Keep the dream alive!
Sorry guys, I have had too much going on, and the quilt drawing hasn’t happened yet. I have a client deadline, so it will be another couple of days, I think.
This whole “The number of hours in a day is finite” thing blows.
Totally open thread!
Baud
I’ll fix that when I’m president.
Yet Another Haldane
Seriously, who thought that would be a good idea? I want to speak to the manager.
Lacuna Synecdoche
Oh, for fuck’s sake, a beyond parody headline from
WaPo:
So both sides are allegedly neither growing or shrinking, but one is “stalled” while the other “holds steady”?
Unbelievable.
TaMara
I thought this was sound advice, something I’ve heard from others:
Hungry Joe
POSTCARD UPDATE — SERIES 2
Completed!
Postcards to Swing States:
Yesterday — 7
Total: 200
Series 1 (Nevada) + Series 2 (Texas) total: 400
Postcards for Tester: 100
Grand total: 500
Message from Postcards to Swing States: “With the help of more than 265,000 volunteers, we’ve completed sign-ups for all 36 million postcards!”
I’ll probably sign up with our local Indivisible group to do another hundred or two, but I’ll spare Ballon Juice the daily updates. I did it to inspire myself (“I can’t report ZERO!”) and maybe inspire a few others as well.
Keep pushing! We got this!
Trollhattan
“Tomorrow is nine-eleven, when Democrats were asleep at the switch and people who hate America made Trump Tower the tallest building in New York, while Arabs danced on the streets of New Jersey.”
–Trump tonight, probably
Chet Murthy
@TaMara: I agree with the sentiment of the video! It’s so great that we have our own strategic donation mechanism here at B-J! Thank you WaterGirl!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Have completed 87 of the 100 postcards for VAAC. The first 40 were mailed out last week. Will mail the rest of the completed ones tonight. Will finish the remainder and mail off this week.
Having the addresses already printed on labels made the process so much faster to write these
Starfish
@Trollhattan: It was interesting to me when people pointed out that their friends under 25 were not alive when that attack happened, and it really made no impression at all in their lives.
WaterGirl
@TaMara: I hope you will all listen to that nice lady, generally speaking, in principle. But don’t go to the website she talks about. :-)
Think about helping to raise the raining $10k-ish for NCAAT or contribute to the Nebraska candidates if that’s your thing.
In fact, I’ll even make the thermometers right now for our final two big fundraising pushes for our organizations – Worker Power and Four Directions Arizona.
So you can choose between all 4 of our options.
And the sooner we finish off the 3 reamaining organizations, the sooner we can add more candidate fundraising. And be available for any FLASH fundraising needs of our partners.
Belafon
@Lacuna Synecdoche: It seems fairly accurate, though. Trump’s really haven’t changed since 2016.
Trollhattan
Kentucky sniper still on the loose.
If he did “take his own life” their thermal image gear isn’t going to help but they can’t take the claim at face value, either. Recalling the Atlanta Olympics bomber and how long he was on the lam.
WaterGirl
@Lacuna Synecdoche:
Even worse, it’s the one WHO HAS BEEN RISING who is stalled, and the one who has been stuck where he is for 2 months is HOLDING STEADY.
Screw these media people!
Trollhattan
@Starfish: It has faded to background, to be sure.
The kid was born that year and I have no idea when she or her friends would have first become aware it had even happened. School mass killings have been their continuous 9/11.
Mike E
@Trollhattan: Eric Rudolph had a whole western NC community keeping him shielded from view, let’s not forget.
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
@Trollhattan:
Their police sketch is making it hard to find the shooter (photo)
Trollhattan
@Mike E:
True, plus the whole Richard Jewell fiasco.
Does the Kentucky guy have a similar network?
SatanicPanic
@Belafon: yeah I don’t see the problem. Trump’s numbers haven’t changed, Harris did pick up a lot of voters who weren’t planning on voting but that seems to be levelling off.
Chet Murthy
@WaterGirl: I didn’t want to run down her reasoning, but now that you’ve mentioned it, I think I will. Maybe I’m wrong about what I write below. I’d be interested to be educated if so.
She’s promoting this site (oath.org ?) where you can input your priorities, and it will spit out a curated set of targets for you to give your money to. But that’s foolishness for any of the national races: what matters is winning the Presidency, and winning majorities in both Houses. All other things being equal, deciding to donate to Joe Blow in Kansas b/c he’s pushing the issues you care about is irrelevant if Ann Smith in NC has a better chance of winning. B/c at the end of the day, it’s about taking control of the Houses.
All that matters is that the Dems win, and picking-and-choosing candidates should only be done based on whether your money is being best-deployed towards that goal.
Now, I agree that for state&local races, it might be a bit different. But even there, if I’m going to donate money to somebody in a far-away state lege or mayoral race, is that the best way to ensure that the Dems retain control of the Federal government? Maybe if I think that donating to that far-away race can help with GOTV, and that state is important for federal races ? I guess? In which case I’ve decided on an interesting bank-shot strategy for affecting swing-state races, I guess ?
The big exception I can see is for donating to races in my state, in my locality, b/c those directly affect my quality of life. It’s cold comfort if I allow the fascists to cement control of my state, in exchange for helping the Dems keep control in Washington. And of course, the key state govt positions and esp. election-related jobs are important for ensuring that in the next cycle the Dems can continue to win.
TL;DR It sure seems like she’s promoting a “supermarket-style 100 different kinds of coffee” approach to political donations. When in fact, there’s only one goal that matters, and only one way of measuring success, b/c the enemy is that horrific.
But I could be wrong.
WaterGirl
@SatanicPanic: Are you just being contrary?
If someone hasn’t been paying attention, it most definitely leaves the impression that Trump is doing better than Harris.
NotMax
@Lacuna Synecdoche
::sigh:: We’ve entered the “taking any polling as gospel” stage.
Blech.
eclare
Take care of you. We will still be here.
Geminid
Turkish journalist Ragip Soylu has an article in Middle East Eye about negotiations for a proposed visit to Ankara by Putin. It is tentatively scheduled for early October but there is a complication: Putin says he needs a Russian fighter escort to keep Ukraine from shooting his plane down, and the Turks are not about to let Russian warplanes into their airspace.
The Russians also complain that Ankara’s three biggest hotels are American-owned, but it could be Putin just doesn’t want to meet with his frenemy Erdogan.
In other Turkiye news, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan spoke today at the Arab League Summit in Cairo. This was the first time Turkiye has attended since 2011, when Erdogan fell out with Arab leaders over the Arab Spring. Since becoming Foreign Minister in 2022, Fidan has been busy repairing the relations his undiplomatic boss damaged, and Erdogan’s recent meeting with Egyptian President al-Sissi capped the process. Al-Siissi was all smiles, and Erdogan wore his most cheerful grimace.
Hakan Fidan is an interesting figure. Fidan was a noncom in the Turkish Army when he was posted to a Nato headquarters in Germany, which (I think) was a sign of ability. While he was there Fidan earned a Polysci degree from the University of Maryland Global Campus. Fidan later earned a PhD and taught at an Istanbul university after he left the Army.
Then in 2005, then-Prime Minister Erdogan tapped him to be his personal troubleshooter. One of Fidan’s first assignments was conducting secret negotiations with the PKK in Norway. His father happens to be Kurdish.
When news of the talks leaked, a state prosecutor opened an investigation into Fidan’s conduct under Turkiye’s anti-terrorism law. Erdogan’s AKP majority passed legislation quashing the investigation. The talks eventually led to a ceasefire in 2013 but it collapsed in 2015.
Later, Fidan served 11 years as head of M.I.T., the Turkish intelligence agency. He’s a well-known figure in Middle Eastern and European capitals.
Lacuna Synecdoche
@Belafon:
@SatanicPanic:
The problem is that the headline describes the identical polling status of each candidate with connotatively different language – Harris’s polling gets connotatively negative language (stalled), while Trump’s poll numbers are described with connotatively positive language (holding steady).
It’s biased, and ridiculously obvious – too obvious for it to be unintentional.
@NotMax:
It wasn’t a comment about polling; it was a comment about biased language.
I guess I need to make my critiques more obvious in the future. I really didn’t think this would require explanation. Mea Culpa.
WaterGirl
@Chet Murthy: I agree with you!
The one place where we might differ is down ballot races, where support for those races (where $$ tends to go further) will likely increase turnout and increase the up ballot voting for president, House and Senate.
Ballot initiatives also increase turnout and voting up and down the ballot (we hope) but the ballot initiative folks have that covered and are already swimming in money.
I remain convinced that what we are doing on BJ is strategic and is giving us the best bang for our buck. If I didn’t I wouldn’t be doing all of this. :-)
But giving is personal, and each person has to make their own decisions.
To mostly quote from my post this morning:
It bears repeating that “close” and “toss-up” and “Republican incumbent in a Biden district” or “I like where they stand on issue X” are not the same as “needs money” or “this would be a good strategic use for our money.”
Chet Murthy
@WaterGirl:
This is why I don’t do my own research, but instead rely on you and the commentariat. B/c I know I’m not qualified to make these judgments.
Trollhattan
Speaking of shooters, good lord why did this family get to own that gun?
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c1w7vx58nr7o
Chet Murthy
@Trollhattan: In these gunhumper states, apparently everything, and I mean everything, short of actually firing (maybe brandishing) a gun is 100% legal. At least, if you’re a white man. Obvs. things are different if you’re Black, or worse a Black woman, or even worse, a Black woman trying to defend herself against an abusive ex-partner.
ETA: I remember a story about some guy who went around town with an AR-15 on his back, just goin’ everywhere, and people are calling the police about it, but they respond with “he’s completely within his rights, etc, etc” until …. well, he started shooting. Gosh, nothing they could have done beforehand, nosirree!
TaMara
@WaterGirl: Oh, totally! I was thinking she was validating all your efforts here, not that we’d all go to a website we know nothing about! Should have clarified when I posted it.
Trollhattan
In which cause-and-effect become reversed by Fearless Leader’s ability to see the future 2.5 years ahead.
Baghdad Bob continues to inspire people of many nations.
Matt McIrvin
@Trollhattan: I recall “their response to our attack retroactively justified our attack” used to justify 9/11 too.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chet Murthy:
We’re all supposed to just give these people the benefit of the doubt of be mind readers. Or have pre-cognition
PST
@Lacuna Synecdoche: Yes indeed! “Stalled” vs. “holding steady” really caught my eye too.
Dmkingto
@WaterGirl: I had a moment of elation, followed by deep disappointment yesterday in regards to the quilt! 🥳😭
I saw the “quilt winner will be announced Monday” sidebar, and given that it was Monday, I clicked on the quilt. There was my name!!! I WON!!! Then I realized it was just the Act Blue donation page LOL
No One You Know
@TaMara: I loved the experience. I made a donation and sent the link to five people!
Gloria DryGarden
@Lacuna Synecdoche: you were clear the first time.
and yes, it’s appalling.