I’m not going to waste a lot of time talking about those who want to bring us down (but who are totally not trolls). We’ll deal with them if they show up.
Today I want to talk to you about the Bastrop County Wildfire Complex of 2011.
This was the most destructive wildfire in Texas history, burning over 34,000 acres and destroying more than 1700 buildings. Two people were killed. It burned for nearly eight weeks. The result of unprecedented weather conditions, there had never been anything like it. A Forest Service statement said "no one on the face of this Earth has ever fought fires in these extreme conditions." The fire seemed like an unstoppable force.
It looked like the end of the world.
But it wasn’t the end of the world. It wasn’t even the end of Bastrop County. Thanks to the hard and dangerous work of everyone from volunteer firefighters to the state Forest Service to the National Guard, on October 29, 55 days after it began, the fire was declared out.
When I think of the current GOP regime currently attempting to wreck America and what it stands for, I’m reminded of the Bastrop County Fire. Due to an unprecedented conflation of circumstances, widespread damage is being done to our country and lives are being changed for the worse—some lives are being lost.
But, as with the fire, despair and surrender are not options. Everyone, from people mailing postcards to those running for office for the first time to large progressive political organizations, is doing hard and sometimes dangerous work to control and eventually extinguish the conflagration that is Republican government.
Seven years after the Great Fire, reconstruction is still going on here. Similarly, it will take a long time to undo the damage that Trump and his collaborators are doing.
For seven weeks I could look out my back door and see the smoke-filled sky east of my home; we could smell the smoke inside the house. And now all I need to do is look at my computer screen to know how bad the nation’s situation is. But I know that the fire will be put out, and that we will rebuild. We are Americans, and that’s how we handle disasters, both natural and manmade.
And now we are all privileged to be political firefighters. The fire is not yet fully contained, but we are getting there.
Let me prove it to you.
Attempts To Divide Houston-Area Democrats Fail
The primary runoff in Texas’ 7th Congressional district was portrayed as a real-life pie-fight, with true progressive/unelectable radical Laura Moser battling pragmatic realist/centrist sellout Lizzie Pannill Fletcher. Local and national media made a big deal about the supposedly unhealable rift between the two wings of the party. But the candidates apparently weren’t listening.
A united Democratic party is set to put John Culberson out of a job. And with this kind of united front nationwide, the Democratic party is poised to retake the House—and maybe the Senate—in November.
Besides, no matter what our differences may be, there’s so much that we can all agree on.
Democrats Look To Flip Five Texas Congressional Seats
It looks like Democrats are ready to put up one hell of a fight to win 5 of the 24 seats needed for a House majority right here in Texas.
There are three Texas districts on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Red-to-Blue” target list, and at least one other is on the cusp of joining that list, noted Manny Garcia, deputy executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, leaving the Lone Star State poised “to make a huge dent in the national story on Election Day.” And the Democratic candidate in a fifth district, anchored in Austin’s northern suburbs, has attracted big donations from national political action committees supporting Democratic candidates.
The districts are the aforementioned 7th as well as the semi-rural 21st, the border area 23rd, and the suburban 31st and 32nd. Democrats (including all primary candidates) have raised more money than the GOP in four of these races, and it looks like the national party is getting serious in those four.
And it’s becoming increasingly clear that GOP politicians are almost preternaturally evil.
Houston Rockets Undone By Curse Of Ted Cruz In NBA Playoffs
You may think this isn’t serious, but look at the evidence.
Here’s the RomneyBot 2000 posing as an actual human person at the 7th game of the NBA playoffs last Tuesday.
Cruz, who once said that the object of the game is to get the ball into the “basketball ring,” tried to rally support for Houston’s team on Twitter during the game. It didn't go well.
Several Twitter users accused the Zodiac Killer of cursing the Rockets after they suffered a 101-92 loss to the Golden State Warriors. And they may have a point.
One reason for that loss was that Houston, after starting strong, missed 27 consecutive three-pointers. The odds against that happening are 1 in 72, 000—unless a curse is in play, of course.
“Vulnerable” Dem Senators Looking A Little Less Vulnerable
I don’t need to tell you what’s been happening in Missouri. With an opponent who doesn’t seem to be really into campaigning and a GOP governor facing prison time, Claire McCaskill looks to be in better shape than expected. The latest polling has her up by 4 points, and that’s sure to at least stay steady as the GOP deals with its difficulties.
Meanwhile, in West Virginia, Joe Manchin, another Democrat who we are told can’t possibly win re-election, is polling between eight and twelve points ahead of his Republican opponent, with Senate Majority PAC poised to spend $726,00 on advertising for the incumbent.
It’s beginning to look like if the GOP wants to flip any Senate races they’re going to have to look elsewhere.
Despite What You’ve Heard, Trump Is Not Becoming More Popular All Of A Sudden
For this section I will be relying on 538's daily polling average. I do that to counter the doomsday posts based on, for example, the Acme/Channel 38 online poll of all adults showing Trump becoming wildly popular.
According to the polling average, when the Korean peace-talks fantasy became a thing in early May, Trump’s approval rating “skyrocketed” by 1.1% to 42.3% by the 15th, while his disapproval “plummeted” by .5% in the same time period to 52.4%. Since then, with the White House feverishly working to make it look like Trump might still produce peace in our time in Korea, the Resident’s approval has continued to skyrocket to...42.3%. And his disapproval has “sunk” to...52.5%. That’s quite a swing, there.
I remember in mid-March of 2017 that the CW was that Trump was in trouble because of an approval rating of only 44.5%. I don’t know how that morphed into 42.3% being the herald of a GOP landslide in 2020, but I guess I don’t work as hard at feeling bad as some folks do. As invariably happens, defeatism has to step beyond the edge of reality to make its case.
The GOP is stating publicly that they want to tie themselves to Trump going into the midterms. I say, “please, proceed.”
With Friends Like This…
Trump’s star attorney and NY Yankee fan favorite Rudy Giuliani told CNN on Sunday that the Trump campaign might have committed a little light treason.
Appearing on CNN on Sunday morning, President Donald Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, once again may have stepped in it by conceding that there well may have been collusion between Trump’s presidential campaign staff and the Russians in 2016.
Asking about staffers still in Trump’s “orbit,” host Bash pressed, “You are confident that there is no collusion?”
“I can’t be confident,” Giuliani replied.
And Friends Like This…
Trump has again said publicly that he regrets appointing fellow racist Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III as Attorney General
President Donald Trump again lamented his choice for attorney general on Wednesday, writing on Twitter he wishes he'd chosen someone other than Jeff Sessions, who enraged the President when he recused himself from the Russia investigation.
And with good reason…
Trump has frequently criticized Sessions over his recusal, which paved the way for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to appoint special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Trump has viewed the decision as an expression of disloyalty, and the relationship between the two men has soured.
But Trump's frequent fits of fury over Sessions have only further attracted the special counsel's attention. Sessions himself has sat for an interview with Mueller, and Trump's views of his attorney general's recusal are among the questions investigators have for Trump should he do the same.
Apparently there’s no honor among white supremacists.
...Trump Doesn’t Need Enemies Like This
As if one Robert Mueller wasn’t enough trouble for the Trump Crime Ring, another has popped up in Spain. José Grinda, a special prosecutor working out of the Spanish Attorney General’s office in an investigation of the Russian mob, has uncovered more evidence of collusion as he engages in Spain’s own WITCH HUNT.
...the work of Grinda overlaps with that of America’s Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Two of Mueller’s first four indictments, against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates, also a Trump campaign adviser, involve allegations of money laundering for a Russia-linked Ukrainian party. “You know where this is going,” Trump’s former close adviser Steve Bannon is quoted as saying in “Fire and Fury,” Michael Wolff’s explosive book about the Trump White House. “This is all about money laundering.”
Grinda’s investigations have targeted Russian banker Alexander Torshin, who has been described by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., as “the conservatives’ favorite Russian.”... Torshin has been making headlines in the U.S. He was scheduled to meet privately with President Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington last year, but the meeting was called off when someone in the administration flagged Torshin as a figure with “baggage.” (Torshin has strongly denied ties to Russian organized crime.) In November, news broke that Torshin had attempted to engineer a meeting between then-candidate Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. And this week, McClatchy DC reported that the FBI is investigating whether Torshin donated money to financially support the Trump campaign in 2016, funneling his contributions through the National Rifle Association, which reported spending $30 million to back Trump.
New headaches for Trump and the NRA? I think I like this José Grinda guy.
And the NRA has another headache from a familiar source.
David Hogg Puts Off College To Organize Youth-Oriented GOTV Effort
Parkland shooting survivor and activist David Hogg knows that marches and walkouts aren’t enough—we’ve got to win elections. And one way to win elections is to convince young people to vote. So he is going all in to make that happen by targeting politicians on the NRA’s payroll.
Over the summer, Hogg and other March for Our Lives organizers will be working on what they hope will be “the largest voter registration push for youth ever in American history”. Rather than heading to college after he graduates from high school later this spring, he said: “I’m going to be working on a candidate basis over the fall in key congressional districts.”
It’s not enough for the Parkland activists to tweet links about voter registration, or broadly encourage young people to head to the polls, as they have been doing. To change legislators’ voters on gun control laws, they need wins. What the March for Our Lives activists are finalizing right now, with just over five months to go before the midterms, is their strategy for picking their battles.
Most of the details are not yet public. But they will be focusing on a “large number” of districts, Hogg said, using “multiple sources of voter turnout data” looking for races where youth voters could have “the largest impact but vote the least” and also in places “where students and young people in general are disproportionately affected by gun violence”.
“If you look into it,” he said, “what we need to create is the NRA – except for the opposite issues.”
In other news...
GOP Is Officially A Third Party In California
OK, maybe that’s not technically accurate, but there are now more voters registered as Independent than as Republicans in the Golden State.
Political Data Inc. on Tuesday released its latest count showing that voters registered with no party preference now outnumber Republicans by about 73,000 in California. The company regularly collects raw voter files from county registrars to maintain an updated database of the state's 19 million voters.
At the close of regular registration, 15 days before the June primary, there were 4,844,803 no-party-preference voters, according to Political Data Inc., compared with 4,771,984 Republicans. Both make up about a quarter of the California electorate, trailing 8,436,493 registered Democrats, about 44.4 percent.
It’s long been said that trends start in California and sweep across the nation. It would sure be nice if that were true this time.
And remember that the California primary is next Tuesday. I know that any Californian reading this is going to vote or has already voted. But how many other people have you convinced to go to the polls?
Virginia Legislature Votes To Expand Medicaid Coverage
Elections, have consequences, and thanks to the voters of Virginia, 400,000 more people will get Medicaid coverage.
The Virginia Senate on Wednesday voted to approve Medicaid expansion, which would impact the lives of up to 400,000 citizens in the state.
As such, Virginia becomes just the second state during the Donald Trump presidency to approve such a program, following only Maine.
33 states and D.C. have expanded Medicaid since the ACA was approved, and expansion is on the ballot in Utah and Idaho. I’m sure many Republicans are pining for those heady days when Obamacare repeal was going to win elections for them. It hasn’t quite worked out that way, has it?
Russia Gets Pwned Twice
Putin’s efforts to silence critics by any means necessary available took a double hit this week. Bill Browder, a prominent anti-Putin figure, was arrested in Spain this week on a Russian warrant but quickly released after Spanish authorities and INTRPOL called BS on what turned out to be a bogus warrant.
And more dramatically, reports of the murder of Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko turned out to be greatly exaggerated.
A Russian journalist and critic of the Kremlin, reported to have been shot dead in Ukraine, showed up alive at a news conference on Wednesday to declare that his murder was faked by Ukrainian security services in an effort to foil an assassination plot against him.
In a stunning development, Arkady Babchenko, 41, walked into a room of journalists in Kiev who had been expecting to get an update on his slaying.
Two people, suspected of being the person who ordered the hit and the potential assassin, are in the custody of the security services, spokeswoman for the Ukraine Prosecutor General, Larisa Sargan, said later Wednesday.
It would be nice if American journalists who spend their time writing about economically anxious Trumpanzees and oppressed Christian white men had half the determination and courage of some Russian reporters.
Fourth Federal Judge Rules Against Defunding Planned Parenthood
Trump continues to lose in the courts as yet another judge ruled that he can't arbitrarily cut off funds for Planned Parenthood.
Judge John Coughenour in Washington state ruled Tuesday afternoon that the administration unlawfully ended grants two years early for the King County Health Department in Seattle, which participated in the Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) Program.
Federal judges have now ruled in four different cases involving nine TPP grantees that the administration's actions were unlawful.
The rulings mean the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will have to process applications for the final two years of funding.
And finally…
Harvey Weinstein Indicted
Manhattan DA Cy Vance has finally gotten off his ass and got three felony indictments against Harvey Weinstein.
A grand jury indicted Harvey Weinstein on Wednesday on two counts of rape and a single count of criminal sexual acts.
The charges match the ones filed in a criminal complaint last Friday by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
“This indictment brings the defendant another step closer to accountability for the crimes of violence with which he is now charged,” D.A. Cyrus Vance, Jr., said in a statement. “Our office will try this case not in the press, but in the courtroom where it belongs. The defendant’s recent assault on the integrity of the survivors and the legal process is predictable. We are confident that when the jury hears the evidence, it will reject these attacks out of hand.”
It took long enough, and the prospect of the FBI stealing the case from him, but it’s good to see that AG Vance is finally going after that slime bucket.
Well, my deadline is approaching and my pain meds are starting to kick in, so I guess it’s time to wrap this up. I found so much good stuff today—I wish I had room and time for it all. Maybe I can save some for next week in case I don’t have enough good news then.
Like that's going to happen.
Remember that if you get discouraged, the Good News Roundup is here seven days a week. And there are writers far better than me here to show you that we are bringing the fire under control, and will soon be able to begin the rebuilding process.
And remember, if this isn’t enough good news, go out and make some of your own.
We’re going to let the Jefferson Airplane play us out today...