(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



GNR for Tuesday, November 26, 2024 — Good news is there if you know where to look for it [1]

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

Date: 2024-11-26  

Resisting

This will be a new section in my GNRs going forward, into which I’ll put some examples of resistance that I’ve found. It’s not intended to be a comprehensive list, just whatever happens to come up.

Resist by refusing to compromise core values

I’ll begin with a rousing comment from Evan Hurst, published in his Substack “The Moral High Ground”:

Over the coming weeks and months we’ll have to figure out how best to move forward, because as Timothy Snyder said the other night on MSNBC (I think it was him, but it’s all a blur, it could have been Mickey Mouse), one of the things about resisting oligarchy, authoritarianism and fascism is that there’s a lot of improvisation to it. You have to respond to things as they’re happening, and you don’t know what’s going to happen. ... There is a next day, and a day after that, next week, next year, and so forth. And fuck if we’re going to put our lives completely on hold because of that motherfucker. Part of that moving forward certainly includes a reckoning, asking what happened and endeavoring to make sure that A) we get to have more free and fair elections after this, and B) they don’t end up the way this one did. ... But one thing that we do not have to do, and must not do, is listen to assholes telling us to move to the right to appeal to more moderate voters, to compromise our principles and values in order to somehow magically appeal to MAGA racists, sexists and anti-LGBTQ losers. Those critiques always come out of the woodwork at times like this. Their suggestions pretty much always just so happen to throw vulnerable people directly under the bus, and what we need to be doing right now is protecting vulnerable people. If only we’d be a bit more anti-immigrant, they say, if only we wouldn’t be so pro-transgender people’s freedom to live their lives — if only we weren’t so goshdarn “woke”! — then all the people would come rushing back into our arms and it’d be candy canes and blowjobs forever and ever! Fuck that.

Yup, fuck that.

I’m convinced that the Rumpus regime doesn’t have the power to turn our nation into a Soviet-style dictatorship, but I find it encouraging to know that even under the worst circumstances, people of conscience can express themselves. On Sunday, I heard Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony performed brilliantly by the Oregon Symphony. Even under threat of arrest and death, Shostakovich managed in this amazing work to both appease Stalin and get out a message of defiance to his fellow citizens. I’m quoting here from the program notes:

At the start of 1936, Dmitri Shostakovich was on top of the world: His wife was pregnant with the couple’s first child, he was hard at work on his sprawling Fourth Symphony, and his acclaimed opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk had been selling out opera houses across Moscow for two years. But fate would serve Shostakovich a harrowing reversal of fortune when, on January 26, Stalin and his entourage attended Lady Macbeth, only to leave halfway through the performance. Two days later, a scathing editorial appeared in the official Communist Party newspaper, Pravda. Titled “Muddle Instead of Music,” the tirade called Shostakovich’s music a poison to the Soviet people and accused the composer of catering to the “perverted tastes of the bourgeoisie.” Lady Macbeth closed overnight (and wouldn’t be performed in Russia again for 64 years), future musical engagements evaporated, and Shostakovich suffered continuous attacks in the press. Professionally isolated and wracked with fear, the composer slept in the stairwell outside his apartment in an attempt to shield his family from witnessing his expected arrest. In an attempt to rehabilitate his career – and save his life – Shostakovich shelved his avant-garde Fourth Symphony and began to conceive a Fifth Symphony, which was officially designated as “A Soviet Artist’s Response to Just Criticism.” But just like Janus – the two-faced Roman god of duality – Shostakovich crafted a work that could speak to two different audiences. Soviet authorities would hear that Shostakovich had fulfilled Stalin’s demands for “Socialist Realism” by composing a standard, four-movement symphony with a “happy” ending. The public, meanwhile, would hear the composer reacting to the cruelty, violence, and oppression of his time. The audience at the symphony’s 1937 premiere would hear that the first movement’s desolate opening and menacing military march didn’t portray the struggles of a Soviet artist overcoming creative obstacles, but the bloodlust of an authoritarian government bent on annihilation. They would understand the irony and angst of the second movement’s heavy-footed dance, and how the heartbreaking third movement was a tribute to those already lost to the purges of Stalin’s Great Terror campaign, each woodwind solo the weeping of a lonely soul mourning the loss of loved ones. And they would most certainly hear the symphony’s final moments – its brassy fanfares, piercing winds, and thunderous drums – not as a victorious celebration of Soviet strength, but as the triumph of evil over good.

Fortunately for Shostakovich, Stalin heard the piece as a straightforward heroic symphony and the composer was considered “rehabilitated.” But his fellow citizens heard the unspoken message loud and clear.

My final item on this subject is a satirical one: SNL for Trump Cold Open, from two weeks ago. Ordinarily, I would simply embed this video, but because the accompanying image shows the parody version of He Whose Image Shall Not Be Shown, I’m giving you just the title so you can go to YouTube and look it up yourself. It’s absolutely worth watching. The SNL crew perfectly parodies the way some organizations and individuals have already caved to The Rump and shown their eagerness to throw vulnerable people under the bus. Colin Jost is especially brilliant here, gleefully targeting his Weekend Update partner Michael Che. Like all good satire, it’s both searingly true and painfully funny.

* * * * *

Finally, some advice for Dems that’s actually useful

There’s been so much useless bloviation about What The Democrats Need to Do Now that I’d given up on finding anything of value on the subject. But then this wonderful piece arrived in my inbox, thanks to Onward Oregon, and I think it’s definitely worth sharing and implementing.

The US Is a Civic Desert. To Survive, the Democratic Party Needs to Transform Itself.

By Pete Davis, cofounder of the Democracy Policy Network, in The Nation (bolding mine):

...one area of inquiry is not getting enough attention in our autopsies of the 2024 election: the civic structure of the Democratic Party. How did the way that our party is organized—the way that its members relate to the party, to each other, and to their local communities—affect Tuesday’s result? And how can we improve the flow of attention, money, leadership development, organizing work, and decision-making power to get better results in the future? If I could make everyone at Democratic National Committee headquarters read one book, it would be Theda Skocpol’s Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life, published in 2003. In the early 20th century, according to Skocpol, civic life was mostly based in mass-membership organizations—religious congregations, unions, fraternal organizations (like the Elks or Rotary clubs), and political groups (think the NAACP or the League of Women Voters). They were made up of local chapters that hosted in-person meetings, managed annual calendars of neighborhood events, fostered friendships between members, and contributed to the places where they were based. These chapters are organized (or “federated”) into state and national conventions and committees. By pairing local participation with centralized coordination, the national leadership and the local membership could communicate ideas, concerns, mandates, and marching orders back and forth. But American civic life started changing in the latter half of the 20th century. Mass communication became easier—and civic leaders fell in love with direct-mail fundraising campaigns. Federal politics became more complicated, and a class of expert activists who knew the ins and outs of legislative advocacy started professionalizing in Washington, DC. National groups began hiring “donor management” and “member relations” consultants to get the most dollars, votes, and petition signatures out of ordinary citizens. Civic organizations started wondering why they were bothering with all the local pageantry and community-building in the first place. Soon enough, Skocpol says, “membership” no longer meant meeting up with one’s neighbors; it meant being on a list—a list of people who would send checks to national managers in centers of power in exchange for a bumper sticker, an annual report, and the occasional call to action to do a few days of door-knocking, phone-banking, or letter-writing. During the decades when this transition progressed, America’s civic ecosystem collapsed. ...millions of Americans stopped feeling like public life was something of which they were a cocreator and co-owner. The Democratic Party was swept up in this civic transition. Today, the party focuses almost exclusively on election campaign sprints optimized...for short-term mobilizing (squeezing donations and volunteer hours out of current members) rather than for long-term organizing (fostering the stewardship, growth, and leadership development of the party’s membership). Instead of funding itself primarily through membership dues, the party offers fancy events for the wealthy and ceaseless, disrespectful texts for the rest of us. Parasocial relationships with celebrities and famous politicians are emphasized over real relationships with fellow neighbors and local chapter leaders. When you go to Democrats.org, clicking “Take Action” does not direct you to a page with your local Democratic committee’s meeting times and locations. The bolded call-to-action button on the party homepage is “DONATE,” not “JOIN.” ✂️ Fostering a culture of membership is a long-haul project—more like the planting of acorns than the planting of sunflower seeds. It will require a years-long commitment to the fits and starts of civic experimentation. But even a partial transformation to a structure based more in membership would help address many of the party’s challenges. Conflicts within the party could have more accessible venues through which they could be deliberated on and resolved. The party’s ideological vision could be more grounded in the interests of the broad populace (rather than of wealthy donors). Organic party leaders could rise more through their skills at organizing local communities than their ability to navigate and fundraise from elite networks. Media silos and cultural divides could have a shot at being broken through via sustained, real-world interactions at a local level. And, most significantly, apathy and cynicism could be combated as more of the civic creativity and energy of members is unleashed as local Democrats are invited to not only donate and vote but actually create the party together.

* * * * *

Local media making a difference

This could have gone into my local good news section, but since it’s representative of the efforts of other local media around the country, I thought it was time to add a section highlighting how much good a robust, fearless local source can do.

This Is How We Meet This Moment

Not only is the Bend Source planning to focus on “the ways the actions of the federal government could impact your life” in the specific areas of health care, environment, education, and law enforcement, they’ve expanded their staff by hiring a managing editor and a new investigative reporter. I’m considering subscribing.

From The Bend [OR] Source Weekly:

As a new administration prepares to take over, here are some of the ways the actions of the federal government could impact your life, and how we plan to cover them: Covering Access — or Lack Thereof — to Health Care. Since the 2022 Dobbs decision, Oregon has already become a haven for health care refugees who struggle to access care for important things like reproductive health and vaccines. With a patchwork of differing state laws around reproductive rights and health care access, and with some states now empowered to dig deeper into restricting rights, we expect the number of health care refugees coming to Bend only to grow. We'll be there to witness it. Reporting on Threats to Environment and Education. This past summer, Oregon experienced the most extreme fire season we'd seen in a long time. Fires and other climate-induced disasters are accelerating, and people need access to credible information when there are evacuations or big fires on the horizon. We'll continue to cover those local events, as well as diving deep into how the federal government is — or is not — supporting fire suppression and forest management efforts in the local area. If this president makes good on threats to defund "rogue cities and states," and to hobble both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Education Department, you can bet that will have an impact on Oregon's children, families and forests. Watchdogging Law Enforcement. Throughout the campaign season, reporting on the candidates running for Deschutes County Sheriff became one of our most talked-about coverage areas. Being a watchdog for the most prominent law enforcement official in our county is just the tip of the iceberg; if law enforcement officials once again become empowered to personally interpret the Constitution, or to band together in favor of an extreme firearm protection ordinance (which happened during the first Trump administration), we'll be there to ensure you have the information you need to know. Last week, we announced an expansion of our editor team, adding a managing editor and promoting our current editor to Editor in Chief. Earlier this year, we added an investigative reporter to our team. All of these changes now coalesce as a demonstration of our commitment to continue to cover changes that affect Central Oregonians – and to cover it better than we have before. This is how we meet this moment.

* * * * *

At last, a post-election take worth reading

Trump voters said they were angry about the economy – many of them had a point

Among all the competing hot takes on What Went Wrong, this compelling piece by Don Leonard, a political economist, regional planner, and Assistant Professor at Ohio State, stands out for its fact-based argument. And, wow, are those facts eye-opening!

I was originally going to just put a link to it in my Hot Lynx section, but I decided it’s too important to risk your missing it. This will necessarily be a summary, so I encourage you to click the link and read the piece in full.

After reading it, I have a feeling you’ll want to join me in contacting your Dem Senators and Reps to raise the issue of how the consumer price index is calculated. In a nutshell, the Dems campaigned on the rosy picture the skewed CPI painted, while far too many voters knew that their lives didn’t fit into that picture.

From The Conversation (bolding mine):

Democrats campaigned in 2024 on the overall strength of the economy...Yet Republicans retook the White House, and...both houses of Congress, in part by casting a much dimmer view of the economy. Some analysts have dismissed voters’ concerns about the economy as merely a perception problem. ...Given that the economy was the top issue in the minds of most American voters, was the 2024 election decided by vibes alone? As a political economist and regional planner, I have sought to understand the causes of this apparent mismatch between economic indicators and the perceptions of everyday Americans. What I learned is that, for at least 20 million U.S. households, there is good cause for disillusionment. The method the federal government uses to calculate real incomes tends to capture the economic realities of higher-income people better than those of working-class and middle-class Americans. ✂️ The consumer price index for all urban consumers is the measure of inflation that the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses to calculate real incomes. To arrive at this figure, the bureau averages the prices for a basket of goods and services. It then assigns weights to individual items based on their relative importance in terms of what average American consumers spend on things like food, housing and medical care. To understand why this method of averaging can skew real income and inflation data to reflect the economic realities of wealthier households, consider what’s going on with housing, the biggest expense for most Americans. The Bureau of Labor Statistics presumes that housing accounts for 36.5% of all expenditures for the average American household. That leaves 63.5% of their purchasing power left to cover the costs of other goods and services. ...The problem is that, in 2023, nearly 15% of all U.S. households, including 24% of those who rent, spent more than half of their income on housing. ...To make matters worse, this predicament isn’t evenly distributed. Lower-income families are much more likely to rent, and renters are more likely to be severely cost-burdened. ...the errors systematically understate the impact that rising housing costs have on low-income families. The problems with the consumer price index aren’t limited to housing. ...One of the assumptions behind the consumer price index is that households spend 8% of their income on health care. But all Americans pay far more than that, according to a 2020 Rand Corporation study. Middle-income people spend around 21%, the lowest-earning households spend 34%, and the highest-earning U.S. households spend 16% of their income on medical services, Rand found. ✂️ [In another example,] the index assumes that American households spend, on average, only 0.7% of household income on child care or preschool each year. For families with infants or toddlers, the reality is much grimmer. One 2024 survey put the average cost of child care at 24% of household income. ✂️ For all Americans facing the steep cost of medical care, and for those also paying for college or child care, wage growth has not kept up with their expenses. And while wages do appear to be keeping up with rising housing costs according to the consumer price index, lower-income Americans spend a much larger share of their household income on shelter than its estimates would suggest.✂️ This election was about more than just pessimistic vibes. For tens of millions of American families, it was about real economic pain that isn’t as easy to spot in official economic data as it probably should be.

* * * * *

Good news from my corner of the world

Final 2 Portland City Council candidates win election

I’ve written before that Portlanders voted to change our outdated city government structure in favor of a mayor and city manager with an expanded city council. The mayor and city council were chosen using ranked choice voting, and I’m happy to report that our hopes that this would give us fresh faces and fresh energy at City Hall have been realized. Only one current council member was re-elected, and he has expertise on the issue of homelessness, Portlanders’ greatest concern, as does our new mayor. The new council members bring an impressive collection of skills, from previous governing experience to advocacy to economic expertise to a career teaching in public schools. I think this group is very likely to break down the echo chamber and the silos that have hampered Portland government for far too long.

From The Oregonian:

More than two weeks after Portland’s first multi-winner ranked choice City Council election, it’s clear who all dozen members will be, according to near final results released Wednesday. Jamie Dunphy, a former City Hall staffer and local director of advocacy for the American Cancer Society, clinched the third and final council seat in east Portland’s District 1, besting businessman and public safety advocate Terrence Hayes. High-ranking Multnomah County official Eric Zimmerman, meanwhile, prevailed over Portland bike cop Eli Arnold in District 4… ✂️ The pair will join 10 other candidates previously declared winners by The Oregonian/OregonLive. Those include environmental and social advocate Candace Avalos and former Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith in District 1; and former city policy manager Sameer Kanal, policy strategist and longtime union leader Elana Pirtle-Guiney and current Portland Commissioner Dan Ryan in North and Northeast Portland’s District 2. They also include school teacher Tiffany Koyama-Lane, state lobbyist Angelita Morillo and former Portland Commissioner Steve Novick in Southeast Portland’s District 3; and former TriMet official Oliva Clark and economist Mitch Green in District 4. All new members of the City Council will take office in January alongside newly elected Portland Mayor Keith Wilson.

Oregon House Democrats could gain supermajority if Muñoz pulls ahead in District 22 race

As of yesterday, Muñoz leads by 149 votes, so she has added 17 votes since last Thursday. Moving in the right direction!

From KGW:

As of Thursday night, Democrat [Lesly] Muñoz leads incumbent Republican Tracy Cramer by 132 votes in the District 22 race...voters won’t know the winner until results are certified Dec. 2. Voters whose ballots were challenged have until Nov. 26 to cure them, meaning they can verify their votes by either signing and returning a new voter registration card with their updated signature or by returning a signed voter statement certifying their vote. These then must be received via mail or to the county election office, in person. ✂️ If Muñoz takes the seat, it will give Democrats a 36-to-24 supermajority in that chamber, adding to their supermajority in the state Senate: 18 to 12. A supermajority means that three-fifths of the seats lean in one political direction. In order to create a new tax or raise existing ones in Oregon, three-fifths of each chamber is needed to vote for it, so hitting that threshold could allow Democrats to take action without having to cross the aisle and get the other side on board.

Oregon’s environmental, immigrant, democracy groups prepare for another Trump presidency

This story reassured me a lot. All of these groups are powerful and smart, and they will be really effective working together.

From Oregon Capital Chronicle:

Maria Cecilia Hinojos Pressey remembers the sense of fear that descended on Latino immigrants in Oregon during the first Trump presidency in 2017. The deputy director for the farmworkers union Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, or PCUN, saw firsthand how workplace raids seeking undocumented immigrants in Woodburn forced families into the shadows. “Kids stopped going to school. Many people decided to move out of Oregon,” she said Wednesday evening at an online forum of state and community nonprofit leaders. The panel of conservation and social justice leaders discussed what they’d learned from Republican President-elect Trump’s first term, how they were preparing to organize, educate and protect the public, democracy and vulnerable communities over the next few years and how they were preparing to challenge Trump and his administration legally if his orders violate state law. More than 220 people attended it virtually…✂️ Following the chaotic Trump years, Oregon Wild hired a staff attorney to help handle legal cases in-house instead of relying on national legal nonprofits or joining national lawsuits. “It was really a time when the environmental community in Oregon had to take stock of where we were, what kind of political power we had, and how to most effectively engage it to defend the values that we exist to protect,” [Oregon Wild’s executive director Steve] Pedery said. ✂️ ...members of the Tribal Democracy Project plan to tackle historic voter suppression issues and engagement among tribal communities over the next few years to begin boosting political activism among tribal youth...✂️ [Our Oregon] will focus on defending Oregon’s sanctuary status for undocumented immigrants, trans people and people seeking abortions and will be fighting expected anti-tax measures that would pull money away from schools and other critical public services. ✂️ [The ACLU of Oregon] is also preparing legal push back on Trump policies directed at vulnerable populations. Since the last Trump administration, the group has teamed up with PCUN and several other groups to create the Oregon for All Coalition, which serves as a defensive legal arm for immigrant rights in Oregon, and to defend the state’s sanctuary state status and any attempts at mass deportation. The ACLU of Oregon will lead a ballot measure campaign for November 2026 to enshrine the rights to abortion and reproductive healthcare, trans and gender-affirming care, and same-gender marriage in the Oregon Constitution.

Multnomah County’s universal basic income experiment worked, until the money ran out

Yes, this ends on a sad note, but the good news is that while the program was running, it was a clear success. That means that it will be funded again when that’s possible.

From The Oregonian:

Since July, [Voycetta] White has worked two jobs totaling 64 hours a week to support her two youngest daughters. But it wasn’t always this way. In 2021, she became one of 100 Black mothers and caregivers who received monthly checks of $500 or more from Multnomah County’s Mother’s Trust guaranteed income program. The pilot was designed to ease the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Black households, which officials and experts have said were disproportionately impacted in the years that followed. Mother’s Trust was part of a larger county program called the Multnomah Idea Lab, which focused on “piloting new policy approaches, with a specific focus on addressing poverty and racism,” officials said. But in July, when the county’s pandemic-era American Rescue Plan Act funds ran dry, Mother’s Trust and the Idea Lab were shut down. County officials said that before it ended, the county’s experiment showed results. In an interim report reviewing its first two years, officials found participants used the money to pay off debts, cover costs for their children’s sports and educational opportunities and put funds towards large assets like cars and houses, overall increasing their financial stability.

* * * * *

Good news from around the nation

Democracy Forward has created Democracy 2025

This is their mission statement: “Democracy 2025 is the strategic hub to protect people and their rights should the Trump-Vance administration seek to unlawfully strip away freedoms and prosperity.”

This a great idea, and I look forward to keeping up on their progress. You can sign up for emails on the homepage.

From Democracy 2025:

The threats are no longer hypothetical. The effort to turn Project 2025 and other dangerous plans into action has begun. We’ve planned for this moment. In courtrooms and communities across the country, we will use all the tools our Constitution provides to defend our rights and achieve a democracy that works for all people. We are 280+ organizations representing millions of people, committed to working more quickly, more strategically, and in greater numbers than ever before to defend our democracy and disrupt far-right attacks on the American people. We're ready to confront any Attacks on Career Civil Servants

Attempts to Eliminate Checks and Balances to Undermine Democracy

Attempts to Further Restrict Reproductive Rights and Access to Health Care

Attempts toCut Wages, Create Unsafe Workplaces, and Destabilize Our Economy​​​​​​​

Attempts to Make Education Unaffordable and Unwelcoming

Attempts to Set Polluters Loose and Undo Climate Action​​​​​​​

Attempts to Attack and Demonize Immigrants and Our Communities​​​​​​​

Attempts to Weaponize the Military and Compromise National Security​​​​​​​

Dave Upthegrove elected WA lands commissioner

Having a conservationist overseeing public lands in WA is vital. Herrera Beutler would have been a disaster.

From The Seattle Times:

King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove has defeated former U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler [R] in the race to become Washington’s next commissioner of public lands.✂️ Upthegrove ran in part on protecting more older state forests. In a phone call Thursday night, he celebrated the state’s “strong conservation values. ...It’s part of what makes our state special,” Upthegrove said. “I ran on an agenda protecting clean air, clean water and habitat and expanding recreational opportunities, improving wildfire and those are commonsense issues that resonate with people.” ✂️ The commissioner of public lands helms the state Department of Natural Resources and oversees efforts to steward and make money from 2.6 million acres of the state’s waters, about 1 million acres of rangelands and 2 million acres of forests — with about half set aside for habitat and the rest available for logging. The commissioner also leads the state’s largest firefighting force, with responsibilities covering 13 million acres of private and public lands.✂️ Upthegrove offered a vision for leveraging the agency’s trust lands to assist in delivering on the state’s promise of an electricity supply free of greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. He promised to bolster existing efforts to reduce wildfire risks and restore forest health. He has said he wants everyone to have access to recreational opportunities on state lands. Among the varied proposals for the vast role, front and center was Upthegrove’s plan to pause commercial sales of an estimated nearly 80,000 acres of older, structurally complex forests. These are not protected old-growth forests but rather what have been dubbed “legacy forests” or the old growth of tomorrow.

LA enacts sanctuary city ordinance to prepare for potential mass deportations under Trump

All Blue cities should follow suit. At the very least, any attempts to enforce mass deportations in sanctuary cities would trigger lawsuits that would take years to resolve.

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday approved a so-called “sanctuary city” ordinance that bars city resources from being used for immigration enforcement and city departments from sharing information on people without legal status with federal immigration authorities, in anticipation of potential mass deportations under President-elect Donald Trump. Councilmembers voted unanimously on the measure, joining more than a dozen cities across the United States with similar provisions. Sanctuary cities or states are not legal terms but have come to symbolize a pledge to protect and support immigrant communities and decline to voluntarily supply information to immigration enforcement officials. Advocates say they are havens for immigrants to feel safe and be able to report crime without fear of deportation. The measure will come back to the council for a second vote as a formality. Mayor Karen Bass, who has the power to veto it, has said she supports the ordinance.

St. Paul to wipe out medical debt for 32,000 residents

I love that folks didn’t have to apply to be eligible, so this debt relief will be a total surprise to the fortunate recipients!

From Minnesota Public Radio:

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter holds up a box of letters set to be sent to residents that will have their medical debts repaid during a news conference at the Capitol on [Nov. 19]. St. Paul officials are sending letters to 32,000 people this week alerting them that their medical debt will be erased. Residents didn’t have to apply to be eligible. Instead, the city analyzed resident incomes and debt levels and prioritized those with the highest need. By using federal American Rescue Plan funds, the city paired with the nonprofit, Undue Medical Debt, and M Health Fairview to wipe out $40 million in medical obligations. St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter says the plan is aimed at giving support to debt-strapped residents. ✂️ Carter said the city identified those who needed debt relief. They qualify if their medical debt is five percent or more of their income or they earn no more than four times the federal poverty level — roughly $120,000 for a family of four. Ruth Landé with Undue Medical Debt, says residents will automatically see their debt erased. She said they’re notifying eligible residents through the mail. She said people should be sure not to mistake the letter for junk mail and throw it away. “People don’t always look through their mail to make sure to look for that,” she said. “For everybody else, let people know about this program so that people get the relief that we are providing.” Letters are expected to arrive in the next 10 days. The city is working on additional rounds of medical debt repayments with other health systems.

A Vote of Confidence for Environmental Journalism: Inside Climate News Receives $725,000 in New Grants

Fearless environmental journalism will be vital going forward. Good for these foundations for rewarding the years of excellent work done by Inside Climate News.

From Inside Climate News:

Inside Climate News has received two new major grants this fall—one from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the other from the Jacob and Terese Hershey Foundation, both to be used over the next three years. The MacArthur Foundation’s Climate Solutions program awarded ICN a $500,000 unrestricted grant. The Jacob and Terese Hershey Foundation enlarged its support for ICN with a $225,000 grant, which will be used to support the news organization’s Texas bureau and watchdog reporting of environmental pollution and regulation across the state. “The timing of these grants has turned out to be opportune, given the expected rollback of federal environmental policy in the coming years and the need to expand our work,” said David Sassoon, ICN’s founder and publisher. “This funding is a great show of support for environmental journalism and underscores the urgency, now more than ever before, to keep Americans aware of the costs and consequences of the accelerating climate crisis, intertwined with biodiversity loss and toxic and plastic pollution.” Founded in 2007, Inside Climate News is the oldest dedicated climate and environment newsroom in the nation. Nonprofit and non-partisan, ICN publishes essential reporting, investigation and analysis about the biggest crisis facing the planet. A watchdog of government, industry and advocates, ICN holds them accountable for their policies and actions by countering misinformation, exposing environmental injustice and scrutinizing solutions.

* * * * *

Good news for and about animals

Brought to you by Rascal and Margot, and the beautiful spirits of Rosy and Nora.

Rare Pink Pigeon Hand-Raised at UK Zoo for First time – a Milestone After Species Dropped to Just 10 Birds in the Wild

Rascal thinks that pink pigeon is gorgeous, and he’s happy that there are kind people out there to hand-raise fragile baby birds.

The pink pigeon fully grown at Paignton Zoo in England A rare pink pigeon has been hand-reared at a UK zoo for the first time, using an innovative method for feeding baby birds. Found in the wild only on the island nation of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, pink pigeons have been on the endangered ‘red list’ for both the IUCN and BirdLife. On the brink of extinction in 1991, their numbers were thought to have dropped to a low of just nine individuals left in the wild. But dedicated conservation efforts have significantly boosted their population—including those from Tom Tooley and his colleagues at Paignton Zoo in Devon, England. Feeding the pink pigeon squab using the innovative technique from Paignton Zoo Tom, who has worked as a bird keeper at the zoo for 27 years, developed an innovative technique for hand-rearing the baby birds, known as squabs, if they’re ever abandoned or orphaned by their parents. He has now been teaching the unique hand-rearing method to others. Instead of using conventional metal crop tubing, he developed a method that involves attaching a carefully-sized catheter to a syringe which can be gently placed on the squab’s tongue so they can eat more naturally. “This approach allows the squabs to naturally consume the hand-rearing formula, eliminating the need for crop tubing, which can be stressful and harmful to the birds.”

Saber-Tooth Cat Cub Is First to Be Found Mummified in Ice – and it Still Has Hair

Margot and Nora think this is a strange-looking kitten, but also pretty cute. I think this whole story is just amazing.

From Good News Network:

The mummified saber-tooth kitten Despite hundreds of scientific illustrations, no one knew for sure what a saber-toothed cat actually looked like, until now. As is sometimes the case, Siberian prospectors looking for mammoth tusks, likely illicitly, have uncovered another incredible Pleistocene mammal frozen in permafrost—in this instance, a “saber-tooth kitten.” Belonging to the species Homotherium latidens, paleontologists at the Russian Academy of Sciences published a paper describing it, in which they introduce the world to the first real image of a saber-tooth cat, and they’ve picked out a variety of interesting details. For decades, images produced according to fossilized bones have assumed that the long saber-like teeth grew down out of the animal’s mouth, but this Homotherium’s lips are twice as deep as other species of saber-tooth cats like Smilodon. This suggests the teeth may have been completely concealed. Other details, like muscular proportions and small foot pads, as well as the “completely unexpected” color of the beast’s fur, have presented the full picture of an animal that evolved in an environment and for hunting methods that have no modern parallel, scientists say. “The cub had the enlarged neck muscles thought to occur in adults, and also had long, muscular forelimbs seen in adult Homotherium,” says Margaret Lewis, a paleontologist at Stockton University in New Jersey who was speaking with Nat Geo. The cub’s jaw was already capable of wide gapes needed to fit those gnashers around their prey—15% larger than a lion cub of the same age.

An arctic fox found in Portland will soon live in a Wisconsin zoo

Rosy would have loved Foxy! All the rest of the animal editors are also smitten. As for me, I’ve loved foxes for as long as I can remember. We’re all delighted that Foxy will have an appropriate home with a fox companion, probably for the first time in her life.

From Oregon Public Broadcasting:

Foxy playing with a ball at the Oregon Zoo. An arctic fox that was found lost and dirty in Portland last month will soon have a new home — and a new companion. The animal, nicknamed “Foxy” by some of her caretakers, will head to the Midwest on Thursday. The Oschner Park Zoo in Baraboo, Wisconsin, has agreed to house her with its resident male arctic fox, Apollo. Foxy was captured on Oct. 12 in Willamette Park, a few days after several people — including an OPB employee — spotted her wandering alone along nearby trolley tracks. The Bird Alliance of Oregon initially took her in, and staff there confirmed that she is an Arctic fox, about six and a half pounds and 35 inches from nose to tail. She was hungry and dehydrated after several days lost, but appeared to have been cared for until she was separated from her previous guardian. Bird Alliance staff said she appears to have been domesticated and kept as a pet — which is illegal in Oregon. They vowed to work with wildlife officials to seek an appropriate long-term home for her. The Oregon Department of Agriculture helped connect the arctic fox with the zoo where she’ll next be housed. Since Friday, Foxy has been staying at the Oregon Zoo ahead of her transfer to Wisconsin. “She spent the weekend hopping over logs, foraging for her diet and practicing being a fox,” Kate Gilmore, who oversees the zoo’s ambassador animal area, said in an emailed statement.

* * * * *

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://dailykos.com/stories/2024/11/26/2287698/-GNR-for-Tuesday-November-26-2024-Good-news-is-there-if-you-know-where-to-look-for-it?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/