Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

I really should read my own blog.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

I can’t take this shit today. I just can’t.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

This blog goes to 11…

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

There’s some extremely good trouble headed their way.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

False Scribes! False Scribes!

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn – Nancy Pelosi

The revolution will be supervised.

It was down to kool-aid drinkers and next of kin at the trump White House

No one could have predicted…

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

I don’t care how fun he is after a few whiskies. fuck that guy.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

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HinTN Wants to Match Your Four Directions GA Donations!

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Four Directions and Fair Fight are teaming up for early field organizing in Georgia – the goal is to have the money raised and people hired and on the ground by the end of September.  In order to do that, $100,000 is needed in the next couple of weeks, with $50k coming from Fair Fight and $50k coming from Four Directions.  That’s a big lift in a short timeframe for Four Directions!

What is our part in this?   To help Four Directions meet their goal, by raising $25,000 on Balloon Juice.

Four Directions is working on someone to match our $25k, if we can raise that.  They have found a possible match-er, though it is not set in stone yet.  But the agreement will be that IF we get to our $25k, THEN the $25k match will be made.

Inspired by Mousebumples who was inspired by MomSense, HinTN has offered to match new Four Directions GA donations up to a total of $1,000!

Any donation between $10 and $50 is eligible for your match.

Tell us the amount of your donation in the comments, and he will match with that amount.  HinTN’s $1,000 donation will be made once $1,000 of matchable donations have been noted in the comments.

If you donate more than $50, HinTN will match $50 of that.

$25,000 for Four Directions Organizing Project
with Fair Fight in GA

Goal Thermometer

Read More:
Four Directions teams up
with Fair Fight in Georgia!

Thank you, HinTN!  From myself, Balloon Juice, Four Directions, Fair Fight, native people and every  sane person in Georgia: thank you so very much!

And here’s an early thank you to everyone who will take HinTN up on his match!

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Q & A with Four Directions, Now

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In case you missed the the previous post:  Four Directions and Fair Fight are teaming up in Georgia.

OJ Semans, Sr and Lewis Cohen are here to talk with us about their new partnership and anything else we want to talk about.

Ask them about Georgia, about OJ’s conversation with Raphael Warnock last week, or anything else.

With their new partnership, each organization will provide equal funding for this effort – $50,000 each –  and that will surely be a bigger lift for Four Directions than for Fair Fight Action!

Over the next 6 weeks, Four Directions and Fair Fight will be laying the groundwork for the boots on the ground organizing to begin in Georgia by mid-to-late September.

That gives them two weeks to raise the funds, and another month to recruit and train field organizers and people to direct the work of the people on the ground.

Four Directions – Georgia!

Goal Thermometer

If we commit to try to raise $25,000 in the next few weeks, Four Directions can go to other donors and let them know that we could match up to $25,000, which should make it easier to for them to raise the rest of the funds.

Goal date for raising the funds is August 15.   That’s two weeks.  It’s a big ask, but it’s also an opportunity for us to make a big impact.

Zoom with Four Directions is tomorrow evening – Tuesday at 7:30 pm Eastern – please send me email to RSVP, and also let us know in the comments.

 

Q & A with Four Directions, NowPost + Comments (128)

Strategy and Opportunity – Joint Project Four Directions & Fair Fight – Q & A Tonight

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I am re-posting a thread from Friday because we have updated information.  
Everything new is in Color Below.

Please join us for a Q & A with Four Directions this Monday at 7:30 pm Eastern.  Tonight!

Among other things, OJ can tell us about his conversation with Raphael Warnock last week where they talked about the impact of the recent Supreme Court decision and his upcoming race.

Four Directions – Georgia!

Goal Thermometer


⭐️

You would have to be living in a cave not to know that we desperately need to keep the Senate in 2022.

We need to not lose any of our current seats, and we need to gain at least two more so we don’t have to waste all this time trying to pull Manchin and Sinema along as we try to accomplish even basic things like allowing the people to vote, and then having their votes count!

At the same time, we are trying to put our 2021 fundraising efforts into organizing, as opposed to funding particular candidates.

As for the senate, first things first.  Let’s try not to lose our two newly elected senators who come up for reelection right away in 2022.  We know we can win those, because we have done it once already, but we don’t know that we will win those.  But that is a great place to start.

No, we’re not putting up thermometers for Raphael Warnock and Mark Kelly.  Not yet!  

But over the next 3-4 weeks, we have an opportunity to make a real difference in one of those races.  And soon after that, we will have an opportunity to make a real difference in the other one.  So for now, it’s Georgia!

Our friends at Four Directions are joining forces with Fair Fight Action to pass two crucial pieces of legislation:

  • For the People Act
  • John Lewis Voting Rights Act

Fair Fight and Four Directions are teaming up to get those two bills passed with a nation-wide joint lobbying effort, including tribal leaders and elders nationwide, in conjunction with civid-minded organizations.  Sorely needed, but lobbying doesn’t require funding.  

So here’s where the need for funding comes in:  Over the next 6 weeks, Four Directions and Fair Fight will be laying the groundwork for the boots on the ground organizing to begin in Georgia by mid-to-late September.

That gives them a couple of weeks to raise the money, and another month to recruit and train field organizers and people to direct the work of the people on the ground.  

With their new partnership, each organization will provide equal funding for this effort, and that will surely be a bigger lift for Four Directions than for Fair Fight Action!

That’s where we come in.  The two groups are hammering out the details of strategy and costs, and we should know more in a few days, but the best guess right now from Four Directions is that it’s likely to be at least $100,000 total.  Raising $50,000 in just a few weeks is way outside the norm for Four Directions.  

The word just a few minutes ago is that the guess was very close to the actual number, so no big surprises there.

Goal date is August 15.   That’s two weeks.  It’s a big ask, but it’s also an opportunity for us to make a big impact.

If we commit to try to raise $25,000 in the next few weeks, Four Directions can go to other donors and let them know that we could match up to $25,000, which should make it easier to for them to raise the rest of the funds.

If you want to learn more about this, there are 3 ways you can do that:

Please join us for a Q & A with Four Directions this Monday at 7:30 pm Eastern.  Tonight!

Join us for a zoom with Four Directions this Tuesday at 7:30 pm Eastern.  (RSVP with an email to me)

Read the attached press releases from Fair Fight Action and Four Directions.

4DNV and Fair Fight Join Forces 2021 0726Download
FINAL_ Four Directions press release 7_22_21Download

Strategy and Opportunity – Joint Project Four Directions & Fair Fight – Q & A TonightPost + Comments (55)

Mousebumples Wants to Match Your Voces de la Frontera Donations!

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Mousebumples sent email just now with an amazing offer to match new Voces donations up to a total of 2,000!

Any donation between $10 and $50 is eligible for your match.  Tell us the amount of your donation in the comments, and she will match with that amount.  She starts work in a  few minutes, so the match donations on her end may or may show up in real time.

If you donate more than $50, Mousebumples will still match with $50.

Goal: fund a field organizer coordinator position (45k) for Voces de la Frontera Action

Goal Thermometer

We are starting with the thermometer at 14,648.

Thank you, Mousebumples!  From myself, and Balloon Juice, and Voces de la Frontera, I want to thank you so very much!

I wonder if Mousebumples was inspired by MomSense last week?  Or maybe we had two jackals who both had the same great idea!

Update from Mousebumples at 10 this morning:

I probably won’t be able to do the match until after work (and maybe after my daughter’s bedtime) tonight. So 8 ish blog time, check back for an update and to see the thermometer (hopefully) move – with your help, of course! 😎

Update at 6:00 pm:

We did it!  $2,134.00 in donations in the comments, with 2,000 to be matched by the Marvelous Mousebumples!  (through comment #102)

Thank you so much, everyone!

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Zoom with Voces de la Frontera on Thursday at 7:30 pm ET (Open Thread)

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Katherine and Cassandra (from the above photo) will be on the zoom with to talk about growing up in the movement, Voces, and working in the 2020 campaign.  Fabi, Alejandra, and Alan – who we all met at the Ask Them Anything Voces post a month ago – will be on the zoom as well, but I wanted to highlight the new voices.  I’m excited to hear what they have to say!

If you’re interested, they can share opinions about Wisconsin politics and projections about the 2022 elections.

The Balloon Juice thermometer for Voces de la Frontera has been climbing up, and we hope to have some good news to share on Thursday’s zoom with Voces.

Goal: fund a field organizer coordinator position (45k) for Voces de la Frontera Action

Goal Thermometer

In case you want a little background before the zoom, here’s a link to a NYT article from a hundred years ago Sept 2020: What Will it Take to Vote in Milwaukee?

These BJ peeps RSVP’d for the previous zoom time, but now it is rescheduled for this Thursday, 7:30 pm blog time.  (aka Eastern time)

H. E. Wolf (no E on the end)
John Cole
Joy in FL
MomSense
Ruckus
Wolvesvalley

If you would like to attend, please chime in below and also send me email so I can send you the link to the zoom!

Otherwise, totally open thread.  There’s just no other way to announce anything but in a thread, but that doesn’t mean the thread has to be about this, other than to RSVP.

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Zoom With Voces de la Frontera on Thursday July 15 at 7:30

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We have had some discouraging and disappointing news related to voting lately, but that just means that we have to fight harder, and smarter.  In the end, control of the House and the Senate after the midterm elections is what matters most.  So let’s get to work.

We have scheduled the zoom with Voces de la Frontera Action  for Thursday July 15 at 7:30 pm Eastern.  So set your calendars for a week from today!

You may recall that Voces is Wisconsin’s leading state-wide immigrant rights organization, and they are in the process of raising funds for a full-time elections organizer.

In the zoom next Thursday, in addition to the three who participated in our Balloon Juice Q&A post, we will have two leaders from their youth organization (Youth Empowered in the Struggle, aka YES).  The folks from Voces will talk with us about about what they’re doing now and the impact that having the field organizer position can be expected to have on the primaries and the election in Wisconsin for 2022.

But I will share a small preview now.

This is how they described the situation on the ground for the 2020 cycle:

Once these campaigns start we’re always scrambling, re-prioritizing, trying to cobble something together – something, somehow, someway.  It’s throwing spaghetti at the wall with pitchforks.  It’s highly inefficient but we do it that way because we’re used to it (though we don’t like it!), it works surprisingly often, we rarely have a choice, and even when it doesn’t work we find ourselves better off in the long run than we would have been had we done nothing.  It’s also completely draining, it leads to high burnout and high turnover, and you can’t build much of an organization when you’re continually training new people  to replace old ones.

Even with the situation on the ground in 2020 as described above, Voces was able to turn out people in numbers that were higher than the margin of victory in Wisconsin.

Just imagine what they could do with a full-time field organizer – someone whose sole focus is to coordinate all that activity on the ground.

We are going to need every vote we can get in 2022 and 2024, and this looks like a great opportunity to make a real difference.

Please join us a week from today to hear more from the folks at Voces.

It’s not looking like we will be able to raise the full $45,000 needed for the field organizer position, but they are working to find a person or organization that could match our funds if we are able to raise half, which would be $22,500.  I am hoping that there will be news on that front by next Thursday when we have our zoom with them.

Here’s the original Voces post:  Q & A with Voces de la Frontera

Voces de la Frontera Action

Goal Thermometer

Interested in the zoom?   Please let us know in the comments, and also send me email to let me know.  Please include your nym in the email so I can connect the dots.

 

Zoom With Voces de la Frontera on Thursday July 15 at 7:30Post + Comments (49)

Zoom with Voces de la Frontera?

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I am gonna call our conversation yesterday with the folks from Voces de la Frontera  a success.

Voces is Wisconsin’s leading state-wide immigrant rights organization.  The advocacy arm of the group is Voces de la Frontera Action, and they are asking for support in funding a full-time elections organizer.

If you missed the post last night last night, check it out.  Q & A with Voces de la Frontera

Do we want to follow up with a Zoom in a couple of weeks?

The Voces folks are on board with that idea, so I if we are interested I can set that up.  The zoom would be 2 weeks out because this Sunday they are kicking off a 9-day March for Driver’s Licenses & Citizenship, walking from Milwaukee to Madison.

I would be interested in hearing more about the impact that having a full-time field organizer could have on the primaries and the election in Wisconsin for 2022.  And I would love to hear how the march goes, and about anything you guys want to know!

Zoom with Voces de la Frontera?

Interested in the zoom?   Please let us know in the comments, and also send me email to let me know.  Please include your nym in the email so I can connect the dots.

Voces de la Frontera Action

Goal Thermometer

A day or so after the zoom, we can have a thread where we talk and decide whether we want to try to fund their first full-time field organizer position.

Let me know if you are interested in the zoom!

Open thread.

Zoom with Voces de la Frontera?Post + Comments (22)