Welcome 😄 to Friday’s Roundup of Good News!
I am actually pretty optimistic these days. I thought the Senate’s inevitable acquittal would get me down, but Senator Romney’s surprise vote to convict buoyed me beautifully. We were never going to get a conviction. But we saw no Democratic losses (and many were worried about Jones, Manchin and Sinema), and we got a Republican.
And although Iowa was messy, and even though I’m not sure who to support in the primary (I already have my ballot), I know I’ll be working hard for team blue, no matter who. 💙
This is from a Washington Post op-ed from Marie Yovanovitch, who recently left her job and can finally speak as a private citizen:
The next generation of diplomats is counting on something better. Our newest diplomats fill me with hope. They are smart, motivated and idealistic — and yet realistic about the unprecedented challenges facing the United States. While it is bittersweet to retire from a job that I love, I know there is a new generation of experts who will advance our interests in an increasingly dangerous world.
It’s not just us working to make this world a better place, but a lot of people you don’t see or know about.
And remember this:
“Every single vote — even a single vote, by a single member — can change the course of history,” Schiff said last week from the Senate floor. “Is there one among you who will say: ‘Enough’?”
We may feel alone when we stand up, but we are making a difference. You are making a difference.
Regular Scheduled Programming
No one here is naïve; we are aware of the very bad stuff that is happening. Some of us expected it: the cheating, the lying, the chaos, and yes, even the attempts to cling to power despite the clear will of the people. But we are here to read the efforts and the positive results of those (including us and our fellow gnus) who are working so hard to save our country from those very bad people. We are furious with them for what they are doing and we are letting them know. Remember:
💚 There are more of us than there are of them.
💛 They are terrified when we organize. THERE IS LOTS OF EVIDENCE THAT THEY ARE TERRIFIED!
💔 They want us to be demoralized. We have to keep demoralizing them. Name, blame and shame! IT IS WORKING! WE HAVE EVIDENCE THAT THEY ARE DEMORALIZED!
💙 The best way to keep up your spirits is to fight. So, take the time to recharge your batteries, but find ways to contribute to the well-being of our country and our world.
💙 Toxic 🍄 Trump Matters 👎 & Russia, Russia, Russia 🐻
GOP Hype for a bipartisan acquittal backfires — instead we got a bipartisan conviction vote Talking Points Memo
The vote for conviction was bipartisan, with Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) breaking with his party on the abuse of power article, while only Republicans voted for acquittal.
That outcome flipped on its head a talking point Trump and the GOP had embraced coming out of the House inquiry, where no Republicans supported the impeachment articles and two Democrats voted against both counts. And it injected one final dramatic, albeit not decisive, twist in a final trial vote that otherwise lacked suspense.
Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kristen Sinema (D-AZ), two Democrats being watched closely for potential acquittal votes on at least one of the articles, announced their support for conviction on both counts just minutes before the vote was held. Romney’s decision to vote for convicting Trump on one of the articles reportedly blindsided the White House and GOP Senate leadership, even as Romney staged several media interviews to be rolled out once he announced his decision shortly before the vote Wednesday.
Trump and his team were freaked out by Romney’s vote. It removes a talking point. It removes all the ads that they were going to base on the partisan witch hunt. And Romney’s vote to convict is a vote, not from just any Republican, but the previous Republican nominee for president.
And I think the freaking out is having a real impact on tRump. Because they canceled a photo op right after it happened.
I also believe that tRump’s physical condition is worse than many realize. Remember him complaining at Thanksgiving that he didn’t get any turkey, just mashed potatoes? What if he’s been put on a soft food diet because he’s having trouble swallowing — something that can happen with dementia sufferers?
I know, perhaps the stuff of conspiracy theories, and I admit I loves me a good conspiracy theory. But I think there’s a reason we’ve been seeing more photoshopped images of tRump. It’s because it’s harder and harder to get decent footage of him in real time.
Our Goodie has a diary up linking to the pettysbergaddress which is Twitter’s response to the unhinged rant of Thursday. And if you want to read the transcript, here it is. As some other person wrote, it’s more than unhinged — the whole door is missing.
🐊 Draining the Swamp 🐊
The following is a verbatim release from the Mississippi Office of the State Auditor (so I can lift more than usual)!
JACKSON, Miss. – Special agents from the office of State Auditor Shad White have arrested John Davis, the former Director of the Mississippi Department of Human Services (DHS); former DHS employee Latimer Smith; Dr. Nancy New, owner and Director of the Mississippi Community Education Center (MCEC) and New Learning, Inc.; Zach New, Assistant Executive Director of MCEC; Anne McGrew, accountant for MCEC; and Brett DiBiase in connection with a multimillion-dollar embezzlement scheme. The indictments include a range of violations involving fraud and embezzlement.
Auditors concluded, after an eight-month investigation, that the accused conspired to illegally obtain millions in public funds from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program administered by DHS. Defendants used a variety of business entities and schemes to defraud the taxpayers.
#“The funds that were illegally obtained in this case were intended to help the poorest among us. The funds were instead taken by a group of influential people for their own benefit, and the scheme is massive. It ends today,” said Auditor White.
#Davis and Smith stand accused of fraudulently manufacturing documents to enrich Brett DiBiase using TANF money. Davis and Smith created invoices to pay DiBiase TANF funds for teaching classes about drug abuse, but DiBiase was in a luxury rehabilitation facility for his own drug use in California at the time and did not perform the services. Davis and Smith created documents and arranged payment knowing DiBiase was not performing the work he was hired to perform.
#Nancy New and her son, Zach New, stand accused of using the News’ non-profit, MCEC, to pay for DiBiase’s drug treatment using TANF funds. At Davis’ direction, MCEC used TANF money received from DHS to pay for DiBiase’s opioid treatment at the Rise in Malibu facility. The documentation submitted by the News claimed this was to pay DiBiase for conducting training classes that never, in fact, took place.
💙 Democrats Are Great 🌊
Republicans 🐘 Got Nothing 👎
From Mother Jones: Trump May Have Broken the GOP, but he hasn’t broken America
Three out of four Americans wanted to hear evidence. That is critical. It means that while Trump has broken key structures of accountability, he has not entirely broken America’s brain.
And here’s the data:
Senator Sherrod Brown in an Op-ed on Rethug cowardice: NYT
In Private, Republicans Admit They Acquitted Trump Out of Fear
One journalist remarked to me, “How in the world can these senators walk around here upright when they have no backbone?”
Not guilty. Not guilty.
In the United States Senate, like in many spheres of life, fear does the business.
Think back to the fall of 2002, just a few weeks before that year’s crucial midterm elections, when the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq was up for a vote. A year after the 9/11 attacks, hundreds of members of the House and the Senate were about to face the voters of a country still traumatized by terrorism.
Senator Patty Murray, a thoughtful Democrat from Washington State, still remembers “the fear that dominated the Senate leading up to the Iraq war.”
“You could feel it then,” she told me, “and you can feel that fear now” — chiefly among Senate Republicans.
Nancy the Ripper… too good not to enjoy again
Back to information on fundraising Daily Kos
This time, three vulnerable Democratic incumbents brought in over $1 million during the quarter. The top fundraiser was Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who hauled in $1.3 million and closed the year with $2.9 million to spend. While her 8th District should be a top GOP target—it voted for Donald Trump 51-44—you wouldn't know that from looking at the GOP candidates' numbers. The best-funded Republican by far was former ICE official Paul Junge, who raised just $125,000 and self-funded another $148,000, leaving him with just $235,000 in the bank.
Not far behind Slotkin were fellow Democratic freshmen Reps. Max Rose of New York and Katie Porter of California. Rose took in $1.2 million and had $2.5 million to spend, while Porter raised $1 million and had $2.7 million in the bank. Republican Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis took in a distant $306,000 during this time and had $723,000 on-hand for her campaign to unseat Rose in this 54-44 Trump district. That's considerably better for the GOP than the situation in Porter's district, though, where not one Republican took in so much as $90,000 during the quarter.
That's not all the good news for Democrats looking to hold the House, though. Four more freshman Democrats in competitive seats raised over $900,000, while an additional six took in over $800,000. Another 19 Democrats who flipped seats last cycle also raised over $500,000 during the quarter. To put these numbers in perspective, during the fourth quarter of 2017, when the Republicans were trying in vain to hold the House, just two candidates in competitive seats raised more than $700,000.
Although Iowa’s chaos was nothing to celebrate, and turn out wasn’t that great, I heard last night that 58% of the caucus participants were female. If we see that sort of gender gap in the general, tRump doesn’t stand a chance.
BEYOND THE BELTWAY
Republican party official quits GOP in disgust over tRump Newsweek
A Republican Party official in Indiana says he has quit the GOP because the impeachment process showed the party he supported for decades has become "cultish" in its backing of President Donald Trump.
Ed Adams resigned from his position as a local precinct committeeman for the 18-02 precinct in the Irvington neighborhood of Marion County.
According to his resignation letter, seen by IndyStar, he felt that the vote by all the Republican Senators—apart from Mitt Romney (Utah) and Susan Collins (Maine)—not to call witnesses to Trump's trial, was a step he could not accept.
According to the IndyStar, his letter read: "For the life of me I don't understand why people don't want the truth. American people deserve the truth—and why are you enabling the hiding of truth? It has become the party of Donald Trump with cultish enthusiasm.”
Virginia House passes bill to end conversion therapy for minors WAVY
RICHMOND, Va. (WAVY) — The Virginia House of Delegates has passed a bill to end conversion therapy for minors.
The practice to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender expression, which has been widely discredited, has been linked to suicide, drug use and homelessness in minors, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
HB 386, sponsored by Democrat Patrick Hope (Arlington County), would prohibit any health provider who performs counseling from engaging in conversion therapy.
Several Republican lawmakers gave their support to the bill, including Robert Bloxom (Eastern Shore), Barry Knight (Virginia Beach), Glenn Davis (Virginia Beach) and Keith Hodges (Gloucester, Mathews).
🐍 Schadenfreude 🍎
Oh No All the Nazi Website People Are Being Laid Off! Wonkette
Neo-Nazi and noted Tucker Carlson superfan Andrew Anglin is having a real bad week. Apparently, the hatemongering game just ain't what it used to be, and he's had to lay off most of his staff at the Daily Stormer, because his fellow Nazis are just not coming through with the cash to support him anymore. Too bad, so sad. ✂️
The thing that really hurt Anglin though is the notion that his readers just don't believe in his very important agenda of being a gross Nazi who screams about minorities all day. How are they ever going to get their race war together if these people won't send Andrew Anglin some money to write articles about white genocide?
It is impossible to communicate how depressing this is for me personally. I thought that we were promoting an agenda here that people believed in, but it seems that virtually all of you do not believe in this enough to send $5.
It certainly does not give me hope for the future. This is the only large site promoting this agenda, telling the truth about the Jews, and attempting to save white people. And we're now shrinking an already tiny staff because the overwhelming majority of the readership apparently doesn't give a shit.
Oh, the poor dear. He's depressed. Because no one will give him money to pay people to be bigots. What even is America? Anglin says he may even have to shut down the site's "Race War" vertical, in which crimes committed by people of color are highlighted, for the purpose of getting white people riled up enough to start said race war.
Of course the rest of us see this as very, very good news. Because it means that people are less inclined to spend money on bigotry these days.
📣🏅 Let’s Honor Truth 🏅☀️
First, I have to give a shout-out to Senator Romney, who showed real moral courage this week. He will be punished by his party for what he did, and the punishment will probably be severe. In part it’s this punishment which has led to the acquittal votes.
I’ve never had the same loathing for Romney as I’ve had for Bush II, Cheney, and the current cretin in the oval office. I didn’t want him as president, and I think he was truly blind to the damage some of the policies he was advocating would cause. But if he was truly blind, then how could he be expected to see?
Fortunately Romney is being lauded by one of the papers in his state.
I remember how he was mocked, too, for once saying “The trees are the right height,” when he was campaigning in Michigan. But as someone who grew up in a neighboring state — Indiana — I knew exactly what he meant.
Anyway, thank you, Senator Romney. I agree with you, at least sometimes. The trees are the right height.
The scientists at NOAA Washington Post
A trove of documents released on Friday evening provide the clearest glimpse yet into how President Trump’s inaccurate statements, altered forecast map and tweets regarding Hurricane Dorian’s forecast path rattled top officials along with rank and file scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in September.
The documents, released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests from The Washington Post and other media outlets, show that the No. 2 official at the agency, Ret. Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, claimed that neither he nor acting administrator Neil Jacobs approved a controversial unsigned statement that a NOAA spokesperson issued on Sept. 6. That statement criticized the National Weather Service forecast office in Birmingham for a tweet that contradicted Trump’s inaccurate assertion from Sept. 1, in which the president claimed that Alabama “will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated” from the Category 5 storm.
🌹 Let’s Celebrate Love ❤️
Sometimes jury nullification can be a good thing — when the law is really, really wrong.
Or sometimes it takes a federal judge. Daily Kos
The Trump administration’s yearslong taxpayer-funded mission to criminalize humanitarian aid at the southern U.S. border continues to be rebuked in the courts, with a federal judge on Monday reversing the convictions of four workers who had been charged for their actions volunteering with No More Deaths, the humanitarian aid group whose sole mission has been to prevent agonizing migrant deaths in the border desert.
The Tucson Sentinel reports that Natalie Hoffman, Oona Holcomb, Madeline Huse, and Zaachila Orozco-McCormick had been found guilty of federal misdemeanors early last year for their work leaving water and other lifesaving supplies in the searing desert, Hoffman “for operating a motor vehicle in a wilderness area and entering a national refuge without a permit while Holcomb, Huse, and Orozco-McCormick were found guilty of entering without a permit and abandonment of property.”
But in her ruling this week, U.S. District Judge Rosemary Márquez wrote, “Defendants argue that those actions, taken with the avowed goal of mitigating death and suffering, were sincere exercises of religion and that their prosecution is barred by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.” According to the court document, all four are affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Church. Márquez’s ruling, noting the thousands of sets of human remains that have been found in Arizona during the past two decades, further castigated the government for “gruesome logic.”
📎📎Odds & Ends 📎📎
So I did some freeway (roadside) blogging on Wednesday. We had this planned for a while, and had been waiting for the weather, etc., but it turned out it was just the perfect day for it, when this senator violated her oath by refusing to convict tRump.
These signs may not last long, however, because the weather gods changed the prediction for next week and we may get more rain.
Simply Freude — not Schadenfreude, but Schneefreude:
I like dogs, but I love cats, so there’s this, when a locked-out human persuaded the feline inside to get the wooden bar out of the way so she could enter:
💙 What You Can Do to Rescue Democracy 💙
It turns out that participation in democracy is not just an every-four-years event but requires active participation, like, whenever you can find time. However, given that we have taken back the House, the tactics moving forward need to be different. Indivisible has ideas to share.
Indivisible 2.0
This Guide is for what comes next. The 2016 Indivisible Guide was about using constituent power to defend our values, our neighbors, and our democracy. This Guide is about using our constituent power to go on offense.
Offense is exciting, but it’s more complex than defense. We have the opportunity to use congressional oversight to hold Trump and his cronies accountable. We can set the legislative agenda with a bold progressive vision rooted in inclusion, fairness, and justice. But none of this is automatic — we have to demand it of Congress.
And some other ideas:
You can relax and recharge.
You can join protests and freeway blog.
You can help register new voters.
You can smile.
You can get out the vote for special elections.
You can reach out to upset Republicans. Remember, a lot of them crossed over in the midterms! Get them to feel good about being blue.
You can share your ideas below.
🌻
🍀 “My experience has been that work is almost
always the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.” 🍀
Eleanor Roosevelt
🔥 If you’re going through hell, keep going! 🔥
Winston Churchill
🌹 🌹 🌹
TRUTH MATTERS. LOVE MATTERS.
