Good morning, all! I found a veritable tidal wave of good news, so pour yourself a cup of your favorite morning beverage, find a comfortable chair, and without any further ado, let’s get going.
Because the Gloom-’n’-Doomers are continuing their negative nattering despite all the good news, I thought this recent Randy Rainbow original would be a good way to begin today’s roundup.
I took the liberty of writing another stanza especially for us Gnusies:
The doomers and the pundits are such asses
We should just stop handing them free passes
And see right through their crap
With our pink glasses on!
President Biden's approval rating is up to 45% in a new CBS poll — the highest it's been among registered voters in the poll since February.
Our most recent NBC News poll contained one more set of numbers about how November’s upcoming election doesn’t look like your traditional midterm.
Our poll defines “persuadable voters” — representing about 25% of the sample — as registered voters who are not core Democrats or Republicans, meaning that they’re either hard independents or Democrats/Republicans who aren’t reliable party backers.
These voters are disproportionately males, ideological moderates, self-identified independents and those living in the exurbs.
In 2010, our merged polls showed Republicans with a 13-point advantage among these persuadable voters, 38%-25%. In 2018, our merged polls found Democrats with an 8-point lead, 39%-31%. And in our combined NBC News polls from January, March and May, Republicans were ahead by 6 points among persuadable voters, 39%-33%.
But in our poll this month, Democrats — the party in power — were up by 3 points among these voters, 40%-37%.
Nobody has more fun with the idiocy of the punditocracy than Wonkette’s Evan Hurst. Take it away, Evan!
Democrats have now outperformed Biden's numbers in each of the four U.S. House special elections since the Dobbs decision in June.#NE01 - Trump +15 -> R+5#MN01 - Trump +10 -> R+4#NY19 - Biden +1.5 -> D+2.2#NY23 - Trump +11 -> R+6
But wait, doesn't conventional Beltway wisdom say that a new president's first midterms are BY AMERICAN LAW supposed to be a total shellackin'? Haven't all the polls said Joe Biden is very unpopular and terrible and not near enough Brandon for Real America's liking? When you stick Chris Cillizza's head up Chuck Todd's butt and Chuck Todd's head up Chris Cillizza's butt and then spin them around in a circle like that big wheel on "The Price Is Right," doesn't it say that OBVIOUSLY 2022 is the Republicans' BIG YEAR?
Oh yeah, and didn't America's dumbfuckingest pundits tell us over and over again after the Dobbs decision that abortion really wasn't going to move the needle all that much?
The Washington Post's Greg Sargent spoke to Mr. Winner Winner Chicken Dinner Himself, Pat Ryan, to get a sense of what that guy did, and what he was hearing from his new constituents. Surprise, it sounds like literally everything Beltway journalists thought was wrong, that Democrats are far more engaged than people may yet understand because of what the Supreme Court did, and that centering abortion is indeed a winning ticket for Democrats.
But it sounds like Ryan was also really good at contextualizing it:
Frankly, it sounds like voters are hearing Republicans loud and clear on a number of issues. They won't do anything to stop kids from getting murdered at school, but they sure are willing to cling to loser fantasies about stolen elections in their pursuit of power they did not earn and have not been granted by voters. ✂️
... Democratic hopes that "Roe-vember" is coming might be more real than any Beltway pundit or Republican is prepared to understand.
Even the Gray Lady is being forced to open her eyes!
From The New York Times:
At the beginning of this year’s midterm campaign, analysts and political operatives had every reason to expect a strong Republican showing this November. President Biden’s approval rating was in the low 40s, and the president’s party has a long history of struggling in midterm elections.
But as the start of the general election campaign nears, it’s becoming increasingly hard to find any concrete signs of Republican strength. ✂️
One special election would be easy to dismiss. But it’s not alone.
There have been five special congressional elections since the court’s Dobbs ruling overturned Roe, and Democrats have outperformed Mr. Biden’s 2020 showing in four of them. In the fifth district, Alaska’s at-large House special, the ranked-choice voting count is not complete, but they appear poised to outperform him there as well.
More good news about voters:
🎩 to kos for including this in a diary yesterday:
The national surge in youth voter reg since Dobbs has been driven by women. The under age 25 new registrants since Dobbs are +8 pts women, as compared to +2 men before Dobbs, and have gone from +22 D to +30 D.
This is from Data for Progress:
Click here to donate to Four Directions, the voting rights organization featured in this story.
In battleground states like Nevada, elections may be decided by a few thousand or even a few hundred votes. With this in mind, Native Americans there are establishing their presence, affirming their voting rights, and developing allies. Though sparsely covered by the media or election pollsters, Native voters care deeply about a place where they have lived for millennia and are determined to learn about candidates who will take it in a good direction. ✂️
Though the 2020 Census found the Indigenous population to be relatively small in the U.S. overall—about 11 million individuals describe themselves as American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander, either entirely or in combination with ancestry from other groups—they are clustered in certain states, increasing their political clout there. Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin...anticipate close contests in November... “These are all states where there is a large enough Native voting-age population to determine the outcome of the election,” [OJ] Semans [co-director of the voting-rights group Four Directions] says.
He estimates that Georgia has 100,000 voting-age Natives. Arizona has 300,000-plus, and Wisconsin has more than 50,000. In Nevada, the number tops 60,000. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report calls these states’ 2022 Senate races toss-ups.
This shouldn’t be surprise to anyone.
One explanation that's been floated for Democrats' unexpected success has been voter anxiety about the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade that has endangered reproductive rights for every American woman.
Huffington Post's Jonathan Cohn this week talked with Ana Greenberg, a researcher who conducts focus groups as part of her work at GQR Research, and she says that it isn't only Democratic voters who are motivated by the end of Roe.
“I was doing focus groups the other night — there were three Trump voters, all women, all pissed off about the Dobbs decision,” she says.
Danny Franklin, partner at Bully Pulpit Interactive, similarly tells Cohn that many people who tell pollsters they're angry about where the country is right now aren't just upset about inflation, but also at a Supreme Court that has taken their rights away.
“You have a bunch of Supreme Court justices and a bunch of Christian nationalists saying you can’t have control over your own body ― and people are thinking, nope, no way, I don’t want that," he says.
Given the Data for Progress poll about voter sentiment on student debt relief, Ted Cruz’s take is, amazingly, even more out of touch than it looks.
Democrats have come up with a whole new way to rig elections, and it's not by recruiting Italy's best hackers to employ satellites and also possibly the Vatican to change all of the votes in the voting machines — rather, it is by doing things that actually help people and improve their lives.
This worries Ted Cruz, who said as much on a recent episode of his podcast, Verdict, in which he posited that student debt relief could lead to "slacker baristas" going out and voting — or possibly even voting from home. Oh, the horror.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) says there’s a “real risk” Biden forgiving some student loan debt will help Democrats in the 2022 midterms: “If you are that slacker barista who wasted seven years in college … if you can get off the bong for a minute … it could drive up turnout.” pic.twitter.com/COjbho5tD9
"There is a real risk! If you are that slacker barista who wasted seven years in college studying completely useless things, now has loans, and can't get a job, Joe Biden just gave you 20 grand. Like, holy cow! 20 grand!" Cruz posited, somehow unaware that being a barista is, in fact, a job.
"Like maybe you weren't gonna vote in November," he continued, "and suddenly you just got 20 grand, and if you can get off the bong for a minute and head down to the voting station, or just send in your mail-in ballot that the Democrats have helpfully sent you, it could drive up turnout, particularly among young people."
See, the big problem with this is that Ted Cruz's imaginary unemployed slacker barista who majored in underwater basket weaving is not the only sort of person drowning in student debt. It's 15 percent of the country. It's 49,425,000 living, breathing American voters. It's the parents of those voters, the spouses of those voters, the friends and relatives and coworkers of those voters.
According to a report by Politico on Friday, the primary super PAC for Senate Republicans is canceling close to $8 million in ads in Arizona, a move that indicates the GOP could be cooling on its support for Senate nominee Blake Masters.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, is getting rid of $8 million worth of ads that were to begin airing in the fall. The amount is reportedly approximately half of what the fund had originally planned to spend in Arizona for the November primaries.
Welp, this is what happens when you put the guy who scammed $1.7 billion from Medicare in charge of the RNC’s war chest.
If you had a bad week, just take comfort in knowing it likely wasn’t as terrible as Florida Senator Rick Scott’s.
Campaign committee chairmen rarely make headlines as they go about their largely thankless work. They generally exist to raise money, recruit candidates and determine which races to support. Yet Scott, chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has become Democrats’ latest punching bag, and Republicans seem ready to let him take the blame.
By comparison, Scott’s Democratic Senate counterpart Gary Peters of Michigan is rarely heard from. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Sean Patrick Maloney caused a stir among his caucus for his strategy of backing right-wing MAGA candidates in GOP primaries in an attempt to “choose” the most beatable opponents available for November. But Scott – the self-funded former two-term governor of Florida – seemed to have bigger ambitions. When he spoke to The Independent last year, he cited New Hampshire, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona as potential pickup opportunities for his party, to say nothing of holding seats in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. ✂️
On Saturday, as the NRSC pulled ads from races around the country, The Washington Post published a story reporting that many Republicans and major donors want to know where all of their money went. And then Axios reported that Scott had inexplicably decided to take a vacation to Italy.
Axios reporters Erin Dohert and Alayna Treene wrote that there's been a "shift" in Trumpworld over the last few days in the wake of the search.
"...particularly after conservative John Solomon published a May 10 letter from the National Archives that revealed Trump took more than 700 pages of highly classified material with him after leaving office," their report stated.
"Many Trump allies have grown quiet in recent days after initially leaning hard into their criticism of the search," they added. "There’s a renewed weariness that has seeped into some of the private conversations among Trump advisers and those in his orbit as more of these facts are released to the public, adding to a growing feeling there may be some justification for the search."
This is a very sweet diary from nancyjones that was published on August 24th. I’m posting it here in full in case any of you missed it. The bolding is mine.
Last week I reached out to the DK community to ask for help to pay some unexpected medical bills related to a weird lung disease I’m just discovering that I have. The response was incredible, so much that my needs were covered in less than 12 hours. Not only that, but more money came in than I needed, so I just contributed the extra $470.39 to GNR Saves the House, which is our own Good News Roundup’s campaign to help 38 Democrats in tight races win their house seats. You can read about the campaign here.
I want to thank everyone who responded to my plea, be it through a financial contribution, words of encouragement, or spreading the word. It’s hard for me not to cry tears of gratitude as I write this and think about the kindness and generosity that this community acts out with every single day. Y’all are the greatest!
Now let’s go win in November!!!
Unfortunately, the West is full of place names that are offensive to Black people, as well as names that demean native tribes and Asians. It’s great that this is finally beginning to change.
[The] Oregon Geographic Names Board voted [on August 20th] to change the names of several landmarks throughout the state – a majority of which were using a derogatory term once commonly used to identify Black people, even by the U.S. Census.
The proposal is now before the U.S. Geographic Names Board, and Kerry Tymchuk, executive director of the historical society, hopes for a swift approval. “The names we give places are obviously important,” he said. ✂️
If approved, [a] mountain in Grant County would be Columbus Sewell Knob, after an African American man who lived in the area in the 19th century, Tymchuk said. Sewell operated a Canyon City freight company. ... Board members opted to rename [a] Douglas County ridge after Malvin Brown, a Black man and member of the “Triple Nickles” U.S. Forest Service Smokejumpers who parachuted into fires to fight them. ...[And the] proposed name for [a] creek in Douglas County is Jack Carson Creek, after a Black man who lived and farmed in Southern Oregon near Canyonville… ✂️
“I love that we’re honoring the individuals, and not just removing the historical presence of Black people in these areas. I’m just sad it took this long to do it,” [said Kimberly Moreland, the president of Oregon Black Pioneers].
Swastika Mountain in Lane County is also undergoing the renaming process. The board is proposing Halo Mountain, to commemorate 19th-century Yoncalla Kalapuya tribe leader Chief Halito. The historical society will open a 60-day period for public comment before voting to move these names forward, Tymchuk said.
As the world’s biggest heavy metal band, Metallica, was starting to wrap up the wildly successful “WorldWired” tour in 2018, they were wondering how they could give back to the communities they had been visiting. What they came up with was, of course, a very “metal” approach to philanthropy.
Think of it as heavy metal coming full circle. Black Sabbath pioneered the sound in the late-60s, inspired by the factories in their industrial hometown of Birmingham, England. Metallica picked up the torch, so to speak, in the ‘80s and has become a household name, selling more than 125 million albums, grossing more than $1 billion in ticket sales, and playing on all seven continents. Now, Metallica is giving back to those industries that inspired the genre more than 50 years ago.
Their Metallica Scholars initiative, part of the band’s nonprofit All Within My Hands Foundation, helps community college students across the United States get into trades like welding, machining, industrial maintenance and automotive technology. ✂️
Being selected [to host the program at a community college] meant that Metallica would be providing the tools of these trades, literally: from wrenches and calipers, to spray guns and high-tech welding hoods. The band was making sure students in the program had equipment to start trade careers.
Renée Richardson, director of philanthropy at the All Within My Hands Foundation, said the band had already been working for years to fight food insecurity. They were wondering how else they could help people, when frontman James Hetfield had an idea.“His kids were about to go into college and he was kind of wondering like, ‘Hey, what happened to trade education? How come my kids weren’t talked to about becoming a plumber, becoming a welder?’” Richardson said.
And so the Metallica Scholars program was born.
And another story about training high school students for real-world careers:
High schoolers don’t usually help manufacture semiconductors. But in tech-heavy Hillsboro, where companies have about 800 job openings in advanced manufacturing, that’s about to change — at least for six students at Century High School.
The Hillsboro School District announced Monday it’s launching Oregon’s first registered youth apprenticeship in advanced manufacturing, in partnership with the City of Hillsboro and local industry. The Hillsboro Advanced Manufacturing Apprenticeship was approved by the Oregon Bureau of Labor & Industries this spring.
Teenagers who complete the two-year program will be certified to work as manufacturing technicians — entry-level workers in such short supply that Intel even ran ads during Sunday Night Football to find them. “Everyone’s desperate for talent and that’s only going to expand,” said Kristi Wilson, a city workforce development official who helped build the apprenticeship program.
When people think of jobs at Intel, Oregon’s largest private employer, they often think of highly paid engineers. But Intel and other semiconductor companies rely heavily on the factory technicians in head-to-toe bunny suits who make the computer chips that run modern life. The path to those jobs can be “invisible” to the state’s youngest students, Wilson said. “We’ve been talking about the pipeline for a long time,” she said. “And there isn’t a lot of semiconductor pathways in K-12.”
My husband and I have visited the Alvord Desert many times and love its feeling of calm and spaciousness. This article describes it as “otherworldly” which it indeed is. It would have been a tragedy for it to have been chewed up by mining.
An Australian company is calling it quits on a lithium project in southeast Oregon’s Alvord Desert.
The Reedy Lagoon Corporation, a mineral explorer based outside Melbourne, announced Friday that it would stop work on its project near the town of Fields, Oregon, after finding out the land was off limits to new mining. It’s the second lithium project to flop in Harney County this summer as companies look to cash in on the United States’ hunger for the mineral known as “white gold.” Lithium is the main ingredient in batteries for electric vehicles, consumer electronics and energy storage.
Reedy Lagoon quietly staked claims this summer on nearly 9,000 acres surrounding Borax Lake and on the southern portion of the Alvord Playa, a dried-up alkali lakebed, and made its initial pitch to investors. ...Local landowners took quick note of the wooden stakes dotting the iconic desert landscape and notified the Bureau of Land Management field office in Burns. ✂️
Safeguarding the Alvord Desert from new mining has been a priority for decades. Congress passed a law in 2000 protecting hundreds of thousands of acres in the Steens Mountain area, including the Alvord. The desert and lakebed playa are increasingly popular with recreationists seeking solitude in an otherworldly Oregon landscape.
The law included what’s known as a mineral withdrawal, which prohibits new mineral and geothermal development in the area.
After all the recent stories about the shameful history of native children being torn from their families and forced to stop speaking their languages, it’s wonderful to see a native language being highlighted like this.
Filmmaker Ryan Abrahamson isn’t just from Spokane, Washington. He’s a member of the Spokane Tribe, who have lived in the region for more than 15,000 years. ✂️
Abrahamson wrote a script, and applied for a Spokane Arts Grant with his business partner Mike Kane. They got the grant, and the movie was filmed on the Spokane Reservation this spring.
The fertile hunting grounds and rivers full of salmon made Spokane a busy Indigenous trade hub for thousands of years. Salish was a spoken shorthand for many of the Northwest tribes. ✂️
… this story is set 100 years before the first settler stepped foot in Spokane. The film centers on a newlywed couple who stumble across a glowing spirit rock. It’s filled with dark magic, and brings them down a dangerous path. ✂️
[Abrahamson] says he’s experienced a lot of support from his tribe, Salish language teachers, and members of the local community. “And it was from there where I realized like, there’s a real market for ... authentic Indian storytelling.”
Involving the tribal language was just one part of the project. Abrahamson said he wanted to display the beauty of the Inland Northwest. “The landscape itself is just mostly untouched. And I felt like it was just a premium opportunity to showcase the beauty of untouched land,” he said.
Workers at a Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc restaurant in Lansing, Michigan, on Thursday voted to form a union, becoming the first U.S. Chipotle location to unionize.
Employees voted 11 to 3 in support of joining Joint Council 43, International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), according to a tally by the U.S. National Labor Relations Board.
Workers at a Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurant in Augusta, Maine, were the first U.S. Chipotle location to seek to unionization, petitioning in June for an election, but the NLRB regional director ordered that the election be paused while an unfair labor practice charge alleging that Chipotle unlawfully closed the store be investigated.
And more good news for fast food workers:
From Times of San Diego:
California lawmakers this month are considering a fast food bill that would significantly shift the relationship between restaurant workers and the corporate chains whose products they sell.
If Assembly Bill 257 passes, California would be the first state to assign labor liability to fast food corporations and not just their individual franchise owners.
The bill’s provisions would let workers and the state name fast food chains as a responsible party when workers claim minimum wage violations or unpaid overtime at a franchise location.
The bill’s language also would allow a franchisee to sue a restaurant chain if their franchise contracts contain strict terms that leave them no choice but to violate labor law.
It’s part of a larger bill pushed by unions to more strictly regulate fast food businesses. AB 257 also includes a measure to create a state-run, fast food sector council to set wage and labor standards across the industry.
But wait, there’s more! This is actually my favorite recent labor story. It’s just delicious to think about how pissed off Schultz must be at the prospect of being forced to read his workers’ union rights to them on video and then send each one a personal letter of apology! 😂 Looks like the NLRB has an unexpected sense of humor.
The Biden administration wants Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz to read his employees their union rights on video and send them apology letters for illegally withholding raises from union workers.
The National Labor Relations Board found in a complaint filed on Wednesday that the company is unlawfully withholding benefits from employees in unionized or unionizing stores. It alleges that Schultz, who is worth roughly $4 billion, threatened employees and told them it would be “futile” to side with the union on several occasions, including “during a video call to all US employees, in a corporate weekly update, and in a Quarter 2 earnings call,” according to a statement from the NLRB.
It also alleges that the company set up a benefits program that would be exclusive to non-unionized workers, that would include “higher pay, faster sick time accrual, increased training opportunities, and more.”
Most notably and most comically, the NLRB is demanding that Schultz record a video confessing his alleged violations of labor law and explaining the rights of workers in front of union employees, a representative of the union, and a representative of Biden’s NLRB. A recording of the video will need to be made available, according to the complaint:
“At a meeting or meetings scheduled to ensure the widest possible attendance, have Howard Schultz read both the Notice to Employees and an Explanation of Rights to all employees employed by Respondent on work time in the presence of a Board agent and a representative of the Union, or have a Board agent read the Notice to Employees and an Explanation of Rights to employees employed by Respondent on work time in the presence of a representative of the Union and Howard Schultz, and that a video recording of the reading of the Notice to Employees and the Explanation of Rights shall be made, with the recording being distributed to employees by electronic means or by mail.”
As part of its complaint, the NLRB is demanding that Schultz post a notice to Starbucks workers about their rights, and also that he read it into a camera, personally, and write them letters of apology. It’s also seeking remedies for those denied benefits, and training sessions for managers and supervisors on the National Labor Relations Act.
It looks like a theme is emerging in this GNR: kids getting an early taste of professions they might not ever have considered.
Ainsley Muller, 11, went to art camp and theater camp in summers past. This summer, she was presented an opportunity she couldn’t refuse: learning how to use a power drill, weld metal and unclog a sink. “When my mom told me about construction camp, I knew I had to go,” she said. “Some people don’t think girls can do things like that, and they’re wrong. I had a blast.”
Ainsley was among 35 middle-school-age girls who attended a free week-long building and plumbing camp last month, organized by the Austin chapter of the National Association of Women in Construction. ✂️
...other chapters of National Association of Women in Construction also held construction camps for girls. Girls from San Diego to Chicago have put on helmets and safety goggles and learned how to mix concrete, solder pipes together and rewire lamps. Camps have also been held in Baltimore and Silver Spring, Md., where earlier this month 16 girls learned about heavy equipment, heating and air conditioning systems and power installation.
“This industry, like many, is facing incredible workforce shortages,” said Jennifer Sproul, a co-founder of the Baltimore camp, who now runs the nonprofit Maryland Center for Construction Education and Innovation. “The only way we can overcome [shortages] is by welcoming women with open arms,” she said. “I want to make sure that no young woman ever feels like this isn’t a place where she belongs.”
The organization that received these funds, Global Giving, offers those wanting to help Ukraine a way to spread their donations among a variety of groups on the ground providing life-saving assistance. If you want to pitch in, here’s the link: Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund.
On Wednesday, the US Open held its 'Tennis Plays for Peace' event for Ukraine relief ahead of the start of the year's final grand slam event, raising $1.2 million, according to the United States Tennis Association (USTA).
Participating in the event held in New York were Rafael Nadal, Iga Swiatek, John McEnroe, Coco Gauff, Carlos Alcaraz, Leylah Fernandez, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Jessica Pegula, Matteo Berrettini, Maria Sakkari, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Taylor Fritz, Frances Tiafoe, Tommy Paul, Sebastian Korda and Ben Shelton.
Nadal and Swiatek took on McEnroe and Gauff in one of the highlights of the evening.
A recent American Airlines flight from Phoenix to Dallas employed an all-Black, female crew to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Bessie Coleman, who was the first African American woman to become a pilot.
Gigi Coleman, the historic pilot’s great niece, was aboard the groundbreaking flight.”I think she would’ve been really amazed and in awe. I was in awe, and this is 2022,” said Gigi Coleman. She also oversees Bessie Coleman Aviation All-Stars, a Chicago-based afterschool program designed to encourage youth, particularly of color, to pursue their dreams of flying. “My great-aunt received her license two years before Amelia Earhart,” Gigi Coleman said, according to CBS. “She wasn’t in the history books. No one knew about her.”
There are fewer than 150 Black women airline pilots in the U.S., according to Sisters of the Skies, an organization of Black women airline pilots. American Airlines 737 Captain Beth Powell is one of them. “I’ve never had an all-Black female flight crew in my entire career,” Powell said. “Representation is so important today, because when you see someone in yourself, you know it’s possible. ‘I can do this, too.’”
In 1921, at 29 years old, Coleman became the first African American and first Native American woman to earn an aviation pilot’s license. She also was the first African American person to earn an international pilot’s license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in France. In 1922, she performed the first public flight by an African American woman, instantly becoming a media sensation. She went on to perform tricks and give flight lessons in the U.S. and Europe.
It’s hard to believe that the right to grow your own vegetables isn’t already enshrined in law in every state. Seeing that Oregon isn’t on the list of states that have such laws, I’m definitely going to reach out to my state rep!
From Michigan to Massachusetts, people have been thwarted—or even outright banned—from growing food on their own property. ✂️
City regulations, homeowners’ association guidelines, and other ordinances have often been invoked to force gardeners to remove their plants. The arguments put forth against gardening have been myriad and occasionally baffling: greenhouses reduce property values, raised beds do not conform to the aesthetics of a well-tended yard, and vegetables growing in the ground are unsightly, among others. Such criticisms tend to be rooted in discrimination, said Ari Bargil, an attorney with the Institute for Justice who has represented several gardeners. “These are classist restrictions that are designed to make neighborhoods look a certain way.”
But progress is being made—in both Florida and Illinois so far. That’s hard-won legislation, said Bargil, who was involved in both cases. “Getting reforms like this passed is very, very difficult.” ✂️
The Institute for Justice helped craft what came to be known as the Illinois Vegetable Garden Protection Act. After passing by an overwhelming margin in both the Illinois House and Senate, it was signed into law by Governor J.B. Pritzker in July 2021. The Act stipulates that: “[A]ny person may cultivate vegetable gardens on their own property, or on the private property of another with the permission of the owner, in any county, municipality, or other political subdivision of this state.”
The less Germany depends on Russian oil, the less effective Russian bullying becomes.
Germany's gas storage facilities are filling up faster than planned, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said, giving hope that Europe's biggest economy could avoid acute gas shortages this winter.
"The reservoirs are filling up faster than specified," Habeck was quoted as saying by Der Spiegel Magazine, adding that the government goal of achieving 85% storage capacity by October could be reached by the beginning of September.
Germany is at phase two of a three-stage emergency plan formulated after a reduction in gas flows from Russia, its main supplier.
Only 9.5% of Germany's gas consumption in August came from Russia, Spiegel reported, citing data by the BDEW power industry association. Last year, Russian gas accounted for around 55% of the country's total consumption.
A sure sign of floundering leadership.
Apparently unhappy with the way the war in Ukraine is going, Vladimir Putin has reportedly “sidelined” Sergei Shoigu, his longtime ally and defense minister, over Russian forces’ dismal progress. The BBC cites independent Russian media and Britain’s defense minister alleging that soldiers have been ridiculing Shoigu for his “ineffectual” leadership. “Recent independent Russian media reports have claimed that due to the problems Russia is facing in its war against Ukraine, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu is now being sidelined within the Russian leadership, with operational commanders briefing President Putin directly on the course of the war,” the British ministry of defense said in a statement. “Russian officers and soldiers with firsthand experience of the war probably routinely ridicule Shoigu for his ineffectual and out-of-touch leadership as Russian progress has stalled.” Shoigu had scant military experience before Putin put him in charge of the ministry of defense.
I always like to see projects that understand the basic principle that you have to start by consulting the people you intend to help.
How do you successfully help residents of a slum move into housing that improves their quality of life while maintaining a strong sense of community? You let them in on the design process and hear them out. At least that is what is happening in an informal settlement in the Indian city of Ahmednagar.
The neighborhood, called Sanjaynagar, has existed for more than 40 years, with some residents living together with as many as 11 other family members in one single room. Conditions, however, are bound to improve soon as some residents are now moving into their own new apartments as part of the first phase of a community redesign — a project that was largely led by the residents themselves.
“One of the critical aspects of this process was to have the community be the decision-makers whilst the architects and social workers acted as facilitators,” says Sandhya Naidu Janardhan, managing director of Community Design Agency, an organization that worked together with the community, a local social work nonprofit, and many other stakeholders on the project.
Overall, the project intends to replace homes hosting almost 300 families with bright, low-rise apartment buildings that feature community spaces and plentiful greenery. The project was funded by the Curry Stone Foundation, an architectural foundation, together with the Indian government, as well as a $1,350 contribution from each family to cover part of the construction.
Apparently these rare and devastating diseases were very hard to treat, so this is extremely good news.
WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, today extended his congratulations to the Republic of Togo, as it was confirmed that the West African country had become the first country to eliminate four devastating neglected tropical diseases. ✂️
In congratulating Togo, Dr Tedros noted that dracunculiasis, lymphatic filariasis, human African trypanosomiasis and trachoma had long been a terrible burden for the Togolese population and that their elimination constituted “a gift not only for the people of Togo today, but for generations to come”.
The elimination of human African trypanosomiasis, in 2020, coincided with the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, making Togo’s elimination of the deadly disease, also referred to as sleeping sickness, even more noteworthy.
Dracunculiasis, also known as Guinea worm disease, is a parasitic infection transmitted via contaminated drinking water. It causes disability for the three-to-ten-week period of illness and can also lead to death. Lymphatic filariasis is also caused by parasitic worms and often leads to elephantiasis. This causes swelling in the arms, legs, breasts, or genitals and, as well as being painful, may also lead to disfigurement and extreme social and economic stigma. Human African trypanosomiasis...is generally transmitted through contact with infected tsetse flies. If the infection is not treated promptly, it too is deadly. Trachoma is a bacterial disease that particularly affects those with inadequate access to water, sanitation and hygiene. It causes severe eye pain and often leads to blindness.
All four of the diseases eliminated by the Republic of Togo are diseases of extreme poverty and affect populations already blighted by severe economic hardship. They are one of a group of some twenty diseases commonly referred to as neglected tropical diseases (NTD).
It’ll be great to have a robust alternative to surgery.
For those who want to avoid replacing the entire knee joint, there may soon be another option that could help patients get back on their feet fast, pain-free, and stay that way.
Although 60% water, a single quarter-sized disc of the special gel can bear the weight of a 100-pound kettlebell without tearing or losing its shape.
When the gel is stretched, the cellulose fibers resist pulling and help hold the material together. And when it is squeezed, the negative charges along the rigid polymer chains repel each other and stick to water, helping it spring back to its original shape.
In one experiment, the team subjected it to 100,000 cycles of repeat pulling, and the material held up just as well as porous titanium used for bone implants,
They also rubbed the new material against natural cartilage a million times. They found that its smooth, slippery self-lubricating surface is as wear-resistant as the real thing and four times more wear-resistant than synthetic cartilage implants currently FDA-approved for use in the big toe.
“If everything goes according to plan, the clinical trial should start as soon as April 2023,” said Duke chemistry professor Benjamin Wiley, who led the research.
That only two sessions of taking psilocybin under the guidance of a psychiatrist resulted in an 83% reduction in heavy drinking, with 48% of the patients quitting entirely, is truly miraculous.
The psychedelic compound psilocybin, commonly known as "shrooms" or magic mushrooms, may help people who struggle with alcohol dependence better manage their drinking, a new study found.
In what researchers are calling the first published randomized trial to examine the effects of psilocybin on any type of addiction, people who underwent two psychedelic mushroom "trips" with the help of a psychotherapist reduced "their days of heavy drinking by 83% over eight months," said senior study author and psychiatrist Dr. Michael Bogenschutz, director of the NYU Langone Center for Psychedelic Medicine, in a news conference. People in the study, published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, consumed an average of seven drinks on the days when they drank, Bogenschutz said. ✂️
Scientists have developed artificial leaves that turn water and sunlight into clean fuel.
The devices are the work of the University of Cambridge, England. Its team trialled them on the River Cam and claim they convert sunlight into fuel as efficiently as plant leaves. The results are published in the journal Nature.
Researchers say the innovation could be scaled up to generate a greener alternative to fossil fuels. That fuel, they added, could be used by the shipping industry, which remains one of the hardest to decarbonise.
“Solar farms have become popular for electricity production; we envision similar farms for fuel synthesis,” said the university’s Dr Virgil Andrei (pictured). “These could supply coastal settlements, remote islands, cover industrial ponds, [and help] avoid water evaporation from irrigation canals.”
It’s exciting that JWST’s ability to detect carbon dioxide will give us new information about how planets form.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the first clear evidence for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet outside the solar system. ... The finding, accepted for publication in Nature, offers evidence that in the future Webb may be able to detect and measure carbon dioxide in the thinner atmospheres of smaller rocky planets.
WASP-39 b is a hot gas giant with a mass roughly one-quarter that of Jupiter (about the same as Saturn) and a diameter 1.3 times greater than Jupiter. Its extreme puffiness is related in part to its high temperature (about 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit or 900 degrees Celsius). Unlike the cooler, more compact gas giants in our solar system, WASP-39 b orbits very close to its star – only about one-eighth the distance between the Sun and Mercury – completing one circuit in just over four Earth-days. The planet’s discovery, reported in 2011, was made based on ground-based detections of the subtle, periodic dimming of light from its host star as the planet transits, or passes in front of the star.
Previous observations from other telescopes, including NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, revealed the presence of water vapor, sodium, and potassium in the planet’s atmosphere. Webb’s unmatched infrared sensitivity has now confirmed the presence of carbon dioxide on this planet as well. ✂️
“Detecting such a clear signal of carbon dioxide on WASP-39 b bodes well for the detection of atmospheres on smaller, terrestrial-sized planets,” said Natalie Batalha of the University of California at Santa Cruz, who leads the team.
Understanding the composition of a planet’s atmosphere is important because it tells us something about the origin of the planet and how it evolved. “Carbon dioxide molecules are sensitive tracers of the story of planet formation,” said Mike Line of Arizona State University, another member of this research team. “By measuring this carbon dioxide feature, we can determine how much solid versus how much gaseous material was used to form this gas giant planet. In the coming decade, JWST will make this measurement for a variety of planets, providing insight into the details of how planets form and the uniqueness of our own solar system.”
I’ve often wondered how babies are able to cry with their very first breath. This intriguing research may have found the answer.
When a human baby is born, its first cry is a normal sign of good health. Having never taken a breath before, the baby signals its first inhalation and exhalation—in the form of a screech.
How do babies know to create a sound they’ve never made before? And is their first yelp truly the start of speech development?
As it turns out, human babies may be practicing how to cry long before they ever make a sound. That is, if they’re anything like marmosets, humans’ primate cousins.
In a recent study published in the journal eLife, scientists used dozens of successive ultrasounds of pregnant common marmosets to show that their fetuses began making cry-like facial expressions nearly two months before birth.
The researchers were also able to separate these expressions from other mouth movements the babies performed in utero, and they matched them to the face shapes made after birth when the infants begin calling out to their parents. The expressions appeared in such consistent patterns and durations that researchers had strong confidence they were practice cries, even though the animals weren’t yet capable of making sounds.
One more gift of the Inflation Reduction Act.
All carrots, no sticks. That is the story of the Inflation Reduction Act. Since the law was unveiled last month, savvy commentators have noted that its policies consist almost entirely of “carrots,” incentives meant to encourage companies to decarbonize, with very few “sticks,” policies meant to punish them for using fossil fuels or emitting carbon. ✂️
...just about everyone has recognized that this all-carrots, no-sticks aspect is why the law passed in the first place. ✂️
But this pat formulation overlooks something important. While it’s true that the IRA itself consists almost only of carrots, that is not true of the broader structure of American climate law. There is, in fact, a big “stick” for tackling carbon pollution already on the books in the United States, as well as an agency tasked with wielding that stick. I’m talking about the Clean Air Act and the EPA. And the IRA, by design, strengthens the government’s ability to wield that stick.
...the IRA confirms that carbon dioxide is a type of air pollution covered by the Clean Air Act. ...In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA that carbon dioxide counted as an air pollutant, and that, if the EPA decided that CO 2 harmed human health and the environment, it could regulate CO 2 under the Clean Air Act. That ruling—and the EPA’s official determination, a few years later, that CO 2 is dangerous—has anchored the agency’s climate regulations on cars and trucks, and its proposed rules for the power grid. But then in June, the Court circumscribed some of the EPA’s authority over the power grid. Conservative justices have harped on the fact that Congress has never clearly delegated the power to regulate greenhouse gases to the EPA.
We’ve been getting good news month after month about precious ecosystems being preserved from development.
Environmentalists who took legal action to prevent a toxic waste dump in an ancient pocket of Tasmania’s Tarkine rainforest are celebrating a federal court win.
The Bob Brown Foundation is a Tasmanian NGO which promotes the protection of the Australian state’s wild and natural places of ecological significance.
[On July 25,] the organisation heard it had been successful in its latest attempt to stop Chinese mining company MMG opening a tailings dam near the town of Rosebery on the island's west coast.
Australia’s federal court found that the country's then environment minister, Sussan Ley, had failed to apply the ‘precautionary principle’ before approving drilling and surveying works at the site. This is a key concept in environmental law, which holds that ecological assessments must be carried out when not enough is known about the impact of a new development.
Federal court justice Mark Moshinsky upheld the NGO’s objection on the grounds that the endangered Tasmanian masked owl was not properly considered. That means a new assessment is set to take place, effectively halting MMG’s plans for the dam.
Brought to you by Rosy, Nora, and Rascal.
Rosy said that her choice was really easy to make this time. She sends tail wags and kisses to Harry, Meghan, and Mia.
A Virginia rescue dog is now receiving the royal treatment.
Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, have adopted 7-year-old Mia, one of 4,000 beagles that were rescued from abusive conditions at an Envigo breeding facility in Cumberland, Va. Mia had arrived last month at the Beagle Freedom Project in Los Angeles with eight of her newborn puppies after the rescue operation earlier this summer.
Shannon Keith, president and founder of Beagle Freedom Project, said the duchess’s team reached out and that Meghan said she had been a longtime supporter of the nonprofit. After an initial call, Harry and Meghan set up an in-person visit with mama Mia on July 25 and finalized the adoption this month, Keith said.
“The minute they walked in, though, Mia ran to them, tail wagging,” said Keith, who is also an animal rights lawyer. “It’s as if she knew, ‘Oh, these are my people.’ And they were just immediately loving on her. I was like, ‘Oh, this is completely meant to be.’ Because Mia hadn’t done that with anybody else she had met before.”
And Rosy asked me to add this sweet meme, too:
Nora was very impressed by Billy’s quick action.
A hero cat saved his owner’s life by pounding his paws on her chest to wake her up after she suffered a heart attack.
Sam Felstead was asleep when she was woken by her seven-year-old cat Billy at 4.30am.
She realized she was unable to move her body and had a shooting pain down her right side so called out to her mom Karen for help. Karen then rushed the 42-year-old to hospital where doctors told her she had suffered a heart attack in her sleep—and she believes Billy’s swift actions saved her life.
“I was a bit shocked, I went to bed and I felt fine. I’d even been out with the dogs—and I didn’t feel ill or have any pains whatsoever. Suddenly I woke up and Billy was on my chest and was meowing loudly in my ear hole. He was really meowing and he wouldn’t leave me. He doesn’t do that normally. He’s never woken me up before.” ✂️
“I do think he saved my life and so does everybody else around me.”
Who could resist Sunny?! Rascal thinks he’s the cutest bird ever.
And Rascal requested that I add this hilarious video, which was posted by Maru in OHD’s Tweets of the Week on Sunday:
I just learned how owls run and it might be my favorite thing right now. pic.twitter.com/fFRwe7TeeF
www.yesmagazine.org/...The Political Power of Pro-Choice Protests. “The ways in which ...pressure moved Biden from inaction to an executive order illustrates what activist scholars such as historian Howard Zinn long argued: ...change only occurs through sustained protest and agitation from the citizenry.”
www.yesmagazine.org/… Why “Solarpunk” Gives Me Hope for a More Sustainable Future. “Solarpunk is a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion, and activism that seeks to answer and embody the question ‘what does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there?’ ”
www.theguardian.com/… I’ve started having friends round to eat again and have learned this: perfect is the enemy of good. “If you’ve lost the habit of entertaining people at home, liberate yourself from perfection in the kitchen with ‘scruffy hospitality.’ ...Scruffy hospitality is, in essence, a welcome that involves no fuss.”
www.seattlemet.com/… The Twisted Life of Clippy. “[Clippy] reminds us of a time when assistants couldn’t target us with ads or mimic a dead loved one’s voice. When tech, even in the form of a clueless office supply, seemed a little more human.” And here’s a bonus: one of the most hilarious Wait, Wait segments ever: www.npr.org/...
A tip of the hat to 2thanks for creating this handy info sheet for all Gnusies new and old!
Morning Good News Roundups at 7 x 7: These Gnusies lead the herd at 7 a.m. ET, 7 days a week:
hpg posts Evening Shade diaries at 7:30 p.m. ET every day! After a long day, Gnusies meet in the evening shade and continue sharing Good News, good community, and good actions. In the words of NotNowNotEver: “hpg ably continues the tradition of Evening Shade.” Find Evening Shades here.
oldhippiedude posts Tweets of the Week on Sundays at 6:00 p.m. Central Time — New time! Our second evening Gnusie hangout zone! In search of a TOTW diary? Look here or here.
For more information about the Good News group, please see our detailed Welcoming comment, one of the first comments in our morning diaries.
And two more from Mokurai:
And another recommended by commenter lynnekz:
Goodie’s awesome fundraiser for the Dem candidates in the 38 closest House seats gets more impressive by the day! Having reached the second goal of $76,000 on Sunday, Goodie is now working on raising the goal to $114,000, which would give each of the 38 candidates $3000. Amazing! Yay us!!
Can we add another $1000 by the end of today?
Note: Lots of you have been justifiably complaining about getting text messages from the campaigns you donate to on ActBlue, like Goodie’s campaign here. The way to stop this is:
An invaluable diary by peregrine kate on DKos, full of recommendations for all the ways each of us can take action. Check it out!!
Here’s an easy action you can take RIGHT NOW to help:
Donate to two organizations providing support to people in no-abortion states who need assistance getting abortions.
National Network of Abortion Funds
Both of these organizations provide help with transportation, medical fees, hotel stays, etc., for those who have to travel out of state for an abortion. NNAF is a central clearing house for that assistance, The Brigid Alliance does that work directly.
Indivisible has created a Truth Brigade to push back against the lies.
Propaganda, false characterizations, intentionally misleading messages, and outright lies threaten our democracy and even our lives. We can effectively combat disinformation, despite the well-funded machines that drive it. They may have money, but we have truth and we have people.People believe sources they trust. When we share and amplify unified, factual messages to those who trust us, we shift the narrative. When we do this by the thousands--we’re part of the Indivisible Truth Brigade, and we get our country back. Join us.️
Our own Mokurai is a member. You can see all of the diaries in the Truth Sandwiches group on DK here.
A suggestion from chloris creator:
new!!! Tax-exempt organization complaint referrals. 13909. This has been filled out for the NRA, but, hey, you can use it for a lot of other organizations. How about if some of us white folk go into some of the MAGA churches and video record what they’re saying?
“The process to get the NRA's tax-exempt nonprofit status revoked has become simpler. All you need to do is save this form and email it to eoclass@irs.gov. It's all filled out for you. You just need to click send.” Allen Glines
Note that the IRS protects your anonymity: The appropriate checkbox is already checked: "I am concerned that I might face retaliation or retribution if my identity is disclosed."
PLEASE RETWEET! The process to get the NRA's tax-exempt nonprofit status revoked has become simpler. All you need to do is save this form and email it to eoclass@irs.gov. It's all filled out for you. You just need to click send. pic.twitter.com/xw5MGEJZEk
This suggestion comes from Kossack Ocean Rain (bolding mine):
My friends and I are carrying around pens and sticky notes and/or big mailing labels (things with adhesives that don't cause property damage when removed) and writing messages such as:
- Defend Choice — Defeat Republicans in the Midterms Nov. 8 - On Nov. 8 Vote Blue — or else the GOP will take your right to birth control too -Vote Pro-Choice in Midterms Nov. 8 - Roe, Roe, Roe Your Vote — Midterms Nov. 8
You can also include state-specific primary date voting info. if applicable (like for the NO vote in Kansas on the abortion question). In red states, people are including abortion access website links. We're placing them in public restrooms, highway rest stops, transit stations, shopping malls — any high-visibility place. We'd love it if some DailyKos-ers would do the same and spread the idea far and wide on social media. Thank you!
Most important: DON'T LOSE HOPE. This is a giant and important fight for us but, win or lose, we keep fighting and voting and organizing and spreading truth and light. We never give up.
And I’ll add a recommendation for you to check out Activate America (formerly Flip the West), which is recruiting people to send postcards to Dem voters.
I’ll close with a song dedicated to everyone fighting to make the world better.
Every day, every hour, turn the pain into power
When you’ve been fighting for it all your life
You’ve been struggling to make things right
That’s how a superhero learns to fly
Thanks to all of you for your smarts, your hearts, and
your faithful attendance at our daily Gathering of the Herd.