The triumphant smiles of Doug, Jesse & Catherine Snodgrass at Jesse's high school graduation
While reading
dsnodgrass's recent diary thanking the Daily Kos community for helping his family, it occurred to me that a lot of great things have been accomplished here over the years.
This diary will list just a few examples of the amazing things you've done. Please tell us in the comments about the ones you remember.
dsnodgrass first wrote about his autistic son being entrapped by undercover cops planted in his son's high school on Feb. 1, 2013. Doug wrote 30 diaries over the next two years keeping us updated as the story was picked up by Rolling Stone and made the subject of a documentary. Doug and his wife Catherine are heroes for taking the system on head first and being instrumental in the banning of undercover drug stings in schools.
Doug's latest update:
GREAT NEWS! Two Dozen Children Will Not Spend the Holidays Behind Bars Because of You—by dsnodgrass
The Riverside Sheriff's Department's annual high school undercover drug sting program has finally been stopped in its tracks. They found no school district that was willing to participate.
Last year, San Diego's similar undercover sting operation went away, and the Los Angeles Unified School District banned these operations before Jesse's arrest, so enormous progress is being made.
The Riverside and San Diego Jump Street programs were halted because what happened in Temecula became a national story, and it happened through Daily Kos. We asked for an army, and the army showed up in orange.
And they showed up in the form of the Drug Policy Alliance, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, the American Civil Liberties Union, and too many others to list here.
The day will come when undercover drug stings in schools are finally a shameful thing of the past. They will be banned in every school district, in every state, because it is child abuse. And you will be able to say that you ended this child abuse.
As you can see in the photo above, Jesse graduated from his high school even after being set up, arrested and incarcerated to be used as financial fodder for the Temecula Juvenile Detention business. The photo celebrates a strong family that triumphed and shut down a money-making operation that required special needs students to be thrown under the bus. Doug and his family, with the help of our amazing community, steeled themselves to stop this. Many families have been deeply hurt by these policies, but Doug and Catherine halted that. Heroes.
Background links can be found here on this terrible saga that we've watched unfold for nearly two years. Community members here with children on the autism spectrum provided much-needed support to Doug in every one of his diaries.
More below the Big Orange group hug:
A community fundraiser for Charles Gaba, aka Brainwrap, the ACA signups guru—by kos: What a pleasure to pitch in a little bit of money to thank Brainwrap for the tremendous work he did "cutting through the clutter to deliver fact-based updates on the implementation of the law." As Paul Krugman
noted:
[Gaba] really fills a need: when you read news reports on Obamacare, you can tell right away which reporters have been reading Gaba and know what’s happening and which reporters are relying solely on official announcements — or, worse, dueling political spin.
Apparently, a lot of you felt the same gratitude for Brainwrap's hard work because we raised $61K for him.
Daily Kos readers raise $163,739 to fortify GOTV efforts on South Dakota reservations! This campaign helped to build a long-term American Indian voter infrastructure that will pay off in the future of this state with a long, long history of suppressing the Native vote. Excerpts of a statement from State Representative Kevin Killer who organized the South Dakota NDN Election Efforts PAC:
The efforts of the SD NDN PAC in the 2014 elections made a tremendous impact at the Federal, State and Local levels. With the generation [of] contributions from the Daily Kos community, we were able to hire organizers on 7 of 9 reservations and the urban areas of Sioux Falls and Rapid City. As South Dakota's voter turnout declined statewide, the only increases in turnout were in the Native communities of South Dakota.
[...]The turnout in the 2014 Senate race was higher than what Sen. Tim Johnson received in 2002 and Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin received in 2010. With investments in off election years and voter registration, the Native Vote will be prepared in 2016 and beyond to make their voices heard at all levels of government.
[...]History was also made this election with the voters of Shannon County approving changing the name to Oglala Lakota County by a 4 to 1 margin with thanks to the support from the Daily Kos community. [Shannon helped take land away from the Oglala Lakota in the 1800s] This was the first time in over 100 years this happened in South Dakota. This successful campaign has helped spark conversation for other Native communities in South Dakota to consider chaining their county names and provides an opportunity to engage a new generation of voters to make history in their communities.
Diaries in support of this effort were written by navajo, Meteor Blades and kos. But credit goes to all of you who donated plus those who rec'd and shared this campaign with their networks.
And what about Kansas? Here it comes down to individuals who know how to use the Daily Kos forum to effect change in their state.
tmservo433 exemplified this. His 2014 summary follows:
Daily Kos activism in Kansas, from the beginning, was significant. In January, online advocates were tipped off to an effort to stop delivering broadband to rural communities. With more than 10k shares and tons of discussion, it took less than a week for a legislator to decide they were wrong. The small Kansas town ended its year with approval to advance their network, in large part thanks to online communities making sure the story was told. What began in January, though, was a year of advocacy for progressive issues in Kansas.
Connect! Unite! Act!
I helped provide Kansans with information about Turn Gays Away, flying the "Daily Kos" banner at a rally at the state house on February 25, and working to spread information about what the implications of the Turn Gays Away legislation would be on the state. Teachers who faced the loss of due process in Kansas, as well as an education bill with giveaways to charter schools turned to Daily Kos, which was present in the capital building from late night meetings to early morning sessions. When Brown V. Board of Education was discussed, the widespread reach of Daily Kos, and our position in the debate, led to the inclusion in the roundtable discussion about the purpose of public education. Daily Kos and online fundraising was cited with raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for Kansas candidates, and worked to build the infrastructure for the future. From voter registration efforts to gatherings to discuss the issues, Daily Kos was a focal point for progressives to talk about the future in Kansas. Without Daily Kos, the fight in the state house for education received minimal news print stories, and less than a segment mention on the television news, only after it had happened. Daily Kos provided Kansas with a bullhorn that helped shutdown bad legislation by bringing it into the light, and reflected the desire of everyone to help spread the word on what can happen if powerful conservative forces are allowed free rein.
Support the Dream Defenders! JoanMar's excellent
Year-in-Review diary about her group summarized the projects they are working on. In particular, the Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act of 2015. An impressive group effort that they are working to have made into law. This group has done an outstanding job of writing this law and getting national attention.
The purpose of this law is to stop systemic police brutality. The law has two main components: It requires police departments to report detailed statistics regarding all incidents involving the use of force. It permits residents of police jurisdictions using too much force to sue that police department. Two versions are available: one for the federal government and one for state governments.
The Results so Far:
• Copies of the MBOPRA have been sent to every member of the Congressional Black Caucus
• Copies have been sent to most national and state level civil rights organizations
• Our law is currently in the hands of federal legislators as it was included in the package sent to congress by the NAACP.
• We managed to get no less a person than NAACP's Washington Bureau Director and Senior Vice President for Advocacy, Hilary Shelton, to offer to guide us. That was a huge deal!
• We have spoken to a representative of the national ACLU who expressed a desire to "partner" with us. A huge deal!
• We are still asking for DailyKos members to send copies of the proposed Federal and State laws to their representatives
This is an on-going project. Please see
JoanMar's diary for suggestions on how you can help and a full list of all the community members working on this.
The Daily Kos Connect! Unite! Act! Banner
at the People's Climate March,
Sept. 2014
Dailykos at the People's Climate March and NYC Meet-Up - Photo Diary Several Kossacks from California, DC and North Carolina converged in New York City to add to the 400,000 who demonstrated at the People's Climate March. There were another 2646 events planned in 162 countries on that day. We're proud of our eco-group readers who marched in their cities and glad our readers connected up so well in NYC.
The Inoculation Project, currently managed by nervousnellie, belinda ridgewood, nomandates, and tgypsy, posts every Sunday morning to combat the anti-science push in conservative America by providing direct funding to science and math projects in red-state classrooms in high-poverty districts. Using the nonprofit DonorsChoose.org, a highly-regarded organization that allows donors to make contributions to specific, vetted projects in public school classrooms. This year the Inoculation Project succeeded in funding 56 projects! Over the lifetime of the Inoculation Project, they've assisted in completing 443 projects. Donors are encouraged to attach the graphic on the right to their donation. The grateful teachers have been known to create a user ID here to make a comment of thanks in these diaries.
And from our Activism team:
Net Neutrality: Daily Kos was front and center with the Net Neutrality coalition, and met with FCC Commissioners. We put pressure on President Obama, driving turnout to a protest in Silicon Valley. We met with key Senators offices to pressure the FCC. Daily Kos was a leader in the fight to submit a record number of personalized messages to the FCC in favor of Net Neutrality. Our activism requested President Obama to endorse classifying the Internet under Title II.
Repeal Citizens United: Daily Kos worked with other groups to deliver over 3,000,000 petition signatures to support a constitutional amendment repealing Citizens United. We urged folks to send personalized messages to Senators in favor of the amendment, which we had learned in the Net Neutrality fight was far more effective. Every Senate Democrat voted for a constitutional amendment.
Keep the Senate Open to Confirm Judges: With Republicans poised to take the Senate and obstruct all of President Obama’s judicial nominees, over 178,000 Daily Kos members demanded that Senators confirm judges NOW while they still can. Harry Reid kept the Senate open, and when the dust settled President Obama had more federal judges confirmed than his two predecessors six years into their terms—hopefully reshaping the judiciary.
Release the CIA Torture Report: Daily Kos worked with allies to deliver 165,000 signatures urging Senator Udall to read the whole report into the congressional record.
Boycott Koch Products: Daily Kos bolstered efforts to boycott Koch products in order to reduce the amount of money available to right-wing causes.
Ferguson: Daily Kos encouraged readers to attend vigils across the country. We collected resources for folks to get involved and help the effort. We had staff on the ground to go to Ferguson and meet with local activists there.
GOTV Efforts for the 2014 Election: Daily Kos staff made GOTV phone calls to defeat Mitch McConnell. More than 5,000 Daily Kos members made calls.
Climate Change Denial: Daily Kos worked with Texas Freedom Network to remove climate change denial from science textbooks.
There are many more examples of this community stepping up, standing together and getting things done. We've got numerous instances of
helping individual community members financially. We have the
Community Quilt Project for those who need support during illness. We have an example of a Kossack, BayAreaKen,
running for Mountain View City Council and winning! There's so much to recall! How 'bout those Moral Monday rallies? Wow.
So, if you see something missing in this recap, please tell us about it in the comments.
Go TEAM DAILY KOS!