From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Today is…
Since our current president has no intention of devoting even a millisecond to this occasion, here's a reminder of what it sounds like when a grownup occupies the most powerful office in the world:
On May 17, Americans and people around the world mark the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia by reaffirming the dignity and inherent worth of all people, regardless of who they love or their gender identity.
Our nation is committed to the principle that all people should be treated fairly and with respect. Advancing this goal has long been a cornerstone of American diplomacy, and I am proud that my Administration has made advancing the human rights of LGBT individuals a specific focus of our engagement around the world. I am also proud of the great strides that our nation has made at home in recent years, including that we now have marriage equality as a result of last year’s landmark Supreme Court decision.
At the same time, there is much work to be done to combat homophobia and transphobia, both at home and abroad. In too many places, LGBT individuals grow up forced to conceal or deny who they truly are for fear of persecution, discrimination, and violence. All nations and all communities can, and must, do better. Fortunately, human rights champions and good citizens around the world continue to strive towards this goal every day by lifting up the simple truth that LGBT rights are human rights. The United States honors their work and will continue to support them in their struggle for human dignity.
---President Barack Obama, 2016
Adding heft to Obama's words: this 2015 White House fact sheet on actions taken by the Executive Branch on behalf of the LGBT community during his administration. The Trumpbots will be busy un-doing as many of them as they can, but at least we'll have a blueprint for un-un-doing it.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Note: If you plan to print out and eat today's C&J, it will count as 3 fiber points toward your daily total. Add one protein point if you plan to top it with cheese and two dessert points if you plan to eat it while sitting in a chocolate fountain. ---Weight Watchers
-
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the start of the Memorial Day weekend: 9
Days 'til the Tualatin River Bird Festival in Oregon: 3
Number of days out of 117 that Trump's disapproval has been higher than it is now (57%) in Gallup's daily tracking poll: 2
Number of Trump's 10 explicit promises to veterans that have been fulfilled besides the pointless one saying he would appoint a VA Secretary: 0
Number of state attorneys general (including Maine's) who have signed a letter calling for a special counsel to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election: 20
Rank of Orlando, Tampa and Indianapolis among the top markets for first-time home buyers, according to Zillow: #1, #2, #3
Percent chance that the runaway pig picked up by the Falmouth police has been returned to its owner: 100%
-
Mid-week Rapture Index:
181 (including 3 Unemployments and a bunch of poor, poor persecuted conservative Christians). Soul Protection Factor 8 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: Three branch managers at the beach…
-
JEERS to the nincompoop-in-chief. Four months. He hasn't even been in office for four months. And yet…here we are. The President of the United States is dispensing super-secret "code-word" intelligence to the Russians as if he was dispensing candy from a Pez dispenser---except it's somebody else's candy and they don’t want Russia to have any. (The best thing…the very best thing…you can say about this one-man clusterfuck is that if you're standing on Mars looking back at Earth it doesn’t look quite so bad.) And now, the fallout:
Two Israeli intelligence officials confirmed to BuzzFeed News Tuesday that Israel had shared specific intelligence with the US regarding ISIS plots to smuggle explosive laptops onto planes, and that it appeared that that intelligence had been shared with Russia without prior coordination.
The revelation that Trump had shared that intelligence with Russian officials was Israel's "worst fears confirmed," said one of the intelligence officers. […]
The officer previously spoke to BuzzFeed News in January, when he said that Israeli officials had specific concerns about what Trump would share with Russian officials. [...]
The Israeli officials who spoke to BuzzFeed News said there has already been a push to stop sharing Israel's most sensitive intelligence with Trump's White House.
I read the other day that firearm sales are way down since Trump took office during his teeny tiny inauguration. Wild guess: even the gun nuts are nervous enough about Lord Dampnut that they’re moving their money into liquor.
CHEERS to previews of coming attractions, Part I. The voting in last Friday's C&J "who won the week" poll wasn't even close: former acting attorney general Sally Yates ran away with 46 percent of the vote, thanks to her testimony on Capitol Hill, where she shed light on the Michael Flynn firing while tossing in a good intellectual drubbing of Ted Cruz to boot. Now she's providing more info on what it was like to have the icky privilege of working in the Trump regime for ten whole days (before she herself was fired over Trump's unconstitutional Muslim travel ban). Ryan Lizza got the scoop for next week's issue of The New Yorker, and he offered a preview yesterday, including this bit about her warning to the White House about Flynn's cozy ties with Russia:
In a press briefing on February 14th, the day after Flynn resigned, [press secretary Sean] Spicer downplayed the importance of Yates’s meetings with [White House counsel Don] McGahn, saying, “the acting Attorney General informed the White House counsel that they wanted to give a ‘heads-up’ to us on some comments.”
Yates said, about the 'heads-up,' “I certainly never used that term. And so I’m not sure where that came from.”
I asked, “You didn’t just text, 'Heads-up, your N.S.A. might be a spy'”?
No, Yates replied, “Is there an emoji for that?”
No. But the way this administration is going we need one. Fast.
CHEERS to previews of coming attractions, Part II. Keep your ear to the ground today. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi is going to make some good trouble. Via email:
On Wednesday, Democrats will file a discharge petition to force a vote on the bipartisan Swalwell-Cummings bill to establish an outside independent commission to investigate President trump'sties to Russia. Seventy-eight percent of Americans want an independent investigation into the Trump-Russia connection.
Good. Get everyone on the record: who's on Team America and who's on Team Putin. Memo to Paul Ryan: you might want to wipe the borscht off the corner of your mouth before you vote. Optics 'n all.
JEERS to the gate to end all "…gates." Since 1973, we've had Iran-Contragate, Travelgate, Monicagate, U.S. Attorneygate, Plamegate, Russiagate (thanks for that contribution, Trump) and, in the case of the Obama administration as seen through the right-wingers' lens: "Day-ending-in-y-gate." But the big kahuna of gates got underway 44 years ago today, when the televised Watergate hearings began. I remember them well, mainly because my mom watched every second of them (with Triscuits and cheese washed down with a Schlitz or two while draggin’ on her King Size Kents) and they pre-empted my afternoon cartoons, gawdammit:
Millions of U.S. households bore witness to the Senate Watergate Committee's tactical destruction of White House subterfuge, methodically convincing Americans that perhaps "Tricky Dick" was more than some absurd distortion of the president's legacy-in-waiting.
A month after the televised hearings, which started May 17, 1973, an astonishing 97 percent of Americans had heard of Watergate, according to the U.S. Senate website. And 67 percent believed that President Nixon had participated in a cover-up of the 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington.
Nixon never confessed and declared that “I have never been a quitter” right before he did just that.
To commemorate today's 44th anniversary, Fox News will spend the day putting a "D" after Nixon's name.
CHEERS to getting sprung. Good news from the world of prison: Pvt. Chelsea Manning finally gets to breathe the fresh air of freedom today, the beneficiary of an Obama commutation. Manning leaked a huge trove of classified data that revealed, among other things, U.S. culpability in that 2007 Apache helicopter massacre in Baghdad. Last week she released a statement that reads in part:
"Freedom used to be something that I dreamed of but never allowed myself to fully imagine. […]
I am forever grateful to the people who kept me alive, President Obama, my legal team and countless supporters.
I watched the world change from inside prison walls and through the letters that I have received from veterans, trans young people, parents, politicians and artists. My spirits were lifted in dark times, reading of their support, sharing in their triumphs, and helping them through challenges of their own. I hope to take the lessons that I have learned, the love that I have been given, and the hope that I have to work toward making life better for others."
The most dangerous place to be today: between Chelsea and real food.
CHEERS to today's Kum By Yah Moment. Sixty Three years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its 9-0 opinion in Brown vs. Board of Education, ending racial segregation in public schools:
The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) is one of the most pivotal opinions ever rendered by that body. This landmark decision highlights the U.S. Supreme Court’s role in affecting changes in national and social policy. […]
In December, 1952, the U.S. Supreme Court had on its docket cases from Kansas, Delaware, the District of Columbia, South Carolina, and Virginia, all of which challenged the constitutionality of racial segregation in public schools.
The U.S. Supreme Court had consolidated these five cases under one name, Oliver Brown et al. v. the Board of Education of Topeka. One of the justices later explained that the U.S. Supreme Court felt it was better to have representative cases from different parts of the country. They decided to put Brown first “so that the whole question would not smack of being a purely Southern one.”
I'd like to say it was smooth sailing since, but unfortunately today we're dealing with a problem just as bad: Betsy DeVos vs. all the Boards of Education.
-
Ten years ago in C&J: May 17, 2007
JEERS to Jerry Falwell. Not because he was a right-wing extremist who gained enormous power by bamboozling his ignorant followers. Not because he twisted the words of The Bible to suit his political aims. Not because he preached hate in direct opposition to the way Jesus preached love. Not because he blamed 9/11 on the feminists and the gays. No, I jeer him today because he died before I could finish knitting him a sweater like this one. And that's just fucking rude.
-
And just one more…
CHEERS to Adam and Steve & Adele and Eve. I thought it would be a nice way to bookend our above-the-fold bit on today’s International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia by noting that thirteen years ago today, America's first marriage licenses were issued to same-sex couples. The lead attorney who so deftly shaped the arguments that convinced the state Supreme Court (and later the federal Supreme Court) to rule in equality's favor was---and still is, for many more years we hope---a Mainer. A couple years back Mary Bonauto remembered that wild day in Massachusetts:
Sharpshooters were on the roof of Boston City Hall as Bonauto escorted three couples to get marriage licenses on May 17, 2004. Police led her to their weddings through the throngs of well-wishers and protesters.
At the Arlington Street Church, Bonauto witnessed Rob Compton and Dave Wilson, wearing classic black tuxes and matching red-striped ties, saying their vows, as they all fought back tears. "I was sitting in the church, and I just didn't realize I was gonna fall apart to see, OK, there are Dave and Rob, and they are finally getting married," she says. "I was sitting next to Rob's mother, and she kept handing me tissues. It was her son, and I was the one who was a total mess." …
That had never happened before legally in this country. It felt like the cage had been lifted off, and it was just a different world from that point forward."
The good news: sharpshooters are no longer needed to protect gay couples during their weddings. The bad news: today red states are debating bills that would put sharpshooters on the roofs of port-a-potties to keep “them transgenders” out. We still have a ways to go.
Have a happy humpday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-
Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"To this day I feel like there’s a cloud, a pall, over the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool, in a paranoid surreal sort of way that’s got everything to do with Bill in Portland Maine.”
---Spurs coach Gregg Popovich
-