A lot has happened this past week, as it does most weeks. And, like most weeks, some of the news was bad. But not all of it, and not as much as the purveyors of doom would have us believe. For instance, people are still playing Chicken Little over the supposed surge in Trump’s popularity, which is not actually a thing unless you want to count a .4% uptick since Feb. 15 (and a .2% decrease since May 6) as a surge. And keep in mind that nobody has won a presidential election with 42% of the popular vote since 1912, and that was with three major candidates.
And remember, when you read about the “diminishing blue wave,” the media wants a horserace, and they will say whatever they can to make it look like there is one.
So ignore desperate attempts to make things look worse than they are (or argue with them if you so choose). We’re all well aware that with the GOP in control of government and Trump in the White House things are bad. But those of us who read the news and can see what’s happening right in front of us know that this is still America, and that Americans are fighting to preserve what this country has always been and, even better, what it can be. And we are winning so many battles, while those who would turn this country into a sleazy organized crime operation are losing—and they know it.
Which leads us into our first musical interlude, a song about the heroism of ordinary people, and another about coming back after getting knocked down, sent to you from someone who is literally learning to walk again.
So let’s get down to what you came for. And let’s start out with what we’ve seen a lot of lately—good election news.
Pennsylvania Voters Ensure End Of Male Monopoly In Congressional Delegation
Pennsylvania was one of four states holding primaries on Tuesday, and eight women won their parties’ votes. In the 5th District, both the GOP and the Democratic party will be represented by women in November, guaranteeing that the state will no longer have an all-male Congressional delegation.
The Pennsylvania primary on Tuesday night brought numerous wins for women: Attorney Mary Gay Scanlon secured the much-contested Democratic 5th Congressional District nomination, and state Rep. Madeleine Dean beat out former congressman Joe Hoeffel and anti-gun-violence advocate Shira Goodman to win the Democratic nod for the 4th Congressional District.
The primary races were two of the most competitive on Tuesday. Scanlon and Dean are among six Pennsylvania women who won their parties’ congressional nominations, including Chrissy Houlahan, who ran unopposed for Democratic nomination for the 6th Congressional District, and Pearl Kim, the Republican nominee who will face off against Scanlon, essentially ensuring that Pennsylvania will send at least one woman to the U.S. House next year.
Nor was the success of woman candidates restricted to Congressional elections as Helen Tai flipped PA-HD 178 from red to blue. This is the 41st state legislative district that Democrats have flipped so far, to the Republicans’ 0.
It is also notable that there were about 100,000 more Democrats than Republicans voting in the state’s primaries.
Idaho Democrats Nominate Native American Woman For Governor In Primary Upset
State Representative Paulette Jordan handily won the Democratic gubernatorial primary, defeating A.J. Balukoff, who was much better-funded, better known, and considered the establishment favorite. If elected, which would be a hell of an upset, she would become the nation’s first Native American governor.
Much is being made of the fact that Jordan was the more progressive candidate and Balukoff more liked by the party establishment. But, much as I hate to disappoint the pie-fighters (not really) I think this election is part of the trend of Democrats voting for more women everywhere in the country than anything else. Women are the most active Democrats right now, and they are nominating and electing more women candidates. And that is one of the best things that could happen for our party and for our country.
North Carolina Democrats Dump ICE-Loving Sheriff
This news is a bit old, but you may have missed it.
The Mecklenburg County, North Carolina sheriff is nominally a Democrat. But his immigration policies are anything but Democratic. Irwin Carmichael has been quite vocal about his enthusiastic support for ICE’s ethnic cleansing efforts, even appearing on Fox News to defend the agency against its critics.
A few months ago, the election looked like a slam-dunk for the incumbent. But Democrats weren’t having it, and last week Carmichael finished a distant third out of three candidates for the Democratic nomination, which was won by African-American candidate Garry McFadden. With no Republicans running, McFadden is effectively the sheriff-elect.
McFadden, who is African-American, ran on a pledge to end local participation in the 287(g) program, improve police transparency, and enhance conditions at the jail run by the department.
He blames the program for creating roadblocks in several murder cases that remain unsolved, arguing that some witnesses refuse to cooperate with police out of fear they'll be put on ICE's radar.
There’s a very good diary that has more detail on this race, which is an indication that it’s getting harder for racists to call themselves Democrats and hope to win elections.
In A Shocking Development, West Virginia GOP Voters Do Something Right
They say that moderates can’t win Republican primaries anymore. They say that, especially in deep red states like West Virginia, only the most extreme candidates can attract GOP votes.
Tell that to the voters of WV-SD11.
Robert Karnes is your basic knee-jerk reactionary West Virginia state senator who devoted his tenure in office to hating on unions, especially teachers, especially teachers who participated in the West Virginia teachers' strike, the longest, most widespread strike in state history.
When a local paper asked him last March whether he thought hating on teachers in public would have any kind of political ramifications in the upcoming state elections, Karnes laughed off the idea that teachers "would have any significant effect" on his chances. After all, he rules a thoroughly gerrymandered seat that will likely elect a Republican to the state senate until the heat death of the universe.
So the teachers primaried his ass.
In their party’s primary, Republicans nominated Bill Hamilton, a relative moderate, with a resounding 61% of the vote.
Hamilton is a Republican, but he's not a one-dimensional cartoon villain like Karnes. Hamilton opposes "right to work" laws, backed the teachers' strike, is open to legal medical marijuana, and actually talks to his constituents, even if they voted for a different party in the last election.
It is especially good news that even Republicans are backing teachers, and those who oppose them are now outside the GOP mainstream.
And teachers are taking action in other states as well.
Dozens Of Teachers Are Running For Office In The Wake Of Recent Strikes
In Oklahoma, Arizona, and Kentucky, teachers have decided that marches and strikes aren’t enough. They are joining the hundreds of political newcomers who are going beyond protesting governmental policy and are trying to become part of government.
This Buzzfeed article has more, including profiles of some of the teachers running for state office.
in upcoming elections in Oklahoma, Arizona, and Kentucky — all red states where school staff have walked out in recent months over austerity funding — teachers are running for office.
They say they’re determined to not only vote out the superintendents, representatives, and senators who did not support their walkouts but to also fill state governments with educators who know firsthand what more money can do for a classroom.
The educators share outsider status, dissatisfaction with the legislative process, and a sense of being shortchanged as public employees.
The ultimate activism is to change the government by becoming part of it, and these teachers are determined to be the change they believe in.
Meanwhile, what can one say about Republican enthusiasm when even the candidates don’t seem to care?
Missouri GOP Choice For Senate Isn’t Really Into Campaigning
Claire McCaskill is widely considered to be one of the most vulnerable Democratic Senators in next November’s election. Sensing a golden opportunity, Missouri Republicans recruited Josh Hawley as their best and brightest hope to flip the seat. But now they have a problem--Hawley doesn't seem to want to get elected. Or at least he doesn’t care.
Star-struck Senate Republican leaders anointed the 38-year-old, Stanford- and Yale- educated state attorney general as their top recruit of 2018 — a squeaky-clean figure they saw as the future of the party and an ideal opponent to take on the endangered Democratic incumbent, Sen. Claire McCaskill.
Yet as the campaign season kicks into high gear, many Republicans worry that Hawley — who openly admits he had no intention of running for Senate until he was pressured into it — is squandering his shot.
In interviews with more than two dozen senior Republican strategists, donors, lawmakers and local officials, Hawley was depicted as a lackadaisical candidate who has posted sluggish fundraising numbers, turned down interviews with conservative radio show hosts, and spurned traditional GOP events considered a rite of passage for a potential U.S. senator.
With the Missouri GOP having to deal with a governor who remains in office despite some truly horrible behavior and a Senate candidate who just doesn’t seem to care, many are now saying that McCaskill is about to get lucky again. Or maybe, rather than luck, it’s just that the Missouri GOP is really, really terrible at politics.
Now, there are still people who insist that, because of gerrymandering, Democrats can never win and we’re all doomed forever. Those people are wrong.
Republicans redrew congressional districts across the country in 2010 in an attempt to consign Democrats to a semipermanent House minority.
But in 2018, the long-successful GOP insurance policy is at risk of backfiring in a big way — not only carving a path for a takeover, but possibly allowing for bigger Democratic gains.
The same phenomenon has hit both parties in the past. Morgan Jackson, a Democratic consultant in North Carolina, said his party drew maps in recent decades that spread Democratic votes thin to yield the most Democratic districts. But “in 1994 and in 2010, [those] who were in 52 percent-to-53 percent Democratic-performing districts lost because of the environment,” he said.
“In a normal year, you're safe in these seats, but in a time like this, Democrats are within striking distance,” Jackson continued. “This is when gerrymandering backfires.”
Read the whole article, and bookmark it for the next time someone tries the tired old gerrymandering argument as a pathetic attempt to make you feel as bad as they do.
Oh, and consider this:
If electoral politics were the only source of good news, I could wrap this up and go to bed. But there’s more. Lots more.
Major Convention Cities Say “No Thanks” To 2020 GOP Convention
It seems that nobody wants to deal with Trump's stench in their town.
Cities across the country are saying no to the Republican National Committee’s requests to host the 2020 GOP convention, during which President Donald Trump, as it stands now, will receive the party’s nomination to run for re-election.
Not only are many cities saying no, some that had expressed interest are pulling out.
Cities that have turned down the GOP include Las Vegas, San Antonio, Cleveland, Nashville, and Philadelphia. Perhaps they could try Miami--Miami, Texas, that is.
Senate Votes To Preserve Net Neutrality
This was, for many, the big story yesterday. By a surprising 52-47 vote, the Senate passed a resolution that would restore the FCC net neutrality rules that were abolished earlier this year. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and John N. Kennedy(!) joined all 49 Democrats in voting to preserve the Internet as we know it.
Kennedy, whose vote was closely watched, as he was one of the few Republicans siding with Democrats on the issue, said he was ultimately persuaded to vote yes because more than 1 in 5 Louisianans lack choice in their broadband provider.
“It was a fairly close call, but I'll tell you what it comes down to: the extent to which you trust your cable company,” Kennedy told The Washington Post moments after casting his vote. “If you trust your cable company, you're not going to like my vote today. If you don't trust your cable company, you will.”
Now the legislation moves to the House, where, we are told, it is certain to fail. But consider:
There are a lot more vulnerable Republicans in the House than in the Senate. They don’t want to have this hanging around their necks.
In other big news from yesterday
Senate Intelligence Committee Says Russia Meddled In 2016 Election To Help Trump
In direct contradiction of their House counterparts’ inability (or unwillingness) to see what was in front of their faces, the Senate Intelligence Committee said in no uncertain terms that Russia took steps to assist the Trump campaign in 2016.
Committee heads Mark Warner, D-Va., and Richard Burr, R-N.C., arrived at the conclusion after the committee completed its review of the U.S. intelligence community's analysis of the Kremlin's interference in the election.
"After a thorough review, our staff concluded that the [Intelligence Community Assessment] conclusions were accurate and on point," said Warner, the committee's vice chairman. "The Russian effort was extensive, sophisticated, and ordered by President [Vladimir] Putin himself for the purpose of helping Donald Trump and hurting Hillary Clinton."
Burr said in the statement: "We see no reason to dispute the conclusions. There is no doubt that Russia undertook an unprecedented effort to interfere with our 2016 elections."
Trump had used the cowardly House committee report to tweet that there was "NO EVIDENCE OF COLLUSION OR COORDINATION" between his campaign and Russia. He also added that the investigation into alleged meddling was a “WITCH HUNT,” and that there was “NO COLLUSION,” saying in addition that there was “NO COLLUSION.” The Senate committee and its two leaders essentially called their House colleagues, and Trump himself, liars (or perhaps just incredibly stupid). I can hardly wait to see what Fox and Friends tells Trump to say about that.
And there was more bad news for Trump, and for the NRA, from the Senate.
Senate Judiciary Committee Says Kremlin Used The NRA To Funnel Money To The Trump Campaign
This is really huge.
The Senate Judiciary Committee said Wednesday that the Russian government apparently used the National Rifle Association to help Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016.
Documents suggest the Kremlin used the NRA to offer the campaign a back channel to Moscow—including a potential meeting between Trump and Vladimir Putin—and might have secretly funded Trump’s campaign, the committee said. One of the Russians named in the report even bragged she was part of the Trump campaign’s communications with Russia, The Daily Beast reported last year.
This not only indicates the extent of evidence that foreign money was illegally used by the Trump campaign. The mere existence of such a report is an indication that the NRA’s hold on Congress has significantly weakened. As recently as six months ago it would have been unimaginable for a GOP-controlled committee to issue a report even hinting at any improper behavior by the gun industry’s marketing organization.
The walls are closing in around the Trump Crime Family from all directions, including one we’re all familiar with.
Mueller Issues Subpoenas To Roger Stone’s Social Media Expert
The subpoenas were served on Jason Sullivan, a “social media and Twitter specialist” hired by Stone to work on a PAC set up to support Trump. The significance?
The subpoenas suggest that Mueller, who is probing Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, is focusing in part on Stone and whether he might have had advance knowledge of material allegedly hacked by Russian intelligence and sent to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who published it.
According to sources familiar with the ongoing investigation, Mueller also has been probing whether anyone associated with the Trump campaign may have helped Assange or the Russians time or target the release of hacked emails and other social media promoting Trump or critical of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Mueller’s team had no comment, because of course they didn’t. Although it would not surprise me if a source close to the investigation is someday quoted as saying, “Tick tock, motherfuckers.”
Trump Files Financial Disclosure Report Admitting Payment To Cohen, Raising Legal Questions
Trump’s campaign apparently decided it had no choice but to admit what everyone already knows thanks to crack lawyer Rudy Giuliani. But the real news is that the new report opens up even more legal problems for the Trump Crime Family.
Trump's representatives said in the document that revealing the payments made to Cohen was not necessary by law, instead saying they were listing them "in the interest of transparency."
The ethics office seemed to disagree, annotating the document: "OGE has concluded that the information related to the payment made by Mr. Cohen is required to be reported and that the information provided meets the disclosure requirement for a reportable liability."
OGE's acting director, David Apol,
sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein along with the financial disclosure, notifying the Justice Department of the Cohen payment.
Apol wrote in the letter to Rosenstein that the Office of Government Ethics had determined "the payment made by Mr. Cohen is required to be reported as a liability" and that "you may find the disclosure relevant to any inquiry you may be pursuing regarding the President's prior report that was signed on June 4, 2017."
Federal law says it's illegal for officials to "knowingly and willfully" falsify information on their disclosure forms. The ethics watchdog group CREW on Wednesday filed a criminal complaint with the Justice Department against Trump accusing him of intentionally leaving off the Cohen payments on last year's form.
Trump is said to be composing a statement asserting that the Daniels and Cohen investigation is a “TOTAL WITCH HUNT,” and also that there was “NO COLLUSION.”
There’s more, because there’s always more good news. But you have better things to do than read the Roundup all morning g’day, and I have to sleep sometime. Here’s a couple of quick ones to finish up with.
And finally, our obligatory story from the great state of Texas
Well, as children's radio host Uncle Don was rumored to have once said, “That oughtta hold the little bastards for a while.”
Don’t forget, ever, that as bad as things are, they aren’t as bad as some folks want you to believe. And things will get better—they always do, and they always have.
And if there isn’t enough good news for you, go out and make some of your own.
. Play us out, boys…