Welcome back to the Monday Good News Roundup, that special time of the week where the GNR Newsroom (myself, Killer300 and Bhu) get you a bunch of stories to start your week off right. And its Christmas! Only this year you’re getting the presents. Yes its Christmas day, the boss is on vacation and WE’VE GONE CRAZY! So without further ado, lets get on with the festivities.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis formally approved letting Catholic priests bless same-sex couples, the Vatican announced Monday, a radical shift in policy that aimed at making the church more inclusive while maintaining its strict ban on gay marriage.
But while the Vatican statement was heralded by some as a step toward breaking down discrimination in the Catholic Church, some LGBTQ+ advocates warned it underscored the church’s idea that gay couples remain inferior to heterosexual partnerships.
Well I mean its a start, the Catholic Church could be doing better, but you know what they say its not amazing that the bear waltzes well its that the bear can waltz at all.
The gender disparity that Hicks experienced as an apprentice continues to be a huge problem across the trades. For example, men make up roughly 90 percent of all workers in the construction industry. When it comes to electricians, the gender gap is even more pronounced: In 2022, only 2.2 percent of electricians in the U.S. were women. Just 7.3 percent were Black.
This is especially problematic now, given the nationwide shortage of electricians, which is growing more acute just as the country is ramping up to meet ambitious decarbonization goals. Rewiring America estimates the U.S. will need at least 1 million more electricians over the next decade. Recruiting, training and retaining women in construction jobs and skilled trades will be essential to meeting that need.
The same year she joined the union, Hicks had her first son and moved to Atlanta, where she worked as an electrician for various employers. One day, a colleague at a job site somewhat jokingly suggested that she should start her own business. Hicks recalled, “He said to me, ‘You know, if you’re going to run around telling everybody what to do, you might as well own your own company.’”
That was the nudge Hicks needed to gather her savings and launch her business, Power Solutions, from the sunroom of her Atlanta apartment in 2000. She was 28 years old and a single mom to a six-year-old. She took on any job that she could get, often small, one-off residential projects.
We have a shortage on electricians, and Tonya Hicks is gonna do something about it.
Much of the interconnection logjam is due to a slowdown in transmission-grid buildout — it’s hard to add more wind and solar power to a grid that isn’t expanding fast enough to accommodate it. We’ve covered the challenges the country faces if it’s to more than double its current transmission capacity, as multiple studies indicate is needed not just to increase clean energy capacity but also to make the grid more cost-effective and reliable in the face of extreme weather.
But new transmission lines can take up to a decade to build, and many planned grid projects falter in the face of regulatory gridlock and legal challenges. Federal agencies, state lawmakers and regulators are working on ways to streamline the process of building more transmission, but those efforts will take time and will face opposition, grid experts warn.
But that doesn’t mean there’s no progress to be made in the near term. Here are two of the most promising developments from 2023 when it comes to speeding up the interconnection process.
We have a problem with getting our country on green energy, luckily it seems like people are coming up with possible solutions.
Welcome to BIG, a newsletter on the politics of monopoly power. If you’d like to sign up to receive issues over email, you can do so here.
Are CEO’s finally getting the message? Today one of the premier deals on Wall Street fell apart, as design software monopolist Adobe abandoned its $20 billion attempt to buy nascent rival Figma in response to pressure from the Antitrust Division and European enforcers. This is on top of legal losses by corporate giants last week, and another hospital merger abandonment today.
Meanwhile, CNBC’s Jim Cramer chided antitrust defense lawyers for misleading corporate executives on what kind of mergers can get through the regulatory gauntlet. And all of this is happening the day that antitrust agencies released new merger guidelines designed to restore antitrust law to what Congress intended.
I don’t think it can be understated how much Reagan fucked over my generation and the generations that come after me. Hopefully we’ve reached a tipping point where we can start cleaning up that whole mess.
Happy Tuesday all. A few things today:
On Friday I dropped a new analysis I hope everyone here at Hopium reads in the coming days. It reviews IMHO the three most important story lines in US politics as we head into 2024:
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The most important electoral data out there right now isn’t noisy and unreliable polls, it’s our ongoing overperformance in elections of all kinds across the US since Dobbs. 2022 taught us centering our understanding of US politics solely on polls is a risky affair - more need to learn that lesson
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The economy is ending 2023 on a remarkably strong note, giving Biden a very sturdy foundation for his re-election next year
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Trump’s Olympian levels of baggage and escalating extremism are being overly discounted in the 2024 chatter. The country has rejected MAGA in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023, and is unlikely to vote for the most extreme and dangerous version of MAGA Trump is now
2024 is still shaping up to be a good year for us.
Weeks after Ohio overwhelmingly voted to enshrine a right to abortion in the state Constitution, abortion rights have secured another important win: On Friday, the state Supreme Court dismissed a demand from the state to be able to enforce its six-week ban, which has been blocked by an injunction from a lower court in Hamilton County since September 2022. Explaining their decision to dismiss the state’s appeal, the state Supreme Court justices cited “a change in the law,” apparently referring to the successful abortion rights ballot measure, Issue 1.
Once again abortion proves to be a losing battle for the GOP, its the hill they chose to die on, and die they shall (Politically, if I wasn’t being clear).
If you had to pick one symbol of how conservatives are losing American culture, you could do worse than the mighty NFL’s embrace of the even mightier Taylor Swift.
Before the pop music superstar was crowned Time magazine’s “Person of the Year,” her romance with eight-time Pro Bowler Travis Kelce spawned countless viral memes, including tongue-in-cheek photoshops of Swift on the cover of the next Madden NFL video game.
Conservative football fans are unhappy. Pop icon Swift is largely apolitical but endorsed President Joe Biden in 2020 and has supported LGBTQ rights. Her beau made right-wing enemies through his advocacy for COVID-19 vaccines and by appearing in an advertisement for Bud Light after anti-trans conservatives started boycotting the brand. But does their anger even matter? The NFL’s marketing decisions suggest otherwise.
Here’s why: Yes, Republicans still have the absolute numbers to win national elections, even though they won the popular vote only once in the last eight presidential elections between 1992 and 2020. They continue to underperform in recent elections.
But conservatives are falling farther behind in terms of cultural and economic power. Contrary to the right-wing insistence that “woke goes broke,” the biggest movie of the year was Barbie, a stridently and subversively feminist juggernaut that raked in over $1.36 billion at the global box office. Oppenheimer, a nuanced meditation on the creation and use of the American nuclear bomb, followed closely behind with just under $1 billion in global ticket sales and broke box office records for a biopic. Disney’s live-action version of The Little Mermaid, which endured heavily racist conservative attacks for featuring a Black lead, hauled in $569 million globally and broke streaming records on streaming service Disney+.
Conservatism is rapidly exiting the conversation, lets hurry it along.
And here is the big news from the last week. Trump off the ballot in Colorado. Here’s hoping its the beginning of the end for Trumps political career.
Federal regulators are exploring a new rule that would require cars to detect when motorists aren't fit to drive, a move that advocates say could be the most transformative standard ever issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — if it can make it past the gauntlet of regulatory hurdles and culture wars ahead.
Last week, federal regulators finally issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking that could soon require new cars to come with Impaired Driving Prevention Technology, or IDPT, which can automatically detect if a motorist is too drunk or high to drive safely, and take action to prevent a crash. Some impaired motorists might even be prevented from even starting their vehicles with technology such as "touch" systems embedded in steering wheels or gear shifts that measure illegal blood alcohol levels under the surface of the skin, or ambient air sensors that can distinguish a drunk driver's breath from any passengers in the car.
Those ideas might sound futuristic, but the scientists behind a federal program that's been developing breath and touch sensors since 2008 estimate they'll both be ready for wide-scale deployment by 2025 — just in time for NHTSA to fulfill its congressional mandate to be require Impaired Driving Prevention Technology all new vehicles. Other technologies are being adapted from cabin-facing sensors that millions of cars already use to send alerts to drivers who are exhibiting signs of distraction — something all European cars will be required to have next year — which can be re-calibrated to recognize signs of drug or alcohol use, such as pupil size and whether drivers are nodding off.
Once again, I love living in the future.
And now, because we have not had one in a while, a GNR LIGHTNING ROUND!
Octopus energy raises 800 million in clean energy push
Seattle and other cities mull workarounds to ditch gas
One cool way to help speed up heat pump adoption
5 lessons from Portugal’s 6 day renewable streak
Unhoused community resists government tear down orders
The stubborn faith that fuels a leading gun safety activist
The Necessity of joy in times of sorrow
The earth’s core is hot. So hot, that if we drilled deep enough, we could power the world millions of times over with cheap, clean energy, supporting renewables when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. But getting there is tough.
Yeah lets hear it for Geothermal power woo!
A Positive, Upbeat End to 2023 - Dow in record territory. Inflation running below the Fed target rate. Interest rates coming down next year. GDP growth 4.9% last quarter, looking close to 3% for this one. Best job market since the 1960s. The lowest uninsured rate in history. Crime has fallen across the US this year, rents are coming down too. Consumer sentiment is spiking. Wage growth, prime age worker participation rate and new business formation are all in historically elevated territory. Best recovery in the G7. US setting records for domestic oil and renewable production. $130b in student debt forgiven. The good news just keeps coming.
I always get annoyed when everyone acts like the previous year was terrible, I think we did rather well this year all things considered.
Thanks to your support on December 21, 2023 we reached our $25,000 Funding Goal to keep the lights on at Pillowfort. We're completely blown away by this turn of events. This wouldn't have been possible without you. Thank you for believing in us. Thank you for believing in our platform.
This gives us approximately six months of funding, which we will use to put the rest of our business plan into action. It's still important to consider supporting us if you haven't yet by subscribing to Pillowfort Premium or donating to us directly. Any additional funding we receive now will help extend past that time-frame.
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Good news for social media alternatives to Twitter. With 100% less Elon Musl.
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden announced Friday he's issuing a federal pardon to every American who has used marijuana in the past, including those who were never arrested or prosecuted.
The sweeping pardon applies to all U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents in possession of marijuana for their personal use and those convicted of similar federal crimes. It also forgives pot users in the District of Columbia. It does not apply to individuals who have been jailed for selling the drug, which is illegal under federal law, or other marijuana offenses such as driving under the influence of an illegal substance.
Biden might be the coolest president we’ve ever had. Fight me.
All the stress has perhaps caused me to sound a touch more pessimistic than I normally do. And let’s be honest: there is a scenario where, a year from now, Donald Trump is president-elect and American democracy deconsolidates even further.1 I still do not think that is going to happen, but I could very well be wrong and the high variance of possible outcomes is a source of stress in its own right.
As the digital pile of grading has shrunk, however, so have my cortisol levels. Regaining my equilibrium, the hard-working staff has been reinvigorated. It reminds me that on a semi-annually basis I like to point out the myriad ways the United States is in better socioeconomic shape than is commonly perceived. See, for example, this from a year ago and this from six months ago.
Now seems like a particularly ripe moment to do so given how downbeat the polling and the vibes have been about the state of the country. As WSJ reporter Christopher Mims noted on Threads recently, filter bubbles can cause such dour perceptions to calcify even if they are wrong — in no small part because mainstream media finds it hard to buck a trend: “If, as a responsible reporter, in the course of doing one's job, you uncover something that doesn't fit any of the current popular narratives on a topic, good luck getting people to share and read that story. Social media has created a powerful incentive to produce stories that will bolster the preconceived notions of any particular group of people.”
So if all y’all don’t mind, let me share some stories that might disrupt some of your preconceived pessimism.
A lot of people out there doing what we’re doing, trying to get the good news out. It warms my heart.
More Encouraging Economic News - A second measure of inflation, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, (PCE), fell by 0.1% last month. The other big inflation measure, CPI, was 0% in October and just 0.1% in November. Now we have PCE coming in at -0.1% in November. Yes, this means by this measure, overall prices are now *falling* - remarkably good news. With wages continuing to grow at a 4-5% annualized rate while prices are holding steady or even falling we are in the midst of particularly good run for American workers.
Inflation is getting under control, and despite what a lot of people think the economy is doing well.
t’s not often you get to write the rules to govern an entirely new industry. But that’s exactly what the Biden administration is doing now with new proposed rules that define what kinds of hydrogen production methods count as clean.
This morning, the Treasury Department proposed a framework that aligns with the best available evidence, protects consumers and the climate, and sets the right foundation for robust and durable growth of the U.S. clean hydrogen sector.
At stake is who gets to claim the most generous subsidy for clean hydrogen production in the world — and whether that “clean” hydrogen is truly clean, or an exercise in greenwashing that could cost the American taxpayer hundreds of billions of dollars while increasing CO2 emissions by hundreds of millions of tons.
Biden does it again.
he Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Friday that the state’s heavily gerrymandered state legislative maps are unconstitutional and ordered lawmakers to draw new maps ahead of the 2024 elections.
The case over the Republican-drawn lines, which emerged as a political flashpoint in the closely watched swing state, was the first major one to be heard and decided by the court’s new liberal majority.
In a 4-3 ruling along ideological lines, justices tasked lawmakers with drawing new maps, but wrote that if they fail to do so, the court could move forward with a preliminary “remedial” map-drawing process itself.
Another day another case of the GOP trying to pick their own voters.
Good riddance to DeSantis, little punk.
What were the biggest news stories of the year? If you look at mainstream media, except for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, they were all disasters. Ongoing war in Ukraine. The terrorist attacks in Israel and the subsequent pummeling of Gaza. Deadly earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. The dayslong search, and eventual explosion, of the Titan submersible. Record-breaking temperatures across the globe.
Here at The Progress Network (TPN), however, we specialize in covering the news stories that are not as loud, but oftentimes just as important. As 2023 comes to a close, here are our seven picks of the biggest steps forward from the year, in collaboration with our friends at Warp News. We have also included three of our editorial favorites from TPN and Warp.
If you want to go even deeper, below the wrap-up we have selected one news item for every week of 2023. We could have included even more—together Warp News and The Progress Network have published over 500 pieces of positive news during the past year.
As you can see below, these are not cute stories, but events, breakthroughs, and progress that improve the world.
I think this is a good point to end on, it was a great year for good news, and we’re gonna make next year even better. See you then, and happy holidays.