Ruminations
Welcome (back) to the Good News Roundup!
From the desk of our Mayor and founder:
Trump's Days in Power Are Numbered But The Real Battle For America Just Begins: Saturday's Good News
(3600 words, but the poems of Mary Oliver are images, and my method of counting does not include words in images.)
From the desk of chloris creator, our Friday diarist:
📜 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.
Who Won the Week?
As usual, I borrow the outstanding weekly news collection by Daily Kos’s favorite satirist, Bill in Portland Maine. The following 10 items appeared in his Who Won the Week? poll in Friday’s Cheers and Jeers. Please enjoy Bill’s on-point analysis and wit, vote in his poll, Rec his diary, get on his bandwagon, send him money, and earn his blessing.
Bill is still undergoing chemotherapy, as you already possibly know. During chemo he’s been posting on Monday, sometimes Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. His Friday poll now has almost 3100 votes. C&J archive and future editions here. Way more than 2 thanks to the incredible Willhelm von kosland!
- Federal Judge Jesse Furman, who struck down corrupt commerce secretary Wilbur Ross's attempt to weaponize the 2020 census against immigrants and communities of color by putting a citizenship question in it
- Democrat Laura Kelly, who was sworn in as the new Governor of Kansas, and will work to expand Medicaid, invest in education remove the stench of Sam Brownback's trickle-down economics failure
- Nancy Pelosi, for saving the lives of the president, the Supreme Court, and Congress by rescheduling the State of the Union due to lack of adequate security during the Trump Shutdown. Bonus: her poll numbers are soaring!
- The Supreme Court, for ruling unanimously that independent contractors who work in transportation may not be forced into mandatory arbitration, a huge win for labor rights
- Dallas Austin, Missy Elliott, Tom T. Hall, John Prine, Jack Tempchin and Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam), the latest inductees into the Songwriters Hall of Fame
- U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam, for blocking Trump administration rules allowing employers in 13 states to refuse to provide free birth control from taking effect because they violate the Affordable Care Act
- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), whose first speech from the House floor became C-SPAN’s most-viewed Twitter video of any House member---1.16 million views in 12 hours
- Federal Judge James Peterson of Wisconsin, for shooting down restrictions on early voting that state Republicans passed during the lame duck session and Gov. Scott Walker signed into law
- The Democratic-controlled New York state legislature, which passed bills OK'ing early voting and pre-registration for 16-and-17-year-olds, outlawed "ex-gay" conversion therapy, and added new transgender anti-discrimination protections
- The World Health Organization, for calling out the anti-vaxxer movement as one of the world's top 10 health threats for 2019
- Chef José Andrés, for opening a kitchen in D.C. to feed thousands of federal workers and families who are in need due to the Trump shutdown
Spoiler Alert! … 3 top items … Defocus your eyes … Nancy Pelosi rescheduled the State of the Union address 36%, Judge Furman protected immigrants and communities of color 16%, and Chef José Andrés opened a kitchen in D.C. to feed thousands of federal workers and families 16%.
From our comments …
Really, we have terrific comments every day.
Yesterday, FlamingBlue brought us a couple of pictures from their Women’s March:
Look, You Big Manbaby Wall
This episode of Handmaid's Tale sucks
And today, here’s Lilyshine!:
I read GNRU many more times than mentioned in your poll. Once when I first turn on the computer between 7 & 8 to hear the leaders, check back at lunch time to see what the herd is thinking, and then sometime in the evening to check on the stragglers. Three times a day, more or less. There’s almost always great reading every time I check. It’s good that I’m retired and can spend my time however I want to!
If you had a favorite comment in a Good News diary in the past week, please post it below. (The timestamp of any Daily Kos comment hides its unique URL.)
Tech Talk for iPhone users: Voting in Daily Kos polls on an iPhone!
From the comments, Done4nau wrote:
On an iPhone you need to go to the bottom of your page and there’s tiny grey printing that says View Full Site. Push that. It takes a minute of grinding, but you get to the area of the page you want. Then just move on down to the poll, enlarge to read, if necessary, and vote. To return to phone [print]* go to the < back sign punch once. It took me five years to learn that. [* I bracketed the word “print” because it did not make sense to me. Waiting for advice from Done4nau. -2t]
Thanks, Done4nau.
7 Days: 8 Gnus lead the herd:
This Week in Resisting:
In the past week, a group of Kosacks promoted the January 16 national holiday Religious Freedom Day. We posted about a dozen diaries this week. Here’s an archive: Religious Freedom Week 2019: A Retrospective.
One of the ways I’m resisting is my supporting the Black Kos Community diaries. I found this video of Kamala Harris’s speech at Netroots Nation in 2018. A commenter posted it in Friday’s Black Kos Community diary:
Black Kos posts diaries on Tuesdays and Fridays at 5 p.m. ET. You can find those diaries here.
How are YOU resisting, this week, next week, this year?
Gnus Do, Do You?
A Sunday Good Gnus Roundup is not much without you:
- What’s your take on Good News for our country?
- How are you resisting?
- How did you celebrate Religious Freedom Day?
- What are your tech questions?
That’s it for today. Others need more good news, so please give us your links and stories, and please make your own good news, and remember to tell us about it.
“Truth Matters. Love Matters.”
That’s how chloris creator concludes her Friday Roundups.
Power with, not power over,
2thanks
Previous Addenda: Fixed minor typos. Added Lilyshine’s comment. Edited title. Removed note about going back to bed.
Addendum: Tech Talk for iPhone users
