We're NOT Doomed - Day 64: Aug 18, 2026
The President is not the only elected office that matters
Jon Ossoff should not have to run for president for you to praise him.
We NEED good Senators who don’t wanna run for president, good House members who don’t wanna be Senators, and good state legislators who don’t want to be in the US House. Right now, at least.
Elected office does not have to be an instant ladder.
I love Jon Ossoff, I think he’s fantastic, but he doesn’t need to run for president in 2028.
He is running a tough race and we don’t need to do this all over again in two years.
It’s as if his time in the Senate isn’t worth anything if he doesn’t run for the next highest position, and that’s ridiculous.
We want him in hearings calmly destroying Republican testifiers.
We want him sending “strongly worded letters” cause he has one of the best track records of things getting reversed as a result. (Just look at the HBCU agriculture program and foster children federal funding.)
We want him representing Georgia for the next six years.
After that, maybe we can talk about president, maybe, but how would we benifit by losing this Senate seat that we’ve had to fight like tooth and nail for every single time?
AND just because someone is a good legislator does not mean they’d definitely be a good executive. Each elected position is not just a blueprint for another.
The Senate SHOULD be about collaboration, but the presidency or governorship is about good leadership. It’s you making decisions, with help, but they are your decisions in the end.
Not everyone is that kind of person, and that’s okay. Just because someone works really well is group settings does not mean they’d make a good leader on their own.
AND THAT’S A GOOD THING.
President is not the only elected office worth anything.
And that goes for federal offices in general.
We need good people in municipal government and county government and state government. We need people with no experience to run for State House, not jump all the way to Senate cause that’s “more prestigious.”
PLEASE celebrate how amazing Jon Ossoff is at his job, but do it to help him get reelected THIS year, not run for a totally different office in a matter of months.
And just in general, let’s focus on 2026, PLEASE, cause it doesn’t matter who runs for president in 2028 if we don’t get majorities THIS year.
Berks and Schuylkill Counties, Pennsylvania
Wed, July 22 - Back in February Governor Josh Shapiro held a press conference against ICE detention facilities after hearing that ICE was planning two for Pennsylvania — one in Berks County that was supposed to hold 1,500 people and one in Schuylkill County that would have held 7,500 people.
At that press conference, he said:
I don’t want either of these sites here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and while the federal government has enormous power to place these across the country, I want you to know we are not powerless here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And I intend to use every tool at my disposal to stop these facilities from coming here.
And he did. And he won.
Immediately following this press conference, he led a round table of leaders in these counties asking for specifics of how an ICE facility would most adversely affect them.
And the consensus was that the best way to get them to shut down their plans was to focus on the water usage, which has worked across the country.
On March 6, 10 days later, he signed an order saying that the amount of water needed to run the facilities would violate state environmental regulations and no water would be turned on in the facility until DHS proved they could comply. And of course DHS immediately appealed
But on July 13, ICE sent a letter to Shapiro saying that the warehouse would not be a detention center:
Instead, consonant with the levels of water service approved for the property and utilized by the prior owner for this warehouse, ICE’s plan is that it will maintain the use of the property on existing sewage planning, sewage flows, and drinking water use levels.
And on July 22, DHS dropped their appeal against the March 6 administrative order.
Could they lie and do it anyway? Not really, because while they can block oversight in the facility, (they can’t legally, but you know) the Pennsylvania government controls their water and sewage, so this isn’t something they can really cheat out of.
I’m so incredibly impressed with how Governor Shapiro made this happen. It really gives me hope to see our Dems fighting back like this and not stopping till we win.
Illinois
Fri, Aug 7 - Governor JB Pritzker signed three bills into law that will amend the state’s Environmental Protection Act. These new additions will not only make Illinois’ environmental protections stronger, but also protect IL from federal environmental rollbacks.
SB 3772 - Is focused on environmental justice concerns such as factories being places where Black and brown communities live and harming them with the chemicals in the process. This bill will force these companies to get permits through the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and create an Office of Environmental Justice within the IEPA.
HB 5070 - Will keep IL from rolling back environmental protections, such as preventing PFAS from entering waterways, when the federal government rolls them back.
HB 4418 - Classifies plastic pellets as a pollutant and requires the IEPA to figure out how to keep them out of all waterways and dispose of them properly. They are the first state in the Great Lakes region to do so.
Each of these individually would be a massive win on their own, but all three together is really going to have a huge impact.
Protecting the environment isn’t about just one thing, it’s about all the little things we can do adding up, and it’s about recognizing that, like everything else it’s intersectional.
I don’t know about you, but seeing these kinds of changes to their Environmental Protection Act gives me a lot of hope.
Massachusetts
Mon, Aug 10 - Governor Maura Healy signed the Prioritizing Patient’s Access to Care Act which eliminates all abortion restrictions.
Even though we think of Massachusetts as a blue state, there was a law on the books banning abortions after 24 weeks. That meant that anyone who needed a late term abortion had to leave the state and their doctor to get one.
With the passage of this law, that is no longer the case.
The goal of this law is to put the decision making power solely in the hands of a doctor and their patient rather than the hospital and the government.
Most late term abortions are because someone’s life is at risk and by having to wait to go out of state and not being able to complete the process with their doctor, this puts the pregnant person even more at risk.
State Representitive, Christine Barber, who introduced the bill, celebrated the new law:
Pregnancy is complex, and I am grateful the House advanced this bill to eliminate barriers and guarantee medical expertise as the standard of care. It comes down to a simple, but powerful conviction: decisions about abortion care must remain between a patient and their provider. No one else.
This is truly what it means to be pro-choice. It should always be up to the doctor and their patient and that’s it. I’m so glad Massachusetts has taken this step and it just goes to show, that even in a state as blue as MA, there are still some things that can be done to make the state safer and more equitable for all.
So those are today’s stories. I think it’s important, especially now, to remember the power of the state. This is why all elections matter. I know everyone is more focused on the US House and Senate, but the real change will happen at the state level.
Celebrate and talk about your state elected officials the same way you do your federal ones.
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If you read to the end, comment with 🚰 (water) cause without sewage you can’t have a detention center.