This Week in Gnuville
In a Great News Week, My BEST News Has Not Been Reported Elsewhere: Saturday's GNR
GoodNewsRoundup
More importantly, on that trip in 2016, I didn’t see one HRC sign. Not one. But this time I saw more than a couple of Fetterman signs. Not tons of them. But they were there. In the most rural, trumpiest parts of PA, there were Fetterman signs.
and not one — not one — Dr Oz sign.
It was a marked change from 2016.
And it made me so hopeful.
We all know how important November is to saving our Democracy. ✂
I set up a new fundraising challenge for us! This money will go just to the House candidates who are in swing districts (38 of them). So this new ActBlue account gives money to the 38 races that will determine control of the House and those races alone.
Rather than thinking about where to donate, here is a one-stop location to securing the House: Good News Roundups Save the House. [$31,000 raised so far. Amazing! Thank you.]
Good News Roundup for Friday, August 12, 2022: We can do this
chloris creator — 2 of 2!
I always believed Merrick Garland was reliable. He showed that this week. Remember, he has experience with the Oklahoma bombing, the unabomber, the Olympic bombings in Atlanta, and more. He’s also disciplined. Releasing the warrant, and all the leaks about nuclear stuff, will only bite the Rs in their butts. We’ll learn later if the Rs take this opportunity to use an off-ramp to get away from tRump, or if they double down.
Garland is not our only competent ally. Biden. Pelosi. Schumer. Around the world there’s Zelenskyy, even some Russians. So many are doing what they can do — far many more than I can list here — and many are doing it well.
So, let’s support them by doing what we can do.
The Screaming Says We're Winning: 2nd Thursday Good News Roundup
Mokurai
As the shrinking, shrieking minority of Wrong-Wingers gets louder and more vicious, one can be excused for thinking that everything is going downhill. But this turns out not to be the case. At all. We’re winning on everything. Not just a few bills passed, a shower of subpoenas, testimony, indictments, even convictions and sentences. Everything.
There is, and will be, screaming to endure, and bogus punditry, for a while longer, until it fades away. But that is Good News, because it is the clearest sign that we are winning.
It just takes time. Not the fifty years it often takes for new ideas to reach a majority and old ones to fade to a decided minority. We’re already there on every current issue. You can tell by the polls, the votes, and of course the screaming.
Good News Roundup for Wednesday, August 10, 2022: A deeper look at justice
chloris creator — 1 of 2!
[T]he execution of the recent search warrant at MAL has made it clear that Garland is not afraid to go after tRump.
Alas, Justice comes at a price: an angry, armed mob is out there — they’ve obviously been out there for a while, and they have to be faced at some point — but at the moment their trigger fingers are itchier than ever. tRump, still a puppet of putin, wants to burn it all down and many pols in the GOP are cheering him on. Everyone, please be careful.
On the other hand, I just listened to Lawrence O’Donnell on The Last Word from the August 9 show, and he starts by saying that the mob did not mobilize immediately — that there were more people from the media at MAL than there were angry tRump supporters, despite the [74] million people who voted for tRump in 2020. It was a great intro, and one of the few times someone in the media has done a lot to talk us off the ledge.
Let's Dare Call It Treason - GNR for Bluesday, August 9th
NotNowNotEver
When John Stormer wrote his 1964 right wing diatribe, None Dare Call It Treason, he accused our country’s elites of being pro-communist and howled that we were losing the cold war because of it. In addition to his John Birch Society bona fides, he was an early fundamentalist nutjob who helped turn Eisenhower’s party into the hot mess we’re stuck with today. HIs book is a cult classic amongst the knuckledragger’s leadership cabal.
Screw him and the horse he rode in on. Almost all of the executive branch treason we’ve seen for the last 60 years has originated within the ranks of the republican party — Watergate, Wedtech, Iran-Contra, the Valery Plame Affair, Lawyergate, Abramoff, the Iraq Invasion, Russian influence in 2016, tfg’s impeachments, Pruitt, Flynn, Manafort, Zinke, Stone, Bannon, January 6th — the list goes on. The reckoning is long overdue.
As we anxiously wait for their worms to turn, it has become apparent their distorted patriotic apple has been pretty much eaten completely away from the inside. Conspiring to overthrow the duly elected government of the United States is not the same as cheating on one’s taxes. The latter is a betrayal of an obligation; the former is a betrayal of an entire nation.
Every single congressman or senator who voted against ratifying Joe Biden’s victory is a traitor. Those who voted to acquit the instigator of the insurrection and the idiot who put the quo in quid pro are culpable for their allegiance to party over country. By their actions they have turned their party into America’s giant, leaky colostomy bag.
These are people who chose to support and even deify a man who never met a promise he wouldn’t break; a vow he wouldn’t ignore; a contract he wouldn’t breach; an oath he wouldn’t betray; a lie he wouldn’t tell; or a law he would obey. None of his behavior was surprising. It was all there staring them in the face. Yet, they chose to ignore the evidence of a life spent corruptly and elevate him to our highest office (while ignoring his clear collusion with Russia). We lost a million Americans due to their perfidy and politicization of a pandemic.
Whether you call them inbred insurrectionists, noodle-brained nihilists, cosplay conspirators, or the braindead bumblefuck brigade — they have done a great disservice to our nation. And they continue to do so to this day.
So, my fellow Americans, we have a duty — a duty to ourselves, our nation, and our planet — The republican party is a hotbed of deceit and treason. Honest republicans are an endangered species. The mainstream need to be forcibly ejected from political office. We do this by not letting them get away with false equivalences, big lies, manufactured distractions, or any of their other long list of ways to dodge responsibility for their bigotry, cupidity, and lust for power.
We do this by GETTING OUT THE VOTE.
We have the power. We have the ability. We can and we will do this.
From the GNR Newsroom: Its the Good News Roundup
Jessiestaf, Bhu, and Killer300
Why do we so consistently underestimate progress?
Progress that is both rapid enough to be noticed and stable enough to continue over many generations has been achieved only once in human history: right now. Around 1800, humanity made a stark turn from misery and stagnation to prosperity and progress. This is a truly unique moment in time, and yet one that most of us aren’t even aware of.
We are living in a better time than any other time in human history, with the potential to get better in the future, and we don’t even realize it. That’s some good news if I ever heard it.
Sunday Good News Roundup of Roundups ¤ WineRev! ¤ 2 Polls: WWtW? AND Dam broke?
2thanks
John in Denver in the comments: Here’s a bit of good news … Jennifer Rubin considered last week and then chose her "Distinguished persons of the week", — naming the Justice Department, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for civil rights, for
bringing charges against four current and former Louisville police officers, alleging that they had “falsified the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant of Ms. [Breonna] Taylor’s home; that this act violated federal civil rights laws; and that those violations resulted in Ms. Taylor’s death.” …
Former head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Sherrilyn Ifill tweeted, “I honestly cannot express how powerful & important this is. People must understand this work was the core mission at the founding of the @TheJusticeDept. To protect the rights of Black people when state processes fail or refuse to do so. Grateful to AG Garland & @CivilRights”
WineRev’s Good and Goofy Notes
WineRev posted his G&G comment here. His G&G comments are worthy mini Good News Roundups with a welcome, a good-news tidbit, another bold-faced and centered welcome, and his this-day-in-history notes. You can find all his comments here, in case you have a hankerin’ and missed one. Meanwhile:
WineRev, last Sunday: Good Sunday morning 2thanks and thank you for putting out all the religious paraphernalia (got that word right the first time before coffee and without spell-check…...buffs nails, nods in reply to the applause…..) here at the Gnuville Breakfast Brunch and Artisanal Embroidery Shop. It all looks good, and the pre-recorded hymn selections yodel-chanted in Hebrew, with Tibetan bowl accompaniment, Dutch wooden shoe clogging and Mayan double flutes really gives “Amazing Grace” a different flavor. (My own church this morning will sound a bit less…..exotic…...) Good to see everyone here!
Science
How to Estimate Distance Using Just Your Thumb
A quick eyeball-and-mental-math trick that allows anyone to estimate distance pretty accurately: The technique involves some gut-level estimation. […] Then you just multiply by 10. Here’s how it works.
Please share good science news with us!
(Especially JSWT, health, environment.)
Need more good news?
… arhpdx posted a list of good news sites toward the top of a recent Roundup, or you can find that same list in my comment: Good News Sources. Thank you, arhpdx and Mokurai!
[On a desktop, you could open that comment in a new Tab by clicking the timestamp, and then you could Bookmark that page or save it to your Favorites.]
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Tech Talk for Kosacks
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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 and arhpdx.
- Wednesdays: niftywriter.
- Thursdays: Mokurai the 1st, 2nd, and 5th (when there is one), WineRev the 3rd, MCUBernieFan the 4th.
- Fridays: chloris creator. Regular links to the White House Briefing Room.
- Saturdays: GoodNewsRoundup, the one and only!
- 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. For instance, we do not welcome grammar-police comments in Roundups.
Sun-High Good News Roundup: It’s a long dry trek between 7 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. ET. About half way between is noon or 1 o'clock. If you'd like to create a midday oasis post a Good News Group diary regularly at about that time, please let me know via kosmail. The team will support you. If morning is a better time for you, Mokurai says he can trade times.
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. Find Evening Shades here or on the Trending List.
oldhippiedude posts Tweets of the Week on Sundays at 6 p.m. CT. Our second evening Gnusie hangout zone! In search of a TOTW diary? Look here or here or on the Trending List.
For more information about the Good News group, please see our detailed Welcoming comment, one of the first comments in our morning diaries.
The 6 R’s of the Resistance
Joe Biden is now our President. However, we continue to stay vocal and active, we continue to pull Joe to the left, and we continue resist 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 …
Some of our Good News writers regularly post a panoply of fantastic action steps in every one of their Good News Roundups. If you don’t see a way to become active that suits your personality, your funds, or your time, please review their most recent diaries for many different options to volunteer and/or donate:
.
On Daily Kos:
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?
- How are you supporting Democratic candidates?
- Please let’s stick to Good News today, no mews or databases.
In the comments of all Roundups, we do not welcome Grammar Police or Debbie Downers.
Top Image: A quite detailed sketch of a gnu drawn in brown, green, and black on white. A happy and dynamic gnu dances on its left hind leg in a classic heraldric rampant pose. Joyful letters prance above and behind the mane: “Happy Dance.” Signature: Nick Korolev, 2021. — Thank you, Starhawk, for creating the top image of a dancing gnu and for giving it to us Gnusies!
Our 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 4 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 I can find or provide.
This is a group diary, and by my power I declare this Good Gnus Salo(o)n open! Let the good-news sharing and community building begin!
Power with, not power over ❤️ ✊ ❤️
2thanks (he, him)