Welcome 😄 to Friday’s Roundup of Good News!
It’s Good Friday. As the gnusie who does Fridays, I can expect always to get Good Friday. Now, I am not a Christian, and actually have a little trouble with the religion because it has been weaponized by the right, but I do like some of the things that Jesus said. He was apparently very determined in struggling for good, so once in this diary I refer to words attributed to Jesus.
Also, happy Passover! Which begins tonight as well, and lasts until April 27.
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How do we combat the lies and the hatred of our time? We do it by honoring truth and by celebrating love. Sometimes we have to take a break, because we are sick, tired, busy, or too down to partake in the struggle. But other times we smile (smiling is good for you) and persist. And by insisting on truth, by displaying our love, by being the example, we inspire others to act the same.
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And, had you noticed? The Mueller report is out…
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Do you remember how down you were a few weeks ago, when all we had was Barr’s Little Memo? How are you feeling now?
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 🐻
The Mueller report, in redacted form, was released on Thursday afternoon. The timing was chosen deliberately. Many people — journalists and politicians — are distracted by preparations for Easter and for Passover. By releasing it on Thursday, Barr wants the information it contains to have aged, perhaps being taken over by something more urgent, and no longer be capable of making headlines. After all, if news isn’t new, is it still news? We’ll see. But I don’t think that more than half the country, which has been waiting for something like this to happen since that dreadful day in November in 2016, is going to display such a short attention span.
I think all that Barr has done for himself is to trash his own reputation. Everything Trump touches turns to 💩 .
Link to report
Here are a few reactions on Twitter to the report:
Abramson (of course) has lots to point out but I think 142 is important
Yes, Barr is a tool and a liar. So:
Schumer & Pelosi call on Mueller to testify before House and Senate
Looks like someone is tired of all the theatrics….
The Hill
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) released a joint statement early Thursday, hours ahead of when a redacted version of Mueller's report is expected to be released, and hours after a New York Times report revealed that White House lawyers and Department of Justice officials have already repeatedly discussed details of Mueller's conclusions.
The Democratic leaders laid out a series of actions they say show Barr as being loyal to the president.
“Attorney General Barr’s regrettably partisan handling of the Mueller report, including his slanted March 24th summary letter, his irresponsible testimony before Congress last week, and his indefensible plan to spin the report in a press conference later this morning — hours before he allows the public or Congress to see it — have resulted in a crisis of confidence in his independence and impartiality," Pelosi and Schumer wrote in a statement.”
Glad they sent that out before the Barr press conference cover-up. And now...
For more on how the Mueller report is being seen:
www.msnbc.com/…
Rachel Maddow describes the publicly released, redacted Robert Mueller report, with Volume 1 describing the myriad contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, and Volume 2 as a road map for charging Donald Trump with obstruction of justice either by Congress or after he leaves office.
Description of episode, with description found at MaddowBlog
It’s not over...
Mueller referred 14 investigations to other offices (no link, but found this at CNN)
From CNN's Kara Scannell
Special counsel Robert Mueller's team referred 14 investigations to other US attorney's offices, including the prosecution of Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen and Greg Craig, the Skadden Arps attorney who was indicted for lying to DOJ about work he had done for the Ukraine Ministry of Justice.
The other 12 investigations are redacted.
In other places I have seen greater tallies. Oh, and other stuff is happening too...
💰 Maxine Waters subpoenas 9 banks for records
House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters isn’t waiting around for the Mueller report. She’s getting down to business—the shady business of Donald Trump’s financials and possible money laundering by individuals in Russia and Eastern Europe. While the world waits and debates the redacted, sanitized Barr report, House Democrats, led by Rep. Waters, have subpoenaed six U.S. banks and three foreign lenders. More from the Wall Street Journal:
The list includes U.S. giants JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc.,Morgan Stanley , Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America as well as Capital One Financial Corp. It also includes Deutsche Bank , Royal Bank of Canada and Toronto-Dominion Bank.
💙 Democrats Are Great 🌊
Republicans 🐘 Got Nothing 👎
Trump’s popularity has decreased:
A 4% decrease is YUGE! It’s actually a 9% decrease (4 divided by 44) from where he was. Turns out the false exoneration lap may have not helped as much as they wanted it to. Or maybe it’s because of something else:
The approval with respect to the taxes has gone from 41% to 34%, a 7% drop. Or, if we compare it to where it was, (7 divided by 41), that’s a drop of 17%. Enormous drop in approval of taxes.
BEYOND THE BELTWAY
💉 Washington state is busy doing great things with healthcare
🧀Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers seeks to renegotiate deal with Foxconn
Gov. Tony Evers said Wednesday that electronics maker Foxconn Technology Group is unlikely to employ 13,000 workers in Wisconsin as it has said it could and that the state's deal with the company may need to be "downsized" as a result. ✂️
"The present contract deals with a situation that no longer exists, so it's our goal to make sure the taxpayers are protected and environmental standards are protected," Evers said. "We believe that we need to take a look at that contract and see if it needs to be downsized as a result."
The contract calls for the state to provide incentives totaling as much as $3 billion over 15 years if Foxconn reaches the 13,000-employee benchmark and makes a $10 billion capital investment in the state.
Of course, this is making some of the local Republicans hopping mad. But why should taxpayers of Wisconsin pay $3 billion if Foxconn doesn’t hold up its end?
🐍 Schadenfreude 🍎
This was in the comments (thanks hpg!) on Wednesday, showing that Chris Collins from NY 27 has nothing to smile about.
🔫 Could the NRA lose its tax-exempt status?
The crux of the financial issues for the NRA is its problematic relationship with the public relations outfit Ackerman McQueen, which pays out million-dollar salaries to people such as NRA president Oliver North* and spokesperson Dana Loesch. Spies talked with Marcus Owens, former head of the IRS division that looks into tax-exempt enterprises such as the NRA, and showed him some of the documentation he has obtained. Unsurprisingly, Owens found that, with regard to the NRA’s tax situation, the “litany of red flags is just extraordinary. The materials reflect one of the broadest arrays of likely transgressions that I’ve ever seen. There is a tremendous range of what appears to be the misuse of assets for the benefit of certain vendors and people in control.” If this is true, the NRA would not qualify for its tax-exempt status. And the NRA without its tax-exempt status is not a viable entity whatsoever.
📣🏅 Let’s Honor Truth 🏅☀️
Honoring all the Democrats who are not accepting the Barrfaced lies at the AG press conference
Lots of Ds have reacted; I don’t have time to include them all. Just glad to be on Team Blue. 💙
🌹 Let’s Celebrate Love❤️
I know that several others have shown this in their diaries as well, but I think it bears showing again. In the last few years, we have seen hatred on display, and some people have been at a loss at how to fight that. We do it by putting love on display (see Matthew 5:15, don’t hide your good deeds under a bushel: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works” ). This cover is an example:
Then there’s this, which I have seen in quite a few yards, in several cities around the country. One is on my usual walking route, and it always cheers me up.
On my way to the airport I saw several more signs that were likewise positive.
Have you seen any signs like these? Signs that inspired you and lifted you? If so, please share.
📎📎Odds & Ends 📎📎
😄 Smiling really makes you happier
This new study says that smiling really can make people feel happier – even if they’re feeling stressed.
The paper, which was co-authored by Heather Lench at Texas A&M University and researchers at the University of Tennessee, looked at nearly 50 years of data testing whether posing facial expressions can lead people to feel the emotions related to those expressions.
Boy, does this story ever belong in a GNR! Smile when you don’t feel like it and soon you will feel like it! Or at least feel less sad.
🦀Maine company launches renewable energy system designed to power remote communities
BRUNSWICK — Maine-based Ocean Renewable Power Co. has already powered more than 30% of the remote Alaskan community of Igiugig, but with the launch of a new marine renewable energy system, it wants to increase its current reach and spread to isolated and indigenous communities around the world.
The RivGen Power System, built at Brunswick Landing, is a fully submerged turbine generator that harnesses the power of river currents to produce energy. The company also built and operated its TidGen Power System, which harnesses tidal power in much the same way, in Cobscook Bay in Lubec and Eastport.
It is “an amazingly imaginative common sense innovation” that will help reduce electric costs and break remote communities’ dependence on diesel fuel, said Gov. Janet Mills at the RivGen System’s commercial launch on Wednesday afternoon.
🏢Property insurance titan wants action on climate change
Chubb’s CEO Evan Greenberg heads one of the largest property insurance companies in the world. Chubb Ltd. handles a lot of commercial and private properties around the world and brings in revenues in the billions of dollars, annually. In the company’s 2018 annual report, Greenberg has a few important things to say from the property insurance perspective.
While the natural catastrophes of last year did not reach the same magnitude as the record–setting levels of 2017, it was a major year for CATs nonetheless, with insured losses estimated in the range of $80 billion, likely the fourth highest in 50 years. To me, as notable were the sheer number of natural events, which exceeded ’17’s total, the almost biblical range — wind, fire, flood, quake — and the diversity of places from which they originated — the U.S. (hurricanes, floods, wildfires and winter storms), Japan (typhoons and earthquakes) and Hong Kong, China and Australia (typhoons), to name a few. For Chubb, pre–tax net catastrophe losses were significantly lower this year — $1.6 billion compared to $2.7 billion in 2017 — but about $700 million more than we planned for when calculating our “expected” CATs for the year.
I have worked in the property casualty insurance industry, and I can assure you, these people are not climate change deniers.
🌻 Proton therapy is noninvasive treatment for high-risk cancers
This exciting new study shows that “proton therapy” is a stunningly effective noninvasive treatment against high-risk childhood cancers – and it comes with minimal side effects.
Unlike traditional photon radiation using x-rays, proton radiation therapy (PRT) is a non-invasive, precise cancer treatment that uses a beam of protons moving at very high speeds to destroy the DNA of cancer cells, killing them and preventing them from multiplying.
Highly targeted, PRT has significant promise for treating tumors in very young children and may reduce radiation exposure to healthy, developing tissue that may result in lifelong impacts.
❄️ New scientific device generates electricity from snowfall
“Snow is already charged, so we thought, why not bring another material with the opposite charge and extract the charge to create electricity?" said co-author Maher El-Kady, a UCLA postdoctoral researcher of chemistry and biochemistry.
"While snow likes to give up electrons, the performance of the device depends on the efficiency of the other material at extracting these electrons," he added. "After testing a large number of materials including aluminum foils and Teflon, we found that silicone produces more charge than any other material."
About 30 percent of the Earth's surface is covered by snow each winter, during which time solar panels often fail to operate, El-Kady noted. The accumulation of snow reduces the amount of sunlight that reaches the solar array, limiting the panels' power output and rendering them less effective. The new device could be integrated into solar panels to provide a continuous power supply when it snows, he said.
🐦 Fat Parrot Baby Boom
The world’s fattest and only flightless species of parrot has just enjoyed an astonishing baby boom – and conservationists are thrilled.
Though they used to be one of the most common birds of New Zealand, there are only 147 adult kākāpō alive today.
The species was previously thought to be extinct until a small population was found on an island south of the country’s mainland in the 1970s. Over the course of the following decades, their population incrementally increased from 18 birds in 1977 to 50 in the mid-1990s, according to The Guardian.
Puzzle for Today
☀️ For the Easter weekend I offer you a JulieCrostic:
As are 5 letters; Bs are 6 letters; Cs are 7 letters
- 1A: distaff of pater; 1B: unbroken flow; 1C: wheel-loving rodent
- 2A: exercise authority; 2B: closer; 2C: fix a door
- 3A: climb; 3B: comfort; 3C: what many people can’t tolerate
- 4A: effort maker; 4B: author; 4C: has more blemishes
- 5A: admits; 5B: couple of twos; 5C: permitted to leave
- 6A: a type of breath; 6B: what you did to keep the turkey moist; 6C: regulated discussions
- 7A: something on your to-do list; 7B: a hero in The Iliad; 7C: sets on fire
Never done a JulieCrostic? This is how it works. The first column with horizontal words is A, the second column with horizontal words is B, the third is C. The vertical columns are, well, the vertical columns. HEARD is the solution for 1A; ARCHED is the solution for 1B, and so on.
Finally, I offer this link for the writers here. Many of the GNR authors employ, well, seemingly random, or let’s call it nonstandard, capitalization, especially in their titles (“is” is a verb and should be capitalized when you are capitalizing other words). I do a lot of copy editing so it can grate. If you’re interested in a more standard approach, use the link.
💙 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. 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.
Look to Yosef52 for new ideas.
You can help register new voters.
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.