Welcome 🌻 to Friday’s Roundup of Good News!
A standard question of any opposition party is: Are you better off than you were X years ago? — where X is the number of years in the election cycle. Kevin McCarthy asked it last Friday.
Chris Hayes took up the challenge, and listed the many, many ways that we are better off. Covid way down. Employment way up. We’re tackling climate problems at last. A gun safety bill, the first in three decades, passed. And so much more.
We gnusies have known about many of the accomplishments of the Biden administration for a while, but what is adding glory to greatness (I’m trying to find the opposite of “insult to injury”) is the fact that Chris Hayes is talking about them. At last! (Embedded below)
Of course, serious problems remain. Reproductive rights have been taken away. Voting rights are being challenged. Russia invaded Ukraine. The Rs have embraced the crazy, the fascist, and they’re running candidates who we absolutely have to beat. To quote President Biden, “victory is never assured.”
Nevertheless, on some days a happy end looks more likely. This is one of those times.
Come on in, friends, and see what we and our allies are doing, and strengthen yourselves for the fight.
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 (well, actually, Biden was on vacation for part of this period). Here are the last week’s posts at the White House briefing room.
- Thursday, August 18, 2022: FACT SHEET: How the Inflation Reduction Act Helps Tribal Communities
- Thursday, August 18, 2022: Press Briefing by White House Monkeypox Response Team and Public Health Officials
- Thursday, August 18, 2022: STATE FACT SHEETS: How the Inflation Reduction Act Lowers Health Care Costs Across America
- Thursday, August 18, 2022: FACT SHEET: White House Announces New Actions to Combat Monkeypox Outbreak
- Wednesday, August 17, 2022: FACT SHEET: Inflation Reduction Act Advances Environmental Justice
- Wednesday, August 17, 2022: FACT SHEET: How the Inflation Reduction Act Helps Rural Communities
- Wednesday, August 17, 2022: STATE FACT SHEETS: How the Inflation Reduction Act Lowers Energy Costs, Creates Jobs, and Tackles Climate Change Across America
- Tuesday, August 16, 2022: FACT SHEET: How the Inflation Reduction Act Builds a Better Future for Young Americans
- Tuesday, August 16, 2022: FACT SHEET: How the Inflation Reduction Act Helps Black Communities
- Tuesday, August 16, 2022: Bills Signed: H.R. 2992, H.R. 5313, H.R. 6943, and S. 3451
- Tuesday, August 16, 2022: Bill Signed: H.R. 5376
- Tuesday, August 16, 2022: Remarks by President Biden At Signing of H.R. 5376, The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022
- Tuesday, August 16, 2022: FACT SHEET: How the Inflation Reduction Act Helps Latino Communities
- Tuesday, August 16, 2022: Statement from the First Lady’s Communications Director Elizabeth Alexander
- Tuesday, August 16, 2022: FACT SHEET: BACK TO SCHOOL 2022: Giving Every School the Tools to Prevent COVID-19 Spread and Stay Safely Open All Year Long
- Tuesday, August 16, 2022: Statement by President Joe Biden on FDA Hearing Aids Final Rule
- Monday, August 15, 2022: BY THE NUMBERS: The Inflation Reduction Act
- Sunday, August 14, 2022: Statement by President Joe Biden Celebrating the Republic of India’s 75th Anniversary of Independence
- Saturday, August 13, 2022: Statement by President Joe Biden on the Attack on Salman Rushdie
- Friday, August 12, 2022: Statement by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on the Attack Against Writer Salman Rushdie
- Friday, August 12, 2022: Remarks by Vice President Harris On Supporting the Commercial Space Sector
- Friday, August 12, 2022: Statement from Vice President Harris on the Inflation Reduction Act
- Friday, August 12, 2022: Remarks by Vice President Harris At Oakland Generation Fund Event
- Friday, August 12, 2022: On-the-Record Press Call by Kurt Campbell, Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific
- Friday, August 12, 2022: President Biden Announces Key Appointments to Boards and Commissions
- Friday, August 12, 2022: Memorandum on the Delegation of Authority Under the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership Program Act of 2022
- Friday, August 12, 2022: Press Gaggle by Vice President Harris Aboard Air Force Two Before Departure
👎 Out with the Bad, In with the Good 👍
Yes, we are better off!
More student debt cancelled!
Could we file our taxes for free? Like people do in every other country? Justin Elliot and Paul Kiel Talking Points Memo
The United States has made a small but significant move toward creating a public system to allow millions of Americans to file their taxes for free.
The sweeping domestic policy bill passed by the House and Senate last week mandates that the IRS study options to provide a free tax filing option for Americans. That study represents a threat to the for-profit tax prep industry dominated by TurboTax, a product of the Silicon Valley company Intuit. President Joe Biden signed the bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, into law Tuesday, following the party-line vote in the House to approve it on Friday.
The bill provides $15 million to study how the IRS could implement such a program, how much it might cost and how Americans would view it. The report, which must include the input of an independent third party, is due to Congress within nine months of the bill’s passage.
Go, unions!
Gender gap in voter registrations since Dobbs
💣 Republicans: Party of Crimes and Chaos 💣
tRump has lost Alex Jones!
Pence and tRump are probably not getting along…
More evidence of the break-up: Pence and documents Greg Sargent Washington Post
Throughout the sordid saga of Donald Trump’s post-presidency, Mike Pence has shown Republicans another way. By defending his refusal to subvert the 2020 election results, Pence has illustrated — in the face of Trump’s fury — that you can prioritize constitutional governance above loyalty to Trump and still call yourself a Republican. ✂️
Pence allies are now quietly drawing attention to sharp differences in how the men handled their documents as Trump’s presidency ended. Sources tell the New York Times that Pence aides scrupulously followed protocol in organizing his government papers — a contrast obviously intended to reflect badly on Trump.
Pence needs to be careful, though. tRump already sent a mob to kill him, and he’s probably even angrier now.
Of course, the mob isn’t always appearing...pro trump rally a flop Zachary Petrizzo The Daily Beast
A pro-Trump protest in front of the FBI’s Washington, D.C. headquarters flopped on Sunday with no one showing up at the event. After days of promotion within right-wing media, the far-right Falun Gong-backed Epoch Times reported Thursday that the event had been cancelled, citing fears it might be co-opted. Chatter in pro-Trump forums had also speculated the event might be a “trap.” By Sunday afternoon, not a single protester had gathered, leaving a larger than usual group of FBI police officers to speak among themselves.
Weisselberg, the tRump org CFO, also a little less faithful than before…
He gets a few months in Rikers, which may not seem like much, but will let him know what prison is like. That may convince him to testify truthfully in the upcoming trial.
And, this news, the cancellation of ads for GOP senate candidates is delicious. Reason for these decisions? Besides being short of cash (in part because the small donors are giving to tRump and he rarely shares — it’s mine! mine! mine!), we have polls where the D candidates are leading in all three of these states. PA and WI would be pickups, so that’s fantastic.
McConnell says they could lose the senate. But let’s not take it for granted:
💙 Democrats Deliver 💙
The passage of the IRA shows that Ds are strong!
Monkeypox. Sigh
Biden has done so much!
And Ds are working around the country. Here’s an example:
Maine Governor Mills tours bridge project Press Release
Madawaska, MAINE – During a visit to Madawaska, Governor Janet Mills today toured the Madawaska-Edmundston International Bridge Project, which will provide a critical connection between Madawaska, Maine and Edmundston, New Brunswick.
Since October 2017, the 100-year-old International Bridge has been posted at a five-ton weight limit, restricting allowable travel to passenger vehicles and creating a significant detour for residents and businesses. With State and Federal funding, the Maine Department of Transportation is constructing a new bridge that will feature wider travel lanes, shoulders on both sides, and a raised sidewalk on the downstream side. The new bridge is being constructed using steel girders supported on concrete substructures and is designed to last 100 years. The new structure will also connect with a new U.S. Customs and Border Protection land port of entry currently being constructed on the U.S. side of the international border. ✂️
The total project cost will be $97.5 million. In 2019, this project received a $36-million Infrastructure for Rebuilding American (INFRA) grant from the U.S. Federal Highway Administration. The remaining costs are being shared by the Maine Department of Transportation and the New Brunswick Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (NBDTI).
The unprecedented level of General Fund support provided by Governor Mills and the Maine Legislature has provided MaineDOT with $185 million of additional State funding this year. This funding has saved the department’s capital transportation program by offsetting state Highway Fund revenue reductions driven by the pandemic and high construction costs due to inflation. This transportation investment has eliminated the need for bonding this year.
💜 Unity? 💜
👂 Bipartisan support for OTC hearing aids — sounds like progress Blake Cadwell Fortune
Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) put down their sparring gloves in order to co-author the Over-The-Counter Hearing Aid Act several years ago. Donald Trump and Joe Biden have both supported it. Now the FDA finally released the final guidelines.
On Aug. 16, 2022, we witnessed a rare example of truly bipartisan legislation when the FDA issued a final rule enabling millions of Americans with perceived mild-to-moderate hearing impairment to purchase hearing aids directly from stores or online retailers without the need for a medical exam, prescription or a fitting adjustment by an audiologist. The widely supported FDA guidelines are important for those with hearing loss, and a heartening piece of business and political news for those who don’t.
So, what does this mean for consumers who need hearing aids? The new guidelines make it easier and cheaper for everyday Americans to secure hearing aids. More people stand to benefit than you might think:
One in ten Americans, or 37 million people, suffer from hearing loss that is severe enough to impact their daily life.
Not a new project, but things take time.
🏀 Supporting Democracy basketball
🐔 And in case you were worried about what you were going to eat during football season:
📥 Actions You Can Take 📤
DONATE TO GNR SAVES THE HOUSE! A fundraising effort started by the Mayor of Gnusville, GoodNewsRoundup herself. The contributions have been so amazing she upped the goal from 38K to 76K. That would mean 2K for the D candidate in 38 tight races.
newish!!! Tax-exempt organization complaint referrals. 13909. You can fill this out for the NRA and lots of other organizations. How about if some of us white folk go into some of the MAGA churches and video record what they’re saying?
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. Defund the seditionists. This is a list with companies that sometimes have donated to 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 😈
Pharmacies ordered to pay 650 million in opioid crisis Laura Ly CNN
Walmart, CVS, and Walgreens must pay a combined $650.6 million to two Ohio counties for damages related to the opioid crisis, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
US District Judge Dan Aaron Polster ruled that over the next 15 years, approximately $306.2 million must be paid to Lake County and approximately $344.4 million must be paid to Trumbull County.
All three companies were found liable for their role in the opioid epidemic in both Lake and Trumbull counties last November. Polster presided over separate proceedings in May to determine how much money should be awarded.
And that’s just two counties...
Judges who ordered kids to prison for cash ordered to pay 200 Million in damages Michael Rubinkam Associated Press
Two former Pennsylvania judges who orchestrated a scheme to send children to for-profit jails in exchange for kickbacks were ordered to pay more than $200 million to hundreds of people they victimized in one of the worst judicial scandals in U.S. history.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner awarded $106 million in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages to nearly 300 people in a long-running civil suit against the judges, writing the plaintiffs are “the tragic human casualties of a scandal of epic proportions.”
In what came to be known as the kids-for-cash scandal, Mark Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, shut down a county-run juvenile detention center and accepted $2.8 million in illegal payments from the builder and co-owner of two for-profit lockups. Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, pushed a zero-tolerance policy that guaranteed large numbers of kids would be sent to PA Child Care and its sister facility, Western PA Child Care.
If you’re thinking, but shouldn’t these guys be in prison, they had a lot of time there too — one is in home confinement while the other still is there — civil suits just take a long time.
Madison Cawthorne may be broke as well as shortly unemployed Roger Sollenberger The Daily Beast
After losing his primary in May, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) now officially identifies himself as a self-employed investor. But if his political investments are any measure, he might consider a new line of work—he’s now down more than half a million dollars.
A pair of unusual campaign finance reports this week reveal that since 2019, Cawthorn has personally invested a total of $817,000 into his campaign, while recovering only $261,000 of that amount.
He’s incompetent as well as corrupt… good riddance!
In Wisconsin, there’s been a lot going on with respect to the fake audits of the 2020 elections. Can’t show it all here, but here’s a taste. To orient you, Remington’s the judge (good guy) Gableman’s the bad guy. Talking Points Memo
“From August 30 through December 4, 2021, the evidence speaks for itself,” Remington wrote near the end of the filing Thursday.
“[The Office of Special Counsel] accomplished nothing. It kept none of the weekly progress reports the Wisconsin State Assembly required it to keep. It recorded no interviews with witnesses. It gathered no measurable data. It organized no existing data into any analytical format. It generated no reports based on any special expertise. It did commence lawsuits against other parts of our state and local government, although at the time of this writing, OSC has received no relief. Instead, it gave its employees code names like ‘coms’ or ‘3,’ apparently for the sole purpose of emailing back and forth about news articles and drafts of speeches. It printed copies of reports that better investigators had already written, although there is no evidence that any person connected with OSC ever read these reports, let alone critically analyzed their factual and legal bases to draw his or her own principled conclusions.”
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) fired Gableman last week, just a couple days after Vos beat a Trump- and Gableman-backed primary challenger. So Remington’s take on Gableman’s investigatory work was a response, in some ways, to the investigation overall — in addition to Gableman’s meltdown in Remington’s courtroom in June, in the course of one of several of the public records lawsuits facing the probe. ✂️
In a separate order Thursday, Remington found that Gableman had complied with court-ordered steps to purge a contempt finding against him in the public records suit: He’d searched for responsive records and submitted them to the plaintiffs, the watchdog group American Oversight. However, Gableman was 12 days late, Remington found, and at a rate of $2,000 a day, the judge ordered Gableman’s Office of Special Counsel to pay $24,000 in sanctions.
📣 Let’s Honor Truth ☀️️
Liz Cheney’s concession speech Katherine Fung Newsweek
… A little over a year ago, I received a note from a Gold Star father. He said to me, 'Standing up for truth honors all who gave all,' and I have thought of his words every single day since then. I've thought of them because they are a reminder of how we must all conduct ourselves. We must conduct ourselves in a way that is worthy of the men and women who wear the uniform of this nation. And in particular, of those who have given the ultimate sacrifice.
This is not a game. Every one of us must be committed to the eternal defense of this miraculous experiment called America and at the heart of our democratic process—our elections. They are the foundational principle of our Constitution.
A few years ago, I won this primary with 73 percent of the vote. I could easily have done the same again. The path was clear, but it would have required that I go along with President Trump's lie about the 2020 election. It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic. That was a path I could not and would not take.
No House seat, no office in this land is more important than the principles that we are all sworn to protect, and I well understood the potential political consequences of abiding by my duty. Our republic relies upon the goodwill of all candidates for office to accept honorably the outcome of elections. And tonight, Harriet Hageman has received the most votes in this primary. She won. I called her to concede the race. This primary election is over but now the real work begins.
I think when an R breaks away from the main GOP, they are liberated in so many ways. Cheney voted to support same-sex marriage recently, a big shift for her.
🌹 Let’s Celebrate Love ❤️
Need a hug? Heck, it helps just to watch hugs!
📎Odds & Ends 📎
No matter what we do to tackle climate change, we’re going to be facing heat for a while. Two cities, Los Angeles and Miami, have appointed “heat officers” to address the issue. Michaela Haas, Reasons to Be Cheerful
Researchers estimate that heat is responsible for 12,000 premature deaths annually in the US, a toll that could rise to 97,000 by 2100. And yet, drive through California’s agricultural areas on a hot summer day, and you’ll see hundreds of workers plucking strawberries and tomatoes in the midday blazing sun.
Segura now has a chance to do something about this. In June 2022, she was appointed Chief Heat Officer for Los Angeles, the first Latina in the US to hold such a job. She follows in the footsteps of long-term city planner Jane Gilbert, who became Miami-Dade County’s — and the world’s first — heat officer last year. The cities of Santiago, Athens, Freetown in Sierra Leone, and Phoenix have all created similar positions. More plan to follow suit. ✂️
Because of the urgency of the threat, Segura is going for “the easy wins” in her first summer on the job: a campaign to educate Angelenos about the risks and first signs of heat-related illnesses; air conditioning units for underserved communities; and a “cooling network” of shops, department stores and fast-food chains at which people can come in and cool down, “so that everybody who starts feeling overheated on their way to the bus stop knows: I can get a glass of cool water here and sit down in a cooled space to recover at no cost.” Los Angeles also plans to plant thousands more trees, especially in historically neglected communities.
These efforts aren’t taking place in a vacuum. Los Angeles is a charter member of the C40 Cool Cities Network, a coalition of nearly 100 cities that crowdsource solutions, discuss best practices and share information. These ideas are collected in the C40 urban cooling toolbox, where they’re broken down into six categories: Green infrastructure (such as trees, green roofs, permeable pavements), blue infrastructure (drinking fountains, public swimming pools and other forms of water cooling), gray infrastructure (cool roofs, cool pavements, passive cooling in buildings), communication (outreach, cooling centers and campaigns), policy (climate design guidelines, heat emergency response plans, cooling tax rebate programs) and urban development (urban geometry, building materials).
Little girl without a father
Progress on a one-shot rabies vaccine Andy Corbley Good News Network
Researchers from the University of Oxford have today reported new findings from a Phase 1 clinical trial studying the immune response and safety of their newly-developed single shot rabies vaccine, and the results look great.
12 volunteers were recruited into the study in total, with three receiving a low dose, three receiving a medium dose and six receiving a high dose of ChAdOx2 RabG, and strong immune responses against rabies were seen in all but the low dose trio.
Additionally, the researchers assessed longer term immune responses. Six of the seven middle and high-dose recipients who returned for an additional follow-up one year after vaccination maintained neutralizing antibody levels above the protective threshold set internationally by the WHO for rabies vaccines, demonstrating that the immune response from the vaccine persists over time.
🐦 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. All titles are available through Kindle Unlimited, but I only get paid if you turn the pages.
💙 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.