Yesterday was Labour Day

What I'm Watching in September

I always think about my late grandmother on Labour Day - she belonged to the ILGWU because she understood sweatshops. And the difference between “before and after” the union. So, I lift a (figurative) joint to her, sitting at a slot machine in the sky. She’d approve. I’m done now.

---

Have you noticed where the Convicted Felon is holding rallies? They’re all “sundown towns”. You may be unfamiliar with the term. They are towns and cities where Black people were not allowed after sundown. You can check this map and see if anyplace you’ve ever lived/visited is on the list.

---

While I keep telling you that there are problems with polling (and those problems are large and, in some ways, unknown in terms of how they’re wrong), historically, where the polls are the day after Labour Day is where the election tends to settle in November.

So where are we? 50/50. Not just the presidential race, but the House, the Senate, and a lot of state-level races. Here’s the latest House projection from Cook - straight 50/50. We can be buoyed by cherry-picking things like the spread for the youth vote, the female vote, and the Black vote - all trending in a great way. The problem is white voters. Not ALL white voters, but the lumpen, uneducated, intermittent white voters. And white voters are a majority of the electorate everywhere except DC and Hawaii. Map here.

I have told you many times before that elections are won house by house, person by person, block by block. Here’s what I’ve been up to - I hope that you are out there, too. It’s how we win!

I have nailed down votes from all the SuperDems in my neighborhood, and the majority of the intermittent Democratic voters. I am now working on the non-voters.

My neighbor two doors down - registered as an independent, but his wife is unregistered. Ran into him very early one morning. He told me that his wife registered THAT WEEK, and they knew where to vote. I asked him if his vote would make me a happy woman. He read my “Together we will defeat Trump. AGAIN.” tee-shirt and said that was why his wife finally decided to register. They had their first child, a girl, earlier this year, and his non-political wife planned to vote BECAUSE of their daughter.

Today, I was out playing fetch with Alex, and a neighbor was outside sunning himself. I asked him if there was any way I could get him to register and vote this year. His girlfriend (they live together) is a solid SuperDem, but he’s never even registered. I told him this year was for all the marbles. That he probably liked Social Security and Medicare (they’re retired) and how those programs would disappear under a Republican administration. He said they would probably go away anyway. And then he said: “I don’t really care about being an American, but I care about North America. The climate, the outside, the flora and fauna.”

I’ll spare you the remainder of the conversation, except to say that next weekend, I’m going over to register him. He still may not vote, but he’s going to get a Voter Registration card.

My next step? The three single Republican women. One, I know to be a lost cause, but I’m going to give it a shot anyway. When she moved in about 20 years ago, in December, she came to my house (first time we’d met) to explain to me that my front door, dressed in holographic wrapping paper, with a Jewish star where a wreath would go, and a blue bulb instead of a white one next to the door, and a menorah in the window, was offensive because “this is Christmas season, and you’re ruining it.” Let’s just say we’ve never gotten along. The second told me in 2008 that if Barack Obama was elected, black gangs would take over the country. Since that didn’t happen, she’s worth a try. Finally, a new neighbor (she’s only been here about 5 years) who is a registered Republican and only votes intermittently. We see each other because the Amazon delivery person seems to be incapable of discerning between a “2” and a “3” and we often get each other’s packages. Maybe, just maybe….

Go talk to your neighbors. You’ll win some and you’ll lose some, but you don’t know if you don’t try.

WHEN WE WORK, WE WIN!

---

Congress is Coming Back Temporarily

Both the House and Senate return next Monday, the 9th, and the Senate will stay in session through the 27th. The House will take a long weekend in the middle of the month, (G-d forbid they should actually WORK the way the rest of us do…) and will also remain through the 27th. Per their OFFICIAL calendars, they are then OUT from the 30th of September until the 12th of November.

Remember, the government shuts down on 1 October 2024 if there is no budget nor CR by the 30th at midnight.

Punchbowl is reporting that the government will NOT shut down on 30 September, with a CR through next March. The kicker is that Moscow Mike Johnson will attach the SAVE Act to the CR in hopes of getting enough Chaos Caucus votes. Punchbowl thinks that could happen, but IMHO, the SAVE Act goes nowhere. Its inclusion may well lead to a negotiated settlement with the Senate and the White House FOR a longer CR. But I’m not all that certain. I will have more on this later.

Also - the Farm Bill and the VA need to be extended, improved, reauthorized in September. Again, I’ll have more on these. But as a “taste” - if you eat corn, wheat, rice, dairy and/or sugar, you DO care about the Farm Bill, even if you can’t tell the difference between a tractor and a combine.

Finally - members of the House and Senate get to make speeches on their respective floors. If you know the time limits, and other rules, let me know in the comments. If no one says anything, y’all will end up subject to my description, and if I can find them, videos of my favourite floor speeches. (#1 being Vito Fossella and the “alcoholism is a disease, but the people love Vito” speech.) For now, just know that virtually every Democrat will invoke “Project 2025” in every floor speech because we’re not letting up on that one!

---

That’s all I’ve got for today. Let me know your thoughts.