In my view, Good News Roundup is intended as a haven from that ever present drumbeat of doomsayers declaring the death of democracy. We gather together to take inspiration and strength from the positive things that are happening in the fight to stop the tRumpian dystopia from becoming real. But this is not a group of head-in-the-sand pie-in-the-sky unicorn riders. We are all perfectly aware that crappy things are happening every day. There are lots of places to learn about affronts, atrocities and other attacks on the nation and world. The Roundup is a place to partake of moral/ethical sustenance so we can sustain our commitment to fight back against injustice.
The Sunday Edition of Good News Roundup will, in the absence of breaking good news, focus on good news that has been overshadowed by the newest and shiniest squirrels (or just whatever comes along). I might do a little ranting (take that as a guarantee) a throw in some snark (take that as a mortal lock).
Happy Easter, Passover, Spring Festival or whatever is appropriate for your personal belief system.
Breaking News on a Slow News Day
A dear friend of mine (and Michigan grad) called me up to tell me that Michigan defeating Loyola-Chicago was really, really, really good news. At least it will put an end to all the granny smack between 98-year old Sister Jean and Jalen Rose’s 100 year-old grandmother. Michigan will face Villanova in the final on Monday night.
Former President Jimmy Carter dings Trump, says he prays for him
In a late-night TV appearance Friday, former President Jimmy Carter appeared to ding President Donald Trump, suggesting the current commander-in-chief is "a jerk."
"Does America want kind of a jerk as president?," Stephen Colbert asked the 39th president on
"The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," after inquiring whether Carter had been "too nice" to be commander-in-chief.
Since he was sworn into office a little over a year ago, Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt has moved between three different dwellings in the D.C. area. Of the three, a condo co-owned by the wife of a prominent energy lobbyist is where he’s spent the most time, news outlets learned Thursday.
That alone is enough to warrant serious inquiry. Yet the story grew more mysterious (if only tangentially so) on Friday, when ABC revealed that Pruitt’s security detail had to break down the door of the condo last March, believing he was unresponsive and needed to be rescued.
The kids at Marjory Stoneman Douglas have ignited something and we tend to focus on them. They have been incredible and deserve all of our accolades and support. However, there were over 800 events around the world that were organized by other kids who aren’t getting the same kind of coverage, or any post march coverage at all. Let’s see if we can make sure our local kids get a place at the table and get their voices heard as we move forward. The more voices we promote; the more the NRA stooges have to flail about fighting back against hundreds or thousands of individual voices. Making them spread their efforts means lessening the impact their despicable attacks have on individual kids.
Here’s the closing speech from the March for Our Lives in Pittsburgh
I have some more photos from the march last week. Here are a couple of them.
Worst Apology Ever Competition
The Orange Rezident has famously refused to apologize for any stupid, disgraceful, wrong-headed, bigoted, misogynistic, flat out racist, pro-nazi or just plain evil thing he’s ever said or done. His enablers aren’t quite so brazenly unapologetic. They prefer to use the art of the nopology or fauxpology. It’s a statement crafted to look like an apology without actually apologizing. The most recent example is Laura Ingraham’s attempt to placate David Hogg after she attacked him over his 4.1 (actually 4.2) GPA and not being accepted by some to the universities he applied to. He hit back suggesting folks boycott her advertisers. After 3 of them dropped her, she issued a nopology as follows.
Note that this says that because it’s coming up on Easter, Ingraham is sorry if she caused offense to David Hogg or any of his fellow survivors. It doesn’t say Ingraham is actually sorry for what she said or that it was an uncalled for attack. She also tries to take credit for helping David promote his message. So far, Wayfair, Nutrish, Nestle, Jos A Banks, TripAdvisor, Expedia, Johnson & Johnson, Hulu, Stitch Fix, Jenny Craig, Office Depot, Honda, Atlantis Paradise Island, Liberty Mutual, The Principal, Miracle Ear, Ruby Tuesday, Entertainment Studios and Bayer (That’s 19 as of midnight on the 31st) have dropped Ingraham. Here’s the full list of Ingraham advertisers in case you want to join in. You might want to hurry as they are pulling out faster than couples using the rhythm method. Looks like Laura is going to take a week off to help her kids work on their college applications.
We’ve had some other nopologists and unapologetic supporters of Spanky McBonespurs.
Ben Carson on his $31,000 dining set purchase
Scott Pruitt on his sound proof booth; his travel; his apartment; his industry ties; his insane security budget. Hell, this guy is so blatantly corrupt, his corruption is corrupt. And I can’t find any evidence he’s even bothered to nopology for any of it. He should get an extra small jail cell, so he can pretend he still has a sound proof booth. Scottie puts the pee in Putz. Rachel Maddow on the most recent Pruitt Pooping on ethics and responsibility scandal. This worthless piece of shit needs to be kicked to the curb and flushed down a storm drain with all the other pollutants he’s trying to release into the environment.
Ryan Zinke on his no-bid contract in Puerto Rico; his expensive office door; his travel expenses; his financial interest in Proof Research; his rescinding of the elephant trophy ban. Nope, some denials and dodges, but no sorry-about-that. He did, however, apologize to mining CEO Phillips Baker, who left taxpayers with a $100 million cleanup bill, for all those excessive regulations. The Sierra Club doesn’t like him very much, so they summarized some of his more egregious actions. He’s worked at it and managed to elevate himself to the level of a boil that’s crying out to be lanced.
Betsey DeVos, Wilbur Ross, Steve Mnuchin, Rick Perry, Nicki Haley and Jeff Sessions should all be on their knees begging forgiveness for incompetence, graft and all-around nogoodnikhood. Instead, they’re out there doing damage. This too shall not stand. Keeping up the scrutiny is essential.
There isn’t a sincere bone in any of their bodies. We have to remember to continue to be outraged at this crap. There’s no way this is normal or acceptable. So where is the good news in all of this? Why are you listing all these horrible things those criminal conspirators are committing and have committed? Well, when you shine a light on a cockroach it tries to scurry away under a cabinet. When the honey dipper truck stops by to empty tRump’s cesspool of enablers, we want to make sure the cockroaches in the cabinet don’t get to hide from the suction hose of justice.
Samantha Bee tried to mitigate some of the lack of real or imaginary apologies coming from tRump himself.
Late Night to the Rescue
I often find myself wishing the news media would take a page from our late night hosts and give us some in depth honest coverage of the day’s events. Do you think we can start a movement to get Colbert, Myers, Bee, Oliver, Kimmel, or Noah (even get John Stewart out of retirement) to replace our national news readers and get some honest reporting back into network news? It would be nice to see both-siderism and false equivalency take a nice big metaphorical kick to the crotch.
Here’s an interview you might have missed (Stephen Colbert says Dana Carvey gave him his first real comedy job).
Samantha Bee has been all over the situation in Puerto Rico.
There’s a full twelve part series with added trailers (average around 3-4 minutes each
John Oliver did an epic takedown of Pence and introduced the better Bundo book.
April Foolishness
Rather than try to prank you with fun headlines like:
After a 20 hour operation, doctors unable to remove tRump’s head from his ass
In a surprise Easter move, Mueller indicts tRump and all incumbent republican politicians and political appointees, charging them all with dereliction of duty, conspiracy against the United States and being assholes.
During Sexual Assault Awareness Month tRump will be apologizing to a different one of his victims every day during the month.
The Heritage Foundation is reporting that incessant tRump bashing has been shown to reduce aura size and stunt karma growth.
I’ll just throw in some idle fantasies.
A fun daydream: As part of a settlement for a lawsuit about knowingly misleading the country Faux Noise agrees to replace Shaun Hannity with Keith Olbermann; Fox & Friends with Looney Tunes reruns; and Judge Jeanne with one of those soothing waves lapping at the shore videos.
It is possible that Stormy got it wrong. Donald is not afraid of sharks; he’s afraid of snark. First, since he has all the intellectual power of a potato, satire is beyond his ability to comprehend. There has to be some tiny corner of his hind brain that knows he doesn’t have a clue or even any idea how to get a clue. Second, he really doesn’t like it when he realizes someone is making fun of him (cf tRump’s face while listening to Obama at the Correspondents Dinner in 2012). Third, there’s a new study out that proves all tiny handed, short fingered vulgarians are scared of everything (the study was totally funded by the NNNE Institute for Making Stuff Up). So, I guess that means he’s scared of sharks and snark.
Quote of the Day
The problem isn’t that conservatives are wrong about the efficiency of markets or the creativity of enterprise. It’s that they have made false idols of both, usually without acknowledging that markets work best when well regulated, that private enterprise cannot meet every human need, that government has always played a critical role in our economy, and that the profit motive can be socially and environmentally destructive as well as dynamic. — Joe Conason
Musical Finale
Absolutely Gratuitous Cat Photo
People are saying we should include cat photos because they are popular. I’m not sure what Ceiling Cat sez.
Disclaimer Any offensive, untrue or otherwise problematic content in this roundup was secretly added by Russian trolls masquerading as tRump supporters impersonating DailyKos administrators after NNNE went to sleep but before publication. Your distress could have been avoided had NNNE bothered to proofread the article. If you were offended by the cat picture, you are clearly one of the aforesaid tRump supporters and NNNE invites you to kiss his ass.
Disclaimer disclaimer. This is the small print and italics are required by law. Plus if you managed to read this far, there is nothing wrong with your eyes.