Hope and the work ahead

Big Oil tried to crush Washington's efforts to make carbon polluters pay. While we wait for the final results, there's still plenty to feel hopeful about.

Lorelei,

Last night was bittersweet. Here in Washington, fossil fuel industry billionaires spent a record-breaking $25 million to stop us from putting a just price on carbon pollution.

We still don't know the final results — but whatever happens, we should be proud that the people-powered campaign for Initiative 1631 gave Big Oil a run for their money. We know that more than 800,000 people have voted to make polluters pay, and in the face of such enormous opposition, that's incredible.

And we still have things to celebrate: across the country, voters elected a wave of progressive champions to the House — sending a decisive message to Trump and his fossil-fueled cronies that their hateful, divisive agenda does not represent us.

Now, it's time to make it clear to our new members of Congress what we elected them for — and that they have work to do.

Sign our letter here to call on our new Congress to step up and be the real climate leaders we need.

More than anything, yesterday was a testament to people power. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers like you made phone calls, sent text messages, and knocked doors here in Washington and all around the country. Thank you.

People power is what carried bold progressives — like Deb Haaland in New Mexico, Rashida Tlaib in Michigan, and Ilhan Omar in Minnesota — to historic victories from coast to coast. People power passed the historic Clean Energy Initiative in Portland, Oregon, which will fund green jobs and healthy homes for people most impacted by climate change. And people power grew a powerful movement for climate justice here in Washington — and that won't disappear just because the election is over.

Let's keep up that momentum. Add your name here to demand the real climate leadership people and the planet deserve.

Yesterday also made it clear that the fossil fuel industry still has a powerful stranglehold over our democracy — and that Big Oil and their allies will spend whatever it takes to protect their profits.

Washington wasn't the only place where fossil fuel billionaires crushed spending records and outspent grassroots, people-powered efforts: Big Oil money bankrolled the campaigns opposing Initiative 1631 here, Proposition 112 in Colorado, and Measure G in San Luis Obispo, California by as much as 40 to 1.

Now, it's up to us to build a political movement so large that our voices can finally drown out big polluters' dirty money — in Washington and nationwide.

Sign our letter here to call on our new Congress to take bold, just action to protect our communities and the climate.

We know that the longer we wait, the worse this problem is going to get. Climate pollution isn't going anywhere — and neither are we.

Onward,

May

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THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT KIMONO.

hallo worldwide comrades my kimono has a message for you - straight from the dresden dolls shows in london: (photo by gabrielle motola) VOTE!!!!! MY FELLOW AMERICANS - IT HAS NEVER BEEN MORE IMPORTANT. here is all the information you will need: https://www.vote.org/ i wore this kimono during the dolls set in london both nights and asked all the brits to take pictures and jettison them over the pond to encourage y’all to VOTE. VOTE!! vote!!! i think “open kimono” should be the name for my musical genre...given that nothing fucking else fits. (the kimono, fyi, belonged to my costume designer, andrea lauer’s GRAMMA. she repurposed it with a serious purpose). so!!! VOTE!!! ARIZONA - WE ARE ESPECIALLY LOOKING TO YOU !! your race is incredibly important. KYRSTEN SINEMA ALL THE WAY!!!!! and everybody Outside The USA - whether you’re in the UK, australia, brazil, japan, germany, canada, mexico or the philippines - ENCOURAGE YOUR AMERICAN FRIENDS TO VOTE! so much is hanging on this midterm election. photo by hayley rosenblum the dresden dolls love you. photo by hayley rosenblum ........ i am literally typing this on a plane back from london JUST in time to land in NYC for a LAST MINUTE AFTER-VOTE THROWDOWN TONIGHT !!! if you’re in NEW YORK CITY today (the 6th) and wanna come hang out with me, jherek bischoff, some sick string players, some writers (maria popova will read from her new book) and MORE.... COME JOIN US!!!! we are going to HOWL ABOUT OUR FREEDOMS WITH INSTRUMENTS!!!! we are gonna VOTE AND RAGE!!!! we are gonna toast to the resplendent future which shall not be bad!! we hope. all the info is here on the city winery site: https://citywinery.com/newyork/after-vote-throw-down-with-amanda-palmer-jherek-bischoff-friends-11-6.html tickets are as cheap as $10 and 100% of the profits will go to headcount.org, which helps people, you guessed it, REGISTER TO VOTE. HAVE FUN VOTING - THEN COME DRINK AND SING AND HUG !!! i will be so jetlagged. hug and hi-five me. see you there. the rest of you - there’s a ton to tell you all but now’s not the moment. hang in there. xxx afp

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Half price! Come see the Reluctant Radical.

Lorelei -- Tomorrow night will likely be a nail-biter, and it's hard to know how we'll feel on Wednesday. But one thing we know for sure: whatever happens in the elections, we've got our work cut out for us.  That work will take many forms, most of them quite legal. But if you're interested in one man's journey to direct action, come see The Reluctant Radical, about climate activist and valve turner Ken Ward, at SIFF Uptown Cinema on Tuesday and Wednesday. Half-price tickets are available for 350 Seattle. Use discount code RADICAL18 to obtain a $7 discount on tickets, at the door or online. What: The Reluctant Radical Where SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N When: Tuesday November 6 & Wednesday November 7, both at 7:00 PM. After the film, join Ken, other valve turners (all of us on Tuesday, all but Leonard and me on Wednesday), and filmmaker Lindsey Grayzel for a post-film discussion. If a crime is committed in order to prevent a greater harm, is it forgivable? Is it, in fact, necessary? The movie follows Ken as he confronts his fears and puts himself in the direct path of the fossil fuel industry to combat climate change. The film reveals both the personal costs and the fulfillment that comes from following one's moral calling—even if that means breaking the law. The film follows Ken through a series of direct actions, culminating with an action that shut down all the U.S. tar sands bitumen pipelines and could have put him behind bars for years. Trailer and reviews here. 350 Seattle and Climate Direct Action will be on hand to let you know how you can get involved in local climate action campaigns. In solidarity, Emily Johnston, 350 Seattle -=-=- 350Seattle.org · 1919 E Prospect St, Seattle, WA 98112, United States This email was sent to loriwantsrss@gmail.com. To stop receiving emails or to update your email preferences, click here. You can also keep up with 350 Seattle on Twitter or Facebook. Donations always appreciated and put to good use.

RE: Final stretch. Let's win this thing.

I-1631 needs your help now. More than 50% of people in Washington have still not voted. 

Lorelei,

I know your inbox is overflowing right now, so I'll keep it short: tomorrow is Election Day. Yes on 1631 really needs your help in these last 36 hours if we're going to beat Big Oil's dirty millions and pass a groundbreaking, just price on carbon pollution here in Washington.

Can you spend even an hour today or tomorrow helping get out the vote for Initiative 1631? It's now or never — and with the race this tight, your help could make the difference.

In case you missed yesterday's email from Lin — one of the incredible leaders of 350 Eastside — with more information about what's at stake and how you can help out, I'm including it below.

Let's win this thing,

Katie

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Lorelei:

On Tuesday, people around the country will have their eyes on Washington state.

Major national news outlets like The New York Times, Vox, The Nation, Time Magazine and The Washington Post have featured stories on I-1631. Volunteers in 20 states and 4 countries have phone banked for the campaign.

Not to mention, of course, the out-of-state oil companies that have spent a record-shattering $32 million opposing this people-powered campaign — just so they can protect their sky-high dirty profits.

This is the final stretch, and we need your help right now if we're going to beat Big Oil and win this thing. Sign up here to volunteer for the campaign in this crucial final moments — this is when it really counts.

People around the world are paying attention, because they know that I-1631 matters. If Washington becomes the first state to put a price on climate pollution, it will inspire activists, policymakers, and people around the country — and it will have ripple impacts on national climate politics that could be felt for years.

This has been an awe-inspiring campaign. Over 6,000 volunteers have had nearly 400,000 one-on-one conversations with voters, knocking on almost 175,000 doors and making 375,000 phone calls. That's incredible.

But we still need to do more to ensure that we overcome the deep pockets of the oil industry. 

More than 50% of people in Washington still haven't voted yet. This final stretch is the most important time to volunteer for the campaign. There are volunteer events happening all over the state, every hour of every day, right up until 7:30pm on Tuesday. Can you sign up for one?

Finally, whatever happens on Tuesday, win or lose, we hope that you will join our people-powered climate movement here in the Northwest. There are now eight 350.org local groups in Washington state ― and you can get more involved with any of the groups by clicking the links below. We hope to see you at a meeting soon.

But first: let's win this thing. Can you help ensure that we beat Big Oil and sign up for one final volunteer shift?

Onward,

Lin, 350 Eastside; Alec, 350 Seattle; Brian, 350 Spokane; Bradley, 350 Tacoma; Jeanne, 350 Wenatchee; Jill, 350 Bellingham; Jackie, 350 Everett; Ed, Olympic Climate Action; and Katie, 350.org.

PS: If you are in the Seattle area, we hope that you'll join us at the Yes on 1631 election night party! You can RSVP here. It should be a fun evening with many of the leaders who helped to write the policy, and many of the thousands of volunteers who — we hope — will have helped to make sure it passes.

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More information:

• Check out our roundup of national news coverage of I-1631 here
• Mother Jones, "Big Oil Is Spending an Outrageous Amount of Money to Kill a Carbon Tax" 

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What's at stake tomorrow

Political journalism generally fails to answer the most important question.   We wind up talking about what the politicians in the close races want to talk about. And sometimes politicians in close races want to talk about total nonsense, or there are important issues that neither candidate in a close race really wants to talk about. So then you end up with a million dissections of exactly what Democrats' odds of winning the House of Representatives are but very little sense of why it matters.    So I'm going to try to explain it.  The caravan stakes are nonexistent The New York Times and the Washington Post have, following the White House's editorial direction, produced more than 115 stories, of which 25 landed on page A1, about the "caravan" of asylum seekers from Honduras and Guatemala.   Reasonable people can disagree about how important the caravan phenomenon is, but what's been generally obscured by coverage is how low the stakes are here. Congressional Democrats don't have any caravan-related legislation that Republicans have been blocking and that will pass if Nancy Pelosi becomes speaker. And Republicans haven't managed to get together the votes in the House to pass any immigration legislation, so picking up an extra Senate seat or two isn't going to change anything.    Trump is going to do whatever he's going to do, and the election otucome isn't going to materially change that. If Republicans hold the Senate Some real stakes are that if the GOP holds the Senate, Bob Corker, Jeff Flake, and John McCain will all be replaced by Trumpier senators.   That's going to mean Trump will have a freer hand to fire Cabinet officials he's annoyed with and replace them with other people. That means more politicization of the Department of Justice and possibly the shutdown of the Mueller investigation.    Another important point is that while Trump has appointed a lot of circuit court judges, he's mostly been replacing Republicans who are taking the opportunity to retire. As time passes, however, more Democratic appointees will roll off the bench, so the Trump impact on the judiciary will grow. If Republicans gain Senate seats Right now, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins hold the balance of power in the Senate, and they opposed Affordable Care Act repeal.    John McCain's dramatic last-minute intervention is what we remember, but that's precisely because Murkowski and Collins were more consistent opponents. McCain's vote ceased to be pivotal because of Doug Jones's election, so the great ACA debate remains stuck even after McCain's death. If the GOP gains a net of two Senate seats, then Murkowski and Collins won't be pivotal and ACA repeal is back on the table. But of course they'd need the House too. If Republicans hold the House One key thing here not on policy is that if the GOP unexpectedly holds the House, that will be taken as a vindication of the political strategy of racial fearmongering that Trump ended the campaign with and that this form of spiteful, exclusionary nationalism is the true soul of the American people. Note that this will be true even if the GOP loses the popular vote by 4 points (even more than Trump lost by) because, thanks to gerrymandering, losing by 4 is enough for a majority.    In policy terms, Republicans will move a regressive tax cut, and they'll seek to partially offset it with cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and other means-tested assistance programs. They'll also probably finish the job of repealing the Affordable Care Act.  If Democrats take the Senate This looks unlikely, but the policy consequences would be enormous. A Democratic-controlled Senate would constrain Trump's ability to replace his own executive branch appointees, which in turn would meaningfully reduce his ability to continue politicizing the Justice Department and eroding the rule of law.   From a "norms and governance" standpoint, the Senate is a much bigger deal than the House for this reason. A Democratic Senate would also either slow the pace at which Trump confirms judges or (given Trump's weak historical ties to the conservative movement) perhaps prevail upon him to put a more balanced slate of appointees together for the sake of letting him claim to be breaking records. This would, again, be a huge deal. The odds of a Democratic Senate are low, but it would set the Trump administration on a very different trajectory.  If Democrats take the House The GOP legislative agenda is dead if there's a Democratic House, and it's possible some kind of bipartisan infrastructure bill gets done. There will also be a lot of interbranch tension as Democrats issue subpoenas and the White House fights back. The House has fewer institutional leverage points than the Senate, so this will be less about being able to actually halt Trump from doing things than about trying to shed light on abuses. But expect tons of legal wrangling.    The other thing about this is that, especially because GOP donor class bills will stand no chance of passing, the political agenda may be even more occupied by immigration issues since that's what Trump likes to talk about. And even though Trump and Democrats have very different ideas on immigration, they do both want changes to immigration law, so they actually have something to talk about. One could spin an optimistic grand bargain scenario here, but after two years of watching the Trump administration in action, it seems really unlikely to me that he wants a bargain — he wants to fight about immigration. Chart of the day Americans don't vote much From Pew, US voter turnout in international perspective. It's interesting to note that while our turnout as a share of the total voting-age population is pathetic, turnout as a share of registered voters is pretty high. If we adopted a sensible automating voter registration system, it's at least possible that participation would soar.  Listen Up Weeds podcast on Trump and the Jews Trump is bad for the Jews.   Get it here.  Some Good Reads Five links not about the midterms. They're not in acute crisis mode, but the European Commission's fiscal rules still don't make sense.  A thoughtful critique of Kamala Harris's LIFT Act proposal. Amazon is likely coming to Northern Virginia.  Efforts to economically isolate Iran are leaving the US diplomatically isolated.  The war in Afghanistan is going really poorly.

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Final stretch. Let's win this thing.

I-1631 needs your help now. More than 50% of people in Washington have still not voted. 

Lorelei:

On Tuesday, people around the country will have their eyes on Washington state.

Major national news outlets like The New York Times, Vox, The Nation, Time Magazine and The Washington Post have featured stories on I-1631. Volunteers in 20 states and 4 countries have phone banked for the campaign.

Not to mention, of course, the out-of-state oil companies that have spent a record-shattering $32 million opposing this people-powered campaign — just so they can protect their sky-high dirty profits.

This is the final stretch, and we need your help right now if we're going to beat Big Oil and win this thing. Sign up here to volunteer for the campaign in this crucial final moments — this is when it really counts.

People around the world are paying attention, because they know that I-1631 matters. If Washington becomes the first state to put a price on climate pollution, it will inspire activists, policymakers, and people around the country — and it will have ripple impacts on national climate politics that could be felt for years.

This has been an awe-inspiring campaign. Over 6,000 volunteers have had nearly 400,000 one-on-one conversations with voters, knocking on almost 175,000 doors and making 375,000 phone calls. That's incredible.

But we still need to do more to ensure that we overcome the deep pockets of the oil industry. 

More than 50% of people in Washington still haven't voted yet. This final stretch is the most important time to volunteer for the campaign. There are volunteer events happening all over the state, every hour of every day, right up until 7:30pm on Tuesday. Can you sign up for one?

Finally, whatever happens on Tuesday, win or lose, we hope that you will join our people-powered climate movement here in the Northwest. There are now eight 350.org local groups in Washington state ― and you can get more involved with any of the groups by clicking the links below. We hope to see you at a meeting soon.

But first: let's win this thing. Can you help ensure that we beat Big Oil and sign up for one final volunteer shift?

Onward,

Lin, 350 Eastside; Alec, 350 Seattle; Brian, 350 Spokane; Bradley, 350 Tacoma; Jeanne, 350 Wenatchee; Jill, 350 Bellingham; Jackie, 350 Everett; Ed, Olympic Climate Action; and Katie, 350.org.

PS: If you are in the Seattle area, we hope that you'll join us at the Yes on 1631 election night party! You can RSVP here. It should be a fun evening with many of the leaders who helped to write the policy, and many of the thousands of volunteers who — we hope — will have helped to make sure it passes.

--

More information:

• Check out our roundup of national news coverage of I-1631 here
• Mother Jones, "Big Oil Is Spending an Outrageous Amount of Money to Kill a Carbon Tax" 

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