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Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

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Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

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Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

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“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

So many bastards, so little time.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Let there be snark.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Ask Them Anything: FOUR DIRECTIONS Will Be Here With Us on Wednesday at 7:30

Ask Them Anything: FOUR DIRECTIONS Will Be Here With Us on Wednesday at 7:30

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In his April fundraising post, DougJ mentioned that we are planning to bring various political organizing groups to Balloon Juice so we can learn more about them and find out about what we can do to help.

This year (an off-year), I’d like to focus on state parties, county parties, and maybe most of all groups like Fair Fight and Four Directions, with a special emphasis on groups who work on the Latino vote because that’s where Dems’ biggest problem was last time. As we get closer to the midterms and people start getting excited about races and candidates, I’ll shift more to that. How does that sound to people?

I’d like to start with a few places that really came through in 2020 and are continuing to come through (big win in Wisconsin on Tuesday)! We are planning on doing a big one for Four Directions where we talk to the people who run it. I’d like to do the same with a few other groups I’m looking at.

The folks at FOUR DIRECTIONS are going to be here with us for a couple of hours on Balloon Juice tomorrow night – Wednesday at 7;30 pm – so we can ask them anything.

FOUR DIRECTIONS did some great work in Arizona in 2020, and they turned out over 73% of voting age registered Native Americans in Georgia for the January 5th special Senate run-off elections – the highest percentage of any demographic group.

Join us and learn more about their working relationships with tribal leaders and elders from around the country and their plans for 2021-22.

In the meantime, Open thread.

 

Reader Interactions

54Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    Shorter WaterGirl: Be on your best behavior tonight, jackals. We have company coming over.

  6. 6.

    Tenar Arha

    Cool. I put in my calendar so hopefully I’ll remember to be around for this.

  8. 8.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud:

    P.S. No one needs to be be on their best behavior tonight, that’s tomorrow night!  :-)

    Seriously, though, one of our phone calls i did mention that we tend to swear a lot, and they said something like “yes, we looked at Balloon Juice website, and swearing doesn’t bother us”.

  10. 10.

    Martin

    @sukabi: I TOLD YOU GUYS!

    During the 2018 election, she was passed off as just another lawyer, albeit one that doesn’t look like a politician. She looks like a mom, and she usually leads with ‘I’m a single mom’. I’d first met her a few years before she ran and knew she didn’t fit the stereotypes. She’s brass tacks and high energy. You wouldn’t think she’s capable of driving AOC scale social media, but she is.

    She’s just the best, and I can’t tell you how over the moon we are to have gone from a half century of Republicans, past the blue dogs and centrists (which she was assumed to be) straight to a progressive rock star.

  11. 11.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl:

    yes, we looked at Balloon Juice website, and swearing doesn’t bother us

     

    “But we need to talk about that other thing…“

  16. 16.

    Wapiti

    This is good; looking forward to it

    eta: any chance of a related fund-raising thermometer tomorrow or later in the week? Give the feedback in an immediate and tangible way.

  29. 29.

    H.E.Wolf

    Question for WaterGirl:  7:30 PM Eastern Time on Wednesday for the gala with Four Directions?

    Thanks!

  30. 30.

    schrodingers_cat

    Since this is open thread. I wrote the entire history of the BJP-Sangh since India’s independence in a tweet.

    A brief history of the Sangh and its political arm the BJP

    30 January 1948 – Hey Ram

    6 December 1992 – Jai Shri Ram

    April 2021 and ongoing – Ram Nam Satya Hai

    P.S. If you click on the tweet, there is a brief explainer. I don’t necessarily expect someone who is not Indian to get it.

  35. 35.

    Mary G

    I put this in the last thread where somebody asked what local groups I give to are, but it got put into moderation, so I have added it here with a couple of links removed (you can always Google :).
    @smith:

    Here’s my philosophy, I think the reasons the GOP did so much better than expected in 2020 that Republicans said the hell with covid and did a lot of voter contact, including canvassing, that got more people to the polls than Democrat’s remote contact did. Also, I was very disappointed that I spent a lot of my life savings donating to Cal Cunningham, Sarah whoever in Maine, Jaime Harrison, the woman in Texas, as did a lot of other Democrats, and got squat for it. I don’t want my money going to know-it-all-consultants to spend on their friends’ businesses. The wins in Georgia and Arizona were partly due to good old shoe leather door knocking, voter level, contacts. So I’m trying to cut out the middleman wherever I can.

    Four Directions, which WG is spotlighting now, did great work on Indian reservations that had a lot to do with D wins in Arizona.

    Very impressed with The New Georgia Project – Stacey Abrams gets all the credit, but there are many hands in the work.

    Beto’s Powered By People is a monster – look at their web site and see all the canvassing, training, and phone banking they are doing right now, today. I know people think Texas is a lost cause, but Georgia turned and all the Californians  moving to the sun belt (lol, no)  will start to tip the balance. I stopped my donation to them, because there’s no Senate race, but I may change my mind.

    Woke Vote holds GOTV boot camps in different regions of the country

    Let America Vote, started by Jason Kander, did amazing work in 2018, but he’s moved on and a lot of what I get from them now is just “send more money” emails, so I am not sure I can recommend again, but I haven’t paid enough attention to say yes or no.

    Movement.Vote is a clearinghouse that collects money and sends all of it on to local mostly Black-led organizations. They are giving to 41 right now in AZ, CO, lots in FL, GA, MI, MN, NV, NC, PA, TX & WI. Each one is listed so if you want to give directly or volunteer you can find them.

    There’s also the oldie-but-goodie Vote Riders, and more, but I think I’m out of links.

  36. 36.

    J R in WV

    Have had a monthly contribution to Four Directions for quite a while now, and so glad to be able to help all the Native American groups in that way.

    Looking forward to attending an online gathering, hope it’s as much fun as watching the Jan 6th traitors being arrested and jailed. Will be great, please do provide a donation thermometer, will love to watch that fucker jump up and up and up ~!!!~

  37. 37.

    J R in WV

    Hey, Satby:

    Happy Birthday, woman~!!~

    I admire all you do for feral cats, shelter puppies, all the things you do — so Thank You so much, and many happy returns~!!~

  38. 38.

    WaterGirl

    @Wapiti: Yes!  We have a brand-new thermometer for FOUR DIRECTIONS so we can start again at zero.

    In fact, for all 2021 fundraising, we are going to start the thermometers at zero.  (Though we will still have access to the old ones to know how much was giving in the past.)

  42. 42.

    geg6

    This is exciting!  I dropped some Benjamin’s on them last fall and got a really nice email from them thanking me.  I second the suggestion to combine this with a fundraiser.

  49. 49.

    mvr

    @WaterGirl:

    Okay, sneak peek at the new Four Directions thermometer!

    Seems to work because I made contribution.

    Good to have them here. The whole idea for the series is good and this particular group does good work.

    Thanks!

  52. 52.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @WaterGirl: I have been totally BJ-free today since early morning.

    In this toxically male canal system through which I paddled a couple of generations back, a phrase like that would be pronounced with a certain tone of regret if not despair. Just sayin’…

    (FTR in those thrilling days of yesteryear I worked with a fetching whipsmart young lady named Barbara Jean who tended to detonate like a percussed packet of nitrogen trioxide when anyone referred to her by her initials, objecting to the connotation thereof. I’d never really thought about it before, but upon refraction realized she had grounds.)

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