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You are here: Home / Political Fundraising / Targeted Political Fundraising 2023-24 / It’s Up To Us Now, As it Always Was: First Stop, Montana

It’s Up To Us Now, As it Always Was: First Stop, Montana

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THIS IS AN OPEN THREAD.

We’re trying to raise about $9,000 more for Four Directions Montana, where the Native vote is more than the margin of victory in past elections.   We need Joe Biden, and the House and the Senate – and as part of that, we need to keep Jon Tester in the Senate.  He’s not just a Democrat; he’s a great senator.

Reminder: Four Directions Quilt Raffle is still ongoing.  Raffle tickets $25 each – donate through the thermometer, and send email to WaterGirl for the raffle tickets.  Here’s the quilt, in case you missed the earlier posts.

Quilt Raffle for Four Directions Montana – Let's Keep This Senate Seat

Raffle tickets alone aren’t going to get us to the goal of $45,000 in the thermometer, and we have a Balloon Juice Angel to help get us there.  The $1,500 Angel match will match up to $25 per person.  In order to be matched, add your donation amount in the comments.

If you want raffle tickets with these donations that are being matched in the thread, please send me an email message, thanks!

Reminder: If we hit $45,000 in the thermometer, that will be $80,000 for the Native vote in Montana. $45k in the thermometer, a $5k Angel check, plus the $30k external match that we met before Thanksgiving. $80k will go a long way in Montana!

Reader Interactions

120Comments

  9. 9.

    GSV Sleeper Service

    I grew up in a different time in Montana – fuck these carpetbaggers.  $25

  13. 13.

    HinTN

    @WaterGirl: Added $49 just to get rid of that silly, but important $1 on the meter. Match that $25, and thank you angel whoever you are.

  14. 14.

    H.E.Wolf

    @WaterGirl: ​Pretty soon you guys are gonna be messing with me: “half a benjamin” or “12.5 jefferesons” or “two twenties and 10 susan b. anthonys”.

     Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar – all for Montana, stand up and holler!

    Thanks for the chance to help get out the Native American vote in MT.

  15. 15.

    Manyakitty

    Awesome! You should see my email from a few moments ago with my $100.

    Thanks again! (And thank you QuiltingFool!)

  16. 16.

    WaterGirl

    I don’t know that it will actually happen, but there is some talk that perhaps we might get a star quilt at some point – made by Native folks in Montana – to raffle off for funds for Montana.

    How awesome would that be?

  20. 20.

    H.E.Wolf

    Montana has a history of being pro-union labor, as described here by the Montana Historical Society.
    https://historicmt.org/tours/show/83

    Their mention of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers reminded me that we have a fridge magnet that I made from a BLE button (the kind you find in a second-hand store).

    Also the Loom Fixers Union, Local 734. Anyone know where that would have been located?

  22. 22.

    RedDirtGirl

    Chipped in as well and sent an email re: raffle tickets. Quilt, come to mama!

  23. 23.

    The Thin Black Duke

    Open thread?

    After months of being stuck between a writer’s block and a hard place, I’m slowly getting back into the groove again.

    Here’s my latest.

    Yeah, I do want to contribute to BJ eventually, but I’m think I want to stay away from politics and do something related to movies from an Afrocentric POV.

    I’ll figure it out.

  24. 24.

    WaterGirl

    @The Thin Black Duke: Would you consider cross-posting that here on BJ?

    Not everything on BJ needs to be about politics.

    I would be thrilled to have your voice here again on the front page.  Holding off on clicking the link in the hopes that your answer will be yes.

    P.S.  Congratulations on starting to get past the writer’s block!

  25. 25.

    WaterGirl

    Hey guys, I have 2 spreadsheets going.

    One for donations to be matched – that needs a comment in the thread.

    AND

    one for raffle tickets.

    If you want raffle tickets for your matched donations, please add your donation in the comments AND send me the email about the raffle

    (I track matching donations based on comment number and nothing else, and for the raffles I need names and nyms, etc.  thanks

  28. 28.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @The Thin Black Duke: Damn.  This is making me want to re-watch the early seasons of TWD, which I maintain is criminally underrated.  Those first couple seasons, it was as good as anything else on tv, imo.

  31. 31.

    H.E.Wolf

    @H.E.Wolf: Also the Loom Fixers Union, Local 734. Anyone know where that would have been located?​

     Aha! Tiny print on the Loom Fixers button: “Trades Council – Union Label – Allied Printing – Lowell”.

    I lived in the Boston area in my late teens/early 20s. This is likely to be Lowell, MA, a textile-mill town that’s famous for the first women’s worker union in the USA.
    https://aflcio.org/about/history/labor-history-events/lowell-mill-women-form-union

    “Union is Power … we remain in possession of our own unquestionable rights.”
    https://bostonraremaps.com/inventory/union-is-power-lowell-women-mill-workers-strike-1834/

    A timely reminder that there’s always a way to participate in making things better for ourselves and others. Hooray for Four Directions, Quiltingfool, and the Democratic voters of Montana!

  33. 33.

    Almost Retired

    I’m in for $50.  This is such smart targeting.  Four Directions knows how to turn out the Native vote and that vote is large enough and Democratic enough to put Tester over the line.

  40. 40.

    delphinium

    In for $50.

    @The Thin Black Duke: Thank you for sharing that-all so very distressing and true that those who could most afford to do something will not. And that quote by Hobbes, Hell is truth seen too late is definitely relatable.

  41. 41.

    Coyoteville

    I just donated $25 to Four Directions (and added $5 to “ActBlue Civic Tips).

  46. 46.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @UncleEbeneezer: If you ask me, they should pull the plug on TV shows after five seasons. Any longer than that, “jumping the shark” becomes inevitable.

  47. 47.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @WaterGirl: At the risk of sounding like a clueless old guy who’s terrified of tech more complicated than a calculator, how do I do that?

  48. 48.

    WaterGirl

    @RevRick:  You’ll be matched at $25, but if you want raffle tickets, send me an email and you will get 10 tickets.

    THAT GOES FOR EVERYONE – If you want raffle tickets, you get tickets for the whole amount you donated.  But you have to send me an email message for the raffle tickets.

  51. 51.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @The Thin Black Duke: Probably true.  We bailed once Negan entered the picture.  Not only because of that scene, but just sorta lost interest with the whole dynamic, especially once Rick left.  I’m trying to think of any series where the 6+ seasons were really good and I’m struggling.  Come to think of it, I can’t really think of any foreign shows either.  I think it’s pretty hard to sustain a high level of quality that long.

  53. 53.

    JML

    @The Thin Black Duke: it’s certainly true in a lot of cases, especially for shows where they don’t know if they’re getting renewed at the end of season. But I would have hated West Wing to have ended after the meh season 5, especially when seasons 6 and 7 were much more of a return to form. And while Frank Burns was absolutely the officious ass you loved to hate, the Winchester years brought some real excellence on M*A*S*H. Maybe shows like that are just the outliers that prove the rule, but I can think of several more without trying too hard

  54. 54.

    WaterGirl

    @The Thin Black Duke: Ha!  You just make the post here like you wold any other post, just copy and paste from the other location.  Though you’ll have to add images here if you used them there.

    On Medium you can just add a note (often italics)

    Cross-posted on Balloon Juice.

    On BJ, you can add:

    Cross-posted on Medium.

    Example from Cheryl Rofer: Cross-posted to Lawyers, Guns & Money

  57. 57.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Manyakitty: Yes but they have far less constraints as far as maintaining one over-arching narrative, imo.  I used to love TNG but I would often miss episodes and watch sporadically.  Aside from some rare exceptions, it never felt like I even needed to see the last episode to appreciate the current one (which is one of the things I loved about it).

  59. 59.

    H.E.Wolf

    @JCJ: ​
    @H.E.Wolf: (the kind you find in a second-hand store)

    Did you get a raspberry beret as well?

     I was holding out for a little red Corvette. :)

  65. 65.

    karen marie

    @WaterGirl:   I haven’t read Duke’s piece but I second the emotion that not everything here has to be related to politics.  One of the lovely things about BJ is that you all provide lovely respite posts on a regular basis.

  66. 66.

    Old School

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    If you ask me, they should pull the plug on TV shows after five seasons. Any longer than that, “jumping the shark” becomes inevitable.

    Just want to say that Happy Days ran for 11 seasons.  Fonzie jumped the shark in Season 5.

  69. 69.

    Memory Pallas

    $50 toward the match. Watched the thermometer go up. (Will send email about the raffle now.)

  71. 71.

    NutmegAgain

    That quilt is amazing! Sadly, it would get wrecked around here with the big, muddly, slobbery dog.

  72. 72.

    Old School

    @zhena gogolia:

    We’re really enjoying the first season. When does Adam Arkin show up?

    Wikipedia says Adam Arkin shows up in the last episode of Season 1 (Episode 8).

  73. 73.

    BenInNM

    $25 for the match! Thanks again for doing this. I really appreciate the option on the ActBlue page to not share my email. I find between that and being diligent about unsubscribing, I’ve really cut down on donation email spam

  74. 74.

    narya

    I got three different emails from someone who was recruiting me based on my Linked In profile, and I suspect I’d be a great match for the job. However, the organization believes that life begins at conception, so I finally wrote back and said, yeah, I’m a great fit, with tons of experience, but I categorically disagree with your organization’s position that life begins at conception, so no thanks. I wasn’t gonna respond at all, but after the third email, I figured to hell with it.

  75. 75.

    UncleEbeneezer

    It’s Up To Us Now, As It Always Was

    Indeed.  And now that SCOTUS may possibly push the Jan 6 trial beyond the election, we’re now gonna find out who really cares about holding Trump accountable and is willing to do their part to make that happen by reelecting Biden.

  78. 78.

    Paul W

    Dunno if we are still matching but been waiting for more fundraising here! $50 coming their way!

  82. 82.

    Spanky

    Pitched in $109 just to get rid of that extra dollar only to find I wasn’t the only one with that thought.

    Anyway, we’re closing in on $40K.

  83. 83.

    pat

    In for $100.  Why not.  I LOVE those quilts but I wouldn’t know what to do with one….. But I suppose I could enter the raffle and hope I don’t win, so why not??

    I have one that my mother made from scraps of stuff she had sewed.  It goes on the bed in the spring.  She was an awesome seamstress, finishing the hems on the Easter dresses on the way to church, wedding dresses, etc.  When her neuropathy got too bad to sew by hand she made my quilt with the sewing machine.

  84. 84.

    WaterGirl

    @karen marie: And not even respite posts, necessarily, just posts on more than politics.

    Since this is a marathon not a sprint, if we want to stay sane and function, we have to stay connected to other things, too.

  88. 88.

    WaterGirl

    @Paul W: Yes, still matching!  We are just hitting the halfway mark on this $1,500 match.

    And another angel sent me email a little while ago with an offer to match another $1,000.

    So I’m hopeful that we’ll have matches to get us all the way to the $45k mark on the thermometer.

  89. 89.

    WaterGirl

    @feloniousferb: to you and everyone else:

    If you want raffle tickets for these donations, send me email.

    Only the first $25 is matched, but you get 1 raffle ticket for every $25 you donated, matched or not!

  94. 94.

    thruppence

    In for $25, wish I could do more … and since this is an election year I probably will…

  95. 95.

    thruppence

    Okay, now I’m feeling dimmer than usual – how do I email Watergirl? I’ve seen it before but I can’t remember or find it now. Lo siento

  99. 99.

    Wolvesvalley

    I sent $100 to Four Directions last Thursday, but here’s another $25 for the angel match. It’s great to see that thermometer going up!

  103. 103.

    WaterGirl

    Wow, thanks to everyone who donated!

    We are at $1,050 toward the match, so we are 2/3 of the way to the $1,500 angel match!

  105. 105.

    Lurker Dan

    Added $50. No need for raffle tickets, keeping the Senate is more than enough.

  114. 114.

    Debbie (Aussie)

    I would be so proud to own that gorgeous quilt. I’m guessing foreigners are out☹️

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