These are challenging times for those of us who care about our democracy, who want our leaders to be ethical and our social contracts to be honored, who believe in government—of the people, by the people, for the people—as a force for good. Each week, we have kept our spirits up by reviewing positive progress in the nation. As of August 24, 2024, we are suspending our blog while we put all of our effort into the fall campaign. We’ll be back from time to time.
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A GOOD NEWS POP-UP!
VICE PRESIDENT HARRIS
A light moment with Kamala. Maybe you only have 60 seconds and need a smile? Try this: YouTube
Oprah and Kamala on YouTube. Or maybe you need buoying up. Nearly 2 million people have already streamed Oprah’s “Unite for America” rally as she interviewed Kamala. You can join them with a click of your mouse and watch the Vice President listen and respond as Americans offer their personal stories and questions. It’s 90 minutes long, but heartwarming and uplifting. If you make it to the end, you might even hear Meryl Streep give a shout-out to our FridayAction.org friends, SGCC!
OTHER TIDBITS
Our election infrastructure is strong. The following is important, comforting to know, and difficult to condense. The Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 did much to clarify and strengthen electoral procedures. Many fail-safes are already in place to block MAGA shenanigans, while legions of lawyers are preparing to meet illegal challenges. There are reasons to be on high alert, but the following links, “Counting the Vote,” and “Prosecuting Donald Trump,” should ease some concerns.
Margaret Hoover searched state-to-state for chinks in our electoral armor in “Counting the Vote,” a PBS documentary. She found, “We actually have an extraordinarily safe, incredibly transparent, the best voting system in the world…the most thorough, the most clear, the most audited.” For starters, did you know that 95% of our ballots are recorded with a paper trail?
You can also listen to the last 20 minutes of “Prosecuting Donald Trump,” where Andrew Weissmann and Mary McCord interview Adav Noti, the Executive Director of the Campaign Legal Center, a non-partisan advocacy organization. He calms some concerns about county jurisdictions refusing to certify November’s election results, and talks about the many people, and steps, in place to thwart bad actors. The states must certify by Dec. 11th.
Voter registration is breaking records as Election Day approaches, particularly among young people. On National Voter Registration Day more than 150,000 people registered through Vote.org, the most the organization has ever seen on that day. It registered 279,400 voters in all of last year. Recently, more than 400,000 people visited a link posted on Instagram by pop star Taylor Swift that directed them to their state’s voter registration site. USA TODAY
Ted Cruz is losing to Colin Allred for the first time, by just a smidgen, but it’s trending in the right direction. And Liz Cheney endorsed Allred after the Morning Consult poll was taken. “I’ve known Ted Cruz for 20 years. And it’s been clear—[for] everybody who knows Ted Cruz…nobody thinks Ted Cruz is a man of great honor.” Newsweek
Keep working hard! And as Ted Lasso says…
Pages from Previous Weeks
Prepared by DianaG and KarlM
“Instead of looking for hope, look for action.
Then, and only then, hope will come.”
-Greta Thunberg