I’ve been slacking on fundraising so I’m going to do a bunch at once now. Early money is important.
Here’s the Balloon Juice Senate Fund, split between nominee funds in several competitive states where we have a chance to flip a seat. (You can allocate as you like when you click on the contributed button.)
The Balloon Juice for Virginia Fund, which gives to the Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus and Virginia House Democratic Caucus. Flipping the legislature in Virginia (where Rs have a one-seat majority in each house) is probably the most important state Democratic goal in 2019.
For those in a more defensive mood, here’s the Balloon Juice House fund, split between the most vulnerable members of the federal Democratic House caucus. A lot of the people in here are first-terms whom we helped win in November 2018 (we raised 375K for the 2018 cycle here, btw).
Yutsano
Seriously DougJ?
SERIOUSLY???
Elizabelle
Benjamin is standing! Which implies walking and running, too. You have been busy.
Happy Friday.
John Cole
I am absolutely dying to know what is behind that grate is it a magical rat kingdom please say yes
geg6
Look at that big boy!
Just for that pic, I’m in.
rikyrah
Benny is wearing that hat!
LOL
JPL
Look at those eyes.
Fair Economist
Thanks for this ongoing series. Any chance you could add a donation for statehouses in general? I know statehouse campaigns are generally sparsely funded and money goes a long way, but it’s not easy to pick trustworthy groups.
Mary G
Bennie and the dog! Donated.
Baud
He’s so big now!
A Ghost To Most
Sorry I’m not a collaborator
mrmoshpotato
Stop. Hammer time.
TenguPhule
@John Cole: You’ve read this then?
Another Scott
@Yutsano: rofl.
Cheers,
Scott.
Raven
Shit, RGB with pancreatic treatment. That is not good.
TomatoQueen
@Raven: SHE’S FINE. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-underwent-treatment-for-tumor-on-pancreas/2019/08/23/546fdeb8-c5d5-11e9-9986-1fb3e4397be4_story.html DO NOT ALARM THE TROOPS.
[Individual 1] mistermix
“I Hereby Order”
Dorothy A. Winsor
@TomatoQueen: I walked past a TV in a café, saw a pic of RBG on the screen, and nearly had a heart attack.
Raven
@TomatoQueen: Sorry, I don’t buy it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: Co-sign. WTF?
Brachiator
@[Individual 1] mistermix:
Madness of King Donald.
Another Scott
@Raven: It actually sounds like she has a very good prognosis.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4293479/
The treatment is apparently very effective for localized tumors.
Fingers crossed.
Cheers,
Scott.
jl
@Raven: Yeah. Probably not good to say ‘She’s Fine’./
But there are two different kinds of pancreatic cancer, endocrine and exocrine (since pancreas has both types of glands).
Saw a story she was treated for pancreatic cancer in 2009. So for now I am thinking she has exocrine pancreatic cancer, which is not as bad and endocrine, if she had the latter in 2009, very small chance she’d still be here now.
Maybe medical people here can chime in, if I got it wrong, or backwards, or whatever.
Edit: should have checked wiki first, I think I got endocrine and exocrine mixed up.
Immanentize
@TomatoQueen:
@Raven:
Mmmm, she is not fine. But she also isn’t dead yet. The worrisome part of the article(s) is the stent placement for bile release. I sadly know a LOT about this because of my wife’s gastric tumor. That stent is necessary when a tumor stops the bile drain into the duodenum. That bile back up causes jaundice and can be the thing that kills you. So, either her pancreatic tumor was preventing the bile ducts from draining into the intestines, or the radiation had damaged the bile release mechanisms from liver to intestines. Or worse, there was (contra the report) cancer movement from pancreases to liver (that happened to my Dad). All those possibilities are pretty serious. In my wife’s case, even the most skilled stent surgeon guy in the world (at Brigham and Women’s) couldn’t manage to get the damn thing placed because of too much tumor interference. So, it is good she got the stent placed which should prevent her being poisoned like that, but it is quite a bad thing that she needed one at all.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I’d like to ask if anybody can help with something.
I have a Facebook friend who until today, was an adjunct (I think) teacher at a college in Iowa. Well, some local news outlet did a story on him for some reason because he’s outspoken about supporting antifa. He isn’t a public figure by any stretch, so I don’t know why they did that. Anyway, it stirred up a lot of publicity, and somebody went digging through his Facebook posts and came up with something he evidently wrote about seven years ago, and people began calling for him to be fired. When the threats began coming to burn down the college, they put him on administrative leave. A little while ago, he resigned altogether. In the meanwhile, his wife feels unsafe living at home.
Anyway, I guess you can see where this is going. Surely, the guy must have some recourse, if only the right people were there to help him deal with this mess. Since so many people here know somebody, or know somebody who knows somebody, I was wondering if any of you might point me the right way, and then I can point him the right way.
Gracias.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Here is the piece, if anybody wants to read it.
Origuy
Amy McGrath ad about Moscow Mitch’s lack of support for coal miners.
Immanentize
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
I am very sorry this is happening. And sadly, I don’t know where to turn. But it certainly would be a great law practice concept.
sdhays
OT: It’s pretty astounding how Dump is able to get away with blaming people he hired for failures (e.g. causing a recession) and pretend that his hires’ failures aren’t his too. I mean, assuming that his criticism is accurate (and, to be honest, it probably is since if someone took a job working for Donald Dump, they’re definitely not quality people) he’s still the one who chose them, so he failed at hiring good people.
Right? Right???
Baud
@sdhays:
What do you mean by getting away with it? The only thing that’s not happening is that Republicans aren’t turning against him. But there’s nothing astounding about that.
Immanentize
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
That looks like the nut graph and most important legal concept, but adjuncts have few protections and are generally (especially at State schools) hired on year to year contracts at the most. My guess is he will be paid off for the semester/year and then simply not renewed. That sucks — which is why teachers need tenure or some version of long term contracts.
Steve in the ATL
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): he should hire Lin Wood who has free time after losing the Nick Sandmann case!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@sdhays: Harry S Truman: “The Buck Stops Here.”
Trump: “The Buck Stops, over there, next to that guy. Yeah, that guy(points).”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
Fixed it for ya.
Yutsano
@Baud: That will only happen when it seems like the cult will break. Spoilers: it’s not breaking any time soon. The closet racists are LOVING being able to let their freak flag fly. The “President” finally gets them because at his core he’s a Queens slumlord who was always taught to regard anyone who was not a white upper crust Manhattanite (or a Russian/North Korean dictator) as slime at the very least. He IS their racism writ large. He’s daring to say the hidden parts out loud.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Also not astounding. But Trump’s suits are mostly blue, not tan.
Baud
@Yutsano:
I agree. He owns their heart and soul, such as they are.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Wearing a tan suit? Very un-Presidential.
FlipYrWhig
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): IIRC both Scott Lemieux and Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns, and Money blog are history professors who have been harassed similarly. They might have some ideas for your friend.
Raoul
$375K for the 2018 cycle. That’s amazing for far flung web of jackals. I’m glad I could help. And I’ll be firing up the credit card in just a couple days (next billing cycle starts soon, gotta wait…)
ThresherK
Deadspin has an article and video of Mr. B, the now-famous chonky cat.
TenguPhule
DOW down 623 for the day.
Raoul
@Baud: It’s verging on astounding. His approval rating has been under water nearly the entire time, and with a good (if spotty) economy. As he gets more loony, and the economic news (like this or this) keeps piling up, the anchor chain will start pulling his ‘friends’ down (narrator: he has no friends).
Once they figure this out (narrator: the dumb ones will not figure this out. We aren’t sure there are smart ones), they’ll turn on him.
MattF
Welp, Megan McArdle notes that Trump is bugfuck crazy. It’s late in the day for this particular insight, IMO.
Raoul
@TenguPhule: This is what the economically anxious voted for!
TenguPhule
@MattF:
Now I know we’re doomed. She’s started making sense.
Gin & Tonic
@MattF: Wow, can’t put one over on her.
Raoul
@MattF:
McArglebargle, looking forward to working with Trump enablers in the future. I just cannot.
Also, too, fuck this fucking bullshit:
When she was at The Atlantic (was that who launched this drivel-machine’s career?) she at least tried to do economics. Badly.
Now she’s just a zombie of GOP talking points.
Van Buren
The allegation that I have allied myself with a Trump booster is slanderous.
TomatoQueen
She is one tough cookie, is our RBG, and will hang on longer than anyone predicts. My point is please don’t panic, especially when what’s being written is detailed enough to be reassuring–of course that’s intentional but ffs there are other situations more fraught with unknowns.
Also, too: There was a timeline in which Hilary won. There was a timeline in which the Cubs won the Series. The first law of the universe is that those two timelines cannot converge without contradiction or blowing up known space.
Miss Bianca
@ThresherK: Oh, that is so much fun! : )
Asked my friend D about adopting Mr. B. He was not amused. Not a Cat Guy.
Me: “But he’s as big as a bobcat! He’d actually be able to stand up to Roxy and Watson!” D: “I’d rather have the bobcat.”
Fortunately, we have plenty of *them* around.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Yutsano:
And what if these people were to start facing real consequences for letting their freak flags fly?
ETA: Also, Benny is such a big boy now! How old is he now? And can we get more pictures of the dog also too? : )
zhena gogolia
@Yutsano:
I had no idea what that was from. It’s a nice phrase, you have to admit!
Raoul
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Like not being paid to be on Dancing with the Dregs? Apparently ABC thinks a lying liar will be compelling. For the coveted septuagenarian ad market.
rikyrah
@TenguPhule:
so much winning.
MAGA, Bytches
rikyrah
@Yutsano:
true. this is who they are.
Raven
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Try this one about the UGA Grad student and his post
Killing some white people isn’t genocide; it’s killing some white people,” the UGA TA explained in a Medium post. “We had to kill some white people to get out of slavery. Maybe if we’d killed more during the 20th century we still wouldn’t talk about racialized voter disenfranchisement and housing, education, and employment discrimination. This should not be controversiaL
Steve in the ATL
@Raven: never heard of that website before. It looks like radical right wing propaganda.
Raven
@Steve in the ATL: I hadn’t either, I figured if the story is of interest the reader can do more research having the names and such.
Steve in the ATL
If it helps a few wingnut brains explode, then I guess it’s a good thing
Raven
@Steve in the ATL: I thought the relevant part was that he didn’t get fired.
sdhays
@Baud: Reporting pretty much seems to just let it hang there for the audience to realize for themselves. Every time Dump attacks Powell, for example, people should be reminded that Powell is a Dump appointee. The media just assumes people know things.
sdhays
@sdhays: And, yeah, what does “astounding” mean nowadays? I’m running out of words to express how galling the things he does are.
Shana
As an on-the-ground snapshot of my neighborhood in Northern Virginia, I spent much of today handing out D lit at my local elementary school’s Meet Your Teacher event. The R’s were also there as usual but they were exhorting people about protecting girls’ sports and girls’ safety which I can only think means that Fairfax County Public Schools have instituted, or may be instituting, a policy allowing trans kids to use the bathrooms or locker rooms that conform to their gender identity. I carefully read the lit they were passing out however and there was no mention of anything like that even in code.
There were more people who seemed happy to have my lit than I’ve seen in previous years and the area is trending bluer than it was when I moved here. For context, my area is a fairly affluent one, lots of government contractors, lawyers, and federal employees. It’s increasingly diverse too. If I had to guess, there are people from middle-eastern arabic speaking countries, a wide variety of asian countries with a lot of Koreans, Hispanics, African-Americans.
We have, in addition to Delegate and Senate races, County Government, School Board, Commonwealth’s Attorney and Soil and Water Board. There’s a real chance we can flip enough seats in the State government to take control before redistricting. It’s so important.
Shana
@Steve in the ATL: On a somewhat-related topic there was a hearing today in Richmond for the Devis Nunes suing Twitter and DevinCow et.al. I gather Nunes wasn’t there and a decision isn’t expected today.