I’m more than a little under the weather right now, so this might be a bit short again. At this rate, I’ll have to write 2500 words next week just to catch up. But I do have some news that makes up in quality what it lacks in quantity.
As we await the jury’s decision in the Paul Manafort trial, we have a chance to reflect on all the encouraging developments of the last few days. I’m sure we all know very well that there will be plenty of bad news as long as the Trump crime family and its co-conspirators are in charge. But we can clearly see each and every day that their goals are unattainable so long as the majority of people who are good and decent continue to fight them every step of the way.
To my mind, one of the best examples of that was reflected in the hilariously tiny turnouts for the white nationalist rallies last weekend. The Nazis and Klansmen and the rest of that sort, who seemed so powerful just a year ago, are back to where they were before Trump, Bannon, Miller, et. al. began giving them support. Their marches and rallies look like they did ten years ago—a couple of dozen pathetic losers surrounded by thousands of people with one simple message for them.
When we fight, we can win, whether it’s in the streets or at the ballot box.
THE BLUE WAVE JUST KEEPS BUILDING
GOP VOTERS SHOOT THEMSELVES IN THE FOOT IN KANSAS
As I’m sure you know, Kris Kobach has won his party's nomination for Kansas governor this week. This was a dream come true for Democrats. We couldn't have asked for a better opponent.
In the closest gubernatorial primary in Kansas history, Kobach barely beat Colyer, who had to split the "Please, God, not Kobach" vote with two other Republicans. Colyer had his own baggage — he served as lieutenant governor when Sam Brownback was governor, and was tainted by the disaster of the Brownback tax cuts. Yet it’s Kobach who was considered the weaker opponent for Democratic nominee Laura Kelly.
In solid red Kansas, Kobach’s antics and bad lawyering have worn thin even among Republicans. If Colyer had ended his political career, it would have been a real public service — not just for Kansas but for America. Still, for obvious reasons, Kansas Democrats were pulling for Kobach to win the primary.
There's always a risk in getting what you wish for, and in this case that risk is Greg Orman — an independent candidate who could draw votes away from Kelly. But for now Democrats' only regret is that the vote count took just a week, since every day it dragged on was another day’s head start.
The Cook Political Report agrees, and yesterday they announced that the Kansas governor’s race is now a tossup.
In the general election, voters are looking at a competitive three-way race with Greg Orman, a businessman who is running as an independent. Orman ran for the U.S. Senate in 2014, giving GOP U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts a competitive race. While Orman could siphon votes away from Kelly, he is also likely to win over some Republican votes, especially from Colyer supporters looking for an alternative to Kobach. Three-way races are complicated equations. In a state as Republican as Kansas, the GOP nominee would normally be at least a slight favorite, but Kobach is controversial enough to put this race in the Toss Up column.
cook’s shifts ratings to the left in four house races—three are now tossups
As the polls continue to produce disturbing news for Republicans, Cook’s has responded by once again making encouraging changes to House ratings.
For Republicans, the 2018 House playing field is a lot like a game of Whack-a-Mole: everywhere they turn, new problems keep popping up in surprising places. In January, we rated 20 GOP-held seats as Toss Ups or worse, including three leaning towards Democrats. With today's changes, we now rate 37 GOP-held seats as Toss Ups or worse, including ten leaning towards Democrats.
The list of changes they made:
CA-45: Walters | Lean R to Toss Up ←
FL-26: Curbelo | Toss Up to Lean R →
NJ-03: MacArthur | Lean R to Toss Up ←
NC-09: OPEN (Pittenger) | Lean R to Toss Up ←
PA-10: Perry | Likely R to Lean R ←
donations through actblue top $1 billion
As of a couple of weeks ago, donations to candidates and causes though ActBlue reached an impressive milestone.
The online fundraising platform ActBlue this week surged past the $1 billion mark in contributions to Democratic candidates and causes in this election cycle.
The group predicts donations will top $1.5 billion by year’s end, double the amount the fundraising clearinghouse processed in the 2016 election cycle. By comparison, it took ActBlue nearly 12 years – from its founding in June 2004 until March 2016 – to raise its first $1 billion.
The average donation this cycle: $34.
I think we can top that $1.5 billion estimate. Don’t you?
And that’s not the only place where funds are coming from.
democratic mega-donor pledges $10 million for Gotv effort
Tom Steyer said on Monday that he will spend $10 million dollars as part of a concerted effort to get Democratic voters to the polls in November.
In a town hall in Lansing, Mich., on Monday, Steyer said that he would continue to work on the impeachment campaign. But he billed the get-out-the-vote effort as a necessary step to reclaim Washington from a Republican Congress that has given Trump a blank check.
"Congress is effectively broken and it has been for a long time. Our representatives talk about the issues, but they cannot find a way to do anything about them," Steyer said.
"We’re at a time when we need to start getting things done again; when we need action," he added. "And I believe that has to start with the people."
Mr. Steyer plans to spend over $100 million this election cycle. With the Koch Brothers probably sitting this one out due to their anger at Trump, this kind of money matters.
But wait, there’s more.
DKos Democratic Nominee Fund Pledges $300,000 to Five More Primary Winners
The Daily Kos Democratic Nominee Fund is the result of small donations from our fellow Kossacks. On Tuesday it was announced that $300,000 is being released to help out some primary winners in that night’s elections.
The Democratic nominees in Kansas’s 3rd Congressional District, Michigan’s 11th Congressional District, Minnesota’s 2nd and 3rd Congressional Districts, and Washington’s 8th Congressional District will receive their share of over $300,000 from more than 150,000 individual, small-dollar grassroots donations the Daily Kos community has given to eject Republicans from these House seats.
Daily Kos has led the way in supporting Democrats across the country this cycle, raising over $5.8 million for candidates in small, grassroots donations in 2017-2018. We will continue to analyze and invest in key races nationwide.
There’s still more.
beto o’rourke uses money raised in response to cruz attack ads to run his own tv ads
Ted Cruz recently unleashed his first ads, and as one would expect they were misleading attacks on Beto. In response to those ads, Democrats donated $1.27 million dollars to Beto’s campaign in 50 hours. Monday it was announced that the money will be used to run Beto’s first TV ads.
O'Rourke's campaign told supporters Monday that it has placed a "$1.27 million media buy" and voters will start seeing "positive TV ads" in 20 Texas markets this week. The dollar amount represents how much O'Rourke, an El Paso congressman, raised two weekends ago in response to Cruz's first round of TV ads, three of which targeted the challenger.
"Texans in all 254 counties of our state are proving that together, we will be the big, bold, confident answer to the small, petty, negative attacks that are coming our way," O'Rourke said in a statement.
Whether O'Rourke would air TV ads in the race — and if so, how extensively — has been something of an open question for months. He has expressed ambivalence about the effectiveness of TV ads nowadays and talked about investing heavily in a field operation instead.
The huge outpouring of financial support in response to Cruz gives Beto the opportunity to indulge in the luxury of TV ads without dipping into the enormous sums he has already amassed. And it sends a message to Carpetbagger Cruz—whatever you do, we can respond to it and still stick to our strategy.
Someday, we may be lucky enough to live in an environment where this kind of money is not needed in politics. But until that day comes, we are showing that we can raise hundreds of millions of dollars, mostly in small donations, to rebuild the country. And we are building the blue wave that will most definitely happen as long as we keep working for it, and working hard.
DEMOCRATS MAKE HISTORY IN TUESDAY PRIMARIES
Despite the contention of a rather silly Politico article (which I won’t link to—it’s just too ridiculous), Democrats did not stick with “boring” politicians last Tuesday, instead nominating pioneering candidates in several states, according to this Politico article which I will link to.
Democratic voters selected a diverse array of history-making candidates in primaries across four states Tuesday, including nominating a transgender woman for governor of Vermont.
Christine Hallquist, a former energy executive, would be the first openly transgender governor in America if she defeats GOP Gov. Phil Scott in November. Meanwhile, Connecticut teacher Jahana Hayes is poised to become the first African-American Democrat to represent the state in Congress after winning her primary in the 5th District, and in Minnesota, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) could become the first Muslim attorney general in the U.S. after winning his primary.
Notice must also be taken of Ilhan Omar, who won her primary in Minnesota’s 5th district and is poised to become the first Somali-American and one of the first Muslim women to serve in Congress. Her victory speech was simply wonderful.
DEMOCRATS REMAIN FOCUSED AND UNITED
This can’t be repeated enough. Despite some more silly articles I won’t link to and some truly ludicrous pie fights right here on Daily Kos, the overwhelming majority of Democrats appear to have adopted a “win now, fight later” strategy. Some of the differences we have with each other have unfortunately become public and provided fuel for a media narrative of a Democratic party in disarray, but meanwhile we just keep winning elections, raising tons of money, and supporting each other. In that vein, I’ll just leave this here.
It should also be noted that Ms Pelosi spoke highly of Beto O’Rourke during a stop in El Paso, despite their complicated history.
GOOD ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS
climate change need not result in “hothouse earth”
Maybe you saw some of the stories at places like CNN and the BBC about a new scientific paper predicting a cascade of rising temperatures that is beyond the capacity of anyone to prevent. These panic-inducing articles are enough to make the midterms and everything else seem irrelevant and futile, but they misrepresent what the science says, and scientists are pushing back.
This doomsday scenario, which they dubbed “hothouse Earth,” could render large swaths of our planet uninhabitable. Their conclusion: “Humanity is now facing the need for critical decisions and actions that could influence our future for centuries, if not millennia.”
But that message got lost in the breathless media coverage over “hothouse Earth” — even though it’s the most important thing each one of us needs to hear at perhaps the most important turning point in our species’ history.
Yes, the prospect of runaway climate change is terrifying. But this dead world is not our destiny. It’s entirely avoidable. As the authors of the paper have argued in response to the coverage, implying otherwise is the same as giving up just as the fight gets tough.
In a tweet, Diana Liverman, a climate scientist and co-author of the paper called out the media directly:
“Clearly people aren’t reading the paper we wrote where our point is exactly that Hothouse Earth is not our destiny and that social system feedbacks are starting to move us to the Stable Earth. But media goes for worst case and makes it sound certain.”
Liverman and the other authors anticipated a defeatist response and published a multi-page document of possible solutions which, when combined with other research on the most important actions people can take, gives a blueprint for hope, not despair.
In the paper, the authors sum this up into a single battle cry. To prevent a hothouse Earth, they say, we need “a coordinated, deliberate effort by human societies to manage our relationship with the rest of the Earth System.”
That sounds a lot like the message of a burgeoning global movement targeting the root causes of climate change. That scientists are increasingly comfortable with using language like this — not mincing words anymore — is nothing if not hopeful.
No matter what you hear, we are not living in a SyFy Channel end-of-the-world movie. This is another fight we can win if we don’t give up hope.
colombia commits to cocoa production without deforestation
Colombia is undertaking an agressive effort towards the protection of its forests.
Colombia is the first country in Latin America, and the third country in the world, to pledge to deforestation-free cocoa production. Even more impressive? The country plans to achieve this turnaround in under two years.
Colombia signed a pledge agreement with Cocoa and Forest Initiative. As of now, Colombia joins Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana in the pledge.
Cocoa is considered a rapidly growing crop for Colombia, and is a top priority. Notably, Colombia hopes to not only give new life to the land, but offer employment to rural workers, especially those in communities who have long suffered conflict.
Juan Guillermo Zuluaga, Colombia's Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, says, "Colombia is proud of the quality of the cocoa it produces, as well as its contribution to economic growth, rural employment, avoided deforestation and restoration of degraded land."
Colombia is doing a lot to move towards sustainability. For example, they've recently declared six towns as sustainable tourism destinations. The largest vertical garden in the world is also located in Bogota.
(A tip of the GNR hat to Getting1 for this item.)
green alternatives to bitcoin emerge
Whatever one thinks of Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies, one of their biggest issues is the vast amounts of energy they consume. To deal with this problem, several new cryptocurrencies are being developed that involve completely rethinking methods of “mining” currency and processing transactions.
To say that the cryptocurrency known as Bitcoin eats a lot of energy is an understatement. If Bitcoin were a country (praise be to the libertarian god that it’s not), it would be the 39th most energy-intensive place in the world, running on a similar amount of power to Austria.
What’s even worse, as Grist recently reported, is that Bitcoin’s energy consumption is growing at an unholy 20 percent per month, putting it on pace to consume the equivalent to the total power generated by all of the planet’s solar panels by the end of next year.
Bitcoin Green is different. First off, it’s an effort launched partly in response to reporting by Grist and others on the high environmental cost of cryptocurrencies. And it seeks to develop a more energy-efficient alternative currency that’s faster, cheaper, and more scalable than Bitcoin. If Bitcoin were designed from scratch to fulfill its supporters’ dreams of it becoming the world’s universal currency, this might be what it would look like.
The innovation of Bitcoin Green is that it abandons Bitcoin’s wasteful “proof-of-work” mining strategy. Instead of computers randomly guessing the answers to ever-more complex and arbitrary math problems, Bitcoin Green grows by reversing the incentive structure — so big miners are encouraged to make the entire system more efficient, not less. It’s a concept called “proof-of-stake”.
If the entire Bitcoin universe switched over to proof-of-stake strategy tomorrow, its energy consumption would fall ten thousand-fold, making it about one thousand times cheaper to operate. Transactions would be hundreds of times faster, too.
This is still in the very early stages, but it is a promising development that could result in the development of a cryptocurrency that is not an energy-devouring scam and that actually works better.
al gore says trump has not yet damaged the environment as much as he had originally feared
One of the characteristics of the Trump regime is that, while it is undeniably evil, it is also hilariously incompetent. According to Al Gore, that plus a still-functioning court system and even rudimentary Congressional scruples have thus far limited the environmental damage they’ve done.
The Trump administration has made some dangerous changes to environmental policy, but the damage so far has been less than it initially appeared, former Vice President Al Gore said in an interview Monday.
“He (President Trump) has had less of an impact so far than I feared that he would. Someone said last year his administration is a blend of malevolence and incompetence,” Gore said in an interview with The Associated Press in Greensboro. “I think they’ve made some mistakes in some of the moves they’ve made. The courts have blocked some of what they wanted to do as a result.”
Even the Republican-controlled Congress has stepped in at times, he said. “The U.S. system has a lot of inherent resilience,” Gore said. “It’s hard for one person, even the president, to change things very quickly if the majority of American people don’t want them changed.”
Gore cited the Paris Climate Accord as one example of the Trump administration failing to change environmental rules as quickly as it might want. While the United States withdrew from the accord, he says the first date that can become official is the day after the 2020 presidential election.
“If there’s a new president — excuse me for a moment,” Gore said as he placed in hands together as if in prayer, “then a new president could simply give 30 days’ notice, and we’re right back in the Paris agreement.”
It is very important that we do not buy into Trump’s simple-minded belief that he can magically make major changes by waving his hands and spewing out a couple of tweets. Mr. Gore’s confidence and optimism should be shared by the rest of us, even as we keep in mind the damage that could be caused if we let up in our opposition.
ODDS AND ENDS—MISCELLANEOUS ENCOURAGING NEWS
PEARL JAM RAISES OVER $10 MILLION FOR SEATTLE’S HOMELESS
One of Seattle’s most beloved bands just rallied the city into raising millions of dollars for the homeless.
Peal Jam played two concerts at Safeco Field this week as a means of getting the community together to address extreme poverty.
In addition to encouraging 100 Seattle businesses to join in on the fundraising efforts, the shows raised over $11 million, 90% of which will be donated.
During one of the concerts, the band played this cover of an appropriate GNR song (excuse Eddie Vedder’s very long-winded intro)
rival chicago gangs mark truce by cooperating to build playground
A hopeful story from the Windy City.
As a means of celebrating their sustained truce, two Chicago gangs banded together so they could build a playground for the community.
It has been eight months since the two rival gangs of the North Pullman neighborhood said that they were tired of the violence and wanted to achieve peace.
Despite spending years fighting over the territory, members of the two gangs worked side-by-side with community volunteers to build the playground this week – and upon seeing the completed fruits of their labor, “no one could hide their smiles.”
FROM THE SCHADENFREUDE FILES
Rumors that Trump gifted Vlad Putin with an mp3 of this song are unconfirmed.
ALEX JONES’ RADIO STATION SHUT DOWN BY THE FCC, FINED $15,000
He may still be Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s BFF, despite the sham 7-day timeout Twitter meted out in an inadequate response to critics. But one of his last remaining platforms, a radio station he used to stream his unhinged rants, has been shut down by the FCC for technicalities like not having a license and being totally illegal.
A pirate radio station that serves as controversial host Alex Jones’ Austin flagship has been knocked off the city’s airwaves – at least temporarily – and the Federal Communications Commission has levied a $15,000 penalty that the station’s operators are refusing to pay.
A lawsuit filed this week in U.S. District Court in Austin accuses Liberty Radio of operating at 90.1 FM without federal consent since at least 2013.
A check of the Liberty Radio website, txlr.net, indicated the station stopped being transmitted over the air in December, but has been streaming online and via a call-in “listen line.”
kimberly guilfoyle's pet name for donald trump jr. is “junior mint”
Can’t completely vouch for the accuracy of this one, considering the source, but dammit it ought to be true.
We’re told the former Fox News host addressed the presidential offspring as Junior Mint — seemingly a reference to his bank account, although insiders claimed it has nothing to do with money.
A pal of the pair tells us that Guilfoyle first used the name during a group text with Don Jr. and some other pals. “She said something like, ‘Don, you’re so sweet,’ and then sent a picture of Junior Mints.”
For those of you who just suffered through the mental image of Don Jr. and Ms Guilfoyle getting intimate, I offer this.
Finally, one
ACTION ITEM
BOYCOTT SAMUEL ADAMS BEER
The company's founder is a Trumpanzee.
Sadly, Jim Koch, founder of the company that makes Sam Adams Beer, has decided to embrace the fascists’ orange god. While dining with the First Traitor, Koch thanked the President* for his rich man’s welfare, um, tax cut.
Sam Adams has long since ceased being one of America’s great beers, anyway (if it ever was). As alternatives may I suggest Anchor Steam or OHD’s favorite, Sierra Nevada.
Well, that’s all I got in me this week. I’ll be spending most of the day going to the doctor to find out what’s gone wrong with me this time, but I will eventually read all your comments, which are always appreciated. I’m sure I missed some good news—there’s so much—so please add some if you have it.
And if this isn’t enough good news, go out and make some of your own.
We’ll go out today with a nice rendition of a 49-year-old protest song that is still relevant.