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The antidote to MAGA is citizenship: VOTE! - October 12 Good News Roundup [1]
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Date: 2022-10-12
Good Day, Gnuville! I entitled today’s GNR paraphrasing a quote from President Obama (which was quoted in Teri Kanefield’s excellent blog post, Things to Do. I think it will make a lovely introduction as we move closer to election day:
I know you’ve been doing what you can to see this midterm election go well for Democrats and democracy. Now it is time to summon every last bit of our reserves to make these last few weeks really count.
In many states, early voting has begun or will soon begin. If you can vote early — please vote early! If you can, bring someone else with you to vote — bring two people! Bring four! Encourage everyone you know to go vote. Heck, browbeat them if you must! It’s their civic duty, ffs!
Let’s get out the vote — like the vote has never been got out before in our history! Let’s do this!
Here’s your opening music, from a great lady who lived a marvelous, full life and left us a wonderful artistic catalogue to treasure:
🎶💙 RIP Angela Lansbury 💙🎶
💪 💙 Democrats Deliver 💙💪
Biden is the most pro-labor president ever
Biden Cracks Down On Misclassification Of Workers As Independent Contractors, Dave Jamieson, HuffPost, October 11, 2022.
The Biden administration introduced a new regulation Tuesday that would make it harder for employers to misclassify workers as “independent contractors” to avoid minimum wage and overtime laws. The proposal from the White House would replace an earlier, more business-friendly rule created by the Trump administration that set looser guidelines around who could be considered a contractor in the workplace. Labor Department officials said the previous administration’s rule increased the likelihood of workers being exploited. Employers often mislabel their workers as contractors in order to evade workplace laws or shift certain costs of employment onto workers. Gig companies like Uber and Lyft have been fighting misclassification lawsuits for years and have battled both state and federal officials over tighter regulations. “While independent contractors have an important role in our economy, we have seen in many cases that employers misclassify their employees as independent contractors, particularly among our nation’s most vulnerable workers,” Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said in a statement. x This is exciting! There is a reason Uber, Lyft, and other giants have spent billions of $ on lobbying, anti-worker propaganda, and exploitative tactics: because they're afraid of workers being able to bargain for their fundamental needs. Good on the Biden admin for leading!
https://t.co/yjKNXEEvPL — Helen Brosnan (@HelenBrosnan) October 11, 2022
More here on what this means in practical terms for workers: One More Pro-Worker Move From Biden, Harold Meyerson, The American Prospect, October 11, 2022.
Notoriously, the federal minimum wage doesn’t amount to very much. It’s been stuck at a pathetically low $7.25 an hour for well over a decade, though many states have set their own minimum considerably higher. (In California this year, it’s at $15.50.) Nonetheless, a proposed rule released today by the Department of Labor would effectively guarantee a raise for the thousands of Uber and Lyft drivers in California, who are mislabeled as independent contractors and thus not covered under state or federal minimum-wage legislation. According to a recent study, when the expenses they have to pay to buy, lease, and/or maintain their cars are subtracted from their income, their real hourly income comes out to be a less-than-princely $6.20. Today’s proposed rule, accordingly, would raise that level by about a dollar, and more importantly, qualify those drivers for overtime pay and require their employers to pay into the funds for Social Security and unemployment insurance. Those changes would take place because the DOL’s new rule would establish more real-world standards for what constitutes employment—criteria such as determining the rate the drivers charge and what share they pay to the parent company, or, if they drive trucks for FedEx or other companies, whether those trucks can be used for other work or driver use—that sort of thing. It’s a “if it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck” rule. Which stands in sharp contrast to the rule, still on the books, promulgated by Trump’s Labor Department, which said if it quacks like a duck, all that matters is what’s most advantageous for the duck’s keeper. x Y’all. They handed out BFD aviators at the White House. Zoom in. pic.twitter.com/Wp2qGtIn3O — Mueller, She Wrote (@MuellerSheWrote) October 12, 2022
And we have other pro-union Democratic candidates, too
John Fetterman is famously for the regular working people, and Mandela Barnes — currently Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin — is at least as pro-worker and especially pro-union. Here is a nice article about him:
The Rise of Mandela Barnes, John Nichols, the Nation, October 10, 2022.
The party in power usually loses seats in the midterm elections. But as of Labor Day, polls had Democrats either tied or leading in races for Republican-held seats in as many as five states. And their best prospects appear to be in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where a pair of Democratic lieutenant governors, Barnes and John Fetterman, have captured imaginations with their smart campaigns and strong poll numbers. Like Fetterman, Barnes is a progressive who has broken the mold for Democrats running in the traditional battleground states of the Great Lakes region. Both candidates have made a point of fighting for votes in every county of their state, including those that backed Trump, and they are doing so with a firm embrace of working-class voters and the unions that represent them. There’s a logic to this approach. For Democrats to win in the Great Lakes battleground states, they need to run up their numbers in the big cities and college towns that are their partisan strongholds, keep their losses to a minimum in historically Republican rural areas, and renew their prospects in the midsize industrial cities and surrounding counties where Trump’s faux populism made inroads in 2016 and continues to attract support. “You need to make it clear to people in places like Kenosha and Racine and Oshkosh, who are worried about outsourcing and the loss of good union jobs, that the Republicans aren’t going to help them,” says John Drew, former president of UAW Local 72 in Kenosha, where in 2010 Chrysler closed a sprawling engine plant that was once one of the state’s largest employers. “Mandela Barnes understands that.” In Barnes’s case, Johnson has proved to be a perfect foil. While the Democratic challenger has emphasized his own working-class roots in his advocacy for the renewal of manufacturing, the wealthy incumbent has declared that he couldn’t care less about Wisconsin workers and their communities.
Biden and the Dems tough on (global) criminals
Unlike the Republicans, who fawn over and bow before autocrats like Putin and MBS, Joe Biden (and the Democrats) are speaking up and planning appropriate measures in response to international brinksmanship:
Biden to Re-evaluate Relationship With Saudi Arabia After Oil Production Cut, Peter Baker, New York Times, October 11, 2022.
“Certainly in light of recent developments and OPEC Plus’s decision about oil production, the president believes that we should review the bilateral relationship with Saudi Arabia and to take a look to see if that relationship is where it needs to be and that it is serving our national security interests,” the official, John F. Kirby, told reporters on a conference call. Mr. Kirby, the strategic communications coordinator for the National Security Council, signaled openness to retaliatory measures proposed by Democratic congressional leaders who were outraged by the oil production cut announced last week by OPEC Plus, the international cartel. Among other things, leading Democrats have proposed curbing security cooperation with Saudi Arabia, including arms sales, and stripping OPEC members of their legal immunity so they can be sued for violations of U.S. antitrust laws.✂️ The comments came a day after Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, assailed Saudi Arabia for effectively backing Russia in its brutal invasion of Ukraine. The senator called for an immediate freeze on “all aspects of our cooperation with Saudi Arabia,” vowing to use his power to block future arms sales.✂️ Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, said on Tuesday morning that Saudi Arabia clearly wanted Russia to win the war in Ukraine. “Let’s be very candid about this,” he said on CNN. “It’s Putin and Saudi Arabia against the United States.”
Biden is a good person and a loving father — and people will relate to this truth (even MAGA)
S. Hannity tripped on his own (you know what) with the vicious stunt he pulled the other night — revealing a private voice message that Joe Biden had left for his son,Hunter, during a period in Hunter’s life when he was in a very dark place of addiction. That is not going to play for Hannity as he hopes it might, not even with all of his most avid followers. Why? Because everyone can relate to the experience that the voicemail highlights — and everyone can relate to the emotions of a parent reaching out to a child who is struggling. The pain, the sense of helplessness, the urgency to see that child get the help they need, and the love. So much love.
Everyone has had an experience like that touch them in some way; maybe not directly, but through family, extended family, friends and community. Even Hannity’s viewers — especially Hannity’s viewers — understand this. And while for many there will be the same sneering jeering reaction that Hannity does — and which Hannity clearly thinks everyone will have (funny how these awful people always seem to believe that everyone else is just as awful as they are) — there will be some (maybe a lot) of even Hannity’s viewers who will be repulsed by what Hannity did. Some whose bubble of conservative MAGA worldview will be pierced by the sheer ugliness of that cruel stunt. And some of them may just start to rethink Hannity… and TFG...and MAGA.
Listen to what Beau has to say and if you click to the YouTube page, you can read the comments. You may be surprised by some of them (I was!).
A sample from the comments under Beau’s video: I'm not a huge fan of Biden. But that voicemail made me a bit emotional. Hearing that made me actually want to vote for him.”
😫😬 Republicans in Disarray 😩😡
Trump’s Coup Attempt Could Cost GOP A House Seat Because Of Autocracy-Wary Latinos, S.V. Daté, HuffPost, October 11, 2022.
MIAMI ― Donald Trump’s attempted coup may have driven away just enough Hispanic voters wary about autocracy in South Florida to give Democrats one bright spot on a state congressional map aggressively gerrymandered to favor Republicans.✂️ (State Sen. Annette) Taddeo’s campaign is sharing in internal poll that shows a tied race. “We can win, and we can save democracy in the process,” she said, standing atop a desk between U.S. and Florida flags, with the flag of her native Colombia affixed to a wall behind her. ✂️ Her campaign shows results from an internal poll finding that Trump now suffers from a 40-54 favorable-to-unfavorable ratio in the district, with 48% viewing him “very” unfavorably. Biden, in contrast, has a 49-45 favorable-to-unfavorable ratio, with only 37% seeing him “very” unfavorably. Carolina Camps, president of Cuban American Women Supporting Democracy, started the group during the coronavirus pandemic but saw membership grow rapidly after the Capitol riot, she said, when Cuban and other Hispanic voters saw Trump ― who had won Florida by accusing Biden of being a “socialist” ― refuse to accept his election defeat. “We know what autocracy is, and that’s where we’re heading,” Camps said.
Trump's absolutely tanking with independents. Please send him to more places, Kerry Eleveld, DailyKos, October 11, 2022.
Over the weekend, Donald Trump held a sedition rally in Nevada in which he exalted the Jan. 6 insurrectionists as “the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen." In the wake of Trump’s appearance in the Silver State, Democratic incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto promptly notched her two best online fundraising days of the 2022 cycle, hauling in more than $1 million.✂️ But as Trump’s standing among independent voters continues to plummet, the more he inserts himself into the 2022 midterms, the more Democratic candidates stand to benefit at the voting booth. When we checked in two weeks ago on Trump’s favorability rating in Civiqs tracking, he was 13 points underwater with independent men—a drop that was precipitated by the FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. Since then, Trump’s fall in standing among independent men has continued, putting him at a 20-point deficit as of Oct. 10, or 35% favorable vs. 55% unfavorable.
Republican Mayor Skipped Trump Rally in His City to Campaign Against ‘Dangerous’ Trump-Backed Nominee for Governor, Alex Griffling, Mediaite, October 10, 2022.
The Republican mayor of Mesa, Arizona, where former President Donald Trumpheld a rally on Sunday, skipped Trump’s rally in favor of campaigning against the GOP nominee for governor. Mayor John Giles joined a group of Republicans at a campaign event for Democrat Katie Hobbs. Giles noted during his remarks, “There is a rally in Mesa, Arizona, today, featuring some well-known out-of-town guests. I am not there. I am here. … I am here campaigning for Katie Hobbs.” ✂️ Giles frames the gubernatorial race in his state as “a choice between sanity and chaos.” Giles had previously been censured by the Arizona GOP for endorsing Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) for reelection over his Trump-backed opponent Blake Masters. x "The failed former president isn’t attracting the same size of crowd that he used to. Donald Trump has gone from arenas to fairgrounds to dirt fields."
https://t.co/7utfyQ0MPj via @politicususa — Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) October 9, 2022
Let’s check in with some of the candidates endorsed by TFG… ohhhhh dear...
x The Sarah Palin rally yesterday didn’t just have a James Brown cover, they had other acts to fire up the enthusiastic crowd of patriots before her speech. pic.twitter.com/iTAm62vn0S — Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) October 10, 2022
ooohhh...yikes! 😬
x In Georgia, @GOP hopeful Herschel Walker's own senior campaign staff are leaking stories to the press in an effort to keep Walker out of the Senate.
Wild.
https://t.co/LJur2HD3uP — Max Burns (@themaxburns) October 7, 2022
He was (unfortunately) right in 2016, is he right in 2022? 🤞
I am not much of a Michael Moore fan, but I sure hope he is right about this!
Michael Moore predicts Democrats will win big in the midterms. Could he be right again? Sophia A McClennan, Salon, October 11, 2022.
In his second installment, he covered the story of the recent election for the Boise Board of Education, in which Republican Steve Schmidt, an incumbent, was up for re-election. Considering that Trump won Idaho's capital city with 73 percent of the vote, it made sense to assume Schmidt would win again. But as Moore explains, Schmidt had been endorsed by a far-right extremist group, the Idaho Liberty Dogs, that led a campaign against the local library, calling their LGBTQ+ and sex ed materials "smut-filled pornography." According to Moore, they even showed up at local Extinction Rebellion climate strikes brandishing AR-15 assault rifles. ✂️ Rajbhandari won. A teenager beat a Republican incumbent in a traditionally red city in one of the reddest states. Moore's point is that if these kinds of seismic shifts are happening at the polls in Boise, there's reason to think that this election won't follow traditional patterns. Voters, he believes, have had enough of the power of right-wing extremists and the threat they pose to democratic values. In his next "tsunami of truth," Moore reminded readers that despite all the ways that the media tends to make the American right seem massively powerful, they're really just a big bunch of losers. Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven of the eight last elections. As Moore explains it, "Only because of the slave states' demand for the Electoral College — and the Republicans' #1 job of gerrymandering and voter suppression — do we even have to still deal with their misogyny, their destruction of Planet Earth, their love of guns and greed, and their laser-focused mission to bury our Democracy." That leads to the next installment: Republicans will lose because this time around they are "running the biggest batch of nutters nationwide in American electoral history." He then promises to offer a list of the top 10 "biggest whackadoodles on the Republican side of the ballot."
🎶 Here’s hoping, Mr. Moore 🎶
⚖️ Legal Matters ⚖️
Georgia
Cassidy Hutchinson Is Cooperating With Georgia DA’s MAGA Election Meddling Probe, Cristina Cabrera, Talking Points Memo, October 11, 2022.
Cassidy Hutchinson, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’ top aide, is reportedly cooperating with the Fulton County district attorney’s 2020 election investigation in Georgia after providing bombshell testimony to the House Jan. 6 Committee. ✂️ In contrast, Meadows – who was front and center to then-President Donald Trump’s efforts to steal the 2020 election in states like Georgia – has been resisting Willis’ demands for his testimony. Meadows was involved in Trump’s election steal efforts in a variety of ways in Georgia specifically: He was on the infamous call in which Trump tried to pressure Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to “find” the votes needed to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state, he was kept in the loop in the fake Trump elector scheme in Georgia and other states, and he paid a bizarre visit to Georgia’s ballot signature audit in December 2020.
DOJ on stolen classified documents
DOJ 'pulverizes all of Trump's arguments' in 'utterly devastating' SCOTUS filing: legal experts, Bob Brigham, Raw Story, October 11, 2022.
Rubin explained, "what interests me is whether DOJ refuted any of Trump's factual allegations with its own narrative. While it could have addressed Trump's insistence that all of the classified docs were sent to Mar-a-Lago *before* his presidency was over, it didn't. And the reason, says DOJ without raising that or any other particular 'fact' Trump offered, is that it doesn't matter. Even a purportedly declassified document can't be his personal property and can't be the subject of any attorney-client privilege. It's still a 'red herring.'" "That doesn't mean DOJ didn't take some swipes at Trump. Swipe 1: Trump can't claim he's allowed 24/7 access to documents under the PRA because having never returned them to the National Archives, he's basically forfeited the right to invoke the Presidential Records Act," Rubin noted. "Swipe 2: Trump insists he's declassified everything in public, but he's 'never represented in any of his multiple legal filings in multiple courts that he in fact declassified any documents -- much less supported such a representation with competent evidence.'" "Swipe 3 (in a footnote!): Trump used to yammer about executive privilege--but not recently. That's probably because it doesn't exist vis a vis other executive branch agencies -- e.g., DOJ -- but even if it did, we've proven an urgent need for the stuff," Rubin added. "And swipe 4? If he wants 'emergency' relief, he has to show he's likely to win on the merits and that he's being irreparably harmed. He didn't even try." x Like I think I’m a pretty good lawyer but if I had to write Trump’s reply to this crazy good brief I have no idea what I would say. At all. — Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) October 11, 2022
Making Attorneys Get Attorneys
A Lawyer’s Journey From Adviser to the Oath Keepers to Defendant, Alan Feuer and Zach Montague, New York Times, October 11, 2022.
Last month, Ms. SoRelle was indicted on conspiracy charges, accused of working with the far-right group in its monthslong plot to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election. Now, she has found herself at the center of a battle over whether her text messages — and testimony — can be used as evidence at the seditious conspiracy trial of Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers, and four of his subordinates. ✂️ The dispute has become more complicated because the Oath Keepers may seek to call Ms. SoRelle as a witness in the case and defend themselves against some of the charges they are facing by claiming they were merely following her instructions in what is known as an advice-of-counsel defense.✂️ On Monday night, before the Oath Keepers trial resumed in Federal District Court in Washington on Tuesday, prosecutors filed court papers asking a judge to set aside attorney-client privilege and admit text messages that Ms. SoRelle had swapped with Mr. Rhodes in the days leading up to the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Probably need to take this next one with a grain of salt, since the lawyer mentioned in the story below turned up at one of TFG’s rallies over the weekend, too, but still:
Trump Lawyer Who Said No More Docs at Mar-a-Lago Reportedly Cooperating With Feds and Named Names, Alex Griffling, Mediaite, October 10, 2022.
Former OAN host and attorney for former President Donald Trump, Christina Bobb, reportedly spoke with federal investigators on Friday and worked to clarify her role in signing a letter declaring Trump had no more documents at his Florida home – which turned out to be false.✂️ NBC’s Marc Caputo reported Bobb “named two other Trump attorneys involved with the case.” Bobb reportedly told investigators that the letter she signed was drafted by Evan Corcoran, who was Trump’s “lead lawyer” at the time. “Bobb also spoke to investigators about Trump legal adviser Boris Epshteyn,who she said did not help draft the statement but was minimally involved in discussions about the records, according to the sources,” Caputo added.
‘FBI doesn’t play’: Morning Joe says Trump lawyers finding out the hard way that rules apply to them, Travis Gettys, Raw Story, October 11, 2022.
"Here's the thing," Scarborough said. "These people have seen, I'm dead serious here, they have seen Donald Trump lie, get away with lying when Trump knew he was lying, they knew he was lying. Oh, they can get away with it. Anybody who's ever been an attorney, though, should understand that what works outside of the courtroom does not work inside of the courtroom." "The FBI doesn't play, federal judges don't play and I'm just, I'm really surprised at the number of lawyers who didn't understand that," Scarborough added. "They're getting in trouble now." ✂️ "One thing that's interesting, according to our sources who had spoken to Christina Bobb about her testimony, is that she appeared to know something was up because Evan Corcoran claimed he did the diligent search and drafted the letter that he didn't sign," said NBC News correspondent Marc Caputo. "She insisted to have a disclaimer saying based on the information that has been provided to me, a diligent search has been performed and you have all the records. That wound up not being true. There's evidence she knew something was going on, and as folks have responded on Twitter, as we broke the story, MAGA not only stands for 'make America great again,' but in this context it stands for 'make attorneys get attorneys.' She has a lawyer, I mean, right? She has a lawyer."
Judge blocks Ohio’s draconian abortion ban
Judge Blocks State Abortion Ban As Attempt “To Completely Eliminate The Rights of Ohio Women”, Pema Levy, Mother Jones, October 9, 2022.
Ohio’s near-total abortion ban will remain on hold as a challenge to the law proceeds in state court, a judge ruled Friday, allowing abortions up to 20 weeks gestation to proceed.✂️ In issuing his decision, Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Christian Jenkins said the abortion ban is written “to almost completely eliminate the rights of Ohio women.” Jenkins also rebuffed the state’s argument that the Ohio constitution doesn’t protect abortion because it doesn’t explicitly mention it. “This court has no difficulty holding that the Ohio Constitution confers a fundamental right on all of Ohioans to privacy, procreation, bodily integrity and freedom of choice in health care decision-making that encompasses the right to abortion,” he said. The lawsuit is challenging the abortion ban under Ohio’s constitution. Judge Jenkins initially blocked the law last month and on Friday said that hold would remain in effect for the duration of the case. Ohio is expected to appeal the decision, making the near-term future of abortion access in Ohio uncertain.
🌱 Climate and Environment 🌱
193 countries pledge to slash air-travel emissions by 2050, Maria Gallucci, Canary Media, October 10, 2022.
Last Friday, the International Civil Aviation Organization agreed to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. The specialized United Nations agency, which has 193 member countries, adopted the long-term aspirational target after nearly a decade of negotiations. To stay on track, “we’ll need to peak emissions as soon as 2025,” Dan Rutherford, aviation director for the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation, said in a written statement.✂️ Global airlines are already taking some steps to curb emissions from flying, such as replacing older aircraft with energy-efficient models and setting weight limits to reduce the amount of fuel needed to fly planes. In the United States and Europe, companies are blending small amounts of sustainable aviation fuel — made from used cooking oil, forest residues or captured carbon — with conventional jet fuel to lower their CO2emissions. Startups and major manufacturers alike are developing aircraft that use hydrogen fuel cells or batteries instead of engines.
I cannot do the next story justice with just a short piece pulled out here. Please go read the whole in depth article. It’s fantastic!
With renewables, Native communities chart a path to energy sovereignty, Jeff St. John, Canary Media, October 10, 2022.
Blake’s solar company Solar Bear — pronounced Gizis-o-makwa in the Ojibwe language — has led the construction of the tribal nation’s first two solar installations, a 70-kilowatt system on the roof of the Government Center in the town of Red Lake, Minnesota, and a 240-kilowatt system at a workforce development center named Oshkiimaajitahdah, or New Beginnings, in the nearby town of Redby. It’s planning 20 more commercial-building solar systems, along with a 13-megawatt solar farm. Solar power is cheaper over the long run than utility electricity in the area, which is important for a community where the median per capita income is about $10,000 and 45 percent of children live in poverty. “We see a high density of energy poverty,” Blake said, with families often forced to choose between paying their power bills or buying food. Solar development also means economic opportunity. The Red Lake Indian Reservation, with a population of about 5,500, has an unemployment rate of 24percent. Most of the available jobs are linked to tribal government, and most revenue is generated by Red Lake’s casinos. “We wanted to create jobs, entrepreneurship opportunities,” Blake said.✂️ Blake views the fossil-fuel energy system as part and parcel of an “extractive and predatory” economic system, one that threatens not just the communities and ecosystems directly harmed by it but the entire planet. Native people can now “take back these profits, take back these resources and start taking care of the planet and taking care of our communities,” he said.
Yesterday, arhpdx included some more information about the community of Babcock, FL (which has also been covered by others at DK) and I wanted to just show you this short video clip which explains the whole thing right from the engineer who helped design it. This is the future for climate resiliency and it may very well start to happen more quickly than any of us thought possible (hooray!):
x My visit to @babcockranchfl the 100% solar-powered village of 2,000 homes that never lost power during Hurricane Ian, and thanks to resilient planning and wetlands protection, did not flood. pic.twitter.com/W1XrZ5G2oo — Bill Weir (@BillWeirCNN) October 7, 2022
✶✶✶✶ Chicago Good News ✶✶✶✶
Great news! You can now read the Chicago Sun✶Times online for FREE! No paywall for the hardest working newspaper in America! Go read it now! (and if you can contribute to it, please do!) I am a long time print+digital subscriber to the Chicago Sun✶Times and one of the best parts of my day is opening my apartment door to pick up the paper each morning as CG and I head out for our early morning walk. Many nights while writing a GNR, I’ve been surprised to realize it’s nearly time to post by the lovely sound of that paper hitting the floor outside my door @5:30AM. It is an excellent newspaper. I am thrilled that they are offering their paper online for free and I hope everyone will check it out!:
The Sun-Times’ new chapter: Our digital content is now free for everyone, Nykia Wright, Jennifer Kho and Celeste LeCompte, Chicago Sun-Times, October 6, 2022.
C’mon, you know you want to read it! 😁 In recent years, Chicago has proven its reputation as an exceptional news town — one in which residents care passionately about its future and invest in its success. Our city has become known as a hub of innovation for local news. This year alone we’ve seen a number of great examples: City Bureau’s Documenters program, which trains people to document public meetings, is expanding nationally. Block Club Chicago is building an investigative reporting team. South Side Weekly and the Hyde Park Herald merged to form a South Side–focused nonprofit newsroom. And in January, the Chicago Sun-Times became a nonprofit newsroom as part of Chicago Public Media. The nation is watching what happens here to see whether Chicago can be a model for how to defend and rebuild local news. Because of you, our great city has a real chance to buck the alarming trend of local news shrinking nationwide. Between late 2019 and May 2022, 360 newspapers closed in the U.S., according to a June report from the Medill School of Journalism. A quarter of the country’s newspapers have closed since 2005, the study found, with two more closing every week — and Illinois has lost the most news outlets of any state during this period. The industry has seen a 70% decline in newsroom employees since 2006. The research also shows that local news really matters. When communities lose their local news coverage, they experience more corruption, pollution and poverty, and even experience a decline in voter turnout. ✂️ So today, we are dropping our paywall and making it possible for anyone to read our website for free by providing nothing more than an email address. Instead of a paywall, we are launching a donation-based digital membership program that will allow readers to pay what they can to help us deliver the news you rely on.
There are not many Rs that I can say I think are good eggs, but Illinois’ Adam Kinzinger is one:
GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger endorses Democrats running against election deniers, Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun-Times, October 11, 2022.
In a statement, he said: “Country First will be investing in each of these races in the ways it deems most helpful, including fundraising, advertising, texting, grassroots support and GOTV — the same strategy it successfully employed throughout the primaries.”✂️ That’s four Democrats — Adrian Fontes in Arizona, Cisco Aguilar in Nevada, Steve Simon in Arizona and Jocelyn Benson of Michigan — and Republican Brad Raffensperger in Georgia, who Kinzinger noted in a statement, “overcame tremendous pressure from Donald Trump and his supporters to ‘find’ enough votes to declare Trump the winner. Few politicians are willing to risk their careers to do the right thing, which is why it’s so important to support those, like Brad Raffensperger, who do.” ✂️ Also in crucial swing states, Kinzinger is backing for governor Democrats Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, whose GOP rival is an election denier, and Katie Hobbs of Arizona.
🎶 Music for Chicago 🎶
🐩💙 CG’s Picks 💙🐩
Hello Everybody! It’s me, Curlygirl! I am still a little bit under the weather. Mama says if we had had covid, maybe it would be long covid, but we did NOT have covid so who knows what it is? 🤷🏼♀️ I do not!
So, I have used my time lying around as well as I possibly could and I have quite a few stories about animals for you!
The first story is about dogs because I like to share stories about dogs, seeing as how I am one! ☺️ I’ve actually got two stories about dogs today! But this first one is very cool and has SCIENCE in it too! (but not the scary terrible kind that New Jersey guy did, I promise!)
Now, Mama says that this is very interesting and it’s news — but I ask you!? How can she not know that I already showed her that dogs (or at least *I*) can tell if their humans are upset! Whenever I sense that my human is upset I go right over to her and I lay my head against her to let her know I am there and I love her. (nifty here: it’s true! She does! See photo! ↑ 🥰🐩)
Yes, your dog really can sniff that you’re upset, Marlene Cimons, Washington Post, October 11, 2022.
Therapy dogs in training (I want this job, plz) The dogs were able to smell changes in human breath and sweat, and — with high accuracy — identify chemical odors people emit when feeling stressed. The findings provide “deeper knowledge of the human-dog relationship and adds to our understanding of how dogs perceive and interact with human psychological states,” said Clara Wilson. Wilson, a doctoral student in the Queen’s University Belfast school of psychology, is one of the study authors. Noting that earlier research using sniffer dogs and human biological samples mostly involved detecting illness, she added that it is exciting to see that “they can smell other parts of the human experience.” The latest research adds to a growing body of evidence related to dog behavior — how dogs see, think and smell — and their positive psychological effects. Dogs can make people feel better by relieving anxiety and symptoms of depression. It’s why they often are used to support people with anxiety disorders or those recovering from trauma. The ability of dogs to smell human stress could prove valuable in training service and therapy dogs, who now largely respond to visual cues, researchers said.
Next, here is a picture of a cat. I don’t know if they are “obtuse” or “acute” because I don’t know what those words mean, but I know cats are always right! 😁
x orange cats may be obtuse, but they sure are acute pic.twitter.com/gWpW5O3IIy — cats being weird little guys (@weirdlilguys) October 12, 2022
Next, here’s another story about those bears in Alaska (shudder):
Park rangers saw something unprecedented in this year's fat bears, Mark Kaufman, Mashable, October 8, 2022.
😍 This needs no wordy introduction — it’s a B🥰X of PUPPIES! 😍
x Woman finds a box of puppies in the desert on a 110-degree day — and it changes her life ❤️ pic.twitter.com/Y4ViB5o7JA — The Dodo (@dodo) October 8, 2022
I know I said I had *two* stories about dogs today, but I fibbed! I actually have a third story and this is possibly the best one of all! I know you know that I love puppies, but did you know that I love human babies and children almost as much? I don’t mind one bit if a human baby pulls my ears or pokes my eye with a little finger. i L🥰VE babies and youngsters — both canine and human! So, you can understand that my excitement because this next video has it ALL! Puppies, babies… oh and BALLS, too! I forgot to mention that next to puppies and children, I love playing fetch with BALLS! This fantastic video has everything! I think it is my best find ever! Enjoy!
x Watch these Corgis teach their baby brother how to play fetch — then watch him learn how to be a big brother! 😍 pic.twitter.com/L0DRD8uAZl — The Dodo (@dodo) October 11, 2022
That’s all for now! See you next week! Luv, CG 💙🐾
😎 🧐 Other Cool Stuff 😎🤓
It worked!
NASA Says Spacecraft Crash Test Successfully Changes Asteroid's Orbit, Marcia Dunn, HuffPost, October 11, 2022.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A spacecraft that plowed into a small, harmless asteroid millions of miles away succeeded in shifting its orbit, NASA said Tuesday in announcing the results of its save-the-world test. The space agency attempted the first test of its kind two weeks ago to see if in the future a killer rock could be nudged out of Earth’s way. ✂️ Before the impact, the moonlet took 11 hours and 55 minutes to circle its parent asteroid. Scientists had hoped to shave off 10 minutes but NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the impact altered the asteroid’s orbit by about 32 minutes.
On Motivation 💙
x Felt this! I love Deion pic.twitter.com/JLbopAeUzg — C Dot Jackson (@ColeJackson12) October 9, 2022
project attempts to map historic indigenous peoples’ lands around the world
Which Indigenous lands are you on? This map will show you, Rachel Treisman, NPR, October 10, 2022.
Screenshot of the Notice-Land.ca map "Many places in the Americas have been home to different Native Nations over time, and many Indigenous people no longer live on lands to which they have ancestral ties," the museum says. "Even so, Native Nations, communities, families, and individuals today sustain their sense of belonging to ancestral homelands and protect these connections through Indigenous languages, oral traditions, ceremonies, and other forms of cultural expression." Native Land Digital, an Indigenous-led nonprofit based in Canada, is working to facilitate such conversations and document this history including by putting together a searchable map of Native territories, languages and treaties. Users can click on labels across the Americas and around other parts of the globe — or type a specific city, state or zip code into the search box — to see which Indigenous tribes lived where. You can zoom in or out, as well as choose to apply "settler labels" to see how the map corresponds with contemporary state lines. Clicking on the name of each nation brings up links for related reading
And a surprising perspective on planet earth:
Sometimes he says cringeworthy things, but this is the William Shatner I like to imagine is the real one:
x William Shatner on his Blue Origin flight to space: "It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered."
https://t.co/CI1WDV17oe pic.twitter.com/z0jyFRzJ7w — graham starr (@GrahamStarr) October 9, 2022
🎶 Music for a (still) wonderful world 🎶
⚡️ Lightning RoundUp ⚡️
⚡️ Want to know what message midterm candidates think will win? Follow the money, Tamara Keith, NPR, October 11, 2022.
⚡️ Biden Just Made Marijuana Reform a Major 2022 Issue. Democrats Should Run With It. John Nichols, the Nation, October 7, 2022.
⚡️ Great news for people on SS: Cheers for Social Security’s Cost-of-Living Adjustment, Robert Kuttner, The American Prospect, October 11, 2022.
⚡️ THE INEVITABLE INDICTMENT OF DONALD TRUMP, Franklin Foer, the Atlantic, October 11, 2022.
⚡️ Inconvenient truth about who *actually* “does the crime”: Opinion It’s just murder living in a red state, Dana Milbank, Washington Post, October 11, 2022.
⚡️ Historic: Iran’s Protests Are the First Counter-Revolution Led by Women, Robin Wright, the New Yorker, October 9, 2022.
⚡️ A positive outlook: Ukraine's victory "almost a done deal": Military expert on how Russia's invasion imploded, Chauncey Devega, Salon, October 11, 2022.
⚡️Gift article (no paywall): Opinion How Ukrainians define their enemy: ‘It’s not Putin; it’s Russia’, David Ignatius, Washington Post, October 11, 2022.
⚡️ Good riddance: Beloved Guest Star On Tucker Carlson's White Power Hour Leaving Democrats Forever, Darnit!, Evan Hurst, Wonkette, October 11, 2022.
💗 How Can You Help Build Our Democracy Back Better? 💗
Here’s a visual to help us keep our eyes on the prize:
💙 RoundUp WindDown 💙
That’s it from me and CG for another Wednesday. You know I am about to exhort you to take the very best care of yourselves and to encourage those you love to do the same. Well, I always mean it, but this time I REALLY mean it! 😅
We’ve got real work to do, Gnusies — in addition to all the work we normally do! We have jobs and families and lives and worries and so much stuff to do! I get it and I know you all get it, too. We will have each others’ backs and we will just put on one last big drive to the finish line. Because without a functioning democracy and good governance (Democratic governance!), all of the rest will be so much harder and some of it will be impossible.
We all want to live in a country where dreams are possible for everyone and where we are free to make our own choices about our futures. We all want that for the next generations too. Not to mention, we want a healthy planet upon which those future generations can grow and thrive.
Let’s GOTV, everybody! Happy Wednesday! Watch the J6 hearing tomorrow!
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