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The Story I Almost Didn't Write: Saturday's GNR [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-09-16

This was a tough week for me to write a GNR. I was feeling exhausted by politics and the %&$#ing far right playbook. Do you ever have a week like that? Where you just think “when will this end? Why do people believe their lies?” Well I had one. And so it was tough to collect news when I felt so tired by it all.

Then, on Friday (yesterday), when I usually write this, I had work stresses to deal with and then a minor family stress (everything turned out ok).

Before I knew it, it was time for my husband and I to leave for a concert. And there was no GNR written.

So I wrote a brief apology and asked for people to post good news in the comments and went and had some fun.

Then I came home and went to sleep with no real GNR ready to go.

I’ve been writing these for 7 years now and I have never done that.

Then I woke up in the middle of the night and came downstairs to write this.

So here I am, at 3am putting together a GNR.

Why not just sleep? Because I am part of a community with all of you. And that means something to me. Because I decided that showing up and doing an imperfect job is better than not showing up at all.

This is not be the GNR that I think shines above the others. It does not contain an introduction full of wisdom or wit. But here it is -- a highly imperfect offering of love.

Luckily, there is plenty of good news to share.

Biden and the Democrats are Great

This recovery has defied expectations.

A recent string of economic data has underscored the resilience of America’s post-pandemic economic recovery. So far this year, inflation has come down, real wages have gone up, income inequality has declined, and we have the best job market for workers in decades. While it is by no means guaranteed, a soft landing is now clearly in sight. This progress caught many economic forecasters by surprise. Last fall, the Bloomberg consensus indicated a 100 percent chance of a recession in the following 12 months. The Wall Street Journal’s survey of professional forecasters put the same recession probability at 63 percent. Two years ago, many hypothesized that covid-19 and the fiscal policy response to the pandemic would push millions of Americans permanently out of the workforce. Instead, this recovery has been marked by the fastest rebound in labor force participation — the share of the population that is working or looking for work — in 50 years. After two decades of decline and a sharp drop at the height of the pandemic, prime-age labor-force participation has rebounded to its highest level since 2002.

One of the (many) big untold stories of the victories of the Biden administration is the amazing job he has done at foreign policy. This includes some really amazing stuff in Asia in the past week.

Biden's ‘Big Deal’

The US signed a plan to develop a network of railways and sea routes with India, Middle Eastern countries and the European Union on the summit’s sidelines. It resulted in a powerful political coming together of Biden, Modi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The India, Middle East, Europe Economic Corridor will integrate railway lines and port connections from India to Europe, across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel, leading to faster transit of goods. The US President described the plan as a “ real big deal” and a "game-changing regional investment.”

Biden hosts ASEAN leaders as he tries to show Pacific focus

President Joe Biden on Thursday kicked off the first-ever Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit to be held in Washington as his administration makes an extended effort to demonstrate that the United States has not lost focus on the Pacific even while dealing with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As Biden welcomed leaders from eight ASEAN nations for a dinner to start the two-day “special summit,” the White House announced the United States would commit to more than $150 million in new projects to bolster Southeast Asia’s climate, maritime and public health infrastructure. A senior administration official, who previewed the announcement on the condition of anonymity, said the effort was meant to signal that the U.S. is looking to “step up our game in Southeast Asia.”

Biden’s commerce secretary is the latest Cabinet member to visit China in a bid for improved ties

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is the latest member of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet to visit China as his administration tries to mend the deteriorating ties between the world’s two largest economies. She promises to be “practical” without compromising the U.S. push to “responsibly” manage that economic relationship. Raimondo plans meetings with Chinese officials and U.S. business leaders in Beijing and Shanghai in an effort to “promote a healthy competition, a competition on a level playing field, playing by the rules.” “I’m also very realistic and clear-eyed about the challenges. And the challenges are significant,” she told reporters before leaving Washington on Saturday on a trip that ends Wednesday.

I didn’t know of this guy before, but now I am a big fan of Rep. Moskowitz:

x Moskowitz: Republicans go on Twitter and blame the Saudis for 9/11 but Jared Kushner gets $2 billion from the Saudis and they don’t have any questions pic.twitter.com/76z9bsmMfC — Acyn (@Acyn) September 13, 2023

Biden Gives Full-Throated Endorsement of Historic Auto Strike

President Joe Biden aggressively sided with the United Auto Workers’ strike on Friday, calling on each of the “Big Three” car manufacturers—General Motors, Ford and Stellantis (formerly known as Chrysler)—to come to the table and strike a deal to increase pay and benefits. Biden made the brief comments on Friday, just hours after 13,000 workers went on a work stoppage—the first time in history that Big Three workers have walked off the job simultaneously. While auto execs have fumed over the strike and accused the union of making outlandish demands, Biden pointed the finger back at them. He said the companies made “record profits in recent years” off the backs of the “extraordinary skill and sacrifices” of union workers.

Bad News for Bad Guys

Mark Meadows Takes Another L in His Georgia Criminal Case

Mark Meadows just keeps on losing. On Monday, the former White House chief of staff asked U.S. District Judge Steve Jones to pause an order that rejected his attempt to move his Georgia criminal election interference case to federal court. According to court filings, Jones denied the request, writing that Meadows did not sufficiently demonstrate why the stay should have been granted. The rejection is a win for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who has been developing an anti-racketeering case for over two years against former President Donald Trump, Meadows, and 17 other co-defendants.

Special Counsel Seeking Gag Order on Trump in Election Case

Prosecutors have asked the judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s federal indictment on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election to impose “a narrowly tailored” gag order on him, citing his “near-daily” social media attacks on people involved in the case, according to court papers released on Friday. The request to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of Federal District Court in Washington, who has herself been the subject of some of Mr. Trump’s verbal assaults, brought to a head the simmering issue of the former president’s online statements.

x A judge has denied Donald Trump's request to move a Colorado case aimed at removing him from the state's 2024 ballot to federal court. — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 13, 2023

Jenna Ellis Well and Truly Turns on ‘Narcissistic’ Co-Defendant Trump

Jenna Ellis, Donald Trump’s former senior legal adviser and current co-defendant in Georgia, has made a dramatic break from the former president, saying she will not support his third bid for the White House based on his inability to ever admit to wrongdoing. “I simply can’t support him for elected office again,” Ellis said during an episode of her show American Family Radio. “Why I have chosen to distance is because of that frankly malignant narcissistic tendency to simply say that he’s never done anything wrong.” Trump, for his part, had already turned on Ellis after she expressed some support for Ron DeSantis’ presidential bid earlier this year. Ellis, who falsely maintained that the 2020 election was stolen and also claimed she “would NEVER lie,” has pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering and soliciting the violation of an oath by a public officer.

x Judge Aileen Cannon has issued a protective order limiting Donald Trump's access to evidence in the classified documents case while also barring him from publicly discussing sensitive material.



The order is largely in line with the proposal submitted by Jack Smith's team. — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 13, 2023

Other Good News

one piece of good news is that this impeachment thing is a giant mess unlikely to help them...

Republicans Worry About Kevin McCarthy’s ‘Self-Inflicted’ Impeachment Wound

The impeachment announcement, said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), is “obviously a protection payment to the mob, that enables McCarthy to hold the gavel. It’s nothing more than that.” Huffman expressed doubt that Republicans would even go through with an impeachment vote, or Senate trial, given the evidence. “I’ll be surprised if they can even get to that,” he said. “Even if they do, it’s a national joke, and everyone knows it.” Over the weekend, Rep. French Hill (R-AR) said on CBS that he doesn’t believe Republicans have “even remotely completed their work on the kind of detailed investigations and quality work that Speaker McCarthy is expecting both those committees to produce before someone goes to, you know, an impeachment activity.” Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH), meanwhile, said recently he is “not seeing facts or evidence at this point” that would justify an impeachment inquiry. Amid the palpable unease over impeachment, several Republican lawmakers insisted that McCarthy has not made an official vote—or widespread GOP support—a fait accompli.

GOP Rep. Blasts Impeachment Effort in Scathing Op-Ed

GOP Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) penned a scathing assessment of his Republican colleagues’ efforts to impeach President Joe Biden, arguing their efforts are a baseless distraction based on a “narrative in right-wing media.” In an opinion piece for The Washington Post, he said the government is headed for shutdown and Republicans are flailing in their efforts to adjust federal spending, instead wasting valuable time on a “flimsy excuse” for an impeachment inquiry. The very basis of Republicans’ efforts to pursue impeachment is not based in reality, according to Buck, in perhaps the most drastic denunciation of impeachment by any House Republican thus far. “Republicans in the House who are itching for an impeachment are relying on an imagined history,” Buck wrote. “What’s missing, despite years of investigation, is the smoking gun that connects Joe Biden to his ne’er-do-well son’s corruption.”

Also hurting them → How the ‘MAGA doom loop’ is already threatening Trump’s 2024 chances

The pattern is becoming clear: Even as voters are mobilizing to protect democracy at the ballot box, Republicans are redoubling their commitment to the former president’s anti-majoritarian mode of politics. And this, in turn, is motivating voters even more. Call it the “MAGA doom loop.” It’s playing out in state after state. Let’s start with Michigan, where Trump’s decisive loss in 2020 led MAGA loyalists to reshape the state Republican Party around devotion to the “big lie.” Then Democrats resoundingly captured full control of the state’s government in the 2022 midterms, in which election-deniers across the country lost races up and down the ticket. Now, the Michigan GOP is in shambles. Just this month, the chairman again called for scrutiny of supposed 2020 fraud, prompting infighting over debunked conspiracy theories. And as the New York Times reports, the party’s descent into MAGA mania is alienating donors, draining volunteer enthusiasm and driving away swing voters. All of that will further dim Trump’s 2024 chances in this crucial battleground state. Democrats will surely be able to use those MAGA-approved tactics to mobilize voters against Trump and Republicans in 2024. “The threat to overturn an election through impeachment pushes MAGA attacks on democracy to the top of voters’ minds,” Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler told me.

On the Lighter Side

What can you do to save democracy?

Here are some ideas:

We here at the GNR have set up a fundraising ActBlue account where you can donate and have it evenly distributed between 24 races that will be key to winning the House in 24!

Go ahead and donate at this link:

More worried about keeping tfg out of the WH? You could:

Looking for something else? Maybe something that doesn’t involve donating? GREAT! Here are some other ideas:

So pick just one and get to it!

I am so lucky and so proud to be in this with all of you 💓💚💛🧡✊🏻✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿✊❤️🧡💛💚

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/16/2193556/-The-Story-I-Almost-Didn-t-Write-Saturday-s-GNR

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