From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Netroots Nation 2013: Final Checklist
Unreal how fast these hippie love-ins roll around, ain't it? Tonight #8 kicks off in San Jose with the Liquid Courage shindig featuring Howard Dean. After that, it's a four-day blur of progressive awesomeism. Here's your barest-of-bare checklist of essentials:
Tonight!!!!!!!!
√ Spreadsheet of panels and events via Kossack Vicki. (If you can't be there, you can watch from home via this link.)
√ Town Square events (Arcade games! Fire truck! Hot damn!)
√ Parties…
…and Afterparties!
√ San Jose attractions
√ Last-minute registration
√ Media coverage
√ And more media coverage
√ Toothbrush, socks, tuxedo t-shirt, pants (optional), mustache wax, shiny new dimes to pass out to children on the street.
√ NN13 Twitter feed (and hashtag #nn13)
√ Pie
√ And last but not least...earworm:
You are now ready. Have fun. Learn a bunch of stuff that will serve you well for the rest of your life. And safe travels.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Note: I think the next justice on the Supreme Court should be a child. They are so under-represented.
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Rick Perry: maple
syrup's #1 fan.
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the longest day of the year:
2
Days 'til
Summerfest in Milwaukee:
7
Number of U.S. states that have fewer abortion-services providers than in 1978:
48
(Source: Harper's Index)
Gallons of maple syrup produced in the U.S. this year, a 70% increase over last year and a new record:
3.2 million gallons
Rank of Vermont, New York and Maine among sugarhouse production:
#1, #2, #3
(Source: Dept. of Agriculture)
Number of U.S. households that don’t have a bank account:
10 million
(Source: CNNMoney)
Square miles that are under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service:
131,250
NBA Finals:
The San Antonio Spurs are tied with the Miami Heat at 3 games each
Stanley Cup Finals:
Boston Bruins lead the Chicago Blackhawks 2 games to 1
(Game 4 is tonight)
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 186 (including 5 volcanoes and 1 residual birther idiot). Soul Protection Factor 24 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Saved!!!
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CHEERS to more rumble in the Massachusettsungle. With six days until the special election for John Kerry's Senate seat, Democrat Ed Markey and Republican Gabriel Gomez squared off last night in their final debate. The highlight of the evening, I think, was when I googled for a highlight and found one:
Star power.
Gomez made a concerted effort to separate himself from the national GOP, noting multiple issues over which he disagrees with many Republicans. “They’re wrong on immigration right now. They’re wrong on gay marriage right now. They’re wrong on the expanded background checks right now. They’re wrong on the environment on global warming right now. I’m on the right side of that,” said Gomez, who promised to work with Democrats.
So what Gomez is saying is that you should vote for the candidate who has consistently been on the right side of immigration, LGBT rights, responsible gun ownership and the environment---and for the candidate who best separates himself from the Republican party. Markey didn't even need a closing statement. He just hiked his thumb in Gomez's direction and uttered three words: "What he said."
JEERS to bad medicine. Yesterday the House voted again to outlaw a woman's constitutional right to abortion services. Among the reasons for the umpteenth abortion vote since John Boehner first banged the gavel: a Republican congressman from Texas claims that boy fetuses masturbate in the womb. Oh, let's unpack this bon mot, shall we?
"Hey...a little
privacy please?"
Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, said on Monday that he supports the proposed federal ban on abortion at 20 weeks because he has personally witnessed male fetuses with their hands “between their legs” pleasuring themselves at 15 weeks. … “Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful,” he continued. “They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?”
Congressman Burgess (seriously---this idiot got elected to
Congress!) is wrong, however, and I can prove it with an argument that's backed by 100% Republican-oriented science: if fetuses were masturbating, they'd all be born with hairy palms.
P.S. This reminds me of when former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN)---a doctor---attempted to diagnose Terri Schiavo's brain activity from a VHS tape in his office. After she died, an autopsy was conducted and it turned out Frist got it completely wrong. I'm guessing that didn’t give his former patients the warm fuzzies.
CHEERS to leveling the playing field. 49 years ago today, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved by the Senate---73-27---after making it through a 57-day Dixiecrat filibuster:
The moment King
heard the news.
"One hundred and eighty-eight years ago this week a small band of valiant men began a long struggle for freedom," [President Lyndon] Johnson told the nation. "Now our generation of Americans has been called on to continue the unending search for justice within our own borders." The analogy was unmistakable. The president was comparing the work of the Founding Fathers with that of the civil rights movement.
Martin Luther King, who was present at the White House signing ceremony, also had no doubts about the significance of the day or about Lyndon Johnson's role in making the civil rights bill law. "It was a great moment," King declared, "something like the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln."
When Johnson signed it he reportedly said, "It is an important gain, but I think we just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come." A regular Nostradamus in a Stetson, he was.
CHEERS to great moments in freedom. And speaking of civil rights, on June 19, 1862, slavery was outlawed in the existing and future federal territories. For such a groundbreaking event, the language was pretty straightforward:
"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That from and after the passage of this act there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the Territories of the United States now existing, or which may at any time hereafter be formed or acquired by the United States, otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.
The good news: that was a
looong time ago. The bad news: not long enough.
JEERS to the elephant that jumped on the chair and yelled, "Eek! A Mouse!" Maine's governor is a human battering ram---a thick-necked, short-tempered, my-way-or-the-turnpike, shoot-from-the-lip, charge-up-San-Juan-Hill type. Or at least that's what he wants you to believe. In reality, he's such a chickenshit coward that he just announced he's holing up in his bedroom and covering his head with his magic blanky to keep the scary newspapers away:
Liar, bully, coward.
That's our guv!
Gov. Paul LePage's administration will no longer comment in stories published by the Portland Press Herald, Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel, his spokeswoman said Tuesday. Adrienne Bennett informed a Portland Press Herald reporter of the new policy following a request for the governor’s public events calendar. Bennett declined to provide the calendar, a public document, adding that the administration would no longer participate in stories reported by MaineToday Media, the company that owns the three newspapers.
The reason for the hissy fit is a devastating (and, I predict, award-winning) investigation by the
Press Herald of the industry lobbyist LePage hired to run the state Department of Environmental Protection, and who is relishing her job of seeing to it that the environment doesn't get protected. Read the mini-summary and
feel your blood boil. Her last name, by the way, is Aho. But given how she's helping to wreck our state in that ruthless, matter-of-fact way at which extremist Republicans excel, one can't help but feel like tacking on an extra "le."
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Five years ago in C&J: June 19, 2008
CHEERS to Henry Waxman. The one Democrat on the Hill who genuinely seems to be trying to clean up the sleaze (or at least shine a spotlight on it) is at it again. His latest escapade: subpoenaing Bush and Cheney's FBI interviews regarding the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame. Cheney's transcript might take a while to come out, since they'll have to translate it into English from the original penguin. (Is "Waaack" present tense or future?)
CHEERS to the new kid on the Hill. Wonderful! Donna Edwards is going to Washington. I think this deserves a little morning sip of the bubbly, don’t you? Good, because I just polished off a bottle of Duval-Leroy. Oh, and remember: Nancy Pelosi is a little hard of hearing, Donna, so when you talk to her you'll have to yell really loud!!! (I love freshman pranks, don’t you?)
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And just one more…
CHEERS to U.S. Mint-y freshness. The NEW "America the Beautiful" State Quarter is out! The NEW "America the Beautiful" State Quarter is out!!! Take a gander at the Great Basin release representing Nevada:
Can you people at least
fake some excitement?
Great Basin National Park, located in the heart of the Great Basin, has exceptional examples of regional geology, biologic diversity and scenic grandeur.
The reverse image depicts the beauty and unique qualities of a single Bristlecone Pine tree and shows the rocky glacial moraines where the trees grow. These trees grow at higher elevation in the park and are some of the world's oldest. The park contains numerous Bristlecone Pine groves with trees older than 4,000 years.
Hey, wanna see a trick I can do with my Nevada state quarter? Ready? [
Flips coin] [
Coin comes to rest on its edge!!!!!] I can also tie cherry stems with my tongue and suck jello shots out of my belly button. What can I say? I was born with gifts.
Have a superb Wednesday full of subtlety and nuance. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
It's OK, Bill in Portland Maine. Brain farts happen to all of us.
---NBC News
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