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From the GNR Newsroom: Its the Monday Good News Roundup [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-01-27
Welcome back to the Monday Good News Roundup, where your GNR Newsroom (Myself, Killer300, Bhu, and the good people at the GNR discord server) bring you all the good news to start your week off right.
So yeah, the first week of the Trump administration 2.0. Bigger, louder, certainly dumber. Honestly if not for the clear and present danger to countless innocent lives, watching this orange buffoon try and stumble his way through another presidency would actually be kind of funny. Sadly though its not funny its horrifying, but fret not, because the resistance is alive and well, and so long as a heart beats in my chest I will be here to report the Good News for you. So lets get on with it.
But first some music: The Angel Song by Great White
n my book (published at the start of this year), I included this chart of deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon since the 1980s. I also wrote about it on my Substack. Deforestation rates had doubled under Jair Bolsonaro, and things were looking bleak. But at the time of writing, Lula da Silva had just been re-elected and I said that this should give us some hope of a turnaround.
Now that’s good news if ever I heard it. Remember, Brazil got rid of their Trump, we can do the same.
But in the last few decades, coal use in Britain has tanked, and its journey towards a coal-free grid ends today as it closes its final power plant: Ratcliffe-on-Soar. The decline in coal power has been pretty rapid. Here it is as a share of electricity. Or you can find total production data here.
I’d say coal had a good run, but it was honestly pretty terrible for all involved, good riddance.
Americans see the federal government as rife with corruption, inefficiency and red tape — but they’re less sure about whether Elon Musk is the right person to fix it. A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that only about 3 in 10 U.S. adults strongly or somewhat approve of President Trump’s creation of an advisory body on government efficiency, which Musk is helming. About 4 in 10 disapprove, while the rest were neutral or didn’t know enough to say. (The poll was conducted before Vivek Ramaswamy announced he would no longer be involved in the group.)
Yeah people are not buying what Trump is selling this time around (Which is weird because he got reelected but people are strange). Point is Trump is awful, Elon is awful, and people are really starting to wise up to that.
I spent 13 years of my life closely monitoring the M5 highway, a long Syrian motorway that travels north to south, linking the country’s second city, Aleppo, with Hama, Homs, and Damascus, before continuing down toward the Jordanian border. Territorial control over this stretch of road was one of the best ways to mark the winners and losers in the long, brutal civil war. Syrian rebels spent years trying to regain control of the road after losing it to the regime during Russia and Iran’s assault on Aleppo in 2016. While territory frequently changed hands, gains and losses were often measured in meters—and mostly went in favor of the regime. I studied this road for over a decade, examining maps, satellite imagery, and war footage; I knew this road better than I knew the road I grew up on. That was why it felt like a fantasy to suddenly be driving down it myself on a Wednesday this past December, heading from northern Syria directly to Damascus. The only danger was traffic, the thousands of internally displaced Syrian families alongside refugees who had been living in Turkey returning to rebuild their homes, some for the first time in over a decade.
See, when people say “Democracy is dead” and stuff I have to roll my eyes and look over at places like Syria. The good people in Syria had to fight for their freedom too, and they fought a much tougher and longer battle than we are fighting now. If they can tough it out and win, so can we.
No quote for this one, just a reminder that for all the bad that happens, good stuff has happened this past week as well, so don’t give up hope.
Video (Not posting thumbnail because it has Trumps face in it and who wants to see that) but short version: Elon was kicked out of the White House by the secretary of Staff, hopefully this will be the beginning of the end of Elon and Trumps alliance.
On the evening of Dec. 10, 12 self-identified elder climate activists sat around the Christmas tree in the New York State Capitol, in Albany, singing carols as they waited to be arrested. The protesters, who were there to support New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act, had been told by police they would face criminal misdemeanor trespass charges if they stayed put. “Normally, for a protest like this, we’d expect to be written a citation rather than charged with a misdemeanor,” said Michael Richardson of Third Act Upstate New York, which helped plan the civil disobedience. “But there were enough of us ready to take the elevated charges. We knew it would have fewer consequences for us than a younger person.” The next evening, another seven elders gathered around the Christmas tree in expectation of being arrested. Protests continued into a third day, dramatically capping off a campaign that had worked for two years to pass a state law making fossil fuel companies pay for damage caused by an escalating climate crisis. On Dec. 26, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul bowed to the activists’ demands by signing the Climate Change Superfund Act, which will force fossil fuel companies to pay an estimated $75 billion over 25 years into a fund for addressing the impacts of climate change. “This legislation is about getting resources to people in need,” said Jamie Henn of Fossil Free Media. “We’re already seeing states and municipalities drain their budgets as they try to respond to increasingly expensive extreme weather disasters. This bill helps fill those gaps while pointing a finger at the corporations who are most responsible.”
Its been super cold in New York the past few weeks, and climate change is to blame. Thankfully there are people in my state standing up and demanding we do something about it.
Allies of Donald Trump are annoyed that “First Buddy” Elon Musk continues to assert his dominance over the president. In fact, one White House official told Politico that the unelected co-president “very much” overstepped when he trashed a recent artificial intelligence project that the president had announced. Earlier this week, Trump publicized a new Stargate venture to help grow AI infrastructure in the United States. The new entity will also start building out a data center and the electricity generation needed for the rapidly growing AI in Abilene, Texas, according to the White House. With an initial investment of $100 billion, there are plans to pour up to $500 billion into Stargate in the coming years.
Oh yeah this is clearly a friendship that was built to last. I mean people were super worried about Bannon too and he was gone less than a year, lets see how long Elon lasts.
an 23 (Reuters) - U.S. companies that scale back workplace diversity efforts to avoid scrutiny from the Trump administration may be exposing themselves to more discrimination lawsuits by workers, experts said. President Donald Trump this week issued a sweeping executive order directing federal agencies to terminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs and encouraging private companies to do the same. Trump ordered all agencies to identify potential targets for civil investigations, who could then be subjected to legal action. Some companies have already ended or scaled back DEI initiatives in response to conservative backlash, legal threats, and Trump's November election victory, and more are expected to follow suit. But many common corporate policies that fall under the DEI umbrella, such as auditing pay practices, requiring diverse pools of job candidates , and ensuring that promotions are awarded fairly are crucial tools for employers to ensure compliance with state and federal laws banning workplace discrimination, lawyers and other experts said.
Yeah remember Trump isn’t a king, things don’t happen just cause he says so, and eventually he’s gonna hit the brick wall of reality again.
Efforts to put Donald Trump’s authoritarian tendencies into a historical context usually begin with the simultaneously troubling and reassuring precedent of Richard M. Nixon. Like Trump, Nixon was a mistrustful and self-conscious “outsider” who hated the news media and compulsively focused on “enemies.” As we fear Trump will do, Nixon harnessed government resources to harass those enemies, ordered widespread law-breaking, expanded presidential powers to the breaking point, and tried to hide his more nefarious activities from scrutiny. But despite his power and a reelection landslide victory that makes a mockery of Trump’s pretensions of popularity, Nixon was brought to heel and eventually forced to resign. A potential authoritarian threat to democracy was repulsed. Nixon was not, however, unique in succumbing to the temptations of an imperial presidency. As Jonathan Rauch reminds us in an important new analysis of how to contain Trump if he goes off the rails, all presidents cross lines and seek to expand their powers. And in fact, the most relevant precedent may be a relatively recent one:
Trump is not some unique problem we have never faced before. We have had far shittier presidents who did a lot worse. We got through Dubya, we can get through this loser.
Now please enjoy a brief musical interlude: No es mi Presidente by Taina Asili
A GOP-led abortion bill failed in the Senate due to Democratic opposition on Wednesday, a sign of where the party is drawing the line on bipartisan cooperation. After a week marked by Senate Democrats’ willingness to work with their Republican counterparts on both an immigration bill and confirming former Sen. Marco Rubio as secretary of State, every Democrat voted against legislation that would “prohibit a health care practitioner from failing to exercise the proper degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion.”
A reminder that the Dems may be down, but they are not out, they are still fighting.
Navigating the Chaos President Donald Trump is back in office, and one big difference between him and any other president is the guarantee of a chaotic firehose of news. I thought it would be a good time to revisit some stalwart suggestions around how to respond to such an information environment. Here are three guidelines for staying positive and rational in the turbulence that has already started and is yet to come.
Not gonna sugar coat it, things are gonna be rough for the next few years, but we have to pace ourselves if we are gonna get through this, so take the above advice to heart.
Yet a funny thing has happened. Trump slobbered over Putin, believing that he and Russia are strong and mighty, serving as an example for his own imperialist and undemocratic designs. But Russia is not strong and mighty. In fact, Russia has run out of tools to prop up its failing economy. And out-of-control inflation, sky-high interest rates, and lower global energy prices have put Putin in a precarious position. Somehow, Trump noticed this, and his disdain couldn’t be clearer. We just might have somehow lucked into a pro-Ukraine Trump presidency.
I think maybe with his new buddy Elon Trump feels puffed up enough he doesn’t need Putin anymore, whatever happens, I’ll be here with the popcorn to enjoy the fallout.
Today, Donald Trump takes the presidential oath of office once again. Let me make this very clear: He and those who surround him are a real threat to our democracy. But now is not the time for acceptance and resignation. This is — yet again — a time for commitment and action. It’s fitting, then, that today we also honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose life shows us the power of principled resistance.
Truer words have never been spoken.
Bloomberg Philanthropies says efforts will include helping fund U.N. climate body
Move follows Trump announcement U.S. again withdrawing from Paris deal
Bloomberg Philanthropies will also help encourage state, local effort to meet U.S. climate goals
Nice to see a billionaire actually trying to help the world with his money.
When Donald Trump first took office, the streets of Washington, DC, and cities around the country, erupted in protest and resistance. The 2017 Women’s March, held the day after his inauguration, was heralded at the time as the biggest protest in U.S. history. This year, the crowds only measured in the thousands. Other day-of gatherings appeared similarly small, perhaps due to the blisteringly cold temperatures that drove the pageantry inside. The spontaneous panic that once gripped the mobilized masses seemed diluted. Instead, Mother Jones video correspondent Garrison Hayes found vocal resistance in a historic place of protest that has endured many disappointing election results across decades: inside a Black church. Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network hosted a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event, which coincided with the inauguration, and used it as an opportunity to challenge Trump and embolden attendees. “We shed too much blood. We spent too many nights in jail to think that Trump can turn us around,” he said. “We are right here. We are not going back.”
The resistance is alive and well.
One more quick music video for you: Black Skies by Ozzy Osbourne
Now its time for the return of a long dormant fan favorite: The GNR Lightning round!
Championing complete streets
Cement has an emissions problem, can tech that mimics coral fix it?
Oregon to host nations largest solar plus storage installation
Illinois considers state incentives for transmission projects
Heat pumps keep widening the lead on gas furnaces
18,000 Costco employees going on strike
Alright I think that’s enough of that, time for more Pokemon!
And now, the cute corner.
Alright that does it for this week, have a good one everyone.
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