Welcome 🌻 to Friday’s Roundup of Good News!
As many here know, I’m an expat in Europe. I was at a Christmas lunch in December, and several women asked me if we are going to stop tRump. They’re worried, because putin is still attacking Ukraine and tRump would just let him do it.
The problem — even in Europe — is that many people are unaware of what President Biden has done. They think he is old and ineffective. Sure, he is old, but he has gotten so much more done than most people realize. The MSM has been failing us.
I know many are working to change this. There’s Simon Rosenberg, who does Hopium chronicles, with an emphasis on the economy. There’s the Boosting Biden series started by GoodNewsRoundup on Daily Kos (see comments below). There’s Vice President Harris and her tour of college campuses.
In order to save our country and the world, we have to get out the message. Talk to people. Repeat ourselves. Because when people become aware, many will vote for President Biden and the Ds.
I hope all gnusies are ready to stampede this year and to promote the good news. We have a lot to do, but we can do it. Please, if you have ideas, share!
Come on in, dear gnusies, and see what some of the good guys are doing.
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 (OK, they actually took off some time). Here are the last week’s posts at the White House briefing room.
- Thursday, January 4, 2024: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby, January 4, 2024
- Thursday, January 4, 2024: Statement from National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan Congratulating Prime Minister Al-Sabah of Kuwait
- Thursday, January 4, 2024: Background Press Call on Recent Attacks by the Houthis
- Thursday, January 4, 2024: Statement from National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard on Today’s CHIPS & Science Act Announcement
- Wednesday, January 3, 2024: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby
- Wednesday, January 3, 2024: A Joint Statement from the Governments of the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, and the United Kingdom
- Monday, January 1, 2023: Statement from President Joe Biden on the Earthquake in Japan
- Sunday, December 31, 2023: Statement By Vice President Kamala Harris on The Passing of Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson
- Sunday, December 31, 2023: Statement from President Joe Biden on the Passing of former Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson
- Saturday, December 30, 2023: September 2023 Visitor Logs Records Posted
- Saturday, December 30, 2023: FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Releases Global Health Security Partnerships Annual Progress Report Demonstrating Results from United States Investments
- Friday, December 29, 2023: A Proclamation on National Stalking Awareness Month, 2024
- Friday, December 29, 2023: A Proclamation on National Human Trafficking Prevention Month, 2024
- Friday, December 29, 2023: A Proclamation on National Mentoring Month, 2024
- Friday, December 29, 2023: Statement from President Joe Biden on Russia’s Aerial Assault on Ukraine
- Friday, December 29, 2023: A Proclamation To Take Certain Actions Under the African Growth and Opportunity Act and For Other Purposes
- Friday, December 29, 2023: Readout of National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s Call with Polish Secretary of State, Head of the National Security Bureau Jacek Siewiera
👎 Out with the Bad, In with the Good 👍
Israel high court strikes a blow for democracy Jennifer Rubin Washington Post
Israel’s high court struck a blow in support of democracy and judicial independence on Monday in overturning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s inaptly named “judicial reform,” which would have barred the court from striking down laws on a “reasonableness” standard. In doing so, the court helped preserve the core values of the country and signaled that, war or no war, Netanyahu does not represent the soul of the nation.
The breakdown in the 15-person court was telling. “The court split almost down middle over the highly contentious legislation, the only law from the government’s polarizing judicial overhaul package to have been passed, with eight justices ruling to strike down the law and seven to uphold it,” the Times of Israel reported. “But fully 13 out of the full 15-justice panel that heard the case wrote in their opinions that the court did have the authority to review Basic Laws.” Of the five who upheld the court’s right to determine Basic Laws but didn’t strike down the “reasonableness” repeal, “three expressed deep concern over the legislation and wrote that it should be interpreted in a narrow manner to preserve aspects of the reasonableness standard.” The court reaffirmed that “it does have, in limited circumstances, the right to annul Basic Laws if they undermine the key characteristics of the State of Israel as a Jewish and a democratic country.”
People seeing insulin prices dropping! I talked to two people with diabetes 1, and they confirmed that they have seen it themselves:
We may have nostalgia for earlier times. We shouldn’t. Jennifer Rubin Washington Post
The past was simply not “better” by any objective standard. Economically, we were all a lot poorer. “In 1960, there were roughly 400 vehicles per 1,000 Americans, about half of today’s car ownership rate. In other words, a family in 1960 could afford a car on one income, but today they would have two cars,” Matthew Yglesias wrote. Tom Nichols has written extensively on the politics of false memory. (“Times are always bad. Nothing gets better. And the past 50 years have not been a temporary economic purgatory but a permanent hell, if only the elites would be brave enough to peer through the gloom and see it all for what it is,” he wrote. “This obsession with decline is one of the myths surrounding postindustrial democracy that will not die.”)
Crime was higher by a lot in the 1970s. Poverty, child mortality, deaths from virtually any major disease, workplace injuries, high school dropout rates, etc., were all much worse in the 1950s. Also, kids got polio, Jim Crow was in full swing, gays had to be in the closet and no one had cellphones, home computers or microwave ovens. Very few people had air conditioning or could afford to fly.
Young democrat joins city council!
💣 Republicans: Party of Crimes and Chaos 💣
Seems as if election fraud is rampant in the R party. Here’s some small fry in NY state Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo
Troy Republicans had a hot idea: appoint Jason Schofield, the former elections commissioner of the Rensselaer County Republicans, to serve as an assistant to the city clerk. Public service is a good thing. So that sounds normal enough. But what happened to Schofield’s gig as elections commissioner? Welllll …. he had to resign a year ago as part of pleading guilty to federal elections fraud charges tied to fraudulent absentee ballot applications in county elections back in 2021.
According to a news report from the time of his plea last January, Scholfield he facesup to five in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. He’s scheduled to be sentenced on May 16th of this year. He was originally scheduled to be sentenced in May 2023 so the case seems to be moving at a Trumpian pace. ✂️
But things moved fast in Troy, New York. On Saturday, Casey announced that Schofield had withdrawn his name from consideration for the assistant city clerk gig.
Are these some of the tRump crimes?
And it turns out tRump was collecting money from China while he was in office Doktor Zoom, Wonkette
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee on Thursday released a report on some of the money Donald Trump’s businesses made by serving foreign interests during his “presidency,” revealing that Trump took in at least $7.8 million from “foreign governments and government-backed entities from 20 countries” from the day he was inaugurated until the day he had to leave, even though he was pretty sure he was still president then.
The Oversight Committee Dems, who don’t even seem to realize they aren’t in power in the House so how can they publish anything, wrote that the partial records they were able to obtain “demonstrate that four Trump-owned properties together collected, at the least, millions of dollars in payments from foreign governments and officials,” which probably violated the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause, at least if anyone’s paying attention. ✂️
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), the top Democrat on the committee, said the report “sets forth the records showing foreign government money — and all the spoils from royals we can find — pouring into hotels and buildings that the President continued to own during his presidency, all in direct violation of the Constitutional prohibition.”
But because the documents the committee had access to were limited, the report acknowledges it probably covers “only a small fraction” of the total Trump received from the aforesaid potentates and their retainers.
How are they going to go after Hunter Biden now?
🚚 💙 Democrats Deliver 💙 🚚
Democrats deliver: chips! White House Briefing Room
Today, the Department of Commerce announced the second preliminary memorandum of terms (PMT) for approximately $162 million dollars to be awarded to Microchip Technology. The chips and microcontroller units (MCUs) that Microchip fabricates are essential components in a wide range of consumer and defense products that are critical to American manufacturing, including electric which is only a fraction of the additional private investment that Microchip is making in these projectssupply chain that impacts millions of American consumers and businesses.
As the Department of Commerce continues to make award announcements in the coming months, President Biden’s Investing in America agenda will continue to demonstrate how it is delivering for hardworking Americans, creating good jobs, strengthening American supply chains, and protecting our national security.
Your legislative badass for 2023: President Biden! Doktor Zoom Wonkette
Picking a Legislative Badass for 2023 was a tough choice in a year when Congress did Jack Shit, over and over again. We could’ve gone with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who in the multiple failures by Republicans to choose a speaker kept getting more votes than any GOP candidate (but not a majority of total votes, since Goopers kept voting for protest candidates). But while Jeffries did a terrific job of keeping the Dem caucus unified, we decided to hand the Badass title to Biden, primarily for outmaneuvering Republicans in negotiations to extend the debt ceiling, winning a deal that avoided a world financial crash while also not conceding to GOP demands to undo Biden’s first-term legislative achievements. ✂️
Biden, who had said from the start that he wouldn’t negotiate with terrorists, said hell no, and that only a “clean” debt limit bill would be acceptable. Once that was in place, sure, he’d negotiate on the budget process. ✂️
The biggest concessions allowed for some imposition of work requirements for food assistance, but expanded access to the benefits for many more people, so it was a tradeoff. And the GOP did get a $20 billion cut from the new IRS funding, but not full elimination of it, as they’d wanted. The climate provisions in the IRA were untouched, but to get Fucking Joe Manchin on board, the agreement allowed a gas pipeline from West Virginia to be built, bypassing the normal authorization process. Sucks, but the carbon reductions expected from preserving the rest of the climate package (roughly a billion metric tons by 2030) will vastly outweigh any new emissions from the pipeline (estimates from climate experts are disputed: from a low around 16 million metric tons annually, up to a high of 89 million), one of those “coulda been worse” compromises. ✂️
Biden also came out the winner in both of the Republicans’ subsequent attempts to shut down the government, getting short-term extensions of current spending, without massive cuts, from Kevin McCarthy, who lost his speakership for letting Democrats keep the government open, and from McCarthy’s eventual, far worse replacement, Mike Johnson. (The latter deal even extended the must-pass Farm Bill until September 30, 2024, putting off one budget fight thank Crom.)
Neither of those continuing resolutions included funding for Ukraine, because Republicans like Russia too much, but otherwise, the national parks remain open, federal workers are getting paid, and the economy keeps humming along, creating jobs and making Fox News angry.
So hell yes, Joe Biden out-legislated the actual legislators this year. Now the dipshits will try to impeach him without actually knowing what for, which will just be one of the many things making 2024 interesting.
How to reach young people (thread from Victor Shi at X)
THREAD: Stop with the doom & gloom Tweets about young people not supporting Joe Biden in 2024. I’m going to take a moment & explain why I’m not falling for the doom & gloom, AND, instead, offer what we must do to turn out Gen Z for Joe Biden like never before in 2024 (we will).
The biggest factor driving the narrative that young people aren’t supporting President Biden’s re-election in 2024 are the polls. Here’s what I’ll say about them: Watch what type of polls people are pushing & what the methodology is (e.g. is it via phone call?). That matters.
For instance, yesterday, the USA Today conducted a poll showing young people supporting Trump more than Biden. On the surface, that creates panic. But, dig into the poll, & you find that the only method they used was…phone calls. Ditto for many others.
Compare that to other polls (YouGov/The Economist or the Harvard Youth Poll) that used a mix of methodologies (phone call, texts, online surveys) to reach young voters. What do you see in each of those polls? The VAST majority of young people supporting POTUS in 2024.
BUT, let’s put aside polls, because, frankly, it’s too far before the election, &, there are a lot more important issues to be focusing on than polls. The one thing I hear, above all else, when I talk to young people isn’t a disdain for POTUS. It’s unawareness of his policies.
Last week, I told @MuellerSheWrote a moment I encountered at school recently: A friend approached me & genuinely asked what this President has accomplished for young people. I responded & listed everything that POTUS has accomplished & at the end, she viewed POTUS favorably. WHY?
This shouldn’t shock many people, but it all boils down to where young people consume their info. We know that the political discourse in this app or that’s happening on MSNBC or CNN simply is not the same as the discourse happening where young people get info: social media.
They don’t hear, for example, President Biden’s actions around gun violence prevention, his historic investment in climate change, or just how much he’s been able to do with a bare majority in Congress. And that’s, arguably, the biggest challenge POTUS faces in 2024.
The record is there. Now, it’s about how we reach young voters not just effectively, but also in a way that will generate excitement for POTUS & his agenda. In other words, simply telling young people about the threat Trump poses won’t cut it. They must be excited about POTUS.
I’ve written about this before & I’ll say it again. I believe it must be a two-pronged approach. First, flood the zone on social media. Doing one or two interviews with influencers a month won’t cut it. It must be constant & sustained. BUT, second:
Meet young people where they are on college campuses. Whether it’s POTUS or VPOTUS, there is a value in showing up on a college campus & LISTENING to & engaging with young people. Let me share a story of a friend who attended VP’s college tour last year…
He wasn’t very enthusiastic about VP nor was he enthusiastic about POTUS. But after attending the event at Morehouse, he told me how amazing it felt to have a VP how showed up on a college campus & engaged with young people. That matters for a group that feels ignored in politics
What can we all do? 1.) Talk to young people in your lives & register them to vote. Ask them what they care about. Echo to them all that POTUS has done on the values they care about. And then help them through the process of registering to vote & then actually voting.
Another term for this is relational organizing. Data shows that, by far, the most effective way to persuade someone isn’t through a talking head on TV or through a politician. It’s through the people most immediate and closest in one’s life (friend, parents, teacher, etc).
Know that you are a trusted messenger for young people & that those conversations with young people matter more than you think. The second thing is to support young organizations out there doing work to turn out the vote. The biggest challenge that these orgs face is $$$$.
Find a youth-focused org (not to be biased but something like @VotersTomorrow or
@runforsomething or any of the many others) & chip in some money. Can be $1, $10, $100. Resources & money are scarce. & anything helps their efforts to engage a critical block of the 2024 cycle.
Bottom line: POTUS & VPOTUS are the most pro-youth admin of our lifetimes. I’m not saying there won’t be challenges (there will be), but we’ve done it before & we must do it again—& even more. Stay focused this year. Keep fighting. We can win & we will this thing. /END
US moving ahead!
💜 Unity? 💜
Group of high schoolers rescue mom and kids with quick teamwork Andy Corbley Good News Network
In Utah, a mother and two children were run over in a high school parking lot when a horde of students came running to help.
The CEO of the private school praised the speed and determination of the high schoolers, who arrived en masse to help lift the car to one side and allow the trapped family to escape.
It was in early December that the mother and her kids, ages 2 and 3, were walking back across the Layton Christian Academy parking lot to their car when a woman driving very slowly, yet partially blinded by the low winter sun coming in through the windscreen, ran the three down.
Everyone is OK now.
📥 Actions You Can Take 📤
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.
🔎 Want to check out what’s going on with campaign contributions? Check out this diary. 👀
🐍 Schadenfreude 😈
These types of threats are terrible, but at least some people are starting to pay for them:
Judge rules that Kim Davis, the KY clerk who refused to marry same sex couples, must pay Associated Press
LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Former county clerk Kim Davis, who refused to issue marriage licenses in Kentucky to same-sex couples, must pay a total of $260,104 in fees and expenses to attorneys who represented one couple, according to a federal judge’s ruling.
That’s in addition to $100,000 in damages a jury said the former Rowan County clerk should pay the couple who sued.
Attorneys for Davis had argued that the fees and costs sought by the attorneys were excessive, but U.S. District Judge David L. Bunning disagreed and said Davis must pay since the men prevailed in their lawsuit, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported.
📣 Let’s Honor Truth ☀️️
This week we honor Simon Rosenberg, who has, in his nerdy way, been pushing out the good economic news that so many in the MSM are ignoring. Here are some words from his Hopium Chronicles
(written end 2023) As I sat down this morning to write I realized that I have a simple message for all of you - we just keep winning elections of all kinds across the US, and we should be very optimistic about winning the Presidential election next year.
I discuss all this in my Hopium-filled talk recorded yesterday, which features some inspiring words from Sam Cornale, the Executive Director of the DNC. I hope you will watch, and share with others you think might be interested.
What we discussed is that our current political moment began in the spring of 2022 when Dobbs happened, Uvalde and other mass shootings happened, extremist Republican abortion trigger laws took effect and when the January 6th Committee began its public work. 3 days after Dobbs our candidate in an unfunded Nebraska house special election outperformed our 2020 results by 10 points. In the 5 House specials after Dobbs our candidates outperformed 2020 by an average of 7 points in what was supposed to be a good year for Republicans. Democrats and women in particular started registering to vote in much higher numbers; our candidates dramatically out-raised Republican candidates; we blew it out in the early vote in state after state; and then in the battleground states we outperformed expectations and gained ground over 2020 in AZ, CO, GA, MI, MN, NH and PA, getting to 59% in CO, 57% in Pennsylvania, 55% in Michigan and 54% in New Hampshire. Our performance in 2022 would have been encouraging in a good year; that it happened in a “red wave” made it even more extraordinary.
This heightened Democratic performance, and sluggish Republican performance, has carried over to 2023. In 33 state house and senate elections across the US we’ve outperformed 2020 by 6.2 pts. A broader analysis of the elections leading up to November 7th had us outperforming the partisan lean of districts by 10 points. We flipped two of the largest Republican-held cities in the country, Jacksonville and Colorado Springs. We took away that Wisconsin Supreme Court seat, getting 56% of the vote. We got to 57% in the August Ohio Vote No ballot initiative. Like 2022, in the elections leading up the 2023 November election Dems just kept overperforming.
Then the 2023 election came, and once again we saw overperformance. Beshear got a higher percentage of the vote in KY than he did in 2019. We kept the Senate in Virginia, and did something few thought was possible, flipped the House too. We got to 57% in Ohio - a jawdropping achievement. We picked up state legislative seats in New Jersey. We had big wins in municipal races across the US, and in school board races too. Like the 2022 election, Democrats outperformed expectations in 2023, performing at the upper end of what was possible for us even in red states. It was another year of growth, expansion, taking away demographic and geographic real estate from them - it’s how we get to 55 in 2024.
The Republican Party is in trouble. It keeps losing elections across the country. It has done two things since 2020, each of which could keep a political party out of power for decades - stripped women of fundamental rights, and led a party-wide conspiracy to overturn an election and end American democracy. Their next set of leaders are far more Star Wars bar than Roman Senate. Their new Speaker has repeatedly fought for a national abortion ban with no exceptions and is among the most extreme, right wing political figures in recent decades. They keep trying to shut the government down, and almost broke through the debt ceiling in the spring, something that could have triggered a global financial collapse. Several of their Senators are leading blockades against appointments and programs that are degrading DOD, State and DHS in a time of rising security threats here and around the world. Their almost certain nominee is the most disgraced and dangerous political figure in American history, one who has committed sexual assault; oversaw one of the largest financial frauds in American history; is more responsible for stripping women of their fundamental rights than any other person in America; led that party wide effort to end American democracy and led an armed assault on the Capitol when all 435 Members of Congress were inside; is responsible for the most significant security breach in American history, one that could do untold harm to Americans and our allies for decades to come; has repeatedly aligned himself political with Russia and now Iran, two countries working to degrade American economic and political power throughout the world. There has never been anything like it in American history - Republicans are today without doubt the worst set of political leaders our country has ever had.
He’s wordy, but important, because he keeps repeating the good news. Which matters.
Also, let’s honor Virginia Giuffre, whose work has helped expose the friends of Epstein.
🌹 Let’s Celebrate Love ❤️
A mother’s love — note some women do choose their not-yet-born babies and sacrifice themselves. But it should be their choice.
📎Odds & Ends 📎
Well done, John Cena:
177 ways the world got better in 2023 Reasons to Be Cheerful
🐦 I do a lot of other writing. A recent offering: the Crow Nickels (chronicles), a trilogy about crows who want to save birdkind from extinction: Hunters of the Feather, Scavengers of Mind and Familiars of the Flock (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 — such as The Meryton Murders — and others based on history and Greek mythology, such as Jocasta: The Mother-Wife of Oedipus, 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 say something nice to friend or a stranger.
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.