One of my favorite Senate races is the one in Iowa. It’s not a toss-up state by any means in the presidential race but the Democrat, Theresa Greenfield, has a slight lead in most recent polls. Why? My guess is that it’s partly because Greenfield is a good candidate and mostly because Joni Ernst is a complete dogshit as a candidate. This one’s really winnable I think.
L85NJGT
Apparently they had a storm blow through Monday, and disaster (non)response in now an issue.
MagdaInBlack
Joni Mitchel, summer at the beach, transistor radio. I know that song in 3 notes =-)
feebog
Iowa will be a lot closer than people think and Greenfield has an excellent chance of beating Ernst. This is one state where voter suppression and ratfucking the USPS may actually hurt Republicans. Very rural state that depends on the mail.
germy
Barbara
Joni Ernst has been running away from reporters for going on a year. First, Ukraine, then impeachment, then and now, Covid-19. They really don’t know what hit them. When they have to be something other than a stick figure mouthing red meat culture war platitudes they have no idea what to do.
My daughter told me that looking at everything that’s happened in the last year, she realizes that people just take so much for granted they can’t even realize when things are fundamentally failing.
West of the Cascades
Even better for Greenfield is that Ernst has been a dogshit Senator for six years, too.
Another Scott
Derechos are awe-inspiring things. One went through the DC area a few years ago (along with much of the east coast). :-(
Donated. Fingers crossed for Iowa.
Go Greenfield!!
Cheers,
Scott.
frosty
I’m in.
The description of the damage from the derecho is incredible. Suddenly anyone can be in the path of hurricane-force winds.
Nelle
@germy: My husband is on his second day of flying aerial photography patterns for Civil Air Patrol. Maybe the photos are intended to be used for applications for relief. He couldn’t fly on Thursday because the plane is on a hanger at the Air National Guard base and Pence was here to campaign on taxpayer dime. So the base was shut down.
He came home late and just conked out so I don’t have an impression of what he saw. Today there should be about 10 planes flying aerial photography (CAP is bringing them in from other states) and they hope to wrap it up today.
But still no declaration of a federal disaster.
Another Scott
@Nelle: Headlines I see say that the federal application will be sent Monday. Why so late? Dunno.
Cheers,
Scott.
Barbara
@Another Scott: Oh yeah. I lost power for 106 hours, when the temperature outside did not go below 90 even at night. My kids lived in the basement. I was never so grateful to wake up on a Monday and go to work. My local library was mobbed, for air conditioning and WiFi. Thank heaven I have gas for cooking and hot water.
I donated too. I think Greenfield is a great candidate.
Nelle
@Another Scott: Yes, I grew up in Kansas so am familiar with tornadoes and high winds. Never have seen anything like this. Tree trunks at 45 degree angles, then swirling, trunks and all like they were spinning a hula hoop down low. And it lasted here for 45 minutes. My neighborhood is new..underground wires, young trees, no severe damage. Lightning dropping all around, torrential rain. But really, it was a wind story.
sdhays
@Another Scott: We wife and I were out walking in it. We were very lucky to have just gotten drenched.
Barbara
@Nelle: It’s like a tornado going sideways, for hundreds of miles. It’s incredible.
Victor Matheson
What the hell happened to Iowa in the past 10 years? 10 years ago it seemed very white but midwestern-nice and tolerant. Voted for Clinton and Obama twice and voted for Gore. Then they go all in on Trump and Ernst and now even in a potential wave election, after their farmers have been screwed by Trump’s trade policies, they still seem to be leaning red. Plus they are the home of Steve King. Just weird.
JPL
@Nelle: trump is busy and he works harder than any other president…
stinger
Of all the weeks to have been without power/internet/cellphone service! Joe picked Kamala for VP and now I’m happier than I’ve been since she dropped out. (Still no power at home; I’m recharging phone battery at the office, where they have backup generation for the data center .)
To answer your probably rhetorical question, Another Steve, it has taken this long because Gov Kim Reynolds (R) is incompetent. Refuses to mandate masks because “Iowans are sensible and will do the right thing for their own situation “
AnotherBruce
@L85NJGT: They had a hell of a storm. It was straight winds at 70 mph. A friend of mine had a huge tree that fell on his house. He’s dreading that it might start to rain. And yes he was semi joking about the bbq he was going to throw because of the lack of power. The tree landed on his roof. He sent me the picture and it was shocking.
I’m an Iowa native, I went through tornadoes and many huge electrical storms, but I never experienced a straight wind storm when I lived there.
stinger
@Nelle: I’m in a rural area, and most of the trees around farmhouses around here were mature when I was a kid. (So they’re really old now!) Not many appear to have been uprooted, but often the main trunk has snapped fairly near to the ground, or major limbs fallen on house or nearby structures. So sad.
I’ve only heard of one death so far, a man biking on a bike path had a tree fall on him; died at the scene. Why was he risking it? I was working outside myself and had no idea it was coming. It blew up so quickly, no pun intended.
stinger
@AnotherBruce: I’ve lived through a couple of 70-mile straight line wind storms. Reporting is that 112 mph was recorded in Marion on Monday.
MagdaInBlack
I stood in the doorway of our shop in Elk Grove Village, Il , directly across the road east of O’hare, and watched the storm. We got rain and a little wind. Our shop in Melrose Park, sw of O’hare, was without power til Wednesday afternoon. Here in Arlington Heights I haven’t seen much damage. Friends in the country north of Ottawa had trees down and couldn’t get out. Further west out in Bureau county Princeton Il area, they got hit pretty hard.
gene108
Can we get a donation thread for Amy Kennedy, running to unseat turncoat Jeff Van Drew, in the NJ-2 race?
Van Drew won in 2018 as a Democrat. He switched parties, and is now a Republican incumbent.
There was a contested Democratic primary. Amy needs money.
Link to her website
https://www.amykennedyforcongress.com
Kropacetic
You mean any other American President currently in power, the man can only win a competition of one, unless the rules allow for someone who lost to win.
Yutsano
@gene108: No quarter for him. We should hammer this hard. I think save for Jeff the entire New Jersey delegation is Democratic. We should make that happen again.
Walker
@Victor Matheson:
“Midwestern nice” has always meant nice to white people.
Kent
Fox News happened.
J R in WV
@gene108:
I’m always really glad when someone publically turns their coat like this.
Our Gov here in WV did that not long after he was elected, flash, NOW I’m a Republican~!!~ What a shock, big coal boss!Who doesn’t pay his taxes or pay his local contractors and vendors.
Otherwise they’re underground enemies of their own party. I would rather know they’re treasonous bastards out front. Like Big Jim Justice, an old rich guy who volunteers to coach basketball at the local HS.
What’s that you ask?
Why, yes, of course, he coaches the girl’s team!!, 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grade girls.
ETA: Pitched in for Ms Greenwood, we have donated to her several times now.
Also, we had the first derecho I had ever heard of through here some years ago, no power for just over 2 weeks! Took the neighbors all night to cut a one-vehicle path through the downed trees on the county road, I could hear chain saws and back hoes and tractors nearly all night long.
Yutsano
@Kent: Along with an invasion of browns to fill the meat packing plants because of cheap labour. Then they dared to have children to send to their lily white schools! And their loud music and quinceñeras! It was just too much change for their poor Midwestern souls. So they ran to the party that said they would “fix” the problem.
EDIT: amplified by nightly doses of Hannity and Tucker. Who also made the same promises if you good white folks would just give Republicans control!
Dumb question: is Reynolds up for re-election this cycle?
AnotherBruce
@stinger: Wow that’s hurricane stuff.
Another Scott
@gene108: Donated. Thanks for letting us know.
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@AnotherBruce:
“Wow that’s hurricane stuff.”
YES, it is. I was working on a tool on the tailgate of the PU truck when I heard a roar behind me, north from whence the storm came. I looked over my shoulder, and it was a black cloud from horizon to horizon but for the lightning. And that roar.
I threw my tools into the cab and ran for the house, and rounded everyone into the basement. Where we stayed for at least an hour.
Fired up a generator and all the power cords, this was before we got the installed Generac gen set, in fact was why we invested in a whole house generator with auto switch over and self start.
Weather changing like it has is as scary as the thought of Trump winning re-election. More so, really. Glad I’m old and childless, I do worry about my younger cousins, nieces and nephews, though.
Frankensteinbeck
@Victor Matheson:
The power of Obama winning reelection cannot be sufficiently described. When Obama won the first time, a lot of whites who thought they believed in equality and could support a black president saw one actually happen, and they couldn’t handle it. They could be gracious and supportive to a black sidekick, but a black boss was too much. Clint Eastwood is a fine example. But then Obama won reelection, and that was the same effect on steroids. White America tried and failed to stop a black man from being in charge. This cut the sense of safe superiority out from under yet another big chunk of whites who thought they could be gracious. It drove a whole lot of whites bugfuck insane and they went looking for a Trump to prove their superiority.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Victor Matheson: Young people don’t stay. There’s not much for them there.
Yutsano
@Another Scott: Between the owing on my taxes and my medical bills from the 20 day stay in the hospital (amounts to around $1500 at this point, not too terrible but still a chunk of change for this lowly gubmint worker) I’m going to have to hold off donations until later in the cycle. But come late September or October they will be coming…
James E Powell
@Victor Matheson:
The same question for Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Something happened to white people there that made them revert back to tribal behavior. Nice and tolerant people don’t vote for Joni Ernst. Or for Scott Walker, Ron Johnson, and Rick Snyder in the other states.
Republicans have not done anything for ordinary white people for many years. So, it isn’t because they are getting a material benefit out of voting Republican. It’s the white supremacist urge, but I don’t know why it became the only thing they care about.
Another Scott
@J R in WV:
Yup.
In addition to the wind storms, something that has seemed to get more common in the DC area over the last few years is thunderstorms popping up and just sitting over an area for an hour or more. Dumping 4-6+ inches all at once.
E.g. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/28/614956451/flash-flood-tears-through-maryland-town-for-second-time-in-two-years
And Thursday AM we had one here that dumped 4+ inches on our house. I’m very glad we live on a hill!!
It’s not normal.
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Yutsano: You’ve got enough on your plate. Don’t give it a second thought – some of us are fortunate enough to be able to pay it forward now.
Cheers,
Scott.
L85NJGT
@Yutsano:
There are also indentured servants at Del Monte plants and egg farms, and combined with the out-migration of native kids and grandkids to Capitol City, gives a hook to hang the xenophobia. The rural midwest had been in a homogenic demographic and cultural stasis since the end of the 19th century.
Catherine D.
@J R in WV: Yup, I put in a whole house generator in April because of increased storm strength in summer and higher risk of ice instead of snow in winter. It’s a relief to know the sump pump will keep going even if I’m not home to start a portable generator.
I put the networking on a UPS, so the happy little generator emails and texts its status ?
JPL
@stinger: How frightening.
Jager
@L85NJGT:
A friend’s family were original settlers in Polk County, MN. The county was all Norwegian and all Lutheran. His great grandfather was a county commissioner, the notes from the commission meetings are filled with worries about the papist Irish, Italians and Polish immigrants showing up and “changing the local culture”.
S. Cerevisiae
We had a derecho come through here in 1999 but fortunately for most humans it hit the Boundary Waters and Quetico wildernesses. Millions of trees went down but it was mostly spent by the time it got to where I was but I watched the black cloud coming before heading to the basement.
Hungry Joe
We’ve been writing postcards for flipthewest.com. The first couple of lists were for Mark Kelly in Arizona, and the last few (25 names/addresses in each) have been in support of Greenfield, with info on how to request an absentee ballot.
It’s so easy: Go to the site and they’ll send you a list and a short script. You can order blank, pre-stamped postcards from the good ol’ USPS for 39 cents each/batches of 10.
debbie
@S. Cerevisiae:
There was derecho here, somewhere around 10 years ago. The day before the storm (and I don’t think it had been forecast to be as bad as it was), the landlord had the 30-foot dead pine tree that was less than five feet from my apartment cut down.
Haroldo
@James E Powell:
@Victor Matheson:
The same question for Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Something happened to white people there that made them revert back to tribal behavior. Nice and tolerant people don’t vote for Joni Ernst. Or for Scott Walker, Ron Johnson, and Rick Snyder in the other states.
Republicans have not done anything for ordinary white people for many years. So, it isn’t because they are getting a material benefit out of voting Republican. It’s the white supremacist urge, but I don’t know why it became the only thing they care about.
I don’t know about the other states you’ve mentioned, but with Wisconsin it’s always lurked under the surface and every so often pops out with a horrible vengence: Joseph McCarthy.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@L85NJGT: It’s a shame though. When I lived in Iowa, you could still see the remnants of Prairie Progressivism. There’d been a belief in the community that showed up in rural electricity or water projects. Settlers built schools before they built churches
stinger
@Yutsano: The governor is elected every 4 years in off years, so she has another two years to kill us all with her nonleadership.
rikyrah
Those charged with downtown Chicago looting a mix of college students, out-of-work parents and convicted felons. But none have obvious ties to Englewood.
By WILLIAM LEE
CHICAGO TRIBUNE |
AUG 14, 2020 AT 4:48 PM
After hundreds of people looted stores on the Mag Mile and elsewhere downtown, 43 defendants appeared before judges this week charged with felonies, an odd mix of peer-pressured college students, out-of-work parents and convicted felons.
But none of them, it appeared, were from Englewood, even though Chicago police say the widespread looting had its beginnings with a police shooting there Sunday afternoon. In fact no one who made statements in court even mentioned the incident, and police have not released copies of the social media posts they say organized and encouraged the looting.
More than a hundred people were arrested as blocks of stores were trashed, 13 officers were injured and downtown was shut for hours as police struggled to control unruly crowds late Sunday into Monday morning. A security guard and another person were shot downtown.
At least one person was charged with attempted murder, five with aggravated battery against police or resisting arrest, 28 for burglary and looting, six for gun possession and the rest for theft or criminal damage to property.
More than half of those taken into custody were charged with misdemeanors or were cited for civil violations or were let go. Chicago police have not released details. Detectives have promised more arrests and have set up a website of videos and photographs.
The first reports of looters came in late Sunday night, hours after police shot and wounded a 20-year-old who they say fired at them first near his home in Englewood.
Carloads of people descended on downtown and the North Side, smashing shop windows and carrying out TVs, Gucci and Louis Vuitton bags, iPhones, jewelry and other merchandise, sometimes piling them into waiting U-Hauls.
One of the first arrests downtown happened minutes before 1 a.m. when a man from the East Garfield Park neighborhood used a brick to smash a front window of the Burberry store on North Michigan Avenue.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-looting-court-20200814-hv7kdbzlc5hmdmjkabaebu2yeq-story.html
Omnes Omnibus
@Haroldo: I have said it before. WI is a purple state not because it is full of a bunch of centrists. It is a purple state because there is a pretty even mix of deep blue and bright red and the controls are set such that if one or the other gets the upper hand they can really run with it.
jeffreyw
We had a derecho in May of ’09 that passed over us. It had a fucking eye! Our power was out for over a week. We had just the year before put in a whole house generator. It saved all our refrigerated items. It’s since been a help through a couple of ice storm power outages.
Jesse
@germy: Allow me to make a wild guess and speculate that Ernst is a climate change denier.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@James E Powell:
I think it is a few issues. Religious people who thought they lived in a comfortable world of defined gender roles and heterosexuality realising the culture is changing. Plus, the cultural changes and their hostility to it could actually make them less employable. They will line up behind anyone who promises to protect them from that.
Also, rural America is dying. It has been for a while, but it is gotten to the point that anyone with any prospects at all leaves. The people who can’t leave often have a lot of issues.. drug use, etc. So, it feels to them like their society is disintegrating.
Also, strictly from a policy perspective, the Obama administration championed environmental legislation, that while great for the country, impacted and enraged a lot of farmers. Plus, Trump has shifted more federal transportation dollars to Trump voting rural areas, instead of where most people actually live.
Jesse
@jeffreyw: One of the things that has opened my eyes living in Germany is the state of their electricity infrastructure. Having the power go out at all, even during a powerful storm, would never happen. The lines are generally buried, even in small, rural cities. Having power out for a week would be a political scandal.
MazeDancer
My niece lives in Des Moines, she may get power back today. Or not.
Tossed a freezer full of food because she couldn’t cook it all on a grill.
And her place is nothing compared to Cedar Rapids,
National media not on the case.
Also, she’s an ex-Dem national operative. And can’t say enough good things about Theresa Greenfield.
JPL
@MazeDancer: It amazes me that trump thinks ignoring Iowa, and stealing our mail boxes is a winning message.
Since he has a press avail at 5, I assume he always supported the post office. He might even throw some money Iowa’s way, but it’s a little late coming.
Haroldo
@Omnes Omnibus:
@Haroldo: I have said it before. WI is a purple state not because it is full of a bunch of centrists. It is a purple state because there is a pretty even mix of deep blue and bright red and the controls are set such that if one or the other gets the upper hand they can really run with it.
No argument.
WaterGirl
@Hungry Joe: I added your suggestion to the Things We Can Do list we’ve been building in the Things We Can Do posts. There’s also a link under featuring.
edit: We are at 76 things!
PsiFighter37
Surprising how highly the media talks of Joni Ernst, especially her stupid castration ad. Honestly, she more won because Bruce Braley decided to talk shit about Chuck Grassley (the horror!). If he hadn’t, the race would have been much closer. She’s done fuck all in the Senate, and the hogs are going to come to roost. I hope she loses, and then I hope Democrats can take Grassley’s seat when that fucker retires or keels over.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@PsiFighter37:
Made a couple of edits for accuracy.
James E Powell
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ohio used to be like that – a near 50/50 state. But something happened over the last 20 years. Columbus & Franklin County are bluer, but the formerly Democratic Upper Ohio Valley shifted red. The fact that my beloved home state is no longer a swing state depresses me almost as much as the fact that my two brothers and one sister who live there are Trumpistas.
zhena gogolia
I saw her on some news show explaining how it would be perfectly fine for Drumpf to replace Ginsburg even in December if he lost the election “because it’s a Republican Senate.”
Nelle
@PsiFighter37: I’ve got a sign in my garage for the person to take Grassleys seat in two years. With little funding, Ret. Vice-Admiral Mike Franken came in second to Greenfield, who was massively backed by Schumer and group. The Emily’s list attack ads were so egregious against Franken that I wont ever be sending money their way.
randalms
I’m just impulsively contributing these days
debbie
@James E Powell:
I’m in blue Franklin Co. I was shocked when two of my three brothers went for Trump, but I cut myself off from them permanently after getting an email from one of them promising that Trump would bring everyone together and maybe even be magnanimous and pardon Hillary.
They’re both very smart, but they are not alone around here, even in Franklin County.
janesays
According to both FiveThirtyEight and Real Clear Politics, Iowa absolutely is a toss-up state. Trump’s average lead in aggregate polling is less than 2 points…
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/iowa/
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/ia/iowa_trump_vs_biden-6787.html
Sure, Trump is the slight favorite in most polling, but don’t write the state off completely just yet.
janesays
Joseph McCarthy died before 80% of Wisconsinites were even born. The youngest living person who would have been old enough to have ever voted for him is at least 88 years old.
Kathy
Greenfield is a great candidate and is working really hard. She knows how important safety support systems are (her first husband died when she was pregnant with their second child and her family managed through his pension benefits and Social Security). She’s smart and articulate with great values, plus a childhood base in agriculture which is important here — she’ll be an excellent senator for my state. Let’s win this one! And all the others!!
stinger
@PsiFighter37: Grassley has a grandson who is big in Iowa Republican politics; it’s widely assumed G the elder is saving his seat for the grandson.
stinger
@Nelle: yes! Schumer recruited Franken to run for Grassley’s seat in 2022, but Mike saw an opportunity against Ernst and threw his hat in the ring in the recent primary. I’ll back him 100% next election.
ciotogist
@jeffreyw:
I experienced that same derecho. We had barbecues every night because people didn’t want to lose all their frozen meat. Luckily the weather was mild; it took five days for me to get my power back.