Good News: We bring it, we make it.
The Good Gnus group is a community of readers, writers, activists, supporters, community builders, and patriots. We begin gathering every day at 7 a.m. ET to celebrate national good news. Our most active members are of course a subgroup of members of Daily Kos, whose Front Pages celebrate “News, Community, Action.” However, you don’t have to be a member of Daily Kos to be a Gnusie.
We are realists, not fools, idiots, or ostriches. We know we live in a world where active, nefarious, and evil decision-makers do very bad things and create stress and anxiety in us, our loved ones, our friends, our allies, and our neighbors, and destroy people and systems we hold dear, yet we choose to focus on the good news that people create around the country. Sometimes we ourselves create Good News. Together we are strong and resilient. We return regularly to these pages to revitalize.
Who Won the Week?
Daily Kos’s own Wizard of Wit Bill in Portland Maine lets me repeat the results of his research. He arrayed the following items in his popular Who Won the Week? poll in Friday’s Cheers and Jeers. About 2,300 people voted in that poll. Please enjoy Bill’s on-point analysis and wit, vote in his poll, Rec his diaries, get on his bandwagon, send him a donation, and earn his blessing.
Cheers and Jeers archive and future editions here. Way, way more than 2 thanks to The One, our Wicked Wizard of Wit and writer of Who Won the Week, Willhelm von kosland!
The medical professionals and essential-business workers putting their lives on the line won the week. Who would you vote for for runner-up?
- Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, for announcing that all registered Michigan voters will get applications for mail-in their ballots as a pandemic safety measure
- District Judge Lorna Schofield, who ruled that a lawsuit against scumbag President Trump and his spawn Eric, Ivanka, and Don Jr., accusing them of massive pyramid scheme fraud, must proceed
- Director Nick Sweeney, whose documentary "AKA Jane Roe" includes a confession by Roe v. Wade plaintiff Norma McCorvey that conservative Christian leaders bribed her to pretend she'd converted to their side
- Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) for enraging soulless Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin by asking during a hearing: "How many workers should give their lives to increase our GDP by half a percent?"
- President Obama, for his virtual commencement speech that aired on the major networks and was such a ratings hit that it caused his successor to lash out in a vein-popping baby tantrum
- "Mother of the Hubble" Nancy Grace Roman, as NASA names its new next-generation space telescope (the WFIRST) in honor of the agency's first chief astronomer
- Federal Judge Fred Biery, for ruling that Texas must allow vote-by-mail: "Citizens should have the option to choose voting by letter carrier versus voting with disease carriers."
- The journalists swarming over the bloated carcass of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, as he reels from their investigations into massive corruption in virtually every aspect of his job (and even his dog hates him.)
- Governor Ralph Northam (D-VA), for signing legislation that makes Virginia the 27th state to decriminalize marijuana
- Whoever slipped the name "Harry Azcrac" into the list of 2020 graduates read aloud by Mississippi governor Tate Reeves during a virtual-graduation ceremony
Spoiler Alert … Top Results of Bill’s poll —
- President Obama, for his virtual commencement speech that aired on the major networks and was such a ratings hit that it caused his successor to lash out in a vein-popping baby tantrum — 29%
- Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, for announcing that all registered Michigan voters will get applications for mail-in their ballots as a pandemic safety measure — 15%
- District Judge Lorna Schofield, who ruled that a lawsuit against scumbag President Trump and his spawn Eric, Ivanka, and Don Jr., accusing them of massive pyramid scheme fraud, must proceed — 11%
Up from the comments
flyingsolo: I am a lurker in Good News Roundups but here every single day. It’s the first thing I read to aid in hanging onto my sanity. And I actually love it when you [Goodie] are worked up and let it fly. The despair I felt for the first two years was almost my undoing, and then I had a long talk with my self and said “Get busy and get engaged.” My attitude adjustment has evolved into me being a total social activist and guided me to other people who think like I do. Thanks to all the authors of Good News Roundups and all of its very articulate comment section. I confess I do have my favorites. I pledge to work hard to make sure November is a “Blue Month.” [From Goodie’s diary yesterday, gently edited.]
skralyx: There are plenty of numbers out there to be cited, but perhaps the easiest way to grasp the trend is with a map. Carbon Brief has a great worldwide interactive map of coal-burning power plants, and I’ve taken the last complete map (2019) and compared that to the one from ten years ago (2010). The width of each dot represents capacity, and one dot usually means one physical unit, but in some cases more than one. If you can’t see the legend, yellow is operating, white is closing, orange is new, pink is under construction, and purple is planned.
Look at the United States, even before COVID-19.
Shine Your Blue Light into Texas
You can join him Beto O’Rourke and at least 1,400 of his closest friends for a Zoom meeting and then phonebanking this Tuesday, May 27.
More than 1,000 people signed up for our voter registration phone bank on Monday [May 18].
We all Zoomed into a video gathering at 6:30pm, got ourselves pumped up, and were off to the races, our first phone calls going out ten minutes later.
By 8:30, this group of amazing, persistent volunteers had made more than 80,000 phone calls to known Democrats who’d recently moved to Texas. ✂
This coming Tuesday, we’ll do it again — we have over 1,400 people already signed up to make calls — and then otra vez on Thursday. [From a newsletter to poopdogcomedy]
Join Beto on Thursday, May 28th to make calls to unregistered voters in Texas: If you say yes, you might very well make the difference in helping us win the State House and stopping the impeached president .
Our map of Gnuville: About 390 of us have shared our locations.
To leave your mark, please respond to our mappers in the comments or send them a kosmail: tljdk, silverfoxcruiser, keepiru, djbodhi. Please include city and state only, NOT street number and street.
Tech Talk for Kosacks (members of Daily Kos)
- Got a Daily Kos tech question? Let us know.
- Answered a DK Tech-Talk question this week? Please repeat it in the comments.
- The timestamp (date and time) of Daily Kos comments holds the link address. On a laptop or desktop, you can Right-click on the timestamp and then select (1) Open link in new tab or (2) Copy link address. If you opened the comment in a new tab, you can save it in your Favorites folder. That’s how I link to comments in my Sections titled “Up from the Comments.”
Good News Roundups 7 x 7: These Gnusies lead the herd @ 7 a.m., 7 days a week:
- Jessiestaf — Mondays.
- Alternating Tuesdays: NotNowNotEver and niftywriter.
- Alternating Wednesdays: karij and arhpdx.
- Thursdays: BeeD the 1st Thursday, Mokurai the 2nd, oldhippiedude the 3rd, MCUBernieFan the 4th, and Mokurai the 5th (when there is one).
- chloris creator — Fridays.
- GoodNewsRoundup — Saturdays.
- 2thanks — Sundays — A brief roundup of Roundups, a retrospective, a smorgasbord, a bulletin board, a thunder of hooves, an oasis, a watering hole, a wellness.
How to Resist: Do Something …
Based on her poll, Goodie started a new campaign: “The best path to saving our democracy will come if we take the White House, take the Senate, and keep the House of Representatives.” Therefore, she set up a new campaign to help us do all three. Your donation in this fundraiser will be split between the 8 closest Senate races, the 7 closest House races, and the race for the White House.
In this campaign we raised $10,596! Thank you! Almost half way to our new goal of $20,000!
Click Here to Save Our Country!
- Indivisible: A 50-State plan to promote progressive Democratic ideals.
- Postcards To Voters: Volunteers hand write reminders to targeted voters, giving Democrats a winning edge in close, key races coast to coast.
- Jen Hoffman at Americans of Conscience sends a free weekly email on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. ET.
- Find and support a local progressive candidate (and meet your neighbors).
- On Daily Kos:
- VoteForward. “Proven Effective: In multiple randomized trials, voters who received a letter were significantly more likely to vote.”
- Green New Deal (pdf).
The 6 R’s of the Resistance
- Resist: Protest on the streets, call senators and representatives, etc.
- Rebel: Run for office, GOTV (Get Out The Vote), support a progressive.
- Revolt: Change the laws, change the culture, build your communities.
- Rely: Trust that millions of others are fighting the good fight.
- Rest: Take care of yourself, we are in this for the long term.
- Rejoice: Joy promotes resilience and gives rise to hope.
… Say Something
We welcome comments in Roundups every day regarding:
- National or local Good News.
- Links, stories, music, videos, quotes, tweets. (No tweets or images of the saffron chlamidiot, please.)
- Your resistance activity.
- Highlights from The Rachel Maddow Show.
In my Sunday smorgasbord Roundups, I especially welcome the following types of comments:
- Who won YOUR week?
- Questions about Daily Kos tech issues or our map.
- Good News Roundups and you.
- How are you doing?
Thank you for fighting for truth and justice with all us Gnusies! Although 40% of our Readers don’t visit every day, that’s okay, we all do what we can. For 3 years, we’ve shared positive news, laughed, organized, resisted, rebelled, revolted without being revolting, relied, rested, mentored, created, crossed rivers, chewed our cud, puffed methane out both ends, and laughed. Here’s looking at you, kid, and standing upwind! Moo if you are proud of us!
As always, please share more Good News than I can find or provide.
How am I doing? Today’s Roundup is shorter than my usual — I had a plumbing issue that required attention and repair. I needed to rest a lot today as well. In addition, and this may be related to my need for rest, I’ve been allowing myself to grieve the pandemic recently. The numbers really got to me this week, the doubling due to incompetence. Deep crying is good for me in a way. Bottling grief bottles our joy. As I have said before, I have a family history of bipolar disorder, but it skipped over me. I’m not depressed, I just need to cry. I’m grateful that I’m able to shelter in place safely, and I’ve lost no one I know to the pandemic.
Oh, I’ll be picking up groceries directly from a store for the first time at 7 a.m. ET. Hopefully the pick-up zone won’t be crowded at that time. I’ve scheduled this diary to post at the same time, and I may need to pick up plumbing hardware as well, so I probably won’t be here when this diary arrives in your crystal ball device. I’ll get here as soon as I can.
This is a group diary, and by my power I declare this Good Gnus Salo(o)n open! Let the good-news sharing and community building begin!
Power with, not power over ❤️ ✊ ❤️
2thanks (he, his)