Good News
note: Some of the older items may have new information not tracked here. It’s a record of what was uplifting at the time, not the current status.
Dec 2020
Nov 2020
- Nov 4 Loren Culp announces the City of Republic has defunded his 1 man police department
- Nov 4 New Mexico becomes first state to elect all women of color to House delegation
- Nov 4 The sheriff fired her because she’s a lesbian so she ran against him. She’ll be the new sheriff now.
- Nov 4 A record 574 LGBTQ candidates ran this year. Here are the big wins so far.
- Joining the U.S. House of Representatives, Ritchie Torres, who is Afro-Latino, and Mondaire Jones, both of New York, became the first openly gay Black members of Congress.
- On the state level, Sarah McBride became the first openly transgender state senator in the United States in Delaware. That also makes her the highest-ranking transgender state legislator in the country.
- Stephanie Byers (Chickasaw), who won in the Kansas House, became the first transgender person of color elected to a state legislature in the country.
- In Florida, Michele Rayner-Goolsby became the state’s first openly queer Black woman state legislator and Shevrin Jones became the state’s first out LGBTQ state senator. In Oklahoma, Mauree Turner, who is Black and Muslim, became the first gender nonbinary person to be elected to a state legislature.
- Taylor Small became Vermont’s first openly transgender state legislator. Joshua Query’s win made them first openly gender nonconforming person elected to a state legislature. (When Query first won in 2018, they did not publicly identify as gender nonconforming.)
- In Hawaii, Adrian Tam won a seat in the state’s House of Representatives, making him Hawaii’s only openly LGBTQ elected official.
- Nov 7 – Biden Wins Presidency, ending four tumultuous years under Trump
Oct 2020
- Oct 15 Washington Supreme Court Unanimously Strikes Down I-976, Tim Eyman’s $30 Car Tab Initiative
- Oct 18 Federal judge strikes down Trump plan to slash food stamps for 700,000 unemployed Americans
- Oct 19 Supreme Court Rules Pennsylvania Can Count Ballots Received After Election Day
- Oct 21 OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma to plead guilty to three criminal charges – report
- Oct 22 Second federal court blocks Trump memo on excluding undocumented immigrants from apportionment
Sep 2020
- Sep 9 AG Ferguson leads lawsuit to protect America’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil and gas drilling
- Sep 10 Federal judges block Trump census order on undocumented immigrants
- Sep 10 In rare bipartisan climate agreement, senators forge plan to slash use of potent greenhouse gas
- Sep 11 DeVos Loses Latest Fight Over Rerouting Aid To Private School Students
- Sep 17 Federal Judge Blocks Postal Services Changes That Could Hamper Election Mail
- Sep 25 Federal Judge Ousts Trump’s Top Public Lands Chief
- Sep 27 Trump’s Taxes Show Chronic Losses and Years of Income Tax Avoidance
August 2020
- Aug 6 New York attorney general seeks to dissolve NRA in suit accusing gun rights group of wide-ranging fraud and self-dealing
- Aug 18 Private prison companies move to cut debt as activists hit home
July 2020
- Jul 7 The U.S. Supreme Court refused to let construction start on TC Energy Corp.’s Keystone XL oil-sands pipeline, rejecting a bid by President Donald Trump’s administration to jump-start the long-delayed project.
- Jul 9 Supreme Court gives NY prosecutor a landmark legal victory
- Jul 9 Landmark Supreme Court Ruling Affirms Native American Rights in Oklahoma
- Jul 11 Climate Activists See ‘New Era’ After Three Major Oil and Gas Pipeline Defeats
- Jul 13 Georgia’s 6-Week Abortion Ban Is Struck Down
- Jul 15 Republicans Against Trump Feel good while watching rvat.org videos.
- Jul 15 How Safe are Hugs, Handshakes and High-Fives During COVID-19?
- Jul 30 Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation by John Lewis. Non-paywall version HERE.
- Jul 31 Fauci tells House he is ‘cautiously optimistic’ coronavirus vaccine will be ready by 2021
June 2020
- Jun 4 A judge ruled that every Tennessee voter can now vote by mail for the 2020 elections.
- Jun 6 Judge rules for Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe in land suit
- Jun 7 Minneapolis City Council Members Announce Intent To Disband The Police Department, Invest In Proven Community-Led Public Safety
- Jun 10 Positive Protest Outcomes
- Jun 12 U.S. District Court has affirmed our rights to protest
- Jun 13 Udder Failure: Devin Nunes Can’t ID Critics Behind Cow Tweets, So Suit Appears Moot
- Jun 15 Supreme Court says federal law protects LGBTQ workers from discrimination
- Jun 18 Supreme Court rules against Trump administration attempt to end DACA, a win for undocumented immigrants brought to U.S. as children
- Jun 26 Bowing to pressure, Facebook will start labeling violating posts from politicians. But critics say it’s not enough.
- Jun 29 Supreme Court Strikes Down Louisiana Abortion Restrictions
- Jun 30 Democrats Flip Kentucky State Senate Seat GOP Held For 25 Years
May 2020
- May 7 Online Retailers Spend Millions on Ads Backing Postal Service Bailout
- May 9 Appellate Court Continues Injunction Blocking Alabama’s Attempts to Ban Abortion
- May 16 Justin Amash decides not to run for president– ”After much reflection, I’ve concluded that circumstances don’t lend themselves to my success as a presidential candidate this year, and therefore I will not be a candidate.”
- May 24 Federal judge guts Florida law requiring felons to pay fines before they can vote
April 2020
- Apr 13 Upset Victory in Wisconsin Supreme Court Race Gives Democrats a Lift
- Apr 17 Creative online Alpha Resistance to Protect SF Bay-Water is Life
- Apr 17 CARES act provides help to WA residents and businesses
- Apr 19 Coronavirus impact on environment
- Apr 22 Milwaukee Common Council votes to mail absentee ballot applications to city’s registered voters
- Apr 27 A Republican effort to sabotage Obamacare was just rejected by the Supreme Court
- Apr 28 CNN, NBC, CBS, & ABC are set to announce that they will no longer televise Trump’s announcements from the White House, saying that they are not in the public interest
- Apr 28 Shutdown protester GOP Candidate losing her primary
March 2020
- Mar 1st Wisconsin appeals court overturns ruling ordering voter purge
- Mar 4th Virginia Is First Southern State to Ban Conversion Therapy for Minors
- Mar 9th Judge blocks Trump administration effort to allow release of 3-D printed ghost guns in AG Ferguson lawsuit
- Mar 14 Judge blocks rule that would have kicked 700,000 people off SNAP
- Mar 20 Judge Rules Against Trump’s Attempt to Log in America’s Largest National Forest
- Mar 25 Court rejects Michael cohen’s plea to cut short prison sentence
- Mar 25 KUOW stops covering live White House briefings so that they can be fact checked before broadcasting
- Mar 26 Judge orders environmental review of Dakota access pipeline
February 2020
- Feb 6th Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, widely considered the Senate’s most endangered Democrat, voted Wednesday to convict President Donald Trump as the Senate impeachment trial concluded with Trump’s acquittal.
- Jon Stewart will have a new political satire movie out at the end of May, which will mean that he will be promoting it and discussing the 2020 election is his own inimitable way in the pre-election period. Rejoice!
- Feb 13 Native Americans defeat GOP’s racist voter ID law in North Dakota
- Feb 18 Federal court rules that Border Patrol cannot arbitrarily search our electronic devices
- Feb 20 Mississippi six week abortion ban struck down by federal judge
- Feb 21 https://apnews.com/dc560c3581783c746aee1544c8ad1c85
- Feb 26 Greyhound to stop allowing immigration checks on buses
- Feb 26 Attorney General Ferguson “ready to take on Facebook” over alleged campaign finance violations
- Feb 28 House panel launches inquiry into William Barr over possible interference
January 2020
- Jan 8 Appeals court refuses to lift injunction on immigrant ‘public charge’ rule A panel of federal judges in New York on Wednesday denied the Trump administration’s request to begin a program aimed at cutting back benefits for immigrants while a lawsuit over the plan plays out in court
- Jan 8th U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fell by estimated 2.1% in 2019 U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fell by 2.1% in 2019 as coal output dropped 18 per cent to its lowest level since 1975. Power generated from coal plants fell by a record 18%, and overall emissions from the power section declined by almost 10% — despite an increase in emissions from natural gas.
- Jan 8th Virginia’s General Assembly was sworn in, with Democrats in control of the House and the Senate. With Governor Ralph Northam in place, there is a Democratic majority in place for the first time in twenty years. New speaker Eileen Filler-Corn is the first woman and first Jew to be elected as speaker. Then on Jan 15th the Virginia General Assembly passed the ERA Amendment, marking a watershed moment in the nearly century-long effort to add protections for women to the U.S. Constitution.
- Jan 13th US coal power plants are shutting down at near-record rate. The decline marks a trend that has been seen for the past decade, as the energy source has been challenged by the production of cheap natural gas as well as wind and solar energy.
- Jan 15th A federal judge in Maryland blocked Trump’s executive order allowing state and local officials to reject refugees. Trump’s executive order, the judge wrote, appears to run counter to the Refugee Act. The latest cap (18,000) marks the lowest number of refugees seeking protection from violence or political persecution that will be allowed into the country since the modern refugee program was established in 1980.
- Jan 15th A federal judge confirmed that immigration law guarantees attorney access for migrants, finding asylum seekers have a right to counsel when undergoing interviews to determine whether they can be returned to Mexico under the “Remain in Mexico” program.