Welcome 🎃 to Friday’s Roundup of Good News!
Most readers are familiar with the Great Pumpkin. Linus, from the cast of Charlie Brown, spends the night of Hallowe’en waiting for the Great Pumpkin to appear. What exactly the Great Pumpkin is supposed to do, I don’t recall — or perhaps it was never clear? [Update from DoctorStrange: the Great Pumpkin brings goodies to the kids with the most sincere pumpkin patches.] At any rate the Great Pumpkin never comes. Perhaps Charles M. Schulz borrowed from Waiting for Godot.
We all know who, or rather what, in recent politics, most resembles a pumpkin, at least in color. This entity promised plenty, but it never made good. Well, it did promise hatred and divisiveness and favors for friends, and those were promises it kept.
The gnusies are not like this. We don’t fall for false promises. We do try to focus on the positive, because so often that gets ignored, and because the positive cheers us. We move ahead wherever we can, instead of waiting for a fairy tale. (Contact all your rep and your sens to tell them to pass BBB; don’t wait.)
Come in, dear gnusies, and see what wonderful things our friends — and we — are doing.
Regular Scheduled Programming
No one here is naïve; we are aware of the many who are fighting to destroy our country. 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. 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.
🗽 Biden as President!🗽
Biden, Harris and their administration have been hard at work. Here are the last week’s posts at the White House briefing room.
- Thursday, October 28, 2021: Remarks by President Biden Announcing the Framework for His Build Back Better Agenda and Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill
- Thursday, October 28, 2021: Statement by NSC Spokesperson Emily Horne on the United States Providing Humanitarian Assistance to the People Affected by the Ongoing Humanitarian Crisis in Afghanistan
- Thursday, October 28, 2021: Statement by President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. on the International Response to Events in Sudan
- Thursday, October 28, 2021: Build Back Better Framework
- Thursday, October 28, 2021: President Biden Announces the Build Back Better Framework
- Wednesday, October 27, 2021: ASEAN-U.S. Leaders’ Statement on Digital Development
- Wednesday, October 27, 2021: Nominations Sent to the Senate
- Wednesday, October 27, 2021: President Biden Announces Four New Nominees to Serve as U.S. Attorneys
- Wednesday, October 27, 2021: Statement by Vice President Kamala Harris Three Years After the Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting
- Wednesday, October 27, 2021: President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Approves Virginia Disaster Declaration
- Wednesday, October 27, 2021: Readout of President Biden’s Participation in the East Asia Summit
- Wednesday, October 27, 2021: Readout of White House Meeting with Leaders of Civil Rights Groups on Police Reform
- Wednesday, October 27, 2021: Statement by NSC Spokesperson Emily Horne on National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s Meeting with Ibrahim Kalin, Spokesperson and Chief Advisor to the President of Turkey
- Wednesday, October 27, 2021: Remarks by President Biden at Grassroots Event with Terry McAuliffe
- Wednesday, October 27, 2021: Statement by President Joe Biden Three Years After the Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting
- Tuesday, October 26, 2021: Statement by Press Secretary Jen Psaki on the President and Vice President’s Meeting with the CBC, CHC, CAPAC, Equality Caucus, and Women’s Caucus on the Build Back Better Act
- Tuesday, October 26, 2021: Fact Sheet: Private Sector Leaders Are Stepping Up to Welcome Afghans
- Tuesday, October 26, 2021: Readout of Private Sector Roundtable on Operation Allies Welcome
- Tuesday, October 26, 2021: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, October 26, 2021
- Tuesday, October 26, 2021: President Biden Announces Key Nominations
- Tuesday, October 26, 2021: Remarks by President Biden at the Annual U.S.-ASEAN Summit
- Tuesday, October 26, 2021: Readout of President Biden’s Participation in the U.S.-ASEAN Summit
- Tuesday, October 26, 2021: Fact Sheet: New Initiatives to Expand the U.S.-ASEAN Strategic Partnership
- Monday, October 25, 2021: Statement by NSC Spokesperson Emily Horne on National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s Meeting with Burmese NUG Representatives
- Monday, October 25, 2021: Fact Sheet: Biden Administration Releases Additional Detail for Implementing a Safer, More Stringent International Air Travel System
- Monday, October 25, 2021: Remarks by Vice President Harris During a Meeting on Climate Change
- Monday, October 25, 2021: Remarks by President Biden on Build Back Better and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal
- Monday, October 25, 2021: Notice on the Continuation of the National Emergency with Respect to The Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Monday, October 25, 2021: Letter to Congress on the Continuation of the National Emergency with Respect to The Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Monday, October 25, 2021: Background Press Call by Senior Administration Officials on COVID-19 and International Air Travel Policy
- Monday, October 25, 2021: A Proclamation on Advancing the Safe Resumption of Global Travel During the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Monday, October 25, 2021: Press Gaggle by Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre En Route Newark, NJ
- Monday, October 25, 2021: Remarks by President Biden Before Air Force One Departure
- Sunday, October 24, 2021: Readout of the President’s Breakfast Meeting with Leader Schumer and Senator Manchin
- Saturday, October 23, 2021: President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Approves Mississippi Disaster Declaration
- Friday, October 22, 2021: Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies on the Temporary Certification Regarding Disclosure of Information in Certain Records Related to the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
- Friday, October 22, 2021: Readout of National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s Meeting with Secretary for Strategic Affairs Gustavo Beliz of Argentina
- Friday, October 22, 2021: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki, October 22, 2021
- Friday, October 22, 2021: Readout of White House Meeting with Black Leaders of Civil Rights Organizations on Police Reform
- Friday, October 22, 2021: Press Briefing by White House COVID-19 Response Team and Public Health Officials
- Friday, October 22, 2021: Readout of President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.’s Call with President Emmanuel Macron of France
- Friday, October 22, 2021: Memorandum for the Secretary of State on Unexpected Urgent Refugee and Migration Needs
- Friday, October 22, 2021: A Proclamation on United Nations Day, 2021
- Friday, October 22, 2021: Fact Sheet: National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality
- Friday, October 22, 2021: Remarks by President Biden in a CNN Town Hall with Anderson Cooper
🎃A few days ago, I bought a pumpkin. Instead of carving it to make a jack-o-lantern, I chopped into small bits, sprinkled some olive oil and roasted some of those bits in the oven (the rest are in the freezer). They’re actually really yummy once they’re caramelized.
👎 Out with the Bad, In with3 the Good 👍
🎃Merck, which has a promising treatment (not a vaccine, a treatment) for covid, will license production around the world. Scott Neumann NPR
U.S.-based pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. said it will license drugmakers worldwide to produce its potentially lifesaving antiviral pill for treatment of COVID-19 in adults.
The drug, known as molnupiravir, has shown promise in treating the disease, and the agreement to license its production could help millions of people in the developing world gain access to it.
This is so important for the less developed countries. Also Merck is trying to charge far too much money for it. (Get the vax, folks, but yes, this is the choir.)
🎃Found this earlier in the week, and in my book, it’s a win-win-win. The public is protected, and the bad cops — and most of these are bad cops — are taken out of power. Oh, and I expect these quitters won’t be getting UI, either.
🎃And in NYC...
🎃Improvements at ICE? At least in priorities? Nick Miroff and Maria Sacchetti Washington Post
Immigration arrests in the interior of the United States fell in fiscal 2021 to the lowest level in more than a decade — roughly half the annual totals recorded during the Trump administration, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data obtained by The Washington Post. ✂️
ICE officials say the number of serious criminals being arrested has increased, however. Between Feb. 18 and Aug. 31, officials said, ICE arrested 6,046 individuals with aggravated felony convictions, compared with 3,575 in the same period in 2020.
The agency also pointed to the arrest of 363 sex offenders during a targeted operation this summer, compared with 194 during that period the previous year. Nearly 80 percent of these offenses involved child victims, ICE said.
Note that immigration policies never please everyone, but this seems as if ICE has improved its priorities.
🎃 If you’re a moose in Alaska, pumpkins can be a treat!
💣 Republicans in Disarray 💣
🎃What Rs say when they think they’re alone Evan Hurst Wonkette
Under the bold heading "OVERHEARD OF THE WEEK," Playbook reports that GOP Reps. Ann Wagner of Missouri and Michael McCaul of Texas were sitting around last Thursday at the Sonoma Restaurant and Wine Bar on Capitol Hill, and somebody said something to Wagner about ...
Standing by the bar, a person in their group asked about redistricting in Missouri and said he hoped Wagner gets a more conservative district to help her win reelection.
Wagner, a center-right Republican, responded skeptically: "Then you get those wacko birds," she said.
"Those wacko birds." Wagner's district, Missouri's Second, is the white western St. Louis suburbs, by the way.
To which Michael McCaul, who Playbook notes is the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, replied ...
"That's why we had to vote the way we did today!"
"Had to." They had to vote a certain way, because of the "wacko birds" who put Republicans in power.
In this case, they’re talking about not holding Bannon in contempt. Even though they know Bannon is the definition of contemptible.
🎃Some key Jan 6 witnesses are coming forward Zachary Basu Axios
Steve Bannon's refusal to comply with a subpoena from the Jan. 6 Select Committee overshadows the fact that other key witnesses are providing reams of evidence to investigators. ✂️
[mentions Rolling Stone piece, and note the Congress critters are not yet implicated]
- Jeffrey Clark, the former DOJ official whom Trump sought to install as a loyalist attorney general to help overturn the election, is expected to testify next week.
- CNN reported on Tuesday at least five former Trump administration officials have voluntarily spoken to the committee. A committee spokesperson did not respond to Axios' request for comment.
🎃The DOJ may be busier than we realize...
Note the including the funders in there.
🎃This story is not as fresh as some others, but reminds you how incompetent some of the Rs are — it’s not a bug, it’s a feature. Liz Dye Wonkette
One of the grand ironies of rightwing media constantly pushing the narrative that it is extremely easy to commit voter fraud on both a personal and mass scale is that sometimes the very dimwits who believe that nonsense then go and try to commit voter fraud themselves, thinking they'll never get caught. Just ask Edward Snodgrass, a Republican Party official in Ohio, former Kansas GOP Rep. Steve Watkins, North Carolina Republican/ex-felon Leslie McRae Dowless, Bruce Bartman of Pennsylvania, Donald Trump and Kayleigh McEnany themselves, and so, so many more.
The latest to fall into this trap is Donald "Kirk" Hartle, whose whole story makes about as much sense as "Kirk" being a nickname for Donald.
💙 Democrats Being Cool 💙
🎃I know the deals are not yet done. And I am mad as heck at M&S. But here’s some perspective:
I think the word “pulse” should be read as “plus.” And remember, up until January 5, most of us did not believe we would get the Senate.
🎃Keep fighting for Build Back Better! Paul Hogarth Daily Kos 🎃
🎃High praise indeed! Of course, this is after really low bars: lying Huckabee Sanders; dancing-into-the-bushes Sean Spicer; I’m-not-going-to-ever-hold-a-press-conference Stephanie Grisham, and so on. But Psaki is damned good. Of course, Psaki’s job is easier in that she doesn’t need to lie.
💜 Unity? 💜
🎃 People who are jabbed for covid are less likely to die from all causes compared to the un-jabbed. And it may not be just that vaxxed are more cautious than unvaxxed, although that’s some of it.
We can’t know the long-term effects of covid or the covid vaccine, of course. I wonder what we’ll learn!
🎃It’s hard to believe, but the world has come together before to solve big problems — even climate problems. A look at big progress. Helen Briggs, BBC
1
acid rain photo
970, '80s and '90s: Acid rain
It's the 1980s, and fish are disappearing in rivers across Scandinavia. Trees in parts of the forests are stripped bare of leaves, and in North America some lakes are so devoid of life their waters turn an eerie translucent blue.
The cause: Clouds of sulphur dioxide from coal-burning power plants are travelling long distances in the air and falling back to Earth in the form of acidic rain.
The article looks at the progress that has been made on acid rain, the hole in the ozone layer, and leaded gas.
🎃The private sector is stepping up to help the Afghani refugees.
Through Operation Allies Welcome, the Biden Administration is marshaling a whole-of-America approach to safely, securely and effectively welcoming our Afghan allies and Afghans at-risk. In concert with Welcome.US, private sector leaders are playing a crucial role in this effort, stepping up in meaningful ways to welcome individuals who supported the United States over the past 20 years in Afghanistan and equip them for success as they rebuild their lives. Companies can get involved and learn more at Welcome.US.
Billion Mile Challenge
In an historic cross-divide alliance across the transportation industry, United, American, Delta, JetBlue, Alaska, Boeing, Tripadvisor Foundation, Frontier, and Air Canada have come together to help ensure that every Afghan evacuee receives a donated ticket to their new home—and that limited government resources are allocated to needs that only the public sector can fund. This morning, Welcome.US and Miles 4 Migrants announced, in that spirit, that more than an unprecedented 40,000+ flights had been donated across these companies and their customers—bringing the total to 600M+ donated frequent-flier miles and setting the stage for a Billion Mile Challenge to the American people now underway.
Accenture
Accenture has committed more than $2.5M in cash and pro-bono services to support the resettlement of Afghan refugees. Working in partnership with Welcome.US, the IRC and other prominent organizations, Accenture is assisting refugees with housing, critical goods and services as well as employment opportunities.
Airbnb
Temporary housing is one of the most urgent needs facing Afghan newcomers. Airbnb.org has committed to providing temporary housing for 20,000 Afghan refugees and is working with the nine resettlement agencies and other Afghan-led groups to place newcomers into welcoming homes. As more Afghan refugees move off military bases and into communities, Airbnb.org is working to recruit more Airbnb hosts in cities across the country to build the supply of temporary housing.
The list goes on in alphabetical order.
And, just because I liked the picture:
All sorts of gourds getting along...
📥 Actions You Can Take 📤
🎃Keep fighting for Build Back Better! Paul Hogarth Daily Kos 🎃
Voting rights. This may be the biggest issue threatening our democracy right now. Besides contacting your representatives at the state and federal level to do the right thing (depending on who they are), you can support and contact these organizations:
ACLU — American Civil Liberties Union
Democracy Docket — founded by Marc Elias, so important in fighting the challenges after the last election.
Fair Fight — founded by Stacey Abrams
🌱Grass roots. Biden and Harris can do the top-down stuff, but we have to support from the bottom. I don’t know how to deprogram 75 million people, but some things have been written about, such as deep canvassing, and lots of people are talking about this. If you know someone (who did not storm the Capitol), then see if you can be pleasant. Instead of trying to reason with them (logic is obviously not their strong point) distract them with something else. We need to remove the sources of lies and to take down the temperature. If we get more of the Rs to wear masks and to get vaccinated and to vote for Ds, the country will be a better place. We need to coax some of them out of the rabbit holes and diffuse the anger and the crazy.
🏃 Run for something. If you want to run for something, but have no idea what to do, these people will help you. They also like money and volunteers to help those people who are running, so even if you’re not in a position to stand for office, you can help. Note: they are especially planning to target the 57 Rs in local governments who participated in the insurrection.
👎 Defund the seditionists. This is a list with companies that sometimes have donated to the seditionists, and their current approach to supporting or not supporting the seditionists. The list is long. You will recognize many of the corporations, and you probably have a relationship with some — either you are a customer, a shareholder, or maybe even an employee. Contact them and compliment or complain, but let them know you are watching. Forward it to others.
🐍 Schadenfreude 😈
🎃Jeffrey Clark, who tried to turn over the election from inside the DoJ, is now tainted goods. Bob Brigham Raw Story
"The Trump taint is sticking to Jeffrey Clark," Business Insider reported Thursday. "In the 10 months since the would-be Justice Department coup, Clark's name has been scrubbed from the conservative legal group where he'd landed his first post-Trump job. He lawyered up in the face of congressional scrutiny. But, just days before his Friday interview with the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Clark parted ways with the defense lawyer Robert Driscoll, Politico reported late Wednesday."
Clark is just the latest attorney to suffer repercussions for their relationship with Trump.
"In the eyes of several former colleagues, Clark has joined the ranks of once respected conservative lawyers — including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the former prosecutor Sidney Powell, and the constitutional scholar John Eastman — who have been burned flying too close to Trump," the report noted.
🎃Oh, this is a great change of venue
🎃Sometimes unpleasant people turn on each other:
🎃We do not celebrate violence, but after threats and shoves, this punching out of an anti-masker was self defense. But what I like about it is that it has been watched something like 6.9 million times (when I inserted this into the GNR). As people tend to watch what gives them pleasure, this means that people are super, super fed up with the anti-maskers.
🎃And, although justice moves too slowly, sometimes it does happen:
🎃 Pie for everyone!
📣 Let’s Honor Truth ☀️ ️
🎃🎃🎃A joint award for all who are working to expose the Facebook papers. FB has encouraged insurrectionists and antivaxxers. Yes, we honored Frances Haugen before. But this story is so important! Some more on Haugen and how she operated. Reed Albergotti Washington Post
She took a job at Facebook in 2019, a couple of years after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, hoping she could help change the company from within, The Post has reported. Earlier this year, she leaked confidential documents to the Wall Street Journal, which published a series of revelatory articles that showed a disparity between the company’s internal research and its public statements on the societal impact of its products. Haugen has filed a whistleblower complaint with the SEC. Should the agency bring a civil enforcement action, Haugen, under the Dodd-Frank Act, could receive between 10 and 30 percent of any fines or judgments Facebook is forced to pay. ✂️
Internal Facebook posts often contain confidential information. Documents reviewed by The Washington Post show Facebook employees commenting on internal documents the same way everyone else comments on their friends’ baby photos. Rather than download the documents or take screenshots, which would have been more likely to arouse suspicion, she apparently took photos with her phone.
Why would she want to take documents in the first place?
Haugen, according to her friend Leslie Fine, felt that her work to identify and rectify the social network’s problems wasn’t going anywhere. Rather than just quit, she decided to gather documents and release them publicly, hoping that public pressure would force Facebook to change.
Other FB employees were angry; Haugen did something about it. And she could receive a whistleblower reward.
Stop using FB! Or, at least don’t use it on Nov 10.
🌹 Let’s Celebrate Love ❤️ ️
🎃🎃Cleaning up the beaches while feeding people Andy Corbley Good News Network
I guess this is a scene in Bali
As the pandemic ground the tourism industry on Bali to a halt, a man sought to do the same to the problem of plastic pollution, by offering rice in exchange for plastic garbage.
The reaction was immediate, and compounding, with over 500 tons of plastic collected by over 200 villages on the Indonesian island, for which the organizers have given out over 550 tons of rice.
Bali’s beaches are so beautiful, it’s created an economy that derives 50% of GDP from tourism alone. But when COVID-19 grounded airlines around the world, and Bali’s principal supply of vacationers, Australia, went into severe lockdown, workers in the tourism industry had to go back to their rural villages—and plastic pollution skyrocketed.
A local restauranteur wanted to do something to help, and so started a barter system to help “cleanse the soul of nature” and relieve the economic hardship of his neighbors. In May 2020, he hosted the first Plastic Exchange in his own childhood village.
📎Odds & Ends 📎
🎃Green infrastructure helping water problems in DC Oscar Perry Abello Reasons to Be Cheerful
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, around 860 cities across the country with a combined population of 40 million people have combined sewer systems, including most major cities, especially the older cities of the Northeast and Midwest like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Boston, Chicago, Baltimore and New York. (With Hurricane Ida’s remnants dumping more than 7 inches of rain in some parts of the city, most of New York’s waterways are currently contaminated with sewage and on no-swim advisories.) The agency also notes, however, that most communities that experience combined sewer overflows have a population of 10,000 or fewer. In 2000, the EPA estimated that combined sewer overflows alone were responsible for releasing 850 billion gallons of untreated wastewater and stormwater every year directly into bodies of water where people swim, canoe, fish or otherwise spend time.
Most cities facing this challenge have responded using what’s known as “gray infrastructure” — digging massive new underground tunnels or enlarging existing ones to capture and store stormwater until it can flow to wastewater treatment plants. An alternative, which a growing but still small number of cities are starting to embrace, is “green infrastructure” — rain gardens, bioswales, tree trenches, permeable pavement, green roofs and other forms that combine old and new technology to absorb more rainwater where it falls.
D.C. has already spent or committed nearly $2 billion over the past decade to building gray infrastructure, building massive tunnels deep beneath the Anacostia and Potomac rivers, as large as the tunnels that carry the region’s metro trains. But the District recently marked a major milestone in its gradual embrace of green infrastructure, declaring its first green infrastructure pilot project a success and shifting to a hybrid green-gray infrastructure approach for the final phases of its court-mandated, $2.7 billion stormwater management plan known as the Clean Rivers Project.
Pumpkin house for cats...
🐦 I do a lot of other writing. A recent offering: Hunters of the Feather, a story about a thinker-linker crow who wants to save birdkind from extinction, and the sequel, Scavengers of Mind. (They’re really good! They’re really cheap! Buy and review or rate positively! And Hunters is also available on Audible!) Other stories, based on Jane Austen novels — including a new one for lovers of Pride & Prejudice, Mrs. Bennet’s Advice to Young Ladies — and others on Greek mythology, can be found here.
💙 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.
Current projects:
Look in the comments for Progressive Muse’s report on Postcards to Voters
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. We need to win some back.
You can share your ideas below.
🌻
💙 “Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal that we all are created equal and the harsh ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, demonization have long torn us apart. The battle is perennial, and victory is never assured.” 💙
President Joseph R. Biden
🌹 🌹 🌹
TRUTH MATTERS. LOVE MATTERS.
