Watching the little raccoon fearlessly tackle a 25 story office building in Minnesota served to remind me that while achieving real change may look daunting (and this week was particularly hard for me as a mother and human being) we can climb any mountain we set our minds to.  Each election that passes where we see women, progressives, and establishment knocking candidates win primaries and flip seats, gives me hope for the future. Please don’t let fatigue set in and keep fighting for what is right, register voters, canvass for good candidates, donate if you can, or simply write postcards to voters from home from the comfort of your couch with Postcards to Voters.  The November election is just a few months away.

#BlueWave2018 – ELECTION RESULTS  San Francisco Board of Supervisors elected London Breed (D), the first black woman mayor of the city. Virginia Democratic voters picked women in six of their seven contested primaries in districts that didn’t already have a woman incumbent. Susie Lee (D) won her primary in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District Democrats flipped their 25th Republican-held district since the inauguration with Caleb Frostman winning in a special election for Wisconsin’s 1st Senate District

#IStandWithImmigrants 🧕🏻STANDING UP FOR IMMIGRANTS  A woman in Nevada stood up on a Greyhound bus boarded by ICE and told everyone they were not within 100 miles of a boarder and did not have to comply with their ICE requests and repeated it in Spanish using Google translate. The agents retreated from the bus. That is being an everyday hero standing up for immigrants.  After an undocumented delivery guy was detained and then turned over to ICE after delivering pizza to a N.Y.C, military base, many restaurants and delivery services in the area began a boycott of the base. Austin City Council passed “Freedom City” resolutions by eliminating discretionary arrests for non-violent misdemeanors, issuing citations instead, requires police to prioritize who is sent to federal immigration authorities after an arrest, and ensures officers asking about immigration status inform people of their rights to not answer, as well as complete a report explaining the encounter. After ICE raided a meatpacking plant in Tenn. detaining 97 workers, many of them have won the temporary release while they await trial with the help of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Vanderbilt University Law Clinic, the National Immigration Law Center, and Catholic Charities. Lots of activists showed up in the 102 degree heat in Tucson to stand up for immigrants

#PoorPeoplesCampaign ⚖️ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE Activists with the Poor People’s Campaign shut down a major intersection in Boston to bring attention to the need for higher minimum wages and other priorities. A federal judge denied a motion to stay the compliance date of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency’s payday lending rules that protect borrowers. North Carolina became the first state to guarantee a $15 minimum wage to most of its state employees. A federal judge ordered Washington state prisons to provide nighttime meals to Muslim inmates observing Ramadan. A coalition of 13 unions and the Federal Workers Alliance sued the administration challenging three Presidential Executive orders that make it easier to fire federal employees.

#BailReformNeeded 👨🏿‍⚖️SEEKING RACIAL AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE  A federal court ruled that the New York City police dept.’s use of a sound cannon against nonviolent protesters is excessive force. Dads were bailed out of jail for Father’s Day by advocacy groups.

#ThereIsNoPlanetB 🌎SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT  NYC will move forward to ban the use of Styrofoam after a judge dismissed a lawsuit against the city challenging it. Two federal courts ruled against the EPA finding that the EPA must uphold the Clean Air Act provision requiring they enforce the provision which requires they stop smog emitted in one state from causing harm to another state in cases brought regarding New York, Connecticut, and Maryland. Michigan will require public utilities to replace all lead water service lines. Hawaii Gov. signed bills that for the first time will require corporations to reveal where, what and when they have sprayed of restricted-use pesticides and a ban on pesticides containing chlorpyrifos. Three conservation and public-health groups sued the EPA for failing to ensure Detroit, Indianapolis and other localities have effective plans for cleaning up asthma-causing sulfur dioxide air pollution. The Supreme Court let stand a lower court order that Washington state make billions worth of repairs to damaged state salmon habitats in a big win for salmon and Native American treaty rights. U.S. District Court ordered the Bureau of Land Management to conduct further analysis on environmental impact of the potential drilling. Bloomberg News reported that the U.S. installed more solar energy than any other source of electricity in the first quarter of this year.

👩#MeToo And WOMEN’S RIGHTS CSX Transportation Inc. will pay a $3.2 million settlement in a lawsuit by the EEOC alleging the company administered physical capability tests that prevented women from being hired for certain jobs.

#TakeThemDown 🗽BECAUSE MONUMENTS AND NAMES MATTER Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital is moving the 30 gold-framed portraits of past white, male, department chairs from their prominent placement to more dispersed, less prominent locations, as part of their initiative to improve diversity efforts. A California school board voted to name a new elementary school after Jose Antonio Vargas, a local Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who is also an undocumented immigrant. Jefferson’s Monticello has re-imagined its curation and has added special exhibition to include Sally Hemings, the slave he is reported to have fathered children with, and to eliminate the tour that glossed over his ownership of slaves.

#NeverAgain 🕬 GUN REFORM EFFORTS CONTINUE Local police chiefs in Massachusetts were directed to begin revoking gun permits for hundreds of people previously cleared by the state’s Firearms License Review Board, because the Board was not previously complying with stricter federal rules when approving them. New Jersey Governor signed gun control legislation that requires background checks on private gun sales, a reduction of magazine capacity, a ban on armor-piercing bullets, and keeping “guns out of the wrong hands.” Student survivors of the shooting at MSD High School kicked off their 50 stop March for Our Lives: Road to Change national tour. Little Rock (AK) honors the Pulse shooting victims and survivor. Moms Demand action fill Texas legislative chamber.

#LoveIsLove 🏳️‍🌈LGBTQ PROGRESS At least in Poland, print shop workers must create banners for LGBTQ groups thanks to a recent decision by the Polish Supreme Court. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Trinity Western University cannot create a new evangelical Christian law school that limits admission to LGBTQ students in the name of religious rights. A federal court has denied another attempt by the administration to lift the injunction against implementing it ban on transgender people from serving in the military. Maine will start offering driver’s licenses and IDs with a third, non-binary gender option. The NYC Taxi and Limousine commission and Uber suspended the NYC Uber driver after he forced a lesbian couple out of his car because he was uncomfortable with their kissing. Portland (OR) is naming a major street after the LGBT icon Harvey Milk. The School Committee in Kittery (ME) and Titterton (RI) passed new policy intended to protect transgender students.  Trenton (NJ) elected their first openly gay mayor.  Don’t miss this picture of Seyðisfjörður, a town in Iceland, which has created an adorable rainbow path to show its support for its LGBTQ residents. Google has a feature show your pride month pride with your spreadsheet.

#MyBodyMyChoice 🤰🏽WOMEN’S RIGHT TO CHOOSE A group of Texas abortion clinics and nonprofits filed a sweeping lawsuit against the state, challenging dozens of abortion laws, some of which were passed two decades ago.

#Vote 🕫🗳️VOTING RIGHTS Citizens in Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana filed lawsuits against their respective states alleging the states are violating the Voting Rights Act through the drawing of congressional districts that dilutes black voting power.  Priorities USA sued Missouri over their new voter I.D. law. Maine supported ranked-choice voting for the second time in two years with the passage of a people’s veto of a republican passed law delaying the implementation of a voter passed ranked choice voting initiative. The IRS revoked the dark money group Americans for Job Security’s tax exempt status, a group that helped the Koch brothers funnel millions into elections.  A U.S. District Judge ruled unconstitutional a Nebraska law limiting independent candidate’s access to the statewide ballot by raising the number of signatures required to win a place on the ballot from 4,000 to about 121,000, about 10% of the state’s registered voters. A federal judge blocked Indiana from implementing a law that would purge voters from the state’s voter rolls if they appeared on a controversial voter tracking system.

#LoveTrumpsHate 💓STOPPING THE SPREAD OF HATE A Missouri waitress who spewed racist hate on social media has reportedly been thrown out of the Air Force.  Chrissy Teigen made four donations of $72,000 to the ACLU in honor of the immigrant-hating-commander-in-chief  72nd b’day and encouraged her followers on Twitter to do the same. From a private Facebook page I am a member of it was reported that after seeing the “Interstate Batteries” sign on a hardware store with a “no gays allowed” sign, the member contacted the battery company and received a response saying they terminated their relationship with that store. Pence was welcomed to Columbus (OH) with a “Big LGBTQ Dance Party.”

👩‍🎓BREAKING BARRIERS Dr. Patrice Harris was elected the first-ever black woman to lead the American Medical Association. The all-female lead “Ocean’s 8” delivered the best opening in the franchise’s history.

🙂 RUSSIA/PORN STAR/DEFAMATION LAWSUIT ROUNDUP A federal judge revoked Paul Manafort’s bail and sent him to a federal prison to await his trial after special counsel Robert Mueller filed new additional charges of alleged attempted witness tampering and obstruction of justice. New York Attorney General charged the liar-in-chief, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, Ivanka, Don Jr. and Eric with multiple violations of state law for illegal use of Trump Foundation money for self-gain and election fraud. New York’s highest court ruled for the third time that the defamation lawsuit a former contestant of “The Apprentice” brought against the harasser-in-chief can proceed. A federal judge ruled that Michael Cohen cannot proceed in secrecy as he weighs in on the attorney-client status of the materials seized from him.