Good Day, Gnuville! Happy Tuesday!
OK I have to fess up straight away. I was too preoccupied with the eclipse yesterday and even though I tried to prepare in advance by working on the GNR over the weekend, I seem to be mentally muddled now and the themes I was working on have sort of deserted me.
SO! I am going to just post news and let you enjoy it as a random sample today. 😅
I do have a couple of notes I was thinking about:
1. About that fundraiser that TFG claims raised over 50m. Take that with a grain of salt. I bet you 5 bucks that number will fall apart. NPD people are just so erfing predictable. When I heard about this fundraiser plan, I said to my friend, ah just wait: TFG will announce he raised TWICE as much as Biden did at the record- breaking former presidents fundraiser.
Sure enough, Biden raised @$25m… so TFG said he raised $50m. His reactions (and lies) are utterly predictable. Watch for that number to turn out to be falsely inflated (that’s nifty’s prediction — although whatever the number actually was — it could be less OR even more — 50m was what TFG was going to say the moment he heard that Biden’s event raised 25m).
2. Pay attention to how many times Joe Biden goes back to try to solve a problem after being blocked by the Republicans. Yesterday, for example, he announced yet another plan to get student debt relief to millions of people. How many ways has Joe tackled this problem and hasn’t given up?
Joe doesn’t give up easily. This is important to keep in mind.
He has survived in his long career in government because he doesn’t give up and he doesn’t let setbacks get him down.
His opponents forget this about him, and so they underestimate him. That is how he keeps pulling victories out of apparent defeat.
Joe doesn’t give up on his priorities, and our priorities. Even when it seems like he is getting off track, or going down for the count — do not count him out! It’s usually just that he is working on another approach, and will soon be back to surprise his opponents and delight his supporters.
Let’s keep that in mind as we continue on this marathon election year. Sometimes it is hard to keep the faith, as Joe would say, but remember this man’s history — and his character.
We will work hard to get Joe and the Democrats elected, but don’t think for one moment that we will be alone in our efforts!
🎶 Opening Music 🎶
🚛 💙 Democrats Deliver! 💙 🚚
Dems bring taxpayers a public tax filing option
The Inflation Reduction Act created a pilot program that’s finally given Americans a free and easy way to file their federal taxes with the government, and it’s getting rave reviews.
The IRS Finally Cracked the Code on Making Tax Season Suck Less, Bryce Covert, The New Republic, April 8, 2024.
Congressional Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, which not only sent more funding to the IRS but required it to study direct filing. The IRS took that prompt and decided to build and roll out such an option this year. This season, Direct File is available in 12 states: Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming. It’s open to people with the simplest tax situations: those who take the standard deduction—which nearly 90 percent of Americans do—with W2 earnings from salaried employment, benefits from Social Security or unemployment insurance, and interest income of $1,500 or less. The IRS expects several hundred thousand people to use it this season; more than 50,000 people used it in the first two weeks.
Those lucky thousands who get to use Direct File this year will almostcertainly save a whole lot of money and time. The IRS estimated that the average taxpayer spent $210 and 11 hours to file their taxes in 2019.✂️
Direct File is currently available in Spanish, and the goal is to expand it to other languages as well. It also offers a way to chat with an actual human IRS employee if someone has any problems or concerns, available Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern.✂️
This year’s Direct File pilot has been purposefully small and contained. Memories of the tortured debacle that was the Healthcare.gov rollout linger in Washington, so the IRS was smart to start small, the better to give itself the opportunity to fix bugs and learn lessons about the user experience, and then expand the program carefully. The pilot was strategically released during the quiet part of tax season in the hope that it would be ready for prime time when the last-minute crunch of Tax Day finally arrives.
Joe does not give up
One of the character traits of President Joe Biden is that he does not give up on important priorities. Republicans have done everything they can to block Joe’s initiatives to build back a better America, and after every setback, Joe just comes back with a new approach.
Biden promotes ‘life-changing’ student loan relief in Wisconsin as he rallies younger voters, Darlene Superville and Collin Binkley, AP, April 8, 2024.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — President Joe Biden said Monday that more than 30 million borrowers would see “life-changing” relief from his new plan to ease their student loan debt burdens, a fresh attempt by the Democratic president to follow through on a campaign pledge that could buoy his standing with younger voters.✂️
Some have also been impatient with Biden’s attempts to wipe away student loan debt. The U.S. Supreme Court last year foiled his first attempt to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in loans, a decision that Biden called a “mistake.”
Since then, the White House has pursued debt relief through other targeted initiatives, including those for public service workers and low-income borrowers. Administration officials said they have canceled $144 billion in student loans for almost 4 million Americans.
At the same time, the Department of Education has been working on a more expansive plan to replace Biden’s original effort. Monday’s announcement was an opportunity to energize young voters whose support Biden will need to defeat Trump in November.
Biden’s proposed student debt relief plan could help more than 30 million, Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, Washington Post, April 8, 2024.
Biden will discuss the specifics of the proposal Monday in Madison, Wis., and how it fits into his broader effort to ease the debt burden since taking office. The administration has approved $146 billion in loan forgiveness for 4 million public servants, defrauded students, disabled borrowers and other groups already entitled to cancellation under existing programs. Republicans have denounced Biden’s loan cancellation as fiscally irresponsible and challenged his authority to wipe away debt.
“President Biden will use every tool available to cancel student loan debt for as many borrowers as possible, no matter how many times Republican elected officials try to stand in his way,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Sunday.✂️
The Biden administration has worked through a negotiated rulemaking process at the Education Department to create new paths to loan forgiveness for more borrowers. The administration said the draft rule will be released for public comment in the coming months. The final regulation will be implemented next summer, but features of the plan will be rolled out this fall, according to the administration.✂️
The proposed plan focuses on select groups of borrowers: those who owe far more than they originally borrowed because of interest; those who have been paying for at least 20 or 25 years; those who attended career training programs that led to high debt loads or low earnings; those who are eligible for existing forgiveness programs but never applied; and those experiencing hardship.
😿 😫 Republicans in Disarray 😡 😿
When I was young, the oldsters had a phrase for when people who deserved it started whining about their comeuppance. That phrase was: “pussing and bawling”. Seems like a lot of Republicans have been pussing and bawling lately!
‘Increasingly chaotic’: Why House Republicans are heading for the exits, Marianna Sotomayor, Washington Post, April 8, 2024.
Five of 21 retiring Republicans will have resigned before the end of the term. Four GOP committee chairs are leaving, but Republicans were particularly shocked at the announced departures of Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Gallagher, who are not term-limited from continuing to oversee their committees. Eight lawmakers are retiring from the coveted Energy and Commerce Committee and eight subcommittee chairs are leaving. Four former members of a different GOP leadership era also have called it quits: former speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), his trusted deputy Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.), former deputy whip Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.), and McMorris Rodgers, who previously served as conference chair.✂️
The deep animosity and personal disdain between members following McCarthy’s ouster played a role in the decision of Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) to leave. Lesko announced her retirement in the middle of the three-week fight to elect Johnson, citing a desire to spend more time with family. But she added in her statement what many Republicans have echoed: “Right now, Washington, D.C., is broken; it is hard to get anything done.”
Actually, it is the Republican party — not “Washington DC” — that is broken.
Mike Johnson may hang Freedom Caucus chair out to dry with MAGA primary challenger: report, Matthew Chapman, Raw Story, April 5, 2024.
Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), the chair of the House Freedom Caucus, is begging House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to save his job. ✂️
According to Politico's Olivia Beavers, "The embattled Good now wants Johnson’s endorsement and a pledge not to help his primary opponent, who’s trying to turn support for former President Donald Trump into a wedge issue with the base. Good’s challenger is a major threat to the second-term Freedom Caucus chief’s future in Congress — and as center-right colleagues gang up on him, help from Johnson and his allies could be a major boon."
All of this, ironically, comes amid the backdrop that the Freedom Caucus has been a consistent opponent of Johnson's efforts to pass key spending stopgaps ever since he took the gavel. It also comes amid the context that Good is one of eight GOP lawmakers who voted to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, despite McCarthy having spent $2 million to help Good win in 2020.
🍿 Gee, I wonder how it will all turn out? It’s pretty tough to be a Republican right now. Sad!
TFG bumbles and bloviates on abortion, angering everybody
Trump’s abortion statement angers conservatives and gives the Biden campaign a new target, Steve Peoples, AP, April 8, 2024.
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump still says he’s proud that the Supreme Court justices he nominated overturned Roe v. Wade. Yet he again on Monday avoided tough questions about abortion, including whether he would support a national abortion ban should he return to the White House.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee tried to put to rest an issue widely seen as a general election liability. Instead, his video statement exposed the tough road ahead and inflamed leaders on both sides of the issue.
Religious conservatives said they were deeply disappointed. Progressives said he was lying. And there’s every indication that abortion will define the 2024 election no matter what Trump does or says — in large part because Republicans in Congress and in statehouses across the country continue to fight for new restrictions.
‘Incoherent’ and ‘scared’: Trump slammed over latest abortion statement, David Badash, Raw Story, April 8, 2024.
"After testing out a federal 16-week abortion ban & then a 15-week abortion ban, Trump decides on 'abortion should be left to the states.' This has him fully embracing [overturn of] Roe, & total abortion bans in many states," says SiriusXM's Michelangelo Signorile. "It shows he's completely boxed in, incoherent, scared of the issue."
"In 2016 Trump pledged to ban abortion & punish anyone who gets one," notes former Clinton White House cabinet secretary Robert Reich. "His various judicial picks voted to overturn Roe & ban mifepristone. He's surrounded himself with sworn enemies of reproductive rights. Whatever he's saying today, know that he will ban abortion given a chance."✂️
Trump is also getting strong blowback from the right.
“We are deeply disappointed in President Trump’s position,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said, according to Politico. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America is one the nation's top anti-abortion groups.
How do you spell ‘regret’? E.T.T.D.
Looks like Mr Hankey is feeling the heat — and some panic — probably, deservedly so. You can almost smell the flop sweat when reading this article. This guy is realizing that no amount of potentially earned favor can offset the danger of the scrutiny under which his vulture lender operation will now be placed :
Billionaire who floated Trump's $175 million fraud bond says he 'didn't charge enough', M L Nestel, Raw Story, April 5, 2024.
The billionaire white knight who swooped in to cover the $175 million surety civil fraud bond to assist Donald Trump is feeling a little buyer's remorse for assessing such bargain basement fees.
"We thought it would be an easy procedure that wouldn't involve other legal problems and it's not turning out that way," Hankey told Reuters, voicing his strain over the speed bumps his offering has encountered not disclosing the amount of fees charged. "We probably didn't charge enough."✂️
Holding up the bond is the fact that Hankey's surety company, which isn't based in New York, has to show its financials have "sufficiently collateralized by identifiable assets."
Mannnnn, I think this guy Hankey is going to really regret having ever gotten involved in TFG’s mess. I predict he will withdraw the offer of the bond, to avoid having to open up his operation to legal scrutiny — though it just may be too late. Sad!
Trump’s $175 Million Bond Is Even Shadier Than It Looks, Jose Pagliery, the Daily Beast, April 8, 2024.
The little-known insurance company that rescued Donald Trump by providing a last-minute $175 million bank fraud bond isn’t just unlicensed in New York; it hasn’t even been vetted by a voluntary state entity that would verify it meets minimum “eligibility standards” to prove financial stability.
Perhaps even more troubling, the legal document from Knight Specialty Insurance Company doesn’t actually promise it will pay the money if the former president loses his $464 million bank fraud case on appeal. Instead, it says Trump will pay, negating the whole point of an insurance company guarantee, according to three legal and bond experts who reviewed the contract for The Daily Beast.
“This is not common… the only reason this would be done is to limit the liability to the surety,” said N. Alex Hanley, an expert in how companies appeal enormous judgments.
These two points, noted here for the first time, validate the New York attorney general’s concerns that Trump is trying to avoid a financial punishment that could be catastrophic to his riches and reputation.
“There are many questions here, and that short piece of paper gives very little comfort,” said Maria T. Vullo, who was formerly New York’s top financial regulator.
“I believe this paper isn’t worth much and there are more shenanigans behind it,” said one former regulator, who’s intimately familiar with industry norms but spoke only on condition of anonymity.
TFGs Campaign finance fraud case (“hush money”) appeal denied
New York appeals judge rejects Donald Trump’s request to delay his April 15 hush money trial, AP, April 8, 2024.
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York appeals court judge on Monday rejected Donald Trump’s bid to delay his April 15 hush money criminal trial while he mounts a last-minute fight to move the case out of Manhattan, foiling the former president’s latest attempt to put off the historic trial.
Justice Lizbeth González of the state’s mid-level appeals court ruled after an emergency hearing Monday where Trump’s lawyers asked that she postpone the trial indefinitely while they seek a change of venue.
They contended the presumptive Republican nominee faces “real potential prejudice” in heavily Democratic Manhattan and said the jury pool has been polluted by news coverage of Trump’s other recent cases, including his $454 million civil fraud judgment and the $83.3 million he’s been ordered to pay for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll. He is appealing both verdicts.✂️
“The question in this case is not whether a random poll of New Yorkers from whatever neighborhood are able to be impartial, it’s about whether a trial court is able to select a jury of 12 impartial jurors,” Wu said.
He blamed Trump for stoking pretrial publicity with “countless media appearances talking about the facts of this case, the witnesses, and so on.”
As the appeals court fight was playing out, Merchan released his plan Monday for conducting jury selection, including what jurors will and won’t be asked about their views on Trump.
The federal election interference case
Special counsel Jack Smith urges Supreme Court to reject Trump's presidential immunity claim, Ryan J Reilly and Megan Lebowitz, NBC, April 8, 2024.
WASHINGTON — Special counsel Jack Smith urged the Supreme Court on Monday to reject former President Donald Trump's position that he should be granted absolute immunity in the federal election interference case, with prosecutors arguing that criminal law applies to a president.
The 66-page filing from Smith and his team laid out a series of arguments taking aim at Trump’s claim that a president is immune from criminal prosecution. Prosecutors argued that there are no presidential powers that would entitle Trump to immunity in this case and that “history likewise refutes” Trump’s arguments.
“The Framers never endorsed criminal immunity for a former President, and all Presidents from the Founding to the modern era have known that after leaving office they faced potential criminal liability for official acts,” Smith said in the brief, referring to President Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal.✂️
In Monday's briefing, Smith said, "No presidential power at issue in this case entitles the President to claim immunity from the general federal criminal prohibitions supporting the charges: fraud against the United States, obstruction of official proceedings, and denial of the right to vote."
"The President’s constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed does not entail a general right to violate them," Smith added.
FAFO with TFG: It’s all fun and games until...
Some other TFG supporters may be reaching the finding out portion of the ever-popular MAGA game, FAFO with TFG:
↓ Don’t look at me, I didn’t say it! 🤷🏼♀️↓
Trump Media is ‘a scam’ and people buying its stock are ‘dopes,’ Barry Diller says, Dan Mangan, CNBC, April 4, 2024.
Trump Media is “a scam,” and people buying its high-flying stock are “dopes,” IAC and Expedia Chairman Barry Diller said Thursday in a scathing takedown of the social media company whose majority shareholder is former President Donald Trump.
“I mean, it’s ridiculous,” Diller said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” when asked about Trump Media. “The company has no revenue.”
“It’s a scam, just like everything he’s ever been involved in is some sort of con,” he said of Trump.
💸 Let’s check in with the stock market, shall we? Oh looky here! As of 1:11 PM Monday, loser DJT stock down 9 ½ % to 36.74. Sad!
Trump Media stock closes down more than 8% to open the trading week, Dan Mangan, CNBC, April 8, 2024.
The share price of Trump Media stock closed at $37.17 Monday, an 8.43% drop, leaving its market capitalization hovering just above $5 billion.
DJT’s bleak start to the trading week on the Nasdaq stock exchange came on the heels of a 12% decline in its share price on Friday.
Trump Media, which owns the Truth Social app used by its biggest shareholder, former President Donald Trump, had a high price of nearly $80 two weeks ago after it began trading as a publicly held company.
But it has slumped since then. At times on Monday, the stock’s price was down 10% or more.
🎶 Music for DJT Dupes Investors 🎶
🇺🇸 💙 State of the States 🇺🇸 💙
Every now and then, I like to take a tour around the country to see what’s going on in the states. Things are taking some surprising twists and turns, especially in so-called “red states”. (This is your regular reminder that there are no “red” or “blue” states; just states; even the “reddest” of states are home to tens of thousands to millions of liberal, Democratic voters). Let’s check out some recent developments!
Florida
Clawing Their Way Back to Relevance, Ramenda Cyrus, The American Prospect, April 8, 2024.
RECENT DEMOCRATIC VICTORIES SUGGEST THAT THE PARTY is not, as DeSantis put it last year, a “dead, rotten carcass.” In January, Democrat Tom Keen clinched a victory in the state House race for District 35, which includes sections of Orlando, Florida’s fourth most populous city. Both Democrats and Republicans showered dollars on this race, but Republicans outspentthe Democrats 2 to 1. In the end, Rep. Keen narrowly took the seat by roughly two percentage points.
In 2023, Donna Deegan, a Democrat and a longtime local television anchor, became the first female mayor of Jacksonville, the state’s largest city. Until this “major upset,” Jacksonville had been the largest city in the country with a Republican mayor. Deegan, a Jacksonville native, was able to pull together a bipartisan coalition to win the highly contested race. Deegan stressed her desire to promote greater transparency in the mayor’s office and to restore a sense of community after last year’s racial unrest in the city. She beat her Republican opponent by four percentage points.✂️
As Jim Rosinus, the interim chair of the Democratic Party of Lee County in Southwest Florida, told the Prospect, “We have found that, in this area at least, while certain voters are nervous about voting for a ‘D,’ they like our policies and positions and will vote for those.” Santiago says that the Orange County Democrats are focusing on congressional seats that Biden won in 2020 but that the GOP currently hold.
Democrats are also focusing on increasing voter turnout, registering Democratic voters whose registrations have lapsed, and spreading the word about absentee or mail-in ballot options.
Florida Is (Hypothetically) Winnable for Biden and the Democrats, Bill Scher, Washington Monthly, April 4, 2024.
In short, Florida is theoretically purple, but flipping back to blue is a steep hill to climb. Still, there’s some hope and we have some excellent candidates.
Maine
Weirdly, Nebraska just tried to do the same thing and failed. And in both cases, it was viewed as both a win and a loss by both Republicans and Democrats, depending on who was talking about it. Confusing!
Maine just took America one giant step closer to ending the GOP's grip on our elections, Thom Hartmann, Raw Story, April 5, 2024.
Indiana
This was a weird bit of news from Indiana. Hopefully it will be one of many ways to wedge back open the door to reproductive freedom, until we can get religion out of these laws controlling women permanently.
Indiana Court Gives Win To Group Arguing Religious Freedom Grants Them Right To Abortion, Kate Riga, Talking Points Memo, April 4, 2024.
Illinois
I wrote about this La Salle St rejuvenation project some time ago (when Mayor Lightfoot was in office). Happily, Mayor Johnson has carried on with the idea and it looks like at least 4 of the proposed projects are going to happen. What a good start!
Mayor Johnson seeks more than $150M in TIF assistance for La Salle Street revamp, Fran Spielman, Abby Miller and David Struett, Chicago Sun Times, April 3, 2024.
The Bring Home Chicago question failed on the primary ballot, but it looks like the Mayor may not give up, which I think is good news. This plan would not only create a fund to tackle homelessness, but it would be good for average and first time home buyers in Chicago. The initiative would have LOWERED the transfer tax on houses under 1m by about 20% and only raise the tax on home sales above 1m — and only by a small per centage. I thought it would have been a win-win. I think we will see this come up again.
Johnson’s failed Bring Chicago Home referendum gets boost from unlikely source, Fran Spielman, Chicago Sun Times, April 3, 2024.
🔬 🌌 🩺 Science 💉🌎 🔭
Total Eclipse, Annie Dillard, via the Atlantic, first published in 1982. (gift link to full essay).
You may read that the moon has something to do with eclipses. I have never seen the moon yet. You do not see the moon. So near the sun, it is as completely invisible as the stars are by day. What you see before your eyes is the sun going through phases. It gets narrower and narrower, as the waning moon does, and, like the ordinary moon, it travels alone in the simple sky. The sky is of course background. It does not appear to eat the sun; it is far behind the sun. The sun simply shaves away; gradually, you see less sun and more sky.
The sky’s blue was deepening, but there was no darkness. The sun was a wide crescent, like a segment of tangerine. The wind freshened and blew steadily over the hill. The eastern hill across the highway grew dusky and sharp. The towns and orchards in the valley to the south were dissolving into the blue light. Only the thin river held a trickle of sun.
Now the sky to the west deepened to indigo, a color never seen. A dark sky usually loses color. This was a saturated, deep indigo, up in the air. Stuck up into that unworldly sky was the cone of Mount Adams, and the alpenglow was upon it. The alpenglow is that red light of sunset that holds out on snowy mountaintops long after the valleys and tablelands are dimmed. “Look at Mount Adams,” I said, and that was the last sane moment I remember.
When is the next total solar eclipse that will be visible over the USA?
When is the next total solar eclipse in the U.S. after today? See the paths for the 2044 and 2045 events, Cara Tabachnick, CBS, April 8, 2024.
A Tantalizing ‘Hint’ That Astronomers Got Dark Energy All Wrong, Dennis Overbye, New York Times, April 4, 2024.
Dark energy was assumed to be a constant force in the universe, both currently and throughout cosmic history. But the new data suggest that it may be more changeable, growing stronger or weaker over time, reversing or even fading away.
“As Biden would say, it’s a B.F.D.,” said Adam Riess, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins University and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. He shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics with two other astronomers for the discovery of dark energy, but was not involved in this new study. “It may be the first real clue we have gotten about the nature of dark energy in 25 years,” he said.
That conclusion, if confirmed, could liberate astronomers — and the rest of us — from a longstanding, grim prediction about the ultimate fate of the universe. If the work of dark energy were constant over time, it would eventually push all the stars and galaxies so far apart that even atoms could be torn asunder, sapping the universe of all life, light, energy and thought, and condemning it to an everlasting case of the cosmic blahs. Instead, it seems, dark energy is capable of changing course and pointing the cosmos toward a richer future.
🐩 💙 CG’s Picks 💙 🐩
Hello Everybody! It’s me, Curlygirl! Me and Mama were SOOOO busy yesterday learning about the solar eclipse and then going out in the strange light and everything and then talking with other people about it…. well, the point I am trying to get to is that my picks are a little bit short this week because SOMEBODY was hogging the computer to watch a NASA eclipse feed!
Anyway, this first story is about one of my favorite social media people. They rate dogs! And they help dogs (and sometimes other pets) get help for things they need. I don’t know what they would rate me, but definitely I do not know what that lady means by anthropomorphizing pets!
How WeRateDogs Became the Last Good Account on the Internet, Kait Hanson, The Daily Beast, April 1, 2024.
“It’s easy to see the appeal of an account that makes you feel good without social baggage,” Rutledge explained. “Social media has anthropomorphized pets to give opinions and remarks on the absurdity of life. Laughing and smiling alter our brain chemistry and trigger the reward center.”✂️
She added that dogs are considered “safe love objects” that trigger oxytocin in humans. “What’s not to like?” ✂️
“After our very first post, I forgot to turn our DMs off,” he said. “And so we got a flood of DMs that were like ‘Please rate my dog’ and I was like, ‘This is so much better because it's a never ending content stream.””✂️
One Tail At A Time, a Chicago-based animal rescue, has been on the receiving end of donations through 15/10 and marketing manager Kim Thomas said it has “permanently changed One Tail for the better.”
“This means we can say ‘yes’ to many more medical cases, knowing we will have the support of the 15/10 and WeRateDogs team,” Thomas told The Daily Beast. “We take the complex cases. We take the expensive cases. We take the animals that may not make it. But we get to try knowing we have an enormous pool of support, because every dog should have a chance.”
Here’s a funny video by two funny dogs!
🎻 Next: NOT an animal video!
I know I almost always post stories about animals, but this time I am going to post a video about a special human who makes beautiful music that me and Mama love to listen to.
12 amazing minutes with Yo-Yo Ma
That’s all I was able to grab this week. I hope you all enjoyed the eclipse yesterday!
Bye for now! Luv, CG 💙🐾.
⚡️ Lightning RoundUp ⚡️
⚡️ The vorfreude secret: 30 zero-effort ways to fill your life with joy, Rachel Dixon, the Guardian, April 9, 2024.
⚡️ A ship crashed into a Baltimore bridge and demolished the lies about immigration, Will Bunch, The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 28, 2024.
⚡️ José Andrés: Let People Eat, New York Times, April 3, 2024.
⚡️What Would Society Look Like if Extreme Wealth Were Impossible? Christine Emba, the Atlantic, April 1, 2024.
⚡️ How People in 24 Countries Think Democracy Can Improve, Pew Research Center, March 13, 2024.
⚡️ Men punching random women in NYC: A desperate last gasp of the male rage fueling MAGA, Amanda Marcotte, Salon, April 8, 2024.
⚡️The new science of death: ‘There’s something happening in the brain that makes no sense’, Alex Blasdel, the Guardian, April 2, 2024.
⚡️Lots of thoughts on this topic, but an interesting read: The True Cost of the Churchgoing Bust, Derek Thompson, the Atlantic, April 3, 2024.
⚡️US Economy Performs Far Better Under Democrats Than Republicans: Study, Thor Benson, Common Dreams, April 2, 2024.
⚡️ Opinion: I Don-bombed Sedona with a Trump cardboard cutout, Rick Reilly, Washington Post, April 3, 2024.
⚡️ How Curb Your Enthusiasm Went Beyond Cringe, Philip Maciak, The New Republic, April 3, 2024.
⚡️ Survey says: TFG: Who will Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hurt more in Election 2024? History has an answer. John A Tures, Raw Story, April 5, 2024.
⚡️ A reminder from Beau about the only “poll” that matters:
💗 How Can You Help Build Our Democracy Back Better? 💗
Put your beautiful bleeding liberal heart into it! 🥰
Share Goody’s Boosting Biden series on social media — Boosting Biden Series
Democratic litigation hero, Marc Elias was the legal eagle behind the 60 Big Lie losses after the election. Here’s his website, Democracy Docket. You can find information about current cases he is fighting to defend voting rights around the country, as well as actions you can take to help fight voter suppression at the link!
Write to voters around the country with Postcards to Voters. Progressive Muse usually posts an update on current campaigns in the comments and you can also check out the website. It’s easy, fun and it really works to GOTV!
🎩 Also, Goody posted a great list of links a while ago. I am borrowing and adding the latest ones to it 🎩
Fight voter suppression!
What can you do?
HERE’S HOW TO CONTACT CONGRESS:
U.S. House of Representatives:* Telephone: 202-225-3121
* Website: http://www.house.gov/
U.S. Senate:* Telephone: 202-224-3121
* Website: http://www.senate.gov/
Find your member of Congress and contact him or her:
Let them know what matters to you!
Contact your Representative
Contact your Senator
And remember, all politics is local and personal! Let’s work to flip state and local elected positions Democratic! ↓
Sister District Project — organization that is working to help Dems win state legislature races.
Donate to re-elect Joe Biden!
Oh, and don’t forget!…. Share Goody’s Boosting Biden series on social media —
💙 RoundUp WindDown 💙
That’s it from me and CG for another Tuesday. I hope you all are looking after your health and strength. This may be one of the biggest years in American political history and I, for one, want to be fit and well to witness it! There’s a lot of work to do, but when I take in the wider picture of news — the GOP imploding, TFG self-destructing, Biden abiding, and so many of us rallying and organizing and working to get out the Democratic vote — well, I am not ready to make any predictions, but my gut is starting to say “this could be a historic election” (meaning a blue tidal wave, even sweeping through some unexpected places).
Not ready to predict yet — but I am definitely ready to start imagining that possibility and working like crazy to make it happen.
Keep up your strength, Gnusies! Get some rest, eat nutritious food and try to get outdoors each day if you are able. Without any electronics, if I may be so bold as to suggest! Try to give your mind some rest from stimulation, except to breathe in that spring air and hopefully hear birds singing, and wind whispering.
That’s it! I need to get some rest myself! See you in the morning!