From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Energize An Ally Tuesday: “Montani Semper Liberi!”
You may have seen the dustup in the West Virginia House a couple weeks back when private citizen Lissa Lucas got dragged out because she had the audacity, during an open comment period over drilling rights on private property, to name state legislators (including her Republican opponent in WV-7) and the extent of their financial ties to their fossil fuel industry overlords. The old white entrenched male fossils didn’t like this sassy upstart giving them the business---not a bit. So they tried to shut her up.
Like so many other women around the country in the age of Trump, Lissa has had enough of watching her corner of the world be abused by a bunch of money-chasing one-percenters (or one-percenter wannabes) who are ignoring what the people need in favor of what the plutocrats want. Even though she’d “rather be hiking with my dog, to be perfectly frank...or gardening…or making jam,” Lissa is standing up to become the proverbial change she seeks:
“Don’t MAKE me come down there!” That’s what it feels like---like we have to deal with misbehaving kids in the backseat of a car. “I WILL turn this state around!”
Someone has to, right?
Evidently we can’t leave governance to those who want to do it as a career. Sometimes regular people have to step in and demand we work on issues that will help people rather than engage in party politics. We need more public servants, and fewer politicians.
So here I am. I promise to do what I can to straighten things out so we can all get going in the right direction again. We’re all in this together.
On the morning of November 7th, I expect we’ll see a lot of gutsy Democratic women in winner’s circles across the country, and I hope that Lissa Lucas is among the new faces in the West Virginia state House. For showing up to “holler from the hollers” and make some good trouble, C&J is happy to shine this week’s “Energize An Ally” spotlight on Lissa’s campaign. If you’d like to donate a few bucks to help her boot her oil-soaked GOP challenger (we’re in for our usual $25), her donation link is here.
Follow Lissa on Twitter here and on Facebook here.
P.S. While we’re on the subject of West Virginians who are mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore: Go, teachers!
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, February 27, 2018
Note: Due to your insolence and disrespect toward our glorious President, dental floss will no longer be waxed. You asked for it, people. YOU ASKED FOR IT!
---White House Nazi Liaison Stephen Miller
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By the Numbers:
Weeks 'til the special election in PA-18 featuring Democrat Conor Lamb: 2
Days 'til the 22nd annual Honolulu Festival: 10
Current Trump approval in the latest CNN poll: 35%
Percent of voters in the same CNN poll who want tighter gun-control measures, a record high: 70%
Number of hate groups in America in the latest analysis by the Southern Poverty Law Center, up from 892 three years ago: 954
Estimated number of neo-Nazi groups, up from 99 last year: 121
Age of polar bear Coldilocks when she died at the Philadelphia Zoo last week (the average lifespan for a polar bear is 23): 37
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Even better than coming home with a medal…
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CHEERS to a gathering of unwashed hippie rabble with big appetites. Ah-oo-gah! Meetup Alert! If you're gonna be in the southern Maine area on Saturday, March 24, please join the DKos crowd for another legendary New England Kossack Winter Meetup starting at noon. We're trying a new spot this time---The Snow Squall Restaurant at 18 Ocean Street in South Portland. To RSVP or get more info, email Kossack nhox42 at nhox42[at] gmail.com. In addition to eating and drinking, we'll do our usual plotting of galactic domination around a giant map of the universe, so be sure to practice your "Bwoo ha ha's."
CHEERS to buying time. The March 5th deadline will come…and the March 5th deadline will go. But nearly 700-thousand Dreamers will still be around and able to apply for extensions of their two-year work permits under DACA, thanks to yesterday’s Supreme Court decision throwing cold water on Trump’s dream of making America whiter again. In a nutshell, SCOTUS wants the lower appeals courts (specifically the 4th and 9th circuits) to finish dotting their I’s and crossing their T’s. Says Vox...
That process is likely to take months---and it’s extremely unlikely that both appeals courts (both of which are fairly liberal and have consistently ruled against the Trump administration on immigration issues) are going to side with the administration.
That means that renewals will likely remain open at least until the Supreme Court agrees to take up the cases after the appeals courts rule---which will almost certainly be during the Court’s next term, which starts in October of this year.
We hear Trump was so pissed off that during his morning executive time he hurled a cheeseburger all the way from his hand to his mouth.
P.S. As we were writing the above, the full 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 10-3 that Americans can’t be fired for being gay because they consider sexual orientation a protected status under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The judges sure are earning their paychecks this week.
JEERS to tip-toeing through the gun regulation tulips. Given that polling in the wake of the Parkland massacre is the equivalent of a nationwide primal scream against inaction on gun control, this is pretty weak sauce by Maine Democrats, but it’s a start. They’re calling for “a debate” on three action items: banning bump stocks that turn regular guns into machine guns, limiting clips to 10 rounds, and allowing law enforcement to temporarily revoke gun-ownership rights from people who pose an imminent risk:
[T]he Legislative Council has agreed to consider the bump stock ban Tuesday. Officials said the other two proposals may be taken up by the Legislative Council, but a final decision had not been made Friday.
House Speaker Sara Gideon, who sits on the council with other legislative leaders, said addressing gun violence and keeping children safe will be a priority “for the rest of the session and the rest of my time in the Legislature.”
“This is an issue that is always important to us and to me personally, but the events in Parkland, Florida, last week created a space where everyone was listening to children’s voices in a different way,” said Gideon, D-Freeport, a mother of three. “We want to make sure we are listening and responding.” Gideon said gun violence restraining orders have proven effective in other states, and law enforcement officials have told her it is a “key piece” for them.
Here’s the problem: Democrats control the state House, but Republicans control the state Senate and our governor describes himself as “Trump before Trump was Trump” and once called on all Mainers to shoot drug dealers on sight. Until the balance of power shifts, all our legislators will be doing up here is shooting blanks. But at least it’ll make some noise.
CHEERS to green-lighting the gals. On February 27, 1922, the all-male U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote. Shortly after, the justices' wives released them from their chokeholds.
CHEERS to challenging the status quo. Over the weekend Senator Dianne Feinstein failed to attract enough votes (37% to primary challenger Kevin de León’s 54%---60% is the necessary threshold) to earn an official endorsement from the California Democratic Party.
Fair enough. A lot of people believe she’s too conservative, given the state’s leftward shift, and they’d like to see someone else in the position after 26 years. But I also read many comments around the internets saying that she’s just too old---she’ll be 85 if she’s sworn in again next January. I admit that’s getting up there. But she seems to be healthy and perfectly up to the job, and it made me think of my favorite composer, John Williams, who is 86 and still tours the country conducting hours-long concerts, and writes Oscar-caliber movie scores with tens of thousands of notes using nothing but a pencil (and no eraser). So I’ll do the cowardly thing and weigh in on the Feinstein dustup the way a squirmy federal official would when they want to wriggle their way out of expressing a potentially-controversial opinion: I’ll leave this up to the states!
JEERS to 108 months of fringe. And a one, and a two…
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Crappy birthday to you [twitch twitch]
Crappy birthday to you [twitch twitch]
Crappy birthday, tea party
Crappy birthday to you [twitch twitch]
(Now bend over for your spanking.)’
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Yes, the Tea Party---now better known as the Trumpbot movement---has been treading on truth, common sense, and normal people for 9 years as of this week. Amazing. They don’t look a day over a two-year-old.
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Ten years ago in C&J: February 27, 2008
JEERS to the assholes of 2000. America was treated to an unsolicited double-whammy of bullshit yesterday. First, Sandra Day O'Connor wagged her finger in Parade magazine at the politicization of the judiciary, even though she had a hand in the biggest abuse of judicial thuggery in our history: turning over the presidency to George W. Bush by stopping the vote recount in Florida. Who can forget this little nugget from election night:
[A]t an election-night party on Nov. 7, surrounded for the most part by friends and familiar acquaintances, [Justice O'Connor] let her guard drop for a moment when she heard the first critical returns shortly before 8 p.m. Sitting in her hostess's den, staring at a small black-and-white television set, she visibly started when CBS anchor Dan Rather called Florida for Al Gore. "This is terrible," she exclaimed.
She also says "precedent" is important, even though she and her conservative cohorts wrote that the Bush v. Gore ruling could never be used as precedent. So you'll forgive me if I exercise my precedent of shredding anything you say anymore, lady. (Not that I'm bitter.) Meanwhile, Bush/Cheney enabler Ralph Nader said yesterday that he's running again. He got 2,882,955 votes in 2000. He got 411,304 votes in 2004. If that trend holds...(let's see, 40 plus 80, add 95, carry the 2, divide by 12, multiply by 50)...he'll still be a dick.
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And just one more...
JEERS to President Tiny Hands. I believe this is the first time this has ever happened in the history of our country. It is the #1 inviolable prime directive for any normal commander-in-chief. You DO. NOT. FUCK. UP the awarding of a medal. This is President Trump awarding a Public Safety Medal of Valorto David Poirier last week:
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Time to update the sign in front of the executive mansion: This White House Has Gone Zero Days Without A Dotard-Related Accident.
Have a tolerable Tuesday. Floor's open...What are youcheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto was planning on making his first visit to Cheers and Jeers. But those plans are no more and it appears it is because Bill in Portland Maine won’t promise to stop saying Mexico is going to pay for a kiddie pool.
---Mediaite
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