Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

The words do not have to be perfect.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

Not all heroes wear capes.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Some Good News from Four Directions and a Double-Angel Match and an Angel Match

Some Good News from Four Directions and a Double-Angel Match and an Angel Match

by | 202 Comments

This post is in: 

Nevada Four Directions Native Vote 1

I just heard from Four Directions – they wanted to say thank you for what we have raised so far for the GA runoff.  It is much appreciated!

But they also wanted to share some news from on the ground in NV, in case we are not hearing it already.

They want to be sure that we know that our investment of $8,418 in Cisco Aguilar is coming to fruition.   He is leading by 5,000 votes now, and everyone believes that votes for Aguilar will continue to come in at a clip that will get him over the line.  In fact, our contact at Four Directions is now referring to him as Secretary Aguilar.  And Kelly looks certain too.

You may all know this already – I am busing plying catch-up with my client so I haven’t been reading today – but they are confident that the GA runoff will be for the 51st  seat in the Senate.  But I will say again that there will likely be a ton of litigation that tries to slow down the seating of the NV Democratic senator, so in effect the GA runoff is for the 50th seat for the first possibly 6 months or so, but would be the 51st seat after that.

To celebrate the good news, for the next $1,500 in donations, let’s have a Double-Angel match for donations up to $50 that are listed in the comments.  *The match applies to donations through the Four Directions thermometer.

Double-angel match is over, but we have a new $1,000 single match in place!

For those who want to donate directly to Rev. Warnock for the runoff, here’s the link for our thermometer for that, but it doesn’t count toward the match.

Open thread.  Especially if you’re sharing election-related news that will bring me up to date. :-)

Update:

NV site for the Senate Race

NV Site for Statewide Races

Update 3:15 pm Eastern

Reader Interactions

202Comments

  2. 2.

    WaterGirl

    To be clear, with the double-angel match, your $50 donation turns into $150, $25 turns into $75, etc.

    To count toward the match, list your donation amount in the comments.  And this is a new match, so everyone is eligible.

    As always, I want to point out that no one should feel obligated to donate!

  9. 9.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Interesting thread on Boomers and MAGA, by a Boomer himself.  (I’d be interested in a similar one for Gen X, as our voters are pretty bad too and the second-biggest age Demographic for Trumpism).

    Note: Before any gets defensive, he’s not saying ALL or ONLY Boomers go MAGA!!!

    “The MAGA movement, based on aging white boomer victimhood is a bell curve. That bell curve has peaked for the simple reason that boomers, of which I am one, are dying off. We are the MAGA movement. How we got here is a combination of our own disconnection and the vulnerability which that created to decades of carefully crafted manipulation.
    Boomers were wholly unprepared for the blunt manipulations of Fox News, in bundled cable of the 90s. White boomers never faced the great depression, or a world war, yet we were particularly susceptible to the idea that we were victims of hardships. In part because of the restless disconnection of our gated community lives we bought fragile white victimhood hook, line and sinker.
    After lifetimes of leaning into consumerism and mass consumption we boomers woke up to find ourselves angry and reactive to our own disconnection. Maybe a bigger SUV would help? Maybe a third marriage? That sense of disconnection was a warning, an inflection point. Some of us self reflected. Took stock. But many more of us doubled down on our nagging sense of victimhood. “Whatever the fuck is wrong here, it must be someone else’s fault. Women. Immigrants. Black people.” And Fox News was there to lovingly encourage our blind entitlement. To sell us our own failed white fragility.
    The MAGA bell curve peaked as we moved into retirement, staring blankly at our own mortality. Because we had bought into the decades long drumbeat of individualism sold to us by a GOP bent on eliminating social safety nets, we sought validation in class and status and so ended up without community.
    Retirement is when a strange unnamed panic really set in for boomers. No longer able to rely on the stale connection of surface level workplace relationships, we were left sitting alone in our easy chairs staring at the Tucker Carlsons of the Fox News rabbit hole. Again, it was an inflection point for some of us.
    Some boomers said, “Maybe this creeping anxiety is my fault. Maybe this disconnection from my kids, my community, from the world right outside my door is my fault.” Some of us went looking for basic human connection. We realized we had been tricked into choosing disconnection. But so many more of us just got angrier.
    Trump is the ongoing final act of angry white boomers. No longer did we have to coyly perform the wink wink of coded racist language about welfare queens and urban crime. We were liberated to march with Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, our creeping panic weaponized into authoritarian rage.

    …

    If I have left the impression I’m calling all boomers MAGA I apologize. I often write about the failings of men only to bring down on myself the “not all men” response when my goal is to address behaviors that trend in populations but don’t define all that are in it.”

  11. 11.

    Immanentize

    FIDDY.

    Watergirl, as a friend on Twitter says:

    I regret to inform you that next week is the last week before Thanksgiving week, for those of us who thought we were going to have a productive November

  13. 13.

    Immanentize

    @WaterGirl: Im confused!! Did I give to the non-double match fund by mashing the thermometer above?” Is there a link to the match one? If so, I will give another US Grant.

  15. 15.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Immanentize: oh no, the November / December anxiety train has left the building!  Kidding, mostly.  Last year and the year before with the combined chaos of my daughters engagement/wedding/surprise pregnancy  we decided to keep gifts small but personal and celebrations and get togethers the same.. Did a world of good for my usual holiday season meltdown.  Hoping for a 3peat !

  16. 16.

    Joy in FL

    $25 for Four Directions for Warnock.

    Also today I am writing some postcards. I ask for them 5 at a time, so it’s easy to keep up and easy to ask for more. I just ordered some more postcards because I am so happy to help in my introverted way.

  18. 18.

    WaterGirl

    @Immanentize: No, you did it exactly right!  The thermometer above is where you put the Four Directions donations.   During the double-angel match donations up to $50 will turn into $150.

    So the FIDDY you just donated will turn into $150 once we meet the $1,500 double-angel match.  The angels put their money in once we meet their match.

    Please help me figure out what was confusing up to that confused you – so I can fix it!  :-)

  25. 25.

    Kent

    @UncleEbeneezer: I’m 58 so just on the cusp between boomer and Gen-X and that pretty much holds true as I look around at a lot of people I know.

    I don’t think life today is tougher than in previous generations.  In many ways it is much easier and we are a wealthier country.  But life is most definitely more uncertain than it was for previous generations.  Medical costs, housing costs, retirement income, 401(k) plans, neighborhood stability.  All of it is more uncertain than for previous generations of middle class folk.  And the disconnect he talks about means that many of us don’t have a lot of peers to compare to.  Unlike our parents generation who settled into retirement with their bridge clubs, garden clubs, Rotary clubs, churches, and likely kids and family living somewhere relatively close by.

  26. 26.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    (I’d be interested in a similar one for Gen X, as our voters are pretty bad too and the second-biggest age Demographic for Trumpism)

    The 80s featured a massive surge in toxic masculinity in popular culture, presumably in backlash to the gains made by women and blacks in the 70s.  The underlying message that a man’s value is dependent entirely on how much sex he gets, and that things like intelligence, honesty, and emotional vulnerability guaranteed you were a virgin, was ubiquitous in our most formative period.  See Peter Venkman.  The fallout is ugly.

  27. 27.

    frosty

    @UncleEbeneezer: This doesn’t explain the WWII generation’s addiction to Fox News (like my in-laws). And all the boomers I know who never went into that cesspool. Once again, looking at generations may be useful but it can also be way too facile.

  28. 28.

    Immanentize

    @Kent: People our age aren’t really boomers, no I suppose are we fully Gen-X as we lived a different sixties experience. I heard the term the “Apollo Gen” which I like and think is accurate. Or, maybe, “Gen-Sputnik?”

  29. 29.

    kalakal

    @Immanentize: I’d agree with that ( I’m 62) but don’t relate to the whole Boomer thing at all. Of course I didn’t grow up in the US. IIRC the whole generational labelling thing was a US quirk for the first few decades of my life.  I do like

    the “Apollo Gen” which I like and think is accurate. Or, maybe, “Gen-Sputnik?”

  31. 31.

    Immanentize

    @Frankensteinbeck: I’ve been interested in this phenom. In the 70s and early 80s, a lot of the ‘patriotic’ american male movie heros were wiry, smart, and out-thought their adversaries. WOLVERINES! Even the Bond dudes followed that formula.  We used to mock Russian steroid addled athletes every four years during the Olympics. We made commercials about little guys outwitting beefy bruiser bullies.

    Then, somewhere along the line, our heros and role models became the very people we had just recently mocked. How did this happen? When? Even Rocky was the underdog against the manufactured Russian beast. Then?

  34. 34.

    WaterGirl

    @Citizen Alan: Donations up to $50 are double-matched.  So the first $50 of your $100 turned into $150, and the remaining $50 is $50, for a total of $200.

    Did you think the whole thing would be double-matched?  If you did, we will honor your intent.  Let me know?

  35. 35.

    Immanentize

    @kalakal: No greater authority than my son told me that I was “the least Boomer Boomer” he ever knew. I think the 58 – 64 group are really quite different than the earlier 13 years of Boomers. Or so I tell myself.

  36. 36.

    Eolirin

    @Immanentize: USSR collapsed and women’s lib took off is my guess. Priorities shifted from being scared of the Russians to being scared of the women. We draw contrast between ourselves and the things we hate and fear.

    Prolly too reductive a take, but I think part of it.

    Edit, also I’m sure the nature of Reagan’s ascendancy had something to do with it.

  38. 38.

    H.E.Wolf

    A brief fly-by (I’m writing postcards using the JoyinFL method, 5 at a time!) to say how much I appreciate the decision to support grassroots GOTV organizations founded and run by BIPOC, as the bedrock of the blog’s fundraising efforts in this election cycle. Thank you!

  40. 40.

    kalakal

    @Immanentize: I’m sure he’s right 😄

     I think the 58 – 64 group are really quite different than the earlier 13 years of Boomers. Or so I tell myself.

    You’ll get no argument from me

  41. 41.

    West of the Rockies

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    Super interesting link!  Thanks!

    I’m 60.  But I’ve made a point to NOT become a miserable old white man.  I love Billie Eilish and Lil NasX.  I purposefully patronize a college coffee shop to be expose myself to new people, ideas, etc.   My queer daughter is 21.  I want to do what I can to support her and make sure she has a viable planet.

  45. 45.

    Eyeroller

    @UncleEbeneezer: Speaking as another Boomer, and one of the later ones that seem to be worse than the first half, I think it’s a whole lot simpler — we were just raised by racist parents in the midst of the initial backlash to civil rights and the feminist movement of the 60s and 70s.  Same probably applies to the oldest GenX.  Parents of both groups would generally have been Silents (one of mine was, the other was Greatest but he was older) and it seems the Silents were particularly reactionary.​​

  50. 50.

    mali muso

    Wrote 4 postcards for Warnock last night (I have to do them in small bites) to drop off in the main today. Wish I could make it to the writing party but I have tickets to see the orchestra!

  51. 51.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @UncleEbeneezer: It is.  Quote begins right after bolded warning.  For some reason I can’t blockquote and put a separate comment before or after.  Been having this issue for a while now.  I can post a comment or a blockquote but not both.

  52. 52.

    pika

    I just want to point out that I think we’re all in a positive feedback loop now–I gritted my teeth amid all the disinfo and despair (even though I knew a large part of it was the GOP flooding the zone, it still got. into. my. bones.) and kept going, in large part thanks to WaterGirl shifting us from raising candidate money to GOTV money. But now, I feel actually energized, not least because young people got out there and voted! So thank you everyone!

  53. 53.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @frosty: Yeah, I think FoxNews popularity is pretty simple: it sells every form of bigotry and there’s a big market for that.  Younger bigots (who mostly aren’t watching cable news) find it on places like 4chan and other online cesspools.

  54. 54.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @West of the Rockies: Yup.  It only takes a little effort to not go down the old, angry, white dude pipeline.  And there are more artists, writers and resources available nowadays.  But sadly a lot of people just won’t make the effort, because their privilege Whiteness/Maleness etc., constantly tells them they don’t need to and that refusing to do so is some heroic act of resistance.

  55. 55.

    MisterDancer

    @UncleEbeneezer: we sought validation in class and status and so ended up without community.

    I’m working on a setting for a TTRPG and just hit on this topic in my research, actually.

    I think “we” really miss how much of all of this, from Limbaugh on, is about a hollow sense of community, of duty, of connection. I struggle with it myself, and so kind of get that gap, I think, and how it can drive you to associate with people who themselves are trapped, because the stuff they say makes you feel better.

    Being born or otherwise moving into marginalized groups can provide a lot of that. Some of the difference is something I take about with care — the sense of holding onto Joy and care (including self-care!) in a hostile world and culture. These folx don’t have that, not really, thus why their art is hollow, their humor crass.

    It’s a world that looks like “ours” on the surface, but gets to be different with a quickness. And I fear we’ll need to understand that better, before they do inflict too much damage on the body politic to repair.

  57. 57.

    gwangung

    Hmmm….I’m a boomer, but since I work in theatre, I have contact with a large range of ages. That keeps me young (that’s a disadvantage sometimes, but….), and keeps me from getting old, brittle and disgruntled.

  60. 60.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Eyeroller: Yeah, looking back at the 80’s-90’s shit everything (especially Misogyny) was so blatant/bad.  And totally agree on the backlash to Feminism.  Many boys/men my age grew up resenting Feminism even though we didn’t really understand it or had never even given it a fair listen.  Some of us have matured and learned better since then, but a LOT still haven’t, or refuse to.

  62. 62.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    In for $100

    Speaking for my husband and myself, we’re both very much Boomers (1951 and 1952), but we are both lifelong Democrats and liberals.  Of course, we grew up in California with liberal parents, but he grew up mostly in San Diego and he’s more liberal => radical than I am. I can’t imagine watching Fox news.  Ick.

  63. 63.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    Gen X here. In general, I think my generation is less racist, but misogyny is wide spread. We’ve also been grumpy about the fact that we don’t have much influence because we are a smaller generation and we definitely did not have the easy jobs everywhere thing that our parents generations had. When we were kids, manufacturing was collapsing and pensions were going away everywhere.

  70. 70.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @MisterDancer: Yup.  I’ve thought a lot about how white people (or men) can create real spaces of positive community (that aren’t about about exclusion or hatred of others) and I confess, I have no idea.  Especially for those of us who aren’t religious.  I’ve tried UU meetings but they are still too God-y for me.

    We can have spaces/community based on interests (for me: music, tennis, hiking) but those will only be for a small % of the population and even then 50-60% of the people who might be interested will be toxic racists, misogynists etc., so I don’t really feel like building or maintaining those spaces.

    We can have spaces specifically devoted to Progressive values or anti-racism, but then only a tiny amount of people are gonna be interested in that.

    Moreover, Whiteness (and Male-ness) is so heavily about suburbs, gated-communities, Country Clubs and other Class barriers etc., or other things I can’t afford or don’t really wanna be in because there would be so many MAGAssholes, it’s like everything pushes against any sense of community.  And I think there’s definitely a link between the lack of positive (unproblematic) community for white men, that leads many towards toxic online (or meatspace) cesspools.

  71. 71.

    marklar

    @Kent: “I’m 58 so just on the cusp between boomer and Gen-X and that pretty much holds true as I look around at a lot of people I know.”

    I’m the same age…I find the best way to describe myself is a Boomxer.  My students say the term fits.

  72. 72.

    WaterGirl

    @Brooklyn Dodger:   @topclimber:   @Anotherlurker:   @Dagaetch:   @Paul W.:   @Westyny:   @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:   @Steve in the ATL:   @rodwell:   @A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan):   @JanieM:

    Wow!  That’s $525 more toward the $1,500 double-angel match.

    And it’s $1,475 more to Four Directions for GA Warnock Runoff.

    Thank you all!  I should stop and eat lunch more often if this is what I come back to.  :-)

  75. 75.

    WaterGirl

    We are now at $1,300 toward the $1,500 double-angel match!

    Just $200 left on the double-angel match!

    Donations are double-angel matched up to $50, while supplies last while the $200 lasts!

  77. 77.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Frankensteinbeck: Over on LGM they’re talking about the cultural shift vaguely in connection with the comedian Gallagher, the watermelon-smashing guy, who just died, and apparently had gotten more and more grossly reactionary as he went on (though his act was never exactly progressive).

    The way I remember it, there was a big flip toward mean and macho entertainment right when the Reagan Revolution happened, but a lot of it was repurposing of old counterculture ideas in a reactionary way–people liked attacking sacred cows, but now tolerance and civil rights were the sacred cows.

    But, you’re right, there was a gradual progression in which the galoots and bullies went from the villains to the heroes, and it wasn’t entirely all at once.

  78. 78.

    randy khan

    I wouldn’t care if the Georgia runoff were for the 100th seat in the Senate, I’d still push hard on it.  A guy like Walker should not be a Senator.

  87. 87.

    James E Powell

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    After that dark day in 2016, a fellow boomer friend & (b.1955) were discussing how nearly everyone we went to high school with was a racist asshole. We were somewhat puzzled because we recalled that when we were in high school (class of ’73) being racist was totally uncool. We were not going to be like our parents! To us it didn’t seem like we were that different, but the others became more racist, way more, as the years went by.

    We were trying to determine what factors contributed to this and other than the obvious ones – college & moving to new places & job that includes spending time with Black folk as co-workers & customers – we couldn’t come up with anything.

  90. 90.

    Sue in Boston

    @WaterGirl:   Just put in $50 for the double match

     

    Edit: Just saw only $25 left for match, and it’s OK

    with me for $25 to be unmatched.

  99. 99.

    Mimi haha

    @kalakal: As a 65 yo Boomer, I think the Boomers people complain about are the ones older than me. I was a kid in the 60s. All those things Boomers did–go to Vietnam, not go, trash the 68 Dem convention… I watched that stuff on tv. I couldn’t fight the cops in Grant Park, I had a curfew.

  102. 102.

    H.E.Wolf

    @mali muso: “Wish I could make it to the writing party but I have tickets to see the orchestra!”​
     That reminds me, in a good way, of my great-great-grandmother, who was a force for justice in her community in the early 1900s, and had season tickets to the symphony.

  103. 103.

    Frankensteinbeck

    My father, a Boomer, said that no one in his generation got over desegregation.  The only question was how you reacted.

    I think this is REALLY important in some of our oldest Boomer and Silent Generation politicians, like McConnell and Trump.  They spent their formative years when a black man wouldn’t dare speak to them, then had to deal with Obama.

  104. 104.

    raven

    @zhena gogolia: Actually it’s a really good article now that I read it. Puzzling that they put a picture of two rah-rah vets on it but don’t mention how vets have bought the bullshit.

  106. 106.

    Ivan X

    I was up in the middle of the night when I saw the post on this so I kicked some scrap to 4D and to the rev. And to the blog. Fuck the r’s. What’s money for if not keeping them out of office.

  107. 107.

    Citizen Alan

    @Eyeroller: It’s a miracle that I’m not racist given the demographics and history of my family. I attribute it to the fact that both my mother and father worked in industries that were integrated even in Mississippi by the 1970s (AT&T and the trucking industry, respectively) and they associated with more black people in a professional setting than the rest of my extended family (most of whom were farmers in my parents’ generation). That is not to say they weren’t racist in many ways. I still vividly remembering being 35yo and politely but firmly asking my father never to use the n-word in my presence. And he never did and, believe it or not, voted for Obama twice. But to the end of their lives, I know both of them were, on some level, deeply frightened of the fact that I had several black neighbors and was perfectly fine working for an African-American boss (though I never actually got those jobs).

  108. 108.

    Baud

    It turns out women enjoy having human rights, and we vote.
    — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 9, 2022

    Also too

    A federal judge on Thursday ordered sanctions against attorneys for former President Donald Trump in his failed lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and numerous others that he claimed conspired to undermine the 2016 presidential election.

    Judge Donald Middlebrooks ordered Trump lawyers Alina Habba, Michael Madaio, Peter Ticktin, Jamie Alan Sasson and their law firms to pay $50,000 in penalties to the court and $16,274.23 in legal fees to Charles Dolan, one of more than two dozen people or entities named as defendants in the lawsuit.

  109. 109.

    Baud

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    My father, a Boomer, said that no one in his generation got over desegregation.

     

    It’s why the current conservatives on the Supreme Court are going hog wild. Nothing they do will be worse than Brown in their eyes.

  111. 111.

    Citizen Alan

    @TerryTime: Well that’s depression. Marty McFly’s big character defining moment was deciding NOT to do the thing that he already knew would ruin his family’s future just because Flea from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers called him a chicken. And Ferris Bueller was a borderline sociopath.

  115. 115.

    geg6

    @Immanentize: ​
     
    Totally agree. I had four older siblings and my experiences and theirs are completely different. Thankfully, of those siblings who still survive (my oldest brother passed away seven years ago), none went MAGA. We were brought up better than that.

  116. 116.

    mali muso

    @H.E.Wolf: ​
     One thing I’m trying to get better at is living in the moment and doing things that bring me joy. But more postcards will be written tonight! :-)

  118. 118.

    WaterGirl

    @Ivan X:

    Fuck the r’s. What’s money for if not keeping them out of office.

    That might have to be a short-term rotating tag.

    edit: I changed it slightly and made it a rotating tag:

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

  121. 121.

    Citizen Alan

    @Frankensteinbeck: That is an interesting point. I have long thought that the all-female led reboot of Ghostbusters failed simply because it couldn’t replicate the lighting-in-a-bottle chemistry of Bill Murry in his prime, leading that cast with that script and that director. (And Murry himself couldn’t replicate it because Ghostbusters II was considered a failure.) But while Venkman was a douchebag in a lot of ways, I always thought his selling point was that he was (a) anti-establishment and (b) very funny. I never thought his womanizing was a selling point beyond the fact that, by the end, he’d gotten together with Sigourney Weaver and presumably would have remained faithful to her (which was another part of why the sequel was so disagreeable).

  122. 122.

    Citizen Alan

    @Baud: I genuinely think Brown is on the chopping block. Does anyone here doubt that there are 5 votes today to bring back separate but equal? With one of them being Thomas?

  123. 123.

    Baud

    @Citizen Alan: I don’t know.  Currently, the right-wingers are using Brown to strike down race-conscious college admissions for not being “colorblind.”  I’m not sure if they will turn around and reinstall separate-but-equal as it was before Brown.  I think instead they will give Republicans a lot of leeway to discriminate by finding proxies for race that don’t expressly use race as a criteria (like they’re doing now with political gerrymandering).  They also might say diversity is an impermissible goal for governments to pursue since it isn’t “colorblind.”

    ETA: Like that old Stephen Colbert joke “I don’t see race. People tell me I’m white and I believe them.”

  124. 124.

    Leslie

    @WaterGirl: Do you maybe want to update the main post as well as the headline? For those who haven’t read all the comments, it could be a bit confusing.

  125. 125.

    Uncle Cosmo

    Just dropped another US Grant ($50) for 4D bootsontheground. Warnock is an awesome Senator and Walker is a sick, sick joke. Go Rev!

  126. 126.

    Suzanne

    I have been pulling for Cisco Aguilar, because he was student body president when we were both undergrads at the University of Arizona. He was two years ahead of me, I think. Bear down!

  127. 127.

    raven

    From the Savannah paper:

    Trump, though, changes the math. Once he becomes Walker’s outspoken champion, it becomes 2020 all over again. Trump is back on the ballot. Nearly half-a-million more Georgians participated in the 2020 Senate runoffs than did the Nov. 8 election. More than 300,000 of those 2020 runoff voters went for Warnock against Loeffler, who was a lousy candidate but not a mean-spirited, loathsome human being like Walker.
    Such is the power of the Trump effect. He turns out Georgians better than fresh doughnuts at Krispy Kreme. Come 9 p.m. Tuesday, when Trump launches his presidential bid, Warnock’s campaign can flip on the “hot now” light.

  132. 132.

    hueyplong

    It’s only been two years.  Why are we supposed to dismiss Loeffler’s loathsomeness?

    Yes, Walker is full-on crazy and makes no attempt to hide it, confirming his inappropriateness for literally any job other than carnival geek every time he opens his maw.  But I’m not having faded watercolor memories of Kelly Loeffler.

  133. 133.

    Nicole

    @Citizen Alan: I liked Ghostbusters: Answer the Call a lot; I think it was up against institutionalized misogyny (I remember some, “They’re ruining my childhood!” fits in some corners of the internet.  Like, what?  The original movie isn’t disappearing).

    The original, I think, was what it was because of the newness and creativity of the concept.  I rewatched it after seeing Answer the Call and what struck me was how mean it is.  (And, I’m sorry; Venkman is creepy.  The first scene, with that girl student, and then the reveal that he takes Thorazine with him on dates?  Ew.)  And a lot of 80s humor was really mean and punched down.

    (But anyway, even with that amazingly talented cast reuniting for the sequel in G2, the idea wasn’t new anymore and I think the weaknesses showed through.)

    I mean, I’m so old I saw Ghostbusters in its original run, and I remember absolutely weeping with laughter, so I’m not criticizing the wonderful ride the original Ghostbusters was at the time.  But my 12-year-old boy, who has seen all of them except G2, likes Answer the Call best.  Which was also the first one he saw.  So that was the one that introduced him to the world.  Sometimes you get points just for being first.

  135. 135.

    zhena gogolia

    I’m in moderation I guess because of too many links, but — Bernie Sanders is on the latest Russian sanctions list.

  136. 136.

    BlueGuitarist

    Another US House win:

    @redistrict has seen enough, Dave Wasserman called NV-03 for Dem. Susie Lee, one of the most vulnerable D incumbents.

    Down-ballot super swing district candidate in overlapping state assembly district Shea Backus is ahead by 300 votes, about 1%, with 8% of the expected vote uncounted.

    in 2018 Shea narrowly defeated insurrectionist Jim Marchand (now being beaten by Cisco Aguilar) becoming the first female Native American elected to Nevada legislature; lost that swing district narrowly in 2020.

  138. 138.

    BlueGuitarist

    Wasserman (the House expert for Cook Political Report) has also called ME-02 and MD-06 for the Democratic incumbents Jared Golden and David Trone.

  139. 139.

    WaterGirl

    @BlueGuitarist: That’s great news!

    I see that Susie Lee is the first Nevada house race added to the list of seats we have won or held.

    Mercedes Krause is on our sad list.

    Do you happen to know the status of the other NV House races?

  144. 144.

    Old School

    @WaterGirl:

    Do you happen to know the status of the other NV House races?

    Assuming Lee wins, Nevada’s House delegation will be three Democrats and one Republican.

  148. 148.

    thruppence

    Another $50. I can’t believe there’s anyone who hasn’t already chosen, a massive GOTV push is absolutely necessary.

  152. 152.

    Suzanne

    I see that some hero made a parody Kari Lake Twitter account called PA RO DEEZ NUTS, paid $8 for the blue check, and “conceded” the election. LMMFAO.

    How long until the GOP huffs and puffs and accuses us of mob behavior and “violence” and “burning cities to the ground”?

  154. 154.

    GibberJack

    @Immanentize: A guess:

    Reagan’s chest thumping and the zeitgeist of “Born in the USA, fuck yeah!” it spawned, Arnold Schwarzenegger action movies, availability of steroids and widespread use of them by role models like pro athletes, and the mainstreaming of WWF wrestling.

    The heros got buffed if not outright bodybuilders. The Terminator and a WWF wrestler got governorships.

    Brawn (and firepower) became attributes of the hero.

    It’s still there in the popularity of the recent spate of Marvel comic book movies: the muscle, the firepower, and WWF.

    Humphrey Bogart and Joe DiMaggio used to be the hero ideals. DiMaggio looked lanky and Bogie was 5’ 8 (and rarely used a gun).

    All this buffing up to me looks like the onset of a massive insecurity complex in American men.

    Insecurity was mentioned in that linked piece about maga boomers. Hmm.

  155. 155.

    BlueGuitarist

    @JPL:

    Jon Ralston, Nevada politics expert, says Cortez-Masto likely to win; in a pre-election article he emphasized her efforts to lose by less in rural counties.

    Key Nevada union is following up its GOTV efforts with solving problems with mail ballots, they say:

    Culinary Union is running the largest signature cure effort statewide in Clark and Washoe Counties. 200 canvassers started curing the day after Election Day (Wednesday, November 9) and will continue daily through Monday, November 14, 2022 at 5pm.

    https://www.culinaryunion226.org/news/press/statement-regarding-ballot-cure-efforts-in-nevada

  156. 156.

    lowtechcyclist

    I gave $200 directly to the Warnock campaign this morning before any thermometers went up.

  157. 157.

    gene108

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    Yeah, I think FoxNews popularity is pretty simple: it sells every form of bigotry and there’s a big market for that. Younger bigots (who mostly aren’t watching cable news) find it on places like 4chan and other online cesspools.

    Not so much now, but 20 years ago Fox News talked about America in a way white adults had been raised to think about America. America is inherently good. America stands for freedom, and individualism. There’s nothing wrong in having kids tuck in their shirts or pull up their pants and teaching them to say “yes, sir or yes, ma’am”.

    When I rank across Limbaugh, in the early 1990’s, while in high school he really spoke to the nostalgia of “common sense” and not needing the “nanny state” to direct things. His then adult listeners were driven around as kids in cars without seatbelts, and did all sorts of things without all the social problems we were experiencing back then like crime, teen pregnancy, etc.

    It’s an article of faith among conservatives, in the 1980’s, while I was growing up that ALL OF SOCIETIES ILLS were due to hippies and feminists (and civil rights leaders, but they didn’t usually say it out loud). “Forrest Gump” was the biggest hit of 1994 and its entire premise is stupid but honest and traditional Forrest wound up living a golden life, while his best childhood friend Jenny protested Vietnam, hung out with hippies, lived a loose life, and died of AIDS.

    Growing up in NC for middle and high school, there was an older generation that complained they couldn’t leave their cars unlocked, or houses unlocked anymore, like they could decades ago. The right-wing propaganda of the 1970’s, 1980’s, and the 1990’s really leaned into this sort of nostalgia and pinned the blame on the social gains of the 1950’s, 1960’s, and 1970’s, and a lot of people bought into it and refused to really notice as high crime, teen pregnancy, etc. started declining and continued declining over the next 20 years.

    Their narrative on what’s wrong with society and what’s to blame had been set.

  161. 161.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Nicole: ​

    I’m sorry; Venkman is creepy.

    He’s awful. He would be a villain in a modern movie. He was noticeably an asshole then, and that’s the problem, because he was the cool one. It was a baseline cultural assumption. Ray and Egon were better people in every way than Venkman, but they weren’t sexually active, so they were losers and Venkman was cool. The toxic masculinity was ubiquitous.

    I also love the reboot, partly because it turns so many gender-based storytelling stereotypes on its head and that’s hilarious. The women drooling over their gorgeous, idiot himbo secretary? Pure Hollywood, just with the roles flipped, and how it shows the biases in those roles is clever and funny.

  162. 162.

    Another Scott

    [TFG] sends out a fundraising email that appears to be for the remaining three GOP Senate candidates with races uncalled. But if you click through, the only joint fundraising committee is Walkers. Click through again, [TFG] takes 9/10 of the $ (unless you change the ratio) pic.twitter.com/ZABEXvs1uO

    — Sam Stein (@samstein) November 11, 2022

    It’s a good thing that Balloon-Juice Intergalactic Industries and Pet Rescue doesn’t do such underhanded things.

    We should expect nothing less from TFG’s grifters though. It’s kinda amazing that the GQPers put up with it – they claim to be hard-headed realists when it comes to money…

    (via jonrog1)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  163. 163.

    H.E.Wolf

    WaterGirl [from the post]: Open thread. Especially if you’re sharing election-related news that will bring me up to date. :-)

    You asked about results for candidates supported by Balloon Juice:

    Yadira Caraveo, CO-08 (new district): WON
    Sharice Davids, KS-03 (incumbent): WON
    Marcy Kaptur, OH-09 (incumbent; district redrawn to be more Republican): WON
    Susie Lee, NV-03 (incumbent): WON
    Eric Sorensen, IL-17 (open seat): WON
    Emilia Sykes, OH-13 (open seat: WON
    Gabe Vasquez, NM-02 (challenger): WON
    Susan Wild, PA-07 (incumbent): WON
    [6 women, 4 of them incumbents; 2 men]

    Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, WA-03 (open seat): ballots still being counted: a tight race in a purple district.
    [1 woman]

    Mercedes Krause, NV-02 (challenger): Lost
    Elaine Luria, VA-02 (incumbent; district considered one of most contested in USA): Lost
    Josh Riley, NY-19 (open seat; district redrawn to be more Republican): Lost
    Tony Vargas, NE-02 (challenger): Lost
    [2 women, 1 of them incumbent; 2 men]

  165. 165.

    jayne

    I’d rather cut off a toe than let ActBlue anywhere near my contact information again, but I donated at Four Directions’ website.

  170. 170.

    WaterGirl

    @thruppence: @lowtechcyclist:

    If you unsubscribe because you don’t want all those messages, then you’ll be off the list.

    Then if you give again though the direct to Warnock thermometer in the sidebar, they won’t have your information unless you explicitly say they can have it.

    I’m so glad I discovered that setting in ActBlue, so all of our thermometers are now set up that way.

  173. 173.

    WaterGirl

    @jayne: I have a setting on all of our ActBlue thermometers

    Some Good News from Four Directions <s>and a Double-Angel Match</s> and an Angel Match

    That means that as part of the donation process you are asked if they can share your info with the candidate.  So on all of our BJ thermometers, unless you explicitly agree to share your info, they do not get your contact info!

    So it’s safe to donate through our thermometers.

  175. 175.

    WaterGirl

    Once we have the $615 to finish off this angel match, we will have another special angel match.

    a $500 angel match – but a double-angel match, only matching up to $25 instead of $50.

    Then the next angel match will be for the high rollers :-) matching up to $100!

  177. 177.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Eyeroller: There was this myth fostered by “Family Ties” that the young Reaganites of the ’80s were somehow rebelling against their hippie parents. But most of the boomers weren’t hippies in the first place, and many GenXers’ parents were older than boomers. I think the kids were largely just echoing their parents’ political attitudes.

    My parents were technically Silent Generation by the way these things are conventionally measured, born during World War II. But my mom was super-liberal for the time and I think she pulled Dad along. And I ended up that way too.

  178. 178.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @WaterGirl: i know you’re working on Warnock but you might want to take a look at setting up a thermometer for  Adam Frisch. Boebert’s barely ahead of him and thats before overseas ballots and problem ballots have been counted.

  180. 180.

    WaterGirl

    @Mai Naem mobile: Is there ballot curing to be done in Colorado? I don’t know anything about their rules.  IF there is no ballot curing, how do you think money might help?

    If you or someone wants to look into it, I am open to hearing what’s what.

  181. 181.

    randal m sexton

    Ok, another hundo!!  Wish I could donate some Dungeness crabs — I could donate 5 per day until the season closes.

  182. 182.

    mvr

    OK, I put in another $50 tonight hoping to get the match. I’m also giving some directly to Warnock because I figure the campaign knows what it needs as well. But I understand that that doesn’t get matched and that makes sense.​
     
    Also thank you and the matchers for doing this so regularly.

  190. 190.

    mvr

    @WaterGirl: ​
     
    I have sometimes, perhaps I did for that last donation. I know I pointed it out to my spouse. But I may just have clicked one of his emails. I’m a bit impulsive with my donations which is why the matches make me give (and why I am going to be paying my credit cards for a long time to come).

  192. 192.

    WaterGirl

    Looks like I’ll be asleep by the time we meet the current match.

    If we blow past the final $360 to meet this match, there is another angel waiting in the wings, so anything donated overnight – with the amount mentioned in the comments – will definitely be matched up to $50 each.

    So there will be an angel match overnight and in the morning.  Then at noon we’ll have a special double-angel match for amounts only up to $25 each – until we hit $500 of matches.

    When that’s done, we will move to matching up to $100 per person for awhile.

    Just wanting to give folks a heads up so anyone who is up for the $25 double match can show up at noon.  And so the higher-dollar donation peeps can look for the $100 matching later in the day tomorrow.

    Not just a full service blog, we are equal opportunity, too!  :-)

  194. 194.

    WaterGirl

    @eachother: Thank you!

    I got a burst of energy from seeing races called first for Mark Kelly and then for Adrian Fontes!  But I’m fading fast and about to head to bed for real.

    With your donations we have matched $690 of the latest $1,000 angel match.  We are over 2/3 of the way to this angel match for $1,000.

  195. 195.

    way2blue

    WaterGirl.  Forget to comment earlier—I sent $100 to Four Directions this afternoon.  Thank you for pulling this fund raiser together.  Such an important group to support.

  196. 196.

    WaterGirl

    @way2blue: Okay, thanks for letting me know.  I’ll include it now. And GrandmaBear added  $100 but put it in an older thread.  So i’ll include that now, too.

    With these donations we have matched $790 of the latest $1,000 angel match.  We are over 3/4 of the way to this angel match for $1,000.

  202. 202.

    CapnMubbers

    I didn’t notice link to this post; noted in previous Four Directions post that I just donated $100.00 each to Four Directions and to Direct for Warnock.

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