Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

The next time the wall wtreet journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

You are here: Home / Politics / Run for Something Has Some Good News To Share (Open Thread)

Run for Something Has Some Good News To Share (Open Thread)

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Run for Something has some good news to share:

There’s more where that came from.  Click on over to that tweet and you’ll find dozens of Run for Something winners last night.  They don’t cover all 115 Run for Something winners (!) but there are lots more to see.

h/t Mousebumples

Totally open thread.

Reader Interactions

76Comments

  2. 2.

    Mousebumples

    @WaterGirl: woo hoo! And it was great to see some positive election news after yesterday. Just gotta ignore the talking heads and FTFNYT, right?

  7. 7.

    NotMax

    Hurtling through multiple looking glasses.

    What’s 14.545 inches across, weighs one ton (around 907kg or 2,000lbs), and just sold to a group of anonymous crypto investors for roughly $250,000? Why, it’s the biggest tungsten cube ever to be manufactured by Midwest Tungsten Service of Willowbrook, Illinois.

    Confused? Yes, that’s understandable. But consider this: tungsten cubes are one of the most popular memes in the world of cryptocurrency right now, a realm where value is defined as much by attention as anything tangible.… Source

    It may just be force of habit reportorial shorthand but tres ironic if the actual transaction was paid in greenbacks.

  8. 8.

    Yutsano

    Thank you for that tweet string. The one about the black gay man getting elected in Bozeman of all places makes me wonder if the carpetbagger governor election last year was a fluke because of Dolt45. Also I should look up at what Montana did with their new district. Odds are it’s going to be purple at best. We might get a House seat here.

  10. 10.

    Evap

    Here in Atlanta, our corrupt ex-mayor Kasim Reed trying for a come-back didn’t even make the runoff.  Which is really good news and surprised me.

  11. 11.

    sab

    Thirty-five miles south in Akron. I try not to stick my nose into their weird politics  but I am excited and hopeful.

  12. 12.

    tom

    Here in the Detroit area, three Arab-American Muslims were elected mayor in the suburbs of Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, and Hamtramck.

  14. 14.

    sab

    Things maybe awful near DC but out here in the boondocks not so bad. School boards. We actually want to educate the kids. Ours aren’t in private schools. These are our schools.

  15. 15.

    Mousebumples

    @Elizabelle: one of the most random wishes / curses to bestow on sometime… “May you live in interesting times…”

    ?‍♀️ I don’t mind boring, after the crazy few years we’ve had…

  17. 17.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    Maybe an unpopular opinion around here but the SJW / online left crowd is more toxic than the B*rnie Bros ever were.

     

    Political poison, driving our voters away.  You can handwave away the issue all you want, people are experiencing them in real life for the first time and want nothing to do with them.

  18. 18.

    zhena gogolia

    @sab: Yeah, my three school board candidates won. (One had to be a Republican because we have some stupid minority-representation rule, but the least crazy Repub won.) Planning & Zoning, not so good. I had an independent candidate who I hoped would push out one of the Repubs, but no such luck. Our RWNJ former mayor got on. I’m sure he’ll do some mischief.

  23. 23.

    Chris Johnson

    @Dog Dawg Damn: But how many of those are working Russian troll farms? Sometimes they’re doing that because that’s exactly what they’re meant to do.

    “I have been a loyal X all my life but…” is basically a script to get around doubt. Twitter, Reddit, etc are ground zero for this. And top-1000 blogs, on all sides.

  24. 24.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’d like to see some supporting evidence too.  My experience has been that anyone who claims SJWs made them vote GOP had no interest in voting Dem to begin with.

  26. 26.

    Chris Johnson

    I would add that I WAS one of those folks until I started to see them unironically praising Putin, brigading any negative references about him, meming ‘Russiagate’ as a claim that the Democrats were making the whole thing up, and even arguing that leftists should be supporting Trump because he is more likely to deliver progressive goals, either by heightening contradictions (!) or by legitimately being more likely to respond favorably to progressive goals than the Democrats ever would (!!!!!)

    I am obviously not the most clever pony in the pasture but by God I am not that dumb. I’m just saying, I’ve seen them working this side from the inside, as one of the target audience. Do NOT trust that problematic ‘lefties’ are legit. From Chapo to Jimmy Dore and on and on, a solid chunk of them are up to something and are not real leftists.

  30. 30.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    wow on the Cleveland mayor, wasn’t Cleveland racists central not that long ago?

  33. 33.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Baud: That was before they became the Guardians.

    You mean the team, Well, that but I thought Cleveland was white reactionary voters for  quite a while there.

  36. 36.

    Yutsano

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:  I think this is a situation in which the candidate mattered. Not to mention I haven’t seen details on how the race was won etc.

    Also: Shontel Brown! I don’t think she represents the Cleveland area but we should be celebrating her win here too.

  37. 37.

    Dan B

    @Yutsano: My partner has a cousin in Bozeman who is insane.  He just tweeted that he had stabbed several people when he was in Oregon and got off because the judge saw he had improved.  There were other claims that were essentially impossible.  Fortunately he is in a wheelchair.

  38. 38.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Tulsi Gabbard @TulsiGabbard
    McAuliffe’s loss is a victory for all Americans. Why? Because it was a resounding rejection of efforts to divide us by race, the stripping of parental rights, and arrogant, deaf leaders. This benefits us all.
    4:29 PM · Nov 3, 2021 

  39. 39.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Steeplejack:  Me too, I’ve heard of the infamous SJWs who are out to take away everyone’s fun from the Right for over a decade now. It’s like Bigfoot, everyone knows someone who talk to someone who savaged by an SJW but never the actual beast. Cryptopolitics if you will.

  43. 43.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud: Can’t say I’ve missed seeing her name.

    I started a reply to Suzanne earlier today, but then work intervened and I never was able to finish it. She was saying that things are really shitty because the pandemic is dragging on.

    I really don’t feel that way. Of course I wish the pandemic were over, but if I compare how things are right now to how they were a year ago, I’m overjoyed. We have a vaccine, so we don’t have to live in fear of our lives quite so much. I’m teaching in person. People are traveling (not me, but people are). The economy is booming. We don’t have a bunch of sociopaths in the White House. How can you say things are shitty?

  44. 44.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: if she was, judging from the videos on her twitter feed, it was as special correspondent for the Judge Box-O-Wine program.

    I never trusted her, she was one of several 2020 primary candidates whom I just didn’t get, but I didn’t think she’d gone that far round the bend. Glad she’s an ex-MoC

  45. 45.

    Baud

    @zhena gogolia:

    I feel the same way.  Obviously, things are far from perfect, but everything is so much better than it used to be.

    ETA: Sadly, when the Dems are in charge, I think you have a combination of right wingers who hate it for obvious reasons and ordinary people who thing Dems are some type of concierge service that can fix every problem on command.

  46. 46.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    @Steeplejack: sure.

     

    The board members at a SF public school that excluded a gay father because he wasn’t a POC (despite his children being POC).

    the Yale law school administrator who threatened to tank a law students career because he used the word trap house.

    The myriad educators who have told people “whiteness is a destructive force. Whiteness is evil”.

    the educators who decided the SAT is no longer needed because it’s racist. Also, AP classes which are racist. And gifted and talented programs. They are racist too.

    The major players in rbis movement aren’t a mystery. Can name them by name if you like.

  47. 47.

    ruemara

    We’ve got some good results from last night, but, we can’t ignore the lessons of VA & NJ. The last prediction for 2022 based on last night’s results are that we lose the House. We can’t afford that. I wish I felt better about the white vote. They are profoundly energized by the idea that teaching honest history is an attack on white people. Which means we need to mobilize like we are fighting fascism and stop fighting each other. More progressive handouts are not going to appease that gaping moral hole. Apologies to white voters on this app that aren’t like that

     

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: She is such trash.

  48. 48.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud:

    Dems are some type of concierge service that can fix every problem on command.

    More specifically, people think the Dem President is that omnipotent concierge, including some of the blessed young activists (who at least are young), seasoned journalists and commentators and even campaign pros, and elected Dems who really oughta know better.

  49. 49.

    gwangung

    @Dog Dawg Damn:

    the educators who decided the SAT is no longer needed because it’s racist. Also, AP classes which are racist. And gifted and talented programs. They are racist too.

     

    Given that both the programs and SATs correlate far more to family income and class than anything else, that’s not being SJW. That’s just reading the data.

    Try harder, son.

  50. 50.

    Jeffro

    @zhena gogolia:Of course I wish the pandemic were over, but if I compare how things are right now to how they were a year ago, I’m overjoyed. We have a vaccine, so we don’t have to live in fear of our lives quite so much.

    I think the ‘Delta two-step’ threw many of us for a loop, but honestly from here on out, that’s going to be something for the anti-mask and anti-vax crowd to deal with (and mourn, as they keep losing friends and relatives).

    Kids are going to get vaccinated (and we’re going to get to point out, loudly and often, just how cynical the GQP is for trying to stay ‘consistent’ by repealing all vaccine mandates where they can).  This is great news!

    On a personal note, I’m getting my Moderna booster in a week, and that is just…whew…not the be-all, end-all, but I am feeling goooood about our family’s travel just before Christmas now.  =)

  51. 51.

    schrodingers_cat

    @zhena gogolia: @Baud: Me 3 and how quickly they and everyone else has forgotten the Orange reign of error.

    Things could be better, Delta variant threw a spanner in the works. I had to yet again postpone my India trip, because international travel remains onerous even when possible.

    But I am not walking up in cold sweat like I did the first two years of the Tantrum Tangerine’s presidency

  52. 52.

    AliceBlue

    I have some exciting non-political news from my little corner of west Georgia–some scenes from a movie about Mamie Till-Mobley, mother of Emmett Till, are being filmed in my town!  Whoopi Goldberg is producing and is also playing the part of Emmett’s grandmother.  It’s fascinating to watch all the people, equipment and period cars and trucks.  Several storefronts have been painted with new signage to resemble the buildings in Money, Mississippi.  Can’t wait to see the movie

    (I also got my Moderna booster today, which is also exciting.)

  54. 54.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    @gwangung: the SAT Is one of the few things that are least able to be gamed by the wealthy.  As soon as Asians were doing better than white people, it was devalued for grades and extracurriculars.

  55. 55.

    Chris Johnson

    @Gin & Tonic: G&T, I inherited money. At the time that I was really erm ‘aggressive’ around here, I was desperately poor and terrified all the time that my life would basically evaporate.

    Come to think of it, every single person I know who I had to cut out of my life because they went full Nazi/MAGA/alt-right, were and presumably are just as poor and desperate.

    I think I got lucky. I hope we can bring more of that luck to others, but it sure wasn’t Balloon Juice reasoned argument that got me to take more rational stock of my surroundings and the opinions I was trusting.

    I became LESS FRIGHTENED ALL THE TIME because I stopped being desperate because I stopped being as poor as I was. (you may well say, sounds like a weird family if they had you be that poor while they were not: you’d be right. I did a lot of therapy, too)

    I have a pretty good idea what changed, and I know what would make me more susceptible to those dark patterns again: having my life go to shit, and becoming desperately poor again.

  57. 57.

    gwangung

    @Dog Dawg Damn: Better tell the College Board that. That’s a factor they’ve always admitted affected scores

    And….pleaassssee. It’s also known that being able to take SAT-style tests repeatedly will also improve scores. That’s one thing having money can do for you—take classes to take the tests.

    Finally, grades and extracurriculars were ALWAYS part of the college admissions tests, especially for the elites (because grades were better predictors than test scores).

    Get OUT OF HERE with your lazy thinking.

  60. 60.

    phdesmond

    i have been donating a modest amount monthly to Run for Something for most of this year.  however, i unsubscribed from their mailings, so this is the first news i’ve heard about them in six months!   i am very pleased by their success.

  64. 64.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    @gwangung: just that it affects is meaningless.  Race affects grades therefore we shouldn’t look at grades?  That’s lazy thinking.  Standardized tests are far less subject to personal bias than grades. Period.  Doing away with them is nonsense.

    I say this as someone who grew up dirt poor and was able to get into a good school because of standardized tests.  Not perfect but fairer than grades.

  67. 67.

    Steeplejack

    @Dog Dawg Damn:

    Thanks, I guess. The examples cited in that thread look so obscure that it seems hard to get to:

    Political poison, driving our voters away. You can handwave away the issue all you want, people are experiencing them in real life for the first time and want nothing to do with them.

    I find it hard to believe that a meaningful number of voters have even heard of those incidents, much less been driven away from the Democrats by them. Your mileage may vary, of course. Thanks for filling in the back-story.

  69. 69.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    @Steeplejack: it’s just a sample of a few. Don’t have all time to devote to this. Martha Nussbaum, Brian Leiter, Steven Pinker—they’ve all written about this issue.

    It’s animating many voters as the polling bears our (look at proxies for defund, confederate statues, etc).   All SJW issues.

    anyway; don’t stick your head in the sand. Left is over reaching on culture issues.

  70. 70.

    Fair Economist

    @Chris Johnson: A really sick feedback the Republicans have set up in a number of states is to keep making people’s lives worse, which makes them vote more conservative, allowing the Republicans to make things even worse, etc. It’s horrifying that it works, but it does. See WV, KY, MS, AL, and others.

  71. 71.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Dog Dawg Damn: Looks a lot like nut picking to me.  In a country of 300 million people, you are going to find some kooks of whatever stripe.

    And as far as standardized tests go, they really only show your ability to do well on standardized tests.  Me, I have always been naturally good at them.*  And I have benefited from that.  But there are a lot of really bright people who are not good at those tests.  Should they be excluded from quality education because they read slower, get nervous, etc?

    *Being raised by educated parents in a house full of books, music, and art surely was a completely coincidence, right?  And aren’t lots of schools now test optional?  So if your scores are good you can always let people know?

  72. 72.

    artem1s

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Cleveland racists central not that long ago?

    WTF? Cleveland was the first major city to elect an AA mayor. It may have horrid cops but it’s no more racist than any other major city in Ohio or the Midwest.

  73. 73.

    Ohio Mom

    @AliceBlue: John Sayles filmed “Eight Men Out” in Cincinnati, and a good part of it around the corner from where I was working. I also got to watch the street scape being transformed (into 1919), people in costume, and all the rest. It is a very fond memory. Lucky you!

  74. 74.

    Procopius

    @tom: Thanks for sharing that. Many decades ago I lived in Royal Oak and I feel a lot of affection for the Detroit area. I’m really glad to see the Muslims are able to do well — the Trumpists insist Dearborn is an Islamic hell where only Shari’a is enforced, and they do indeed have a very high percentage of muslims living there. They also have unusually good governance and a pretty low crime rate. When I was in high school (the McCarthy Years) English was not universally spoken in Hamtramck.

  75. 75.

    sab

    @artem1s: My biracial nephews trying to get jobs there beg to differ. Corporations in Cleveland are racist as fuck. Always have been. I went to grad school in Cleveland and amazing non-white fellow students got nowhere in their job market and a generation later nothing has changed.

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