Welcome 😄 to Friday’s Roundup of Good News!
A question has been asked in the roundups: how do we keep going when faced with so much horrible stuff? (I won’t list the horrible stuff; you can find it literally everywhere else.)
For me — and the answer may be different for you — it’s a balancing act. I don’t follow every piece of news, especially not the bad news. I don’t have the energy.
Instead, I find certain things on which to act and ways in which to fight. I write the GNR, which I believe is really important. When something is bothering me that the government can do something about, I contact my representatives and complain. When I am stateside, I do Postcards to Voters and I do a little freeway blogging. I financially support the causes in which I believe. I know lots of people here do lots more than I do, and I really admire all of you.
But there’s more to my life than politics. Family and friends. Getting outside. This past week we got the house painted (finally; it looks a million times better) and had some repairs; I got to kitten sit; I finished the first part of a big writing project and sent it to an agent.
So, in addition to fighting for the country and the planet, remember to do something kind for yourself and your friends. It may be something as simple as a tasty sandwich or your favorite TV show, or a walk among your favorite trees. This is a marathon, not a sprint.
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 🐻
🎩Hat tip to hpg for this tweet from yesterday:
Why is that a picture of Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York, who is really cool but who is not on any congressional committee? Because she has also been getting the information. From Talking Points Memo:
Investigators targeting President Trump’s financial and business history may have found a way around the White House’s blocking of congressional subpoenas, according to a Wall Street Journal report. ✂️
Letitia James – New York’s attorney general – has reportedly gotten information about loans to the Trump org, potentially offering a tantalizing view of the notoriously opaque group’s financial makeup. ✂️
James’ office’s investigation into the Trump Org has reportedly yielded emails, loan agreements, and other docs from Deutsche Bank. The same probe reportedly got information from a New Jersey regional bank regarding a 2010 mortgage on Trump Park Avenue.
Impeachment is already happening — it’s a process
Also, the House Sues to Enforce Subpoenas, especially for Don McGahn
The House Judiciary Committee filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking to enforce a subpoena it issued to former White House counsel Don McGahn, marking the first stage in a judicial battle between the legislative and executive branches over whether President Trump – or any sitting president – can be held accountable for alleged crimes committed while in office.
In the lawsuit – filed in D.C. federal court – the House writes that it “is now determining whether to recommend articles of impeachment against the President,” and refers to McGahn as its “most important witness.”
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), chair of the Judiciary Committee, issued a subpoena in April to McGahn in connection with a probe of whether President Trump obstructed justice during the Mueller investigation.
White House staffers think Trump visits to Dayton and El Paso were a disaster
“Does the White House think this visit went well, Maggie?” CNN host John Berman asked New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman on Thursday.
“No, they don’t,” Haberman replied. “Most people, while they would, I suspect, not say it publicly, will privately admit that yesterday was something of a debacle, that these were not the headlines they wanted to see.” ✂️
Haberman said that Trump “couldn’t stop watching” the news on Wednesday, which caused him to lash out at Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley (D), 2020 Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke, and various TV reporters on the same day he was supposed to focus on comforting the victims of the weekend’s deadly mass shootings and their families.
If these WH staffers are covering their hinies by leaking about how terrible Trump was, we know the optics were really, really bad.
Andrew McCabe sues DOJ over his removal
A day after former FBI counter-intel head Peter Strzok sued the Justice Department over his firing, former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe filed his own lawsuit Thursday alleging that his First Amendment and due process rights were violated in how the bureau removed him.
Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced in March 2018 that he was removing McCabe just as McCabe was about to become eligible for his retirement benefits.
McCabe alleged in the lawsuit that Sessions and other FBI officials deviated from procedures within the bureau in order to fire him, under pressure from President Trump.
🐊 Draining the Swamp 🐊
A method for attacking some of the hate-filled groups. The following is part of a transcript from the August 6, 2019 Rachel Maddow show. At this point she’s giving us a history lesson, back from the early 1980s. After the murder of Michael Donald, a young black man, not only were the killers apprehended, one given life, the other executed, but then a civil case followed, suing the Klan that had sponsored the white supremacist murderers. And they awarded the mother of Michael Donald $7 million.
MADDOW: The aim was dismantle whatever financial base the group has and to establish a precedent that can be used by other victims of Klan violence. That case did said a precedent that was used by other victims of Klan violence and other victims of white nationalist, white supremacist, neo Nazi violence.
As I said, it was a landmark case. But that kind of violence is something that never really seems to go away in this country, although, boy, does it have its peaks and its troughs.
Civil rights groups, particularly the Southern Poverty Law Center, which pioneered that technique, they went on to file a bunch of cases like this. Not just against individual criminals that carried out violent attacks because of their white nationalist, white supremacist ideology, but they filed these cases against the groups and the organizers that helped promote this ideology and spread it and that encouraged its violence.
The year after that Alabama case that handed Beulah Mae Donald the keys to the headquarters of the oldest Klan group in America, the year after that, it was a different case, it was a horrific case out of Portland, Oregon.
This technique may be used today. In the Maddow show, they discussed its applicability to the Gilroy shooting (even though the shooter is dead), to the Charlottesville murder (one guy may have killed Heather Heyer, and he’s in prison for life + 419 years) but the organization behind it — “Unite the Right” — could be taken down financially.
And here’s a current example:
A Montana judge has ordered the publisher of The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website, to pay $14 million for inciting his readers to bombard a Jewish woman and her family with threatening messages. U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen sided with real estate agent Tanya Gersh in her lawsuit against Andrew Anglin, the website’s founder, after he failed to appear for a deposition, The Missoulian reports. Anglin has been ordered to pay over $4 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages to Gersh. The findings echo an earlier order in July from a federal magistrate judge against Anglin. Gersh was doxxed by Anglin after he accused her of trying to run white nationalist Richard Spencer’s mother out of a resort town in Montana. Anglin is facing default judgments in at least three other federal cases.
💙 Democrats Are Great 🌊
Republicans 🐘 Got Nothing 👎
🎩Hat tip to this diary for making me aware of the following:
Make sure you look at the August 8 map.
Now, the animal picture for this GNR:
💙 Pelosi asks Trump to call back Senate for gun control
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote a letter to President Trump on Thursday asking him to use his Article II powers to call the Senate back into session — prematurely ending the August recess — in order to consider gun control legislation passed in the House.
The big picture: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has yet to bring a vote on two background check bills that passed the House over 5 months ago. After the El Paso and Dayton mass shootings, Trump publicly said that he would support background checks to prevent guns getting "into the hands of mentally unstable people with rage or hate." ✂️
The other side: McConnell said in a radio interview Thursday that he believes "nothing would happen" if he called the Senate back before its September return date, and that there needs to be "bipartisan discussions" when Congress returns. "If we do it prematurely it will just be another frustrating experience," he added.
💙 House Democrats seek missing Kavanaugh papers
Top Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday requested the production of documents from Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanugh’s tenure as a White House lawyer. They pointed specifically to materials that were either withheld or not requested by the Senate during Kavanaugh’s confirmation fight.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), who chairs the Judiciary subcommittee overseeing the courts, sent the request to National Archives and Records Administration.
💛 Mike Turner, R from Dayton, suddenly backs some gun control
The Republican congressman who represents Dayton is calling for several gun control measures after nine were killed in a mass shooting there Sunday.
Rep. Mike Turner said Tuesday he backs a ban on sales of military-style guns, magazine limits and "red flag" legislation to identify dangerous individuals and remove their firearms.
Turner has an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association and last year earned the organization's support for opposing a ban on semi-automatic firearms, commonly called "assault weapons."
BEYOND THE BELTWAY
💙 Governor Whitmer for some gun control measures in MI 🚗
Governor Gretchen Whitmer says it’s possible to support the Second Amendment and be in favor of gun control, and she wants the state Legislature to act in the wake of the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. ✂️
Whitmer says she supports a so-called “red flag” bill currently in the state House. It would allow law enforcement to take a person’s firearms if there is proof the person could harm themselves or others. ✂️
Whitmer also suggested there should be restrictions or possibly a state ban on assault rifles. She says such restrictions would not undermine a right to hunt or protect yourself.
💙 🌻 🌈 Governor Kelly working at protecting LGBTQ foster kids
TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas' child welfare agency has drafted guidelines urging foster parents to allow LGBTQ kids in their care to "express themselves as they see themselves," riling conservatives a little more than a year after the state granted legal protections to faith-based adoption agencies that do not place children in LGBTQ homes.
The Department for Children and Families issued draft "guidance" for "prudent parenting" in mid-July, six months after Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly took office. It said foster homes should recognize LGBTQ children "by their preferred identity if it differs from their sex assigned at birth."
Conservatives read the document as a policy directive for reshaping foster families' lives and an attempt to skirt a 2018 law that Kelly doesn't like for protecting faith-based adoption agencies. It's a sharp break in tone with that law, which prevents the state from barring agencies from providing services if they refuse to place children in homes violating their religious beliefs.
💙 New Mexico Governor Grisham plans summit on domestic terrorism
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) – New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham will be convening a summit to discuss ways to reduce the risk of domestic terrorist acts in the wake of the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas.
The first-year governor announced Monday that she’ll bring together state legislative leaders from both political parties as well as public safety officials from within her administration.
New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas also has been invited, and federal authorities are expected to give a briefing during the summit.
The event is scheduled for Aug. 14.
💙 Illinois Governor Pritzker helping more people get better health care
CHICAGO, Ill. (KFVS) - Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signs Medicaid expansion, elimination of application backlogs and increased transparency in the state of Illinois on Monday, Aug. 5.
“In the past few years, Illinois has seen too many people who qualify for health care coverage needlessly knocked off the system and unable to get medical care,” said Gov. Pritzker. “Health care is a right for all, not a privilege. Today we are making sure taxpayers are getting more of what they’re paying for, and we are advancing health care for vulnerable people who need it most.”
The bicameral, bipartisan bill enables key state agencies, including Department of Aging, Department of Healthcare and Family Service, Department of Human Services and Department of Innovation and Technology, to lead efforts in Illinois to expand access to health care for low-income Illinoisans. Since Pritzker has taken office there has been a twenty percent reduction in Medicaid application backlogs.
💙 Orange County has truly flipped…
California’s Orange County, a longtime Republican stronghold, has now flipped to become majority-Democrat.
The Orange County Register reported on Wednesday that the number of Democrats in the county has surpassed that of Republicans for the first time since 1978.
According to the Register, there are now 547,458 registered Democrats versus 547,369 registered Republicans.
The Rs and the Ds give different explanations. The Rs say that their folks are moving away, while the Ds say that people are disgusted by Trump. Both are possible...
🐍 Schadenfreude 🍎
Founder of Students for Trump pleads guilty to wire fraud
Scamming other students into voting for Trump didn’t have enough of a payoff, so he stole $45,000…
NY Daily News
“The founder of Students for Trump pleaded guilty Tuesday to running a $46,000 scam in which he posed as a lawyer and gave legal advice.
John Lambert, 23, created a website for a fake law firm called Pope & Dunn and claimed to be Eric Pope, a graduate of NYU Law School with a finance degree from the University of Pennsylvania and 15 years of experience in corporate and patent law, prosecutors said….
...“John Lambert represented himself to clients as a prominent New York attorney with a law degree from an elite law school. But Lambert’s de facto career was one of a grifter: he had never been to law school and certainly wasn’t an attorney. Today, Lambert admitted to his crimes and faces time in prison for his misdeeds," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said...
📣🏅 Let’s Honor Truth 🏅☀️ ️
I really hoped that Beto O’Rourke would get push Ted Cruz out of the Senate. I’ve been less enthusiastic about him as a presidential candidat. But I’ve got to give him the truth medal this week for calling out the media.
O’Rourke’s full response:
What do you think? You know the shit he’s been saying. He’s been calling Mexican immigrants racists and criminals. I don’t know, like, members of the press, what the fuck? Hold on a second. You know I, it’s these questions that you know the answer to. I mean, connect the dots about what he’s been doing in this country. He’s not tolerating racism, he’s promoting racism. He’s not tolerating violence, he’s inciting racism and violence in this country. So, you know, I just, I don’t know what kind of question that is.
Will this response make the media stop to connect those racist dots that have been staring them in the face for three years? Probably not. But it needed to be said, and more Democrats need to be saying it.
I want to give a second medal to a second Texan, in this case Joaquin Castro, who published a list of maxed-out Trump donors in the San Antonio area. Now, this isn’t all that hard to do, as the information is public.
WHAT THIS ISN'T: Doxxing. It just isn't. Yes, those FEC databases are very big and take some time to sift through, but public information, even sifted through and filtered, is still public information.
WHAT THIS ISN'T: Inciting violence. We understand that conservatives have agreed to collectively shit the bed in maniacal fear over their imaginary threat of the Antifa that lives underneath each and every one of their beds, but that doesn't mean their fears are valid or that the monsters who populate their wet fever dreams actually exist.
WHAT THIS IS: Well, we do agree that it falls under the category of naming and shaming! And people in San Antonio -- and tourists to that great city! -- are free to vote with their dollars and choose not to patronize places owned by some of the business owners listed above, or choose not to do business with companies led by some of the CEOs above. (Remember, we are talking about donors who have already maxed out to Trump. As much as conservatives would like to act like it is, this is not a case of "Mabel gonna get fired from the Old Navy because now her coworkers know she attended the Unite The Right Rally in Charlottesville financially supports a white supremacist who incites violence and inspires mass shootings, and that makes Mabel a bad person." (It does make Mabel a bad person.)
Finally, to my surprise, Joe Scarborough has to be acknowledged
🌹 Let’s Celebrate Love ❤️
Ruben Martinez and his mother, Rose Gandarilla, of El Paso
An 11-year-old boy from El Paso saw his community grieving after Saturday's mass shooting and wanted to find a way to help them heal. He and his mother started the "El Paso Challenge," a social media campaign to encourage people to give back and spread kindness.
Rose Gandarilla shared a photo of her son, Ruben, on Twitter, along with a photo of his plan for the El Paso Challenge. The purpose: honor the people killed in their city. The plan: challenge each person in El Paso to do 20 [22] good deeds.
I know this was mentioned in an earlier GNR, but I think it still deserves the place in the celebration of love today.
📎📎Odds & Ends 📎📎
🌻 Oil and gas rigs could be used to store CO2
Rather than spending millions of dollars to decommission oceanic oil and gas rigs, new research suggests that they could be used to combat the climate crisis.
A new study from the University of Edinburgh says that North Sea oil and gas rigs could be modified to pump vast quantities of carbon dioxide emissions into rocks below the seabed.
The researchers say that refitting old platforms to act as pumping stations for self-contained CO2 storage sites would be 10 times cheaper than decommissioning the structures.
👀 Stare down a seagull to keep it from stealing your food 👀
There's nothing that ruins a sunset walk on the boardwalk like a flock of greedy seagulls circling your funnel cake. Before you start to imagine yourself under attack in a sea of Hitchcock-esque pecks and flapping wings, remember that science has your back. New research has a strategy for protecting your food next time you're at the beach. Just give them your best death stare.
🌳 Increasing tree cover in cities can improve health by 33%
This exciting new Australian study has found that communities with a healthy amount of tree cover—not just grass and green space—were psychologically healthier than those that didn’t.
Specifically, people in urban areas have a lower risk of developing psychological distress and better overall health if they have more trees within a walkable distance from their homes, says the study from the University of Wollongong (UOW).
In neighborhoods with a tree canopy of 30% or more, adults had 31% lower odds of developing psychological distress, and 33% lower odds of rating their general health as “fair” or “poor” over six years.
👂 Researchers make progress that may reverse “irreversible” deafness
Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine may have just found the key to restoring hearing in people with irreversible deafness.
Using genetic tools in mice, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine say they have identified a pair of proteins that precisely control when sound-detecting cells, known as hair cells, are born in the mammalian inner ear. A report on the proteins was published in eLife.
“Scientists in our field have long been looking for the molecular signals that trigger the formation of the hair cells that sense and transmit sound,” says Dr. Angelika Doetzlhofer, associate professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “These hair cells are a major player in hearing loss, and knowing more about how they develop will help us figure out ways to replace hair cells that are damaged.”
💙 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. 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.
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.