Welcome 😄 to Friday’s Roundup of Good News!
📜 She took an oath.
On Monday I took a couple of flights, starting out of DCA. Because some things that in my carry-on looked suspicious, I got pulled aside by a TSA lady and everything had to be inspected. While I proved to her that all the mysterious items were packages of coffee beans, this gave us the chance to talk.
I asked her how she was doing with not getting paid. She acknowledged it wasn’t good, but she really appreciated my concern.
Then I asked her why she was still coming to work.
Because she took an oath, she said.
The senators have also taken oaths. The same oaths.
Why aren’t they keeping their oaths? Why are they keeping the government closed?
If you have a Republican senator, contact him or her and pose those questions. And demand that they open the government.
📜The oath for TSA workers and for Senators: I, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
Regular Scheduled Programming
No one here is naïve; we are aware of the very bad stuff that is happening. 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. We have to keep demoralizing them. Name, blame and shame! IT IS WORKING! WE HAVE EVIDENCE THAT THEY ARE 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.
💙 Toxic 🍄 Trump Matters 👎 & Russia, Russia, Russia 🐻
😲 Sources say Trump ordered Michael Cohen to lie to Congress
Those sources have also indicated that in his testimony to the special counsel’s office, Cohen insists that when he was called before Congress, Trump ordered him to lie to Congress. Specifically, Trump instructed Cohen to say that negotiations in Moscow had ended months before they were actually put on hold some time after the Republican convention. Trump’s order to lie is supposedly supported by “interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents.”
Trump directly ordering Cohen to lie to Congress about the state of the Russia project is not just obstruction of the ongoing investigation, but is also suborning perjury. Ordering subordinates to lie to Congress was also a major factor in the first article of impeachment drawn up against Richard Nixon.
And the claim concerning Cohen’s congressional testimony isn’t the only shocking information put forward. The same sources indicate that, far from being dismissive of attempts to arrange a meeting with Vladimir Putin during the presidential campaign, Trump told members of his campaign to “make it happen.”
🗣Rick Gates is still talking to Mueller
Behind the headline-grabbing developments in Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, one potentially pivotal witness has been quietly cooperating for almost a year on multiple investigations. ✂️
This continuing collaboration suggests Gates may have significant information to give the special counsel about key moments in the campaign and perhaps afterward. It also creates a black box for Trump’s legal team because they don’t have an agreement with Gates’s lawyers to share information, as they do with some of Mueller’s other witnesses. ✂️
In April 2017, six months before Gates was charged with tax crimes and conspiracy against the U.S., he dined at an upscale Washington restaurant with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, President Trump’s close friend Tom Barrack and seven Middle Eastern ambassadors. Weeks later, he appears to have met with Mnuchin and Barrack again for an appointment marked as personal on the Treasury secretary’s calendar.
I am tired of not knowing everything! Let me read the end of the book, damnit!
📕The book is long. We don’t know how long, but on Wednesday’s Rachel Maddow show, we learned that the unredacted version of a Mueller filing related to Manafort is 800 pages. We only learned this because Manafort’s defense team asked for extra time to respond “because the filing is 800 pages.”
And that’s only ONE unredacted filing.
🎭Timeline of the evolution of the no contact with Russians to no collusion to well yes, some collusion with Russians
Nov. 11, 2016: Hope Hicks denies a report that Russian experts were in contact with the Trump campaign: “It never happened. There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign.” ✂️
Jan. 16, 2019: Giuliani says on CNN, "I never said there was no collusion between the campaign, or between people in the campaign…If the collusion happened, it happened a long time ago.”
💰 Michael Cohen paid a tech firm owned by Jerry Falwell to boost Trump’s ranking in online polls 📈
Simply, what Michael Cohen has to do with Jerry Falwell, Jr. is this: a man named John
Gauger is the Chief Information Officer for Liberty University. Gauger also owns RedFinch Solutions, LLC. Part of the eight felonies which Cohen pleaded guilty to last year, involved alleged financial dealings with Gauger. Cohen asked Gauger to rig polls in Donald Trump’s favor, among other things. Wall Street Journal:
In January 2014, Mr. Cohen asked Mr. Gauger to help Mr. Trump score well in a CNBC online poll to identify the country’s top business leaders by writing a computer script to repeatedly vote for him. Mr. Gauger was unable to get Mr. Trump into the top 100 candidates. In February 2015, as Mr. Trump prepared to enter the presidential race, Mr. Cohen asked him to do the same for a Drudge Report poll of potential Republican candidates, Mr. Gauger said. Mr. Trump ranked fifth, with about 24,000 votes, or 5% of the total. [...]
Prosecutors wrote in a charging document that when Mr. Cohen asked Trump Organization executives for a $130,000 reimbursement for a hush payment he made to Stephanie Clifford, the porn actress known as Stormy Daniels, he also scrawled a handwritten note asking for $50,000 he said he spent on “tech services” to aid Mr. Trump’s campaign. Prosecutors didn’t name the company providing those services, but people familiar with the matter say it was RedFinch.
Well, nice to add an associate of Jerry Falwell’s to the group of scumbags being exposed by this administration.
📉Trump’s shutdown is making him unpopular in polls not conducted online
- Down significantly among suburban men, a net-positive approval rating of 51-to-39 percent to a net-negative of 42-to-48. That's a net change of down 18 percentage points.
- Down a net of 13 points among white evangelicals, from 73-to-17 percent approve to 66-to-23 percent approve.
- Down a net of 10 points among Republicans, from 90-to-7 percent approve to 83-to-10 percent.
- Down marginally among white men without a college degree, from 56-to-34 percent approve to 50-to-35 percent approve, a net change downward of 7 points.
💙 Democrats Are Great 🌊
Republicans 🐘 Got Nothing 👎
🐀 Tom Marino leaving the House
The Pennsylvania Republican said he will be leaving his post Jan. 23 for a job in the private sector. Marino represents the 12th Congressional District of Pennsylvania, and has served in the House since 2010.
Marino was just beginning his fifth term in Congress. He said he is taking a job in the private sector.
I expect he started looking for a job as soon as the 🌊 hit and he realized the Ds would be taking a hard look at the Rs. Marino has hurt people with his lack of regulation of the drug industry, hurting the health of the US population. How many will jump 🚢? (Thanks to Mrmuni12 for including this morsel in a comment on Thursday.)
💜 Bipartisan group of senators to introduce bill to protect NATO
A bipartisan groups of senators introduced a bill Thursday that would prevent President Trump from withdrawing the U.S. from NATO without Senate approval. A similar bill in the House is expected to follow, Foreign Policy's Robbie Gramer reports.
Why it matters: The New York Times reported Monday that President Trump told top administration officials in private conversations throughout 2018 that he wanted to pull the U.S. out of NATO. Doing so would have massive security consequences for the U.S.' European allies, and fulfill one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's long-sought goals of weakening the Western military alliance.
💜 Federal employees will get back pay after shutdown ends
Note that this legislation was introduced by Dems in the house, of course. Even the Senate voted on this, and Trump even signed this!
🌽 Iowa paper regrets its endorsement of Steve King and calls for his resignation
Last fall, this newspaper urged voters to return U.S. Rep. Steve King to Congress for a ninth term. We made the decision to make that endorsement with some misgivings. We wanted our region to be represented in Washington by someone who would support a conservative agenda. ✂️
Republican Party leaders in the U.S. House have stripped King of all his committee assignments. It’s also why some party leaders have urged that he resign from Congress. Members of the U.S. House voted nearly unanimously for a resolution rebuking him for his use of the terms “white supremacist” and “white nationalist.”
Consequently, King no longer has the ability to look out in Congress for the interests of rural Iowa. The main work there takes place in committees. ✂️
Therefore, King should resign from Congress with no delay. That will allow a special election to be held so someone who will not be an embarrassment to our state can be elected. Northwest Iowa needs a new representative in the House as soon as possible.
I took a look at the comments as well, and most were not impressed with the people of Iowa 4 or the Iowa Register for having taken so long. Still, a sign things are changing.
🔎🐢Several freshman Congresscritters have started a Mitch hunt. I love their brashness; this brings the focus on the fact that the Senate could re-open the government in a few minutes. 💙
I wasn’t a big AOC fan before this — mostly because I am slow to chase shiny new things — but this is brilliant. Of course, she did not do it alone.
🆒 And AOC (with Jim Hines) is going to teach House Dems how to use the internet.
The House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee invited Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) to speak about their social media presence and share “the most effective ways to engage constituents on Twitter and the importance of digital storytelling,” USA Today reported.
I wish that I could take that class.
Want more AOC? She gave her first talk on the floor. Lots of views. As someone pointed out in the comments, if she helps keep young people engaged, that’s fantastic.
BEYOND THE BELTWAY
What a difference having Democratic governors means to these states!
🌽 Governor Laura Kelly (Kansas) gave her first state of the state address.
After a decade of crises - starting with the Great Recession, followed by a self-inflicted budget catastrophe – we found ourselves at a turning point. We were at times weary, frustrated and, sadly, untrusting of one another.
But, in the end, it came down to a fundamental question.
We had to ask, what is Kansas worth?
This was not just a matter of dollars and cents. It forced us to re-examine some of our most deeply-held convictions, and it was a painful process.
But as problems piled up, we had to accept reality. In 2017, we defied the odds, acknowledged the mistake, and hit “reset” in a historic act of bipartisanship.
That is what it means to be a Kansan.
This is how we get people back together. In their states.
🔫 Governor JB Pritzker (Illinois) is signing a bill requiring that gun dealers be licensed.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Thursday signed legislation to give the state more oversight over Illinois firearms dealers, appearing with anti-violence advocates at a West Side elementary school and saying he’ll push for further gun control measures.
The proposal Pritzker signed into law requires gun stores to get state licenses, a move that supporters contend could reduce gun violence because federal regulators are stretched too thin to adequately handle all the shops operating in Illinois.
🌱Governor Tony Evers (Wisconsin) is including medical marijuana in his budget, a step toward legalization.
MADISON – The "first step" toward legalizing medical marijuana will likely be included in Gov. Tony Evers' first state budget proposal.
The Democratic governor told an audience Tuesday at an event hosted by the Wisconsin Technology Council that he supports fully legalizing marijuana but wants to start with making medical marijuana available, according to video of his remarks from WisconsinEye.
🦀Governor Janet Mills (Maine) is releasing money for senior housing
Good morning from Augusta, where Gov. Janet Mills later today plans to authorize the release of $15 million in senior housing bonds approved by voters in 2015 but blocked by her predecessor, who isn’t happy with many of her changes so far.
The process to enact blocked Democratic initiatives and reshape policy-making is moving forward. The order will allow the immediate use of $500,000 to help fund 200 new affordable housing units and the weatherization of 100 homes for low-income seniors across Maine. The rest will be earmarked for projects this summer and matched by $22.5 million in federal funds.
She’s doing a lot of other innovative things, such as establishing a group to consider innovation. She’s also pissing off the former governor, LePage, who plans to challenge her in 2022.
… And not just governors...
⚖ Judge blocks Wisconsin GOP’s effort to curtail early voting
A federal judge on Thursday struck down early-voting restrictions Wisconsin Republicans adopted in a December lame-duck legislative session, saying the limits are clearly similar to restrictions he blocked two years ago.
Republicans voted in December to limit early voting to no more than two weeks before an election. The move came after a difficult midterm election in November in which the overwhelmingly Democratic cities of Madison and Milwaukee held early voting for six weeks — far longer than in smaller and more conservative communities.
🐍 Schadenfreude 🍎
⚖ Judge refuses to delay net neutrality case
A federal appeals court denied the Federal Communications Commission’s request to postpone oral arguments in a court battle over the agency’s decision to repeal its net neutrality rules.
The FCC had asked for the hearing to be postponed since the commission’s workforce has largely been furloughed due to the partial government shutdown.
The hearing remains set for February 1.
📣🏅 Let’s Honor Truth 🏅☀️
Usually I devote this section to an instance of someone standing up and telling the truth, but this time I have a truth that I want all of us to spread. Now, it’s something that everyone here is aware of, but it seems that many voters in the country are not. What is that truth? That Trump is not a self-made man.
Who is Donald Trump? Ask Americans and many of them will describe a self-made billionaire, a business tycoon of unfathomable success. In research recently published in Political Behavior, we found that voters are not simply uninformed about President Trump’s biographical background, but misinformed—and that misinformation has serious political consequences. ✂️
The focus of our work, however, is on whether indisputable facts regarding candidate biographies—which are often invisible to voters over the course of a campaign—affect public opinion. ✂️
In a 2018 survey, we provided half the respondents the following question, which was intended to impart Trump’s biographical information: To what extent were you aware that Donald Trump grew up the son of wealthy real estate businessman Fred Trump, started his business with loans from his father, and received loans worth millions of dollars from his father in order to keep his businesses afloat? ✂️
But among Republicans, the information is even more damning, reducing perceptions of empathy by more than 10 percentage points.
If you have Trump loyalists in your circle, why not gently point out Trump’s not-so-humble beginnings to them? It might be a way to create a crack.
“The right to search for the truth implies also a duty; one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be the truth.” ― Albert Einstein
🌹 Let’s Celebrate Love ❤️
🍴Chef José Andrés feeding the furloughed
Chef José Andrés has made international headlines in the past for his efforts to feed people in disaster-stricken areas – which is why he is now being praised for serving up meals to furloughed workers amidst the US government shutdown.
🍕Canadian air traffic controllers send pizza to US air traffic controllers affected by shutdown
As a means of showing solidarity across international borders, Canadian air traffic controllers have been sending pizzas to their American counterparts amidst the government shutdown. ✂️
A CATCA center in Edmonton, Alberta was the first to order pizzas for American workers since their unit works closely with the control center in Anchorage, Alaska.
As news of their good deed was shared on social media, however, more and more Canadian air traffic controllers joined the movement by ordering pizzas for their US neighbors.
📎📎Odds & Ends 📎📎
🍻 Beer company to help retire student debt 💰
The Natural Light beer brand from Anheuser-Busch recently announced that they would be giving away $10 million over the course of the next ten years to eliminate student debt in America.
The initiative is part of the company’s College Debt Relief Program which they launched last year as part of a part of their commitment “to helping graduates remember college for the good times, not the burden of debt that follows.”
⚡️ Now that Democrats are in charge in Michigan, the Flint water crisis is going to get a serious review
With Democrats now investigating Flint, there’s a sense among many activists and community leaders that Michigan is finally serious about seeking justice for victims. The Republican-led investigation “was never about the state taking responsibility and making sure that the health of Flint’s families was the focus,” said Michigan senate minority leader and Flint resident Jim Ananich.
🌴Islanders reverse climate disaster by planting trees
The island of Kokota is home to 500 villagers who were struggling to provide themselves with food, water, and work after they had harvested the surrounding trees and resources. Because there was no longer a tree canopy to shade most of the island, the soil turned to dust and the freshwater rivers dried up. ✂️
Meanwhile, nearby conservationists had discovered the impacts of reforestation on their own island of Pemba – and after helping Kokota plant over 300,000 trees, the island’s economy and livelihood have been totally transformed.
Totally transformed in a good way, mind you. The people of Kokota built a school and used it to collect rainwater; they have started using cook stoves that require far less firewood, and now they’re eager to tackle the next problem: restoring the fish. There’s a video at the link, about 15 minutes long. One person can make a difference by reaching out to the next person.
💉Game-Changing Approval of Liver Transplant Procedure May Halve Transplant Waiting List
This “game-changing” new medical procedure is expected to save thousands of people with its promise to halve the amount of patients on liver transplant lists waiting for a reprieve.
The procedure, which was approved for use in the UK this week, uses a perfusion machine to keep donated livers viable for transplantation for three times longer than current methods. The machine works by reducing the rate of tissue deterioration that occurs after the liver has been removed from the donor and extends how long the liver can be stored before transplantation.
I don’t know if it’s available in the United States, but the fact that such progress is being made is wonderful.
🐟 And this woman is taking plastic off of beaches
This English grandmother has spent an entire year cleaning all of the trash off of 52 British beaches after she made it her 2018 New Year’s resolution to clean one sandy bay each week.
70-year-old Pat Smith spent all of 2018 on Devon and Cornwall’s most iconic beaches each week, armed with bin bags, rubber gloves and a litter picker. She traveled without fail from one end of the South West to the other, collecting litter in beauty spots from Coverack, Cornwall, to Blackpool Sands, Devon. She even spent her Christmas day picking up plastic bottles and fishing gear on Trevone Beach.
💙 What You Can Do to Rescue Democracy 💙
💙 Yosef52 has started a set of diaries telling us how to GoTV for 2020. Time to get to work! 💙
Current call to action: If you have an R senator, tell him/her to end the government shutdown and no stupid wall!
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. However, given that we have taken back the House, the tactics moving forward need to be different. Indivisible has ideas to share.
Indivisible 2.0
This Guide is for what comes next. The 2016 Indivisible Guide was about using constituent power to defend our values, our neighbors, and our democracy. This Guide is about using our constituent power to go on offense.
Offense is exciting, but it’s more complex than defense. We have the opportunity to use congressional oversight to hold Trump and his cronies accountable. We can set the legislative agenda with a bold progressive vision rooted in inclusion, fairness, and justice. But none of this is automatic — we have to demand it of Congress.
And some other ideas:
You can relax and recharge.
You can join protests and freeway blog.
You can help register new voters (especially if you are in Florida).
You can smile.
You can get out the vote for special elections.
You can reach out to upset Republicans. Remember, a lot of them crossed over in the midterms! Get them to feel good about being blue.
You can share your ideas below.
🌻
🍀 “My experience has been that work is almost
always the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.” 🍀
Eleanor Roosevelt
🔥 If you’re going through hell, keep going! 🔥
Winston Churchill
🌹 🌹 🌹
TRUTH MATTERS. LOVE MATTERS.