Good Day, All! Busy day here at Chez Nifty — lucky for me, though (and you!) someone else wrote a great intro so I will just quote them right here ⬇
Former federal prosecutor: A "day of reckoning" is coming for Trump — but he's not going to jail, Chauncey Devega, Salon, September 19, 2022.
McCallion explains the approach that Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice will likely take in prosecuting Trump for the government documents he stored at Mar-a-Lago and the events of Jan. 6. Any such prosecution will require both overwhelming irrefutable evidence and a simple and direct story to tell a jury about Trump's misdeeds. McCallion also says that contrary to some media reports, Trump can definitely still be prosecuted even if he announces he is running for president.
Toward the end of this conversation, McCallion outlines a likely scenario for the final disposition of such a prosecution. He believes that Trump may be brought down by a litany of civil lawsuits that will cripple him financially, not by a high-profile criminal case in which the former president is "perp-walked" in handcuffs and then sent to prison. ✂️
Q: But what message is sent if the Department of Justice makes a deal with him? If Trump is not convicted and put in jail, what does that mean for the future of the country?
Keeping Trump from the White House again is a real benefit to the country. He'd have to agree to that in any plea deal. Trump would have to explicitly promise not to run for public office again. Will he continue to agitate and attempt to grab press headlines? Of course, but the Republican Party and his followers, at some point, have to move on. Donald Trump has had his moment. In the end, the country will get past Donald Trump.
Strap in for the bumpy ride that you know a malignant narcissist will cause for us all — and know that we will prevail over the madness of TFG and his demented followers.
Let’s get started on the mountain of good news! But first, some music to set the mood…
🎶 Mood Music! 🎶
😎💙 Democrats Deliver 💙😊
Sen. Whitehouse has been on this forever — he does not let up (thank the stars!): ‘Dark money erodes public trust,’ Biden says as he pushes disclosure legislation, John Wagner and Azi Paybarah, Washington Post, September 20, 2022.
Biden’s DOJ cracking down on pandemic fraud
AG Merrick Garland announced the DOJ was making prosecuting people who stole from the relief and rescue funds a priority. Now here is proof that he meant it.
These fraudsters invented non-existent children to feed, bribed struggling restaurants and more to steal from the Covid-19 funds. Now they — like others who have defrauded American taxpayers’ Covid relief fund — will face consequences:
Feds Charge 47 In Scheme To Steal $250 Million From Program For Needy Kids, Amy Forliti, AP via HuffPost, September 20, 2022.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal authorities charged 47 people in Minnesota with conspiracy and other counts in what they said Tuesday was the largest fraud scheme yet to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic by stealing $250 million from a federal program that provides meals to low-income children. ✂️
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice made prosecuting pandemic-related fraud a priority. The department has already taken enforcement actions related to more than $8 billion in suspected pandemic fraud, including bringing charges in more than 1,000 criminal cases involving losses in excess of $1.1 billion. ✂️
According to court documents, the alleged scheme targeted the USDA’s federal child nutrition programs, which provide food to low-income children and adults. In Minnesota, the funds are administered by the state Department of Education, and meals have historically been provided to kids through educational programs, such as schools or day care centers. ✂️
But during the pandemic, some of the standard requirements for sites to participate in the federal food nutrition programs were waived. The USDA allowed for-profit restaurants to participate, and allowed food to be distributed outside educational programs. The charging documents say the defendants exploited such changes “to enrich themselves.”
All those projecting Rs better take note:
This Senate bill 3157 is significant: many immigrants arrive here with degrees — often medical degrees — and they are willing to work in areas that are underserved in their field. But the regulations prevent them from practicing in their professions. This bill can help ease that situation, which will be a win/win:
The Newest Democratic Fight to Make Vote by Mail Easier, Prem Thakker, Washington Monthly, September 20, 2022.
Nearly 24 years ago, Oregon solved the problem of repeating absentee sign-ups by making vote by mail the default for the entire state—every registered voter is mailed a ballot weeks before the election, which they can fill out at home and return either through the mail, in person at a polling place, or in a drop box. Since then, seven more states—Washington, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Vermont, and Hawaii—have gone the full “vote at home” route. Prior to 2020, this was not a partisan issue: Utah, for instance, is an overwhelmingly red state, whereas Hawaii is overwhelmingly blue. Recent research, meanwhile, confirms that voter turnout goes up the most in full vote-at-home states, as Paul Glastris noted recently in the Washington Monthly.
But it’s not necessary to go full vote at home to make single sign-up work. Washington, D.C., and six states—Montana, Arizona, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Illinois—already have permanent absentee lists available to all voters, some enacted just in the past two years. Eleven other states, including Alabama, Delaware, Kansas, and New York, offer permanent vote by mail to people with disabilities and people over 65. Single sign-up not only makes voting more convenient but also saves taxpayers money, because, among other things, local election officials “don’t have to spend time processing the applications,” notes Phil Keisling, former secretary of state of Oregon and chair of the National Vote at Home Institute, a nonprofit research group.✂️
The popularity of voting by mail generally, and single sign-up in particular, is clear from how many voters choose to take advantage of it when they’re afforded the opportunity. And once voters grow used to a so-called entitlement—Obamacare, for example, or the constitutional right to an abortion—they are loath to give it up. Once again, Republicans are putting themselves in the unpopular position of being the party that takes rights away.
🎶 Hold On to the Blue Vision of America 🎶
😩 🤬 Republicans in Disarray 😡😫
“Republicans had a strategy for downplaying the issue through the midterms. So much for that.”
The Chaotic Politics of Lindsey Graham’s Abortion Bill, William Saletan, the Bulwark, September 20, 2022.
Senate Republicans had a plan for handling the politics of abortion through the 2022 midterms. The plan was to defend the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision as a return to state control of abortion policy. That’s a more popular position than banning abortion nationwide, and it gives Republican Senate candidates in purple states license to duck the issue. They can signal to pro-choice voters that it’s safe to ignore abortion—and focus instead on inflation and other GOP-friendly issues—when deciding how to vote in federal elections. ✂️
McConnell’s plan was sensible. But his colleague, Lindsey Graham, is wrecking it. Last Tuesday, Graham introduced legislation that would prohibit nearly all abortions shortly after the first trimester. And on Sunday, in a Fox News interview, Graham sabotaged the McConnell strategy. He trashed the states’ rights argument, telegraphed his intention to outlaw abortions at every stage, and urged pro-life voters and activists to press Republican senators to support a federal ban. ✂️
In the Fox News interview, Graham demolished his Republican colleagues’ portrayal of Dobbs as a vindication of states’ rights. In the Dobbs decision, the Supreme Court said “it’s up to elected officials, state or federal,” to legislate on abortion, Graham pointed out. That’s true, and it’s often misunderstood. But as Graham clears up that misunderstanding, explaining that Dobbs empowered Congress to ban abortions in every state—and that this is what Graham and many of his colleagues intend to do—the backlash against Dobbs, the GOP, and McConnell’s Senate candidates will grow.
McConnell-linked super PAC pulls out of Arizona Senate race, Hannah Knowles and Azi Paybarah, Washington Post, September 20, 2022.
A super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has canceled nearly $10 million it had reserved for television ads in Arizona, an official with the group said Tuesday, pulling out of a battleground state where Republican challenger Blake Masters trails Sen. Mark Kelly (D) in the polls.
The spending cuts — which slash all of the super PAC’s remaining ad investments in Arizona — are another blow to a GOP candidate who has been significantly outraised by his Democratic opponent and outmatched on the airwaves. The super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), also cut $8 million in Arizona Senate ads last month, delaying its entry into the race to October — and stoking some GOP alarm in a state long seen as a top Republican pickup opportunity
All thanks to This Irredeemable Loser
“Trump, despite his record since 2018 as a loser, has nevertheless continued his domineering of the GOP.”
Trump’s Endorsements Poised To Let Democrats Hold On To Congress, S. V. Dáte, HuffPost, September 20, 2022.
While the former president successfully made a willingness to spread his lies about a “stolen” election a litmus test for getting through the GOP primaries, that precise quality in many cases is a detriment in the November general election — an election Republicans had assumed for months would give them control of at least the House and possibly also the Senate.
Instead, exactly seven weeks before election night, even recapturing the House is no longer a certainty, thanks to those weak general election candidates, Trump’s insistence on putting himself in the spotlight, and a fundraising operation that has locked away more than $100 million in small-dollar GOP donations into what is effectively his personal slush fundand will not be used in campaigns this fall.
What a loser:
🎶 Music for Rs Watching their summer illusions slip away 🎶
⚖️ Justice ⚖️
“No one can promise Trump won't get away. But he's sweating — and he wakes up every day faced with huge legal bills”
They have him surrounded: Trump now faces legal troubles in three states, plus D.C. Lucian K Truscott lV, Salon, September 17, 2022.
Trump is a phone guy, and his favorite thing to do as president was to get on the phone and swap gossip and plot with his close associates. One of them was My Pillow Guy Mike Lindell, a frequent visitor to the Trump White House and a longtime supporter. Lindell's cellphone was seized by the FBI on Wednesday. ✂️
Another cellphone seized by the FBI as part of its criminal investigation into Trump belonged to former law school professor John Eastman, the author of the infamous memo planning the submission of slates of fake electors to Congress from battleground states lost by Trump. The FBI also took possession of the cellphone of Scott Perry, the Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who introduced Jeffrey Clark to Trump. Clark was an acting assistant attorney general whom Trump considered appointing to the top post as part of his plan to overturn the election results in Georgia. Just this week, the FBI took the cellphones of Boris Epshteyn, a former White House aide who now serves as an in-house counsel coordinating the handling of Trump's various legal woes, and Mike Roman, who was the Trump campaign's director of Election Day operations and is now an aide to the former president. Both Epshteyn and Roman are suspected of being part of the scheme to name fake electors from states Trump lost in 2020. ✂️
[goes on to describe 3 separate investigations in DC, more in Georgia and still more in NY]
It is not known how many lawyers Trump has working for him on all these legal troubles, but he won't be able to continue paying them with funds from the Save America PAC if and when he announces he is running for president, which probably goes a long way toward explaining why he hasn't done so yet. Trump doesn't give a damn about any Republican other than himself, but he does care a whole lot about money. The prospect of paying his attorneys in Washington, Florida, New York and Georgia out of his own pocket just might put him off announcing for several more months at least. After the midterm elections on Nov. 8, the DOJ will no longer be constrained by its self-imposed "60-day rule" of not initiating criminal proceedings in advance of elections. All bets are off after that, and maybe the DOJ will stop issuing subpoenas and executing search warrants and start making arrests.
Oops! Looks like TFG goofed on that delaying tactic
Special Master Has a Simple Test That May Be Disaster for Trump, Jose Pagliery, Daily Beast, September 20, 2022.
The special master, Raymond J. Dearie, said Tuesday that if Trump’s lawyers don't officially counter whether the documents the former president took are classified, then Dearie will side with the DOJ.
“As far as I'm concerned, that's the end of it,” he said.
Dearie, a semi-retired federal judge in Brooklyn who’s playing the role of temporary referee, wants to speed up the process and get federal agents back on track. And while Trump has been alleging on social media that he already declassified the records he swiped from the White House, Dearie is demanding that Trump put up or shut up. The senior judge wants Trump’s team to clarify—in sworn affidavits where lies could mean jail time—whether or not Trump actually declassified them. ✂️
Dearie also shows that he wants to speed things up. Although Cannon ordered Dearie to finish his review by Nov. 30, court filings reveal that Dearie actually wants all records labeled and ready to review by Oct. 7. That could mean that we see action—and potentially damning conclusions—before Election Day this year.
Making this sting even more, Trump has been ordered to pay for Dearie’s salary in the meantime.
And the DOJ is not 😴 on the 11th circuit appeal, either:
This person is in deep doodoo
Looks like the Republican official from Coffee County, GA lied in her sworn testimony. I think the legal term for that is “big no-no”:
Video appears to undercut Trump elector’s account of alleged voting-data breach in Georgia, Jon Swaine and Emma Brown, Washington Post, September 20, 2022.
Under questioning last month for a civil lawsuit, a former Georgia Republican Party official named Cathy Latham said in sworn testimony that she briefly stopped by the office in Coffee County that afternoon. She said she stayed in the foyer and spoke with a junior official about an unrelated matter at the front desk.
“I didn’t go into the office,” Latham said, according to a transcript of her deposition filed in court. She said she had seen in passing a pro-Trump businessman who was working with the experts. She said they chatted for “five minutes at most” — she could not remember the topic — and she left soon after for an early dinner with her husband. ✂️
Surveillance video footage reviewed by The Washington Post shows that Latham visited the elections office twice that day, staying for more than four hours in total. She greeted the businessman, Scott Hall, when he arrived and led him into a back area to meet the experts and local officials, the video shows. Over the course of the day, it shows, she moved in and out of an area where the experts from the data forensics firm, SullivanStrickler, were working, a part of that building that was not visible to the surveillance camera.
She took a selfie with one of the forensics experts before heading out at 6:19 p.m.
Meanwhile from the schadenfreude file
Hey, I haven’t done a schadenfreude file in months! Let’s do one, today!
This assh*le
Peter Thiel is the weirdest white supremacist misogynist. Glad his weirdo “dating app” is a failure:
Women Turned Off by Billionaire’s Conservative Dating App, Zachary Petrizzo and Noah Kirsch, Daily Beast, September 17, 2022.
Kayleigh’s sister, Ryann McEnany, is particularly suited for the job. She has 146,000 Instagram followers—mostly young conservatives—and has been assigned a particularly tough task: convincing attractive, conservative women to sign up.
Her basic pitch, according to Instagram messages reviewed by The Daily Beast, is a mix of flattery and exclusivity: “Hi, I’m working with John McEntee’s team on an exclusive conservative dating app called The Right Stuff that’s expected to launch this summer! We would love to get you on our list for early access to the app.” ✂️
Two Republican staffers in Washington, D.C., said many young conservative women have ignored McEnany’s outreach and have instead jeeringly passed around screenshots of her messages to group chats.
and These assholes
Probably should have filed this under Least Surprising News 🙄: Some Jan. 6 defendants accused of other crimes since Capitol attack, Scott McFarlane, CBS, September 18, 2022.
A CBS News review of U.S. Justice Department court filings shows a growing number of Jan. 6 defendants have been arrested again, for subsequent crimes involving guns, drugs and domestic abuse. The new charges complicate their ability to secure lenient sentences in their cases related to the rioting on Jan. 6, 2021, and they potentially jeopardize attempts by other Capitol riot defendants to secure pretrial releases in their cases.
The Justice Department has charged approximately 870 people with crimes in relation to the Capitol attack. A small percentage — several dozen — are being held in pre-trial detention. Thirty of the defendants are being detained in the Washington, D.C., jail. ✂️
University of Maryland law professor Michael Greenberger said the unique politicization of the prosecutions related to Jan. 6, including by former President Donald Trump, increases the risk of recidivism by some of the defendants. Greenberger said the ongoing denials the 2020 election results by some political leaders and the talk of future pardons for Jan. 6 defendants by Trump "leaves these bad actors with little doubt that they will ultimately be forgiven—if not lionized."
Greenberger said, "Reality, however, is likely to settle upon those guys when they are ultimately sentenced or resentenced to many years in jail."
This Assh*le, too
Florida’s governor is one of the worst. Here’s hoping he suffers real consequences for his cruel scheme:
Migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard sue DeSantis in class action alleging fraud, Zoe Richards, NBC, September 20, 2022.
Alianza Americas, a Chicago-based network of migrant-led organizations, and three migrants who landed in Massachusetts last week on flights chartered by Florida accused DeSantis and his co-defendants of executing “a premeditated, fraudulent, and illegal scheme ... for the sole purpose of advancing their own personal, financial and political interests.”
In the lawsuit, which seeks class-action status in Massachusetts federal court, the plaintiffs allege that the “ruse” — which DeSantis claimed credit for as part of his effort to highlight illegal immigration — violated constitutional protections under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments and several federal statutes.
In addition to seeking damages, they are also asking the court to block DeSantis and others named in the lawsuit from “inducing immigrants to travel across state lines by fraud and misrepresentation.”
The suit further argues that the money DeSantis used was unauthorized because it “originated from the federal Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund and was therefore subject to its use restrictions.”
Texas sheriff believes ‘criminal activity’ involved in Martha’s Vineyard flights; opens investigation, Paul J Weber, AP via PBS,
Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar, an elected Democrat, railed against the flights that took off in his city as political posturing. But he said investigators had so far only spoken to attorneys representing some of the migrants and did not name any potential suspects who might face charges.
He also did not mention DeSantis in a news conference that appeared to mark the first time a law enforcement official has said they would look into the flights.
“I believe there is some criminal activity involved here,” Salazar said. “But at present we are trying to keep an open mind and we are going to investigate to find out what exact laws were broken if that does turn out to be the case.”
OH, and look what the US Attorney for the Southern District of Texas tweeted out yesterday 👀:
What a coincidence! Those guys are going to prison for what sounds an awful lot like what Ronda Santis and his confederates did! (Nice trolling, DOJ and SDTX! 😉)
And these Fools Assh*les
Lastly, This Assh*le
Whew! That’s a lot of schadenfreude for a Wednesday morning! 😅
International News
“Existential spiral beginning” for Putin’s imperial ambitions:
Kremlin’s New Hail Mary Shows Putin Is More Panicked Than Ever, Allison Quinn, Daily Beast, September 20, 2022.
After weeks of battlefield setbacks in Ukraine, Moscow appears to have buckled under pressure and plowed ahead with a new phase in the war: urgent “referendums” to annex stolen Ukrainian land and harsh prison terms for defiant troops. ✂️
While the move is widely seen as a way for the Kremlin to shore up troops, it was almost immediately met with panicked calls for Russian troops to ditch the war now before it’s too late.
“We call on Russian service members at military bases and on the front to refuse participation in the ‘special operation’ or surrender as soon as possible. This is most likely your last chance—and you need to use it in the next day,” the anti-war movement Vesna wrote in an open letter. A dozen other anti-war groups also are said to have signed on to the appeal.
Late Breaking News: Putin’s postponed panic speech started around 1AM Chicago time. Unhinged as expected (though it was recorded). Plenty of threats and alternate reality and disinformation, etc.
And our excellent new Ambassador to Ukraine responds (yes!):
I know this kind of aggressive speech from P*tin is going to raise some anxieties. I get it and I’m certainly not happy about it either. The reality is this, though, my friends: this madness is what we have to confront. It is better to know what it is — every ugly threat, every sickening ambition, every revealed weakness. What we are facing is a man who will behave like a cornered rat (like TFG!). A cornered rat is indeed dangerous, so we will need to be prepared for anything. Luckily we have good leadership and although nobody can prevent bad actors from doing bad acts, we can be prepared to respond with all our might.
We will prevail. I am confident.
✶✶✶✶ Good Illinois News ✶✶✶✶
The first story is great news for humans and other living things who need to drink water. The scientists caution that the discovery still needs to be proven to work outside of a lab AND that it may only work on about half of the “forever chemicals” — but it would still be an amazing step forward and shows that solutions can be found (sometimes they are sitting right under our noses!):
Northwestern professor takes on ‘forever chemicals,’ and he just might win, Brett Chase, Chicago Sun Times, September 16, 2022.
His latest discovery might prove to be a defining achievement. Dichtel and colleagues in his lab have come up with a simple, inexpensive method to destroy the harmful and ubiquitous contaminants called PFAS, known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down in the environment or the human body.
“The more I learned, the more I became concerned about these chemicals,” Dichtel says. “We have to address this quickly, at least in the context of drinking water.”✂️
Determined to find the “Achilles’ heel” of some of the most persistent and widespread harmful chemicals in the world, Dichtel, working with his former doctoral student Brittany Trang, led a study, recently published in the journal Science, which found that a combination of the widely used solvent dimethyl sulfoxide and sodium hydroxide — lye —heated to just above the boiling point of water can destroy many types of PFAS.
“It was so simple we can’t believe it was never known,” says Dichtel, who came to Northwestern six years ago. “PFAS manufacturing for the past 50 years has polluted the earth.” ✂️
Like Dichtel, Trang says she was “stunned that something so simple — that we should’ve known decades ago — worked.”
Northwestern has filed a patent on the technology and lists Dichtel and Trang as co-inventors of the process.
An inspiring Immigrant story
Five decades of growth for Latino business leader, Lourdes Duarte, WGN, September 19, 2022.
But the success of his stores isn’t the sole reason for the recognition Jimenez has received lately. Time and time again, Jimenez has helped with recovery efforts after major disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2010, Jimenez sent $5,000 bags of food to Haiti after the earthquake.
It’s those acts of kindness that his family says made him stand out and over the decades, gain the respect of some of Chicago’s fastest-growing neighborhoods.
“I love Chicago,” Jimenez said. “Chicago is a beautiful city. Chicago has a lot of things for everybody, not just for me.”
Guaranteed Income pilots expanding
More guaranteed income pilots launch as Chicago wraps enrollment for ‘Resilient Communities’ program, Elvia Malagón, Chicago Sun Times, September 19, 2022.
The city’s announcement comes as other government agencies get ready to start similar guaranteed income programs. In Evanston, officials accepted applications for a similar program that will select 150 residents who will receive $500 for a year. Cook County will start accepting applications next month for its pilot program providing 3,250 residents with $500 a month for two years. ✂️
“A guaranteed income is part of a critical part of our mission to infuse equity into county government, because we know that income inequality has been drawn by racial lines in this country,” said Toni Preckwinkle, Cook County Board president. “Across the board, in terms of household wealth, homeownership, access to credit, the list goes on, Black and brown people are often born with less financially and disproportionally locked out of opportunities to build more.” ✂️
The additional cash residents will receive is meant to supplement other social services, the goal being to help individuals get out poverty, he said. With inflation driving up food prices, Patel said the monthly benefit also could offset those costs.
“We know that $500, at least from our perspective, is not enough,” Patel said. “But it’s allowing a lot more families to plan to either get a full-time job, or buy their first car that becomes their wealth, or allows them to possibly go get an interview, or do something else that is a long-term solution, while they have this support for a year or two.”
🎶 💙 Chicago Music 💙🎶
Good Labor News 💪
The resurrection of labor unions is real:
🐩💙 CG’s Picks 💙🐩
Hello Everybody! It’s me, Curlygirl! I’m still feeling a little under the weather and now to add insult to injury I have to wear this stupid collar thing that makes me bang into everything and I almost pulled a lamp off the table because the stupid collar thing caught the lamp cord — but luckily I am quick and I stopped still and waited for Mama to help me. I never break things!
Anyway, I’m having a not so great week. But luckily, I was still able to find some things to show you!
What Do Dogs Know About Us?, Alexandra Horowitz, the Atlantic, September 16, 2022.
Science is quiet on what they know about us. But to be sure, they are thinking about us, and it is striking to be held in their gaze. They learn our habits well enough to show us when we veer from them; they anticipate our actions even before we are aware of them. And yet they level no judgment, as happy to see you on the toilet as at the door, flinching not at your nakedness or weakness. We adopted a puppy, not thinking that she would see us so well. ✂️
A lot of dog-cognition research relies on this kind of setup: asking a dog not to eat something scrumptious and then testing in what situations they go ahead and eat it anyway. Even without treats, though, dogs in experimental studies have shown their sensitivity to what people know. One research groupset up a slightly unusual scene for person and dog: The two sit on opposite sides of a room. Between them are two barriers—one transparent, one opaque; on the dog’s side of each barrier is a dog toy. The toys are just about identical; allowed to grab either, dogs choose at random. But if asked to “fetch” by the person on the other side of the barriers, dogs choose the toy next to the transparent barrier; they think about which one the person can see. Dogs, not even language users, translate fetch into fetch that one that I must be referring to because it’s the only one I have visual access to. Not bad, pooch.
I like Santa Claus. I don’t write letters to Santa Claus (duh, I have paws, not hands! Sorry, I am out of sorts!), but I do receive a present from him every year! We saw this on Twitter this week and Mama and I thought yay what a great idea and now I am going to share it with you!
My last item is something about a whale — a baby beluga whale! When my human brothers and sisters were little, they listened to this song and others by Raffi (and some other singers, too!). We like this today because Raffi added a verse for grown ups! AND Yo Yo Ma helps him with the music! Except Raffi doesn’t even need a kazoo — he can make the sound just with his own mouth! I love it!
🎶 Baby Beluga Music 🎶
⚡️ Lightning RoundUp ⚡️
⚡️ Gift article well worth reading: www.nytimes.com/… How Russian Trolls Helped Keep the Women’s March Out of Lock Step, Ellen Barry, New York Times, September 18, 2022.
⚡️ The Nation That Never Was review: a new American origin story, from the ashes of the old, Michael Henry Adams, the Guardian, September 17, 2022.
⚡️ Sobering and necessary read. The last paragraph is electrifying: Why Democracies Are So Slow to Respond to Evil, Dara Horn, the Atlantic, September 16, 2022.
⚡️ More of this needed: Scholars Ask Congress to Scrap Winner-Take-All Political System, Blake Hounshell, New York Times, September 19, 2022.
⚡️ Reminds me of 2thanks’ deep canvassing: How to Change Minds? A Study Makes the Case for Talking It Out. Virginia Hughes, New York Times, September 16, 2022.
⚡️ Opinion Putin is reeling. Now is the time to help Ukraine win. Max Boot, Washington Post, September 20, 2022.
⚡️ Reminder: Putin is not superhuman: What Would a Ukraine Victory Look Like? Benjamin Hart, New York Magazine, September 17, 2022.
⚡️ Opinion Trump’s lawyers just gave away the game, exposing his Achilles’ heel, Greg Sargent, Washington Post, September 20, 2022.
⚡️ Yer Wonkette: Lindsey Graham Still Running His Facehole About Abortion, So Have A Blessed Day, Mitch McConnell!, Evan Hurst, Wonkette, September 20, 2022.
⚡️ Fun fall reading: Your special fall equinox 2022 horoscope is here, Bryanna Collier, CBC Life, September 16, 2022.
💗 How Can You Help Build Our Democracy Back Better? 💗
Put your beautiful bleeding liberal heart into it! 🥰
Democratic litigation hero, Marc Elias was the legal eagle behind the 60 Big Lie losses after the election. Here’s his website, Democracy Docket. You can find information about current cases he is fighting to defend voting rights around the country, as well as actions you can take to help fight voter suppression at the link!
Write to voters around the country with Postcards to Voters. Progressive Muse usually posts an update on current campaigns in the comments and you can also check out the website. It’s easy, fun and it really works to GOTV!
🎩 Also, Goody posted a great list of links and I am going to borrow it because it’s great! 🎩
The only way they can win is by keeping people from voting. They are working like heck to make that happen and we need to do all we can to keep 2022 from being a year when they grab the Senate and House back from us.
How do we do that? Fight voter suppression!
What can you do?
HERE’S HOW TO CONTACT CONGRESS:
U.S. House of Representatives:* Telephone: 202-225-3121
* Website: http://www.house.gov/
U.S. Senate:* Telephone: 202-224-3121
* Website: http://www.senate.gov/
Find your member of Congress and contact him or her:
Let them know what matters to you!
Contact your Representative
Contact your Senator
And remember, all politics is local and personal! Let’s work to flip state and local elected positions Democratic!
Sister District Project — organization that is working to help Dems win state legislature races.
NEW!! Goody set up this place to donate to elect Democrats in tossup House and Senate races:
On Saturday, Goodie introduced a new fundraising action for Gnusies with a goal of $38,000, and by the end of the day it had raised $31,000!!! As of yesterday evening, it had reached $37,210.50!
Did you donate yet? C’mon… it’ll make you feel great! 😁
ALSO NEW!! The States Project
Finally, whenever you feel your hope fading, read this again:
The 3.5% rule: How a small minority can change the world — and recall that we are a majority.
Also check this out:
The Albert Einstein Institution’s 198 Methods of Non-Violent Action
There’s a multitude of people all over this country — in both so-called “red” states and “blue” — who feel just as strongly as you do about this world and its future. We can do this!
Here’s a visual to help us keep our eyes on the prize:
💙 RoundUp WindDown 💙
That’s it from me and CG for another Wednesday. Take good care of yourself and your loved ones — and keep that vision of a better future in your mind’s eye to help you weather whatever storms we still have to get through.
I’m possibly going to be taking CG to the vet today, so if I’m not around for long, you will know why!
Happy Wednesday, Gnuville!