Welcome once again to Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up, a weekly opportunity to have a little fun and to get your brain in gear for the regular Sunday Puzzle (which posts Sunday evenings at 8 pm Eastern time).
The warm-up puzzle theme for the past few months, and for the next month or two, is Candidates Worth Supporting.
You can see all the other puzzles in this series by clicking on the CandidatesWorthSupporting diary tag. Candidates featured so far have included:
- Daily Kos members Angela Marx, Tim Canova, Zephyr Teachout, Kim Weaver, Alex Singer , Russ Feingold, and Donna Edwards.
- non-DK members Peter DeFazio, Maggie Hassan, Diana Hird, Pramila Jayapal, Cori Bush, Susannah Randolph, and Tammy Duckworth.
The answer to last week’s puzzle was Eileen Bedell. who is running for Congress in Virginia district 7. You’ll find information about her candidacy, as well as a new puzzle spotlighting another Candidate Worth Supporting, in tonight’s diary.
For a good introduction to Eileen Bedell, I recommend two Daily Kos diaries by Zen Trainer: from February 6th, Ooh La Oui! David Brat just got some competition (breaking the news that Bedell had entered the race) and from April 12, The Democrats need a red head in Congress (announcing that Bedell will be the Democratic candidate for that seat). Here’s some of what ZT wrote:
Eileen Bedell is from Virginia, went to school there (graduating from high school at the age of 16), went to college there, and her law practice is there. Her love of the state comes through clearly when she talks about all the things she sees possible. She is raising her family there and the value she places on that shows in her attention to the future; the environment, the economy, health care. Time and time again she refers to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. I love that in a candidate.
Bedell is going up against David Brat, the Tea Party Republican who successfully primaried and replaced Eric Cantor in 2014. (Cantor was House Majority Leader at the time, so his primary defeat was a stunning and historic upset.)
Virginia-7 has been a Republican district since 1971, so winning the seat will be a real challenge. But that's one reason Bedell decided to make the effort. As she told the Culpepper Star-Exponent:
“I find it very disconcerting to have any unopposed elections for either side. I think it makes both parties better to hear the views of the other side and for the voters to have those alternatives,” she said.
She also expressed her views on a number of the issues which will come up in the campaign, including a clear stand on continued funding of Planned Parenthood:
Bedell believes access to affordable healthcare is a basic human right and said the Affordable Care Act was a start in that direction on which the country should continue to build.
“It’s one of the reasons as well I am a proponent of Planned Parenthood because of their incredible contribution to providing accessible, affordable healthcare to a lot of Americans that has nothing to do with any of the roles they’re often painted to be involved in,” she said. “It’s important for that funding to continue to continue to provide that.”
Asked her position on abortion, Bedell said she finds the terms, pro-life and pro-choice, disingenuous.
“It’s important to remember that I really would hope that no one would have to make that choice. That being said, if it’s a choice that has to be made I certainly believe every woman has the right to make that choice,” she said. “If we had greater education and greater access to birth control then less people would have to be faced with that choice.”
On her FaceBook page she was asked about her stand on campaign finance reform. She replied:
In order for our democracy to work as the Framers intended our political system must be accessible to everyone, rich or poor. Meaningful campaign finance reform has bipartisan support and must be addressed in order to ensure we have a government of, by and for ALL people.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United revealed the need to amend the Constitution so the voices of individual voters are not drowned out by the unaccountable dollars spent to influence this country’s leaders.
In addition to requiring public disclosure of all political spending, which will create a more knowledgeable and informed electorate, campaign finance reform must go hand in hand with a push for independent redistricting commissions like those advocated by OneVirginia2021.
By addressing both campaign finance laws and gerrymandering which have distorted the voices of the people, I believe we can restore leadership and productivity as the primary duties, instead of fundraising, of those seeking election to any political office.
If you live in Virginia, Bedell has been doing meet-and-greet events recently to get to know voters and to help voters get to know her better. This is still a quiet race now, but looks like a race well worth following and a candidate well worth supporting.
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Tonight’s puzzle is a JulieCrostic. The solution identifies another Candidate Worth Supporting.
If you’re familiar with how JulieCrostics work you can jump right in; if you don’t know how JulieCrostics work, you can find complete instructions (with diagrams and everything!) at the bottom of this diary.
Here are the clues for tonight’s puzzle. It has 7 rows, with 3 answers per row. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. Have fun!
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- 1. Jackson's Captain.
- 2. Infamous camel.
- 3. A Ted Cruz / Carly Fiorina ticket.
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- 4. Similarly.
- 5. Body of water.
- 6. Simplicity.
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- 7. In the direction of.
- 8. Frequently.
- 9. Like silk.
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- 10. Chicago public transit train.
- 11. Mischievous creature.
- 12. Individual.
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- 13. Controversial caucus state.
- 14. Fleischer.
- 15. Hideaway.
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- 16. Place where Democrats will vote June 7 for a presidential candidate.
- 17. Hideaway.
- 18. Paradise.
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- 19. Commercial.
- 20. Catholic activisit Dorothy.
- 21. Almost a meter.
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For those new to Sunday Puzzle, here’s an explanation of how JulieCrostics work.
In JulieCrostics you are given a set of clues, such as these:
- 1. say what’s not so
- 2. resting
- 3. concede
………..………….…………..………..………….…………..
- 4. more than game, less than match
- 5. famous star location
- 6. vampire slayer
………..………….…………..………..………….…………..
- 7. activist Eastman
- 8. skirt or pad
- 9. accepted principle
………..………….…………..………..………….…………..
- 10. consume
- 11. blue-green color
- 12. candidates who share a platform
The answers to the clues need to be entered into a grid of rows and columns. For the Saturday night warm-up puzzles I usually tell solvers how many rows and columns there are; for the more challenging Sunday night puzzles the solvers generally need to figure that out for themselves. (In this example, the puzzle contains 4 rows with 3 answers per row).
Solving the clues is easier than it looks, since every word in a row has all the letters of the previous word plus one new letter. For example, in the set of clues above the answers in the first row are
- 1. say what’s not so = LIE
- 2. resting = IDLE [LIE + D, anagrammed]
- 3. concede = YIELD [IDLE + Y, anagrammed]
Also, as you can see in the chart below, all the words in a column have the same number of letters. In this example puzzle the first answers in a row all have 3 letters, the middle answers all have 4 letters, and the final answers all have 5 letters.
As you solve the clues, write the answers and the add-on letters into a grid like so:
lie D idle Y yield
set A east K stake
Max I maxi O maxim
eat L teal S slate
When you have solved all the clues and written down all the added letters, the added letters will form columns that spell out a message of some sort. It might be a person's name, it might be the title of a book, it might be a familiar phrase, or it might be a series of related words.
In the example given, the verticals read DAIL YKOS. With proper spacing and capitalization that spells out Daily Kos!