Welcome 😄 to Friday’s Roundup of Good News!
I have been heartened by the great response to the protests over the last two weeks, which show an upswelling of support for things in which I believe. Justice for everyone. And tRump is awful.
Like many, I can’t help wonder, why do these protests seem to be working, when so many others did not? Like the millions of women who marched the day after agolf twitler’s inauguration — that received so much less attention than it should have. tRump has been terrible for the last 3+ years. Why is the support dropping now and not before? Maybe it’s just a matter of accumulation. And of course, the millions of women who marched in January 2017 were key in the 2018 blue tsunami. At any rate, it’s thrilling and reassuring. Isn’t it great to know that protests actually work, at least sometimes? They have worked so well that tRump has actually gone to hide in the basement and has put a fence up around the White House. (And remember Greta Thunberg, how for a long time she sat outside by herself with a sign saying School Strike for Climate, an oddity, and what a difference she has made.)
Of course, there were cracks in the other side’s facade before. After the horrific church shooting, even Nikki Haley took down the confederate flag.
But we can’t be complacent. Partly because we have so much work to do. And because the battle is not yet won. We have to be ready for every dirty trick, and ready for disruptions that have nothing to do with the battle royale.
For example, during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, I got up to get a glass of water. I glanced outside, up at the Catalina mountains and saw several bright spots of fire. As I type this, it appears that the smoke is moving away, but our neighborhood has still been warned to prepare for evacuation. (Update Thursday morning: more hot spots in view.)
June 10, 2020, fire in Pima Valley, Arizona
We all have to plan for contingencies. I’m not going to get into the personal bits of planning to evacuate, but for voting.
Georgia had a primary this week. Many of you have seen the long lines, especially in black neighborhoods, forcing people to wait for hours. A poll tax, actually, and those are supposed to be illegal.
But that wasn’t the only problem in Georgia. Stacey Abrams, who ought to be the governor, tried to vote by mail. However, the envelope in which she was supposed to send in her ballot was already sealed, preventing her from voting by mail. To how many people did that happen?
We know that there will be all sorts of trickery. People need to be prepared. They need to have back-up plans for voting. They need to try voting early, in case something goes wrong (like the neighborhood is on fire). I hope to have more on this in future diaries, when I am not distracted by billowing smoke before my window. (Our state has three stages with respect to evacuation, like the start of a race. Ready — something that can take hours, such as locating papers, filling up on supplies if you need to, and so on. The second stage is Set — put stuff in the car so that you can go in a few moments’ notice, or in our case, we put everything right by the door. The third stage is Go, which means piling yourself and your pets into the cars and leaving. My neighborhood went through stages one and two, but now — Friday morning — the hot spots are much fewer so it’s not going to happen. But stages one and two took many hours. And later today I will have to unpack.)
In the meantime, as you keep fighting, and preparing, enjoy the fact that tRump is cowering in his bunker. That he is paying a consultant to contort the polls. That his campaign is wasting money advertising in DC and on the Rachel Maddow show. That they have been forced to spend money in Arizona and in Ohio.
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 👎
Next, Supreme Court
This is so clearly not a legitimate challenge on tRump’s part … what will the SC do? Will they want to please the likely next administration? Or not? Still, this was a bad day for tRump.
Wow, this from Gallup, which has had a fairly steady tRump bump:
There’s also this (thanks, tljdk):
tRump is so upset by these bad polls that he’s been demanding action! Nothing like improving his policies to appeal to more people — that would be too logical — but instead threatening to sue his campaign manager and hiring a consultant to tell him that everyone else doesn’t know how to count.
tRump has been threatening to sue CNN as well, because he didn’t like their poll, which showed Biden 14 points ahead. Here’s some of what they wrote back:
CNN is well aware of the reputation of John McLaughlin and McLaughlin & Associates. In 2014 his firm famously reported that Eric Cantor was leading his primary challenger Dave Brat by 34 points, only to lose by 11 points — a 45 point swing. The firm currently has a C/D rating from FiveThirtyEight.
It’s not just CNN who thinks tRump’s chances suck… but the guy who used to run FOX:
Despite warnings from health officials, tRump wants rallies, so they are being planned. Here’s one in Oklahoma, which is so crimson that it seems silly to go there. They know covid is a risk. See this tweet:
This is what Jennifer Rubin writes: Washington Post
Does President Trump want to expose his strongest supporters to a deadly disease? Does he think Oklahoma is in play in 2020? You’d be excused for thinking so, given his latest campaign maneuvers.
Of course there are other symbolic racist reasons for this. Tulsa was home to a terrible massacre of black people 99 years ago. And it will be on Juneteenth.
Barr is not that popular either. More than 1250 former DoJ people call for internal watchdog 🐶 to investigate how he cleared the way for tRump’s photo op. Washington Post
More than 1,250 former Justice Department workers on Wednesday called on the agency’s internal watchdog to investigate Attorney General William P. Barr’s involvement in law enforcement’s move last week to push a crowd of largely peaceful demonstrators back from Lafayette Square using horses and gas.
In
a letter to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, the group said it was “deeply concerned about the Department’s actions, and those of Attorney General William Barr himself, in response to the nationwide lawful gatherings to protest the systemic racism that has plagued this country throughout its history.”
“In particular, we are disturbed by Attorney General Barr’s possible role in ordering law enforcement personnel to suppress a peaceful domestic protest in Lafayette Square on June 1, 2020, for the purpose of enabling President Trump to walk across the street from the White House and stage a photo op at St. John’s Church, a politically motivated event in which Attorney General Barr participated,” the group wrote.
More bad news for Barr — Ex-judge tears into Flynn Talking Points Memo
Gleeson ripped Flynn for the reason he is now giving for why he should be allowed to withdraw his plea.
“As Flynn admits, he elected to plead guilty before the Court and then reaffirmed his guilt in a separate court proceeding—testifying under oath in court not once, but twice that he had lied to the FBI, and that his plea was voluntary and not the product of threats of any kind—when he felt it was in his interest to do so because he expected he ‘would be sentenced to probation,” Gleeson recounted. “It was only after he was taken ‘completely by surprise’ by the Court’s warning that he might face more serious consequences that Flynn.”
Gleeson called Flynn’s approach a “brazen gamesmanship challenging the integrity of the judicial system.”
“A defendant cannot be permitted to abuse this solemn and careful process by opportunistically entering a plea, gauging the reaction of the court, and then, if dissatisfied with that reaction, falsely claiming that the initial plea was a lie—all in an attempt to require further court proceedings or escape a conviction,” Gleeson argued.
And — so very important — tRump has pissed off the military:
And even the Senate is showing some independence Daily Kos
Though it barely made a ripple of news, yesterday the Senate Armed Services Committee did an astounding thing. By voice vote, the committee adopted an amendment requiring the Defense Department to rename military assets named after Confederate generals within the next three years.
Even more surprising: The Republican-led committee adopted an amendment offered by Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren. If you want evidence of just how much pressure the nationwide protests have put on Washington, D.C. to take concrete action, you won't find a much better example than a panel of terrified Trump-allied Republican senators following the lead of a recent Democratic presidential candidate to adopt a position directly opposed to that of their tantrum-ing manchild.
🐊 Draining the Swamp 🐊
Some advertisers are shunning Facebook for promoting tRump’s racist policies DailyKos
The business section of the New York Times has an article today headlined “Morally Impossible” which reports on businesses breaking with Facebook as an advertising medium, citing the failure to act on Trump posts that are racist and potentially incite violence.
98% of Facebook revenue is from advertising, so I imagine if we could make the amount of such breaks larger, it would hit Mark Zuckerberg in the only place he understands … his wallet.
Some major companies like Nike and Anheuser-Busch have cut back on their Facebook spending because of the current economy, but I believe a letter-writing campaign to their CEOs along the lines of “I’m not buying your product, nor will I recommend your product to friends, until you either stop supporting Zuckerberg’s position or convince him to change.”
I doubt Mark is going to ignore calls from Fortune 500 CEOs bringing that message.
We need ideas on how to make this happen.
And this did happen:
T-mobile stopped their ads, too. Daily Kos 😄
💙 Democrats Are Great 🌊
Republicans 🐘 Got Nothing 👎
Covid 19 wrecked 2020 voter registration — but then the BLM protests happened Talking Points Memo
The last few months have been challenging for voter registration groups that rely on in-person operations to help people get on the rolls.
But some advocates are seeing “hopeful signs” in a surge of voters registrations that occurred last week, alongside the eruption of Black Lives Matters protests across the country.
The spike came as the traditional opportunities for registration had been severely limited by the COVID-19 outbreak. For one registration group, it was the biggest one-week increase they’ve seen all year.
I tend to think that the protesters skew Democratic.
💛 Senate Republicans are taking tRump references out of their ads The Daily Beast
Four months ago, Sen. Thom Tillis put out an ad defending President Donald Trump from impeachment, boasting about the White House’s trade deals, and triumphantly noting that the president would be on the ballot in November.
This past week, references to the president were entirely absent from the vulnerable North Carolina Republican’s latest campaign spot. In fact, the ad centered on his state’s economic pain at the precise moment that Trump’s re-election campaign was trying to sell a nascent economic recovery that it dubbed the “Great American Comeback.”
Even Lindsey Graham is edging away!
BEYOND THE BELTWAY
Governor Pritzker is considering licensing police officers Central Illinois Proud
CHICAGO, Ill. (WTVO) — Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is reportedly considering a proposal to license police officers, with the option to revoke a license in the event of misconduct.
According to WBBM, the idea was proposed by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul.
“We’ve been looking hard at that,” Pritzker said Monday. “I think that you have to think about what are the methods by which people can be disciplined if they’re not going to get disciplined by their own police departments — if the investigations are taking place by a police department that may not want to hold some of their officers accountable for the kind of behavior we would all find reprehensible.”
“I would support it,” Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot told WBEZ on Monday. “If you have to be licensed as a manicurist and a hairdresser, certainly you should be licensed as a police officer.”
There have been so many great ideas on the matter, and some of them are being put into place.
Here’s Chattanooga, Tennessee Good News Network
Chattanooga, Tennessee’s Police Chief has updated his department’s Code of Conduct, saying his officers have a duty to intervene—and to report it—when others in the department commit acts of brutality or abuses of power.
Chief David Roddy announced the changes Monday, and also highlighted existing policy regarding how to deal with force—all in an effort address the issue of improper conduct in police ranks.
🐍 Schadenfreude 🍎
I know FedEx has all sorts of problems, but this is what the protesting is making happen:
🚗 You certainly saw how NASCAR is forbidding the confederate flag. So, there’s this:
and enjoy!
📣🏅 Let’s Honor Truth 🏅☀️
I want to praise a multitude of journalists, who are pushing back against the Barrfaced lies:
I also want to give a medal of truth to Darnella Frazier, the high school junior who made the recording of George Floyd’s murder BBC
Ms Frazier was taking her nine-year-old cousin to Cup Foods, a shop near her home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when she saw Mr Floyd grappling with police. She stopped, pulled out her phone and pressed record.
For 10 minutes and nine seconds she filmed until the officers and Mr Floyd left the scene; the former on foot, the latter on a stretcher.
At that point, Ms Frazier could never have imagined the chain of events that her video would set in motion. At the click of a button, the teen spurred wave after wave of protests, not only in the US but across the world.
"She felt she had to document it," Ms Frazier's lawyer Seth Cobin told the BBC. "It's like the civil rights movement was reborn in a whole new way, because of that video."
Ms Frazier, a high school junior, was not available for interview. Her lawyer said she was traumatised by what she saw outside Cup Foods on 25 May. It was "the most awful thing she's ever seen".
She has also been criticized for not physically intervening, but others have said the police threatened her.
🌹 Let’s Celebrate Love ❤️
Man serves 10K meals Good News Network
But, one man has taken to heart the idea that ‘a crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things we could not do before.’
“This phrase has proved absolutely true for me,” said Sasi Kanta Dash, PhD, who has recently completed 40 days of food distribution to the elderly. ✂️
Along with elderly and daily-wage earners who are unable to eat if they don’t work, Dr. Dash’s charitable mind turned also to the “section of our population dependent on the alms offered by places of worship and other commercial and public places,” after which his operation expanded to those villagers within a 10 kilometer radius of the beach town.
The kitchen in his campus of Tagore Government Arts and Science College is one of the kitchens being used to cook food for people, and his team currently provides groceries for 600-700 families, as well as catering for 250 people of 14-15 different villages.
📎📎Odds & Ends 📎📎
BP (British Petroleum) cutting jobs due to lack of demand CNN
BP (BP) is cutting 10,000 jobs as it reels from a crash in oil prices and tries to pivot toward renewable energy.
CEO Bernard Looney told employees on Monday that the oil giant would reduce its global workforce by nearly 15% this year. Most of the cuts will affect office jobs. ✂️
BP had planned to announce a vast restructuring of its business in September to meet a set of new climate goals. Before the coronavirus crisis, demand for oil had been expected to peak around 2040 due to the rise of electric cars, increased energy efficiency and a switch to alternative sources, putting pressure on the industry to decrease its reliance on fossil fuel production.
But Covid-19 has made the transition to cleaner sources of energy even more urgent, Looney said Monday. The International Energy Agency expects oil demand for 2020 to fall by an extraordinary 8.6 million barrels per day.
Weird creatures are helping to clean up the oceans Ecowatch
One of those animals is the gianlt larvaceans, which inhabit seas around the world. As the Los Angeles Times reported, an enormous balloon of mucus about three feet wide often surrounds these squishy tadpole-like animals, and researchers have recently discovered that they play an enormous role in helping the ocean remove planet-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
A study, conducted by researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and published last week in the journal Nature, used a novel laser system to provide 3D imaging of the deep sea animals and their mucous filters. The term "giant" is a bit of a misnomer. The animals range in size from less than one centimeter in length to a maximum size of nearly 10 centimeters. Despite their insubstantial bodies, larvaceans remove vast amounts of carbon-rich food out of the surrounding water, according to a statement from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.
When their mucus filters become clogged, usually every 24 hours or so, the animals release the mucus, which sinks rapidly to the seafloor — bringing down a significant load of carbon to the deep sea floor and locking it away from reentering the atmosphere.
Here’s a tweet with a photo:
UK does its second coal free month as renewables edge out fossil fuels BBC News
Britain is about to pass a significant landmark - at midnight on Wednesday it will have gone two full months without burning coal to generate power.
A decade ago about 40% of the country's electricity came from coal; coronavirus is part of the story, but far from all.
When Britain went into lockdown, electricity demand plummeted; the National Grid responded by taking power plants off the network.
The four remaining coal-fired plants were among the first to be shut down.
The last coal generator came off the system at midnight on 9 April. No coal has been burnt for electricity since.
And some local news for me — the Bighorn Fire is expected to be a boon for local wildlife KOLD
Bighorn sheep
TUCSON, Ariz. (KOLD News 13) - As the Bighorn fire continues to burn in the Catalina's, research scientists said it could start to slow. Research Scientist Jim Melusa with the University of Arizona said the fire is currently moving along one of the only spots that has not burned in the past 100 years. The vegetation is untouched and easily sparked and it's why the fire has moved so quickly. ✂️
The location is prime real estate for wildlife but Game and Fish says they’ll stay away. And while their [sic] gone, the flames will do them a favor.
The fire cleans up the habitat and dense vegetation for the animals like big horn sheep. And from the ash, new sprouts and greens will grow.
“It’s a great food source for big horn sheep—think of it as a big horn salad bar," said Hart.
I will be truly happy for the bighorn sheep if my house survivves this. Which is not guaranteed. But the ✈️✈️ and the 🚁 🚁 🚁 are doing some real fancy flying.
I do a lot of other writing, too. Just out: Hunters of the Feather, a story about a thinker-linker crow who wants to save birdkind from extinction. (It’s really good! It’s really cheap! Buy it!) My less recent stories, based on Jane Austen novels and others on Greek mythology, can be found here.
💙 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.
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.