From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Energize an Ally Tuesday
My pasty-white hiney emerged into this world 53-and-a-half years ago in Mount Vernon, Ohio---the seat of Knox County. So when I heard there was an August 7 special election coming up in District 12, I flew to my secret map vault to find out if that included good ‘ol Knox. Nope. Turns out the 12th is south of it. And west of it. And north of it. WTF?
Look at that map. Mansfield to the north, Zanesville to the south, sharing the same district? Are you kidding me? They’ve been at war for over a hundred years and, thanks to their crude catapult technology, poor stuck-in-the-middle Knox County is littered with the remnants of errant rhubarb pies, one of which nearly destroyed our house in the Great Christmas Barrage of 1971. This gerrymandering has gone too far! But, dammit, we still have an election to win, so we have to put aside our differences and throw all of our support behind Democrat Danny O’Connor. We can win this. Over to you, Daily Kos Elections’ Carolyn Fiddler…
O’Connor has deep roots in Ohio and has served as Franklin County Recorder since 2016, where he swiftly instituted reforms to make the office more responsive to veterans and the homeless, by implementing a plan to store birth certificates so that they can more easily apply for housing. And he practiced the progressive values he believes in by instituting the Recorder’s Office’s first paid family leave program. His opponent, on the other hand, is an arch-conservative.
[It’s] a challenging pickup for Democrats, but in the current electoral climate, it’s by no means out of reach. [I]n the last two congressional special elections [AZ-08 and PA-18], the Democrats in those races improved on their party’s 2016 presidential performance by 16 points and 20 points. It would take a considerably smaller swing of about 10 to 11 points in Ohio’s 12th to snatch this seat from the GOP.
The choice couldn’t be more stark just from the names alone. The Democrat: “Danny O’Connor! Danny’s our boy! There’s nothing like an O’Connor fightin’ for the middle class!” Versus the Republican: “Mean Mr. Balderson. He just voted again to take away our Social Security and health care, and defund Planned Parenthood. Great...we just got Balderf***ed.” So chip in if you’re able via the Act Blue link here so we can flip yet another red district blue. By god, if anyone can broker peace between the Mansfielders and the Zanesvillians, it’s Danny.
Follow Danny O’Connor on twitter here and the evil Facebook here.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Note: We hope you had a nice Memorial Day weekend. As promised, I'm happy to show you my fresh lawn darts tournament wounds: here….here…here, here and here. Final score, as usual: 0-0.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the midterm elections: 161
Days 'til the Red Earth Native American Cultural Festival in Oklahoma City: 10
Percent chance that people who sleep at least seven hours a night tend to live longer than those who sleep less, according to a 13-year study at the Stress Research Study Institute in Sweden: 100%
Percent chance that those who don’t get seven hours a night on weekdays, but get an extra hour or two of sleep on weekends, live as long as the seven-hours-a-night group: 100%
Percent of kindergarteners at Maine’s Blue Hill Consolidated school whose parents have opted out of vaccinating their kids, the highest in Maine, according to the Maine CDC: 27%
Number of British nationals who received German citizenship in 2016 and 2017, respectively, an increase mostly due to disgust over the “Brexit” vote: 2,865 / 7,493
Age of the Rolling Stones’ Jumpin’ Jack Flash as of last Thursday: 50
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Stanley Cup Game 1: Vegas 6 Washington 4
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NEW Tuesday Feature: “I Love New Orleans!”
Brought to you by the 2018 Netroots Nation Convention in New Orleans, August 2-4. One thing you don’t see often in New Orleans, thanks to the swampy landscape on which the city sits, is a deceased somebody getting buried six feet under. Above-ground vaults are the norm, and that makes for some fascinating and creepy---not to mention historical---cemeteries to visit while you’re there. Here are a few of the more popular ones, according to Curbed New Orleans:
St. Roch Cemetery #1 This may be the most unusual cemetery ever. Past the tombs and Stations of the Cross, the Gothic Revival chapel’s tiny side room is littered with prosthetics, intimate hand-written thank-you notes, coins, crutches, and more. Truly a “you have to see it to believe it” kind of place.
St. Louis Cemetery #1 The city’s oldest cemetery (1789) is a maze of tombs and crumbling bricks and it’s widely believed that voodoo queen Marie Laveau’s remains are here. Many old city VIPs are interred here. The most famous recent addition is a controversial tomb (a pure white pyramid) that [actor] Nic Cage will be buried in when he passes.
Cypress Grove Cemetery: Built in 1840 and recognized for its fine marble and cast iron tombs, this was the first cemetery in the city to honor volunteer firemen. Maunsel White, a Battle of New Orleans veteran and one of the first to use Tabasco peppers to make a hot sauce, is entombed here.
Also unique to New Orleans: the legendary jazz funeral. What a way to go.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Go, Mets! (I can’t believe I just wrote that.)
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CHEERS to progressives partying and pontificating over politics on a picturesque pond. What's better than summer in Maine? A summer Kossack meetup in Maine. If you're going to be in the vicinity of the western hills of our state---about an hour from Portland---on Saturday, June 30 (12 noon ‘til 6pm), Kossack Mayim invites you to her cabin---aka "The Point"---on the lake for an afternoon of eating, drinking and catching up:
I’ll cook some, as well as have beer and assorted non-alcoholic beverages. But my life has been a whirlwind recently {a good whirlwind, but a whirlwind!}, so if people want to bring a dish to share, that's more than fine. {One request: no pork or shellfish, please.} It will help with planning if you let me know the general type of dish {appetizer, side, salad, dessert} when you RSVP, as I’ll fill in the gaps.
We have a canoe, a kayak, and plenty of rocks to swim to (and to scrape knees on....). Dogs (well-behaved) more than welcome, but Hobbs, Penn, and Scout prefer to be the only felines.
There’s also room if you’d like to camp out overnight. It's a gorgeous location---quintessential Maine. Michael and I (and our rescue lab-mix Haley, who's eager to whack more shins with tree branches) will be there along with other local Kossacks and we hope you'll be able to join us. For more info or to RSVP, click here or email her at books.cats.knitting@gmail.com. As a special bonus, we promise we'll keep the black flies on their leashes at all times.
CHEERS and JEERS to a portrait in Memorial Day contrasts. Parades and ceremonies and remembrances were held throughout the country yesterday to honor our fallen veterans. As a refresher, here’s how our previous president consoled families of the fallen…
And then there’s five-deferments Donald, aka Cadet Bone Spurs, with an appropriate rebuke from VoteVets:
So...just another day in America under this president ending in “why???”
CHEERS to affairs of states. During this week in 1790, Rhode Island became the 13th original colony to ratify the U.S.Constitution. And in late May of 1848, Wisconsin became the 30th state to become "one of U.S." (See what I did there? Huh Huh? Abbreviation wordplay!) In the C&J cafeteria today, the best of both states: hot wieners with cheese, snail salad with cheese, jonnycakes with cheese, and coffee milk with cheese. Please add 50 cents for extra cheese.
JEERS to water, water everywhere. Longtime C&J readers know that my worst nightmares almost always involve water---water coming through the roof, smashing through the windows, rising from the floor, waves chasing me faster than I can run, cutting off my escape route, leaving me stranded. Fuckin' hate it. But considering what's going on in both the north and the south, I should shut up and quit whining:
North: Rescue personnel [in Ellicott, Maryland] were searching Monday for a man missing after rampaging waters roared like a river through the quaint, historic downtown, swallowing cars and flooding stores and homes.
The town was pounded by almost eight inches of rain Sunday. When the flash flooding receded, first responders walked through the ravaged downtown area, Main Street strewn with debris. The disaster was similar to a flash flood two years ago that killed two people. "There are no words to describe the devastation," Howard County Executive Allan Kittleman said.
South: The first named storm of the season, Subtropical Storm Alberto, came ashore Monday along the Florida Panhandle, bringing heavy rain to a wide swath of the Southeast and claiming the lives of two journalists on duty in North Carolina.
Alberto made a Memorial Day landfall near Laguna Beach, Fla, just west of Panama City, and officials warned of dangerous conditions even though its maximum sustained winds fell to 45 mph.
After Alberto reached 3.25 days as a named storm, Colorado State University meteorologist Philip Klotzbach said that it is "the longest-lived Atlantic named storm forming in May since Alice in 1953."
Feel free to shout at clouds this morning. Call ‘em every name in the book---they earned it.
CHEERS to the other star-spangled banner. On May 29, 1916, the official flag of the President of the United States was adopted by executive order. This is interesting:
According to David McCulloughs biography Truman, One morning, standing at his desk, (President Truman) presented to the press a new presidential flag . . . This new flag faces the eagle toward the staff, Truman explained, which is looking to the front all the time when you are on the march, and also has him looking at the olive branch for peace, instead of the arrows for war.
Don’t say that too loud. Trump will change it back.
CHEERS to the end of and era. Did you know that today is technically a holiday? Yup…it's "End of the Middle Ages Day." To mark the occasion, all GOP flag pins will be lowered to half-lapel.
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Ten years ago in C&J: May 29, 2008
CHEERS to democracy overload. Wow---this is something I never thought I'd see. The volume of campaign contributions from supporters of Obama and Hillary is so huge that it's overwhelmed the FEC's software. It's a conundrum that the McCain campaign doesn’t seem to share:
A milestone of sorts was reached earlier this year, when Obama, the Illinois senator whose revolutionary online fundraising has overwhelmed Clinton, filed an electronic fundraising report so large it could not be processed by popular basic spreadsheet applications like Microsoft Excel 2003 and Lotus 1-2-3. ...
In a revealing insight into the significant fundraising disparity between the two Democrats and presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain, it is still possible to download his reports with plain-old Excel.
Or, if you'd like a hard copy, just email a request for the McCain quarterly financial Post-It Note.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the smell of change in the air. The midterm elections are a smidge over five months away, and if the blue wave crashes on the shores of freedom as bigly as expected, not only will Democrats take back Congress, but a huge number of women will join in the new class of 2019. Mainer and Non Sequitur comic strip creator Wiley Miller noticed a particularly odorous omen in the neighborhood that bodes well for November 6:
I say this as a long-time advocate of public tooting: not a moment too soon.
Have a tolerable Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
“These guys have created a swamp within this administration that makes the everglades look like the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool.”
---Michael Avenatti
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