{"id":35300,"date":"2019-01-11T09:59:44","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T17:59:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=35300"},"modified":"2019-01-11T09:59:44","modified_gmt":"2019-01-11T17:59:44","slug":"friday-fun-the-sweet-smell-of-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2019\/01\/11\/friday-fun-the-sweet-smell-of-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Fun: The Sweet Smell of Success"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, the <strong>Kossacks<\/strong> (of which I count myself a proud member) over at <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/\">Daily Kos<\/a><\/em><\/strong> outdid themselves in sending a sweet smell of success to newly-elected <strong>Speaker Nancy Pelosi<\/strong> \u2013 and she deserves it!<\/p>\n<p>At the suggestion of Daily Kos founder, <strong>Markos Moulitsas<\/strong>, they raised enough money to send 25,000 long-stemmed roses to her! \u00a0And at her request, to share them with other Democrats and the largest bulk to patients at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dailykos?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@DailyKos<\/a> community bought 25,000 roses for <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SpeakerPelosi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@SpeakerPelosi<\/a>, and I had the honor of delivering about 7,000 of them. The other 18,000 were donated by the Speaker to Walter Reed hospital, will be delivered tomorrow! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/tzOIosnA88\">pic.twitter.com\/tzOIosnA88<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Markos Moulitsas (@markos) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/markos\/status\/1083118562376630274?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 9, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>This was not the first time Kossacks have flooded the office of Speaker Pelosi with roses.\u00a0 Back in 2010 they delivered 2,600 roses to her, other Democratic staffs and patients at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on her birthday as a <strong><em>\u201cThank You!\u201d<\/em><\/strong> for her efforts in getting the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) passed.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Pelosi_Birthday-Roses_Daily-Kos_Slideshow.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-35301\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Pelosi_Birthday-Roses_Daily-Kos_Slideshow.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"715\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This time the original goal was to raise enough money to send 10,000 roses, estimating that $10 would provide 3 roses.\u00a0 But they far outstripped their goal raising enough money to send 25,000!<\/p>\n<p>Obviously, no office could hold that many roses, so at Speaker Pelosi\u2019s suggestion, 8,000 were delivered to her office and other Democrats\u2019 offices around the Capitol \u2013 and the remainder sent to patients at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Speaker-Pelosi_Thank-You-Roses_Slideshow.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-35302\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Speaker-Pelosi_Thank-You-Roses_Slideshow.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"501\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As you no doubt can imagine, you don\u2019t just trot into the Capitol offices with 8,000 roses.\u00a0 It took the planning of military precision to accomplish that feat, with coordination between Daily Kos and Speaker Pelosi\u2019s staff.\u00a0 And in fact, Moulitsas himself flew to Washington, DC and spent the morning helping carrying crate after crate up to Pelosi\u2019s second floor office \u2013 which he described as \u201cA great workout\u201d.\u00a0 <em>(I\u2019d be drenched in sweat.)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>But it did not only involve coordination between the Daily Kos and Pelosi staffs, it took the Herculean efforts of a wholesale supplier and florist preparer to get the job done.<\/p>\n<p>There have been some people who point out that the money could have been better used \u2013 and as someone who donated both times, I really can\u2019t quibble with that too much.\u00a0 But I will also point out that the people at DK raised <a href=\"https:\/\/secure.actblue.com\/donate\/dkendorsements2018\">over $200,000 at ActBlue just for Democratic candidates<\/a> during the past 2018 election.\u00a0 So I would say they have a history of being generous donors \u2013 as witnessed by the fact that it only took an hour and a half after posting to raise the money for the original goal of 10,000 roses.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Daily-Kos_ActBlue_Donations_2018-Small.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-35303\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Daily-Kos_ActBlue_Donations_2018-Small.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"497\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Daily-Kos_ActBlue_Donations_2018-Small.png 497w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Daily-Kos_ActBlue_Donations_2018-Small-150x145.png 150w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Daily-Kos_ActBlue_Donations_2018-Small-300x290.png 300w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Daily-Kos_ActBlue_Donations_2018-Small-24x24.png 24w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Daily-Kos_ActBlue_Donations_2018-Small-36x36.png 36w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 497px) 100vw, 497px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The order for the 25,000 long-stemmed roses was placed at the wholesale florist <a href=\"https:\/\/flowerwholesale.com\/\">Potomac Floral Wholesale<\/a> in Silver Spring.\u00a0 <strong>Jeff King<\/strong>, a sales team manager and public relations specialist for the floral wholesaler said, \u201cIt was the largest single rose order that we\u2019ve ever received.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>King explained that red roses come in 20-50 different varieties with names like <em>\u201cRed Paris\u201d<\/em> and <em>\u201cSexy Red\u201d<\/em> \u2013 but by coincidence, all 25,000 long-stemmed roses were the <strong><em>\u201cFreedom\u201d<\/em><\/strong> variety.\u00a0 A nice happenstance!<\/p>\n<p>They ended up sending 25,000 roses at 89 cents a stem, or $22,000. \u00a0<strong><em><u>BUT<\/u><\/em><\/strong> that does not include the cost of a local florist processing the shipment for delivery.<\/p>\n<p>When you place a huge order like this, they don\u2019t show up arranged in cute little vases. \u00a0The blooms come straight from the fields, wild and packed into large cardboard boxes.\u00a0 That means someone is hired for picking them up, unpacking them, cutting the stems, removing excessive foliage, arranging them in vases, and delivering them.<\/p>\n<p>That mammoth undertaking of processing 25,000 roses was handled by <strong>Angela Brunson<\/strong> of <a href=\"http:\/\/easternmarket-dc.org\/blue-iris-flowers\/\">Blue Iris Flowers<\/a> in Eastern Market.<\/p>\n<p>As anyone who\u2019s ordered flowers knows \u2013 it\u2019s the middle-man that takes the biggest cut.\u00a0 I have no idea how many thousands of dollars it cost to have the florist pick up 25,000 roses, unpack 25,000 roses, cut the stems of 25,000 roses, remove excess foliage from 25,000 roses, arrange 25,000 roses and deliver 25,000 roses \u2013 but I\u2019m sure it was a huge sum!<\/p>\n<p>With 8,000 roses in the Longworth House Office Building, it was reported that you could smell them just on entering the building.\u00a0 Surrounded on all sides by the virtual garden of flowers, Speaker Pelosi exclaimed, \u201cI\u2019ve never seen so many roses in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At a time when Trump has cast a tumultuous dark cloud over America \u2013 and the World \u2013 <strong>Paul Hogarth<\/strong>, who managed the <em>DK<\/em> end, said: \u201cWe wanted to express our love for all the work she does and how hard Speaker Pelosi worked to get a Democratic majority.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Founder Moulitsas added, \u201cPeople wanted to do something nice for once.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>RESOURCES<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/stories\/2019\/1\/10\/1825079\/-So-we-delivered-soooo-many-flowers-to-Nancy-Pelosi\">https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/stories\/2019\/1\/10\/1825079\/-So-we-delivered-soooo-many-flowers-to-Nancy-Pelosi<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/arts-entertainment\/2019\/01\/09\/nancy-pelosi-gets-delivery-roses-thanks-an-online-fundraiser\/?utm_term=.d31ccf9b31ca\">https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/arts-entertainment\/2019\/01\/09\/nancy-pelosi-gets-delivery-roses-thanks-an-online-fundraiser\/?utm_term=.d31ccf9b31ca<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonian.com\/2019\/01\/10\/nancy-pelosi-freedom-roses\/\">https:\/\/www.washingtonian.com\/2019\/01\/10\/nancy-pelosi-freedom-roses\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/stories\/2019\/1\/3\/1823278\/-Join-our-Roses-for-Pelosi-effort-and-thank-our-new-House-Speaker-for-her-incredible-leadership\">https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/stories\/2019\/1\/3\/1823278\/-Join-our-Roses-for-Pelosi-effort-and-thank-our-new-House-Speaker-for-her-incredible-leadership<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/voices.washingtonpost.com\/44\/2010\/03\/bloggers-send-nancy-pelosi-260.html\">http:\/\/voices.washingtonpost.com\/44\/2010\/03\/bloggers-send-nancy-pelosi-260.html<\/a><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>BONUS<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>As you know, <em><strong>Paul Manafort&#8217;s<\/strong><\/em> &#8220;crack&#8221; legal team posted their latest filing on line with the parts documenting he was getting paid for the colluding he was doing while on the Trump campaign &#8220;redacted&#8221; &#8211; well, sort of redacted.<\/p>\n<p>You can view a PDF of their failed filing here:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/assets.documentcloud.org\/documents\/5677512\/Manafort-20190108-Dc.pdf\">https:\/\/assets.documentcloud.org\/documents\/5677512\/Manafort-20190108-Dc.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<p>All you had to do was copy\/paste it into a word document &#8211; and\u00a0<em><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Verdana;\">voil\u00e0<\/span><\/em>\u00a0&#8211; the whole thing shows up.<\/p>\n<p>It was a pain to reformat it, because it was in\u00a0 that weird legal formatting, but it did it.\u00a0 But if you want to see what Manafort didn&#8217;t want you to see, you can view it as my Word document on the OneDrive cloud here:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/1drv.ms\/w\/s!AvRxVTeLcrBWtPg7S97c6HYuzRomjw\">https:\/\/1drv.ms\/w\/s!AvRxVTeLcrBWtPg7S97c6HYuzRomjw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, the Kossacks (of which I count myself a proud member) over at Daily Kos outdid themselves in sending a sweet smell of success to newly-elected Speaker Nancy Pelosi \u2013 and she deserves it! At the suggestion of Daily Kos founder, Markos Moulitsas, they raised enough money to send 25,000 long-stemmed roses to her! \u00a0And <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2019\/01\/11\/friday-fun-the-sweet-smell-of-success\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}