Extra! Extra! 8/18
FORWARD WE GO!
Hi, all, and happy Sunday!
Welp, it’s been another terrific, energizing, hopeful week; I really do have to pinch myself every once in while, don’t you? How did we go from the slough of despond in which we languished for months to the all-ice cream, free-pony-rides, best-dance-music-ever street fair we seem to be living in right now?
I’m really not sure, but I am sure that your persistence, courage, and efforts have had a not-insignificant amount to do with it.
So take your rewards now and contemplate everything—or almost everything—good that happened this week. It’s a long list. You and the work you’ve done are suffused throughout all of it.
Enjoy! And please, please share! Victories like the below are evidence of our power, our unity, and the breathtaking strength of our movement. The world needs to know!
As always, I’ve popped an 🪓 next to every item that everyday activists like you helped make happen, and a 🪣 next to every one that got done by lawmakers or administrations that we helped elect.
Read This 📖
Kamala Harris is winning the cup wars! It matters! (Read the article. You’ll see.)
Celebrate This! 🎉
Environmental advocacy groups in New York filed lawsuits challenging Gov. Kathy Hochul’s decision to block a congestion pricing plan that would have reduced traffic and raised billions for the city’s ailing subway system. 🪓
After a four-year fight, Disneyland unions have agreed to a “historic” 31% pay increase. The “biggest wage increases ever” for Disneyland resort employees will raise hourly pay by more than $6 over three years. 🪓
Congress looks set to get its next Run For Something alum! Emily Randall has won her primary for WA-6 — she’ll become the first LGBTQIA+ Latina in Congress; she’s been a fierce advocate for reproductive health in WA since she won a competitive state senate election in 2018. 🪓
Arizona officially certified the abortion-rights initiative for the November ballot. HUGE! 🪓
A Colorado jury found Tina Peters, a former county election official, guilty of seven charges connected to allowing a purported computer expert to copy election data from her office on behalf of Trump’s team in 2020.
The federal government is processing citizenship requests at the fastest clip in a decade, moving rapidly through a backlog that built up during the Trump administration and the coronavirus pandemic. 🪣
New data shows violent crime continuing to drop sharply in cities. 🪣
The Biden administration unveiled new rules and efforts targeting consumer annoyances ranging from hard-to-cancel subscriptions, cumbersome insurance forms, and not being able to get a live customer service agent on the phone. The effort is called, fittingly, the "Time is Money" initiative. (By the way, they’re asking Americans to share their ideas for other ways federal action can give them their time back. Submit your ideas and comments at this portal.) 🪣
A new law took effect in Maine that shields providers of abortion and gender-affirming care from legal action by states that have restricted or banned the practices. 🪣
The Republican National Committee lost a lawsuit in Mississippi arguing that mail-in ballots cast by Election Day, but received by officials a few days after, should be rejected.
A New York State judge tossed out a lawsuit from four city employees and the conservative advocacy group Americans for Fair Treatment that argued that the city’s pension funds had not held up to their fiduciary duties by divesting from fossil fuels.
So far this year, Postcards to Swing States volunteers have placed more than 67,297 orders for 20.8 million postcards — a truly stunning level of collective activism. (As a result of record-setting enthusiasm, PTSS is expanding their GOAL to 36 MILLION POSTCARDS!) 🪓
Vote Forward letter writers have now adopted more than 3 million voters (they still need 7 million more! Hint hint.) 🪓
A new Monmouth poll finds a huge shift in enthusiasm in the presidential race. Voter enthusiasm has risen to 68%. The biggest jump has been among Democrats (from 46% in June to 85% now), but there has also been a notable increase in enthusiasm among independents (from 34% to 53%).
A new Florida Atlantic University poll in Florida finds Donald Trump leads Kamala Harris in the presidential race by just three points, 50% to 47%.
The Democratic Party is making a first-time investment in registering and turning out voters living outside of the United States. The party is estimating that some 1.6 million Americans abroad are from crucial battleground states this cycle.(Hat tip to Dems Abroad, whose amazing work laid the groundwork for this!) 🪓
A new Financial Times/Michigan Ross School of Business poll finds more Americans trust Kamala Harris to handle the economy than Donald Trump, 42% to 41%.
A new Morning Consult poll finds 50% of voters say Donald Trump is “too old” to be president.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law a measure that will further expand both private and Medicaid insurance coverage for abortion services and help close the Black maternal mortality gap by expanding coverage of doulas and midwives. 🪣
The first zero-emission hydrogen-powered hybrid train in the U.S. just arrived in San Bernadino, California.
The U.S. Department of Energy will spend $2.2 billion across eight projects spanning a total of 18 states to buttress the electrical grid against extreme weather and speed the transition to cleaner, more efficient energy production. 🪣
Democrats have pumped nearly double the cash into political advertising as Republicans have this election cycle—$325 million compared to Republicans’ $181 million.
Scientists at the University of Bath say new 3D printed, latticed ceramic structures known as “monoliths” can be used to remove up to 75% of certain chemicals from polluted water in less than three hours, according to a new research study. 1
Plastic bag pollution has decreased by 80% at British beaches since charges for single-use bags were implemented.
New England and Alaska are getting a massive infusion of Inflation Reduction Act funds to swap fossil-fueled furnaces, boilers, and water heaters for heat pumps. 🪣
Inflation has fallen to the lowest level in more than three years. 🪣
President Biden announced the designation of the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument (after Congress wouldn’t do it) in Illinois. 🪣
Democrats will stream their convention using vertical video on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Amazing!
A large bronze statue of the late civil rights icon leader and Georgia congressman John Lewis was installed Friday, at the very spot where a contentious monument to the confederacy stood for more than 110 years in the town square before it was dismantled in 2020. 🪓
The Biden administration announced that it had reached an agreement with drugmakers to lower prices on the 10 costliest prescription drugs under Medicare. This. Is. HUGE. 🪣
Also huge: it looks likely that Cornell West will not make the ballot in Michigan. PHEW.
Missouri’s abortion ballot measure has also qualified for the ballot! 🪓
Arizona received final approval to spend nearly $1 billion in federal funding to expand high-speed internet access in the state. 🪣
Republicans are increasingly worried about the polls…in red states.
6,000 sheep will soon be grazing on 10,000 acres of Texas solar fields in the largest solar grazing project in the U.S. It will reduce mowing costs and emissions — and make for some happy sheep.
Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest is down to lowest level since 2016. 🪣 🪓
Democrats improved their margins by an average of four points across five key Senate races: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. They now lead in each race by at least seven points.
Retail sales rose 1% in July, new data showed. It’s the largest increase in more than two years.
Ohio Sen. JD Vance is now the most unpopular vice presidential nominee in modern history.
Two years in, union leaders agree: the labor provisions in President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act are working. 🪣
In a win for voters, the 9th Circuit rejected a right-wing lawsuit from an “election integrity” group trying to strike down California's mail-in voting system, upholding a lower court’s ruling that dismissed the case.
Google and Selena Gomez are partnering on a new $10 million initiative to compensate teachers who take mental health trainings. Google searches for “teen mental health” have doubled in the last four years, reaching an all-time high in 2023.
Since the Inflation Reduction Act was passed two years ago companies have announced $265 billion in new clean energy investments in nearly every state in the nation. Many of these investments are happening in underserved communities—75% of private sector clean energy investments have occurred in counties with lower than median household incomes, and clean energy investment in energy communities has doubled. 🪣
Gideon Cody, a former Kansas police chief, was charged with a felony for allegedly tampering with an investigation into his raid of a small-town newspaper’s office last year.
The Biden-Harris Administration has introduced a series of new measures aimed at lowering housing costs by cutting red tape and facilitating the construction of more housing. 🪣
Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service released new data showing that, in 2023, more than 3.4 million American families saved $8.4 billion on home energy technologies through Inflation Reduction Act consumer tax credits. 🪣
Convicted Sen. Bob Menendez took his independent candidacy off the November ballot.
Since January 2024, more than 250,000 Americans have claimed the Inflation Reduction Act’s electric vehicle tax credits—either $7,500 off a qualified new electric vehicle, or up to $4,000 off a qualified used electric vehicle. In total, these taxpayers have saved about $1.5 billion and nearly all buyers claimed the incentive at the point of sale. 🪣
The Federal Trade Commission voted to ban digital commerce companies and retail sites from using fake reviews and followers to promote their products. 🪣
An administrative tribunal has ruled that the Mexican Congress must begin work on legislation to ban single-use plastics, recognizing their impact on health and the environment and the state's duty to prevent exposure to toxic substances.
The IPCC estimates that by the middle of the century, soil-based carbon sequestration could absorb 2 to 5 gigatons of carbon yearly—that’s about 5 to 15 percent of our current global emissions—at a relatively low cost.
Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign announced it has assembled an expansive senior legal team—including the newly hired Marc Elias!—that will oversee hundreds of lawyers and thousands of volunteers (I’ll have something about this in tomorrow’s newsletter) in a massive operation designed to be a bulwark against an expected Republican effort to challenge voters, rules and, possibly, the results of the 2024 election.
The granddaughter of the late Rev. Billy Graham endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris during an “Evangelicals for Harris” Zoom call and suggested that Christians who support Donald Trump are causing people to turn away from Christianity.
A new KFF poll finds 74% of women ages 18 to 49 said that they “somewhat” or “strongly” oppose leaving it up to the states to decide whether abortion is legal.
A letter containing signatures from 1,000 self-identified survivors of climate disasters calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate fossil fuel companies for climate-related crimes was delivered to the DOJ by a small activist group in Washington. 🪓
The late legendary Cuban singer Celia Cruz has become the first Afro-Latina woman to appear on U.S. currency. 🪣
Black Men Vote PAC announced it will spend $4 million to target Black men in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania with one message: Show up and vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Montana Supreme Court struck down a law requiring parental consent for abortions, ruling that it “violates the fundamental right of a minor to control their body and destiny.”
Longtime GOP pollster Frank Luntz said he is seeing a “broad shift” in the 2024 polls toward Kamala Harris as she rides her “intensity advantage” and as Donald Trump increasingly commits “political suicide.” Said Luntz: “I’m trying to do a focus group tonight with undecided voters under the age of 27 for a major news outlet. And I can’t recruit young women to this, because they don’t exist as undecided voters.”
Watch This! 👀
This is just 😂😂.
This and the two above from “What a Day”
All wonderful -- but WOW, that Tik Tok!! Had to watch it twice and now my stomach hurts from laughing.
Thank you as always Jess for keeping us inspired, informed and engaged! And loving the TikToks!
Also, for anyone who has friends and family who want a primer on Harris-Walz’s credentials and accomplishments - here’s some helpful info! https://open.substack.com/pub/democratsdeliver/p/kamala-and-the-coach?r=51f18&utm_medium=ios