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For Immediate Release
December, 15 2020, 11:00pm EDT
Contact:
Norman Solomon, RootsAction.org national director
norman@rootsaction.org, phone/text: (415) 488-3606
Jeff Cohen, RootsAction.org co-founder
jeff@rootsaction.org, (914) 388-1431
RootsAction Announces "No Honeymoon" Campaign to Challenge Biden
The progressive activist group RootsAction.org announced today the launch of "No Honeymoon" -- a sustained campaign that will mobilize grassroots pressure on Joe Biden from across the country.
With an email list of 1.2 million supporters nationwide, RootsAction backed Bernie Sanders in the primaries before conducting its #VoteTrumpOut campaign that reached millions of mostly progressive voters in swing states during the summer and fall.
WASHINGTON
The progressive activist group RootsAction.org announced today the launch of "No Honeymoon" -- a sustained campaign that will mobilize grassroots pressure on Joe Biden from across the country.
With an email list of 1.2 million supporters nationwide, RootsAction backed Bernie Sanders in the primaries before conducting its #VoteTrumpOut campaign that reached millions of mostly progressive voters in swing states during the summer and fall.
RootsAction said on Wednesday: "The 'Vote Trump Out' campaign always had a second part to it -- 'Then Challenge Biden.' We are now fulfilling that commitment by organizing throughout the United States for a truly progressive agenda."
The group's NoHoneymoon.org website, unveiled on Wednesday, invites activists "to join with RootsAction to push back against the destructive forces of corporate power, racial injustice, extreme income inequality, environmental assault and the military-industrial complex."
The No Honeymoon campaign's demands of the Biden administration will include a $15 federal minimum wage, cancelation of student debt, a major rollback of mass incarceration, the Green New Deal and ending U.S. military intervention.
Commenting about the launch on Wednesday, RootsAction co-founder Jeff Cohen said: "One reason our Vote Trump Out campaign was so successful and persuasive with progressive voters, especially those not friendly toward Biden, was our pledge to continue the battle by challenging Team Biden to support policies that put the multiracial working class ahead of corporate greed and profiteering. No Honeymoon is how we're honoring that pledge."
Added RootsAction national director Norman Solomon: "We have no intention of going silent about progressive principles just because the president will be a Democrat. Far from the chatter of party power brokers and Biden insiders, the energized progressive base around the country is paying attention and cannot be mollified by smiles and symbolic gestures. We have a progressive agenda and we're going to fight like hell for it, without delay."
In support of the #NoHoneymoon launch, former Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign national co-chair Nina Turner speaks on a video, released today and posted on the No Honeymoon website.
In recent weeks, RootsAction helped lead the grassroots opposition to Michele Flournoy for Secretary of Defense.
RootsAction is dedicated to galvanizing people who are committed to economic fairness, equal rights for all, civil liberties, environmental protection -- and defunding endless wars. We mobilize on these issues no matter whether Democrats or Republicans control Washington D.C.
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Wright, who leads the Denver-based oil services company Liberty Energy, is a Republican donor whose nomination to head the Department of Energy is backed by powerful fossil fuel boosters including oil and gas tycoon and Trump adviser Harold Hamm.
"Chris has been a leading technologist and entrepreneur in Energy. He has worked in Nuclear, Solar, Geothermal, and Oil and Gas," Trump said in a statement announcing his choice. "Most significantly, Chris was one of the pioneers who helped launch the American Shale Revolution that fueled American Energy Independence, and transformed the Global Energy Markets and Geopolitics."
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Trump—who has promised to increase fossil fuel production beyond the record-setting levels of the Biden administration—also said Wright would serve on a new Council of National Energy led by Doug Burgum, his pick to run the Interior Department.
In a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, Wright said that he is "honored and grateful for the opportunity" to be nominated by Trump.
"My dedication to bettering human lives remains steadfast, with a focus on making American energy more affordable, reliable, and secure," he added. "Energy is the lifeblood that makes everything in life possible. Energy matters. I am looking forward to getting to work."
Wright calls himself "a lifelong environmentalist" and said last year that "climate change is a real problem." However, he also said in 2023 that "there is no such thing as clean energy or dirty energy" and that "there is no climate crisis and we're not in the midst of an energy transition either."
While fossil fuel proponents cheered Wright's nomination, climate and environmental defenders voiced alarm over the pick.
"Not surprising but still appalling that Trump's pick for Energy Secretary is a Big Oil CEO," League of Conservation Voters senior vice president for government affairs Tiernan Sittenfeld wrote on X.
Natural Resources Defense Council senior vice president for climate and energy Jackie Wong blasted Wright as "a champion of fossil fuels" whose nomination was "a disastrous mistake."
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