From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
"LIVE for 8 years—Daily Kos Radio is on the air"
Talk radio may sound easy, but it's a tough gig, especially when you’re talking about the latest-breaking stories to a left-leaning audience. You have to get your facts right, provide intelligent perspective from both ground level and 30,000 feet, inject some humor (not required but highly recommended), and know when it's time to move on to the next story. No stumbling, no brain farts, no silence allowed. Oh, and you're on the air in three…two…one…….
Listeners of Daily Kos Radio's Kagro in the Morning Show know that its host, Daily Kos front-pager-since-forever David Waldman, is an excellent radio host. And it was eight years ago today when, with then-co-host Armando, he took to the airwaves.
Their "Sirius Period," while successful, ended after a bare-knuckle brawl with executives over potty break privileges. But Sirius's loss was Netroots Radio’s gain. Today "Kagro in the Morning”—including regular guests Greg Dworkin, Joan McCarter and, yes, Armando—airs live at 9am ET five days a week and you can listen to the podcast any old time.
David knows his stuff and communicates it with wit, outside-the-beltway common sense, and just enough incredulity at the state of things to make you wonder if he's moments away from going Howard Beale on the world. Oh, and he also does radio’s best Trump impression, many people are saying.
The Kagro in the Morning Show also helps David put food on his family by bringing in a modest amount of income through the support of listeners like you. For eight years of helping us all make sense of the political landscape as "the voice of Daily Kos,” I encourage you to pass along some financial support (lending him your ears is great, but they don’t buy groceries) through a recurring monthly donation via Patreon here, a one-time donation via Square Cash here and/or downloading the RadioPublic podcast app, which pays him by the listen. And then settle in at 9 o’clock ET and listen as he kicks off year #9 with another two-hour dose of extra-strength truth-to-power.
Happy broadcastiversary, Daily Kos Radio. Talk on.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, August 13, 2019
Note: Today is Tuesday the 13th. Not as unlucky as Friday the 13th, but we do recommend that you leave your regular Dodge Dart in the garage and take the up-armored Dodge Dart to work instead. You're welcome.
-
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the next Democratic debate (in Houston): 30
Days 'til the 39th annual Gloucester Waterfront Festival in Massachusetts: 4
Drop in Maine lobster exports to China because of Trump's tariffs, and no one here’s happy about it: 46%
Number of mayors, including El Paso's and Dayton's, who signed a letter calling on Moscow Mitch to pass the background checks bill passed by the House: 214
Amount that new networks and associated technologies are expected to add to global GDP by 2035, according to ABI Research: $17 trillion
Average cost of a round-trip flight this summer: $383
Age of The Village People co-founder and songwriter ("YMCA," "Macho Man," "In the Navy") Henri Belolo when he died August 3rd: 82
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: Shelter dog pool pawty…
-
CHEERS to Nuremberg-trialing the locals. Yesterday was the two-year anniversary of the day the polo shirts—aka Trump's "very fine people"—terrorized Charlottesville, wounding several counter-protesters and killing Heather Heyer. That was the high-water mark for their movement, as far as large gatherings go. After a few more half-hearted, sparsely-attended rallies (remember the dozen Schicklgrubers who showed up in Boston and were surrounded by 12,000 counter-protesters?), the slugs mostly went back under their rocks to lick their wounds with their allies on reddit and 4chan…or 8chan or whatever the hell chan they're using these days. But that doesn’t mean they're safe. Amy Spitalnick of Integrity First for America explains how an old law used to bring down the KKK is being revived to sieg heil---Thhhppppt!---right in der American Nazis' face:
In the aftermath of the Civil War and the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, the country was grappling with a wave of violent attacks by the KKK and other racist vigilantes against recently freed slaves seeking to exercise their new rights. The Reconstruction-era Congress and President Ulysses S. Grant acted to protect these former slaves from extralegal violence by passing the KKK Act. … Following its passage, the first iteration of the KKK organization was effectively dismantled and did not resurface until decades later. […]
In addition to collecting on bank accounts, wages, property and any other assets of those involved to help compensate the victims in Charlottesville, should we win, we will also demonstrate the serious legal and financial consequences for participating in such a conspiracy.
The most humiliating blow of all: the lifetime ban at Schnitzel Haus.
CHEERS to sun and wind and cleaner air, oh my. While you were obsessing Friday over your weekend plans for picnicking and partying in your frilly dresses and seersucker suits (my spycams are everywhere), I was up here sitting, on your behalf, in a mildew-infested room illuminated by a single light bulb hanging from a wire, sweating my brains out while poring over the most significant alternative-energy news of the year. And only after forking over $99 for the Bill Gates Microsoft Word Master Class am I now in a position to "copy and paste" (as you tech gurus say) a conclusion most pleasing:
Plunging prices for batteries and renewables are driving an electric vehicle (EV) revolution so rapidly that the economics of oil “are now in relentless and irreversible decline.” That’s the startling conclusion of a detailed new analysis for “professional investors” of the economics of EVs versus gasoline cars produced by BNP Paribas, the world’s eighth largest bank by total assets.
The report is good news for humanity because it means peak oil demand may be less than a decade away, which in turn means ambitious climate goals will be more affordable than previously thought. […]
But one of the most startling findings is that because the cost of running EVs on solar or wind power is dropping so rapidly, the only way gasoline cars can compete with these renewable energy-powered EVs in the 2020s is if the price of oil were to drop to $11 to $12 per barrel. The current price of oil is over $50. … If you can’t produce oil profitably at under $10 or $20 a barrel, your oil company is in big trouble.
And you know what we do to companies that are in big trouble? We spank them. Hard.
CHEERS to fun with math. Everybody put your brain in high-gear, it's time to do some thinkin': If x + 10,000 = y, and x equals 0, what do you get? Answer: a pretty good running start:
More than 10,000 military-style weapons have been bought back by the New Zealand government less than a month after launching its gun buyback program, which was put in place after a mass shooting in Christchurch left 51 people dead, the Guardian reported.
Following the March mass shooting in two Christchurch mosques by a self-avowed white supremacist, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and the country’s lawmakers passed legislation to ban military-style automatic and semi-automatic weapons, approving 150 million New Zealand dollars to buy the guns back from people. […] The country launched the buyback program in mid-July. … The police said they were “really happy” with the public response.
Not to be outdone, here in the USA the Republican leadership says its own buyback program has filled over three warehouses with pre-owned Republican thoughts and prayers that will be used for our next mass shooting. Message: they care.
- - -
This is Special Paid Ad from Your Friends in Russia
CHEERS to all good things here happening, yes, let me tell you Americans, it is fine. Over in Russian town of Severodvinsk, no iodine tablets are being purchased, no emergency crews are wearing hazmat suits and sealing up the doors of ambulances as they move non-existent victims, there is no elevated radiation and no deaths. So please no worries of so-called major nuclear explosion during rocket test. Is fake news. All is good here on bright sunny day for happy strolls and flying of superior Russian kites and so forth and no need to click on this phony American spy counterintelligence link. You may now go back to your barbecues and your The Bachelorette and elections we are not rigging or tampering with in any way. Please accept troll farm offering of cuddly kitty gif for to enjoy all the livelong day yes for you:
Also toilet paper shortage rumor is all lies. We have always preferring cabbage leaves for freshness. We are done here goodbye.
This Was Special Paid Ad from Your Friends in Russia
- - -
CHEERS to great moments in inventin' stuff. Wipe that doughnut powder off your face and sit up straight, this is important. Today is the 106th anniversary of the invention of stainless steel. It was created by metallurgist Harry Brearley, who had the good sense to "add chromium to molten iron [that] produced a metal that didn’t rust." Today stainless steel is a ubiquitous part of life on earth. But to survive the slings and arrows of modern-day politics, only Teflon will do.
CHEERS to the Williamson bounce. Marianne Williamson was the darling of the last debate, and the starry-eyed beltway media saw only one outcome in her future: a massive surge of support that would crush the Biden bandwagon, the Warren war machine, the Sanders Tsunami and the Harris hellstorm. And, zoinks, are they on the money in the must-win butter-cow state:
You can’t see her name up there because, get this, she’s using a cloaking crystal to psych everyone out. It’s the cutting-edgiest campaign tactic of the season: new-age rope-a-dope. (And wait’ll you see what she has planned when she unleashes her stash of horny goat weed.)
-
Ten years ago in C&J: August 13, 2009
JEERS to billable bullshit. I, Bill in Portland Maine, vow to veto any health care reform bill that crosses my desk that doesn't put a stop to the obscene practice of giving basic services fancy names and then overcharging for them. Exhibit A: "$11 for a box of tissues, itemized as 'a disposable mucus recovery system.'" It'd be hilarious if it was in, say, The Onion, but that kind of shit is happening in real life all across the country with the joy and blessing of the smug and powerful medical-industrial complex. I guess what disappoints me most is knowing that someone, somewhere—an actual human being, and American, no less—tapped out "Disposable mucus recovery system" into an email, sat back with a big 'ol grin and, before sending it off to the suits in the penthouse suite, took a moment to bask in the glow of such brilliant obfuscation. I hope he or she got a whopping case of pixelburn. Which can be treated with a Proprietary Asphodelaceaeic Botanical Epidermis Pacification Shield. Aka: dollop of aloe vera. That'll be $150, please.
-
And just one more…
JEERS to fear-based marketing: the annual update. Nine years ago the conservative media outlet "NewsMax" posted an ad that caught my eye on Facebook. This was the copy they posted to get people to click on it:
Obama's Coming Depression
50% unemployment,
90% stock market collapse,
100% inflation.
See the evidence.
Shocked and horrified, I clicked as fast as I could so I could "see the evidence." It turns out they were—surprise!—feasting on ignorant people's fear and paranoia to sell shitty investments. I actually read the fine print, and here's what it said, in part (and, yes, in all caps):
NO GUARANTEE OF ANY KIND IS IMPLIED OR POSSIBLE WHERE PROJECTIONS OF FUTURE CONDITIONS ARE ATTEMPTED. IN NO EVENT SHOULD THE CONTENT OF THIS REPORT BE CONSTRUED AS AN EXPRESS OR IMPLIED PROMISE, GUARANTEE OR IMPLICATION BY OR FROM THE SERVICES, NEWSMAX OR ANY OF ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, AFFILIATES OR OTHER AGENTS THAT YOU WILL PROFIT OR THAT LOSSES CAN OR WILL BE LIMITED IN ANY MANNER WHATSOEVER.
Nine years and one two-term Best President in Our Lifetime later, we now know that “Obama’s Coming Depression” consisted of unemployment lowered to 4.8 percent, the stock market reaching record-high territory, and inflation dropping to one percent. So, as we do every year, we say: look at this ad again and buy buy buy! (Disclaimer: By that we mean, again, buy anything but what NewsMax is selling.)
Have a tolerable Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-
Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
Germany to Close all 84 of its Kiddie Pools, Will Rely Primarily on Cheers and Jeers
—Physics-Astronomy
-