Extra! Extra! 12/24 🤶🏼
Hi, all, and happy Sunday!
Also merry Christmas Eve to all who celebrate the holiday!
I may be on vacation, but good news can’t wait! So here’s your Sunday roundup of everything nice that happened in the last seven days or so. As usual, there were more wins than you may think.
We live in dark times, but our victories are made all the more resplendent by the shadows they help to dispel. So take a break, celebrate the good, and know that whatever next year brings we’ll be up for it, as long as we stick together, lead with love, and don’t quit before the miracle.
Talk soon, friends.
Jess
P.S. — As always I’m placing an 🪓 next to every item that came about because of the hard work of people like you, or because of lawmakers folks like you helped elect!
Read This 📖
Read this article (gift link) about the deft management the Biden administration has employed to get us through an economic crisis and to the other side.
Celebrate This! 🎉
Our fundraising campaign for Run For Something blew past the $15K match! As of right now, we're at $34,797, with 490 contributors, the vast majority of whom are NEW donors to RFS! THRILLING! (I’m keeping this campaign open through year’s end so if you want to get in on the excitement you still can!) Thank you ALL SO MUCH! 🪓
Speaking of Run For Something, in Texas, where Run for Something has been running candidate recruitment work for years, the filing deadline has passed and the results are excellent — they’re fielding candidates for every statewide office, every state senate office, and nearly every state house seat! 🪓
Thanks to a petition and lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity and allies, a federal court approved a settlement calling for a new recovery plan for all gray wolves protected under the Endangered Species Act. 🪓
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Donald Trump is disqualified from holding the presidency under the Fourteenth Amendment and should be removed as a candidate from the state’s presidential-primary ballot.
The Senate just confirmed former Governor Martin O’Malley as the new commissioner of the Social Security Administration! O’Malley is the first Social Security Commissioner appointed by a Democratic President to get confirmed by the Senate in decades. Also, O’Malley is a longtime champion of Social Security. 🪓
Postcards to Swing States announced that they plan to send 25.7 million postcards for the Nov 5 general election to voters in swing states, states with key Senate races, and competitive US House districts. Woot! Based on their research, their 2024 postcards will add an estimated 125,000 votes! (Want to be notified when this campaign launches? Join their email list on their website.) 🪓
Vice President Kamala Harris is launching a “reproductive freedoms tour” across the country in battleground Wisconsin next month, kicking off the 2024 election year with a focus on abortion, an issue the Biden campaign believes will be critical to mobilizing voters in November. 🪓
The Biden-Harris Administration announced new and historic steps to conserve old growth forests by initiating a first-ever Nationwide Planning Amendment that, upon finalization, would alter all 128 forest land management plans to include consistent direction on conserving, managing, and recruiting old growth on our National Forest System. 🪓
President Biden announced the launch of a national database to help hold law enforcement accountable for misconduct. 🪓
A federal appeals court has denied Mark Meadows’ bid to move his Georgia-based criminal charges into federal court, rejecting a procedural gambit that could have derailed the state’s election-related charges against not only Meadows but also Donald Trump.
Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moore have sued Rudy Giuliani again, on the first business day since the $148 million damages award against him and in their favor. This time, they want the court to bar Giuliani permanently from repeating the same falsehoods for which they won the defamation judgment against him. GOOD.
Pope Francis will allow priests to bless same-sex couples.
Hawai‘i Land Trust and nonprofit Nā Kālai Waʻa have closed on their largest preserve purchase ever, permanently protecting 642 acres at Mahukona on the Kohala Coast in Hawaii. 🪓
Tens of millions of U.S. consumers will get a payout as Google shells out $700 million to settle an antitrust lawsuit brought by state prosecutors over the high fees it charges app developers.
Eight House Democrats have asked Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from former President Donald Trump’s Washington, D.C. election subversion case.
New oil and natural gas leasing will be prohibited on state land surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park, an area sacred to Native Americans, for the next 20 years under an executive order by New Mexico Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard. 🪓
Federal automobile regulators say they've taken the first step toward making technology that prevents drunk and impaired driving standard in new cars.
Eighteen California children are suing the US Environmental Protection Agency over its role in the climate crisis.
The Biden-Harris Administration announced $174 million in awards through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to support energy efficiency, electrification, clean energy, low-embodied carbon materials, and climate resilience improvements in 30 HUD-assisted multifamily properties. 🪓
Wells Fargo workers at an Albuquerque, New Mexico branch voted to unionize. 🪓
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the state’s heavily gerrymandered legislative maps that favor Republicans were unconstitutional and ordered new maps before the 2024 election. NICE JOB ELECTING JANET PROTASIEWICZ, ALL! 🪓
More than 150,000 of the voters who have signed the Florida petition to put a state constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion rights on the 2024 ballot are registered Republicans. 🪓
Ohio is allocating more than $84 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds for communities to use for lead abatement for homes, daycares and congregate care shelters. 🪓
Google is expanding its Project Green Light system, which uses AI to streamline traffic lights and can result in 30% fewer stops and 10% less pollution at a given intersection.
Colorado is poised to be the first state to to expand automatic voter registration to Native American reservations, thanks to a new registration system. 🪓
More than 15.3 million Americans have signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for 2024, a 33% increase from this time last year. 🪓
Years of NRA tax returns show that the gun group’s revenue has been falling for years. And last year was the NRA’s weakest fundraising year since 2008.
NY Governor Kathy Hochul signed the Birds and Bees Protection Act! The bill will limit the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, and, when fully implemented, would eliminate up to 80-90% of the neonics entering New York’s environment annually. The Climate Action Now folks had us all working hard on this. Big win! 🪓
The Senate confirmed the last of the military officers held up in Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s now-defunct block of promotions over the Pentagon’s abortion policy, officially bringing his ‘protest’ to an end. 🪓
In an apparent about-face, Gov. Ron DeSantis is trying to reclaim some of the $346 million in federal funds he rejected six months ago when he vetoed $30 million for the state to administer a home energy rebate program.
The Saiga antelope, which has been living on Earth since the Ice Age, has been moved from Critically Endangered to Near Threatened on the Red List, which tracks species’ extinction risk.
A Danish energy company will press on with plans to build the world’s largest offshore wind farm.
Consumer confidence shot to its highest level since July this month.
A Jan. 6 rioter who had been identified to the FBI by a woman who got him to confess on Bumble pleaded guilty to assaulting officers during the attack on the U.S. Capitol. 🪓
Officials in Colorado released five wolves from Oregon into the wild, a historic moment marking the first time a U.S. state has introduced an endangered species into wildland.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell cleared the way for Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss to begin collecting immediately on their $148 million defamation judgment against Rudy Giuliani, amid concerns that he may hide assets from them.1
Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos now says the impeachment of Justice Janet Protasiewicz is “super unlikely.” 🪓
President Biden pardoned thousands of people who were convicted of use and simple possession of marijuana in his latest round of executive clemencies meant to rectify racial disparities in the justice system. 🪓
Electric coffee roasters are reducing the emissions of coffee roasting by 90%.
The United States abstained from a vote on a United Nations Security Council resolution in support of an indefinite pause in fighting to allow the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza. 🪓
Wednesday was the final day for candidates to file to run for state legislature in Ohio. And guess what? In 2024, not a single state senate race will go uncontested. Not one! And Democrats are contesting at least 95 of Ohio's 99 districts – a massive improvement over the 20 uncontested seats in 2022. This is HUGE and much of the credit goes to David Pepper and the folks at Blue Ohio! 🪓
Remember the story
broke in November about Murfreesboro, the town that banned being gay in public? After a massive outcry, the city just repealed the entire ordinance, even the "community decency" parts, that were being used to ban library books and more! 🪓The Department of Transportation will levy its largest-ever fine against Southwest airline for its December 2022 meltdown. 🪓
The EPA has launched a review of vinyl chloride — the first step toward restrictions on the flammable toxic gas that triggered a fireball when it was incinerated after the catastrophic derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, in February. 🪓
A final rule announced Monday by the Biden administration will introduce new collective bargaining requirements for major federal construction projects, benefiting potentially 200,000 construction workers. 🪓
Watch This! 👀
Talking Points Memo
Amazing list to celebrate with! 🥳 Thank you for taking time from your break to share❤️ !
Okay, I'll say it. You saved the best for last, Jessica! Gimme some more of that thar Dark Brandon!