Top Image: Starhawk created this image and gave it to the members of the Good News Roundup group (Gnusies)! Thank you, Starhawk! This is a quite detailed sketch of a gnu drawn in brown, green, and black. A happy and dynamic gnu dances on its left hind leg in a rampant heraldric pose. Joyful letters prance above and behind the mane: “Happy Dance.” Signature: Nick Korolev, 2021.
Ruminations from the Guest Host
2thanks is still having internet issues. He asked NNNE to make sure there was a GNR today. But, NNNE is busy avoiding working on Tuesday’s roundup so he asked me to slap something together. Since Markos refuses to give me my own account just because I don’t have opposable thumbs, I’m posting this under NNNE’s byline.
My name’s Pressley, and I spend most of my time working to keep NNNE from melting into his couch. When I’m not doing that I’m in charge of direct outreach to our republican neighbors. Here I am encouraging NNNE to get a move on.
To give you a little background: After I got my degree in barkaeology I worked with a team refining Skritch and Sniff technology. I didn’t enjoy being a part of the rat race. I’ve always felt that the dog eat dog philosophy espoused by corporate America was repugnant and an insult to canines everywhere. So, I dropped out and joined a political commune with Bark Obama (I shih tzu not).
That experience gives me the pawthority to talk a bit about today’s republican party. Republicans are like a dog with a boner. Their sole pawpose in life is to screw everything they can — up, down and sideways. They are absolutely shameless about it (I was going to say they made no bones about it, but that phrase has a slightly pawsitive connotation and there is nothing pawsitive about the republican party anymore).
I also know something about digging holes. I am in awe at the ability of Cancun Cruz, Marjorie Crazy Greene. Lauren Gunz Boebert, the Former Guy’s demon spawn, Josh Sedition Hawley, the Oath Breakers Keepers, and the rest of the GQP to keep digging while the sides of their excavations are collapsing down on top of them. While I’m a big fan of rolling around in the mud, these guys have taken it to unbelievable extremes. They are making naked mud wrestling look like a wholesome family activity.
Having said all that, there’s one republican who has made an effort to stand out from the pack. He’s gone barking mad to the point he’s frothing at the mouth. The rest of his litter mates are all just rolling over and showing us their bellies (not a pretty sight). I haven’t seen so many tucked tails since that skunk incident at the dog park. Matt “The Big Sleaze” Gaetz is scooting* right across the upturned muzzles of the republican contingent in Washington. We’ve heard nary a snarl from republicans. Which is odd, as even my notoriously unconcerned feline friends are hissing with meowtrage. Gaetz has taken sole pawsession of second place in the least housebroken republican sweepstakes. The case against Gaetz is so strong, we don’t need a Sherlock Bones to help unravel it. Gaetz is unraveling all by himself.
I’m liking it, because NNNE gives me a treat every time there’s a new revelation.
Here’s some Twitter gnus concerning my friend Major.
*For those of you unfamiliar with the word ‘scoot’, this is what scooting looks like:
Right. I can hear you going eww, that’s gross. Damn you and your opposable thumbs! Anyhow, here’s another picture of me to make it all better.
Back when NNNE did Sunday roundups he used to include the cold open from SNL. He told me it would be ok if I added some SNL links too.
Ok. What follows is mostly what I think 2thanks might have written had his computer cooperated. Since he’s being hounded by growling gremlins, this will have to do. I hope my doing this will get NNNE moving on renegotiating the terms of my leash.
Talk About Barking Mad
Proof that republicans couldn’t find a treat no matter which hand it was in. Roger Stone’s dog just don’t hunt.
Salon: Roger Stone — no stranger to indictment — offers Matt Gaetz potentially disastrous advice
Republican operative and pro-Trump dirty trickster Roger Stone, a man well acquainted with indictment (in his case for lying to Congress and witness tampering), is urging Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., the charismatic Trump ally now embroiled in seemingly bottomless scandal, to potentially incriminate himself further by going on "offense" and continuing to appear on cable news.
"He needs to go on offense, this is right upfront in Stone's Rules," Stone told conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on his Infowars program. "The left-wing, non-journalist, fake-news media are the most vicious, malicious, dishonest people that I have ever come across," the GOP operative continued. "All of these stories that are maligning Matt Gaetz today are based on leaks. Where is the beef? Where are the facts? I don't think there are any facts. I think this is a good old-fashioned smear." Later in the segment, Stone encouraged Gaetz to stay in the public eye, not hide in a "hole," and make additional TV appearances. "He [Matt Gaetz] should not go hide in a hole, he should be out there, like he was on Tucker [Carlson] last night," Stone added.
As additional allegations about Gaetz continue to surface, Stone has kept on defending him enthusiastically, despite a Thursday night CNN report that Gaetz showed off nude pictures and videos of women he had sex with to fellow lawmakers on the House floor. "CNN Doesn't identify the lawmakers making these FAKE allegations against Gaetz because they have no evidence or documentation. Loathsome bottom feeders," Stone wrote on Parler after the story broke.
Stone didn't return multiple requests for comment from Salon as to why he continues to back Gaetz. The veteran GOP operative has refused to speak to this reporter after learning he now works for Salon, claiming that this site isn't a "legitimate news organization."
Republicans Are Howling at the Moon
No matter how much they snap and snarl, they don’t really have anything to say.
Vanity Fur: Republicans’ Plan to Sink Biden’s Infrastructure Bill: Lots of Whining, No Solutions
The plan of attack, as usual, is to negotiate in bad faith—i.e. without real desire to reach a compromise. Luckily, Biden’s chief of staff has indicated that the administration has a very low tolerance for Mitch McConnell’s shenanigans.
Barack Obama built his first campaign for president on a theme of national unity. “I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time,” he said on the trail, “unless we solve them together.” But that bipartisan dream ran into a brick wall when he assumed office, thanks to a Republican party that would barely treat him as a legitimate president, let alone work with him. Obama didn’t “make Republican outreach a priority,” former House Speaker John Boehner, the president’s friendly foe on Capitol Hill in those years, recalls in his forthcoming memoir, an excerpt of which appeared in Politico Friday. “But on the other hand—how do you find common cause with people who think you are a secret Kenyan Muslim traitor to America?”
More than a decade later, in a country even more divided, facing an even more radical GOP, Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden, took office with his own promise of unity—one that sounded nice, but also naive. Did he learn anything, many in his party wondered as he campaigned, from the eight years he spent watching Republicans obstruct Obama? From the last four years watching them follow Donald Trump? The answer, it seems, is yes. Biden continues to talk about working together and uniting as a country, but it has become clear, as he works to dismantle his predecessor’s legacy through executive order, delivers his $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill over Republican lawmakers’ objections, and throws his momentum behind bold plans like the infrastructure package he proposed this week, that he means something very specific when he speaks of unity. Six dozen days into his presidency, Biden has sought to change the tone in Washington, but he has also put a condition on his offer of compromise: that all sides are arguing in good faith.
Science
NNNE is getting his second shot at the end of this week. This news has him all excited, so I thought I’d share it with the rest of you (and take up the Science slot 2thanks has been using).
Science News: Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines may block infection as well as disease
Vaccines against COVID-19 are about 90 percent effective at blocking coronavirus infections, real-world studies of health care workers, firefighters, police, teachers and other essential workers suggest.
Even after just one dose of the mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna, the vaccines reduced the chance of getting infected with SARS-CoV-2, researchers report March 29 in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. “We clearly showed in our study that if you were at least 14 days out from your first shot, you had 80 percent protection” from infection, says Jeff Burgess, associate dean for research at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health at the University of Arizona in Tucson. The study is part of a growing body of evidence suggesting that the vaccines not only reduce the risk of getting seriously ill with COVID-19, but can prevent catching the virus in the first place.
“If you can’t get infected, you can’t infect anyone else, which means the vaccines can reduce transmission as well as the disease,” says Marm Kilpatrick, an infectious diseases researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not involved in the study.
Poll #1: Who Won the Week?
Cheers and Jeers archive and future editions here. Way, way more than 2 thanks to The One, our Wicked Wizard of Wit and writer of Who Won the Week, Willhelm von kosland!
- LGBTQers, as Sec. of State Blinken scraps Trump's ban on U.S. promotion of LGBTQ (and reproductive) rights abroad, and the Pentagon officially ends the ban on trans servicemembers
- West Chester, OH councilman Lee Wong, who addressed anti-Asian American violence by doffing his shirt during a town meeting to reveal his war wound scars: "Is this patriotic enough?"
- The New Yorker's Jane Mayer, who got secret recordings of Koch operatives horrified to learn that research shows the H.R. 1 voting rights bill is hugely popular, even among conservatives
- The pot legalization juggernaut, as New York's legislature passes a progressive legal cannabis law, including expunging the felony drug records of tens of thousands of people
- Injured Capitol Police Officers James Blassingame and Sidney Hemby, who are suing Donald Trump for encouraging/inciting the GOP insurrection on January 6
- Students, as clinical trial results of Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine show 100% efficacy and tolerance among 12 to 15 year olds
- Team Biden-Harris: releases jaw-dropping infrastructure plan; 75% public approval on vaccine rollout; executive actions on anti-Asian hate; 1st POTUS to honor Transgender Day of Visibility
- Sec. of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, for firing dozens of Trump holdovers on the DHS's advisory council, including creepy Ken Cuccinelli
- Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D), for signing a statewide voting rights act that'll protect voters against suppression, discrimination, and intimidation
- The engineers, tugboat captains, full moon, and that lowly lone backhoe operator, for getting the Ever Given container ship free in the Suez Canal
Well, who do you think won? I’ll give you a hint. His initials are Joe Biden. Even poll results are getting boring during the new administration.
Our map of Gnuville: Almost 590 of us have shared our global locations!
To leave your mark, please drop a comment or send one of the following a kosmail: tljdk, silverfoxcruiser, and keepiru. Please include city and state only, NOT street number and street. (Please persist, we are volunteers.)
Thanks to Kluger2 for our new map image!
Image: Two maps of the United States, one above the other. Both maps indicate the approximate locations of members of the Good News Roundup community. The lower map contains many more blue pin-markers than the upper map. Upper image: A map of Gnuville from February 15, 2019 with fewer than 50 pins. Lower image: A map of Gnuville from March 21, 2021 with 582 member worldwide pins.
If you join us regularly, are you Following us?
Pressley here: C’mon man. We need just a few more pins to crack through the magical 600 gnusie number. With six hundred pins we can form a brigade and ride on into the valley.
Tech Talk for Kosacks
- Got a Daily Kos tech question? Let us know.
- Solved a tech question recently? Please feel free to repeat in the comments.
Where Ever is Herd
Morning Good News Roundups at 7 x 7: These Gnusies lead the herd at 7 a.m. ET, 7 days a week:
- The Monday GNR Newsroom (Jessiestaf, Killer300, and Bhu). With their five, we survive and thrive.
- Alternating Tuesdays: NotNowNotEver (with memes) and arhpdx.
- Wednesdays: niftywriter.
- Thursdays: pucklady the 1st Thursday, Mokurai the 2nd, oldhippiedude the 3rd, MCUBernieFan the 4th, and Mokurai the 5th (when there is one).
- Fridays: chloris creator. Regular links to the White House Briefing Room.
- Saturdays: GoodNewsRoundup. Heart-stirring and soul-healing introduction and sometimes memes to succumb to.
- Sundays: 2thanks. A brief roundup of Roundups, a retrospective, a smorgasbord, a bulletin board, an oasis, a watering hole, a thunder of hooves, a wellness, a place for beginners to learn the rules of the veldt.
hpg posts Evening Shade diaries at 7:30 p.m. ET every day! After a long day, Gnusies meet in the evening shade and continue sharing Good News, good community, and good actions. In the words of NotNowNotEver: “hpg ably continues the tradition of Evening Shade.” Find Evening Shades here.
oldhippiedude posts Tweets of the Week on Sunday afternoons at 3 p.m. ET. Our first regular afternoon Gnusie outpost! In search of a TOTW diary? Look here or here.
For more information about the Good News group, please see our detailed Welcoming comment, which is usually the first comment in our morning diaries.
The 6 R’s of the Resistance
Joe Biden is now our President. We’ll need to stay vocal and active, we’ll need to keep pulling Joe to the left, and we’ll need to keep resisting the GQP.
- Refresh and Rest: Take care of you, the hero: Eat well, exercise, and rest.
- Resist: Protest on the streets, call senators and representatives, etc.
- Rebel: Run for office, GOTV (Get Out The Vote), support a progressive.
- Revolt: Change the laws, change the culture, build your communities.
- Rely: Trust that millions of others are fighting the good fight.
- Rejoice: Joy promotes resilience and gives rise to hope.
How to Resist: Do Something …
Are you looking for a new focus now that we have good people in charge? Fighting voter suppression might be for you! Nothing is as important!
What can you do?
- Contact your local representative NOW to encourage them to pass the For the People Act. This link makes it easy to do!
- The ACLU plays a key role in filing lawsuits that often stop voter suppression. Get involved with them at this link.
- The League of Women Voters work year-round to combat voter suppression through advocacy, grassroots organizing, legal action and public education. You can get involved with them at this link
- Volunteer with Black Votes Matter at this link. They have on the ground work in 10 states and people from other states can write postcards, phone bank, fundraise, and text.
- Spread The Vote works to get voters IDs before voting begins. You can volunteer with them at this link.
- Finally, when it comes time to pass HR1 (the new voting rights act) the Democrats will have to end the filibuster to do it. It will not pass without that. 10 Republicans will not vote for it. So, when the time comes, you will need to call, call, call and call your Senators to push them to do this. If you live in Arizona, Montana, or West Virginia, you may want to put in for some vacation time to really devote yourself to it. It will be the only option. Get ready! [GoodNewsRoundup]
On Daily Kos:
… Say Something
We welcome comments in Roundups every day regarding:
- National or local Good News.
- Links, stories, music, videos, quotes, tweets. (No tweets or images of the saffron chlamidiot, please.)
- Your resistance activity.
In my Sunday smorgasbord Roundups, I especially welcome the following types of comments:
- Who won YOUR week?
- Questions about Daily Kos tech issues or our map.
- Good News Roundups and you.
- How are you resisting?
Top Image: Starhawk created the top image of the rampant gnu and gave it to the members of the Good News Roundup group (Gnusies)! Thank you, Starhawk! This is a quite detailed sketch of a gnu drawn in brown, green, and black. A happy and dynamic gnu dances on its left hind leg in a classic rampant heraldric pose. Joyful letters prance above and behind the mane: “Happy Dance.” Signature: Nick Korolev, 2021.
The Roundup is almost open!
Thank you for fighting for truth and justice with all us Gnusies! 40% of our Readers don’t visit every day, 50% of us do, and 10% are here for the first time! We all do what we can. For 3-1/2 years, we’ve shared positive news, laughed, organized, resisted, rebelled, revolted without being revolting, relied, rested, mentored, created, crossed rivers, chewed our cud, puffed methane out both ends, and laughed. Here’s looking at you, kid, and standing upwind!
As always, please share more Good News than 2thanks or I can find or provide.
This is a group diary, and by the power delegated by 2thanks I declare this Good Gnus Salo(o)n open! Let the good-news sharing and community building begin!
Power with, not power over ❤️ ✊ ❤️
Pressley for 2thanks (he, him)
If you enjoy 2thanks’ work on Daily Kos, he’d appreciate a gnusie bump, large or small, via PayPal or CashApp ($ipaywill). Gifts from supportive Kosacks help him pay for his wife’s medicines. If you’ve sent him a gift already, he is 2thankful!
.
.
Poll #2: Have you received your Fauci ouchie?
2thanks is keen to track our vaccinations, because he thinks our trends might encourage slow-to-decide readers to get vaccinated. I don’t care as much because I am a dog and can’t get the virus. And we now have trends! Of course, the median age of Daily Kos readers is greater than the median age of Americans, and therefore 2thanks expects that we will receive our vaccinations before most Americans.
Thank you all for participating in 2thanks’ Fauci ouchie polls since 2/21!
Results of the Vaccination Polls from Previous Sunday Good News Roundups (Percentages):
|
Dates
|
Vaccinations Received
|
2/21
|
2/28
|
3/7
|
3/14
|
3/21
|
2 vaccinations (M/P)
|
17
|
25
|
29
|
33
|
39
|
The first vaccination (M/P)
|
27
|
29
|
33
|
33
|
35
|
The J&J vaccination
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
3
|
3
|
M = Moderna, P = Pfizer, and J&J = Johnson & Johnson
Pressley here: There is no data included for 3/28 because after looking at the results from last weeks poll, I got confused. He’s been giving us percentages rather than raw numbers. I can count — One, two, many … but percentages? Sheesh. I’m going to leave it to 2thanks to figure it out.
Why don’t we close out with a song from my favorite album — Bark Side of the Moon.
- Breathe, breathe in the air
- Don't be afraid to care