Good Day, Gnusies! Let’s get right to it 🧐
🎶 Opening Music 🎶
🚚💙 Democrats Deliver 💙🚛
Ridin’ with Biden
Biden is marking Earth Day by announcing $7 billion in federal solar power grants, Alexa St John and Will Weissert, AP, April 22, 2024.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is marking Earth Day by announcing $7 billion in federal grants for residential solar projects serving 900,000-plus households in low- and middle-income communities. He also plans to expand his New Deal-style American Climate Corps green jobs training program.
The grants are being awarded by the Environmental Protection Agency, which unveiled the 60 recipients on Monday. The projects are expected to eventually reduce emissions by the equivalent of 30 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and save households $350 million annually, according to senior administration officials.✂️
Forty-nine of the new grants are state-level awards, six serve Native American tribes and five are multi-state awards. They can be used for investments such as rooftop solar and community solar gardens.
Biden moves to prevent women's abortion medical records from being "used against them" by GOP states, Charles R Davis, Salon, April 22, 2024.
The Biden administration has finalized a regulation that aims to prevent Republican-led jurisdictions with strict limits on reproductive freedom from obtaining the medical records of people who seek abortions out of state, the Associated Press reported Monday.
“No one should have their medical records used against them, their doctor or their loved one just because they sought or received lawful reproductive health care,” Jennifer Klein, director of the White House Gender Policy Council, said at a press conference.
The regulation was first proposed in April 2023. It updates the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, to clarify that medical providers cannot provide law enforcement the medical records of someone who chooses to terminate a pregnancy in another state.
Hakeem Jeffries
I cannot wait for Speaker Jeffries come January 2025! Nancy Pelosi says “He is fabulous” and that means a lot!
Hakeem Jeffries emerges as Congress' shadow speaker, Andrew Solender, Axios, April 21, 2024.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) found himself in an unusual position for a minority leader last week: It was he, not the House speaker, who had the ultimate power to decide whether legislation came to the floor.
Why it matters: Democrats got everything they wanted – a $95 billion foreign aid bill, the credit for passing it, and adversaries more divided than ever. In their telling, that total victory wasn't a sure thing.✂️
What happened: Democrats did something virtually unheard of in modern politics on Thursday, crossing the aisle on the House Rules Committee to save the foreign aid package. They did it again the next day on the House floor.
- This was all Jeffries' call, as was Democrats' decision to wait until it was clear House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) didn't have the votes on his own before saving the package on the floor.
- "We wouldn't be voting on this right now if it weren't for Hakeem ... He's the one who created the system that Johnson could follow and get this done," said a House Democrat.
Illinois Democrats Deliver
Gov. Pritzker and my County Board President, Toni Preckwinkle, are Democrats getting things done for Illinoisans.
Pritzker pushes plan to erase $1 billion in medical debt for Illinoisans, Tina Sfondeles, Chicago Sun✶Times, April 16, 2024.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Monday stood alongside Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle — the architect of the country’s first medical debt relief program involving a local government — to push for a statewide effort to eliminate $1 billion in medical debt.
Beginning with a $10 million appropriation for the fiscal year beginning July 1, Pritzker is hoping lawmakers approve the plan, which he said will provide nearly $1 billion in medical debt relief for an initial batch of 340,000 Illinois residents. If approved, the investment would mark the first year in a multi-year plan.
Preckwinkle created the Cook County Medical Debt Relief Initiative with funding from the American Rescue Plan Act — using $12 million in federal funds with the potential of erasing up to $1 billion in medical debt in Cook County. Cook County in 2022 became the first local government in the nation to enact the program.✂️
Loyola Medicine also announced it is joining the state’s efforts and will forgive $112 million in medical debt, which will impact more than 60,000 Illinoisans.
The statewide program is likely to be included in a budget appropriations measure. Illinois lawmakers have a self-imposed May 24 deadline to approve a budget, but it is likely to stretch into the final days of May.
🎶 Music Time 🎶
🌎 Good International News 🌏
Poland’s prime minister celebrates after his party wins a string of cities in mayoral votes, Vanessa Gera, AP, April 22, 2024.
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk expressed satisfaction on Monday after a series of candidates supported by his party won weekend races for mayor.
Candidates from his pro-European Union centrist Civic Coalition, or running with the party’s backing, won in a series of cities in the second round of local elections held on Sunday, among them Krakow, Poznan, Wroclaw and Rzeszow.
“It is very difficult to clearly say who won and who lost,” Tusk said Monday. “But if we compare these results, especially in the most attractive places, on these attractive battlefields ... then I actually have reasons for satisfaction.”
“Law and Justice has simply disappeared in many places,” Tusk added at a news conference, referring to the main opposition party.
The results put Civic Coalition in a favorable position as the country looks next to elections to the European Parliament on June 9.
Global leaders continue to try to hammer out an agreement on plastics
There are many conflicting interests to sort through, not the least being historical economic injustice. They’ve got their work cut out, but the urgency of the problem — and the knowledge that majorities in most countries do want a sustainable planet for the next generations — should help the process along. 🤞
Global plastic treaty talks are happening. What do stakeholders want? Valerie Volcovici, Reuters, April 22, 2024.
April 22 (Reuters) - Global leaders will gather in Canada's capital this week to discuss progress in drafting a first-ever global treaty to rein in
soaring plastic pollution by the end of the year.
The hoped-for treaty, due to be agreed at the end of this year, could be the most significant deal relating to climate-warming emissions and environmental protection since the 2015 Paris Agreement, which got 195 parties to agree to keep global temperatures from rising beyond 1.5C.✂️
At the U.N. Environmental Assembly in 2022, the world's nations agreed to develop a legally binding agreement by the end of 2024 to address the world's
plastic pollution crisis.✂️
This week's talks are set to be the biggest yet, with some 3,500 people registered to attend including lobbyists, business leaders, lawmakers, scientists and environmental non-profits.
But countries have become divided on the issues during three previous rounds of talks - held in Punta del Este, Uruguay, Paris and most recently in Nairobi.
At the Nairobi talks in November, the draft treaty under review ballooned from 30 pages to 70 as some countries insisted on including their objections to more ambitious measures like production limits and phase-outs.
Countries are now under pressure to find common ground before the final negotiations are held in December in Busan, South Korea.
In Vietnam, farmers reduce methane emissions by changing how they grow rice, Aniruddha Ghosal, AP, April 22, 2024.
Using less water and using a drone to fertilize are new techniques that Van is trying and Vietnam hopes will help solve a paradox at the heart of growing rice: The finicky crop isn’t just vulnerable to climate change but also contributes uniquely to it.
Rice must be grown separately from other crops and seedlings have to be individually planted in flooded fields; backbreaking, dirty work requiring a lot of labor and water that generates a lot of methane, a potent planet-warming gas that can trap more than 80-times more heat in the atmosphere in the short term than carbon dioxide.✂️
Van has been working with one of Vietnam’s largest rice exporters, the Loc Troi Group, for the past two years and is using a different method of irrigation known as alternate wetting and drying, or AWD. This requires less water than traditional farming since his paddy fields aren’t continuously submerged. They also produce less methane.
Using the drone to fertilize the crops saves on labor costs. With climate shocks pushing a migration to cities, Van said that it’s harder to find people to work the farms. It also ensures precise amounts of fertilizers are applied. Too much fertilizer causes the soil to release Earth-warming nitrogen gases.✂️
Vietnam recognized early on that it had to reconfigure its rice sector. It was the largest rice exporter, ahead of both India and Thailand, to sign a 2021 pledge to reduce methane emissions at the annual United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
😡😩 Republicans in Disarray 🤬😫
Republican rank and file diss TFG and also each other
Luckily for the country, they are all a mess!
Trump Deflates, David From, the Atlantic, April 20, 2024.
To make an avalanche takes more than one tumbling rock. Still, the pro-Ukraine, anti-Trump vote in the House is a very, very big rock. On something that mattered intensely to him—that had become a badge of pro-Trump identity—Trump’s own party worked with Democrats in the House and Senate to hand him a stinging defeat. This example could become contagious.
Republicans lost the House in 2018 because they were beaten in districts once held by George H. W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, and Eric Cantor. They lost the presidency in 2020 in great part because their vote eroded among suburban white men. They lost the Senate in 2021 because Trump fatigue cost them two seats in Georgia. They lost Senate seats and governorships in 2022 because they put forward Trump-branded candidates such as Blake Masters and Kari Lake in Arizona and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania.✂️
The issues that were supposed to keep the Trump show on the road have proved squibs and fizzles. Inflation is down. Crime is down. Republicans threw away the immigration issue by blowing up—at Trump’s order—the best immigration deal they’ve ever seen. The attempt to confect Biden scandals to equal Trump’s scandals turned into an embarrassing fiasco that relied oninformation from a suspected Russian spy indicted for lying to the FBI. And Trump himself now faces trial in New York State on one set of felony charges. He faces a federal trial, probably starting this fall, on the even graver criminal indictments arising from his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
House Republicans divided and fighting each other
The Freedom Caucus Started Believing in the Myth of Its Own Power, Brendan Buck, New York Times, April 22, 2024.
For all its rank partisanship, the House right now is functionally and uneasily governed by a group of Republicans and Democrats. The House is led by a conservative speaker, but for any matter of lawmaking, he cannot count on a Republican majority. Instead, a coalition has emerged that is willing to do what is necessary to save the House from itself. But still we must wonder how long a G.O.P. speaker can sustain a position he owes to Democrats. It is no small thing for any speaker to rely on the opposition party to govern.
In the past year, the House has averted a catastrophic debt default, passed foreign military aid when it seemed hopeless and funded the government when a shutdown seemed all but inevitable. Should we expect more from Congress? Of course. But the critical items are getting done in a more bipartisan manner than would seem possible in this era of negative partisanship.✂️
Some Democrats have expressed at least an openness to helping Mr. Johnson retain his speakership if it is threatened for doing what they viewed as the right thing in passing Ukraine assistance. An overwhelming bipartisan repudiation of Ms. Greene’s speaker-removal tactic would be the single best thing the House could do to regain its credibility as a deliberative body.
The Freedom Caucus’s power stems from its willingness to take out the speaker. When those tools are removed, their threats quickly become more bark than bite.
TFG (of course) still trying to grift off his followers and other Republicans:
Nifty’s hunch: Some portion of Republican voters are going to watch all of this unfolding and come to the realization that TFG is a weak, sniveling, reckless fool — and the elected Republicans who propped him up are utterly devoid of principles, character or guts. Americans don’t have much patience for people like that and I believe some number of even highly committed MAGA or conservative Republicans will have had enough by November.
Meanwhile the rest of us — the people who always saw TFG and his R sycophants for what they really are — will certainly not be persuaded to vote for them as even more evidence of their perfidy is presented throughout this year.
Good News from Tennessee
The bill failed because, thankfully, Republicans in the state House and Senate were in disarray:
TN school voucher bill dead for the year: 'I am extremely disappointed,' governor says, Melissa Brown and Vivian Jones, The Tennessean, April 22, 2024.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s signature proposal for a statewide school voucher program is dead for the year, with Lee acknowledging there is no way forward for the legislation despite last-ditch negotiations through the weekend to revive the stalled bill.✂️
While Lee announced his vision for the program in November, he delayed releasing specific details on the plan until well into 2024. By that time, House and Senate Republicans had devised vastly different versions of the plan, and each chamber appeared entrenched in their positions.✂️
Democrats have long opposed the program, likening the voucher program to "coupons" for wealthy families who already send their children private school, and warned it could endanger funding for public schools.
Dozens of school boards — many in conservative parts of the state — and other local officials, along with major teachers groups, opposed the bill.
Despite Republican leaders frequently signaling optimism for the negotiations, the bill was constantly delayed in committees. For months, there has been little public indication that any significant progress was made toward a compromise.
LOL
The best thing about this story is that this is the kind of thing that actually matters to TFG.
Residents push for renaming of Trump Plaza to disassociate from ex-president, Adam Gabbatt, the Guardian, April 21, 2024.
Residents at Trump Plaza, a 40-story high-rise in the suburban New York city of New Rochelle, are pushing for the building to be renamed and to escape a near-two decade association with the legally-troubled ex-president and real estate mogul.
It would follow the slew of buildings in New York City and elsewhere that have abandoned the Trump name since he entered politics, as Trump has become a divisive, much-loathed figure by liberals even as he is loved by his fans.✂️
Greg Root, the president of the condo board at Trump Plaza, told the New York Post that a “silent majority” of owners supported the name change. The Post, a rightwing news outlet which broke the news of the prospective change, claimed that about 24 people opposed the change, although the paper was only able to provide evidence of people from two apartments.✂️
In February the New York Times reported that after Trump became president the value of apartments in buildings bearing his name had underperformed market value. Buildings which had stripped the Trump name had seen their value shoot back up.
“This analysis clearly identifies that it is the Trump brand that is responsible for the value deterioration,” an economist told the Times.
No doubt most Gnusies saw or read some coverage of the ongoing election fraud case in NY — and today, the judge will hear the prosecution’s complaint about TFG’s violations of the gag order. (Spoiler: Gnusies, please don’t hold your breath waiting for TFG to be chastened. He is incapable of it. Hopefully, the judge will impose some penalty — but the reality is that nothing will stop someone with no conscience from doing unconscionable things. Short of throwing him in jail (which would disrupt the trial, which is not desirable please remember), there is not going to be any way to stop this severely disordered person from pushing and pushing and pushing).
Attacking Michael Cohen’s Credibility Isn’t Enough to Save Trump, Ray Brescia. the Daily Beast, April 22, 2024.
Well, there was their first effort to dismiss the charges altogether. That didn’t work.
Their motion to disqualify the judge? Failed again.
The attempt to move the case out of Manhattan? No such luck.
Trump’s lawyers did their best to delay the case generally for various other reasons, too (including the request that the former president wished to attend his son’s high school graduation). Justice Juan Merchan, the same judge they tried to disqualify, wasn’t having it.
Finally, their last-ditch efforts centered around trying to exclude the testimony of several of the prosecution’s planned witnesses and narrow the scope of the evidence coming in? Those tactics also failed.
For now, it seems as though the final, “break-glass” approach is simply to undermine the credibility of Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, who they probably believed would be the government’s main witness.✂️
But a funny thing happened on the way to the courthouse. The prosecution has built a case that does not rest solely on the testimony of Michael Cohen. David Pecker, former CEO of American Media and publisher of the National Enquirer, has already begun his testimony and is scheduled to provide more testimony on Tuesday.
"Very close ally of Trump": Experts say first witness is essentially an "unindicted co-conspirator", TATYANA TANDANPOLIE, Salon, April 22, 2024.
Pecker is one of the "most critical witnesses in this trial," and his testimony, which will continue Tuesday, will have a "huge" impact, predicted Bennett Gershman, a Pace University law professor and former New York prosecutor.
"It will be the prologue that dramatically sets the stage for the way the prosecutors will develop the story. Pecker introduces the characters, the plot, and how the drama unfolds," Gershman explained, calling the prosecution's decision to have Pecker testify first a "great move."
The Trump ally, Gershman predicted, will "start the ball rolling" by laying out the alleged conspiracy, its key players and how "they committed their crimes."
🌤🌳 Health and Wellbeing 🌤🌳
Another diabetes drug shows potential for broader uses
Interesting that it’s another drug used to treat type 2 diabetes. It makes me wonder if there is some connection between various health issues and whatever the mechanism is that causes late-onset diabetes OR is it just that these drugs get noticed for unexpected other effects because they are used by such huge numbers of people who are getting regular medical care? Or something else, maybe — after all, the potential effects have not yet been formally proven or even fully studied. Intriguing, all the same!
A cheap drug may slow down aging. A study will determine if it works, Allison Aubrey, NPR, April 22, 2024.
A drug taken by millions of people to control diabetes may do more than lower blood sugar.
Research suggests metformin has anti-inflammatory effects that could help protect against common age-related diseases including heart disease, cancer, and cognitive decline.
Scientists who study the biology of aging have designed a clinical study, known as The TAME Trial, to test whether metformin can help prevent these diseases and promote a longer healthspan in healthy, older adults.✂️
The FDA approved metformin for the treatment of type 2 diabetes in the U.S. in the 1990s. Since then, researchers have documented several surprises, including a reduced risk of cancer. "That was a bit of a shock," Austad says. A meta-analysis that included data from dozens of studies, found people who took metformin had a lower risk of several types of cancers, including gastrointestinal, urologic and blood cancers.
Austad also points to a British study that found a lower risk of dementia and mild cognitive decline among people with type 2 diabetes taking metformin. In addition, there's research pointing to improved cardiovascular outcomes in people who take metformin including a reduced risk of cardiovascular death.
As promising as this sounds, Austad says most of the evidence is observational, pointing only to an association between metformin and the reduced risk. The evidence stops short of proving cause and effect. Also, it's unknown if the benefits documented in people with diabetes will also reduce the risk of age-related diseases in healthy, older adults.
RNA research breakthrough really was a game changer
A one-shot vaccine for COVID, flu and future viruses? Researchers say it's coming, Nicole Karlis, Salon, April 18, 2024.
At the beginning of the pandemic, many people hoped that infections with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 — or vaccines against the virus — would provide durable lifetime immunity, as is the case with diseases like measles or mumps. Instead, the COVID virus is more akin to the influenza virus, which mutates constantly and confers only short-term immunity. Both COVID and the flu require new and different vaccine formulas aimed at defeating newly circulating variants of the viruses. The inevitable result of this has been, for most of us, increasing vaccine fatigue.
But what if it were possible to protect against COVID and the flu, and other unknown viruses that haven't yet emerged, with just one shot? If that became reality, seasonal or annual boosters would be part of the past. And what if such vaccinations didn't even require a needle?
While those possibilities may sound far in the future, scientists at the University of California, Riverside, believe they could become reality relatively soon — perhaps within the next five to 10 years. As illustrated in a paper just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a new, RNA-based vaccine strategy could be effective against any viral strain to emerge in the future. This next generation of vaccines would theoretically offer protection against viruses we aren’t even aware of yet, and could be used safely on infants and people with compromised immune systems, who today must often opt out of vaccination to protect their health.
Unexpected philosophizing from Shatner in this charming interview
William Shatner’s Next ‘Bold’ Adventure: Facing Death, Kevin Fallon, Daily Beast, April 10, 2024.
“If we consider that we’re born all alone, we all die alone.” Shatner told Obsessed. “Do we ever find a partner in life that is so close and meaningful that you’re not alone? Or is our condition to be alone and to endure it, because that’s part of the pain of life? There are enjoyments, which abound: good food, good company, good work. I mean, there’s so much joy waiting for us. Can we mix the two together and participate in all of it? Can we participate in the sadness and loneliness that we all feel and still vibrate to the magic of life?”✂️
William Shatner (R) with Patrick Stewart
“I’m looking out a window right now as I talk to you,” he said. “I see green trees. I see a city. I see mountains. I see the sky with the birds, that the Earth is throbbing with life, and it’s waiting to be discovered. What makes me so sad, which was brought to mind when I came off of the spaceship that I went on, was the absolute realization. I’ve known this, but it was dramatically shown to me when I looked down at the planet [from space]: how intricately connected everything is.”✂️
“I don’t think you come back,” he said. “I don’t think there’s life after death. I think this is it. This is the journey you take. This is the sadness, the joy, the ecstasy, the love that you feel in this one participation in life. So you have to take the bad with the good. Let the bad wash over you. And I’m saying this theoretically, because so many times in the bad parts, it’s awful. It’s hard to do. But if you keep that in mind—I will do this; I will participate in life and not hide; I will boldly go into that hurt locker again—that’s the only way to do it. The only way to live.”
Stay hopeful — and productive — using self-compassion
Jessiestaf posted an excerpt from this excellent article yesterday. I found it so interesting that I’d like to post some more of it in today’s GNR. This is advice we all can use:
How self-compassion can help activists deal with stress, Sophie Olivia Hanson, the Conversation, April 15, 2024.
It’s important to acknowledge that many of the negative experiences that activists encounter will need to be addressed by systemic changes. This could include a society that is more open to progress and more sympathetic to those engaged in social justice work. Progressive movements could also offer more support to their members, particularly those who experience prejudice themselves.
However, if movements are going to provide resources to their members for coping with the stresses of their work, we should consider what supports might be most helpful. Enter self-compassion — this term refers to our ability to respond to our own suffering with care and support, and is made up of three components.
-
Self-kindness is the ability to show ourselves warmth and encouragement rather than judgement during difficult experiences.
-
Common humanity is the knowledge that our struggles unite us with, rather than isolate us from other people.
-
Finally, mindfulness is the ability to be aware of our pain, without becoming overly entangled with it.✂️
In previous research, self-compassion has been connected to higher levels of hope and lower levels of hopelessness. These are both emotional states that activists link to their well-being and ability to manage the pressures of their social justice work. Possibly, by being more supportive of themselves, self-compassionate people are able to be more optimistic.
Additionally, the mindfulness aspect of self-compassion may help individuals to avoid ruminating about difficult experiences, in turn reducing feelings of hopelessness. Self-compassion and self-compassion interventions have also been linked to lower levels of burnout across various working populations.
For parents: a way to nurture hope and joy
The One Thing Parents Can Control, Esau McCauley, New York Times, April 16, 2024.
It is hard to predict the impact of these experiences. Parents can only make deposits of joy. We cannot control when our children will make the withdrawals. Did my mother know that I would always remember that one time she took us all to the (now defunct) Opryland U.S.A. theme park in Nashville? I am not sure what the Hotspur game will mean to my youngest son two decades from now. But that day he was happy, and knowing that will have to be enough.
Parenting is always an exercise in hope, a gift given to a future we cannot see to the end. At some point, if God is merciful, our children will continue forward without us, left with the memory of love shared and received.
We are entrusted with the awesome responsibility of introducing our children to the world and the world to our children. We cannot and should not shield them from all difficulty. But it’s also necessary, periodically, to be a bit irresponsible, to spend a little too much on a soccer game so they remember that alongside the darkness, sometimes there is light. Come on you Spurs.
🎶 Music for a hopeful, beautiful world 🎶
🐩 💙 CG’s Picks 💙 🐩
Hello Everybody! It’s me, CurlyGirl! Today I have two stories with regular animals in them (a cat and some dogs) but FIRST, I have a story with unusual animals in it!
🦢 Trumpeter Swans reunited!
I wonder if that was a very noisy reunion? Like, are trumpeter swans called trumpter swans because they honk louder than regular swans?
‘Like a romance novel’: Video shows dramatic reunion of Toronto swan mates, Mark Colley, Toronto Star, April 5, 2024.
Mango, a male trumpeter swan, emerged from his crate. He spotted another swan in the distance and spread his wings to appear larger.
For Mango, who has nested at Bluffer’s Park in Scarborough for years, the sound would have been unmistakable. Just as humans recognize the voices of their partners, so do swans. Mango started honking back.
“It was like a romance novel,” said Ann Brokelman, the volunteer from the Toronto Wildlife Centre who released Mango Thursday afternoon. “He stopped, turned, looked at her. She stopped, turned, looked at him. And they just sort of stared at each other and then she took off running right towards him … It was just magical.”
🐈⬛ A cat who brings flowers!
Yikes! I’d better not let Mama see this! She loves flowers and if she saw that a cat might bring flowers, she might want a cat instead of me! One time I tried to bring her a ball (because my cousin dog buries balls in his garden), but instead I dug up too much of my human sister’s garden! And everyone got all excited and shouty. It was not pleasant. They didn’t even appreciate that I made so many holes for their new plants! I feel like I saved them a ton of work!
Well, anyway.
The truth is this is a really nice story and how surprised the lady was when she realized how the flowers were getting to her house! I have to admit, I like this cat!
🐶 Dogs are great, says this writer
I hope Mama reads this one! 💙🐩
Opinion Dogs are our greatest creation. And we might be theirs. Tommy Tomlinson, Washington Post, April 22, 2024.
As far as we can tell, dogs are the first animals that humans ever tamed. The wolves that hung out with humans found themselves changing inside and out. They developed shorter muzzles and smaller teeth. Their instinct to run became a desire to stay close. With time, dogs were manufactured through breeding to meet different human needs. We made huskies to pull sleds and Newfoundlands to pull fish nets and dachshunds to catch badgers.✂️
Dogs enabled humans to settle down and stop their endless wandering. Dogs protected humans at this vulnerable transition from nomadic to settled life. Dogs did work that humans did not have the strength or stamina to do: guarding, herding, hunting, pulling sleds. They created time for humans to build and think and create without having to focus every moment on the next meal or the next threat.
We domesticated dogs, and they domesticated us.
Today, dogs provide not just companionship but also an uncomplicated kind of love in an ever more complicated world. And for those restless souls wandering from town to town, chasing job after job — nomads again — a dog can be an anchor, something to hold on to on a lonely night.
Next, here are two dogs helping their human sister out! 🐶👶🐶
That’s all I have for you this week. Bye for now! Luv, CG 💙🐾
⚡️ Lightning RoundUp ⚡️
⚡️ Forget the ticker-tape parade. Mike Johnson is no hero. Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post, April 22, 2024.
⚡️ Possibly a message sent: Russia is sure to lose in Ukraine, reckons a Chinese expert on Russia, Feng Yujun, the Economist, April 13, 2024.
⚡️ What Donald Trump Fears Most, David Axelrod, the Atlantic, April 22, 2024.
⚡️ "The alternate reality Trump lives in is crumbling" with first criminal trial: ex-federal prosecutor, Chauncey DeVega, Salon, April 22, 2024.
⚡️ 'He's not even clear on what he's doing': New Trump stumble draws mental acuity concerns, Tom Boggioni, Raw Story, April 13, 2024
⚡️ Maybe it’s not phones or social media: The Coddling of the American Parent, Mike Masonic, Daily Beast, April 21, 2024.
⚡️ Jung’s Five Pillars of a Good Life, Arthur C. Brooks, the Atlantic, April 11, 2024.
💗 How Can You Help Build Our Democracy Back Better? 💗
Put your beautiful bleeding liberal heart into it! 🥰
Share Goody’s Boosting Biden series on social media — Boosting Biden Series
Democratic litigation hero, Marc Elias was the legal eagle behind the 60 Big Lie losses after the election. Here’s his website, Democracy Docket. You can find information about current cases he is fighting to defend voting rights around the country, as well as actions you can take to help fight voter suppression at the link!
Write to voters around the country with Postcards to Voters. Progressive Muse usually posts an update on current campaigns in the comments and you can also check out the website. It’s easy, fun and it really works to GOTV!
🎩 Also, Goody posted a great list of links a while ago. I am borrowing and adding the latest ones to it 🎩
Fight voter suppression!
What can you do?
HERE’S HOW TO CONTACT CONGRESS:
U.S. House of Representatives:* Telephone: 202-225-3121
* Website: http://www.house.gov/
U.S. Senate:* Telephone: 202-224-3121
* Website: http://www.senate.gov/
Find your member of Congress and contact him or her:
Let them know what matters to you!
Contact your Representative
Contact your Senator
And remember, all politics is local and personal! Let’s work to flip state and local elected positions Democratic! ↓
Sister District Project — organization that is working to help Dems win state legislature races.
Donate to re-elect Joe Biden!
Oh, and don’t forget!…. Share Goody’s Boosting Biden series on social media —
💙 RoundUp WindDown 💙
That’s it from me and CG for another week! Remember, as always, Gnusies: take good care of yourselves! You are so important! Indeed, you are the hope AND the reason for this country’s progress. Get some rest — when you need to step away briefly to recharge, do it! The rest of us will take up the slack, just like you will for us when we need it. Eat nutritious food (and occasionally have treats just because it’s good for your soul) and as often as possible, get outdoors. Every day if you are able.
Thanks for reading and here’s some lovely music for you!
Happy Tuesday, Gnuville!
