Its time once again, for the Good news Roundup, where you receive all the good news to start your week off right, courtesy of the GNR newsroom (myself, Killer300 and Bhu), so lets get right into all the good news.
It would be easy — though uninformed and lazy — to think of Tennessee only as a place where white supremacy and far-right conservatism run rampant, although the state has been in the national spotlight for these reasons a lot recently. State lawmakers passed the first-in-the-nation drag ban earlier this year, kicked two young Black legislators out of the House for protesting gun violence in April and tried, in recent years, to make the Bible the official state book. In January, in Memphis, police killed 29-year-old Tyre Nichols.
But Tennessee is also a complex state with a rich tradition of social justice organizing, where a deep legacy of resistance and movement building serves as a weighty counterbalance to the persistent attacks on civil liberties and human rights. The story of how that 3,000-pound bust of Forrest was removed from the Capitol, for example, says much more about what is happening in the state now than how it was first placed there. The organizing and activism that responded to Nichols’ death speak louder than the police killing itself, and how swiftly those two young Black legislators were reinstated blunts how swiftly they were removed. Some movement leaders say the efforts for racial, economic and social justice currently underway in Tennessee are so profoundly impactful that they could be part of a larger blueprint for change across the South.
We can’t give up on the red states that suffer under GOP rule, we need to fight back and fight hard to turn them blue, and oust the racist idiots ruling over them. Now is the time to go on the attack.
Montana District Judge Kathy Seeley ruled against a state law that prohibited the consideration of climate impacts in the process for approving energy projects.
“By prohibiting analysis of GHG emissions and corresponding impacts to the climate…the [Montana Environmental Policy Act] Limitation violates Youth Plaintiffs’ right to a clean and healthful environment and is unconstitutional on its face,” she wrote.
The case was largely bolstered by a provision in Montana’s constitution that guarantees a right to “a clean and healthful environment.”
Nevertheless, Julia Olson, chief legal counsel of Our Children’s Trust, which represented the plaintiffs, said in a written statement she believes the case could be a “turning point.”
Not to overstate the obvious, but the kids are alright.
Republican strategists are worried that if former President Trump doesn’t secure the GOP’s presidential nomination next year, or if he is kept off the ballot because of his mounting legal problems, it could spell a voter turnout disaster for their party in 2024.
GOP strategists say there’s growing concern that if Trump is not the nominee, many of his core supporters, who are estimated to make up 25 percent to 35 percent of the party base, “will take their ball and go home.”
I would play a tiny violin, but I’m afraid they just cannot build a violin so incredibly tiny as to represent how little I empathize with the GOP here, the science just does not exist.
I would say its the GOP’s own damn fault for putting all their eggs in the Trump basket, but the fact is that the GOP on the whole are a bunch of mean repulsive pieces of dog shit with the personality of an expired carton of heavy cream, so its not like they have any better prospects at this point.
WASHINGTON — The fallout from the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision continued last week in Ohio, where voters defeated a plan that would have made it more difficult to change the state constitution with an amendment aimed at securing abortion rights on the ballot this fall.
For years abortion has been thought of as a bitterly partisan issue, but the Ohio vote is the latest example of how the issue seems to defy the partisan 50/50, red/blue lens that defines most everything in American politics in 2023. In state after state, initiative after initiative, voters seem to be coming down on the side of abortion rights — and the data suggest one big driver of those outcomes might be suburban Republicans.
It really seems like the abortion issue is gonna be the stone around the GOP’s neck that is going to drag them down for good. Good. They worked so hard to repeal Roe V Wade, conspired for years, stole Obama’s Supreme court nominee, and this is what they have to show for it, a country wide ass kicking. Careful what you wish for guys.
Maxeon Solar Technologies has chosen Albuquerque, New Mexico as the site for a record-sized silicon solar cell and module factory, a testament to the epochal industrial-policy measures contained in the Inflation Reduction Act.
The immense manufacturing facility would make Maxeon the latest global entrant in the race to bring energy production back to the U.S.
Hey, more solar panels and more jobs. Both great to hear.
Earlier this year, Detroit considered implementing a split-rate tax to tackle its ever-growing issue of blight. This would shift the property tax burden to the value of the land itself instead of improvements (such as buildings) on the land, encouraging needed reinvestment. Now, Mayor Mike Duggan has announced details of a land value tax plan.
By switching the current tax system to the land-based plan, 97% of Detroit homeowners will see a 30% reduction in their taxes. As reported by Planetizen, this means the average homeowner would have their annual bill knocked down by about $250. Homeowners with properties worth $100,000 could see a nearly $900 tax cut.
Not every day you get to say this, but good news out of Detroit.
Starting Monday, hundreds of thousands of federal student loan borrowers received emails from their servicers with the subject line "Your student loans have been forgiven."
The notices came as part of the Biden administration's previously announced efforts to cancel debt for 804,000 borrowers who qualify for relief under their repayment plans but haven't yet received it because of what officials have called administrative failures.
The emails started going out on Monday, according to a copy of the confirmation notices to borrowers that ABC News exclusively obtained.
Despite the Supreme court trying to block him Biden is doing his thing by canceling student debt, hopefully he gets around to mine eventually.
Nicholas volunteered to become one of the first people in the world to try to regain his body’s function with the help of a little device planted in his brain and chest that the doctors hoped would stimulate them into action, even the parts of the brain that the stroke seemed to wipe out.
The results — detailed in a study published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine — have been hopeful for Nicholas, and if they could be replicated, they could show promise for thousands of people left disabled by a stroke.
Once again, its great to be living in the future.
Ah yes, lest we forget, but Trump is going to jail, its happening people! And it looks like he’s taking the GOP down with him.
The U.S. clean energy revolution must be (mostly) Made in America.
At least, that’s what the text of the country’s record-shattering climate law says. Indeed, much of the $391 billion (or more) in climatetech funding in the Inflation Reduction Act can be disbursed only when the product in question — be it an electric vehicle, a sprawling solar array or the whirring blade of a wind turbine — is made at least partially in the U.S. The legislation is literally paying companies to manufacture their products domestically, all in service of making the country more self-sufficient regarding clean energy.
This policy has rapidly shifted the economic viability of building clean energy equipment in the U.S., attracting tens of billions of dollars in private investment from both domestic and foreign firms hoping to capitalize on the clean energy boom.
From bad president Trump to good president Biden, it looks like the climate change law is coming through again.
Speaking of climate, its time for another GNR lightning round! Get ready folks, its gonna be a doozy!
India reduces emissions by 33% over 14 years
Summer of labor: Why unions win pay raises and more clout
Mexico’s poverty rate declines from 50% to 43.5 in two years
Women sports are booming
America’s cool inflation summer
How 2023’s murder decline compares to other declines
Gen Zers are running for office
Massachusetts taxed the rich, now every kid gets a free meal
Illinois supreme court upholds assault weapons ban
India’s tobacco industry regulations
EU blindsided by spectacular Solar roll out
GM says its EV’s will be able to power your home by 2026
Are we on the cusp of a breakthrough with endometriosis?
16 million less children suffered from Stunting in 2022 compared to 2012
Home test to check if abortion worked reduces follow up surgery
Radiation, a mainstay for cancer treatment, begins a fade out
That’s it for our lightning round, lots of good stuff.
And to close us out this week, like many of my colleagues, We’ve decided to dabble in posting comics.
Yeah apparently I can’t hotlink the comic, sorry gang. [I added it to the DK Image Library, so here you go.—Mokurai]
Anyway, see you next week, have a good one.