Trump’s lapdogs are losing

 

Last week, Democrats flipped a state Senate seat in one of the most Trump-friendly districts in New York.   Trump won that area last November by 20 points, and it didn’t even matter.   We’re seeing similar results in GOP strongholds across the country.   We saw it in a special state senate election in Iowa. We saw it in a Pennsylvania race that flipped a seat Republicans have held since 1889! We saw it in the Omaha mayor’s race. And now we’re seeing it in New York.   The tide is turning.   Voters are done with Trump’s circus.   They’re done with MAGA extremists looting the country, lying to their faces, and calling it leadership.   Trump’s chaos isn’t energizing his base anymore—it’s exposing how useless, how cruel, and how incompetent his entire party has become.   And right in the middle of it all is my opponent Richard Hudson.   One of the most pathetic career hacks in Washington.   A man who’s never held a job outside politics, never fought for anything worth a damn, and now leads the NRCC—the cash machine keeping Trump’s army of traitors in office.   And you think Democrats are winning now?   Just wait until these cowards have to go home and defend Trump’s so-called “big beautiful bill”—the one that guts Medicaid, slashes the VA, and shuts down the Department of Education just to keep billionaires happy.   Richard Hudson didn’t just vote for it—he helped push it through. Like the obedient little lapdog he’s always been.   He’s not a leader. He’s not a patriot. He’s a soft-handed parasite who’s never sacrificed anything, but wants to make the rest of us bleed for his donors.   Let me be clear: We’re turning NC-09 into a battleground district. Hudson is vulnerable—and I intend to take him out.   Pitch in now and help me flip this seat, crush the MAGA agenda, and send Richard Hudson crawling back to whatever corrupt donor-funded hole he came from.   Sappers clear the way, Airborne all the way! Maj. Richard Ojeda (Ret.) Candidate for Congress, NC-09

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Richard Ojeda is a retired Army Major, combat veteran, former State Senator, lifelong public servant and a proud husband and father of two. Richard is running to flip NC-09 and fight for veterans and working families. DONATE Paid for by Ojeda for NC  ©2025 Ojeda for NC, all rights reserved   Our mailing address is: Ojeda for NC P.O. Box 35 Aberdeen, NC 28315   https://ojedafornc.com/ The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense visual information does not imply or constitute DOD endorsement.

Hudson just voted to GUT Medicaid and SNAP.

 

NORTH CAROLINA: YOU CAN DO BETTER! ELECT SOMEONE WHO WILL VOTE 

FOR YOU!

Let me tell you something about my opponent Richard Hudson… This MAGA goon went from college Republican president, to Hill staffer, to Congressman—he has literally never held a job that wasn’t funded by your tax dollars. And yet he thinks he’s qualified to decide whether your kids deserve a doctor. Trump’s proposed Medicaid cuts are already brutal. Nearly a trillion dollars gone. Millions kicked off their coverage. And what about SNAP? The program that keeps a quarter of American children from going to bed hungry every night? They gutted that, too. And now Hudson and the Freedom Caucus clowns have managed to ram their Frankenstein budget bill through the House—by just one vote. One. The Senate will chew on it, then it’s likely headed right back to the House. And you know damn well Hudson and his goon squad will use that moment to go in for more. More cuts. More cruelty. More blood drawn from the working class. DONATE TO FLIP THIS CRUCIAL SEAT! Richard Hudson doesn’t give a damn about the 3 million North Carolinians on Medicaid or the 1.5 million on SNAP. He couldn’t care less that almost 650,000 children and over a quarter million seniors in our state depend on SNAP to survive. This is Hudson’s game plan: bleed public programs dry, understaff them, overload them, and then point to the chaos as proof they don’t work.  People lose faith, services collapse, and that’s when the private sector vultures swoop in—offering second-rate care at twice the cost, and raking in whatever’s left of your paycheck.  It’s manufactured failure—by design. And Richard Hudson is in on it. These ghouls walk around Capitol Hill with clean hands and full pockets, pretending they understand sacrifice.  They’ve never missed a meal.  Never pulled a double shift to make rent.  Never watched someone they love suffer because they couldn’t afford a prescription. Medicaid and SNAP save lives every damn day. When times are tough, it means the difference between stability and disaster. I’ve seen what it does for veterans battling PTSD, for single parents raising kids, for grandparents trying to make it to the next appointment.  It isn’t some government handout—it’s a lifeline.  And Hudson wants to slice it to pieces with a smile on his face. Make no mistake: this sniveling coward, this beltway rat, wouldn’t last a week in the world he’s trying to demolish. Hudson and his goon squad are sick and demented with greed.  They treat the working class like collateral damage. And when we cry foul, they call it politics. Well, this isn’t politics to me. It’s personal. Pitch in now and help me retire Richard Hudson —because if he wants to make millions of people suffer, then he damn well deserves to lose his job. DONATE TO FLIP THIS CRUCIAL SEAT! Sappers clear the way, Airborne all the way! Maj. Richard Ojeda (Ret.) Candidate for Congress, NC-09

Paid for by Ojeda for NC   Ojeda for NC PO Box 35 Aberdeen, NC 28315 United States

Trump gutted FEMA. Now Americans are dying.

LET'S PROTECT OUR FELLOW CITIZENS WHEN THEY NEED HELP! 

AMERICANS HELP OTHERS IN NEED! 

THIS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY & NEEDS 

TO HAVE PRIORITY!

PLEASE SUPPORT THOSE WHO SUPPORT OUR COMMUNITIES!

 

Folks,   This weekend, tornadoes tore across Missouri and Kentucky—leveled homes, killed families, flipped entire towns upside down.  They call it a natural disaster. But let me tell you something:  Nature didn’t gut FEMA’s budget.  Nature didn’t hollow out emergency response staffing.  Nature didn’t block disaster relief for small towns.  That was Donald Trump. And his bootlicking lapdog, my opponent, Richard Hudson helped him do it.  Make no mistake: these two ghouls and their politics of cruelty helped put 25 Americans into body bags this week. People are digging their neighbors out of the rubble with bare hands because the federal government doesn’t have the resources to respond fast enough. And why?  Because Trump slashed FEMA funding to pay for tax cuts and deportation flights.  Because MAGA ghouls like Hudson would rather throw your grandma off Medicaid than tell a billionaire to pay his fair share. Pitch in now and help me retire Richard Hudson and the corrupt scumbags letting this country burn to the ground. DONATE TO DEFEAT TRUMP'S CRONY! This is what happens when you elect spoiled authoritarian crybabies who think empathy is weakness and government is a grift. They promise the moon, and deliver hell. Then they show up for the photo op and leave towns to rot. I’ve seen what this kind of devastation looks like up close.  When I deployed to Haiti after the earthquakes, I watched families carry their dead on mattresses and search for drinking water in the ruins.  Now I’m watching the same kind of suffering unfold right here at home—because some Cheeto-colored conman would rather fund ICE flights to Libya than disaster shelters in Kentucky. And Hudson?  He’s the coward behind the curtain, pulling levers, funneling MAGA money to the most extreme House members who can continue to support these cuts.  Let me be clear: if you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention. This storm was just the latest. More are coming.  Climate disasters are getting deadlier, and the MAGA machine is making sure we’re less prepared every damn time. Let’s rip out the rot. Let’s end the grift. Let’s send Richard Hudson back to whatever hole he crawled out of. If you’re with me—if you believe in rebuilding this country from the ground up—then pitch in now and help me shut these bastards down. Sappers clear the way, Airborne all the way! Maj. Richard Ojeda (Ret.) Candidate for Congress, NC-09

Paid for by Ojeda for NC   Ojeda for NC PO Box 35 Aberdeen, NC 28315 United States

We Won’t Let Big Oil Bully These Belugas

 

 

 

Petition Filed to Save Cook Inlet’s Last Belugas

With only 279 Cook Inlet beluga whales left on Earth, the Center for Biological Diversity and three other groups just filed a legal petition demanding the federal government stop letting oil companies and others harm and harass them.

 

Thanks to previous work by the Center and allies, the belugas have Endangered Species Act protection and more than 3,000 square miles of protected habitat in Alaska’s Cook Inlet — which is already full of pollution, shipping, oil drilling and other threats. Still, NOAA Fisheries keeps handing out “take” permits letting industry and others disrupt their navigation, breathing, breeding and feeding. Scientists warn that if their population drops to 200 individuals, it may never recover.

 

“Five years after releasing a recovery plan for this imperiled population, the government is still authorizing death by a thousand cuts against mounting expert advice,” said attorney Julie Teel Simmonds with the Center, which filed the first petition to protect the belugas in 1999. “The Biden administration needs to fix this broken system or we’ll lose these extraordinary, charismatic white whales forever.”

 

Help us save belugas and other dwindling species with a gift to our Saving Life on Earth Fund.

Court Rules Tejon Ranch Case Can Proceed

A judge just ruled that the Center and allies can move forward with our lawsuit against a 19,000-home development proposed for Los Angeles County’s beautiful, biodiverse Tejon Ranch. This stretch of more than 270,000 acres is already home to California condors, San Joaquin kit foxes and other endangered species — and it has repeatedly been torched by large wildfires.

 

“The court knows this project ignored the risks of building in a high wildfire hazard zone and shirked responsibility to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions,” said Center lawyer J.P. Rose. “These threats to public safety and the environment call the entire Centennial project into question.”

Pearl River Map Turtles Need Your Help

Thanks to a Center lawsuit, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed protecting Pearl River map turtles under the Endangered Species Act. It’s a step in the right direction, but the proposal lets water pollution, pesticides and other activities harm the turtles and doesn’t designate much-needed protected habitat. Nicknamed “sawbacks” for the spiky ridges along their backs, the turtles live only in creeks and rivers within the Pearl River drainage in Mississippi and Louisiana.

 

Tell the Service: Do more to protect these lovely little turtles and the waters they call home.

Real Pandemic Prevention Includes Saving Wildlife

With the next pandemic predicted to hit within a decade, we need preventative action globally — and in the United States — including curbing wildlife trade and habitat destruction. On Covid’s two-year U.S. anniversary, the Center’s Tanya Sanerib takes to Medium to explain the reasons, the costs and the solutions.

Our Lawsuit to Save the Home of Arizona Species

Arizona’s Agua Fria National Monument was designated to protect riparian forests, grasslands and a diversity of wildlife — including imperiled species such as Sonoran pronghorns and yellow-billed cuckoos. The monument is supposed to receive certain safeguards from grazing, but federal officials have let cattle run rampant, destroying habitat by filling waterways with manure, trampling streambanks, and eating vegetation down to the roots.

 

So last week we sued the Bureau of Land Management to make it do its job.

 

“The BLM’s decision to allow cattle to destroy these spectacular streams endangers rare wildlife, contradicts the monument’s conservation purpose and violates the Endangered Species Act,” said the Center’s Chris Bugbee. “The agency must remove the cattle immediately.”

 

Check out our video on YouTube.

Suit Scores $32.6 Million for North Carolina Species

Thanks to a Center lawsuit against a highway construction project, North Carolina’s Department of Transportation has spent $21.35 million in the past two years to protect habitat for imperiled aquatic species and fund a new captive-breeding facility for endangered freshwater mussels and magnificent ramshorn snails. By 2022’s end, the department will put $11.3 million more toward freshwater mussel conservation research and restoring endangered mussels and salamanders to habitats where they’ve disappeared.

 

“This $32.6 million will be lifesaving for Neuse River waterdogs, Atlantic pigtoe mussels and the other unique, fascinating imperiled critters that help support North Carolina’s sensitive freshwater ecosystems,” said Center lawyer Perrin de Jong. 

Nevada’s Anti-Public Lands Insurrectionists

What does the Jan. 6 Capitol siege have to do with public lands and endangered species? A lot, according to a new story from journalist Nate Hegyi.

 

With input from the Center’s Patrick Donnelly, Hegyi tells about the devastating effects — environmental and otherwise — of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s militant opposition to federal regulation of destructive grazing. He writes, “Bundy and his family were some of the first prominent anti-government agitators of the 21st century, and Donnelly and other public lands activists believe their actions paved the way for other far-right uprisings in the U.S., including the January 6th takeover of the U.S. Capitol.”

 

Yet the Biden administration refuses to crack down on the Bundys’ illegal grazing. Read or listen to the piece for more.

Join Us: The Fight for the Future of Water

Freshwater habitats are at the leading edge of the extinction crisis globally, and the fight to save endangered wildlife in California’s rivers is urgent. Join our next Saving Life on Earth webinar on Thursday, Jan. 27, at 4 p.m. PT / 7 p.m. ET to learn about the San Francisco/San Joaquin Bay-Delta and how you can help save this special place.

 

We’ve teamed up with filmmaker Jacob Morrison to share their film River’s End, which reveals California’s complex struggle over who gets fresh water. It’s a story that heralds an impending crisis — not just in California, but around the world.

 

Sign up for the webinar and you’ll receive an email with links to stream the film and participate the webinar. Watch the film for free any time before Jan. 27, and then join us for a discussion and Q&A with the filmmaker and Center staff.

Revelator: Cargo, With a Side of Invasive Species

Global shipping is moving invasive species around the world, from plant pathogens to “murder hornets.” Can governments agree on necessary measures to save endangered animals and plants — and people — from these intruders?

 

Read more in The Revelator and subscribe to the newsletter if you haven’t yet.

That’s Wild: Polar Bears Populate Russian Outpost

An old meteorological station, built by Soviet scientists in 1934, sits in ruin on Kolyuchin Island in the Chukchi Sea, about 6 miles off the coast of mainland Russia. Surrounded by sea ice about nine months a year and abandoned by people 30 years ago, it looks like a tundral ghost town.

 

It does have spectral white inhabitants — but not ghosts. A recent photoshoot by photographer Dmitry Kokh shows polar bears rooming in the abandoned buildings, sunning on the tundra, and lumbering about through abandoned refuse.

 

Read more at Russia Beyond.

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Photo credits: Cook Inlet beluga whale by Paul Wade/NOAA Fisheries; San Joaquin kit foxes courtesy USFWS; Pearl River map turtle by Cris Hagen, University of Georgia, Savannah River Ecology Laboratory; pangolin by Brett Hartl/Center for Biological Diversity; Agua Fria National Monument from screenshot of video by Center for Biological Diversity; Neuse River waterdog by Marc Hall/North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission; Cliven and Ammon Bundy by Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia; River's End graphic used with permission; Asian longhorn beetle by James Applebee/USFWS; polar bear by Susanne Miller/USFWS.

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