can hold space for the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and a rejection of Israeli unjust policies in the war, while also rejecting Hamas’ violent extremism that harms Palestinians and Israelis alike. I want to provide a new political home for Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims and their true allies who are not represented by the current toxic discourse being carried out on college campuses, in the streets, online and beyond.”
“If there is any hope for a new pathway forward, it must entail the wholesale rejection of maximalism, zero-sum equations and black and white thinking. The pro-Palestine movement must be purged of radical extremists, hateful antisemites, and promoters of armed resistance.”
Anti-Israel rhetoric is fueling an alarmingly powerful new wave of antisemitism on the right, Elad Nehorai
“[As] more prominent figures on the far-right edge from anti-Israel sentiment into outright antisemitism, the entire Republican and right-wing ecosystem is beginning to turn against Israel and Jews. The change in Trump’s behavior toward Israel…[is] about the new intersection of anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism on the right. Conspiracy theories that had already proliferated on the right before the Israel-Hamas war — the great replacement theory, QAnon, anti-vaccine beliefs, concerns about a so-called ‘deep state’ — all are, at their heart, antisemitic, and they all can easily be manipulated to include Israel.”
Even if the Capital Jewish Museum shooter ‘did it for Gaza,’ his actions were antisemitic, Emily Tamkin
“To put this very plainly: The words ‘Free Palestine’ themselves are not antisemitic. When I hear them chanted at a protest, or I read them in an op-ed, or when I see them graffitied around my neighborhood, I do not feel threatened. A call for the liberation and dignity for one group of people isn’t inherently a call for the denigration of my own safety and security.”
“But the words ‘Free Palestine’ also do not magically erase antisemitism from, nor do Israel’s actions in Gaza automatically greenlight, an act that violently targets Jews.”
The Democratic Party’s siren call to defeat, Greg Shultz
“Democrats…have built organizations largely around identities or specific policy goals rather than broad, unifying values….The result is an ecosystem that incentivizes Democratic politicians to focus on identity and niche policies rather than broadly appealing economics or narratives around American values.”
“The Democratic Party’s core challenge is not that voters have abandoned its values. It’s that elite incentives have pulled the party away from the voters, policies, and values it needs to win. If Democrats want to build lasting majorities and govern effectively, they must fix the incentives within their ecosystem — rewarding organizations that prioritize broad coalitions, pragmatic governance, and a real understanding of who their base is.”
Jobs
Democratic National Committee: Multiple Positions
National Education Association: Lobbyist (DC)
Daley Strategies: Account Coordinator (LA)
Foundation for Jewish Camp: CEO
Open Door Legal: Family Law Paralegal/Legal Assistant (SF)
California Immigrant Policy Center: Multiple Openings
Karsh Family Social Service Center: Development Director (LA)
Valley Beth Shalom: Dir. of Advancement & Strategic Initiatives, Hebrew & Judaic Studies Teacher (LA)
Repair the World: Executive Director, New York
Congregation Emanu-El: Jewish Engagement Manager (SF)
JFS San Diego: Multiple Positions
IKAR: Limudim Teacher (LA)
Wilshire Blvd Temple: Sr. Dir. of Data Systems (LA)
NCJW LA: Finance Manager, Housing Manager
HUC: Admissions Recruiter (NYC)