From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Energize an Ally Tuesday
Any hopes the New American Fascist Party---formerly known as the Republican party---had that the resistance movement was fading were dashed bigly last weekend as People's Climate Marches once again swamped the number of people who attended Trump's inauguration. (And don’t think Trump doesn’t seethe at the thought.) Among the organizers of the march was the Indigenous Environmental Network, which is on the front lines of many environmental fights, including resistance to the odious Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines,which basically amount to ticking time bombs our country is installing under our soil and water.
IEN’s activities include building the capacity of Indigenous communities and tribal governments to develop mechanisms to protect our sacred sites, land, water, air, natural resources, health of both our people and all living things, and to build economically sustainable communities.
IEN accomplishes this by maintaining an informational clearinghouse, organizing campaigns, direct actions and public awareness, building the capacity of community and tribes to address EJ issues, development of initiatives to impact policy, and building alliances among Indigenous communities, tribes, inter-tribal and Indigenous organizations, people-of-color/ethnic organizations, faith-based and women groups, youth, labor, environmental organizations and others. […]
IEN was born in 1990 from a national gathering of tribal grassroots youth and Indigenous leadership to discuss our common experiences regarding environmental assaults on our lands, waters, communities and villages. … In the years that followed, the idea for IEN continued to flourish, as these annual gatherings became an excellent organizing and education venue to reach out to Indigenous peoples throughout North America.
With the Trump administration and its odious EPA administrator Scott Pruitt dead-set on going to war against the concept of clear skies, clean water and uncontaminated soil, groups like the Indigenous Environmental Network are dedicated to stepping up their resistance. If you feel so inclined, they could really use a few bucks in their coffers. Their donation link is on the right side of the home page here. It's gonna be a long four years (the first 100 days were interminable), so thank god groups like IEN are here to help keep up the fight.
Follow IEN on twitter here and on Facebook here.
Meanwhile, Cheers and Jeers continues below the fold...
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, May 2, 2017
Note: Happy Birthday, Jed Lewison, wherever you are! And many blessings on your camels.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Atlantic hurricane season starts: 30
Days 'til the Coast Guard Community Festival in Cape May, New Jersey: 3
Percent of Americans who would vote to re-elect Donald Trump, according to a new Fox News poll: 36%
Percent of the lower 48 states that are currently experiencing drought conditions, the lowest in the history of the 17-year-old U.S. Drought Monitor: 6.1%
Record high percent of drought, measured back in September of 2012 (Thanks, Obama!): 65.5%
Number of Maine drivers who have between 5 and 10 OUIs, according to The Maine Sunday Telegram: 7,129
Percent of consumers who purposely overload their washing machine in order to avoid having to do another load, according to USA Today: 80%
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NEW Tuesday Feature! "Georgia On My Mind"
Brought to you by the 2017 Netroots Nation Convention in Atlanta August 10-13. To fit in with the locals around Atlanta, you’ll need to be Georgia-savvy. So memorize these tidbits from Enchanted Learning and you'll blend seamlessly:
Major Industries: textiles, timber (especially pine), agriculture (cotton, corn, peanuts, soybeans, poultry)
Origin of the Name Georgia: Georgia was named to honor King George II of England.
State Motto: "Wisdom, Justice, and Moderation"
State Song: Georgia On My Mind
State Fossil (besides Newt Gingrich): Shark tooth
State Possum: Pogo. (Yes, that Pogo)
State Wildflower: Azalea
And we can’t forget the official state asskicker: "John Lewis."
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Adorbs, adorbs, adorbs…
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CHEERS to May! The month of flowers, Mom's Day, Armed Forces Day, Victoria Day, National Pet week, "End of the Middle Ages" Day (May 29---for Republicans it's a day of mourning), and Cinco de Mayo aka Watch The President Embarrass Himself With A Taco Bowl Again Day.
It's National Hamburger Month for carnivores and National Salad Month for vegans. Big election in France on the 7th---Macron vs. Lady Hitler---and closer to home we might see Democrat Rob Quist become Montana's representative in Congress. Memorial Day weekend kicks off summer in 24 days. Full moon arrives on the 10th, so make a note to lookup and wink at Neil Armstrong that night. If "movie version of Baywatch” is on your bucket list, you'll get your wish, along with sequels to Alien, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Pirates of the Caribbean. (But do we really need another King Arthur flick?) And Congress may actually pass a budget! As usual, yesterday's highlight was the Daily Kos contributing editors dressed in their frilly best dancing around the Maypole. Also as usual, they ended up with a bent pole, a huge granny knot, and a great big pile of phone cameras with their memories erased.
CHEERS to a gathering of merry moonbats. It was a gorgeous, summer-like day on the Portland (Maine's Portland, not the fake Portland) waterfront, but the center of the action in town Saturday was at the Flatbread Company, where pizza and assorted smooth beverages were snarfed and snorkled by a couple dozen hungry, hungry Kossacks. Yes, it was our spring meetup, and on hand for the event were---[takes deep breath]---Northerntier and Frank, Simple, Vacationland, JBL55, Susan Grigsby, Michael Langenmayr (of Daily Kos Elections team fame), Nautical Knots, brillig & mik, Parsons Beach & Jim & Mom, rebereads, Ed Tracey, Jennifer, Knockbally, bluesheep, freedapeople and Common Sense Mainer &Yours Truly. Huge props, as always, to our host and coordinator, nhox42, and our A+ servers. Now, pics:
Many more pics in nhox42’s post---click here now. Thanks to everyone who stopped by. A great time was had by all. If you're looking to form your own DKos meetup group, or you'd like to find an existing group, look no further than the daily Connect, Unite, Act (CUA) diaries that post the latest ones nationwide. Meetups are fun, delish, and for an extra $400,000, I hear you can get Barack Obama to come and warble some Al Green.
CHEERS to fist-pump-worthy headlines. Credit to David Nir for this one: "Monster defeat for Trump and GOP: Budget deal funds Planned Parenthood but has nothing for wall." Love it! And there's more than just Planned Parenthood funding. Democrats---I say again, DEMOCRATS---got permanent funding for coal miners' health care, plus guaranteed funding for Obamacare subsidies, plus assistance for Puerto Rico, plus a bump in $$$ for science and green energy, and on top of it all Jeff Sessions is now mandated to keep his mitts off state marijuana and sanctuary city laws. Needless to say, the nest of snowflake wasps over at Breitbart are not amused. A small sample from the comments:
I swear Trump had better not sign this BS bill. Planned Parenthood funded but not the wall? These lame ass Republicans signed off on this monstrosity?
No more money GOP! Get rid of that slithering slug Ryan!
Republicans continue to cave to dems., starting after they gained "control" of the Senate in 2014 and CONTINUING WITH THEIR "CONTROL" OF THE ENTIRE CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENCY, in 2017. Why vote?
WTF is going on here?? WE won the presidential election, repubs control congress and STILL planned parenthood and sanctuary cities get funded in this Band-Aid budget!! No money for the wall but the dems get what they want...THIS REALLY PISSES ME OFF!! These spineless repubs in congress HAVE TO BE REMOVED AND ELIMINATED!!
Trump got elected on fake promises and tons of lies... and that's being proven every day with all the losing he's doing and his paperweight EO's
A trillion bucks, and "the Closer" can't negotiate a measly $1 billion in there? The Art of the Fail.
I don’t believe Bubbanomics is joining us here this morning, so I'll go ahead and do the honors in his place: Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!!!
P.S. As someone who responded to my tweet below said: “Stop letting Republicans talk the talk while we walk the walk”...
If we don’t shout our achievements from the rooftops, Republicans will be happy to hijack our achievements and shout them from their own rooftops. Are you listening, Tom Perez?
CHEERS to the days of lollipops and surpluses. On May 2, 1997, President Clinton and congressional Republicans came to terms on a plan to balance the budget over five years. Said Newt Gingrich of the bipartisan agreement: "This is a great moment for our children and our grandchildren and our country, and we are proud to be part of that." Fourteen years later, as a presidential candidate, Gingrich foolishly raised his hand when asked if he would veto a budget with ten dollars in cuts for every 1 dollar in revenue increases. But in fairness, he did also offer jobs to our children and grandchildren. As janitors. On the moon. Amazingly, he didn’t become president.
JEERS to clumsy stagecraft. Lord Dampnut tossed a bombshell (Or…ZOMG was it the long-awaited pivot???) into the works yesterday when he suggested that he was looking into breaking up the big banks by reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. Yeah---don’t hold your breath. In the absence something substantial like that under his belt (sorry for that visual), all he has to show for his term so far is a bunch of executive orders. And guess what---Politico's Michael Grunwald says they ain't worth a bucket of warm spit (sorry for that visual too---we really must work on better visuals)…
Trump’s high-profile orders have not actually undone Obama’s health reforms, financial regulations or carbon restrictions. They’ve merely allowed him to announce his intentions to undo those policies in official documents.
Trump’s first 30 executive orders will create a lot of federal reviews and reports, along with some new task forces and commissions, but not a lot of substantive change. So far, they’ve been more about messaging than governing, proclaiming his priorities without really advancing his priorities. […]
[A] close look at the language of his orders shows that most of them are basically news releases with presidential signatures, plus instructions to his Cabinet secretaries to look into the issues at hand.
And we all know how that turns out: the lazy-ass Cabinet secretaries will have an intern print out the Wikipedia page on whatever the topic is, throw it in a binder, scrawl "LOOKED INTO"on the outside with a sharpie, toss it in a bin, and then get back to their giant doomsday orgy in the White House bunker. (Oops. I've said too much.)
CHEERS to legendary ledger keepers. Economist and "unabashed liberal" John Kenneth Galbraith died 11 years ago this week at 97. He served as an advisor to presidents from Roosevelt to Clinton, and left behind some snarky bits, too:
"All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door."
"Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof."
"In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong."
"Liberalism is, I think, resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative."
Painfully aware indeed. Brother, you said a mouthful.
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Ten years ago in C&J: May 2, 2007
CHEERS to a pleasant flight. Last week, officials from Zero Gravity Corp. boarded a 727 and used it to achieve---duh---zero gravity eight times so they could play catch with Stephen Hawking. The Lou Gehrig's Disease-afflicted scientist fared so well that he now plans to ride a rocket to the edge of space. Just as soon as they find his luggage.
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And just one more…
JEERS to the other date which will live in infamy. Putting this little bit of history down here in the cellar where it belongs. Fourteen years ago yesterday our steely-eyed chief warrior, Commander Codpiece, who'd lied his pantaloons off to get our country to approve going to war with another country that hadn't done a thing to us, dressed up in a flight suit and pretended to fly a plane out to an aircraft carrier, where he made a victory speech under a banner that said MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. And oh how the pundit class swooned. Let these clips (and this is just a tiny sample) forever be anvils around their necks...
"Well, that was probably the coolest presidential image since Bill Pullman played the jet fighter pilot in the movie Independence Day."
---Joe Klein
"Speaking as a woman, and listening to the women who called into my radio show, seeing President Bush get out of that plane, carrying his helmet, he is a real man."
---Laura Ingraham
”...a one-time fighter dog.”
---Wolf Blitzer describing Bush
"Here comes George Bush. You know, he's in his flight suit, he's striding across the deck, and he's wearing his parachute harness, you know---and I've worn those because I parachute---and it makes the best of his manly characteristic. You go run that stuff again of him walking across there with the parachute. He has just won every woman's vote in the United States of America. You know, all those women who say size doesn't count---they're all liars. Check that out."
---G. Gordon Liddy
In fact, winning the war was so much fun that Commander Codpiece went on winning it for another eight years until his successor decided that enough winning had been won. When it was all over, hundreds of thousands of people had lost their lives, limbs and minds and Commander Codpiece's taxpayers were on the hook for trillions of victory dollars. Oh, and filling the vacuum Commander Codpiece created is a nightmare army of ISIS orcs whose favorite things in the world are raping women and burning people to death in cages. But the important thing is, Commander Codpiece and the very serious pundit class are living happily ever after to this day. The End.
Have a tolerable Tuesday. Make sure you call your congress critter to tell ‘em to KEEP YOUR GRUBBY PAWS OFF OUR AFFORDABLE CARE ACT. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Cheers and Jeers attendees were promised paradise on a private island, only to arrive on Thursday to find a half-finished kiddie pool, uninhabitable accommodations and hundreds of fans pleading to get out.
---Billboard
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