WALK OUT!
The National School Walkout is today at 10am for 17 minutes!
Read all about it...
Mother Jones:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/02/a-guide-to-the-upcoming-gun-control-marches/
CNN:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/11/us/national-school-walkout-march-14/index.html
The Fresno Bee:
http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/education/article204784199.html
Has it only been a month?
ReplyDeleteHas it been a month already?
💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔
RIP STEPHEN HAWKING
ReplyDeleteThanks for enlightening us.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/14/health/stephen-hawking-dead/index.html
Fresno Bee Editorial, March 12th:
ReplyDelete17 minutes: We see the value in this moment; let students lead the way to change[Click]
Anti-Trump protesters call off plans, say presidential visit to Fresno unlikely[Click]
Fresno Bee Editorial, March 13th:
President Trump isn’t seeing the real California[Click]
Note that the Fresno Bee is (ahem) not exactly run by a herd of lefties…its original name was the Fresno Republican, and this is generally a fairly conservative part of California.
LA Times: Trump in California[Click]
Title[Click] “The San Francisco spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement resigned after the agency’s recent Northern California sweep, saying he couldn’t continue to do his job after Trump administration officials made false public statements about a key aspect of the operation.”
LA Times obituary: Stephen Hawking, who redefined the view of the universe for scientists and public alike, dies at 76[Click]
—Alan
P.S.: We have been getting some rain lately; light, but very welcome. More to come.
Chicago Tribune: Democrat claims win in Pennsylvania special election, but tight race not yet over. They say, "it;s not over yet," but --- "Wednesday morning, Lamb's lead stood at 641 votes — out of more than 224,000 votes cast, according to unofficial results. Election officials said there are about 200 absentee votes and an unknown number of provisional ballots still to be counted. The four counties in the western Pennsylvania district have seven days to count provisional ballots. In a race this close, either candidate's supporters can ask for a recount. However there are stiff requirements, including requiring three voters in the same precinct who can attest that error or fraud was committed."
ReplyDeletePA-18:
ReplyDeleteAs of 11:50 a.m., Lamb led by 627 votes with all absentee votes counted.
Lamb 113,813
Saccone 113,186
Miller 1,379
--Alan
Lamb got it.
ReplyDeleteProvisional ballots are generally very few in number. There wouldn't be enough to upend things at this point.
Recount or no, it isn't likely that the outcome will change. And it deserves to be noted that at NO TIME last night was the Republican ahead.
One factor, especially important in this district, is that Lamb successfully appealed to union members while Clinton didn't.
DeleteExactly.
DeleteBernie went outside of the Capitol and spoke to the students today by megaphone, to tank them and encourage them. I am so proud of the students and so proud of Vermont's great statesman!
ReplyDeletehttp://thehill.com/homenews/senate/378367-bernie-sanders-speaks-to-students-protesting-gun-violence-we-are-very-proud
*thank, not tank!!
DeleteFrom the picky, picky, picky files:
ReplyDeleteFord recalls 1.4 million vehicles because the steering wheel can come loose.[Click]
Enthusiasm Gap Could Turn Blue Wave Into [Mega-] Tsunami[Click] Follow the link for details.
The Pennsylvania 18th Result Tells Us What Everything Has Been Telling Us For A While[Click] GOP is in deep trouble…
—Alan
From elsewhere I blog. This guy tends to be right on.
ReplyDelete***Pennsylvania district 18 still not decided as of this writing but even most Republican operatives don’t believe there are enough outstanding absentee and provisional votes for Saccone to overtake Lamb, though a recount (despite the strict rules on such a thing in this state compared to most others) is almost inevitable as it’s probably going to be decided by 0.1%.
There’s been a lot of talk about how Trump took the district by 20 points in 2016 and former Rep. Murphy winning it by no less than 58% all the years it was competitive, and that flip IS impressive but let me truly put this into perspective for you: in 2016, Murphy did not have an opponent in the general election, and with a lot of help from Trump, delivered 293,000 votes (vs. 166,000 in 2014 when he also didn’t have an opponent). Saccone is going to end up with about 107,000 votes. So almost 200,000 former Murphy supporters / likely Trump maniacs couldn’t be bothered to show up at the polls in this heavily hyped election; for comparison’s sake, the last competitive Democrat before Lamb got 116,000 votes in 2012 when Murphy got over 200,000 – so Lamb will apparently beat Saccone with LESS votes than the Democrat got in 2012. That could be a function of shrinking population for the district, but regardless, the point is the Trump-crazed enthusiasm in this district has abated by almost 200,000 votes in slightly over a year – Trump’s rally for Saccone wasn’t even close to enough to bring hundreds of thousands of people out to vote for Saccone that voted for him before (some pundits have been pointing out that maybe the ridiculous rally did more to scare conservative-ish independents and moderate Republicans to stay home than firing up Trump maniacs to show up for Saccone... which they probably were already going to do without the rally. It seems much more likely the polls showing Lamb with a 6 point lead before Trump's rally were just wrong for whatever reason than it is that Trump helped Saccone close the lead with the rally). In most of the previous post-Trump election special elections that got this much hype, turnout was pretty impressive for a special or midyear election. This was not. It was less than every year Murphy ran except his first all the way back in 2002 (ignoring 2014 since he had no opponent or Trump).
Part 2--
ReplyDeleteTHIS should be the GOP’s biggest concern right here from this election. I mean, Saccone losing an election his abortion hypocrite predecessor won by 30 points in 2012 and Trump won by 20 points in 2016 is bad enough. But Saccone losing 200,000 of Murphy’s 2016 voters in an election with only 200,000 TOTAL voters should be DEEPLY disturbing to the GOP, because if that proves to be true across all 238 Republican districts, then it means the bigger problem is not that Dems are energized but that Republicans are massively de-energized and Trump has lost even more support than polls are showing – I mean, 46% “win” in 2016 to 40%-ish support in 2018 should mean tens of thousands abandoning Republicans per district, not 200,000! So why didn’t we see this in Georgia or Kansas (which featured 15 point Democratic swings but no wins and no massive losses of turnout vs. 2016)? Let us not forget, those races were almost a year ago when Trump still had something of a honeymoon with reluctant Republicans, before constant White House and Cabinet chaos, before Mueller’s indictments (heck, almost before Mueller was hired and Comey fired), before Stormy Daniels. The closest equivalence to Pennsylvania 18 is Alabama from 3 months ago, which was itself nearly as big of a disaster as this.
Regardless of what happens with Mueller and Stormy, GOP and Trump supporters should be VERY afraid of the November midterms (at least in the House and, hell, the Senate is starting to look iffy if entire Red states replicate Alabama and Pennsylvania #18).
Now Democrats just have to keep from doing something very stupid to keep this, not wave, not tsunami but more like GOP Armageddon from happening. Damn it! It’s always something.***
Yeah, the Dems have to be super careful not to get giddy and complacent, because you can bet your booties the Republicans aren't complacent anymore and they're definitely not feeling giddy.
DeleteThis from politicalwire.com the other day.--Alan
DeleteTrump’s Giddy Week
March 11, 2018
Jonathan Swan: “While senior officials and cabinet secretaries were struggling to keep up — and many eventually threw up their hands when they realized they couldn’t keep track of what was going on with tariffs and North Korea — Trump was careening around the building, acting as his own chief of staff, chief strategist, cable news producer, and communications director all rolled into one.”
“Sources who’ve spoken with the president in the past few days describe him as ‘giddy’ — a man who has finally fully indulged his itch to break free of John Kelly’s restraints.”
While of course very pleased with Lamb's win (Yours truly helped fund it), I won't believe a blue tsunami, wave or languid ripple till I see it.
DeleteThe Democratic Party: You can count on us to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Teacher accidentally fires gun and injures three students in safety lesson[Click] Perfect timing, wot?
ReplyDelete—Alan
Yep, I saw that. And the SOB kept right on with the lesson, not considering it important to notify the school nurse that three students had sustained minor injuries. Way to go when teaching youngsters about safety. :P
DeleteThe muscle nerve loss is interesting. I've been taking Al;ha Lipoic Acid for neuropathy for more than 20 years (mostly) and I'm not really feeling/noticing any muscle loss. Clue, maybe?
ReplyDeleteRIP Prof Hawking
ReplyDeleteStephen Hawking Warned of the World’s End, But His Death Brought Science Full Circle - Click
Thanks, guys, for links to obits and articles. It may take a while for me to get to them. I was so upset in the wee hours, when the notice came over my iPad, I couldn't read the whole of the BBC obit. I admired Stephen Hawking immensely. The world is diminished by his leaving it. And yet, we were so blessed by his having so many more years than anyone ever hoped.
Stephen Hawking Is Still Underrated[Click] An interesting exposition of Hawking’s ideas, with which I had not been familiar. But I don’t see that (as explained) it is essentially different from the ideas of Nagarjuna, about 18 centuries ago.
ReplyDelete—Alan