Welcome 😄 to Friday’s Roundup of Good News!
I admit I haven’t been watching or listening to every minute of the impeachment trial. I have decent excuses! I have a big project that will take up a lot of my time during the next couple of months. Yesterday I dropped and killed my phone, which is the device I usually use to listen to these events (the replacement should arrive next week).
I also admit that I was reluctant, because I expected to be depressed by the intransigence of the traitorous Rs. And at first I was, a little.
However, their complete stonewalling against witnesses and documents makes our job easier. The trial is a sham. Jury nullification. tRump has even boasted about it. tRump will not be convicted by this Senate, but he will not be exonerated.
In the meantime, the Ds — especially Adam Schiff and the other House managers — have been on fire. They are saying and resaying what must be said. The Rs are unable to bear it; many have been leaving the room.
And in the meantime we — when we are not watching — have to be supportive of our Ds, complain to the Rs, and work steadily towards winning the next election. And if you need to feel better about the country and what we are doing, go look what I’ve collected in the Beyond the Beltway section.
Some personal good news: for about 12 months, I was suffering from Menière’s, a condition with terrible episodes of vertigo and vomiting and predicted deafness, at least in one ear. Even when I wasn’t having an attack, I had to be concerned that an attack might come, and plan everything accordingly. Little driving. Little walking and often with a cane, in case the vertigo came. I stopped caffeine and alcohol altogether, and greatly reduced my salt intake.
But last summer the attacks kept happening. Despite my abstemious habits. Then I read that lactose and gluten could damage the gut. So I tried eliminating those. It turns out that gluten appears to be my true nemesis. I’ve had nearly three months without any symptoms of Menière’s (but in November I had pneumonia, so I wasn’t celebrating, but that was something else). I’m back on caffeine, a little more salt, and even one or two sips of alcohol. Oh, and milk doesn’t seem to be a problem. And I feel so much better!
Maybe I’m wrong to celebrate, and this is just a temporary remission, although I have tested and reacted very negatively to gluten twice after eliminating it. But it feels gone. There’s some permanent damage to the hearing in one ear, but it’s nothing like going completely deaf. No sense of wobbliness. If you know someone suffering from these symptoms, make this suggestion to them.
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 🐻
Do we really think Russia is still a threat? Absolutely. I’m convinced they’re swarming over Twitter. Why? Because I pointed out that Russians could be interfering, and that got more response than anything. Which is evidence that they are there.
In the meantime, here are some choice words about the impeachment trial, by EJ Dionne over at the Washington Post
Recall that when Democrats were debating whether to impeach President Trump last year, those opposed to the move argued there was no chance that Senate Republicans would remove him from office, committed as they are to marching off any cliff toward which the president directs them.
The fear was that Trump would inevitably tout acquittal in the Senate as vindication. He’d say that impeachment was, to use a word invoked over and over by his hapless lawyer Pat Cipollone on the Senate floor (because he had little of substance to say), “ridiculous.”
But #MidnightMitch, as the Senate leader was labeled by his Twitter critics, rode to the rescue. By working with Trump to rig the trial by admitting as little evidence as possible, McConnell robbed the proceeding of any legitimacy as a fair adjudication of Trump’s behavior.
Instead of being able to claim that Trump was “cleared” by a searching and serious process, Republican senators will now be on the defensive for their complicity in the Trump coverup.
And some more words from WaPo, offered by Max Boot
The beginning of the impeachment trial of President Trump made clear that Democrats have not only the stronger arguments but also the stronger arguers. The House impeachment managers did a masterful job on Tuesday of marshaling the evidence to argue that the Senate needs to hold a real trial complete with witnesses — something that, as they pointed out, has occurred in every previous impeachment trial in history. But knowing they may be stymied by a Senate majority intent on holding a show trial, they made their substantive arguments from the start — and they did so in a way that is likely to convince most voters if not most senators.
The impeachment managers especially shined during impromptu rebuttals. Former assistant attorney general Walter Dellinger joined a chorus of praise for Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.): “Schiff is not just good. Today is one of the most impressive performances by a lawyer I have ever seen.” But dazzling as Schiff was, he may have been matched by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). Responding to Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow’s question “Why are we here?”, Jeffries put on a master class in forensics. “We are here, sir, because President Trump corruptly abused his power and then he tried to cover it up,” he said, concluding with a quote from The Notorious B.I.G.: “And if you don’t know, now you know.” The only stumble so far was Rep. Jerrold Nadler’s (D-N.Y.) impolitic accusation that Republican senators were guilty of a “treacherous vote” and a “shameful coverup.” Even some Democratic senators said he had gone too far.
Trump’s lawyers were far worse. They played a bad hand badly. Admittedly, they are handicapped by the inescapable reality that their client is guilty as sin. They can’t seriously dispute that Trump wanted Ukraine to investigate former vice president Joe Biden — the president said as much from the White House lawn. They can’t even dispute that Trump held up military aid to Ukraine to pressure its government into doing what he wanted. Their only defense on the merits is to claim that the president wasn’t concerned with smearing a Democratic rival but with fighting corruption. But that’s an absurd argument to make given that Trump never mentioned fighting corruption in general during his two phone calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — and given that, as my Post colleague Catherine Rampell notes, he is trying to legalize bribery by American companies.
This diary at Daily Kos about tRump being propped up by Russia and Saudi Arabia is worth reading. I also looked over at Forensic News
A Russian government-controlled bank deposited at least half a billion dollars into the American subsidiary of Deutsche Bank around the time that the bank lent Trump his most scrutinized loans, according to exclusively obtained confidential bank records. As Trump received loans from the subsidiary, DBTCA, totaling over $360 million, Gazprombank sent $511 million in cash to DBTCA to be dispersed however the Russian bank directed. ✂️
Last month, a whistleblower named Val Broeksmit revealed to Forensic News he told the FBI that VTB underwrote the Trump loans, essentially guaranteeing a valve of money to Trump which DBTCA provided. Documents suggesting that Russian banks may have pumped $3 billion into DBTCA, which in turn handed $1 billion back to Russian bank VTB, support Broeksmit’s assertion that DBTCA was using Russian cash to finance some of its American operations.
Broeksmit shared an extensively detailed and confidential Deutsche Bank spreadsheet, characterized as a “breach report,” with Forensic News. These kinds of reports are triggered by a bank when its liabilities are greater than its assets. Broeksmit found the breach report in a cache of documents belonging to his father, who was an executive at DBTCA and Deutsche Bank, after he committed suicide in early 2014. Examining his father’s emails and files soon after his passing, Broeksmit reviewed the breach report which covered all liabilities of DBTC, the holding company for DBTCA, according to bank documents.
🐊 Draining the Swamp 🐊
There are so many scandals that it is hard to keep track of them, but certainly one of the first in the tRump era concerns the tRump inauguration. I am here to remind you that this is being investigated, now by DC. From Daily Kos.
Wolkoff’s concerns and warning via email to the Trumps—“These events are in [the president-elect’s] honor at his hotel and one of them is for family and close friends. Please take into consideration that when this is audited it will become public knowledge”—were not heeded. On Jan. 10, 2017, Trump’s inaugural committee agreed to a contract that would enrich the Trumps at a rate of $175,000 per day—more than twice the amount per day that Wolkoff told Ivanka and Rick Gates, the deputy to the inaugural chairman, should be paid—for the use of their own space. According to the lawsuit, the charges included rental fees for days when the Trumps weren’t throwing any events.
Donald has said he was too busy dealing with the transition to worry about the inauguration, and Ivanka has said she was only around for an initial meeting, but Racine has email receipts showing that Ivanka was very much privy to Wolkoff’s concerns.
The stories of financial fraud carried out by Trump and his inaugural committee have slowly dribbled out over the past couple of years. Big-ticket items are being investigated by federal prosecutors in New York, with subpoenas getting sent out as investigators try to figure out how all of this money, around $107 million from private “donors,” was being spent, and who was pocketing it.
The complaint asks that at least one million dollars be put into a trust and “be restored to a proper public purpose by directing the funds to another nonprofit entity dedicated to promoting civic engagement of the citizens of the United States of America.”
🐍 Schadenfreude 🍎
I have never been a great Bloomberg fan — to be honest, I didn’t really pay attention to him much — but I have been enjoying his ads. This one is great.
And I really like it because it will make the tRumps squirm.
💙 Democrats Are Great 🌊
Republicans 🐘 Got Nothing 👎
So this appeared on Thursday:
Gotta love those numbers!
BEYOND THE BELTWAY
Illinois reaches historic wage increase for home care workers Home Health Care News
In what is being called a historic step forward on the wage and labor front, the state of Illinois recently reached two contract agreements with SEIU Healthcare Illinois — covering 30,000 home care workers.
“After years of instability, I’m proud these contracts deliver good wages and good benefits to the people who offer this critical care,” Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a Democrat, said in a statement from his office.
Prior to the agreement, caregivers and health care professionals had been working without an updated contract through the entirety of former Governor Bruce Rauner’s administration. Pritzker officially took over for Rauner in January 2019.
Kentucky’s Governor Beshear working on prison reform WDRB
Beshear said the number of people being held in Kentucky's prisons, jails and other facilities has soared 40% since 2004 to nearly 24,000. And, Beshear said, that's nearly twice the number of people those places are designed to hold. Data provided by Beshear's office shows the estimated cost to maintain corrections operations will increase by an expected $115 million through fiscal year 2022.
"Year in and year out, the costs are going up," he said. "And they're going up at a level that is taking dollars away from important, critical needs like our children's education and health care."
At the same time, Beshear said, the state's facilities are crumbling, and many are improperly located. He said Kentucky hast lost nearly 1,300 medium security beds in the last four years due to crumbling infrastructure, 995 of which were at the Kentucky state reformatory.
"Criminal justice reform isn't just the right thing to do," he said. "But that we must do it based on our current reality and its impact on our budget."
I have no idea what he’ll do, but I bet it won’t be pardoning child rapists.
Governor Kelly set to expand Medicaid in Kansas WBUR
Kansas appears likely to become the 37th state to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, after years of Republican opposition.
The state’s Republican Senate majority leader and its Democratic governor struck a bipartisan deal earlier this month to open up the program to Kansas residents earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level, or $29,435 for a family of three.✂️
“Nothing is ever a done deal until the ink is dry,” she says. “But I am very optimistic that we will get this Medicaid expansion bill through the process and that it'll come out clean and simple to implement.”
Having a blue governor makes a difference! 150,000 people could get health care because of this!
Now, the next bit of news has me confused, because it’s in FL with an R governor, and not just any R governor, but a tRump loving governor, de Santis. Is it good news? Or is FL purchasing the acres from someone who donated to de Santis’s campaign or something?
??? So — Florida set to purchase 20,000 acres of wetlands to protect them from oil drilling Good News Network
If you know what’s going on here, let us know!
💙 Planned Parenthood finally ditches Susan Collins American Independent
Planned Parenthood on Tuesday endorsed a Democratic challenger to Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, saying Collins "turned her back" on women and citing her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court as well as other judicial nominees who oppose abortion.
Sara Gideon, speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, welcomed the endorsement from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. "There's never been a more important time to stand up for reproductive rights," she said, in the face of "systematic attacks on reproductive rights across the country."
Really, it’s long overdue.
💙 Arizona’s voter registration now partly automatic Talking Points Memo
Arizona: Arizona’s voter registration system is now partially automatic, thanks to settlement reached by Arizona’s newly elected Democratic secretary of state and voting rights groups who sued the state in 2018. Arizona was sued for failing to automatically update voters’ addresses on their voter registration when the voters updated their addresses at the DMV. Under the settlement, not only has that problem been fixed, but those who change their address with the DMV using the online portal will automatically be registered to vote if they weren’t already registered.
🌵 More good news from AZ as Navajos and Apaches working on voter registration Daily Kos
Navajo and Apache Tribal members are using new technology to systematically canvass their Reservations -- which are the size of West Virginia and Connecticut – to turn out the voters needed to defeat Trump and elect Mark Kelly to the U.S. Senate.
Without Arizona, Trump has no path to victory in the Electoral College.
Field teams on large Western reservations have been handicapped in the past because of a lack of addresses and geo-codes. They are used in off-Reservation areas to produce canvassing maps needed for effective door-to-door voter registration and get-out-the-vote work.
💙 Virginia to stop celebrating slave-owning traitors Wonkette
The Virginia Senate just voted to end the abomination that was Lee-Jackson Day. This was a state holiday commemorating Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. Both men fought on the asshole side of the Civil War. Lee enjoyed the holiday as a solo act starting in 1899. That was just 24 years after he surrendered at Appomattox, Virginia. "Stonewall" Jackson joined the party in 1904. In somewhat related news, the Virginia Senate is now led by Democrats. (Not the Civil War kind.)
Lee-Jackson Day was merely an insult to Virginia's black population until 1983, when it also became an exercise in pettiness. That's when the Virginia legislature merged the holiday with the new federal holiday for Martin Luther King, who neither owned slaves nor waged bloody war against the United States. It was billed as "Lee-Jackson-King Day" in supposed honor of "defenders of causes," one racist and treasonous, the other actually reflective of America at its best. This went on until 2000 when the two holidays were finally separated. Lee-Jackson Day was observed the Friday before MLK Day, so Virginians could kick off their four-day weekend with a Civil War-themed parade and a gala ball! Fiddle-dee-dee, Miss Scarlett! ✂️
Virginia will replace Lee-Jackson Day with a state holiday for Election Day. This is a vast improvement because we want to encourage people to vote, not own other people. Republicans in the state legislature had fought like hell over the years to keep the union of Lee-Jackson Day intact, but now their cause is truly lost. Republican Sen. Mark J. Peake argued for preserving Lee-Jackson Day in recognition of Virginia's "complicated history."
📣🏅 Let’s Honor Truth 🏅☀️
I am in awe of the behavior of Schiff and Schumer and the other Democrats. They have been so amazing that even the complete weasel Lindsay Graham has acknowledged it:
Graham was a House manager in Clinton’s impeachment, so he’s probably watching this with more interest than the others. He’s also attracted to power, and Schiff has exuded power. But Graham, of course, won’t turn on tRump.
And also, because Schiff, in his closing argument, said Truth matters.
Now, why do I want to honor Senator Schumer? Because being the minority leader is, in many ways, such a thankless job. Yet he goes out, day after day, to cry out the truth.
Finally, may Jim Lehrer, one of the news greats, rest in peace.
🌹 Let’s Celebrate Love ❤️
Stray dog helps children cross the street USA Today
Seriously, it barks at threatening cars and walks the kids across the street.
📎📎Odds & Ends 📎📎
Sometimes the good news is what didn’t happen. In 2019, Iceland hunted no whales for food Ecowatch
One of the most important global conservation events of the past year was something that didn't happen. For the first time since 2002, Iceland — one of just three countries that still allow commercial whaling — didn't hunt any whales, even though its government had approved whaling permits in early 2019.
Many people may think of whaling as a 19th-century industry in which men threw harpoons at their quarry by hand. But humans are still killing whales today in other ways. Thousands of whales are struck by ships, entangled in fishing lines, and harmed by ocean noise every year.
Madagascar has embarked on its most ambitious tree-planting drive yet, aiming to plant 60 million trees in the coming months. The island nation celebrates 60 years of independence this year, and the start of the planting campaign on Jan. 19 marked one year since the inauguration of President Andry Rajoelina, who has promised to restore Madagascar's lost forests.
"The government has the challenge of making Madagascar a green island again. I encourage the people to protect the environment and reforest for the benefit of the future generations," Rajoelina told the hundreds of people who attended the launch in Ankazobe district, 100 kilometers (60 miles) northwest of the capital, Antananarivo. In a span of a few hours, about 1 million trees were planted over 500 hectares (1,235 acres), according to the environment ministry — an area one-and-a-half times the size of New York City's Central Park.
Of course, one has to a lot more than just plant the trees. Sometimes the trees need help. But it’s a start.
💙 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.