From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Energize An Ally Tuesday
As you've probably heard by now, there's a special election in Montana in nine days for the state's one House seat. And Republicans are sweating at the moment because, unlike the GOP’s Mr. Moneybags candidate, the Democrat on the ballot is a) a real dyed-in-the-flannel Montanan b) gaining in the polls and c) running on populist issues like saving health care from the billionaire vultures and saving public lands from, um, also billionaire vultures. As Kossack Mattrek wrote in this Saturday post Montana’s Close, Let’s Make It Closer, confidence and morale are high on Team D:
Rob Quist is far more competitive then many would have assumed in his race for congress.
He has almost no previous background in politics, but the fact of the matter is when you take one look at him he screams “I'm from Montana” and if there's one thing Montanan’s cherish it's being one of them. He's also run on a surprisingly progressive platform for a red state that went for Trump last November by 20 points.
Despite the obvious obstacles, we find ourselves nipping at the heels of New Jersey millionaire Greg Gianforte in public polling. Recent polls show anywhere from a mid single digits race to a high single digits race, which has closed the gap dramatically since when the polls first started testing.
Here's one of Rob's ads:
You can read up on Rob's positions on the issues here. And if you can spare a few bucks to help his campaign organize and get the word out in the final push, here’s the donation link. Thanks for helping out. We can win this one, and as Rob says: "There's enough millionaires in Washington."
P.S. Follow Rob Quist on twitter here and Facebook here.
Cheers and Jeers continues below the fold...
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, May 16, 2017
Note: This note took six weeks to complete from conception through three drafts, first edit, corporate input, initial layout, second edit, legal review, third edit, consultant review, fourth edit, final corporate approval, hard proof, cancellation due to a "change in corporate direction," and a total shit-canning of the entire note-writing division. I forget what the note was about. Something about simplifying your life, I think.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the election in Britain: 23
Days 'til the All-Star Craft Beer & Wine Festival in Philadelphia: 4
Trump approval rating in the latest NBC news-Wall Street Journal poll: 39%
Public support for Trumpcare in that poll: 23%
Ten-year average price for a 2-pound package of Maine lobster meat and the current price, respectively: $18.45 / $26.50
Estimated increase in Hepatitis C cases between 2010 and 2015, according to the CDC: 300%
Percent chance that yoga is even better with kittens, according to The You Tube: 100%
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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. According to Tripsmarter.com. there are 10 facts that are the most interesting about Atlanta. Among them:
>> Atlanta has become the fifth city to be the capital of the state of Georgia. It was preceded by Savannah, Augusta, Louisville, and Milledgeville.
>> There are more than 65 streets with the word Peachtree in Atlanta.
>> The Eastern Continental Divide, a continental divide in the U.S. that separates the Gulf of Mexico drainage from the watersheds that flow directly into the Atlantic Ocean, runs right through downtown Atlanta
>> Atlanta is one of two cities in the world to be home to two Nobel Peace Prize winners: Martin Luther King Jr. & President Jimmy Carter.
>> In Atlanta, it is against the law to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole or street lamp.
And please: take a poop bag with you if you're taking your goldfish for a walk. It's the LAW!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Living canine emoji…
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CHEERS to inaction in action. Sorry, North Carolina Republicans, but the Supreme Court says a lower court ruling has to stand (for now) nullifying North Carolina's worst-in-the-nation voter suppression law. But it wasn't because the court agreed to the merits of that ruling---it was a technicality that got it kicked back. Still, it's a victory. As Rick Hasen at the Election Law Blog puts it:
These days at the Supreme Court, getting the Court not to hear a voting case is a significant victory.
While the Court could well issue an adverse decision in the future, the 4th Circuit opinion stays on the books for now, and it has already been relied upon to hold other strict voting laws illegal (as in the Pasadena Texas case, as described in my forthcoming paper).
So to summarize: Whew!
Permission to unclench your toes granted.
CHEERS to "a hardening portrait of sheer disarray." That's how The Washington Post describes life these days inside the White House, where Lord Dampnut's whims, tantrums and split-second about-faces (not to mention his leaks to the Russians!) are driving his staff nuts:
White House aides have felt bewildered and alarmed by how Trump arrives at his decisions---often on impulse and emotion and sometimes by rejecting the counsel of those around him---and how he then communicates those decisions to his personnel and the public.
Trump can be like a pilot opting to fly a plane through turbulence, then blaming the flight attendants when the passengers get jittery. The result is a hardening portrait of sheer disarray.
“The Comey firing is just the most dramatic example of a White House that is completely dysfunctional, the most chaotic in modern history,” said Chris Whipple, author “The Gatekeepers,” a new history of White House chiefs of staff. […]
[“They're] running around like chickens with their heads cut off,” said one White House official.
According to sources, when Trump read this article over the weekend, he got so mad he tried to throw a chair across the room and was impeded only by his tiny hands and lack of upper-body strength. But we hear he managed to break a new personal record by whipping a paper clip sixteen inches.
CHEERS to hunger control. On this date in 1939, folks in Rochester, New York became the recipients of the first food stamps issued by the commie socialist American government under the mind control of Kenyan-born infiltrator (and first confirmed Manchurian candidate, according to Conservapedia) Franklin D. Roosevelt. According to the Texas school board history textbook I'm working from this morning, they quickly switched to regular stamps because the food stamps kept gumming up the mail sorting machines.
JEERS to a gathering of fools. In Charlottesville, Virginia, a bunch of daintily-coiffed Nazi domestic terrorists clad in Dockers, Polo shirts and Men's Wearhouse sport jackets descended on a park to hoist tiki torches they'd swiped from their parents' patios and profess their love of---in no particular order---Russia, Hitler, hair gel, Yachting News, and white skin. Call it the Penny Loafer March. Somewhere in Hell, Joseph Goebbels is face palming over this…
Charlottesville's mayor called it intimidation and intolerance reminiscent of the KKK. Hawaii called it the worst luau ever.
JEERS to bad "jokes" badly told. Lest we forget, this was the "future of the Republican party" on this date in 2008. A real class act:
During a speech before the National Rifle Association convention Friday afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee...joked that an unexpected offstage noise was Democrat Barack Obama looking to avoid a gunman.
"That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he's getting ready to speak," said the former Arkansas governor, to audience laughter. "Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor."
Anyone who denies evolution, there's the living evidence that you might be right.
CHEERS to cool science. Half a dozen years ago a Dutch teenager came up with a harebrained scheme to clean up those gigantic plastic garbage patches that are floating around in our oceans, threatening both marine life and the food chain. He envisioned a series of booms (aka an "artificial coast") that use the ocean's natural swirling currents to collect the plastic at various focal points, where it can then be removed, taken back to shore, and recycled. Boyan Slat, now 22, had a lot to prove in order to be taken seriously, and he seems to have passed with flying colors because the project will go full steam ahead starting next year---two years ahead of schedule and millions under-budget. If all goes well, The Ocean Cleanup rigs will eliminate---are you sitting down?---half of the plastic garbage in the Pacific within five years. If you want to feel really good about the younger generation's ability to think us oldsters under the table, watch his 11-minute TED talk from 2012:
If the system works as advertised, they'll tackle an even bigger source of garbage by stringing boom around EPA administrator Scott Pruitt's mouth.
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Ten years ago in C&J: May 16, 2007
CHEERS to Congress's starry-eyed optimists. Yesterday 67 Senators voted "Hip Hip Hooray!" to allowing our troops in Iraq to continue dying for the biggest mistake since Napoleon said the British were "in their last throes" at Waterloo. To express their approval, the Iraqis lobbed a bunch of mortar shells into the Green Zone. But only, mind you, because they had run out of celebratory fireworks.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to my new besty from the midwesty. Republicans aren’t just trying to destroy the notion of affordable health insurance in America, they’re trying to redefine what insurance is altogether. Exhibit A: Iowa congressman Rod Blum, who wonders (ever so innocently, of course): “Why should a 62-year-old man have to pay for maternity care?” Barbara Rank of Dubuque writes a letter to the editor that answers the question simply, eloquently, and with just the right amount of neighborly snark:
I’m making her an honorary Kossack. Something tells me she won’t mind.
Oh, and I almost forgot: Trump leaked our launch codes to the Russians. Have a sunshine day! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"Moms, think about this. I don't care what state you live in. Take me out of the equation---like me, don't like me---but think about why someone is OK with your kids reading Cheers and Jeers crap."
---Michelle Obama
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