Marla Felcher

Good News from the Resistance:  Pelosi continues to resist the  “I”-word, yet last week she uttered the “P”-word. Which got us dreaming about a Future-Convict-in-Chief, and wondering what’s up with his incarcerated former BFFs: Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort. How are those good ‘ole Swamp Dwellers doing?

Attorney Michael Cohen is having the time of his life in “one of the cushiest lock-ups in the country,” where inmates are treating him like a celebrity, pumping him for details about his former boss and his intimate knowledge of porn stars. The Orange Grifter’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort? Not so lucky. He’s being transferred to Rikers – a prison infamous for violence and inmate abuse. At least he’ll have a private room, which should give the ostrich jacket-wearing dandy plenty of time to pump out a memoir. Suggested working title? My Personal Journey From Trump Tower to Rikers.

Meanwhile, the Grifter-in-Chief continues to live it up, checking off items on his Vacation Bucket List. Although, last week’s trip wasn’t quite as bodacious as he’d hoped. Hats off to the Brits! The Carnival of Resistance began before our National Embarrassment even touched ground. As Air Force One was landing, it was hard for the tiny-handed, stubby-fingered leader of the Free World to miss the giant penis and message “Climate Change is Real” mowed into a field below his plane. Talk about creativity.

From the 16-ft. tall farting presidential robot, to Larry the Downing Street Cat, the Resistance was out in full-force, with posters so good they put Americans’ to shame. Tensions rose when a knife-wielding Trump supporter yelled, “I’m going in!” and slashed the resting Baby Trump Blimp, but it was nothing a little duct tape couldn’t fix, and all ended well when the blimp took flight over Parliament, and the amateur surgeon was arrested.

While the Divider-in-Chief is trying his best to break the U.S. government, in London he was pure uniter, doing what no British politician has been able to do: bring together conservatives, liberals, and royals . Everyone snubbed him. Conservative Boris Johnson and opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn both refused a meeting; Princes Harry and William refused him photo-ops; Nasty Meghan remained indisposed. And oh, what we would have given to be a fly on the wall when the Infant-in-Chief learned that his carriage ride with the Queen had been nixed because of the protesters. Hint to Melania: When you get back to NYC, put on a gown and a crown, squeeze your husband into a tux, and take a carriage ride around Central Park.

Yes, there’s even more Good News from the Resistance:

• Grin when you learn where the GOP official who called Michelle an “ape in heels” is now
• Say “good boy!” when you meet the mayor of Idyllwild, CA
• Know that young people outvoted their elders in the 2018 midterms
• Smile when you learn how these children pay for school
• Clap for this Big Resistance Win in Texas
• Sing “I Enjoy Being a Girl” when you read this poll
• Look forward to the Obamas on Spotify
• Be awed by this blind child prodigy playing Rocket Man 
• Take Action: Make a call to stop the Deportation Machine

Sign Up. Show Up. Never Give Up.

Read more Rikers, the Blimp and the Queen

Good News from the Resistance: It’s graduation season, and with that comes feel-good stories that uphold the myth of the American Dream. This year’s winners: The 2019 graduating class of Morehouse College won the lottery when investor Robert Smith decided to pay off everyone’s student loans; a homeless high school valedictorian in Memphis got scholarships to 50 colleges. We’re happy for them. (And because we report only Good News, we won’t ask, what about all of the other students with crippling college debt, and the 2.5 million other homeless kids in the U.S.?).

A resistance feel-good story that wasn’t covered? Anti-Education Secretary Cruella DeVos stayed off the graduation circuit this year. Kudos to all of the graduates who booed and turned their backs to DeVos in previous years. You did it!

Here’s the Best News we learned last week: Despite a primary field that looks like Jones Beach on the 4th of July, Democrats are singing a song of unity to beat the Divider-in-Chief. With so much at stake, Dems are already at work — a year ahead of the typical timeline for presidential elections. Remarkably, many of the grassroots resistance organizations formed after the 2016 election and the DNC are moving in the same direction to support our candidate. No matter who she or he is. If Cocaine Mitch can build a unified wall of resistance, so can we. Here are our favorite Good News Efforts:

This summer, Organizing Corps 2020, a DNC project, is hiring rising college seniors, focusing on students of color, in Battleground States. First, the students will be trained in campaign organizing. Then, with the support of local Democratic parties, they’ll organize and register new voters in their neighborhoods and on campus. When they graduate next spring, their first job out of college will be working to elect the 2020 Democratic nominee to the presidency. No matter who she or he is.

Swing Left and Flippable just merged. Now, their Super State strategy is focused on registering new voters and raising early money to provide a Big Blue Check to the future Democratic Presidential and Senate nominees. No matter who they are.

Indivisible has over 6,000 chapters across the U.S., in every Congressional District. The grassroots organization has energized and organized over 1 million voters since the 2016 election. Now, they’re asking these voters and every primary candidate to take the Indivisible Unity Pledge: Make the primary constructive, rally behind the winner (no matter who she or he is), and do the work to beat Trump. So far, every candidate has signed the Unity Pledge. Except Biden. We’re betting he will.

Yes, there’s even more Good News from the Resistance:

• Smirk when you learn that our Cheater-in-Chief’s golf scores were hacked
• Say “good boy!” when you see this page in the Parkland High School yearbook
• Applaud for the soccer super-star who calls herself “a walking protest”
• Hope that someone does this to Trump when he’s in England
• Learn how to turn a dying coal town into a thriving arts community
• Be grateful that our Grifter-in-Chief lost big legal battles last week
• Wonder if this giant Dumping Trump Chinese robot will be subject to tariffs
• Know the state that elected a dead brothel owner now has a female-majority legislature
• Ask “can they say that?” about Pod Save America’s F*ck Gerry(mandering) Fund
• Be inspired by this Georgia town and their beloved mailman
• Take Action: Learn the Super States where we can win

Sign Up. Show Up. Never Give Up.

Read more Come Together, Right Now …
Over Whomever

Good News from the Resistance: Remember the good ‘ole days, back in the Reagan Administration, when a president who wanted to flip the bird at environmentalists simply ripped the solar panels off the White House roof? Today, the panoply of world-destroying actions our Climate Denier-in-Chief has in his treasure chest surely makes him giddier than a VIP pass to ADULTCON. The Good News? Democrats and swing voters are finally putting the environment at the top of the issues they care about. Cities, states, environmental groups and private sector companies are finding creative ways to fill in the gaps and mitigate the damage until the current resident of the White House is little more than a nasty stain in our collective memory.

Los Angeles, the second largest U.S. city, just launched its own Green New Deal, speeding up its efforts to have a carbon-neutral economy by 2050. Judicially, the state of California has emerged to be a formidable opponent to the White House’s efforts to dismantle Obama-era environmental regulations; federal judges have sided with the state and environmental groups in the majority of cases concerning air pollution, pesticides, and oil and gas extraction. Maine just became the first state to ban single-use Styrofoam. 187 countries signed an agreement to limit plastic waste pollution.  And the nation’s top environmental groups recently joined forces to create GiveGreen, a fundraising platform to support candidates committed to accelerating action on climate change.

Clever scientists and everyday do-gooders continue to come up with lifelines. In Iceland, carbon sequestration technology, Carbfix, is capturing CO2 emissions from a power plant and turning it into stone. Last week, plant-based food company Beyond Meat enjoyed a wildly successful IPO, raising hundreds of millions for its expansion, while combatting the negative environmental impact of animal agriculture with a vegan product that tastes shockingly like real meat.  And in Brazil, a single family has spent the last 20 years planting over 2 million trees in a deforested cattle ranch, which today is home to 293 species of trees, 172 species of birds, 33 species of mammals, and 15 species of reptiles and amphibians.

Our favorite environmental Good News of all? Last month, green-powered energy created more electricity than coal-powered plants in the U.S. Which means that despite our Coal Enthusiast-in-Chief’s best efforts, we’re moving in the right direction. As it turns out, there’s a growing market for renewable energy. Coal? Not so much. Hats off, once again, to our brilliant businessman president.

Yes, there’s even more Good News from the Resistance:

• Know that the Obamas are working on your Netflix watchlist
• Buy this board game 
• Be grateful that Letitia James is on the case
• Smile as you watch this graduation tear-jerker
• Thank Microsoft for developing this software to protect your vote
• Count the criminal probes our Liar-in-Chief is facing
• Be impressed by the undocumented students graduating from Harvard
• Clap for Chobani Yogurt’s free lunch 
• Don’t be shocked by this GoFundMe Build-the-Wall campaign update
• Take Action: Take this survey to help Indivisible set this year’s priorities

Sign Up. Show Up. Never Give Up.

Read more The Climate for Change

Good News from the Resistance: This week we’re chuckling over our Tweeter-in-Chief’s obsession with the size of Obama’s Twitter base: the former President’s is bigger than his. In an effort to pull ahead of his nemesis, our National Tweeter used most of last week’s White House sit-down with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to whine about his follower numbers falling. Dorsey did his best to explain to the Numbskull that Twitter periodically deletes “followers” that are bots and spam. The idea of “fake” followers, of course, made little sense to our Narcissist-in-Chief, because by his own assessment, “I’m so much better at Twitter than Obama is.”

Note to readers: Follow Obama on Twitter. Now. 

Also in tech-related Good News … Freshmen Congressional Democrats continue to rake in cash, thanks in large part to donors who are keeping up with a habit they started during the 2018 midterms – giving through ActBlue, an online small-dollar fundraising platform; the dating site Tinder just made it more difficult for George Zimmerman (the racist who killed Trayvon Martin) to get hooked up, when it kicked him off the site for lying in his profile  (he’s also banned from Bumble); when Cruella DeVos banned high school journalists from a community meeting — in their community, the editorial they wrote about it went viral (turning it into a national story covered by the Washington Post and USA Today), as did a photo of a Muslim woman smiling in front of sorry old white dudes protesting outside of the Islamic Circle of North America convention in D.C., demonstrating once again that Love Trumps Hate.

Yes, there’s even more Good News from the Resistance:

• Learn why Jared will probably skip his 15-year Harvard reunion
• Root for Oliver North to challenge Wayne LaPierre to a duel
• Watch this video introducing Cecile Richards’ new female-centric organization
• Read a white cop-black driver story that ends well
• Smile when you learn who Johnny Cash is knocking off his pedestal
• Know that She the People will hold every Democratic candidate accountable
• Wonder what’s buried in Deutsche Bank’s records?
• Be grateful that GOP Senators in S.C. are on the right side of this one
• Clap for the 2019 National Teacher of the Year … and his incarcerated students
• Buy these (recycled) guns 
• Take Action: Take the 2020 pledge

Sign Up. Show Up. Never Give Up.

Read more The Importance of Following Obama on Twitter

Good News from the Resistance:  The first Resistance Acts we covered in Good News (a lifetime ago, 2017) took place at GOP Town Halls, where, thanks in large part to Indivisible, our favorite Resistance start-up, swarming crowds, clever signs, and combative questions became the new normal. Oh, how far we’ve come. Today, there are as many ways to resist as there are our National Embarrassment’s lies. Resisters continue to up their game, using their positions and unique skills to say, hell no. Welcome to This is how to resist if, a collection of our recent favorite resistance actions.

This is how to resist if: you are the secretary-general of NATO; you’re a nun who cares about the Earth; you’re a Californian who loves cows and hates Devin Nunes (R-CA); you like throwing water balloons or baking pies; you are a law school professor who’s good at drawing cartoons; if you are Yo-Yo Ma or a trucker from Illinois.

This is how to resist if: you are a 3rd-grader questioning what you’re being taught; you’re a 7-year old who loves sea turtles; you are pop star Taylor Swift or a hipster indy band; you’re a judge who believes citizenship questions do not belong on the U.S. Census, oil companies do not belong in the Arctic, and children belong with their parents.

Thanks to our Bully-in-Chief, resistance is easier than ever – now, all you need to do is be kind.

This is how to resist with kindness if: you own a 7-11; you are retiring basketball star Dwyane Wade or country music star Brad Paisley; you go to Pike County Elementary School in Georgia or you live in Arcata, California.

This is how we know Resistance works: Take a look at the hit Uber’s app took; see who’s running all three network TV morning shows; calculate how much Susan Collins‘ post-Kavanaugh campaign coffers have suffered.

Yes, there’s even more Good News from the Resistance:

• Learn why Beyonce walked out on Reebok
• Root for this 28-year old Texas judge
• Read these instructions on how to keep your parents from watching Fox TV
• Smile when you see this castle in the desert for asylum-seekers
• Know that there are finally enough female Democrats in Congress for a Caucus
• Wonder where else these tree-planting drones could work
• Be grateful that Motel 6 got caught, and is paying for its sins
• Clap for yet another Trump-supporting district flipping in a Special Election
• Congratulate Austin for building this village for people without homes
• Take Action:  Read the letter to C.E.O.’s and sign the petition to keep Trump Administration officials responsible for family separation off of corporate boards.

Sign Up. Show Up. Never Give Up.

Read more Resisters, Choose Your Weapon: Water Balloons, Music, or Pies?

Good News from the Resistance: I’m not going to mention the Mueller Report. I’m tired of it. Enough’s been said. I just won’t go there.

Except to say: Barr’s summary of the 300-page report is at best a joke and at worst a full-blown cover-up; the investigation was an unmitigated success at uncovering both legal and illegal corruption; after a short hiatus Schiff got his groove back, and if he doesn’t get answers to the questions Mueller avoided, the “we know how to do this better than anybody” hard-charging, high profile-seeking Southern District of NY Court will. (Among their cases: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Bernie Madoff, Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken, the Gambinos, Martha Stewart, and most recently, Michael Cohen). Unlike Mueller, the NY court’s  mandate is not limited – it can and will go wherever the trails lead. And that’s all I’ll say about Mueller. I promise.

Except to say: Travel back in time, and watch Colbert’s bittersweet Mueller adieu.

Finally, there’s been a spate of Good News around one of America’s biggest embarrassments: OxyContin. More than 500 cities and counties have joined a lawsuit against the Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma, the OxyContin pusher that sparked the opioid epidemic; in England, the Tate and National Portrait Galleries will no longer accept donations from the Sacklers, leaving the billionaires fewer options in which to park their ill-gained spoils; Oklahoma settled a suit with the company for $270 million, some of which will fund a National Center for Addiction Studies; on the heels of the OK settlement New York filed the most extensive suit to date against Purdue’s owners; more than 1,600 suits have been consolidated in Ohio, and others are pending in state courts. The next time you visit a Sackler Wing at the Smithsonian, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre, The Guggenheim, or Harvard, say a little prayer for Purdue’s hundreds of thousands of victims. And root for justice, karma, payback, whatever you want call it, to whack the Sacklers and Purdue into oblivion.

Yes, there’s even more Good News from the Resistance:

• Root for this 8-year old chess champion
• Welcome D.C.’s National Cathedral to the Resistance
• Buy these Adidas shoes
• Shed a tear for Cruella DeVos’s many failures
• Wish we had an Egg Boy in the U.S.
• Be grateful for Bad News about fossil fuels
• Make America Grate Again
• Look forward to Arizona turning Blue
• Smile at the Swamp Monster who showed up at confirmation hearings
• Take Action: Tell your MoC to push for Mueller’s report to be made public

 Sign Up. Show Up. Never Give Up.

Read more Madoff, Mafioso, Martha Stewart, Oh My!

Good News from the Resistance: It was another rollicking week for the Racist-Conman-Cheat squatting in the White House. Be honest:  Did you find yourself siding with both a convicted felon/perjurer, and a ruthless dictator? Listening to Cohen spill the beans on the extent of the (you have to admit it) creative malfeasance of everyone in our Liar-in-Chief’s orbit, a warm, fuzzy sense of contentment flowed through me, with the realization that Thugs for Trump are finally losing.

Alpha Thugs like Cheeto-in-Chief, Donny Jr., Jared, and Pecker are being exposed, and trickle down, MAGA hat-wearing Common Man Thugs —  who are easier to nab than the well-lawyered — are getting their comeuppance. A Cape Cod snowplow driver was fired for intentionally spraying piles of slush on anti-Trump protesters; an Alabama newspaper editor who encouraged the KKK to “ride again” was fired and replaced by a black woman; a GOP operative was indicted on absentee-ballot fraud in N.C., prompting an election re-do (in which the GOP candidate had “won”); the Florida Bar is investigating GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz for threatening Michael Cohen before his Congressional testimony; and in Colorado, the owner of a sporting goods store is going out-of-business after deciding to remove Nike products from his shelves in protest of the company’s support of Colin Kaepernick. “As much as I hate to admit this, perhaps there are more … Colin Kaepernick supporters out there than I realized,” the now defunct store’s owner complained.

The late rapper Tupac Shakur had a tattoo on his stomach: THUG LIFE. It was an acronym for The Hate U Give Little Infants Fu**s Everybody. Tupac’s THUG LIFE was a rallying cry for adults to stop filling kids’ minds with hate; what we teach our children comes back to affect us all. My hope is that when our National Nightmare is over, and the Alpha Thugs are all in jail, they’ll use some of their newfound spare time to listen to a little Tupac.  And come to understand what THUG LIFE is really about.

Yes, there’s even more Good News from the Resistance:

• Cheer for this Border Wall transformation
• Get to know the black woman the GOP used as a prop at Cohen’s hearing
• Thank the Italians for creating this carnival float
• Be in awe of this Good News reader’s son Josh
• Learn a new word: Dragtavist
• Watch AOC explain campaign finance laws with the “Corruption Game”
• Visit this museum next time you’re in D.C.
• Look forward to learning the results of this Trump exam
• Clap for this adorable Wisconsin prodigy
• Take Action: Sign up to help refugees by joining the Overground Railroad

 Sign Up. Show Up. Never Give Up.