The Senate will be hard to grab and the gerrymandered House is always a stretch, but we have easier pickings with respect to governor-ships.
Three dozen GOP governors gathering in Austin, Texas, to discuss their prospects at the polls next year are completely spooked by the Democratic rout in Virginia. CNN writes:
"Just simply the intensity of the opposition -- I think that's what was reflected in the Virginia vote," said Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson. "That should be a wake-up call to all of our supporters in the elections next year."
But the Republican governors haven't figured out what to do about an increasingly toxic national political environment that led to a surge in Democratic support in the Virginia suburbs last week.
I still can’t believe this:
Democrat Doug Jones has opened up an eight-point lead in the US Senate race in Alabama amid multiple sexual abuse allegations against Republican Roy Moore, according to a new Fox News poll released Thursday.
Like I said, I’m skeptical. I can imagine that some people don’t want to admit to pollsters that they would support a pedophile over anyone or anything. Because the dislike of Democrats is strong in Alabama. On the other hand, maybe this is a bridge too far. I have no idea how this vote will turn out. However, it sure looks like good news and is making the Republicans squirm, because in states less crimson, people will choose a Democrat rather than a pedophile, and right now, the GOP is the preferred party of pedophiles.
Now, this is speculation but very interesting
Gold trader Reza Zarrab was secretly removed from prison earlier this month and a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Nick Blase, says, “All I can tell you is that he is in federal custody.” According to Financial Times Zarrab’s confessions “exposed a global scheme that involved transferring vast quantities of gold to Iran, allegedly bypassing US sanctions imposed on the country’s banking system. Turkish investigators accused him of paying large bribes to cabinet ministers close to Mr Erdogan to expedite the gold shipments.” Now he’s nowhere to be found and everybody is wondering about him. They’re wondering in particular about his upcoming testimony in regards to another person who allegedly is in the business of large bribes, in his case accepting them, in order to get the work of the Turkish government done, none other than Mike Flynn.
The fact that we have to speculate about the Mueller investigation is a good thing, because it means he’s not running a leaky campaign. Anyway, flipping Flynn — whose son is also vulnerable — means getting very close to Trump and probably to Pence as well.
David Mendels is the former CEO of Brightcove as well as Adobe executive. Writing on LinkedIn Mr. Mendels broke down the lie that is the GOP tax cut plan. Specifically, Mendels attacked Trump senior economic adviser Gary Cohn and Speaker Paul Ryan’s assertions that this tax cut is about helping the middle class by easing their burdens and creating wage increases across the board.
We have real allies in the fight against the tax travesty. See this from a Wisconsin Dairy Farmer in the overnight thread, talking about the estate tax.
as Twitter unverifies their accounts.
Twitter stood by its new guidelines and finally took a step to delegitimize the platforms of white nationalists by unverifying their accounts.
This to me is not a simple matter. Free speech is the ideal, but does that give anyone the permission to say anything, any time? It’s illegal to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater (unless, of course, the place is actually on fire). What about lies? Should a pregnancy center be allowed to lie to a young woman seeking an abortion?
We have a certain set of ideals based on assumptions about humans — assumptions that don’t necessarily hold up. And so these are conversations we need to have.
Also, I feel happy when white supremacists are unhappy.
Republicans have pounced on the allegation that Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota groped and forcibly kissed a colleague in 2006 during rehearsal for a comedy sketch. Within a couple hours of the news breaking, GOP Leader Mitch McConnell immediately called for an investigation by the Congressional Ethics Committee. His hour-long deliberation stood in stark contrast to the four days that languished between him saying Roy Moore should step aside only "if these allegations are true" and his declaration that he believed the women.
Republicans are now anxious to paint the Franken assault as an apples-to-apples comparison with Moore’s pedophilia. To be sure, their behavior is completely inexcusable and, in both cases, their female victims have tragically and silently borne the scars of those inappropriate advances for years.
But as a matter of politics, Democrats can, should, and already are demonstrating a response that sets them apart from Republican cowardice.
Indeed, Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as well as Franken himself were quick to call for an ethics investigation into the issue.
Why do I consider this good news? First, women finally are safe enough to come forward. It’s still difficult, because they both have to revive the trauma and subject themselves to scrutiny and insults. Second, Democrats are standing against this.
We Have to Keep Resisting!
They’re going to keep on fighting
The Franken story is all in the news, and although I am not in a position to judge what happened there (I have been traveling, and due a delay I’m a bit behind in some details), one reason it is gaining so much traction is because the Russians and their trolls and their bots are promoting it. We understand this better than we did during the 2016 campaign, and I hope we can manage our response better. But this war is not over.
We have allies
The tax bill is just the latest horrible proposal to come out of these Republicans, but we have allies. CEOs and millionaires and even dairy farmers are taking action against it.
We’re making a difference
The fact of how well we did in Virginia, the fact that a Democrat stands a chance of winning in Alabama (!), the fact that we have pushed back on so much of the evil Republican agenda, the fact that Republican governors are nervous — these are all pieces of evidence that we are making a difference.
Choose your battles
This is a war on many fronts, and few of us have the skill or energy to fight them all. Pick a few and tell us what you’re doing. Some of it’s the same old stuff — writing and calling reps — but it is still worth sharing, just as it is certainly worth doing. And, if you’re doing anything new, share that as well!
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This is my first time at bat, and on top of it my travel the last two days was hit by some delays. So I might have missed something — some good news or some typos. Please put in the comments!