Welcome 🌻 to Friday’s Roundup of Good News!
It has been a pretty good week. Election wins in PA and NY! We Ds have our ducks in a row.
And the Rs and their allies are throwing each other under various buses, including some unexpected words from putin. It’s really not surprising. When cruelty, hatred, crimes and lies are features and not bugs, we cannot expect them to get along. Scroll down for more.
Today is No One Eats Alone Day, a step toward combatting isolation.
Also, today Judge Engoron comes out with his judgment about just how much the tRump organization will have to disgorge. Reasons to make the penalties higher: lots and lots of lies and fraud. Reasons to make the penalties smaller: I don’t think there’s as much money as they pretend, and there are other claimants.
Come on in, and let’s see what the good guys are doing and how the bad guys are FAFO.
Regular Scheduled Programming
No one here is naïve; we are aware of the many who are fighting to destroy our country. Some of us expected it: the cheating, the lying, the chaos, and yes, even the attempts to cling to power despite the clear will of the people. But we are here to read the efforts and the positive results of those (including us and our fellow gnus) who are working so hard to save our country from those very bad people. We are furious with them for what they are doing and we are letting them know. Remember:
💙 There are more of us than there are of them.
💛 They are terrified when we organize. THERE IS LOTS OF EVIDENCE THAT THEY ARE TERRIFIED!
💔 They want us to be demoralized. The best way to keep up your spirits is to fight. So, take the time to recharge your batteries, but find ways to contribute to the well-being of our country and our world.
🗽 Biden as President! 🗽
Biden, Harris and their administration have been hard at work. Here are the last week’s posts at the White House briefing room.
- Thursday, February 15, 2024: Readout of President Biden’s Call with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel
- Thursday, February 15, 2024: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby
- Thursday, February 15, 2024: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby
- Thursday, February 15, 2024: Readout of White House Hosts Convening to Announce New Small Businesses Investment Funds
- Thursday, February 15, 2024: Statement from Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on the Visit of President Duda and Prime Minister Tusk of Poland to the White House
- Thursday, February 15, 2024:Remarks by National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard: Today’s Strong Recovery Is Laying Solid Foundations for the Future
- Wednesday, February 14, 2024: Statement from President Joe Biden on Today’s Deadly Gun Violence
- Wednesday, February 14, 2024: FACT SHEET: President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons Meeting
- Wednesday, February 14, 2024: Statement from National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Deferred Enforced Departure for Palestinians
- Wednesday, February 14, 2024: Memorandum on the Deferred Enforced Departure for Certain Palestinians
- Wednesday, February 14, 2024: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan
- Wednesday, February 14, 2024: FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration to Kick off Fourth Investing in America Tour to Highlight How the President Is Delivering for Communities in Every Corner of America
- Wednesday, February 14, 2024: FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Releases Annual Agency Equity Action Plans to Further Advance Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government
- Tuesday, February 13, 2024: Statement from President Joe Biden on House GOP’s Baseless Impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas
- Tuesday, February 13, 2024: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby
- Tuesday, February 13, 2024: Readout of Vice President Kamala Harris’s Meeting with His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan
- Tuesday, February 13, 2024: Remarks by President Biden on Senate Passage of the Bipartisan Supplemental Agreement
- Tuesday, February 13, 2024: Readout of White House Meeting with County Officials on Investing in All of America
- Tuesday, February 13, 2024: Statement from President Joe Biden on the January Consumer Price Index
- Tuesday, February 13, 2024: Statement from President Joe Biden on Senate Passage of the National Security Supplemental
- Tuesday, February 13, 2024: Statement from Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on NICA v. Becerra
- Monday, February 12, 2024: Remarks by President Biden and His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan After a Meeting
- Monday, February 12, 2024: Readout of President Biden’s Meeting with His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan
- Monday, February 12, 2024: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby
- Monday, February 12, 2024: Readout of Dominican Day Diaspora Event
- Monday, February 12, 2024: Remarks by President Biden at the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference
- Monday, February 12, 2024: FACT SHEET: Lowering Home Energy Costs Through President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act
- Sunday, February 11, 2024: Readout of President Biden’s Call with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel
- Friday, February 9, 2024: Readout of White House Community Violence Awareness Week and Culminating Ceremony
- Friday, February 9, 2024: Statement from NSC Spokesperson Adrienne Watson Marking the Two-Year Anniversary of the Indo-Pacific Strategy
- Friday, February 9, 2024: Readout of President Joe Biden’s Meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany
- Friday, February 9, 2024: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office Ian Sams, February 9, 2024
- Friday, February 9, 2024: Press Release: Bill Signed: H.R. 1568
- Friday, February 9, 2024: Remarks by President Biden and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany Before Bilateral Meeting
- Friday, February 9, 2024: Remarks by Vice President Harris at a Gathering of Community Violence Intervention Leaders
- Friday, February 9, 2024: Remarks by President Biden at a Campaign Reception | New York, NY
- Friday, February 9, 2024: Remarks by President Biden at the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference | Leesburg, VA
- Friday, February 9, 2024: Statement from NSC Spokesperson Adrienne Watson on U.S. Unwavering Support for Ecuador
- Friday, February 9, 2024: President Biden Announces Willie L. Phillips, Jr. as Chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)
👎 Out with the Bad, In with the Good 👍
More student debt relief for burdened borrowers Zachary Schmerele USA Today
The Biden administration is proposing an ambitious new way to determine which low-income Americans could qualify for student debt relief.
Under the plan rolled out by the Education Department on Thursday, the federal government would consider the life challenges that prevent certain borrowers from making progress on their loans when assessing if a person is eligible for student loan forgiveness.
Whether a borrower has a disability – or other “high-cost burdens for essential expenses,” such as costs related to health care or caring for a loved one – would become bigger factors in the agency’s thinking. Household income, the person's assets and their age would be considered as well
Perhaps belongs in the “Democrats Deliver” section, but it’s such great news!
✈️ 970 million to improve airports across the country!
Hey, President Biden, how about taking credit with signs?
🔨 One tRump trial seems to be on track — the hush money case. March 25!
🚌 !!! putin also says he prefers Biden to tRump Associated Press, The Daily Beast
Russian President Vladimir Putin prefers his current U.S. counterpart, Joe Biden, to the chaos of former President Donald Trump—at least that’s what he said Wednesday during an interview with Russian state media. “Biden, he’s more experienced, more predictable, he’s a politician of the old formation,” Putin said when asked who he would prefer. “But we will work with any U.S. leader whom the American people trust.” He was also asked to comment on recent criticism leveled at Biden’s “poor memory” and whether the 81-year-old is too old to carry out a second term, saying that he did not see any evidence of declining cognition during the pair’s meeting in 2021. “They talked about him being incapacitated [at that time], but I saw nothing of the kind. Yes, he was peeking at his papers, to be honest, I was peeking at mine, not a big deal,” Putin said. When pressed to weigh in on recent headlines surrounding Biden’s capabilities, he added: “I’m not a doctor and I don’t consider it proper to comment on that.”
OK, I really wondered about this interview. Perhaps putin was just playing games, and trying to make it seem as if the Ds and not the Rs are the pro putin party. This makes no sense, as the Rs are the people holding up the aid to Ukraine. Nevertheless, It’s got to be terrifying to tRump and company, because it may mean that some of the monies that we suspect have been flowing into them may get cut off. Or it may just mean that putin sees the writing on the wall — Biden will get re-elected — and that he needs to placate Biden and not tRump. I expect the war is also going badly for putin, far worse than we know, and he really needs to suck up to Biden. Or maybe he’s just hedging his bets, or maybe it’s a threat to the Rs, signalling they are not doing enough for him.
Putin is throwing them under the bus.
💣 Republicans: Party of Crimes and Chaos 💣
the tRumps are planning to steal the rest of the Republicans’ money. Roger Sollenberger The Daily Beast
During a monumental election year for the GOP, Trump has effectively taken over the Republican National Committee, a bid to ensure that the national fundraising juggernaut will chiefly serve him, and not other Republican efforts.
His personal pick to co-chair the RNC—daughter-in-law Lara Trump—teased the new vision on Tuesday during an interview on Newsmax.
“Every single penny will go to the No. 1 and the only job of the RNC—that is electing Donald J. Trump as President of the United States,” she said.
That means the money will be taken by tRump to pay his legal bills, which are legion. And that means that no one else will get any. (Also, much of the money that goes to tRump may find its way to E Jean Carroll and other deserving claimants.)
Why do the Rs tolerate this? Kompromat? Money? Power? Well, some are leaving rather than remaining, such as Mark Green, an R congressman from Tennessee. It appears many of the Rs are departing.
It turns out that chaos is not necessarily an advantage for winning elections. If you can’t read the text: Wow: CNN spoke to a number of Republicans in NY’s 3rd congressional district who have previously voted for Trump and they said they voted for Democrat Tom Suozzi because “Republicans can’t govern.” That’s amazing. Americans are fed up with Republicans.
Not only is it good that this is true, it’s nice that CNN actually reported it! Instead of going to interview those ever diminishing tRump voters.
Speaking of tRump, some pundits see that his grip on the Rs is weakening Jennifer Rubin Washington Post
Four-times-indicted former president Donald Trump commands a strong majority of the Republican primary electorate, but signs point to his diminishing ability to control much beyond that. Results from the special election in New York’s 3rd Congressional District; Senate passage of the supplemental defense bill and Trump’s associated self-inflicted wounds; the flock of GOP House departures; and the progress of the Jan. 6 (federal) and the business-records falsification (New York state) cases collectively paint a portrait of the near-certain nominee and his party under stress.
🚚 💙 Democrats Deliver 💙 🚚
🎺 President Biden’s strong economy lays a solid foundation for the future White House Briefing Room, remarks by Lael Brainard, an economic adviser, as prepared for delivery
It is a pleasure to join NABE in its annual assessment. It is a good moment to assess our economy’s recovery. There is broad agreement that the strong U.S. recovery has exceeded expectations following the devastation of the pandemic and the Putin price shock to food and energy. Beyond this, there are preliminary indications the recovery is laying strong foundations for the future—with business dynamism, labor force engagement, and key categories of business fixed investment exceeding pre-pandemic trends—catalyzed by President Biden’s historic legislation. ✂️
More broadly, the U.S. recovery has seen improvements relative to pre-pandemic trends in labor market expansion, business dynamism and key categories of business fixed investment, reflecting the President’s economic plan. These improvements augur well for future potential growth and help lay the foundation for achieving the President’s goal of more durable and broadly shared economic growth over the long-term.
First, business dynamism has risen. There’s a small-business boom taking root across America. Sixteen million business applications have been filed since the President took office, making these the strongest three years on record for new business applications in 20 years. Out of this surge in entrepreneurship, many applications are leading to new businesses hiring workers. That’s especially true for small businesses, which have added an average of 739,000 new jobs each quarter since the President entered office. Women and minority owned businesses have played an important role in this surge as well.
President Biden secured unparalleled support for small businesses and startups through dozens of initiatives, ranging from expanding access to credit and federal procurement to ensuring universal access to high speed internet.
In the decades preceding the pandemic, business dynamism, in particular new business entry and job reallocations, were declining. Prior research drew a connection between this and dampened aggregate productivity growth as the economy shifted toward fewer young, small, and innovative firms. Since the pandemic, new business entrants are increasing, especially outside central business districts, and we are seeing more workers being hired by smaller and new firms. This is a sign of confidence in the economy and, if sustained, could yield returns over the longer term.
Second, the strong labor market recovery has drawn more people into the labor force and led to a substantial reallocation of jobs and workers. In February 2021, as President Biden was taking office, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that unemployment would be at 4.6 percent at the end of 2023. Instead, unemployment has been below 4 percent for two years running, thanks to this Administration’s actions.
Many economists worry about permanent labor market scarring effect associated with deep recessions. It seems likely that this recovery avoided much of the scarring associated with past recessions, as the employment level, labor force participation rate, and level of real GDP are higher now than the CBO projected even before the pandemic, in January 2020.
In addition to supporting a strong labor market recovery through the American Recovery Plan, the Administration’s efforts helped enable labor supply to expand to meet demand. Prime age labor force participation has continuously exceeded its pre-pandemic level since February 2023, just three years after the pandemic downturn began, while it took more than 12 years to reach its prior peak after the global financial crisis.
Administration policies enabled record numbers of people to come back into the labor force—including by providing vital support for child care and other support to household balance sheets. Prime age employment for women was at its highest level on record for much of 2023, reflecting shifts in work patterns coming out of the pandemic as well as the President’s support for child care.
There has been substantial reallocation of jobs and workers—with high rates of job switching leading to stronger real wage growth, new skills, and upgraded opportunities.
While the data is volatile, strong productivity growth over the last year has returned productivity to its pre-pandemic trend after declining earlier in the business cycle. Meanwhile, productivity growth measured as output per worker has outpaced all other G7 economies in this cycle so far.
The win in NY 3 may be a blueprint for how Ds deal with thorny issues Nicholas Fandos and Katie Glueck New York Times
In the heart of Long Island, where Republicans have won every major election in the last three years, Tom Suozzi fought through ripping political headwinds to claim victory on Tuesday in a special House election, seizing a coveted swing district that had been held by George Santos. ✂️
The strategy went something like this: Challenge Republicans on issues that they usually monopolize, like crime, taxes and, above all, immigration. Flash an independent streak. And fire up the Democratic base with attacks — in this case, nearly $10 million in ads — on the abortion issue and former President Donald J. Trump, the likely Republican nominee for the White House.
“It’s a very interesting lesson to Democrats that you can escape your opponent’s attacks on immigration by not only leaning into the issue, but doubling down on it,” said Steve Israel, a former congressman from the district who once led the House Democrats’ campaign arm.
💜 Unity? 💜
🏈 Superb Owl 2024 most watched US telecast EVAH! Becca Lamire People
A record number of people tuned in to watch Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday.
This included 112 million viewers who watched the Chiefs' big win on CBS Sports, marking the largest audience in history for a single network, according to a CBS release. At the same time, Super Bowl LVIII was also the most-streamed Super Bowl in history.
Heck, even I watched it. 😄
📥 Actions You Can Take 📤
Tax-exempt organization complaint referrals. 13909. You can fill this out for the NRA and lots of other organizations. How about if some of us white folk go into some of the MAGA churches and video record what they’re saying?
Voting rights. This may be the biggest issue threatening our democracy right now. Besides contacting your representatives at the state and federal level to do the right thing (depending on who they are), you can support and contact these organizations:
ACLU — American Civil Liberties Union
Democracy Docket — founded by Marc Elias, so important in fighting the challenges after the last election.
Fair Fight — founded by Stacey Abrams
🌱Grass roots. Biden and Harris can do the top-down stuff, but we have to support from the bottom. I don’t know how to deprogram 75 million people, but some things have been written about, such as deep canvassing, and lots of people are talking about this. If you know someone (who did not storm the Capitol), then see if you can be pleasant. Instead of trying to reason with them (logic is obviously not their strong point) distract them with something else. We need to remove the sources of lies and to take down the temperature. If we get more of the Rs to wear masks and to get vaccinated and to vote for Ds, the country will be a better place. We need to coax some of them out of the rabbit holes and diffuse the anger and the crazy.
🏃 Run for something. If you want to run for something, but have no idea what to do, these people will help you. They also like money and volunteers to help those people who are running, so even if you’re not in a position to stand for office, you can help. Note: they are especially planning to target the 57 Rs in local governments who participated in the insurrection.
👎 Defund the seditionists. Defund the seditionists. This is a list with companies that sometimes have donated to the seditionists. The list is long. You will recognize many of the corporations, and you probably have a relationship with some — either you are a customer, a shareholder, or maybe even an employee. Contact them and compliment or complain, but let them know you are watching. Forward it to others.
🔎 Want to check out what’s going on with campaign contributions? Check out this diary. 👀
🐍 Schadenfreude 😈
Liar getting indicted for making up stuff about the Bidens! BREAKING: WOW: David Weiss has INDICTED a source for lying to the FBI about Hunter Biden, President Biden, and their dealings with Burisma!
More putin stuff! Apparently, vlad was not impressed by tuckums Julia Davis The Daily Beast
Tucker Carlson did all that he could to impress the Russian authoritarian Vladimir Putin: he asserted that Russia is not an expansionist power, claimed that Moscow is better than any American city, posed in a Buryat costume, and lobbied against continued U.S. aid to Ukraine.
Nevertheless, Putin was not impressed. He told interviewer Pavel Zarubin this week, “Sincerely speaking, I didn’t fully enjoy this interview.”
“Frankly, I thought he would behave aggressively and ask tough questions. I wasn’t just prepared for this, I wanted it!” Putin insisted.
The Russian president complained that Carlson’s failure to ask pointed questions “didn’t give him an opportunity to do what he was prepared to do” and therefore, this interview didn’t turn out to be as engaging or substantive as it could have been.
I love it: putin dissing tRump and dissing tuckums. You know, when you act like a fawning weakling, people stop respecting you.
Peter Navarro told he can’t stay out of prison while appealing his conviction Spencer S Hsu Washington Post
A federal judge on Thursday ordered former Trump White House aide Peter Navarro to begin serving a four month-prison term for ignoring a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, rejecting his request to stay free while he appeals his conviction on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress.
Navarro, who claimed credit for devising a plan to overturn the 2020 election and keep Donald Trump in office, has one more chance to avoid being put behind bars — if he can convince a federal appeals court that his legal challenges are likely to succeed, a premise that his trial judge rejected.
In a 12-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta said that none of Navarro’s claims posed a “substantial question of law” or a close call. Unless the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia stays his sentence imposed Jan. 25, Mehta ordered, Navarro “shall report to the designated Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) facility on the date ordered by the BOP.”
Let’s hope the US Circuit of Appeals does not stay the sentence. Also, I have seen tweets saying that he’s worried that 4 months in the pokey will kill him. Well, don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
Note he’s unluckier than Steve Bannon, who has managed to stay out pending appeal. DIfferent judges.
DeSantis (and Slideman will remind us that Ronnie go-go boots will never be president) is trying to walk back some of the Florida book banning Nicole Lafond Talking Points Memo
The Florida governor spent the first half of his second term signing legislation into law that would, essentially, help him run for president. His state became the breeding ground for Republicans’ manufactured culture wars as his GOP-dominated state legislature passed anti-“woke,” anti-LBGTQ, anti-“DEI” and pro-“family values” legislation into law left and right. It was widely speculated that DeSantis was using his own state to showcase policy that he hoped would resonate with Trump voters ahead of his announced 2024 bid. We all know how that scheme ended. ✂️
At a press conference in Orlando on Thursday the Republican governor acknowledged that his whole book banning thing had gotten a little out of control. Not because the policy itself is too extreme, of course. He blamed teachers, school administrators and “the news media” for whipping up a frenzy (he called it a “hoax”) and “activists” for trying to score political points by proposing bans on too many books.
“Lets’ not let people try to hijack the process,” DeSantis during the news conference Thursday.
“With objecting — if you go to a school board meeting objecting. If you have a kid in school, okay. But if you’re somebody who doesn’t have a kid in school and you’re gonna object to 100 books? No, I don’t think that’s appropriate,” he continued, appearing to support a new bill that’s been proposed in the Florida state House that seeks to prevent people who don’t have children enrolled in a school district from filing complaints against a school district’s book materials.
Sorry, Ronnie Go-Go Boots, our boots are made for walking and we’re still going to walk away from you...
Six men sentenced for fraud in covid relief monies Justice Department, Feb 12
Six Texas men were sentenced today for their roles in a conspiracy to fraudulently obtain more than $20 million in forgivable Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans that the Small Business Administration (SBA) guaranteed under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.
Hamza Abbas, 31, Ammas Uddin, 31, and Arham Uddin, 27, all of Richmond, were sentenced to three years and eight months, one year and six months, and one year and six months in prison, respectively; Syed Ali, 55, of Sugar Land, was sentenced to two years in prison; and Muhammad Anis, 55, and Jesus Acosta Perez, 33, both of Houston, were sentenced to one year and nine months and one year and one day in prison, respectively. All six defendants previously pleaded guilty.
According to court documents, the defendants conspired together and with others to fraudulently obtain PPP loans by, among other means, supplying information about their businesses to be used to submit false and fraudulent PPP loan applications. Specifically, the PPP loan applications falsified the numbers of employees and the average monthly payroll expenses of the applicant businesses. The loan applications also included fraudulent bank records and fake federal tax forms in support of the PPP loan applications. Abbas also recruited others into the conspiracy and created fraudulent bank records that were used in support of the loan applications in exchange for kickbacks.
The defendants also laundered a portion of the fraudulent proceeds by writing checks from companies that received PPP loans to fake employees. These fake paychecks were cashed at certain cash checking businesses, including one owned by another co-conspirator.
now do tRump, please!
📣 Let’s Honor Truth ☀️️
Michael Mann, climate scientist, awarded 1 million for defamation Cristen Hemingway Jaynes EcoWatch
Climate scientist Michael Mann was awarded more than $1 million on Thursday in a defamation lawsuit against two conservative bloggers — Mark Steyn, a National Review contributor, and Rand Simberg, a former adjunct scholar — over comments about his work.
The case goes back 12 years, during a time when global warming’s existence was hotly debated in the “blogosphere,” reported The New York Times.
The unanimous verdict in District of Columbia Superior Court was decided by a six-member jury following a four-week trial. Steyn and Simberg were both found guilty of defamation for making false statements with “maliciousness, spite, ill will, vengeance or deliberate intent to harm.”
Punitive damages were levied against both defendants — Steyn was ordered to pay $1 million, Simberg $1,000.
Michael Mann, crunching the numbers, talking and shouting into what seems like the void, dealing with haters and defamation, about an issue like climate change — he gets the let’s honor truth medal today.
🌹 Let’s Celebrate Love ❤️
Hey, why not put on a costume and do some good?
Also, because we had Valentine’s Day this week, the romance of Joe and Jill (sorry about the xweets)
📎Odds & Ends📎
No one eats alone day Michaela Haas Reasons to Be Cheerful
Laura Talmus felt helpless when her then-11-year-old daughter Lili kept calling her from school in tears. “It’s pretty nerve-racking when you’re getting phone calls from your daughter who’s just crying and begging you to come pick her up from school,” Talmus remembers. “The lunch breaks were the hardest.” After trying some interventions in the school with little success, Talmus and her husband Ace Smith eventually decided to homeschool Lili with private tutors. ✂️
After her daughter passed away from medical complications in her sleep at age 15 in 2009, Talmus put together a video celebrating her life. When she showed the video, Lili’s classmates were shocked to realize how isolated Lili had felt, and Talmus understood that a lot of kids felt disconnected like her daughter had: “I was absolutely blown away when I saw how many kids raised their hands and wanted to talk about how they felt isolated.” ✂️
On February 16, 2,500 schools in all 50 states will participate in No One Eats Alone Day, a day of action created by Beyond Differences that encourages fifth through eighth graders to mingle, make new friends and become more aware and proactive about social isolation, especially at lunch.
“No One Eats Alone is completely rooted in the experience Lili had,” Talmus explains. “For many children, the lunch break or recess are the worst parts, so we started with that.” Beyond Differences sends backpacks or “Belonging Boxes” with a lesson plan, games, toys, art projects, stickers and conversation starters to participating educators, at no cost to the schools. Conversation starters could revolve around sports, video games or food, or be playful icebreaker questions like, “Would you rather have scales or fins?”
🏈 ☀️ NFL’s Superb Owl 2024 was completely solar powered (OK, easy to do in Nevada) Andy Corbley Good News Network
The biggest sporting event in America went green this year thanks to its position out in the desert. 621,000 solar panels channeled the electricity needed to power the Allegiant Stadium, home of both Super Bowl VXIII, and the Las Vegas Raiders.
According to CBS News, the stadium entered into a 25-year agreement with NV Energy to buy power from the solar farm, which can power 60,000 homes outside of game day.
Las Vegas sees 300 days of sun a year, so the initiative makes perfect sense, and it’s not the only sustainability initiative found in and around the Allegiant. They recycle all the rubber pellets from the turf, run food scrap collection from the on-site restaurants and divert them from the waste stream to feed livestock, and compost all the grass clippings from the field.
I also thought the football players appreciated playing in the sun and not the snow.
🐦 I do a lot of other writing. A recent offering: the Crow Nickels (chronicles), a trilogy about crows who want to save birdkind from extinction: Hunters of the Feather, Scavengers of Mind and Familiars of the Flock (They’re really good! They’re really cheap! Buy and review or rate positively! And Hunters is also available on Audible!) Other stories, based on Jane Austen novels — such as The Meryton Murders — and others based on history and Greek mythology, such as Jocasta: The Mother-Wife of Oedipus, can be found here. All titles are available through Kindle Unlimited, but I only get paid if you turn the pages.
💙 What You Can Do to Rescue Democracy 💙
It turns out that participation in democracy is not just an every-four-years event but requires active participation, like, whenever you can find time.
Current projects:
Look in the comments for Progressive Muse’s report on Postcards to Voters
And some other ideas:
You can relax and recharge.
You can join protests and freeway blog.
You can help register new voters.
You can smile.
You can say something nice to friend or a stranger.
You can get out the vote for special elections.
You can reach out to upset Republicans. We need to win some back.
You can share your ideas below.
🌻
💙 “Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal that we all are created equal and the harsh ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, demonization have long torn us apart. The battle is perennial, and victory is never assured.” 💙
President Joseph R. Biden
🌹 🌹 🌹
TRUTH MATTERS. LOVE MATTERS.