From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
C&J Annual Fundraiser. For Rent: Vintage 1964 Soul. Slightly warped.
Yep, it's that time again. Your contract on my soul has expired. I am in control of roughly 75 percent of it at the moment, and that number is growing by the hour. Time for humanity to re-up for another year of Cheers and Jeers before it's too late.
For those of you don’t know the story: nine years ago I got fired over the phone by parted ways amicably with my former employer after 14 years. At that time I'd been writing C&J as a hobby to keep me from pursuing my other hobby which was robbing banks. In a turn of events as generous as it was unexpected, the Daily Kos community blogswarmed, took up a collection and, in "Keyboard Kingpin" Kos's immortal words, "bought my soul" for a year.
Every year since then you've allowed me to continue writing this column full-time because of your financial support. For that I thank you from the bottom of my cubicle, which is situated at the precise midway point between the kitchen and the bathroom, allowing me to both grab a beer and take a leak without getting up from my chair, and for that I'd like to thank my personal Feng Shui consultant from the bottom of my 24oz PBR.
If you're in the mood to keep C&J going for another year, I'd be honored to slip a fresh diaper on my head and fresh ink ribbons in my 50 monkeys' typewriters.
Many moons ago, Kos set up PayPal accounts for both one-time donations and recurring monthly donations. The monthly subscriptions are hugely helpful for minimizing the total needed during this annual "pledge week," and I can't thank you enough for supporting C&J throughout the year:
One time contribution: click here.
$5 monthly contribution: click here
$10 monthly contribution: click here
$20 monthly contribution: click here
To send a donation via snail mail, the address is: Bill Harnsberger, 16 Pitt Street, Portland, ME, 04103.
I know there's been a bit of a kerfuffle over PayPal because of some jerk who co-created it and jumped on the Trump train. I'm sticking with it for two reasons: I don’t want to cause confusion among the significant number of long-term C&J donors who use it, and also because I want to reward PayPal for being one of the earliest companies to push back against the Republican “HB2” LGBT hate law in North Carolina. PayPal actually cancelled a planned facility there, opting to create those 400 jobs in a more fair-minded state. Said CEO Dan Schulman: "Becoming an employer in North Carolina, where members of our teams will not have equal rights under the law, is simply untenable." I appreciate that, especially since it helped lead to Governor McCrory’s timely political demise.
If you're already a C&J monthly subscriber and you want to continue, you don’t have to do anything but feel good about your investment.
Thank you for supporting these weird little columns. I began popping them out in 2003 to maintain my sanity during the Bush years. And, well, here we are in the age of Trump. This time I admit I may need to add some padding to the walls.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, January 9, 2017
Note: The eleven pipers piping and twelve drummers drumming have announced they'll be playing at the Trump inauguration. Apparently this time of year they really need the money.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: 7
Days 'til the Albany Chefs' Food and Wine Festival in New York: 3
Percent of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated, according to the Pew Research Center: 23%
Percent of members of the current Congress who are religiously unaffiliated: 0.2%
Drop in cancer deaths since 1991 according to the American Cancer Society, equivalent to 2 million lives saved: 25%
Cost of a Spinali Design bikini that vibrates when it thinks you've been out in the sun too long: $140
Dow Industrials close on Friday, up 64 points on news of the positive jobs report: 19,964
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Tashi gets a ramp…
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CHEERS to Elizabeth Warren. Good news: she's champin' at the bit to fight another round for truth and justice in the Senate…
In an interview with the Globe, Warren said her decision to run for a second term had been growing on her for some time. With the election over and questions back home mounting, “I just wanted to make it clear. I love this job,” she said. “I fight every day for working families across our Commonwealth. This fight is about to get a lot harder, and I want everyone to know I am in all the way.” […]
“I feel so strongly about the need to be in Washington and fight to protect the things that we have built, fighting Trump’s dangerous Cabinet appointments,” she said, pointing to Trump’s pick of Tom Price, a Republican congressman from Georgia, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services as one example. […]
She also vowed to fight Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, weaken post-crisis financial laws, and defang Warren’s brainchild---the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Her announcement means we can expect another onslaught of "Pocahontas" slurs from her detractors (y'know…the ones who put Russia before the United States). But given her tenacity, fundraising ability and debate skills, I feel pretty confident in predicting that she'll be getting the last "Poca-ha-ha."
CHEERS to a portrait in contrast. While thumbing through some old C&Js over the weekend I came across a reminder that when Nancy Pelosi became Speaker in January of 2007, one of her first acts was to makes changes to ethics rules. But whereas current Speaker Paul Ryan tried (and failed) to gut them in secret last week, Pelosi acted like an adult and strengthened them in broad daylight:
‘House Democrats got straight to work this week by passing the toughest Congressional ethics reform in history.
We have broken the link between lobbyists and legislation: banning gifts and travel from lobbyists and organizations that retain or employ them, banning travel on corporate jets, shutting down the K Street project, subjecting all earmarks to the full light of day, and reinstating the strict rules of pay-as-you-go budgeting.
‘But these reforms are just our first steps. In the coming months, we will propose legislation to close the revolving door between government officials and lobbying firms and shine a light on lobbyists’ efforts to influence legislation. We will also require a bipartisan task force to report out recommendations on the creation of an outside entity to uphold the highest ethical standards here in the House.
‘Honest leadership is not just a partisan goal. It is the key to putting the interests of all Americans ahead of the special interests.'
Pelosi was, you'll remember, booted in 2010 after Americans decided to give the reins back to Republicans because President Obama had the audacity to improve our health care delivery system and pull us out of an economic ditch while simultaneously being black. Boy, they sure taught us a lesson, huh.
CHEERS to world peace...or some approximation thereof. On January 9, 1951, the United Nations headquarters officially opened in New York City. From its preamble:
WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED
• to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
• to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
• to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
• to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.
It drives conservative paranoids crazy because they think the boys and girls in the blue helmets are gonna impose martial law and take control of our cities and towns without any regard for the principles of democracy. Idiots---they're obviously confusing the U.N. with Rick Snyder's Michigan.
CHEERS to setting the record straight. Sparks are gonna fly tomorrow as the Senate Judiciary Committee holds confirmation hearings for an Alabama senator who looks and sounds like a backwoods sheriff who's always wondering out loud if "what we have here, boy, is a failure to communicate" right before he sics the dogs on ya. Donald Trump wants Jeff Sessions to be our nation's Attorney General, which is an excellent choice if you prefer your justice delivered Puritan-style. Last week there was a potent op-ed published in The Washington Post by civil rights attorneys J. Gerald Hebert, Joseph Rich and William Yeomans, who believe otherwise. The first and last paragraphs:
Attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions is trying to mislead his Senate colleagues, and the country, into believing he is a champion for civil rights.
We are former Justice Department civil rights lawyers who worked on the civil rights cases that Sessions cites as evidence for this claim, so we know: The record isn’t Sessions’s to burnish. We won’t let the nominee misstate his civil rights history to get the job of the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. […]
Sessions has not worked to protect civil rights. He worked against civil rights at every turn. Sessions knows that his real record on race and civil rights is harmful to his chances for confirmation. So he has made up a fake one. But many of us who were there — in Alabama in the 1980s, 1990s and beyond---are still around. We lived that story, too. And we are here to testify that Sessions has done many things throughout his 40-year career. Protecting civil rights has not been one of them.
The paragraphs that come between them are a rhetorical knuckle sandwich. May Sessions choke on it tomorrow.
CHEERS to the Nutmeg State. Happy 229th birthday to Connecticut, which popped out of the womb of freedom on this date in 1788. It's responsible for giving us the nuclear submarine, Pez candy, lollipops, the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, beloved Daily Kos front-pager Greg Dworkin, Governor Dan Malloy, and Senators Chris Murphy and Dick Blumenthal. Also Joe Lieberman. Oh well…no state is perfect.
CHEERS to decent piano playing skills. That's one of the few positive things I can say about Richard Nixon, who was born on this date in 1913. Said the late, great Andy Rooney a few years back: "I forget how Richard Nixon got elected. It makes you wonder about our democratic system of government. I mean, how could we have done that?" And in their great book Rating the Presidents, Bill Ridings, Jr. and Stuart McIver unwittingly fire back at the teabaggers who once complained that President Obama put his feet up on his desk:
Since he liked to sit with his feet on the desk, his heels left scars.
Once, while he was abroad, someone had the mahogany surface refinished. Nixon was not pleased: "Dammit, I didn't order that. I want to leave my mark on this place just like the other presidents."
Richard Milhous Nixon left his mark, but it was more than scuff marks on a desktop. The mark he left behind was a scar on a nation he betrayed. In the cause of peace he achieved an enviable record in foreign affairs, proving himself a highly-effective president. Then he threw it all away.
Today is Nixon's 104th birthday. I got him a gift certificate to his favorite store: The 18½ Minute GAP.
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 9, 2007
JEERS to nattering ninnies revisited. Remember all the right-wing bloggers and pundits who said Valerie Plame wasn't an undercover CIA agent ("she had a desk job in D.C.!") and therefore her outing was no big deal? Well, she's writing a book and her former employer now says she can’t reveal her time spent as a CIA agent with Non-official Cover status (that's where the government disowns you if you get caught.). But the GOPers are correct about one thing. Lord only knows what it is.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to U.S. Mint'y freshness. Could this be the year that we finally see a trillion-dollar coin minted? I'm thinking maybe that's how Republicans plan to pay for the Trump wall, since Mexico clearly isn’t planning to, so I'm still holding out hope. In the meantime we can definitely look forward to seeing five more "America the Beautiful" state quarters this year. The collection, which celebrates our national parks (or as Republicans call them, "drill here, drill now" zones), continues to weave its spell of numismagic on the nation for an eighth year. Here's a sneak peak at this year's lineup---I think you'll agree they're quarterrrrrific:
The first release of the year will commemorate Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa early next month, which features "an aerial view of mounds in the Marching Bear Group." Or as it’s better known: evidence of the earliest known gay pride parade.
Have a tolerable Monday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Congratulations NYC, you finally have a Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool in all subway stations
---Mashable
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