Welcome 😄 to Friday’s Roundup of Good News!
This is a strange time. Compared to most, I know have it really easy. The house is large enough so that my husband and I can stay out of each other’s way, but because we have each other, we also have company when we need it.
I’m doing things I should have before, like cleaning out my file cabinets. I don’t need to keep all the bank statements from an account I closed 10 years ago. Nor do I need ancient boarding passes!
We’ve been eating strange things. Many years ago, the mother of one of my husband’s students gave me an eclectic assortment of goodies when her son got his PhD, including a jar of vegetable tapenade. I couldn’t find the expiration date — it would have frightened me anyway — so we dumped it in with mushrooms and leftover chicken. It didn’t make us sick, and was actually tasty.
Still, anxiety remains. Usually I can concentrate, but fear sometimes seizes me. Much of my concern is selfish. How likely am I to get this virus? I’m an actuary, so I can’t help trying to assess my risk. I had a BCG shot many years ago, but after more than five decades, does that even matter? There’s some evidence that people with blood type A do worse; darn it, I’m A-! I’m female, which seems to work in my favor, but what about my husband, who is male? Hey, what if we both had it and we just don’t know?
There’s also the frustration that the data are so bloody poor, that we know we don’t know what’s going on. And my friends — many who are older than I am, some who are in assisted living facilities — friends I cannot visit at the moment — how are they?
But I will get the virus — or I will not. If I get it, I will survive — or I will die. If I die, well, the world won’t be my problem anymore. But if I do survive (or never get the virus), I want to make the world a better place. So that’s the mental place where I spend most of my time.
I know you want the world to be better, too. Come on in and see what we and our friends are doing, then — to paraphrase oldhippiedude — stay home and make a difference yourself. Because we’re going to take this country back, and we’re going to kick some butts.
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 👎
This ad is terrific:
And if you’re worried about tRump trying to stay after we vote him out:
Remember, tRump may be a bully — but he is also a sniffing snivelling coward.
Oh, and that May 1st deadline for reopening the country? Even business owners (who also don’t want to die) are not supportive. Washington Post
Biden is getting help from unexpected sources in delivering his message [The message is about tRump’s incompetence]. Trump tried to get business leaders to hawk his May 1 deadline, but instead heard precisely the opposite: The key to restarting the economy is ramping up testing and contact tracing. The Post reports, “President Trump’s attempt to enlist corporate executives in a push to reopen parts of society amid the coronavirus pandemic got off to a rocky start Wednesday, with some business leaders complaining the effort was haphazard and warning that more testing needs to be in place before restrictions are lifted.” Oops. (This would fall under the category of never asking questions one does not know the answer to.)
tRump’s attempts to look strong backfire and make him look foolish Maddow Blog
NBC News reported:
President Donald Trump threatened Wednesday to adjourn Congress so he can unilaterally install nominees to federal positions that he said are pertinent to the coronavirus crisis, an unprecedented move that critics likened to a dictatorship. Trump said the Senate should either approve his nominees or adjourn so he can "recess appoint" them.
✂️ Trump added, "Perhaps it's never been done before. Nobody's even sure if it has. But we're going to do it."
Let's clarify a few things. When Trump said "nobody's even sure" if a president has tried to adjourn Congress, that's not true: we are sure that it's never happened. As a Roll Call report noted, the Republican was pointing to a constitutional power that has "never been used in the history of the republic."
What's more, when he said he and his team are "going to do it," that was wrong, too. The explanation gets a bit technical, but Politico had a helpful overview explaining why -- as a procedural matter -- Trump wouldn't be able to pull off such a stunt, even if he wanted to. Politico called the very idea "absurd."
Remember how tRump claimed he was going to reopen the country? Now he’s leaving it to the governors Washington Post
The White House released new guidance late Thursday afternoon for states to reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic, leaving the decisions up to governors to make on a statewide or county-by-county level.
The guidance, which will be formally announced during a 6 p.m. news conference, doesn’t lay out a specific timeline for relaxing social distancing restrictions. It lists a set of criteria — such as testing and hospital capacity — for state leaders to use in making their decisions.
On a conference call earlier Thursday, Trump told governors, “You’re going to call your own shots,” according to a recording of the call obtained by The Washington Post. But he emphasized that the federal government will support the states.
Some news on Russia… they’re always interfering (like that operation gridlock over in Michigan, which smells like Russia...)
🐊 Draining the Swamp 🐊
Really, really, really hope this happens.
💙 Democrats Are Great 🌊
Republicans 🐘 Got Nothing 👎
It’s time to do what we can to Get Out the Vote! Think it doesn’t matter? This is a post-morten on the Wisconsin election, writtten by Hunter, one of the front pagers, brought to our attention in a comment by Jeremy Moses in Thursday’s GNR. Daily Kos
That said, there's still some interesting tidbits to be gleaned from the Wisconsin effort, in which liberal Jill Karofsky wiped the floor with archconservative Republican State Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly in Kelly's reelection bid. That Wisconsin's suburbanites are moving against Trumpian Republicans, as they have through the rest of the nation, seems uncontested. But it also seems that the push by the state's GOP lawmakers and Republican-dominated Supreme Court to hold in-person voting during a genuine crisis may have backfired. ✂️ Both [newspapers] suggest Democratic get-out-the-vote-by-mail efforts were more substantive and effective than the Republican counterparts.
But this is especially important because, as the Times notes, Wisconsin Republicans recently forced onerous new restrictions on absentee ballots in the state. To request a mailed ballot, a voter now has to upload a copy of their photo ID; to return one, the ballot must be signed by a witness.
How does a voter make a copy of their photo ID? How does a voter upload that photo to a specific website? Who troubleshoots it, if it doesn't work? How do you even get to the website you're supposed to be using?
All of these steps impose a technology tax on voters. You need a smartphone, or a computer and scanner. You need enough savvy to know how to both take the picture and send it. It is not a given that all Americans will know how to do that, but poorer Americans are less likely to own the technology required—and elderly Americans, far more conservative than younger counterparts, are less likely to know how to do each step.
The Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts, says the Times, "were often conducted through one-on-one video calls" as volunteers walked through the process with individual voters. The Republican side ... didn't.
This is a reminder of how well VP Biden did during the last economic crisis Mother Jones
Throughout the bruising 2020 Democratic primary, Biden’s liberal competitors and critics have fixated on Senator Biden, the foreign policy–savvy career politician whose past opposition to busing and abortion put him out of step with his party’s base—as did his kid-glove handling of corporate America, most often vilified through his support of the 2005 bankruptcy bill that sided with companies over consumers. Those same detractors also hammer the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act itself: The stimulus package signed by President Obama was too small, it made its way to hurting workers too slowly.
But when it comes to Vice President Biden and his role in that recovery, the critiques largely cease. Obama tasked Biden with overseeing the stimulus and pulling the country out of recession—a position that added merit to Biden’s folksy, middle class ethos. By all accounts, what he oversaw succeeded: The Recovery Act jumpstarted what would become the longest uninterrupted stretch of economic growth in US history, and an analysis from its oversight board found that, by the end of 2011, only 0.001 percent of the nearly $800 billion spent was ever attributed to waste or fraud. And it was successful because, according to those who knew him, Biden was an adept manager who set the tone and surrounded himself with the right people to ensure oversight ran smoothly.
“Biden’s role as vice president was much more positive than his role as a senator from Delaware,” says Jeff Hauser, founder of the left-leaning Revolving Door Project, who has been critical of Biden’s ties to Wall Street. “I do think he did a good job running the Recovery Act. He was very focused on avoiding scandals, and he succeeded.”
💙 A reminder that the Ds are the good guys
Nancy Pelosi is terrific. You know I think that. This is her truths are self-evident declaration of what is going in this pandemic.
In order to move forward, we must first understand the truth of what has put us in this position:
- The truth is that Donald Trump dismantled the infrastructure handed to him which was meant to plan for and overcome a pandemic, resulting in unnecessary deaths and economic disaster.
- The truth is that in January Donald Trump was warned about this pandemic, ignored those warnings, took insufficient action and caused unnecessary death and disaster.
- The truth is that Donald Trump told his most loyal followers that the pandemic was a hoax and that it would magically disappear, thus endangering lives and paving the way for economic disaster.
- The truth is that we did not have proper testing available in March despite Trump repeatedly claiming that we did; and even now, we do not have adequate tests, masks, PPE, and necessary equipment, which creates unnecessary death and suffering.
- The truth is because of an incompetent reaction to this health crisis, the strong economy handed to Donald Trump is now a disaster, causing the suffering of countless Americans and endangering lives.
- The truth is a weak person, a poor leader, takes no responsibility. A weak person blames others.
The truth is, from this moment on, Americans must ignore lies and start to listen to scientists and other respected professionals in order to protect ourselves and our loved ones.
BEYOND THE BELTWAY
Governors are working together:
Some sense out of Texas! ? !
This Wisconsin town figured out how to conduct an election during a pandemic Mother Jones
Three weeks before thousands of Wisconsinites were forced to trudge to polling places on April 7 in spite of a statewide “safer-at-home” order, Paul Boening, the village manager of suburban Whitefish Bay, had already concluded that this wasn’t going to be a normal election. On March 16, Boening and the village board met to make a plan for the burgeoning public health crisis, and decided that access to public buildings would be shut down the next day. On that last day the village administration office was open, he says, the vast majority of residents stopping by were there for the same reason: They wanted to fill out an application for a mail ballot.
The in-person interest convinced Boening and the board to look ahead and automatically send each of the town’s roughly 10,000 registered voters an absentee ballot application. “We wanted to be proactive,” he told Mother Jones on Tuesday. “We didn’t want to get into a situation where we were a day or two from the election and there were a number of residents still scrambling tying to figure out how to get a ballot, or for us to be able to get them one in time.” ✂️
Whitefish Bay was one of seven smaller communities north of Milwaukee—all in Milwaukee County—that sent out a joint letter urging people to apply for a mail ballot. While final figures aren’t yet known, at least one of the other communities that joined the push, North Shore village, also saw a huge returns on the effort, with 59 percent of registered voters there voting via mail ballot, according to the Journal Sentinel. Boening estimates that “just a few hundred” voters ended up voting in person on April 7 in Whitefish Bay.
And Michigan, with thanks to hpg, who has a black belt in Twitter:
Now for some polls...
And some good news in North Carolina!
And in Kentucky: Louisville Courier-Journal (I delivered this paper when I was in high school)
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is breaking fundraising records for the 2020 reelection, but the GOP chief continues to be surpassed by would-be Democratic challenger Amy McGrath.
McConnell's money machine didn't let a global pandemic stop it from raking in $7.4 million during the first quarter, which is his largest haul during a three-month period since coming to Washington in 1985. ✂️
But McGrath busted McConnell's bubble when her campaign told The Courier Journal the retired Marine fighter pilot raised a whopping $12.8 million during the same period.
This is nice too… 😄
🐍 Schadenfreude 🍎
Roger Stone is still guilty!
📣🏅 Let’s Honor Truth 🏅☀️ ️
One difficult thing these days is not knowing the truth about the effects of the coronavirus. Part of this is completely understandable. The virus is new, and some unknowns still can’t be known yet. We don’t know if people acquire immunity. We know some of the details about who is susceptible, but there’s a lot we still don’t know. So here’s a part of the transcript from the Tuesday, April 14 “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
MADDOW: This was the headline out of KOKI dateline, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, today. Oklahoma nursing home hit with 45 positive COVID-19 cases.
This is rural Wayne, West Virginia, which is about a half hour south of Huntington, West Virginia. Right now, the city of Wayne has 67 confirmed cases of coronavirus. Of those 67 cases, 66 of them come from a single nursing home.
This is the headline in Richmond, Virginia, today. A long-term care facility there has had 45 of its residents die from coronavirus. It’s one of the deadliest outbreaks anywhere in the country. The medical director there calling nursing homes, quote, “a virus’ dream.”
Richmond, Virginia. Oklahoma. Wayne, West Virginia – this is not a regional problem. No regional problem would affect those places alone. This is not a sort of hot spots only sort of issue. It’s now shaping up clearer and clearer every day.
The medal honoring truth this week goes to all those people — often at local newspapers and other local media outlets — working to get the truth out to the rest of us, especially when others (R governors and many in the federal government) are doing what they can to quash this information. We thank you.
🌹 Let’s Celebrate Love ❤️
Two stories that show that some people really understand “love your neighbor like yourself...”
Iowa donor gives away 82K of giftcards to local businesses Good News Network
An anonymous donor is being praised for giving away more than $82,000 in food-related gift cards to every single household in a small Iowa town.
Amidst the COVID-19 shutdowns, the residents of Earlham—a city 30 miles west of downtown Des Moines with a population of 1,450 people—have been struggling to cope with shuttered businesses and social restrictions.
That’s why Earlham Mayor Jeff Lillie was astonished to receive a call from a friend in late March saying that an unidentified benefactor wanted to pump some money into the local economy by giving away gift cards to local businesses.
There’s also this New Orleans grocery store owner (Burnell Cotlon) who is trying to sustain his community PBS NewsHour
I have one of my favorite customers. She's a grandmother. She has three grandkids. She came into my store. She had her grandkids with her. And she got — I will never forget this — a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, some baloney, and a couple of candy bars.
When she went to swipe her card, she didn't have enough. And she broke into tears and cried.
What I did — I know I shouldn't have, but I'm going to go ahead and admit it. I came from behind my cash register and I went around and I gave her a hug.
I — I immediately got a notepad, and I started a journal. And I wrote down her name and the amount of money that she was short. So, I started my ledger. And it hurts. It hurts, because it caused me to be a little bit behind on my own personal bills.
📎📎Odds & Ends 📎📎
Mutant enzyme to the rescue! Ecowatch
Scientists have engineered a mutant enzyme that converts 90 percent of plastic bottles back to pristine starting materials that can then be used to produce new high-quality bottles in just hours. The discovery could revolutionize the recycling industry, which currently saves about 30 percent of PET plastics from landfills, reported Science Magazine. ✂️
The mutant enzyme broke down 90% of 200 grams of PET in a small reactor in just 10 hours. Different colors didn't matter because the enzyme can ignore dyes and other plastics in the molten mix. The researchers were able to use the resultant chemical building blocks to produce new PET and food-grade plastic bottles that were just as strong as those made from virgin plastics, reported Science Magazine.
"It's a real breakthrough in the recycling and manufacturing of PET," said Dr. Saleh Jabarin, a member of Carbios' scientific committee in a company statement about the discovery. "Thanks to the innovative technology developed by Carbios, the PET industry will become truly circular, which is the goal for all players in this industry, especially brand-owners, PET producers and our civilization as a whole."
☀️ Newly developed solar cell sets world records for efficiency Good News Network
Scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have fabricated a solar cell with an efficiency of nearly 50%.
For perspective, the average solar cell has an efficiency rate of 15% to 20%, meaning it’s capable of converting just a small fraction of absorbed sunlight into electricity.
The newly-developed six-junction solar cell, however, now holds the world record for the highest solar conversion efficiency at 47.1%, which was measured under concentrated illumination. A variation of the same cell also set the efficiency record under one-sun illumination at 39.2%.
Rare Stonehenge photo shows the ancients understood Lego principles before Lego did
Sixth week of my scrap garden:
💙 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 Republicans who are distressed. 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.