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By Julia Rock

THINGS THAT YOU LOVE TO SEE:

  • Biden To Issue Executive Order To Send Aid To Families (New York Times) — President Joe Biden is planning to issue an executive order to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour for federal employees and make it easier for them to bargain collectively.  Biden is also taking steps to ensure that people who have not yet received their stimulus checks will get them, and is pushing for new labor policies that would allow workers to collect unemployment benefits if they fear working in unsafe working conditions due to COVID-19.
  • Biden Fires NLRB Director (Washington Post) — In a signal that his administration is willing to stand up for working people, Biden fired the National Labor Relations Board’s Trump-appointed general counsel and his deputy after they refused to resign from their posts.
  • People Support Democracy Reform (Data For Progress/Equal Citizens poll) — Two thirds of likely voters, including a majority of Republicans, support H.R. 1, the For The People Act, legislation that would limit the influence of money in politics and end partisan gerrymandering.
  • Even Joe Manchin Knows We Must Go Big — West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin has said he would support a $4 trillion infrastructure bill, which shows just how far the Democratic Party has come. For context, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’s infrastructure proposal in 2018 was just $1 trillion.
  • Dems Press IRS To Probe Dark Money Groups Behind Insurrection (CNBC) — Senate Democrats, including Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, are asking the IRS to review and look into revoking the nonprofit statuses of dark money groups involved in organizing the rally before the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

ORGANIZING WORKS:

  • Youth Organizers Win a 100 Day Deportation Moratorium — Biden announced a 100 day moratorium on most deportations on his first day in office, something that immigrant youth organizers had first asked him to do in Iowa in 2019.
  • Keystone XL Is Dead (DeSmog Blog) — “The cancelation of Keystone XL cements a legacy of climate activism, a movement that has grown into a powerful force in American politics. The end of the pipeline is also a major victory for the many Native American tribes who have consistently been at the forefront of battles against fossil fuel infrastructure.”
  • Activists Shut Down New York Pipeline Projects (Grist) — “Years of coordinated grassroots opposition prevented the construction of 931 miles of interstate pipeline across the northeast, including 448 miles within New York. These victories impact the entire region — the Empire State is a hub of sorts for a pipeline network extending into New England and Canada.”

TAKE ACTION:

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