Welcome 😄 to Friday’s Roundup of Good News!
Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House, and the Democrats are in charge of all the committees and the agenda. This is fantastic news. We should celebrate and enjoy. And for those who were afraid that she would take impeachment off the table (a major mistake in her first speakership — even if she didn’t impeach, she should have never taken it off the table), Pelosi put it on the table for all to see. And more.
It’s not all roses, of course. The Republicans, on their own watch, in a fit of pique, shut down the government just before the year ended. Why? Because FOX, Limbaugh and Coulter told Trump to do so, and because the Rs hate the Ds more than they hate anyone else, including Russians who interfere with our elections and mass murderers who shoot schoolchildren. I don’t see how we get out of this impasse, but my suggestion is that if you have a Republican senator, contact that person and tell that person that you want the government to re-open. And no stupid wall. Help them by saying that if they make this shorter rather than longer, there’s a chance that it will be forgotten.
Pelosi has control of only one part of the government, in an era of great political divide. She has power, but it's limited. So the House will introduce a variety of bills. Some will be very practical and can pass with bipartisan support. Others will be aspirational and show where the Ds want to go. And of course, there’s the sunlight that we can expect in the committees.
Want to find out more about Pelosi? She’s holding a Town Hall on Friday evening, at 10 PM Eastern time, hosted by MSNBC’s Joy Reid (one of the hardest working people around).
Regular Scheduled Programming
No one here is naïve; we are aware of the very bad stuff that is happening. 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. We have to keep demoralizing them. Name, blame and shame! IT IS WORKING! WE HAVE EVIDENCE THAT THEY ARE 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.
💙 Toxic 🍄 Trump Matters 👎 & Russia, Russia, Russia 🐻
🐻 Giuliani says that Trump has no idea when he stopped working with Russia
Rudy Giuliani went on Fox News Radio yesterday [Jan 2 2019] to say Trump has no idea when his corporation stopped negotiating with Russia over the Trump Tower in Moscow, continuing his tradition of confusing the narrative about Trump’s business dealings.
According to Giuliani, the talks could have lasted all the way up until November 2016, which flies in the face of Trump’s own July 2016 assertion that he had no dealings at all in Russia. Giuliani claims that Trump just doesn’t remember how long the Trump corporation was in talks with the Russians about a major Moscow real estate deal that Trump had been eager to build for literally decades.
Giuliani’s explanation is confusing at best: “And he says as far as he’s concerned, it could be anywhere up to November of 2016. But if you ask him to pinpoint the dates, he’d say to me 2015 and 2016 merged together.” It’s hardly reassuring to think that neither the president nor his attorney can separate one year from another.
A couple of comments. First: Giuliani is a guy who “lubes the truth” for Trump supporters. He goes out and changes Trump’s story just before Trump has to change it. This is not for our benefit, but for Trump supporters, making it easier for them when the truth is catching up with Trump. Second: When did Trump ever stop working for Russia?
⚖ Pelosi signals that it may be possible to indict a sitting president 🔨
If Donald Trump didn't realize that things are about to change for him when Nancy Pelosi is sworn in as for her second time as speaker of the House Thursday, a fiery appearance on the “Today” show broadcast just hours before the ceremony made her intentions perfectly clear. ✂️
It was Pelosi's cryptic comments on indicting a sitting president which grabbed most attention. Department of Justice guidelines advise against it, saying: “Indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.”
But Pelosi disagrees. “I do not think that that is conclusive. No, I do not,” Pelosi said when asked about the guidance. “I think that that is an open discussion. I think that is an open discussion in terms of the law,” she said, when asked directly if it would be legally possible for Special Counsel Robert Mueller to indict the president while he was in office. ✂️
“We have to wait and see what happens with the Mueller report. We shouldn't be impeaching for a political reason, and we shouldn't avoid impeachment for a political reason. So we'll just have to see how it comes,” said the incoming speaker.
🏨 From the Maddow Blog: Trump properties
Indeed, that original NYT report suggested that the management at Trump's club in New Jersey was well aware of the fact that it employed undocumented immigrants, and it deliberately took steps to obscure the fact that it broke the law -- repeatedly, over the course of several years. Today, the Times advanced the story further.
A former employee of the Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey said that her name was removed from a list of workers to be vetted by the Secret Service after she reminded management that she was unlawfully in the United States, the latest worker to assert that supervisors at the elite resort were aware that some members of their work force were undocumented. [...]
In the latest revelation, Emma Torres, an undocumented immigrant from Ecuador who prepared food at the club, said that members of the kitchen staff were asked in 2016, as Donald J. Trump was in the midst of his campaign for the White House, to write their names, addresses and other details, including their Social Security numbers, on a list of employees that would be submitted to the Secret Service for clearance.
"When I learned this is for the Secret Service to see the records of everyone because they are giving protection to Mr. Trump, I rushed to human resources," Torres told the newspaper. "I thought, God, what will I do?"
All creeps love hiring the undocumented, because they’re easier to exploit. Trump has been doing this for decades.
🐊 Tales from the Swamp 🐊
👎 Zinke denies he’s under investigation for lying
Former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Thursday denied reports he is under investigation for lying to the Interior Inspector General's Office.
Zinke told The Associated Press in his first interview since leaving office that the allegations he lied to investigators are false.
Do we believe him? No. Not then and not now.
💙 Democrats Are Great 🌊
Republicans 🐘 Got Nothing 👎
💙 🌹 💙 Pelosi has the gavel back!
Speaker-Elect Pelosi, just before being sworn in as Speaker, asked her grandchildren
to join her for the swearing in ceremony. And then she invited all of the children in the chamber to come forward in a gracious moment. The result is an image that will come back again and again in the fight for environmental issues, gun control, health, education and on and on. The people's house will be reminded over and over that they are the guardians of our children's future. I sincerely doubt it was politically motivated, but it is an example of what a politically astute person recognizes in the moment it occurs, and why Nancy Pelosi is the person for this job at this moment in time.
Here’s some of what our dems are doing:
💙 House passes legislation to re-open government without funding border wall
💙 Maxine Waters has plans to undo the damage inflicted by Mulvaney on the CFPB
💙 Mueller protection bill to be offered by new House Judiciary chairman
💙 Dem introduces two important bills:
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tn.), a vocal critic of President Trump, on Thursday introduced two bills to eliminate the electoral college and prevent presidents from pardoning themselves or their family members. ✂️
The amendments are unlikely to pass since they require a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress and then must be ratified by three-fourths of states.
🌵 💙 Kyrsten Sinema got sworn in on Constitution instead of a holy book
Nice that someone finally shows fealty to the law
💛 A GOP Senator (Cory Gardner in purplish-bluish Colorado) calls for the ending of the government shutdown — without border wall funding
💜 GOP Rep to vote for Pelosi’s rules
Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY) is breaking an 18-year precedent by promising to cross the aisle and vote for the Democratic House rule changes despite threatened “consequences” from his own party’s leadership, according to a Wednesday Washington Post report.
Reed told the Post he was voting with the Democrats because of Pelosi’s follow-through on some process changes that he has pushed to ease the way for bipartisan cooperation and lessen the power of both parties’ most ideologically extreme wings.
He said that he is “glad to support” the Democrats on this measure and will cast his vote as “a sign of good faith to appreciate the work that was done by the Democratic members of the Problem Solvers Caucus and Nancy Pelosi.”
BEYOND THE BELTWAY
💙 New Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers plans to ignore lame-duck power grab 🦆
Tony Evers has seen this before. When he was Wisconsin’s state schools superintendent, the GOP-controlled legislature and Gov. Scott Walker tried to limit his powers. He sued them over it, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in his favor. So after deposing Walker in November’s gubernatorial election, he’s not surprised that the GOP came after him again, passing a sheaf of last-minute laws in a lame-duck sessionthat would severely restrict his ability to do his job and fulfill the promises he made to voters.
So, once again, he plans to rely on the courts to protect his right to do the job to which he was democratically elected.
🍑 Because of Stacey Abrams, changes may be coming to Georgia’s election system 💙
Georgia’s outdated election system has drawn criticism from cybersecurity experts and voting integrity advocates, and now a commission tasked with examining potential replacements is preparing to make recommendations to lawmakers. ✂️
...The state’s voting system has been challenged in lawsuits, including one filed after the November election by Fair Fight Action, a nonprofit backed by Abrams. In addition to the outdated machines, critics also raised concerns after security lapses exposed the personal information of Georgia voters.
U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg wrote in September that Georgia election officials had stalled too long in the face of “a mounting tide of evidence of the inadequacy and security risks” of the state’s voting system. She declined to order the state to use paper ballots in the midterm elections, saying there was not enough time before voting began. But she warned that “these same arguments would hold much less sway in the future.”
🐍 Schadenfreude 🍎
🐍 Trump is scared of his jilted ex-advisers 🐍
As the 2020 campaign rapidly approaches, Trump is surrounded by ex-officials and former friends eager, willing, or incentivized to air dirty laundry. The list includes jilted advisers, former senior officials, ex-cabinet members, once-loyal lawyers and chiefs of staff. Some have already spoken out against the president, others have signalled their plans to do so, and even more are regarded as potential trouble down the road. ✂️
But privately there is a healthy degree of consternation within the ranks. A source close to Trump says that he becomes noticeably “terrified” and irate whenever he hears of a negative book on him about to drop, whether authored by a former associate or an established journalist. The president often obsesses over the media coverage of these published works, and directs his lieutenants to wage war on the writers and the credibility of the work itself. ✂️
For Democrats, the prospect of these same individuals amplifying these same criticism during the heat of the presidential campaign, is viewed as the equivalent of electoral nirvana. The television ads (“I served with Donald Trump and let me tell you, he’s doesn’t deserve re-election”) practically write themselves.
Of course, we would all prefer for Trump to be gone long before 2020, but it’s fun to think of Trump squirming.
🐍 Former Trump attorney charged in attempted extortion case 🐍
Chicago Alderman and tax attorney to Donald Trump, Ed Burke, has been charged with one count of attempted extortion for allegedly trying to use his political position to solicit business for his private law firm. His offices were raided by the FBI recently. ✂️
Apparently it’s true, everything Trump touches, dies. Interesting pattern, how Trump’s attorneys end up getting raided by the FBI.
🐍 Gowdy promises to never be on the ballot again 🐍
Former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) said Thursday that he’s done with elected office. ✂️
“If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have run for Congress in the first place,” Gowdy said, adding: “I will keep the relationships, but I will not be on the ballot ever again.”
What have you learned, Trey Gowdy? I think he should be subpoenaed for that statement. No joke. There’s something so toxic in the current GOP that its members are terrified. That’s the reason, I think, that there were so many resignations in the last election.
📣 Let’s Honor Truth ☀️
💙 10 New Democratic House committee chairs who will make Trump’s life hell 😈
The Trump administration’s free ride from Congress is over.
New Democratic House committee chairs are set to launch subpoena-powered investigations into the president’s finances, Russian interference, and administration ethics scandals. After two years of low-energy Republican oversight, the Trump administration’s policies and its basic competence in running the government will be under serious scrutiny for the first time.
Republicans have been supremely worried about this prospect for some time. “Winter is coming,” one Trump ally told the Washington Post before the election. If the Democrats won the House, the source continued, “The White House will be under siege.”
The article’s too long, so here are the names: Adam Schiff (Intelligence Committee); Elijah Cummings (Oversight Committee); Jerry Nadler (Judiciary Committee); Richard Neal (Ways & Means Committee); Financial Services (Maxine Waters); Eliot Engel (Foreign Affairs Committee); Frank Pallone (Energy & Commerce); Raúl Grijalva (Natural Resources); Mark Takano (Veterans Affairs); Eddie Bernice Johnson (Science, Space & Technology). All these people will shine bright lights on the corruption of the Trump administration and his fellow Republicans.
🌹 Let’s Celebrate Love ❤️
❤️ The circle of life
Back in January (2018), Connie Despanie and Benjamin Hall were rejoicing in the birth of their newborn son at Lafayette General Medical Center. Though they had agreed on naming him Kingston, they had not yet decided on a middle name.
However, they soon found inspiration in an unlikely place: a handwritten letter that was given to them by hospital workers shortly after their son’s birth.
The letter read: “To my dad’s angel, even though I will never know your name, you are the first child born here after my dad’s passing. When one life is taken, another is given. Please keep my dad in your prayers.”
So now the little boy’s middle name is James, named after the man who died just before.
📎📎Odds & Ends 📎📎
🍃 Genetically modified houseplants remove toxins from air
A team of scientists at the University of Washington has genetically modified a common houseplant, the pothos ivy (Epipremnum aureum), to efficiently remove two toxins — chloroform and benzene — from the air around it. The transgenic plant expresses a protein that transforms toxins into molecules that the plant can then use to support its own growth.
I believe that genetic modification is neither all good or all bad. Depends how you use it.
🌲 Best environmental news from 2018
Land Conservation
In addition to legislation being passed to preserve rainforests and natural landscapes, an online search engine allowed users to passively help in planting over 30 million treesaround the world.
A German 20-year-old has also spent a little over a decade orchestrating hundreds of youth-led initiatives to plant trees around the world. Since he launched his conservational initiative as a 9-year-old, he has helped to plant over 1 million trees – and with his new United Nations position, he and his organization will be planting 1 trillion more.
MORE: New Cow Feed Causes Fewer Farts, Say Swiss Inventors Who Want to Curb Global Warming
Meanwhile, a Swiss businessman announced in November that he would be contributing $1 billion of his money to preserving one-third of the world’s surface by 2030.
Finally, in America, a California family inherited a patch of land which has been the secret home of over 1,450 ancient redwood trees. Instead of selling the land, they ensured that it would be protected and opened as a public park for years to come.
Lots of other stories at the link.
🔨 Chief Justice Roberts working against sexual harassment among Federal judges
WASHINGTON – The chief justice of the United States endorsed an internal judicial report Monday that found inappropriate workplace conduct among federal judges and recommended changes, vowing to monitor progress throughout 2019.
Chief Justice John Roberts' report ended a year in which the federal judiciary found itself under a microscope, accused of the type of sexual harassment and abuse more often leveled against politicians and celebrities from Hollywood to Wall Street.
Unfortunately, Kavanaugh is currently exempt from this but it is a step in the right direction.
👧 👦 Alabama has made progress with its pre-K investment
Alabama state senator Trip Pittman had always sort of questioned whether nursery schools were worth the investment. Pittman, a conservative Republican, figured the kinds of things you’re supposed to learn before kindergarten—washing your hands, tying your shoes, minding your manners—might best be taught by parents and grandparents at home. Conservatives often argue that kids who attend preschool fare no better than those who don’t. So in 2013, when a proposal came before the Legislature to expand a state preschool program for four-year-olds, Pittman was on the fence.
The folks from the Alabama School Readiness Alliance, a group backing the proposal, were persistent, though. They were sure they could win the senator over if only he would come see the program in action, and so one day he did. Pittman visited a preschool in Prichard, a small, long-struggling city near Mobile, and came away captivated. “I watched the interaction between the teachers and the students,” he recalls. “It seemed remarkable, the fact that you could assimilate children into a classroom environment—raising their hands, going down the hall, being inquisitive. It was really impressive the way the teachers interacted with kids.” The team also showed him data on outcomes for children living in poverty: Sixth-grade preschool alums scored about 9 percent higher on state tests than those who hadn’t attended, and third-grade alums scored 13 percent higher than their peers. “The results I saw,” Pittman says, “were dramatic.”
China landed its module successfully on the moon!
💙 What You Can Do to Rescue Democracy 💙
Current call to action: If you have an R senator, tell him/her to end the government shutdown and no stupid wall!
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. However, given that we have taken back the House, the tactics moving forward need to be different. Indivisible has ideas to share.
Indivisible 2.0
This Guide is for what comes next. The 2016 Indivisible Guide was about using constituent power to defend our values, our neighbors, and our democracy. This Guide is about using our constituent power to go on offense.
Offense is exciting, but it’s more complex than defense. We have the opportunity to use congressional oversight to hold Trump and his cronies accountable. We can set the legislative agenda with a bold progressive vision rooted in inclusion, fairness, and justice. But none of this is automatic — we have to demand it of Congress.
And some other ideas:
You can relax and recharge.
You can join protests and freeway blog.
You can help register new voters (especially if you are in Florida).
You can smile.
You can get out the vote for special elections.
You can reach out to upset Republicans. Remember, a lot of them crossed over in the midterms! Get them to feel good about being blue.
You can share your ideas below.
🌻
🍀 “My experience has been that work is almost
always the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.” 🍀
Eleanor Roosevelt
🔥 If you’re going through hell, keep going! 🔥
Winston Churchill
🌹 🌹 🌹
TRUTH MATTERS. LOVE MATTERS.