This Thursday Roundup will be a little short. Yesterday was my granddaughter’s 11th birthday, and we had the party at my house. The party was exhausting, of course. Add to that the shock of realizing I have an 11-year-old granddaughter, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to be a little less long-winded this time around.
Luckily, this has been a pretty good week so far. While there is still a lot of terrible stuff going on, we have seen a great deal of positive developments over the last couple of days—for that matter, over the last couple of weeks. But watching all the good news come pouring in made me think of something.
A while back I wrote about getting so discouraged by bad news that one is tempted to give up. I think we’ve all seen the error in that sort of thinking. Not only is surrender the only sure way to lose, but despair denies the observable fact that things can and do get better.
Over the last couple of weeks we’ve seen how things can get better. Some of those things will be outlined in this diary. And therein lies another trap, as dangerous as the trap of despair.
It is tempting at a time like this to relax, to conclude that we are winning and that victory is inevitable. Trump’s cronies are probably going to prison, Trump himself is becoming increasingly unhinged as he begins to realize his days in power are numbered, Republicans all over the country are more and more terrified of a coming blue wave, and we are winning elections all over the place. What could possibly go wrong?
What could go wrong is that we forget how and why the tide has turned. It is critical that we remember that all the victories we are enjoying now are due to the relentless hard work we and other activists have done since day one of the Trump regime.
Neither defeat nor victory are inevitable.
There are going to come times when the news looks all bad again. The temptation then will be to get discouraged at the bad turn things took after a run of good news. The Good News Roundup will be here as it has always been during the darkest of times to remind you that giving up is an unrealistic option, but it’s up to each of us to stay focused on our goals rather than on the news of the moment.
So, in summary, just as we’ve always urged you not to give up when things look bad, you should also not let up when things look good. When we fight, we can win. But only if we keep fighting.
Never forget what’s at stake, but always remember what we have to win. Remember always why we’re doing this.
Now let’s see what happens when we persist.
MORE ELECTIONS, MORE GOOD NEWS
OHIO SPECIAL ELECTION GIVES gOP CAUSE FOR CONCERn
Tuesday night we almost flipped a congressional district that voted for Trump by 11 points. To hold what should have been a safe seat, Republicans were forced to spend over $4 million dollars and bring out Dear Leader himself.
Incredibly, there are a few folks saying that our failure to flip this district was a complete disaster that means we have little or no chance of taking the House in November. Fortunately, these Gloomy Guses are mostly on Twitter and in DKos comment sections. Those who follow politics for a living see this for what it is.
From the Washington Examiner:
This race suggests that Republicans have underestimated how much trouble they're in come November. As my colleague, Emily Jashinsky, pointed out before the special election, it's already a loss for the GOP just by being so close.
Republicans have gone all-in on a race that was a safe red seat for decades. The Republican National Committee opened two new field offices, Politico reported, launched a $500,000-plus get-out-the-vote effort, and deployed Trump's 2016 Ohio campaign chief Bob Paduchik to secure a win. Additionally, outside conservative groups poured at least $3.5 million into TV ads, far more than Democrats.
When you compare this special election to previous races in the district, Tuesday's results are even more alarming. The now-retired Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio, won over 66 percent of the vote, defeating his Democratic challenger Ed Albertson by 36 points. In races before 2016, Democrats haven't fared much better.
Given how much money the GOP has paid per vote only to produce such a narrow lead for Balderson should give Republicans pause. Whether it's a blue wave or a lack of Republican enthusiasm, the 2018 midterm elections look daunting for the GOP.
James Hohmann in the Washington Post:
The GOP must defend 72 districts in November that are rated as less Republican than Ohio’s 12th Congressional District. Democrats need to net 23 House seats to seize the majority. Many of those 72 races don’t currently look competitive, but last night’s returns show there’s good reason to believe some may come onto the map in the final weeks. Especially districts that are heavily suburban.
-- The trend of Democrats beating their 2016 performance by double digits continued. “Ohio 12 looks to have shifted by about 13 points towards Democrats relative to its partisan lean (how we would expect it to vote in a neutral political environment),” Micah Cohen notes on FiveThirtyEight. “That’s just about in line with Democrats’ average overperformance in these elections in the Trump era.” Remember, Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) eked out a victory in March in a district Trump won by 20 points.
Aaron Blake, also in the Post:
But Tuesday’s result was merely confirmation of a long-building trend, and history suggests Democrats are headed for big gains, now that the next federal election on the calendar is the Big One, fewer than three months away.
Real Clear Politics, discussing all of Tuesday's results:
The results were fully consistent with a Democratic wave in the house washing up on our shores in November. While there’s still time between now and then, there’s not a lot of time, and we’re at the point where these elections start to be very suggestive, if not fully predictive.
CNN said yesterday, “It’s time for Republicans to panic about the House.”
The next time someone denigrates Tuesday’s results as a meaningless moral victory, tell them they are not a victory at all. They are compelling evidence of what is coming in three months, especially when combined with results in other elections on Tuesday.
michigan will send first muslim woman to congress
Tuesday night Democratic voters in Michigan’s 13th district picked Rashida Tlaib as their nominee. With no GOP opposition in this deep blue district, she is certain to be elected the first Muslim woman ever elected to Congress.
"Rashida is the perfect example of how to hustle and win the right way, not just for Muslims or Arabs, but for anyone who ever felt the system was too stacked against them and had no place for a face like theirs," said Zaki Barzinji, the White House liaison to American Muslims under former President Barack Obama.
"She may be the first Muslim congresswoman, but she just opened the door for millions of Rashidas to follow. As a Muslim and Arab father of a 9-month-old baby girl, I've never felt more hopeful about my daughter's future."
missouri decisively kills anti-union “right to work” law
After Missouri’s legislature passed a so-called “right to work” law, residents of that state gathered the 300,000 signatures needed to put the matter before the voters. Tuesday those voters rejected the anti-labor law by a landslide, 65-35%.
Tuesday’s election marks the first time voters have overturned a right-to-work law through a ballot referendum since Ohio did something similar in 2011. No other state has even tried to in recent years. It’s also a major victory for the US labor movement at a time when Republican leaders, big businesses, and the courts have doubled down on their attempts to weaken the influence of labor unions and the workers they represent. And after the US Supreme Court’s June ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, which mandated right-to-work rules for all government unions, Missouri’s vote is a sign that unions are far from dead. They might even see a revival.
native-american lesbian wins Democratic primary in kansas’ 3rd district
KS-03 voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and is widely seen as an excellent red-to-blue opportunity in November. Democratic voters there chose as their nominee Sharice Davids.
Davids, who would be the first gay, Native American elected to Congress, narrowly won a six-way primary in her eastern Kansas district, shattering the mold for a congressional primary winner in conservative Kansas and embodying the range of ethnicities and sexual orientations of Democratic candidates running throughout the country this fall.
Notably, the 38-year-old lawyer and activist from Kansas City, Kansas, is among a wave of gay, bisexual and transgender candidates running — the vast majority as Democrats — including at the top of the ballot in key states.
“Voters in the third congressional district have sent a clear message to the nation: Fairness and tolerance are Kansas values,” said Tom Witt, executive director of Equality Kansas, a LGBT advocacy organization.
THINGS AREN’T GOING TO GET ANY BETTER FOR THE GOP IN UPCOMING ELECTIONS
cook political report now rates texas senate race as “leans republican”
Cook has acknowledged what we have seen and what the polls are showing: the Texas Senate race has become competitive.
This race in a state that isn’t usually competitive for Democrats in statewide races has generated an unusual amount of attention. Most of it is thanks to U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic nominee, who is running an unconventional yet successful campaign that has piqued the interest of Democrats around the country. Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz also gets some of the credit as a conservative lightning rod. The result is a closer than expected contest that moves to the Lean Republican column.
Recent polling has indicated that the race has closed. According to RealClearPolitics, there have been eight polls released since April, including three in July. The RCP moving average has Cruz ahead of O’Rourke by 6.5 points, 46.5 percent to 40 percent. The most recent survey is a Quinnipiac University poll (July 26-31 of 1,138 registered voters) that showed Cruz leading O’Rourke, 49 percent to 43 percent. In Quinnipiac’s May 23-29 survey, Cruz had an 11-point advantage over O’Rourke, 50 percent to 39 percent. In the July poll, Cruz’s job ratings were 50-percent approve to 42-percent disapprove, while O’Rourke’s favorable/unfavorable ratings were 33 percent to 23 percent. Another 43 percent said that they didn’t know enough about the Democrat to give him a rating.
A Texas Lyceum poll (July 9-26 of 441 likely voters) put the race within the margin of error with Cruz at 41 percent and O’Rourke at 39 percent.
Suffice it to say that O’Rourke has made incredible progress in a pretty red state, at least when it comes to running for statewide office. The race moves to Lean Republican. Whether it ever gets to Toss Up remains to be seen.
This is the same outfit that formerly said it “remains to be seen” if the race ever becomes competitive.
ted cruz’ attack ads result in huge wave of donations—but not for him
I’ll just leave this here.
Oklahoma poll shows democratic gubornatorial candidate virtually tied with whoever wins the gop primary runoff
The Sooner State will hold a runoff election on August 28th to decide the GOP nominee for governor. A recent poll indicates that whoever survives the bruising Republican battle is going to have a real fight on their hands in November. The Democratic candidate, Drew Edmondson, does very well against either Republican.
The reasons for the surprisingly strong showing for a Democrat in deep red Oklahoma include the fact that a plurality of voters say education is the most important issue facing the state as well as the current GOP governor’s incredible 10.9% approval rating.
OK, after the chaos of today’s birthday party I have neither the time nor the energy to find a good musical selection, so how about just some lyrics instead?
Before we move on to the schadenfreude files, my able assistant suggested that I throw in a cat story.
Luckily, Kossack Getting1 gave me just the thing, an incredible story of survival.
TWO MISSING CATS FOUND THREE WEEKS AFTER THEIR HOME EXPLODES
Kunimitsu and Mister Tibbs are two tough kittehs.
Two cats missing since their family's house exploded three weeks ago have been found in the rubble.
Ashley (Nadeau) says she got a call from her insurance company Tuesday afternoon. They were working with bulldozing crews, sifting through the rubble to investigate what caused the explosion when they found her cat, Kunimitsu, hiding in a pipe.
He was taken to a veterinarian and is reportedly doing fine.
Then, on Wednesday, Ashley told 13 NEWS and went back to look for any momentos she could salvage and, by chance, called out for her other cat, Mister Tibbs. Amazingly, he answered.
Ashley says she and a friend dug to get him out of the rubble. She calls it another miracle.
Ashley and her nine-month-old daughter weren't home when the house exploded on July 19th Authorities believe the explosion is linked to a gas leak and was related to storm damage.
If they were able to climb from the rubble of their home, we can survive whatever Trump tries to do to our country.
And now,
THE SCHADENFREUDE FILES
ONCE FAMOUS INTERNET NAZI FALLS ON HARD TIMES
Remember “Baked Alaska,” the Nazi who got pepper-sprayed just before being banned from Youtube? Things are not going well for him these days.
Whomp whomp.
alex jones banned by porn site
YouPorn is an “adult” website that allows users to post their own videos. Apparently Alex Jones and his followers were using it as a last resort after being banned from all major video sites. Not any more. (The block quote includes a link to YouPorn. Be aware before you click on it that it is exactly what you think it is.)
Streaming adult video site YouPorn, announced today that it has banned Alex Jones from its platform, following actions against the conspiracy-monger by tech companies including Apple, Facebook, YouTube and Spotify—but notably, not Twitter. Before you go “wtf,” there were indeed (non-porn) videos with Alex Jones in them on YouPorn (people often take advantage of relatively lax copyright policing on various porn sites to upload non-pornographic content). YouPorn said it’s also removed spoof videos of Jones and will not allow him to host any content on the platform moving forward.
A list of all the platforms (as of Wednesday night) that have given Jones the boot can be found here.
Well, that will do it for this foreshortened edition of the Good News Roundup. Next Thursday I will be back to my long-winded music-crazy self. In the meantime, if this wasn’t enough good news, go out and make some of your own (and/or add some more in the comments section.)
Remember that whatever part you play in the Resistance is important, so let that little light of yours shine. Play us out, Sister Rosetta.