Hispanic Federation Fund for Puerto Rico Relief Link
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From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Energize an Ally Tuesday
Ally (al-ahy), noun: a person, group, or nation that is associated with another or others for some common cause or purpose.
For nearly a year now, C&J has been spotlighting allies---candidates, advocacy groups, legal defenders, civil rights and voter rights coalitions, etc.---that are working hard and smart to thwart Lord Dampnut’s agenda and minimize the chaos he’s causing in our lives.
Today’s ally is…you! I know, I know, that sounds like that embarrassing stunt Time magazine pulled years ago by making “You” its person of the year. My justification is a little more airtight than theirs. Today is election day. And if you---and you and you and you---get your hiney down to your polling place (unless you’ve early-voted already, in which case Huzzah to you), we can revel in a mega-swath of Democratic victories tonight. And that’s certainly better than the alternative.
Most of the eyeballs are on New Jersey and Virginia today, where successors for Govs. Christie (R) and McAuliffe will be chosen. (Also in Virginia: a record 52 women are on various ballots this year, a 60 percent jump over the last two elections.) But across the country there are races for city councilors, mayors, commissioners, supervisors, dog catchers and other assorted ors and ers, along with various issue-oriented ballot questions. All of them important. All of them deserving of robust voter turnout.
Oh, and over 20 transgender candidates are running. That’s cool.
Here in Maine the ballot question getting the most national attention is Question 2, which will authorize the expansion of Medicaid in accordance with the Affordable Care Act. I haven’t seen an ounce of polling on it, but I’m cautiously optimistic it’ll pass---the “liberal south” will vote for it by a healthy margin, and the “conservative north” knows that voting “Yes” will save their rural hospitals from going under.
So do your duty and carve out some quality time today with a voting booth near you. As the late great Molly Ivins reminds us:
Politics is not about those people in Washington or those people at the state capitol. Politics is about us---you, me and the guy next to us. We run this country, we own this country, and we have a responsibility to hire the right people to drive our bus for a while.
Remember what you learned in driving school: to go forward, pick D. To go backward, pick R.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, November 7, 2017
Note: The Netroots Nation annual fall online auction starts in TWO days, so now’s the time for you to finish rounding up your totally-excellent donations and upload their descriptions to the auction site. If you need a refresher, see my post here for details, and if my refresher sucks and leaves you with more questions, e-mail auction poobah Karen Kolber at Karen [at] netrootsnation.org. All the proceeds go to help fund the annual convention, which is in New Orleans next August. C&J is donating a shit-ton of must-have items including John Lewis’s set of March graphic novels, souvenirs from the Atlanta convention, and a near-impossible-to-get Star Wars Episode VIII porg. So toss something cool on the auction block today. The more we have to bid on, the bigger the chance we can foster a genuine unifying sense of cutthroatedness and bidding-war savagery. What fun!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Howard Dean’s birthday: 10
Days 'til America's Hometown Thanksgiving Celebration in Plymouth, Massachusetts: 10
Number of health care jobs added in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics: 34,000
Number of coal jobs added in October: 0
Number of hours it took police to identify the Colorado Walmart shooter because so many “good guys with a gun” shoppers also whipped out their own guns (and still didn’t manage to nab the killer): 5
Number of the 8 total convictions of Guantanamo inmates that were later overturned: 4
Percent chance that Massachusetts just because the first state to ban “bump stocks” that turn ordinary guns into automatic weapons like the one used in the Las Vegas massacre: 100%
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Extreme sheepherding…
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JEERS to America: land of the guns, home of the gun nuts. What happens in the wake of the massacre in Newtown AuroraBinghamton Tucson Santa Barbara Charleston Lafayette Roseburg Kalamazoo Orlando Alexandria Las Vegas etcetera etcetera etcetera Sutherland Springs, Texas during a church service (26 killed, 20 wounded by a good guy with a gun right up until he became a bad guy with a gun) is depressingly predictable: gun control advocates will wisely suggest that this might be a good time to review our federal and state firearms policies so that our nation's shameful record of gun violence might be improved upon. The president and his minions will blame Democrats for the carnage and urge every living soul and their pets to arm themselves to the teeth, and the NRA will continue scaring politicians into looking the other way by informing them that, "We'll be scoring you on your response." Like I said, predictable. Depressingly.
P.S. The Onion from one month ago but relevant in perpetuity:
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CHEERS to Obamanomics. As Republicans continue working on their secret tax plan to build a huge vacuum cleaner and Hoover up middle-class money and empty the contents in billionaires’ offshore bank accounts (a bill that will be signed by a president whose tax returns we have never seen), here’s an inconvenient truth C&J is dropping into the gears in the hopes it might gum up the works. Remember when Republicans screamed at President Obama for raising taxes on the rich, claiming it would destroy the “job creators” and rain economic ruin upon the fruited plain? Here’s the smoking wreckage that the 1-percent became in the wake of those tax cuts, revealed one year ago this week:
President Obama’s 2013 tax increases for wealthy Americans neither slowed their income growth nor hurt the economy, according to a study that taps into a key debate in the current presidential race.
The top 1 percent of earners managed to increase their share of the nation’s income at about the same pace after their taxes were raised as they had before, according to the study, released Thursday by Emmanuel Saez, an economics professor at University of California, Berkeley. […]
Other data points appear to support Saez’s conclusion: Employers added 5.8 million jobs in 2014 and 2015---the strongest two-year growth since the late 1990s. And income for the typical household jumped last year by the most since records began in 1967, according to the Census Bureau. That increase followed years of stagnation.
So by pushing tax cuts for the rich (i.e. trickle-down economics), Republicans are once again putting all their chips on doing the exact thing that doesn’t work. I’ll say this---at least they’re consistent about one thing: making things worse.
CHEERS to the first skinny-guy-with-big-ears president from Illinois. 157 years ago this week, in 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Even back then the party had its flamboyant wing, which didn’t tote around wimpy little tiki torches but rather hard-core fuckin’ fire sticks. From Joseph Cummins' book, Anything for a Vote:
The Republicans held massive rallies and marches several miles long, with hordes of Wide Awakes---Republican faithful who would save the Union---marching with torches and likenesses of "Honest Abe."
The Wide Awakes wore oilcloth capes and strange black enamel caps to protect themselves from dripping torch oil. In surviving lithographs, they bear a weird resemblance to certain members of the Village People. Boston Republicans organized a rail-splitter's battalion---in homage to Lincoln, every member stood exactly six-feet-four-inches tall. And throughout the campaign, Republican newspapers published countless jokes at [challenger Stephen] Douglas's expense, such as: "Lincoln is like a rail. Douglas is the reverse---rail spelled backwards---liar."
But Republicans took their share of guff, too, as when the New York Herald wrote: "The conduct of the Republican party in this nomination is a remarkable indication of a small intellect growing smaller." The words were wrong as applied to Lincoln...but, as it turns out, spot-on as applied to the party.
P.S. It's also the 156th anniversary of the day in 1861 when Jefferson Davis was elected to a six-year term as president of the confederacy. True fact: the last two-and-a-half years were the lame-duckiest in the history of lameduckism.
CHEERS to today’s edition of Trump in Asia: Did He or Didn’t He? The rules are simple: guess which of these wince-worthy moments actually happened during Lord Dampnut’s Asia trip. (No fair googling!) First stop: Japan. Ready? Go!
1. He demanded that Japan start making cars in the United States, even though Japan already makes more cars in the United States than it does in Japan.
2. Acted like a passive-aggressive asshole toward Prime Minister Shinzo Abe---and Abe seemed to enjoy losing face in front of his people.
3. His dinner menu: a burnt hamburger.
4. Expressed his admiration for how well Japan has recovered from the attacks by Godzilla and Gigan.
5. Openly wondered why the Samurai aren’t shooting North Korean missiles out of the sky.
6. Criticized Japan for not having its own Great Wall of China
7. Showed disrespect to Emperor Akihito, a faux pas that could’ve been avoided if the protocol chief’s position wasn’t still vacant.
8. He admitted he didn’t know “there were so many countries.”
9. Moved on a woman “like a bitch, even though she was married” and grabbed her by the pussy after popping a Tic-Tac.
Answers: 1) True 2) True 3) True 4) Fake news! 5) True 6) Fake news! 7) True 8) True 9) Unknown at this time, but probably true.
Today Trump is in South Korea. But he won’t be visiting the border with North Korea like he originally promised. Something about heel spurs.
CHEERS to compassionate conservatism. 31 years ago this week, mediocre President Ronald Reagan did something decent by signing into law the Immigration Reform and Control Act which, among other things, provided amnesty to three million undocumented immigrants. Or as today's Republicans like to say: "Absolutely nothing happened on this date in 1986 so shut up, shut up, and shut up."
JEERS to promises unkept. Fifty-five years ago today, back in 1962, Richard Nixon announced that he was leaving politics with the immortal words, "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore." Relive the smarm…
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We did, in fact, have him to kick around some more. Then Ford kicked us by un-kicking him with a pardon. That was mean.
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Ten years ago in C&J: November 7, 2007
CHEERS to Richard Nixon. Because, as of this week, he officially sucks slightly less than George W. Bush. Tucked away at the tail end of a USA Today article highlighting their latest poll is this:
Bush reached an unwelcome record. By 64%-31%, Americans disapprove of the job he is doing. For the first time in the history of the Gallup Poll, 50% say they "strongly disapprove" of the president. Richard Nixon had reached the previous high, 48%, just before an impeachment inquiry was launched in 1974.
What I wouldn’t give to see a helicopter on the south lawn this morning.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to another Happy Hippie Hoedown. A good time was had by all at the fall New England Daily Kos/C&J Meetup at the Farm Bar and Grille in Kittery, Maine Saturday. On hand for the event were---[takes deep breath]---Vacationland, Ed Tracey, Mayim, brillig & mik, loreleiHI, bjedward, Debbie in ME, DtheO, freedapeople, northerntier, Frank, Common Sense Mainer, Bill in Portland Maine, C&J’s official pooch Haley, Sally the other pooch, and our intrepid host and organizer nhox42. Here’s a pic of our shoes (hat tip to New Mexico Kossack Land of Enchantment, who started the practice at Netroots Nation conventions):
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 $100,000 I hear Barack Obama is now available to come and warble some Al Green.
Have a tolerable Tuesday. Vote Vote Vote!!! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
“I’m tired of watching Bill in Portland Maine having emotional breakdowns in Cheers and Jeers. Its embarrassing.”
---Michael Che
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