Dear friends,
I love New York City. I don’t understand country houses and have limited affection for travel. This is the place. Today, however, I will write about my other favorite city — Tenacity.
Persistence, endurance, relentlessness — call it what you will. Those of us who are looking to the future need to put down roots in the bustling metropolis of Tenacity.
The secret is to content yourself with a kind of progress that is incremental. Then, try to get people to plod along in the same direction. That’s basically my whole ikigai.
The US is on track to pass the 25 percent mark for renewable energy this year.
The growth in renewable energy is coming from wind and solar power, with wind responsible for about one-third of the growth and solar accounting for two-thirds, the report says. Other renewable sources, like hydropower and biomass, would be flat.
In fact, the growth of wind and solar is projected to be so swift that the combination of just those two sources would be 18 percent of the U.S. total by 2024, which would exceed coal’s 17 percent.
Kudos to those who have invested in or are looking into solar cells for your roof or a heat pump for your home. And together, we will continue our efforts to pass legislation to fund the transition.
There’s a rally in Albany today to pass the Climate, Jobs, and Justice Package, which includes the Build Public Renewables Act. We will follow up soon to support this initiative — again.
It is our job to keep raising the questions. What is crypto for? Who profits? How do we regulate new industries before they wreak havoc?
Since 2015, NYS Department of Financial Services has required businesses to obtain a “BitLicense,” in order to produce virtual currency. The crypto industry and its various shills have criticized the licensing process, but some politicians are changing their tune. And some crypto-bros have recently gone quiet, which is also refreshing.
Readers may also recall my anti-cryptomining crusade last year. We got the moratorium through the state legislature and finally got Hochul to sign it.
Over the past eight years, New York state has proven that it is possible to comprehensively regulate the nascent crypto industry.
On the federal level, cryptocurrency remains a largely unregulated sector, but it will not remain that way forever. And when Congress does finally take steps to seriously regulate the industry, it seems likely to look to New York’s approach as a model to emulate.
For those who didn’t have the headspace to follow the drama over LaSalle’s nomination, here’s Manny Pastreich, president of the SEIU, Local 32, discussing the threat that LaSalle posed to workers’ rights, among others:
Judge LaSalle has shown through his decisions that, you know, he has some very clear anti-labor decisions, some along the lines of holding individual labor union leaders personally responsible for things said in a labor dispute. I can speak personally. It would be a silencing effort for me that would be very difficult for me to do my job representing our members. You know, and then we also have other concerns . . . he basically allowed [an] anti abortion clinic to operate in a fraudulent manner.
Attending to politics on this level requires a little bit of crazy. Still, if you’re feeling left out because you weren’t in the victorious effort to block LaSalle, here’s another chance to shape a state judiciary.
The seven-member Wisconsin supreme court, which is technically nonpartisan, is losing its fourth conservative member. The court will likely be ruling on the state’s 1849 abortion ban as well as legislative redistricting. The election is in April.
Join the Civics Center to urge young people to vote for a new WI Supreme Court Justice.
Postcard-writing is not for everyone. No judgment. Tenacity — a sprawling megalopolis, in fact — has room for callers, too:
Attention phone-bankers: Wisconsin needs you to get Democratic voters registered to vote by mail for their critical state supreme court election!
Let us pause to salute the ongoing work of Tish James, Fani Willis, and Merrick Garland.
New York, Virginia, and Connecticut legislatures all have newly introduced legislation to ban insurrectionists from holding state office. This is part of the grunt work to save democracy.
This amendment, if passed, would allow Congress and state governments to enact “reasonable, viewpoint-neutral” limitations on campaign funding, including restricting corporations from spending “unlimited amounts of money to influence elections.”
Maybe this is the year, since Santos is publicly exposing Republican contempt for campaign finance law, which already permits some seriously nefarious shit.
Sign the petition to Congress to demand an end to unrestricted money in politics. This quick action is from Common Cause.
Here’s an issue and a quick action, tangentially related to the one above: our elected officials should not be profiting from inside information gleaned from Congressional committee work.
It’s the third try for this legislation, and this year, it was introduced with a record 35 co-sponsors in the House, including unlikely allies, Adam Schiff and Matt Gaetz.
Call on Congress to prevent insider trading by banning members of Congress from purchasing individual stocks.
Senator Dianne Feinstein reintroduced an Assault Weapons Ban late yesterday. The president called on lawmakers, yet again, to send the legislation to his desk.
Call on Congress to pass an Assault Weapons Ban. This quick action is from Move On.
There is much to do in order to rebuild from the wreckage of the Dobbs decision.
Register to hear from folks from Michigan, who will tell you how they won a pro-choice ballot initiative in a purple state. Sponsored by JOIN!
And finally, a last minute invitation. There’s an online conversation this evening, hosted by the Municipal Art Society, among some of the artists who contributed to an online exhibition called In the Wake, which examines the challenges New York City faces we mark the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Sandy and the first anniversary of Hurricane Ida.
The talk will be facilitated by Stanley Greenberg, denizen of my two favorite cities.
Register for this evening’s virtual gallery talk!
with love,
L