Balloon Juice - Organizing & Resistance Archives

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: New Story (Old Narrative)

by Anne Laurie| October 30, 20194:55 am| 218 Comments

This post is in: Don't Agonize - Organize, Impeachment Inquiry, Open Threads, Republicans in Disarray!, All we want is life beyond the thunderdome, Get Mad You Sons Of Bitches, Let A Thousand Watergates Bloom

“Most social change starts with a story.” —@BarackObama on how tapping into a story can be the most powerful way to change the world. #ObamaSummit pic.twitter.com/Oz10g2PT7j

— The Obama Foundation (@ObamaFoundation) October 29, 2019

New poll from Suffolk University & USA Today shows most Americans want Trump to stop stonewalling. Asked if the White House has an obligation to comply with the subpoenas from Congress, 66% say yes. Only 26% say no. Even 35% of R's say WH ought to comply. https://t.co/10V12G4xFC

— James Hohmann (@jameshohmann) October 29, 2019

NEW — At an impeachment messaging meeting Tuesday, Pelosi and other Dems prepped for what they believe will be an onslaught of GOP ‘stunts’ designed to disrupt public impeachment hearings. https://t.co/ceiogje64L

W/ @woodruffbets @ErinBanco @sambrodey

— Sam Stein (@samstein) October 29, 2019

NEWS: @RepCunningham, one of the last Democratic holdouts on the impeachment inquiry, tells me he will vote FOR the House resolution this week that lays out ground rules for the processhttps://t.co/Nfbyrmfmj2

— Jamie Lovegrove (@jslovegrove) October 29, 2019

Meanwhile, across the aisle: ‘… Because our lips get tired!’

Jason Chaffetz tells Sean Hannity that congressional Republicans may not be able to read the eight page impeachment resolution in just two days https://t.co/MivkQMMDCU

— Media Matters (@mmfa) October 29, 2019

SRSLY:

Kevin McCarthy is truly a stupid, stupid man. He is a legitimately dumb human being.

Many of Trump’s defenders back him because they are truly no brighter than he is.

This is an idiocracy. https://t.co/e3wHSa9T25

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) October 29, 2019

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: New Story (Old Narrative)Post + Comments (218)

G7 Open Thread: Good News (If We Can Keep Him to It)

by Anne Laurie| October 19, 201911:17 pm| 155 Comments

This post is in: Enhanced Protest Techniques, Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Republicans in Disarray!, Trump Crime Cartel, All Too Normal, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell, Decline and Fall

Trump withdraws his Doral resort as the location for next year’s G7. The move had prompted bipartisan criticism >> https://t.co/8DKwuGu2s3

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) October 20, 2019

WATCH: Washington Post political reporter David Farenthold says Doral is not an ideal place to host the G7 summit. #mtpdaily @Fahrenthold: "If your list was a campground at the top of Mount McKinley, and a Chuck E. Cheese's, and Doral, then Doral was the best place." pic.twitter.com/ld7IuqsclM

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) October 18, 2019

A group of world leaders show up in a Florida resort with no preparation for a meeting hosted by a complete idiot: This is a pitch for "Mar-A-Lago Is Down" that Hollywood rejected because it was too improbably stupid even for an action flick. https://t.co/TqjEXmJSeP

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) October 19, 2019

In October 2016, a former State Dept employee was sentenced to 50 months in prison for his role in steering the sole-sourcing of $2M in USG contracts to a company in which his son had a 50% interest. Trump just steered the G7 meeting directly to himself. https://t.co/soCTpAqBWq https://t.co/mLJUF4schd

— Elizabeth de la Vega (@Delavegalaw) October 18, 2019

More immediately:

JUST IN: The House is teeing up a vote on a resolution to condemn holding the G7 at Trump's Doral resort and "rejecting his practice of accepting foreign government Emoluments without obtaining Congress’ affirmative consent"

Rules Committee plans to mark it up on Tuesday.

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) October 18, 2019

If you’re in a paranoid mood (remember, even paranoids have real enemies!): It has been widely assumed that Trump’s ‘special guest nation’ at this G7 would be… Russia. What price a scenario where Putin rejects his puppet’s down-at-heels hotel, and tells him he’d prefer to introduce his own ‘security arrangements’ at Camp David?

G7 Open Thread: Good News (If We Can Keep Him to It)Post + Comments (155)

PSA Open Thread: Must-Not-Watch Video

by Anne Laurie| October 14, 20199:16 am| 81 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, Enhanced Protest Techniques, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, #notintendedtobeafactualstatement, All Too Normal, Let A Thousand Watergates Bloom

Don Jr. is rocking the stage here at #AMPFEST19! pic.twitter.com/TkwdaR9mtf

— American Priority Conference (@AmericanP2019) October 11, 2019

Over the weekend, those second-tier benchwarmers not required to fluff His Lardship during his hatefest trifecta got together (at a Trump property, of course!) to throw themselves a fan-fest. Complete with ‘volunteer’ videos, including a (possibly deliberately) amateurish parody of the Kingsman movie, showing Trump as a fit’n’focused James Bond character shooting up a church full of ‘media figures’. This — I know, you’re shocked — didn’t go over well with the media in question. (AMPFest has since disavowed the video, FWIW.)

How disconnected from humanity must you be to find humor in a depiction of a mass shooting of journalists inside a church—knowing, surely, that Americans have been slaughtered in churches & newsrooms, that it’s not a fantasy for the families that those shootings made incomplete?

— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) October 14, 2019

I’m sure some people will read this and respond, “lol triggered.” And yeah, I am fucking triggered! Being triggered sometimes just means having access to your ability to feel and to care about others.

— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) October 14, 2019

You’d think the Trumpsters would be a little more cautious, given present circumstances, about pissing off the already-getting-bored media figures required to facilitate their attempts to steal another election, but then: High-quality hires are not a Trump trademark.

***********
Much further down the political food chain, the Sanders campaign announced they’d be hiring independent video producer Matt Orfalea because his extremely enthusiastic pro-Bernie YouTube commercials were so viral. Unfortunately, outside researchers soon discovered ‘#Orf’ had also produced a wealth of deeply cringeworthy material, including a 2-minute ‘parody’ clip-cut entitled ‘MLK: I Have A Wet Dream’. Which I am not linking, not even to one of the many tweets decrying it, because it is every bit as disgusting as you’d imagine, or worse. (Public obscenity standards have relaxed a lot since the days when Sanders was writing rape-fantasy ‘think pieces’ for his local newspaper.) When neither the ‘can’t you people take a joke’ or the ‘when I was young and irresponsible… ‘ defenses defused the critics, the campaign hastily un-hired Orfalea. So, if the Sandernistas are lucky (and can keep from relitigating it all over social media), this glitch in the primary matrix will go unnoticed beyond the obscure realms of the Politically Engaged Online.

PSA Open Thread: Must-*Not*-Watch VideoPost + Comments (81)

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Don’t Just Protest, Do It Fabulously!

by Anne Laurie| October 12, 20195:30 am| 120 Comments

This post is in: Food, Something Good Open Thread, Your Place Is In The Resistance, All we want is life beyond the thunderdome

Climate protesters in Melbourne, Australia have come up with a new term:

Civil Disco-bedience

pic.twitter.com/C8Yi2oqH3g

— Joshua Potash ?? (@JoshuaPotash) October 11, 2019

From the Washington Post, “A spice company spent more money on impeachment ads on Facebook than anyone not named Trump”:

… On Wednesday, Axios published a list of the entities spending the most money on Facebook ads on both sides of the impeachment debate. They included the usual suspects of the political war roll call, including Trump himself (he was top of the list, of course, at $718,000), Democratic presidential candidates Tom Steyer and Elizabeth Warren, and both the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

But one name jumped off the screen for its sheer one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other factor: Penzeys Spices, the nation’s largest spice retailer, had dropped $92,000 from Sept. 29 to Oct. 5 on ads championing impeachment. That was more than self-funding millionaire Steyer, more than hard-charging Warren — more than anyone else other than Trump…

For many Penzeys fans, it comes as no surprise. The company has a history of unabashed liberal activism. Its founder, Bill Penzey, greeted Trump’s election with an email calling the president an “openly racist candidate.” As Helen Rosner noted in a New Yorker story last year, that set him far apart from the rest of the business-leader pack. He was “quite possibly the first to publicly call Trump’s election an ‘embrace of racism,’” she wrote. “And he was definitely the first to do so while hawking a free bottle of Quebec Seasonings with any five-dollar purchase.”…

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: Don’t Just Protest, Do It Fabulously!Post + Comments (120)

Accidental Open Thread (Texas)

by Anne Laurie| October 10, 201912:34 pm| 38 Comments

This post is in: Don't Agonize - Organize, Election 2020, Local races 2019/2020, Open Threads, Republicans in Disarray!

This outdated partial draft got front-paged while I wasn’t around. I’d take it down now, if not for the conversations in the comments. Won’t happen again, I *hope*!

***********

Top Trump Donors THIS YEAR
Robert Mercer $13 Mil
Sheldon Adelson $10 Mil
Linda McMahon $6 Mil
Bernard Marcus $7 Mil
Geoffrey Palmer $2 Mil
Ronald M Cameron $2 Mil
Peter Thiel $1.25 Mil
Walter Buckley Jr $1 Mil
Cherna Moskowitz $1 Mil
Peter Zieve $1Mil#VoteBlue2020

— Lori Go (@lori_go) August 7, 2019

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/take-texas-seriously-gop-anxiety-spikes-after-retirements-democratic-gains/2019/08/02/d9e9942c-b4b8-11e9-8949-5f36ff92706e_story.html

Yep. The key shift here isn’t that Texas is becoming more Hispanic, but that it is becoming more suburban—and Trump is particularly toxic w/ these types of voters. https://t.co/rUdOosiRup

— Matt Lewis (@mattklewis) August 7, 2019

What’s interesting is that Texas’ blue trend in the Trump era has been driven by white people leaving the GOP, not the much-speculated-about hypothetical future increase in Latino turnout. https://t.co/8GBkzOSeNH

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) August 7, 2019

The fact that Republican House members are retiring rather than facing their constituents in TEXAS is probably going to be more relevant to the 2020 election than the quality of zinger delivery at a 2019 presidential debate. https://t.co/EW60YGWj0O

— Seth Masket (@smotus) August 5, 2019

He leaves open #TX24, which was O’Rourke +3.5% last year. Marchant only held on by 3% in 2018 after coasting most of his career. https://t.co/4Qx8qUpRMZ

— J. Miles Coleman (@JMilesColeman) August 5, 2019

In 2018, six GOP House incumbents from TX won their races by less than 5%. Three of them (Olson, Hurd and Marchant) are retiring so far and I’d be really surprised if they’re the last.

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) August 5, 2019

2018 there were 6 Texas Republicans who won with 51% or less. Few of those districts were even contested. There were also several others where the Republican got 52%-55%. https://t.co/3YNNYrn4xM

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) August 5, 2019

A lot of those guys wore dresses to escape before the slaughter so this is the equivalent of that

— death cab for covfefe (@joesmith54321a) August 5, 2019

If the Trump presidency pushes Texas toward the Democrats, it will be a legacy the Republicans regret for a generation. https://t.co/20hDNcgLb6

— Anthony Zurcher (@awzurcher) August 5, 2019

I keep coming back to the 2018-based measures of Trump’s approval rating among Texas voters–right around 50%, including in the exits
To me, it implies Trump was well underwater in TX24–say, minus-4 or worse–where Kenny Marchant (R) is poised to retire https://t.co/vITO72uG9a pic.twitter.com/MFCzLfNomB

— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) August 5, 2019

Republican Rep. Kenny Marchant will not seek reelection in 2020, two sources confirmed to The Texas Tribune.

He is the fourth member of the Texas delegation to announce his retirement in recent days. https://t.co/ZoLhuT3pOw

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 5, 2019

NEW: The much-anticipated future of Texas politics may not have fully arrived – but it has in the booming metros reshaping the state

From SUGAR LAND, our riff on the House #Texodus, new hope post-El Paso that Beto will run for Sen + more

w @mattfleg >https://t.co/dznI4pWNDV

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) August 7, 2019

Accidental Open Thread (Texas)Post + Comments (38)

Gun Safety PSA: Back to School Essentials

by Anne Laurie| September 19, 201910:52 am| 105 Comments

This post is in: Enhanced Protest Techniques, gun safety, Open Threads, Seriously

Trigger warning — this spot is almost too effective…

Seriously good work by the Sandy Hook Promise people — I learned about it from a spot on the local news, and I suspect it’s going viral on the airwaves as well as in social media.

On a technical level, this is an incredibly well-made PSA with riveting performances. On an emotional level, this is a devastating take on school shootings that ends so disturbingly, I had to text my 20 yr old kid to make sure she was okay. She is… And yet I’m still crying. https://t.co/cN86XiIyqH

— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) September 18, 2019

Gun Safety PSA: <em>Back to School Essentials</em>Post + Comments (105)

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Smash the Green Lantern (Theory)

by Anne Laurie| September 19, 20195:55 am| 210 Comments

This post is in: Don't Agonize - Organize, Open Threads, Vote Like Your Country Depends On It, All Too Normal, Our Failed Media Experiment

"why is everything a performance with you, Tony?" ?

?: Imgur user spencerth0mas pic.twitter.com/NTz8GSiVPf

— Paul Bronks (@SlenderSherbet) September 15, 2019

No really, I'm done being generous and assuming they're bad at their jobs, this is their job. If you keep getting paid for doing something, you're doing what your boss wants.

— Je Suis Corn Pop (@agraybee) September 19, 2019

Which is what makes one wonder if these guys are actually very good at their jobs and we just misunderstand what their jobs are.

— Je Suis Corn Pop (@agraybee) September 19, 2019

Doesn’t matter, people who always say Dems are doomed are saying Dems are doomed, so Dems must be doomed. https://t.co/RYdbiK143i

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) September 18, 2019

The problem of Do Something ppl is they are externalizing their inability to deal with the shit of our situation.

They want a quick fix, a hero, a savior, something, ANYTHING, that will lessen their anxiety over the ongoing horrors.

But it doesn't exist.

— Armchairshrink ?? (@armchairshrink) September 19, 2019

Feeling powerless in the face of the unrelenting cruelty and incompetence of this administration can feel unbearable.

But lashing out with completely unrealistic expectations about what can be done is DUMB AS FUCK

— Armchairshrink ?? (@armchairshrink) September 19, 2019

And if your response to having no hope with this situation is to make the Dems electoral chances worse than you are just earning yourself 4 more years of this.

Go volunteer for a senate race and stop making things worse because you can't deal.

— Armchairshrink ?? (@armchairshrink) September 19, 2019

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Smash the Green Lantern (Theory)Post + Comments (210)

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

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

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

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

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

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

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

The jury literally has a bell they can ring to force Trump to show up on command. Greatest thing ever!

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

… gradually, and then suddenly.