Its that time once again friends, time for the Monday Good News roundup, where we get your work week started off right with the help of the GNR newsroom (Myself, Killer300 and Bhu) to get you the good news to start your work week off right.
So Its time to not bore us and skip to the chorus lets go.
If he were anyone else, one could say that former President Donald Trump has been having an exceedingly bad week. Indeed, were he anyone else, one might well be saying that it sure looks like the walls are closing in on him. But Donald Trump has been living in the Republic of Walls-Closing-Inistan for so very, very long that it’s difficult to know whether the former president will once again get away with simply lying about the square footage of the forever-shrinking penthouse. This week’s would-be significant developments include:
Granted this was from last week, so its a bit old, but a good one. The walls are closing in on old Donny two scoops.
Most Republicans are neither embracing nor condemning scandal-ridden Rep. Matt Gaetz.
Yet they may soon face a decision day — one they've been happy to avoid, since Gaetz is one of former President Donald Trump's most vocal defenders — and some Republicans are quietly preparing for the real possibility that federal officials will charge the Florida Republican with crimes.
Earlier this month, Gaetz's ex-girlfriend testified before a federal grand jury. She could be a key witness in the Justice Department's probe into whether the Gaetz violated federal sex-trafficking laws and obstructed justice. And this week The Daily Beast reported that a potential witness in the case has pleaded guilty in federal court for fraud and illegally selling the drug Adderall, and is cooperating with the Gaetz investigation.
So it looks like Trump might have company in jail, and of course the GOP are condemning Gaetz, which may come back to bite them in the long run.
A judge has denied bond for Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the right-wing Oath Keepers charged with seditious conspiracy for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Magistrate Judge Kimberly Priest Johnson issued an order on Wednesday that Rhodes must be detained as his trial is pending, arguing that his release “could endanger the safety and wellbeing of others.”
Like what did these morons think was gonna happen? Did you think you were gonna win? Did you actually think you’d walk away and not face consequences? Did you think PERIOD?
France has a new law that bans so-called conversion therapies and authorizes jail time and fines for practitioners who use the scientifically discredited practice to attempt to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBTQ people.
The National Assembly approved the new law unanimously, voting 142-0 on Tuesday evening.
Big win for LGTBQ rights in France, now the rest of the world get on that.
President Biden has signed an executive order to make sexual harassment an offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and to improve the military's response to domestic violence and the unlawful distribution of intimate images.
Establishing sexual harassment as an offense under the code was called for by the I Am Vanessa Guillén Act in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act. Guillén was only 20 when she was murdered in April 2020, allegedly by a fellow soldier. A U.S. Army report said officers at Fort Hood ignored her complaints of sexual harassment in the time leading up to her death.
Good for Biden, add that to the list of the great stuff he’s done so far, and about time too.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stunned much of the political Left when her PAC, Courage to Change, came out as strongly in favor of YIMBYism. And she’s not the only one, either:
AOC is asking prospective candidates to rewrite the rules on zoning — the weedy and arguably most consequential city policies to housing — so cities can build more of the kind of housing that actually relieves the housing crisis, namely multifamily, mixed-income buildings…
This pro-housing stance is becoming the norm for progressive political candidates like Huge Ma, a.k.a. @TurboVax, who is running for the New York State Assembly on a platform of “housing abundance.”
This is a sign that the political winds are shifting on the progressive side of American politics. For a long time, and to this day in some parts of the country, socialists adhered to what I labeled the Left-NIMBY Canon — the belief that building new housing raised prices and caused gentrification. It was easy for them to paint the YIMBYs as neoliberal carpetbaggers, parachuting into local politics with econ papers in hand, ready to displace the locals. And since YIMBY groups hadn’t had time to build relationship to local tenants’ organizations, leaders like AOC were naturally nervous about supporting them.
Hopefully this will lead to more affordable housing for people.
An iconoclastic Canadian startup just raised a landmark investment from Goldman Sachs to build massive storage for clean energy.
Hydrostor stores surplus electricity by compressing air into underground caverns. It updates a long-standing technology that never took off for electrical storage. Hydrostor thinks the tweaks it has made will allow underground storage to work in more places — just as grids increasingly need help turning wind and solar production into reliable 24/7 electricity.
Goldman Sachs agreed and invested $250 million from its private equity division. That’s unusual for the long-duration energy storage sector, which typically draws riskier venture-capital investment.
Clean energy is the way of the future, and even the rich and powerful are starting to get with the program.
On Thursday, January 20, Serbian prime minister Ana Brnabic announced that the government has abolished all legislation, permits and regulations related to Rio Tinto and the Working Group on Implementation of its mining project in the country. Serbia saw massive protests last year by environmental activists and opposition parties against the proposed opening of a lithium mine by Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto in the Jadar and Drina rivers in Serbia. The protesters categorically rejected two controversial laws enacted by the government in November to facilitate the quick launch of the project. In the aftermath of the protests, Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic had stated in December that he would ask parliament to reconsider the pro-mining legislation.
Protesting works. I don’t think anything else need be said.
It’s not all bad news, however. Full-year GDP growth for 2021 came in at 5.7%, following a drop of 3.4% in 2020. That allows Biden to say he reversed the damage from President Trump’s last year in office to register the strongest economic growth since 1984. The unemployment rate, at 3.9%, is once again approaching the record low of 3.5% that occurred just before the coronavirus pandemic exploded in early 2020. Unemployment could reach that level, or even go lower, within the first half of 2022.
Despite opinions to the contrary, Biden is actually doing pretty well as president. I wish more people could see that.
And to close off some good news on the election front, in case you were still worried about the midterms (Which, you know, don’t get complacent and all that, but we are off to a promising start).
I think that’s enough for this week. Always keep them wanting more as they say, I hope everyone has an amazing week and that we have more good news for next week. Have a good week all.
