Welcome 🌻 to Friday’s Roundup of Good News!
Several other GNR authors have brought up a fairly study showing how important it is to have hope in our lives. Here’s another article about it (Andy Corbley, Good News Network).
Individuals in an Australian cohort of 25,000 randomly-sampled people that were more hopeful had on average improved well-being, education, economic, and employment outcomes measures years later, both better perceived health and objective measures of health, and were less likely to be lonely.
“Hope is not just a belief that things will get better (i.e., optimism), but the determination to make them better, which reflects agency and determination,” they wrote in their introduction. “The distinction between tragic optimists and hopeful pessimists is another way to think of this.”
Reading this helped me a lot. Sometimes — not always — I wonder if working at these GNRs does any good? And although I thought they did — and so many of you feel like real friends — it was great seeing scientific research supporting it.
We have seen the power of hope in action this year, and we know we have made a difference.
We still have a long ways to go. First, the felon and his enablers still have a lot power. Second, many are desperate, because, as Bannon says, many of them expect to go to prison once they’re out of power. Third, cornered rats fight hardest, and these are very unscrupulous people. So they will try to do more terrible things.
But we have more power. We will not give up in advance, because we have hope.
You’ll see hope in a lot of these stories today. It’s a real thing. It lightens us and enlightens us in these dark days.
Come on in, gnusies, and happy first Friday of December.
Regular Scheduled Programming
No one here is naïve; we are aware of the many who are fighting to destroy our country. Some of us expected it: the cheating, the lying, and the chaos. But we are here to read the efforts and the positive results of those (including us and our fellow gnus) who are working so hard to save our country and the planet from those very bad people. We are furious with them for what they are doing and we are letting them know.
Remember:
💜Although they lie all the time, reality matters. And our goals — based on reality — are more popular.
💙 They want us to be demoralized. The best way to keep up your spirits is to fight. So, take the time to recharge your batteries, make sure to protect yourself, your family and your friends, but find ways to contribute to the well-being of our country and our world.
🗽 Reports on Resisters 🗽
I’m not sure about hacking billboards, at least not if they are neutral, such as where to find a motel to sleep in.
But I love this message. And one thing about billboards is that they reach whoever is on the road, no matter what news outlet they usually pick. Billboards can penetrate silos.
Economic boycotts can make a huge difference.
💣 Republicans: Party of Crimes, Chaos and Cowardice💣
This article in Politico highlights how fractured the GOP in the House is. Meredith Lee Hill Politico
House Republicans spent this week venting about Mike Johnson, questioning the speaker’s hold on his tenuous House majority. Next week, he has to prove he’s capable of governing.
The annual Pentagon policy bill is due on the floor just in time to test Johnson’s ability to command and cajole his conference with must-pass legislation at stake. Already GOP leaders have had to delay release of bill text as they deal with a host of 11th-hour intraparty flare-ups that show just how hard it will be for the speaker to lead ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Johnson is already bruised from a high-profile fight with Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a member of the GOP leadership team, over a surveillance provision she wanted attached to the sprawling defense package. She got her way after publicly accusing the speaker of lying and sandbagging conservatives.
Other deeply divisive issues remain, ranging from cryptocurrency policy to in vitro fertilization, that could threaten to further splinter the House GOP and imperil the typically bipartisan Pentagon bill. The brouhaha threatens to complicate Johnson’s effort to hammer out a still-brewing Republican health care plan he’s promised to unveil by early next week.
“I think there’s a lot of members that are frustrated that we’re not doing the things that we said that we were going to do,” said Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) when asked about Johnson’s leadership. “His response to that would be, we only have a [three] vote majority, but I think if you govern conservatively, Republicans will show up and vote for it.”
I also just listened to Rick Wilson’s Against All Enemies podcast. It was mostly about how the felon is never going to do the “Affordability Tour”, mostly because he’s a sick, tired old man, but there’s a bit near the end where he talks about how unhappy many people are inside the White House. How they just don’t have the energy anymore. Wilson is a former GOP operative, and he still has sources, so this is interesting.
And to fit in with today’s theme, what does it mean? That they don’t have much hope! 😄
Democratic overperformance unnerves many Republicans
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The reason this was a serious race in the first place is @aftynbehn.bsky.social and the people-powered movement she built. The result of this overperformance: a lot of Republicans in so-called "safe seats" are scared tonight, and Trump's redistricting push will take another huge hit.
— Leah Greenberg ❌👑 (@leahgreenberg.bsky.social) 2025-12-03T03:43:57.733Z
That’s one reason many are resisting redistricting. Also, it is pissing off voters:
Enjoy!
More on this in the unity section, but including it here because the felon is a weak horse / lame duck
🚚 💙 Democrats Deliver 💙 🚚
Simon Rosenberg knows hope is a thing. That’s why he writes Hopium
From the link in the flutter:
As I’ve been writing here various measures of party strength and the results from special elections and the November elections put the shift in the national political landscape at somewhere between 7 and 13 points towards the Democrats all across the country. As G. Elliott Morris writes above it’s a big enough shift to make it likely the House flips and the Senate will be in play.
While 2026 is turning out to be a year of opportunity for Democrats and the pro-democracy movement we still have one more election to win this year - electing Eileen Higgins the Mayor of Miami
Aftyn Behn may have lost on Tuesday (although her concession speech sounded triumphant), we did flip a mayoral race in Georgia:
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NEWS: Democrat Mary Robichaux has defeated Republican incumbent Kurt Wilson in a runoff election to become the next Mayor of Roswell, Georgia. A major upset and another sign of shifting suburban politics in the South.
— MeidasTouch (@meidastouch.com) 2025-12-03T04:49:01.025Z
There is so much for the Ds to do, and many are doing things. The Oversight Ds are really impressive:
Go Pritzker!
From the article, by Olivia Olander:
Gov. JB Pritzker on Tuesday signed legislation that formally establishes a process for state-level vaccine guidelines and expands pharmacy access to COVID-19 and other shots for young children across Illinois.
“While RFK Jr. and his QAnon-inspired colleagues, spreading conspiracy theories and dangerous misinformation about vaccines, are running around Washington, Illinois is stepping up to protect the health of our people,” Pritzker said at a news conference downtown, referring to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The new state law follows months of changing federal vaccine policies and growing backlash from blue states, which say current federal guidelines are less supportive of vaccination than previous presidential administrations.
Illinois health leaders had already recommended the state part ways with the federal government on the COVID-19 vaccines, recommending the shots for all adults and many children following an executive order from the governor in September. Pritzker’s order called for the state to develop its own guidelines on vaccines “where federal actions fail to protect the public health.” The Illinois Department of Public Health quickly adopted those recommendations.
I feel sorry for people in the red states.
💜 Unity?💜
On the war crimes /murders being committed by the felon and Hegseth, Republicans are tightening the screws. In the unity section because the Dems are already there. Noah Robertson, Alex Horton Washington Post
In a classified briefing for lawmakers scrutinizing the Trump administration’s killing of suspected drug smugglers around Latin America, top Republicans in the room appeared frustrated.
The Pentagon, facing questions about its legal basis for attacking civilian vessels, sent no lawyers to the meeting — a move multiple lawmakers in the room considered inexplicable. The Defense Department officials who did attend, those people said, were unable to explain the mission’s strategy and scope — even as President Donald Trump openly mused about expanding the campaign to include land targets inside Venezuela.
Rep. Mike D. Rogers (Alabama), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, condemned the secrecy, saying Congress had gotten more information from the Pentagon during the Biden administration, according to two people in the room. Like some others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private or otherwise sensitive conversations.
The above is the House. Here is the Senate:
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Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) issued a statement Saturday vowing to conduct “vigorous oversight” on Caribbean strikes after a report surfaced that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the U.S. military to “kill everybody” aboard an alleged drug vessel.
— Jon Cooper (@joncooper-us.bsky.social) 2025-11-29T22:33:42.739Z
And it’s not just the boat strike. Senator Thom Tillis is also talking trash about Hegseth Ewan Palmer The Daily Beast
A senior Republican senator has rejected Pete Hegseth’s claim to have been completely exonerated by a watchdog report into the “Signalgate” scandal.
An Inspector General report found that the defense secretary risked endangering the lives of American troops when he used the messaging app Signal to discuss secret plans to launch airstrikes targeting Houthi fighters in Yemen. ✂️
Speaking to CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said the Pentagon chief is not out of the woods, noting that the report found a foreign adversary could have intercepted the information he shared on Signal.
“Anytime you release mission-set information before the strike, you run that risk, and thank goodness that we did not tarnish one of the most extraordinary precision strikes in recent history,” Tillis said. “It’s a mission-critical piece of information that our adversaries could have used to blow those planes out of the sky. You just don’t do that.”
Why is this all so important?
The felon wants to be a dictator. However, becoming a dictator without the support of the military is pretty much impossible. We are seeing, over and over, how the military is not willing to go along. Also, a dictator needs competent soldiers, especially at the top. Hegseth is a leaky drunk.
And, a remark: Hegseth and the felon spend a lot of time worrying about their hair. Senator Mark Kelly, the real deal, doesn’t bother with hair…
Momentum builds for a stock-trade ban bill as some House Rs join in Ben Werschkul Yahoo Finance
Impatient with a slow-moving committee process, advocates for a ban on lawmaker stock trading moved this week to force the issue.
A discharge petition was put forth on Tuesday evening by Republican Reps. Anna Paulina Luna and Tim Burchett. It had more than a dozen signatures after just one day on the floor.
That leaves a long way to go before it reaches the magic number of 218 needed to circumvent Speaker Mike Johnson and force a vote on the measure, yet it was a notable initial show of force, especially as this week's effort is being led by Republicans in apparent open defiance of their speaker.
Combined with high support in Democratic ranks for the proposal, the push could give new energy to an issue that has been stalled for years.
Among the initial wave of 14 signees, nine were Republicans. And three of those Republicans — Reps. Elise Stefanik, Gregory Steube, and Michael Lawler — had not previously co-sponsored the underlying bill.
📥Actions You Can Take 📤
Note I have removed the tax thingy for now because it is so unlikely that this IRS under the felon’s badministration will do anything about it. Will reinstate when conditions change.
Chop Wood, Carry Water — This always has a lot of ideas about what you can do today. Also, Jess Craven has some state specific newsletters.
Voting rights. This may be the biggest issue threatening our democracy right now. Besides contacting your representatives at the state and federal level to do the right thing (depending on who they are),you can support and contact these organizations:
ACLU — American Civil Liberties Union
Democracy Docket — founded by Marc Elias, so important in fighting the challenges after the last election.
Fair Fight — founded by Stacey Abrams
🌱Grass roots. Join with local communities to make a difference. It could be your local Dems. It could be your school board or your library. Reach out to people. We all need each other these days.
🏃 Run for something. If you want to run for something, but have no idea what to do, these people will help you. They also like money and volunteers to help those people who are running, so even if you’re not in a position to stand for office, you can help.
👎 Defund the seditionists. This is a list with companies that sometimes have donated to the seditionists. The list is long. You will recognize many of the corporations, and you probably have a relationship with some — either you are a customer, a shareholder, or maybe even an employee. Contact them and compliment or complain, but let them know you are watching. Forward it to others.
🐍Schadenfreude 😈
Russian tankers are disappearing:
Note the NY Post (!!!) story about the incompetence of Kash Patel and Bongino:
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This FBI “pulse check” report on the dept under Patel and Bongino is a mixed bag - the fibbies love having no more sensitivity training but many hate going on ICE raids and think leadership is weak - but this anecdote is clearly gold: K$H Patel wearing the traditional FBI Director’s ladies clothes.
— Helen Kennedy (@helenkennedy.bsky.social) 2025-12-01T18:24:17.168Z
We keep telling her to go away:
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⚡️ Grand jury refuses to re-indict Letitia James KeithDB, Daily Kos
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Whatever you may think about the Tish James case, the defense's legal claims of vindictive prosecution and the evidence of a corrupt use of DOJ power just got ...
stronger (trying a second indictment) and
stronger (grand jury denial) and
stronger (DOJ determined to try again)
— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw.bsky.social) 2025-12-04T22:47:20.775Z
⚡️ The felon fires the ballroom architect, so perhaps it will never get built annieli Daily Kos
Gosh, just like Target, anti-woke does not sell:
More fallout for Larry Summers
📣 Let’s Honor Truth☀️️
This week we’re honoring The Guardian, the British media outlet that does so much excellent reporting. It just won — or rather, got dismissed — a lawsuit from one of the felon’s companies. Ja’han Jones MS NOW
A judge on Monday dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by Donald Trump’s media organization against The Guardian over reports on its ties to a Russian oligarch.
The president’s legal onslaught against the media – launched via personal lawsuits and through his companies – has resulted in multimillion-dollar settlements from two media outlets, despite the judgment of reputable legal experts that the cases were relatively weak. The president’s track record in court, however, hasn’t yielded quite the same outcomes.
Trump Media & Technology Group brought a suit against The Guardian; Will Wilkerson, a TMTG founder turned whistleblower; and the Sarasota-based Herald-Tribune and one of its reporters, Chris Anderson, over news reports the outlets published in 2023 about federal investigations into payments, totaling $8 million, made to the company by financial institutions linked to an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Guardian reported at the time that investigators were looking into these payments for potential money laundering, and included the caveat that Trump’s media company hadn’t been charged or implicated in any crimes. Follow-up reporting noted that the Putin-linked official, Anton Postolnikov, had provided a lifeline to the president’s faltering media company at a crucial moment.
🌹 Let’s Celebrate Love❤️
This is a really sweet love story
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Couple that met in the hospital after waking up from comas as teens get engaged
In 2018, Zach Zarembinski and Isabelle Richard each survived life-threatening injuries and met after they woke up from a coma. Now, as Lana Zak shares, they're getting married. Source link
— (@articleweblog.bsky.social) 2025-11-21T03:44:41Z
From Good News Network Andy Corbley
At 18, Zach Zarembinski was rushed to Regions Hospital in St. Paul in a coma after suffering a traumatic brain injury on the high school football field. At 16, Isabelle Richards arrived 9 days later in a coma after a car crash on her way to a grocery store job.
There they lay, shattered, unconscious, and together. Alongside them, their mothers feared the worst, having been told by the medical staff to prepare for the same. But they supported each other.
“I remember she was laying there. She had shards of glass still in her hair and she was unconscious,” Esther Wilzbacher, Richard’s mother, recalled.
“Isabel had to have her right skull piece removed. Zach had to have his left skull piece removed.” ✂️
In Regions Hospital, at the same spot where Zarembinski gave a conference as a teen, the pair of TBI survivors recorded a special episode of their podcast Hope in Healing.
After reading out Joel 2:25 and John 10:10, Zarembinski asked Richards to marry her, and the hospital staff that had ensured they both survived erupted into applause as she said yes.
Partners in comatose, partners podcasting, and now, partners for life. Mysterious ways.
Also, congratulations to Cory Booker and Alexis Lewis, newlyweds!
📎Odds & Ends📎
Daddy-daughter dance in notorious Louisiana prison turns the worst of the worst into loving fathers again Andy Corbley Good News Network
In a Louisiana state penitentiary, incarcerated men were able to dance with their daughters for one special night: many of whom had not seen each other for years.
The tear-jerking occasion was organized by the brilliant God Behind Bars, a nonprofit that partners with churches and ministries on behalf of jailed men and women, in Angola Louisiana.
“When I turned around and saw my baby in that dress and she busted out crying… I sobbed, man, and I ain’t no crier,” said Leslie, an incarcerated father in Angola, who participated in the dance. ✂️
37 daughters attended the dance, aged between 5 and 20, with 29 fathers, each one of whom wore a suit donated by Amor Suits.
Other donations included the time and expertise of hair and makeup estheticians, a beauty product bag courtesy of T3 Micro, and decorations and floral arrangements by God Behind Bars.
Need to take a break from the stress? I really enjoyed this video about a guy building birdhouses and then tracking what happens. Long but so relaxing!
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🐦 I do a lot of other writing. Newest offerings: Messing with the Myths — two books so far in this series. Older offerings: the Crow Nickels (chronicles), about crows who want to save birdkind from extinction (Hunters of the Feather). Mysteries based on Jane Austen’s novels, such as The Meryton Murders. Others based on history and Greek mythology, e.g., Jocasta: The Mother-Wife of Oedipus. All titles also available through Kindle Unlimited. Want to support me but not interested in my books? Buy one and donate to a library.
💙 What You Can Do to Rescue Democracy 💙
It turns out that participation in democracy is not just an every-four-years event but requires active participation, like, whenever you can find time.
I know it’s tough to see the path forward. And I can’t guarantee that there is a path forward. But people who are smarter and braver than I have seen ways to move ahead.
Their (the fascists’) plans really are dark, but many of them are also dumb, in the sense that they don’t make sense. So many of them cannot succeed.
Here are some quick hits.
- Stay involved. Yeah, that’s tough. I want to look away too, but by taking simple actions you can make a difference. Keep contacting your representatives, both in DC and at home.
- Support causes that will fight. Send money if you can. Also, spread their news with clicks and conversation.
- Slow them down. Oppose and block at every turn.
- Make tRump unpopular. Doing this weakens him. And it should not be that difficult. The GOP made a lot out of Biden is old and eggs cost too much. Well, tRump is older than Biden was at the beginning of his term and tRump has no policies that are going to bring down inflation. And a host of other problems, like he’s a convicted felon.
- Divide the GOP from each other. They are a coalition based on contradictory promises, so there’s plenty to work with.
- Keep telling the truth and showing love.
- Make sure to pace yourselves in this marathon and to practice self-care.
Current projects:
- We need just 3 seats to take back the House. GoodNewsRoundup (a.k.a. Goodie or Madam Mayor) has put together a page for donations via ActBlue. Note you can opt out of emails.
- bilboteach has another fundraiser: Win the Majority 2026 – and here you can also opt out of all those fundraising emails.
- Look in the comments for Progressive Muse’s report on Postcards to Voters
And Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny Lessons:
(1) Do Not Obey in Advance; (2) Defend Institutions; (3) Beware the One-Party System; (4) Take Responsibility for the Face of the World; (5) Remember Professional Ethics; (6) Be Wary of Paramilitaries; (7) Be Reflective if You Must Own a Gun; (8) Stand Out (this means, speak up, even when others do not); (9) Be Kind to Our Language; (10) Believe in Truth; (11) Investigate; (12) Make Eye Contact and Small Talk; (13) Practice Corporeal Politics; (14) Establish a Private Life; (15) Contribute to Good Causes; (16) Learn from Peers in Other Countries; (17) Listen for Dangerous Words; (18) Be Calm When the Unthinkable Arrives; (19) Be a Patriot; (20) Be as Courageous as You Can.
🌻
💙 President Joseph R. Biden: “Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal that we all are created equal and the harsh ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, demonization have long torn us apart. The battle is perennial, and victory is never assured.”
💙 Sir Winston Churchill: When you’re going through hell, keep going.
🌹 🌹 🌹
TRUTH MATTERS. LOVE MATTERS.
